Strand Quotes & Sayings

She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership). — O. Henry

We weren't getting a fair deal on the budget and I wasn't going to have it. There's a great strand of equity and fairness in the British people - this is our characteristic. There's not a strand of equity and fairness in Europe - they're out to get as much as they can. That's one of those enormous differences. So I tackled it on that basis. — Margaret Thatcher

There must still be some last invisible unbroken strand connecting them, something deeper than mourning. The wound had healed but the scar wouldn't fade, not quite. — Lev Grossman

The higher Christian churches--where, if anywhere, I belong--come at God with an unwarranted air of professionalism, with authority and pomp, as though they knew what they were doing, as though people in themselves were an appropriate set of creatures to have dealings with God. I often think of the set pieces of liturgy as certain words which people have successfully addressed to God without their getting killed. In the high churches they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a strand of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect in any minute. This is the beginning of wisdom. — Annie Dillard

It still beat with a trip and a hammer, for that is the way a heart must go. But, whereas before it had woven only dark things when it dwelled upon my cousin, now within the fabric of my heart there ran, for him and him alone, one single strand of pure, untarnishable gold. — Cameron Dokey

With a slow, deliberate movement, he pushed his hand into the fall of her hair, wrapping a thick strand around his fingers and wrist. His voice dropped, deepening as he spoke words meant for her. "I love your hair. The color of blood at its most fragrant and powerful."
The light tug on the strands didn't hurt. Instead it sensitized her. The swirl of color in his eyes was myriad shades of red reflected and magnified. "You should let go now," she said, low even tones that matched his own.
The corner of that edible mouth lifted, baring a fang. "Never. — Danielle Monsch

Do you know what a summer rain is?
To start with, pure beauty striking the summer sky, awe-filled respect absconding with your heart, a feeling of insignificance at the very heart of the sublime, so fragile and swollen with the majesty of things, trapped, ravished, amazed by the bounty of the world.
And then, you pace up and down a corridor and suddenly enter a room full of light. Another dimension, a certainty just given birth. The body is no longer a prison, your spirit roams the clouds, you possess the power of water, happy days are in store, in this new birth.
Just as teardrops, when they are large and round and compassionate, can leave a long strand washed clean of discord, the summer rain as it washes away the motionless dust can bring to a person's soul something like endless breathing. — Muriel Barbery

Yeah, I must have been really bad in a past life or something." He smiled, his eyes still in pain. Reaching up, he touched a strand of mt hair. " Don't leave, OK?"
"Shhh. I'm not going anywhere." I kept stroking his forehead, trailing my fingers across it. His muscular shoulders gradually relaxed, his eyes closing again. His breathing slowed, became more regular.
I could hear the TV on in the other room, the sound of voices. None of it mattered to me. I stayed there until long after Alex had fallen asleep
gently caressing the vbrow of the boy I loved, trying to keep his pain at bay. — L.A. Weatherly

And yet Nothing here is certain; — Mark Strand

There can be moments, when the rope we hold to, becomes a strand of thread, where we feel that we are barely hanging on but when the thread feels as though it's about to break; just know that God will never let us fall but rather, He will be there to catch us and when He does, He will carry us away, on wings of love, to a higher plateau, where evil cannot touch us. — Diane K. Chamberlain

How fabulous down was for those first minutes! Down, down, down I'd go until down too became impossible and punishing and so relentless that I'd pray for the trail to go back up. Going down, I realized was like taking hold of the loose strand of yarn on a sweater you'd just spent hours knitting and pulling it until the entire sweater unraveled into a pile of string. Hiking the PCT was the maddening effort of knitting that sweater and unraveling it over and over again. As if everything gained was inevitably lost. — Cheryl Strayed

But that day it was raining, and since they couldn't very well sit on the rooftop in the rain to watch the flotilla parade, they stayed in the little room that led to the roof. It had just one tiny window through which the gray light of day filtered in. They sat on the floor, and Lorenzo's senses were aroused by the sound of the rain falling outside, the musky smell of his own body, and the fragrant scent of Caterina's hair. A single blonde strand wound down her slim neck.

They kissed, taking off their rain-washed summer clothes so that their bodies pressed, naked, against one another. Long, delicate lovemaking. Caresses, kisses, shivers, and sighs of delight.

