To Pull Quotes & Sayings

Jackson was a little shocked at just how much her apology meant, and surprised them both by flipping his hand over so that they were palm to palm.

She jolted a little at the contact but didn't pull away. He didn't either.

He told himself it was just a friendly touch - a thank-you for being there. For being Mollie.

But there was nothing friendly about the way touching her made his pulse quicken and his cock harden. — Lauren Layne

I think anyone who stops at a gas station at night is up to no good. I think that if cops want to stop drunk driving, they should hide out in the bushes at the Taco Bell drive-through. I think if you're a guy and you pull down your pants and the girl you're with starts texting, you have a small penis. — Bill Konigsberg

He looked at the mud. "If I pull you free, will you promise to bed me for my pains?"

"Here's what I'll promise, Logan MacKenzie. If you don't get me free, I will come back from the grave and haunt you. Relentlessly."

"For a timid English bluestocking, you can be quite fierce when you choose to be. I rather like it."

She hugged herself to keep her hands out of the creeping mud. "Logan, please. I be you, stop teasing and get me out of this. I'm cold. And I'm frightened."

"Look at me."
She looked at him.
His gaze held hers, blue and unwavering.

All teasing went out his voice. "I'm not leaving. Ten years in the British Army, and I've never left a man behind. I'm not leaving you. I'll have you out of this. Understand? — Tessa Dare

I'm the one who will always watch over you. Always be there to fuck you back to your senses when you need it, the one who will never let you die. I pull my shirt over my head and kick off my shoes. "What more could a woman ask? — Karen Marie Moning

As you keep moving forward, you can stay upright even when outside forces try to pull you down. — Bonnie L. Oscarson

I know you told me you'd wait for me, but I don't want either of us to wait anymore. Especially when I knew from the first moment I saw you that you were special. I feel like I've been running my whole life, speeding from small town into a big city, jumping from one place to the next for years until they all blurred together. And right when I decided it was time to finally stop running and set down some roots, there you were. My new beginning." Her eyes filled with tears as she smiled up at him and slid her arms around his neck to pull him closer. "My love."
Jack sank down onto the couch with Mary, her curves soft beneath his muscles. "I'll always be yours, Angel. Forever. — Bella Andre

I felt myself begin to slide down into that recognizable abyss, down and down, where I knew it would be cold and dark, but which had become more familiar to me than my face in the mirror. I knew I should instead be grateful for this time with my two best friends, for having laughed, but I let myself slide anyway. And hoped someone would pull me back up. — Tracy H. Tucker

Temptation is a push or a pull intended to take us away off the will of God — Christian Michael

MacKenzie started to look frightened and Valor looked like he was going to kill somebody if they didn't stop scaring his girlfriend. At the same time, Victor looked like he was ready to step in and take control of the situation. And if these suits decided to pull out some guns, I could see where they might end up as a set of life-sized garden gnomes. — Taylor Longford

Some small part of her had reacted to the passion inside him. Despite his role as a titled gentleman, there seemed to be a facet inside him that society could not tame, something stimulating yet dangerous, like standing at the edge of a cliff and feeling the mysterious, subtle pull to jump. — Brenda Novak

While the goal of a book is to create a positive emotional experience for the reader, the goal of the opening is to set the stage, to pull the reader in. — Darynda Jones

She had realized something over the recent months: it didn't matter who you were or what you'd accomplished in life; none of that mattered when tragedy struck. You had no pull; no power. You had no choice. There was nothing to gamble with; nothing to do to put the odds in your favor. You were there and then you were gone, leaving those around you to realize how insignificant they all really were; leaving them to try to pick up the destroyed pieces. — Lindy Zart

I'm pretty disappointed in Sony Pictures' decision to pull 'The Interview' under pressure from North Korea. — Mark Kirk

I'm not going to tell a person how to think, don't believe in that. What I want to do, when I write these books, is just to say don't be so sure of yourself. Let me pull the carpet out from underneath you, and let's see if you can still find the footing. — Jodi Picoult

If I do anything, I have to start over, but all I have is fragments of ideas. Just pieces. Like a germ of an idea for this, and a germ of an idea for that. Nothing whole or concrete" - Violet

" 'Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.' Pearl S. Buck. Maybe a germ is enough. Maybe it's all you need. We can start small. Open up a new document or pull out a black piece of paper. We'll make it our canvas. Remember what Michelangelo said about the sculpture being in the stone - it was there from the beginning, and his job was to bring it out. Your words are in there too" -Finch — Jennifer Niven

