Short Notes Quotes & Sayings

And I knew what I wanted: I would settle in a hill station and write my novel. I had visions of myself at a table on a large veranda, my notes spread out in front of me next to a steaming cup of tea. Green hills heavy with mists would lie at my feet and the shrill cries of monkeys would fill my ears. The weather would be just tight, requiring a light sweater mornings and evenings, and something short-sleeved midday. Thus set up, pen in hand, for the sake of greater truth, I would turn Portugal into a fiction. That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming the reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence? What need did I have to go to Portugal? — Yann Martel

Chocolate makes everything better, in the end," he announced, and Thayer fully agreed.
Thayer gave him a smile of gratitude and watched Castel lift his spoon from the saucer. He dipped it, gracefully, into his coffee and gave it a light stir.
"Too many people rush to stir such delicate flavours. Take too long and they will clog together to become a lump of bitterness in your coffee. But take your time and be gentle with them," Castel explained, quietly, "and they will create a symphony of flavours, to melt in your mouth," he said, leaning down, just until his nose was over his cup, to take a long inhale. He smiled and straightened, extracting the spoon to place it back on his saucer. "Now try it."
Thayer took a sip and almost felt his toes curl at the luxurious taste.

~ Cinnamon Kiss — Elaine White

Accordingly, when the supply of gold runs short, the security behind the notes is diminished, the loaning of notes is restricted or suspended, and the panic follows. — John Buchanan Robinson

I carried with me into the West End Bar, the White Horse Tavern, a long list of things I would never do: I would never have my hair set in a beauty parlor. I would never move to a suburb and bake cakes or make casseroles. I would never go to a country club dance, although I did like the paper lanterns casting rainbow colors on the terrace. I would never invest in the stock market. I would never play canasta. I would never wear pearls. I would love like a nursling but I would never go near a man who had a portfolio or a set of golf clubs or a business or even a business suit. I would only love a wild thing. I didn't care if wild things tended to break hearts. I didn't care if they substituted scotch for breakfast cereal. I understood that wild things wrote suicide notes to the gods and were apt to show up three hours later than promised. I understood that art was long and life was short. — Anne Roiphe

It is not easy to describe lucidly in short notes to a poem the various approaches to a fortified castle, — Vladimir Nabokov

One word after another. That's the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming in the night and turning your jumbled notes into Chapter Nine, it's the only way to do it. So keep on keeping on. Write another word and then another. — Neil Gaiman

I have short hands. That's why I have to bend up to notes; I can't always reach the frets. — Robin Trower

Adnan was deluged with letters, notes, pictures, and prayers. Some were short messages of support, others were pages and pages of personal divulgences. Adnan was stunned at the sometimes very intimate nature of the letters, people pouring out their pain and tribulations to a stranger. He realized it was sometimes easier for people to share their deepest sorrows with a stranger than with people they knew. I told him that's how the Internet mostly works. Students — Rabia Chaudry

A farm is an irregular patch of nettles bounded by short-term notes, containing a fool and his wife who didn't know enough to stay in the city. — S.J Perelman

Jaxton smiled and caught his hand, holding it tight in both of his. "Are you burnt out? Is it all too much?" he asked, getting straight to the root of the matter, in one go.
"Yes," he sighed, hating that it was true.
"Then you'll stay home."
"You know I can't. It's impossible," Roman complained about the unfairness of it all.
He was due to return to the studio in two days times, to finalise the tracks he'd recorded yesterday. Then he had to sit down with Jalen next week, to pick out a new piece of his artwork for the next album cover. And two weeks after that, he had three interviews with three different music channels, to film.
"Try telling that to Ben." Jaxton winked at him, then ducked down to kiss him.

~ From the Heart — Elaine White

One needs only to study a certain positioning of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful sounds, to know how to play long notes and short notes and to achieve certain unlimited dexterity. A well formed technique, it seems to me, can control and vary a beautiful sound quality. — Frederic Chopin

One of the greatest tragedies in my life is my deafness, for it's been over twenty years now since I've been able to hear notes. When I listen to music it's as if the letters in a text were changing places with one another, rendering the words unintelligible and muddying the lines. I'd consider my old age redeemed if my hearing were to come back, for music would be the gentlest opiate, calming my fears as I move toward death. In any case, I suppose the only chance I have for that kind of miracle involves nothing short of a visit to Lourdes. — Luis Bunuel

Modern life assaults us with an infinite range of things we could do, we would love to do, or some people tell us we should do. But we are not God and we are neither infinite nor eternal. We are quite simply finite. We have only so many years, so much energy, so many gray cells, and so many bank notes in our wallets. 'Life is too short to ... ' eventually shortens to 'life is too short. — Os Guinness

This was a great idea; he needed to go into tonight knowing that this was the last time he would ever be with Barry. He needed to savour it and enjoy it, to lock it tight in his memories, so that he would never forget how it felt to be with him.
This would be his final goodbye.

