Quotes & Sayings About Spoiling

With a dog, people are not disciplined. They think that by spoiling a dog the dog is going to love them more. But the dog misbehaves more because they give affection at the wrong time. — Cesar Millan

Contrasts
The windows of my poetry are wide open on the boulevards and in the shop windows
Shine
The precious stones of light
Listen to the violins of the limousines and the xylophones of the linotypes
The sketcher washes with the hand-towel of the sky
All is color spots
And the hats of the women passing by are comets in the conflagration of the evening
Unity
There's no more unity
All the clocks now read midnight after being set back ten minutes
There's no more time.
There's no more money.
In the Chamber
They are spoiling the marvelous elements of raw material
("Contrasts") — Blaise Cendrars

I spent the last eleven years making your life hell. I'm ready to spend the rest of mine making it up to you. Spoiling you is just the start. Will you let me? — B.B. Reid

Of course, I'm being rude. I'm spoiling the ending, not only of the entire book, but of this particular piece of it. I have given you two events in advance, because I don't have much interest in building mystery. Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It's the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me. There are many things to think of. There is much story. — Markus Zusak

So this means you're spoiling me right?
Can't Help it. You're the best hound ever.
Oberon's tail thumped a few times and his mouth partially opened, seeming to smile at me. — Kevin Hearne

Ellie's head sinks into her hands, and she weeps for the unknown Boot, for Jennifer, for chances missed and a life wasted. She cries for herself, because nobody will ever love her like he loved Jennifer, and because she suspects that she is spoiling what might have been a perfectly good, if ordinary, life. She cries because she is drunk and in her flat and there are few advantages to living on your own except being able to sob uninhibitedly at will. — Jojo Moyes

That - we seemed to have decided without saying a word - might go a long way toward spoiling something that was special, and beautiful, by virtue of its strangeness and delicacy. — Stephen King

I urge you with all sincerity to get to work, write a book, write two - three - four books, just as a matter of course. Don't worry about 'wasting' an idea or 'spoiling' a plot by going too fast. If you are capable of turning out a masterpiece, you'll get other and even better ideas in the future. Right now your job is to write, and to write books so that by so doing you'll gain the experience to write still better books later on. — Robert Bloch

I feel like you have to go looking for spoilers. I'm not on social media, so I will watch a show that was on ten years ago, and clearly I could find out every single piece of information about that show, but I'm not trying to spoil myself. You definitely participate in your own spoiling. — Deborah Ann Woll

Such is life. Sometimes we do not even want to know how much pain we cause others, for fear of spoiling our own petty pleasures. And when the time comes to face the consequences, it is too late to be sorry. — Menelaos Stephanides

Those ruffians, the Gods, shan't have it all their own way,
her notion being that the Gods, who never lost a chance of hurting, thwarting and spoiling human lives were seriously put out if, all the same, you behaved like a lady. — Virginia Woolf

We shouldn't always have what we want: it spoils the best of us, doesn't it? — Anne Bronte

I love children. They're so much fun and I would have a blast spoiling them. — Vanessa Hudgens

Nothing is improved by anger, unless it be the arch of a cat's back. A man with his back up is spoiling his figure. People look none the handsomer for being red in the face. It takes a great deal out of a man to get into a towering rage; it is almost as unhealthy as having a fit ... Whatever wrong I suffer, it can not do me half so much hurt as being angry about it. — Charles Spurgeon

Al Jolson was my first husband. He always used to boast that he was spoiling me for any man who might come after him. I think Al sensed that it wasn't easy for me being married to an American institution ... Was he right about spoiling me? I'm sorry. I couldn't possibly say. I couldn't be that indiscreet. — Ruby Keeler

By all means. Discuss. Oh. P.S. What's up with those Pakistani official forms (all of them, for everything) that insist you state your religion, and won't accept "none" for an answer? "None" is considered as "spoiling" the form and you have to fill out another one or risk the consequences, which might well be dire. I don't know if this is the case in other Muslim countries but I kind of suspect it might be. That's a little extreme, Religion, don't you think? Borderline fascistic, even? What sort of club is it that makes it compulsory to be a member? I thought — Salman Rushdie

