Standing Even Quotes & Sayings

I believe that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we find paralyzing because we no longer hear our surprised feelings living. Because we are alone with the alien thing that has entered into our self; because everything intimate and accustomed is for an instant taken away; because we stand in the middle of a transition where we cannot remain standing. For this reason the sadness too passes: the new thing in us, the added thing, has entered into our heart, has gone into its inmost chamber and is not even there any more, - is already in our blood. And we do not learn what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing has happened, and yet we have changed, as a house changes into which a guest has entered. — Rainer Maria Rilke

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

I am charmed by the idea that there is an activity known as work and another as play, although even in grade school the distinction eluded me. I remember how full of hope I was sitting in first-period home room listening to the teacher divide up our activities into purposeful sections. I got a grip on her process, at last, by picturing it in the following way: A cow stands in clover. When she is milked, that is her work; when she is merely eating, that is her play. But the problem lay, then as now, in the realization that, in any case, she is standing in clover. Not a handsome or elegant analogy, but it approximates for me the habit of reading - standing in a world of clover, the eating of which is occasionally utilitarian, usually nourishing, because that's what one does — Toni Morrison

I actually saw a kid and went home and drew him. I don't even know who he was. I was buying a TV set in Circuit City. I was looking at this kid and he was kind of standing there, staring off into space. Kids are pretty chubby nowadays because of all the fast-food places. I grew up eating fast food but now everything is double beef and double cheese. So there are a lot of these chubby boys with long, baggy shorts. — Mike Judge

I had seen movies before that that had made me laugh, but I had never seen anything even remotely close to as funny as Richard Pryor was, just standing there talking. — Joe Rogan

By standing still, we're making the things we don't like about Obamacare even worse, forcing Missourians to bear all the costs of this law - and reap none of the benefits. — Jay Nixon

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

Sunshine, I ... Starla's voice broke off as she entered the room and caught sight of him standing naked in the corner. She eyed him in an odd, detached way, as if he were an interesting piece of furniture.
Talon and modesty were strangers, but the way she stared at him made him damned uncomfortable. In spite of the sunlight, Talon grabbed the pink blanket off the bed and clutched it to his middle.
You know, Sunshine, you need to find a man like that to marry. Someone so well hung that even after three or four kids, he'd still be wall to wall.
Talon gaped.
Sunshine laughed. Starla, you're embarrassing him. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

She told him ... how her heart had fairly skipped a beat when she'd seen him standing in the middle of the road dressed as a true Highland warrior.
"If I hadna been in love wi' you already, I'd have fallen in love wi' you then."
He grinned, his whiskery face unbearably bonnie even with its cuts and bruises. "So you like the sight of me in a pladdie, aye?"
"Aye
and wi' braids in your hair." She leaned down and kissed him. "But I think red paint looks silly. — Pamela Clare

Twenty aspirin, a little slit alongside the veins of the arm, maybe even a bad half hour standing on a roof: We've all had those. And somewhat more dangerous things, like putting a gun in your mouth. But you put it there, you taste it, it's cold and greasy, your finger is on the trigger, and you find that a whole world lies between this moment and the moment you've been planning, when you'll pull the trigger. That world defeats you. You put the gun back in the drawer. You'll have to find another way. — Susanna Kaysen

I sat up so fast I practically broke the sound barrier, but it was Cal standing in my doorway, not Archer. I heaved a huge sigh, one of relief, and not even a little bit of disappointment.
Of course, once I'd wrapped my mind around the fact that it was Cal and not Archer standing in my bedroom, it dawned on me that Cal was standing in my bedroom. — Rachel Hawkins

I love plays. Even bad ones. I like the fact that actual live, breathing people are standing before you in tense situations that you are not personally responsible for. — Lorrie Moore

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

Dan came around the pulpit. "If you're standing in a place today where you know you need more--healing, hope, a glimpse that there is a happy ending--it's time to become a rebel. To do something daring and wild and reach out for grace, even though it doesn't make sense. But I warn you, once you embrace Christ, you too become a rule breaker. Because a life committed to God requires us to live uncomfortably. Inconveniently. Accountably. Bravely. Transparently. Vulnerably. It requires us to love without rules. Welcome to Grace. — Susan May Warren

