Stood Up Quotes

1. "The Tree and the Reed"Well, little one," said a Tree to a Reed that was growing at its foot, "why do you not plant your feet deeply in the ground, and raise your head boldly in the air as I do?""I am contented with my lot," said the Reed. "I may not be so grand, but I think I am safer.""Safe!" sneered the Tree. "Who shall pluck me up by the roots or bow my head to the ground?" But it soon had to repent of its boasting, for a hurricane arose which tore it up from its roots, and cast it a useless log on the ground, while the little Reed, bending to the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed over.Obscurity often brings safety."
Author: Aesop

2. "He's MINE", I howled. "Mine! And I'm his! You knew this when you slunk into our bed. I told you at the beginning, and I thought you understood, well, you understand now, don't you?"He had the nerve to extend a placating hand to me, and I wished so violently for a weapon, I were not surprised to hear the clatter of a knife falling out of the cupboard.I turned my head to the side and spat instead. "I told you 'no', dammit. I told you I'd follow him to the ends of the fucking earth, and I will, and you thought that if you took him, you'd take the way I felt. Well, you can't! Hammer and me - we're twined together, like rose bushes or wrought iron, and you can't untangle us, and if you did, you'd have to break us! Don't you see what you've done? You tried to break Hammer! He's mine! My whole life, the only thing I ever wanted were him, and you tried to break him! And why? So you could have me? You don't care for me!"
Author: Amy Lane

3. "We stood in the graveyard, among the tombstones, forty-some dead people and me. A couple of my fellow funeral-goers had even been in their own coffins, deep under several feet of French soil."
Author: Amy Plum

4. "Four of the roses were on fire.They stood up straight and pure on the stalk, gripping the dark like prophetsand howling colossal intimacies from the back of their fused throats.- XXVII. MITWELT"
Author: Anne Carson

5. "Transgressions are to be understood and corrected, not dwelt upon or agonized over."
Author: Barbara Ann Kipfer

6. "If I were a vampire, I'd want to bite someone. I'd be thirsty for blood," I said in a last ditch attempt to interject reason into a discussion that had devolved into the absurd. You will come into your true nature," Lucius promised. "You are coming of age right now. And when I bite you for the first time, then you will be a vampire. I've brought you a book— a guide, so to speak—which will explain everything—" I stood up so fast my chair tipped over, smashing to the floor. "He is not going to bite me," I interrupted, pointing a shaky finger at Lucius. "And I'm not going to Romania and marrying him! I don't care what kind of 'betrothal ceremony' they had!" You will all honor the pact," Lucius growled. It wasn't a suggestion."
Author: Beth Fantaskey

7. "To my mind, ‘magic' is the hard-to-define quality of the things that stir up mystical feelings like amazement, curiosity, imagination, and above all wonder. Magic is that which renders something beautiful in a spiritual sense. It is that which makes one feel as if the world is more than it is presently understood to be, and yet at the same time the world is working itself out in a good and beautiful way. Magic underlies the relationship between us, and the greater immensities of birth and death. Thus the experience of being in the presence of something magical is an empowering, uplifting experience. Magic, understood this way, contributes meaning to life. "
Author: Brendan Myers

8. "He stood up. "Let's go." The sun spilling through the window hit his chest, making his bare skin look even more golden."That's okay," she sputtered. "You don't have to...tag along.""Yes, I do. I'm your shadow until after breakfast."Oh great. Her gaze slipped down to his open shirt again. Was she going to have to look, or try not to look, at his chest all morning? "Then at least button your shirt." The words were out before she realised how that sounded.The disappointment in his eyes vanished and a sexy twinkle took its place. The twinkle brought out the gold flecks in his irises, which she used to admire so much."Why?" he asked. "Does it bother you?"She glared at him. "Don't go there."
Author: C.C. Hunter

9. "She stood upon a continent of ice, which sparkled between sea and sky, endless and dazzling, as though the world kept all its treasure there; a scale which balanced poetry and prayer."
Author: Carol Ann Duffy

10. "Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man stood still on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying in the wilderness before him, a mirage of honourable ambition, self-denial, and perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airy galleries from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled in his sight. A moment and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber in a well of houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglected bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears."
Author: Charles Dickens

11. "When the fallow ground is thoroughly broken up in the hearts of Christians, when they have confessed and made restitution, as I have taught in my former articles--if the work be thorough and honest--they will naturally and inevitably fulfill the conditions, and will prevail in prayer. But it cannot be too distinctly understood that none others will. What we commonly hear in prayer and conference meetings is not prevailing prayer. It is often astonishing and lamentable to witness the delusions that prevail upon the subject. Who that has witnessed real revivals of religion has not been struck with the change that comes over the whole spirit and manner of the prayers of really revived Christians? I do not think I ever could have been converted if I had not discovered the solution of the question: "Why is it that so much that is called prayer is not answered?"
Author: Charles Grandison Finney