I was almost annoyed at her for spoiling my perfectly good sulk. — Robin Hobb

Reality runs the risk of spoiling things, don't you think? The fantasy is often better. That's where the soul is fulfilled. Reality struggles to fulfil the soul, that's why we're often so unhappy. But fantasy is the world of the soul ... — James Lusarde

In this life, you only need to do this much: You must know that the other person is instrument (nimit, in bringing you the results of your own karmas) so you must remain silent. Do not let the mind spoil in the slightest. If it does, then ask for forgiveness: 'Dear Instrument! You are simply an instrument. I ask for forgiveness for spoiling my mind.' You have to do only this much! That is the effort [purusharth]! — Dada Bhagwan

In trying to be strong for them, I had cheated them out of opportunities to strengthen me. Guilt overwhelmed me, because I could-at last-see their gifts to me.
The shame flowed all over me, and I began to cry. This is their ministry, I thought, and I've been spoiling it. I felt such intense shame over not letting them help. When I finally did open up, I witnessed a drastic — Don Piper

[The Community's] crosses and trials give me confidence. But I derive my hope above all, and most especially, from our utter incapacity, for it is always upon nothingness that God is pleased to rear His works. If at any day we accomplish some good here, the glory will certainly be His alone, since He has employed for this end instruments more capable of spoiling everything than of making it succeed. — Theodore Guerin

I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copybooks; and I make so many beginnings there never will be an end. (Jo March) — Louisa May Alcott

I do not want to take part in my life. It can just go on without me; I'm not giving it any help. I don't want to see it, I don't want to talk to it, I don't want it anywhere near me. It takes too much energy. I refuse to be a part of it. If you have a life, even if you get used to it ruining your sleep, spoiling your fun, requiring your somewhat undivided attention, what overwhelming relief one must feel when it finally skips town. — Carrie Fisher

Or is it that slow paced evil creeps in when it espies and envies happiness, and then takes a deliberate foul delight in spoiling it? — Leslie W.P. Garland

You know how it's going to end, but instead of spoiling things, that somehow increases your fascination. It's like watching a kid run his electric train faster and faster and waiting for it to derail on one of the curves. — Stephen King

Disagreeing with the fervent patriotism of the Confederates: "I think it's hard winning a war with words, gentlemen ... I'm saying very plainly that the Yankees are better equipped than we ... All we've got is cotton and slaves, and arrogance." "I seem to be spoiling everybody's brandy and cigars and dreams of victory." — Clark Gable

I discovered that private things were mostly sour. They sat spoiling in the corners of your heart for so long that by the time you acknowledged them you were dealing with something rancid. — Tarryn Fisher

Being a copper I like to see the law win. I'd like to see the flashy well-dressed mugs like Eddie Mars spoiling their manicures in the rock quarry at Folsom, alongside of the poor little slum-bred guys that got knocked over on their first caper amd never had a break since. That's what I'd like. You and me both lived too long to think I'm likely to see it happen. Not in this town, not in any town half this size, in any part of this wide, green and beautiful U.S.A. We just don't run our country that way. — Raymond Chandler

The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred. — C.S. Lewis

Though my initial intent was to cater to him, he took over our sexual experiences by catering to and spoiling me. — Jessica N. Watkins

I promise you, I'm done running. I'm still selfish, but only where you and Noah are concerned. I have years of spoiling to make up for and I plan to spend every day of my life making sure you both know how much I love you. — Heidi McLaughlin

I drove away from my mind everything capable of spoiling the sense of the presence of God ... I just make it my business to persevere in His holy presence ... My soul has had an habitual, silent, secret conversation with God. — Brother Lawrence

Your talents are for pointing guns and removing necklaces off ladies' necks?'
'I charm the necklaces off their necks ... Kindly make the distinction.'
'Oh, please.'
'I charmed you.'
She was all indignation. 'You did not.'
'Recall the night in question, Miss Eversleigh. The moonlight, the soft wind.'
'There was no wind.'
'You're spoiling my memory,' he growled.
'There was no wind,' she stated. 'You are romanticizing the encounter.'
'Can you blame me? he returned, smiling at her wickedly. 'I never know who is going to step through the carriage door. Most of the time I get a wheezy old badger. — Julia Quinn

