Small Gesture Quotes & Sayings

Well? Can we fight together?" It was the queen who said the word, but Roshar who made it real. He crossed the short space of the forge and placed one palm on Arin's cheek. It was the Herrani gesture of kinship. The queen smiled as Arin returned the gesture, and then the word came: beautiful, deadly, as small and hot as the hole in the kitchen door. In that moment, that word was all that Arin wanted. "Yes." * — Marie Rutkoski

Stalin is one of the most extraordinary figures in world history. He began as a small clerk, and he has never stopped being a clerk. Stalin owes nothing to rhetoric. He governs from his office, thanks to a bureaucracy that obeys his every nod and gesture. It's striking that Russian propaganda, in the criticisms it makes of us, always holds itself within certain limits. Stalin, that cunning Caucasian, is apparently quite ready to abandon European Russia, if he thinks that a failure to solve her problems would cause him to lose everything. Let nobody think Stalin might reconquer Europe from the Urals! It is as if I were installed in Slovakia, and could set out from there to reconquer the Reich. This is the catastrophe that will cause the loss of the Soviet Empire. — Adolf Hitler

He leaned close. "I look at you, I look at this." His gesture indicated the fine room, the fine people in it. "And I doubt you've ever been hungry in your life.

It seemed a ridiculous thing to have to prove.

She leaned closer, reached across his untouched plate, and plucked the small white carnation from his boutonniere. She bit the petals from the stem and chewed. — Ashley Warlick

His hands cup my face as if he's claiming me, saying you're mine with his lips and his hands and the way he draws me in close, his thumb tracing a line along my jaw. It's such a small gesture, but such a poetically possessive one and I arch my back, inviting more. — Lauren Blakely

A small grazing gesture ignites the need for closer, and breaks the surface of the water, never in you enough, gulping air, never contain you enough, on dry land now, never hold you enough, the desert heat, drink you, oasis lover shimmering under a palm, I will burn to ashes here then blow away until that merciful peak is discovered, and once that is discovered, the slow tumble back down the hill, buckets of water spilling in slow motion, streaking the sand along their way until again the gentle sway, the ocean floor, the grazing touch that reignites the sea. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

There was a very small crowd - minuscule compared to the crowd that he gathered later - at a private home in Los Angeles. And we were standing on the back patio, waiting for him. And he came through the house, saw me and immediately put his hand up in the Vulcan gesture. He said, 'They told me you were here.' We had a wonderful, brief conversation and I said, 'It would be logical if you would become president.' — Leonard Nimoy

When we both experienced the love that consumes, we shared in the Absolute. The Absolute shows each of us who we really are; it is an enormous web of cause and effect, where every small gesture made by one person affects the life of someone else. This morning, that slice of the Absolute was still very much alive in my soul. I was seeing not only you but everything there is in the world, unlimited by space or time. — Paulo Coelho

Beauty made you love, love made you beautiful ...
She pulled her wrap closer round her with a gesture of defence, of keeping out and off. She didn't want to grow sentimental. Difficult not to, here; the marvelous night stole in through all one's chinks, and brought in with it, whether one wanted them or not, enormous feelings
feelings one couldn't manage, great things about death and time and waste; glorious and devastating things, magnificent and bleak, at once rapture and terror and immense, heart-cleaving longing. She felt small and dreadfully alone. She felt uncovered and defenceless. Instinctively she pulled her wrap closer. With this thing of chiffon she tried to protect herself from the eternities. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

...how gracious seem the small gifts that may come - a patch of sunlight on a cold floor, an unexpected gesture of friendship, the fragrant steam of hot tea. — Martha Whitmore Hickman

You are just..." Imasu took a deep, frustrated breath. "You seem always...ephemeral, like a glittering shallow stream that passes the whole world by. Not something that will stay, not something that will last." He made a small, helpless gesture, as if letting something go, as if Magnus had wanted to be let go. "Not someone permanent."