Shh. Please don't cry. I'm so sorry. Here.
She opened her eyes to see him pull a tissue from his jeans. He handed it to her and she used it to press away her tears.
He carried tissues around in his pockets for her, even on nights when he had no expectation of seeing her. — Becky Wade

The minute the blonde grabs for my arm, I pull it up and hit her right in the nose. Bending over, tending to my move, the other two come at me, and soon as the other girls hand comes out close enough, I grab it and not thinking, bend and bite it. — Melyssa Winchester

Let me pull you close and whisper a heart-stopping truth. That daily stuff - those responsibilities that seem more like distractions - those things we want to rush and just get through to get on with the better and bigger assignments of life - those things that are unnoticed places of service? They are the very experiences from which we unlock the riches of wisdom. We've got to practice wisdom in the everyday places of our lives. Never despise the mundane. Embrace it. Unwrap it like a gift. And be one of the rare few who looks deeper than just the surface. See something more in the everyday. It's there. — Lysa TerKeurst

After I pull my eyes away from her, I realize that I'm not the only one dumbstruck. Many of the young men around me sneak glances at her. She doesn't seem to notice, which, of course, makes her all the more intriguing. — Sabaa Tahir

I'm never absolutely sure of anything, and I don't want to be. You're either right and you'll pull through, or you're not. We're never going to be right about everything, and we've certainly been wrong. — Barry Diller

In Confucian thought, individuals practice moral virtue both by restraining themselves and pursuing their own interests. This is a dual push-and-pull process. In today's China, the latter is taken care of by capitalism and commerce. The former, however, needs to be taken care of by the rule of law. Otherwise, the system of governance is corrupted by unrestrained individual desires and selective enforcement of 'virtue' or law. — Patrick Mendis

Russell ... I love you. I thank you so much man. You made me better. You know, Your work ethic. I always wanted to compete with you. I always wanted to pull up into the parking lot of the practice facility, And if you beat me there, I was always upset. I always wanted to outwork you. And you set the bar. You set the tone. And thank you so much man. Thank you. You had a big piece of this MVP trophy. You're an MVP caliber player It's a blessing to play with you man. — Kevin Durant

Jesper gave him a little shake. "Pull it together, kid." "Not a kid," Wylan mumbled, batting Jesper's hands away. "Fine, you're an elder statesman. Do you know how to shoot?" Wylan nodded slowly. "Skeet. — Leigh Bardugo

You know what comes next, of course. You know I'm writing this at my desk, on a Thursday, and day after tomorrow I'll put on bib overalls, the neighbors thinking what an affectation, and pull weeds for the composter, and dig a place for a late row of greens, most of them going to seed instead of in the pot, and tell myself what the hell, I just want to dig the dirt and watch the stuff grow, an educated fool at last. — James Autry

I have trained myself to pull away from all gestures of affection, because [my parents] raised me to take them seriously. — Veronica Roth

If you think of others in a jealous way or if you become angry, immediately pause for a moment. It's going to pull you down and send negative energy. At that moment, pause and correct yourself. — Frederick Lenz

Every Princess has one Prince to share the loves and joys of life, and do you know how that Princess knows which Prince is hers?"
"How Mommy?"
"From the kiss."
"But how?"
"The very first kiss with your Prince will change your life. When your lips touch for the first time, the earth will feel like it stops moving, but in the same moment, the world around you spins. It'll feel like fireworks in the night sky. Like a bright light in the darkness. You'll feel your heart beat fast in your ears but silence will surround you. And when you pull apart and open your eyes and look at each other, and really see each other. You'll know it in that moment, through that kiss, that you've just let someone own a piece of your heart, and you'll live happily ever after. — Jay McLean

Brooks stuck his hands in his pockets and examined his shoes. It would be nice to be known fully and still loved, but what if it was one or the other? What if by the time someone got to know you, the person didn't love you anymore? And when could you be sure the person really knew you? Two years? Four? It was probably better to pull back while the going was good, rather than to risk losing a marriage on the gamble of someone's still liking the real you, the forty-years-of-marriage you. Yes, definitely better to leave good things alone. Things such as friendship.
"You look like someone ran over your dog." Blanche nudged him with her elbow. — Mary Jane Hathaway

