One to two word sayings

#1. I just think the word interview, although it is the view between two people exchanged, became a sort of cliche. You ask questions and the other one answers. — Author: Maximilian Schell

#2. I went to Harvard for examination with two men not as well prepared as I. Both passed easily, and I flunked, having sat through two or three examinations without being able to write a word.’ The same happened at Yale, Both schools turned him down. He never forgot it. — Author: Erik Larson

#3. What was attraction if not a form of telepathy? The wild luck of two people feeling the exact same thing at the exact same time. That word again: purpose. — Author: Claire Vaye Watkins

#4. I’d worked at the White House for two years, and I’d read a bunch of White House memoirs because everybody who works at the White House, even for five minutes, writes a memoir usually not less than 600 pages long — and never without the word ‘power’ in the title. — Author: Christopher Buckley

#5. I’ve heard one or two riders refer to the odd night out as ‘morale training’. It’s a good expression for it. It’s got the word ‘training’ in it, so it’s got to be a good idea. — Author: Michael Hutchinson

#6. When I’d begun my last relationship, nearly two decades ago, I’d been unaware of the rule that new lovers must hoard the ‘L Word’ the way atomic nations hoard their explosives, like something that, once detonated, would change their world forever. — Author: Anya Ulinich

#7. Does every word that comes out of your mouth have to do with sex?»
Logan smirked against Tate’s mouth. «Usually, eighty/twenty, but with you, it seems more ninety-eight/two. — Author: Ella Frank

#8. The only thing better than word of mouth is words of mouth. Give me at least two words. — Author: Jarod Kintz

#9. What must that be like? To be admired before you’ve even said a word, to be desired two or three hundred times a day by people who have absolutely no idea what you’re like? — Author: David Nicholls

#10. Sports journalism is in the midst of an identity crisis so profound that we no longer know whether we’re made up of one word or two. — Author: Jane Leavy

#11. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. — Author: O. Henry

#12. Making love to me is amazing. Wait, I meant: making love, to me, is amazing. The absence of two little commas nearly transformed me into a sex god. — Author: Dark Jar Tin Zoo

#13. You two got married,» he said. The word brought a smile to Ty’s lips, but it faded fast. He nodded. «You got my messages?» «No.» Nick jerked his chin toward Ty’s finger. «I saw the rings. I like them. Like the ink. — Author: Abigail Roux

#14. Power does not always shout its presence, my Lady, and each of the two hundred men armed behind you on this road represent a thousand more ready to die at your command. Every word you speak has the weight of those men. — Author: Jean Gill

#15. The woman spoke with a heavy western North Carolina accent, which I used to discredit her authority. Here was a person for whom the word ‘pen’ had two syllables. He people undoubtedly drank from clay jugs and hollered for Paw when the vittles were ready
so who was she to advise me on anything? — Author: David Sedaris

#16. The idea of political content is irrelevant. Content is irrelevant. I always tell my students, «Never forget you’re writing words! You know, word one, word two, word three, word four. The words have to be organized. Nothing else does.» — Author: Dave Hickey

#17. Look,» he said. «We’d like you to return the salary.» «Oh, is that all?» I said. «Heck. That’s easy. The answer is no.» «What?» «No.» «No?» «What part of that two-letter word don’t you understand, Brad?» I asked. «Was it the vowel that threw you, or the consonant ? — Author: John Scalzi

#18. If. A two-letter word for futility. — Author: Sidney Sheldon

#19. Life is a sheet of paper white / Whereon each one of us may write / His word or two, and then comes night. — Author: James Russell Lowell

#20. Long ago the word alone was treated as two words, all one. To be all one meant to be wholly one, to be in oneness, either essentially or temporarily. That is precisely the goal of solitude, to be all one. — Author: Clarissa Pinkola Estes

#21. Atheist, in the strict and proper sense of the word, is one who does not believe in the existence of a god, or who owns no being superior to nature. It is compounded of the two terms … signifying without God. — Author: Richard Watson

#22. L. 151. Chthizos, yesterday. But either the word must have a more extended signification than is usually given to it, or Homer must here have fallen into an error; for two complete nights and one day, that on which Patroclus met his death, had intervened since the visit of Ajax and — Author: Homer

#23. If you were in a bar, would you ever go up to a guy or girl and repeat the word «hey» without getting a response? Would you ever go up to a woman you met two minutes ago and beg her to show you one of your boobs? And do you really want to bone someone who responds to this? — Author: Aziz Ansari

#24. Well, there is one — a new one. In this past year or two, there has come word of a strange man whom they call the Mule.» «The Mule?» She considered. «Ever hear of him, Torie? — Author: Isaac Asimov

#25. One two, one two,
Type a word or two.
Arrow left, arrow right,
Keep those fingers nice and tight.
Keys up, Keys down,
Move those digits all around.
One two, one two,
Type a word or two. — Author: Jazz Feylynn

#26. Promises are like silly jokes, told around a table when the food is good and no one has anything to lose by telling a lie or two — lies should have been a synonym for the word ‘promise’ in dictionaries, but only a few people knew it. — Author: Cameron Jace

#27. I have this magpie instinct for the next glittering object. There are one or two things I know I can’t write about, though: DIY, cricket, automobile repair. I could study it for a lifetime and not produce a word on the carburettor. — Author: Simon Schama

#28. One word,» Ted replied, dead serious, «can change the whole world.» There was a moment while we all considered this. Finally Lissa said to Chloe, loud enough for all of us to hear (she’d had a minibottle or two herself), «I bet he did really well on his SATs. — Author: Sarah Dessen

#29. In the ancient Indian Pali language, the words for mind and heart are the same. And the Chinese character for mindfulness is a combination of two characters. One part means now and the other means mind or heart. So, when you hear the word mindfulness you can also consider it to mean heartfulness. — Author: Shamash Alidina

#30. I try to write very fast. I don’t revise very much. I write the poem in one sitting. Just let it rip. It’s usually over in twenty to forty minutes. I’ll go back and tinker with a word or two, change a line for some metrical reason weeks later, but I try to get the whole thing just done. — Author: Billy Collins

#31. The word that comes to mind is ‘beefcake’, Zane drawled, looking Ty over, appreciating the view
«Mission accomplished then!» Ty said happily as he turned around to face Zane again. He frowned suddenly. «Is beefcake one word or two?»
Zane laughed. «Who cares when you’ve got a great ass? — Author: Abigail Roux

#32. I take the typical words, or I pick a two-word, three-word pattern. One of the things I’m known for is I was one of the first rappers to end their bars rhyming multisyllabically. — Author: Bun B.