Lorenzo would have gladly spend the rest of his life preserved in that single moment, as if in amber, abandoning reality to live in the memory of that one single day. — Riccardo Bruni

Rena squinted at me, blowing a strand of her matte black hair out of her face, exasperated. 'You get good price for that. What you saving it for, tea with little Tsarevich Alexei? They shot him in 1918.' She took the dress out of the bag, shook it and hung it back up. 'Is fact. — Janet Fitch

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry. — Mark Strand

The availability of cheap effective lighting alone, following Thomas Edison's invention of the incandescent bulb in 1879, greatly extended the range of waking human consciousness, effectively adding more hours onto the day - for work, for entertainment, for study, for discovery, for consumption. Subsequently, one development led to another, and to yet another, fueled by a corporate economy in developed nations, and then later by the arms race, and then the space race, as human ambition literally outgrew the planet. It seemed that there was no limit on what humanity could achieve. But there was a flaw at the heart of that expansive optimism - namely, that humanity cannot exist as a thing apart from nature; it has no destiny but annihilation apart from the land that gave it birth. — Clark Strand

Are we running away from home?" I asked, giving voice to the question that had been on my mind for two days, ever since the lady at the Wok On restaurant asked where we were from and my mother lied.
My mother had laughed. I couldn't see her face, but her laugh I could always conjure - rich, ringing, like bells calling you to a wedding. "No, silly goose. You can't run away from home. It's not home if you want to run away from it." She paused to brush a strand of hair from my face. "You can only run away from a house. Home is something you run toward. — Michele Jaffe

Climate change, demographics, water, food, energy, global health, women's empowerment - these issues are all intertwined. We cannot look at one strand in isolation. Instead, we must examine how these strands are woven together. — Ban Ki-moon

And into the close and mirrored catacombs of sleep
We'll fall, and there in the faded light discover the bones,
The dust, the bitter remains of someone who might have been
Had we not taken his place. — Mark Strand

A chrome spiral staircase connects the main floor to the upper one. It reminds Prospect of a big strand of DNA. Once he's out of the shower, he feels new. He opens a window. The gentle hush of traffic is surprisingly soothing. It is like putting a seashell to his ear, but instead of hearing an ocean, he hears a city and all its voices. — Dwight Okita

One strand of psychotherapy is certainly to help relieve suffering, which is a genuine medical concern. If someone is bleeding, you want to stop the bleeding. Another medical aspect is the treatment of chronic complaints that are disabling in some way. And many of our troubles are chronic. Life is chronic. So there is a reasonable, sensible, medical side to psychotherapy. — James Hillman

I read somewhere that every inch of rope used in the British Navy has a strand of red in it, so that wherever a bit of it is found it is known. That is the text of my little sermon to you. Virtue, which means honour, honesty, courage, and all that makes character, is the red thread that marks a good man wherever he is. — Louisa May Alcott

I feel sad that we have allowed these knee-jerk feminists who want to act like it's a struggle against men ... but again that's the least politically developed strand of feminism. — Bell Hooks

Mostly I was spending time in the Strand, that bastion of titillating erudition. Not so much a bookstore as a collision of 100 different bookstores, with literary wreckage strewn over 18 miles of shelves. — David Levithan

He wasn't partner material though, in the work or life sense. He was old and set in his grouchy ways. Michaels might play with him while they were on the road, get his itch scratched - and Judge would enjoy it immensely - but when the gorgeous young stud got back to his real life and a fresh, young blond stallion walked by with a trim body, perfectly groomed hair with not a strand of gray in it, Judge would be yesterday's trash. Judge coughed, startled by the annoyance he felt at that assumption. It — A.E. Via

The ultimate self-effacement
is not the pretense of the minimal,
but the jocular considerations of the maximal
in the manner of Wallace Stevens. — Mark Strand

I don't care how you photograph - use the kitchen mop if you must, but if the product is not true to the laws of photography ... you have produced something that is dead. (1923) — Paul Strand

I will never stop being pissed. He has now created a 'lifetime of seeking vengeance' scenario. — Jeff Strand

Not on one strand are all life's jewels strung. — William Morris

Time was being served behind the walls of Newgate jail, and wasted by philosophers in cafes on the Strand; it was lost by those who wished the past were present, and loathed by those who wished the present past. — Sarah Perry

David Copperfield has no magic in him. I'm talking about Santa flying around the world in one night kind of magic. Pumpkins transformed into coaches kind of magic. — Sydney Strand

