Turned Up Quotes & Sayings

At her easiest, she was hard, because her brain was always working, working, working - I had to exert myself just to keep pace with her. I'd spend an hour crafting a casual e-mail to her, I became a student of arcana so I could keep her interested: the Lake poets, the code duello, the French Revolution. Her mind was both wide and deep, and I got smarter being with her. And more considerate, and more active, and more alive, and almost electric, because for Amy, love was like drugs or booze or porn: There was no plateau. Each exposure needed to be more intense than the last to achieve the same result.
Amy made me believe I was exceptional, that I was up to her level of play. That was both our making and undoing. Because I couldn't handle the demands of greatness. I began craving ease and averageness, and I hated myself for it, and ultimately, I realized, I punished her for it. I turned her into the brittle, prickly thing she became. — Gillian Flynn

Hadrian dismounted and began unloading Dancer. "How long were we on the road?" He paused to look up at the moon.
"What? Five, six hours? Not a damn word. Getting chilly out, don't you think, Hadrian? The moon looks like a fingernail, ain't that right, Hadrian? The tree looks like a goddamn bear, don't it, Hadrian? Nothing. By the way, in case you haven't noticed, I was attacked by a goshawk and a pig-riding dwarf that shot eggs at me with a sling. I was knocked from my horse and wrestled with the dwarf, the hawk, and the pig for what had to be half an hour. The dwarf kept smashing eggs in my face, and the ruddy pig pinned me down, licking them off. I only got away because the dwarf ran out of eggs. Then the hawk turned into a moth that became distracted by the light of the moon."
Royce shifted to his side, hood up.
"Yeah, well ... thank Maribor and Novron I didn't need your help THAT time. — Michael J. Sullivan

I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess (Bendis, the Thracian Artemis.); and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said: Polemarchus desires you to wait. — Plato

Luther had said that grace alone can save; his followers took up his doctrine and repeated it word for word. But they left out its invariable corollary, the obligation to discipleship ... The justification of the sinner in the world degenerated into the justification of sin and the world. Costly grace was turned into cheap grace without discipleship. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness. I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right. — Anne Frank

I turned to the guard. "Keep her here, Rodrick. Unless she comes up with a plan to destroy the remainder of the enemy. In which case you're to let her do it. — Mark Lawrence

I loved you . I cared for you when no one else did and you turned around ripped it up and throw it back at my fucking face like it meant nothing to you . — Dean Eloff

Let us follow Ezekiel's eyewitness account a little further: Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they went they went upon their four sides: and they turned not as they went. As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. — Erich Von Daniken

Eddis looked around as if recalling a question that had nagged at her for several hours. "Where's Eugenides?" she asked.
For a moment the Attolian queen was immobile, her smile gone as if it had never been. The horse under her threw up its head as if the bit had twitched against its delicate mouth.
"Locked in a room," Attolia said flatly. "In Ephrata."
The smile faded from Eddis' face.
"I ordered the other prisoners released," Attolia explained. "I forgot that I had him locked up separately. I doubt my sensechal will have released him without my specific instruction to do so."
"You forgot?" Eddis asked.
"I forgot," Attolia said firmly, daring Eddis to contradict her.
"You will marry him?" Eddis asked, hesitant again.
"I said I would," snapped Attolia, and turned her horse away. Eddis followed. When they joined their officers, Attolia gave brisk orders and then rode on, heading back toward Ephrata without waiting for Eddis. — Megan Whalen Turner

Deputy Grayson?"
He turned to stare down into those soft green eyes, his pulse ratcheting up. "Yes, Miss Smith?"
"Thank you." She touched his arm. "And no matter what happens, I promise I'm not a bad person."
She flung her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek....
Warmth rushed through Nash and tingling spread from where Phoebe's lips had touched his cheek. He raised a hand to the spot and stared at the woman, a frown pulling his brows downward.
He hadn't begun the day with the intent of finding a runaway bride stranded on the side of the road. Scenarios like that were only found in those unrealistic romance novels women liked reading.No. He hadn't asked for a kiss. But now that she'd done it, she couldn't undo it, and he couldn't unfeel it. — Elle James

The Birmingham campaign was a repeat of SCLC's 1961 campaign in Albany, Georgia, which turned out a complete failure. King was banking on being able to fill up the jails and still have recruits willing to engage in civil disobedience, shutting the system down, but the authorities simply made their jails "bottomless" by shipping detainees elsewhere. A couple years later, black residents of Albany rioted, suggesting what they thought about their experience with nonviolence (these riots are not mentioned in most chronologies of the movement). — Anonymous

Because - oh shut up laughing, you two - because they've just been turned down by girls they asked to the ball! — J.K. Rowling