#33. Sorrento, August. For two weeks now I haven’t heard a German word or understood an Italian one. This way one can manage to live with people; everything goes like clockwork and no irksome misunderstanding can arise. — Author: Karl Kraus

#34. A word of truth can mobilise two peoples looking for the road to reconciliation. — Author: Donald Tusk

#35. We need his kingdom to «come.» Calvin believed there were two ways God’s kingdom comes — through the Spirit, who «corrects our desires,» and through the Word of God, which «shapes our thoughts. — Author: Timothy Keller

#36. Good’s a pretty funny word. Never seems to have the same meaning to any two people» -T. Walker — Author: Holly Schindler

#37. Street law dictated that for a parley of this kind each lieutenant be seconded by two of his foot soldiers and that they all be unarmed. Parley. The word felt like a deception — strangely prim, an antique. No matter what street law decreed, this night smelled like violence. — Author: Leigh Bardugo

#38. There are two word in my world first love the strongest and second chance quotes. — Author: Rohit Dhariwal

#39. Pirate historians have now discovered social history, the branch of history which in the last two decades or so has been the most dynamic and inventive, in both senses of the word. — Author: Peter Earle

#40. We created man — We know the promptings of his soul, and are closer to him than his jugular vein — 17 and the two recording angels are recording, sitting on the right and the left: 18 each word he utters shall be noted down by a vigilant guardian.b — Author: Anonymous

#41. I like America anyway. In Japan we are much more formal. If two friends are separated for a long time and they meet they bow and bow and bow. They keep bowing without exchanging a word. Here they slap each other on the back and say: Hello, old man, how goes everything. — Author: Sessue Hayakawa

#42. I like what I hear as a resulting combination of these two strands … something of a combination of familiarity and, for lack of a better word, strangeness. — Author: Alex North

#43. If you’re short on time, that would be the two-word version of our story: we fell. — Author: Karen Russell

#44. I’m consumed with curiosity because if I know Dirk, he probably sent his family a two-tine note — «I’m getting married. I’ll be there in a week,» — and no further explanation whatsoever.»
Skif laughed, and admitted that that was just about what Dirk had written, word for word. — Author: Mercedes Lackey

#45. Sound preaching arises out of two loves — love of the Word of God and love of people — and from them both a desire to show people God’s glorious grace. — Author: Timothy Keller

#46. There were thus two things which the Savior did for us by becoming Man. He banished death from us and made us anew; and, invisible and imperceptible as in Himself He is, He became visible through His works and revealed Himself as the Word of the Father, the Ruler and King of the whole creation. — Author: Athanasius Of Alexandria

#47. The «Florida effect» involves two stages of priming. First, the set of words primes thoughts of old age, though the word old is never mentioned; second, these thoughts prime a behavior, walking slowly, which is associated with old age. All this happens without any awareness. — Author: Daniel Kahneman

#48. And perhaps it didn’t matter to them, not always, what they read aloud; it was the breath of life flowing between them, and the words of the moment riding on it that held them in delight. Between some two people every word is beautiful, or might as well be beautiful. — Author: Eudora Welty

#49. Are you guys, like, in love? Brian asked in a girl voice.
Alexis and Jason locked stares because even though everyone had started laughing at Brian’s jibe, the word was there, hanging between the two of them, waiting to be grabbed for their personal use. — Author: Lindsay Chamberlin

#50. God works in his elect in two ways: inwardly, by his Spirit; outwardly, by his Word. — Author: John Calvin

#51. The acme of judicial distinction means the ability to look a lawyer straight in the eyes for two hours and not hear a damned word he says. — Author: John Marshall

#52. I’ll do anything you want. Anything. It is true. The last two years have taught me that. Anything. It is a heavy word when used correctly. It is a word that can hold unknown possibilities — Author: Alessandra Torre

#53. On the one side are the truths of fact, on the other the truth of the writer’s feeling, and where the two coincide cannot be decided by any outside authority in advance. — Author: Roy Pascal

#54. The word «feral» has a kind of magic potency which allied itself to two other words, «ferocious» and «free.» To revert to a feral state! — Author: T.H. White

#55. I think of the meaning of the word «testimony.» Originally it named the custom of two men holding each other’s testicles in a gesture of trust, later to metamorphose into the handshake. — Author: Alice Walker

#56. Or. I hate that word. It’s two letters long and stuffed to the gills with reasonable doubt. — Author: Jodi Picoult

#57. But no one ever said yes to make sex consensual. You took hints from body language, from the way two people came together. Why … didn’t a shake of the head or a hand pushing hard against a chest speak just as loudly? Why did you have to actually say the word no for it to be rape? — Author: Jodi Picoult

#58. The assumption of the word reunion is that, once you’re together again, you are united. Two as one. Pulling close to someone is only a temporary symbol. It’s the way you breathe with each other that’s the telltale sign. — Author: David Levithan

#59. The word hammockable (describing two trees that are the perfect distance apart between which a hammock can be hung) is not in the dictionary, but it should be. [Of lying in hammocks] — Author: Dan Kieran

#60. a two-word formulation for the miraculous ability of pundits to deduce that a past event had been inevitable: «retrospective clairvoyance. — Author: Clive James

#61. You do not need to be in the single market we do not need that we are the word’s fifth biggest economy. Most economies can agree free trade deals within two years the EU is taking 10 years or never at all, why? — Author: Andrea Leadsom

#62. Where is your Sword? Is it sharp? Is it dusty? Go and get it, and make it sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing down to the bone and marrow, even to the joints! We are WARRIORS in mortal, spiritual battle! RROOAAARRR!!!! — Author: Margaret Aranda

#63. Generally, I like to write in the morning before all the dust of dreams has blown away. Beforehand, I read two papers, cook my breakfast and then settle down in front of the word processor, usually by 8 A.M. I’ll write, and then check e-mail or voicemail when things stall. — Author: Scott Turow

#64. Without a word or hesitation, Pain took the mop from Nick. Suffering moved to pick up glass.
«Wow. Where have you two been all my life?»
Pain quirked and eyebrow as he mopped the floor.
«Walking hand in hand with you. Haven’t you noticed? — Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

#65. I have two definitions for the word «magick.» The first is knowing that I can effect change through my own will, even behind these bars; and the other meaning is more experiential — seeing beauty for a moment in the midst of the mundane. — Author: Damien Echols

#66. The secret of my success is a two word answer: Know people. — Author: Harvey S. Firestone

Two-thousand-word scenes/chapters are potato chip length. That is, if you are about to go to bed and you’re reading a terrific novel and the scenes/chapters come in around two-thousand-word bites, you’ll tell yourself that you’ll read just one more chapter. But if the narrative is really moving after you finish one of these bites, you won’t be able to help yourself reading another. If the Story is extremely well told, you’ll just keep eating the potato chip scenes all through the night. — Shawn Coyne

If your husband died, and he loved cardinals, and on the anniversary of his death you happen to walk out to his memorial and you find a cardinal sitting on it, you are allowed to take this as a sign. Don’t let some voice inside you tell you that the cardinal’s presence there is a coincidence. Not unless you understand the word coincidence, which means two things occupying one place, in terms of the deeper and better term, synchronicity. «If you smile at me,» a line — Eben Alexander

Adoption, I was to learn although not immediately, is hard to get right.
As a concept, even what was then its most widely approved narrative carried bad news: if someone «chose» you, what does that tell you?
Doesn’t it tell you that you were available to be «chosen»?
Doesn’t it tell you, in the end, that there are only two people in the world?
The ones who «chose» you?
And the other who didn’t?
Are we beginning to see how the word «abandonment» might enter the picture? Might we not make efforts to avoid such abandonment? Might not such efforts be characterized as «frantic»? Do we want to ask ourselves what follows? Do we need to ask ourselves what words come next to mind? Isn’t one of those words «fear»? Isn’t another of those words «anxiety»? — Joan Didion

Life is suffering» is misleading for at least two reasons. First, the Buddha used an ancient Indian language similar to Sanskrit called Pali, and the word he used in Pali for the first noble truth, dukkha, is difficult to translate. Dukkha is too multifaceted and nuanced a term to be captured in the one-word translation «suffering.» And second, the fact of dukkha in our lives doesn’t mean that life is only dukkha. — Toni Bernhard

Captain,» she growled, «you are the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever worked with, and I’m a former Marine who joined the damned NYPD. Do you have any idea how many assholes you meet between those two groups?» Eric just looked back at her with his head cocked to one side, silent for a long moment before he chose to speak. «Lyss, until you’ve dealt with politicians and reporters, you don’t know the meaning of the word. — Evan Currie