Think for a moment about an emergency siren. What is its purpose? The siren is an indication and a warning that something harmful is coming. If we hear it, we naturally panic. But what happens when they need to test the siren? What happens when it's just a drill to see how we will react? The test siren sounds exactly the same, but it is "only a test." Although it looks, sounds, and feels real, it is not. It is only a test. And we're reminded of that again and again throughout the test. This is exactly what Allah tells us about this life. It is going to look, sound, and feel very, very real. At times it's going to scare us. At times it's going to make us cry. At times it's going to make us flee, instead of standing firm - even more firm - in our places. But this life and everything in it is only a test. It is not actually real. And like that test of the emergency broadcast system; it is training us for what is real. — Yasmin Mogahed

There was a man that hated his footprints and his shadow, so one day he thought that if he ran fast enough, his footprints and shadow would not be able to follow him and then he never ever had to look at them again. He ran and he ran as fast as he could, but the shadow and the footprints had no problems keeping up to him. And he ran even faster and all of a sudden he fell dead to the ground. But if he been standing still there hadn't been any footprints and if he had been resting under a tree his shadow had been swallowed of the trees shadow. — Benjamin Hoff

To him, she was one of the few girls who was nice to him, the stodgy son of a poor alcoholic shoemaker with such little status that he seemed unlikely to even get one wife, let alone the three or more that designated a man of standing. — Colleen Chen

Sex as desired by the class that dominates women is held by that class to be elemental, urgent, necessary, even if or even though it appears to require the repudiation of any claim women might have to full human standing. In the subordination of women, inequality itself is sexualized, made into the experience of sexual pleasure, essential to sexual desire. — Andrea Dworkin

I may enter a zone of transcendence, in which I marvel at all the accidents of fate, since the beginning of life on earth, that led to my genes being created and my standing in this particular garden in a contemplative and imagining mind. I've been reading recently how reflection evolved. what a fascinating solution to the rigors of survival ... how amazing that a few basic ingredients- the same ones that form the mountains, plants, and rivers- when arranged differently and stressed could result in us.
More and more of late, I find myself standing outside of life, with a sense of the human saga laid out before me. it is a private vision, balanced between youth and old age, a vision in which I understand how caught up in striving we humans get, and a little of why, and how difficult it is even to recognize, since it feels integral to our nature and is. but I find it interesting that, according to many religions, life and begins and ends in a garden. — Diane Ackerman

But, she knew, you didn't have to marry your soulmate, and you didn't even have to marry an Interesting. You didn't always need to be the dazzler, the firecracker, the one who cracked everyone up, or made everyone want to sleep with you, or be the one who wrote and starred in the play that got the standing ovation. You could cease to be obsessed with the idea of being interesting. — Meg Wolitzer

And maybe I was a little intense. But not as much as the princess who marched into that court in a very unprofessional pair of jeans and a T-shirt, looking like she had gone to hell and back
and was about to drag the rest of us back there with her, just like I kinda planned to do.
I knew it in a split second
and everybody else knew it too, even old Fabio
that we weren't just seeing a princess standing there in a pair of jeans and boots.
We were all getting our first glimpse of the next queen. — Beth Fantaskey

I can't muster a smile. Even with the knowledge that it's dark outside and light up here, it's hard to believe that he can see us. We should be invisible. We are so alone. Mabel and I are standing side by side, but we can't even see each other. In the distance are the lights of town. People must be finishing their workdays, picking up their kids, figuring out dinner. They're talking to one another in easy voices about things of great significance and things that don't mean much. The distance between us and all of that living feels insurmountable. — Nina LaCour

He wouldn't spend another standing in the darkness, hot and sick and shaking inside with a confused mess of feelings that weren't worth analyzing. That he shouldn't have felt anyway.
With Rachel gone it was like balancing on the edge of a cliff - and all the little wildflowers, the netting of grass and roots that kept the cliff from sliding into the sea below, were gone. It was just Matt standing there looking down, waiting to fall.
Even Rachel's memory, the sweet recollection of all they had built, all they had shared, was no longer strong enough to fight gravity. From the moment he had looked across the wet grass and seen Nathan Doyle standing in the shadow of a stone saber-toothed tiger, something had changed inside him. Something battened down had torn free, like a sail taking its first deep breath of sea air.
It terrified him.
And at the same time it exhilarated him.
Which terrified him all the more. — Josh Lanyon