His eyes were heavy with desire, but she saw something else. A gleam that made her suspicious.
"What?" she asked.
His hand slid to her hips. "You're incredible."
"That's not what you were thinking."
"Was so. I always think that." He leaned in, twisting a strand of her hair around his finger as he kissed her bottom lip. "But I was also wondering what you were doing around Butter today.
Aria laughed. That was attractive. She smelled like horse. — Veronica Rossi

Perfect hereditary molecule. Each DNA strand is normally intertwined with a
second — Bruce H. Lipton

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

In listening mood she seemed to stand, The guardian Naiad of the strand. — Walter Scott

I grow into my death.
My life is small
and getting smaller. The world is green.
Nothing is all. — Mark Strand

The reality of a poem is a very ghostly one. It suggests, it suggests, it suggests again. — Mark Strand

Be that blind bard who on the Chian strand, By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I believe in hope, in what is something called "radical hope." I believe there is hope for all of us, even amid the suffering. And that's why I write fiction, probaby. It's my attempt to keep that fragile strand of radical hope, to buld a fire in the darkness.r — John Green

only 1 percent of children in the United States get the proper RDA levels of the essential nutrients from their diets.1Not only are children not getting proper nutrition for their growing bodies, they are establishing poor eating habits in childhood that usually persist into their adult years. It has amazed me how many of these young teenagers already have full-blown insulin resistance. — Ray D. Strand

The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth.
All things are connected like the blood that unites one family.
Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
The earth is sacred and men and animals are but one part of it.
Treat the earth with respect so that it lasts for centuries to come and is a place of wonder and beauty for our children. — Extract From Chief Seattle.

It came to my house.
It sat on my shoulders.
Your shadow is yours. I told it so. I said it was yours.
I have carried it with me too long. I give it back. — Mark Strand

The existence of a medium, after all, is its absolute justification, if as so many seem to think, it needs one and all comparison of potentialities is useless and irrelevant. Whether a water-color is inferior to an oil, or whether a drawing, an etching, or a photograph is not as important as either, is inconsequent. To have to despise something in order to respect something else is a sign of impotence. [emphasis added] Let us rather accept joyously and with gratitude everything through which the spirit of man seeks to an ever fuller and more intense self-realization. — Paul Strand

Patience has the meaning of testing-a thing drawn out and tested, drawn out to the last strand in a strain without breaking, and ending in sheer joy. The strain on a violin string when stretched to the uttermost gives it its strength; and the stronger the strain, the finer is the sound of our life for God, and He never strains more than we are able to bear. — Oswald Chambers

What was he supposed to do besides break the living room window? Stand outside whacking off while she grabbed a cell phone and called for help? — Jeff Strand

But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious - never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving. — Mark Strand

Like many great world faiths, Mormonism has an important strand of sacred mystery. Mormon temples have traditionally been closed to outsiders and designed with opaque windows. — Noah Feldman

Hansel and Gretel had breadcrumbs, she had plastic spiders. Worst-case scenario, she could find her way back by following the trail of dead birds that had choked on them. — Jeff Strand

There's a strand of the data viz world that argues that everything could be a bar chart. That's possibly true but also possibly a world without joy. — Amanda Cox

The sin was mine; I did not understand. So now is music prisoned in her cave, Save where some ebbing desultory wave Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand ... — Oscar Wilde

He reaches forward slowly, to lift the pen from my lax grip. Wearily I regard the faltering trail of ink it has tracked down my page. I have seen that shape before, I think, but it was not ink then. A trickle of drying blood on the deck of a Red-Ship, and mine the hand that spilled it? Or was it a tendril of smoke rising black against a blue sky as I rode too late to warn a village of a Red-Ship raid? Or poison swirling and unfurling yellowly in a simple glass of water, poison I had handed someone, smiling all the while? The artless curl of a strand of woman's hair left upon my pillow? Or the trail of a man's heels left in the sand as we dragged the bodies from the smoldering tower at Sealbay? The track of a tear down a mother's cheek as she clutched her Forged infant to her despite his angry cries? Like Red-Ships, the memories come without warning, without mercy. — Robin Hobb

Muse

When at night I wait for her to come,
Life, it seems, hangs by a single strand.
What are glory, youth, freedom, in comparison
with the dear welcome guest, a flute in hand?

