Tod Quotes & Sayings

If citizens followed their leaders' example throughout history, the human race would have died out centuries ago. — Heather Brewer

I frowned, gaping at the blond in disbelief. "You're the grim reaper?"
Tod glanced at me for the first time, his frown practically etched into place. "You were
expecting someone older? Taller? Maybe kind of gaunt and skeletal?"Contempt dripped from his words like acid. — Rachel Vincent

In all these sights I achieve solace only in bringing forth trees, picturing them blooming like smoke from the roofs of gutted buildings, dreaming of what a fine and picturesque pile of rubble this city will someday make. — Tod Wodicka

Perhaps 25 to 50 years from now, I can design a piece of music, no so that it appeals to something common in millions of people, but I can design the music so that it's exactly right for you and only you at this particular moment for your particular experience, things that have happened to you over 20 years, to you're particular mental state right now. — Tod Machover

There is a time to be chic and sportive, there is a time to be sexy and feminine, but it's hard to find the balance, and Tod's has done that. — Diego Della Valle

No, you should stay right where you are, or my estranged brother and I will settle our difference by seeing who can break more of your bones."
Tod glanced at him, brows raised. "You want to settle our differences?"
Nash frowned. "No, I want to break every bone in his body, and I didn't think you'd let me do it alone."
Tod nodded. "Good call. — Rachel Vincent

I don't really have any advice for people who love each other and both happen to be writers, other than one of the two people in the couple better be slightly less in the clouds all day, or else you'll both starve to death. Humans really can't survive on just coffee alone, I don't think. — Tod Goldberg

Whoever had decided that school should start so early in the morning and last all day long needed to be hunted down and forced to watch hours of educational televison without the aid of caffine. — Heather Brewer

Marketing jingles from every angle lure patrons to turn our backs on our locally owned stores, restaurants, and farms. And nobody considers that unpatriotic. This appears to aggravate Tod Murphy. We have the illusion of consumer freedom, but we've sacrificed our community life for the pleasure of purchasing lots of cheap stuff. Making and moving all that stuff can be so destructive: child labor in foreign lands, acid rain in the Northeast, depleted farmland, communities where the big economic engine is crystal meth. We often have the form of liberty, but not the substance. — Barbara Kingsolver

Tod laughed. He was always able to find the humour in even the creepiest situations. I'd thought that it was an undead thing, until I became a member of the undead. Then I realized it was a Tod-thing. — Rachel Vincent

I profoundly believe in - and teach - the proposition that photography is inherently a fiction-making process. Don't speak to me of the document; I don't really believe in it particularly now. A picture is not the world, but a new thing. — Tod Papageorge

Uh ... didn't we just pretty much share we care deeply for each other not five minutes ago?" I asked cautiously.
"No, we didn't pretty much do anything and we sure as fuck didn't pretty much share we care deeply for each other. We tod each other we're in love," he corrected me and my belly compressed as my heart skipped a beat.
"No," I contradicted stupidly but correctly, my heart, now racing, messing with my ability to think.
"I think it was you telling me we're in love."
His brows shot together and that was hot too. "Do you disagree?" he fired back.
"Uh ... no," I replied.
His brows then shot up and damn, that was hot too. "Your point? — Kristen Ashley

After a year, I thought gee I don't really need college anymore, which wasn't correct, but that's what I thought. — Tod Machover

I do less of that stuff now because I figured out that when I was writing things I didn't care about, it made me angry and depressed, so I turned my focus to what does make me happy, and also I recognized that one of the things that gives me great happiness is teaching creative writing, and so I could write profiles of professional golfers or I could be a professor. Being a professor made me much happier. — Tod Goldberg

We take Tod and Stevie to the mall with us, we'd be in and out in thirty minutes. Those boys don't fuck around at the mall. They got, like, a different kind of gay-dar," Daisy told Tex. "It's the kind that they can hone in on the best outfit, pair of shoes, or whatever you need, find your size without even askin' and feed you the shit in your dressing room without you havin' to leave it. They don't spare your feelin's either. If it don't look good, they just snatch it from you and find you somethin' else. They could do it in the Olympics, they're so good. — Kristen Ashley

