Quotes about ceiling (115 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Even if you're sweeping floors or painting ceilings, do it better than anybody in the world, no matter what it is that you do. Be the best at it, and have a respect for others, and be proud of yourself.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

“When there are no ceilings, the sky's the limit.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), 2016 Democratic National Convention (July 28, 2016)
Context: Tonight, we've reached a milestone in our nation's march toward a more perfect union: the first time that a major party has nominated a woman for President. Standing here as my mother's daughter, and my daughter's mother, I'm so happy this day has come. Happy for grandmothers and little girls and everyone in between. Happy for boys and men, too – because when any barrier falls in America, for anyone, it clears the way for everyone. When there are no ceilings, the sky's the limit. So let's keep going, until every one of the 161 million women and girls across America has the opportunity she deserves. Because even more important than the history we make tonight, is the history we will write together in the years ahead. Let's begin with what we're going to do to help working people in our country get ahead and stay ahead.

For women

“Jace shook his blond head in exasperation.
"You had to make a crazy jail friend, didn't you? You couldn't just count ceiling tiles or tame a pet mouse like normal prisoners do?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“In between these four whitewashed walls, on this tiled floor, notice the broken corners, how some tiles have been worn smooth, how many feet have passed this way, and look how interesting this trail of ants is, travelling along the joins as if they were valleys, while up above, projected against the white sky of the ceiling and the sun of the lamp, tall towers are moving, they are men, as the ants well know, having, for generations, experienced the weight of their feet and the long, hot spout of water that falls from a kind of pendulous external intestine, ants all over the world have been drowned or crushed by these, but it seems they will escape this fate now, for the men are occupied with other things. […]
Let's take this ant, or, rather, let's not, because that would involve picking it up, let us merely consider it, because it is one of the larger ones and because it raises its head like a dog, it's walking along very close to the wall, together with its fellow ants it will have time to complete its long journey ten times over between the ants' nest and whatever it is that it finds so interesting, curious or perhaps merely nourishing in this secret room […]. One of the men has fallen to the ground, he's on the same level as the ants now, we don't know if he can see them, but they see him, and he will fall so often that, in the end, they will know by heart his face, the color of his hair and eyes, the shape of his ear, the dark arc of his eyebrow, the faint shadow at the corner of his mouth, and later, back in the ants' nest, they will weave long stories for the enlightenment of future generations, because it is useful for the young to know what happens out there in the world. The man fell and the others dragged him to his feet again, shouting at him, asking two different questions at the same time, how could he possibly answer them even if he wanted to, which is not the case, because the man who fell and was dragged to his feet will die without saying a word. Only moans will issue from his mouth, and in the silence of his soul only deep sighs, and even when his teeth are broken and he has to spit them out, which will prompt the other two men to hit him again for soiling state property, even then the sound will be of spitting and nothing more, that unconscious reflex of the lips, and then the dribble of saliva thickened with blood that falls to the floor, thus stimulating the taste buds of the ants, who telegraph from one to the other news of this singularly red manna fallen from such a white heaven.
The man fell again. It's the same one, said the ants, the same ear shape, the same arc of eyebrow, the same shadow at the corner of the mouth, there's no mistaking him, why is it that it is always the same man who falls, why doesn't he defend himself, fight back. […] The ants are surprised, but only fleetingly. After all, they have their own duties, their own timetables to keep, it is quite enough that they raise their heads like dogs and fix their feeble vision on the fallen man to check that he is the same one and not some new variant in the story. The larger ant walked along the remaining stretch of wall, slipped under the door, and some time will pass before it reappears to find everything changed, well, that's just a manner of speaking, there are still three men there, but the two who do not fall never stop moving, it must be some kind of game, there's no other explanation […]. [T]hey grab him by the shoulders and propel him willy-nilly in the direction of the wall, so that sometimes he hits his back, sometimes his head, or else his poor bruised face smashes into the whitewash and leaves on it a trace of blood, not a lot, just whatever spurts forth from his mouth and right eyebrow. And if they leave him there, he, not his blood, slides down the wall and he ends up kneeling on the ground, beside the little trail of ants, who are startled by the sudden fall from on high of that great mass, which doesn't, in the end, even graze them. And when he stays there for some time, one ant attaches itself to his clothing, wanting to take a closer look, the fool, it will be the first ant to die, because the next blow falls on precisely that spot, the ant doesn't feel the second blow, but the man does.”

José Saramago book Raised from the Ground

Source: Raised from the Ground (1980), pp. 172–174

Men , Fate , Secret , World

“I guess it's you I miss.
'Cause I just stare at the ceiling.
My stomach knots and twists.
You've created this feeling.
And I may be out of style.
But do you know what true love is? I'll make this all so worthwhile.
So let's rise above this. Let's rise above this.”

Ed Harcourt (1977) British musician

Until Tomorrow Then

Love , Feeling

“While we were being bombed in Dresden, sitting in a cellar with our arms over our heads in case the ceiling fell, one slider said as though he were a duchess in a mansion on a cold and rainy night, “I wonder what the poor people are doing tonight.””

