Stand Back Quotes & Sayings

Draw every bad word you've ever called yourself on your body. Stand in the shower and pay attention to the way the words turn back into ink and disappear down the drain. — Iain S. Thomas

Even for the very clever it can be like breaking bones to stand back from something that's been in front of you all your life. — Paul Hoffman

A farmer's work is more like that of a horse trainer than a mechanic, more like that of a healer than a computer repairperson. It is not really accurate to say that farmers grow food or raise animals. Farmers alter environmental conditions in such a way as to maximize a plant's or an animal's innate ability to do its own growing -- in the same way that the best horse trainers seek to draw out abilities already within their horses or in the way the best healers know when to stand back and let their patients' bodies do the work. There is mystery in farming. — Ben Hartman

Blood stopped binding us the instant he came at my throat. If this thing is stalking me because of him, then I'm more than ready to slash his throat and laugh while he bleeds to death at my feet. Give me the knife and stand back. (Aiden) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

A word about Hope House: there are places in the world where so many desperate people have lived and so many bad things have happened that the places themselves have become desperately bad. They're damp and weird and smell like foot fungus. The windows are never clean, and the linoleum curls up at the edges because it can't stand the floor. Every corner is sprayed with cobwebs and quivering shadows. When you walk into those bad places, you can feel a headache brewing between your eyebrows, a churning in your gut, a cold prickle at the back of your neck. You feel sad and angry and helpless, all at the same time. These bad places seem to hate you but, they also seem to want to keep you there very very much. — Laura Ruby

My God, Sage. Your eyes. How have I never noticed them?"
That uncomfortable feeling was spreading over me again. "What about them?"
"The color," he breathed. "When you stand in the light. They're amazing ... like molten gold. I could paint those ... " He reached toward me but then pulled back. "They're beautiful. You're beautiful. — Richelle Mead

Adversity is a good test of our resiliency, our ability to cope, to stand back up, to recover from misfortune. Adversity is a painful pedagogue. — Charles R. Swindoll

I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, or how lonely the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the soothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the magic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can follow you no more. You have left all that is vulgar and all that is sordid behind you. There stand your noble, silent comrades, waiting in their ranks. Pass your eye down their files. Choose your man. And then you have but to hold up your hand to him and away you go together into dreamland — Arthur Conan Doyle

My stand-up has a lot of performance in it, and I loved doing it so much that, after years, I put the idea of having a show on the back burner. — Cristela Alonzo

We barely know each other, and I'm not a one-night-stand girl."
"I don't want you for one night," he says, fighting for control of his body back. "I want you for every night. — S.A. Wolfe

It was the breeze that made her look up, a change in the texture of the unseen, a change in the texture of her heart. She was ready. Charlotte moved with firm footing around a stand of beech trees and onto a moonbeam path. A pearly, full moon glowed over Red Mountain, burning back the curtains of night. — Rachel Hauck

You strutted back and forth to the window at Fulsham's Custard Stand five times while I was sitting there, eatin' my cone the first time I saw you, 'cause you wanted some of this and got it by swinging your ass in my face. — Kristen Ashley

We are going to do 'Hot Tub' until we die. Every Monday. Then we'll come back and do it as zombies. 'Hot Tub' is very important. What we do is based on our live skills. It's stand-up and sketch and improv; everything we do in 'Hot Tub' is important to our jobs. And every Monday I'm excited to do it. — Kurt Braunohler

I do believe any hero is a person that can be knocked down. A failure isn't a person who gets knocked down; a failure is a person who stays down, and to me, the great heroes take the beating, get knocked down and stand back up again. Perseus is defined as one of the great heroes in literature, so you gotta take that on board. — Sam Worthington

I was left an orphan while I was still a child, and we were very poor. Sometimes I would stand for hours on end in ecstasy outside a baker's shop, gazing with burning desire at the cakes. I would say to myself, 'These are not for me. I shall never be able to eat anything like this.' The Bible brings back these memories. Once again I can see wonderful things, but I know that they are not for me, because I am a Jew. I know that there are Jews who have converted to Christianity in order to marry Romanian girls or to escape anti-Semitic persecution. But I have not yet met a Jew who believes in Jesus. — Richard Wurmbrand

Even now, when I go over to my mother's house and dig out the old tracksuit tops I wore, it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I like to think i am part of a special family. I am no longer connected with the club on a daily basis, but i'm delighted with every win and sad about every defeat. — Steve Perryman

