Townie Quotes & Sayings

A well-meaning townie (W-MT) will sidle up to the desk. 'Any word on Tamerlane?' [Translation: May I turn over your significant personal loss for my own amusement?]
A.J. will reply, 'Nothing yet.' [Translation: Life still ruined.]
W-MT: Oh, I'm sure something will turn up. [Translation: Since I have no investment in the outcome of this situation, it costs me nothing to be optimistic.] — Gabrielle Zevin

Prejudice, mostly,' Allie said, lying curled around Gibreel beneath parachute silk. 'They can't quantify the will, so they leave it out of their calculations. But it's will that gets you up Everest, will and anger, and it can bend any law of nature you care to mention, at least in the short term, gravity not excluded. If you don't push your luck, anyway. — Salman Rushdie

Most witches don't believe in gods. They know that the gods exist, of course. They even deal with them occasionally. But they don't believe in them. They know them too well. It would be like believing in the postman. — Terry Pratchett

May's haircuts were Marblehead's version of a magic show. The townie kids used to form lines up and down Front Street to watch as Mr. Dooling pulled the rattail comb through my mother's hair. With each pull, the comb would snag on something, then stop. As he reached into the mass to unwind the tangle, he would find and remove everything from sea glass to shells to smooth stones. In one particularly matted tangle, he found a sea horse. Once he even found a postcard sent from Tahiti to someone in Beverly Farms. — Brunonia Barry

Administrators and scientists are excited by buckyballs for their own sake, and if they turn out to have practical applications, so much the better. — Richard Smalley

I would love to go to Paris. I have to go to Paris. I would love to go there, that's like my dream. — Elle Fanning

Confidentiality is the nature of all governments. Of course you may say, the government will always want to communicate the good news; things which bring satisfaction, cheer, help or pleasure to voters. And of course, you are right, governments are not masochists by nature. — Bernard Ingham

With another shock of excitement, Harry saw Sirius give James the thumbs-up.
Sirius was lounging in his chair at his ease, tilting it back on two legs. He was very good-looking, his dark hair fell into his eyes with a sort of casual elegance neither James's nor Harry's could ever have achieved, and a girl sitting behind him was eyeing him hopefully, though he didn't seem to have noticed. — J.K. Rowling

[John Craske] painted like a man giving witness under oath to a wild story. — Sylvia Townsend Warner

Always! That is the dreadful word ... it is a meaningless word, too. — Oscar Wilde

Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating ... but there are other ways to understanding. — Patrick Rothfuss

Sovereignty is easily preserved by the very arts by which it was originally created. When, however, energy has given place to indifference, and temperance and justice to passion and arrogance, then as the morals change so changes fortune. — Sallust

That's the point. Blood is the point.
B-L-O-O-D I-S T-H-E P-O-I-N-T
If I could bleed out the Crapper into the ring, I'd do it.
If I could bleed out everything that's wrong with my life, I'd bleed until I was empty — A.S. King

Now, the big box office successes are superhero stories. It seems there's a lowest common denominator mentality, in terms of movies that are almost purely visual, that anyone can understand anywhere in the world. Good robot, bad robot: they fight. You don't need to know anything apart from that. And then we can make toys that look like that robot - and sell those toys or video games. — Terence Winter

Sorrow ought to be private, she thinks, not flaunted. — Khaled Hosseini

Stop Saying'I WISH' Start Saying 'I WILL — Aditya Mahajan

Does love always form, like a pearl, around the hardened bits of life? — Andrew Sean Greer