Quotes & Sayings About Shiny Things

That thought gives rise to a wish. Surely, I find myself daydreaming, there is something, some substance already in common use, that women could drink after sex or at the end of the month, that would keep them unpregnant with no one the wiser. Something you could buy at the supermarket, or maybe several things you could mix together, items so safe and so ordinary they could never be banned, that you could prepare in your own home, that would flush your uterus and leave it pink and shiny and empty without you ever needing to know if you were pregnant or about to be. — Katha Pollitt

The reason the middle class had it so good was because they expected things to be better. They wouldn't settle for less than they were worth. They'd just get into their shiny cars and go where they were appreciated. Poor people, on the other hand, were used to just taking what was given to them and being grateful for it. — Karin Slaughter

Like a magpie, I am a scavenger of shiny things: fairy tales, dead languages, weird folk beliefs, fascinating religions, and more. — Laini Taylor

Some car had hit it after all, because it hadn't had the courage to honor its own correct instinct. And I began to cry because I had this thought about people, that they do this all the time, deny the wise voice inside them telling them the right thing to do because it is different. I remembered once seeing a tea party some little girls had set up outside, mismatched china, decorations of a plucked pansy blossom and a seashell and a shiny penny and a small circle of red berries and a fern, pressed wetly into the wooden table, the damp outline around it a beautiful bonus. They didn't consult the Martha Stewart guide for entertainment and gulp a martini before their guests arrived. They pulled ideas from their hearts and minds about the things that gave them pleasure, and they laid out an offering with loving intent. It was a small Garden of Eden, the occupants making something out of what they saw was theirs. Out of what they truly saw. — Elizabeth Berg

The supermarket is still open; it won't close till midnight. It is brilliantly bright. Its brightness offers sanctuary from loneliness and the dark. You could spend hours of your life here, in a state of suspended insecurity, meditating on the multiplicity of things to eat. Oh dear, there is so much! So many brands in shiny boxes, all of them promising you good appetite. Every article on the shelves cries out to you, take me, take me; and the mere competition of their appeals can make you imagine yourself wanted, even loved. But beware - when you get back to your empty room, you'll find that the false flattering elf of the advertisement has eluded you; what remains is only cardboard, cellophane and food. And you have lost the heart to be hungry. — Christopher Isherwood

For a long time things were so bad. Very bad. Dark even when there was light.
The only thing that kept the dark back was the Forever Shiny Thing that was her secret ...
It is a word ... the word hangs on a silver chain. The word is HOPE. — Dean Koontz

Boys are told since they're little that pretty things are good. Pretty things equal happy things. So when we grow up and see a shiny pretty thing, we're drawn like moths to a flame. We keep flying toward the light until it's too late. You know, like that Sleeping Beauty chick with the spinning wheel? — Rachel Van Dyken

I'm lucky having parents that have been in show business for a while and they don't care about the shiny stuff so much. They raised me in that way - to stay grounded, not to chase the shiny pretty things. I stay in the moment, because when you do that the hype goes away. — Zoe Kravitz

I looked over at the dresser and saw a new issue of Zoobooks sitting there.

On the cover was an owl. I love owls. Owls are beautiful and fierce. There was an owl right there on the front. A close-up of its face. Two big black eyes, bulbous, shiny, and empty. A brown-and-black feathered face. And its beak. I didn't see its beak. What were those two things coming out of its neck?

I stepped closer.

And in the lower corner of the cover, in white all-caps sans-serif font: "SPIDERS." I looked back into that face, brown and black fur, two big black eyes, and more eyes, and pincers. And oh god.