If the newspapers reported the truth, if they wrote about the mud and filth and the body parts littering the ground and how young men look old before their time, would we still be here? — M.K. Tod

But loving Tristan often felt like loving something once removed. He could be cold and indifferent to others' suffering, especially if he was causing it. — Tod Wodicka

The one obvious thing is that the devices are so good now that you can also see their limitations extremely well. — Tod Machover

I love working with technology because it allows me to follow my imagination and to invent new things. — Tod Machover

One of the big mysteries of music is, if you take music without words, it means something to us because we know it's about something. It's about something important humanly, but since there are no words, nobody knows what it's about. — Tod Machover

It is made up of one character each from the names of three of the major female protagonists of the novel (P'an Chin-lien, Li P'ing-erh, and P'ang Ch'un-mei) that would literally mean Gold Vase Plum; it can be semantically construed as The Plum in the Golden Vase, or Plum Blossoms in a Golden Vase; and it puns with three near homophones that might be rendered as The Glamour of Entering the Vagina. — David Tod Roy

Once you have discovered the physical facts of a situation, all that remains - no matter how improbable - is more interesting. — Tod Foley

Any Beatles song is perfect. It gets to you right away. — Tod Machover

You have to train your mind and your ears, but they're more like athletic skills. So, part of music you just have to learn those things or you can't practice the art. — Tod Machover

Why do I always have to be the one who says 'stop'?" I demanded, my voice little more than a moan.
"You don't. In fact, at this point I'm considering a petition to that word stricken from the English language." His grin was almost lazy, the gleam in his eyes an effortless challenge. "If I did, would you sign? — Rachel Vincent

Just a little pointer, Indy, girl to girl, if you want that week with Lee to last into two. He likes it
when you go down on him in the morning. He's a fucking animal in bed but give him a morning BJ,
he'll return the favor and rock your world."
Every muscle in my body froze solid.
"What did she just say?" Stevie asked.
"She did not just say that in front of me," Kitty Sue said.
"Holy crap," Dolores said.
"Oh ... my ... gawd," Tod said.
"You fucking bitch," Ally said.
"This is more like it," Tex said. — Kristen Ashley

Once the door closed, Tod turned to me. "Girlie, he is fine. He's fine times twelve. He's the new definition of fine." "I've been in love with him since I was five," I told Tod. "I'm in love with him now. I want to have his children," Tod told me. — Kristen Ashley

You knew better!" she yelled, and I spun toward
my mom. She stood, and she was crying, and I
couldn't stand it, but there was nothing I could do.
"You were grounded, and you went out drinking
anyway. Sabine just got arrested for the same thing and
you saw her in that place, but it didn't sink in, did it?
You went out and partied, and Tod paid for it. You got
him killed!" Her legs folded and she dropped to her
knees on the carpet. — Rachel Vincent

She's fifteen!"
Nash shrugged. "That's just a number. It doesn't say anything about her."
"It says something pretty damn funny about your IQ!" I said, and he opened his mouth to retort, but I spoke over him. "Fifteen is too young to drive, too young to get a legal job, too young to sign a lease, and obviously too young to pick a boyfriend with half a brain. — Rachel Vincent

There's many reason music exists and we are beginning to no only understand that, but measure that. — Tod Machover

My argument against the set-up picture is that it leaves the matter of content to the imagination of the photographer, a faculty that, in my experience, is generally deficient compared to the mad swirling possibilities that our dear common world kicks up at us on a regular basis. — Tod Papageorge

I'd studied piano first and switched over to cello when I was about seven. I played mostly chamber and solo classical music. I got really involved with rock music when I was a teenager. I wired up my cello. — Tod Machover

That's because Tod never brings anything but death and bad advice," I snapped.
"That's not true." Tod tried to grin, "Sometimes I bring pizza. — Rachel Vincent

Evil, let it never be mistaken, is real. But it is inferior. It is parasitic. It is incomplete. The moment we take counsel from it, become overwhelmed by it, or put it on an equal footing with the Good of God, it will have become something entirely more dangerous. It becomes an idol. — Tod Worner

