Time For Coffee Quotes & Sayings

The coffee served in the coffeehouses wasn't necessarily very good coffee. Because of the way coffee was taxed in Britain (by the gallon), the practice was to brew it in large batches, store it cold in barrels, and reheat it a little at a time for serving. So coffee's appeal in Britain had less to do with being a quality beverage than with being a social lubricant. People went to coffeehouses to meet people of shared interests, gossip, read the latest journals and newspapers - a brand-new word and concept in the 1660s - and exchange information of value to their lives and business. Some took to using coffeehouses as their offices - as, most famously, at Lloyd's Coffee House on Lombard Street, which gradually evolved into Lloyd's insurance market. — Bill Bryson

I call it the 'doll house,' ... It's absolutely gorgeous, especially at this time of year. It's a crisp sky and, you know, if we wake up on a clear morning, and then I take little Norm out for a walk, have a little coffee on the deck. — Jennifer Aniston

God has given us the use of his resources for a short time here on earth, and we have much to be grateful for. Go through your day sometime just recognizing that everything is God's. Get out of God's bed and walk into God's bathroom, and turn on God's shower, and then put on God's clothes. Eat God's cereal* and drink God's coffee. Get in God's car and head to work. When we start to see all of our resources as God's it helps us develop an attitude of gratitude that leads to a heart of worship. — Kyle Idleman

I am told by people all the time that they simply do not have time to read and listen to all the material they have purchased or subscribed to. But time is democratic and just. Everyone has the same amount. When I choose to read with my mid morning coffee break and you choose to blather about trivia with friends, when I choose to study for an hour sitting on my backyard deck at day's end but you choose to watch a TIVO'd American Idol episode, we reveal much. When someone says he does not have the time to apply himself to acquiring the know-how required to create sufficient value for his stated desires, he is a farmer surrounded by ripe fruit and vegetables, whole grains, and a herd of cattle on his own property who dies of starvation, unable to organize his time and discipline himself to eat. — Dan S. Kennedy

I don't think my Dad was ready for me to come back home, either. I think it had been a long time since he was forced to make conversation at the kitchen table over coffee, especially with the person who had been canceling out his vote in every single election since the mid-eighties. — Laurie Notaro

A world in which time is absolute is a world of consolation. For while the movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable. While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back. In the coffee houses, in the government buildings, in boats of Lake Geneva, people look at their watches and take refuge in time. Each person knows that somewhere is recorded the moment she was born, the moment she took her first step, the moment of her first passion, the moment she said goodbye to her parents. — Alan Lightman

This isn't coffee," I accused immediately as the rich smell of chocolate met my nose, making me almost want to groan. Okay, I totally wanted to groan. Just not in front of him. Fine, I absolutely wanted to groan in front of him. But in a private setting with his hands and mouth all over me.

"Figured you needed a pick-me-up."

"You told me you wouldn't give me something like this again. Not even if I begged," I reminded him.

"Well, it's made with water, not full-fat milk and there is only a tiny bit of whipped cream," he said, casual as could be. Which was why I took a sip as he leaned across the counter toward me, not thinking anything of it. Until he went ahead and added in a voice low enough that only the two of us could hear, "And the next time you beg me for something, Maddy, it's gonna be my cock."

I nearly choked to death.

And he just casually walked away, wiping the counter. — Jessica Gadziala

Cody made a pot of coffee and heated water for Rosetta's tea. He needed the time alone to process what Wilkes had said. For the first time in his career, he wished he wasn't a cop. The evidence pointed to Catherine, and yet his heart told him that wasn't possible. He wanted to listen to his heart. — Linda S. Prather

I like day dates. On night dates, you just go somewhere and start drinking. But if you really want to see if a girl is worth your time, go to a museum or for coffee. — Leslie Bibb

As Narc became busier at work, he developed a bold new dating philosophy. His idea of a perfect first date was doggy-style, followed by a cup of coffee. He just didn't have the time or patience for anything resembling conventional courtship patterns and felt too depressed to be the charming smooth talker that he had once been. — Zack Love

The time I spend in the morning - praying, sipping coffee, and coming up with my list - is a ritual I relish. I have done it for so long now that I subconsciously measure whether or not the things I'm doing match with what I should be doing, what I want to be doing, and the life I want to live. — Kristin Armstrong

Take off your shoes," Jake said after the kids disappeared up the stairs. Meridith eyed her leather loafers. For some reason, she was reluctant to part with them. Not to mention she needed every inch of height. "You're still wearing yours." "I'm not planning on trampling your feet." She removed her shoes and set them by the wall, taking her time. "You want something to drink? I made coffee. Or there's always tea or soda if you prefer." He tucked the corner of his lip. "No, thanks. You want to come closer? I can't teach you from over there." She inched closer. "I'm really bad." "So you said." He gestured to the blue box. "We'll start with a basic box step. Ballroom dancing is counted off like this: one-two-three, one-two-three. Max said he knows how to lead, so I'll teach you to follow." "Good luck with that." "Stand — Denise Hunter

The sun was already long past the spire when Garrick purchased a mug of coffee from his regular man on the tip of Oxford Street. But his palate had been educated by 21st century coffee, and he judged this mug as bilge water not fit for the Irish. — Eoin Colfer

I gather you weren't keen on going back to Scotland with your brother at this time of year. I don't say I blame you. Terribly bleak and cutoff in the winter."
"Oh no, Mom," I said, as her words sunk in. "My brother is not going back to Scotland. He and my sister-in-law are going to the Riviera."
The Riviera? I had no idea."
"For my sister-in-law's health. She's feeling rather frail at the moment."
"I don't think that frail would ever be a word to describe your sister-in-law," the Queen said, looking up with a half smile on her lips as a tray of coffee was reeled into the room.
"I managed to have six children without making a fuss. One just got on with it. — Rhys Bowen

