Town Today Quotes & Sayings

If you've got a bag in that SUV, you might as well get it out."
"He's not staying here," Lisa countered.
"I say he is."
Lisa yanked at the coat from within. "You're not the only person who lives here, Robin."
"No, but I'm one-third owner of the house." She motioned Donovan toward his truck. "Consider whatever part of the house he's in as my third."
"Damn it, Robin! I don't want him here."
"I do."
"Why?"
Robin cocked her head to the side as if considering the question. "Because he's got that big, mean, don't-mess-with-me look of a rottweiler on steroids that could be a deterrent to any repercussions from your trip into town today, and because" - she shrugged and a smile touched her lips - "he bothers you in a way I've never seen you bothered. It's interesting. — Sarah McCarty

Painful sunlight spilled into Darcy's bedroom. He groaned and buried his head beneath his pillow.

"Good morning, Master Darcy," called Niles's cheerful voice. "Nice day out; just a few clouds. Might have some rain later today. What would you like for your breakfast?"

"Darkness," Darcy growled into his pillow. "And more sleep."

Niles clicked his tongue and walked over to his master's bed. "You've got a town to rule and a castle to mope around. And it's a bright, beautiful day! — Emma Clifton

Teenage girls read in packs. It's true today, and it was true when I was a teen growing up in a small town in northeast Oklahoma. — Ally Carter

Nowadays when a poet with one privately printed book can have his next three years taken care of by a Guggenheim fellowship, a Kenyon Review fellowship, and the Prix de Rome, it is hard to remember what chances the poet took in that small-town world, how precariously hand-to-mouth his existence was. And yet in one way the old days were better; [Vachel] Lindsay after a while, by luck and skill, got far more readers than any poet could get today. — Randall Jarrell

I would rather die today than live in that sick illusion of a town for one more hour. Like prisoners. Like slaves. — Blake Crouch

Today"

The ordinary miracles begin. Somewhere
a signal arrives: "Now," and the rays
come down. A tomorrow has come. Open
your hands, lift them: morning rings
all the doorbells; porches are cells for prayer.
Religion has touched your throat. Not the same now,
you could close your eyes and go on full of light.

And it is already begun, the chord
that will shiver glass, the song full of time
bending above us. Outside, a sign:
a bird intervenes; the wings tell the air,
"Be warm." No one is out there, but a giant
has passed through town, widening streets, touching
the ground, shouldering away the stars. — William Stafford

Since most houses today have running water, the ease with which most Americans can give water to a guest obscures the point that everyone in the biblical culture understood: "cold water" came only from the town well or cistern because water in jars at home warmed up very quickly in the heat. Giving a cup of cold water meant inconveniencing yourself and walking to the town well carrying a container, perhaps waiting in line to draw the water, lifting the water up out of the ground, and then carrying the water back to the house - all so someone could quench his thirst. The fact that Christ connects giving cold water with rewards to be received in the future is a powerful testimony to the value of even the most seemingly mundane good works in the eyes of God. — John W. Schoenheit

How I loved the municipal libraries of South Croydon. They were not child-friendly places; in fact, they were not friendly at all, to anyone. They were large, dark, wood-panelled rooms full of books, in which visitors were expected to be silent, and the only sound was the clicking of school shoes on polished parquet floor. The larger building in the town had its own children's library, accessible at one end of the hall via an imposing door, but what lay behind that door was not a children's library as we might understand it today, full of scatter cushions and toys and strategies of appeasement; it revealed simply a smaller, replica wood-panelled room full of books. And this - the shared expectation of respect, the solemnity, the shelves crammed end-to-end with books, no face-outs or yawning gaps - is what I loved about these places and what I found inspiring. The balance of power lay with the books, not the public. This would never be permitted today. — Andy Miller

One of those flash epiphanies of travel, the realization that worlds you'd love vibrantly exist outside your ignorance of them. The vitality of many lives you know nothing about. The breeze lifting a blue curtain in a doorway billows just the same whether you are lucky enough to observe it or not. Travel gives such jolts. I could live in this town, so how is it that I've never been here before today? — Frances Mayes

Today I'm out wandering, turning my skull
into a cup for others to drink wine from.
In this town somewhere there sits a calm, intelligent man,
who doesn't know what he's about to do! — Rumi

