To Baton Quotes & Sayings

God intended motherhood to be a relay race. Each generation would pass the baton on to the next. — Mary Pride

Change is ubiquitous. Only: elementary processes cannot be ordered along a common succession of instants. At the extremely small scale of the quanta of space, the dance of nature does not develop to the rhythm kept by the baton of a single orchestral conductor: every process dances independently with its neighbours, following its own rhythm. The passing of time is intrinsic to the world, it is born of the world itself, out of the relations between quantum events which are the world and which themselves generate their own time. — Carlo Rovelli

Timing is a critical issue when it comes to succession. Passing the baton too early or too late could both cause irreparable damage. The timing just has to be right, but again you are responsible for creating or influencing the right conditions over the course of your leadership tenure. — Archibald Marwizi

A young imagination is bold, likes to make bigger leaps. It likes to, well, imagine that the dustbuster is a dinosaur; that the computer mouse is a hotrod; that the box is a cave; that the rawhide is a torch ... or a baton ... or something. — Mo Rocca

Though loss did not pass from one person to another liker a baton; it just formed a bigger and bigger pool of carriers. And, she thought, scratching the coarseness of the horse's mane, it did not leave once lodged, did it, simply changed form and asked repeatedly for attention and care, as each year revealed a new knot to cry out and consider - smaller, sure, but never gone. — Aimee Bender

The baking wind tore at his hat and he held it by the brim with one hand. It relieved him to look at it, for the great river was like a long tale, of both great joy and great woe. And it seemed to be a story road that a person could take, and it would take him to some place where he could free his mind. Men had striven against one another to control the unreeling river-road, battling at New Madrid and Island Number Ten, at Baton Rouge and Vicksburg, in the heat of the summer and the humid choking air of the malarial swamps. But the river carried away men and guns and the garbage of war, covering it over, washing itself clean again as if they had never been. — Paulette Jiles

The only excursion of my life outside of New Orleans took me through the vortex to the whirlpool of despair: Baton Rouge ... New Orleans is, on the other hand, a comfortable metropolis which has a certain apathy and stagnation which I find inoffensive. — John Kennedy Toole

Petra turned to her. "Everybody lies about who they are. Name one person here who isn't doing that and I will drop out right now!"
Shanti felt that snake of truth coil around her legs, threatening to squeeze.
"I didn't mean ... "
"No one ever does." Petra said, shoving the baton back at Shanti. — Libba Bray

I do basically what a conductor does with a baton, except I also play along with the orchestra. So I have to juggle the roles of playing the concertmaster; sometimes I drop the violin and wave my arms. — Joshua Bell

If some people deviate or step out of the path Jesus has laid, others will have to take up the baton and continue the race — Sunday Adelaja

Haiku are meant to evoke an emotional response from the reader ... to light the spark that triggers creative rumination ... They act as literary manifestations ... visions of nature's seasonal modulations ... They're emotionally tinged words, barely perceptible sensory flickers ... literary etchings of lucid visions transposed into the minds of its readers ... They're meant to act as sensory catalysts ... like the passing of a penciled baton laid out upon a piece of paper that a reader might grasp for in their mind's eye ... all of which prompts the reader to continue exploring the sensory experience elicited from the writers pen ... This is how the literary sketching of poets are intended to function ... as creative muses with which readers can draw from and viscerally apply to their own artistic idioms ... from that lucid space within their heads ... where their minds eye can spark their own creative visions"

Bukusai Ashagawa — Bukusai Ashagawa

Our responsibility is to rally and lead the whole party and the Chinese people of all ethnic groups, take up this historic baton and continue working hard for the great renewal of the Chinese nation, so that we will stand rock firm in the family of nations and make fresh and greater contribution to mankind. — Xi Jinping

I sing strange battle songs to myself in the darkness to scare away the demons. I am a fighter when I need to be. And for that I am proud. I celebrate every one of you reading this. I celebrate the fact that you've fought your battle and continue to win. I celebrate the fact that you may not understand the battle, but you pick up the baton dropped by someone you love until they can carry it again. I survived and I remind myself that each time we go through this, we get a little stronger. We learn new tricks on the battlefield. We learn them in terrible ways, but we use them. We don't struggle in vain. We win. We are alive. — Jenny Lawson