I screamed. I screamed and I ran. I am still screaming and running from this, only on the inside now. — Joseph Fink

But sometimes the males of the species brought home shiny, beautiful things,
with hope burning in their hearts. — Sherry Thomas

Holden was starting to feel like they were all monkeys playing with a microwave. Push a button, a light comes on inside, so it's a light. Push a different button and stick your hand inside, it burns you, so it's a weapon. Learn to open and close the door, it's a place to hide things. Never grasping what it actually did, and maybe not even having the framework necessary to figure it out. No monkey ever reheated a frozen burrito. So here the monkeys were, poking the shiny box and making guesses about what it did. — James S.A. Corey

Unless you've been living under a rock, you should know that material things lie. Supercars lie, houses lie, shiny stuff lie. Men lie, women lie. But remember this: it is IMPOSSIBLE for the eyes to lie. They — Robert Moore

I was really in to shiny things when I was younger and I stole a shiny tag for my dog. I didn't get caught. I hope I don't go to jail for that. — Nicholas Hoult

You know," she said dreamily, passing over his question, "you're not nearly as handsome as Lord St.Vincent."
"There's a surprise," he said dryly.
"But for some reason," she continued, "I never want to kiss him the way I do you." It was a good thing that she had closed her eyes, for if she had seen his expression, she might not have continued. "There is something about you that makes me feel terribly wicked. You make me want to do shocking things. Maybe it's because you're so proper. Your necktie is never crooked, and your shoes are always shiny. And your shirts are so starchy. Sometimes when I look at you, I want to tear off all your buttons. Or set your trousers on fire. — Lisa Kleypas

Matchy-matchy is not for me. I don't want things to be too perfect. It's like pairing a matte top with a shiny skirt, so they play off each other. I want there to be relationships with texture and color, and sometimes it's more about the contrast that chimes. — Peter Som

Take this neat little equation here. It tells me all the ways an electron can make itself comfortable in or around an atom. That's the logic of it. The poetry of it is that the equation tells me how shiny gold is, how come rocks are hard, what makes grass green, and why you can't see the wind. And a million other things besides, about the way nature works. — Richard Feynman

When he'd been younger and first starting to feel the urge to rut with females - and before he'd grown up to the point where many of the opposite sex found him irresistible - he'd tried to court girls by bringing them meat and shiny things. It turned out he'd scared them.
"Most women and girls," Dmitri had told him, "don't know what to do when a man drops a hunk of raw meat in their hands. — Nalini Singh

Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer's paradise, a hunter's Valhalla, an escapist's Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just 'home'. It is all these things but one thing - it is never dull. — Beryl Markham

Pictures rarely told the truth. They were like gold lacquer over Styrofoam, making things seem shiny and bright, disguising the fragility beneath. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it still wasn't worth a whole hell of a lot. — Amy Harmon

Rooster/Pisces: Likes shiny things. — Suzanne White

We've spent our time together talking about everything but what matters. We've never brought to each other the heavy things we were meant to help each other carry. We've only introduced each other to our representatives, while our real selves tried to live life alone. We thought that was safer. We thought that this way our real selves wouldn't get hurt. But as I read these messages, it becomes clear that we are all hurting anyway. And we think we are alone. At our cores, we are our tender selves peeking out at a world of shiny representatives, so shame has been layered on top of our pain. We're suffocating underneath all the layers. * — Glennon Doyle Melton

A man will never love you or treat you as well as a store. If a man doesn't fit, you can't exchange him seven days later for a gorgeous cashmere sweater. And a store always smells good. A store can awaken a lust for things you never even knew you needed. And when your fingers first grasp those shiny, new bags ... — Sophie Kinsella

There is something about you that makes me feel terribly wicked. You make me want to do shocking things. Maybe it's because you're so proper. Your necktie is never crooked, and your shoes are always shiny. And your shirts are so starchy. Sometimes when I look at you, I want to tear off all your buttons. Or set your trousers on fire. I've so often wondered-are you ticklish, my lord? — Lisa Kleypas