When I woke up this morning, I found I'd turned into my mother. — Mary Rodgers

We wanted more. We knocked the butt ends of our forks against the table, tapped our spoons against our empty bowls; we were hungry. We wanted more volume, more riots. We turned up the knob on the TV until our ears ached with the shouts of angry men. We wanted more music on the radio; we wanted beats; we wanted rock. We wanted muscles on our skinny arms. We had bird bones, hollow and light, and we wanted more density, more weight. We were six snatching hands, six stomping feet; we were brothers, boys, three little kings locked in a feud for more. — Justin Torres

Yakov spent the whole day playing his fiddle; when it got completely dark, he took the notebook in which he recorded his losses daily, and out of boredom began adding up the yearly total. It came to over a thousand roubles. This astounded him so much that he flung the abacus to the floor and stamped his feet. Then he picked up the abacus, again clicked away for a long time, and sighed deeply and tensely. His face was purple and wet with sweat. He thought that if he could have put that lost thousand roubles in the bank, he would have earned at least forty roubles a year in interest. And therefore those forty roubles were a loss. In short, wherever you turned, there was nothing but losses everywhere.
- Rothchild's Fiddle — Anton Chekhov

No one had any idea, it turned out. None of the older Symphony members knew much about science, which was frankly maddening given how much time these people had had to look things up on the Internet before the world ended. — Emily St. John Mandel

We had a signal. When I turned the pail upside down by the kitchen house, that meant everything was clear. Mauma would open the window and throw down a taffy she stole from missus' room. Sometimes here came a bundle of cloth scraps - real nice calicos, gingham, muslin, some import linen. One time, that true brass thimble. Her favorite thing to take was scarlet-red thread. She would wind it up in her pocket and walk right out the house with it. — Sue Monk Kidd

The articles were extremely eye-opening. Not just in Teen Vogue but in Seventeen and CosmoGirl as well. They were all about being yourself, staying natural, loving your body as is, and going green! The messages were the exact opposite of Vik and Viv's.
Hmmmmm.
Frankie turned to face the full-length mirror that was up against the yellow wardrobe. She opened her robe and examined her body. Fit, muscular, and exquisitely proportioned, she agreed with the magazines. So what if her skin was mint? Or her limbs were attached with seams? According to the magazines, which were - no offense! - way more in touch with the times than her parents were, she was suppose to love her body just the way it was. And she did! Therefor if the normies read magazines (which obviously they did, because they were in them), then they would love her, too. Natural was in.
Besides she was Daddy's perfect little girl. And who didn't love perfect? — Lisi Harrison

You're writing, you're coasting, and you're thinking, 'This is the best thing I've ever written, and it's coming so easily, and these characters are so great.' You put it aside for whatever reason, and you open it up a week later and the characters have turned to cardboard and the book has completely fallen apart," she says. "That's the moment of truth for every writer: Can I go on from here and make this book into something? I think it separates the writers from the nonwriters. And I think it's the reason a lot of people have that unfinished manuscript around the house, that albatross. — Jacqueline Woodson

Yes, gods could take a humanlike body, but ultimately, it was only a shell to house their true form. They were made of light, of pure energy. Humans, even those who'd become immortal through the various ways - given the gift by the gods, turned into vampires or other immortal creatures - were still made up of tangible mass. — Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Finally, slowly, like a newly lighted oil lamp gathering kerosene up into its wick, Wally's face began to glow. He turned to Mack Fulton. "Mack, you know what's on my mind? — Clive Cussler

When you say fair, Samantha," said Mr Green through a peculiar smile, "do you mean one of those travelling fleets of vehicles that arrive and set up things like spinning Waltzers and Big Wheels and all manner of machines that whizz people around in circles and up and down and from side to side? Machines that could..." Mr Green turned away and his unnatural smile became even more unsettling... "easily go wrong! — Mark Gorton

When I wake up earlier than you and you
are turned to face me, face
on the pillow and hair spread around,
I take a chance and stare at you,
amazed in love and afraid
that you might open your eyes and have
the daylights scared out of you.
But maybe with the daylights gone
you'd see how much my chest and head
implode for you, their voices trapped
inside like unborn children fearing
they will never see the light of day.
The opening in the wall now dimly glows
its rainy blue and gray. I tie my shoes
and go downstairs to put the coffee on. — Ron Padgett

I think you made your opinion clear already. Go home, Eden. And don't worry. I won't bother you anymore." He unlaced his arms and turned away to pick up a new log. "But I want you to bother me! — Karen Witemeyer

