Quotes & Sayings About Straight Up

There's evil in this world; I've seen it and I will devote my life to protecting you from it.
But baby, my head's so fucked up and you're the only thing that keeps me thinking straight.
Stay here and be mine. — Suzanne Steele

I'll say this much for guys, gay or straight: it's easy to pick up a friendship and act like nothing's happened. I can only imagine how quickly Christianity would have collapsed had Jesus and the Apostles been a bunch of women. Jesus would never have gotten over the fact that they abandoned him during the Crucifixion. 'I can't believe you guys would do that to me. I'm never speaking to you again. Ever!' Then, out of spite, he would have run off and joined up with the Zoroastrians. — Ken Wheaton

The 2012 presidential campaign's turn away from the classic, straight-up, American election - where the candidate who gets the most votes nationwide wins - is another sad reminder of the extreme political polarization distorting today's politics. No one talks about a 50-state strategy for winning the presidency these days. — Juan Williams

In terms of theater itself, no story is too strange or method of telling it too impossible these days. In many ways, musical theater has caught up with straight theater in that it's allowed more surreality and breaking of form, and that's really exciting to me - the challenge is getting people to produce those shows. — Nick Blaemire

For shit's sake, it wasn't like there was a twelve-step for being the Scribe Virgin's kid:
Hi, I'm Vishous. I'm her son and I've been her son for three hundred years.
HI, VISHOUS.
She's done a head job on me again, and I'm trying not to go to the Other Side and scream bloody murder at her.
WE UNDERSTAND, VISHOUS.
And on the bloody note, I'd like to dig up my father and kill him all over again, but I can't. So I'm just going to try to keep my sister alive even though she's paralyzed, and attempt to fight the urge to find some pain so I can deal with this Payne.
YOU'RE A STRAIGHT-UP PUSSY, VISHOUS, BUT WE SUPPORT YOUR SORRY ASS. — J.R. Ward

He rose up over her, his arms straight on either side of her shoulders, and slowly withdrew, his flesh dragging against hers.
He was hot and hard.
She spread her thighs, reveling in this lush feeling, his thrusts blunt and hard now, pounding into her body.
And still he watched her, the green of his eyes slivers of want, demanding something of her. Something she was no longer willing to give, it was just too much.
When at last she came, her breaths hitching and halting, her legs trembling, her sex pulsing with every push of his cock, she watched him. She saw when he gritted his teeth, his lips drawn back in need and pleasure.
He shouted her name, loud in her quiet bedroom, as his big body jerked and plunged and emptied itself in her. — Elizabeth Hoyt

It's actually the fourth,' I say, 'if you count getting fired from CopyMax.'
'Which we do not.' Jo slit-eyes me. She scoops up a handful of Fritos and tosses them into her mouth.
I try to keep a straight face, but it's hard when I add, 'Fired for copying your naked butt and gluing it on your boss's chair. — Julie Anne Peters

I don't
know about ghosts, but I do know that our souls can be made to go outside our bodies when we are alive ... A very easy way to feel 'em go is to lie on the grass at night, and look straight up at some big bright star; and by fixing your mind upon it you will soon find that you are hundreds and hundreds o' miles away from your body, which you don't seem to want at all. — Thomas Hardy

He came up straight to her father, whose hands he took and wrung without a word - holding them in his for a minute or two, during which time his face, his eyes, his look, told of more sympathy than could be put into words. — Elizabeth Gaskell

They were quiet for a time, alone with their thoughts, but then John sat up straight, struck by a thought. "There's a passage in Exodus - God tells Moses, 'No one can see My face, but I will protect you with My hand until I have passed by you, and then I will remove My hand and you will see My back.' Remember that?"
Emilio nodded, listening.
Well I always thought that was a physical metaphor," John said, "but, you know - I wonder now if it isn't really about time? Maybe that was God's way of telling us that we can never know His intentions, but as time goes on ... we'll understand. We'll see where He was: we'll see His back. — Mary Doria Russell

I began drinking alcohol at the age of thirteen and gave it up in my fifty sixth year; it was like going straight from puberty to a mid-life crisis. — George Montgomery

