Scraping Quotes

• Television is now so desperately hungry for material that they're scraping the top of the barrel.

  Gore Vidal

  Funny, Television, Literature

  "This column will change your life: Couch potatoes v creators" by Oliver Burkeman, August 20, 2010.

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• I was able to support myself by acting alone about six years ago. Until then, I was just scraping by.

  Edie Falco

  Years, Support, Acting

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• We strain to hear. But instead of hearing an answer we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God

  Nicholas Wolterstorff

  Sight, Tears, Answers

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• The more you walk with God, the harder it is to scrape your knee

  Big K.R.I.T.

  Knees, Walking With God, Walks

  Song: Rich Dad, Poor Dad, 2012

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• You're killing me because you want me to give a message to God for you?" Jace shook his head, the point of the blade scraping across his throat. "You're crazier than I thought

  Cassandra Clare

  Giving, Want, Messages

  Cassandra Clare (2010). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instrument Series (3 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass”, p.1177, Simon and Schuster

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• Playing a violin is, after all, only scraping a cat's entrails with horsehair.

  Alan Watts

  Cat, Violin

  Alan Watts (2010). “What Is Tao?”, p.89, New World Library

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• Sometimes in my tent, late at night, I think I can hear the stars scraping against the sky.

  Rick Yancey

  Stars, Night, Thinking

  Rick Yancey (2013). “The 5th Wave”, p.39, Penguin

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• Think not of yourself as the architect of your career but as the sculptor. Expect to have to do a lot of hard hammering and chiselingand scraping and polishing.

  B. C. Forbes

  Inspirational, Motivational, Success

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• I wanted to do a set of love songs for Valentine's Day so I went through my old material. I found myself scraping around the edges of good taste.

  Tom Rush

  Song, Valentine, Taste

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• Fiction isn't made by scraping the bones of topicality for the last shreds and sinews, to be processed into mechanically recovered prose. Like journalism, it deals in ideas as well as facts, but also in metaphors, symbols and myths.

  Hilary Mantel

  Ideas, Lasts, Facts

  "On the one hand ..." by Hilary Mantel, www.theguardian.com. December 22, 2007.

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• African film makers are scraping by on a mere pittance.

  Wole Soyinka

  Film, Makers, Mere

  "Africa's Own Cannes Festival / Lots of enthusiasm, dearth of funds for black cinema" by Tina Susman, www.sfgate.com. March 4, 1995.

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• My grandmother spent her whole life working as a maid, a cook and a babysitter, barely scraping by, but still working hard to give my mother, her only child, a chance in life, so that my mother could give my brother and me an even better one.

  Julian Castro

  Mother, Brother, Children

  Julian Castro's keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, www.npr.org. September 4, 2012.

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• People who believe in flying saucers are the scrapings from the bottom.

  Nigel Kneale

  Believe, People, Flying

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• He stood there for a moment looking around the silent room, shaking his head slowly. All these books, he thought, the residue of a planet’s intellect, the scrapings of futile minds, the leftovers, the potpourri of artifacts that had no power to save men from perishing.

  Richard Matheson

  Book, Men, Mind

  Richard Matheson (1954). “I Am Legend”, Greenwich, Connecticut : Fawcett

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• Jesse, who had not stirred the whole time from the spot he'd been standing, confident I could handle Cheryl myself, was grinning. "It's every girl's dream to guy to go to prom with the guy she loves?" he echoed, not just one, but both inky black eyebrows raised. "Don't start with me," I said. I tried to hide my suddenly flaming cheeks by scraping away what was left of the cannolis, and replacing them with the contents of an upended bag of chocolate chip cookies. "I have things to do.

  Meg Cabot

  Girl, Dream, Eyebrows

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• I liked school and was a bit of an all-rounder academically, I struggled with music. I can't hold a note when singing and abandoned any notion of a career in music after barely scraping a pass in grade 2 piano.

  Stephen Curry

  School, Careers, Piano

  Source: www.thefreethinktank.com

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• People are curious. A few people are. ... They will put things together, knowing all along that they may be mistaken. You see them going around with notebooks, scraping the dirt off gravestones, reading microfilm, just in the hope of seeing this trickle in time, making a connection, rescuing one thing from the rubbish.

  Alice Munro

  Notebook, Reading, Knowing

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• There was a time when I liked a good riot. Put on some heavy old street clothes that could stand a bit of sidewalk-scraping, infect myself with something good and contagious, then go out and stamp on some cops. It was great, being nine years old.

  Warren Ellis

  Clothes, Years, Jerusalem

  "Transmetropolitan. Back on the Street (issues #1–3)". Comic book by Warren Ellis,

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• I know my head isn't screwed on straight. I want to leave, transfer, warp myself to another galaxy. I want to confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else. There is a beast in my gut, I can hear it scraping away at the inside of my ribs. Even if I dump the memory, it will stay with me, staining me. My closest is a good thing, a quiet place that helps me hold these thoughts inside my head where no one can hear them.

  Laurie Halse Anderson

  Memories, Mistake, Hands

  Laurie Halse Anderson (2011). “Speak”, p.51, Macmillan

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• I don't think we have all the words in a single vocabulary to explain what we are or why we are. I don't think we have the range of emotion to fully feel what someone else is feeling. I don't think any of us can sit in judgment of another human being. We're incomplete creatures, barely scraping by. Is it possible--from the perspective of this quickly spinning Earth and our speedy journey from crib to coffin--to know the difference between right, wrong, good, and evil? I don't know if it's even useful to try.

  Alexandra Fuller

  Journey, Thinking, Vocabulary

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• I only have have one question, scraping the inside of me. Answer it, and I will stumble back into her shadow, shut my mouth, never ask again. I've tried to ignore it, but it won't go away. It haunts my dreams, chases me through every single day, and I don't have the strength to turn around, face it down. So please tell me and I swear I'll never ask again. It's in your power to make it go away, and all you have to do is tell me why you love her more.

  Ellen Hopkins

  Dream, Shadow, Going Away

  Ellen Hopkins (2009). “Tricks”, p.52, Simon and Schuster

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• Legion hissed like a startled cat, the noise scraping at Reyes’s skin. “Me no boy. You think me a boy?” Everyone stopped, stared. Even Aeron. Reyes was the first to find his voice. “You’re a…girl?” A nod. “Me pretty.” “Yes, you are.” Reyes exchanged a glance with Lucien. “Beautiful.

  Gena Showalter

  Beautiful, Girl, Cat

  Gena Showalter (2014). “Lords of the Underworld Collection 1: The Darkest Night\The Darkest Kiss\The Darkest Pleasure”, p.838, Harlequin

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• It had been the longest time since she had had a rib-scraping laugh. She had forgotten how deep and down it could be. So different from the miscellaneous giggles and smiles she had learned to be content with these past few years.

  Toni Morrison

  Past, Years, Laughing

  Toni Morrison (1987). “Sula”

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• Once in my life I knew a grief so hard I could actually hear it inside, scraping at the lining of my stomach, an audible ache, dredging with hooks as rivers are dredged when someone's been missing too long. I have to think my mother felt something like that.

  Leif Enger

  Mother, Grief, Thinking

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.54, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• I could hear rain still pouring from the gutters and a thin branch scraping against one of the windows; but the church seemed completely cut off from the restless day outside--just as I felt cut off from the church. I thought: I am a restlessness inside a stillness inside a restlessness.

  Dodie Smith

  Rain, Cutting, Church

  Dodie Smith (2011). “I Capture The Castle”, p.282, Random House

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