Street Sitting Quotes & Sayings

Who am I? Laia muttered to her invisible audience, and they knew the answer and told it to her with one voice. She was the little girl with scabby knees, sitting on the doorstep staring down through the dirty golden haze of River Street in the heat of late summer, the six-year-old, the sixteen-year-old, the fierce, cross, dream-ridden girl, untouched, untouchable. She was herself — Ursula K. Le Guin

I went for a private sitting with a clairvoyant and got some really good messages off him, but one thing that did frighten me was when he said, 'I can see a lot of fist fighting with you. — Stephen Richards

Besides," Puck said, grinning his evil grin, "who says I came alone?"
"You did," called another Puck from the rooftop he just left. Glitch's eyes bugged as the second Puck grinned down at him.
"No, he didn't," said a third Puck from the opposite roof.
"Well, I'm sure they know what he meant," said yet another Puck, sitting atop a street lamp. "In any case, here we are. — Julie Kagawa

Allure is a word very few people use nowadays, but it's something that exists. Allure holds you, doesn't it? Whether it's a gaze or a glance in the street or a face in the crowd or someone sitting opposite you at lunch ... you are held — Diana Vreeland

The hem of a sheer curtain brushed a windowsill. Faintly, I heard traffic singing on the street. Sitting there on the edge of her bed, it felt like the waking-up moment between dream and daylight where everything merged and mingled just as it was about to change, all in the same, fluid, euphoric slide — Donna Tartt

It's very easy to capture pictures of jubilant people in the street after the nuclear bomb. But there were no pictures of morose people sitting in their kitchens and living rooms. — Amartya Sen

Yesterday, I was collecting words.
One was up there, sitting in the bo tree,
Another was in the banyan.
One was wandering in my street,
Another was lying in the earthen jar.
A green word lay in the fields,
A black one was eating flesh.
A blue word was flying
With a grain of the sun in its beak.
Every single thing in this world looks like a word to me.
The words of eyes,
The words of hands.
But I do not understand words I hear from a mouth.
I can only read words.
I can only read words. — Shiv Kumar Batalvi

I like sitting at outdoor restaurants; it would be nice to go someplace on the street and not worry about somebody taking my picture while I'm about to take a bite of something. — Ellen DeGeneres

If you want more joy in your daily life, smile at the people you meet in the street, the woman sitting beside you on the bus or standing next to you in the queue at the airport, the waiter who brings your food, your colleagues or your employer. There's a great chance they'll smile back. — Thorbjorg Hafsteinsdottir

It is never appropriate to comment on a woman's breasts. I would never do it on the street or at a supermarket, but when I'm sitting a table signing books, sometimes I notice that a woman will have remarkable breasts. And I will maybe quietly say something about it. It's not in a sexual way, because I'm a gay man - I would never say to a man "great ass" because that would be sort of creepy.. I hope it's not creepy to quietly tell a woman she has nice breasts. — David Sedaris

I mean honestly, who just sits around in a house with a bunch of short guys waiting for their prince to come? So your mom is a bitch and wants to kill you because her mirror told her to? Cry me a river why don't you? Your big plan is sitting around cleaning house waiting for the other shoe to drop? And speaking of shoes, everyone has been picked on by mean girls. You do not wait for some old lady to pop in and transmogrify some innocent rodents just so you can sneak in to a dance under false pretenses. And let's say you do sneak in. For the love of all that is holy take your mask off and look the guy in the face and say. "Hi, I'm Cindy from down the street, I have this thing at midnight. Can we do coffee later?" This nonsense with a shoe and searching the entire village for one girl, it's crap. — John Goode

The story I had written wasn't the creased, stit-smeared paper now sitting in the bottom of the trash can on the street. That page was just a pipeline through which I could transmit my feelings from my minds to his. — Etgar Keret

Spokane, for example, has a law prohibiting sitting and lying on the street. Unless you're sitting and lying outside the Apple Store waiting for an iPhone 6, in which case it's O.K. — Anonymous

This decision is an illustration that freedom of speech still protects average people sitting on a street corner singing. — John Morrison

