Standing By You Quotes & Sayings

Another time, he blew up his house in Bel Air. Someone was doing drugs there and they left the ether open. The fumes are like wavy cartoon lines; they find fire and then the fire follows the fumes back to the source and explodes. When it's going critical, you can hear it go up in a whistle. Sly was back in a corner of his house, in a bathroom, and the ether had drifted from the kitchen. When he lit the pipe, it blew up the part of the house he was in - it was an addition, and it separated from the rest of the structure. When the smoke cleared, the bathroom had fallen clean off. He was standing on the edge of the house as cars drove by. He was standing on a ledge about six inches wide, with the door heading into the kitchen right next to him. He slid back into the house, closed the door, and stayed like that for more than a year. — George Clinton

How did you fall in, Eeyore?" asked Rabbit, as he dried him with Piglet's handkerchief.
"I didn't," said Eeyore.
"But how
"
"I was BOUNCED," said Eeyore.
"Oo," said Roo excitedly, "did somebody push you?"
"Somebody BOUNCED me. I was just thinking by the side of the river
thinking, if any of you know what that means
when I received a loud BOUNCE."
"Oh, Eeyore!" said everybody.
"Are you sure you didn't slip?" asked Rabbit wisely.
"Of course I slipped. If you're standing on the slippery bank of a river, and somebody BOUNCES you loudly from behind, you slip. What did you think I did? — A.A. Milne

Hey," he says.
I feel foolish for being out of breath and standing over him. The moonlight cuts a line down my chest. "Hey," I say.
"Checking on me?"
"I couldn't sleep. Scottie. She's in the bathroom." I stop talking.
"Yeah?" he says and sits up.
"She's playacting." I don't know how to say it. I don't need to say it. "She's kissing the mirror."
"Oh," he says. "I used to do some messed-up things as a kid. Still do."
I feel wide awake, which always makes me angry in the middle of the night. I'm useless without sleep. I can't get myself to go back to my own room. I sit on the end of the bed by his feet. "I'm worried about my daughters," I say. "I'm worried there's something wrong with them."
Sid rubs his eyes.
"Forget it," I say. "Sorry for waking you up."
"It's going to get worse," he says. "After your wife dies." He holds the blanket up to his chin. — Kaui Hart Hemmings

You can't outwit fate by standing on the sidelines placing little sidebets about the outcome of life. either you wade in and risk everything you have to play the game or you don't play at all. and if u don't play u can't win. — Judith McNaught

Never forget that you are a [child] of God. He loves you. Live by your standards. Stand up for what you believe in. Sometimes it is not easy, and you may be standing alone for a while. Look for friends with integrity and character, then go to them and express appreciation for their examples. You might even find someone who has been feeling as lonely as you. Pray for guidance and protection from the Lord. He will sustain you. He will become a trusted friend, and you will discover that your example will attract many friends who will take courage from your strength of character. — W. Craig Zwick

By now, you've probably caught on to something: my mother is always standing by with just the right Scripture or inspirational saying to get me through any tough situation. — Gabby Douglas

When I live in the age of miracles," Allan said, "your mother was the greatest miracles of all. Just by standing near me she made me better than I am. she brought out that in me that makes me best. I'd think, I don't deserve her, and then I'd think again and say, wait, yes I do.Because her mere presence made me become someone who deserved her love. Do you see? — Dexter Palmer

In terms of theatrics and mind-boggling intimacies, the subway cannot be beat - people you see every day and smile at, people who subtly protect each other just by shifting how they're standing, people who compliment each other's outfits, ask where they bought them and for how much. I've seen people meet-cute, make out, and break — Isaac Oliver

There's a long-standing (50 year old) flame war within the field over whether it's "sci-fi" or "SF".SF has traditionally been looked down on by the literary establishment because, to be honest, much early SF was execrably badly written - but these days the significance of the pigeon hole is fading; we have serious mainstream authors writing stuff that is I-can't-believe-it's-not-SF, and SF authors breaking into the mainstream. If you view them as tags that point to shelves in bricks-and-mortar bookshops, how long are these genre categories going to survive in the age of the internet? — Charles Stross

I cannot accept that,' said Uriel. 'The destruction of the Emperor's loyal subjects cannot be right.'
'We cannot always do what is right, Uriel. There is often a great gulf in the difference between the way things are and the way we believe they should be. Sometimes we must learn to accept the things we cannot change.'
'No, lord admiral, I believe we must endeavour to change the things we cannot accept. It is by striving against that which is perceived as wrong that makes a great warrior. The primarch himself said that when a warrior makes peace with his fear and stands against it, he becomes a true hero. For if you do not fear a thing, where is the courage in standing against it? — Graham McNeill