She enters now. Pushing her veil aside,
she stares through me with her attentiveness.
I question her: 'And were you Dante's guide,
dictating the Inferno?' She answers: 'Yes. — Anna Akhmatova

When you write, you are telling a story ... to yourself. When you revise, you are telling a story to yourself ... over and over again. — Kai Strand

The photographer's problem is to see clearly the limitations and at the same time the potential qualities of his medium, for it is precisely here that honesty no less than intensity of vision is the pre-requisite of a living expression. The fullest realization of this is accomplished without tricks of process or manipulation, through the use of straight photographic methods. — Paul Strand

A single strand appeared to unite these conflicts, and that was the advancement of a small coterie's concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism... I recognized that if this was to be the single most important priority of our species, then the lives of those of us who lived in lands in which such killers also lived had no meaning except as collateral damage. — Mohsin Hamid

The fairest state of them all, this tranquil and beloved domain - what has it now become? A nursery for Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas. A monstrous breeding farm to supply the sinew to gratify the maw of Eli Whitney's infernal machine, cursed be that blackguard's name! In such a way is our human decency brought down, when we pander all that is in us noble and just to the false god which goes by the vile name of Capital! Oh, Virginia, woe betide thee! Woe, thrice woe, and ever damned in memory be the day when poor black men in chains first trod upon thy sacred strand! — William Styron

Life rarely presents fully finished photographs. An image evolves, often from a single strand of visual interest - a distant horizon, a moment of light, a held expression. — Sam Abell

So you attempt what De Bruik attempted, in her Free Radical Binds to Macromolecule." "We all attempt what De Bruik attempted, in one way or another." In Free Radical De Bruik had represented the macromolecule, an RNA strand, as a passacaglia, a ground base repeated again and again, in patterns of four that alternated regularly. This was a simple icon, a metaphor in which the repeated ground base stood for the repeated proteins in the RNA; fine. And the free radical's part was a test for any trumpet player. — Kim Stanley Robinson

Life makes writing poetry necessary to prove I really was paying attention. — Mark Strand

ANYWHERE COULD BE SOMEWHERE I might have come from the high country, or maybe the low country, I don't recall which. I might have come from the city, but what city in what country is beyond me. I might have come from the outskirts of a city from which others have come or maybe a city from which only I have come. Who's to know? Who's to decide if it rained or the sun was out? Who's to remember? They say things are happening at the border, but nobody knows which border. They talk of a hotel there, where it doesn't matter if you forgot your suitcase, another will be waiting, big enough, and just for you. — Mark Strand

A common strand appeared to unite these conflicts, and that was the advancement of a small coterie's concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism, which was defined to refer only to the organized and politically motivated killing of civilians by killers not wearing the uniforms of soldiers. I recognized that if this was to be the single most important priority of our species, then the lives of those of us who lived in lands in which such killers also lived had no meaning except as collateral damage. This, I reasoned, was why America felt justified in bringing so many deaths to Afghanistan and Iraq, and why America felt justified in risking so many more deaths by tacitly using India to pressure Pakistan. — Mohsin Hamid

Three hours waiting in a graveyard after dark starts to get to you. I don't know why. Maybe it's all the dead people hanging around underground. Whatever it was, by the time my watch said it was ten minutes to midnight, I had a major case of the creeps, the willies, and the heebie-jeebies. At least the flesh-eating zombies were keeping themselves hidden away. I sat there for another ten minutes and the same nothing that had been happening all night continued happening. — Jeff Strand

As for Oliver, guys come and go. But best friends are forever," Molly said decisively. "Except for maybe him," she continued. She pointed accusingly at Gabe who had Ava nestled into his side as he played with a strand of her hair. "He looks like he might be pretty permanent. Just look at you two. You're so lovely-dovey its disgusting. — Amity Hope

Another strand of my writing is the importance of the idea. If you think about fiction writing as a spectrum, where at one end of the spectrum in the infrared, are the story tellers, and the people for whom creation of wonderful characters and telling a good story is the most important thing. — Alan Lightman

He didn't seem like somebody you'd want to invite to a party unless you'd already given up on it. — Jeff Strand

It go at that, I should be obtaining the reader's interest under false pretences. He was really only a sort of detective, a species of sleuth. At Stafford's International Investigation Bureau, in the Strand, where he was employed, they did not require — P.G. Wodehouse

I didn't call you here to bust my chops." I clarified, "I need some advice." He sarcastically replied, "Awesome. How may I assist the almighty Nik Strand?" "Fuck you," I said with no heat. My brother knew how much his opinion mattered to me. He laughed, "No, thanks. I'm really not into that sort of thing. Besides, incest is illegal," he pointed out. "Hardy — Lora Ann