Suddenly we were standing toe to toe. His body took up so much space around me it was hard to breathe. I could feel his heat and we weren't even touching. What had just happened? Kyle saw the overwhelmed look in my eyes and smirked. He brought his mouth down to mine and brushed my lips with a touch so feather-light that I gasped. My body reacted before my head could. I drifted into him as if he was somehow my new center of gravity. My eyes fluttered shut, and I waited for a kiss that never came. His lips were there, brushing back and forth over mine, teasing me cruelly until I ached with a desire so intense I started to shake. Kyle chuckled darkly. You're in over your head with me, Virgin Val. — Kelly Oram

Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but they have no resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency. — Henry David Thoreau

Man goes far away or near but God never goes far-off; he is always standing close at hand, and even if he cannot stay within he goes no further than the door. — Meister Eckhart

In the times of darkness, the Glory will stand out even more. — Rick Joyner

Now, he thought, since all these most easily perishing things have slipped from me again, now I'm standing here under the sun again just as I have been standing here a little child, nothing is mine, I have no abilities, there is nothing I could bring about, I have learned nothing. How wondrous is this! Now, that I'm no longer young, that my hair is already half gray, that my strength is fading, now I'm starting again at the beginning and as a child! Again, he had to smile. Yes, his fate had been strange! Things were going downhill with him, and now he was again facing the world void and naked and stupid. But he could not feel sad about this, no, he even felt a great urge to laugh, to laugh about himself, to laugh about this strange, foolish world. — Hermann Hesse

It had been a long time since a woman had aroused his interest as Amelia Hathaway had. The moment he had seen her standing in the alley, wholesome and pink-cheeked, her voluptuous figure contained in a modest gown, he had wanted her. He had no idea why, when she was the embodiment of everything that annoyed him about Englishwomen.
It was obvious Miss Hathaway had a relentless certainty in her own ability to organize and manage everything around her. Cam's usual reaction to that sort of female was to flee in the opposite direction. But as he had stared into her pretty blue eyes, and seen the tiny determined frown hitched between them, he had felt an unholy urge to snatch her up and carry her away somewhere and do something uncivilized. Barbaric, even.
Of course, uncivilized urges had always lurked a bit too close to his surface. — Lisa Kleypas

You know what the best part of the stars is?"
"What's that?"
"They're the same no matter what sky you're standing under. I mean ... yeah, they might move or look like they're in a different place, but they're the same stars."
"Yeah? So?"
"So even if you're apart from someone you want to be with, you can look up at the stars and know they're looking at the same ones. — Megan Hart

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

When I'm standing in the middle of the salt flats, where you swear that the pupils of your eyes have turned white because of the searing heat that is rising from the desert, I think of my childhood, I think of my mother, my father, my grandparents; I think of the history that we hold there and it is beautiful to me. But it is both a blessing and a burden to be rooted in place. It's recognizing the pattern of things, almost feeling a place before you even see it. In Southern Utah, on the Colorado plateau where canyon walls rise upward like praying hands, that is a holy place to me. — Terry Tempest Williams

Stand up for what you believe in even if it means standing alone ... — C.M.

Then you're going to stay in that net until eternity comes to pass. (Sin)
Well, that's really intelligent, isn't it? What are you going to do? Put drinks on me or just use me as a conversation piece whenever friends come over? And let's not even think about what's going to happen when I need to use the restroom, shall we? I hope you have a standing order at Sofa Express. (Kat) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

For a moment, the color leeched from his face, then he blinked and smiled. Margaret, for a second I thought it was your mama standing there. He gave a gruff laugh. You look lovely, my dear.
Her father's praise brought tears to her eyes. His approving words came far too infrequently. Was her appearance all that mattered to him-to anyone? It seemed to be the way of the world. No one cared about who she was on the inside. No one saw the heart longing to be loved and to love in return. She sometimes even doubted God's love for her. — Colleen Coble

She had a crooked smile on her face as she turned, but it slid off suddenly when she saw who was standing there. Glokta snorted. 'Don't worry, I get that reaction from everyone. Even myself, every morning, when I look into the mirror.' If I can even manage to stand up in front of the damn thing. — Joe Abercrombie

For over twenty-five centuries we've been bearing the weight of superb and heterogeneous civilizations, all from outside, none made by ourselves, none that we could call our own.

