Under The Stairs Quotes & Sayings

Into no other city does the sight of the country enter so far; if you do not meet a butterfly, you shall certainly catch a glimpse of far-away trees upon your walk; and the place is full of theatre tricks in the way of scenery. You peep under an arch, you descend stairs that look as if they would land you in a cellar, you turn to the back-window of a grimy tenement in a lane: - and behold! you are face-to-face with distant and bright prospects. You turn a corner, and there is the sun going down into the Highland hills. You look down an alley, and see ships tacking for the Baltic. — Robert Louis Stevenson

So if you find nothing in the corridors open the doors, and if you find nothing behind these doors there are more floors, and if you find nothing up there, don't worry, just leap up another flight of stairs. As long as you don't stop climbing, the stairs won't end, under your climbing feet they will go on growing upwards — Franz Kafka

I've got to have wheels," Theo called after him, and swore under his breath as he heard his father
walk down the stairs. "You might as well be dead out here without wheels." He flopped back on the
bed to brood up at the ceiling.
Maddy just shook her head. "You're such a moron, Theo."
"You're so ugly, Maddy."
"You're never going to get a car if you nag him. If I help you get a car, you have to drive me to the
mall twelve times, without being mean about it."
"How are you going to help me get a car, you little geek?" But he was already considering. She
almost always got what she wanted.
She sauntered into the room, made herself at home. "First the deal. Then we discuss — Nora Roberts

We were young. We were bored. And the old electroshock therapy machine was just under the stairs in a box next to the Hoover. — Augusten Burroughs

Strike, who had heard the testimony of Brittany Brockbank and Rhona Laing and many others like them, knew that most women's rapists and killers were not strangers in masks who reached out of the dark space under the stairs. They were the father, the husband, the mother's or the sister's boyfriend ... — Robert Galbraith

Perhaps because of all the money poured into this, the things behind the spanking displays look old and crummy, like articles from a time that has been left behind. I slap down the stairs in my sandals. I am annoyed that this past can look so tawdry and so safe, as if destined from the outset to end up behind glass, securely roped off and under pressure-button control. And I am annoyed at myself: what's the problem? Isn't a museum the place for things that are over? — Anna Funder

You gonna keep her under the stairs like Harry fucking Potter? — Abbi Glines

We drove under a giant gray wing and headed out over open blacktop straight for a small white airplane standing alone. A corporate thing. A business jet. A Lear, or a Gulfstream, or whatever rich people buy these days. The paint winked in the sun. There was no writing on it, apart from a tail number. No name, no logo. Just white paint. Its engines were turning slowly, and its stairs were down. — Lee Child

Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would? He had no friends, no other relatives - he didn't belong to the library, so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:
Mr. H. Potter
The Cupboard under the Stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey — J.K. Rowling

At the stair-foot Hephaistion was waiting. He happened to be there, as he happened to have a ball handy if Alexander wanted a game, or water if he was thirsty; not by calculation, but in a constant awareness by which no smallest trifle was missed. Now, when he came down the stairs with a shut mouth and blue lines under his eyes, Hephaistion received some mute signal he understood, and fell into step beside him. — Mary Renault

We were halfway through our first joint when we heard Tom's footsteps coming down the stairs.
'Shhhh ... Shhhh!'
The footsteps approached my door.
Silence.
And then a piece of A4 paper appeared under my door.
Neither of us said a word as I crept over and picked it up. It was a drawing of two stick men, each with a massive joint in their hand. And written underneath were the words 'Rule Breakers'. — Dougie Poynter

was going to pay the price. He was going to die. Then his fingers finally found the valve. At first it wouldn't turn, and he realized he was trying to spin it the wrong way. He reversed his fingers and a rush of cool, blessed air gusted into the mask. Ollie lay under the potatoes, gasping. He jumped a little when the fire blew in the door at the top of the stairs; for a moment he could — Stephen King

They could be making her sleep in a closet under the stairs! — Meg Cabot

I bought Justin Bieber's house ... He had, like, this nook under the stairs which I didn't need, so I covered it up. When I ran into him, he was like 'What did you do with the nook? I used to go in there and play video games.' When I told him it was gone, he was so upset. I didn't think this 20-year-old boy would even care! — Khloe Kardashian

It is moonlight. Alone in the silence
I ascend my stairs once more,
While waves remote in pale blue starlight
Crash on a white sand shore.
It is moonlight. The garden is silent.
I stand in my room alone.
Across my wall, from the far-off moon,
A rain of fire is thrown.
There are houses hanging above the stars,
And stars hung under the sea,
And a wind from the long blue vault of time
Waves my curtains for me.
I wait in the dark once more,
swung between space and space:
Before the mirror I lift my hands
And face my remembered face. — Conrad Aiken

