Carve Quotes

1. "The carved images on the early Minoan sealstones are tantalising, inscrutable. The Nature Goddess is yanked from the soil like a snake or a sheaf of barley; the Mistress of the Animals suckles goats and gazelles. There are male Adorants certainly - up on tiptoe, their outstretched arms hoisted in a kind of heil, their bodies arched suggestively, pelvis forward, before the Goddess - but there are no masculine deities, not a single one in sight. No woman worth her salt, one might think, could fail to be intrigued."
Author: Alison Fell

2. "She cried before she slept. I reached out to touch the ends of her hair. She didn't notice. I didn't know what to do. Listening to her made me ache. I felt tears stream down my face too. And when I accidentally brushed Eli with my arm his face was wet where his tears ran down. We have all been carved out by our sorrow. Cut deep like canyon walls."
Author: Ally Condie

3. "The great adventure of our lives. What does it mean to die when you can live until the end of the world? and what is 'the end of the world' except a phrase, because who knows even what is the world itself? I had now lived in two centuries, seen the illusions of one shattered by the other, been eternally young and eternally ancient, possessing no illusions, living moment to moment in a way that made me picture a silver clock ticking in a void: the painted face, the delicately carved hands looked upon by no one, looking out at no one, illuminated by a light which was not a light, like the light by which god made the world before He had made light. Ticking, ticking, ticking, the precision of the clock, in a room as vast as the universe."
Author: Anne Rice

4. "There is no elegy for those who have been dispossessed of their anger--what remains is a future carved out of banality instead of blood."
Author: Brando Skyhorse

5. "Why does she always seem to think you drive like we're holding up a bank?"Roswell grinned and rolled his eyes, "Because that's what teenagers do, right? They also carve swastikas into their arms, steal prescription drugs from old people, and freebase cocaine. I need to institute a policy where she stops watching 60 Minutes and pretty much all public service announcements."
Author: Brenna Yovanoff

6. "We carve our destinies blindfolded, with sharp knives."
Author: Claire Fontaine

7. "When, after a long life, it falls outThat he takes on a form he had soughtAnd every word carved in stoneGrows its hoarfrost, what then? TorchesOf Dionysian choruses in the dark mountainsFrom when he comes. And half of the skyWith its snaky clouds. A mirror before him.In the mirror the already severed, perishingThing."
Author: Czeslaw Milosz

8. "Don't think too much. There'll be time to think later. Analysis won't help. You're chiseling now. You're passing your hands over the wood. Now the page is no longer blank. There's something there. It isn't your business yet to know whether it's going to be prize-worthy someday, or whether it will gather dust in a drawer. Now you've carved the tree. You've chiseled the marbled. You've begun."
Author: Dani Shapiro

9. "People can have two different mindsets, she says. Those with a "fixed mindset" believe that their talents and abilities are carved in stone. Those with a "growth mindset" believe that their talents and abilities can be developed. Fixed mindsets see every encounter as a test of their worthiness. Growth mindsets see the same encounters as opportunities to improve."
Author: Daniel H. Pink

10. "I can't help but admire the structural linguists who have carved out forthemselves a linguistic discipline based on the deterioration of writtencommunication. Another case of men devoting their lives to studying more and more about less and less-filling volumes and libraries with the subtle linguistic analysis of the grunt."
Author: Daniel Keyes

11. "New Yorkers love the bigness -- the skyscrapers, the freedom, the lights. But they also love it when they can carve out some smallness for themselves. When the guy at the corner store knows which newspaper you want. When the barista has your order ready before you open your mouth. When you start to recognize the people in your orbit, and you know that, say, if you're waiting for the subway at eight fifteen on the dot, odds are the redhead with the red umbrella is going to be there too."
Author: David Levithan

12. "If a woman is worth remembering,' said my grandmother, 'there is no need to have her name carved in letters."
Author: Edwidge Danticat