This violence of landscape, this cruelty of climate, this continual tension in everything, and even these monuments of the past, magnificent yet incomprehensible because not built by us and yet standing round us like lovely mute ghosts; all those rulers who landed by main force from every direction who were at once obeyed, soon detested, and always misunderstood, their only expressions works of art we couldn't understand and taxes which we understood only too well and which they spent elsewhere: all these things have formed our character, which is thus conditioned by events outside our control as well as by a terrifying insularity of mind. — Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

She is a good girl," Park said. "You don't even know her."
His dad was standing, pushing Park toward the door. "Go," he said sternly. "Go play basketball or something."
"Good girls don't dress like boys," his mother said. — Rainbow Rowell

Hell," he said, looking down his body. "I shouldn't have thought about that just yet. Now Alice is going to come out of the bathroom and see you standing there being demanding. That's not very gentlemanly ... "
This just made him even harder.
With a sigh, he snatched up her pirate hat and slapped it over his crotch. "There. Now we can at least present the semblance of a man who doesn't have a single track mind. — Katie MacAlister

Excuse me, I believe you're standing on my sword. I don't think this is entirely fair, you're angry with Skulduggery because he didn't kill Valkyrie, but you and me, we've never even met. I mean, you have no reason to attack me, if you got to know me, if you took the time, I'm sure you'd really like me. I'm a likeable girl, everyone says so - Tanith Low — Derek Landy

Our eyes see different things, I thought. They always have. Even when we're looking in the same direction, standing side by side. — Cameron Dokey

He was standing in the middle of the room, an arrogant look on his face.
"What a night," Wendy sighed.
Without even turning his head to look at her Raphael said, "Sleep."
Wendy fell backward, her head landing on the pillow.
"Don't do that to her!" Susan exclaimed.
"You'd prefer to have this conversation with her listening?" Raphael asked, lifting one eyebrow. — Debbie Viguie

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

She frowned, thinking of going down there and explaining herself all over again, reliving the horror of finding Mimi's body and trying not to think of how she'd looked when they'd dragged her up and out of the ravine. No sooner had she thought it than she heard Mimi's voice, chastising her over a year ago.

"You hide from life, Catherine. Even when you're in the middle of it, standing toe to toe with all the bad guys you bring in, you manage to keep an emotional distance. I understand why you do it, but ultimately, you're the one who will suffer. You're the one who's going to grow old alone."

Cat blinked back tears, remembering what she'd told her.

I won't be alone, Mimi. I'll always have you.

Obviously she had been wrong. — Sharon Sala

Even in a sea of names, a drowning mermaid has a way of standing out. — Erika Swyler

If I could hold your heart I would keep it safe. Even when I trip and fall, and even when I break down, I would hold your heart close to mine, so it doesn't see the same damage. When I bruise my knees and scrape my palms you'll never have to fear, and even if I cry, I promise, you won't need to shed a tear. Love is everlasting. Loyalty is intertwined with faith. As long as you want me I will be here, standing with my palms out, waiting with my heart plain in my eyes, and a smile on my face. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

They were kissing. Put like that, and you could be forgiven for presuming that this was a normal kiss, all lips and skin and possibly even a little tongue. You'd miss how he smiled, how his eyes glowed. And then, after the kiss was done, how he stood, like a man who had just discovered the art of standing and had figured out how to do it better than anyone else who would ever come along. — Neil Gaiman

Our standing before God depends, not upon the amount of light we have received, but upon the use we make of what we have. Thus even the heathen who choose the right as far as they can distinguish it are in a more favorable condition than are those who have had great light, and profess to serve God, but who disregard the light, and by their daily life contradict their profession. The — Ellen G. White

But the question is, do we care enough? Do we care enough to keep standing up for the country that we know is possible, even if it's hard, and even if it's politically uncomfortable? Do we care enough to sustain the passion and the pressure to make our communities safer and our country safer? Do we care enough to do everything we can to spare other families the pain that is felt here today? — Barack Obama