No carelessness in your actions. No confusion in your words. No imprecision in your thoughts. No retreating into your own soul, or trying to escape it. No overactivity. They kill you, cut you with knives, shower you with curses. And that somehow cuts your mind off from clearness, and sanity, and self-control, and justice? A man standing by a spring of clear, sweet water and cursing it. While the fresh water keeps on bubbling up. He can shovel mud into it, or dung, and the stream will carry it away, wash itself clean, remain unstained. To have that. Not a cistern but a perpetual spring. How? By working to win your freedom. Hour by hour. Through patience, honesty, humility. — Marcus Aurelius

I thought you'd be home by now, he said as she neared him. Then he realized how stupid
that comment was since he was standing right in front of her motorcycle.
Der ... He might as well be wearing a sign that said I'm a moron. Please help me remember
where I live. Oh yeah, it's right behind me. -Dev — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I know how strong you are, but even the strongest sword needs a steady hand in battle. I swore to stand by your side, through all life's challenges, and I meant it. I don't care what me father, or anyone else, thinks. I will always be there for you when you need me. I love you, Trevelyan. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Ye gods! But you're not standing around holding it by the hand all this time. No. [ ... ] [T]he dough takes care of itself. [ ... ] While you cannot speed up the process, you can slow it down at any point by setting the dough in a cooler place [ ... ] then continue where you left off, when you are ready to do so. In other words, you are the boss of that dough. — Julia Child

Now we get to the Karma thing: You make yourself so vulnerable by not tipping well or treating people in the service industry with respect. Not only is it wrong to treat another human being like that, but there's a practical consideration: They're standing between you and eating. Without waiters, nothing comes to your table and nothing goes away. Aren't you worried that they'll put rat poison in your food, or at least spit in it? pages 86-87 — Tim Gunn

You're blindly following a tradition that says because women didn't leave behind voluminous records of their thoughts and deeds, then they didn't have any thoughts and deeds - they were just standing on the sidelines while history was made by men. Just because a woman didn't have a vote doesn't mean that she didn't have an informed opinion. It doesn't mean she was incapable of thinking or acting. — Christi Phillips

Are you mad at me too?" My voice sounded dead.
"Mad at you?" He seemed surprised by the question. "No," he finally said. "I'm not mad at you."
But he was still standing there, looking at me in a way I couldn't describe but didn't like. "Then what?"
"I'm scared of you," he said, and left the room. — Michelle Hodkin

How do you become better tomorrow? By improving yourself, the world is made better. Be not afraid of growing too slowly. Be afraid of standing still. Forget your mistakes, but remember what they taught you. So how do you become better tomorrow? By becoming better today. — Benjamin Franklin

But more than that, if you ally yourself with people who are prepared to fight to make a difference, then your life will always be in danger. I don't think it's fair to ever blame the person who makes the stand. Because the Doctor's so old, because he's done this so many times before, he sometimes forgets how dangerous it is. But if he didn't create the danger by opposing evil, if he didn't get these people to help him, then terrible things would happen. Standing up for what's right is always the best thing to do. — Tom MacRae

The guy you're really supposed to be with can be standing right in front of you and you don't even notice because you're too distracted by the one you think you're supposed to be with. — Jessica Brody

It was all a mistake," he pleaded, standing out of his ship, his wife slumped behind him in the deeps of the hold, like a dead woman. "I came to Mars like any honest enterprising businessman. I took some surplus material from a rocket that crashed and I built me the finest little stand you ever saw right there on that land by the crossroads - you know where it is. You've got to admit it's a good job of building." Sam laughed, staring around. "And that Martian - I know he was a friend of yours - came. His death was an accident, I assure you. All I wanted to do was have a hot-dog stand, the only one on Mars, the first and most important one. You understand how it is? I was going to serve the best darned hot dogs there, with chili and onions and orange juice." The — Ray Bradbury

I am tired of hiding and I am tired of lying by omission. I suffered for years because I was scared to be out. My spirit suffered, my mental health suffered and my relationships suffered. And I'm standing here today, with all of you, on the other side of all that pain. — Ellen Page

Aren't the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton ... I could just lie here all day, and watch them drift by ... If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations ... What do you think you see, Linus?"
"Well, those clouds up there look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean ... That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor ... And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen ... I can see the apostle Paul standing there to one side ... "
"Uh huh ... That's very good ... What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?"
"Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind! — Charles M. Schulz

I said, yes, if you think I will avoid bloodshed by standing aside I will stand aside ... but I will never ever again come back. — Kamisese Mara