I'm less of a straight-up, traditional vocalist. — Juliette Lewis

Prusis told me that the fluke's raging in Moscow, and there's nothing to bury people in. All the material's been used up. So I decided to come out and set things straight.'
Ostap, who had been listening curiously to the entire conversation, stepped in. 'Listen, pops. It's Paris where the flu is raging.'
'In Paris?'
'Well, yes. So go to Paris. You'll rake it in there! It's true that you'll have a few difficulties with the visa, but don't get down about it, pops. If Briand takes a shine to you, your life won't be half-bad: you'll be set up as personal coffin-maker to the municipality of Paris. — Ilya Ilf

I'm a Gemini, so there's two people in me. Straight up. There's the nerd who is totally zoned out in the studio, EQ-ing this kick drum, raising this snare one decibel, or swapping this high hat out for another. Then there's the other side who's a performer. I have to go out on stage and be electric, a fire cracker, just run around the stage and give a show. — G-Eazy

What I do will be straight up. Management knows that. — Carmelo Anthony

The outright propagandist sets up in me such a fury of opposition I am not apt to care much whether he has got his facts straight or not. He is like someone standing on your toes between you and an open window, describing the view to you. All I ask of him to do is to open the window, stand out of the way, and let me look at the view for myself. — Katherine Anne Porter

Spending all my remaining money on a ticket to Florence was rendered needlessly complicated by the fact that none of the ticket-sellers had ever heard of the place. At last their supervisor showed up and set them straight by informing them that the city they had always referred to as 'Firenze' was in reality called Florence. — Clive James

I think behind closed doors people behave differently no matter what period we're looking at, because people have to stand up straight in public but can slouch behind closed doors - can you imagine wearing those corsets? — Brenda Blethyn

were rabid, foaming bats blindly cleaving the air around his head. And it seemed that every few steps he would run straight into a twister of mosquitoes. Though he had been paid a large amount of cash up front, he was seriously considering increasing his daily fee on this one. — David Baldacci

A ball of fire rolled through my stomach, catching on the wings of the butterflies darting around in there and setting them up in a blaze. I bristled as Carter's grin brushed mine, lips just barely touching.

Any closer and we'd be kissing for real, plunging straight off this knife edge we balanced on. — Apollo Blake

To be dead to the Law means to be free of the Law. What right, then, has the Law to accuse me, or to hold anything against me? When you see a person squirming in the clutches of the Law, say to him: "Brother, get things straight. You let the Law talk to your conscience. Make it talk to your flesh. Wake up, and believe in Jesus Christ, the Conqueror of Law and sin. Faith in Christ will lift you high above the Law into the heaven of grace. Though Law and sin remain, they no longer concern you, because you are dead to the Law and dead to sin. — Martin Luther

Astrid Dane. . . Her long colorless hair was woven back into a braid, and her porcelain skin bled straight into the edges of her tunic. Her entire outfit was fitted to her like armor; the collar of her shirt was high and rigid, guarding her throat, and the tunic itself ran from chin to wrist to waist, less out of a sense of modesty, Kell was sure, than protection. Below a gleaming silver belt, she wore fitted pants that tapered into tall boots (rumor had it that a man once spat at her for refusing to wear a dress; she'd cut off his lips). The only bits of color were the pale blue of her eyes and the greens and reds of the talismans that hung from her neck and wrists and were threaded through her hair. . .
"I smell something sweet," she said. She'd been gazing up at the ceiling. Now her eyes wandered
down and landed on Kell. "Hello, flower boy. — V.E Schwab

The fabric of Lady Islay's gown certainly cost as much as Claribel's entire quarterly allowance. It was a pearly silk taffeta shot with threads of silver. Her breasts were scarcely covered, and from there the gown fell straight to the ground in a hauntingly beautiful sweep of cloth.
The pink brought out the color of her hair- burnt amber enticed with brandy and buttercup. If only she had left it free around her face and perhaps created some charming curls! Claribel made up her mind to tell her privately about the newest curling irons. She herself had lovely corkscrew curls bobbing next to her ears. — Eloisa James

We run our schools like factories. We line kids up in straight rows, put them in batches (called grades), and work very hard to make sure there are no defective parts. Nobody standing out, falling behind, running ahead, making a ruckus. Playing it safe. Following the rules. Those seem like the best ways to avoid failure. — Seth Godin