Furi let Syn's chest rest on the carpet but he grabbed his hips with both hands and yanked him up to his knees. Syn grunted hard, but it quickly turned to a sexy whimper when Furi's warm tongue began lapping at his stretched hole. Laving and swirling his tongue around the pliant skin before delving in for a more thorough taste. "Ahhh. Fuck. Fuck, yeah," Syn moaned. "Mmmm. Furi what you do to me." Goddamnit this man would be Furi's ruin. Everything about him was so fucking sexy. The way he moaned. The way he cried out to him. The way he responded to him. And most of all the way he tasted to him. — A.E. Via

Well, shifters aren't. Shifters are happy. They're people; then they're animals; then they're people again. What's not to be happy about? They live with their friends. They drink. They ride their Harleys. They party in Alaska. They have hot shifter sex.
At that revelation, Jeff winged up his eyebrows at me, an invitation in his eyes. I bit down on a grin and shook my head sternly in response. Apparently unruffled, he shrugged and turned back to his computer. Happily. — Chloe Neill

I cannot feel like a duchess in my
mother's sitting room."
"What do you feel like, then?"
"Hmmm." She took a sip of her tea. "Just Daphne
Bridgerton, I suppose. It's difficult to shed the surname in
this clan. In spirit, that is."
"I hope that is a compliment," Lady Bridgerton remarked.
Daphne just smiled at her mother. "I shall never escape
you, I'm afraid." She turned to Gareth. "There is nothing like one's family to make one feel like one has never
grown up. — Julia Quinn

After some years of muddled thinking on the subject, he suddenly saw quite clearly what it was he had been running away from; why he had refused Sandy's first invitation, and what the trouble had been with Charles. It was also the trouble, he perceived, with nine-tenths or the people here tonight. They were specialists. They had not merely accepted their limitations, as Laurie was ready to accept his, loyal to his humanity if not to his sex, and bringing an extra humility to the hard study of human experience. They had identified themselves with their limitations; they were making a career of them. They had turned from all other reality, and curled up in them snugly, as in a womb. — Mary Renault

Please, help me. Young werewolves in love. I turned to walk into the house, moving carefully.
I had never much believed in God. Well, that's not quite true. I believed that there was a God, or something close enough to it to warrant the name if there were demons, there had to be angels, right? If there was a Devil, somewhere, there had to be a God. But He & I had never really seen things in quite the same terms.
All the same. I flashed a look up at the ceiling. I didn't say or think any words, but if God was listening, I hoped he got the message nonetheless. I didn't want of these children getting themselves killed. — Jim Butcher

In 'The Big Chill,' those characters are in middle age, thinking, 'Oh, God, I've turned into my parents. I've failed.' And in 'Beside Still Waters,' we're showing the struggles of people who actually want to be like their parents and feel they can't live up to their heights. — Chris Lowell

Gavin turned us to face Josh, a satisfied grin springing up when he noticed the condition of Josh's clothes.
"Thanks for the last-minute invitation, man." Josh chuckled, patting Gavin on the shoulder. "Shall I do the honors, Mr. Suave?"
"Sure thing, Frodo Baggins. By the way, I hear the Shire has impeccable dinner parties this time of year." The corners of Gavin's lips twitched and his eyebrows shot up as he gestured to a food stain of some sort near the collar of Josh's white shirt.
Josh's chin shot down to follow Gavin's amusement and he quickly tried to wipe away the crumbs. "Yeah, well ... you know how we hobbits like to eat. — Rachael Wade

From the Grapes of Wrath and a woman that would not be moved: 'On'y way you gonna get me to go is whup me.' She moved the jack handle gently again. 'An' I'll shame you, Pa. I won't take no whuppin', cryin' an' a-beggin'. I'll light into you. An' you ain't so sure you can whup me anyways. An' if ya do get me, I swear to God I'll wait till you got your back turned, or you're settin' down, an' I'll knock you belly-up with a bucket. I swear to Holy Jesus' sake I will. — John Steinbeck

Uh-oh," Moni sang, and nodded her head in Chantal's direction. "I think someone's a wee bit upset with us." She turned and walked a few steps backward.
"Careful," I said. "We're not out of range."
"Have no fear, Super Brain is here." Moni whipped out her calculator, holding it up like a shield.
"What are you going to do, daze her with denominators?"
"Maybe. But first I'm going to pummel her with my Pythagorean theorem. — Charity Tahmaseb

Rather to my surprise, I found myself genuinely indignant at the suggestion that murder was to be reintroduced as a means of political advancement for the first time since the Tudors, and even more indignant that the legal and political establishments in all their forms - which included, at that stage, the police - were going to cover up the whole episode. In the event, it turned out that my anxieties were unfounded, as Thorpe was totally innocent of all charges brought against him. — Auberon Waugh

If you read a book that's fiction and you get caught in the characters and the plot, and swept away, really, by the fiction of it - by the non-reality - you sometimes wind up changing your reality as well. Often, when the last page is turned, it will haunt you. — Jodi Picoult