When I saw him at the cemetry. I didn't even realize I was walking toward him until I was standing in front of him. It was like beging pulled by a string he was controlling. Luring me right to him. Then when we spoke, I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice... he loves me. And not in the 'I love you, I love you,too' kind of way. It's in the 'You're are my person, my lobster, my everything,' and that alone tells me that what we had was true. — M. Robinson

Years ago
I was an angry young man
I'd pretend
that I was a billboard
standing tall
by the side of the road
I fell in love
with the beautiful highway — David Byrne

When I was a child and heard about angels, I was both frightened and fascinated by the thought of these enormous, invisible presences in our midst. I conceived of them not as white-robed androgynes with yellow locks and thick gold wings, which was how my friend Matty Wilson had described them to me
Matty was the predecessor of all sorts of arcane knowledge
but as big, dark, blundering men, massive in their weightlessness, given to pranks and ponderous play, who might knock you over, or break you in half, without meaning to. When a child from Miss Molyneaux's infant school in Carrickdrum fell under the hoofs of a dray-horse one day and was trampled to death, I, a watchful six year old, knew who was to blame; I pictured his guardian angel standing over the child's crushed form with his big hands helplessly extended, not sure whether to be contrite or to laugh. — John Banville

This whole city's a Freudian slip of the tongue, a concrete hard-on for America's deeds and misdeeds. Slavery? Manifest Destiny? Laverne & Shirley? Standing by idly while Germany tried to kill every Jew in Europe? Why some of my best friends are the Museum of African Art, the Holocaust Museum, the Museum of the American Indian, the National Museum of Women in the Arts. And furthermore, I'll have you know, my sister's daughter is married to an orangutan. — Paul Beatty

I am not a member of a racial minority, and I am well aware of the reality that far too many individuals of color are harassed by officers for no good reason, so it is easier for me to give the above advice than for others who have been subject to such harassment. After all, I have never been stopped by a police officer who thought I was riding a bike that looked like it might be too expensive for somebody of my race. And I cannot imagine how frustrating such prejudicial suspicion must be. But you cannot make your situation any better by refusing to cooperate with the officer, no matter how unreasonable you may think the police officer is being, or by refusing to disclose two simple things: (1) your name, and (2) whether you have some lawful reason for your curious presence or conduct at that moment at some place where the officer already knows you are, because he or she is standing right there with you. Those — James Duane

I have changed my mind. You can help cook by standing in a corner and not touching anything. Do it carefully.
-Nick to Jamie — Sarah Rees Brennan

As Charles Stewart Parnell called out during the Irish rent strike campaign in 1879 and 1880:
It is no use relying on the Government ... You must only rely upon your own determination ... Help yourselves by standing together ... strengthen those amongst yourselves who are weak ... , band yourselves together, organize yourselves ... and you must win ...
When you have made this question ripe for settlement,then and not till then will it be settled. — Gene Sharp

All the other religions essentially say, "This is what you have to do to be in right standing with God." Jesus comes to earth and says, "This is what I've freely done for you to put you in right standing with God." Religion says do. Jesus says done. Religion is man searching for God. Jesus is God searching for man. Religion is pursuing God by our moral efforts. Jesus is God pursuing us despite our moral efforts. Religious people kill for what they believe. Jesus followers die for what they believe. — Jefferson Bethke

The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles ... when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones. — Flann O'Brien

You beat 50 percent of the people in America by working hard. You beat 40 percent by being a person of honesty and integrity and standing for something. The last 10 percent is a dogfight in the free enterprise system. — Arthur L. Williams Jr.

Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it. You got to change with it. If a day goes by that don't change some of your old notions for new ones, that is just about like trying to milk a dead cow. — Woody Guthrie

It was quite a wedding and as I stood there watching I realized something I'd forgotten a long time ago. Sometimes in life there really are bonds formed that can never be broken. Sometimes you really can find that one person who will stand by you no matter what. Maybe you will find it in a spouse and celebrate it with your dream wedding. But there's also the chance that the one person you can count on for a lifetime, the one person who knows you sometimes better than you know yourself is the same person who's been standing beside you all along. — Greg DePaul

So do not expect always to get an emotional charge or a feeling of quiet peace when you read the Bible. By the grace of God you may expect that to be a frequent experience, but often you will get no emotional response at all. Let the Word break over your heart and mind again and again as the years go by, and imperceptibly there will come great changes in your attitude and outlook and conduct. You will probably be the last to recognize these. Often you will feel very, very small, because when your eyes close for the last time in death, and never again read the Word of God in Scripture you will open them to the Word of God in the flesh, that same Jesus of the Bible whom you have known for so lng, standing before you to take you for ever to His eternal home. — Geoffrey Thomas

