Standing There Quotes

• She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.

  J. D. Salinger

  Girl, Reading, Together

  "A Girl I Knew". Short story by J. D. Salinger, 1948.

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• You've got to get out and pray to the sky to appreciate the sunshine; otherwise you're just a lizard standing there with the sun shining on you.

  Ken Kesey

  Sunshine, Sky, Appreciate

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• Lesbian?” Payton turned around and saw J.D. standing there. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe she was basking in the glow of their successful pitch to Gibson’s. Maybe it was her promise to Laney to be the “New Payton,” or maybe it was a combination of all those things. But Payton actually found herself smiling at J.D. It’s just an excuse, the lesbian thing,” she said.

  Julie James

  Wine, Successful, Promise

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• I'll never forget you. Your husband will beat you with an extension cord and the bus will pull away leaving you standing there in tears, but you were my mother.

  Denis Johnson

  Mother, Husband, Leaving

  Denis Johnson (2009). “Jesus' Son: Stories”, p.39, Macmillan

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• You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lose your way in the first place. But standing there alone on the landing, I thought of Grandma Halley and how she'd held me close against her lap as we watched the sky together. I'd always thought I couldn't remember, but suddenly in that moment, I closed my eyes and saw the comet, finally, brilliant and impossible, stretching above me across the sky.

  Sarah Dessen

  Grandma, Eye, Sky

  Sarah Dessen (2004). “Someone Like You”, p.166, Penguin

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• You cut up a thing that's alive and beautiful to find out how it's alive and why it's beautiful, and before you know it, it's neither of those things, and you're standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it.

  Clive Barker

  Beautiful, Cutting, Blood

  Clive Barker (1999). “The essential Clive Barker: selected fictions”

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• Maybe it's just the morning light, but he looks pretty cool standing there with his sword.

  Rumiko Takahashi

  Morning, Light, Looks

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• I turned and found Dionysus standing there, still in his black suit. Walk with me,” he said. Where to?” I asked suspiciously. Just to the campfire,” he said. “I was beginning to feel better, so I thought I would talk with you a bit. You always manage to annoy me.” Uh, thanks.

  Rick Riordan

  Feel Better, Black, Suits

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• It was one of the most disgusting spectacles I've ever seen-- this white-haired old man, who should have been thinking of the hereafter, standing there lying like an actor.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Lying, Thinking, Men

  P. G. Wodehouse, David A. Jasen (1997). “Enter Jeeves: 15 Early Stories”, p.70, Courier Corporation

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• Our footsteps run, and I don't want them to end. I want to run and laugh and feel like this forever. I want to avoid any awkward moment when the realness of reality sticks its fork into our flesh, leaving us standing there, together. I want to stay here, in this moment, and never go to other places, where we don't know what to say or what to do.

  Markus Zusak

  Running, Reality, Laughing

  Markus Zusak (2007). “I Am the Messenger”, p.155, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• I can’t chitchat and make breakfast at the same time. You could help, you know, instead of standing there like the Queen of England. Although you’re a lot better-looking.

  Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  Queens, Breakfast, England

  Susan Elizabeth Phillips (2008). “Glitter Baby LP”, HarperLuxe

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• We all want to do something to mitigate the pain of loss or to turn grief into something positive, to find a silver lining in the clouds. But I believe there is real value in just standing there, being still, being sad.

  John Green

  Sad, Pain, Real

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• Being a writer is part of a noble tradition, as is being a musician – the last egalitarian and open associations. No matter what happens in terms of fame and fortune, dedication to writing is a marching-step forward from where you were before, when you didn’t care about reaching out to the world, when you weren’t hoping to contribute, when you were just standing there doing some job into which you had fallen.

  Anne Lamott

  Jobs, Writing, Dedication

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• He walked out of the office to find Kevin Daley standing there. 'I like your style,' Kevin said. Thank you,' Alex said. 'I like it, too.

  Susan Beth Pfeffer

  Office, Style, Alex

  Susan Beth Pfeffer (2015). “The Life As We Knew It Collection”, p.386, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• As I was smoothing on the last handful across the top of my thigh, I noticed I had company. Lewus was standing there watching me, eyes half-closed but not in the least sleepy. He'd put on his blue jeans, but nothing else... very sexy. I couldn't help but take in the view.