12. "After Blakely delivered that infamous and muchrepeated set down, he transferred his gaze to the newMarchioness of Blakely.She shook her head, once. Firmly. "Gareth," she said dryly. "It is your sister's wedding day. Behave."Silence. He'd lifted his chin, in typical Blakely arrogance.The crowd waited for the blast.And then Lord Blakely shrugged and grinned helplessly.Grinned. Helpless. A Blakely."Oh," said his sister, from where she stood near him. "Isthat how it's done? I'll have to practice that."Like that, everything society knew about nine generations of Blakelys went up in smoke.Since that day, there had been no question. Lady Blakely had been granted otherworldly powers at birth.Every smile she coaxed from him, every laugh that she surprised from his lips, stood as testament to her arcane abilities.And those that questioned her worth still had only to see the look in his eyes when he watched her to find all theproof they required."
Author: Courtney Milan

13. "I understood the therapists were trying to rebuild Paul's vocabulary, beginning wit the rudiments, but Paul found it taxing, boring, and disturbingly condescending. His loss of language didn't mean he was any less a grown-up with adult feelings, experiences, worries, and problems. [p. 144]"
Author: Diane Ackerman

14. "I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the narrow lobbies led, I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent sense. He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears. 'Come in! come in!' he sobbed. 'Cathy, do come. Oh, do - ONCE more! Oh! my heart's darling! hear me THIS time, Catherine, at last!' The spectre showed a spectre's ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of being; but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out the light."
Author: Emily Brontë

15. "I told him to enjoy dinner and have a nice life. then i looked at her and told her she could have my leftovers because i dont share. Thats when i stood up and walked out."
Author: Emma Nichols

16. "I reeled with giddiness - flames passed before my eyes.I remembered those precipices that drew one towards them with irresistible power - wells that have had to be filled up because of persons throwing themselves into them - trees that have had to be cut down because of people hanging themselves upon them - the contagion of suicide and theft and murder, which at various times has taken possession of people's minds, by means well understood; that strange inducement, which makes people kill themselves because others kill themselves. My hair rose upon my head with horror!("The Invisible Eye")"
Author: Erckmann Chatrian

17. "I don't know, Benes. I'm not sure I've ever really understood women for that kind of commitment.' He flipped his beer mat up int the air with his index finger and caught it in his hand."
Author: F.C. Malby

18. "He fills me with horror and I do not hate him. How can I hate him, Raoul? Think of Erik at my feet, in the house on the lake, underground. He accuses himself, he curses himself, he implores my forgiveness!...He confesses his cheat. He loves me! He lays at my feet an immense and tragic love. ... He has carried me off for love!...He has imprisoned me with him, underground, for love!...But he respects me: he crawls, he moans, he weeps!...And, when I stood up, Raoul, and told him that I could only despise him if he did not, then and there, give me my liberty...he offered it...he offered to show me the mysterious road...Only...only he rose too...and I was made to remember that, though he was not an angel, nor a ghost, nor a genius, he remained the voice...for he sang. And I listened ... and stayed!...That night, we did not exchange another word. He sang me to sleep."
Author: Gaston Leroux

19. "My sister stood up, trembling, and I must admit that I expected her familiar sneer to have taken its usual place on her face. But all I could find there was unhappiness and fear. Fear of my reaction, perhaps. But when a person has lived a life like hers, a life of promiscuity, rootlessness, and substance abuse, resentment and fear tend to replace all reasonable and proper emotions, and the world becomes your enemy."
Author: J. Robert Lennon

20. "I tried to build an igloo out of orange peel but it kept falling down and even when it stood up I didn't have an eskimo to put in it, so I had to invent a story about 'How Eskimo Got Eaten', which made me even more miserable. It's always the same with diversions; you get involved"
Author: Jeanette Winterson

21. "Novelty and Security: the security of novelty, the novelty of security. Always the full thing, the whole subject, the true subject, stood just behind the one you found yourself contemplating. The trick, but it wasn't a trick, was to take up at once the thing you saw and the reason you saw it as well; to always bite off more than you could chew, and then chew it. If it were self-indulgence for him to cut and polish his semiprecious memories, and yet seem like danger, like a struggle he was unfit for, then self-indulgence was a potent force, he must examine it, he must reckon with it."
Author: John Crowley

