Warding Quotes & Sayings

She is sugar, curiosity, and rain. — E. Lockhart

A god who brings you good and bad in equal amounts doesn't ask for much, " she said. "Maybe a prayer or two. Maybe the odd sacrifice of a beast. But a god who promises only good times?" She shook her head and made the warding sign against evil. "A god like that will always want something from you. — John Flanagan

The most conventional customs cling to the table. Farmers who wouldn't drive a horse too hard expect pie three times a day. — Ellen Swallow Richards

It was not an exclamation so much, I think, as it was a warding off, an exertion of language upon ignorance and disorder. — N. Scott Momaday

And it was the pretending that might explain how she could smile so brightly while her mind felt nothing - as if, at these times, there existed a disconnection between outer and inner, a shutting off, and the key to her happiness lay in warding off pain, or dodging it, or pushing it into the shape of something else - like shame or anger or even hope. — Sue Saliba

Love is a gamble, heartbreak is the cost.
But never lose hope, for love is never truly lost. — Divya Singh

You'd have thought we planned it," says Peeta, giving me just the hint of a smile.
"Didn't you?" asks Portia. Her fingers press her eyelids closed as if she's warding off a very bright light.
"No," I say looking at Peeta with a new sense of apreciation. "Neither of us even knew what we were going to do before we went in."
"And Haymitch?" says Peeta. "We decided we don't want any other allies in the arena."
"Good. Then I won't be responsible for you killing off any of my friends with your stupidity," he says. — Suzanne Collins

Yeah, chocolate. Chocolate fends off all kinds of nasty stuff. And if you get hungry while warding off evil, you have a snack. It's multipurpose equipment. One — Jim Butcher

Daily routine is the great balm that keeps her spirits up and holds her life together, warding off the existential fright that can take you by ambush anytime you're dithering or at a loss, reminding you of the magnitude of the void you are sitting on. Keeping busy is the middle-class way - a practical way and a good way. — A.S.A Harrison

Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon.
Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.
I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it. — Rick Riordan

I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the Southern states. The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies. — Alexis De Tocqueville

So, how are things with you and Curran?"
There were times in life when I wished for supreme mental powers. Like telekinesis. Mostly, I wanted them to crush my opponents. But right now I wanted them so I could pull the chair out from under Andrea and make her fall on her butt.
I settled for spitting three times over my left shoulder.
"Are you warding off evil?" Raphael's eyes widened.
"Well, the two of you did say the forbidden name. I have to take precautions. I need something wooden. Lean forward, Andrea, so I can knock on your head."
Andrea cracked a smile.
"To answer your question, we're great. Never better. I haven't seen His Fussiness in two months, and I couldn't be happier. — Ilona Andrews

Chocolate fends off all kinds of nasty stuff. And if you get hungry while warding off evil, you have a snack. It's multipurpose equipment. — Jim Butcher

The biggest ever scientific fraud — Andrey Kapitsa

When humans work, they frequently become unaware of their own body, their own senses, are surprised to find that their wrists ache or their backs are sore or their friend has left the building. It's as close to an out-of-body experience as can be achieved short of fifty volts, a circle of warding, a pigeon's claw cut from an albino female of purest white feathers, or a lot of mushrooms. — Kate Griffin

The incredible length of Bombay sped by, those endless sprawls of buildings, huts and shacks, children squatting and shitting by the tracks, refuse, the crowded grey roads twisting and winding between, all of it blurred but fearsome in its strength, in its very life that grew it unstoppably. — Vikram Chandra

My emotional range is limited. I can't do grief, but rage is my friend. For instance, I hate death by sickness. It is nothing like Homer, the Old Testament, and Tolkien led me to expect. It is not noble and awe-inspiring. No one delivers a final soliloquy. It is as abrupt and banal as the flicking of a switch. The squiggly line on the monitor straightens out, the defibrillator doesn't even go whomp, the epinephrine is useless, the nurse doing CPR looks up and even before the doctor pronounces the words, you know. This is not what death should be. Death, the reason for religion, the subject of great literature, the certainty we spend our lives warding off, the giant mystery that looms over everything we do, death should be spectacular, not pity-inducing, a bang and not a whimper. A huge ball of fire, a shower of sparks, a final charge into the ranks of your enemies, a terrific explosion, a backward dive into the fiery pit. Not ... this. — Jessica Zafra

You smell like honeysuckle. You likin' ole Jack now?"
"I never stopped liking you. Even when you were warding me away with the power of Catholicism. — Kresley Cole

Christians should actively engage in efforts to make every societal institution assume its own responsibility, warding off the interference of others. That, too, is participation in the restoration of creation and the coming of the kingdom of God. — Albert M. Wolters

Entering yet another code, she took the passageway to Rehv's office, and when she came through his door, the three males around the desk all looked at her warily.
She took up res against the black wall across from them. "What."
Rehv leaned back in his chair, crossing his fur-clad arms over his chest. "Are you getting ready to go into your needing."
As he spoke, Trez and iAm both made the Shadow hand motion for warding off disaster.
"God, no. Why do you ask?"
"Because, no offense, you're cranky as fuck."
"I am not."
As the males looked at one another, she barked, "Stop that."
Oh, great, now they all just pointedly didn't look at each other.