When I walk into a room, you'd think I was one of those long, straight Tetris pieces because everyone's just like, Oh great, you're here! We've been waiting for you to show up. — Bo Burnham

It commenced raining one day and did not stop for two months. We went through ever different kind of rain they is, cep'n maybe sleet or hail. It was little tiny stinging rain sometimes, an big ole fat rain at others. It came sidewise an straight down an sometimes even seem to stand up from the ground. Nevertheless, we was expected to do our shit, which was mainly walking upland down the hills an stuff looking for gooks. — Winston Groom

You can fool people. You can fool anybody anytime of the day, but you can't fool yourself. At night, when you go home, you've got to be straight up with you. — Whitney Houston

Now the only way out is straight up to Heaven. — Richard Bachman

would show that inside twenty-one feet against a knife, trying to get a gun out is typically a losing bet, especially if you're backing straight up rather than getting off the line. — Barry Eisler

He went crazy over Greek mythology, which is where I got my name.

They compromised on it, because my mom loved Shakespeare, and I ended up called Theseus Cassio. Theseus for the slayer of the Minotaur, and Cassio for Othello's doomed lieutenant. I think it sounds straight-up stupid. Theseus Cassio Lowood. Everyone just calls me Cas. I suppose I should be glad--my dad also loved Norse mythology, so I might have wound up being called Thor, which would have been basically unbearable. — Kendare Blake

When you're dying, the unicorn up in heaven gets a note from an angel telling her there's a person who's going to need a ride up soon. The unicorn finds out what the person likes. Favorite foods and books, colors and activities, pets and games. She gets a room ready for him, or her, near people who she knows they'll enjoy being with, maybe other friends and family who have died before.
When the unicorn is done, she jumps off of heaven's perch, flies through the blue sky, around the clouds, over any rainbows, and down to the person. She's invisible to everyone. She patiently waits. When the person dies, she gathers them up on her back, using her hooves and horn. All of a sudden, they sit up straight and smile, they laugh, because they're on top of a unicorn and alive again. They hold on tight to her golden reins and the unicorn takes them to their new home, where they're happy. — Cathy Lamb

Be hard but fair. Shoot straight. Never cheat, in sports or at work. Show up to your job early and do the best you can at it. Kill anyone that tries to blackmail you, ever. Refuse anyone who gives you an ultimatum, they're never worth it. Leave a fair tip when you eat somewhere, and take your hat off in someone's home. And always, always, keep your word. — Russell Zimmerman

I'm a veteran, and I've earned the right to be heard. I'll lead by example and show that gay players are no different from straight ones. I'm not the loudest person in the room, but I'll speak up when something isn't right. And try to make everyone laugh. — Jason Collins

Now, I've got the taste for steak," she changed the subject. "What do you have the taste for?" Straight up, he had the taste for cute, klutzy, classy pussy, eating her and listening to her moan. — Kristen Ashley

I tried some more. It was tasting better. I was feeling better. "This stuff belongs to your father, Baldy. I shouldn't drink it all." "He doesn't care. He's stopped drinking." Never had I felt so good. It was better than masturbating. I went from barrel to barrel. It was magic. Why hadn't someone told me? With this, life was great, a man was perfect, nothing could touch him. I stood up straight and looked at Baldy. "Where's your mother? I'm going to fuck your mother! — Charles Bukowski

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

She slid open the box, extracted a match, and struck it with a flourish. The flame flared up in the gloom of the unlit room, a tiny golden beacon. For a moment, Oma Kristel held it aloft, then the unthinkable happened. The match slipped out of her fingers and fell straight onto her pink mohair bosom. With a whooomph! like the sounds of a gas furnace firing up, the hairspray with which Oma Kristel had doused herself ignited, obliterating her in a column of flames. — Helen Grant

In 1977, I climbed a fairly difficult mountain for the first time, which was Mount McKinley, in Alaska. I climbed the so-called 'American Direct Route,' which was a route straight up to the top. I really enjoyed it. Through such experiences, I learned that mountaineering wasn't just about height. I found that different routes have different charms. — Tamae Watanabe