The small town is passing. It was the incubator that hatched all our big men, and that's why we haven't got as many big men today as we used to have. Take every small-town-raised leader out of business and you would have nobody left running it but vice-presidents. — Will Rogers

Cynicism is idealism turned inside out. It stems from an expectation unrealized and a promise perverted. That is so much of Washington today in a nutshell. — Mark Leibovich

One might even take a speech of President Obama's two years ago in the oil town of Cushing, Oklahoma, to be an eloquent death-knell for the species. He proclaimed with pride, to ample applause, "Now, under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years. That's important to know. Over the last three years, I've directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. We're opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. We've quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We've added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth and then some." The applause also reveals something about government commitment to security. Industry profits are sure to be secured as "producing more oil and gas here at home" will continue to be "a critical part" of energy strategy, as the president promised. — Noam Chomsky

I didn't have any looks, I didn't have any talent, and it was easy for me to say to the Lord, "I don't have anything." If you only knew where I came from ... this leetle-bitty town with no more than twelve hundred people in it. So ... anything I am today, He is the one who has done it [ellipses in source]. — Kathryn Kuhlman

As a shy, introverted, scholarly child (long ago) I don't know what I would have done without libraries! My family moved often. I was always the new kid in town. The library always offered me my first and most important friendship: the place where I felt right at home. I still feel that way today, about libraries. — Lois Lowry

Until the arrival of Spanish troops in 1920, Chefchaouen had been visited by just three Westerners. Two were missionary explorers: Charles de Foucauld, a Frenchman who spent just an hour in the town in 1883, disguised as a Jewish rabbi, and William Summers, an American who was poisoned by the townsfolk here in 1892. The third, in 1889, was the British journalist Walter Harris, whose main impulse, as described in his book, Land of an African Sultan, was "the very fact that there existed within thirty hours' ride of Tangier a city in which it was considered an utter impossibility for a Christian to enter". Thankfully, Chefchaouen today is more welcoming towards outsiders, and a number of the Medina's newer guesthouses now include owners hailing from Britain, Italy and the former Christian enemy, Spain. — Daniel Jacobs

I skipped the thirty-one years between 1938 and 1965 and jumped to the section entitled "Junitaki Today." Of course, the book's "today" being 1970, it was hardly today's "today." Still, writing the history of one town obviously imposed the necessity of bringing it up to a "today." And even if such a today soon ceases to be today, no one can deny that it is in fact a today. For if a today ceased to be today, history could not exist as history. — Haruki Murakami

Speaking generally, however, when you interact with someone else, you are doing outer work (physical time, play time, connecting time) ... as many sociologists have pointed out, this area of life used to dominate everyday existence, at a time when families sat around the fire of an evening and ate every meal together.
That's no longer true. Families today are often loose constellations. Contact is intermittent and rushed. everyone has their own space. Activity is scattered all around town, not confined to the home. Cars have made everyone mobile, but central heating may be the most powerful force in shaping modern society. — Deepak Chopra

I leaned agains the warm brick wall and gazed up. It was a bright, cloudless day, the sky a mocking blue. It was the kind of day when children ran up and down the streets and shouted, when couples walked out through the town gates, past the windmills and along the canals, when old women sat in the sun and closed their eyes. My father was probably sitting on the bench in front of the house, his face turned towards the warmth. Tomorrow night might be bitterly cold, but today it was spring. — Tracy Chevalier

The bottom line is that we've become a nation of thieves, a value rejected by our founders. James Madison, the father of our Constitution, was horrified when Congress appropriated $15,000 to help French refugees. He said, 'I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.' Tragically, today's Americans would run Madison out of town on a rail. — Walter E. Williams

Rained gently last night, just enough to wash the town clean, and then today a clean crisp fat spring day, the air redolent, the kind of green minty succulent air you'd bottle if you could and snort greedily on bleak, wet January evenings when the streetlights hzzzt on at four in the afternoon and all existence seems hopeless and sad. — Brian Doyle

