Yards Quotes - Page 11

• They might have been all-right people doing the best they could, but I got to tell you, you got a dead cat lying in your yard you ought to bury it. That’s my motto.

  Joe R. Lansdale

  Lying, Cat, People

  Joe R. Lansdale (2011). “Devil Red”, p.26, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• It was hard to remember what the yard had looked like even twelve hours before, undisturbed and pristine. Like it takes so little to change something, but to make you forget the way it once was, as well.

  Sarah Dessen

  Twelve, Littles, Way

  Sarah Dessen (2008). “Lock and Key”, p.78, Penguin

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• When you've come face-to-face with the dark side of the school yard, life doesn't hold many surprises.

  Eoin Colfer

  School, Dark, Faces

  Eoin Colfer (2007). “Half Moon Investigations”, Disney-Hyperion

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• If on Judgement Day I were summoned by St. Peter to give testimony to the used-to-be sheriff's act of kindness, I would be unable to say anything in his behalf. His confidence that my uncle and every other Black man who heard of the Klan's coming ride would scurry under their houses to hide in chicken droppings was too humiliating to hear. Without waiting for Momma's thanks, he rode out of the yard, sure that things were as they should be and that he was a gentle squire, saving those deserving serfs from the laws of the land, which he condoned.

  Maya Angelou

  Uncles, Kindness, Men

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• I just love family meetings. Very cozy, with the Christmas garlands round the fireplace and a nice pot of tea and a detective from Scotland Yard ready to arrest you.

  Rick Riordan

  Nice, Family Love, Scotland

  Rick Riordan (2010). “The Kane Chronicles, The, Book One: Red Pyramid”, Hyperion

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• Ironic," Betty Lou said at last. "The cereus insists on sunlight---that's why it must be at the end of the yard. And yet it saves its flowers for the moon. The sun never sees what it fathers." It takes from the day," I said, "gives to the night.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Father, Flower, Moon

  Jerry Spinelli (2007). “Love, Stargirl”, p.72, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• See what? I didn’t see anything. There were no scary people there. Nothing freaky. I’m going home now and tomorrow I’m going to have the doctors check for a brain tumor. Full battery of tests. Whole nine yard. Whatever’s wrong with me, we’ll find it and deal with it. At this point, my vote is either tumor or space alien testing. Either one works for me. (Geary)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Home, Doctors, Space

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2011). “The Dream-Hunter”, p.166, Hachette UK

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• She liked being reminded of butterflies. She remembered being six or seven and crying over the fates of the butterflies in her yard after learning that they lived for only a few days. Her mother had comforted her and told her not to be sad for the butterflies, that just because their lives were short didn't mean they were tragic. Watching them flying in the warm sun among the daisies in their garden, her mother had said to her, see, they have a beautiful life. Alice liked remembering that.

  Lisa Genova

  Life, Beautiful, Mother

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• I would not like to live in a world without cathedrals. I need their beauty and grandeur. I need their imperious silence. I need it against the witless bellowing of the barracks yard and the witty chatter of the yes-men. I want to hear the rustling of the organ, this deluge of ethereal notes. I need it against the shrill farce of marches.

  Pascal Mercier

  Witty, Men, Silence

  Pascal Mercier (2009). “Night Train To Lisbon”, p.85, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• I said that I thought the secret of life was obvious: be here now, love as if your whole life depended on it, find your life's work, and try to get hold of a giant panda. If you had a giant panda in your back yard, anything could go wrong — someone could die, or stop loving you, or you could get sick — and if you could look outside and see this adorable, ridiculous, boffo panda, you'd start to laugh; you'd be so filled with thankfulness and amusement that everything would be O.K. again.

  Anne Lamott

  Adorable, Sick, Laughing

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• You took a walk on a Sunday afternoon and came to a nice neighborhood, very refined. You saw a small one of these trees through the iron gate leading to someone's yard and you knew that soon that section of Brooklyn would get to be a tenement district. The tree knew. It came there first. Afterwards, poor foreigners seeped in and the quiet old brownstone houses were hacked up into flats, feather beds were pushed out on the window sills to air and the Tree of Heaven flourished. That was the kind of tree it was. It liked poor people.

  Betty Smith

  Nice, Sunday, Air

  Betty Smith (2009). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”, p.6, Harper Collins

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• Out of sight above the house, the mirror moon reflected the sun of a day not yet dawned, shining the pale light of tomorrow on the yard and on the paper birches.