I told myself all sorts of lies, standing there at the bar, but I could not move. And this was partly because I knew that it did not really matter anymore; it did not even matter if I never spoke to Giovanni again; for they had become visible, as visible as the wafers on the shirt of the flaming princess, they stormed all over me, my awakening, my insistent possibilities. — James Baldwin

In the modern period, the alliance between Christianity and the political order continues to some extent. But even more so, the dream of God has been submerged by the individualism that characterizes much of modern Western culture. The dream of God is quite different from contemporary American dreams. The dream of God - a politics of compassion and justice, the kingdom of God, a domination-free order - is social, communal, and egalitarian. But our dreams - the dreams we get from our culture - are individualistic: living well, looking good, standing out. — Marcus J. Borg

He's as tall as the door, and I'm standing here without remembering the walk across the shadowed parking lot. When he turns to face me the world grinds into slow motion. Even my heartbeat draws out interminably. — Poppet

sighed, smirking and rolling her eyes in friendly, amused exasperation. Grabbing his shirt, she pulled him up to her. His hands caught her shoulders, pulling her even closer. They kissed. It was definitely not one-sided, or platonic. Wow. Um. When they let go, Will gave me a playful nod. "I've got a job to do." He ran off so fast that he almost disappeared. All he left was the little white fortune card, fluttering to the floor. Cassie crouched down to pick it up. With that same bland, cynical smirk she looked at it, then flipped it around in her fingers for me to read: 'In six minutes, you will kiss the girl standing next to you. — Richard Roberts

The little one-story house was as neat as a fresh pinafore. The front lawn was cut lovingly and very green. The smooth composition driveway was free of grease spots from standing cars, and the hedge that bordered it looked as though the barber came every day.
The white door had a knocker with a tiger's head, a go-to-hell window and a dingus that let someone inside talk to someone outside without even opening the little window.
I'd have given a mortgage on my left leg to live in a house like that. I didn't think I ever would.
(The Pencil) — Raymond Chandler

But even work stops at some point. And you find yourself looking around, taking stock of your life, and you realize that you don't give a shit about where you worked, or what you did to bring in money, but you care about the lives you touched. The love you shared. The family you created. You care about who is standing beside you when the shit hits the fan. — J. Sterling

His fingers gouged into my leg harder. "My sister was in that cafeteria," he said. "She saw her friends die, thanks to you and that puke boyfriend of yours. She still has nightmares about it. He got what he deserved, but you got a free pass. That ain't right. You should've died that day, Sister Death. Everyone wishes you would have. Look around. Where is Jessica, if she wants you here so bad? Even the friends you came here with don't want to be with you."
"Let go of me," I said again, pulling on his fingers. But he only pinched tighter.
"Your boyfriend isn't the only one who can get his hands on a gun," he said. Slowly he eased himself up to standing again. He reached into the waistband of his jeans and pulled out something small and dark. He pointed it at me, and when the moonlight hit it, I gasped and pressed myself against the barn wall. — Jennifer Brown

could see people standing on the beach staring at the wave, immobilized, in a trance, as if they were watching a movie. They didn't think that what was happening in the ocean would reach the shore. Even if they ran as fast as they could, they wouldn't have been able to escape it. They were screening a new clip from Thailand or Indonesia. It showed a little boy climbing up the trunk of a tree as the tidal wave flattened the tall palm trees. "The earthquake started near the Sumatra Islands in Indonesia. — Dorit Sliverman

Plans could change in a heartbeat, though, couldn't they? The wind shifts and the clouds rush in. The air sparks and hums, and before you can even think about running, you're standing in the middle of a storm. — Anne Francis Scott

People felt themselves watching him even before they knew that there was anything different about him. His eyes made a person think that he heard things that no one else had ever heard, that he knew things no one had ever guessed before. He did not seem quite human. — Carson McCullers

I fell so damn hard, Tenleigh. Standing right at this bookshelf. I gave you my heart and you weren't even in the room. — Mia Sheridan

Georgie?" He reached out with both hands to steady her - and himself. His mind had trouble focusing. He couldn't believe Georgie was actually standing in front of him. She looked liked an angel - in knee-high biker boots. Those boots looked even better in real life than in his imagination. He gazed into her eyes and was filled with so many emotions, so many things he wanted to say to her, he didn't know where to start. "I like your shoes," he said. — Jennifer Shirk