The Player Character Sheet is a psychic osmotic membrane. — Tod Foley

Together, we'd take crazy to a whole new level.
~Tod — Rachel Vincent

So what did you do?" I repeated.
"I hit Sophie on the back of the head with a universal remote. This thing was huge. It's like a cell phone from the '90s."
"You were supposed to get rid of Avari without hurting the host!"
"Yeah, I didn't get that memo. Maybe next time you should be a little more specific when you boss me around while I'm saving your ass. Though, frankly, this whiny little shrew is lucky she only has one bump, 'cause she's had this coming for a while."
-Kaylee and Tod — Rachel Vincent

How long until you have to go ... reap?" I whispered as my arms slid around his neck. Like we were dancing. Only we weren't moving, and there was no music.
"Don't know. Don't care."
"Won't you get in trouble if you miss something?"
"See my previous answer. — Rachel Vincent

Are you going to deliver whatever threat Avari sent you with, or are we going to have to start guessing?" Tod said. "I gotta warn you, I'm insanely good at charades. — Rachel Vincent

Tod's pale brows arched halfway up his forehead, and he looked suddenly, achingly wistful. "She knows not what she says ... "
Maybe not. But I was starting to get a pretty good idea ... — Rachel Vincent

Wouldn't you be mad if I told you to give up on someone you cared about? Just ... hand her over to someone who doesn't even deserve her?"
Tod gave me a strange, sad look I couldn't interpret, and the blues in his irises shifted subtly for a moment before he got control of them. "Yeah. I guess I would. — Rachel Vincent

The power of faith is the fear of the unknown. The power of love is the fear of dying alone. - EXCERPT FROM "THE POWER OF FEAR" BY HALBER TOD — Michael R. Fletcher

We understand a person with problems, someone who is wrong about a lot of things in his or her life, who makes messes. We don't understand someone who is constantly right, who is only felled by Kryptonite. Chuck Klosterman had a pretty great book about this whole thing - I Wear The Black Hat - that came out last year and which I greatly enjoyed. — Tod Goldberg

I watched a lot of silent directors who were absolutely great like John Ford and Fritz Lang, Tod Browning, and also some very modern directors like The Coen Brothers. The directors take the freedom within their own movies to be melodramatic or funny when they chose to be. They do whatever they want and they don't care about the genre. — Michel Hazanavicius

All the music we know that's popular is actually commonly shared music that takes things that are similar about all of us. — Tod Machover

Tod Goldberg has long been one of the most interesting writers around, and Gangsterland is his biggest and best book so far. — Thomas Perry

But before I could come up with an answer, Tod appeared in the desk chair, where I'd sat minutes earlier. 'Hey. Am I interrupting something?'
'Yes,' Nash said. 'Get out.'
But Tod was watching me, and I could tell from the angry line of his jaw that he'd been listening long before he showed himself. He'd heard what Avari had done to me. What Nash had let him do.
'You want me to go?' Tod asked me, his back to his brother.
Nash implores me silently to say yes. Tod waited patiently.
'No,' I said, looking right at Nash. He scowled, and his shoulders sagged.
'Good.' Tod stood and kicked the rolling chair out of his way. 'I just checked on your friend in the straitjacket. But first ... ' The reaper swung before either of us realized what he intended to do.
Tod's very sold first slammed into Nash's jaw. Nash's head snapped back. He stumbled into the wall. Tod shook his hand like it hurt. 'That's for what you let him do to Kaylee. — Rachel Vincent

Near-death experiences release a lot of endorphins, resulting in a natural high," Tod whispered. "And it's totally true that one passion feeds another."
"You know we're way past 'near-death', right?"
"My endorphins aren't listening to you. — Rachel Vincent

But all I said, as I dug a five from my pocket to pay for my soda, was, "You have a friend?" Tod scowled. "Well, I wouldn't call him a friend according to the traditional definition, but in the sense that he imposes on me constantly and isn't afraid to point out my flaws, I'd say he qualifies." "Sounds more like a cousin. — Rachel Vincent

Music seems to stimulate more parts of our mind than almost every other activity. It combines more parts of our minds. It synchronizes our minds. It allows people in groups to do a non-verbal immediate activity together. — Tod Machover