What an extraordinary time to be alive. We're the first people on our planet to have real choice: we can continue killing each other, wiping out other species, spoiling our nest. Yet on every continent a revolution in human dignity is emerging. It is re-knitting community and our ties to the earth. So we do have a choice. We can choose death; or we can choose life. — Frances Moore Lappe

Albert is a very poor student. He is mentally slow, unsociable and is always daydreaming. He is spoiling it for the rest of the class. It would be in the best interests of all if he were removed from school immediately. — Albert Einstein

Any time I get to spend with you alone, away from school and the pressures of classes and stuff I've gotta do, is you spoiling me. Seriously, Mikey. All I need is you. — Melyssa Winchester

When the call came for the factory fire, Logan was spoiling for a fight...His degree of pissed-off had reached epic proportions.

The fire was everything Logan needed right now. Big and raging and hungry...

He couldn't do a damn thing about his private life but he could beat this motherfucker into submission. — Amy Andrews

Never fear spoiling children by making them too happy. Happiness is the atmosphere in which all good affections grow — Thomas Bray

Obviously, the problem of the shadow plays a great role in all political conflicts. If the man who had this dream had not been sensible about his shadow problem, he could easily have identified the desperate Frenchman with the "dangerous Communists" of outer life, or the official plus the prosperous man with the "grasping capitalists." In this way he would have avoided seeing that he had within him such warring elements. If people observe their own unconscious tendencies in other people, this is called a "projection." Political agitation in all countries is full of such projections, just as much as the backyard gossip of little groups and individuals. Projections of all kinds obscure our view of our fellow men, spoiling its objectivity, and thus spoiling all possibility of genuine human relationships. — C. G. Jung

In plucking the fruit of memory one runs the risk of spoiling its bloom, especially if it has got to be carried into the market. — Joseph Conrad

Alaska is much larger than France and Germany - combined. Yet its population is less than one-tenth that of New York City. Keep that in mind the next time you hear some environmentalist hysteria about the danger of "spoiling" Alaska by drilling for oil in an area smaller than Dulles Airport. — Thomas Sowell

The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink. So a group of the most eminent British scientists put their heads together, and made complicated biological experiments to find a way of spoiling it. To the eternal glory of British science their labor bore fruit. — George Mikes

I listened - much as you're listening now, Dick, but it wasn't from curiosity, it was something more. I hated the thought of this world that must be lived in - the sordid pitiful lives of men and women, who can't get beyond their own bodies. I could see this girl, living as she did without the excuse of poverty - she wasn't any prostitute having to keep herself, but spoiling her beauty, her health, and her own precious individuality, which is greater than anything in life, Dick, because some man had taught her to be self-indulgent. There wasn't anything more in it than that. — Daphne Du Maurier

Too much polishing and you spoil things. There's a limit to the expressibility of ideas. You have a new thought, an interesting one. Then, as you try to perfect it, it ceases to be new and interesting, and loses the freshness with which it first occurred to you. You're spoiling it. — Leo Tolstoy

[T]he pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. This is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But of course, it is better to be neither. — C.S. Lewis

Fiddle-dee-dee. War, war, war. This war talk's spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream. Besides, there isn't going to be any war ... If either of you boys says 'war' just once again, I'll go in the house and slam the door. — Vivien Leigh

Ed, it was everything, those nights on the phone, everything we said until late became later and then later and very late and finally to go to bed with my ear warm and worn and red from holding the phone close close close so as not to miss a word of what it was, because who cared how tired I was in the humdrum slave drive of our days without each other. I'd ruin any day, all my days, for those long nights with you, and I did. But that's why right there it was doomed. We couldn't only have the magic nights buzzing through the wires. We had to have the days, too, the bright impatient days spoiling everything with their unavoidable schedules, their mandatory times that don't overlap, their loyal friends who don't get along, the unforgiven travesties torn from the wall no matter what promises are uttered past midnight, and that's why we broke up. — Daniel Handler

And there she went, spoiling a moment. As usual. — Harlem Dae

You're Ma's own blood son, but did she take on that time Tony Fontaine shot you in the leg? No, she just sent for old Doc Fontaine to dress it and asked the doctor what ailed Tony's aim. Said she guessed the licker was spoiling his marksmanship. — Margaret Mitchell