I absolutely love doing games in Baton Rouge. Night games in Tiger Stadium are a spectacle and the food choices all around are fantastic! One thing is certain: if I ever choose to feature a tailgating spread for Taste of the Town, LSU will be at the top of the list. — Todd Blackledge

Let us do our best whilst we live for another tomorrow is coming when whilst we are long gone, another group of people shall come to either suffer from our worst or enjoy and build upon our best. Let us run whole heatedly today with all alacrity for another generation shall come for the baton from our hands to either blame us or congratulate us on how we lived the dream and journeyed in life through the good and the bad times; another generation shall come to ponder over our footprints as a good or a bad lesson for them! Let us run with all necessary zeal such that when we hand over the baton, our next generation will have no reason but to soldier on with courage, enthusiasm and absolute commitment to get to the finishing line with a great accomplishment and a noble story worth pondering over and over! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

If we turn to the divine Conductor and follow the wise and loving baton that is His will, His Word, then the music of our life will be a symphony. — Peter Kreeft

At some point in time we have to hand over the baton. — Jonah Books

A dad standing up near the stands' top with a Toshiba viewfinder to his eye takes a tomahawking baton directly in the groin and falls forward onto somebody eating a Funnel Cake, and they take out good bits of several rows below them, and there's an extended halt to the action, during which I decamp
steering clear of the sixteen-year-olds on the basketball court
and as I clear the last row yet another baton comes wharp-wharping cruelly over my shoulder, caroming viciously off big R.'s inflated thigh. — David Foster Wallace

She's in the Catskill," Shopie began, but Scathach reached over and pinched her hand. "Ouch!"
I just wanted to distract you," Scathach explained. "Don't even think about Black Annis. There are some names that should never be spoken aloud."
That like saying don't think of elephants, Josh said, "and then all you can think about is elephants."
Then let me give you something else to think about," Scathach said softly. "There are two police officers in the window staring at us. Don't look," she added urgently.
Too late. Josh turned to look and whatever crossed his face
shock, horror, guilt or fear
bought both officers racing into the cafe, one pulling his automatic from its holster, the other speaking urgently into his radio as he drew his baton. — Michael Scott

Oh Jake," Brett said, "We could have had such a damned good time together."
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly, pressing Brett against me.
Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so? — Ernest Hemingway,

No one should take away the wrong lessons from the Jewish and Christian plight in the face of the modern world. Can others presume to step forward blithely to take over the baton? Hardly. The modern world's challenge to religion is not escaped so easily. The sorry state of these two biblical faiths under the impact of modernity is actually a compliment to them and a caution to others. Those first hit by modernity are those worst hit, but this is a backhanded acknowledgement of their leadership. Similarly, those farther behind may appear to be better off, but only so long as they stay farther behind and don't engage with the challenges of the modern word. — Os Guinness

In relay racing, there comes a great disappointment when those who are supposed to receive the baton to get to the finishing line do not get it from those who are supposed to hand off the baton. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

You might think that after all the shameful capitulations made by the government during the ups and downs of their negotiations with the maphia ... they could sink no lower. Alas, when one advances blindly across the boggy ground of realpolitik, when pragmatism takes up the baton and conducts the orchestra, ignoring what is written in the score, you can be pretty sure that, as the imperative logic of dishonor will show, there are still, after all, a few more steps to descend. — Jose Saramago

Meanwhile someone is shining my head to get it dry to attach my top-hat to my head with toupee tape. I get into microphone and get back up into my dressing room for the rest of my costume. I get snapped into all these things and layers and bundled up. I walk downstairs to the pit. Someone hands me my baton (which lights up like a wand) and I watch the first three minutes of the show. Then I come up out of the pit and there I am. — Tituss Burgess

There's a case in Baton Rouge, haunting me, where a mother left her twelve-year-old daughter to be babysat (every day for months) by a known pedophile and his four perverse friends, and the news broke of the bodies of two children, dead after long-term physical abuse, found in a storage locker in California. What hardest for me is, I suppose, what's hardest for my country — Laura Mullen

If we are to stand the final heat of the battle, we must learn to stand our ground in the face of cavalry or baton charges and allow ourselves to be trampled under horses' hooves, or be bruised with baton charges. — Mahatma Gandhi

It is with complete allegiance to the cause of racial and social justice and the NAACP that I step aside from the Presidency and pass the baton to my Vice President, Naima Quarles-Burnley. — Rachel Dolezal

Careful with that," said the Doctor. "No need to get carried away."