That made Magnus laugh, suddenly and helplessly, and he threw his head back. He'd learned this lesson a long time ago: Even in the midst of heartbreak, you could still find yourself laughing.

Laughter had always come easily to Magnus, and it helped, but not enough. — Cassandra Clare

Middle children weep longer than their brothers and sisters. Over her mother's shoulder, stilling her pains and her injured pride, Jackie Lacon watched the party leave. First, two men she had not seen before: one tall, one short and dark. They drove off in a small green van. No one waved to them, she noticed, or even said goodbye. Next, her father left in his own car; lastly a blond, good-looking man and a short fat one in an enormous overcoat like a pony blanket made their way to a sports car parked under the beech trees. For a moment she really thought there must be something wrong with the fat one, he followed so slowly and so painfully. Then, seeing the handsome man hold the car door for him, he seemed to wake, and hurried forward with a lumpy skip. Unaccountably, this gesture upset her afresh. A storm of sorrow seized her and her mother could not console her. — John Le Carre

And how is the expectant mother? You mustn't tax yourself, you know.I don't want my nephew born early enough to raise eyebrows."
Gideon laid his hand in the small of her back in a protective gesture she knew all too well. "Are you implying that I'm the kind of man who'd allow his wife to tax herself?"
"If the shoe fits-"
"Behave, both of you," she admonished as Gideon bristled and Jordan glared. "I swear, when you two get near each other, you act like school boys fighting over a half-pence."
"Oh, you're much more valuable than a half-pence," Jordan retorted. Before Gideon could say anything to that, he added, "And in any case, I didn't come over here to anger you, moppet. I merey wanted to let you know I'm leaving."
"Good," Gideon mumbled under his breath. — Sabrina Jeffries

Once, hurrying through a busy airport to get to my gate on time for a connecting flight, I came upon a lady in a wheelchair. Amidst the chaos of the hundreds of people rushing around us, my eyes met hers. The sweetest smile appeared on her face. I smiled back, but I knew she would never fully realize how that small gesture had filled my soul. I believe that God is in our everyday. Many moments occur in our lives which reveal his face, his touch, his voice. Look for him today. He will be found. — Kathy Troccoli

In time, most children stop being puzzled in this way. They settle in. The world around them, as it becomes familiar and daily, becomes ordinary. But for writers, like children who have never quite grown up, life retains a quality of strangeness; it remains a matter of questions for which there are no satisfactory answers, of hidden motives, displaced explanations, subtle concealments and mysteries. Eavesdropping of one kind or another, keeping an eye open and an ear cocked, even in public places, for the giveaway facial expression or gesture, the revealing word, becomes a settled habit for the writer, a necessary part of his professional equipment: the laying down of small scraps of information, of observation or experience, for future use. — David Malouf

If a friend had a coronary scare and finally started exercising three days a week, who would hound him about the other four days? It's the worst of bad manners - and self-protection, I think, in a nervously cynical society - to ridicule the small gesture. — Barbara Kingsolver

I bit my lip. "I, well, we were high? Really,really high. And it was this weird cloud and lightning and faerie thing. I didn't know where it was taking me or why,and I was so scared I did the only thing I could think of."
"Which was?" Lend prodded, worry shadowing his face.
I shrugged, a small, guilty gesture. "I took some." Hating the concern in his eyes,I rushed on. "Only a little bit-not enough to hurt it,really, just enough to surprise it, and then we fell, and it tried to drop me, but I grabbed on and some trees broke my fall. And afterward the Cloud Freak was okay,really,it was. Just kind of pissed. And then it flew off."
I didn't mention the erratic flight pattern. It was probably woozy. — Kiersten White

They recruited the most supple and athletic of the cops to train as mounted policemen, and a small kid could be mesmerized just watching one who'd been lazing majestically down the street stop to write a parking ticket and then lean way over in the saddle so as to place the ticket under the car's windshield wiper, a physical gesture, if ever there was one, of magnificent condescension to the machine age. — Philip Roth