The course of the Rhine below Mainz becomes much more picturesque. The river descends rapidly and winds between hills, not high, but steep, and of beautiful forms. We saw many ruined castles standing on the edges of precipices, surrounded by black woods, high and inaccessible. This part of the Rhine, indeed, presents a singularly variegated landscape. In one spot you view rugged hills, ruined castles overlooking tremendous precipices, with the dark Rhine rushing beneath; and on the sudden turn of a promontory, flourishing vineyards with green sloping banks and a meandering river and populous towns occupy the scene. — Mary Shelley

Jody noticed that the kid was focused on the breasts, which were defying gravity, and apparently death itself, by standing there at complete attention — Christopher Moore

A friend argues that Americans battle between the "historical self" and the "self self." By this she means you mostly interact as friends with mutual interest and, for the most part, compatible personalities; however, sometimes your historical selves, her white self and your black self, or your white self and her black self, arrive with the full force of your American positioning. Then you are standing face-to-face in seconds that wipe the affable smiles right from your mouths. What did you say? Instantaneously your attachment seems fragile, tenuous, subject to any transgression of your historical self. And though your joined personal histories are supposed to save you from misunderstandings, they usually cause you to understand all too well what is meant. — Claudia Rankine

There are all kinds of ways and reasons that mothers can and should be praised. But for cultivating a sense of invisibility, martyrdom and tirelessly working unnoticed and unsung? Those are not reasons. Praising women for standing in the shadows? Wrong. Where is the greeting card that praises the kinds of mothers I know? Or better yet, the kind of mother I was raised by? I need a card that says: "Happy Mother's Day to the mom who taught me to be strong, to be powerful, to be independent, to be competitive, to be fiercely myself and fight for what I want." Or "Happy Birthday to a mother who taught me to argue when necessary, to raise my voice for my beliefs, to not back down when I know I am right." Or "Mom, thanks for teaching me to kick ass and take names at work. Get well soon." Or simply "Thank you, Mom, for teaching me how to make money and feel good about doing it. Merry Christmas. — Shonda Rhimes

Tell me, was I the sort of person who took your elbow when cars passed on the street, touched your cheek while you talked, combed your wet hair, stopped by the side of the road in the country to point out certain constellations, standing behind you so that you had the advantage of leaning and looking up? — Nicole Krauss

My dear Arjuna, only by undivided devotional service can I be understood as I am, standing before you, and can thus be seen directly. Only in this way can you enter into the mysteries of My understanding. — A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Please do not go to Kmart and buy twenty pairs of jeans because each costs five dollars. The jeans are not running away. They will be there tomorrow at an even more reduced price. You are now in America: do not expect to have hot food for lunch. That African taste must be abolished. When you visit the home of an American with some money, they will offer to show you their house. Forget that in your house back home, your father would throw a fit if anyone came close to his bedroom. We all know that the living room was where it stopped and, if absolutely necessary, then the toilet. But please smile and follow the American and see the house and make sure you say you like everything. And do not be shocked by the indiscriminate touching of American couples. Standing in line at the cafeteria, the girl will touch the boy's arm and the boy will put his arm around her shoulder and they will rub shoulders and back and rub rub rub, but please do not imitate this behavior. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Why are you standing here, Charlie Brown?"
"I'm waiting for that little red-haired girl to walk by ... I'm going to say hello to her and ask her how she's enjoying her summer vacation, and just sort of talk to her ... You know ... "
"You'll never do it, Charlie Brown ... You'll panic ... "
"Besides that, she's already walked by! — Charles M. Schulz

I'd give you some pants, but I don't wear any," a mage standing by a bookshelf remarked sympathetically. — Andrey Vasilyev

I think a lot of people get intimidated by the language of music, but everyone owns music. I think there's nothing standing in between a composer and her audience. I think a lot of people feel that way because they feel it's rarefied, but it's really not. You should feel the impact of it without being able to name it because it's ultimately a primal thing. — Jeanine Tesori

In books there's always somebody standing by ready to say hey, the world's in danger, evil's on the rise, but if you're really quick and take this ring and put it in that volcano over there everything will be fine.
But in real life that guy never turns up. He's never there. He's busy handing out advice in the next universe over. In our world no one ever knows what to do, and everyone's just as clueless and full of crap as everyone else, and you have to figure it all out by yourself. And even after you've figured it out and done it, you'll never know whether you were right or wrong. You'll never know if you put the ring in the right volcano, or if things might have gone better if you hadn't. There's no answers in the back of the book. — Lev Grossman