Hey," I said before he could say anything else that would make the mood even weirder or break it entirely. "You wanna grab some coffee or something someday? I mean, some time when I'm not crawling with maggots," I added with a laugh that sounded nervous to my own ears and probably sounded desperate and pathetic to his. I totally braced myself for him to hem and haw and say that he couldn't or had a girlfriend or something. I was shocked instead when he gave me a nod.
"That sounds nice. And I'm cool with the no maggots thing too. — Diana Rowland

The old man drank his coffee slowly. It was all he would have all day and he knew that he should take it. For a long time now eating had bored him and he never carried a lunch. — Ernest Hemingway,

The snow had done what even wizards and the Watch couldn't do, which was clean up Ankh-Morpork. It hadn't had time to get dirty. In the morning it'd probably look as though the city had been covered in coffee meringue, but for now it mounded the bushes and trees in pure white. — Terry Pratchett

I don't have the time to devote to circles or covens. I have to fit things in when and where I can, in stolen moments and cups of coffee.
Stirring clockwise to conjure.
Widdershins to banish.
There's never enough time, and rarely enough caffeine, but I make do with what I have. Besides, cauldrons and pointy hats are overrated.
Sometimes I see other customers practicing. Pouring their cream and sugar with studied intent. Stirring with purpose.
I add an extra spoonful of sugar to my own coffee for them, to make all of our enchantments sweeter. — Erin Morgenstern

She woke to sunlight and the scent of coffee. The first thing she saw was Roarke, with a mug of coffee in his hand.
"how much would you pay for this?"
"Name your price." she sat up took it from him, drank gratefully. "this is one of my favorite parts of the marriage deal." She let the caffeine flow through her system. "I mean the sex is pretty good, but the coffee ... the Cofee is amazing. And you're all-round handy yourself most of the time.. thanks."
"Don't mention it. — J.D. Robb

I strode toward Mr. Coffee with lust in my eyes. We'd had a thing for quite some time now Mr. Coffee and I ... — Darynda Jones

it often takes a long time for women to "get into" taking care of themselves, and that her need for autonomy was as much about basking in her hard-won self-actualization as it was a reaction to the exhaustion that comes with tending to a child's every need. These days, as I enter my forties, I find that I am only now beginning to feel comfortable in my own skin, to find the wherewithal to respect my own needs as much as others', to know what my emotional and physical limits are, and to confidently, yet kindly, tell others no. (No, I cannot perform that job; no, I cannot meet you for coffee; no, I cannot be in a relationship in which I feel starved for emotional and physical connection.) — Meghan Daum

There's so much more to life than finding someone who will want you, or being sad over someone who doesn't. There's a lot of wonderful time to be spent discovering yourself without hoping someone will fall in love with you along the way, and it doesn't need to be painful or empty. You need to fill yourself up with love. Not anyone else. Become a whole being on your own. Go on adventures, fall asleep in the woods with friends, wander around the city at night, sit in a coffee shop on your own, write on bathroom stalls, leave notes in library books, dress up for yourself, give to others, smile a lot. Do all things with love, but don't romanticize life like you can't survive without it. Live for yourself and be happy on your own. It isn't any less beautiful, I promise. — Emery Allen

When some people talk about money
They speak as if it were a mysterious lover
Who went out to buy milk and never
Came back, and it makes me nostalgic
For the years I lived on coffee and bread,
Hungry all the time, walking to work on payday
Like a woman journeying for water
From a village without a well, then living
One or two nights like everyone else
On roast chicken and red wine. — Tracy K. Smith

Sometimes parties of men went spud-gathering in no-man's-land. About a mile to the right of us, where the lines were closer together, there was a patch of potatoes that was frequented both by the Fascists and ourselves. We went there in the daytime, they only at night, as it was commanded by our machine-guns. One night to our annoyance they turned out en masse and cleared up the whole patch. We discovered another patch further on, where there was practically no cover and you had to lift the potatoes lying on your belly - a fatiguing job. If their machine-gunners spotted you, you had to flatten yourself out like a rat when it squirms under a door, with the bullets cutting up the clods a few yards behind you. It seemed worth it at the time. Potatoes were getting very scarce. If you got a sackful you could take them down to the cook-house and swap them for a water-bottleful of coffee. And — George Orwell

Sanchez got the phone call, listened carefully, glanced over at Spencer, in Whittaker's office, having his morning coffee. Hung up the phone, got up, went and knocked on the door, asked if he could see Spencer a moment, and lowering his voice said, "Carl downstairs just called me because someone wants to file a vagrancy report.
Spencer slapped him on the back. "Detective Sanchez, thank you for bringing the particulars of your job description to my attention. Well done. Go to it.
Sanchez hemmed and said, "The young woman says she is Lily Quinn. Specifically asked for me, Carl says.
Spencer didn't slap him on the back this time. He stared at Carl and then said, "All right smart-ass, go back to you desk.
"That's what I thought," said Sanchez. — Paullina Simons

Breakfast was ready. He could hear his father asking for coffee. Why did his father have to yell all the time? Couldn't he talk in a low voice? Everybody in the neighborhood knew everything that went on in their house on account of his father constantly shouting. The Moreys next door - you never heard a peep out of them, never; quiet American people. But his father wasn't satisfied with being an Italian, he had to be a noisy Italian.
'Arturo,' his mother called. 'Breakfast.'
As if he didn't know breakfast was ready! As if everybody in Colorado didn't know by this time that the Bandini family was having breakfast! — John Fante

There was an old military saying that Fred Colon used to describe total bewilderment and confusion. An individual in that state, according to Fred, 'couldn't tell if it was arsehole or breakfast time.'


