Stopped Quotes & Sayings

I don't know when Tiger Lily stopped growing older; I can't pinpoint that moment. But I do know I never saw her visibly age beyond the days when she was with Peter. I like to think her growing stopped the day they were on the plateau, watching the horses. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I got stopped in front of the bras in Victoria's Secret; I get interrogated in airport bathrooms. I went to South Africa in January to see my family, and even there people would stop me and ask, "Sasha, who's A?" Even my grandma. — Sasha Pieterse

There were always dog walkers out & about. Sometimes they even stopped for a chat while the various mutts inspected each other. Rebus would be asked how old his dog was.
No idea.
The breed, then ?
Mongrel.
And all the while, he would be thinking about cigarettes. — Ian Rankin

I don't know why you decided to wear that costume, but it makes you a symbol. Just as Robin was a symbol. Or Superman, or Nightwing, or the policeman who wears his uniform. And this isn't just a symbol of the law, it's a symbol of justice. When one policeman is killed, others take his place because justice can't be stopped. — Marv Wolfman

Patrick's handsome face descended toward mine. He stopped when he was just a whisper away. "You have a beautiful mouth."
God, he was magnificent. Such harsh, sensual beauty. The luck of genetics and vampirism and gym time? Who knew?
He watched me watching him and I knew he was probably in my head, listening in on my thoughts, my confusion. He grinned, just a little, and I knew that rotten, ugly, fat troll was reading my mind.
He laughed, unrepentant, and his breath plumed my lips. How the hell did he do that? How could he pretend to breathe? Or better yet, why did he pretend to breathe? — Michele Bardsley

My heart- dammit
my heart stopped in my chest as I stared at them. He had me by the throat because he had my whole world in his hands. I said one word I thought I'd never utter to the bastard.
"Please." I swallowed hard, but the words came out easier than I could've ever imagined. "Please don't hurt her."
"You'd beg for a human who wouldn't do the same for you?"
"I'd do anything for her."
"And I would do anything for him." Kat gasped out. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I retired from acting the same time they stopped hiring me. But following my own thing of making these small indie movies has been the happiest I've ever been. — Bobcat Goldthwait

He pushed her jacket off her shoulders. It was warm in the room now, and she was comfortable in her sleeveless top. He skimmed his hands down
her arms, and he drew her against him.
"I missed holding you."
"I m sure you haven t been lonely without me."
He stopped and pulled her back. "There hasn't been anyone since I was with you. Believe that. All I did after you left was play ball and brood a lot. — Jaci Burton

We tore each other's clothes off like they were on fire. She was gorgeous. Firm and strong and a shape like a dream. Skin like silk. She pulled me to the floor through bars of hot sunlight from the window. It was frantic. We were rolling and nothing could have stopped us. It was like the end of the world. We shuddered to a stop and lay gasping. We were bathed in sweat. Totally spent. — Lee Child

Suddenly he stopped as if rooted outside the doors of one house; before his eyes an inexplicable phenomenon occurred: a carriage stopped at the entrance; the door opened; a gentleman in a uniform jumped out, hunching over, and ran up the stairs. What was Kovalev's horror as well as amazement when he recognized him as his own nose! — Nikolai Gogol

Oh, it doesn't work at all. That's the problem! It's an endless, halting parade of inspections, bribes, and nonsense - but if you're aboard a Texas vessel, you'll find less inconvenience along the way."
"It's because of their guns!" declared Mr. Henderson, once more escaping his reverie, bobbing out of it as if to gasp for air.
"Concise, my love." Mrs. Henderson gave him a smile. "And correct. Texans are heavily armed and often impatient. They don't need to be transporting arms and gunpowder to create a great nuisance for anyone who stops them, so they tend to be stopped ... less often. — Cherie Priest

the Germans have got to be stopped. They think they're entitled to rule the world!" Da said: "We're British. Our empire holds sway over more than four hundred million people. Hardly any of them are entitled to vote. They have no control over their own countries. Ask the average British man why, and he'll say it's our destiny to govern inferior peoples. — Ken Follett