Ostriches like shiny things like coins and eyeballs. — Charise Mericle Harper

All you need to catch a fairy is an old birdhouse and some shiny stuff. You know, like glass and glitter, or pieces of colored plastic or metal things that'll sparkle when the sun hits them.
You can paint the birdhouse, but it doesn't really matter what color. It's not like how hummingbirds like red things, fairies aren't that picky.
So you take your birdhouse and shiny stuff and just hang it somewhere. High but not too high. Trees are good but fairies are everywhere so trees aren't like, a requirement.
You don't even need to put anything over the birdhouse entrance. Once they get in they won't be able to figure out how to get out.
Fairies are kind of stupid. — Erin Morgenstern

I was alone in a great spinning wheel surrounded by things that were made out of meat, things that moved all by themselves. Some of them were wrapped in pieces of cloth. Strange nonsensical sounds came from holes at their top ends, and there were other things up there, bumps and ridges and something like marbles or black buttons, wet and shiny and embedded in the slabs of meat. They glistened and jiggled and moved as if trying to escape. I didn't understand the sounds the meat was making, but I heard a voice from somewhere. It was like God talking, and that I couldn't help but understand. — Peter Watts

I can't stand the temptation, wanna touch but I don't know
Shiny bright and squeaky clean - pretty little things I love them so
Pretty things are kind of wicked - make my sick heart feel so glad
I'm sure that nothing so pretty could be bad... — Dave Allen

Things are just that - things. They don't make us who we are. They make us look better on the outside, even when we're hollow on the inside. They're an illusion - the shiny objects that distract us from the really important things. — Chelle Bliss

She was tall and slender with long dark hair that swung in a shiny ponytail from one shoulder to the other, her dress swirling beneath her cinched waist.
He thought suddenly of watermelon. It was hard to come by back in Scotland but even before he'd ever tasted one in the flesh it had reminded him of summer (which was also hard to come by back in Scotland).
He knew what watermelon tasted like now; it was one of his favorite things. He could almost feel it in his mouth as he stood there, that cold sweet powerful explosion of almost nothing.
He needed to find a slice as soon as possible. — Sarah-Kate Lynch

It's easy to have a relationship and show each other only the beautiful shiny things. Sharing good parts about you is elementary, so finding a partner in life can't be only about showcasing these agreeable characteristics, but also the less impressive ones. In a strange way, true intimacy lies in that dark side-in making peace with the fact that it lives inside you somewhere-so that you can share it with the person and they can be there to help you overcome it. — Claudio Sanchez

Money'll always end up bad. Man's greed and man's killer instinct go hand-in-hand. Watch a barracuda attack something shiny and you'll see what our fascination with gold is. Think about it. We give actually valuable things like food and shelter for stones. We kill for it. Make no mistake, behind every man who seeks his fortune is a predator. — James Schannep

I've learned all my hair and makeup tricks on the set, and I incorporate all kinds of things when I'm getting ready, and I'm big on blotting papers. I get a very shiny forehead, which I like to call my inner glow coming out. — Elizabeth Banks

Karou was mysterious. She had no apparent family, she never talked about herself, and she was expert at evading questions
for all that her friends knew of her background, she might have sprung whole from the head of Zeus. And she was endlessly surprising. Her pockets were always spilling out curious things: ancient bronze coins, teeth, tiny jade tigers no bigger than her thumbnail. She might reveal, while haggling for sunglasses with an African street vendor, that she spoke fluent Yoruba. Once, Kaz had undressed her to discover a knife hidden in her boot. There was the matter of her being impossible to scare and, of course, there were the scars on her abdomen: three shiny divots that could only have been made by bullets. — Laini Taylor

But once in a while one loses his heart and once I think I did too, but never Mama. Her heart stays right in place and it's wham-bam-don't-give-a-damn every single time. Whatever she's got, that thing that can say good-bye like good-byes don't mean anything, I didn't get that. And the glass unicorn with the shiny gold horn and hooves that sits by my bed proves it, proves that I can't let go of things like Mama can. — Tupelo Hassman