When I was done with high school, I knew that music was really important to me and I knew I didn't want to be a cellist, but I wasn't really sure if I wanted to be a composer, or think about - I was just interested in the ideas behind music, I was interested in mathematics. — Tod Machover

6.4311
Der Tod ist kein Ereignis des Lebens. Den Tod erlebt man nicht.
Wenn man unter Ewigkeit nicht unendliche Zeitdauer, sondern Unzeitlichkeit versteht, dann lebt der ewig, der in der Gegenwart lebt.
Unser Leben ist ebenso endlos, wie unser Gesichtsfeld grenzenlos ist.
6.4311
Death is not an event of life. Death is not lived through.
If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present.
Our life is endless in the way that our visual field is without limit. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

So could we please not mob the three-thousand-plus-year-old reaper like tweens at a boy-band concert? — Rachel Vincent

Read the vladimir tod series — Heather Brewer

Nobody talks about music as having intrinsic meaning, how it engages the mind. — Tod Machover

Some day soon, reaper, your mouth is going to be the source of your own destruction."
"That does seem likely, doesn't it?" Tod glanced at me and shrugged. "Until then, it remains a source of my own amusement. — Rachel Vincent

Then strong, warm arms wrapped around me from behind. "I've got you," Tod whispered in my ear. — Rachel Vincent

I believe that the (distorting) mirror which is photography holds an intrinsic, even elemental, relation to writing. — Tod Papageorge

He let a vision of April grow and fill the world. ( ... ) He saw April at the spaceport, holding him in the dark shadows of the blockhouse while the sky flamed above them. We'll go out like that soon, soon, Tod. Squeeze me, squeeze me ... Ah, he'd said, who needs a ship?
Another April, part of her in a dim light as she sat writing; her hair, a crescent of light loving her cheek, a band of it on her brow; then she had seen him and turned, rising, smothered his first word with her mouth. Another April wanting to smile, waiting; and April asleep, and once April sobbing because she could not find a special word to tell him what she felt for him ... — Theodore Sturgeon

Every day of their lives they read the newspapers and went to the movies. Both fed them on lynchings, murder, sex crimes, explosions, wrecks, love nests, fires, miracles, revolutions, war. This daily diet made sophisticates of them. The sun is a joke. Oranges can't titillate their jaded palates. Nothing can ever be violent enough to make taut their slack minds and bodies. They have been cheated and betrayed. They have slaved and saved for nothing. Tod — Nathanael West

Just when you thought the mafia novel was dead, Tod Goldberg breathes new life into it. Gangsterland, the best mafia novel in years, is a dark, funny, and smart page-turning crime story. It's also a moving, thoughtful meditation on ethics, religion, family, and a culture that eats itself. I loved this book. — Sara Gran

England has had a lot of really bad periods of music, but it's had several amazing periods where they've found an incredible balance, not just between music that's a rather complex and also pretty direct. Like the Beatles. — Tod Machover

It's your turn to talk," Tod said when several seconds had elapsed in pensive, angry silence from the hellion. "Negotiation is like playing tennis with words instead of balls. I thought you'd be better at this, considering your apparent lack of balls. — Rachel Vincent

I did take composition lessons when I was in high school, so I wrote piano pieces. I wrote some chamber music. I don't think any of that was particularly interesting. — Tod Machover

But more than any of that, I was thankful for the possibility he'd shown me: that a man really could love a woman enough that he'd do anything to protect her. That's how much Tod loved Addy.
That's how much I wanted Nash to love me. — Rachel Vincent

If you accept the idea that photographers, or some of them, are actually artists, then you have to look at their work less as a document of something than as a personal vision of the world. — Tod Papageorge

Over my career, I'd say the last 25 years; we've gone from music and computer being for 10 people in the world to having personal computers, to now being able to do amazing things on your iPhone, or with Rock Band. So, right now there's enormous capability with technology in our devices that everybody has access to. — Tod Machover

I listen to a lot of music that teenagers are listening to because I'm around them. — Tod Machover

Bugle"