On the day the park opened, half the state must have turned up. California weddings that June were small in attendance, the bride, groom, and guests quitting the ceremony for their cars after the second "I do"; especially hasty couples did away with the festivities altogether and simply took their vows en route to the park. — Pam Jones

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

steps, deep in thought. A breeze was slightly disturbing his hair. Then, as we watched, he walked very slowly up the steps. At the top, he turned and came back down, a little faster. Turning once more, my father became still again for several seconds, contemplating the steps before him. Eventually, he climbed them a second time, very deliberately. This time he continued on across the grass until he had almost reached the summerhouse, then turned and came walking slowly back, his eyes never leaving the ground. In fact, I can describe his manner at that moment no better than the way Miss Kenton puts it in her letter; it was indeed 'as though he hoped to find some precious jewel he had dropped there'. — Kazuo Ishiguro

She didn't know Matt had followed her until he grabbed her shoulder, halting her headlong rush to nowhere. He turned her into his arms, pulled her against his chest, crushed her mouth in a searing kiss.
"Shane," he said when he raised his head from hers. "I love you. I love you."
Her heart opened and the wall inside her trembled as she clung to him. "Burn me up, Matt," she said, her voice a ragged whisper. "Burn it away. Please, please, burn it all away."
She heard him growl deep in his throat and he lifted her into his arms in one swift movement.
As he carried her back across the parking lot and through the door of her room, she rained kisses on his neck and the hard line of his jaw. His skin was warm and damp and tasted of salt and desire. — Jane Taylor Starwood

I was so intimidated by the thought of improvising back in the '80s when I was in Chicago. I think the opportunity only even came up once that I can recall, and I turned down the offer. It was to go improvise in some club in the suburbs or something. Good God, I couldn't think of anything more frightening than to get up there without a plan. — Neil Flynn

The ethics of plagiarism have turned into the narcissism of small differences: because journalism cannot own up to its heavily derivative nature, it must enforce originality on the level of the sentence. — Malcolm Gladwell

Liall realized that this was the first time he had really been alone with Scarlet.
He stood up and held out his hand. The blanket dropped from his shoulders. "Come here."
Scarlet reached out to him tentatively and Liall quickly dragged him into his arms. He fits there perfectly, Liall thought, snug if not a little small. Scarlet did not respond at first, as if he would pull away, and for a moment Liall believed he had made a huge mistake. Then, surprisingly, Scarlet sighed and his arms went around Liall's back. Scarlet turned his head to rest his cheek against Liall's bare chest as hey listened to the rain batten on the roof.
"Thank you for saving my life." Liall murmured. — Kirby Crow

My friend Emma, who likes things to add up neatly, claims that this is because my parents died when I was too young to take it in: they were there one day and gone the next, crashing through that fence so hard and fast they left it splintered for good. When I was Lexie Madison for eight months she turned into a real person to me, a sister I lost or left behind on the way; a shadow somewhere inside me, like the shadows of vanishing twins that show up on people's X-rays once in a blue moon. Even before she came back to find me I knew I owed her something, for being the one who lived. — Tana French

There are four places of regular and fixed occurrence (in the history of) all Buddhas:--first, the place where they attained to perfect Wisdom (and became Buddha); second, the place where they turned the wheel of the Law;(20) third, the place where they preached the Law, discoursed of righteousness, and discomfited (the advocates of) erroneous doctrines; and fourth, the place where they came down, after going up to the Trayatrimsas heaven to preach the Law for the benefit of their mothers. — Faxian

If I am alive this is my book, and my father lives now in the afterlife that is a book, a thing not vague or virtual but something you can hold and feel and smell because to my mind heaven like life must be a thing sensual and real. And my book will be a river and have the Salmon literal and metaphoric leaping inside it and be called History of the Rain, so that his book does not perish, and you will know my book exists because of him and because of his books and his aspiration to leap up, to rise. You will know that I found him in his books, in the covers his hands held, the pages they turned, in the paper and the print, but also in the worlds those books contained, where now I have been and you have been too. You will know the story goes from the past to the present and into the future, and like a river flows. — Niall Williams

Shocked my old friend from China, Deja Vu, when I turned up at his door without notice. — Nikhil Sharda

It's complicated. I think when bad things happen - whether someone dies or people argue or split up - you get to a point where it's just too hard to go back. There's so much lost. So many versions of the truth. So many versions of how things might've turned out differently. We all long for what could have been. For some people, it's just easier to move forward and try to forget. — Sarah Ockler

That turned-up collar. The jacket that zipped all the way down the front into a nice fitted shape. The white denim that made my untanned skin look like a color. — Tina Fey

