Quotessence
Home / Quotes / W Quotes

W Quotes

Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.

All W Quotes

“When she walks in that first Monday, of course I am awake - I am always up these days - I decide to lay it down. “Look”, I say, “I snort Ritalin. That’s what I do. I snort it all day long. I crush up the pills and inhale them like cocaine. I’m up to about forty a day. I can’t stop. I am planning to get help, to check into rehab or something like that, as soon as this book is finished. In the meantime, I can’t stop, and I am not going to.” She looks at me impassively. “I don’t care what you think about it. So you have a choice. I can sit here and do it in front of you, or I can keep running into the bathroom so you don’t have to see. Either way, it’s going to happen, so it’s just about how bad it’s going to make you feel to watch.” She doesn’t seem to know what to say. She stares. I think she is going to cry. I think she wants to give me a hug, maybe, but there is an invisible cage, a delicate netting of glass, an ice sculpture surrounding me that no one can walk through. I’m cold. I’ve frozen into someone who just can’t be touched. I dare you to try.”

“When she was a child, she'd often wondered about the old manor. Some said the place was haunted, but she thought it mysterious. Sometimes when she was a girl, she would wander through the wrought-iron gate along Ladenbrooke's stone wall. The fragrance from flowers on the other side captivated her along with the beauty of the gardens. The butterflies reminded her of the fairies she'd loved as a child and, when she was older, of the fairies dancing through the magical garden in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' Shakespeare was born forty miles from here. In Stratford-upon-Avon. Perhaps the gardens in the Cotswolds inspired him as they once inspired her.”

“When she was a child, she had inherited a ratty canvas tent which her mother had allowed her to drag down from the attic and sit inside. The thrill of a pretended journey had been enough to entertain her for days at time, zipped up with her books and a beakerful of cramberry juice, imagining strange shadows dancing on the fabric walls. You liked it because you liked four walls around you, her mother told her later, you liked to have things where you could see them - your little books and toys and pencils - to zip them up with you and keep them close.”

“When she was a little girl, her aunt, in order to frighten her, insisted that the vampire – the one that sucks human blood by biting its victims in the flesh of the neck – casts no reflection in the mirror. She reckoned that it might not be such a bad thing being a vampire, for the blood would add a touch of pink to her sallow complexion. For she gave the impression of having no blood unless a day might come when she would have to spill it.”

“When she was a little girl, her aunt, in order to frighten her, insisted that the vampire - the ones that sucks human blood by biting its victims in the flesh of the neck - casts no reflection in the mirror. She reckoned that it might not be such a bad thing being a vampire, for the blood would add a touch of punk to her sallow complexion. For she gave the impression of having no blood unless a day might come when she would have to spill it.”

“When she was dying, it was impossible to see forward to the next minute. What was happening — for whole weeks — was all that was happening and happening and happening. Months before that, I got the dumb soup wrong. How awful. It was all she wanted and I had gotten it wrong. Then, in the airless days when it was really happening, we started to power panic that we didn’t know enough. What should we do with your ashes? Water or dirt. Water or dirt. Once, she asked to just be thrown into the river where we used to go, still alive, but not living anymore. After it was done, I couldn’t go back to my life. You understand, right? It wasn’t the same. I couldn’t tell if I loved myself more or less. It wasn’t until later, when I moved in with him and stood outside on our patchy imperfect lawn, that I remembered what had been circling in me: I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying.”

“When she was free, the whale didn’t rush out to sea. Instead, she swam around and around her rescuers in joyous circles. The whale came up to each and every diver one at a time. She nudged them, pushed them gently -– maybe as her way of thanking them. What else could it have been? Several of the rescuers wept and later said it was the most incredibly beautiful moment of their lives. They said they would never be the same after the experience. And that is the best story I’ve heard to explain how it feels when you do a good deed and help somebody. You’ll never be the same after the experience.”

“When she was his companion, her father had always felt himself stirred to interest and enterprise. "You ought to have been a man, Betty," he used to say to her sometimes. But Betty had not agreed with him. "You say that," she once replied to him, "because you see I am inclined to do things, to change them if they need changing. Well, one is either born like that or one is not. Sometimes I think that perhaps the people who must act are of a distinct race, a kind of vigorous restlessness drives them. I remember that when I was a child I could not see a pin lying upon the ground without picking it up or pass a drawer which needed closing without giving it a push. But there has always been as much for women to do as there is for men.”