Gardening is a kind of disease. It infects you, you cannot escape it. When you go visiting, your eyes rove about the garden; you interrupt the serious cocktail drinking because of an irresistible impulse to get up and pull a weed. — Lewis Gannett

In America, they want you to accomplish these great feats, to pull off these David Copperfield-type stunts. You want me to be great, but you don't ever want me to say I'm great? — Kanye West

This guy is pretty slick, Atticus. What else do you think he has in his pockets? Maybe a thick salami for me?> I almost dropped the goblets. Gods, Oberon, it's a good thing no one can hear you. It's not polite to ask if a man has a big salami in his pants, okay? Especially this guy. Laughter bubbled forth from Jesus as he poured two generous shots for us. "I like your hound, Siodhachan." He turned his head a bit to address him. "Hello, Oberon. I can hear what you say as well, and I tell you truly, I have nothing against salami itself. It is best to know when to keep your salami in your pants and when to pull it out, however, and even my priests have had some difficulty with that issue. Fortunately for us, there is little doubt regarding the right course of action in this situation." He pulled a long soppressata from the same pocket that had produced the goblets. — Kevin Hearne

this is real, and it is happening now, just as it happened before: We are under the big tree in my backyard, on that patch of dirt where we used to build fairy houses from moss and sticks and scraps of birch. It is late afternoon. All around us is golden light. We have been together all day, in our cutoff shorts and bare feet. It is the start of fifth grade, the start of being the oldest in the school. Next year, we will be the youngest all over again. But not yet. We are playing that hand-slapping game, the one we like to play at recess. You hold your hands out, palms up, and I place mine lightly on top. You pull yours out and try to slap mine. You hit air three times. On the fourth try, your — Ali Benjamin

I had to make these decisions after 9/11, make a decision about how to proceed forward with an investigation or how to pull back, whether you use certain actionable intelligence or whether not to. And yet they continue to debate about this bill and in the subcommittee and what - nobody in America cares about that. — Chris Christie

The couch was apparently built on the same principle as a Venus flytrap, because when I sat I was immediately sucked down into a deep plush cushion, and as I struggled to remain upright it occurred to me that this was on purpose, another silly little trick Acosta used to dominate people, like putting his desk in front of the bright window. Deborah apparently came to the same conclusion, because I saw her tighten her jaw, and pull herself forward with a jerk to perch awkwardly on the edge of the couch. — Jeff Lindsay

Cool hands grasped my shoulders and tried to pull me away from Camdus, but I wouldn't have it. I was going nowhere. I clutched his shoulders, breathing him in. I was determined to stay with my husband no matter what. They would have to pry me away. And then someone did. — Courtney Cole

I write all year long, and at the end of the year I pull these forty or fifty things out and say, 'Which of these things do I want to record?' — Toby Keith

I've got my dick buried inches deep in a mewling woman's cunt when I first become aware of the click of my front door. I pull out and grab a handful of bedsheets, toss them over to her, and she moans in protest over being without my dick anymore.
"Cover up, sugar, you have three seconds ... "
Two.
One. — Katy Evans

Russ decided the best defense was a good offense. "I'm Russell Van Alstyne, Millers Kill chrief of police." He held out his hand. She shook firm, like a guy.
"Clare Fergusson," she said. "I'm the new priest at Saint Alban's. That's the Episcopal Church. At the corner of Elm and Church." there was a faint testiness in her voice. Russ relaxed a fraction. A woman priest. If that didn't beat all.
"I know which it is. There are only four churches in town." He saw the fog creeping along the edges of his glasses again and snatched them off, fishing for a tissue in his pocket. "Can you tell me what happened, um ... " What was he supposed to call her? "Mother?"
"I go by Reverend, Chief. Ms. is fine, too."
"Oh. Sorry. I never met a woman priest before."
"We're just like the men priests, except we're willing to pull over and ask directions. — Julia Spencer-Fleming

To wander in the fields of flowers pull the thorns from your own heart. — Rumi

There were differences between memories and dreams. He had only dreams of things he had wanted to do, while Lespere had memories of things done and accomplished. And this knowledge began to pull Hollis apart, with a slow, quivering precision. — Ray Bradbury

