Tidily Quotes & Sayings

To know a country you must see it whole. — Eric Schlosser

One of the most exquisite pleasures of human love - to serve the loved one without his knowing it - is only possible, as regards the love of God, through atheism. — Simone Weil

This is why she doesn't put much stock in so-called secrets, or the meaningfulness of untold recollections that become, in their airtight echo chambers, the supposed stuff of secrets. They are only a way to become retrospectively enraged at someone else so that your own adult weaknesses can be tidily excused. — Heidi Julavits

Please forgive me, Mother. I apologize for saying 'fuck.'"
Then he straightened and addressed Doug. "Which, by the way, was repeated sixty-seven times in this particular film. It has a running length of ninety-four minutes. So last night while watching it, she heard fuck, or a derivative thereof, spoken every one and a half minutes, give or take a few seconds. But if my saying fuck offended her, then I'm fucking sorry. — Sandra Brown

Staying loyal to your journey means you never abandon yourself by compromising your integrity or discounting your intuition or the signals that come from your body - the knot in the gut, emotional detachment, or loss of energy that signals something is amiss. — Charlotte Kasl

I decided to read something I normally hate: a cosy mystery. You know one of those mysteries where everything is tidily wrapped up at the end and everyone lives happily ever after? An Agatha Christie kind of mystery. They are so not my thing. But then someone was raving about Barbara Neely's Blanche White books and they sounded interesting. — Justine Larbalestier

If you cannot catch a fish, do not blame the sea. — Greek Proverb

If you can relate to what the character's going through, the story can be as ridiculous as possible, and people will relate to it. You can be fearless in your storytelling if you're vigilant about protecting your characters. — Drew Goddard

I always loved rock guitar. I just never put it together that that's what I'd end up doing. — Slash

Her mind lives tidily, apart from cold and noise and pain. And bolts the door against her heart, out wailing in the rain. — Dorothy Parker

The streets of this town are broad, much broader than they need be, and there is a pallor of dust in the air. Empty lots here and there between the buildings have weeds growing in them. The sheet metal equipment sheds and water tower are like those of previous towns but more spread out. Everything is more run-down and mechanical-looking, and sort of randomly located. Gradually I see what it is. Nobody is concerned anymore about tidily conserving space. The land isn't valuable anymore. We are in a Western town. — Robert Pirsig

In essence, we are reconciled to reconcile. — Matt Chandler

Synchronize watches at oh six hundred' says the infantry captain, and each of his huddled lieutenants finds respite from fear in the act of bringing two tiny pointers into jeweled alignment while tons of heavy artillery go fluttering overhead: the prosaic, civilian-looking dial of the watch has restored, however briefly, an illusion of personal control. Good, it counsels, looking tidily up from the hairs and veins of each terribly vulnerable wrist; fine: so far, everything's happening right on time. — Richard Yates

It's always a good feeling when you can produce just the right one-liner to prove your point so tidily. — Emily Giffin

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

Let Piers and Owen make the wedding arrangements, just don't expect the bride to be there like a dog called to heel. I'll choose my own Gris-damned husband, thank you. If I even want one, and I'm not exactly certain of that. I want life on my own terms, not on the dictates of tradition and of haggling over power and land. — Cat Hellisen

The man who raises new issues has always been distasteful to politicians. He musses up what had been so tidily arranged. — Walter Lippmann

If you gave me
half a moon of a chance
i would
kiss the incisors
out of your mouth, clean
and hold them in my
own, like chippings
from an old mug
then
pray my tongue into
a bowl of holy water
and ask god to never
leave you thirsty. — Warsan Shire

There are two kinds of knowing. The kind that resides in your brain, with straight edges and smooth planes, and fits tidily between memories like a book on a shelf. The kind that matches your hopes and tells you everything is as it should be. But then there's the knowing that comes for you at night, after layers of consciousness have been peeled off by the exhaustion of the day. It lives in that pit in your stomach, jagged and dark. The kind of knowing that won't let you rest until you finally surrender and let it, in all its ferocious and hideous glory, step into the light. The — Sarah Fine

V. S. Pritchett was one of the most admired, fun, talked-about writers of the 20th century: he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his work with prose. He was born in 1900, wrote till he died in 1997, and has been tidily forgotten ever since. This is a real shame. — Darin Strauss

It's an important point to make that people can't just be invalidated, eradicated, because they don't fit tidily into a box. And more and more, the modern world is all about conformity. — Lindsay Duncan

I always think a day when you never get out of your pajamas is a win. — Mark Hamill

Romance can end, but I don't think art really ends, as romantic as that might sound. — Stew

Best thing wrong with Jack Fisher is nothing. — Casey Stengel

His words drifted across Death's scythe and split tidily into two ribbons of consonants and vowels. — Terry Pratchett

I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone - terribly alone in a world without God and without (hu)man(ity). — Elie Wiesel

Life itself was far messier and didn't end so tidily with the heroine making the right match. — Tracy Chevalier

Albion was many times larger in every way than the tidily compacted Britain I had left behind. Judging from the distances traveled, Albion was immense; both the land and the world that contained it were far more expansive than anything I could have dreamed. — Stephen R. Lawhead

This was the sort of situation that she read about in the novels she favored, by authors such as Miss Jane Austen, whom Margaret was sure she'd met long ago at the Assembly Rooms the first time we visited Lyme. One of Miss Austen's books had even featured Lyme Regis, but I did not read fiction and could not be persuaded to try it. Life itself was far messier and didn't end so tidily with the heroine making the right match. We Philpot sisters were the very embodiment of that frayed life. I did not need novels to remind me of what I had missed. — Tracy Chevalier