22. "The days that followed passed slowly. I lay in my hotel room and watched the kind of strange European TV that would probably make perfect sense if I understood the language, but because I didn't, the programs just seemed dreamlike and baffling. In one studio show a group of Scandinavian academics watched as one of them poured liquid plastic into a bucket of cold water. It solidified, they pulled it out, handed it around the circle, and, as far as I could tell, intellectualized on its random misshapenness. I phoned home but my wife didn't answer. It crossed my mind that she might be dead. I panicked. Then it turned out that she wasn't dead. She had just been at the shops."
Author: Jon Ronson

23. "I got incerdibly heavy boots about how relatively insignificant life is, and how, compared to the universe and compared to time, it didn't even matter if I exsited at all..."Well I'm not talking about painting the Mona LIsa or curing limeter." "Yeah?""If you hadn't done it, human history would have been one way...""Uh-huh?""But you did do it, so...?"I stood on the bed, pointed my fingers at the fake stars, and screamed: "I changed the course of human history!""That's right.""I changed the universe!""You did.""I'm God!""You're an atheist.""I don't exist!"I fell back onto the bed, into his arms, and we cracked up together."
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer

24. "How strange, Royce thought, that, after emerging victorious from more than a hundred real battles, the greatest moment of triumph he had ever known had come to him on a mock battlefield where he'd stood alone, unhorsed, and defeated. This morning, his life had seemed as bleak as death. Tonight, he held joy in his arms. Someone or something—fate or fortune or Jenny's God—had looked down upon him this morning and seen his anguish. And, for some reason, Jenny had been given back to him.Closing his eyes, Royce brushed a kiss against her smooth forehead. Thank you, he thought.And in his heart, he could have sworn he heard a voice answer, You're welcome."
Author: Judith McNaught

25. "Around me the beautiful windows, connecting me to other lives and other times, to things done and also deliberately left undone, stood dark. Rose, I was sure, had acted out of love, yet for Iris her mother's absence had remained an unresolved sadness at the center of her life. I thought of what Rose had written about anger, about its power to corrupt, to make a space for evil. Maybe she was right. Maybe evil, that old-fashioned word, could be called other things, disharmony or dysfunction. Maybe Rose was right and evil wasn't attached top an individual as much as if was a force in the world, a seeing force, one that worked like a self-replicating virus, seeking to entangle, to ensnare, to undo beauty. [p.353]"
Author: Kim Edwards

26. "Liall realized that this was the first time he had really been alone with Scarlet. He stood up and held out his hand. The blanket dropped from his shoulders. "Come here."Scarlet reached out to him tentatively and Liall quickly dragged him into his arms. He fits there perfectly, Liall thought, snug if not a little small. Scarlet did not respond at first, as if he would pull away, and for a moment Liall believed he had made a huge mistake. Then, surprisingly, Scarlet sighed and his arms went around Liall's back. Scarlet turned his head to rest his cheek against Liall's bare chest as hey listened to the rain batten on the roof. "Thank you for saving my life." Liall murmured."
Author: Kirby Crow

27. "Even so, I was proud of myself for taking action at all. I didn't hide or run away or pretend the ugliness didn't happen. I stood up and said something that was true. I said it out loud, and by doing so, I was standing up for lots of people, not just me."
Author: Lauren Myracle

28. "I stood up to take some air outside. The stars were brilliant that night, and the cicadas were crying in endless song. If the sky was so perfect, why was the earth all wrong?"
Author: Lawrence Hill

29. "She couldn't let her fears rule her. It was time she grew a backbone and stood up to the monsters."
Author: Lia Davis

30. "Sunny put on eyebrows, eyelashes, makeup, matching pajamas, a silk robe, and then say looking at herself in the vanity mirror in her bathroom. She had experienced moments in her life when she realized that she was actually alive and living in the world, instead of watching a movie starring herself, or narrating a book with herself as the main character. This was not one of those moments. She felt like she was drifting one centimeter above her physical self, a spirit at odds with its mechanical counterpart. She stood up carefully. Everything looked just right."
Author: Lydia Netzer

31. "Each day we stood almost shoulder to shoulder, occupying the same space, breathing the same air, but we remained strangers."
Author: M.A. Stacie

32. "Mort Sahl, while attending a preview of Otto Preminger's film Exodus, stood up and called out, "Otto, let my people go!"
Author: Mort Sahl

33. "He appreciated all beautiful things. As she stood before him poised, scrutinizing every inch of his face, liable to strike him, he thought she was the most incredible thing he had seen in his life. She didn't step away from fear, she walked up to it."
Author: Nicki Salcedo