The realization had brought with it a sudden stark insight into another kind of glamour. It was quite a long time ago now, but he saw it quite clearly: how the media and the advertisers had created their own kind of glamour to seduce whole populations into a kind of insanity. Food that was bad for people, drink that turned them into mindless thugs, countless tons of useless rubbish, all dressed up by advertising glamour to appear like things people couldn't live without. And the human race had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, becoming....[c]onsumers of limitless glamour, all of it ultimately worthless. — Kate Thompson

You're not terrified of me. You're terrified of letting yourself care for me, and I can't say I blame you. People who love me usually end up dead. But you see, I'm not going to give you any choice. You belong to me now whether you like it or not."
"I don't like it, not one bit!"
"Try to escape," he suggested coolly. "Go ahead. See what happens. Give me one excuse to take what I want from you, even if it is against your will. I want you that much. Too damned much." He turned without warning and kissed her, flattening her back against the pine mast. — Gaelen Foley

The Shraken-nurse turned on the nozzles for each of the drips, and the contents began to work their respective ways through his system. The left drip had a chill to it that made him feel like he was bathing in a ice-bath pumped full of extra strong Earth-based mint; while the right hand fluids were warm and fuzzy, like he was four years old and sleeping in a barrelful of teddy-bears on a hot summer's day. They quickly found their way up to his brain, and collided there in a meeting of hot and cold that, had the encounter happened in the atmosphere, would have produced the biggest cumulus cloud in the cosmos. — John K. Irvine

She gave me a lopsided quirk of a smile. "Joss," her voice hoarse, barely audible.
I wanted to run. I know. That's horrible. But I wanted to run away from this part. People ending up in hospital had never concluded well in my life, and seeing her there, so vulnerable, so exhausted, just reminded me of how close we might have come to losing her.
I felt a hand squeeze mine and I turned my head to see Hannah watching me. She looked as pale as I felt, and her fingers were trembling between mine. She was scared too. I smiled reassuringly at her, hoping I was pulling it off. "Ellie is okay. Come on." I tugged on her hand and pulled her with me to Ellie's bed side.
I reached out for the hand Ellie had held out for her mom, and I slid mine into it, feeling relief and love as she gave me a gentle squeeze. — Samantha Young

You mean you live down here?' Matilda asked.
'I do', Miss Honey replied, but she said no more.
Matilda had never once stopped to think about where Miss Honey might be living. She had always regarded her purely as a teacher, a person who turned up out of nowhere and taught at school and then went away again. — Roald Dahl

He awoke at five, to the whine of the television test pattern, turned off the set, and listened for the wind. It had moderated and seemed to be coming from a different quarter, but it still carried rain. He debated calling Quint, but thought, no, no use: we'll be going even if this blows up into a gale. He went upstairs and quietly dressed. Before he left the bedroom, he looked at Ellen, who had a frown on her sleeping face. "I do love you, you know," he whispered, and he kissed her brow. He started down the stairs and then, impulsively, went and looked in the boys' bedrooms. They were all asleep. — Peter Benchley

He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning. — Harper Lee

Always the way!" muttered the Jew to himself as he turned homewards. "The worst of these women is, that a very little thing serves to call up some long-forgotten feeling; and the best of them is, that it never lasts. Ha! ha! — Charles Dickens

Dumbledore reached across to Professor McGonagall's desk, picked up the blood-stained silver sword, and handed it to Harry. Dully, Harry turned it over, the rubies blazing in the firelight. And then he saw the name engraved just below the hilt. Godric Gryffindor. "Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the hat, Harry," said Dumbledore simply. — J.K. Rowling

Voldemort held up a large white hand, and Yaxley subsided at once, watching resentfully as Voldemort turned back to Snape. — J.K. Rowling

While there is widespread recognition that the War on Drugs is racist and that politicians have refused to invest in jobs or schools in their communities, parents of offenders and ex-offenders still feel intense shame - shame that their children have turned to crime despite the lack of obvious alternatives. One mother of an incarcerated teen, Constance, described her angst this way: "Regardless of what you feel like you've done for your kid, it still comes back on you, and you feel like, 'Well, maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I messed up. You know, maybe if I had a did it this way, then it wouldn't a happened that way.'" After her son's arrest, she could not bring herself to tell friends and relatives and kept the family's suffering private. Constance is not alone. — Michelle Alexander

That was what bothered him most: the fact that she seemed to encourage his advances, and even granted him certain liberties, up to the point at which she turned on him with violence or laughter. He did not know which was worse, the chuckling or the blows; there was something terribly unmanly about being on the receiving end of either. But he looked forward to a time when he could repay her, could laugh at her or strike her as he saw fit. Thus marriage was already in his mind. Next — Shelby Foote