Did you know there are thirty-two names for love in one of the Eskimo languages?» August said. «And we just have this one. We are so limited, you have to use the same word. — Sue Monk Kidd

One, you will become what you think about. Two, remember the word imagination. Let your mind soar. Three, courage. Concentrate on your goal everyday. Four, save 10 percent of what you earn and action. Ideas are worthless unless we act on them. — Earl Nightingale

To me, one of the greatest triumphs in doing a book is to tell the story as simply as possible. My aim is to imply rather than to overstate. Whenever the reader participates with his own interpretation, I feel that the book is much more successful. I write with the premise that less is more. Writing is not difficult to me. I read into a tape recorder, constantly dropping a word here and there from my manuscript until I get a minimum amount of words to say exactly what I want to say. Each time I drop a word or two, it brings me a sense of victory! — Ezra Jack Keats

None of us actually lives as though there were no truth. Our problem is more with the notion of a single, unchanging truth.
The word ‘true’ suggest a relationship between things: being true to someone or something, truth as loyalty, or something that fits, as two surfaces may be said to be ‘true.’ It is related to ‘trust,’ and is fundamentally a matter of what one believes to be the case. The Latin word verum (true) is cognate with a Sanskrit word meaning to choose or believe: the option one chooses, the situation in which one places one’s trust. Such a situation is not an absolute — it tells us not only about the chosen thing, but also about the chooser. It cannot be certain: it involves an act of faith and it involves being faithful to one’s intentions. — Iain McGilchrist

Two people whose opinion I respect told me that the word «Christian» would turn people off. This certainly says something about the state of Christianity today. I wouldn’t mind if to be a Christian were accepted as being the dangerous thing which it is; I wouldn’t mind if, when a group of Christians meet for bread and wine, we might well be interrupted and jailed for subversive activities; I wouldn’t mind if, once again, we were being thrown to the lions. I do mind, desperately, that the word «Christian» means for so many people smugness, and piosity, and holier-than-thouness. Who today can recognize a Christian because of «how those Christians love one another? — Madeleine L’Engle

One of the greatest live recordings, I think, in the history of the world is Ray Charles in Atlanta … And they didn’t even have a big mobile recording thing set up. The word on the street was they only had like two microphones, one for the band and one for him. Perfect recordings. I think it’s mono. — Robbie Robertson

One dictionary defines denouement as «a final part in which everything is made clear and no questions or surprises remain.» By that definition, it is exactly the wrong word to describe this chapter. This chapter will make nothing clear; it will raise many questions; and it may even contain a surprise or two. But I say we call it the denouement anyway because the words sounds so sophisticated and French. — Pseudonymous Bosch

Next year, Equality Now will celebrate — if that’s the word — will clock its twentieth year. Two decades of fighting the good fight, fighting the cause, and in case I haven’t been the clear, the cause is that one half of the human race is given the same basic equal rights that the other half enjoys.
Or, not given. Given back.
That is not a milestone, twenty years, that I intend to go unnoticed. I want to make some noise. I want to make a joyful noise, I want to make too much noise. I want the neighbors to complain.
I’m tired of being polite about something that matters so much. — Joss Whedon

As I said, you have mistaken me for another. London is full of drab little peahens, sir. Now, then, I’m leaving,» she said in a huff.
«To change?» he asked, unable to stop from goading her.
«To write a poem for my toast,» she snapped. «And you may suffer, for I will not help you with yours.»
«No need, darling,» Matthew drawled, his words intending to push her away.
«I doubt you know a suitable word that will rhyme with fuck. «
«Stuck,» she said, turning to face him. «For two days, my lord. We are stuck with one another. Let us make the best of it.»
«And how do you propose we do that?»
«By giving each other wide berth. We will not stand together, we will not talk to one another and we will most certainly not look at one another.»
«No problem from this quarter.»
«Good. You may be assured that it will be no difficulty for me, either.»
-Matthew and Jane — Charlotte Featherstone

There’s a poetry to it, engineer’s poetry … it suggests Haverie — average, you know — certainly you have two lobes, don’t you, symmetrical about the rocket’s intended azimuth … hauen, too-smashing someone with a hoe or a club … off on a voyage of his own here, smiling at no one in particular, bringing in the popular wartime expression ab-hauen, quarterstaff technique, peasant humor, phallic comedy dating back to the ancient Greeks … Slothrop’s first impulse is to get back to what that Plas is into, but something about the man, despite obvious membership in the plot, keeps him listening … an innocence, maybe a try at being friendly in the only way he has available, sharing what engages and runs him, a love for the Word. — Thomas Pynchon

Seven little crazy kids chopping up sticks;
One burnt her daddy up and then there were six.
Six little crazy kids playing with a hive;
One tattooed himself to death and then there were five.
Five little crazy kids on a cellar door;
One went all schizo and then there were four.
Four little crazy kids going out to sea;
One wouldn’t say a word and then there were three.
Three little crazy kids walking to the zoo;
One jerked himself too much and then there were two.
Two little crazy kids sitting in the sun;
One a took a bunch of pills and then there was one.
One little crazy kid left all alone;
He went and slit his wrists, and then there were none. — Michael Thomas Ford

Clean boyfriend someday. I love you. Joe. On the other side was a photograph of the Sylvia Beach Hotel on the Oregon coast, where we’d stayed together once. I stared at the photograph for several moments, a series of feelings washing over me in waves: grateful for a word from someone I knew, nostalgic for Joe, disappointed that only one person had written to me, and heartbroken, unreasonable as it was, that the one person who had wasn’t Paul. I bought two bottles of Snapple lemonade, a king-sized Butterfinger, and a bag of Doritos and went outside and sat on the front steps, devouring the things I’d purchased while reading the postcard over and over again. After a while, I noticed a box in the corner of the porch stuffed — Cheryl Strayed

You must know that I do not love and that I love you,
because everything alive has its two sides;
a word is one wing of silence,
fire has its cold half.
I love you in order to begin to love you,
to start infinity again
and never to stop loving you:
that’s why I do not love you yet.
I love you, and I do not love you, as if I held
keys in my hand: to a future of joy-
a wretched, muddled fate-
My love has two lives, in order to love you.
-Sonnet XLIV — Pablo Neruda

I mean the word proof not in the sense of the lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one, but in the sense of a mathematician, where half proof = 0, and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes impossible. — Carl Friedrich Gauss

Knowing that a particle can occupy two different states at the same time — a state known as superposition — and, two particles, such as two particles of light, or photons, can become entangled, means that there is a unique, coupled state in which an action, like a measurement, upon one particle immediately causes a correlated change in the other.
If there is a better word to describe my relationship with Fanio than entangled, I have yet to hear it. Even when the two entangled particles — or people — are separated by a great distance (and I mean emotional or physical distance, such as mine with Epifanio, or like being at opposite ends of the universe), their movements or actions affect each other. Yet, before any measurements or other assessments occur, the actual «spin states» of either of the two particles are uncertain and even unknowable. — Sally Ember

When you get down to it, though, explaining what you believe isn’t all that easy. If you say that you believe something to be true, you might mean one of two things — that you’re still weighing the alternatives, or that you accept it as a fact. I don’t logically see how one single word can have contradictory definitions, but emotionally, I completely understand. Because there are times I think what I am doing is right, and there are other times I second-guess myself every step of the way. — Jodi Picoult