The whole incident could not have taken as much as half a minute. Not to let one's feelings appear in one's face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct, and in any case they had been standing straight in front of a telescreen when the thing happened. Nevertheless it had been very difficult not to betray a momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while he was helping her up the girl had slipped something into his hand. — George Orwell

Faye burst into the room. She ignored Homer and went straight to the couch.
Now what in hell's the matter?" she exploded.
Darling daughter," he said. "I have been badly taken, and this gentleman has been kind enough to let me rest for a moment."
He had a fit or something," Homer said.
She whirled around on him so suddenly that he was startled.
How do you do?" she said, holding her hand forward and high up.
He shook it gingerly.
Charmed," she said, when he mumbled something.
She spun around once more.
It's my heart," Harry said. "I can't stand it. — Nathanael West

My little donkey, if I hadn't shown up, your fate would have been sealed. Love has saved you. Is there anything else that could erase the innate fears of a donkey and send him to rescue you from certain death? No. That is the only one. With a call to arms, I, Ximen Donkey, charged down the ridge and headed straight for the wolf that was tailing my beloved. My hooves kicked up sand and dust as I raced down from my commanding position; no wolf, not even a tiger, could have avoided the spearhead aimed at it. It saw me too late to move out of the way, and I thudded into it, sending it head over heels. Then I turned around and said to my donkey, Do not fear my dear, I am here! — Mo Yan

Let us arise and go now
to the Isle of Manisfree
and live the true blue simple life
of wisdom and wonderment
where all things grow
straight up
aslant and singing
in the yellow sun
poppies out of cowpods
thinking angels out of turds.
I must arise and go now
to the Isle of Manisfree
way up behind the broken words
and woods of Arcady. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

People shouldn't be forced to categorize themselves as "gay," "straight," or "bi." People are just people. Maybe you're mostly attracted to men. Maybe you're mostly attracted to women. Maybe you're attracted to everyone. These are historical claims - not future predictions. If we truly want to expand the scope of human freedom, we should encourage people to date who they want; not just provide more categorical boxes for them to slot themselves into. A man who has mostly dated men should be just as welcome to date women as a woman who's mostly dated men.
So that's why I'm not gay. I hook up with people. I enjoy it. Sometimes they're men, sometimes they're women. I don't see why it needs to be any more complicated than that. — Aaron Swartz

Writing is like bricklaying; you put down one word after another. Sometimes the wall goes up straight and true and sometimes it doesn't and you have to push it down and start again, but you don't stop; it's your trade. — Geraldine Brooks

I record the events of my life, filling up one notebook after another. Maybe I'm not getting the details exactly right, but it doesn't matter. The strict facts hold no currency here. What counts is the saliva I just spat on this very sheet of paper. The thick gob slowly dissolves a small circle in the text and turns the words translucent. The ink starts to bleed. The fibers loosen. If you run your fingers along this paragraph, you'll find the site where I stabbed my thumb straight through the page. There is an entire world in that hole. — Jeff Jackson

Let's be very honest about what this is about. It's not about bashing Democrats, it's not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston tea party was about, they don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. — Janeane Garofalo

There will surely always be people with straight hair and blue eyes, as there have been for all history. But some of these straight-haired people with blue eyes have been "black," and this points to the great difference between their world and ours. We did not choose our fences. They were imposed on us by Virginia planters obsessed with enslaving as many Americans as possible. They are the ones who came up with a one-drop rule that separated the "white" from the "black," even if it meant that their own blue-eyed sons would live under the lash. The result is a people, black people, who embody all physical varieties and whose life stories mirror this physical range. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

It hit him in that moment in a way he knew he'd never forget that he could take that hand and she could lead him anywhere. Just tip up her lips, turn those eyes to him and hold out her hand and he'd go straight to hell with her and do it smiling. — Kristen Ashley

I looked up. From the pediment of an old brick church, a gigantic eye painted into a triangle was staring straight at me through the mist. — Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

A theory in the flesh means one where the physical realities of our lives- our skin color, the land or concrete we grew up on, our sexual longings- all fuse to create a politic born out of necessity. Here, we attempt to bridge the contradictions in our experience:
We are the colored in a white feminist movement.
We are the feminists among the people of our culture.
We are often the lesbians among the straight.
We do this bridging by naming our selves and by telling our stories in our own words. — Michelle Cliff