Why me?" I hear his answer in my head before he says it.
"Don't know, honey. But there's a reason for everything." Dad pats my hand. "We'll just have to wait patiently to see what it is."
As i do every time he says that or something like this, I bite back what I'd say if I could reply honestly. I don't believe there's a reason for everything, and having faith doesn't mean I'm blind. I believe people make poor choices. I believed bad things happen to good people. I believe there's evil in the world that I will never understand, but will never stop fighting. If I believe for two seconds that there was a reason behind some of the awful things that occur in this life, I wouldn't be able to stand it. — Tammara Webber

Outside the station of Santa Maria Novella Isabella has to stand aside while a line of prisoners are marched into the terminus by armed Fascist guards. They pass within touching distance of her, carrying bags and bundles. There are old people and some children too. They all seem swamped by their clothes, disembodied by them somehow. Then she catches the eye of Ezra, a young Jewish man who once worked in the arts material shop where she buys most of her pigments and brushes. He is almost at the back of the line. The veins are high and urgent on his hand. His trousers are held up with a dirty piece of string. His cobalt blue eyes hold hers for the barest beat of a moment but some essence of his being conveys itself to her and her blood quickens in sympathy for him. She has the feeling of looking into the eyes of a ghost. — Glenn Haybittle

Six months ago when she first came up with the idea to kill Wilson, back when she was living in Memphis, she'd started going to church again. Since she was spending so much time thinking about sinister things, the least she could do, she reasoned, was to think about God and his love twice a week at church so that she wouldn't become a total sociopath. And rather than kill other people who were stand-ins for the person she really wanted to kill, like serial killers did, she'd be kind and generous to others and hone in on the one who deserved to die. And her plan had worked extremely well. Since she'd started planning to kill Wilson, and then decided to destroy his family instead, she felt no animosity toward anyone but him. Almost none at all! — Elizabeth Stuckey-French

Liberty is a harsh mistress. You cannot pick and choose what you like and dislike about her. Liberty will not change her principles for you, no matter how much you claim to love her. She will stand fast in her demands for total acceptance. If you can't receive her, she will recognize you as a false lover and leave you. And when you hear that door slam, it will take every tear in your eye, every ounce of blood in your veins, and all the nerve in your heart to win her back. — William H. Masters

Friends can be incredible sometimes, but have you ever had a friend that can be really annoying or really mean to you? Friends shouldn't stab you in the back. Have you ever wondered if your friend has ever said stuff about you to their other friends? It gets pretty intimidating sometimes to think about that. What I'm saying is to find your friends that are real. Don't keep the ones that are fake and are just friends with you for what you have. Be strong. Don't take no for an answer. Never back down. Stand up for what you believe in. Friends are great to have, but just be cautious. (: — Austin Mahone

I stand, walk over to him, sit down on his bed, put my arms around him, hug him. He hugs me back strong and I can feel the shame coming through his arms. I am a Criminal and he is a Judge and I am white and he is black, but at this moment none of that matters. He is a man who needs a friends and I can be his friend. — James Frey

The only real failure in life is giving up. On looking back let it stand to our credit in life's balance sheet that at least we tried, and tried hard. — A.G. Street

In my mind, the men and women of NASA are history's modern pioneers. They attempt the impossible, accept failure, and then back to the drawing board while the rest of us stand back and criticize. — Dan Brown

The people's instincts are still right. You see them come to the rescue of someone-a child who falls down a well-hundreds of people rush to help, and labor and equipment are volunteered without any thought of who's going to pay for it. This is a basic feeling in Americans. They don't stand back in such a circumstance and ask what the government's going to do about it. — Ronald Reagan

For a second we just stand there in silence. Then, suddenly, Alex is back,
easy and smiling again. "I left a note for you one time. In the Governor's fist, you
know?"
I left a note for you one time. It's impossible, too crazy to think about, and I
hear myself repeating, "You left a note for me?"
"I'm pretty sure it said something stupid. Just hi, and a smiley face, and my
name. But then you stopped coming." He shrugs. "It's probably still there. The
note, I mean. Probably just a bit of paper pulp by now. — Lauren Oliver

Whenever I open a movie, I go secretly to the theater and stand in the back and enjoy the moment. I laugh when people laugh, and when people cry, I laugh. — Lee Byung-hun

When we choose to stay down, we are in reality confusing wisdom with cowardice. When we choose to stand back up, we are using wisdom to overcome cowardice. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

I cannot stand no wack MC.
So step back if you please,
And don't test me, you're history. — Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

I knew it was loads easier to crumble under the weight of grief than it was to stand up with it on your back, but every day you carry it forward you get stronger and stronger, and eventually it doesn't feel as heavy as it once did. — R.S. Grey

My mind flashed back to the Cultural Revolution, when a group of Red Guards pulled our neighbor, Granny Li, out of the opera company's dormitory block and ordered the rest of us to bring out our thermos flasks. We then had to stand and watch as the Red Guards poured ten flasks of boiling water over Granny Li's head. — Ma Jian

I cast a look at where Rhys still remained sprawled on the cushions, watching us with raised brows. "For someone who was just dead," I said tightly, "you seem remarkably relaxed."