The winter seemed reluctant to let go its bite. It hung on cold and wet and windy long after its time. And people repeated, It's those damned big guns they're shooting off in France
spoiling the weather in the whole world. — John Steinbeck

Chefs don't use white pepper just to avoid spoiling the whiteness of pommes puree or bechamel. It has a more peppery aroma, with sharpness and sweetness, too. — Yotam Ottolenghi

The oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it. — Aldo Leopold

We absolutely have to restrain concentrations of wealth in industry from spoiling the situation for everybody. — William Weld

As if etiquette weren't magnificently capable of being used to make others feel uncomfortable. All right. Miss Manners will give you an example, although you are spoiling her Queen Victoria mood: If you are rude to your ex-husband's new wife at your daughter's wedding, you will make her feel smug. Comfortable. If you are charming and polite, you will make her feel uncomfortable. Which do you want to do? On — Judith Martin

He was so full of wrath against grown-ups, who as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in the Neverland, that everytime you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter was killing them of vindictively as fast as possible. — J.M. Barrie

Jack was too absorbed in his work to hear the bell. He was mesmerized by the challenge of making soft, round shapes of hard rock. The stone had a will of its own, and if he tried to make it do something it did not want to do, it would fight him, and his chisel would slip, or dig in too deeply, spoiling the shapes. But once he had got to know the lump of rock in front of him he could transform it. The more difficult the task, the more fascinated he was. He was beginning to feel that the decorative carving demanded by Tom was too easy. Zigzags, lozenges, dogtooth, spirals and plain roll moldings bored him, and even these leaves were rather stiff and repetitive. He wanted to curve natural-looking foliage, pliable and irregular, and copy the different shapes of real leaves, oak and ash and birch. — Ken Follett

'Not spoiling' a child means trying to break that child's spirit. — Dorothy Rowe

Ysteries I read for fun, so I will probably never write one, for fear of spoiling the fun. — Fred Saberhagen

Tea is a work of art and needs a master hand to bring out its noblest qualities. We have good and bad tea, as we have good and bad paintings - generally the latter. There is no single recipe for making the perfect tea, as there are no rules for producing a Titian or a Sesson. Each preparation of the leaves has its individuality, its special affinity with water and heat, its own method of telling a story. The truly beautiful must always be in it. How much do we not suffer through the constant failure of society to recognise this simple and fundamental law of art and life; Lichilai, a Sung poet, has sadly remarked that there were three most deplorable things in the world: the spoiling of fine youths through false education, the degradation of fine art through vulgar admiration, and the utter waste of fine tea through incompetent manipulation. — Okakura Kakuzo

Animals don't behave like men,' he said. 'If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don't sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures' lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality. — Richard Adams

I have to admit I wasn't to keen on this idea when you first told me you were going out at midnight to see him, but I guess maybe I was wrong ... Have you guys?
God, Karen. I rolled my eyes.
Oh well, let's not hope that's not the killer in the relationship since he sounds perfect in every other way.
Wow, thanks for spoiling it nerd. — Karice Bolton

Childhood is for spoiling adulthood. — Bill Watterson

Ah! These commercial interests
spoiling the finest life under the sun. Why must the sea be used for trade
and for war as well? ... It would have been so much nicer just to sail about, with here and there a port and a bit of land to stretch one's legs on, buy a few books and get a change of cooking for a while. — Joseph Conrad

For the rest of the earth's organisms, existence is relatively uncomplicated. Their lives are about three things: survival, reproduction, death - and nothing else. But we know too much to content ourselves with surviving, reproducing, dying - and nothing else. We know we are alive and know we will die. We also know we will suffer during our lives before suffering - slowly or quickly - as we draw near to death. This is the knowledge we "enjoy" as the most intelligent organisms to gush from the womb of nature. And being so, we feel shortchanged if there is nothing else for us than to survive, reproduce, and die. We want there to be more to it than that, or to think there is. This is the tragedy: Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are - hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones. — Thomas Ligotti

In Britain, the press want to kill a show by revealing what's coming up and spoiling the pleasure. — Hugh Bonneville

We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and, perhaps enmities where you may have occasion for friendship. I had caught it by reading my father's books of dispute about religion. Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinborough. — Benjamin Franklin