It is, of course, an indispensable part of a scrivener’s business to verify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. Where there are two or more scriveners in an office, they assist each other in this examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether intolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet Byron would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law document of, say five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand. — Herman Melville

Despite the third word of the title, this is not an instruction manual that will tell you anything useful about how to be happy. Those books are located in the self-help section two aisles over, and once you’ve bought one, done everything it says to do, and found yourself miserable anyway, you can always come back here to understand why. — Daniel M. Gilbert

They stood there two feet apart in all that vale of tears, one man asking another how he was, the other asking how the other was, the one not knowing truly what the world was, the other not knowing either. One nodded to the other now in an expression of understanding without understanding, of saying without breathing a word. And the other nodded back to the other, knowing nothing. Not this new world of terminality and astonishing dismay, of extremity of ruin and exaggeration of misery. — Sebastian Barry

We can think a healed thought and speak a healed word, speak of and to the two who are One, our MotherGoddessFatherGod. The hopeful but misty thought that «I’ve a Mother there» will give way to the experience that «I’ve a Mother here.» We will know Him, Her, Them, Us, the Divine Family unbroken, bringing part to whole and whole to part, singing the indispensable She who had been forgotten but it now found, singing the wholeness, singing the holiness. — Carol Lynn Pearson

Good acts grow upon a person. I have sometimes thought that many men, judging from their utter lack of kindness and of a disposition to aid others, imagined that if they were to say or do a kind thing, it would destroy their capacity to perform a kind act or say a kind word in the future. If you have a granary full of grain, and you give away a sack or two, there remain that many less in your granary, but if you perform a kind act or add words of encouragement to one in distress, who is struggling along in the battle of life, the greater is your capacity to do this in the future. Don’t go through life with your lips sealed against words of kindness and encouragement, nor your hearts sealed against performing labors for another. Make a motto in life: always try and assist someone else to carry his burden. — Heber J. Grant

Faith always presented to the mind the idea of an abnormal intellectual condition, of the subversion or suspension of the critical faculties. It sometimes comprised more than this, but it always included this. It was the opposite of doubt and of the spirit of doubt. What irreverent men called credulity, reverent men called faith; and although one word was more respectful than the other, yet the two words were with most men strictly synonymous. — William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Part of it may be that translators are paid by the word, so the more carefully they work on a translation, the less they are paid for their time, which means that if they are very careful they may not earn much. And often, the more interesting or unusual the book, the more painstaking they have to be. For one or two difficult books, I took so long over each page that I earned less than a dollar an hour. But I’m not sure this explains why so many people do not respect translators or would simply prefer not to think about them. — Lydia Davis

Are you a storyteller, Thomas Covenant?»
Absently he replied, «I was, once.»
«And you gave it up? Ah, that is as sad a tale in three words as any you might have told me. But a life without a tale is like a sea without salt. How do you live?»
… Unconsciously, he clenched his fist over his ring. «I live.»
«Another?» Foamfollower returned. «In two words, a story sadder than the first. Say no more
with one word you will make me weep. — Stephen R. Donaldson

away from fast food — for three weeks already. And I was starting to miss the occasional burger and fries. I assumed there’d be a few of the other lads feeling the same way. I talked to Sven, who thought it wouldn’t do any harm, and then had a word with the England chefs. On the Wednesday night we all trooped down to dinner. The doors of the dining room were shut and there were two giant golden arches stuck up on them. We all went inside and there was a McDonald’s takeaway mountain waiting for us: more burgers, cheeseburgers and chips than you’ve ever seen piled up in one room in your life. It was a complete surprise to all the players. We just devoured everything: it was like watching kids going mad in a candy store. And it worked. We did it again before we played Denmark. Maybe fast food was what was missing from our preparations for facing Brazil. — David Beckham

I’m not good at talking,» Naoko said. «Haven’t been for the longest while. I start to say something and the wrong words come out. Wrong or sometimes completely backward. I try to go back and correct it, but things get even more complicated and confused, so that I don’t even remember what I started to say in the first place. Like I was split into two or something, one half chasing the other. And there’s this big pillar in the middle and they go chasing each other around and around it. The other me always latches onto the right word and this me absolutely never catches up — Haruki Murakami

Word for word, Galland’s version [of the One Thousand and One Nights] is the worst written, the most fraudulent and the weakest, but it was the most widely read. Readers who grew intimate with it experienced happiness and amazement. Its orientalism, which we now find tame, dazzled the sort of person who inhaled snuff and plotted tragedies in five acts. Twelve exquisite volumes appeared from 1707 to 1717, twelve volumes innumerably read, which passed into many languages, including Hindustani and Arabic. We, mere anachronistic readers of the twentieth century, perceive in these volumes the cloyingly sweet taste of the eighteenth century and not the evanescent oriental aroma that two hundred years ago was their innovation and their glory. No one is to blame for this missed encounter, least of all Galland. — Jorge Luis Borges

What would the days be like now?
It was Mom who bound us all together, it was Mom who was at the center of Yngve’s and my life, we knew that, Dad knew that, but perhaps she didn’t. How else could she leave us like this?
Knives and forks clinking on plates, elbows moving, heads held stiff, straight backs. No one saying a word. That is us three, a father and two sons, sitting and eating. Around us, on all sides, it is the seventies.
The silence grows. And we notice it, all three of us, the silence is not the kind that can ease, it is the kind that lasts a lifetime. Well, of course, you can say something inside it, you can talk, but the silence doesn’t stop for that reason. — Karl Ove Knausgard

Prayer is based on the remote possibility that someone is actually listening; but so is a lot of conversation. If the former seems far-fetched, consider the latter: even if someone is listening to your story, and really hearing, that person will disappear from existence in the blink of a cosmic eye, so why bother to tell this perhaps illusory and possibly un-listening person something he or she is unlikely to truly understand, just before the two of you blip back out of existence? We like to talk to people who answer us, intelligently if possible, but we do talk without needing response or expecting comprehension. Sometimes, the event is the word, the act of speaking. Once we pull that apart a bit, the action of talking becomes more important than the question of whether the talking is working-because we know, going in, that the talking is not working. That said, one might as well pray. — Jennifer Michael Hecht

mad maddie: i am SOOOO pissed. SnowAngel: oh no. why? mad maddie: one word. well, two. JANA WHITAKER. SnowAngel: the queen bee of our entire class? *gasps* what’d she do this time? mad maddie: i hate her. she’s evil. SnowAngel: i KNOW that. TELL ME WHAT SHE DID!!!! mad maddie: we had a substitute for last period study hall and he insisted on taking roll, cuz god forbid one of us had snuck off to do something productive. when he got to me he called out, «madeleine kinnick?» and jana turns around, all batting eyes and innocent, and goes, «um, isn’t your name madigan?» SnowAngel: yr name IS madigan. mad maddie: which jana totally knows! SnowAngel: so what’s the problem? mad maddie: r u serious?!! mad maddie: it was the way she said it, like she was honestly confused. like, «oh my goodness, i THINK i know u, don’t i?» WHEN WE’VE GONE TO SCHOOL TOGETHER SINCE 7th GRADE!!! — Lauren Myracle

Like the librarians of Babel in Borges’s story, who are looking for the book that will provide them with the key to all the others, we oscillate between the illusion of perfection and the vertigo of the unattainable. In the name of completeness, we would like to believe that a unique order exists that would enable us to accede in knowledge all in one go; in the name of the unattainable, we would like to think that order and disorder are in fact the same word, denoting pure chance.
It’s possible also that both are decoys, illusions intended to disguise the erosion of both books and systems. It is no bad thing in any case that between the two our bookshelves should serve from time to time as joggers of the memory, as cat-rests and as lumber-rooms. — Georges Perec