This had always puzzled Vimes. He wondered what research had been done. Even now, with his mouth tasting of warmed-over yesterday and everything curiously sharp in his vision, he thought he'd be able to tell the difference. Only one was likely to include a cup of coffee, for a start. — Terry Pratchett

In his mind, Inman likened the swirling paths of vulture flight to the coffee grounds seeking pattern in his cup. Anyone could be oracle for the random ways things fall against each other. It was simple enough to tell fortunes if a man dedicated himself to the idea that the future will inevitably be worse than the past and that time is a path leading nowhere but a place of deep and persistent threat. The way Inman saw it, if a thing like Fredericksburg was to be used as a marker of current position, then many years hence, at the rate we're going, we'll be eating one another raw. — Charles Frazier

At the bakery it's just me. It's a small place. Just me and the raspberry horns and the tourtiere pies and my cigarette going in the ashtray near the black sink. Every once in a while a car passes through the dark street outside the storefont windows, but that's pretty much all I see of people while I'm there, until the end of my shift at eight when Monica shows up to open the store for the day. A solid twelve hours by myself, nothing but the radio to keep me company, and I like it just fine, being alone. It's even better in the winter, during a storm, when the snow piles up outside and no cars come by at all. Inside the bakery it's warm and there's plenty to keep my hands busy. Times like that, for all I can tell I'm the only person left on earth. I could go on making pies and watching the snow pile up until the end of time, so long as there was enough coffee on hand. I don't need company like some people seem to. — Ron Currie Jr.

Sometimes it's not catastrophic. Sometimes you only come to the bottom of your coffee cup. Sometimes you have a good day. No one wants to know. No one wants to tell you about theirs either. You might somehow take it. Turn it against them. See the flaw. You always tell them the whole thing sucks. It keeps you alive. They figure if you're out there having a rotten time, everything's fine and you're doing your part. No one will ever try to take your bad times away from you but they'll come swarming for your happiness. — Henry Rollins

Thank you, 4:00 p.m., for being the time of day that thoroughly confuses me: post-homework and pre-dinner. I am already exhausted and fairly irritable. The children are losing their ever-loving minds, and husband is still tucked away in his sane office with all mental faculties intact and won't answer my SOS texts to hurry and come home or their blood is on your hands. Do I make a coffee? Or pour a glass of wine? Yours, Witching-Hour Survivor. — Jen Hatmaker

Opening my door to Dillon Ruddick, my bulding super. I handed him a cup of coffee. "Sorry about the blood."
"What was it this time?" No one reported gunfire."
"I hit a guy in the face with a hair dryer."
"Whoa." Dillon said.
"It wasn't my fault," I told him.
"Maybe we should lay down some linoleum here. It would make things easier for clean up. — Janet Evanovich

The lady who works in the grocery store at the corner of my block is called Denise, and she's one of America's great unpublished novelists. Over the years she's written forty-two romantic novels, none of which have ever reached the bookstores. I, however, have been fortunate enough to hear the plots of the last twenty-seven of these recounted in installments by the authoress herself every time I drop by the store for a jar of coffee or can of beans, and my respect for Denise's literary prowess knows no bounds. So, naturally enough, when I found myself faced with the daunting task of actually starting the book you now hold in your hands, it was Denise I turned to for advice. — Dave Gibbons

He knew she drank coffee, but he knew nothing about the stuff himself, and he intentionally hung back watching other people order for a while. When he heard a young woman who clearly couldn't be old enough to drink coffee order a grande, iced, half-caf, triple-mocha latte macchiato, he panicked, but he was committed. It was all very confusing, and by the time he was at the counter, he was ready to give up and buy her a coffeemaker. — Elizabeth Finn

If you're going to be a writer, you're going to write because you have to. It's not like other arts and not nearly as rewarding because it's a lot lonelier, and most of the time it's just you alone in a dark room or a coffee shop. But a lot of writers have to write because they're writing for themselves, so whether or not someone sees your work or not- they're still writing because they absolutely have to. — Ian Sansom

I thought we weren't actually dead?", I asked. There was a lot of ambiguity surrounding that subject. We weren't mortal anymore. That was for sure. I could swing by my grave and prove that anytime I wanted. But, we had bodies with needs. And could get hurt or killed. And, though, I've been told we didn't age, my hair continued to grow. I still woke up hungry in the morning, and watch out, if I didn't get a cup of coffee. It was like we were straddling some invisible fence between immortality and human frailty.
"Seriously, are we dead or not? I asked again when I still received no response. I got several yes's and no's at the same time confirming my own belief. Somehow, we were neither. — Donna Augustine

Dilemmas of the Angels: Flight"

Before the angel there was something else -
not this coffee shop next to a drug rehabilitation center
filled with war veterans of the past, men and women
strapped to their chairs, birds straining to rise
from piles of feathers, bones, and blood.

Drenched in sweat and a little shaky
from too much caffeine, she takes flight,
a shining white-winged trumpeter swan
crossing open water, steam rising
from the feathers' barbs. Below her,
a cormorant, unfolding its black wings,
explodes from the surface, and even fish,
leaping from the oily sheen, glide
for a moment, gills pumping
in the poisonous atmosphere.