Life has ways of getting under your skin, spoiling your fun with too much information. Youth is truly the happiest time where we roll in the bliss of ignorance. — Mark Lawrence

Try approving of yourself just as you are, and spoiling yourself rotten with small kid's pleasures. — Julia Cameron

I put my hand over my erection and turned away. "No. That's not for you. I have to go to the bathroom." "Well get up! I have a whole day of birthday activities planned and you're spoiling my fun with your sleeping ... and your pee boner." I laughed. "I hate it when you call it that." "Yeah? Well I hate that I can't play with it. Why the hell is it so hard if I'm not supposed to play with it? That's false advertising, Mister. — C.J. Roberts

And what do the Theban hoplites see in this extended rending of the sky, this white-bright glory of Enlil's lightning? The future, but not theirs: paired cavalry fighters; formed ranks of armored death; grim men on their tall horses with lightning limning weapons tailored to the task; men spoiling for a fight if the gods allowed - the Sacred Band of Stepsons, out from shadows and the dark. — Janet Morris

It was everything, those nights on the phone, everything we said until late became later & then later & very late & finally to go to bed with my ear warm & worn & red from holding the phone close, close, close so as not to miss a word of what it was, because who cared how tired I was in the humdrum slave drive of our days without each other? I'd ruin any day, all my days, for those long nights with you & I did. But that's why right there it was doomed. We couldn't only have the magic nights buzzing through the wires. We had to have the days, too, the bright impatient days spoiling everything with their unavoidable schedules, their mandatory times that don't overlap, their loyal friends who don't get along, the unforgiven travesties torn from the wall no matter what promises are uttered past midnight & that's why we broke up. — Daniel Handler

I imagine the proverb about too many cooks spoiling the broth can be applied to writing as well as anything else. The poetical or literary broth is better cooked by one person. — Barbara Pym

Don't spoil kids by trying to buy them off, to buy their time. Kids aren't stupid. They know a bribe when they see one. They want a parent not a payoff. — Carew Papritz

This is the crux of the moral pessimists: if they really wanted to promote their neighbor's redemption, then they would have to resolve themselves to spoiling existence for him, and thus to being his misfortune; out of pity, they would have to
become evil! — Friedrich Nietzsche

My husband is like, "Oh, thank God we didn't have a boy, because there's this train set that I've always wanted, and these Star Wars spaceships ... " They say, "Don't spoil your kids," but it's one thing spoiling your kids, it's another thing spoiling yourself. — Milla Jovovich

I'm in the countryside outside of Paris, in a beautiful old manor house. The studio is in the basement, but we decided to set everything up in the old parlor and dining-room area so we can look at each other and (at) the sunshine coming through the stained-glass windows. It's pretty idyllic, and I think it's spoiling me. I'll have to go back to regular life after this. — Feist

a happy child grows up to be a happy adult. When I was growing up, spoiling a child meant ruining a child. If something was spoiled, it either went down the drain or was tossed into the rubbish. These days, however, parents pat themselves on the back because their children want for nothing. Wanting is good. If you want for nothing, then you have no goals. And if you have no goals, you have no life, no drive, and no ambitions. Chances are, if today's children don't inherit a lot of money from their parents, they'll grow up and live off the welfare system. — Jamie Eubanks

To me, a cat is an easy pet, they don't need any spoiling or looking after. — Karl Pilkington

You people keep spoiling my plans. First Wizard Suliman would not come near the Waste, so that I had to threaten Princess Valeria in order to make the King order him out here. Then, when he came, he grew trees. — Diana Wynne Jones

The surest way of spoiling a pleasure [is] to start examining your satisfaction. — C.S. Lewis

I remember while I was at school some of my Muslim friends talked about a handful of people spoiling things in every culture. Hatred or hurt or pain isn't specific to a religion. I think it's a matter of acceptance. The one thing the world has to accept is everybody is different. What is normal to us is different and unusual to somebody else. — Jessie J.