My heart speeds up slightly at the sight of them so close, so intimate, and I suddenly feel worried about my friend. It's one thing to wish Jarod was Gardnerian in the abstract. But he isn't. He's the son of his people's alpha, and Aislinn's from one of the most conservative families in Gardneria. Our people hate each other. No, this isn't good. This is a road best not traveled down - a road leading straight off a cliff. — Laurie Forest

I felt weightless. I felt nothing would happen to me. I felt that anything might happen to me. I was looking straight ahead, running, trying to keep up, and things were occurring along the dark peripheries of my vision: there would be a bright light and then darkness again and the sound, constantly, of something else breaking, and of movement, of objects being thrown and of people falling. — Bill Buford

I had it together on Sunday.
By Monday at noon it had cracked.
On Tuesday debris
Was descending on me.
And by Wednesday no part was intact.
On Thursday I picked up some pieces.
On Friday I picked up the rest.
By Saturday, late,
It was almost set straight.
And on Sunday the world was impressed
With how well I had got it together. — Judith Viorst

I went to say no, but I winced as I pulled my tooth out of my lip.
I was absolutely hopeless. In a two minute period my front curls had
started to go straight due to my constant brushing them behind my ears
and I was pretty sure my lip was bleeding. Frustrated I pushed myself off of
the couch with a huff and walked around the glass coffee table to head for
the kitchen.
"I've made you angry."
"No."
Darren got up and cut me off in the middle of the room. "Yes, I did.
You're angry with me."
"No, not with you."
"Then what's wrong?"
"I'm angry with myself. — Kaitlin Scott

I wander as I walk straight ahead. When it's time, I show up at the office like everyone else. When it's not time, I go to the river to gaze at the river, like everyone else. I'm no different. And behind all this, O sky my sky, I secretly constellate and have my infinity. — Fernando Pessoa

This was middle school, the age of miracles, the time when kids shot up three inches over the summer, when breasts bloomed from nothing, when voices dipped and dove. Our first flaws were emerging, but they were being corrected. Blurry vision could be fixed invisibly with the magic of the contact lens. Crooked teeth were pulled straight with braces. Spotty skin could be chemically cleared. Some girls were turning beautiful. A few boys were growing tall. — Karen Thompson Walker

Then the rudder and elevator finally come to life, swinging her nose up, and she's left the earth - arrow straight. A butterfly after all. — Paula McLain

And you do, don't you? Love me just a little? Because I'll say it again. Right now, to your face. I straight up love you, Jess Jordan. I'll shout it if it will help plead my case. But I have to at least get that point across before one more minute passes. — Anne Eliot

Your friends are at the house.'
I sit up, straight. 'Who'?
'I don't know. Weird people. The Sullivan girl, whose father got the Gosford police to pick you up.'
'Siobhan?'
'And another one who's making cups of tea for everyone, and keeping the boy who's telling Luca fart jokes away from the girl who says he's "the last bastion of patriarchal poor taste".'
'Justine, Thomas and Tara.'
And the drug fiend, Jimmy, is keeping Mia calm and the Trombal boy's rung about ten times. I don't like his manner on the phone.'
'You won't like any guy's manner on the phone. — Melina Marchetta

All God's revelations are sealed to us until they are opened to us by obedience. You will never get them open by philosophy or thinking. Immediately you obey, a flash of light comes. Let God's truth work in you by soaking in it, not by worrying into it. Obey God in the thing He is at present showing you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. We read tomes on the work of the Holy Spirit when ... five minutes of drastic obedience would make things clear as a sunbeam. We say, "I suppose I shall understand these things some day." You can understand them now: it is not study that does it, but obedience. The tiniest fragment of obedience, and heaven opens up and the profoundest truths of God are yours straight away. God will never reveal more truth about Himself till you obey what you know already. Beware of being wise and prudent. — Oswald Chambers

Adam stares at me so long I begin to blush. He tips my chin up so I meet his eyes. Blue blue blue boring into me. His voice is deep, steady. "I don't think I've ever heard you laugh."
He's so excruciatingly correct I don't know how to respond except with the truth. My smile is tucked into a straight line. "Laughter comes from living." I shrug, try to sound indifferent. "I've never really been alive before. — Tahereh Mafi