Black beetles know where the most recent bones
bake in the heat, tendons and meat long gone,
bleached white, and if you give them cheap wine --
drizzle a few red drops on a flat stone--
they will lead you to a barren gulch
surrounded by sages and nettles, dirt
burnt to powdery sand and sharp thorns. Hunch
above the skeleton, bow your head, start reciting verses you learned as a child, there, under the sun with rocks and brush, bare
locust tree a telling reliquary
of dust to dust, all so brutally hot.
You must pull ribs from that rotting body,
words that matter: love me, love me not. — Tod Marshall

There were a lot of things happen in the mid-'80's that all of a sudden made it possible to do a lot of very quick interactive music. — Tod Machover

I was thinking a lot about the aftermath of bad choices, how people deal with the trauma of having survived trauma, if that makes sense, and so I wrote about this character's last day on the job, how after spending 15 years pretending to be a rabbi, he'd in effect become a rabbi. — Tod Goldberg

I found myself thinking a lot about my own spirituality. What it means to be Jewish, what it means to forgive, what it means to sacrifice, but mostly what it means to be alive, how to be a better person, how not to make the mistakes my parents had made. I guess that's what one might typically call a midlife crisis. — Tod Goldberg

I almost never these days sit down with a CD or my laptop and just listen to a piece with a score. I probably would do that while I'm exercising. — Tod Machover

Let's go eat turkey before I beat the crap put of my cousin.
The way he said it, Vlad wasn't sure if Henry wanted to eat instead of beating Joss to a pulp, or if he just didn't want to do it on an empty stomach. — Heather Brewer

All of which is mostly bullshit. The reality is that it's just like any other Ponzi scheme: the guys at the top are doing pretty well, but the guys on the bottom are doing Amway pitches in trailer parks. — Tod Goldberg

Sure, Tod's makes shoes and bags. But we make them using leather, which is a living substance to me. And behind each shoe and bag, which in itself may be attractive and useful and comfortable to carry and wear, there is this Italian spirit, this Italian dream. — Diego Della Valle

Because you don't belong with him! I tried to tell you that, but you wouldn't listen, and I thought if you understood that he'd be better off without you, you'd break up with him for his own good. So I ... exaggerated how easy it'd be for him to get over you, with Sabine there to step in. But I underestimated how incredibly stubborn you are"
"I prefer to think of it as dedication ... " I mumbled. — Rachel Vincent

It does no one any good to say their novel sucks if you don't have an idea how to make it better, how to approach it from different angles and make it work. It's obviously a subjective process, right? But the thing about subjectivity, at least in the classroom, is that you're banking on your professor's subjectivity to be both personal and professional - that he or she has some sense about the world outside the workshop. — Tod Goldberg

Strangely, the thing I listen to 75% of the time, when I'm exercising with my headphones on is English Tudor/Elizabethan music, so music from about 1450 to the early 1600's. — Tod Machover

Hey." Tod squeezed my hand to draw me out of my thoughts. "I think death looks good on you. — Rachel Vincent

I've done a lot of operas. I've probably done more different kind of operas than anybody. — Tod Machover

There's just an incredibly rich and interesting relationship between our listening to music and the way our minds engage. — Tod Machover

The best piece of advice I ever received about being a writer came from my brother Lee. I was just starting out and he told me that if I wanted to have a long career, I had to be versatile, that I shouldn't just think of myself in one way, because there would come a time when maybe that one thing wasn't working out for me - and I'd still want to earn a living as a writer. — Tod Goldberg

I had grown up and gone to high school in New York, so I wanted to get out of the east coast. — Tod Machover

It's a side effect of the process. You know how they say the eyes are the windows to the soul?" he asked, and I swallowed thickly before nodding. I didn't like where this was headed. "Evidently they mean that literally. Once the soul is gone, there's nothing to see through the windows."
Nash whistled softly. "That has to be the weirdest thing I've ever seen." And that meant a lot coming from a bean sidhe.
"You want me to put the contact back in, don't you?" Addison cocked her head and gave him a small, eerie smile.
"That's be great, thanks." Nash nodded decisively.
-Tod, Nash and Addison talking about her blank white eyes — Rachel Vincent