Rhys smirked. "I'm glad you're bouncing back to your usual spirits, Feyre darling."

Drakon snorted, and took my hands, squeezing them as tightly as his mate had. "What he doesn't want to tell you, my lady, is that he's so damn old he can't stand up right now."

I whirled to Rhys. "Are you - "

"Fine, fine," Rhys said, waving a hand, even as he groaned a bit. "Though perhaps now you see why I didn't bother visiting these two for so long. They're terribly cruel to me. — Sarah J. Maas

The book is called 'Thanks for Nothing' and it's really the story of how I got into comedy and traces back every strand in my life that is relevant to that story. It's kind of an autobiography but isn't, as it stops about 25 years ago. It goes right up to the first time I do stand up. — Jack Dee

It occurred to her, sadly, and not for the first time, that as you grew older you became busier, and time went faster and faster, the months pushing each other rudely out of the way, and the years slipping off the calendar and into the past. Once, there had been time. Time to stand, or sit, and just look at daffodils. Or to abandon housekeeping, on the spur of the moment, walk out of the back door and up the hill, into the lark-song emptiness of a summer morning. — Rosamunde Pilcher

I also want to return to doing stand-up. I've become frightened of live audiences. This is a really telling sign that I need to go back on the comedy circuit again. — Johnny Vegas

Woman in heels stands a statistical likelihood of ending her evening with her shoes in her handbag, barefoot and demanding a piggyback to the taxi stand in order to "keep her tights clean." Men are invariably the pig whose back is called for. — Caitlin Moran

I just couldn't stand it any more back in Bes Pelargic,' Twoflower went on blithely, 'sitting at a desk all day, just adding up columns of figures, just a pension to look forward to at the end of it ... where's the romance in that? Twoflower, I thought, it's now or never. You don't just have to listen to stories. You can go there. Now's the time to stop hanging around the docks listening to sailors' tales. — Terry Pratchett

When I look back upon my own religious experience," says Andrew Murray, "or round upon the Church of Christ in the world, I stand amazed at the thought of how little humility is sought after as the distinguishing feature of the discipleship of Jesus. In preaching and living, in the daily intercourse of the home and social life, in the more special fellowship with Christians, in the direction and performance of work for Christ - alas! how much proof there is that humility is not esteemed the cardinal virtue, the only root from which the graces can grow, the one indispensable condition of true fellowship with Jesus. — D.L. Moody

I don't feel that electronic music has to stand on the back of urban artists or anyone else to be recognized. It's great music. — Kaskade

And I declare myself free
from ignorant love. You easy lovers
and forgivers of mankind, stand back!
I will love you at a distance,
and not because you deserve it.
My love must be descriminate
or fail to bear its weight. — Wendell Berry

I can remember back to my early tour days when some fellows didn't think I'd last too long. Nothing physical - they said it was my swing. Some said it was too much of a 'muscle swing' to stand the test of time. One fellow predicted I wouldn't get past 30 out there. — Arnold Palmer

Over and over, I ran at the sea, beating it until I was so tired I could barely stand. And then the next time I fell down, I just lay there and let the waves wash over me, and I wondered what would happen if I stopped trying to get back up. Just let my body go. Would I be washed out to sea? The sharks would eat my limbs and organs. Little fish would feed on my fingertips. My beautiful white bones would fall to the bottom of the ocean, where anemones would grow upon them like flowers. Pearls would rest in my eye sockets. — Ruth Ozeki

I believe that answers your questions," Sheriff Heath said, returning to his seat.
A brawny Italian man in the back of the room said, "No, sir, I didn't get an answer to my question about marriage proposals."
I jumped up before Sheriff Heath could. These reporters needed to see that I could speak for myself. "The presence or absence of suitors in the lives of the Kopp sisters has no bearing on this matter," I told them, "and I see no men here today who would stand a chance with any one of us. — Amy Stewart