Bill Door was impressed. Miss Flitworth could actually give the word «revenue», which had two vowels and one diphthong, all the peremptoriness of the word «scum. — Terry Pratchett

If you’re comparing the badness of two words and you won’t even say one of them [the n-word], that’s the worse word. — John Mulaney

Cobb. But, said he, who shall be judge between you, for you take the Scriptures one way, and they another? Bun. I said the Scripture should: and that by comparing one Scripture with another; for that will open itself, if it be rightly compared. As for instance, if under the different apprehensions of the word Mediator, you would know the truth of it, the Scriptures open it, and tell us that he that is a mediator must take up the business between two, and a mediator is not a mediator of one, — but God is one, and there is one Mediator between God and men, even the man Christ Jesus. Gal. iii. 20; 1 Tim. ii. 5. So likewise the Scripture calleth Christ a complete, or perfect, or able high priest. That is opened in that He is called man, and also God. His blood also is discovered to be effectually efficacious by the same things. So the Scripture, as touching the matter of meeting together, etc., doth likewise sufficiently open itself and discover its meaning. — John Bunyan

Tracy pulled the pillow away from her face and stared up at the ceiling of her huge bedroom. Was that it, she wondered. Was Ross not satisfying his demanding wife in the one place where it really counted for a woman like her mother? In bed. Two weeks ago, in the middle of one of their pointless arguments Faye had shouted at Ross that he wasn’t a man. They’d been in the kitchen and Tracy remembered how she’d frozen at the counter, hardly daring to breathe. Her Daddy’s cheeks had turned white and then a furious shade of red. He’d taken a step toward Faye whose own face blanched as her eyes widened in fear. Even she had realized she’d gone too far. Ross had looked as if he was on the verge of punching his wife in the mouth but then, without another word, he’d turned and strode out of the house. It had been his turn to slam the door that time. He’d done it so hard Tracy could have sworn the whole house shook. — Katie Ayres

I love to play with language; make it do tricks, turn a word inside out to see if it’s got a hidden meaning tucked away somewhere, or perhaps find that it’s capable of an extra entendre or two … Plotting is nothing I did, or do, naturally. It is the hardest part of the writing process. No matter how many times you plot a script successfully, the next one, representing new and uncharted territory, convinces you that you really don’t know how to do it at all. — Larry Gelbart

I heard one preach a sermon on these words in the song, Song iv. 1, Behold, thou art fair, my love, behold, thou art fair. But at that time he made these two words, my love, his chief and subject matter: from which, after he had a little opened the text, he observed these several conclusions: 1. That the church, and so every saved soul, is Christ’s love, when loveless. 2. Christ’s love without a cause. 3. Christ’s love, when hated of the world. 4. Christ’s love, when under temptation and under destruction. 5. Christ’s love, from first to last. 90. But I got nothing by what he said at present; only when he came to the application of the fourth particular, this was the word he said; If it be so, that the saved soul is Christ’s love, when under temptation and desertion; then poor tempted soul, when thou art assaulted, and afflicted with temptations, and the hidings of God’s face, yet think on these two words, ‘My love,’ still. — John Bunyan

The little word is has its tragedies: it marries and identifies different things with the greatest innocence; and yet no two are ever identical, and if therein lies the charm of wedding them and calling them one, therein too lies the danger. — George Santayana

Her tongue touched his, hesitant, almost shy. It was enough. Enough to bring their past, their passion, their desire, rushing back to him. He groaned, low and unabashed, and plunged his tongue deeper into her mouth, his hands snaking around her waist to snare her shirt in two tight fistfuls. She whimpered in reply, the sound pushing him over the edge.
With another groan — this one far more aggressive — he yanked her to his body, taking utter possession of her mouth as his hands roamed her back. She fit to his frame with perfection, firm and soft and lush. Nothing had changed. Her body against his ignited a primitive need in him he’d never been able to vocalize, not in song or word, no matter how many times he’d tried. It sparked a want beyond the physical. — Lexxie Couper

Enclosure, upon its completion, was the record which represented the achievement of all the musical goals I had been aiming at for the previous 5 years. It was recorded simultaneously with Black Knights’ Medieval Chamber, and as different as the two albums appear to be, they represent one investigative creative thought process. What I learned from one fed directly into the other. Enclosure is presently my last word on the musical statement which began with PBX. — John Frusciante

This undoubtedly accounts for my sense of shock when, on my first visit to Duke University, and by surprise, I came face-to-face with James B. Duke in his dignity, his glory perhaps, as the founder of that university. He stands imperially in bronze in front of a Methodist chapel aspiring to be a cathedral. He holds between two fingers of his left hand a bronze cigar. On one side of his pedestal is the legend: INDUSTRIALIST. On the other side is another single word: PHILANTHROPIST. The man thus commemorated seemed to me terrifyingly ignorant, even terrifyingly innocent, of the connection between his industry and his philanthropy. But I did know the connection. I felt it instantly and physically. The connection was my grandparents and thousands of others more or less like them. If you can appropriate for little or nothing the work and hope of enough such farmers, then you may dispense the grand charity of «philanthropy. — Wendell Berry

Every field has its taboos. In algebraic geometry the taboos are (1) writing a draft that can be followed by anyone but two or three of one’s closest friends, (2) claiming that a result has applications, (3) mentioning the word ‘combinatorial,’ and (4) claiming that algebraic geometry existed before Grothendieck (only some handwaving references to ‘the Italians’ are allowed provided they are not supported by specific references). — Gian-Carlo Rota

… It’s just so’ — she frowned, hunting for the right word — ‘relentless. You think you’re getting on top of it. You scoop up a few villains, get a result or two, make a night of it in the bar, then next morning you wake up and start all over again. It never bloody stops…
She described the pressures from headquarters, and from her own divisional Superintendent. The never-ending demands to beat performance target after performance target. The blizzards of paperwork. The fact that no one really knew what their political masters were after. They claimed to have priorities, lots of priorities, but in the end you got to realise there were so many that absolutely nothing got to the top of the heap. When it came to working out what politicians wanted, really wanted, she’d finally sussed the truth: that they were all equally clueless.
pg 157 — Graham Hurley

My personal favorite version of the game, Speed Scrabble, is played with tiles only. Each player selects seven tiles. At the call to start, each player turns over his or her tiles. Using these letters, the player creates an individual grid of six letters, with two or possibly three intersecting words, selecting one letter to pass along. The first player to finish calls out the word switch, passes the rejected tiles to the player at the right, and turns over two new tiles from the general pile. Each player then incorporates the new tiles into his or her grid, always rejecting one to pass along at the word switch. Obvious rejects are Q and Z, which usually get passed around. The game is played until the tiles are depleted and one person calls out the word finished. If no one has any questions about the winner’s grid, the points on the tiles are added up. Losers deduct the number of points of the unused letters. Each round takes about fifteen or twenty minutes max… — Michelle Arnot

You wouldn’t believe the scope for mischief that the Beast of Redmond unintentionally builds into its Office software by letting it execute macros that have unlimited access to the hardware. I remember a particular post-prandial PowerPoint presentation where I was one of only two survivors (and the other wasn’t entirely human). However, this is the first time I’ve seen a Word document eat a man’s soul. — Charles Stross

You know, I believe every word you’ve said, but I don’t need this. I’ve got six officers working for me full-time, plus four reserve deputies and a dog, and the dog got his feet cut up on broken glass yesterday and he’s out of it for a week. That means two guys for busy shifts, one guy for others. The dog has the most experience. Not counting the part-timers, he might even be the smartest. I include myself in that. I’ve never investigated anything more complicated than mailbox theft. — John Sandford