13. "Now, in Mr. Thornton's face the straight brows fell over the clear deep-set earnest eyes, which, without being unpleasantly sharp, seemed intent enough to penetrate into the very heart and core of what he was looking at. The lines in the face were few but firm, as if they were carved in marble, and lay principally about the lips, which were slightly compressed over a set of teeth so faultless and beautiful as to give the effect of sudden sunlight when the rare bright smile, coming in an instant and shining out of the eyes, changed the whole look from the severe and resolved expression of a man ready to do and dare everything, to the keen honest enjoyment of the moment, which is seldom shown so fearlessly and instantaneously except by children"
Author: Elizabeth Gaskell

14. "I do strive to find projects that are trying to carve out some new space. I enjoy projects that leap away from the crowd a little bit."
Author: Emily Blunt

15. "Though the body is itsgenesis, a poem is the vision of a processOut of ceaseless motion in edgeless spaceCarved in space, vision your poor eye's singlearmor against winter spring summer fall"
Author: Frank Bidart

16. "I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures."
Author: Gail Caldwell

17. "At the entrance to the original tower, there is a stone into which Jung carved some words with his own hand: 'Cold or not, God is present."
Author: Haruki Murakami

18. "He looks around at his guests. All are prepared. A Latin grace; English would be his choice, but he will suit his company. Who cross themselves ostentatiously, in papist style. Who look at him, expectant. He shouts for the waiters. The doors burst open. Sweating men heave the platters to the table. It seems the meat is fresh, in fact not slaughtered yet. It is just a minor breach of etiquette. The company must sit and salivate. The Boleyns are laid at his hand to be carved."
Author: Hilary Mantel

19. "But now the giant heads of Plato and Socrates, each with an expression of penetrating wisdom carved on his white features, surveyed the river and the melon beds beyond."
Author: J.G. Farrell

20. "The King beneath the mountains,The King of carven stone,The lord of silver fountainsShall come into his own!His crown shall be upholden,His harp shall be restrung,His halls shall echo goldenTo songs of yore re-sung.The woods shall wave on mountains.And grass beneath the sun;His wealth shall flow in fountainsAnd the rivers golden run.The streams shall run in gladness,The lakes shall shine and burn,And sorrow fail and sadnessAt the Mountain-king's return!"
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien

21. "Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: 'It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity."
Author: James Keller

22. "Then, as now, nobody talked about the legacy of Empire. Britain had colonised, owned, occupied or interfered with half the world. We had carved up some countries and created others. When some of the world we had made by force wanted something in return, we were outraged."
Author: Jeanette Winterson

23. "The snowmen stood in bunches, in families, and the breeze generated by the car snatched at their striped scarves. Snowmen fathers and snowgirl mothers with their snowchildren and snowpuppies. Top hats were in abundance, as were corncob pipes and carrot noses. They waved the crooked sticks of their arms, saluting Mr. Manx, Wayne, and NOS4A2 as they went by. The black coals of their eyes gleamed, darker than the night, brighter than the stars."
Author: Joe Hill

24. "Well, while you were in the bathroom, I sat down at this picnic table here in Bumblefug, Kentucky, and noticed that someone had carved that GOD HATES FAG, which, aside from being a grammatical nightmare, is absolutely ridiculous. So I'm changing it to 'God Hates Baguettes.' It's tough to disagree with that. Everybody hates baguettes."
Author: John Green

25. "Understand this clearly: you can teach a man to draw a straight line, and to carve it; and to copy and carve any number of given lines or forms, with admirable speed and perfect precision; and you find his work perfect of its kind: but if you ask him to think about any of those forms, to consider if he cannot find any better in his own head, he stops; his execution becomes hesitating; he thinks, and ten to one he thinks wrong; ten to one he makes a mistake in the first touch he gives to his work as a thinking being. But you have made a man of him for all that. He was only a machine before, an animated tool."
Author: John Ruskin

26. "Insight: if a guy I had sex with ever carved a notch into his bedpost, I'd tell him to carve one into mine too—and then to go make me a fucking sammich."
Author: Kresley Cole

27. "Liliana ran her fingers across the indentions and in the dim light, she felt as if she were trying to read Braille. Some of the letters had already been smoothed over by time, almost invisible to the naked eye until you pressed the tips of your fingers against the cold stone. But the scrolling of other names was still deep and sharp, carved with the intention of never being erased."
Author: Laekan Zea Kemp