It's very rare to see an undisturbed birth in a modern U.S. teaching hospital, but when you see a woman who isn't frightened, who's giving birth without interference, you stand back in awe and realize how little needed you are except in the rare circumstance. — Ina May Gaskin

Layla had always just been there. In my life. I wasn't sure who said, 'hi,' first, or maybe who smiled at who first - all I really remembered was staring at her, and her staring back at me, neither of us looking away. Both of us standing frozen, and life falling into the background with a distant hum. As if the world had stopped spinning. Just for us.
I remembered not caring if it had. She'd seemed so familiar, and even as a little kid, I'd known she was special. Like something bigger than me, older than me, had taken over my emotions in a way I didn't understand. She just felt like ... home.
I could have gazed into her eyes forever. Happy to stand in that powerless state for the rest of my life — Laney McMann

There's no escape, flashes may blind me, can't pull away I'll get sucked back in. It's my life, where I must stand, it's who I am. — Paul Travis

Not the first time. I didn't think my heart could stand it. But the airplane is a wonderful thing. You are still in one place when you arrive at the other. The airplane is faster than the heart. You arrive quickly and you leave quickly. You don't grieve too much. And there is something else about the airplane. You can go back many times to the same place. And something strange happens if you go back often enough. You stop grieving for the past. You see that the past is something in your mind alone, that it doesn't exist in real life. You trample on the past, you crush it. In the beginning it is like trampling on a garden. In the end you are just walking on ground. That is the way we have to learn to live now. The past is here." He touched his heart. "It isn't there." And he pointed at the dusty road. I — V.S. Naipaul

In a moment of panic, he reached back and grasped the large punch bowl, still three quarters full of bright red juice and an assortment of fruit slices. He lifted it above his head and threatened the growing crowd.

"Stand back," he said. "I will splash you all. — Christopher Meades

Well I won't back down
No I won't back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won't back down — Tom Petty

I'm glad I found you," Kane said quietly, stepping back as Avery stood.
"I think it was more like me finding you, handsome." For Kane, the sentimental memories were so strong; all he could do was stand there as they held their babies, thinking about their lives, their future,and his love for Avery.
"I can't imagine my life without you," Kane proclaimed sweetly.
"Good. I don't want you to. — Kindle Alexander

It is what it is...life. It goes on when we don't want it to. It moves forward when all you want to do is stand still or turn back. — Joann Buchanan

Why?" she asked softly. "You don't even like me, Steele. You can barely stand to be in my presence." He pulled her back close, trapping her in his arms, his gaze boring into hers. "Why do you think that is, Maren? You're an intelligent woman. You saw the hard-on I had for you earlier. Put two and two together and I bet you'll find your answer." "You're attracted to me," she whispered. — Maya Banks

SAPPHIRE AND DIAMONDS

When I look up at Heaven,
I see the souls of those who died
Beaming down at me,
Wanting to scream: "I'm still alive!",
Wishing to scribble across the sapphire sky -
Letters to their loved ones,
But a million dark oceans stand between us,
Between those who passed and the living,
Between those of us still stuck below,
And those who have crossed over the threshold of time -
Where what seems like eternity
Is really only a few minutes.
So you see, there is no reason to weep over the shining ones -
For even though the space that separates us is limitless,
The wall of time that divides us is only paper-thin.
And one day, we shall all reunite with them,
When our souls are released like fish
Back into the vast shimmering sea
To shine together like
Glittering diamonds. — Suzy Kassem

Like the ideals of freedom and democracy, the right to stand one's ground was held to be an exclusively white prerogative. Even when threatened by a mob, black people were to back down or submit - never to stand up for themselves. — Charles E. Cobb Jr.

We can make these changes if we are willing to unite and stand together. The road to a sustainable future is clear, and the technologies are ready and cost-efficient. The only thing holding us back is the lack of political will. And with the crisis at hand, this is no excuse for failing to fight for the future we want for generations to come. We must move forward fearlessly to build a mass movement with the political power necessary to create a truly sustainable energy future. We must do this - it's a matter of life and death. — Wenonah Hauter

Good art can come out of thieves, bootleggers, or horse swipes. People really are afraid to find out just how much hardship and poverty they can stand. They are afraid to find out how tough they are. Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death. Good ones don't have time to bother with success or getting rich. Success is feminine and like a woman; if you cringe before her, she will override you. So the way to treat her is to show her the back of your hand. Then maybe she will do the crawling. — William Faulkner