When I say I hate nostalgia, I hate things set in the recent past where everything is shiny and new. — Chris O'Dowd

I think I'm lucky having parents that have been in show business for a while, and they don't care about the shiny stuff so much. They raised me in that way - to stay grounded, not to chase the shiny, pretty things. — Zoe Kravitz

To me, you can't have style without being inspired. When I design a collection, I am inspired by so many things. The color of a flower. The shape of a butterly's wing. The juxtaposition of an old tenement building next to a shiny new skyscraper. — Isaac Mizrahi

It was clear to me that it wouldn't matter what I did - they would never truly appreciate me or learn what I had to offer. They were far beyond fickle - they were insensible, like kittens,predatory little things, distracted by the first bit of string or shiny bauble that rolled across the floor, and nothing I could ever say or do could possibly make any kind of dent in their willful ignorance. — Jeff Lindsay

Am I still writing? Unthinkable not to. In the very darkest night the words were like shiny pebbles. They caught the light of the moon and stars and reflected it back. One word among them that shone especially brightly. Simplicity. I would approach it, stepping softly, regard it from all sides, finally pick it up, enchanted by it, recognize that its enchantment lay in its shine, its pure meaning. Simplicity. To simply be there. Simply keep going. The longer I kept going, the easier it was to see how beautiful, simply beautiful, it is to be here.

I would like to write about how this word shines. I'd like to write about the simplest things. — Milena Michiko Flasar

My youth began when I was 21. At least, that's when I decided it began. That was when I started to think that all those shiny things in life - some of them might possibly be for me. — Xiaolu Guo

Mom: 'I really have to stop doing this. I need to get a life.'

I think she's directing this at herself, or the universe, not really at me. Still, I can't help thinking that 'getting a life' is something only a complete idiot could believe. Like you can just drive to a store and get a life. See it in its shiny box and look inside the plastic window and catch a glimpse of yourself in a new life and say, 'Wow, I look much happier - I think this is the life I need to get!" Take it to the counter, ring it up, put it on your credit card. If getting a life was that easy, we'd be one blissed-out race. But we're not. So it's like, Mom, your life isn't out there waiting, so don't think all you have to do is find it and get it. No, your life is right here. And yeah, it sucks. Lives usually do. So if you want things to change, you don't need to get a life. You need to get off your ass. — John Green

Why are the photographs of him as a little boy so incredibly hard to look at? Something is over. Now instead of those shiny moments being things we can share together in delighted memories, I, the survivor, have to bear them alone. So it is with all the memories of him. They all lead into blackness. All I can do is remember him, I cannot experience him. Nothing new can happen between us. — Nicholas Wolterstorff

A lot of times, the inspiration for a novel is a messy bird's nest of shiny things. Little things that don't make a whole lot of sense or that, no matter how hard you look, cannot be found directly in the finished book. — Molly O'Keefe

It goes like this," Max interrupted. "Boys are told since they're little that pretty things are good. Pretty things equal happy things. So when we grow up and see a shiny pretty thing, we're drawn like moths to a flame. We keep flying toward the light until it's too late. You know, like that Sleeping Beauty chick with the spinning wheel?" I chuckled. "Are you seriously comparing us to a Disney princess? — Rachel Van Dyken

Though the male can be noble in reason and infinite in faculties, he is also easily amused by shiny toys, especially ones that do dumb things on his desk. — Patricia Marx

The shiny black nose of a fox appears through her door before the rest of it steps tentatively across the wooden floor to where she's cooking. A pile of children's clothes lie discarded in a corner of the room. The fox knows what she is cooking and holds back a shudder. There are some things even foxes know better than to eat. — Amy Kuivalainen

I live completely without regret. Sure there are plenty of things that someone could second guess, but I see the path of life like driving down the road without a map. The thing is, some dark alleys open up in majestic places, and some bright and shiny highways to the top end in cliffs to the bottom. You never know until you get there. What I know for sure is that if many years ago I actually had a map to the path of life, the destination that I would have chosen is right here, with this family, in this place, and with these smiles. That makes anything that could have been regretful, the best decision in the world. — Michael A. Wood Jr.