Instinctively it is the small things that make the biggest of differences.Men of a certain type are about showing off and the grand gestures.The gesture tends to overwhelm the meaning behind it. — K.J. Kilton

Jerry took a large slice of wheaten bread, spread with golden butter, and bit into it with her small white teeth. It was a natural gesture - she was very hungry indeed - but to Sam, there was something symbolic about it. Jerry was like bread, he thought. She was like good wholesome wheaten bread, spread thick with honest farm butter; and the thought crossed his mind, that a man might eat bread forever and ever, and not tire of it, and it would never clog his palate like sweet cakes or pastries or chocolate eclairs. — D.E. Stevenson

I took a deep, overly exaggerated breath, the sort of over-the-top gesture that was filmed for commercials about scented laundry detergent, but in this case was my way of trying to absorb every molecule of my old normal life. I loved the smell of the living room, the kitchen, Jenna's recycling porch, the cupboards, and the basement laundry room. I loved everything, and it seemed to love me back. It was as if my heart had grown to three times its normal size, and it could now hold the specialness of every person who crossed my path; it could track how phenomenal every scent, sound, taste, or texture was. Everything was beautiful, even if it was just the laundry that I'd pulled out of the dryer, still warm, and hugged like a small, lost child. — Dee Williams

All art is an intensely vulnerable gesture, and it is made with no small amounts of risk, and fear. So, I have plenty of sympathy for self-defense mechanisms, especially among artists. — Steven Erikson

Here was a manifestation of a huge, historic British folly, repeated over many centuries including the twenty-first: the adoption of gesture strategy, committing small forces as an earnest of good intentions, heedless of their gross inadequacy for the military purpose at hand. — Max Hastings

Much has happened since last we met, Bartimaeus," he went on. "Do you remember how we parted?"
"No." I did.
"You set light to me, old friend. Struck a match and left me burning in a copse."
The crow shifted uneasily beneath the cleaver."That's a gesture of endearment in some cultures. Some hug, some kiss, some set each other on fire in small patches of woodland ... — Jonathan Stroud

How easily we ignore or forget the small kindnesses and considerations in life which are really the only everyday magic we witness on a regular basis. Just think- to make happiness out of nothing more than a few kind words or a generous gesture. — Jonathan Carroll

All of that will be gone by morning. Instead, they will dissect this last evening for years to come. What had they missed that they should have seen? What small gesture, forgotten, might have changed everything? They will pick it down to the bones, wondering how this had all gone so wrong, and they will never be sure. — Celeste Ng

Bond swallowed. He looked over towards Vesper. Felix Leiter was again standing beside her. He grinned slightly and Bond smiled back and raised his hand from the table in a small gesture of benediction. — Ian Fleming

Can we not will ourselves to achieve the impossible? Can we not use the power of our life force to change something: one small thing, one insignificant moment, one breath, one gesture? Is there nothing we can do to change what is around us? — Garth Stein

He wasn't sure himself why he was pulling his punches in this way, but somehow it seemed important not to let Contact know everything, to keep something back. It was a small victory against them a little-game, a gesture on a lesser board; a blow against the elements and the gods. — Iain M. Banks

Betelgeuse. Sirius. Orion. Antares. The sky is very large, and you are very small. Let the words wash
through him, the voice and its memories pass over him, shivering his skin like the touch of a ghost,
vanishing into darkness.
The Pleiades. Cassiopeia. Taurus. Heaven is wide, and you are very small. Dead, but none the less
powerful for being dead. He spread his hands wide, gripping the fence - those were powerful, too.
Enough to beat a man to death, enough to choke out a life. But even death was not enough to loose the
bands of rage.
With great effort, he let go. Turned his hands palm upward, in gesture of surrender. He reached
beyond the stars, searching. The words formed themselves quietly in his mind, by habit, so quietly he
was not aware of them until he found them echoed in a whisper on his lips. — Diana Gabaldon