Kurt Vonnegut book A Man Without a Country

Nobody laughed, but we were still all glad he said it.
A Man Without a Country (2005)

People , Night

“As for the soul: why did I say I would leave it out? I forget. And the truth is, one can't write directly about the soul. Looked at, it vanishes; but look at the ceiling, at Grizzle, at the cheaper beasts in the Zoo which are exposed to walkers in Regent's Pak, and the soul slips in. Mrs Webb's book has made me think a little what I could say of my own life. But then there were causes in her life: prayer; principle. None in mine. Great excitability and search after something. Great content – almost always enjoying what I'm at, but with constant change of mood. I don't think I'm ever bored. Yet I have some restless searcher in me. Why is there not a discovery in life? Something one can lay hands on and say 'This is it'? What is it? And shall I die before I can find it? Then (as I was walking through Russell Square last night) I see mountains in the sky: the great clouds, and the moon which is risen over Persia; I have a great and astonishing sense of something there, which is 'it' – A sense of my own strangeness, walking on the earth is there too. Who am I, what am I, and so on; these questions are always floating about in me. Is that what I meant to say? Not in the least. I was thinking about my own character; not about the universe. Oh and about society again; dining with Lord Berners at Clive's made me think that. How, at a certain moment, I see through what I'm saying; detest myself; and wish for the other side of the moon; reading alone, that is.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Saturday 27 February 1926
A Moment's Liberty (1990)

Life , Truth , Books , Soul

“For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans: the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who's been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means also taking full responsibility for our own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism. They must always believe that they can write their own destiny.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

Life , Children , Health , School

“The blighter that is at the end of the sea
On the pitch-black night raised itself flying;
Round the vessel it flew three times,
Three times it flew creaking,
And said, 'Who dared pierce
Into my dens that I do not reveal,
My black ceilings of the end of the world?'
And the helmsman said, trembling,
'His Majesty King John the Second!'

'Whose sails are these then which I rub against?
Whose the keels I see and hear?'
Said the blighter, and rolled three times,
Three times it rolled filthy and bulky,
'Who attempts what is solely my power,
I who abide where no one ever could see me
And who drip the fears of the depthless sea?'
And the helmsman trembled, and said,
'His Majesty King John the Second!'

Three times he raised his hands from the helm,
Three times he had them rooted on the helm,
And said after trembling three times,
'Here at the helm I am more than myself:
I am a People who wants the sea that is yours;
And more than the blighter, that my soul fears
And rolls on the darkness of the end of the world,
Orders the will, that ties me at the helm,
Of His Majesty King John the Second!'”

Fernando Pessoa book Mensagem

Poem "O Mostrengo" http://www.inverso.pt/Mensagem/MarPortugues/mostrengo.htm, lines 1–9, trans. Charles Eglington ( Listen to the poem on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Ihd-ECpYM)
Message

People , World , Fear , Soul

“A sense of security, of well-being, of summer warmth pervades my memory. That robust reality makes a ghost of the present. The mirror brims with brightness; a bumblebee has entered the room and bumps against the ceiling. Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

Speak, Memory: A Memoir (1951)

Reality , Sense , Memory , Change

“I only snatched him to get your attention,” I said. “Now that I’ve got it, this is what I want.”
“Damn my dame!” Al shouted, hands raised to the ceiling. “I knew it! Not another list!”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: White Witch, Black Curse

“Inside the half-basement, they found Wroth alongside Garreth, grappling to hold up the ceiling.
The vampire's voice was incongruously calm when he asked, "What kind of idiot would find this a worthy plan?”

Kresley Cole book A Hunger Like No Other

Source: A Hunger Like No Other

“Standing in front of a line up of Lay's potato chips, Qhuinn looked overhead to the speaker inset into the ceiling tiles. Next to him John Matthew signed”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover at Last

“The next minute or so was spent howling on the ceiling. Imp No.1 joined in, but he wasn't really feeling it. It shouldn't be "Who do we hate?", he thought, it really should be "whom", but this probably wasn't a good time to bring that up.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Hate , Feeling , Time

“Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.”

Arnold Lobel (1933–1987) American children's illustrator and writer

Love , Books , Time , Reading

“If your ceiling should fall down, then you have lost a room, but gained a courtyard. Think of it that way.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Right Attitude to Rain

Source: The Right Attitude to Rain

Way , Thinking

“There are one hundred glow-stars on my bedroom ceiling. (…) Glow-stars are strange. They make the ceiling disappear.”

Alex Garland book The Beach

Source: The Beach

Star

“Fish Ponies! I put them on the ceiling!"

-Tyson”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Fish

“I sometimes look into the face of my dog Stan and see a wistful sadness and existential angst, when all he is actually doing is slowly scanning the ceiling for flies.”

Merrill Markoe (1948) American writer

Sadness , Dogs

“Gregori strutted toward the door. "I'm too sexy for my cape, too sexy for my fangs. Too sexy." He whirled in a circle, then struck a disco pose with a hand pointing at the ceiling. "Too sexy!" He left with a flourish of his cape.”