34. "Without any assistance or guidance from youi have loved you assiduously for 8 months 2 wks & a dayi have been stood up four timesi've left 7 packages on yr doorstepforty poems 2 plants & 3 handmade notecards i lefttown so i cd send to you have been no help to meon my jobyou call at 3:00 in the mornin on weekdaysso i cd drive 27 1/2 miles cross the bay before i go to workcharmin charminbut you are of no assistancei want you to knowthis waz an experimentto see how selifsh i cd beif i wd really carry on to snare a possible loverif i waz capable of debasin my self for the love of anotherif i cd stand not being wantedwhen i wanted to be wanted& i cannotsowith no further assistance & no guidance from youi am endin this affairthis note is attached to a planti've been waterin since the day i met youyou may water ityr damn self"
Author: Ntozake Shange

35. "When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?"
Author: Quentin Crisp

36. "He was my teacher, and he had wrapped himself, his elaborate historical self, into this package, and stood in front of the high windows, to teach me my little lesson, which turned out to be not about Poland or fascism or war, borderlines or passion or loyalty, but just about the sentence: the importance of, the sweetness of. And I did long for it, to say one true sentence of my own, to leap into the subject, that sturdy vessel traveling upstream through the axonal predicate possibility; into what little we know of the future, of eternity."
Author: Rebecca Lee

37. "Stop smiling!" she ordered. "I can see you, Carter. Oh…and, uh, hullo, Walt."The pot monster made squeaky grinding noises as it stood up straight. One clunky arm rose and tried to fix Sadie's nonexistent hair. Leave it to Sadie to beself-conscious around boys, even when she's made out of pots and duct tape."
Author: Rick Riordan

38. "Argh!" Thalia pushed me, and a shock went through my body that blew me backward ten feet into the water. Some of the campers gasped. A couple of the Hunters stifled laughs."Sorry!" Thalia said, turning pale. "I didn't mean to—"Anger roared in my ears. A wave erupted from the creek, blasting into Thalia's face and dousing her from head to toe.I stood up. "Yeah," I growled. "I didn't mean to, either."Thalia was breathing heavily."Enough!" Chiron ordered.But Thalia held out her spear. "You want some, Seaweed Brain?"Somehow, it was okay when Annabeth called me that — at least, I'd gotten used to it — but hearing it from Thalia was not cool."Bring it on, Pinecone Face!"
Author: Rick Riordan

39. "Michael had taken over the Apollo cabin after Lee Fletcher died in battle last summer. Michael stood four-foot-six with another two feet of attitude. He reminded me of a ferret, with a pointy nose and scrunched-up features—either because he scowled so much or because he spent too much time looking down the shaft of an arrow. "It's our loot!" he yelled, standing on his tiptoes so he could get in Clarisse's face. "If you don't like it, you can kiss my quiver!" Around the table, people were trying not to laugh—the Stoll brothers, Pollux from the Dionysus cabin, Katie Gardner from Demeter. Even Jake Mason, the hastily appointed new counselor from Hephaestus, managed a faint smile. Only Silena Beauregard didn't pay any attention."
Author: Rick Riordan

40. "He stood just near the club's steps, his back to me along the foggy English night, and it was not until I'd passed him and began my ascent of the many steps that I'd heard his voice. The voice I knew, in all my years of living upon the Earth, that I would never forget. Even then I had known this. It was the slippery way of his tongue, or perhaps it was the coolness of which his words passed across the air and slid its way into my ears as though they were only meant for me."
Author: S.C. Parris

41. "Pray , Mr Tomlinson, be seated. He took his chair over against her. I stood behind hers, that I might give him agreed-upon signals should there be occasions for them.A thus-A wink of the left eye was to signify, Push that point, captain.A wink of the right, and a nod was to indicate approbation of what he said.My forefinger held up, and biting my lip, Get off of that as fast as possible.A right forward nod, and a frown-Swear to it Captain.My whole spread hand, To take care not to say too much on that particuliar subject."
Author: Samuel Richardson

42. "A second later, when he looked up at me, we were face to face, and again, even under these circumstances, I was struck by how good looking he was, in that accidental, doesn't-even-know-it kind of way. Which only made it worse. Or better. Or whatever. "Yup", he said, as if there'd been any doubt, "you're in there, all right." "I was warned, too,"I told him, as he stood up. "I just saw that sculpture, and I got distracted." "The sculpture?" He looked at it, then at me. "Oh, right. Because you know it."
Author: Sarah Dessen