  Dean Koontz

  Moon, Mirrors, Light

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• Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once. Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Ocean, Live Life, Thinking

  Fyodor Dostoevsky, Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2014). “The 10 Greatest Books of All Time”, p.155, Google Publishing

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• Don't neglect the gold in your own back yard.

  Ben Okri

  Gold, Neglect

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• Derek caught my arm again as I started to move--at this rate, it was going to be as sore as my injured one. "Dog," he said, jerking his chin toward the fenced yard. "It was inside earlier." Expecting to see a Doberman slavering at the fence, I followed his gaze to a little puff of white fur, the kind of dog women stick in their purses. It wasn't even barking, just staring at us, dancing in place. "Oh, my God! It's a killer Pomeranian." I glanced up at Derek. "It's a tough call, but I think you can take him.

  Kelley Armstrong

  Dog, Moving, Thinking

  Kelley Armstrong (2009). “The Awakening: Number 2 in series”, p.49, Hachette UK

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• Stranded in this mill town railroad yard while the whole world was converging elsewhere, we seemed to be nothing but children playing among heroic men.

  John Knowles

  Peace, Children, Men

  John Knowles (2014). “A Separate Peace”, p.82, Simon and Schuster

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• Sometimes, Soraya Sleeping next to me, I lay in bed and listened to the screen door swinging open and shut with the breeze, to the crickets chirping in the yard. And I could almost feel the emptiness in Soraya's womb, like it was a living, breathing thing. It had seeped into our marriage, that emptiness, into our laughs, and our love-making. And late at night, in the darkness of our room, I'd feel it rising from Soraya and setting between us. Sleeping between us. Like a newborn child.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Love, Children, Sleep

  Khaled Hosseini (2011). “The Kite Runner: Rejacketed”, p.165, A&C Black

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• The three of them set out every morning on adventures of their own kind. Once, an elderly professor of literature, Mrs. Taggart's friend, saw them on top of a pile in a junk yard, dismantling the carcass of an automobile. He stopped, shook his head and said to Francisco, 'A young man of your position ought to spend his time in libraries, absorbing the culture of the world.' 'What do you think I'm doing?' asked Francisco.

  Ayn Rand

  Morning, Adventure, Men

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.71, Hamilton Books

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• It makes Faith think of a hammock in their yard, a web of rope that she thought would unravel the first time she leaned back on it, but that managed to support her all the same.

  Jodi Picoult

  Thinking, Support, Rope

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• They were within twenty yards of each other, and so abrupt was his appearance, that it was impossible to avoid his sight. Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of each were overspread with the deepest blush. He absolutely started, and for a moment seemed immoveable from surprise; but shortly recovering himself, advanced towards the party, and spoke to Elizabeth, if not in terms of perfect composure, at least of perfect civility.

  Jane Austen

  Party, Eye, Sight

  Jane Austen (2016). “Pride and Prejudice (Illustrated)”, p.201, Full Moon Publications

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• Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society from the farm-yard except that children are more troublesome and costly than chickens and calves and that men and women are not so completely enslaved as farm stock.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Children, Business, Men

  Getting Married (1911) preface "The Personal Sentimental Basis of Monogamy"

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• In a pine tree,/ A few yards from my window sill,/ A brilliant blue jay is springing up and down, up and/ down./ On a branch./ I laugh, as I see him abandon himself/ To entire delight, for he knows as well as I do/ That the branch will not break.

  James Wright

  Blue, Laughing, Tree

  James Wright (2011). “Collected Poems”, p.125, Wesleyan University Press

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• Down in the city are the nice houses and the so-so houses and the lovers making out in dark yards and the babies crying for their moms, and I wonder if, other than Jesus, has this ever happened before. Maybe it happens all the time. Maybe there's angry dead all over, hiding in rooms, covered with blankets, bossing around their scared, embarrassed relatives. Because how would we know?

  George Saunders

  Mom, Baby, Jesus

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• Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled. Each second was two hundred yards, to be walked, crawled. You couldn't see the next hour, it was so far in the distance. Tomorrow was over the horizon, and would take an entire day to reach.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Memories, Distance, Two

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• It was hypnotic, and then it was unsettling, and finally I became aware of another entity in my universe, sitting on the shore two hundred yards away, smoking a pipe.

  Laurie R. King

  Two, Smoking, Sitting

  Laurie R. King (2012). “O Jerusalem”, p.119, Allison & Busby

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