Impressive deduction," Ryan murmured. "You certainly look deeper than most." He brushed back a strand of my hair, and I screwed my eyes shut. He was doing this on purpose. "But let me give you some advice." His lips were right next to my ear. "I wouldn't peer too far. Even the clearest window can cast back your own reflection. — Sam Dogra

He took a strand of hair that had fallen loose from her chignon between his fingers. The gesture shocked her, not because his self-control seemed to have snapped, but the exact opposite - it felt like a deliberate choice on his part. — Sherry Thomas

Then you agree that you should keep me." With the smug satisfaction of an argument won, he propped his shoulder against the stall door. Her eyes picked him over as if he were a carved goose on a table. "Aye, I'll have to either keep you ... or kill you." "I vote for keeping me." A glint of humor shone in her eyes. "And I shall so long as you behave yourself." "And if I don't behave? If I try to escape?" "I'll hunt you down and kill you." The conviction in her voice chilled him, and yet he felt something else, an ache of pity that a wonderful creature like Caitlin MacBride should be compelled to have the heart of a murderer. "Then you leave me no alternative," he said lightly. "I shall stay. Think of it, Cait, we'll grow old together. We'll walk on the strand and watch the sunset, and you'll sing songs to me in that lovely voice of yours. — Susan Wiggs

If Ansel Adams gets a thousand dollars a print, I want ten thousand. — Paul Strand

Let's start by checking your pulse," said Dr. Arnzin, wrapping the cuff of the blood pressure monitor around Stanley's arm and inflating it. He glanced at the readout and nodded. "No pulse. Good. — Jeff Strand

Of course when you spend four hours in prosthetic makeup and you really are looking at yourself and you see how revolting you've become in a way, it obviously adds another strand and helps you ... a little bit more. — Gerard Butler

Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do,
In spider's web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken strand to you
For my returning. — E.B. White

Tipsy isn't a miracle wonder cat. That was always the deal: you'd get your cat back, but he'd be sort of creepy. We discussed this. — Jeff Strand

Socially smart people have always mocked the threateningly mobile, and anti-branding is a central strand of high-end status conflict now. — Peter York

Filled with rapture, his soul yearned for freedom, space, vastness. Over him the heavenly dome, full of quiet, shining stars, hung boundlessly. From the zenith to the horizon the still-dim Milky Way stretched its double strand. Night, fresh and quiet, almost unstirring, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the church gleamed in the sapphire sky. The luxuriant autumn asleep till morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the heavens and the mystery of the earth touched the mystery of the stars. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Stories are webs, interconnected strand to strand, and you follow each story to the center, because the center is the end. Each person is a strand of the story. — Neil Gaiman

If every head of state and every government official spent an hour a day reading poetry we'd live in a much more humane and decent world. — Mark Strand

Alex gazed at her. Her mouth was slightly open; she ran her fingernail against her lower teeth as she thought. She'd knotted her hair at the nape of her neck again, and a strand had slipped loose onto her shoulder, gleaming in the lantern light. Suddenly all of his objections seemed meaningless. Don't, he thought. You'll regret it.
He didn't care anymore.
Slowly, unable to stop himself, he reached out and cupped his hand around her foot. — L.A. Weatherly

Same day, 11 o'clock p. m.. - Oh, but I am tired! If it were not that I had made my diary a duty I should not open it tonight. We had a lovely walk. Lucy, after a while, was in gay spirits, owing, I think, to some dear cows who came nosing towards us in a field close to the lighthouse, and frightened the wits out of us. I believe we forgot everything, except of course, personal fear, and it seemed to wipe the slate clean and give us a fresh start. We had a capital 'severe tea' at Robin Hood's Bay in a sweet little oldfashioned inn, with a bow window right over the seaweedcovered rocks of the strand. I believe we should have shocked the 'New Woman' with our appetites. Men are more tolerant, bless them! Then we walked home with some, or rather many, stoppages to rest, and with our hearts full of a constant dread of wild bulls. — Bram Stoker

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. — James Bovard

What we desire, more than a season or weather, is the comfort
Of being strangers, at least to ourselves. — Mark Strand