She knew she could answer it. She knew how to put one foot in front of the other even when every step hurt. And she knew there was pain in the journey, but there was also great beauty. She'd seen it standing on rooftops and in green eyes and in the smallest, ugliest rock. She would find the answer. — Veronica Rossi

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

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

To write out the precepts again, we contend with them, and keep them; we build our humanity, and keep our humanity alive ... Thay has named the precepts 'wonderful' ... Wonderful because they can protect us, and show us how to live a joyous life, an interesting, adventurous, deep, large life, and how to be with one another, and with animals, plants, and all the Earth and universe. Wonderful because when we practice the precepts, we existentially become humane, we embody loving kindness ... Standing in the midst of burning ruins, I was glad that I knew the precepts. Though I kept their tenets imperfectly, even in aspiration I created some invisible good that could not be destroyed ... The Five Wonderful Precepts give clear and simple directions to finding that life. In devastation, I have blueprints for making home anew (90-92).
For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Wonderful Precepts — Maxine Hong Kingston

Presently we saw a curious thing: There were no clouds, the sun was going down in a limpid, gold-washed sky. Just as the lower edge of the red disk rested on the high fields against the horizon, a great black figure suddenly appeared on the face of the sun. We sprang to our feet, straining our eyes toward it. In a moment we realized what it was. On some upland farm, a plough had been left standing in the field. The sun was sinking just behind it. Magnified across the distance by the horizontal light, it stood out against the sun, was exactly contained within the circle of the disk; the handles, the tongue, the share - black against the molten red. There it was, heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun. Even — Willa Cather

Always hold your sales meetings in rooms too small for the audience, even if it means holding them in the WC. 'Standing room only' creates an atmosphere of success, as in theatres and restaurants, while a half-empty auditorium smells of failure. — David Ogilvy

It's true that he would come to himself at once, and yet, if he were asked what he had been thinking about while standing there, he would most likely not remember, but would most likely keep hidden away in himself the impression he had been under while contemplating. These impressions are dear to him, and he is most likely storing them up imperceptibly and even without realizing it - why and what for, of course, he does not know either; perhaps suddenly, having stored up his impressions over many years, he will drop everything and wander off to Jerusalem to save his soul, or perhaps he will suddenly burn down his native village, or perhaps he will do both. There are plenty of contemplators among the people. Most likely Smerdyakov, too, was such a contemplator, and most likely he, too, was greedily storing up his impressions, almost without knowing why himself. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

He knew she had been telling the truth when she told him she seldom asked for help. It was clear in her every interaction with him - in her speech , even in the way she held herself- that she was used to standing alone. — Stephen Lloyd Jones

That was when I left her and went outside to talk to Charles. I knew I would dislike talking to Charles, but it was almost too late to ask him politely and I thought I should ask him once. Even the garden had become a strange landscape with Charles' figure in it; I could see him standing under the apple trees and the trees were crooked and shortened beside him. I came out the kitchen door and walked slowly toward him. I was trying to think charitably of him, since I would never be able to speak kindly until I did, but whenever I thought of his big white face grinning at me across the table or watching me whenever I moved I wanted to beat at him until he went away, I wanted to stamp on him after he was dead, and see him lying dead on the grass. So I made my mind charitable toward Charles and came up to him slowly. — Shirley Jackson

I didn't get to stop missing her. Ever. It was the thing that my life had handed me, and no matter how heavy it was, I was never going to be able to set it down. But that didn't mean I wasn't going to be okay. Or even happy. I couldn't imagine it yet exactly, but maybe a day would come when the hole inside me wouldn't ache quite so badly and I could think about her, and remember, and it would be all right. That day felt light-years away, but right at this moment I was standing on a tower in the middle of Tuscany and the sunrise was so beautiful that it hurt.