Make each feature work hard to be implemented. Make each feature prove itself and show that it's a survivor. It's like "Fight Club". You should only consider features if they're willing to stand on the porch for three days waiting to be let in.
That's why you start with no. Every feature request that comes in to us - or from us - meets a no. We listen but don't act. The initial response is "not now". If a request for a feature keeps coming back, that's when we know it's time to take a deeper look. Then, and only then, do we start considering the feature for real. — 37 Signals

Finally, one day, I couldn't stand it anymore: I walked into the kitchen, laid my head on the table, and asked my father, "How are we supposed to live every day if we know we're going to die?" He looked at me, clearly pained by the dawning of my genetically predestined morbidity. He had been the same way as a kid. A day never went by where he didn't think about his eventual demise. He sighed, leaned back in his chair, unable to conjure a comforting answer. "You just do. — Lena Dunham

I've chosen a life that's so different from everybody else's that it cuts me off from them. Practically everybody I know treats me like a guest celebrity. Of course it's my own fault. I feel so damn alone sometimes, I feel like I could just float away into the stratosphere and everybody would stand there looking up at me and not one would haul me back down to earth. No ropes. — Jordan Mechner

And I tell you what, L.J.; you see all these people you haven't seen for twenty years, and there's this split second when you meet somebody you used to know, and you think 'My God, he's changed!,'and then all of a sudden, he hasn't- it's just like the twenty years weren't there, I mean" he rubbed his head vigorously, struggling for meaning
"you see they've got some gray, and some lines, and maybe they aren't just the same as they were, but two minutes past that shock, and you don't see it anymore. They are just the same people they always were, and you have to make yourself stand back a ways to see that they aren't eighteen anymore — Diana Gabaldon

I stand back from him. I don't understand. You've seen parts of me that are not perfect, and you still love me? — Liza Palmer

anymore, just reacting. Suddenly the beating stopped and hands were grabbing at his legs. He kicked back at them, but it was no use. He simply wasn't strong enough. When they pulled him out from under the coal car, one of the Jap sergeants was standing there with a pistol in his hand. Gar figured this was it and, at that juncture, almost didn't care. The other prisoners had stopped working when Gar had cold-cocked the little Jap. The sergeant said something to Gar in Japanese. One of the Brits, who apparently understood, told Gar to stand — P.T. Deutermann

I am very much out of my element here. There are moments, listening to the conversations going on around me, when I feel I am going to lose my mind. Earlier today, I heard someone say the words, "I felt at one with the divine source of creation." Mary Roach on a conducted tour of Hades. I had to fight the urge to push back my chair and start screaming: STAND BACK! ALL OF YOU! I'VE GOT AN ARTHUR FINDLAY BOX CUTTER! Instead, I quietly excused myself and went to the bar, to commune with spirits I know how to relate to. — Mary Roach

I really want women to throw their shoulders back and stand up straight and use their big girl voices and not feel like they're compromising their femininity to be strong and smart. — Katie Aselton

What drove me? I think most creative people want to express appreciation for being able to take advantage of the work that's been done by others before us. I didn't invent the language or mathematics I use. I make little of my own food, none of my own clothes. Everything I do depends on other members of our species and the shoulders that we stand on. And a lot of us want to contribute something back to our species and to add something to the flow. It's about trying to express something in the only way that most of us know how-because we can't write Bob Dylan songs or Tom Stoppard plays. We try to use the talents we do have to express our deep feelings, to show our appreciation of all the contributions that came before us, and to add something to that flow. That's what has driven me. — Walter Isaacson

My father was a public figure all my life, and so the presidency was an extension of that. I guess you get used to it, though you can stand back occasionally and think, 'Boy, this is really weird!' — Ron Reagan

And while I'm on the subject, let me say something about Harry Potter. [Gravels her voice.] Warlocks are enemies of God!! [Back to normal screech.] And I don't care what kind of hero they are, they're an enemy of God. And had it been in the Old Testament, Harry Potter woulda been put to death! [Applause.] You don't make heroes out of warlocks. This is the generation that's gonna stand for purity, an' righteousnesss, an' holiness, an' you're gonna serve the lord all the days of your life. — Becky Fischer

Lily's smile was widest of all. She pushed her long hair back as she drew close to him, and her green eyes, so like his, searched his face hungrily, as though she would never be able to look at him enough.
"You've been so brave."
He could not speak. His eyes feasted on her, and he thought that he would like to stand and look at her forever, and that would be enough. — J.K. Rowling