In the end he realizes there's only one thing to do. He grabs her under the arms and drags her towards the stairs. By the time he gets her there, her pajama pants have slid down, revealing what she sometimes calls (called, he reminds himself) her winky. Once, when he was in bed with her, and she was giving him relief for a particularly bad headache, he tried to touch her winky and she slapped his hand away. Hard. Don't you ever, she had said. That's where you came from. — Stephen King

With my sister perched on my arm, I walked to the elevator. A business man with a rolling suitcase was waiting by the doors. His eyes widened as he saw me. I must've looked pretty strange - a tall black kid in dirty, ragged Egyptian clothes, with a weird box tucked under one arm and a bird of prey perched on the other.
"How's it going?" I said.
"I'll take the stairs." He hurried off. — Rick Riordan

He's gonna end up cursing around Blaire, and you're gonna be sleeping on the couch for a week. Maybe she'll stick your ass under the stairs. I hear payback is a bitch, I told him, referring to how Blaire had slept in a room under Rush's stairs when she first came to town. — Abbi Glines

Well, I would tell Danny. I'd probably edit for Josh. That is if there was
anything worth editing.
"Joshua Roberts, you had better get your butt on the move!" Danny
hollered as he walked down the stairs.
I was nervously waiting for them to leave as I pretended to watch TV in
the front room.
"We're going to be late."
"So the hair crisis is under control I see."
"A stray hair will never win between a bottle of gel and a gay man," he
declared with a smile. "Joshua!"
"I'm coming. I'm coming."
I heard his sandals click on the stairs and I waited to see if the mental
image matched the real one. To my non surprise it did. — Kaitlin Scott

Spring
TO what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

One clear night while the others slept, I climbed
the stairs to the roof of the house and under a sky
strewn with stars I gazed at the sea, at the spread of it,
the rolling crests of it raked by the wind, becoming
like bits of lace tossed in the air. I stood in the long
whispering night, waiting for something, a sign, the approach
of a distant light, and I imagined you coming closer,
the dark waves of your hair mingling with the sea,
and the dark became desire, and desire the arriving light.
The nearness, the momentary warmth of you as I stood
on that lonely height watching the slow swells of the sea
break on the shore and turn briefly into glass and disappear ...
Why did I believe you would come out of nowhere? Why with all
that the world offers would you come only because I was here? — Mark Strand

So with Easter. It was fun, as a child, to bound down the stairs to find seasonal sweet-treats under each plate, but again, with the passing of time, and the shadow of death over our broken family circle, I've seen Easter as highest necessity. If hope is to flourish, it had better be true. — Gerhard E Frost

I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane,' said Diana, 'during your walk on the moor. But go after him; he is now lingering in the passage expecting you - he will make it up.'
I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always rather be happy than dignified; and I ran after him - he stood at the foot of the stairs. — Charlotte Bronte

I could have taken you to the lab right now and been done with you.Now I have to babysit you until Sunday." He shakes his head and pushes past me, grumbling under his breath.
"Gee, thanks. But you're the worst babysitter in the history of the world, Dreyden. Babysitters are supposed to be fun," I say to his back, and then stick out my tongue. Very thirteen-year old. He turns and strides up to me, eyes full of fire, not stopping until our noses touch. I gulp and force myself not to step back. "Nothing about life is fum anymore, Fo," he says. And then he leaves, feet thumping sown the stairs. — Bethany Wiggins

Jem raised his hand, and his witchlight flared into life, frightening a group of blackbeetles. They scurried across the floor, causing Will to grimace. "Nice place to live, isn't it? Let's hope they left something behind other than filth. Forwarding addresses, a few severed limbs, a prostitute or two ... "
"Indeed. Perhaps, if we're fortunate, we can still catch syphilis."
"Or demon pox," Will suggested cheerfully, trying the door under the stairs. It swung open, unlocked as the front door had been. "There's always demon pox."
"Demon pox does not exist."
"Oh ye of little faith," said Will, disappearing into the darkness under the stairs. — Cassandra Clare

Harry put his quill between his teeth and reached underneath his pillow for his ink bottle and a roll of parchment. Slowly and very carefully he unscrewed the ink bottle, dipped his quill into it, and began to write, pausing every now and then to listen, because if any of the Dursleys heard the scratching of his quill on their way to the bathroom, he'd probably find himself locked in the cupboard under the stairs for the rest of the summer. The — J.K. Rowling

THE RELIABLE WAY OUT OF OBESITY IS VIA PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. This point has been lost on the hundreds of folks who have railed against my arguments for food addiction in periodicals, so I"m eager to make it here: No one but me put the food in my mouth. Even if I had grown up imprisoned in a crawl space under the basement stairs (I wasn't), even if tragedy has befallen me every 15 minutes since (it hasn't), I"m still responsible for what I eat. If my food is out of control (it was), then I'm responsible for finding, requesting, and accepting the help I need. — Michael Prager