Such longing. How large
the muscles in our shoulders must be
to lift our wings even a single time. — David Romtvedt

Actually, I think you sound more Southern than me." "I blame my Mama for that, too," he replied. "She was an old-time rodeo queen from Amarillo, Texas. She homeschooled me and my brother Dirk until high school, so the Texas twang kinda stuck. Now as for Georgia, I find it a real shame you'd want to get rid of it. I find a woman with a soft Southern drawl incredibly sexy." "Tell you what, when I decide I want to be sexy for you, I'll be sure to turn it on full force."
She was a real firecracker, this Georgia girl. He liked that. He answered her with a grin. "I'll look forward to it." "In your dreams, cowboy," he thought he heard her mutter under her breath.
He cocked his head, "What was that?"
"Coffee?" She smiled wide. "If I recall, you promised me Starbucks. — Victoria Vane

If the cities are still standing when you get to Europe," he said, "and you sit in a cafe for hours, sipping coffee or wine or beer, and discussing painting and music and literature, just remember that the Europeans around you, who you think are so much more civilized than Americans, are looking forward to just one thing: the time when it will become legal to kill each other and knock everything down again. — Kurt Vonnegut

I Was 37 Years Old at the Time" - August 7, 1976 For years, you've watched everyone else do it. The children who sat on the curb eating their lunches while waiting for their bus. The husband you put through school who drank coffee standing up and slept with his hand on the alarm. And you envied them and said, "Maybe next year I'll go back to school." And the years went by and this morning you looked into the mirror and said, "You blew it. You're too old to pick it up and start a new career." This column is for you. — Erma Bombeck

She noticed that the man at the table next to her, in his sixties, was watching her. Clearly, he'd
caught the show.
"Well, he asked for my opinion," she said defensively.
"I'm just wondering what you're going to do to the next guy who walks in," the older man said.
"They're gonna start taking them out of here in body bags."
Probably it was high time she left this coffee shop. — Julie James

For four to six months at a time, I would barely eat. I lived on a diet of Melba toast, carrots, and black coffee. — Alanis Morissette

Oh, we women know things you don't know, you teachers, you readers and writers of books, we are the ones who wait around libraries when it's time to leave, or sit drinking coffee alone in the kitchen; we make crazy plans for marriage but have no man, we dream of stealing men, we are the ones who look slowly around when we get off a bus and can't even find what we are looking for, can't quite remember how we got there, we are always wondering what will come next, what terrible thing will come next. We are the ones who leaf through magazines with colored pictures and spend long heavy hours sunk in our bodies, thinking, remembering, dreaming, waiting for something to come to us and give a shape to so much pain. — Joyce Carol Oates

Things can get tough out there. I am in no way saying life is easy and we should breeze through it like a fart through silk filter; we are going to take our lumps and deal with our own unique adversity. What I am saying is that in all the chaos, remember to breathe, remember to smile, and remember that the only time to panic is when there is truly no tomorrow. Fortunately for the majority of us, tomorrow will always meet us in the morning with a cup of coffee and a fresh deck of cigarettes, ready to crack it's cocoon and mature into today. So ease the grip on your moralities and be yourself. Fantastic is really just the flaws. Nobody is perfect - not you, not me, not Jesus, Buddha, Jehovah, not God. But the great thing is that you do not have to be perfect to be alive, and that is what makes life absolutely perfect. — Corey Taylor

Fang took the entire family out for coffee and donuts the other night. The kids enjoyed it. It was the first time they'd ever given blood. — Phyllis Diller

When you're doing hard work, getting rejected, failing, working it out - this is a dumb time to make a situational decision about whether it's time for a nap or a day off or a coffee break. Zig Ziglar taught me this twenty years ago. Make your schedule before you start. Don't allow setbacks or blocks or anxiety to push you to say, "hey, maybe I should check my e-mail for a while, or you know, I could use a nap." If you do that, the lizard brain will soon be trained to use that escape hatch again and again. — Seth Godin

I'm not mad at you," she said. "Not even a little?" "No." "Do you still love me?" It didn't seem like the perfect time to mention that I had already made copies of the key for the deliverer from Pizza Hut, and the UPS person, and, also the nice guys from Greenpeace, so they could leave me articles on manatees and other animals that are going extinct when Stan is getting coffee. "I've never loved you more. — Jonathan Safran Foer

What are you doing?" my mom asked. One side of her mouth curled up.
"I'm trying to move that cup."
My parents laughed. I concentrated on the coffee cup, but it didn't budge.
"I guess I'll have to work on this telekinesis thing. It'll come in handy when Ben is hogging the TV remote and forcing me to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the fifty-millionth time. — Michelle K. Pickett

You swallow hard when you discover that the old coffee shop is now a chain pharmacy, that the place where you first kissed so-and-so is now a discount electronics retailer, that where you bought this very jacket is now rubble behind a blue plywood fence and a future office building. Damage has been done to your city. You say, 'It happened overnight.' But of course it didn't. Your pizza parlor, his shoeshine stand, her hat store: when they were here, we neglected them. For all you know, the place closed down moments after the last time you walked out the door. (Ten months ago? Six years? Fifteen? You can't remember, can you?) And there have been five stores in that spot before the travel agency. Five different neighborhoods coming and going between then and now, other people's other cities. Or 15, 25, 100 neighborhoods. Thousands of people pass that storefront every day, each one haunting the streets of his or her own New York, not one of them seeing the same thing. — Colson Whitehead