I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn't groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor of pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again. — Sylvia Plath

Tell me if I'm mistaken, but isnt't that my girlfriend in the graveyard?"
"You are not mistaken."
"And she's straddling some guy."
"That's correct," said Colin.
Hassan pursed his lips and nodded. "And- I just want to make sure we have our facts straight here- she's naked."
"She certainly is."
...
And then he raced forward about ten paces, cupped his hands over his mouth, and screamed, "I AM BREAKING UP WITH YOU!" Still, though, a goofy grin was on his face. — John Green

At the corner she looked suddenly far away and saw the street go straight out to the sky. She looked up to the sky and saw it go everywhere, and my, she thought, how large it is, what a large place it is. What a large world. So many different people, so many different places, close by and far away, people everywhere, places everywhere. What a fine place to be in. — William, Saroyan

Bonnie saw ropes hanging loose, poles falling away, tree-tops sinking beneath her. As they rose, the sun rose with them. Its warmth turned the dark skin of the fiery balloon midnight blue. They flew straight up. Above them, the sweet, clear music of the lonely pipe called to them. Then the smooth sky puckered into cloth-of-blue and drew aside. They passed straight through ... — Pauline Fisk

See that mountain up ahead?" Jefferson points to a low, rounded mound on the horizon. "I think that's it."
"It's called Independence Rock, not Independence Mountain," I say.
"Everything is bigger out here. Just look at me." He straightens in his saddle and puffs out his chest and fails to keep a straight face.
"Your head is bigger, that's for sure — Rae Carson

There's a kind of love that has the power to save you, to get you through life. It's like breathing. You have to do it or you'll die. And when it's over, your soul starts to bleed, Livvy. There's no pain in the world like it, I swear. If you were feeling that now, you wouldn't be able to sit up straight or have a coherent conversation. — Susan Wiggs

Rookie agent Melody Ganz spoke up. Ganz was on temporary assignment to Bravo after her gorgeous legs caught Kelli Randleman's attention early on in the Copeland investigation. Although basically straight, Melody had experimented a little in college and saw nothing wrong with switch-hitting if it got her out of the Bureau's dreadful backwater office in Jacksonville, South Carolina. — Jess Money

Stand up straight. If you stand up straight, you will instantly feel better about yourself, and you will project a better image to the world, one that says you don't feel like you have to be hunched over and closed off. — Chris Hardwick

My spine shoots up straight like I'd been plugged into an eight-volt, and the mere sight of him literally causes my breath to leave my body. — Allison Winn Scotch

Cervantes told me history is the mother of truth.
Borges told me historical truth is not what took place; it is what we think took place.
So Billy Shakespeare was queer.
Ronnie was the greatest president in history, right up there on Mount Rushmore.
AIDS is mankind's greatest plague.
Israel only kills terrorists.
America never bombed Lebanon.
Jesus was straight. Juda and he were just friends.
Roseanne's parents molested her as an infant.
Menachem Begin and Yasser Arafat deserved their Nobels.
And Gaetan Dugas started the AIDS epidemic. — Rabih Alameddine

My chest. All I'd wanted was for someone to be happy for me - happy with me, straight-up happy, not happy with questions, or happy with reservations, or happy but confused, or not happy at all ... and there was no one in my life, including my husband, who fit the bill. — Jennifer Weiner

Don't start on that. When I offered you her gifts, you told me to shove them straight up my back orifice. (Eros) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Certain characters, mostly heroes, have to be the straight silent type; that is part of the make-up. — Sylvester Stallone

And this is the straight dope, right here. These people are not exactly human. They don the dress but they're like monkeys dolled up in the circus. They're clever and can learn, but that is all. — Philip K. Dick

I necessarily fear change except that it's so seldom for the better. It's just that I can live with any number of things going straight to hell as long as these streams continue to hold up. If this amounts to living in a fool's paradise, don't waste your time trying to explain that to the fool. — John Gierach

I once read that in vaudeville, it was often the straight guy who got paid more than the comic because that's the tougher job. He has to set up the jokes in just the right way. — Michael Dirda

