Tails Quotes - Page 9

• He had learned that close-held secrets could often be cracked by going all the way to the top and there making himself unbearably unpleasant. He knew that such twisting of the tiger's tail was dangerous, for he understood the psychopathology of great power.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Often Is, Secret, Way

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• The wolf stared down at me, paws still on my chest, its shaggy tail thumping from side tot side and spraying us both with snow. It seemed like...it expected me to do something. Maybe my mind was completley gone, because there was only one thing I could thing of right now that might satisfy it. I reached up en awkwardly patted the side of its head, since that was al i could reach. "Nice puppy," I whispered, and passed out.

  Jennifer Estep

  Nice, Snow, Mind

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• The kitten was six weeks old. It was enchanting, a delicate fairy-tale cat, whose Siamese genes showed in the shape of the face, ears, tail, and the subtle lines of its body. [...] She sat, a tiny thing, in the middle of a yellow carpet, surrounded by five worshipppers, not at all afraid of us. Then she stalked around that floor of the house, inspecting every inch of it, climbed up on to my bed, crept under the fold of a sheet, and was at home.

  Doris Lessing

  Home, Cat, Yellow

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• Because hate's just the flip side of love. Like heads and tails on a dime. If you don't know what it feels like to love someone, how would you know what hate is? One can't exist without the other.

  Jodi Picoult

  Hate, Dimes, Flip

  Jodi Picoult (2012). “Lone Wolf: A Novel”, p.414, Simon and Schuster

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• Why, did you know that if a beaver two feet long with a tail a foot and a half long can build a dam twelve feet high and six feet wide in two days, all you would need to build Boulder Dam is a beaver sixty-eight feet long with a fifty-one-foot tail?" "Where would you find a beaver that big?" grumbled the Humbug as his pencil point snapped. "I'm sure I don't know," he replied, "but if you did, you'd certainly know what to do with him.

  Norton Juster

  Eight, Two, Feet

  Norton Juster (2011). “The Phantom Tollbooth 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.175, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• If a coin comes down heads, that means that the possibility of its coming down tails has collapsed. Until that moment the two possibilities were equal. But on another world, it does come down tails. And when that happens, the two worlds split apart.

  Philip Pullman

  Mean, Two, Doe

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• She’s really gone, then. The little girl with the back of her shirt sticking out like a duck tail, the one who needed help reaching the dishes, and who begged to see the frosted cakes in the bakery window. Time and tragedy have forced her to grow too quickly, at least for my taste, into a young woman who stitches bleeding wounds and knows our mother can hear only so much.

  Suzanne Collins

  Girl, Mother, Cake

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• He would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no flies.

  George Orwell

  Given

  George Orwell (2016). “Animal Farm”, p.1, Hamilton Books

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• Tuck in your tail, little duck.

  Suzanne Collins

  Ducks, Littles

  Suzanne Collins (2009). “The Hunger Games”, p.17, Scholastic Inc.

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• That was the thing to remember about all monsters, They love to frighten people, but the minute you stare them down, they turn tail and run.

  Jeannette Walls

  Running, People, Monsters

  Jeannette Walls (2009). “The Glass Castle: A Memoir”, p.37, Simon and Schuster

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• All great fighting is the same, Eragon, even as all great warriors are the same. Past a certain point, it does not matter whether you wield a sword, a claw, a tooth or a tail. It is true, you must be capable with your weapon, but anyone with the time, and the inclination can acquire technical proficiency. To achieve greatness, though, that requires artistry. That requires imagination and thoughtfulness, and it is those qualities that the best warriors share, even if, on the surface, they appear completely different.

  Christopher Paolini

  Fighting, Warrior, Past

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• Then I will tell you something. I do not believe in it. Forty years among men has consistently taught me that they are not amenable to commonsense. Show them the red tail of a comet, fill them with black terror, and they will all come running out of their houses and break their legs. But tell them one sensible proposition, and support it with seven reasons, and they will simply laugh in your face.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Running, Believe, Men

  "Plays: The Caucasian chalk circle. The threepenny opera. The trial of Lucullus. The life of Galileo".