I got bigger problems than that life hasn't turned out the way you hoped. You can harp on the past all you please, Dow, like some old woman upset cause her tits used to stay up by themselves, or you can shut your fucking hole and help me get on with things. — Joe Abercrombie

Circenn moved swiftly, intending to catch the tear upon his finger, kiss it away, then kiss away all her pain and fear, and assure her that he would permit no harm to touch her and would spend his life making things up to her; but she dropped the flask onto the table and turned swiftly.
"Please, leave me alone," she said and turned away from him. "Let me comfort you, Lisa," he entreated.
"Leave me alone."
For the first time in his life, Circenn
felt utterly helpless. Let her grieve, his heart instructed. She would need to grieve, for discovering that the flask didn't work was tantamount to lowering her mother into a solitary grave. She would grieve her mother as if she'd in truth died that very day. May God
forgive me, he prayed. I did not know what I was doing when I cursed that flask. — Karen Marie Moning

The first time Akash took Supriya to view the pool, I rose up in strident protest, and he was astonished by the way she turned her face away, her eyes filled with terror. "I am petrified of water!" she whispered, as he tried to cajole her to at least put her feet in. — Deepti Menon

One answer turned up in the violent video games the two were obsessed with playing. Graphic effects realistic enough to blur the line between fantasy and reality allow these kill-for-thrill games to be used to break down a person's aversion to killing. At the time of the massacre, Doom, the game favored by one of the mass murderers, was being adapted by the Marine Corps for its own training purposes. — Marlene Steinberg

A journalist's job is to collect information," Ovid said to Pete.
"Nope," Pete said. "That's what we do. It's not what they do."
Dellarobia was unready to be pushed out of the conversation just like that. "Then what do you think the news people drive their Jeeps all the way out here for?"
"To shore up the prevailing view of their audience and sponsors."
"Pete takes a dim view of his fellow humans," Ovid said. "He prefers insects.
Dellarobia turned her chair halfway around to face Pete, scraping noisily against the cement floor. "You're saying people only tune in to news they know they're going to agree with?"
"Bingo," said Pete. — Barbara Kingsolver

I knew if lucy broke up with me i would love her til i turned to dust — Alyxandra Harvey

I'm a stand-up comedian-turned-actor-turned-vampire at night. — Vir Das

Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and beheld a flying roll. — Zechariah 5:1

When they put me in jail, that's when they turned me into an activist. Up until the time I went to jail, I was just a comedian. — Tommy Chong

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

The last four days
where everything has finally made some sense. And why is she so ready to throw this away? Because.
Because eventually every relationship she's been in has turned to shit. Eventually she ends up
screwing everything up. So maybe it's better to leave now before people's feelings get hurt. — Joe Meno

Anyway ... she's asleep, turned away from me on her side. The usual stratagems and repositionings have failed to induce narcosis in me, so I decide to settle myself against the soft zigzag of her body. As I move and start to nestle my shin against a calf whose muscles are loosened by sleep, she sense what I'm doing, and without waking reaches up with her left hand and pulls the hair off her shoulders on the top of her head, leaving me her bare nape to nestle in. Each time she does this I feel a shudder of love at the exactness of this sleeping courtesy. My eyes prickle with tears, and I have to stop myself from waking her up to remind her of my love. At that moment, unconsciously, she's touched some secret fulcrum of my feelings for her. — Julian Barnes

At its most intense, the admissions process didn't force kids to be Lisa Simpson; it turned them into Eddie Haskell. ("You look lovely in that new dress, Ms. Admissions Counselor.") It guaranteed that teenagers would pursue life with a single ulterior motive, while pretending they weren't. It coated their every undertaking in a thin lacquer of insincerity. Befriending people in hopes of a good rec letter; serving the community to advertise your big heart; studying hard just to puff up the GPA and climb the greasy poll of class rank - nothing was done for its own sake. Do good; do well; but make sure you can prove it on a college app. So — Andrew Ferguson

Two women, one fat and the other slim, sat on straw-bottomed chairs, knitting black wool. The slim one got up and walked straight at me - still knitting with downcast eyes - and only just as I began to think of getting out of her way, as you would for a somnambulist, stood still, and looked up. Her dress was as plain as an umbrella-cover, and she turned round without a word and preceded me into a waiting-room. — Joseph Conrad

The wiry man scratched his head, looked the two inquisitors up and down and cleared his throat softly. "We must be quick." He turned to go, pulling his cloak over his head and shuffling through the door into the moonlight. The two inquisitors moved with impossible silence behind, floating across the straw-covered floor like the cats on the walls outside the hut. The cats froze at the disturbance before scurrying noiselessly into the shadows as the three silhouettes crossed the ten yards of grass before the blackness of the forest swallowed them. No fires flickered at this time, when the full moon was highest in the cloudless summer sky, and the three were the only waking souls in the hamlet. — Gregory Figg