Jean Louise interrupted. Hester, let me ask you something. I’ve been home since Saturday now, and since Saturday I’ve heard a great deal of talk about mongrelizin’ the race, and it’s led me to wonder if that’s not rather an unfortunate phrase, and if probably it should be discarded from Southern jargon these days. It takes two races to mongrelize a race — if that’s the right word — and when we white people holler about mongrelizin’, isn’t that something of a reflection on ourselves as a race? The message I get from it is that if it were lawful, there’d be a wholesale rush to marry Negroes. If I were a scholar, which I ain’t, I would say that kind of talk has a deep psychological significance that’s not particularly flattering to the one who talks it. At its best, it denotes an alarmin’ mistrust of one’s own race. — Harper Lee

… Be there people either Conservatives or Socialists, Yellows or Reds, the most important thing is — and this is the point I wish particularly to stress — that all of them are right in the plain and moral sense of the word… I ask whether it is not possible to see in the present social conflict of the world an analogous struggle between two, three, five equally serious verities and equally generous idealisms? I think it is possible, and this is the most dramatic element in modern civilization, that a human truth is opposed to another truth no less human, ideal against ideal, positive words against words no less positive, instead of the struggle being, as we are so often told it is, one between noble truth and vile selfish error. — Karel Capek

The tattooed face of a cat, blue and grinning, covered his right hand; on one shoulder a blue rose blossomed. More markings, self-designed and self-executed, ornamented his arms and torso: the head of a dragon with a human skull between its open jaws; bosomy nudes; a gremlin brandishing a pitchfork; the word PEACE accompanied by a cross radiating, in the form of crude strokes, rays of holy light; and two sentimental concoctions — one a bouquet of flowers dedicated to MOTHER-DAD, the other a heart that celebrated the romance of DICK and CAROL, the girl whom he had married when he was nineteen, and from whom he had separated six years later in order to «do the right thing» by another young lady, the mother of his youngest child. («I have three boys who — Truman Capote

Having experimented in both poetry and prose, I can say that the two are such loaded words. But neither are quite as weighted as the word «poet». I think some people can write poetry their whole lives, and never truly BE a «poet». Whereas I see poets in the wanderers I encounter, the baristas who serve me, and the truckers I, so, love to talk to.To be a poet in my humble opinion is to be a muse of the human experience. I love that I love the idea, that anything can be poetry, it can’t be defined. It’s a feeling, like punk rock. I’m not one for form or structure. I say if your words are visceral and honest, it’s poetry. If you see the beauty of the world and humanity, and you preach it, you’re a poet. — Mallory Smart

Statistically, you can take two people, give them the same quantity of God’s Word, and the one with the most Christian friends will be the one who’s most likely to apply it. So the real question we need to ask ourselves is this, «Are we intimately connected with other people in the body of Christ?» If not, it doesn’t matter how many sermons or worship experiences you ingest. You have very low odds of actually changing. — Peter Haas

Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,
and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon
accompanies me; then if I
dance, it is my shadow that
dances along with me; while
still not drunk, I am glad
to make the moon and my shadow
into friends, but then when
I have drunk too much, we
all part; yet these are
friends I can always count on
these who have no emotion
whatsoever; I hope that one day
we three will meet again,
deep in the Milky Way. — Li Bai

I am flawed on many obvious levels, and truthfully, I erroneously report my zip code at least two out of every ten times. So why would I write about pursuing a rich understanding of the Bible? Isn’t that material reserved for the upper echelon of the church hierarchy? The ones who have «arrived»? The answer is fundamental: The insights of the Bible are not reserved for pastors, their wives, and Billy Graham. Psalm 119:130, one of the most beautiful passages concerning God’s Word, says, The unfolding of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple. — Jen Hatmaker

Good luck with that, Harvath thought. In his experience, life was predominantly made up of three distinct groups: sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves. And if there was one thing he had learned from a lifetime of hunting wolves and protecting sheep, it was that sheep had two speeds — graze and stampede. Now that word was out that the virus was loose, all bets were off. Very soon, chaos was going to ensue. «What else do you have?» he asked, bracing himself for more bad news. «The pharmaceutical companies Damien’s involved with appear pretty benign. One focuses on dementia medication and the other on birth control drugs. — Brad Thor

We are not going to decide this with a game of cards,» Sebastian grout. «Besides, the decision has been made.»
«Oh? Tristan arched a brow. «And who is it to be then?»
«You. You’re the one who allowed her in here and then let her stay.»
He’d expected his brother to protest. Instead, he simply gave up curt nod.
«Right, then. I’d best go ask for her hand while she still in London. Word is that her father sending her away.»
He taken but two steps before Sebastian and ground out, «Damn you, Tristan. You know it will be me. — Lorraine Heath

Each of us craves utterly unfailing love: a love that is unconditional, unwavering, radical, demonstrative, broader than the horizon, deeper than the sea. And it would be nice if that love were healthy, liberating rather than suffocating, and whole. Interestingly, the Word of God uses the phrase «unfailing love» thirty-two other times, and not one of them refers to any source other than God, Himself. — Beth Moore

Atheist, in the strict and proper sense of the word, is one who does not believe in the existence of a god, or who owns no being superior to nature. It is compounded of the two terms … signifying without God. — Richard Watson

The kind of submission or resignation that he showed, was that of a man who was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner or from a whispered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered over the question whether he might have a better man under better circumstances. But he never justified himself by a hint tending that way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape.
It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his desperate reputation was alluded to by one or other of the people in attendance on him. A smile crossed his face then, and he turned his eyes on me with a trustful look, as if he were confident that I had seen some small redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when I was a little child. As to all the rest, he was humble and contrite, and I never knew him complain. — Charles Dickens

Oh, come now, you two,» Lady Manston said, «surely it can be no surprise that I have long hoped for an alliance between the Rokesbys and Bridgertons.»
«Alliance?» Billie echoed, and all George could think was that it was a terrible, clinical word, one that could never encompass all that he had come to feel for her. — Julia Quinn

But what is now encompassed by the one word («school») are two very different kinds of institutions that, in function, finance and intention, serve entirely different roles. Both are needed for our nation’s governance. But children in one set of schools are educated to be governors; children in the other set of schools are trained for being governed. The former are given the imaginative range to mobilize ideas for economic growth; the latter are provided with the discipline to do the narrow tasks the first group will prescribe. — Jonathan Kozol

If any of us had heard the word «feminist» we would have thought it meant a girl who wore too much makeup, but we were, without knowing it, feminists ourselves, bound together by the freemasonry that exists among intelligent women who know they are intelligent. It is the only kind of female bonding that works, which is why most men do not like intelligent women. They don’t mind one female brain if they can enjoy it privately; it’s the idea of two or more on the loose that upsets them. The girls in the college-bound group might not have been friends in every case
Sharon Cohen and I gave each other willies
but our instincts told us that we had the same enemies. — Florence King

Exploitation. Now, there’s a word that has been scrubbed out of the poverty debate. 42 It is a word that speaks to the fact that poverty is not just a product of low incomes. It is also a product of extractive markets. Boosting poor people’s incomes by increasing the minimum wage or public benefits, say, is absolutely crucial. But not all of those extra dollars will stay in the pockets of the poor. Wage hikes are tempered if rents rise along with them, just as food stamps are worth less if groceries in the inner city cost more — and they do, as much as 40 percent more, by one estimate. 43 Poverty is two-faced — a matter of income and expenses, input and output — and in a world of exploitation, it will not be effectively ameliorated if we ignore this plain fact. — Matthew Desmond