And that was something. — Jenna Evans Welch

You don't see heroism, humanity and hope like you do in a horror story. Horror celebrates the kind of friendship that keeps you standing shoulder to shoulder with someone even when the world is falling apart around you. — Alexander Gordon Smith

If I had it my way, Harper and I wouldn't be standing in this room right now, we wouldn't be pressed against each other. I would just be her roommate's brother who pisses her off. But when it came to this girl, I was no longer in control of anything. She consumed me in every way possible. My brain was telling me to run from her, to keep her safe, to keep her from someone like me, but she had my heart completely, and that was winning out. I wanted her, I wanted her to want me and only me. Not Brandon even though I knew he was the better choice for her. But that just didn't matter to me at the moment; all I cared about was the fact that one of my best friends was winning over the only girl that would ever mean anything to me. - Chase Grayson. — Molly McAdams

Polyphonic painting is superior to music in that there, the time element becomes a spatial element. The notion of simultaneity stands out even more richly. — Paul Klee

III
But may I, when alone again I have the city's crush
and tangled noise-skein and the furor
of its traffic all around me,
may I above the mindless swirl
recall sky and the gentle mountain rim
on which the far-off herd curved homeward.
May my spirit be hard as rock
and the shepherd's life to me seem possible-
the way he drifts and turns brown in the sun and with a practiced
stone-throw mends his flock, whenever it frays.
Steps slow, not light, his body pensive,
but in his standing there, majestic. Even now a god
might enter this form and not be lessened.
He lingers for a while, then moves on, like the day itself,
and shadows of the clouds
pass through him, as though space were slowly
thinking thoughts for him. — Rainer Maria Rilke

It is almost inevitable that our faith will be challenged. We may at times find ourselves surrounded by others and yet standing in the minority or even standing alone concerning what is acceptable and what is not. Do we have the moral courage to stand firm for our beliefs, even if by so doing we must stand alone? — Thomas S. Monson

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

Love was the greatest of enchantments; if Echidna and her children succeeded in killing Kypris, Thelxiepeia would no doubt, would doubtless ... Become the goddess of love in a century or less, said the Outsider, standing not behind Silk as he had in the ball court, but before him - standing on the still water of the pool, tall and wise and kind, with a face that nearly came into focus. I would claim her in that case, long before the end. As I have so many others. As I am claiming Kypris even now because love always proceeds from me, real love, true love. First romance. The Outsider was the dancing man on a toy, and the water the polished toy-top on which he danced with Kypris, who was Hyacinth and Mother, too. First romance, sang the Outsider with the music box. First romance. It was why he was called the Outsider. He was outside - — Gene Wolfe

The choreographed standing and clapping of one side of the room - while the other side sits - is unbecoming of a serious institution and the message that it sends is that even on a night when the president is addressing the entire nation, we in Congress cannot sit as one, but must be divided as two. — Mark Udall

I could take care of that obstacle for her - I'd tear down anything standing between us - but I couldn't destroy what I couldn't even see. — Rachel Vincent

Yea, even so he shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father. 8 And thus God breaketh the bands of death, having gained the victory over death; giving the Son power to make intercession for the children of men - 9 Having ascended into heaven, having the bowels of mercy; being filled with compassion towards the children of men; standing betwixt them and justice; having broken the bands of death, taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice. — Joseph Smith Jr.

Even so, I was proud of myself for taking action at all. I didn't hide or run away or pretend the ugliness didn't happen. I stood up and said something that was true. I said it out loud, and by doing so, I was standing up for lots of people, not just me. — Lauren Myracle

There's been times when I've been standing in a line at a movie and someone's hit me with something really heavy about someone really close and how our music has helped them get through it. Even in our darkest moments we try and find something beautiful. — Eddie Vedder

I love movies and all, but I could never imagine standing around saying lines and playing make believe all day. It's too fucking ridiculous. Also, even children and animals can technically be actors. It's not a job for a man. — A.D. Aliwat

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

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

When others sit, a #StaticJedi is found standing - even standing along, with a message not in hand but secure in heart! — Eric Samuel Timm

Hana's voice is completely toneless. I can't tell if she's being sarcastic. But she is lucky, whether she knows it or not.
And there it is: Even though we're standing in the same patch of sun-drenched pavement, we might as well be a hundred thousand miles apart.
You came from different starts and you'll come to different ends : That's an old saying, something Carol used to repeat a lot. I never really understood how true it was until now. — Lauren Oliver