Australians are coffee snobs. An influx of Italian immigrants after World War II ensured that - we probably had the word 'cappuccino' about 20 years before America. Cafe culture is really big for Aussies. We like to work hard, but we take our leisure time seriously. — Hugh Jackman

At this time to refuse or neglect to give coffee to their wives was a legitimate cause for divorce among the Turks." William H. Ukers (1873-1945). — Stewart Lee Allen

I don't understand death. For that matter, I don't really understand life. You live. You suffer. You die. It hardly seems worth doing. Yet, here I am, robotically taking a fresh breath every few seconds, standing in this awkward brown and orange polyester waitress uniform, pretending to listen to Mr. Chester go on about his bunions for the second time this week, pouring the evening's thirty-second cup of coffee and trying so hard to put the events of the last four weeks behind me. — C.A. Deyton

I'll be in a series for three or four episodes, but then I'll be off the series, and downtime, as an actor, is a little more than most people understand. Most of the time you're just sitting around taking coffee with friends. — Felicia Day

You and I are so different: I am one word at a time one foot in front of the other, slowly, always testing how surely footing is before proceeding to the next sentence with ruminative breaks for buttered toast and coffee. — Carlene Bauer

It is so very easy and so very pleasant, too, to read only books which lead to nothing, light and interesting books, and the more the better, that it is almost as difficult to wean ourselves from it as from the habit of chewing tobacco to excess, or of smoking the whole time, or of depending for stimulus upon tea or coffee or spirits. — Charles Francis Adams, Sr.

Did you ever hear the famous story about breakfast on the day Mother and Father were leaving for Sweden to accept the Nobel Peace Prize? It was in The Saturday Evening Post one time. Mother cooked a big breakfast. And then, when she cleared off the table, she found a quarter and a dime and three pennies by Father's coffee cup. He'd tipped her. — Kurt Vonnegut

I used to think I couldn't go a day without your smile. Without telling you things and hearing your voice back.
Then, that day arrived and it was so damn hard but the next was harder. I knew with a sinking feeling it was going to get worse, and I wasn't going to be okay for a very long time.
Because losing someone isn't an occasion or an event. It doesn't just happen once. It happens over and over again. I lose you every time I pick up your favorite coffee mug; whenever that one song plays on the radio, or when I discover your old t-shirt at the bottom of my laundry pile.
I lose you every time I think of kissing you, holding you, or wanting you. I go to bed at night and lose you, when I wish could tell you about my day. And in the morning, when I wake and reach for the empty space across the sheets, begin to lose you all over again. — Lang Leav

Characters simply come and find me. They sit down, I offer them a coffee. They tell me their story and then they almost always leave. When a character, after drinking some coffee and briefly telling her story, wants dinner and then a place to sleep and then breakfast and so on, for me the time has come to write the novel. — Dacia Maraini

To Poetry"

Don't desert me
just because I stayed up last night
watching The Lost Weekend.

I know I've spent too much time
praising your naked body to strangers
and gossiping about lovers you betrayed.

I've stalked you in foreign cities
and followed your far-flung movements,
pretending I could describe you.

Forgive me for getting jacked on coffee
and obsessing over your features
year after jittery year.

I'm sorry for handing you a line
and typing you on a screen,
but don't let me suffer in silence.

Does anyone still invoke the Muse,
string a wooden lyre for Apollo,
or try to saddle up Pegasus?

Winged horse, heavenly god or goddess,
indifferent entity, secret code, stored magic,
pleasance and half wonder, hell,

I have loved you my entire life
without even knowing what you are
or how - please help me - to find you. — Edward Hirsch

Over the hum of the appliances, she heard the knocking on the back door. The pain pill must not have knocked Spender out for very long! This time she wouldn't make him stand there and wait. She jumped up, and rushed to unlock the door.
Just her luck. It wasn't Spencer who stood there, but Zeke, scowling at her through the glass. She supposed it was too late to turn around, take a sip of coffee, and head this way again, taking her time.
"Didn't find your key, I see," she said as she opened the door.
"Found it," he said through clenched teeth. "Left it in my room this morning."
"Early-onset Alzheimer's? — Linda Howard

So you open your mouth and listen to yourself say, "I want eight thousand a day. Plus expenses."
This is the polite, industry-standard way of saying "piss off, I'm not interested." You did the math over your morning coffee: You want to earn 100K a year, what with those bonuses you've been pulling on top of your salary. (Besides, a euro doesn't buy what it used to.) There are 250 working days in a year, and a contractor works for roughly 40 per cent of the time, so you need to charge yourself out at 2.5 times your payroll rate, or 1000 a day in order to meet your target. Not interested in the job? Pitch unrealistically high. You never know ...
"Done," says Mr. Pin-Stripe, staring at you expressionlessly. And it is at that point that you realize you are well and truly fucked. — Charles Stross

It's the truth. I'm sorry to be blunt about it, but girls don't like guys who are doormats. Especially pretty girls, because there's no novelty in it. Guys are hitting on them all of the time. They can't walk down the street or order a coffee or stand on a corner without some idiot making a comment about how attractive they are. And the women smile because it's easier than telling them to go fuck themselves. And less dangerous, because if a man rejects a woman, she goes home and cries for a few days. If a woman rejects a man, he can rape and kill her. — Karin Slaughter

I don't spend much time in it. I go in there for my lunch and for coffee in the afternoon. I'd rarely be in there at night. I don't think it's neccessarily a bad thing but if it's abused obviously it's a bad thing. — Lucinda Creighton