Yes, he fights well," said Bulba, pausing; "well, by heavens!" he continued, rather as if excusing himself, "although he has never tried his hand at it before, he will make a good Cossack! Now, welcome, son! embrace me," and father and son began to kiss each other. "Good lad! see that you hit every one as you pommelled me; don't let any one escape. Nevertheless your clothes are ridiculous all the same. What rope is this hanging there?
And you, you lout, why are you standing there with your hands hanging beside you?" he added, turning to the youngest. "Why don't you fight me? you son of a dog! — Nikolai Gogol

Not being changed by prayer is sort of life standing in the middle of a spring rain without getting wet. It's hard to stand in the center of God's acceptance and love without getting it all over you. — Steve Brown

You were brought to where you are standing now because the decisions you took some time back have held you by your hands and dragged you this far. — Israelmore Ayivor

I have a surprise for you," the Beast had said, in his usual brusque tone.
Belle had just come in from feeding her horse, Philippe, and was standing by the kitchen's back door, shaking snow from her cloak. She'd taken one look at him - at the scowl on his face, at his clenched paws, at his awkward stance - and said, "No, thank you."
The Beast had blinked, taken aback by her refusal. His scowl had deepened. "I said, I have a surprise for you!"
"And I heard you," Belle had replied, "but I've had enough surprises to last me a lifetime. Including cold, dark cells, packs of wolves, and tantrums."
"Tantrums? Tantrums?" the Beast had sputtered. "I can't believe ... How can you say ... That wasn't a tantrum! And it wasn't my fault! I told you not to go to the West Wing. I told you -"
Belle had given him a sidelong look. "You're right. What was I thinking? You'd never throw a tantrum. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to hang up my cloak. — Jennifer Donnelly

White Sky. Trees fading at the skyline, the mountains gone. My hands dangled from the cuffs of my jacket as if they weren't my own. I never got used to the way the horizon there could just erase itself and leave you marooned, adrift, in an incomplete dreamscape that was like a sketch for the world you knew -the outline of a single tree standing in for a grove, lamp-posts and chimneys floating up out of context before the surrounding canvas was filled in-an amnesia-land, a kind of skewed Heaven where the old landmarks were recognizable but spaced too far apart, and disarranged, and made terrible by the emptiness around them. — Donna Tartt

I was often looked at as a leper by kids at school because I was a Jehovah's Witness. They didn't like it - you were 'weird'. And on Saturday mornings, you'd be knocking at their doors. I remember standing there with my mum and dad, thinking, 'Oh my God, I know whose door this is, and I'll have to see them on Monday.' It was terrible. — Luke Evans

Parents love bathtime because it means that bedtime is near. To prepare your darling for her bath, put on your full-length poncho, because toddlers don't bathe, they splash, motherfucker. When toddlers bathe, they act like they're a junior member of the summer Olympics diving team. Get ready. By the time you're done, your bathroom floor will have a few inches of standing water. The good news is that wiping up all that water counts as mopping the floor. — Bunmi Laditan

Surely these women won't lose any more of their beauty and charm by putting a ballot in a ballot box once a year than they are likely to lose standing in foundries or laundries all year round. There is no harder contest than the contest for bread, let me tell you that. — Rose Schneiderman

So what, you her daddy or something?" the little goon laughs at Tank. Tank steps around me right up to the guy. Tank's got a good eighty pounds and nine inches on him. The little goon looks even smaller standing by Tank. "Only when I'm fuckin' her," Tank retorts with a satisfied smile. — Jaci J.

He licked his lips before he continued treating her neck. "Where I come from, family's defined as those who don't screw you over a paycheck. Blood makes no difference. If you can trust them with your life and know that they'll be there come whatever hell rains down, then they're your family." In her world, family meant they had the good grace to stab you while looking you in the eyes. She couldn't imagine her sisters standing by her side for any reason. Unwilling — Sherrilyn Kenyon

If you attend a meeting of evolutionary biologists somewhere in America, you might be lucky and spot a tall, gray-whiskered, smiling man bearing a striking resemblance to Abraham Lincoln, standing rather diffidently at the back of the crowd. He will probably be surrounded by a knot of admirers, hanging on his every word - for he is a man of few words. A whisper will go around the room: "George is here." You will sense from people's reactions the presence of greatness. — Matt Ridley

Perhaps we should spice up our next wager."
A wary look entered her blue eyes. "How?"
"By wagering your mother's necklace against ... your clothing."
She froze, her arms over her head, her eyes wide. "My clothing?"
"Yes. Your gown-against your mother's neckace." His body was already hard at the thought of her standing before him in nothing but her chemise and stockings.
Sophia lowered her arms with a teasing smile. "I doubt it will fit you."
A surprised laugh broke from him. "That would be a sight. But to be crystal clear, if I win this hand, you will disrobe for me. — Karen Hawkins