I retraced my steps, walked up to her, and in another moment would have certainly said, "Madam!" if I had not known that that exclamation had been made a thousand times before in all Russian novels of high life. It was that alone that stopped me. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

So what are you saying?" he asked.
"That we'd be crazy if we don't try again. That you are good for me, Will Doniger. You've proven it again and again."
He hesitated before he turned to me, words hovering on his lips.
"Tell me," I said. "What are you thinking?"
"That I love you, Rose. I have for a while."
I stopped breathing. "Me too. I love you, too. — Donna Freitas

Baron Louis de Rothschild, one of the wealthiest Jewish men in Vienna, tried to leave the city. The Nazis stopped him at the airport and put him in prison, and whatever they did to him there convinced him that he ought to sign over everything to the Nazi regime. Then they let him leave. The SS took over the Rothschild Palace on Prinz Eugenstrasse and renamed it the Center for Jewish Emigration. — Edith Hahn Beer

I could see neither fascination nor delight on their faces, and I wondered if it was possible to get so used to joy that you stopped noticing it? — Martin Pistorius

I want to see you again." He stopped, took her face in his hands. "I need to see you again."
Her pulse jumped, as if it had nothing to do with the rest of her. "Roarke, what's going on here?"
"Lieutenant." He leaned forward, touched his lips to hers. "indications are we're having a romance. — J.D. Robb

His whole personality was like an elaborate joke that he never stopped telling. — Lev Grossman

Charles, a footman who had once worked on his father's farm and who loved animals, appeared and came over to help her prepare dishes of boiled chicken and brown rice for the cats and dogs waiting eagerly at their feet.
When guests were staying, Charles often assisted with the care of her furry brood. Without asking, he set to work, even taking a few moments to gather fresh meat scraps for Aeolus, her wounded hawk, and cut-up apple and beetroots for Poppy, a convalescing rabbit who had an injured leg. He gave her several more apple quarters for the horses, who got jealous if she didn't bring them treats as well.
Once all her cats and dogs were fed, Esme set off for the stables, laden pail in hand, Burr trotting at her heels. She stopped along the way to chat with the gardener and his assistant, who gave her some timothy grass, comfrey and lavender to supplement the hay she regularly fed Poppy. — Tracy Anne Warren

Can't be touched, Can't be stopped, Can't be moved, Can't be rocked, Can't be shook. — Roy Jones Jr.

There is a major turning point in life when you have to decide: shall I grow old gracefully or shall I try everything to stem the tide? For me, that point came in 2001, when I stopped dyeing my hair. — Nik Kershaw

So what? You act all mysterious to seem more interesting?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're always wandering off or running away," he said. "But you're a lot more
interesting when you're just being yourself you know. When you're actually here."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Emma said coldly. "Where else would I be?"

"You know what I mean," he said, a rough edge to his voice. "It's like you're so busy trying not to act like your family that you've never even stopped to consider that it might not be such a bad thing."

"Well what about you?" she shot back, aware of the bitterness in her words.
"You complain about your dad not wanting you around, and then you complain when he wants you to stay home for school. You can't have it both wars."

"Well neither can you," he said. " You can't keep everyone at arms length and then expect them to be there for you when you need them. — Jennifer E. Smith

I was married once before, and I stopped. — Marc Maron

Roadway. We didn't stop at the house, but instead rounded the corner and stopped a block away. Stepping out and — James Patterson

Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day? — Alan Jackson

Give yourself some credit," he went on, "not a lot of silkies would have made it this far."
"I stopped you from killing Chorda," (...)
"Hey, come one," Rafe said. "It's your first time in the Feral Zone. Of course you made mistakes."
"Like falling for the wrong boy?" I'd said it to be funny, since he was always teasing me about Everson, but Rafe grew still.
He turned his gaze on the dark skyline. "No, you didn't. He's a stiff, but he's a good guy, he won't crawl out of your window after you fall asleep or come on to your sister."
"I don't have a sister."
"Missing the point. — Kat Falls

She ducked her head into my chest, and I smiled. She brought out these tender feelings in me I'd never experienced with anyone before. I used the hand that was already draped over her shoulder and tugged on her braid. "Some girls are probably gonna say shit, Rim," I said. "Some bitches be devious."
She giggled and looked up at me as we stopped beside the Hellcat. "Some bitches?"
I grinned. "Just keepin' it real."
- Romeo & Rimmel — Cambria Hebert