28. "My writing is like those little carved baskets made in prisons…"
Author: Leo Tolstoy

29. "Raymond Carver is good. I think he'll be appreciated more and more. He's an easy writer to imitate."
Author: Leslie Fiedler

30. "In the light from the rising moon, a miniature statue shimmered on a pedestal: a statue of a dragon, carved from an enormous emerald. He nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to reach it. He stretched out his hands. His mouth went dry. A dazzling light flooded the room as a door swung open. Toad froze. His stomach dropped through the floor. His arms were still raised, inches from the statue, but his eyes were transfixed upon the giant figure standing in the doorway."
Author: M.L. LeGette

31. "I am carved like David,every line of my body perfectly chiseled.Hunger is the blade that has made me smooth.I am a statue, yet I am only air at my center.I go to hug myself and-poof!-my arms go right through mefinding nothing to hold on to.My hands meet behind my own backin a stone handshake.This is not what you were expecting.I'm so cold.I'm so sharp.I've been cut, now I'll cut you.Come closer.Yes, come closer to me.I am going to make you see what I see."
Author: Madeleine George

32. "Oh, he was just angry, we tell ourselves when someone blurts out something he later apologizes for. But a word, once spoken, lingers forever; to keep peace we pretend to forget, but we never do. Strange that a spoken word can have such lasting power when words carved on stone monuments vanish in spite of all our efforts to preserve them. What we would lose persists, lodged in our minds, and what we would keep is lost to water, moths, moss."
Author: Margaret George

33. "You are the most irritating person I've ever met!. You have no logic; all you are is a stupid neurotic woman. You don't deserve that face. I should carve it up to make it as ugly as your personality, so I won't want to fuck you every time I see you. ~ Saul"
Author: Marita A. Hansen

34. "I love you for what you areThough your heart bears scarsFrom life's harsh tempestsI would not wish it unblemishedEach wound carved your strengthSuffering gave you wisdomThese flaws make you perfect"
Author: Mark Caney

35. "…the two chatting surreptitiously as a procession of priests, musicians, and locals dressed like demons paraded down the street: the men hoisting erect wooden phalluses, the women embracing smaller carved penises swathed in red paper, the spectators touching the tips of passing phalluses to ensure good health for their children."How remarkable," commented Holmes."I thought you might find this of interest," said Mr Umezaki.Holmes grinned slyly. "My friend, I suspect this is much more to your liking than mine.""You're probably right," agreed Mr Umezaki, smiling while his fingertips reached out for an oncoming phallus."
Author: Mitch Cullin

36. "I looked away from his direct gaze and down at the scratched surface of the table. Someone had etched into it RYAN LOVES MEGAN ALWAYS...I wondered who Ryan and Megan were. And if, wherever they were, they'd made it. I wondered how anyone could have been so sure about a concept so tenuous and impossible as 'always' that they'd be willing to carve it into a tabletop."
Author: Morgan Matson

37. "She was tough in the best sense of the word. She'd taken blows, the disappointments, and had worked her way through them. Some people, he knew, would have buckled under, found a clutch, or given up. But she had carved a place for herself and made it work."
Author: Nora Roberts

38. "Truths were carved from the identical wood as were lies--words--and so sank or floated with identical ease. But since truths were carved by the World, they rarely appeased Men and their innumerable vanities. Men hhad no taste for facts that did not ornament or enrich, and so they willfully--if not knowingly--panelled their lives with shining and intricate falsehoods."
Author: R. Scott Bakker

39. "Furniture, my good husband," she said, her mouth full of food, "that be too pretty is without pure thought. Tables with turned and carved legs only encourage the devil to dine."My father stared at her, bewildered.This house needs to be made ready for the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, for when he returns to our fair city and takes his rightful place as king, he'll be needing a good meal in a godly home. Do not you agree, husband?"My father was speechless. Maud, in no way put off by his silence, said, "He will be very hungry. It has been a long time since the Last Supper."
Author: Sally Gardner

40. "Walk the midway and hear the carnival barker.Come see the freak named after his deceased father.Come see the prince who wants to abdicate his throne.Come see the son whose name is carved on a gravestone."
Author: Sherman Alexie