And she loved a man who was made out of nothing. A few hours without him and right away she'd be missing him with her whole body, sitting in her office surrounded by polyethylene and concrete and thinking of him. And every time she'd boil water for coffee in her ground-floor office, she'd let the steam cover her face, imagining it was him stroking her cheeks, her eyelids and she'd wait for the day to be over, so she could go to her apartment building, climb the flight of stairs, turn the key in the door, and find him waiting for her, naked and still between the sheets of her empty bed. — Etgar Keret

I'm always astonished when readers suggest that I must write my novels while high on pot or (God forbid!) LSD. Apparently, there are people who confuse the powers of imagination with the effects of intoxication. Not one word of my oeuvre, not one, has been written while in an artificially altered state. Unlike many authors, I don't even drink coffee when I write. No coffee, no cola, no cigarettes. There was a time when I smoked big Havana cigars while writing, not for the nicotine (I didn't inhale) but as an anchor, something to hold on to, I told myself, to keep from falling over the edge of the earth. Eventually, I began to wonder what it would be like to take that fall. So one day I threw out the cigars and just let go. Falling, I must say, has been exhilarating
though I may change my mind when I hit bottom. — Tom Robbins

I was beginning to taste it. Something bitter, but warm.
A flavor that woke me up and let me see things clearly. A flavor that made me feel safe, so I could let those things go. A flavor that held my hand and walked me across to the other side of loss, and assured me that one day, I would be just fine. A flavor for a change of heart- part grief, part hope.
Suddenly, I knew what that flavor would be. I padded down to the kitchen and cut a slice of sour cream coffee cake with a spicy underground river coursing through its center, left over from an order that had not been picked up today.
One bite and I was sure. A familiar flavor that now seemed utterly fresh and custom-made for me.
Cinnamon.
The comfort of sweet cinnamon. It always worked. I felt better. Lighter. Not quite "everything is going to be all right," but getting there. One step at a time. — Judith Fertig

With one Like I can say hi to a friend, support them during a crisis, share in a joke, make someone happy, or reinforce a person's self esteem. I make myself part of their world. It's like I stopped by for coffee. But, by Liking, I can also avoid talking to all the people I don't want to waste time on. Or I can check to see what my ex-girlfriend is doing seven or eight times an hour. It's a double-edged mouse click. — Bart Hopkins

I'm the guy who's right for you. I may not be what you're looking for, but I'm what you want. You've been alone long enough, honey. It's time for you to wake up with a man in your bed. Time for the kind of sex that lays you out, owns you, leaves you too shaky to pour your morning coffee. — Lisa Kleypas

I measure the coffee exactly. Pour in the water. As the flavor bursts, she surrenders. "Oh, you are old for such a long time!" She frets over the sugar bowl in the center of a tin tray. "You think it won't happen to you, but it will. You may live a long time, but most of life is old, old, old! — Brock Cole

The next time you come to the Cookie Jar, the coffee's on me. You could probably bottle that stuff of yours and sell it for rat poison. — Joanne Fluke

...anyone who willingly turns their life upside down by becoming a cook is totally insane to begin with. So many chefs that I have met are dyslexic and totally not school people or intellectuals. That could be symbolic of the kind of lifestyle that they choose to live. They all drink a lot, do a lot of drugs, drink a shitload of coffee and espresso. They don't sleep much, and obviously don't have much of a life outside the kitchen. A cook's friend is a cook, there isn't much time for a non-cook friend or girlfriend. And time really isn't the issue so much as it's a lifestyle and a culture that is very hard to understand or identify with unless you are on the inside. Cooks hang out with cooks because there is nobody else awake, hungry and totally wired at 2am on a Tuesday. — Jennifer Topper

Coffee in Brazil is always made fresh and, except at breakfast time, drunk jet black from demitasses first filled almost to the brim with the characteristic moist, soft coffee sugar of the country, which melts five times as fast as our hard granulated. For breakfast larger cups are used, and they're more than half filled with cream. This cafe con leite doesn't re-quire so much sugar as cafe preto-black coffee. — Bob Brown

And everyone drank too much coffee too, at the wrong times and for the wrong reasons. They drank it when they came in every morning to get going, and then again in the afternoon to keep going. They ran on caffeine fumes all day and never fucking got anywhere. Then they went home spent and empty and crashed in front of the TV every night and slept away the few hours they had for themselves. All these motherfuckers are always talking about the best ways to manage your time. The fact is any time spent at work not sleeping in the bathroom is wasted time, and it's hard to sleep when you're pumped full of caffeine. Everyone's awake for the wrong part of their lives. And by the weekend they're too exhausted from all the frantic, useless activity to even care, and it's only fucking two days off anyway. Nobody has the time or the energy to do what they really want, or to even figure out what that is. — Paul Neilan

[President Clinton] boasts about 186,000 people denied firearms under the Brady Law rules. The Brady Law has been in force for three years. In that time, they have prosecuted seven people and put three of them in prison. You know, the President has entertained more felons than that at fundraising coffees in the White House, for Pete's sake. — Charlton Heston

From Time for College - Mr. Chiardi & Other Stories

It was time for Junior to go to college. He'd sprouted pubic hair and was eyeing all the girls.
"I want to go to college," he said.
"Yes," I replied, "It's time."
His mother, my wife, was resigned to the fact that it was time for Junior to leave the nest. She sat on a stool at the granite kitchen counter, spiked coffee beside her, reading The New York Times. She looked almost real. — Rita Buckley Aka Charles Maxwell

What are you thinking? Sandwiches?" Finn asked in a hopeful voice. "No. I'm in the mood for something sweet." I grabbed the butter out of the fridge, then rummaged through the cabinets. Flour, oats, dried apricots, golden raisins, brown sugar, vanilla. I pulled them out, along with some mixing cups, a baking pan, a spatula, and a bowl. Finn settled himself at the kitchen table and drank his coffee while I worked. By the time Jo-Jo walked back into the kitchen, I was sliding the batter into the oven. "Whatcha making?" the dwarf asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee. "Apricot bars, — Jennifer Estep

Good morning, sunshine," he said, his smile quickly disappearing in the face of her murderous glance when she raised her face to look at him.