Our house was bombed, and the roof fell in. We were sitting under the stairs of the basement, and we were quite safe, but it brought home the realization. In two nights 400 people were killed in small town. — Roger Bannister

Partridge was pretending not to lurk near the stairs. 'The body's under the desk,' I said as I passed, just to give her something to worry about. — Jodi Taylor

A moment later I heard my sweetheart running up the stairs. My heart expanded with such force that it almost blotted me out. I hitched up the pants of my pajamas, flung the door open: and simultaneously Lolita arrived, in her Sunday frock, stamping, panting, and the she was in my arms, her innocent mouth melting under the ferocious pressure of dark male jaws, my palpitating darling! — Vladimir Nabokov

At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitful face of hope and of despair — T. S. Eliot

Tying the laces. The bottom line was that Grandpa would have been willing to risk his life on the gamble that the shadows of Tanu and Coulter meant to offer meaningful assistance. He would have followed them if he could have done so alone. He simply was not willing to risk Seth's life. To Seth, this proved that the risk was worth taking. If Grandpa loved him too much to let him take a worthwhile risk, then he would bypass Grandpa. Shoes secure, Seth slid his emergency kit out from under the bed. Then he tiptoed down the attic stairs, flinching at every creak. At the bottom of the steps the house remained dark and quiet. Seth hurried along the hall and down the stairs to the entry hall. He stole into Grandpa's study, tugged a chain to turn on a desk lamp, and rummaged through Tanu's bag of potions. After examining several bottles, Seth found the one he wanted, grabbed it, and closed the bag. — Brandon Mull

Will: "Nice place to live, isn't it? Let's hope they left something behind other than filth. Forwarding addresses, a few severed limbs, a prostitute or two ... "
Jem: "Indeed. Perhaps, if we're fortunate, we can still catch syphilis."
"Or demon pox," Will suggested cheerfully, trying the door under the stairs. — Cassandra Clare

Only after the trial did things come into focus, that night taking on the now familiar arc. Every detail and blip made public. There are times I try to guess what part I might have played. What amount would belong to me. It's easiest to think I wouldn't have done anything, like I would have stopped them, my presence the mooring that kept Suzanne in the human realm. That was the wish, the cogent parable. But there was another possibility that slouched along, insistent and unseen. The bogeyman under the bed, the snake at the bottom of the stairs: maybe I would have done something, too. Maybe it would have been easy. — Emma Cline

My brothers are idiots.
Anyone can see that under the scars and the attitude, Isabeau is more fragile than she looks. And as a reclusive Hound princess, her first introduction to the royal family shouldn't be a dose of Hypnos and four idiots gawking at her.
If I'd managed not to gawk, they sure as hell could have. She was beautiful, fierce, and utterly unlike anyone I'd ever known.
It was really hard not to gawk.
Much better to pace outside her door with one of our Bouviers sitting at the top of the stairs watching me curiously.
"This sucks, Boudicca," I told her. "I don't think we inherited Dad's diplomacy."
She laid her chin on her paws. I could have sworn she rolled her eyes. — Alyxandra Harvey

Still," he added firmly, "I think you'd best drink no more of it, or ye won't get back up the stairs." He tilted the glass and deliberately drained it himself, then handed the empty goblet to Laoghaire without looking at her. "Take that back, will ye, lass," he said casually. "It's grown late; I believe I'll see Mistress Beauchamp to her chamber." And putting a hand under my elbow, he steered me toward the archway, leaving the girl staring after us with an expression that made me relieved that looks in fact cannot kill. — Diana Gabaldon

I keep my own personality in a cupboard under the stairs at home so that no one else can see it or nick it. — Dawn French

When I was 5, someone thought it was smart to let me watch The People Under the Stairs. It might not have even been that scary, but I do remember skinned people in cages under the stairs and a man who lived in a wall without a tongue ... and that's why I cry after sex. — Ellen Page

The actual stuff my family owned, those boxes under my stairs, I can't quite bear to look at. I like other people's things better. They come with other people's history. — Gillian Flynn

Don't you want to take a last look at the place?" he asked Hedwig, who was still sulking with her head under her wing. "We'll never be here again. Don't you want to remember all the good times? I mean, look at this doormat. What memories . . . Dudley puked on it after I saved him from the dementors . . . Turns out he was grateful after all, can you believe it? . . . And last summer, Dumbledore walked through that front door . . . ."
Harry lost the thread of his thoughts for a moment and Hedwig did nothing to help him retrieve it, but continued to sit with her head under her wing. Harry turned his back on the front door.
"And under here, Hedwig" - Harry pulled open a door under the stairs - "is where I used to sleep! You never knew me then - Blimey, it's small, I'd forgotten . . . . — J.K. Rowling