“When she was starting out as an actress, a well-known director had leaned over his script, straightened his Coke-bottle glasses, and told Laurel she hadn't the looks to play leading roles. The advice had stung, and she'd wailed and railed, and then spent hours catching herself accidentally on purpose in the mirror before hacking her long hair short in the grip of drunken bravura. But it had proven a "moment" in her career. She was a character actress. The director cast her as the leading lady's sister, and she garnered her first rave reviews. People marveled at her ability to build characters from the inside out, to submerge herself and disappear beneath the skin of another person, but there was no trick to it; she merely bothered to learn the character's secrets. Laurel knew quite a bit about keeping secrets. She also knew that was where the real people were found, hiding behind their black spots.”

“When she was twenty three years old she met, at a christmas party, a young man from the Erewash Valley. Morel was then twenty-seven years old. He was well-set-up, erect and very smart. He had wavy, black hair that shone again, and a vigorous black beard that had never been shaved. His cheeks were ruddy, and his red moist mouth was noticeable because he laughed so often and so heartily. He had that rare thing, a rich, ringing laugh. Gertrude Coppard had watched him fascinated. He was so full of colour and animation, his voice ran so easily into comic grotesque, he was so ready and so pleasant with everybody... Walter Morel seemed melted away before her. She was to the miner that thing of mystery and fascination, a lady.”

“When she was younger, Ellie used to believe that her invisibility was a metaphor for something else, assuming it was her awkwardness, her fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. She had thought as she grew older, more confident, wiser, she would outgrow this not being noticed. But lately, Ellie really felt like a ghost. She would be in a place, but not really there. People looked through her, past her. Her invisibility had taken on a life of its own. It wasn't a metaphor anymore, or a defense mechanism or eccentric little tic. She was actually invisible. At least, that was how it felt to her. Ellie wondered whether her parents were to blame. They were, after all, children of the sixties who had met at a love-in or lie-down or something of that sort, about which Ellie knew little except that a lot of drugs had been involved. Could Ellie's lack of physical presence be a genetic mutation caused by acid or mushrooms? Ellie grew up on their hippie commune among the highest, densest redwoods, where they dug their hands deep into the soil and grew their own food, made their own clothes. So perhaps it is there that the mystery is solved. Ellie indeed was a child of the earth, a baby of beiges and taupes and browns and muted greens. Nature doesn't scream and shout, demanding constant attention, and neither did Ellie. Maybe her invisibility was just her blending right in.”

“When she went back for her first lesson, Dhondutai automatically greeted het teacher by touching her feet. Kesarbai held her shoulders, lifted her gently and said, "You are a Brahmin's daughter. There is no need for you to do that." But this was something Dhondutai would not compromise on- even though she knew that she and Kesarbai occupied two ends of the social order in which women were either 'good' or 'bad', respectable or indecent. These were labels that had been stuck on by men, by society, and Dhondutai would not fall into that trap.”

“When she woke up crying for one of her nightmares, the Kolker would stay with her, brush her hair with his hands, collect her tears in thimbles for her to drink the next morning (The only way to overcome sadness is to consume it, he said), and more than that: once her eyes closed and she fell back asleep, he was left to bear the insomnia. There was a complete transfer, like a speeding billiard ball colliding with a resting one. Should Brod feel depressed - she was always depressed - the Kolker would sit with her until he could convince her that it’s OK. It is. Really. And when she would move on with her day, he would stay behind, paralysed with a grief he couldn’t name and that wasn’t his. Should Brod become sick, it was the Kolker that would be bedridden by week’s end. Should Brod feel bored, knowing too many languages, too many facts, with too much knowledge to be happy, the Kolker would stay up all night studying her books, studying the pictures, so the next day he could try to make the kind of small talk that would please his young wife.”

“When she woke up, she didn’t know how long it had been since she fainted. Her head hurt and her eyes were blurred. Someone was holding her into his arms and calling her by name, eager and anxious. Every time she was about to fall asleep, he will shake her, chanting strange spells into her ears, while pressing his hand on the back of her heart. “Don’t sleep.” She heard the brother whispering into her ear, “Wake up!”

“When Shelly brought the tapes to Chicago, she managed to convince the Oprah Winfrey Show staff that Mattie's segment needed to be more than how his disability felt. She told them she had been struck by how an eleven-year-old placed a higher priority on being a father someday and on relationships than on guns, cars, or the typical fantasies of a young boy. She that she went to our apartment to get "What is it like to suffer, to have your dying wishes granted?" and came back with "What is it like to be a peacemaker?”