"Shut up and die, morning person. Coffee," she mumbled.

Right. Note to self. Mate was not a morning person. He poured a cup of coffee and placed it on the table near her hand along with the sweetener and cream. He watched as she poured three packets of Equal into the coffee with her forehead still on the table. He looked on in amazement as she felt around and unscrewed the cap to the cream before dousing the dark liquid. She stirred for a second before dragging the cup to her lips. After a few sips she was able to lift her head. By the time she had finished half a cup she was sitting upright. When she finished the cup, her eyes were open and she was looking around.

"You need to be a coffee commercial," Connor said, staring at his mate. — Alanea Alder

I'm really not hungry," she repeated, lifting the coffee cup and inhaling the fragrant steam before sipping.
"Just a few bites," he cajoled, taking his own place beside her. "You need to keep up your strength for tonight."
She gave him a heated, slumberous look, remembering her fantasy. "Why? Are you planning something special?"
"I suppose I am," he said consideringly. "It's special every time we make love. — Linda Howard

Whenever I see someone carrying a cup of coffee from a Starbucks competitor, whether it's an independent coffee shop or a fast-food chain, I take their decision not to come to Starbucks personally. I wonder what I, as Starbucks' chairman and ceo, might have done to keep them away and what I might do to encourage them to come back or to try us for the first time. — Howard Schultz

Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up, saw a swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly representing a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words underneath - "The Spouter Inn: - Peter Coffin." Coffin? - Spouter? - Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and the place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated little wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here from the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee. — Herman Melville

Halloween isn't the only time for ghosts and ghost stories. In Victorian Britain, spooky winter's tales were part of the Christmas season, often told after dinner, over port or coffee. — Michael Dirda

Friends and relatives might be surprised that I think of myself as lonely. I'm married to a man I not only love but like, and we spend a lot of time together. If I feel like socializing, I can usually find someone to meet for coffee or a drink. — Robin Marantz Henig

I was trying to go ... somewhere," Jace said. "But I kept getting pulled back here. I couldn't stop walking, couldn't stop thinking. About the first time I ever saw you, and how after that I couldn't forget you. I wanted to, but I couldn't stop myself. I forced Hodge to let me be the one who came to find you and bring you back to the Institute. And even back then, in that stupid coffee shop, when I saw you sitting on that couch with Simon, even then that felt wrong to me-I should have been the one who made you laugh like that. I couldn't get rid of that feeling. That it should have been me. And the more I knew you, the more I felt it- it had never been like that for me. — Cassandra Clare

I thought it might be good for morale to look my bank manager in the eye for the first time in ten years, even if the money in my account wasn't mine. I was shown into a waiting-room outside the manager's office, and given a plastic cup of plastic coffee which was far too hot to drink until, in the space of a hundredth of a second, it suddenly became far too cold. I was trying to get rid of it behind a rubber plant when a nine-year-old boy with ginger hair stuck his head out of the door, beckoned me in, and announced himself as Graham Halkerston, Branch Manager. — Hugh Laurie

London has such an unbelievable respect for theater, where L.A. does not. You go to a play here, and the dude next to you is sleeping. In London, if you're not in your seat when it starts, they lock the door. In Los Angeles, you can stroll into school late with a cup of coffee. In London, you get your butt to class on time. — Devin Kelley

I smoke as much as I want and chew tobacco a good deal of the time. I don't pay any attention to the rules for keeping in physical condition. I think they are a lot of bunk. The less you worry about the effect of tea and coffee on the lining of your stomach, the longer you will live, and the happier you will be. — Zack Wheat

Death is, perhaps, the only certainty in life that still manages to catch us off guard. And while browsing a headstone catalog (yes, they really have such a thing) over a glass of wine might not sound like a recipe for the perfect date night, taking time to address the small things (Does your wife know what all the keys on your key ring are for? Does your husband know how to make a pot of coffee, or even where you keep the filters?) and even the not-so-small things can make a big difference in how you will cope, should you one day find yourself in my shoes - dressed in black and — Anonymous

I think if you sing a song for the first time to your mom and dad, or your friends, and they go, 'That's pretty cool'-if you're playing at the local bar somewhere, or the coffee shop, singing songs, or if you have a gig somewhere and you're singing your own songs, I think that's some version of making it ... It's not just about having commercial success; it's about having a great life. — Dierks Bentley

I remembered the taste of good Italian coffee in my London flat, brewed at the expense of time and a good deal of mess, compared to the sort that came out of machines in the office at the press of a button. I remembered walking to art school, through the windy winter, over hills and heaths: how much gladder I was to reach the rich warmth and to toast my hands on a radiator, than if I had gone by car. I remembered the nickels my father gave me as a child for being good: how much more I valued them than I would a dollar bill given all at once for no reason. Of course God as the ultimate parent could give happiness for the asking, just as my father could have given a handful of dollar bills, but at the age of five would I have known its value, or would it have looked to me just like a wad of grubby green paper? — Sumangali Morhall