I don't need any bonus material to throw me over the edge later.
Or don a flight of stairs, under a bus, and straight back to the mental ward. — Myra McEntire

Emma hears me come up the stairs and asks me to watch a movie with her. I stick Band-Aids on my weeping cuts, put on pink pajamas so we match, and snuggle with her under her rainbow comforter. She arranges all of her stuffed animals around us in a circle, everyone facing the TV, then presses play ... Ghosts dare not enter here. — Laurie Halse Anderson

There was someone in his little attic room. Geralt knew it before he even reached the door, sensing it through the barely perceptible vibration of his medallion. He blew out the oil lamp which had lit his path up the stairs, pulled the dagger from his boot, slipped it into the back of his belt and pressed the door handle. The room was dark. But not for a witcher. He was deliberately slow in crossing the threshold; he closed the door behind him carefully. The next second he dived at the person sitting on his bed, crushed them into the linen, forced his forearm under their chin and reached for his dagger. He didn't pull it out. Something wasn't right. "Not a bad start," she said in a muffled voice, lying motionless beneath him. "I expected something like this, but I didn't think we'd both be in bed so quickly. Take your hand from my throat please." "It's — Andrzej Sapkowski

When I was young - really young - I used to think that the kids who had money, who were popular at school and who did well at things must have had horrible home lives - abusive parents or nasty siblings or lived in cupboard under stairs.
It's kind of sick when you think about it, but what I figured was that life should be fair - everyone had to have good and bad things in their lives, and no one could have a wholly good life or a wholly bad life because that would upset the balance of things.
I know now that I was wrong. — Steph Bowe

My daughter lives in an apartment (hovel) in Brooklyn, so disgusting the roaches don't even bother hiking up the four flights of stairs to her door. Did I mention that she has a family of mice living under her stove? If she would promise to carry a weapon in her bag, I would never ask her to visit again. Best Mother's Day gift I could ask for! — Kate Siegel

He would not chance arrest by crawling into a corner of one of the old houses on Lower Broadway where the cops swept through periodically with their mindless net. What difference did it make whether four or six or eight lost men slept under a roof and out of the wind in a house with broken stairs and holes in the floors you could fall through to death, a house that for five or maybe ten years had been inhabited only by pigeons? What difference? — William Kennedy

We can hide in a cupboard under the stairs our whole life and it'll still find us. Death will show up wearing an invisible cloak and it will wave a magic wand and whisk us away when we least expect it. — Tahereh Mafi

It was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down-stairs - where — Mark Twain

Your mother is holding your hand too tightly. You whimper and cling to her dress, because you know what will happen next. She stares at you, as if she's forgotten how to blink. There's one last glimpse of her face before she bundles you into the cupboard under the stairs. 'Don't make a sound,' she hisses, 'don't even breathe.' Darkness smothers you as the key twists in the lock. There's a chance that he won't find you, cowering on the floor, between the broom and floor mops, a stack of wellington boots. — Kate Rhodes

The room was lit with small reading lamps and there were books everywhere: piled on the coffee table, under the coffee table, on the sofa and under it, too. Books were stacked up the stairs and through the hall. Fern could see a small forest of books in the kitchen, books stacked on the table, the counters, like dishes in the the dish rack. Books lined every wall so that you couldn't see the walls at all. In fact, a mirror had been hung over the books as if the wall were made of books. And the oil paintings, which hung over the stacked books, depicted books. — N.E. Bode

The mongoose I want under the stairs when the snakes slither by. — Hannibal

The cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept. — J.K. Rowling

Our father came to sleep in our house that night. He carried a small suitcase with a black mourning suit and a pair of polished shoes. Corrigan stopped him as he made his way up the stairs. 'Where d'you think you're going?'Our father gripped the bannister. His hands were liverspotted and I could see him trembling in his pause. 'That's not your room,' sad Corrigan. Our father tottered on the stairs. He took another step up. 'Don't,' said my brother. His voice was clear, full, confidant. Our father stood stunned. He climbed one more step and then turned, descended, looked around, lost.
'My own sons,' he said.
We made a bed for him on a sofa in the living room, but even then Corrigan refused to stay under the same roof; he went walking in the direction of the city center and I wondered what alley he might be found in later that night, what fist he might walk into, whose bottle he might climb down inside. — Colum McCann

And then Holt, the Queen's Guard, placed his maps on the desk, neatly so they would not fall, tipped Thiel over one shoulder, tipped Death over the other, and stood under his load. In the astonished silence that followed, Holt lumbered toward Runnemood, who, understanding, let out a snort and stalked from the room of his own accord. Then Holt carried his outraged burdens away on either shoulder, just as they got their voices back. Bitterblue could hear them screaming their indignation all the way down the stairs. — Kristin Cashore