I just think that I screwed up what could have turned into a more significant relationship, or at least a lasting friendship. — Emily Giffin

Sure, I buried it. I buried it and buried it and turned away from everything light and sweet and delicate and lovely and became so scared and scarred and burdened and fucked up. But that goodness is there, inside - it must be. — Nic Sheff

So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern ... Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. — George Orwell

If I was to get turned down by a girl, I'd just give up and say, 'Oh well.' — Liam Hemsworth

We have 11 horses up at our country home, six of which are rescue animals ... Two of them are 'cop horses' from the mounted police, ages 4 and 5, who turned out to have physical problems that weren't suitable for the kind of work they have to do. Now, with us, they are just out to pasture and have nothing but a good time, eating their heads off, romping and frolicking, and just doing all good horsey things. — Mary Tyler Moore

The shrimp's protein and ours are not exactly the same, but they're so
similar that if you turned up in court and tried to convince a judge that your
version was not a badly concealed plagiarism, you'd be very unlikely to win.
In fact, you'd be a laughing stock, for rhodopsin is not restricted to vent shrimp
and humans but is omnipresent throughout the animal kingdom.... Trying to persuade a judge that your rhodopsin is not plagiarised
would be like trying to clajm that your television set is fundamentally different
from everyone else's, just because it's bigger or has a flat screen. — Nick Lane

All of your so-called faults, all the things which you don't like about yourself are your greatest assets," she said. "They are simply overamplified. The volume has been turned up a bit too much, that's all. Just turn down the volume a little. Soon, you - and everyone else - will see your weaknesses as your strengths, your 'negatives' as your 'positives.' They will become wonderful tools, ready to work for you rather than against you. All you have to do is learn to call on these personality traits in amounts that are appropriate to the moment. Judge how much of your wonderful qualities are needed, and don't give any more than that. — Debbie Ford

Fine." Magnus stood up. "But," he added, pausing by Alec's chair and leaning in close to him, "you are not trivial."
Alec flushed. "If you say so," he said.
"I say so," said Magnus, and he turned to follow Isabelle out of the room. — Cassandra Clare

I grew up playing with kids from Hurt Village, playing with kids from other housing projects, Lamar Terrace, because my grandmother lived in that particular area. So, I always wondered how I would have turned out if I would have lived in that particular given circumstance. — Katori Hall

Whoa." Adrian leapt up and rushed to Jill's side. "You need to let this go. What, are you going to start a fight with some girl?"
Reed turned his glare on Adrian. "Stay out of this."
"The hell I will! You're crazy."
If anyone had asked me to make up a list of people most likely to risk a fight in defense of a lady's honor, Adrian Ivashkov would have been low on that list. Yet there he stood, face hard and hand sitting protectively on Jill's shoulder. I was in awe. And impressed. — Richelle Mead

I thought to myself then that it didn't matter where I ended up; I'd always be living that summer in that town, wishing that I;d done things differently, tormented by the fact that I hadn't. I'd never go far enough to be able to escape it. Maybe you're happy about that. OR maybe you're not. Maybe you're carrying your own regrets, and you understand how easy it is to let your life get away from you. I wish I could be the hero of this story, but I'm not. I'm just the one to tell it, at least my part in it- the story of Katie Mackey and the people who failed her. It's an old one, this tale of selfish desires and the lament that follows, as ancient as the story of Adam and Eve turned away forever from paradise. — Lee Martin

When she had the strength, she began to fold the tiny clothes and blankets and cloth diapers and put them into plain brown boxes. She didn't stop working, but the sobs came and distorted her face, bleared her eyes, made her nose run. She didn't hear Jack come to the door. When she looked up he was watching her silently, and then he turned away, uncomfortable, embarrassed by her unharnessed grief. He didn't put his hand on her shoulder. Didn't hold her. Didn't say a word. Even these many years later, she was unable to forgive him that. — Eowyn Ivey

The columns of mounted men moved forward, passed out through the gates of the Palace of Karma, turned off the roadway and headed up the slope that lay to the southeast of the city of Mahartha, comrades blazing like the dawn at their back. — Roger Zelazny

I turned up the inane sound effects and let them fill the room, setting up an atmosphere of mind-body pollution while Miss Chianti and I got better acquainted. A couple of glasses had me convinced that she's a real sweetheart, though a protracted rendezvous was probably going to leave me regretting the entire encounter. It's always the quiet ones that come back to bite you. — Alice Yi-Li Yeh