You told me mornings were the best time to break your own heart. So here I am, smoking your brand of cigarettes for the scent. I wonder if you still sing Beatles songs as you make coffee. You said your mother used to sing them to you when you couldn't sleep, nineteen years before we met, twenty before you moved your clothes out of our closet while I was at work. By the way, I hate you for leaving all the photographs on the fridge. Taking them down felt like peeling off new scabs, like slapping a sunburn. I spent so many nights carving your body into pillows, I can promise you nothing feels like sleeping with your arm around me and your breath in my ear. Still, it's comforting to know we sleep under the same moon, even if she's so much older when she gets to me. I like to imagine she's seen you sleeping and wants me to know you're doing well. — Clementine Von Radics

I'm dealing with fools and trolls and soft targets. It's just strafing runs in my underwear before my first cup of coffee. I don't have time for these clowns. — Charlie Sheen

As she made coffee in the kitchen and tried to spoon the frozen ice-cream from its carton without snapping the shaft off the spoon, Elizabeth was struck, not for the first time, by the thought that her life was entirely frivolous.
It was a rush and slither of trivial crises; of uncertain cash-flow, small triumphs, occasional sex and too many cigarettes; of missed deadlines that turned out not to matter; of arguments, new clothes, bursts of altruism and sincere resolutions to address the important things. Of all these and the other experiences that made up her life, the most significant aspect was the one suggested by the words 'turned out not to matter'. Although she was happy enough with what she had become, it was this continued sense of the easy, the inessential nature of what she did, that most irritated her. She thought of Tom Brennan, who had known only life or death, then death in life. In her generation there was no intensity. — Sebastian Faulks

You remember the dialogue you had with yourself, you can quote the emotion word for word, as if you're still there, as if it matters that you can map in detail the geographies of regret.

It starts with a hope and ends with a turn of the stomach: a cringe at the excuses you make for your heart, a momentary forever you remember on alternate days over coffee and novels that hit too close to home.

You cry because you know the point at which you could have turned back but didn't, could have taken time by the throat and resisted, could have ignored the phone, answered that message, said no, said yes, said nothing, smiled - whatever it is that you didn't do. But by the time that moment ends, it is over and you are in too deep, wondering why there exists no rewind button for the soul, no second chance for the petty player, no backup plan for those who risk everything on nothing, all at once. — Tania De Rozario

Drink it," I told her. "It's good for what ails you. Caffeine and sugar. I don't drink it, so I ran over to your house and stole the expensive stuff in your freezer. It shouldn't be that bad. Samuel told me to make it strong and pour sugar into it. It should taste sort of like bitter syrup."
She gave me a smile smile, then a bigger one, and plugged her nose before she drank it down in one gulp. "Next time," she said in a hoarse voice, "I make the coffee. — Patricia Briggs

All you had to say was, 'I am a writer,' and you became one. You didn't even have to write anything. You could just sit in a coffee shop with a notebook and stare into space, with a slightly bemused look on your face, judging the weight of the world with a jaundiced eye. As you can see, you can be completely full of shit and still be a writer ... I also thought it was going to be a great way to meet girls, but it wasn't
probably because as I was staring into space, I no doubt looked mildly retarded. You see, I wanted to write plays, which in retrospect is a lot harder than learning Mandarin, I think. How I ended up in this delusional state shall be saved for another time. — Lewis Black

Shon was the man in charge of the biggest drug operation in Kansas City, Missouri. When he was fourteen years old, he was put on by one of the biggest drug dealers KC has ever seen. He went by the name of Big Tone. When Shon came to Tone looking for work, he wasn't feeling it. He didn't like the idea of a fourteen-year-old working for him. But as time went by, Tone gave in; he like that Shon was persistent. Shon would show up every week at the coffee shop downtown that Tone chilled at on Sundays, until Tone put him on. He took Shon under his wing and gave it to him straight, no chaser. Before long, Shon and his boys were moving dumb weight for Tone. Tone took a real liking to Shon; he started to look at him as a son he never had. He knew Shon would go far in his line of work. — Shaniqua Desha

When you are invited to drink, and this does occur now and then in New Orleans - and you say, 'What, again? - no, I've had enough;' the other party says, 'But just this one time more - this is for lagniappe.' When the beau perceives that he is stacking his compliments a trifle too high, and sees by the young lady's countenance that the edifice would have been better with the top compliment left off, he puts his 'I beg pardon - no harm intended,' into the briefer form of 'Oh, that's for lagniappe.' If the waiter in the restaurant stumbles and spills a gill of coffee down the back of your neck, he says 'For lagniappe, sah,' and gets you another cup without extra charge. — Mark Twain

She leaves the coffee shop and walks down to the seafront, standing staring for a long time at the burnt-out remains of West Pier, derelict, rusting, but somehow still beautiful, looking like there may be life left in its broken remains yet, that it could magically be reborn from its own devastation, bigger and better than ever. — Nigel Jay Cooper

Tyler studied him over his coffee. "From what I've seen so far you're not much of a time-waster.
And you're not so bad, for a suit."
With a half-laugh, David lifted his own coffee. Steam from it rose and merged with the mist.
"Coming from you, that's a hell of a kudo."
"Damn right. — Nora Roberts

Captain looks at Janie closely. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," she says. "You're gonna have a heck of a shiner by the time the day's over. Did you black our?"
"I ... uh ... " Janie shrugs. "I really have no idea."
"Yes, I think she did." Cabel cuts in. "I'm going to need to watch her all day. And probably all night, too," he adds. Very, very seriously.
The captain throws a rubber eraser at him and sends him out for coffee. — Lisa McMann