It's not a real place, or a place that you can stay for long; it's a somewhere-over-the-rainbow archetype but rooted in genuine emotions. No matter what Guests' care might be, when they step onto Main Street they enter an evocation of the ideal home town. This is, in a sense, the 'home' to which Dorothy Gale wanted to return. Main Street welcomes all Guests with warmth as comforting today as it was to the post-war society of the 1950's for which it was originally created. — Leslie Le Mon

When Mr. Caulfield was riding Stayner, his friend and pet horse, to work that morning, he passed the gas station. He was glad that he didn't have to worry about gas prices, like most people, because he didn't have a car. Instead, he just had to worry about getting odd looks from people who weren't used to seeing him ride a horse into town. At least, that was usually all that he had to worry about, but today was different. — Jesse Haubert

Ordinary" has to be one of the loneliest words in our vocabulary today. Who wants a bumper sticker that announces to the neighborhood, "My child is an ordinary student at Bubbling Brook Elementary"? Who wants to be that ordinary person who lives in an ordinary town, is a member of an ordinary church, and has ordinary friends and works an ordinary job? Our life has to count! We have to leave our mark, have a legacy, and make a difference. And all of this should be something that can be managed, measured, and maintained. We have to live up to our Facebook profile. It's one of the newer versions of salvation by works. — Michael S. Horton

If I had to come up with something that just came to me, I think growing up in a small town, I want knowledge. I still think today, knowledge is one of the keys. — Herschel Walker

So you gonna actually do some work today or should I just tell Mama you're headin' on back to Pretty Boy Town? — E. Lee

The Catholic Church built and ran hospitals, schools, and centres for the poor and unemployed generations before the secular state became involved, and even today a visit to almost any main street in the Western world or to a village or town in the developing world will show Catholic charities and outreach organizations operating in what are often the most challenging of conditions. — Michael Coren

Lindsey had a nearly uncontrollable desire to run her
fingers through his hair, to see if it was as soft today as it had been the last time she'd known him. And that thick stubble on his cheeks and chin was long enough to be soft too. The good soft.
Especially against her softer parts.
Intrigue and desire warmed the smileys on her panties. — Jamie Farrell

Mr. Benjamin shrugged his shoulders. "We have to live today," he said. "If you had a son, Harkavy, you'd want him to have a college education. Who's going to wait for the Messiah? They tell a story about a little town in the old country. It was out of the way, in a valley, so the Jews were afraid the Messiah would come and miss them, and they built a high tower and hired one of the town beggars to sit in it all day long. A friend of his meets this beggar and says, 'How do you like your job, Baruch?' So he says, 'It doesn't pay much, but I think it's steady work. — Saul Bellow

Well, what's Cecilia say today?" he asked, not bothering to rise. "Can't believe you two write each other every day. Doesn't it get boring? 'Dear Joseph, I went to town today and bought an egg. Then I boiled it and had breakfast. — Jack Lewis Baillot

Fields and more fields on either side of the road.From where they are it looks as if the whole world were green.But from higher up,from a hill-if there were a hill in this flat country-or from a pyramid(one of the many that two thousand years ago lined this route from Thebes to Memphis,from the Delta to the Cataract)or from an aeroplane today,you would be able to see how narrow the strip green was,how closely it clung to the winding river.The river like a lifeline thrown across the desert, the villages and the town hanging on to it, clustering together, glancing over their shoulders at the desert always behind them.Appeasing it,finally,by making it the dwelling of their head. — Ahdaf Soueif

Today every city, town, or village is affected by it. We have entered the Neon Civilization and become a plastic world.. It goes deeper than its visual manifestations, it affects moral matters; we are engaged, as astrophysicists would say, on a decaying orbit. — Raymond Loewy

How much more mysterious and inviting is the street of an old town with its altering realms of darkness and light than are the brightly and evenly lit streets of today! The imagination and daydreaming are stimulated by dim light and shadow. In order to think clearly, the sharpness of vision, has to be suppressed, for thoughts travel with an absent-minded and unfocused gaze. Homogeneous bright light paralyses the imagination in the same way that homogenization of space weakens the experience of being, and wipes away the sense of place. The human eye is most perfectly turned for twilight rather than bright daylight. — Juhani Pallasmaa

These monster cities we live in today are blights of modern society. They will certainly give way to planned cities interlinked to the countryside. Everybody will live with the natural advantages of the country and the cultural associations of the town. — James P. Cannon