43. "She logged in and read a few of her old posts, smiling at the issues she had raged about and shaking her head at how some of the rants now seemed pretentious and judgmental. She had grown so much without even realizing she had. Mythili typed out the draft, spicing it up subtly and after a last read, she published it. Admiring the brand new post on her main page, she realized she missed writing. She had barely written anything since her last by-line. Typing this out, she felt like she was back with a long-lost friend who understood her. It was like snuggling up in a warm blanket when a thunderstorm raged outside."
Author: Shweta Ganesh Kumar

44. "So that day, in music assembly, the teacher asked who knew the valley song. Your hand shot right up in the air. She stood you up on a stool and had you sing it for us. And I swear, every bird outside the windows fell silent...and right when your song ended, I knew - just like your mother - I was a goner."
Author: Suzanne Collins

45. "I rolled my eyes as the elevator door opened. 'I was thinking more along the lines of Tick and Tock. You know they won't--' 'Holy shit, boss! Did you beat him up with your mouth?' Tick exclaimed loudly as he stood from his perch near the elevator doors. '--keep their mouths shut,' I muttered. 'Jesus,' Tock whispered. 'Gay sex is hardcore.' He jumped up and stood next to me, not knowing what personal space meant. 'I think he was trying to eat you,' he told me. 'Or something,' I agreed."
Author: T.J. Klune

46. "BUT MOST PEOPLE ARE RATHER STUPID AND WASTE THEIR LIVES. HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THAT? HAVE YOU NOT LOOKED DOWN FROM THE HORSE AT A CITY AND THOUGHT HOW MUCH IT RESEMBLED AN ANT HEAP, FULL OF BLIND CREATURES WHO THINK THEIR MUNDANE LITTLE WORLD WAS REAL? YOU SEE THE LIGHTED WINDOWS AND WHAT YOU WANT TO THINK IS THAT THERE MAY BE MANY INTERESTING STORIES BEHIND THEM, BUT WHAT YOU KNOW IS THAT REALLY THERE ARE JUST DULL, DULL SOULS, MERE CONSUMERS OF FOOD, WHO THINK THEIR INSTINCTS ARE EMOTIONS AND THEIR TINY LITTLE LIVES OF MORE ACCOUNT THAN A WHISPER OF WIND.The blue glow was bottmless. It seemed to be sucking her own thoughts out of her mind.'No,' whispered Susan, 'no, I've never thought like that.'Death stood up abruptly and turned away. YOU MAY FIND OUT THAT IT HELPS, he said."
Author: Terry Pratchett

47. "He pulled a Tupperware container out of the fridge and set it next to the carton of eggs. "Why do I get the feeling you weren't there to catch a Cubs game?" She ignored his question. "Are those prechopped peppers in that Tupperware container?" Troy cracked an egg into a bowl. "Yeah." "I'm not sleeping with you." "Jesus," he choked out. "How did we arrive here from prechopped peppers?" Ruby pushed back her chair and stood, the poster child for nervous energy. "You must cook for girls pretty often to chop up peppers in advance, that's all I'm saying. So if there are strings attached to that omelet, I don't want it. No matter how good it tastes, the answer is no."
Author: Tessa Bailey

48. "A perception of the cosmic unity of this higher level. And a feeling of timelessness, the feeling that what we know as time is only the result of a naive faith in causality - the notion that A in the past caused B in the present, which will cause C in the future, when actually A, B, and C are all part of a pattern that can be truly understood only by opening the doors of perception and experiencing it... in this moment... this supreme moment... this Kairos."
Author: Tom Wolfe

49. "If she answered, he could not hear it, and he certainly couldn't see her, so he went. First he crawled the rocks one by one, one by one, till his hands touched shore and the nursing sound of the sea was behind him. He felt around, crawled off and then stood up. Breathing heavily with his mouth open he took a few tentative steps. The pebbles made him stumble and so did the roots of trees. He threw out his hands to guide and steady his going. By and by he walked steadier, now steadier. The mist lifted and the trees stepped back a bit as if to make the way easier for a certain kind of man. Then he ran. Lickety-split. Lickety-split. Looking neither to the left nor to the right. Lickety-split. Lickety-split. Lickety-lickety-lickety-split."
Author: Toni Morrison

50. "My grandmother caught me climbing the highest tree in her yard, the one we were all forbidden to attempt. All five feet of her stood tall as she tilted her head back and squinted up at me. "Well, don't stop now," she said. "If you're going to fall no use doing it from the halfway point. Keep climbing and let's see just how high you can go."
Author: Toni Sorenson

Stood Up Quotes Pictures