Even in the toughest of times ... don't give up hope. It may look dark but you will find the sun standing behind even the darkest of clouds. — Timothy Pina

He pondered that a little while and then he asked, do Black people have to pay for their doctors, too? Because that's what TV programs had said. I smiled a little at this and told him it's not only Black people who have to pay for doctors and medical care; all people in America have to. Ah, he said. And suppose you don't have the money to pay? Well, I said, if you don't have the money to pay, sometimes you died. And there was no mistaking my gesture, even though he had to wait for the translator to translate it. We left him looking absolutely nonplussed, standing in the middle of the square with his mouth open and his hand under his chin staring after me, as in utter amazement that human beings could die from lack of medical care. It's things like that that keep me dreaming about Russia long after I've returned. — Audre Lorde

Even when they have been felled, let alone when they are still standing and fighting, they never disgrace themselves, — Tom Holland

We talk of strong personalities, and they are strong, until the not-every-day when we see them as we might see one woman alone in a desert, and know that all the strength we thought we knew was only courage, only her lone song echoing among the stones; and then at last when we have understood this and made up our minds to hear the song and admire its courage and its sweetness, we wait for the next note and it does not come. The last word, with its pure tone, echoes and fades and is gone, and we realize - only then - that we do not know what it was, that we have been too intent on the melody to hear even one word. We go then to find the singer, thinking she will be standing where we last saw her. There are only bones and sand and a few faded rags. — Gene Wolfe

The next day I was driven down to New York City to take the physical. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen. Several hundred young men, maybe even a thousand, in their skivvies, walking around an enormous room, all of us lost, dazed, and confused.
Some of these guys had dodged the draft and were there under the watchful eyes of dozens of federal marshals lined up against one of the walls. After eight hours of being poked, prodded, stuck, and poked again, I was given a large red envelope. I had been rejected. I had the respiratory problems of an old man, high blood pressure, partial loss of hearing, very bad teeth, very flat, very wide feet and I tested positive for tuberculosis.
"Frankly," the doctor said, "I don't know how the hell you're even standing up," and that was when the sergeant told me that if they bottled everything that was wrong with me "we could take over the world without a shot. — John William Tuohy

Women. No offense. But she doesn't even realize what she just said. These are her accomplishments. Challenges she's lived through. Shithead was just standing along for the ride. In the background. Like wallpaper. You can change the color of the walls anytime, and it might look different, but the room's still the same. — Emma Chase

Amusement, even ironic amusement, is the beginning of sincere appreciation, as any lapsed hipster knows. — Last Man Standing

I can't even begin to visualize myself as a five-star general ... When I think of the people who are five-star generals, I can't even see myself standing in their shadow. — Norman Schwarzkopf

When a child speaks of a past life memory, the effects ripple far. At the center is the child, who is directly healed and changed. The parents standing close by are rocked by the truth of the experience - a truth powerful enough to dislodge deeply entrenched beliefs. For observers removed from the actual event - even those just reading about it - reports of a child's past life memory can jostle the soul toward new understanding. Children's past life memories have the power to change lives. — Carol Bowman

I don't understand - why won't you talk to me?
You sit in the corner all day and write in your book and look at everything but my face. You have so much to say to a piece of paper but I'm standing right here and you don't even acknowledge me. Juliette, please - — Tahereh Mafi

Every living creature on this planet, has a conscious subjective perspective of the world. The plants may seem to us as standing indifferent to the human sufferings, but even they have their own unique mental universe. They have their own way of interacting with the environment. — Abhijit Naskar

A brawl was in progress near the threshold of the tavern, a writhing mixture of arms, legs, flying hats, and bottles and canes. Anytime there was a fight, the greatest likelihood was that her brother had started it.
"Merripen," she said anxiously, "you know how Leo is when he's foxed. He's probably in the middle of the fray. If you would be so kind - "
Before she had even finished, Merripen made to leave the carriage.
"Wait," Rohan said. "You'd better let me handle it."
Merripen gave him a cold glance. "You doubt my ability to fight?"
"This is a London rookery. I'm used to the kind of tricks they employ. If you - " Rohan broke off as Merripen ignored him and left the carriage with a surly grunt. "So be it," Rohan said, exiting the carriage and standing beside it to watch. — Lisa Kleypas