My friends, tonight we bring you something entirely different. Something special. The poets will rest, the sonnets will be silent, and what words of love there are will not be spoken. Tonight, my friends, and I can hear you out there, sitting alone, like me, in your chairs, your beds, driving down an empty street with no one but me to listen to your weeping; tonight, I'm going to bring you Armageddon. — Charles Grant

I was sitting in my office when someone called to tell me two light planes had collided with the World Trade Centre. I turned on my television; before long, there was this procession of people of all kinds walking up the street. What I remember most was the silence of that crowd; there was no sound. — Tom Wolfe

Insofar as craft and poetics in a poem have a politics, I wanted to avoid that brittle enjambed-prose-sentence-lyric verse, where you have standard sentences snapped off and scattered decoratively across the page (which I might go out on a limb and say was characteristic of some leftist poets, Beat poets, street poets and populist poets of the 70s and 80s - all of whom I basically view as comrades, I should probably say, to this day) and on the other hand I also wanted my poetics to operate differently than those more right-wing academics - in practice - even if in their poems or statements they proclaim public leftist views or ideas - they remain academic poets, operating in elite university-supported circles, institutionalized and reading before institutional audiences, awarding grants and awards to each other, sitting on each other's grants panels, awards and tenure committees, as Philip Levine admitted in an interview in Don't Ask, 'giving prizes to friends. — Sesshu Foster

From that night the thousand streets ran as one street, with imperceptible corners and changes of scene, broken by intervals of begged and stolen rides, on trains and trucks, and on country wagons with he at twenty and twentyfive and thirty sitting on the seat with his still, hard face and the clothes (even when soiled and worn) of a city man and the driver of the wagon not knowing who or what the passenger was and not daring to ask. The street ran into Oklahoma and Missouri and as far south again as Mexico and then back north to Chicago and Detroit and then back south again and at last to Mississippi. It was fifteen years long. — William Faulkner

Yes, yes," said Bethan, sitting down glumly. "I know you don't. Rincewind, all the shops have been smashed open, there was a whole bunch of people across the street helping themselves to musical instruments, can you believe that?" "Yeah," said Rincewind, picking up a knife and testing its blade thoughtfully. "Luters, I expect. — Terry Pratchett

His mistake was to think that, by seeing objectively, he was seeing the street in its entirety. What he didn't see -- what he completely missed -- was the strangest and most remarkable sight in the whole of Lough Street: an unshaven, wild-eyed man sitting in a parked van, staring at an empty house through binoculars and furiously taking notes. — Sam Taylor

I think it takes an amazing amount of energy to convince oneself that the Forever Person isn't just around the corner. In the end I believe we never do convince ourselves. I know that I found it increasingly hard to maintain the pose of emotional self-sufficiency lying on my bed and sitting at my desk, watching the gulls cartwheeling in the clouds over the bridges, cradling myself in my own arms, breathing warm chocolate-and-vodka breath on a rose I had found on a street corner, trying to force it to bloom. — Douglas Coupland

Wisdom is probably the ability to cope. That's why someone who has to walk seven miles every day to get water for their children can be wiser than someone sitting behind a desk in Wall Street. — Stephen Fry

Suppose you came across a woman lying on the street with an elephant sitting on her chest. You notice she is short of breath. Shortness of breath can be a symptom of heart problems. In her case, the much more likely cause is the elephant on her chest. For a long time, society put obstacles in the way of women who wanted to enter the sciences. That is the elephant. Until the playing field has veen leveled and lingering stereotypes are gone, you can't even ask the question. — Sally Ride

I didn't run with a gang - I didn't have time. There were a few little street gangs sitting in the spotlights at night time - talking and playing marbles. But I was so wrapped up in boxing since I was 12. — Muhammad Ali

I never understood why, but the best of girls like gangsters. This was something that was always odd to me. Here, you have fine working girls who are involved with someone who isn't working, just sitting on the blocks all day with a big gun in his waist. For some girls, they like that. I don't know why. Scrooge, former leader of the Rebellion Raiders street gang that once boasted of having some ten thousand members — Drexel Deal

