Desks Quotes - Page 15

• My earliest memories of my father are of seeing him work at his desk and realizing that he was happy. I did not know it then, but that was one of the most precious gifts a father can give his child.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Children, Memories, Father

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• The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it's a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk. Use your natural powers -- of persistence, concentration, and insight -- to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems. make art, think deeply.

  Susan Cain

  Art, Thinking, Persistence

  Susan Cain (2012). “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking”, p.264, Broadway Books

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• There is no greater power on this earth than story.” Will paced the length of the room. “People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense—words do. Beliefs, declarations, constitutions—words. Stories. Myths. Lies. Promises. History.” Will grabbed the sheaf of newspaper clippings he kept in a stack on his desk. “This, and these”—he gestured to the library’s teeming shelves—“they’re a testament to the country’s rich supernatural history.

  Libba Bray

  Country, Lying, Thinking

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• Rochelle," she calls out, still looking at me. "Is there anyone down at the desk? I need something." I'm too startled to move. Is she going to tell on me, get me in trouble? Rochelle's gotten up; she's banging the toilet stall doors open one by one, checking to make sure no one's in there. When the last stall turns up empty, she gives Amanda an annoyed look. "What do you need this time of night?" Amanda smiles at me, then turns to face Rochelle. "A tampon

  Patricia McCormick

  Moving, Night, Doors

  Patricia McCormick (2000). “Cut”, Front Street Incorporated

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• But Noah, you're not supposed to do this, and I can't let you. So go back to your room." Then smiling softly and sniffling and shuffling some papers on the desk, she says: "Me, I'm going downstairs for some coffee. I won't be back to check on your for a while, so don't do anything foolish." She rises quickly, touches my arm, and walks toward the stairs. She doesn't look back, and suddenly I am alone. I don't know what to think. I look at where she had been sitting and see her coffee, a full cup, still steaming, and once again I learn that there are good people in the world.

  Nicholas Sparks

  Coffee, Thinking, People

  4 Copy quote

• Sherlock: You're keeping a SCRAPBOOK. Only old ladies and pre-pubescent girls keep scrapbooks, John. John: It's not a scrapbook, Sherlock. I'm collecting papers relevant to the cases. It helps me remember the details. And it was locked away in my desk drawer. Sherlock: The lock on your desk drawer was insulting me with its pretense at security.

  Guy Adams

  Girl, Insulting, Details

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• One should write only those books from whose absence one suffers. In short: the ones you want on your own desk.

  Marina Tsvetaeva

  Book, Writing, Suffering

  Marina Tsvetaeva (2017). “Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries, 1917-1922”, p.154, New York Review of Books

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• Kylie stormed into Holiday's office. She dropped down into the seat across from the desk and looked her friend and camp leader right in the eyes. "I hate boys. I'm seriously considering going lesbian." Holiday's expression was part grin, part groan. "If it was that easy, ninety percent of the women in the world would be gay." She made a funny little face and then asked, "So...boy problems?

  C.C. Hunter

  Hate, Holiday, Eye

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• She praised his book and he embraced her from gratitude rather than lust, but she didn't let go. Neither did he. She kissed his cheek, his earlobe. For months they'd run their fingers around the hem of their affection without once acknowledging the fabric. The circumference of the world tightened to what their arms encompassed. She sat on the desk, between the columns of read and unread manuscript, and pulled him toward her by his index fingers.

  Anthony Marra

  Letting Go, Running, Gratitude

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• Kai neared his desk again, seeing that the fugitive's profile had been transferred to the screen. His frown deepened. Perhaps not dangerous, but young and inarguably good-looking. His prison photo showed him flippantly winking at the camera. Kai hated him immediately.

  Marissa Meyer

  Cameras, Prison, Looking Good

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• But what struck me was the book-madness of the place--books lay scattered across the unmade bed and the top of a battered-looking desk, books stood in knee-high piles on the floor, books were crammed sideways and right side up in a narrow bookcase that rose higher than my head and leaned dangerously from the wall, books sat in stacks on top of a dingy dresser. The closet door was propped open by a pile of books, and from beneath the bed a book stuck out beside the toe of a maroon slipper.

  Steven Millhauser

  Wall, Book, Doors

  Steven Millhauser (2008). “Dangerous Laughter”, p.35, Vintage

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• Inside the mirrored elevator, Mulch used a telescopic pointer to push P for the penthouse. For the first few months he had jumped to reach the button, but that was undignified behavior for a millionaire. And besides, he was certain that Art could hear the thumping from the security desk.

  Eoin Colfer

  Art, Buttons, Months

  Eoin Colfer (2002). “Artemis fowl: the Arctic incident”

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• I remember when I was like 19 years old and I started a desk calendar company to pay for my first short film, just so I could say one day that my daddy didn't pay for my first short film. And I really established myself in the film festival world.