Aldridge spun the scalpel like a baton. "Yessir. Careful is my middle name. Actually Clumsy is my middle name, but that doesn't encourage clients and it makes me sound like one of those dwarfs that are going to be so popular when moving pictures a get going. — Eoin Colfer

I'm very hopeful that I'm not the only one who's willing to pick up the baton of freedom, because freedom is not free, and we must fight for it every day. Every one of us must fight for it, because we're fighting for our children and the next generation. — Ben Carson

St John had been sitting in the back garden twizzling a pencil, on the end of which a russet deposit was impaled, which had been left on the lawn by Marmaduke, next door's ginger cat. His father had wandered in to the garden and seen St John mesmerised by the twirling mahogany baton.
"What are you doing son?" he asked.
"Toasting a witch", St John replied. — St John Morris

Once at the White House I was asked to conduct the Drum and Bugle Corp. The man just handed me the baton and I finished the song. It was great. I got to keep the baton. — Dom DeLuise

Actually, when I think about growing up, I feel most affected by two travels that I made working in cargo boats when I was 16 and 18. One of them crossed through the Mississippi and Baton Rouge and Mobile, Alabama, and another went all the way to Europe. On the last trip, I stayed in Europe for one year with $1,000, working everywhere I could, doing everything. Those years shaped me a lot and taught me the value of exploring different things. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

We are to take the baton of God's truth and pass it on to the next generation of believers. — Jim George

We live in a culture that embraces pluralism and relativism, and we are told every (lay that proselytizing people or trying to convert people to Christianity is taboo. But the Lord Himself was sent by the Father to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10), and He passed the baton to His disciples. — R.C. Sproul

When you run a part of the relay and pass on the baton, there is no sense of unfinished business in your mind. There is just the sense of having done your part to the best of your ability. That is it. The hope is to pass on the baton to somebody who will run faster and run a better marathon. — N. R. Narayana Murthy

Here's the truth: People, even regular people, are never just any one person with one set of attributes. It's not that simple. We're all at the mercy of the limbic system, clouds of electricity drifting through the brain. Every man is broken into twenty-four-hour fractions, and then again within those twenty-four hours. It's a daily pantomime, one man yielding control to the next: a backstage crowded with old hacks clamoring for their turn in the spotlight. Every week, every day. The angry man hands the baton over to the sulking man, and in turn to the sex addict, the introvert, the conversationalist. Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots. — Jonathan Nolan

My wife is from Laurel, Mississippi, and she has a lot of relatives down in Louisiana, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport, Louisiana. We go down there a lot. We got married in New Orleans. She has a cousin who introduced me to swamp pop, which is sort of zydeco/Cajun music with a little uptempo pop swing. Now I'm a big zydeco fan, I'm a big swamp-music fan. — Charlie Day

There is a time for everything, also for my time in politics which has been long and eventful. Now I believe it is time for others to take the baton that was passed to me following the crash. I have therefore decided to leave political life at the end of this term. — Johanna Siguroardottir

And the maestro surely wielded the chairman's baton with extraordinary skill. His stellar record suggests that the only right answer to the age-old question of whether it is better to be lucky or good may be: both. — Alan Blinder

As I see it today, Hitler and Goebbels were in fact molded by the mob itself, guided by its yearnings and its daydreams. Of course, Goebbels and Hitler knew how to penetrate through to the instincts of their audiences; but in the deeper sense they derived their whole existence from these audiences. Certainly the masses roared to the beat set by Hitler's and Goebbels' baton; yet they were not the true conductors. The mob determined the theme. To compensate for misery, insecurity, unemployment, and hopelessness, this anonymous assemblage wallowed for hours at a time in obsessions, savagery and license. The personal unhappiness caused by the breakdown of the economy was replaced by a frenzy that demanded victims. By lashing out at their opponents and vilifying the Jews, they gave expression and direction to fierce primal passions. — Albert Speer