It's said that sport is the civilised society's substitute for war, and also that the games we play as children are designed to prepare us for the realities of adult life. Certainly it's true that my brother thrived in the capitalist kindergarten of the Monopoly board, developing a set of ruthless strategies whose success is reflected in his bank balance even to this day. I, on the other hand, can still be undone by the kind of ridiculous sentimentality that would see me sacrifice anything, anything, in order to have the three matching red-headed cards of Fleet Street, Trafalgar Square and The Strand sitting tidily together on my side of the board. — Danielle Wood

I love the protests. And if you think about it, what better way to send a message to Wall Street than by sitting in a pup tent banging on a drum. — David Letterman

I can't help feeling as if this is my last chance, Evan said. He was sitting opposite Dr. Lorne, a psychiatrist at the Havilland Recovery Cabin in north western New Jersey. It was the next to the last day of his fourth pass through a twenty-eight day program for sex and alcohol addiction. The sex addiction was questionable; the alcohol was not. — Ryan Field

I have always avoided photographing in the studio. A woman does not spend her life sitting or standing in front of a seamless white paper background. Although it makes my life more complicated, I prefer to take my camera out into the street ... and places that are out of bounds for photographers have always had a special attraction for me. — Helmut Newton

It's probably the closest thing resembling research I ever do (except for this last book, which took more traditional research) - listen to speech patterns. They're everywhere, on the train, in the street, in the shops, on TV, wherever you are. And yes, everyone's speech pattern changes depending on where and to whom they're talking. Ears open. Literally. (which is the word said about sixty times in five minutes by a group of teenagers sitting further up the train from me on my way here). — Ali Smith

It's the loneliest feeling in the world-to find yourself standing up when everybody else is sitting down. To have everybody look at you and say, 'What's the matter with him?' I know. I know what it feels like. Walking down an empty street, listening to the sound of your own footsteps. Shutters closed, blinds drawn, doors locked against you. And you aren't sure whether you're walking toward something, or if you're just walking away. — Robert E.Lee

I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library.
Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified.
He said, What? What life? No life of mine. — Grace Paley

I really believe that at the start of the journey the condemned man, sitting in the tumbril, must feel that an infinite life still stretches ahead of him. However, the houses roll by one by one, the tumbril rumbles on - oh, that's nothing, it's still a long way to the turning into the next street, and he continues to look keenly to the left and the right at the thousands of indifferently curious people with their eyes riveted upon him, and he continues vaguely to imagine that, like all of them, he is still a human being. But here's the turning into the next street! Never mind though, never mind, still a whole street to go. And no matter how many houses he passes, he still thinks: "There are still a lot of houses." And so to the very end, right up until they reach the town square. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Americans are pushy, obnoxious, neurotic, crass - anything and everything - the full catastrophe as our friend Zorba might say. Canadians are none of that. The way you might fear a cow sitting down in the middle of the street during rush hour, that's how I fear Canadians. To Canadians, everyone is equal. Joni Mitchell is interchangeable with a secretary at open-mic night. Frank Gehry is no greater than a hack pumping out McMansions on AutoCAD. John Candy is no funnier than Uncle Lou when he gets a couple of beers in him. No wonder the only Canadians anyone's ever heard of are the ones who have gotten the hell out. Anyone with talent who stayed would be flattened under an avalanche of equality. The thing Canadians don't understand is that some people are extraordinary and should be treated as such. — Maria Semple

After applying to hundreds of scholarships I finally felt that we are also beggars, no different than others, we are not on the street, uneducated, but we are sitting in front of computers with years of hardworking and repeatedly begging each and everyone to sponsor and support our education, not because we deserve, but we cannot afford. — M.F. Moonzajer