Two women, one fat and the other slim, sat on straw-bottomed chairs, knitting black wool. The slim one got up and walked straight at me - still knitting with downcast eyes - and only just as I began to think of getting out of her way, as you would for a somnambulist, stood still, and looked up. Her dress was as plain as an umbrella-cover, and she turned round without a word and preceded me into a waiting-room. — Joseph Conrad

I have never met a simple man. Not even in the confessional, though I used to sit there for hours on end. Man was not created simple. When I was a young priest, I used to try to unravel what motives a man or woman had, what temptations and self-delusions. But I soon learned to give all that up, because there was never a straight answer. No one was simple enough for me to understand. In the end I would just say, 'Three Our Fathers, Three Hail Marys. Go in peace. — Graham Greene

What Tyler says about the crap and the slaves of history, that's how I felt. I wanted to destroy something beautiful I'd never have. Burn the Amazon rain forests. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight up to gobble the ozone. Open the dump valves on supertankers and uncap offshore oil wells. I wanted to kill all the fish I couldn't afford to eat, and smother the French beaches I'd never see. I wanted the whole world to hit bottom. Pounding that kid, I really wanted to put a bullet between the eyes of every endangered panda that wouldn't screw to save its species and every whale or dolphin that gave up and ran itself aground — Chuck Palahniuk

Always enter a room with your head up. Right away that tells people you're your own person. If your head is down, that lets people feel they can do anything they want with you. When you talk to somebody, white or colored, always look him straight in the eye. First of all, it's honesty. Second, he knows he can beat up on you if you don't make eye contact. — Yvonne S. Thornton

Well, not to sound puffed up in my own conceit... I think we make a mighty fine couple," she teasingly echoed.
He lifted his head and stood straight, chest pushed out, making himself appear larger. "You don't think that I'm a mite on the tall side?"
She eyed him, her eyes sparkling. "A mite? — Debra Holland

Leelawati was sitting on a swing in the palace. Without meaning to, i ran towards her. She swung herself from the swing straight into my arms and hugged me. She wouldn't let go of me and i wasn't about to let go of her. To be trusted so, without any reservations, i too must have been up to some good in my past lives. — Kiran Nagarkar

Joe Jackson is a great man. The problem that people have with my father is that he tells it like it is. He's just straight up and doesn't beat around the bush. Tough love. — Tito Jackson

Straight up mara, I want you in my bed, And when you're in my bed, I'm gonna be inside you. and while I'm movin inside you I'm gonna make you come with your long fuckin legs wrapped around my back — Kristen Ashley

In clear-cutting, he said, you clear away the natural forest, or what the industrial forester calls "weed trees," and plant all one species of tree in neat straight functional rows like corn, sorghum, sugar beets or any other practical farm crop. You then dump on chemical fertilizers to replace the washed-away humus, inject the seedlings with growth-forcing hormones, surround your plot with deer repellants and raise a uniform crop of trees, all identical. When the trees reach a certain prespecified height (not maturity; that takes too long) you send in a fleet of tree-harvesting machines and cut the fuckers down. All of them. Then burn the slash, and harrow, seed, fertilize all over again, round and round and round again, faster and faster, tighter and tighter until, like the fabled Malaysian Concentric Bird which flies in ever-smaller circles, you disappear up your own asshole. — Edward Abbey

Stand up straight and realize who you are, that you tower over your circumstances. You are a child of God. Stand up straight. — Maya Angelou

["Manning Up"'s] essays definitely nuance the idea of transitioning into a "shared manhood" (much like feminists of color have complicated the idea of "shared womanhood"). Trans men don't all transition to just become "men," which was one of the projects' cornerstone concepts. They become black men, white men, queer men, straight men, working class men, affluent men, fatherly men, single men, spiritual men, etc. etc. All of these mean different things when filtered through social and intimate, familial lenses.

One major boon of the growth in transgender literature ... is that we get to tease out these complexities in lives that will be popularly portrayed as monolithic unless we provide counter-scripts."

- from a National Book Critics Circle interview with writer Rigoberto Gonzalez — Mitch Kellaway

But - but the greatest way to witness is by walking that straight and narrow and also realizing that you're going to mess up. That's what grace is for. We're going to fall, but we've got to get back up. And you've got to improve. And that's what I'm all about. — Tim Tebow

Our passions are true phoenixes; as the old burn out the new straight rise up from the ashes. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Mr. Galliano wore his big top-hat very much on one side of his head, so much so that Jimmy really wondered why it didn't fall off.