Don't keep repeating, 'I'm going to do it.' Your soul already knows it. Obsession will not help you in search for your goal, and will end up spoiling the pleasure of the climb. — Paulo Coelho

Sometimes caring feels like spoiling. Gratitude evens things out. — Cynthia Ruchti

The last dregs of winter spoiling the taste of everything. — Katherine Paterson

Real crazy is about taking something good and spoiling it. — Stephanie Kuehn

Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony. — Horace Walpole

All that day it seemed to her as though she were acting in a theater with actors cleverer than she, and that her bad acting was spoiling the whole performance. She had come with the intention of staying two days, if all went well. But in the evening, during the game, she made up her mind that she would go home next day. — Leo Tolstoy

I think women should have choices and should be able to do what they like, and I think it's a great choice to stay at home and raise kids, just as it's a great choice to have a career. But I don't entirely approve of people who get advanced degrees and then decide to stay at home. I think if society gives you the gift of one of those educations and you take a spot in a very competitive institution, then you should do something with that education to help others ... But I also don't approve of working parents who look down on stay-at-home mothers and think they smother their children. Working parents are every bit as capable of spoiling children as ones who don't work - maybe even more so when they indulge their kids out of guilt. The best think anyone can teach their children is the obligation we all have toward each other - and no one has a monopoly on teaching that. — Will Schwalbe

And priests dare babble of a God of peace,
Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood,
Murdering the while, uprooting every germ
Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all,
Making the earth a slaughter - house! — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Women work a good many miracles and I have a persuasion that they may preform even that of raising the standard of manhood by refusing to echo such sayings. Let the boys be boys the longer the better and let the young men sew their wild oats if they must, but mothers, sisters and friends may help to make the crop a small one and keep many tares from spoiling the harvest by believing and showing that they believe in the possibility of loyalty to the virtues which make men manliest in good women's eyes. — Louisa May Alcott

By afflictions God is spoiling us of what otherwise might have spoiled us. When he makes the world too hot for us to hold, we let it go. — John Powell

I don't care what they say, we are only to love those who deserve our love and love them to the degree that they deserve it! You see, we are not God. Only God can love people undeserving without spoiling them. Us, on the other hand, can love someone so undeserving, and actually turn the person into someone so vile who is convinced that they were always entitled to every bit of it! Mamma mia! And what about giving? Yes, they all want us to give and expect nothing in return, they all have many scriptures to lay on our tables when it is they who are at the receiving end! But when the tables are turned and we are the ones at the receiving end, suddenly all the scriptures mean something else! And all the times they were on our end and we gave to them- suddenly are all forgotten! — C. JoyBell C.

God has given the great power to parents and teachers.They have a great power of creating and spoiling to a human being.They can make a child or they can spoil a child. Isn't right? — Kusum Manjeshri

Enjoyment always has a spoiling, otherwise it cannot be so. — John Donne

Annabelle gave him a chiding smile. "If you're implying that I'm spoiled, I assure you that I am not."
"You should be." His warm gaze slid over her pink-tinted face and slender upper body, then sought hers again. There was a note in his voice that gently robbed her of breath. "You could do with a bit of spoiling. — Lisa Kleypas

I would have been completely brainwashed by this lopsided and racist view of the world if it weren't for my father. He was a deep thinker and an irrepressible problem solver. He was a Black Socrates, asking why and then spoiling ready-made replies. — Walter Mosley

Empathising with the younger children on whom the same confidence trick was being imposed, I embarked on a crusade around the neighbourhood, telling all the kids that there was no Santa Claus. This reached the ears of the father of a neighbouring family, who reproved me for spoiling it for the little ones. Spoiling it! I could not understand what he meant. To my mind, they were being made fools of, and I was only saving them from this indignity. — Barbara Smoker

If Satan has blinded and bound men and women, how can we ever see souls saved? This is where you and I enter the picture. Spoiling the goods of the strong man has to do with liberating those whom Satan has blinded and is keeping bound ... This is where prayer comes in. — Theodore Epp

Why do you do up your hair in those tortured plaits, now, Melanie? Why?
Because, she said.
You know that's no answer. You're spoiling your pretty looks, pet. Come here.
She did not move. He ground out his cigarette on the window-ledge and laughed.
Come here, he said again, softly.
So she went. — Angela Carter

There are other ways I think of myself as spoiling myself ... I ... get a massage once a week. Other people can, I didn't used to, and I can now. — Steve Ballmer