The one thing that might have stopped San Bernardino, that might have stopped 9/11 would have been stricter controls on those who came here. — Ted Cruz

Subtle! Subtlety is bourgeois. Brecht us that when he popped drama's cherry. He fucked drama until it stopped being subtle, like a lady, and started being useful, like a whore. — David Burr Gerrard

Just before Jie and Daniel reached the street, Daniel stopped. He twirled around and gazed up at me, as if he had sensed my eyes on his back. He strode a few steps toward me, paused, and then strode two more.
He slung off his cap and pressed it to his chest. Then,with the casual grace that marked all of his movements, he dropped to one knee and bowed his head.
He was declaring fealty to his empress.
I laughed-I couldn't help it. The absurdity of it all. The bittersweet sting.When he lifted back up, I saw he too wore a smile.He waved with his cap, and after flopping it back on his head, he swiveled and trotted to the street. Then,without another look back, the Spirit-Hunters left. — Susan Dennard

I would love to hear someone write a song like 'He Stopped Loving Her Today' rather than 'You're hot. I'm hot. We're in a truck.' It's just mind-numbing to me. — Vince Gill

I know Rani. She might call herself queen of the demons, but she's been my friend for hundreds of reincarnations. She's my friend in this one too, but she just doesn't know it yet."
"It must be a most powerful friendship."
Ash stopped. How many times had she saved his life and he hers? Countless times, over more centuries than history knew. "It is. — Sarwat Chadda

I kind of stopped buying vinyl because I'm always on the road and you can never listen to it. — Simon Taylor-Davis

The entire time Albie followed Beverly around the house doing what the children referred to as "the stripper soundtrack":
Boom chicka-boom, boom-boom chicka-boom.
When their mother stopped walking the soundtrack stopped. If she took a single step it was accompanied by Albie saying only "boom" in a voice that was weirdly sexual for a six-year-old. — Ann Patchett

So what you gonna do?"

"Push a stick into the beehive and rustle up some bees. The Larousses are hosting a party today. I think we should avail ourselves of their hospitality."

"We got an invite?"

"Has not having one ever stopped us before?"

"No, but sometimes I just like to be invited to shit, you know what I'm sayin', instead of havin' to bust in, get threatened, irritate the nice white folks, put the fear of the black man on them."

He paused, seemed to think for a while about what he had just said, then brightened.

"Sounds good, doesn't it?" I said.

"Real good," he agreed. — John Connolly

Her hand accidentally brushed up against his chest. She froze. His breathing remained steady and regular. He had not awoken. She was about to pull her hand away, then stopped. Never had she touched a man's chest. She waited a moment. His breathing was still constant, still regular. He was still asleep. Flattening her palm against his chest, she felt the tautness of his muscles. She moved her hand, slowly, tremulously, down his chest and across his stomach, feeling the firmness of his skin and his strong physique. He seized her hand, pushed it away, and turned his back to her. — Cate Campbell Beatty

No buts," he said, "because there are none. You see yourself as someone who couldn't get away. I see the courageous woman who escaped. You see yourself as someone who should be ashamed or guilty because she let it happen. I see a kind, beautiful woman who should feel proud because she stopped it from happening ever again. Not many women have the strength to do what you did.. — Nicholas Sparks

[As a young man ] I came to the conclusion that the church was just a bunch of fascists that supported Franco. I stopped going on Sunday mornings and watched the birds with my father instead. — James D. Watson

The first time that I entered through the double-locked doors of the psych ward I was terrified, believing for no real reason that such places harbored evil souls ready to assault me at any moment. But once inside I found it to be the slowest-moving place on Earth, and I saw that these patients were unique only in that time had stopped inside their wounds, which were seemingly never to heal. The pain was so thick and palpable in the psych ward that a visitor could breathe it like the heavy humidity of summer air, and I soon realized that the challenge would not be to defend myself from patients, but to defend myself against my own increasing indifference toward them. What originally struck me as cryptic in chapter fifty-nine was now mundane: they are turned inward, to feed upon their own hearts, and their own hearts are very bad feeding. — Hope Jahren