Werewolves are not the subject of academe," she said, "but you know what the professors would be saying if they were. 'Monsters die out when the collective imagination no longer needs them. Species death like this is nothing more than a shift in the aggregate psychic agenda. In ages past the beast in man was hidden in the dark, disavowed. The transparency of modern history makes that impossible: We've seen ourselves in concentration camps, the gulags, the jungles, the killing fields, we've read ourselves in the annals of True Crime. Technology turned up the lights and now there's no getting away from the fact: The beast is redundant. It's been us all along. — Glen Duncan

Don't tell me," Jace said, "Simon's turned himself into an ocelot and you want me to do something about it before Isabelle makes him into a stole. Well, you'll have have to wait till tomorrow. I'm out of commission." He pointed at himself - he was wearing blue pajamas with a hole in the sleeve. "Look. Jammies."
"Jace," Clary said, "this is important."
"Don't tell me," he said. "You've got a drawing emergency. You need a nude model. Well, I'm not in the mood. You could always ask Hodge," he said as an afterthought. "I hear he'll do anything for a -"
"JACE!" she interrupted him, her voice rising to a scream. "JUST SHUT UP FOR A SECOND AND LISTEN, WILL YOU? — Cassandra Clare

Bonnie saw ropes hanging loose, poles falling away, tree-tops sinking beneath her. As they rose, the sun rose with them. Its warmth turned the dark skin of the fiery balloon midnight blue. They flew straight up. Above them, the sweet, clear music of the lonely pipe called to them. Then the smooth sky puckered into cloth-of-blue and drew aside. They passed straight through ... — Pauline Fisk

I need a bath." He chuckled. "You smell of smoke, as do I." The duke turned, leaning heavily on his cane. "Jameson, open the carriage door. We shall return to the house." Beth smiled up at Christian. "Shall we adjourn to the house to get some ointment for your hands and a bath, my love?" His eyes lit. "A bath?" Grandfather snorted. "Someone send to London for a special license! Now. — Karen Hawkins

What they say is, life goes on, and that is mostly true. The mail is delivered and the Christmas lights go up and the ladders get put away and you open yet another box of cereal. In time, the volume of my feelings would be turned down in gentle increments to a near quiet, and yet the record would still spin, always spin. There was a place for Rose so deeply within myself that it was another country, another world, with its own light and time and its own language. A lost world. Yet its foundations and edges were permanent-the ruins of Pompeii, the glorious remnants or the Forum. A world that endured, even as it retreated into the past. A world visited, imagined, ever waiting, yet asleep — Deb Caletti

I wasn't paying attention," said Myrtle dramatically. "Peeves upset me so much I came in here and tried to kill myself. Then, of course, I remembered that I'm
that I'm
" "Already dead," said Ron hopefully. Myrtle gave a tragic sob, rose up in the air, turned over, and dived headfirst into the toilet, splashing water all over them and vanishing from sight, although from the direction of her muffled sobs, she had come to rest somewhere in the U-bend. — J.K. Rowling

Alec Lightwood, eldest son of the Shadowhunters who ran the New York Institute, had turned up on Magnus's doorstep, thanked him for saving his life, and asked him out while turning fifteen shades between puce and mauve. In response Magnus had promptly lost his mind, kissed him, and made a date for Friday. — Cassandra Clare

By the spring of 1963, Las Vegas was made up of an odd convergence of gamblers, gangsters, and government. All three forces, intentionally or unintentionally, catered to every kind of human weakness. Although the aboveground nuclear blasts were gone, the town was still full of glitzy, beckoning casinos; flamboyant, roguish celebrities; down-and-out and entrepreneurial prostitutes; and notorious, brutal criminals. By now it had gained its much deserved reputation as "Sin City" - universally considered a town where "just about anything goes." And surrounding it were the infamous "holes in the desert." Many of Las Vegas's problems were known to be buried in those same holes.
So, naturally, as a woman who relished audacity, this would be the place to which my mother would move my sister and me. As it turned out, that was the other part of her telephone call's "exciting news. — Gary Spetz

...he could feel hot tears coming to his eyes as the image of that night, outside the house as the November wind blew black leaves up off the ground and the sky turned colors like bruised flesh. — David Nickle

I consistently run into young adults who have quickly turned away from traditional jobs at great companies to try their hand at a start-up. I believe that some of this stems from the desire to strike it big like Mark Zuckerberg, but I also believe it is because starting a company has become far cooler than working in one. — Maynard Webb

We teach girls shame. Close your legs; cover yourself. We make them feel as though being born female, they're already guilty of something. And so, girls grow up to be women who silence themselves. They grow up to be women who cannot say what they truly think. And they grow up
and this is the worst thing we do to girls
they grow up to be women who have turned pretense into an art form. — Chimamamda Ngozi Adichie