Tumbling Quotes

• I hope that one or two immortal lyrics will come out of all this tumbling around.

  Louise Bogan

  Two, Immortal

  Louise Bogan, Ruth Limmer (1981). “Journey around my room: the autobiography of Louise Bogan : a mosaic”, Viking Pr

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• I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Trying, Speech

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of A Journey Into North Wales”, p.525

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• Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, - and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air.

  John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

  Laughter, Military, Clouds

  In K. Rhys More Poems from the Forces (1943) "High Flight"

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• Bring me a wheel of oaken wood A rein of polished leather A Heavy Horse and a tumbling sky Brewing heavy weather.

  Ian Anderson

  Horse, Sky, Weather

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• It should be judged primarily on grace, elegance and beauty rather than simply on mechanic tumbling.

  Svetlana Khorkina

  Grace, Elegance, Mechanic

  "Khorkina lashes judges as cheats", www.theguardian.com. August 22, 2004.

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• Tumbling into a dark, Lewis Carroll labyrinth of filth, pursuing a white rabbit of smut!

  Russell Brand

  Dark, White, Labyrinth

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• Our lives disconnect and reconnect, we move on, and later we may again touch one another, again bounce away. This is the felt shape of a human life, neither simply linear nor wholly disjunctive nor endlessly bifurcating, but rather this bouncey-castle sequence of bumpings-into and tumblings-apart.

  Salman Rushdie

  Moving, Castles, Shapes

  Salman Rushdie (2000). “The Ground Beneath Her Feet: A Novel”, p.543, Macmillan

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• See, you can't rewrite, 'cause to rewrite is to deceive and lie, and you betray your own thoughts. To rethink the flow and the rhythm, the tumbling out of the words, is a betrayal, and it's a sin, Martin, it's a sin." --Hank (Kerouac)to Martin (Ginsberg) in the film Naked Lunch

  David Cronenberg

  Betrayal, Lying, Lunch

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• He kissed me, so gently at first that I melted. I pressed close against him as the kiss deepened, curling my arms around his neck and tumbling into pure sensation. The softness of his hair as I ran my fingers through it; his arms hands on my skin, caressing me. It felt so, so good. I'd been afraid that I'd never have this again--this sense of being so achingly alive that every nerve ending was on fire.

  L.A. Weatherly

  Kissing, Fire, Hair

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• While we lie tumbling in the hay.

  William Shakespeare

  Love, Lying, Hay

  'The Winter's Tale' (1610-1) act 4, sc. 2, l. 1

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• Kids use words in ways that release hidden meanings, revel the history buried in sounds. They haven't forgotten that words can be more than signs, that words have magic, the power to be things, to point to themselves and materialize. With their back-formations, archaisms, their tendency to play the music in words--rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, repetition--children peel the skin from language. Words become incantatory. Open Sesame. Abracadabra. Perhaps a child will remember the word and will bring the walls tumbling down.

  John Edgar Wideman

  Children, Wall, Kids

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• Tumbling has always been my favorite.

  Aly Raisman

  My Favorite

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• Let the shameful walls of exclusion finally come tumbling down.

  George H. W. Bush

  Wall, Tumbling Down, Exclusion

  George H.W. Bush (2009). “Speaking of Freedom: The Collected Speeches”, p.119, Simon and Schuster

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• I probably have less revision than those who have that wonderful rush of story to tell - you know, I can't wait to tell you what happened the other day. It comes tumbling out and maybe then they go back and refine. I kind of envy that way of working, but I just have never done it.

  Amy Hempel

  Envy, Waiting, Stories

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• Do you see the irony at all, Tristan?’ I stare at him and shake my head. He seems determined not to speak again until I do. ‘What irony?’ I ask eventually, the words tumbling out in a hurried heap. ‘That I am to be shot as a coward while you get to live as one.