Tell me your deepest secret," she said softly ...
After a long moment, he spoke. "The only secret I've borne my entire life is that I love you." He gave her a slight smile. "It was the one thing I believed I'd go to the grave without voicing." His eyes were so full of light that their loveliness almost stopped her heart. — Sarah J. Maas

Your mother hollers that you're going to miss the bus. She can see it coming down the street. You don't stop and hug her and tell her you love her. You don't thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother. Of course not
you vault down down the stairs and make a run for the corner.
Only if it's the last time you'll ever see your mother, you sort of start to wish you'd stopped and did those things. Maybe even missed the bus.
But the bus was barreling down our street so I ran. — Emmy Laybourne

Goodness gracious! - What's that? It's the clock striking! And here I've been keeping you awake. Oh, madam, you ought to have stopped me... Can I tuck in your feet? I always tuck in my lady's feet, every night, just the same. And she says, "Good night, Ellen. Sleep sound and wake early!" I don't know what I should do if she didn't say that, now. ... — Katherine Mansfield

I always tell people I'm grateful for my cancer diagnosis because it was the greatest gift because it completely changed my life. I was able to stop and let my whole life and world just crash over me like a wave. And I stood there and went, 'Wow.' And for the first time, I stopped everything. I had to. — Melissa Etheridge

What we saw was that the Ferguson Police Department in conjunction with the municipality saw traffic stops, arrests, tickets as a revenue generator, as opposed to serving the community, and that it systematically was biased against African-Americans in that city who were stopped, harassed, mistreated, abused, called names, fined. — Barack Obama

When I think of all the years in my 30s when I starved myself ... but when I got the role of Lois, I stopped thinking about my looks and was just myself. — Jane Kaczmarek

Have you ever stopped to really consider how many people we share the universe with? I mean, really. I did the other day, and it made me feel smaller than an ant. — Claire Contreras

Regardless of my legislation, spending has to be stopped. — Gary Johnson

He was out playing and heard Molly calling him. "Richard! Supper!" Instead of answering "Coming!" and running to her, he dodged under a hedge, scraping his knees. "Richard! Richard!" Molly sounded frantic this time, but he remained silent, crouched. "Richard! Where are you, Dicky?" A rabbit stopped and watched him, and he locked eyes with the rabbit and, for those short moments, only he and the rabbit knew where he was. Then the rabbit leaped out and Molly peered under the bushes and saw him. She smacked him. She told him to stay in his room for the rest of the day. She said she was very upset and would tell Mr. and Mrs. Churchill. But those short moments had made it all worthwhile, those moments of pure plenary abandon, when he felt as if he, and he alone, were in control of the universe of his childhood. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In the interests of friendship, I hope you'll forgive me what I'm about to do."
"Forgive you wha - "
My sentence was cut off as he clamped his mouth over mine, kissing me deeply.

...

"Ready to make a scene?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Do I have a choice?"
"Not really. To quote something someone said to me recently, in the interests of friendship, I hope you'll forgive what I'm about to do." I drew back my hand and slapped him across the face. The smack of flesh striking flesh echoed through the hall. Conversations stopped as people whipped around to stare at us. Raising my voice to something just below a shout, I snarled, "You asshole! — Seanan McGuire

Magnus gave Alec a sidelong look as they climbed the rickety stairs. Alec caught the glance, and his breathing quickened; his blue eyes were bright. Alec bit his lower lip, and Magnus stopped walking. It was only a momentary hesitation. But then Alec reached out and caught his arm, fingers tight above his elbow.
'Magnus', he said in a low voice. — Cassandra Clare

Then he would ask for songs and I would pluck them out for him on a lute I borrowed from my father's wagon. He would even sing from time to time. He had a bright, reckless tenor that was always wandering off, looking for notes in the wrong places. More often than not he stopped and laughed at himself when it happened. He was a good man, and there was no conceit in him. Not long after he joined our troupe, I asked Abenthy what it was like being an arcanist. He gave me a thoughtful look. Have you ever known an arcanist? — Patrick Rothfuss