If the name or shape weren't odd enough, the McRib has a strange "here today, gone tomorrow" existence. Like a serial deadbeat dad, the McRib arrives with great fanfare only to skip town without warning. — Jim Gaffigan

Yazoo is the name of an old blues label and also a town in America. I like it because it doesn't mean a thing, it has no immediate connotations. That's what I hate about so many names today - they're so obviously fashionable. — Alison Moyet

Good. She is planning lunch on the deck today, is on her way into town via her neighbor's house, where she has spent the last hour or so — Jane Green

I don't think that a novel is supposed to be a guide book to happiness any more than it's supposed to be a journal of one's personal pain and frustration, which most novels are today, unfortunately. I think the novels that are most important are those that are more on the order of those coyotes that howl on the hills outside of town. Something mysterious and wild and hypnotic. — Tom Robbins

I grew up in a small town with a very small library. But the books in the library opened a large place in my heart. It is the place where stories live. And those stories have been informing my days, comforting my nights, and extending possibilities ever since. If that library had not been there, if the books - such as they were - had not been free, my world would be poor, even today. — Marion Dane Bauer

At the base of her ankle is a deep, ugly scar she got when a car ran over her foot when she was six years old. That was in a small town in Bangladesh. Thus, even today, she hesitates superstitiously before crossing the road, and is painfully shy of walking distances. Her fears make her laughable. The scar is printed on her skin like a radiant star. — Amit Chaudhuri

Today I realize that I'm not marrying the one I thought loved me, I'm just Morgan Lewis, the owner of a bakery, a tiny apartment in downtown Atlanta, and a 2012 Camry. Nothing special, just another person walking through town to start her day. — A.M. Willard

I have gone into town to buy a few last things we need for the expedition: Peruvian wasp repellent, toothbrushes, canned peaches, and a fireproof canoe. It will take a while to find the peaches, so don't expect me back until dinnertime.
Stephano, Gustav's replacement, will arrive today by taxi. Please make him feel welcome. As you know, it is only two days until the expedition, so please work very hard today.
Your giddy uncle,
Monty — Lemony Snicket

Fashion Week was at Bryant Park and there were a few shows like Marc Jacobs, or when Alexander McQueen came to town, that were offsite, Helmut [Lung] was offsite, but it was very intimate. It wasn't the way it is today where you have a thousand people at the show. You may have had 200 to 250 and it was really the trade and you know fashion greats. — Roopal Patel

Sir Templeton was not feeling himself last night," said Aunt Saffronia, her eyes flicking from plate to Jane and back to plate, "so Mr. Nobley offered to accompany him to see an apothecary in town, and Colonel Andrews went as well, having some business to attend to there. They are so attentive, such honest, caring lads. I shall feel their loss when they leave."
"I feel it today." Miss Charming pursed her lips. "Eating breakfast with no gentlemen and that Heartwright girl poaching on my men
this isn't what I was promised." She looked at Aunt Saffronia with the eye of a haggler.
Aunt Saffronia placed her hands in her lap, a calming gesture. "I know, my dear, but they will be back, and in the meantime ... "
"I didn't come here for the meantime. I came for the men. — Shannon Hale

Movies, novels, TV shows - these are the water fountains of today. We thirst for stories which speak to us by representing us, but we go to the water fountains in the centre of town looking for that, and we're turned away, sent to the ghetto. — Hal Duncan

Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar. A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small and sprightly, like a bantam hen; but, due to a long youthful illness, her shoulders are pitifully hunched. Her face is remarkable - not unlike Lincoln's, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind; but it is delicate, too, finely boned, and her eyes are sherry-colored and timid. "Oh my," she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, "it's fruitcake weather! — Truman Capote

I would hate to be a new artist or writer in town today. But somehow the cream continues to rise. If there's one who's great, he just jumps out of the pack like you can't believe. — Steven Curtis Chapman

You're in a rather odd mood today."
I'm soaking wet, Eloise."
No need to snap at me about it, I didn't force you to walk across town in the rain."
It wasn't raining when I left,". There was something about a sibling that brought out the eight-year-old in a body.
I'm sure the sky was gray,"
Clearly, she had a bit of the eight-year-old in her as well. — Julia Quinn