And I recognized then the process by which I had always attempted difficult things. I had simply not allowed myself to think of the consequences, but had closed my eyes, jumped in, and before I knew where I was, it was impossible to renege. I was basically a dreadful coward, I knew that about myself. The only way I could overcome this was to trick myself with that other self, who lived in dream and fantasy and who was annoyingly lackadaisical and unpractical. All passion, no sense, no order, no instinct for self-preservation. That's what I had done, and now that cowardly self had discovered an unburnt bridge by which to return to the past. As Renata Adler writes in Speedboat: I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray. It is the momentum of last resort. — Robyn Davidson

I also believe that man's continued domestication (if you care to use that silly euphemism) of dogs is motivated by fear: fear that dogs, left to evolve on their own, would, in fact, develop thumbs and smaller tongues, and therefore would be superior to men, who are slow and cumbersome, standing erect as they do. This is why dogs must live under the constant supervision of people ... From what Denny has told me about the government and its inner workings, it is my belief that this despicable plan was hatched in a back room of none other than the White House, probably by an evil adviser to a president of questionable moral and intellectual fortitude, and probably with the correct assessment - unfortunately, made from a position of paranoia rather than of spiritual insight - that all dogs are progressively inclined regarding social issues. — Garth Stein

My father respected and admired my mother and was a person who was always standing by my side, encouraging me to do more and believed in my capacity. So in that sense, my own experience was very good in becoming an empowered woman. From early on, I carried that strong message: 'You can do it.' So I never had any doubt that women can do a lot. — Michelle Bachelet

If I come back to you now, can we be what we were before life's uncertain rhythms tore us so far apart? If I return today, will your arms gather me in, or will I be wrenched away, snatched by riptide I have no power to resist? If I find my way to you, one man standing in a crowd, will I even know who you are? — Ellen Hopkins

That's the second time you called me 'honey.' I can't decide if I like it or if
I'm starting to feel objectified," he teased.
She sighed. "I seriously don't think I can walk down an aisle with you."
His voice dipped lower, a slow drawl. "Careful, Sinclair. Those are very heady words to a guy like
me."
She left him standing there, by himself, at the base of the steps.
With a grin, he turned and watched her go. Yep, still cantankerous.
But that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy the view from behind. — Julie James

Therefore I would ask you to write all kinds of books, hesitating at no subject however trivial or however vast. By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream. For I am by no means confining you to fiction. If you would please me - and there are thousands like me - you would write books of travel and adventure, and research and scholarship, and history and biography, and criticism and philosophy and science. By so doing you will certainly profit the art of fiction. For books have a way of influencing each other. Fiction will be much the better for standing cheek by jowl with poetry and philosophy. — Virginia Woolf

You want to be commander in chief, you can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it's not politically convenient. — Barack Obama

Baldwin told the story again and again of standing on Broadway and being told by Delaney to look down. Delaney asked him what he saw, and Baldwin said a puddle. Delaney said, 'Look again,' and then Baldwin saw the reflections of the buildings, distorted and radiant in the oil on the puddle. He taught me to see, Baldwin said, and that 'what one cannot or will not see, says something about you. — Rachel Cohen

Sometimes you have the feeling that some little imp is standing behind you and dictating to you, but he gives it to you slowly, drop by drop. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

So ... you like her, Gabe?' Lauren pressed.
'Yes,' he answered, starting work on his spreadsheet again in an effort to stave off more questions.
'She's great, isn't she?'
Shit. A smile tugged at his mouth and Lauren was standing right next to him. No question she could see it. He tried to cover himself by changing the subject. — Victoria Dahl

Inside your head you hear
a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you're washing up
in a stranger's bathroom,
standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away
from the dirtiest thing you know.
All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly
darkness,
suddenly only darkness.
In the living room, in the broken yard,
in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport
bathroom's gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of
unnatural light,
my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away. — Richard Siken

Also, from a technical point of view, as you're standing in front of a microphone all day, it's quite a good idea that I should play a laid back sort of character because if he was too frenetic, I'd be exhausted by lunch! — Paul Darrow

At first you saw only a mass of coarse, matted black hair; presently it was seen that this covered a body of fearful thinness, almost a skeleton, but with the muscles standing out like wires. The hands were of a dusky pallor, covered, like the body, with long, coarse hairs, and hideously taloned. The eyes, touched in with a burning yellow, had intensely black pupils, and were fixed upon the throned King with a look of beast-like hate. Imagine one of the awful bird-catching spiders of South America translated into human form, and endowed with intelligence just less than human, and you will have some faint conception of the terror inspired by the appalling effigy. — M.R. James

You can set up an altar to God in your minds by means of prayer. And so it is fitting to pray at your trade, on a journey, standing at a counter or sitting at your handicraft. — Saint John Chrysostom