For a moment my heart stopped beating. "It's not the fall you know." His breath was all warm on my cheek. "It's that sudden stop at the end that does it." Just before I kissed him, I whispered, "I hope it doesn't hurt much. — James Buchanan

Finally, though, I arrived at a point where I decided this was bullshit. I stopped feeling as if I didn't belong anywhere, and realized that I belonged anywhere I wanted to be - whether that was a boardroom, business class, or on — Sophia Amoruso

The prime goal is to alleviate suffering, and not to prolong life. And if your treatment does not alleviate suffering, but only prolongs life, that treatment should be stopped. — Christiaan Barnard

I came to that wooden marching band. I stopped and looked. There was a trumpet, trombone, clarinet, and drum. Birds don't live alone, I told myself. They live in flocks. Like people. People are always in a group. Like that little wooden band. — Paul Fleischman

I never read Playboy before I started working there and stopped reading it the day I quit. — Harold Ramis

Em unless you got the money to pay. Fred has been given a regimen of meds for HIV, but he stopped — Andrew Solomon

Age about 30, I stopped looking up my books in bookstores. Paying attention to the marketplace isn't a healthy thing for me. — Mary Karr

If you think about Audrey Hepburn, I think she became more beautiful when she stopped being an actress and started working with humanitarian campaigns. The more engaged you can become the more you can shed your self-consciousness. — Cate Blanchett

I had grown up in a house with a fence around it, and in this fence was a white smooth wooden gate, two holes bored round and low together so the dog could see through. One night, the moon high, late for me home from the school dance, I remember that I stopped, hand on the gate, and spoke so quietly to myself and to the woman that I would love that not even the dog could have heard.
I don't know where you are, but you're living right now, somewhere on this earth. And one day you and I are going to touch this gate where I'm touching it now. Your hand will touch this very wood, here! Then we'll walk through and we'll be full of a future and of a past and we'll be to each other like no one else has ever been. We can't meet now, I don't know why. But some day our questions will be answers and we'll be caught in something so bright ... and every step I take is one step closer on a bridge we must cross to meet. — Richard Bach

British ferries have stopped transporting live animals to the Continent. This has made it very difficult for England fans to get to Away matches. — Jo Brand

Self-growth does not always mean that we've changed. It means that we've stopped listening to what others say we 'ought' to be doing and finally live our lives according to our own values. — Anthea Syrokou

If I stopped running and stood still, I would be accepting that what I had was all I would ever have. And then I would no longer be lost, because there would nowhere else to go — Amy Tan

Still, when the shooting and shelling stopped, they could sometimes -- not often, but sometimes -- see that they were just someone's son, or husband, or brother. — Craig Siegel

My heart had stopped as my world spun around me. I felt all the walls that had begun to crack and crumble slam right back into place as I looked into the eyes of the monster I knew was there all along. — Alicia Deters

Most days it feels like I am watching a movie
where the sound isn't in sync,
the speed is all wrong.
Either I'm moving too quickly
and the world is dripping along,
or the world is moving too quickly, cosmic,
and I'm oozing like a slug
barely able to pull my own weight.
It's best if I keep moving
because if I stopped and stood still
people would see me shaking. — Samantha Schutz

I can tell you that she's not breathing," he said. "She has no heartbeat and all organ function and brain activity have stopped. Also her body temperature is now at seventy-three degrees."
"So you're saying that she's dead," I said.
"Well, I can't prove it, but, yes, I am leaning that way. — John Zakour

Human beings mistakenly believed alcohol was a disguise that stopped real life from recognizing them. In fact, it was just a temporary hiding hole ... — Colin Cotterill

I stopped worrying about the start. The end is what's important. — Usain Bolt

This beginning motion, this first time when a sail truly filled and the boat took life and knifed across the lake under perfect control, this was so beautiful it stopped my breath ... — Gary Paulsen