A scattering of pinpoint lights shows up in the blackness ahead. A town or village straddling the highway. The indicator on the speedometer begins to lose ground. The man glances in his mirror at the girl, a little anxiously as if this oncoming town were some kind of test to be met.
An illuminated road sign flashes by:
CAUTION!
MAIN STREET AHEAD - SLOW UP
The man nods grimly, as if agreeing with that first word. But not in the way it is meant.
The lights grow bigger, spread out on either side. Street lights peer out here and there among the trees. The highway suddenly sprouts a plank sidewalk on each side of it. Dark store-windows glide by.
With an instinctive gesture, the man dims his lights from blinding platinum to just a pale wash. A lunch-room window drifts by. ("Jane Brown's Body") — Cornell Woolrich

A small, forced smile played at Aidan's lips. "I don't like it when someone hurts what's mine," he said. He reached out, brushing a thumb across my bottom lip, an intimate gesture, one that made me blush. "And he hurt you. — Ashley Stoyanoff

An Act of Dissent is simply a way of saying, 'No, I do not accept this and, as my silence may be construed as acquiescence, I would like to make a small gesture to indicate that you can all go fuck yourselves. — Mark Thomas

The nod of a head is such a small thing, it can mean so little, yet it is the gesture of assent that allows, that makes to be. The nod is the gesture of power, the yes. The numen. the presence of the sacred, is called by its name. — Ursula K. Le Guin

In a small town in southern England, another convoy of American tanks and trucks came to a brief stop in front of a row of houses, watched by a crowd of townspeople. Suddenly, a woman emerged from a house carrying bowls of strawberries and cream. She handed one to a young lieutenant named Bob Sheehan, kissed his forehead, and whispered, "Good luck. Come back safe." Galvanized by her gesture of kindness, other townspeople disappeared into their houses and moments later brought out tea and lemonade for the hot, thirsty GIs. — Lynne Olson

Wars are won from a wink, a gesture, an event that transpired a millennium before the battle. Humanity has always been saved by small acts; the ones where someone gained a piece of their own puzzle, not the ones where a hero stood prodigious on a battlefield. — Sarah Noffke

I was always decoding. I was hyperalert.
Being hyperalert is a lasting thing. Being a watcher. Noticing emotional shirts, infinitesimally small tremors that flit over another person's face, the jab in a seemingly innocuous word, the quickening in a walk, an abrupt gesture - the way, say, a jacket is tossed over a chair. — Delia Ephron

The small talk that sprang readily to their lips came to hers only with a tremendous effort. After an opportunity had come and gone, she often scolded herself for not saying this or doing that, for laughing too loud or smiling too little. Whenever she tried to re-create the moment of contact, she was easily rebuffed by the slightest gesture, withdrawing all too quickly if she thought she was in the way. The old stone-and-brick schoolhouse, with its four gabled roofs and round little windows, was the only thing that seemed steadfast to her, while the beings that populated its rooms and thundered down its corridors were unreal and unpredictable. It gripped her like a monstrous truth that she was condemned to lead life without belonging or feeling close to anyone. — Erick Setiawan

As governor, when I visited our troops in Kuwait and Iraq, I served them Thanksgiving dinner. It was a small gesture compared to their sacrifice. — Jennifer Granholm

I am late,' she said, 'I know that I am late. So many little things have to be done when you are alone, and I am not yet accustomed to being alone,' she added with a pretty little sob which reminded me of a cut-glass Victorian tear-bottle. She took off thick winter gloves with a wringing gesture which made me think of handkerchiefs wet with grief, and her hands looked suddenly small and useless and vulnerable. — Graham Greene

But the Indians gesture touched me. It was nothing, but it was everthing. It took so little to mane a difference. — Ingrid Betancourt

It surprises me, how a small gesture can feel so very big. How sometimes you don't realize the nervousness or sadness you were holding deep inside until the touch of someone you love lets it all out of you, like your entire body is exhaling. — Lucy Keating

Look, let me tell you something, Satan, or whoever you are." "Don't use that name, I hate it." "That's likely to make me pepper my speeches with it." "My name is Memnoch," he said calmly, with a small pleading gesture. "Memnoch the Devil. — Anne Rice