'When Galliano wears his hat on one side the circus is taking lots of money,' said Lotta to him. 'But when you see him wearing it straight up, then you know things are going badly. He gets into a bad temper then, and I hide under the caravan when I see him coming. I've never seen his hat so much on one side before!'

Jimmy thought that circus ways were very extraordinary. Even hats seemed to share in the excitement! — Enid Blyton

Part of the strength that Charlie and I have as a team is we've been able to keep our priorities straight through our entire partnership. We've been able to maintain a life outside of skating, and though we've given up a lot of things and we've been training really hard our entire lives, we've been able to maintain great social lives. — Meryl Davis

SCHOOL BEGINS IN August this year. I live nearby, and so I walk and skip the bus. I read while I walk to school up the two hills, one sidewalk, a more or less straight line. I pretend the streets I pass through are empty. I have been reading about the Neutron Bomb. I want to be like that, radiant and deadly, a ghost of an impact, to pass through walls, to kill everyone, in flight among the empty houses, punching through molecules like a knife through a paper bag. See me. I am five feet and two inches tall. I am still thin, freckled, large eyes, small nose. My hair waves and grows long, to my neck. I pick flowers for my mother as I walk. The neighborhood kids call me Nature Boy. I want to die. Help — Alexander Chee

I threw flips and cartwheels straight across the grass, fuck my imaginary stitches, fuck whether Lexie had done gymnastics, I couldn't remember the last time I had been this drunk and I loved it. I wanted to dive deeper into it and never come up for air, open my mouth and take a huge breath and drown on this night — Tana French

We folded up newspapers and made them into boats. We'd see whose would float the longest before it got bogged down, soggy, and sank. My father gave us a few pennies each day, which we'd toss and try to land on rocks.We'd wade in and get them again and again.Then we'd flip them in one final time to make a wish. Bliss and I could keep ourselves entertained for hours, but of course we became more and more aware that the whole forest was right there -- waiting for us to explore.
We didn't go far at first, not beyond where we could hear Mom call for us from the back door of the barn, but it gave us a whole new playground. We found a fallen log that we walked like a plank. There was a tree with a low straight branch that we could dangle and swing from. We gathered pine cones and tossed and batted them with twigs. — Riel Nason

Listen up, Nic," she said firmly, looking straight into his gray-blue eyes. "If you die on me out here, so help me I'll hold seances and pester you. I won't give you a moment's peace in the hereafter," she threatened in a fierce whisper. Gabrielle O'Hara, River of Dreams — Sharon K. Garner

It's easy to forget to look up when all you do is focus on the road straight ahead. — Jessi Kirby

Now listen," said Daniel gravely. "Just you listen to me and I'll tell you something worth remembering. When we're young we make our beds and when we're older we have to lie on them. I'd make myself a comfortable bed if I were you - straight and tidy with the blankets well tucked in at the foot - then it'll not come adrift when you lie in it. If a bed's not properly made at the start the blankets'll maybe fall off in the night and you'll wake up shivering." He nodded to Duggie in a friendly manner and away he went with his dog bounding gracefully beside him. Duggie watched him until he disappeared. Daniel — D.E. Stevenson

Not enough info makes for a lot of dead cats."
"Dead cats?"
"You know, 'Curiosity killed the cat.' And I have enough curiosity to start a feline genocide."
"Feline genocide?"
"Yeah. If you don't explain Apollo, the cat kingdom will crumble. Cats all over the world will suddenly plop down in unmoving masses of fur, their food will dry up in smelly chunks of fish, and when people call, 'Here, kitty kitty kitty,' no cats will come running; they'll just-" Walter suddenly stopped.
"What's wrong?" Ashley asked.
Walter stared straight ahead. "I just realized . . . if all those things happened, no one would notice the difference." ~Walter~ — Bryan Davis

Let me get this straight," Eli said, as if trying to be calm even though I could tell he was upset. "Instead of returning to your own body, you swapped with my sister?"

"Yes."

"So while I was waiting for you to wake up, holding your hand and saying...well, things I would never say to my sister...it was her and not you?"

"Um...yeah. — Linda Joy Singleton