I love all things crafty. I love to make jewelry. I love to cut up old clothes and turn them into something new. I love projects like transforming a busted table into a shiny new table. I'm really into restoration and little side projects. — Elle Varner

You know, right often, the body is the best thing we've got going for us. A body itself is a shiny object. Something! — Allan Gurganus

Life isn't easy. Would that every story ended happily, every crisis be averted, everything get a pretty shiny bow, but that's not the world we live in. Life is harsh. Things go wrong, People get hurt, and some even die. That's just the way it goes. — Daniel Younger

The secret to happiness is elusive because it is a paradoxical truth. To gain happiness, you must first cease pursuing it. Things perceived to provide happiness are like shiny, pretty bubbles that lure us this way and that way, chasing after their glossy buoyancy. But once they are handled, they "pop" - empty - vanishing along with the hope that happiness could ever be captured. Happiness cannot be caught or won or purchased or even handled. Happiness simply forms like a rainbow in the kindest and most grateful hearts. — Richelle E. Goodrich

I don't know if there's enough vision. Industry wide, the apathy regarding this recent problem is already setting in - shiny things are happening elsewhere, people are forgetting. — Theo De Raadt

That moment. That instant when your fingers curl round the handles of a shiny, uncreased bag - and all the gorgeous new things inside it become yours. What's it like? It's like going hungry for days, then cramming your mouth full of warm buttered toast. It's like waking up and realizing it's the weekend. It's like the better moments of sex. Everything else is blocked out of your mind. It's pure, selfish pleasure. — Sophie Kinsella

She spoke of those needing the white destroyers' shiny things to bring a feeling of worth into their lives, uttered their deep-rooted inferiority of soul, and called them lacking in the essence of humanity: womanhood in women, manhood in men. For which deficiency they must crave things to eke out their beings, things to fill holes in their spirits. — Ayi Kwei Armah

He had simply typed the words something beautiful into the Google images box. Up came a picture of some leaves against the sun. A picture of a blonde photoshop-smooth woman and baby sleeping. A picture of a bird. A picture of Mother Teresa. A picture of a modernist building made of shiny metal. A picture of two people sticking knives into their own hands. Google is so strange. It promises everything, but everything isn't there. You type in the words for what you need, and what you need becomes superfluous in an instant, shadowed instantaneously by the things you really need, and none of them answerable by Google — Ali Smith

I'd have a longer attention span if there weren't so many shiny things. — Darynda Jones

The globby aliens went a very pale green. The pirates, shiny-black-hair-men, and the piranhas looked at them puzzled, seeking some kind of explanation, as did the wumpires.
"If two things that are the same thing touch," proclaimed the volcano god, "then the whole Universe shall end. Thus sayeth the great and unutterable Splod."
"How does a volcano know so much about transtemporal meta-science?" asked one of the pale green aliens.
"Being a geological formation gives you a lot of time to think," said Splod. "Also, I subscribe to a number of learned journals. — Neil Gaiman

Ever since I was a little teen, I was told by my great-grandma that you've got to always have a good moisturizer. I use cocoa butter, and I use it for all things needing moisture - face, hair, throw it on those legs at the beach, get them all shiny. Cocoa butter is such a great product. — Sufe Bradshaw

I picked up a piece of quartz I found in the desert one afternoon and held it up to the light, letting it glitter in my palm.Hey, I couldn't help it. I liked shiny things; it was in my blood. — Julie Kagawa

Don't get seduced by the next shiny thing, because you'll get caught up chasing shiny things and that will keep you from addressing what you really need to accomplish. — Joe Tripodi

Yes, the human race is a small species in an infinite universe filled with many other planets and many other things, but though small; this race is bearer of very great and big things: Destiny, Virtue, Hope, Love ... and that's what makes this species different. That's what makes this species very shiny and very visible and very important, in a whole, whole, big, big, vast, expanding universe! — C. JoyBell C.