Never coming back here, she thought.
With a groan, she levered herself into a sitting position and discovered a painful crick in her neck. Never ever. She launched herself off the bed and limped over to the door and put here eye to the viewer, was treated to a fish-eye view of a small, dapper, well-dressed man holding a bunch of white roses.
Okay. Man with flowers. Carey looked around the room. The windows opened on short tethers so guests couldn't throw furniture or each other out into the street, and she was too high to jump anyway. She looked around the room again, looking for possible weapons. There was a rickety-looking chair by the desk in the corner, but it would probably fall to bits even before she hit anyone with it. She looked through the viewer. The little man knocked again. Not urgently, not in an official we-have-come-to-take-you-to-the-gulag kind of way, but in the manner of a gentleman visiting his lady friend with a nice bunch of roses. — Dave Hutchinson

There is a kind of structure for a story that was peculiarly compelling for the radio. I thought I had invented it atom-by-atom sitting in an editing booth in Washington on M Street when I was in my 20s. Then I found out that it is one of the oldest forms of telling a story - it was the structure of a sermon. — Ira Glass

Harry leaned back, his hat over his inscrutable face.
"Well?" Ben nudged him. "Thomas Paine, or a nubile beauty from Sicily?"
"Clearly Thomas Paine. I'd be asleep now in my bed."
"Do you remember the name of the street they live on?"
"Let's see ... Crazy Street? Cuckoo Street? Commitment Street? Cranial Injury Inflicted by Enraged Sibling Street?"
"Canal Street! Thank you."
"I'm going to stop speaking."
"Harry, admit it, if you weren't so utterly uninterested in all women save Alice, you would be sitting on this train yourself."
"Ben Shaw, I hate to point out the startlingly obvious, but I am sitting on this train myself."
"Exactly!"
"Ugh."
"I'm surprised to learn that Lawrence is the world leader in the production of cotton and woven textiles. Are you?"
"Stunned. — Paullina Simons

Logic is the subject that has helped me most in picking stocks, if only because it taught me to identify the peculiar illogic of Wall Street. Actually Wall Street thinks just as the Greeks did. The early Greeks used to sit around for days and debate how many teeth a horse has. They thought they could figure it out just by sitting there, instead of checking the horse. A lot of investors sit around and debate whether a stock is going up, as if the financial muse will give them the answer, instead of checking the company. — Peter Lynch

The way you might fear a cow sitting down in the middle of the street during rush hour, that's how I fear Canadians. — Maria Semple

It was cold in the street and I crossed to the lighted blaze of shops in Rue Fuad. In a grocer's window I saw a small tin of olives with the name Orvieto on it, and overcome by a sudden longing to be on the right side of the Mediterranean, entered the shop: bought it: had it opened there and then: and sitting down at a marble table in that gruesome light I began to eat Italy, its dark scorched flesh, hand-modelled spring soil, dedicated vines. I felt that Melissa would never understand this. I should have to pretend I had lost the money. I did not see at first the great car which she had abandoned in the street with its engine running. She came into the shop with swift and resolute suddenness and said, with the air of authority that Lesbians, or women with money, assume with the obviously indigent: 'What did you mean by your remark about the antinomian nature of irony?' - or some such sally which I have forgotten. — Lawrence Durrell

When I was council president I had a rule that people could sleep on the job. I modified the rule. You could actually sleep in public if you weren't sitting down. I had three people who actually perfected the art of sleeping while standing. — John F. Street

How could something so seemingly insignificant give someone comfort? A ribbon in a gutter. A pinecone on the street. A button leaning casually against a classroom wall. A flat stone from the river. If nothing else, it showed that she cared, and it might give them something to talk about when Max woke up. When she was alone, she would conduct those conversations.
'So what's all this?' Max would say. 'What's all this junk?'
'Junk?' In her mind,she was sitting on the side of the bed. 'This isn't junk, Max. These are what made you wake up. — Markus Zusak

Money is like a child - rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there. — Lemony Snicket

It may be a brief interruption - just a few seconds - but what if someone sitting near you is trying to make a decent bootleg? Did you ever think of that? Now all those street-corner copies are permanently defiled by your so-called 'emergency.' Don't be so damn selfish. — Brad Pitt

everything is energy. The chair you're sitting on, the building you're in, the dog barking down the street, the flowers growing outside the window, and the thoughts going through your head. All of it is energy. — Caroline A. Shearer