We shall not lie on our backs at the Red Castle and watch the vultures wheeling over the valley where they killed the grandson of Genghiz. We will not read Babur's memoirs in his garden at Istalif and see the blind man smelling his way around the rose bushes. Or sit in the Peace of Islam with the beggars of Gazar Gagh. We will not stand on the Buddha's head at Bamiyan, upright in his niche like a whale in a dry-dock. We will not sleep in the nomad tent, or scale the Minaret of Jam. And we shall lose the tastes - the hot, coarse, bitter bread; the green tea flavoured with cardamoms; the grapes we cooled in the snow-melt; and the nuts and dried mulberries we munched for altitude sickness. Nor shall we get back the smell of the beanfields, the sweet, resinous smell of deodar wood burning, or the whiff of a snow leopard at 14,000 feet. — Bruce Chatwin

If you are not drawing fire from both Pharisees and Sadducees, you are probably saying something other than what Jesus said. And if your message is not drawing both tax collectors (Roman collaborators) and zealots (anti-Roman insurrectionists) to repentance, you are probably speaking with a different voice than does he. Jesus wasn't inconsistent. He saw the Roman Empire, despite all its pretensions to preeminence both in its own mind and in the mind of its opponents, as a temporary obstacle, not the defining point of his agenda. We stand and we speak, with reconciliation in view. We see, therefore, even our most passionate critic not as an argument to be vaporized but as a neighbor to be evangelized. This doesn't mean that we back down one iota from the truth. But we proclaim the whole gospel of truth and grace, never backing down from either. That means taking seriously the arguments of our opponents, not merely caricatures of those arguments. — Russell D. Moore

I blame Doctor Who. Mr Spock. The Scooby Gang: both the ones in the Mystery Machine and the ones with the stakes. I've spent my life with stories of people who don't walk away, who go back for their friends, who make that last stand. I've been brainwashed by Samwise Gamgee. — Andrea K. Host

Do you think that I or anybody else who cares about the NHS would stand by and do nothing if we thought the NHS was going to be privatised in Scotland and its funds were going to be cut? Would we stand back and do nothing without a fight? Of course not. — Gordon Brown

Instead I just stand there, tears running down my cheeks in nameless emotion that tastes of joy and of grief. Joy for the being of the shimmering world and grief for what we have lost. The grasses remember the nights they were consumed by fire, lighting the way back with a conflagration of love between species. Who today even knows what that means? I drop to my knees in the grass and I can hear the sadness, as if the land itself was crying for its people: Come home. Come home.
There are often other walkers here. I suppose that's what it means when they put down the camera and stand on the headland, straining to hear above the wind with that wistful look, the gaze out to sea. They look like they're trying to remember what it would be like to love the world. — Robin Wall Kimmerer

God has sovereignly pulled back the curtain on His glory. He has disclosed Himself on the platform of both creation and redemption that we might stand awestruck in His presence, beholding the sweet symmetry of His attributes, pondering the unfathomable depths of His greatness, baffled by the wisdom of His deeds and the limitless extent of His goodness. This is His beauty. — Sam Storms

I was brought up on choirs and brass bands. They formed the music of my childhood. When I heard the Treorchy Male Choir at the Royal Variety Performance it brought back such happy memories. You have your own eminent place in the history of British music. You stand for excellence in a great tradition and your work for charity is both an example and an inspiration. — Michael Parkinson

Only in our darkest hour do we find the light. Humans are destructive by nature. The world is lacking balance. Terrors are beginning to triumph over the simple joys. Stand back and watch, because you're going to be here when we fall. — Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

I try to travel as light as possible to avoid baggage issues. Los Angeles airport is notorious for baggage delays, so I'll often FedEx a suitcase ahead or back so I don't need to stand around; it also minimises problems at check-in. — Kyle MacLachlan

Jesus Christ became Incarnate for one purpose, to make a way back to God that man might stand before Him as He was created to do, the friend and lover of God Himself. — Oswald Chambers

Back to what? A guy who bails on you when you need him? What's Dane doing now that's more important than helping you? Fighting for the rights of endangered ferns?"
I stiffened and pushed away from him, irritation jolting me out of my fugue-state. "You have no right to judge Dane or my relationship with him."
Jack made a scoffing sound. "That half-assed excuse for a relationship was over the moment Dane told you not to bring the baby to Austin. You know what he should have said? ... 'Hell, yes, Ella, I'll stand by you no matter what you do. Shit happens. We'll make it work. Come home now and get in bed. — Lisa Kleypas