The twins hobbled forward. "Freaks and dames and boys and things, drinks and bones and shiny rings," said the twin on the left.
"Ashes and earth will imprison the frail, blood of love will lift the veil," said the other. — J.A. Redmerski

My dad had always said to not trust something unless it's taken a tumble in the dirt. He'd meant it for people, and for things. Shiny and new didn't exist for humankind any more. — Katherine McIntyre

I had let want in, opened the door ever so slightly. But want without the belief you can get what you want is pointless. You have to hope, so I let that in too. You have to. To want things and go for them and believe, even in impossible situations ... Hope was what you had when you had nothing else. Hope was the perfect shiny top on the Christmas tree, the glowing halo of every wish, the endless beacon of a lighthouse bringing tormented ships home at last. — Deb Caletti

Every time he studied this instrument, with its slender, gleaming steel rod that tapered down to such needle-like sharpness, he wondered why it was necessary to have things like this in the world. If it were truly only for chopping ice, you'd think a completely different design might do. The people who produce and sell things like this don't understand, he thought. They don't realize that some of us break out in a cold sweat at just a glimpse of that shiny, pointed tip. — Ryu Murakami

On occasion, it occurs to adults that they are allowed to do all the things that being a child prevented them from doing. But those desires change when you're not looking. There was a time when your favorite color transferred from purple to blue to whatever shade it is when you realize having a favorite color is a trite personality crutch, an unstable cultivation of quirk and a possible cry for help. You just don't notice the time of your own metamorphosis. Until you do. Every once in a while time dissolves and you remember what you liked as a kid. You jump on your hotel bed, order dessert first, decide to put every piece of jewelry you own on your body and leave the house. Why? Because you can. Because you're the boss. Because ... Ooooh. Shiny. — Sloane Crosley

Little children love bright, shiny things - and in my experience, most grown-up women aren't very different! — Sheherazade Goldsmith

There are as many Africas as there are books about Africa
and as many books about it as you could read in a leisurely lifetime. Whoever writes a new one can afford a certain complacency in the knowledge that his is a new picture agreeing with no one else's, but likely to be haugthily disagreed with by all those who believed in some other Africa ... Being thus all things to all authors, it follows, I suppose, that Africa must be all things to all readers.
Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer's paradise, a hunter's Valhalla, an escapist's Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just 'home. — Beryl Markham

Writers are magpies by nature, always collecting shiny things, storing them away and looking for connections of things. — John Connolly

These days I keep a journal, so I'm constantly sketching down my thoughts, or lines that come to me ... ideas for songs. And then when I have a moment to myself, I'll sit down with my guitar and open my journal, and start kind of massaging things together, and see if a song takes shape. Or sometimes, I'll just be hanging out with my guitar and come up with a chord progression or a lick, and that'll sort of sit around for a while waiting to marry itself to some words. So it's sort of haphazard and it's like ... junk culture. I go around finding shiny objects and I glue them together laughs. — Ani DiFranco

I tried everything I could to prevent my son's fall into meth addiction. It would have been no easier to have seen him strung out on heroin or cocaine, but as every parent of a meth addict comes to learn, this drug has a unique, horrific quality. In an interview, Stephan Jenkins, the singer in Third Eye Blind, said that meth makes you feel "bright and shiny." It also makes you paranoid, delusional, destructive, and self-destructive. Then you will do unconscionable things in order to feel bright and shiny again. — David Sheff

I'm addicted to laughing. I go to see a lot of comedy shows. I'm addicted to playing really loud and obnoxious rock music in my car. I'm addicted to beautiful clothes and shoes. I just love gorgeous stuff and work hard to acquire pretty things, shiny things. I'm addicted to shiny things! — Nadia Giosia