She tried to open the bottle, but the top slipped through her fingers without moving. He took the bottle from her hand and opened it with his thumb and index finger. There was nothing special in the gesture and yet she found it strangely fascinating like a small heroic feat performed specially for her. — Paolo Giordano

It's the worst of bad manners to ridicule the small gesture ... Small, stepwise changes in personal habits aren't trivial. Ultimately they will, or won't, add up to having been the thing that mattered. — Barbara Kingsolver

I wonder where he lies. Wedged under a rock, with a thousand small mouths already sucking on his spongy flesh. Or floating still, on and down, on and down, to wider, calmer reaches of the river. I see them gathering: the drowned, the shot. Their hands float out to touch each other, fingertip to fingertip. In a day, two days, they will glide on, a funeral flotilla, past the unfinished white dome rising out of its scaffolds on a muddy hill in Washington. Will the citizens recognize them, the brave fallen, and uncover in a gesture of respect? Or will they turn away, disgusted by the bloated mass of human rot? — Geraldine Brooks

Marie came with the brandy and poured a glass for Rebekah - then one for Ian, at Rebekah's gesture, and when Jamie made a small polite noise in his throat, half-filled his cup, pouring in more tea on top of it. The taste was peculiar, but he didn't really mind. The pain had gone off to the far side of the room; he could see it sitting over there, a wee glowering sort of purple thing with a bad-tempered expression on its face. He laughed at it, and Ian frowned at him. "What are ye giggling at?" Jamie couldn't think how to describe the pain beastie, so he just shook his head, which proved a mistake - the pain looked suddenly gleeful and shot back into his head with a noise like tearing cloth. The room spun and he clutched the table with both hands. — Diana Gabaldon

Oh, poor me, I have to make out with a hot superstar. Women fawn over me wherever I go. I have fucktastic hair and an eight pack. Boo-hoo. Twisting his lips in a look of contempt, he made an obscene gesture over his privates. I couldn't help the small smile that crept onto my face. He was rude and crude and said things I didn't want to hear sometimes, but somehow Griffin was also amusing in a comforting sort of way, and I actually did feel better. Lord, help me. — S.C. Stephens

No gesture is too small when done with gratitude. — Oprah Winfrey

The real relatedness between two people is experienced in the small tasks they do together: the quiet conversation when the day's upheavels are at rest, the soft word of understanding, the daily companionship, the encouragement offered in a difficult moment, the small gift when least expected, the spontaneous gesture of love. — Robert A. Johnson

Ashley watched her go and saw her square her small shoulders as she went. And that gesture went to his heart, more than any words she had spoken. — Margaret Mitchell

We believe that the body hath its rights - to move in a reasonable ambit - to raise, to lower its limbs - but across the face of this earth, there are every day those who suffer unforgivable torments, strapped or chained, confined in boxes or in the holds of ships. May the Lord remind me of this always as I walk free upon paths, and may I thus always give thanks unto Him for the strange, small gifts of gesture, of simple tasks done with requisite care and sphere of action. — M T Anderson

I believe that a small action or a subtle gesture in life can change many, many things. — Gabriel Orozco

Remember that a gesture of friendship, no matter how small, is always appreciated. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

The two women sat by the fire, tilting their glasses and drinking in small peaceful sips. The lamplight shone upon the tidy room and the polished table, lighting topaz in the dandelion wine, spilling pools of crimson through the flanks of the bottle of plum gin. It shone on the contented drinkers, and threw their large, close-at-hand shadows upon the wall. When Mrs Leak smoothed her apron the shadow solemnified the gesture as though she were moulding an universe. Laura's nose and chin were defined as sharply as the peaks peaks on a holly leaf. — Sylvia Townsend Warner

But there are two sides to every fight. It starts from something small, a chance remark, a gesture made lightly. It grows from there. Both sides can be unjust. Both can be cruel. — Juliet Marillier