Look, this island is an attempt to re-create a natural environment from the past. To make an isolated world where extinct creatures roam freely. Correct?" "Yes." "But from my point of view, such an undertaking is impossible. The mathematics are so self-evident that they don't need to be calculated. It's rather like my asking you whether, on a billion dollars in income, you had to pay tax. You wouldn't need to pull out your calculator to check. You'd know tax was owed. And, similarly, I know overwhelmingly that one cannot successfully duplicate nature in this way, or hope to isolate it. — Michael Crichton

Always make stock in a large quantity and freeze it in plastic bags. That way, when you want to make a nice soup or boil veggies, you can simply pull the bag out of the freezer. — Charlie Trotter

We ought to take him offshore and dunk him 10 feet underwater and pull him up and ask him What's that all over your face? — Billy Nungesser

I pull out my notebook, turn to a blank page, and write, The ghost of Charles Dickens told me that after he turned over in his grave, he couldn't go back to sleep. He's decided to leave eternal rest, reinhabit his decaying body, and exact revenge on you for disturbing his slumber. You've been warned.

I rip out the page and fold it in half twice, making sure the corners are perfectly lined up. I haven't had to make a friend since kindergarten, and apparently my tactics haven't changed much. — Kasie West

It is easy to forget the cohesiveness of a free people in times of peace and prosperity. New York is an extreme example of the great pandemonium that results when countless individuals and groups pursue their diverse interests in the normal course of life. In a crisis, however, a national tribe comes together ... despite the centrifugal forces that pull us in different directions, there is a deep national unity that holds us together.
Unity, however, is not sufficient for the challenges ahead. America also needs the moral self-confidence to meet its adversary ... Americans cannot succeed unless they are convinced of fighting on behalf of the good. — Dinesh D'Souza

What I see as the greatest threat to America is that the American people will put political pressure on their leaders to pull out of Iraq before we should. — Thelma Drake

You don't simply tell someone to get out there and win the tennis match. You say 'move your feet' or 'watch the fuzz on the ball' to really get into the Zen of it. You pull all that together, and then you just might hold up the Wimbledon Plate ... It's not about winning first place but bringing every element of effort to whatever you do. — Diana Nyad

Teach them the quiet words of kindness, to live beyond themselves. Urge them toward excellence, drive them toward gentleness, pull them deep into yourself, pull them upward toward manhood, but softly like an angel arranging clouds. Let your spirit move through them softly. — Pat Conroy

My method seems to change to everything, especially when you get older. You have more of a resonance to be able to grab to. When you're younger, you have these big boundaries because you don't know how to get you to where you are. When you get older, you have a few tricks that you can pull off. — Jason Patric

One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it. — Gaston Bachelard

It is a common mistake to think of failure as the enemy of success. Failure is a teacher-a harsh one, but the best. Pull your failures to pieces looking for the reason. Put your failure to work for you. — Thomas J. Watson

That's my girl," she said, her eyes holding a shared pain as she saw my confusion. "Al, where are you going to put her? Not in your room. She'd pull a line through you and kill you when you hog the blankets. I'll take the waif in. I promise I'll bring this one up properly. — Kim Harrison

baby,
too much work to do
for our ocean of grief
to pull us under — Emma Shaw Crane

His strike force stood around him, craning their necks, in awe of the massive emptiness all around. He was almost sorry to pull his attention back to the small, vaguely intimate necessities of violence. — James S.A. Corey

I felt a gravitational pull to the material so that there's a certain element of acting that's not really necessary. I've really liked this in foreign movies before or I've observed others working with them and I've noticed that there's a method that goes on where the actors try and get the children, like the child actor, to interact with them in a real way. It seems like you're the adult trying to get the kid to fall in love with him. — Brendan Fraser

Obviously, you check tht she's safe, she's clean, got all the fingers and toes, like that's going to help them through life. It'll help them walk, but you can't pull them out and check their IQ or anything. — Matthew Ashford

Adrian," she interrupted. "Didn't you just say I'm brilliant and always know everything? Then trust me on this."
"Always," I said, letting her pull me back down to her. "Always. — Richelle Mead

I try to do yoga when I can to make sure that I'm flexible and that I'm not going to tear any muscle or pull anything. — Jaimie Alexander

Most days it feels like I am watching a movie
where the sound isn't in sync,
the speed is all wrong.
Either I'm moving too quickly
and the world is dripping along,
or the world is moving too quickly, cosmic,
and I'm oozing like a slug
barely able to pull my own weight.
It's best if I keep moving
because if I stopped and stood still
people would see me shaking. — Samantha Schutz