He had not stopped desiring her for a single instant. He found her in the dark bedrooms of captured towns, especially in the most abject ones, and he would make her materialize in the smell of dry blood on the bandages of the wounded, in the instantaneous terror of the danger of death, at all times and in all places. He had fled from her in an attempt to wipe out her memory, not only through distance but by means of a muddled fury that his companions at arms took to be boldness, but the more her image wallowed in the dunghill of the war, the more the war resembled Amaranta. That was how he suffered in exile, looking for a way of killing her with his own death ... — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

We should be dreaming. We grew up as kids having dreams, but now we're too sophisticated as adults, as a nation. We stopped dreaming. We should always have dreams. — Herb Brooks

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph. — Shirley Temple Black

She knew her duty inside and out. The prosperity of the cash drawer brought happiness to husband and wife. Not that Madame Puta was bad looking, not at all, she could even, like so many others, have been rather pretty, but she was so careful, so distrustful that she stopped short of beauty just as she stopped short of life - her hair was a little too well dressed, her smile a little too facile and sudden, and her gestures a bit too abrupt or too furtive. You racked your brains trying to figure out what was too calculated about her and why you always felt uneasy when she came near you. This instinctive revulsion that shopkeepers inspire in anyone who goes near them who knows what's what, is one of the few consolations for being as down at heel as people who don't sell anything to anybody tend to be. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I've stopped racing to get to the red light. — Kyle Chandler

The winters were getting colder, starting earlier, lasting longer, with more snows than he could remember from childhood. As soon as man stopped adding his megatons of filth to the atmosphere each day, he thought, the atmosphere had reverted to what it must have been long ago, moister weather summer and winter, more stars than he had ever seen before, and more, it seemed, each night than the night before: the sky a clear, endless blue by day, velvet blue-black at night with blazing stars that modern man had never seen. — Kate Wilhelm

Thick black smoke disappears into the darkness of night, blotting out patches of stars. Somewhere up there, higher than his world and mine, is the place where all things go when they have stopped breathing. It is a place my brother visited. Up where it's quiet and calm, and prayers are able to drift up higher than words or wishes or wants. — Lauren DeStefano

There's also something happening in television similar to what happened in the '80s, when people stopped taking so many drugs and wanted to hear real instruments in music again. I think people want plot, story and characters. Those are more important than having a big star. — Jessica Pare

What?" my partner asked suddenly.
I jumped, guilty at having been caught staring. But, hell, I thought, might as well ask. "Are you two
you know?" I made a vaguely obscene gesture with my fingers.
He stopped walking so fast I was shocked he didn't get whiplash. "What?"
I waved toward the building. "You and Shandi."
Instead of answering, he threw his head back and brayed like the jackass he was. — Jaye Wells

On that walk around the building, two sets of cops coming out stopped to tell our guys to hustle us inside so they could head back out on the road. Accidents everywhere. A pileup on
each of two major roads. "Welcome to winter," one said. "When fifty percent of drivers should have their licenses temporarily suspended. — Kelley Armstrong

When we read with attention the poetical and philosophical monuments of the East
above all, those of India, which are beginning to spread in Europe
we discover there many a truth, and truths so profound, and which make such a contrast with the meanness of the results at which European genius has sometimes stopped, that we are constrained to bend the knee before the philosophy of the East, and to see in this cradle of the human race the native land of the highest philosophy. — Victor Cousin

Everyone knew that girls who admitted to liking girls stopped being whatever they were before and became a cross between a lumberjack and a punk-goth-anarchist.
- Adena Galinksy, USA (p. 38) — Robyn Ochs

All those years when Ronni thought she was sick, all those years convinced that every mole was melanoma, every cough was lung cancer, every case of heartburn was an oncoming heart attack, after all those years, when the gods finally stopped taking care of her she wasn't scared. What a pity, she thought after the doctor first diagnosed her. Then, when she refused to believe it, after the second, and the third, agreed, she thought again, what a pity I wasted all those years worrying about the worst. Somehow now that the worst was upon her, it was peaceful, calming, as if this was what she had always been waiting for. Now that it was here, it wasn't scary at all. — Jane Green

I used to watch 'The Apprentice' all the time and I thought Bill was a fox. That was that, we didn't see each other for years, and then we saw each other and 45 minutes after the cameras stopped rolling, we were still talking. — Giuliana Rancic