~ A Case of the Ex — Elaine White

as a painter who can have his subject for short sittings only prepares his palette, and from what he remembers and from rough notes does in advance everything which he possibly can do in the sitter's absence. — Marcel Proust

Live a life abundant in love and rich in spirit, these are the seeds of a fulfilling existence. Be the safe harbor you seek in the world. Follow your dreams, not your fear.
Go into the New Year with an open mind and hopeful heart. Don't let the chains of unforgiveness weigh you down. Life is too short to live in a prison of past hurts. The futures is yours for the taking and creating.
Life is bittersweet, when we can let darkness and light co-exist as illumination, we can live in true happiness. When we live life at its best, it is a symphony of feelings, of high and low notes, of tragedy and comedy, love and loss, magic and the sublime. It can be quite a spectacular journey when we fully embrace and accept it. — Jaeda DeWalt

Unfortunately, Martha's recipes, though suitably complex, fall a tad short if you're looking for aphrodisiac cooking, perhaps only because everything about a Martha recipe, from the font it's printed in to the call for sanding sugar, with appended notes on where to find such a thing, simply screams Martha. — Julie Powell

I've worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions. In short, fate's distribution of long straws is wildly capricious. — Warren Buffett

In love longing I listen to the monk's bell. I will never forget you even for an interval short as those between the bell notes. — Izumi Shikibu

Quinn Cummings is a master story-teller and her book is nothing short of delightful. Her insights into topics like celebrity, parenting, and cats with a taste for homicide are pithy and uproarious and not to be missed. Notes from the Underwire is charming, hilarious, and just snarky enough to be ultimately satisfying. — Jen Lancaster

The demon kept pulling him unconscious, and in those short bursts of blackness, the dreamer snatched at light, and when he swam back to consciousness, he thrust the dream into reality. He shaped them into flapping creatures and earthbound stars and flaming crowns and golden notes that sang by themselves and mint leaves scattered across the blood-streaked pavement and scraps of paper with jagged handwriting on them: Unguibus et rostro.
But he was dying. — Maggie Stiefvater

I will argue that five features are present in a wide range of genres, Western and non-Western, past and present, and that they jointly contribute to a sense of tonality: 1. Conjunct melodic motion. Melodies tend to move by short distances from note to note. 2. Acoustic consonance. Consonant harmonies are preferred to dissonant harmonies, and tend to be used at points of musical stability. 3. Harmonic consistency. The harmonies in a passage of music, whatever they may be, tend to be structurally similar to one another. 4. Limited macroharmony. I use the term "macroharmony" to refer to the total collection of notes heard over moderate spans of musical time. Tonal music tends to use relatively small — Dmitri Tymoczko

The Petriana's tribune dismounted a dozen paces short of the gate and stalked up to the palisade wall with a grim smile, squinting up at Scaurus and his officers and then glancing back at the men building the pyre on the plain below the fortress. He called up to them, shielding his eyes with a raised hand.
'Well now, colleague, I see you've accomplished your orders with the usual efficiency. Perhaps you ought to come down here and join me, though. I've something to tell you that will give you some pause for thought.'
Scaurus climbed down from the wall after instructing Julius to keep the men inside the Dinpaladyr at their tasks.
'You'd better come with me, Centurion Corvus, I suspect I'm going to need someone to take notes of whatever it is my brother tribune has to tell me. I may well be too busy banging my head on the palisade in frustration. — Anthony Riches

The solution which I am urging is to eradicate the fatal disconnection of subjects which kills the vitality of our modern curriculum. There is only one subject-matter for education, and that is LIfe in all its manifestations. Instead of this single unity, we offer children
Algebra, from which nothing follows; Geometry, from which nothing follows; Science, from which nothing follows; History, from which nothing follows; a Couple of Languages, never mastered; and lastly, most dreary of all, Literature, represented by plays of Shakespeare, with philological notes and short analyses of plot and character to be in substance committed to memory. Can such a list be said to represent Life, as it is known in the midst of living it? The best that can be said of it is, that it is a rapid table of contents which a deity might run over in his mind while he was thinking of creating a world, and has not yet determined how to put it together — Alfred North Whitehead