"If it's a outside deal, how will I get my kids back?" Kit asked. "The Cabals have them."
Chloe and Derek's heads both whipped Kit's way.
"You're considering this?" Chloe said.
"I can get them," Dr. Inglis said. "We'll take Corey now, as a gesture of good faith from you. Then I will take Daniel for your son and Maya for your daughter."
"Dad?" Derek said.
Kit didn't answer him. He didn't even look over.
Chloe looked from us to Kit, her blue eyes wide. "Y-you c-can't - "
Derek leaped to his feet. "I won't let you do this, Dad. These kids came to you for help."
I gaped at Derek. Even Chloe looked confused. I might have known the guy for less than twenty-four hours, but short of demonic possession, I couldn't imagine him saying that. — Kelley Armstrong

When she tried to put the nozzle back onto the pump, it kept falling off because her hands were shaking. She didn't feel anything at all, but she couldn't get her hands to stop shaking. By the time she looked up, Troy was already gone. He had gotten into his car (white sedan, broken taillight) and pulled away without looking at her once. She forced herself to stand very still and breathe slowly until her hands stopped shaking. Once they were steady, she put the nozzle back onto the pump, deliberately opened her car door, and drove away at a reasonable speed. The entire time she felt fine. — Joseph Fink

Enzo's eyes flick back to me. He does not ask if I will be okay. His silent approval makes me stand taller. — Marie Lu

Why do I need TV when I have forty-eight apartment windows to watch across the vacant lot, and a sliver of Lake Erie? I've seen history out this window. So much. I was four when we moved here in 1919. The fruit-sellers' carts and coal wagons were pulled down the street by horses back then. I used to stand just here and watch the coal brought up by the handsome lad from Groza, the village my parents were born in. Gibb Street was mainly Rumanians back then. It was "Adio" - "Good-bye"- in all the shops when you left. Then the Rumanians started leaving. They weren't the first, or the last. This has always been a working-class neighborhood. It's like a cheap hotel - you stay until you've got enough money to leave. — Paul Fleischman

Stu stops munching, looks up at me from under his shaggy hair.
"So, can you read?" He slides a section toward me.
I cock my head toward the paper. The letters are small, blurry drawings. The alphabet might as well be Chinese or Arabic. Strange that I can't read or speak, though I still have language inside my head. Words are a consolation, but not a tool.
"Guess not. You want me to read stuff out loud to you?"
I would, but not right now. If I wanted to show interest in the newspaper I could cross the table and rub against his shoulder. Instead I gaze at him over the bowl of milk.
"It's so weird," he says in a hesitant voice. "You don't look like a cat. When you stare at me, you look like Eliza."
That's the nicest thing he could have said. With a happy lightness to my step I move between the bowls, over his napkin ring and spoon, until I stand on the edge of the table and nip at his prickly chin. This is my way of saying: Hi, there. I like you. — Simone Martel

Sometimes a cloudless swatch of sky would blow past the moon, and Pella could see the outline of Mike's face in a slightly sharper relief. It was strange the way he loved her: a sidelong and almost casual love, as if loving her were simply a matter of course, too natural to mention. Like their first meeting on the steps of the gym, when he'd hardly so much as glanced at her. With David and every guy before David, what passed for love had always been eye to eye, nose to nose; she felt watched, observed, like the prize at the zoo, and she wound up pacing, preening, watching back, to fit the part. Whereas Mike was always beside her. She would stand at the kitchen window and look out at the quad, at the Melville statue and beyond that the beach and the rolling lake, and realize that Make, for however long, had been standing beside her, staring at the same thing. — Chad Harbach

This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek. — Terry Tempest Williams

No one - not a conservative or liberal or whatever - can stand back and 'define' what marriage means. Other people's marriages have nothing to do with mine; whether my neighbors are divorced or gay or widowed will not lead me to change anything about how my wife and I deal with each other or how we raise our children. — Kurt Eichenwald

I started getting tattoos, and the hair would grow back out and grow over a nice piece of artwork that I really wanted to show, and it just became one of those things. I can't stand the hair on my body. I just wanted it gone. It's just a better feeling for me. — Ryan Sheckler

Every great loss demands that we choose life again. We need to grieve in order to do this. The pain we have not grieved over will always stand between us and life. When we don't grieve, a part of us becomes caught in the past like Lot's wife who, because she looked back, was turned into a pillar of salt. — Rachel Naomi Remen

Because sometimes in life, you just have to stand there and do nothing. Overwhelmed by all the versions of ourselves that exist in our minds - who we want to be, who we should be, who we're not, and who we are - it's a jungle that can ensnare your feet and confuse your eyes. But sometimes if you stand still, all those things will snap back into place like a rubber band. And if you can get past the sting, you can keep moving, not quite whole, but held together for the moment. — Cora Carmack

