Rafters Quotes

• Dance till the stars come down from the rafters
  Dance, Dance, Dance 'till you drop.

  W. H. Auden

  Inspirational, Dance, Stars

  W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.106, DEBOLS!LLO

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• Of course, it may be that the arts of writing and photography are antithetical. The hope and aim of a word-handler is that he maycommunicate a thought or an impression to his reader without the reader's realizing that he has been dragged through a series of hazardous or grotesque syntactical situations. In photography the goal seems to be to prove beyond a doubt that the cameraman, in his great moment of creation, was either hanging by his heels from the rafters or was wedged under the floor with his lens in a knothole.

  E. B. White

  Photography, Art, Writing

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• And when it has got in; as one not finding what it seeks, whatever that may be, it wails and howls to issue forth again: and not content with stalking through the aisles, and gliding round and round the pillars, and tempting the deep organ, soars up to the roof, and strives to rend the rafters: then flings itself despairingly upon the stones below, and passes, muttering, into the vaults.

  Charles Dickens

  Issues, May, Stones

  Charles Dickens (2013). “Dickens' Christmas Spirits: A Christmas Carol and Other Tales”, p.212, Courier Corporation

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• Dance, dance, dance till you drop.

  W. H. Auden

  Dance, Ballet Class, Dancing

  'Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.' (1937).

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• The desires of the heart...are as crooked as a corkscrew.

  Robert Stone

  Heart, Desire, Crooked

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• The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews Not to be born is the best for man The second best is a formal order The dance's pattern, dance while you can. Dance, dance, for the figure is easy The tune is catching and will not stop Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, dance, dance till you drop.

  W. H. Auden

  Stars, Heart, Men

  Letter from Iceland (1937, by Auden and MacNeice) "Letter to William Coldstream, Esq."

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• He killed himself for wanting to live.

  Markus Zusak

  Suicide

  Markus Zusak (2013). “The Book Thief: Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition”, p.482, RH Childrens Books

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• Hell came right along with God, hand in hand. The stink of sulfur swirled in the air of the church, fire burned in the aisles, and brimstone rained out of the rafters. From the evangelist's oven mouth spewed images of a place with pitchforks, and devils, and lakes of fire that burned forever. God had fixed a place like that because he loved us so much.

  Harry Crews

  Fire, Lakes, Air

  Harry Crews (1993). “Classic Crews: A Harry Crews Reader”, p.167, Simon and Schuster

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• The wisest man preaches no doctrines; he has no scheme; he sees no rafter, not even a cobweb, against the heavens. It is clear sky.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Wisest Man, Sky

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.490, Simon and Schuster

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• The government passed more laws to protect women from dirty jokes than to protect men from death by faulty rafters at a construction site.

  Warren Farrell

  Dirty, Men, Law

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• Delusions, errors and lies are like huge, gaudy vessels, the rafters of which are rotten and worm-eaten, and those who embark in them are fated to be shipwrecked.

  Gautama Buddha

  Lying, Errors, Deceit

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• It wasn't like the spare rooms of immigrants - packed to the rafters with all that they have ever possessed, no matter how defective or damaged, mountains of odds and ends - the stand testament to the fact that they have things now, where before they had nothing.

  Zadie Smith

  Odds, Mountain, Matter

  Zadie Smith (2003). “White Teeth”, p.278, Vintage

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• It is somethingit can be everything-to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below.

  Wallace Stegner

  Drinking, Fighting, Bird

  Wallace Stegner (1990). “The Spectator Bird”, p.131, Penguin

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• I have passed in ignorance through a cycle of many rebirths, seeking the builder of the house. Continuous rebirth is a painful thing. But now, housebuilder, I have found you out. You will not build me a house again. All your rafters are broken, your ridge-pole shattered. My mind is free from active thought, and has made an end of craving.

  Gautama Buddha

  Buddhist, Pain, Ignorance

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• The recollection of how, when and where it all happened became vague as the lingering strains hung in the rafters of the studio. I wanted to shout back at it, Maybe I didn't write you, but I found you.

  Hoagy Carmichael

  Writing, Technology, Found You

  Hoagy Carmichael, Stephen Longstreet (1999). “The Stardust Road & Sometimes I Wonder: The Autobiography of Hoagy Carmichael”

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• 2012 has been an extraordinary year for our country. We cheered our Queen to the rafters with the Jubilee, showed the world what we're made of by staging the most spectacular Olympic and Paralympic Games ever and - let's not forget - punched way above our weight in the medals table.

  David Cameron

  Country, Queens, Games

  "David Cameron cites Gospel of John in Christmas message" by Nicholas Watt, www.theguardian.com. December 24, 2012.

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• Instead of feeling like there's two or three of us in this town of hostile crackers, I'm in a big church filled with people who believe the same thing I believe and the power of song is raising what we're trying to do, raising it up to the rafters.

  Stanley Nelson Jr.

  Song, Believe, Two

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Should not every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Home, Men, Play

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience: Top American Literary”, p.150, 谷月社

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• Safety is an illusion, Costis. A Thief might fall at any time, and eventually the day must come when the god will let him. Whether I am on a rafter three stories up or on a staircase three steps up, I am in my god's hands. He will keep me safe, or he will not, here or on the stairs.

  Megan Whalen Turner

  Fall, Hands, Safety

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• And while Luce dreamed below of the most glorious wings unfurling-the likes of which she'd never seen before-two angels in the rafters shook hands.

  Lauren Kate

  Angel, Hands, Wings

  Lauren Kate (2013). “Fallen: Angels in the Dark”, p.452, Delacorte Press

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• Many of the artifacts of my house had become potential devices for my own destruction: the attic rafters (and an outside maple or two) a means to hang myself, the garage a place to inhale carbon monoxide, the bathtub a vessel to receive the flow from my opened arteries. The kitchen knives in their drawers had but one purpose for me.

  William Styron

  Mean, Knives, Two

  William Styron (2010). “Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness”, p.27, Open Road Media

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• July 24, 6:03 A.M. The laundry was warm and the rafters were firm, and Michael Holzapfel jumped from the chair as if it were a cliff... Michael Holzapfel knew what he was doing. He killed himself for wanting to live.

  Markus Zusak

  July, Cliffs, Laundry

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• The press box at Wrigley Field in Chicago is an extended narrow shed, two rows deep, that is precariously bolted to the iron rafters just underneath the park's second deck. To gain access, one must climb a steeply angled ramp and clamber down a little starboard companionway, guarded at its foot by a uniformed minion and then proceed giddily along a catwalk that hangs directly above the tiered, circling rows of seats and spectators behind home plate.

  Roger Angell

  Home, Feet, Two

  Roger Angell (2013). “Season Ticket”, p.266, Open Road Media

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• If you want to correct your brother when he is doing wrong? you must keep yourself calm; otherwise you yourself may catch the sickness you are seeking to cure and you may find that the words of the Gospel now apply to you? 'Why do you look at the speck of dust in your brother's eye, and not notice the rafter in your own eye?'

  John Cassian

  Christian, Brother, Eye

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• It's hard to put it in perspective right now. I'm starting to feel a little emotional about what's going to happen Friday night. Getting your number put in the rafters is always something that as a kid ... you dream of seeing happen to you.

  Scottie Pippen

  Basketball, Friday, Dream

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