-Xhex, Rehv, Trez & iAm — J.R. Ward

The pastor ought to have two voices: one, for gathering the sheep; and another, for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves. The Scripture supplies him with the means of doing both. — John Calvin

When loneliness mastered him he would go up to the cemetery ... The rest of his time was taken up with a liturgy of habits that succeeded in warding off sadness. — Alessandro Baricco

My identity as Abba's child is not an abstraction or a tap dance into religiosity. It is the core truth of my existence. Living in the wisdom of accepted tenderness profoundly affects my perception of reality, the way I respond to people and their life situations. How I treat my brothers and sisters from day to day, whether they be Caucasian, African, Asian, or Hispanic; how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street; how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike; how I deal with ordinary people in their ordinary unbelief on an ordinary day will speak the truth of who I am more poignantly than the pro-life sticker on the bumper of my car. We are not for life simply because we are warding off death. We are sons and daughters of the Most High and maturing in tenderness to the extent that we are for others - all others - to the extent that no human flesh is strange to us, to the extent that we can touch the hand of another in love, to the extent that for us there are no others. — Brennan Manning

Memory runs along deep, fixed channels in the brain, like electricity along its conduits; only a cataclysm can make the electrons rear up in shock and slide over into another channel. The human mind seems doomed to believe, as simply as a rooster believes, that where we are now is the only possibility — Barbara Kingsolver

I blink and Kayden is squatting in front of me, and I'm somehow on my knees, his hands under my hair, warm on the skin of my neck. His jacket is gone, his tie loose, his hair is a sexy rumpled mess, and he is beautiful. He is right in ways that other man is wrong, and a calmness fills me that wasn't there moments before. I reach up and grab his wrists. "I'm glad you're here, and I'm glad I'm here. Even if it meant I had to go through him to get to you. — Lisa Renee Jones

I really enjoy surfing a lot. It's an awesome sport. With surfing there are no mind games versus Peyton Manning, or versus anyone else. It's not me trying to throw a certain shot put further - or to put a ball in a hoop, it's just me against mother nature. — Troy Polamalu

Anyone who's 71 years old would look ridiculous singing rock. — Grace Slick

It is a negative sort of achievement, she thinks, to have spent a life warding something off. — Adam Haslett

Through hand gestures was no easy business. A single gesture could have many different significations. Even the mano infica turned out to have three different interpretations: it could mean the subject was warding off evil, or dishing out an insult, or making a kind of offensive or impertinent invitation. — Ross King

You have to respect everybody's desires and way of living. — Juan Pablo Galavis

The warding off of anxiety is central to the time-binding, action-delaying, and cerebral functions of the human animal. — Ernest Becker

That it is not the Christianity of the New Testament which is in conflict with science, but the supposed Christianity of the modern liberal Church, and that the real city of God, and that city alone, has defences which are capable of warding off the assaults of modern unbelief. However, — J. Gresham Machen

If science can eliminate sleep, we will have more time to live and no time for the dreams. But living is superior to the dream because it is real! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Villains made no special guest appearances in our Once Upon A Time story games. They scared Laura and bored me, so instead we made up heroines with ghastly itchy skin but magnificent tresses of hair, and the occasional sleeping disorder. Those heroines had enough on their hands without having to worry about warding off true evil. — Rachel Cohn

One has to be proactive in warding off ugly, and that costs money. — Kristin Billerbeck

This is bad," was all I could manage to say.
"Yeah, I kind of picked up on that too."
"No,I mean really bad. Like, to a level I didn't know badness could reach."
Archer crouched down near the lip of the crater, the flickering blue light playing in his eyes. "It gets worse."
"What,does this put also eat kittens? How much worse can it be? — Rachel Hawkins

Ye wanna steer clear o' 'im and 'is little friends. Ye shall come to a nasty end nosin' 'bout that gent."
The Spy knew the refrain. He wondered aloud as to the nature of these little friends.
"Ain't ever seen 'em, just 'eard of 'em. Cripples and deformed ones. Some ain't got no arms or legs is what I 'ear. they crawl along behind 'im, see? Wrigglin' in the dirt all ruddy worm-like."
"He's got an entourage of folk without arms," the Spy said, raising his brows toward the brim of his cocked hat. "Or legs. Following him wherever he goes."
"Some got arms, some don't. Some got legs, some don't. Some got neither. That's what I 'ear." The farmer shrugged, made the sign of warding again, and would say no more on the matter. — Laird Barron

I loved him as we always love for the first time; with idolatry and wild passion. — Voltaire

The man who loves his country on its own account, and not merely for its trappings of interest or power, can never be divorced for it, can never refuse to come forward when he finds that she is engaged in dangers which he has the means of warding off. — Thomas Jefferson

I tell this anecdote with tongue in cheek at the start of my book William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination, but my academic involvement with Burroughs was entirely due to my tutor at Oxford, Peter Conrad. I was discussing with him the idea of staying on to do graduate work and when I tossed the name of Burroughs into the conversation - well, he let it fall loudly onto the floor, and proceeded to cross himself as if warding off an evil spirit. Since I was very ambivalent about an academic career in any case, that decided it for me. — Oliver Harris