And the leftist bullies use that nonconstitutional phrase as a baton with which to club their opponents into submission. Jefferson's "wall of separation between Church & State," a phrase from his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, was meant not to prevent people from expressing religion in the public square but to prevent government from infringing on religious freedom. — Ben Shapiro

In our work, the question is, how much you absorb from others. So for me, creativity, is really like a relay race. As children we are handed a baton. Rather than passing it onto the next generation as is, first we need to digest it and make it our own. — Hayao Miyazaki

I said, "Was it Amy?" "If it was, she was too smart for them, which is what drew their attention." Pike said, "They couldn't ID the source." "Meaning what?" Jon smirked. "Meaning the crap on these boards is usually posted by a crank in a garage, or a thirteen-year-old idiot, toked up on the big sister's weed. Thirteen-year-old idiots are easy to find. This computer was hidden behind anonymous proxies, virtual networks, and spoofed identity numbers. One post looked like it came from Paris, the next from Birmingham, another from Baton Rouge. Each post appeared to be written on a different computer, only none of the computers actually existed." I — Robert Crais

Murmuring London flowed up to her, and her hand, lying on the sofa back, curled upon some imaginary baton such as her grandfathers might have held, holding which she seemed, drowsy and heavy, to be commanding battalions marching to Canada, and those good fellows walking across London, that territory of theirs, that little bit of carpet, Mayfair. — Virginia Woolf

One day ask your daughter the kind of mother she wants to be! One day ask your son the kind of father he wants to be! One day ask yourself the kind of parent you have been! And one day, ask yourself how you have run the race of life through the good and the bad times with the baton of life in your hands! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The result of the revolution in Germany has been to establish a democracy in the best sense of the word. We are steering towards an order of things guaranteeing a process of a natural and reasonable selection in the domain of political leadership, thanks to which that leadership will be entrusted to the most competent, irrespective of their descent, name or fortune. The memorable words of the great Corsican that every soldier carries a Field Marshal's baton in his knapsack, will find its political complement in Germany. — Adolf Hitler

Emma's mid-twenties had brought a second adolescence even more self-absorbed and doom-laden than the first one. 'Why don't you just come home, sweetheart?' her mum had said on the phone last night, using her quavering, concerned voice, as if her daughter had been abducted. 'Your room's still here. There's jobs at Debenhams' - and for the first time she had been tempted.
Once, she thought she could conquer London. She had imagined a whirl of literary salons, political engagement, larky parties, bittersweet romances conducted on Thames embankments. She had intended to form a band, make short films, write novels, but two years on slim volume of verse was no fatter, and nothing really good had happened to her since she'd been baton-charged at Poll Tax Riots. — David Nicholls

The older generation sat looking at the younger, and Kat wondered exactly when and how the baton had been passed. She wanted to know if it was too late to give it back. — Ally Carter

Controlling mothers do not pass the baton to their son's new wife. — Laura Schlessinger

The miracle is in the breaking. It is in the breaking that God multiplies not enough into more than enough. Are there broken places in your life so painful that you fear the breaking will destroy you? Do you come from a broken home? Did you have a broken marriage? Did you have a broken past? Have you experienced brokenness in your body? Have your finances been broken? You may think your brokenness has disqualified you from being able to run in the divine relay, but as with my own life and Kalli's, when we give God our brokenness, it qualifies us to be used by God to carry a baton of hope, restoration, and grace to others on the sidelines who are broken. What should have disqualified Kalli from the race was the very thing that qualified her for it. Put your broken pieces into God's hands and watch him use them to work his wonders. — Christine Caine

The narrator analyzes that the maturing, passing away boy within him, had issued me a challenge as he passed the baton to the man in me: He had challenged me to have the courage to become a gentle, harmless man. — Pat Conroy

Talk - half-talk, phrases that had no need to be finished, abstractions, Chinese bells played on with cotton-tipped sticks, mock orange blossoms painted on porcelain. The muffled, close, half-talk of soft-fleshed women. The men she had embraced, and the women, all washing against the resonance of my memory. Sound within sound, scene within scene, woman within woman - like acid revealing an invisible script. One woman within another eternally, in a far-reaching procession, shattering my mind into fragments, into quarter tones which no orchestral baton can ever make whole again. — Anais Nin