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• The small gargoyle had gone entirely white to match the ceiling, and only the rims of his ears, his long clawlike nails, and a thick stripe down his whip-like tail were still gray. He was crawling along the ceiling like a bat, wings held to make sharp angles and claws extended. It just about broke my creepy meter.

  Kim Harrison

  Wings, White, Long

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• IAGO: She that was ever fair and never proud, Had tongue at will and yet was never loud, Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay, Fled from her wish and yet said 'Now I may,' She that being anger'd, her revenge being nigh, Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly, She that in wisdom never was so frail To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail; She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind, See suitors following and not look behind, She was a wight, if ever such wight were,-- DESDEMONA: To do what? IAGO: To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.

  William Shakespeare

  Revenge, Beer, Gay

  'Othello' (1602-4) act 2, sc. 1, l. 148

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• Then I found it: the source of the blood, the place where he'd been shot. 'Total?' I said, and I got a slight whimper. 'You have a boo-boo on your tail.

  James Patterson

  Blood, Found, Shots

  James Patterson (2009). “Maximum Ride: Max”, p.14, Random House

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• It wasn't that I hated being asked a bunch of questions. I had nothing against questions. I just didn't like listening to them, because some questions take forever to make sense. Sometimes waiting for a question to finish is like watching someone draw an elephant starting with the tail first. As soon as you see the tail your mind wanders all over the place and you think of a million other animals that also have tails until you don't care about the elephant because it's only one thing when you've been thinking about a million others.

  Jack Gantos

  Animal, Thinking, Elephants

  Jack Gantos (2011). “Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key”, p.34, Macmillan

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• A pair of dolphins swept by us in the water, flicking their heads out to get a look at us as they went. One of them made a chittering sound that wasn't very melodic. The other twitched its tail and splashed a little water our way, all in good fun. They weren't the attractive Flipper kind of dolphins. They were regular dolphins that aren't as pretty and don't get cast on television. Maybe they just refused to sell out and see a plastic surgeon. I held up a fist to them. Represent.

  Jim Butcher

  Fun, Water, Pairs

  Jim Butcher (2010). “The Dresden Files Collection 7-12”, p.2227, Penguin

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• I stopped watching for ridicule, the scorpion's tail hidden in his words. He said what he meant; he was puzzled if you did not. Some people might have mistaken this for simplicity. But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart?

  Madeline Miller

  Heart, Cutting, People

  Madeline Miller (2011). “The Song of Achilles”, p.48, A&C Black

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• My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Wings, Teeth, Armor

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Hobbit”, p.120, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• He loves me, and I reward his love by forcing on him something he hates. In the evening, after we dance, he rarely returns to the throne; he dances with others or moves from place to place through the room. The court thinks he is trying to be gracious, sharing his attention. Only I see that he moves always to the empty spot and the court always moves after him. He is like a dog trying to escape his own tail. He indulged himself in one brief moment of privacy, and almost died of it. Relius, he hates being king.

  Megan Whalen Turner

  Dog, Kings, Hate

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• In the distance a wolf howls. Let it come, I think. Beast will most likely simply howl back, and the creature will either turn tail and run or fall into line behind him, like the rest of us have.

  R.L. LaFevers

  Running, Distance, Fall

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• A kitten is so flexible that she is almost double; the hind parts are equivalent to another kitten with which the fore part plays. She does not discover that her tail belongs to her till you tread upon it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Cat, Animal, Play

  "Selections from the Journals".

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• Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails. And a tail is an awkward thing to laugh with, as you can see by the way they bend themselves half double in extreme hilarity trying to get that rear-end exuberance forward into the main scene of action. What puts man on a higher stage of evolution is that he has got his laugh on the right end.

  Max Eastman

  Happiness, Dog, Laughter

  "Enjoyment of Laughter".

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• Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull & undoubtedly was an hermaphrodite! Here is a pleasant genealogy for mankind.

  Charles Darwin

  Swimming, Science, Animal

  Charles Darwin (2016). “Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: the Evolution”, p.453, VM eBooks

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• We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World.

  Charles Darwin

  Science, Men, Ears

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)”, p.6833, Delphi Classics

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