With a stretch belt, anything can be a dress - a dinner napkin, a tablecloth, even a towel. Just wrap and snap, and away you go in an incredible outfit. Another plus is that the belt will pull all eyes to your lovely curves, and they even look good around a coat or a jacket. — Beth Ditto

You'll teach me to drive your car if I let you get in the water?"
"Uh, no. I'll teach you how to drive Galen's car if you let me get in the water. You're not touching my car without a license. A real one, not some shiny plastic thing Rachel made between afternoon talk shows." Even if Galen doesn't have insurance, he's got enough in his wallet to buy a new one. I, on the other hand, have just enough in saving to cover my deductible.
Her eyes go round. "You'll let me drive his little red one? The combustible?"
Why not? I nod. "Yep. The convertible. Deal?"
She grabs my hand from the couch to pull us both up. Then she shakes it. "Deal! I'll go get the keys from Rachel. — Anna Banks

Before I got to Juilliard I remember that I had learned the first few bars to all the Sachse etudes in several different keys because I knew what was coming. So in the first year he was throwing these Sachse etudes at me and I would knock off the first eight bars and fly right through it. He would say, 'Alright, that's good enough.' But, in my third year, he said 'Get out the Sachse book.' I couldn't understand why. So I pull it out and he said, 'Here, start in the middle.' I was in trouble! He said, 'Hey Balm, I took you for a guy who knows how to transpose-you're nothing but a bugler!' — Neil Balme

Even Proust - there's a famous passage where Odette opens the door with a cold, she's sulky, her hair is loose and undone, her skin is patchy, and Swann, who has never cared about her until that moment, falls in love with her because she looks like a Botticelli girl from a slightly damaged fresco. Which Proust himself only knew from a reproduction. He never saw the original, in the Sistine Chapel. But even so - the whole novel is in some ways about that moment. And the damage is part of the attraction, the painting's blotchy cheeks. Even through a copy Proust was able to re-dream that image, re-shape reality with it, pull something all his own from it into the world. Because - the line of beauty is the line of beauty. It doesn't matter if it's been through the Xerox machine a hundred times. — Donna Tartt

There is something powerfully beguiling about the excited eyes of a young woman. They can pull all manner of nonsense out of a foolish young man, and I was no exception to this rule. — Patrick Rothfuss

With his bare hands Mulder dug at the loose earth. After a minute, he said, 'I've go it. I just have to pull it out and-'
He got no further.
He and Scully were blinded by a high power flashlight.
When their vision cleared, they saw the sheriff looming over them, brandishing an ugly-looking .45.
'May I ask what you're doing?' he growled.
Mulder held up what he had found in the earth: a piece of raw potato.
'Exhuming your potato,' was all he could say. — Les Martin

Candidates have been telling you that if elected they would 'pull you from this bog hole of financial misery.' Now is a good chance to get even with 'em, by electing 'em, just to prove what a liar they are. — Will Rogers

I don't want you to go." She reached up to touch his face and pull him down to her. "I want this, Rain. I want you. — C.L. Wilson

Mangle was meant to become the Toy Foxy, but rapidly evolved into a favorite connected with toddlers who could pull him separate piece by portion. The staff might put him back together each day; however they soon grew fed up with this and decided to simply leave them as a pulling-apart toy for the kids. They dubbed him " Mangle". Presently theorized simply by fans to be the animatronic behind. Balloon — Storyville Books

I prefer to do movies, just for the simple fact that in TV, there's not much of a guarantee. They can pull the plug on you. — Vivica A. Fox

She loved them so much that she felt a kind of hollowness on the inner surface of her arms whenever she looked at them-an ache of longing to pull them close and hold them tight against her. — Anne Tyler

If I could, I would take you with me," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.
She tried to pull away from him. "You would not. You would grow tired of me in a few weeks."
He shook his head, pulling her tight against him. "No ... I could never grow tired of you."
"How can you be so sure?" she asked.
He brushed tendrils of hair from her face. "I have craved to know you for years ... even just to hear you speak my name ... a single touch of your hand on mine ... "
He kissed her softly, his lips tasting hers. "I want you to be mine ... I want you always."
- 'unknown script' 2012 — Faye Hall