  Rachel Caine

  Sexy, Eye, Blue

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• Let me guess,” Eli said, his voice that low, even timbre, as always. “Drinking from kegs also falls under outdoor activity.” I just looked at him, standing there in jeans and the same blue hoodie he’d had on the first time I met him. Maybe it was the embarrassment, which had been bad enough before I had an audience, but I was instantly annoyed. I said, “Are we outside?” He glanced round, as if needing to confirm this. “Nope.” “Then no.” I turned my attention back to the keg.

  Sarah Dessen

  Drinking, Fall, Blue

  Sarah Dessen (2009). “Along for the Ride”, p.88, Penguin

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• The people who visit the [Lincoln] memorial always look like an advertisement for democracy, so bizarrely, suspiciously diverse that one time I actually saw a man in a cowboy hat standing there reading the Gettysburg Address next to a Hasidic Jew. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had linked arms with a woman in a burka and a Masai warrior, to belt out ‘It’s a Small World After All,’ flanked by a chorus line of nuns and field-tripping, rainbow-skinned schoolchildren

  Sarah Vowell

  Reading, Warrior, Men

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• There is nothing more terrible, I learned, than having to face the objects of a dead man. Things are inert: that have meaning only in function of the life that makes use of them. When that life ends, the things change, even though they remain the same. […] they say something to us, standing there not as objects but as remnants of thought, of consciousness, emblems of the solitude in which a man comes to make decisions about himself.

  Paul Auster

  Men, Decision, Solitude

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• I'll tell you what's wrong!" he roared, "I'm trying to quit smoking!" Then he strode angrily to the truck, leaving her standing there. She blinked her eyes, and slowly a smile stretched her lips. She strolled to the truck and got in. "So, are you homicidal or merely as irritable as a wounded buffalo?" "About halfway in between," he said through clenched teeth. "Anything I can do to help?" His eyes were narrow and intense. "It isn't just the cigarettes. Take off your panties and lock your legs around me, and I'll show you.

  Linda Howard

  Eye, Smoking, Leaving

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• It was unbelievable. She was standing there, staring at him like he was a real rock star.

  Kami Garcia

  Stars, Real, Rocks

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• As we're standing there I realize we're almost exactly the same height. We must look like the dark and light side of an Oreo cookie, and I think how just as easily it could have been the other way around. She could be blocking my path; I could be trying to slip around her into the dark.

  Lauren Oliver

  Block, Dark, Thinking

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• I love you, Meg. I want to marry you. I want to sleep with you every night, make love with you, have kids. I want to fight together and work together and—just be together. Now are you going to keep standing there, staring at me, or could you put me out of my misery and say you still love me, at least a little?

  Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  Love You, Sleep, Kids

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• I guess I just couldn't see standing there -- alive, talking, thinking, breathing, being -- one second, and dead the next. It really bothered me. Death by violence isn't the same as dying any other way, accident or disease or old age. It just ain't the same.

  S. E. Hinton

  Thinking, Talking, Breathing

  S. E. Hinton (2012). “That Was Then, This Is Now”, p.50, Penguin

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• Standing there, I loved myself and I hated myself. That's what the black Mary did to me, made me feel my glory and my shame at the same time.

  Sue Monk Kidd

  Black, Shame, Glory

  Sue Monk Kidd (2003). “The Secret Life of Bees”, p.71, Penguin

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• He [Ranger] stopped in front of my parents' house, and we both looked to the door. My mother and my grandmother were standing there, watching us. "I'm not sure I feel comfortable about the way your grandma looks at me," Ranger said. [Stephanie] "She wants to see you naked." "I wish you hadn't told me that, babe." "Everyone I know wants to see you naked." "And you?" "Never crossed my mind." I held my breath when I said it, and I hoped God wouldn't stike me down dead for lying.

  Janet Evanovich

  Mother, Lying, Grandma

  Janet Evanovich (2010). “Hard Eight: A Stephanie Plum Novel”, p.118, St. Martin's Press

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