From Bourbon Street to Baton Rouge, the freaks come out at night in Louisiana. And nowhere are they more raucous and unnerving than at Tiger Stadium. — Pat Forde

Now she and the widow had something in common, though loss did not pass from one person to another like a baton. It just formed a bigger and bigger pool of carriers. And she thought, scratching the coarseness of the horses's mane, it did not leave, once lodged, did it? It simply changed form, and asked repeatedly for attention and care as each year revealed a new knot to cry out and consider, smaller, sure, but never gone ... Out of my body, these beautiful monsters. — Aimee Bender

As soon as we had the music arranged on our stands, Conductor Li tapped his baton on the lectern and called us to attention. "Quiet please, comrades! And as we play just think of the Long March," he said. "I will be at the front, like Chairman Mao. I will beat the time. Try to keep up. If you get lost, skip a few pages. Hopefully, the rest of us will pass your way eventually... The first movement sounded like nothing less than a full-scale military retreat. We were ambushed by missing pages of score, by an impulsive feint by the cellists and double basses, and by a flautist who turned two pages rather than one and played along happily in no man's land for a dozen or so bars until he was rapped on the head with the end of a clarinet (pg 325) — John Sinclair

A year later, there is another miscarriage, another lost boy, and then an operation, and Rachel is in a muddle. Another missed carriage, she hears, conjuring a vision of Mama in a typical dash from the house, hurrying for trains to other cities where she will conduct music and choirs. Rachel sees Katya on a railway platform, suitcase and baton box in hand, but Mama is too late, the train hurtles by, screaming through the arches, a great train of missed carriages. Rachel's night-time wish is granted then, that though Katya has left her once again, she must return home as quickly. She has missed her carriage.

'Mama,' Rachel whispers into the night bedroom air, 'Mama, hurry home! — Emma Richler

When I think about growing up, I feel most affected by two travels that I made working in cargo boats when I was 16 and 18. One of them crossed through the Mississippi and Baton Rouge and Mobile, Alabama, and another went all the way to Europe. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Generational change within a genre is hard to parse while it's happening. Only in retrospect can the passing of the baton from ancestors to progeny be clearly discerned. — Paul Di Filippo

It was electric. When Death Valley is rocking, it seems as if it might actually take flight. On Saturday, I went back to Baton Rouge to see Alabama barely beat LSU, and was, once again, reminded that Tiger Stadium is the best place in the world to watch a sporting event ... I'm not sure what it was like to walk into the Coliseum, but I bet it was something like this. — Wright Thompson

It's not even people anymore, it's one big thing you want to control and once you've had a taste of it, you're hooked. It's like if you don't have it you will die, do you know what I mean? Somebody's handed you the baton and you can lead this rich, powerful orchestra. Does that make sense to you? I mean after that, leading a five-piece band means nothing, not after you've led that orchestra, thousands of people all playing the song just like you want them to. — Fannie Flagg

Baton Rouge happens to be the worst place in the world for a visiting team. It's like being inside a drum. — Bear Bryant

And now it's time to hand the baton to you. Stories don't end with writer, however many started the race. So go. Run with it. Make trouble. — Patrick Ness

We are going to Baton Rouge and one of the most storied stadiums in the country, a place I can truthfully say is the loudest place I've ever been. — Mark Richt

The devil steps up to the podium, clears his throat and taps out time with his baton: in come the monstrous iron kettle drums of artillery, joined by a woodwind section of whistling bullets and shrieking shells, the ever-crackling light percussion of rifle fire. — Matthew De Abaitua

Administration policies seem to tacitly encourage those who live below sea level in New Orleans to relocate permanently, to leave the dangerous water's edge for more prosperous inland cities such as Shreveport or Baton Rouge. — Douglas Brinkley

Some of the greatest actors have turned superheroes into a serious business: Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson in 'Batman'; Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, the first venerable knights of the X-Men, who have now passed the baton to Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy. — Tom Hiddleston