I may not be much good at most things, but if I didn't have the pleasure of planning and installing shows, and doing it better than anyone else, I would have stopped buying art many years ago. — Charles Saatchi

I thought the force of my wanting must wake ye, surely. And then ye did come ... " He stopped, looking at me with eyes gone soft and dark. "Christ, Claire, ye were so beautiful, there on the stair, wi' your hair down and the shadow of your body with the light behind ye ... ." He shook his head slowly. "I did think I should die, if I didna have ye," he said softly. "Just then. — Diana Gabaldon

I used to think I'd be just like them when I grew up, but I am not. And the thing is, somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting to be like them, anyway. — Jodi Picoult

A monster is a person who has stopped pretending. — Colson Whitehead

I've stopped thinking all the time of what happened yesterday. And stopped asking what's going to happen tomorrow. What's happening today, this minute, is what I care about. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Russell piped in singing, "Four pounds of back bacon, three French toasts, two turtlenecks, and a beer ... ." He leaned his body over Ellis. On the last line, Rob joined him. " ... in a tree!" They stopped, and Russell asked, "How does the beer stay in the tree? Wouldn't it fall out? — Wade Kelly

If Roger stopped right now and never won another match, to me he'd already be one of the greatest players to ever play the game. To me, he's the greatest all around talent that I've ever seen. — John McEnroe

I always tell Asian actors, especially Filipinos wanting to break into Hollywood, to study, study and study and show their best. I haven't stopped studying. There's an abundance of roles, and all you have to do is prove to them that you are good for the role. — Reggie Lee

Carl waited while I knocked, and when the door opened I came within an ace of slipping a couple of pound coins into his gloved hand and asking him to book me a table at L'Epicure. Luckily, he stopped me by saluting violently, then turned on his heel and set off back down the corridor at a hundred and ten paces to the minute. — Hugh Laurie

Last night I dreamed about her," he said. "She had this shawl wrapped around her shoulders with tassels hanging off it, and her hair was long like old times. She said, 'Red, I want to learn every step of you, and dance till the end of the night.' " He stopped speaking. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. Denny and Stem stood with a screen balanced between them and looked at each other helplessly.

"Then I woke up," Red said after a minute. He stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket. "I thought, 'This must mean I miss having her close attention, the way I've always been used to.' Then I woke up again, for real. Have either of you ever done that? Dreamed that you woke up, and then found you'd still been asleep? I woke up for real and I thought, 'Oh, boy. I see I've still got a long way to go with this.' Seems I haven't quite gotten over it, you know? — Anne Tyler

Taking a hypersensitive approach to life had come to seem so much more pure and honest then joining the ranks of the numb masses who could let it all slide by. What I stopped realizing was that if you feel everything intensely, ultimately you feel nothing at all. Everything registers at the same decibel ... — Elizabeth Wurtzel

He stopped moving for the space of a heartbeat. He bent his head to her shoulder and rocked his hips, pressing inside her. His hair fell forward around either side of his face, a frame of black, silky where it brushed her collarbone. "I am in paradise." His hips rocked again.
She closed her eyes tight. She felt his lips on her cheek and then on her eyelids, placing gentle kisses. — Carolyn Jewel

Oxthorpe stood. He could do nothing else.
Her hands stilled, and her smile faded away. She stood and dropped into a curtsy. What did one say in such situations, when one knew a lady disapproved? "Miss Clay," he said.
"Duke." She'd given the field laborer a happier smile than she gave him. Most everyone else had stopped smiling, too. This was the effect he had on others. He was the Duke of Oxthorpe, and though he did his duty by his title and his estate, he was not beloved. He did not know how to be beloved the way Miss Clay was. — Carolyn Jewel

People in this country haven't stopped hating fat people, but they've become more kind to me, since in our culture, even though we hate our fat people, we love our celebrities even more. — Camryn Manheim

Go back to your ghost, I hear Bryn telling me. But she has it wrong. Bryn is the one who's been living with the ghost-the specter of a man who never stopped loving someone else. — Gayle Forman

I had long ago stopped believing in promises. Biological imperatives, yes. Environmental factors, yes. Promises, no. — Jeff VanderMeer