Satire is an art best practiced behind the back of the intended target. I think inviting politicians on a satirical show becomes a very big trap. Because one of two things happen: Either you have to kind of unsharpen your fangs because you can’t be quite as cruel to people to their face as you are behind their backs … Or you don’t defang, and those guests get the word and they stop coming. — Harry Shearer

Jayden went for my fries, ignoring Anna’s narrowed gaze. «Thanks, babe.»
«You two know each other?» Jo gestured between Jayden and me with her fork.
Before I could nod, he dropped an arm over my shoulders. «She’s my bae.»
I grinned.
«Bae?» Keira sighed. «I hate that word. Do you know what it really means?»
«Poop,» I answered without thinking. «In Danish.»
My eyes widened. Holy crap. I’d spoken without hesitation at lunch! Holy crap! No one recognized my internal freak-out over it, but I couldn’t believe it. I sat there and spoke with no problem.
I needed to give myself a cookie.
Anna giggled. «Oh, man. I know. I know. Still think it’s a cute word.»
Across from her, Keira rolled her eyes. «It literally means shit.»
«Mallory is the shit, though. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Sometimes I have the feeling that we’re in one room with two opposite doors and each of us holds the handle of one door, one of us flicks an eyelash and the other is already behind his door, and now the first one has but to utter a word ad immediately the second one has closed his door behind him and can no longer be seen. He’s sure to open the door again for it’s a room which perhaps one cannot leave. If only the first one were not precisely like the second, if he were calm, if he would only pretend not to look at the other, if he slowly set the room in order as though it were a room like any other; but instead he does exactly the same as the other at his door, sometimes even both are behind the doors and the the beautiful room is empty. Franz Kafka (in a letter to Milena Jesenska) — Edmund White

Supposing there was justice for all, after all? For every unheeded beggar, every harsh word, every neglected duty, every slight … every choice … Because that was the point, wasn’t it? You had to choose. You might be right, you might be wrong, but you had to choose, knowing that the rightness or wrongness might never be clear or even that you were deciding between two sorts of wrong, that there was no right anywhere. And always, always, you did it by yourself. You were the one there, on the edge, watching and listening. Never any tears, never any apology, never any regrets … You saved all that up in a way that could be used when needed. — Terry Pratchett

Our love was a two-person game. At least until one of us died, and the other became a murderer. — Dark Jar Tin Zoo

She had thought, instinctively, that Victoria had a remarkably beautiful face. The face showed an alert awareness of life: her lips- full, overblown like clown-lips liable to laugh at the slightest provocation. She thought that her features were not chiseled but almost rugged, handsome, like a colloquial swear-word or a Vermeer peasant-girl, and a knock out at that. An overdone face, like one having two chins, two noses, that was big and abundantly cheerful but at the same time, there was a peculiarly puffy look about those eyes.’
(‘Left from Dhakeshwari’) — Kunal Sen

And in fact the artist’s experience lies so unbelievably close to the sexual, to its pain and its pleasure, that the two phenomena are really just different forms of one and the same longing and bliss. And if instead of «heat» one could say «sex»;- sex in the great, pure sense of the word, free of any sin attached to it by the Church, — then his art would be very great and infinitely important. His poetic power is great and as strong as a primal instinct; it has its own relentless rhythms in itself and explodes from him like a volcano. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I know I found his lips and let him caress me without realizing that I, too, was crying and didn’t know why. That dawn, and all the ones that followed in the two weeks I spent with Julian, we made love to one another on the floor, never saying a word. Later, sitting in a cafe or strolling through the streets, I would look into his eyes and know, without any need to question him, that he still loved Penelope. I remember that during those days I learned to hate that seventeen-year-old girl (for Penelope was always seventeen to me) whom I had never met and who now haunted my dreams. I invented excuses for cabling Cabestany to prolong my stay. I no longer cared whether I lost my job or the grey existence I had left behind in Barcelona. I have often asked myself whether my life was so empty when I arrived in Paris that I fell into Julian’s arms — like Irene Marceau’s girls, who, despite themselves, craved for affection. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

This is certainly that kind of masterpiece, and a new name should be created for such an all-frequencies assault on the sensibilities. I propose the name blivit. This is a word which during my adolescence was defined by peers as two pounds of shit in a one-pound bag. — Kurt Vonnegut

The Lake Isle
O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop,
With the little bright boxes
piled up neatly upon the shelves
And the loose fragrant cavendish
and the shag,
And the bright Virginia
loose under the bright glass cases,
And a pair of scales not too greasy,
And the whores dropping in for a word or two in passing,
For a flip word, and to tidy their hair a bit.
O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Lend me a little tobacco-shop,
or install me in any profession
Save this damn’d profession of writing,
where one needs one’s brains all the time. — Ezra Pound

Although the American Standard Version (1901) had used «Jehovah» to render the tetragrammaton (the sound of y being represented by j and the sound of w by v, as in Latin), for two reasons the Committees that produced the RSV and the NRSV returned to the more familiar usage of the King James Version. (1) The word «Jehovah» does not accurately represent any form of the divine name ever used in Hebrew. (2) The use of any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods from whom the true God had to be distinguished, began to be discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era and is inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian church. — Anonymous

Here,» he growled and I blinked.
«Deacon, I’m not a big fan of — »
«Future,» he cut me off. «Assert your feminism when I’m not three seconds away from fuckin’ you on your porch. I come to you, that’s gonna happen. You come to me, maybe it won’t.»
Maybe?
I didn’t ask that.
I asked , «So if you get your way and I come to you, you can miraculously control your base instincts?»
His reply?
«One.»
My body jerked and my brows shot together as the meaning of that word hit me.
«Are you counting down — ?»
«Two.»
I planted my hands on my hips.
«You are!» I cried angrily. «You’re counting — »
«Fuck it,» he muttered, took two long strides, and I was in his arms. — Kristen Ashley

You may be very deficient in talent yourself, and yet you may be the means of drawing to Christ one who shall become eminent in grace and service. Ah! dear friend, you little know the possibilities which are in you. You may but speak a word to a child, and in that child there may be slumbering a noble heart which shall stir the Christian church in years to come. Andrew has only two talents, but he finds Peter. Go thou and do likewise. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

She shut her eyes: the sweet word «promiscuity» came to her mind and suffused her; she enunciated silently to herself: «promiscuity of ideas.» How could such contradictory attitudes follow after one another in a single head like two mistresses in the same bed? In the past that nearly infuriated her, but today it entrances her: for she knows that the contract between what Leroy used to say and what he’s professing today doesn’t matter in the slightest. Because one idea is as good as another. Because all statements and positions carry the same value, can rub against one another, nestle, snuggle, fondle, mingle, diddle, cuddle, couple. — Milan Kundera

On the one side are the truths of fact, on the other the truth of the writer’s feeling, and where the two coincide cannot be decided by any outside authority in advance. — Roy Pascal

Why am I feeling guilty? Why is he so mad? I peek up at him. «Well, you know a lot more about me now,» he snaps, his mouth presses into a hard line. «I knew you were inexperienced, but a virgin!» He says it like it’s a really dirty word. «Hell, Ana, I just showed you … » he groans. «May God forgive me. Have you ever been kissed, apart from by me?» «Of course I have.» I try my best to look affronted. Okay … maybe twice. «And a nice young man hasn’t swept you off your feet? I just don’t understand. You’re twenty-one, nearly twenty-two. You’re beautiful.» He runs his hand through his hair again. Beautiful. I flush with pleasure. Christian Grey thinks I’m beautiful. I knot my fingers together, staring at them hard, trying to conceal my goofy grin. — E.L. James