  Jason Reitman

  Years, Daddy, One Day

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• Writing is not a job or activity. Nor do I sit at a desk writing for inspiration to strike. Writing is like a different kind of existence. In my life, for some of the time, I am in an alternative world, which I enter through day-dreaming or imagination. That world seems as real to me as the more tangible one of relationships and work, cars and taxes. I don't know that they're much different from each other.

  John Marsden

  Dream, Jobs, Real

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• You can't stand clutter, and you have an obsession with orderliness. The furniture in here is centered exactly on the walls; the files on your desk are arranged in precise corners. If I had to guess, I would say you are probably a control freak, and that is usually symptomatic of a man who feels powerless to control his own life, so he tries to control every facet of his surroundings.

  Judith McNaught

  Wall, Men, Trying

  Judith McNaught (2016). “Someone to Watch Over Me: A Novel”, p.147, Simon and Schuster

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• At this point two elderly security guards in parkas, the guys who normally work the front desk at the plant, asked John to step behind the tape. John claims that here he told the guards that he could not speak English and when that failed to persuade them, he fa...ked a violent seizure. I am unclear as to the purpose of this part of his plan. John flung himself down and began rolling around in the snow, thrashing his limbs about and screaming “EL SEIZURE!!! NO ES BUENO!!!” in a Mexican accent.

  David Wong

  Elderly, Security Guards, Speak English

  David Wong (2011). “John Dies at the End”, p.408, Titan Books

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• A year ago,' I said, 'you wouldn’t have asked this of me.' 'A year ago,' he answered, 'you wouldn’t have hesitated to drink.' I crossed to the desk and tossed it down.

  Charlaine Harris

  Years, Drink, Said

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• I do know how to operate a computer. (Joe) Yeah, right. What was it you said just ten minutes ago? Get this damned thing off my desk before I shoot it? Now make the call, Mr. Hunt-and-Peck. (Tee)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Computer, Yeah, Tees

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• The Chinese say that you should never, ever buy a used desk unless you know the history of it. They claim that if it belonged to a bad businessman, his karma will befall you. This one here belonged to President Kennedy. So what do you think that means? (Randy) I don’t know, but if I were you, I wouldn’t ride through Dallas in a convertible in November. Bad feng shui. (Steele)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Karma, Mean, Thinking

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2005). “Bad Attitude”, p.149, Simon and Schuster

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• All I want to know is why a party of Fey wanted to kill me,” I said heatedly. The beetle’s lips twisted enough to show fang. “Doesn’t everyone?” Radu hustled me out the door before I could find out if the vamp’s plump little carcass would fit into his overstuffed desk.

  Karen Chance

  Party, Doors, Fey

  Karen Chance (2008). “Midnight's Daughter”, p.102, Penguin

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• Why is a raven like a writing desk?

  Lewis Carroll

  Writing, Ravens, Mad

  Alice's Adventures inWonderland ch. 7 (1865).

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• Bell seated himself behind the desk, motioning for Nancy to stand opposite him. There was tense silence for a moment. Then Bell reached for a desk telephone. "I am going to call the police, Miss Drew, and turn you over to them on a charge of trespassing, breaking, and entering with an attempt to steal." "I wish you would," Nancy replied. "if it is possible over that dummy telephone.

  Carolyn Keene

  Opposites, Silence, Missing

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• I want blood! Two of Aksel’s dogs cornered me near Tondara. They shot me. Those bastards actually shot a hole in my stabilizer the size of Mirala…Aren’t you going to say something? (Syn) Were you hurt? (Nykyrian) No. (Syn) Then why are you having a fit? (Nykyrian) I don’t know, it just felt right. You see why I don’t like being sober? I overreact like an old woman. (He opened his flask, then slammed it down on Nykyrian’s desk.) Figures the damned thing would be empty. (Syn)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Dog, Hurt, Blood

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• Albert and I would spend hours and hours looking at them. Cleo had this big magnifying glass on his desk, and we'd find centipedes and grasshoppers and beetles and potato bugs, ants . . . and put them in a jar and look at them. They have the sweetest little faces and the cutest expressions. After we'd looked at them all we wanted to, we'd put them in the yard and let them go on about their business.

  Fannie Flagg

  Glasses, Expression, Ants

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• No Geologist worth anything is permanently bound to a desk or laboratory, but the charming notion that true science can only be based on unbiased observation of nature in the raw is mythology. Creative work, in geology and anywhere else, is interaction and synthesis: half-baked ideas from a bar room, rocks in the field, chains of thought from lonely walks, numbers squeezed from rocks in a laboratory, numbers from a calculator riveted to a desk, fancy equipment usually malfunctioning on expensive ships, cheap equipment in the human cranium, arguments before a road cut.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Lonely, Creativity, Science

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