41. "They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. In the case of William Jessup Brady, it's been hand carved with a lever-action Henry rifle over his shoulder and a Smith & Wesson six-gun strapped to his hip.' – Solace Walters"
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

42. "I've got scarves and boots from' 1970 that I still wear."
Author: Steven Tyler

43. "You keep distracting from the main point, Vaida. I did not come to Harare to study other people's scars. I have my own to worry about. They make me sick. I will never recover from the events that carved them into my body. You should focus on healing yours instead of creating new ones."
Author: Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

44. "You remember those twin statues of the Buddha that I told you about? Carved out of a mountain in Afghanistan, that got dynamited by the Taliban back in the spring? Notice anything familiar?""Twin Buddhas, twin towers, interesting coincidence, so what.""The Trade Center towers were religious too. They stood for what this country worships above everything else, the market, always the holy fucking market.""A religious beef, you're saying?""It's not a religion? These are people who believe the Invisible Hand of the Market runs everything. They fight holy wars against competing religions like Marxism. Against all evidence that the world is finite, this blind faith that resources will never run out, profits will go on increasing forever, just like the world's populations--more cheap labor, more addicted consumers."
Author: Thomas Pynchon

45. "And the City, in its own way, gets down for you, cooperates, smoothing its sidewalks, correcting its curbstones, offering you melons and green apples on the corner. Racks of yellow head scarves; strings of Egyptian beads. Kansas fried chicken and something with raisins call attention to an open window where the aroma seems to lurk. And if that's not enough, doors to speakeasies stand ajar and in that cool dark place a clarinet coughs and clears its throat waiting for the woman to decide on the key. She makes up her mind and as you pass by informs your back that she is daddy's little angel child. The City is smart at this: smelling and good and looking raunchy; sending secret messages disguised as public signs: this way, open here, danger to let colored only single men on sale woman wanted private room stop dog on premises absolutely no money down fresh chicken free delivery fast. And good at opening locks, dimming stairways. Covering your moans with its own."
Author: Toni Morrison

46. "Fifty thousand dollars' worth of cabinets isn't going to make you a better cook; cooking is going to make you a better cook. At the end of the day, you can slice a mushroom in about three inches of space, and you can carve a chicken in a foot and a half. So it doesn't matter how big the kitchen is."
Author: Tyler Florence

47. "But once you know, you can't go back. Not really. You can carve out someone's memories, but they won't be who they were before. They'll just be full of holes. Given the choice, I'd rather learn to live with what I know."
Author: Victoria Schwab

48. "He wanted to care, he wanted to care so badly, but there was this gap between what he felt and what he wanted to feel, a space where something important had been carved out."
Author: Victoria Schwab

49. "No," said Blackwell, "she won't, because that would be a violation of the very personal terms I will have established in our conversation. That's the key word here, Laney, 'personal.' 'Up close, and.' We will not meet, we will not carve out this deep and meaningful and bloody unforgettable episode of mutual face-time as representatives of our respective faceless corporations. Not at all. It's one-on-one time for your Kathy and I, and it may well prove to be as intimate, and I may hope enlightening, as any she ever had. Because I will bring a new certainty into her life, and we all need certainties. They help build character. And I will leave your Kathy with the deepest possible conviction that if she crosses me, she will die-but only after she's been made to desire that, absolutely." And Black-well's smile, then, giving Laney the full benefit of his dental prosthesis, was hideous. "Now how was it exactly you were supposed to contact her, to give her your decision?"
Author: William Gibson

50. "Writers do not write what they want, they write what they can. When I was 21 I wanted to write like Kafka. But, unfortunately for me, I wrote like a script editor for The Simpsons who'd briefly joined a religious cult and then discovered Foucault. Such is life. And now, when I finish a long day of CNN-related fear and loathing mixed with eyeballing my own resolutely white screen, I do not crawl into bed with 500-page comic novels about "multicultural" London. I read Carver. Julio Cortázar. Amis's essays. Baldwin. Lorrie Moore. Capote. Saramago. Larkin. Wodehouse. Anything, anything at all, that doesn't sound like me."
Author: Zadie Smith

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