Want me to come?" Tod ran his hand up my back, over my shirt. "If you keep her busy, I could convert the filing system from 'alphabetical' to 'most deserving of psychiatric help.'" He leaned closer, and I knew no one else would hear whatever came out of his mouth next. "I've been meaning to make some special notations in Nash's file anyway. Imagine the level of help he could receive if they knew the root of his recent academic decline was a deep-seated fear of the letter Q." I laughed. I couldn't help it. And though everyone else at the table looked curious, no one asked what Tod had said. They were finally starting to learn. "Thanks, but it's hard enough to take grief counseling seriously without you singing 'Living Dead Girl' at the top of your lungs behind the counselor's back. — Rachel Vincent

There's an old, private cemetery here in Palm Springs, where I live, just down the street from the airport, that belongs to one of the local Native American tribes, and it occurred to me one day that if you really wanted to get away with murder, you'd kill someone, put them in a coffin and bury them in a private cemetery or, better, an abandoned one. And then suddenly this whole idea of a long con appeared before me and I had this idea of using a Jewish cemetery. — Tod Goldberg

But I'll be fine. I'll be with Tod. He's a good guy, you know. He just hides it under all the sarcasm and curls. — Rachel Vincent

Relational congruence is the ability to be fundamentally the same person with the same values in every relationship, in every circumstance and especially amidst crisis. It is the internal capacity to keep promises to God, to self and to one's relationships that consistently express one's identity and values in spiritually and emotionally healthy ways. Relational congruence is about both constancy and care at the same time. It is about both character and affection, and self-knowledge and authentic self-expression. Relational congruence is the leader's ability to cultivate strong, healthy, caring relationships; maintaining healthy boundaries; and communicating clear expectations, all while staying focused on the mission. — Tod Bolsinger

Cameras are like dogs, but dumb, and toward quarry, even more faithful. They point, they render, and defy the photographer who hopes. — Tod Papageorge

What's your name, son?' Sam said. The man looked to be about Sam's age, but Sam always thought calling people 'son' immediately gave the air of imperial authority and opened the door for spanking if need be. — Tod Goldberg

A field trip. You interested in doing something dangerous, and possibly illegal?"
Does it involve underage girls, broken curfews and soorte4d fruit toppings?"
I dropped the empty can into the recycling bin and leaned against the kitchen peninsula, grinning like an idiot. "Two of the three. And I could probably scrounge up some strawberry jam, if you're desperate."
"I'm never desperate," Tod said, only his voice hadn't come from my phone. I whirled around to see the reaper standing behind me, still holding his cell. "But for the record, I prefer apricot."
"Yuck. Nobody likes apricot jam. — Rachel Vincent

I got swirling eyes and the capacity to shatter windows with my bare voice. Tod got teleportation and invisibility. The supernatural world is so far from fair. — Rachel Vincent

My god, people are selling their work and people are reading it! The horror! That MFA programs have to advertise that they'll let you write YA or fantasy or what-have-you is just absurd, but we do, because the presumption is that they're closed to that sort of thing. You're offering an MFA in creative writing? Teach people how to write well, worry about that part, let the writers come up with the stories. — Tod Goldberg

I need his number," I announced.
"What?" Roxie asked.
"Give me his cell number!" I shouted.
"Who's got his number?"
Everyone started pulling out their phones.
"I have his number," Indy told me.
"I don't have his number," Daisy said, but she was still digging through her purse as if she could help.
"I wish I had his number," Tod put in. — Kristen Ashley

I row for about 40-45 minutes every morning and put in my iPod and it's a huge range. That's when I listen to either things that I just love and know very well and just want to pay attention, it's also where I listen to things that are new that I want to get to know. — Tod Machover

The English learned, in my view, how to use harmony much earlier than the French or the Italians, or the Germans. — Tod Machover

Did you think you could dump me, and I'd bounce back to her and miraculously be happy? I'm not a Ping-Pong ball. You can't just swat me back and forth and expect me to be content wherever I land. If Tod dumped you tomorrow, would you come back to me? — Rachel Vincent

And I met Madeline's necromancer. His name's Luca."
"A death detector?" Tod made a face. "That's creepy."
"It gets weirder. He's dating Sophie."
"On purpose? — Rachel Vincent

My work on hyper instruments started with simple instruments, like the piano. — Tod Machover