Pull-heavy, right-handed hitters should also have seen shifts, but rarely did. According to BIS's database, the first shift employed against a right-handed hitter in the modern era didn't occur until June 11, 2009, when the Phillies shifted left against Gary Sheffield. — Travis Sawchik

You have cheese in your hair," Kit says. "Right there." He motions to the spot. I don't pull it out. Let the cheese have my hair. — Tarryn Fisher

They lay listening. Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn't fire? It has to fire. What if it doesn't fire? Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock? Is there such a being within you of which you know nothing? Can there be? Hold him in your arms. Just so. The soul is quick. Pull him toward you. Kiss him. Quickly. — Cormac McCarthy

Never say 'pull yourself together' or 'cheer up' unless you're also going to provide detailed, foolproof instructions. — Matt Haig

No, I don't work here, I'm taking pictures of messy bathrooms for a photo essay on the American West. But I'm always up for clean, so if you want to pitch in, I've got Pine Sol and a sponge in my car ... It's that VW microbus parked next to the dumpster, and you don't need a key, just pull hard. — Pansy Schneider-Horst

She danced with complete abandon. She never felt so light and free. She could stretch her arms forever, touch the heavens and pull down the stars. She would give him the stars to keep in his pocket, she thought. They would bring him good luck. She jumped and laughed and drew giggles from some of the other girls. She felt high, though she never before experienced a drug high. But then what was she thinking? He was her drug, and she felt high on the dark, rich honey. Honey that matched the color of his eyes. She could drink him to overflowing and never be satisfied. She was filled with the honey even now; it coursed through her limbs - a powerful, exotic, demanding potion that ordered her to dance. And so she did. She danced. — S. Walden

You look within and upon and around me, savoring every inch. You pull my ear for no reason, and I can tell you really don't want to cry. As a tear falls between by breasts, I look away and pretend the grass is a jungle, and the ants, little kings of forgotten tribes. — Virginia Petrucci

EJ cries, "We've been best friends since kindergarten. You can't become a babe slayer and leave me in the dust! I don't have an older sister. I'm disadvantaged. All I got is Emmy, who can only drop preschool wisdom like, 'No pull Barbie's hair!'"
"That's probably some early girl wisdom. Nobody likes to get their hair pulled," I say. "Except this one chick in my porno; I think she's into it. I cant really tell, though. I wish they would slow down. — Brent Crawford

To be fully human is to be wild. Wild is the strange pull and whispering wisdom. It's the gentle nudge and the forceful ache. It is your truth, passed down from the ancients, and the very stream of life in your blood. Wild is the soul where passion and creativity reside, and the quickening of your heart. Wild is what is real, and wild is your home. — Victoria Erickson

I left Xerox for the non-profit sector because it was clear to me that only public/private partnerships can pull off a turnaround plan at the scale we need to tackle global poverty. — Anne M. Mulcahy

She eyed him but said nothing. Why did he always have to pull out the truth?
"It's not like I haven't seen you pee before. Go ahead."
"Eww, you have not!"
"Yup, you were six and you had to go and there was no one else to take you."
Oh God ... she'd been so humiliated she must have blanked it from her memory. — Dee Tenorio

If you won't push someone up, the least you can do is not to pull him down. — Nana Awere Damoah

Shut up about Leibniz for a moment, Rudy, because look here: You - Rudy - and I are on a train, as it were, sitting in the dining car, having a nice conversation, and that train is being pulled along at a terrific clip by certain locomotives named The Bertrand Russell and Riemann and Euler and others. And our friend Lawrence is running alongside the train, trying to keep up with us - it's not that we're smarter than he is, necessarily, but that he's a farmer who didn't get a ticket. And I, Rudy, am simply reaching out through the open window here, trying to pull him onto the fucking train with us so that the three of us can have a nice little chat about mathematics without having to listen to him panting and gasping for breath the whole way. — Neal Stephenson

The fact is that the camera is literal if anything, which gives it something in common with a thermometer ... Often the tension that exists between the pictorial content of a photograph and its record of reality is the picture's true beauty. There is sleight of hand in photography ... you make the viewer think he's seeing everything while at the same time you make him realize he's not. I try to make my pictures seem reasonable and then, at the last minute, pull the rug from beneath the viewer's feet, very gently so there's a little thrill. — John Loengard

When I went to Los Angeles right after high school, I got some acting jobs, and I never, ever wanted to be an actress! Public speaking and acting make me want to vomit. But I have never been nervous singing. When it comes to public speaking, I stumble on my words, sweat, and pull at my clothes. — Kelly Clarkson