No matter what people say, life is marvelous, if you want to know who gets mu goats, it's those killjoy pessimists, even if I have plenty to complain about, you don't hear a peep out of me, what for. I ask you, what for, when life can bring me a day like today; oh, how marvelous it all is: a strange town, and me here with you ... — Milan Kundera

A town in Upstate New York is being accused of being biased 'cause they sent out absentee ballots that say 'Barack Osama.' Today they apologized and printed new ballots that say 'Barack Hussein Osama.' — Conan O'Brien

As an old-time small-town merchant, I can tell you that nobody has more love for the heyday of the smalltown retailing era than I do. That's one of the reasons we chose to put our little Wal-Mart museum on the square in Bentonville. It's in the old Walton's Five and Dime building, and it tries to capture a little bit of the old dime store feel. But I can also tell you this: if we had gotten smug about our early success, and said, "Well, we're the best merchant in town," and just kept doing everything exactly the way we were doing it, somebody else would have come along and given our customers what they wanted, and we would be out of business today. — Sam Walton

I don't have like whatever, so I'm just like, "Oh man, I'm just going to try to stay out of most people's way and get a taco and enjoy myself as much as I can," because it's such a beautiful town. Beautiful weather. I called my dad that day to tell him what was going on with my passport and he was like, "Yeah it snowed four inches today. It's ten degrees outside." I'm just like, "Cool. I'm glad I'm in Austin, no matter what." — Justin Vernon

South to a town named Medina, north of Bellingham, Washington. Today, — Todd Russell

Criminals, it turns out, are the one social group in America we have permission to hate. In "colorblind" America, criminals are the new whipping boys. They are entitled to no respect and little moral concern. Like the "coloreds" in the years following emancipation, criminals today are deemed a characterless and purposeless people, deserving of our collective scorn and contempt. When we say someone was "treated like a criminal," what we mean to say is that he or she was treated as less than human, like a shameful creature. Hundreds of years ago, our nation put those considered less than human in shackles; less than one hundred years ago, we relegated them to the other side of town; today we put them in cages. Once released, they find that a heavy and cruel hand has been laid upon them. Brave — Michelle Alexander

Today nearly every schoolchildren knows the town of Williamsburg. That that is the case is due not so much to the great history that happened here but to the vision of one man - William Archer Rutherfoord Goodwin. To be sure, Williamsburg, which served as capital of Virginia from 1699 to 1780, saw its share of notable events, most significantly the fiery rhetoric in the Virginia Capitol by Patrick Henry and brush-ups during the Revolutionary War and Civil War. But after the capital shuffled off to Richmond in 1780 the town led a mostly somnambulant existence for a century and a half. — Doug Gelbert

Do you need to reschedule? There are some other things I could take care of while I'm in town."
Mallory waved him off. "No, today's fine. It's going to be on the exam, so I might as well do it."
"Oh, my God, you are Harry Potter," I said, pointing a finger at her. "I knew it!"
She rolled her eyes, then looked at Catcher. — Chloe Neill

Everything today has been heavy and brown. Bring me a Unicorn to ride about the town. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Economics, as it is often taught today, portrays us as homo economicus-someone who doesn't vote in presidential elections, doesn't return lost wallets, and doesn't leave tips when dining out of town. Julie Nelson reminds us that most people aren't really like that. She helps point the way to a richer, more descriptive way of thinking about economic life. — Robert H. Frank

Our children are going to be remarkably stubborn," he commented as they started down the main street of town. Lily tried to ignore the avid stares of passers-by. "We aren't going to have any children," she said. Some instinct caused her to lie. "My - my monthly arrived today." Caleb fell silent, and in a sidelong glance Lily saw his disappointment. She laid a hand on his arm but could not. bring herself to admit the truth. If the major believed there was no child - indeed, no possibility of a child - he might stop pursuing Lily. The sooner he gave up, the sooner she could get on with building up her homestead and finding her sisters. She bit down on her lower lip. Of course, if there was a baby growing inside her, would it be fair to let Caleb go back to Fox Chapel without ever knowing he was about to become a father? The — Linda Lael Miller