My Name
Once when the lawn was a golden green
and the marbled moonlit trees rose like fresh memorials
in the scented air, and the whole countryside pulsed
with the chirr and murmur of insects, I lay in the grass,
feeling the great distances open above me, and wondered
what I would become and where I would find myself,
and though I barely existed, I felt for an instant
that the vast star-clustered sky was mine, and I heard
my name as if for the first time, heard it the way
one hears the wind or the rain, but faint and far off
as though it belonged not to me but to the silence
from which it had come and to which it would go. — Mark Strand

You must convince your readers that your characters are flesh and blood rather than words on dead skin, that their loves and hatreds and passions are as deep and present as the readers' own. Your task is to delight, to pleasure, to lift your reader to another sphere of being and then strand him there, floating above the earth and panting for more lines. — Bruce Holsinger

Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of all
too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud
promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, on
the weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, on the
quiet church whence there streamed forth at times upon the stillness the
voice of prayer to her who is in her pure radiance a beacon ever to the
stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea. — James Joyce

How old are you, Billie?"
"Thirty-three."
"With such innocent eyes for a cutthroat Illicit reporter."
She studied his expression, found it sincere. "Despite rumors to the contrary, not all of us fit the hard-hitting mold."
"I see that." He reached up and brushed an errant strand of hair from her cheek, a tender gesture that caught her completely off-guard. "And I like it. — Shelby Reed

I used to surf up in Ventura County at Silver Strand; plus, I've played up there many times. — Dick Dale

How can it be that a set of shoulders, the rhythm of a stride, the shadow of a strand of hair falling on a forehead can cause the tides of the heart to ebb and to flow? — Ahdaf Soueif

Each person is a strand of story. — Neil Gaiman

I, Malcolm William, son of William of clan MacKintosh, pledge my troth to thee, Alethia Grace Goodsky - " "Of clan Crane," she whispered. "Aye, well, I neglected to say that this morn. 'Twill be said when we take our vows again this spring." He brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "With my hands, I shall provide for thee. With my body, I pledge to protect thee. With my heart, I shall cherish thee, and only thee, all the days of my life. As God is my witness and before my clan, from this day forward, we are husband and wife. — Barbara Longley

Sublime tobacco! which from east to west, Cheers the tar's labour or the Turkman's rest; Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides His hours, and rivals opium and his brides; Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand, Though not less loved, in Wapping or the Strand: Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe, When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe; Like other charmers wooing the caress, More dazzlingly when daring in full dress; Yet thy true lovers more admire by far Thy naked beauties Give me a cigar! — Lord Byron

All good art is abstract in its structure. — Paul Strand

The meditative angler is not exempt from sensational periods. There are times when all the uncertainty of his chosen pursuit seems to condense itself into one big chance, and stand out before him like a salmon on the top wave of a rapid. He sees his luck hangs by a single strand of gut, and he cannot tell whether it will hold or break. This is the thrilling moment and he never forgets it. — Henry Van Dyke

The graves grow deeper.
The dead are more dead each night.

Under the elms and the rain of leaves,
The graves grow deeper.

The dark folds of the wind
Cover the ground. The night is cold.

The leaves are swept against the stones.
The dead are more dead each night.

A starless dark embraces them.
Their faces dim.

We cannot remember them
Clearly enough. We never will. — Mark Strand

He relaxed his hands, lifted one and tucked a strand of wispy blonde hair behind her ear. She didn't
move; she only looked at him. He wondered if she felt it too. — Maisey Yates

When I read poetry, I want to feel myself suddenly larger ... in touch with - or at least close to - what I deem magical, astonishing. I want to experience a kind of wonderment. And when you report back to your own daily world after experiencing the strangeness of a world sort of recombined and reordered in the depths of a poet's soul, the world looks fresher somehow. Your daily world has been taken out of context. It has the voice of the poet written all over it, for one thing, but it also seems suddenly more alive ... — Mark Strand

From the shadow of domes in the city of domes,
A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room
And made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up
From your book, saw it the moment it landed. That's all
There was to it. — Mark Strand

We should not for a moment consider even our best-established knowledge of existence as true. It is awareness only of the colors that our own vision paints on the film of one bubble in one strand of foam on the ocean of being. — Olaf Stapledon

Objectivity is of the very essence of photography, its contribution and at the same time its limitation — Paul Strand

There is a fine line that separates thinking you know something, and actually knowing the truth. It is a line as thin as a strand of hair, and it's called hope. — Jason Pellegrini