The town was sunk in a kind of crystal ball; everyone seemed to be asleep (transcendentally asleep!) no matter if they were walking or sitting outside. Around five the sky clouded over and at six it began to rain. The streets cleared all at once. I had the thought that if it was as if autumn had unsheathed a claw and scratched: everything was coming apart. The tourists running on the sidewalks in search of shelter, the shopkeepers pulling tarps over the merchandise displayed in the street, the increasing number of shop windows closed until next summer. Whether I felt pity or scorn when I saw this, I don't know. Detached from any external stimulus, the only thing I could see or feel with any clarity was myself. Everything else had been bombarded by something dark; movie sets consigned to dust and oblivion, as if for good. — Roberto Bolano

his former boss at CIA, Simpson had still been sitting in death, only with him instead of a car seat it was a ladder-back chair in the kitchen that was now all mottled with the dead man's blood. The shot had come from the unfinished chunk of construction across the street. The hour of execution - for — David Baldacci

Oh, really? Do you wake up heaving from bloody dreams that
promise destruction like some crazy street guy forecasting the
Apocalypse? Did you slam a door in your dad's face hours before he died?
Does everyone, cops included, think you're a pestering loon 'cause
'accident' doesn't sit right with you, nor the many other freakouts, like
the car that keeps showing up on your street, with someone sitting in it,
doing like, nothing? No? Oh no? Didn't think so. Life sucks for everyone.
Jump or deal with it. — Courtney Vail

We are gradually losing the art of silence. Of walking down the street lost in our own thoughts. Of closing the door to our rooms and being quiet. Of sitting on a park bench and just thinking. We may fear silence because we fear what we might hear from the deepest parts of ourselves. We may be afraid to hear that "still small" voice. What might it say? Might it ask us to change? — James Martin

I would love it if, even for one day, you could walk through a neighborhood and see an Asian guy sitting on his stoop, then you look across the street and see a black guy and a white guy sitting on their porches, and a Mexican dude walking by. — Eminem

I reached this one, said my friend, by sitting upon five pillows and consuming an ounce of shag. I think, Watson, that if we drive to Baker-street we shall just be in time for breakfast. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Even when I'm sitting up in this glass castle, I still got my street soldiers telling me what's happening. — Tracy Morgan

Grandma Natasha was sitting in the tent watching public service announcements on TV. They were showing a blond model in a bikini doing the backstroke in a river of blood flowing along Arlozorov Street. "She's not a real blonde," Grandma Natasha grumbled, pointing at the model. "She has it bleached. — Etgar Keret

About the presence of death and dying I don't remember the society in the 1950s being so skittish as it has since become. People still died at home, among relatives and friends, often in the care of a family physician. Death was still to be seen sitting in the parlor, hanging in a butcher shop, sometimes lying in the street. — Lewis H. Lapham

Let me be absolutely clear: Tumnus was an idiot. He was absolutely NOT a spy for the White Witch. That dude couldn't have spied on a blind unicorn. He was a deadbeat who spent most of his time sitting on street corners, playing his pan flute, and panhandling for change. He was on the Narnia version of welfare, and he told the White Witch about Lucy in the hopes of getting some kind of handout. — Stephen Altrogge

A softly-spoken German man points to a window on the third floor of a tall building and says, "My grandfather is sitting in that room."
Planting his feet wide apart, the man begins to wave, his arm sweeping through the air in a huge arc. We all step back to give him enough room.If I let my vision swim out of focus, this seems like an ordinary day with an ordinary man greeting someone he loves across the street.
"I'm not expecting to see him again," he says. But he waves on and on, hoping his grandfather has spotted him.
The Englishmen look away. — Joanna Campbell

Have you ever had a connection with somebody that makes you feel strange, because it feels kind of cosmic? When I got to the coffee shop I recognized a man like that sitting at a small table in a shaft of morning sunlight squeezing through the other side of the street. As he looked up at a pristine sky, I thought: It seems like this guy's been waiting here for me. — Leo Nation