Fossil bones and footsteps and ruined homes are the solid facts of history, but the surest hints, the most enduring signs, lie in those miniscule genes. For a moment we protect them with our lives, then like relay runners with a baton, we pass them on to be carried by our descendents. There is a poetry in genetics which is more difficult to discern in broken bomes, and genes are the only unbroken living thread that weaves back and forth through all those boneyards. — Jonathan Kingdon

I watched carefully as she lifted her baton in the air and began to write. Painstakingly, they were, these last words, and harrowing to witness. Incredulous, I realized what she had spelled out for me. Something that once upon a time had been a great joke between us, part of our shared love of the irreverent.
The cigarette, in invisible script, had written: YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE. — Kate Mulgrew

Parenthood is the passing of a baton, followed by a lifelong disagreement as to who dropped it. — Robert Breault

One packed lunch. A meager amount of food. It was all the boy had, but he offered it all. If the boy had kept his little lunch, it would have remained little. If you keep your little, it will remain little as well. But if you step into the exchange zone ready to offer what little you have to be used by God in moving the baton forward, your little will be multiplied as you run. When the boy gave his little to Jesus, Jesus blessed it, and it became much in his hands. It is never about how little we have. It is about what our little has the potential to become in the hands of a miracle-working God. Don't focus on what you don't have, what you can't do, what isn't enough. Just offer your "not enough" to God, and he will multiply it into more than enough. — Christine Caine

The speaker was a handsome man, probably only twenty years old, and he had a hard-on the size of a police baton. Impressive, but it wasn't going to save him from a beating. — Gena Showalter

Is that a baton in your pocket, officer, or are you just happy to see me? — Katee Robert

Being human means that you'll slip from your spiritual path sometimes. But being a Soul Searcher means that you are also aware when you snap or get moody, angry, or resentful (basically, when you act like you're the lead baton twirler of the dick parade), but you have the tools and knowledge to work through and release your negative energy and move back to a place of oneness and positivity. — Emma Mildon

No ladder needs the bird but skies To situate its wings, Nor any leaders grim baton Arraigns it as it sings. — Emily Dickinson

Baton technique is to a conductor what fingers are to a pianist. — Igor Markevitch

The Gzilt were a people favoured by Fate, by the Universe itself, as part of an ongoing thrust towards a glorious, transcendent providence; they represented the very tip of a mystical spear thrown by the past at the future, the shaft of that spear being formed by a multitude of earlier species which existed before them and kept on serially handing on the baton of destiny to the next, slightly more exceptional people ahead of them. — Iain M. Banks

him swinging the baton and knocking out my side teeth and cracking my temple so that I can never hear good out of that ear again and saying let that be a lesson to never take you dutty, stinking, ghetto self uptown again. And I see them and I wait. But — Marlon James

We have a responsibility to carry the baton of faith to the next generation. — Christine Caine

People who grew up in major cities may wonder why the hell I would act like it's a big deal to be unaccompanied in New York City at that age. It's populated with both adults and children, it's a functioning metropolis, Kevin McCallister was only ten in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and that kid saved Christmas. Conversely, people from suburban areas act like my parents sent me wandering around the site of the Baby Jessica well, blindfolded and holding a flaming baton. So pick a side and prepare to judge me wither way! — Anna Kendrick

I listen to the summer symphony outside my window. Truthfully, it's not a symphony at all. There's no tune, no melody, only the same notes over and over. Chirps and tweets and trills and burples. It's as if the insect orchestra is forever tuning its instruments, forever waiting for the maestro to tap his baton and bring them to order. I, for one, hope the maestro never comes. I love the music mess of it. — Jerry Spinelli

All I know is that my life is filled with little pockets of silence. When I put a record on the turntable, for example, there's a little interval-between the time the needle touches down on the record and the time the music actually starts-during which my heart refuses to beat. All I know is that between the rings of the telephone, between the touch of a button and the sound of the radio coming on, between the dimming of the lights at the cinema and the start of the film, between the lightning and the thunder, between the shout and the echo, between the lifting of a baton and the opening bars of a symphony, between the dropping of a stone and the plunk that comes back from the bottom of a well, between the ringing of the doorbell and the barking of the dogs I sometimes catch myself, involuntarily, listening for the sound of my mother's voice, still waiting for the tape to begin. — Robert Hellenga