We see now why the great target of Satan is to break down our faith. He knows all too well that the righteous live by faith, so he aims at cutting our lifeline to God. Faith is like the hand that reaches up to receive what God has freely promised. If the devil can pull your hand back down to your side, then he has succeeded. All of God's intended supply will just stay where it is in heaven. — Jim Cymbala

You can be inspired by the mysteries of great dreams. But to achieve them, you must pull back the curtain and do the unimpressive work that gets you there. — Ben Arment

No matter what ailed you, you went to see the barber surgeon who wound up cupping you, bleeding you, purging you. And, oh yes, if you wanted, he would give you a haircut and pull your tooth while he was at it. — Abraham Verghese

I write in order to understand the images. Being what my agent ... somewhat ruefully calls a language playwright, is problematic because in production, you have to make the language lift off the page. But a good actor can turn it into human speech. I err sometimes toward having such a compound of images that if an actor lands heavily on each one, you never pull through to a larger idea. That's a problem for the audience. But I come to playwriting from the visual world - I used to be a painter. I also really love novels and that use of language. But it's tricky to ask that of the theatre. — Ellen McLaughlin

By 1948, the Italians had begun to pull themselves together, demonstrating once more their astonishing ability to cope with disaster which is so perfectly balanced by their absolute inability to deal with success — Gore Vidal

Passion's a good, stupid horse that will pull the plough six days a week if you give him the run of his heels on Sundays. But love's a nervous, awkward, over-mastering brute; if you can't rein him, it's best to have no truck with him. — Dorothy L. Sayers

You do that, and I take back every nasty thing I've ever said about you."
He grinned, his mood changing from serious to wicked in an instant. "Why? I'm all those things and more."
I shook my head. Ian was more proud of his depravity than anyone I'd met, but if he helped me pull Bones out from under four bespelled vampires and one demonically-enchanced vamp, I'd shower him with prostitutes and porn while swearing he was an angel. — Jeaniene Frost

It is remarkable that a fist-gnawingly dire England performance still has the power to shock, when in some ways this one had all the exquisite unpredictability of Norman Wisdom approaching a banana skin in the immediate vicinity of a swimming pool...
The England shirt is the precise opposite of a superhero costume, turning men with extraordinary abilities into mild-mannered guys next door. Were Stephen Fry to pull it on, he would struggle to string a sentence together. Were Lucian Freud to slip it over his head he would turn his easel round to reveal a childlike scribble of a cat. — Marina Hyde

Her hand accidentally brushed up against his chest. She froze. His breathing remained steady and regular. He had not awoken. She was about to pull her hand away, then stopped. Never had she touched a man's chest. She waited a moment. His breathing was still constant, still regular. He was still asleep. Flattening her palm against his chest, she felt the tautness of his muscles. She moved her hand, slowly, tremulously, down his chest and across his stomach, feeling the firmness of his skin and his strong physique. He seized her hand, pushed it away, and turned his back to her. — Cate Campbell Beatty

Hey, hold up!" I drop the pickax to the ground and jog after K.T. I pull a roundish piece of amethyst about half the size of my palm out of my pocket and hold it out. "Would you give this to her?"
K.T. tilts her head to the side as she takes the stone and examines it. "Pretty. Is it amethyst?"
"Yeah."
"Why don't you give it to her yourself?"
I shove my hands in my pockets and shrug. There's no answer I can give that wouldn't either sound crazy or be an outright lie. K.T. smiles and slips the stone into her pocket.
"All right, Romeo. I'll go see if I can get Juliet to come to the ball tonight."
K.T. winks and walks around to the front of the house. — Erica Cameron

Stupid girls run upstairs, stupid girls run upstairs," she's saying to herself, turning to pull Ben with her up the aluminum steps, Billie Jean just feet behind them — Stephen Graham Jones

It takes great effort to follow the rules of a pull system ... thus a half-hearted introduction of a pull system brings a hundred harms and not a single gain. — Taiichi Ohno

Always pull back-and see how silly we must look to God. — Jack Kerouac

I've taken Saturdays to be the day I pull back completely. I do things that are more creative, and I've actually found that helps me when I get back into work to be more thoughtful, and I truly believe that feeding your creative soul is really important to being more analytical. — Padmasree Warrior