To have an opportunity to get in front of a camera every single day is just priceless because it gets you closer and closer to being less self-consciousness in front of it and really being human and really making choices and standing by them. — Katie Lowes

In order to understand the impact you can have on another's life by listening you need to first be intimate with the experience of being heard. — Madelaine Standing

As he rose to his feet he noticed that he was neither dripping nor panting for breath as anyone would expect after being under water. His clothes were perfectly dry. He was standing by the edge of a small pool - not more than ten feet from side to side in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others - a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive. — C.S. Lewis

It was dark in the corridor; they were standing near a light. For a minute they looked silently at each other. Razumikhin remembered that minute all his life. Raskolnikov's burning and fixed look seemed to grow more intense every moment, penetrating his soul, his consciousness. All at once Razumikhin gave a start. Something strange seemed to pass between them . . . as if the hint of some idea, something horrible, hideous, flitted by and was suddenly understood on both sides . . . Razumikhin turned pale as a corpse.
"You understand now? — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Reader may here observe the Force of Numbers, which can be successfully applied, even to those things, which one would imagine are subject to no Rules. There are very few things which we know, which are not capable of being reduc'd to a Mathematical Reasoning, and when they cannot, it's a sign our Knowledge of them is very small and confus'd; and where a mathematical reasoning can be had, it's as great folly to make use of any other, as to grope for a thing in the dark when you have a Candle standing by you. — John Arbuthnot

Like the Israelites, you and I have been promised spiritual ground for great and abiding victory on a turf where our enemy stands in defiance. If you're not presently occupying your Promised Land, rest assured the devil is. Are you going to stand by and let him get away with that? God has given you land, Beloved, but He's calling you to go forth and take it. Your enemy is standing on your God-given ground, just daring you to take possession of it. Are you going to let him have it? Or are you going to claim your inheritance? Possession is the law of the Promised Land. — Beth Moore

And he still had those two big nuts in his pocket that he'd picked up from the Purdys' barn workshop, the one with the green-and-yellow overspray on the floor, a green-and-yellow spray that didn't match the hard green and yellow of the John Deere, but did match the green and yellow of fair fire hydrants . . . and those nuts in his pocket. Why would you need a whole bag of big nuts, but no bolts? You wouldn't - unless they were shrapnel. And that nagging intuition he'd had by the Varied Industries building: he'd been walking by fire hydrants all morning, the same yellow and green as the overspray on the Purdys' barn floor. A bomb. The Purdys had built a bomb. The farm kid who'd been brain-injured by IEDs in Iraq had built himself an IED. A bomb disguised as a fire hydrant that was probably standing on the Concourse, right where the candidates would be marching by, right on the curb. — John Sandford

Art can model the more difficult dynamic of transfiguring one's life, but at some point the dynamic reverses itself: life models, or forces, the existential crisis by which art - great art - is fully experienced. There is a fluidity between art and life, then, in the same way that there is, in the best lives, a fluidity between mind and matter, self and soul, life and death. Experience seems to stream clearly through some lives, rather than getting slowed and clogged up in the drift-waste of ego, or stagnating in little inlets of despair, envy, rage. It has to do with seizing and releasing as a single gesture. It has to do with standing in relation to life and death ... owning an emptiness that, because you have claimed it, has become a source of light, wearing your wound that, like a ramshackle house on some high exposed hill, sings with the hard wind that is steadily destroying it. — Christian Wiman

If your parents gave you fire to play with when you were two, you'd be standing in fire by the time you were an adult. — Cat Power

September laughed a little. She tried to make it sound light and happy, as though it were all over now and how funny it was, when you think about it, that simply not having another person by you could hurt so. But it did not come out quite right; there was a heaviness in her laughing like ice at the bottom of a glass. She still missed Saturday, yet he was standing right beside her! Missing him had become a part of her, like a hard, dark bone, and she needed so much more than a few words to let it go. In all this while, she had spent more time missing Saturday than seeing him. — Catherynne M Valente

I'm twenty-two."
"Are you really? I thought you were closer to my age, and I'm thirty-one, which goes ... "
The next thing Oliver knew, he was standing by himself, Harriet having shaken out of his hold and taken off down the sidewalk again. — Jen Turano

The irony is that when we're standing across from someone who is hidden or shielded by masks and armor, we feel frustrated and disconnected. That's the paradox here: Vulnerability is the last thing I want you to see in me, but the first thing I look for in you. If — Brene Brown