Baby smuggling is a serious crime,' he said. 'There were thirty-six babies on that plane. We could charge you with thirty-six counts of kidnapping.'
That, at least, got Second to look back at Mr. Reardon.
'Does FBI mean Federal Bureau of Idiots?' he asked. 'If any of you were any good at analyzing footprints, you would know that I fell when I was trying to sneak into the airport grounds, not out.'
'And why would you do that?' Mr. Reardon asked, hunching forward over a notepad.
'It was a dare, all right?' Second snarled. 'I was with my friends and we were talking about what it would be like to stand on a runway when a plane was landing and ... we decided to try it out.'
'That's a crime too,' Mr. Reardon said.
Second shrugged. 'It ain't thirty-six counts of kidnapping,' he said. — Margaret Peterson Haddix

But we are not going to stand by and go back to allowing people with preexisting conditions to be discriminated against, go back to the situation where people can be thrown off their insurance simply because they become seriously ill or you can't get on your parents' insurance after the age of 20. — David Axelrod

There'll be moments in life, sweet pea, that stand out in your memories like a photograph. Scenes captured perfectly in your mind, frozen in time with each detail as colorful as it was that first time you saw it. 'Flashbulb memories,' some people call them," she'd told me, her eyes crinkling up and nearly disappearing in a face etched with too many laugh lines to count. "Most people don't recognize those moments as they happen. They look back fifty years later, and realize that those were the most important parts of their entire life. But at the time, they're so busy looking ahead to what's coming down the line or worrying about their future, they don't enjoy their present. Don't be like them, sweet pea. Don't get so caught up in chasing your dreams that you forget to live them. — Julie Johnson

The pallbearers lowered the casket onto a metal stand, then moved to their seats. Thomas, James's brother, slid into the front pew beside Claire, who was dressed in a black suit with her silver hair coiled as tight and rigid as her posture. Phil, James's cousin, moved into the pew to stand on her other side. He turned and looked at me, dipping his head in acknowledgment. I swallowed, inching back until my calves pressed into the wood bench. Claire — Kerry Lonsdale

Why am I the expert all of a sudden?"
"Of the two of us, you have more stalking experience."
He leaned back. "Really?"
"Yes. When you let yourself into my apartment before we were dating, did you fidget while you watched me?"
"Will you let it go?" he growled.
"No."
"I didn't fidget. I checked on you to make sure you hadn't gotten yourself killed. I wanted to know that you weren't dying slowly of your wounds, because you have no sense and half of the time you couldn't afford a medmage. I didn't stand there and watch you. I came in, made sure you were okay, and left. It wasn't creepy."
"It was a little creepy."
"It worked, didn't it?"
"Worked how?"
"You're still alive."
"Yes, of course, take all the credit. — Ilona Andrews

And she leaves. She opens the door and, without a backward glance, goes out and shuts the door. I stand at the window and watch her go. She vanishes in the shadow of a building. Hands resting on the sill, I gaze for the longest time at where she disappeared. Maybe she forgot something she wanted to say and will come back. But she never does. All that's left is an absence that's like a hollow space. — Haruki Murakami

Honest autoethnographic exploration generates a lot of fears and self-doubt and emotional pain. Just when you think you can't stand the pain anymore that's when the real work begins. Then there is the vulnerability of revealing yourself, not being able to take back what you 've written or having any control over how readers interpret your story. — Carolyn Ellis

I want Otter to run back to San Diego and go back to the stupid fucking boyfriend, who Ive never met but cannot stand. — T.J. Klune

Sirius looked out of the fire at Harry, a crease between his sunken eyes.
"You're less like your father than I thought," he said finally, a definite coolness in his voice. "The risk would've been what made it fun for James."
"Look - "
"Well, I'd better get going ... I'll write to tell you a time I can make it back into the fire, then, shall I? If you can stand to risk it?"
There was a tiny pop, and the place where Sirius's head had been was flickering flame once more. — J.K. Rowling

The first thing you do at the end is reflect on the beginning. Maybe it's some form of reverse closure, or just the basic human impulse toward sentimentality, or masochism, but as you stand there shell-shocked in the charred ruins of your life, your mind will invariably go back to the time when it all started. And even if you didn't fall in love in the eighties, in your mind it will fee like the eighties, all innocent and airbrushed, with bright colors and shoulder pads and Pat Benatar or The Cure on the soundtrack. — Jonathan Tropper