  John Boyne

  Coward, Irony, Determined

  John Boyne (2011). “The Absolutist”, p.285, Random House

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• I might have arguments with the size of Reagan's military buildup, but given the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, staying ahead of the Soviets militarily seemed a sensible thing to do. Pride in our country, respect for our armed services, a healthy appreciation for the dangers beyond our borders, an insistence that there was no easy equivalence between East and West--in all this I had no quarrel with Reagan. And when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, I had to give the old man his due, even if I never gave him my vote.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Appreciation, Wall

  Barack Obama (2007). “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream”, p.289, Canongate Books

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• Words move, turning over like tumbling clowns; like certain books and like fleas, they possess activity. All men equally have the right to say, 'This word shall bear this meaning,' and see if they can get it across. It is a sporting game, which all can play, only all cannot win.

  Rose Macaulay

  Moving, Book, Winning

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• These things which are made of light and grammar and sound that come chirping and squealing and tumbling toward you. 'Hooray! Welcome! You're here!', and in my case, 'You send so many and you come so rarely!'

  Terence McKenna

  Light, Sound, Welcome

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• I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less that God wishes - that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit, as well as the sun in the heavens - that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their course. The creeping of an aphid over the rosebush is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence - the fall of...leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Stars, Moving, Fall

  Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1857). “Sermons of the Rev. C.H. Spurgeon: Second series”, p.201

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• My attraction to story is a ceaseless current that runs through the center of me. My inexhaustible ardor for reading seems connected to my hunger for storylines that show up in both books and in the great tumbling chaos of life.

  Pat Conroy

  Running, Book, Reading

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• The whole social structure is now tumbling down, dethroning its God, undermining all its certainties. All this, wonderfully enough, is being done in the name of the health, wealth, and happiness of all mankind.

  Malcolm Muggeridge

  Christian, Religious, Tumbling Down

  Malcolm Muggeridge (2005). “Conversion: The Spiritual Journey of a Twentieth Century Pilgrim”, p.61, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• I haven't a clue about the biology or the psychology involved when a person dissolves into tears, but it is quite fascinating to note what turns them on. There are wives who can cascade over a late husband or a burned dinner, and equally pour tears of joy over a new bonnet or a renovated bathroom.... A while ago I took a ship back from Europe. Amid the tumbling confetti ... I found myself misty-eyed watching a young lady waving a tearful farewell to her boyfriend on the dock. I couldn't figure out if I was crying at her plight, or in delight that he wasn't coming along with us.

  Malcolm Forbes

  Husband, Farewell, Europe

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• Sweeping from butcher's stalls, dung, guts, and blood,
  Drown'd puppies, stinking sprats, all drench'd in mud,
  Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood.

  Jonathan Swift

  Rain, Cat, Tumbling Down

  Jonathan Swift (1860). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Copious Notes and Additions, and a Memoir of the Author”, p.246

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• We have seen some of the greatest athletes fall because they have tried to take shortcuts. I'm not going to call any names but we talk about guys that was like at the top of their game that people just idolized. They looked in awe and all of a sudden you see them just come tumbling down because they want to take shortcuts. I think it's more rewarding when you do it the old fashioned way.

  Jerry Rice

  Fall, Athlete, Thinking

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• The swift December dusk had come tumbling clownishly after its dull day and, as he stared through the dull square of the window of the schoolroom, he felt his belly crave for its food. He hoped there would be stew for dinner, turnips and carrots and bruised potatoes and fat mutton pieces to be ladled out in thick peppered flourfattened sauce. Stuff it into you, his belly counselled him.

  James Joyce

  Food, Squares, Cooking

  James Joyce (2016). “The Complete Works of James Joyce: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Poetry, Essays & Letters: Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Finnegan’s Wake, Dubliners, The Cat and the Devil, Exiles, Chamber Music, Pomes Penyeach, Stephen Hero, Giacomo Joyce, Critical Writings & more”, p.86, e-artnow

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