One thing is for sure. Nothing in life is easy or certain. You'll be fighting until the end. And when you've overcome all chaos has to offer, those who had it easy will struggle. By fighting through it, you are giving yourself a skill some just do not have. When the world, and the realm, erupt into chaos, you'll be the one standing with a sword still in your hand. Be proud of yourself. You're more of a warrior than you know. — Lori Goodwin

Never give anyone permission to hurt your feelings. Always face them by standing up for what is right and you will feel strong. If you do not stand strong, people will pity you, and then you lose something adults call dignity. Never accept pity. No one on earth is better than anyone else. — John J. Siefring

Keep your foot on the devil's neck by standing on the Word of God, and you will see tremendous results! — Jesse Duplantis

I don't even like the word 'indoors'. It doesn't make sense. According to you right now, by stepping through the doorway I'd be indoors. Yet I wouldn't actually be standing in the doorway. If it's supposed to refer to being inside a building, then they shouldn't have used the word 'door,' since last time I checked, doors don't make up every square inch of a building! And I'd assume that now, since I'm not indoors, you'd say I'm 'out of doors', right? But, shouldn't out of doors just be everywhere that's not directly under a door? You know what, from now on I insist that everyone refer to being in a building as being 'under-roof'. — Natalie Bina

You are designed by God not to blend in, but to stand out — Myles Munroe

I love that as a theme for women: Stop standing by! You've got to make stuff happen! You've got to create your own world because if you let other people do it, they're going to just screw you. — Melissa Rosenberg

Sophie did this?" He said, not for the first time. They were standing at the foot of Jessamine's bed. She lay flung upon it, her chest rising and falling slowly like the famous Sleeping Beauty waxwork or Madame du Barry. Her fair hair was scattered on the pillow, and a large, bloody welt ran across her forehead. Each of her wrists was tied to a post of the bed. "Our Sophie?"
Tessa glanced over at Sophie, who was sitting in a chair by the door. Her head was down, and she was staring at her hands. She studiously avoided looking at Tessa or Will. "Yes,"Tessa said, "and do stop repeating it."
" I think i may be in love with you, Sophie," said Will. "Marriage could be on the cards."
Sophie whimpered. — Cassandra Clare

Suddenly a great sense of despondency comes over me. To-morrow we shall take the prepositions, I think to myself - and next week we shall have a dictation. In a year's time you will have by heart fifty questions from the Catechism; in four years you will start the larger multiplication tables. - And so you will grow up, and Time will take you in his pincers - one dumbly, another savagely, or gently or shatteringly. Each will have his own destiny and thus or thus it will overtake you. What help shall I be to you then with my conjugations and enumerations of all the rivers of Germany? Forty of you - forty different lives standing behind you and waiting. How gladly would I help you, if I could. But who can really help another here? Have I even been able to help Adolf Bethke? The bell rings. The first lesson is over. — Erich Maria Remarque

Contrary to popular wisdom, you cannot hide from evil in the practice of evil. You can no more master the horrors of the world by immersing yourself in them then one can master an earthquake by standing in front of a collapsing building every Tuesday to see where one gets hit, or if, and when, or how badly. Trauma is not tenderized one itty bit by inviting the host in repeatedly. — John Thomas Allen

The thing about her is, she's good-natured. He knew it the second he saw her standing by the parking meters. He could just tell from the soft way her belly looked. With women, you keep bumping against them, because they want different things, they're a different race. Either they give, like a plant, or scrape, like a stone. In all the green world nothing feels as good as a woman's good nature. — John Updike

That's the problem with college kids. I blame Hollywood for skewing their perspective. Life is just a big romantic comedy to them, and if you meet cute, happily-ever-after is a foregone conclusion. So there we were, the pretty blond girl milking her very slight congenital limp in order to seem damaged and more interesting, and the nervous boy with the ridiculous hair trying so hard to be clever, the two of us hypnotized by the syncopated rhythms of our furiously beating hearts and throbbing loins. That stupid, desperate, horny kid I was, standing obliviously on the fault line of embryonic love, when really, what he should have been doing was running for his life. — Jonathan Tropper

You don't break ground by doing the same thing over and over and over. That's like standing in place. You have to risk to gain it all. — Corey Taylor

You don't learn to hold your own in the world by standing on guard, but by attacking, and getting well hammered yourself. — George Bernard Shaw

Think you've got the guts to actually go through with it this time?" (Puck)
I responded by slashing at his face, barely missing him as he ducked. (Ash)
"Oooh, that had a bit of temper behind it." He sneered, eyes gleaming as he circled back. "But don't think I'll go easy on you, just because of our history. I'm not like my other half - weak, pathetic, restrained ... "
"Loud, obnoxious, immature," I added
"Hey!" The real Puck called from farther down, dodging as Other Ash slashed at him. "I'm standing right here, you two! — Julie Kagawa