What shall I tell you of the years that ensued? You know well the recent history of this beleaguered country. I need not to rehash for you those dark days. I tire at the mere thought of writing it, and, besides, the suffering of this country has already been sufficiently chronicled, and by pens far more learned and eloquent than mine.
I can sum it up in one word: war. Or rather, wars. Not one, not two, but many wars, both big and small, just and unjust, wars with shifting casts of supposed heroes and villains, each new hero making one increasingly nostalgic for the old villain. — Khaled Hosseini

Compare ‘now’ with ‘here’. ‘Here’ designates the place where a speaker is: for two different people ‘here’ points to two different places. Consequently ‘here’ is a word the meaning of which depends on where it is spoken. The technical term for this kind of utterance is ‘indexical’. ‘Now’ also points to the instant in which the word is uttered and is also classed as ‘indexical’. But no one would dream of saying that things ‘here’ exist, whereas things that are not ‘here’ do not exist. So then why do we say that things that are ‘now’ exist and that everything else doesn’t? — Carlo Rovelli

There are two men in me
one lives in the full sense of the word, the other reasons and passes judgment on the first. The first will perhaps take leave of you and the world forever in an hour now; and the second … the second? — Mikhail Lermontov

I have this theory that the more important and intimate the emotion, the fewer words are required to express it. For instance in dating: ‘Will you go out with me?’ Six words. ‘I really care for you.’ Five words. ‘You matter to me’ Four words. ‘I love you.’ Three words. ‘Marry me.’ Two words. Well, what’s left? What’s the one most important and intimate word you can ever say to somebody?
‘Goodbye … ‘ — J. Michael Straczynski

Jesus! it is the name which moves the harps of heaven to melody. Jesus! the life of all our joys. If there be one name more charming, more precious than another, it is this name. It is woven into the very warp and woof of our psalmody. Many of our hymns begin with it, and scarcely any, that are good for anything, end without it. It is the sum total of all delights. It is the music with which the bells of heaven ring; a song in a word; an ocean for comprehension, although a drop for brevity; a matchless oratorio in two syllables; a gathering up of the hallelujahs of eternity in five letters. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I know in another decade or two I’m going to have to get used to the idea of reading without paper in my hands, but I’m going to be making that trip kicking and screaming. Maybe that sounds stubborn, but my relationship with the printed word is the longest one I’ve ever had and I’m not ready to quit on it yet. — Gene Doucette

They might be talking in perfect latin tongue and without warning begin to talk in perfect anglo tongue and keep it up like that, alternating between a thing that believes itself to be perfect and a thing that believes itself to be perfect, morphing back and forth between two beasts until out of carelessness or clear intent they suddenly stop switching tongues and start speaking that other one. In it brims nostalgia for the land they left or never knew when they use the words with which they name objects; while actions are alluded to with an anglo verb conjugated latin-style, pinning on a sonorous tail from back there. Using in one tongue the word for a thing in the other makes the attributes of both resound: if you say Give me fire when they say Give me a light, what is not to be learned about fire, light and the act of giving? It’s not another way of saying things: these are new things — Yuri Herrera

It’s been said that adults spend the first two years of their children’s lives trying to make them walk and talk, and the next sixteen years trying to get them to sit down and shut up.
It’s the same way with potty training: Most adults spend the first few years of a child’s life cheerfully discussing pee and poopies, and how important it is to learn to put your pee-pee and poo-poo in the potty like big people do.
But once children have mastered the art of toilet training, they are immeadiately forbidden to ever talk about poop, pee, toilets and other bathroom-related subjects again. Such things are now considered rude and vulgar, and are no longer rewarded with praise and cookies and juice boxes.
One day you’re a superstar because you pooped in the toilet like a big boy, and the next day you’re sitting in the principal’s office because you said the word «poopy» in American History class (which, if you ask me, is the perfect place to say that word). — Dav Pilkey

Then, with a horror of pitiful amazement, she saw a great cross marked in two cruel stripes on his back; and the thoughts that thereupon went coursing through her loving imagination, it would be hard to set forth. Could it be that the Lord was still, child and man, suffering for his race, to deliver his brothers and sisters from their sins?
wandering, enduring, beaten, blessing still? accepting the evil, slaying it, and returning none? his patience the one rock where the evil word finds no echo; his heart the one gulf into which the dead-sea wave rushes with no recoil
from which ever flows back only purest water, sweet and cool; the one abyss of destroying love, into which all wrong tumbles, and finding no reaction, is lost, ceases for evermore? — George MacDonald

One two, one two,
Type a word or two.
Arrow left, arrow right,
Keep those fingers nice and tight.
Keys up, Keys down,
Move those digits all around.
One two, one two,
Type a word or two. — Jazz Feylynn

I bless the Lord that my heart is at that point, that if any man can lay any thing to my charge, either in doctrine or in practice, in this particular, that can be proved error or heresy, I am willing to disown it, even in the very market-place; but if it be truth, then to stand to it to the last drop of my blood. And, Sir, said I, you ought to commend me for so doing. To err and to be a heretic are two things; I am no heretic, because I will not stand refractorily to defend any one thing that is contrary to the Word. Prove any thing which I hold to be an error, and I will recant it. — John Bunyan

There are objects made up of two sense elements, one visual, the other auditory — the colour of a sunrise and the distant call of a bird. Other objects are made up of many elements — the sun, the water against the swimmer’s chest, the vague quivering pink which one sees when the eyes are closed, the feeling of being swept away by a river or by sleep. These second degree objects can be combined with others; using certain abbreviations, the process is practically an infinite one. There are famous poems made up of one enormous word, a word which in truth forms a poetic object, the creation of the writer. The fact that no one believes that nouns refer to an actual reality means, paradoxically enough, that there is no limit to the numbers of them. — Jorge Luis Borges

Somehow super power and hero are so synonymous that they get combined into one word, ‘superhero,’ whereas I’m kind of more interested in separating those two ideas out. You have characters with super powers who may or may not be heroic, because human beings aren’t all heroic. I tend to be drawn to antiheros. — Doug Liman

Everyone I know lies, breaks their word, and has perfectly legitimate excuses for why they do. Except you. Haven’t you ever noticed that? Two times in twelve years, you said you’d find this girl no matter what. And you did. Why? Because you gave your word, babe. And that might not mean shit to the rest of the world, but it means everything to you. Whatever else hapened today, you found her twice, Patrick. When no one else would even try. — Dennis Lehane

Were passing by. Once I heard him making fun of Jules. Jules was walking down the street carrying a lamp in his hand that he’d obviously just pulled out of some garbage heap. «Look at the garbage picker man!» Alphonse said. «That motherfucker is sad. He tried to sell me a comforter once! I said get the hell away from me. He’s out all night looking for rags and bones. What year we living in, man? Get a real job, motherfucker.» Jules couldn’t stand Alphonse either. He said Alphonse was a pimp. I didn’t know what a pimp did exactly. I was almost certain that it meant he had prostitutes working for him, but I wasn’t sure. I told a kid at school that I knew a pimp and he said, «Bullshit. It’s not fucking possible. You’re making it up.» So I guessed I’d made a mistake. Or maybe the word «pimp» had two different meanings. I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING to make older guys want to treat me like I was one of them, — Heather O’Neill