How To Be An Explorer Of The World
1. Always Be LOOKING (notice the ground beneath your feet.)
2. Consider Everything Alive & Animate
3. EVERYTHING Is Interesting. Look Closer.
4. Alter Your Course Often.
5. Observe For Long Durations (and short ones).
6. Notice The Stories Going On Around You.
7. Notice PATTERNS. Make CONNECTIONS.
8. DOCUMENT Your Findings (field notes) In A VAriety Of Ways.
9. Incorporate Indeterminacy.
10. Observe Movement.
11. Create a Personal DIALOGUE With Your Environment. Talk to it.
12. Trace Things Back to Their ORIGINS.
13. Use ALL of the Senses In Your Investigations. — Keri Smith

They returned to the gallery and circled its rim, then went down a short hall. Scrap's tail twitched angrily when they reached Tristan's door: it was shut. Daine grabbed the knob. It stung her hand, making her yelp. "Kit? This ones magicked. Can you do anything?"
Kitten stood on her hind feet and peered into the lock, then whistled two cheerful notes. Nothing happened. She scowled and whistled again, less cheerfully, more as a demand. Nothing happened.
Daine was trying to decide what to do now when the dragon moved back and croaked. The lock popped from the wood to land at Daine's feet, smoking, and the door swung open. Kitten muttered darkly and kicked the lock mechanism aside as she went in. Daine followed, trying not to laugh. — Tamora Pierce

He cupped her face and held her still, as he looked into her brown eyes; she was all flash and no bang. She talked big, but when it came down to it, she was a simple girl. — Elaine White

Then letters came in but three times a week: indeed, in some places in Scotland where I have stayed when I was a girl, the post came in but once a month; - but letters were letters then; and we made great prizes of them, and read them and studied them like books. Now the post comes rattling in twice a day, bringing short jerky notes, some without beginning or end, but just a little sharp sentence, which well-bred folks would think too abrupt to be spoken. — Elizabeth Gaskell

The note of hallelujah must never be in short supply in the spirit of the believer. — Watchman Nee

O sleep! ridiculous mystery which makes faces appear so grotesque, you are the revealer of human ugliness. You uncover all shortcomings, all deformities and all defects. You turn every face touched by you into a caricature. — Guy De Maupassant

How much energy is wasted in Italy in trying to write the novel that obeys all the rules. The energy might have been useful to provide us with more modest, more genuine things, that had less pretensions: short stories, memoirs, notes, testimonials, or at any rate, books that are open, without a preconceived plan. — Italo Calvino

We've found that magic happens when we use big whiteboards to solve problems. As humans, our short-term memory is not all that good, but our spatial memory is awesome. A sprint room, plastered with notes, diagrams, printouts, and more, takes advantage of that spatial memory. The room itself becomes a sort of shared brain for the team. — Jake Knapp

He was getting undressed and it snapped something inside of him that had been drawing taut, ready to break for months.
"I'm hungry, Bruno," he said, in a soft voice, as he removed the shirt from his broad shoulders, revealing a perfect sight of smooth dark skin. "I can't wait for dinner," he continued, with a smile.
When he put his hands to the fastening of his trousers, Bruno let out a sigh and put the take out menus on the counter. He couldn't look at him, because he knew Lyon was trying to seduce him on purpose. He didn't want to talk or hear him out or spend time with him that didn't end with an orgasm.
"I can't do this anymore," Bruno confessed, quietly. — Elaine White

Get your sticky fingers away from my cookies," Ben ordered, without turning his head, to see Jaxton trying to steal one from the cooking tray.
"You weren't saying that last night," Jaxton retaliated, coming up to Ben's side, to give him a nudge. They were both smiling, while looking down at the counter, where Ben was making his delicious rosemary cookies. "In fact, I seem to remember you grabbing my sticky fingers and putting them in your mouth," he teased, speaking quietly, so that Lyon wouldn't hear them at the other side of the room.
Ben turned to Jaxton and abandoned his baking, to catch his face in flour covered hands and plant a deep kiss on his lips.
Jaxton opened his mouth, in acceptance of his kiss.

~ From the Heart — Elaine White