Kerrelyn Sparks (1955) American writer

Source: How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire

“Lonliness evaporated off of them like the steam off dry ice, and by morning it was just a cloud on the ceiling of the room, then gone with the light.”

Christopher Moore book A Dirty Job

Source: A Dirty Job

Light

“Tyler lies back and asks, "If Marilyn Monroe were alive right now, what would she be doing?"

I say, goodnight.

The headliner hangs down in shreds from the ceiling and Tyler says, "Clawing at the lid of her coffin.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

“Love. It was the beginning and end of everything, the foundation and the ceiling and the air in between.”

Kristin Hannah book The Nightingale

Source: The Nightingale

Love

“Sometimes love not only lifts you to the ceiling, it also keeps your eyes there.”

Janette Rallison (1966) American writer

Source: My Fair Godmother

Love

“The walls were wet and sticky, and peach juice was dripping from the ceiling. James opened his mouth and caught some of it on his tongue. It tasted delicious.”

Roald Dahl James and the Giant Peach

Source: James and the Giant Peach

“A massive fir, it rose to nearly touch the ceiling at the far end of the ballroom. When Will asked Charlotte how on earth it had gotten in there, she had only waved her hands and said something about Magnus.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“We lay on our backs looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when he made life so sad and disinclined.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Source: On the Road: the Original Scroll

Life , God , Sadness

“Maybe that was why she couldn't cry, she realized, staring dry-eyed at the ceiling. Because what was the point in crying when there was no one there to comfort you? And what was worse, when you couldn't even comfort yourself?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Cry

“We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams.”

Jesse Jackson (1941) African-American civil rights activist and politician

As quoted in The Independent (9 June 1988)
Attributed

Dreams

“By this time trapped inside the drug's reverie I could have sprayed out Michelangelo's Last Judgement on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. A yacht would be a beggar's handcart by comparison.”

Ralph Steadman book The Joke's Over

The America's Cup, p. 55
The Joke's Over (2006)

Time

“Punk: Because here is the truth about Las Vegas, here is the truth about the WWE is that it doesn't matter that if you're the best wrestler, it doesn't matter if you're the best talker, it doesn't matter if you're the best overall performer, it doesn't matter if you make the two clowns sitting to my left on commentary look like amateur hour. There is a glass ceiling and nobody is allowed to break it. That's the simple story of this place. The more popular you are, the more money you make. The more you people cheer for any given superstar, the more opportunities you're afforded. Why do you think a guy like John Cena, who has admittedly had the worst year of his career, gets title shot after title shot after title shot after title shot? Or why a lethal grappler, why a serious submission specialist like Daniel Bryan puts a smile on his face and settles himself, belittles himself with catchphrases. Or why a 400 pound monster, Brodus Clay, soils his hands by touching your filthy, ugly, little children to get in the ring so he can shuck and jive for you. Or why an invisible child, Little Jimmy, is better positioned on the flagship show Monday Night RAW than a workhorse like Tyson Kidd.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

WWE Raw

Money , Children , People , Truth

“And I live with the dead – my mother, my sister [Sophie], my grandfather, my father [who died in 1889, when Munch was in France]... Every day is the same – my friends have stopped coming – their laughter disturbs me, tortures me.... my daily walk round the old castle becomes shorter and shorter, it tires me more and more to take walks. The fire in the fireplace is my only friend – the time I spend sitting in front of the fireplace gets longer and longer.... at its worst I lean my head against the fireplace overwhelmed by the sudden urge – Kill yourself and then it’s all over. Why live? I light the candle – my huge shadow springs across half the wall, clear up to the ceiling and in the mirror over the fireplace I see the face of my own ghost.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

a note from Saint Cloud, 1898; as quoted in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, p. 115
1896 - 1930

Spring , Sister , Laughter , Light

“There is no state more abject than the man broken on the waterboarding rack, or frozen to near death, or forced to stand for days on end, or hooded and strapped to shackles in a ceiling, or having his legs pulpified by repeated beating, or forced to eat pork and drink alcohol against religious strictures. Everything I have just described has been done by US forces under the command and direction of George W. Bush. They are all acts of absolute tyranny, conducted by people who at that moment are absolute tyrants.”

Andrew Sullivan (1963) Journalist, writer, blogger

"Torture, Moral Vanity and Freedom" http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/05/torture_moral_v.html, The Daily Dish (17 May 2007)

Death , People , Alcohol , Drink

“His wastefulness showed most of all in the architectural projects. He built a palace, stretching from the Palatine to the Esquiline, which he called…"The Golden House". The following details will give some notion of its size and magnificence. The entrance-hall was large enough to contain a huge statue of himself, 120 feet high…Parts of the house were overlaid with gold and studded with precious stones and mother-of pearl. All the dining-rooms had ceilings of fretted ivory, the panels of which could slide back and let a rain of flowers, or of perfume from hidden sprinklers, shower upon his guests. The main dining-room was circular, and its roof revolved, day and night, in time with the sky. Sea water, or sulphur water, was always on tap in the baths. When the palace had been decorated throughout in this lavish style, Nero dedicated it, and condescended to remark: "Good, now I can at last begin to live like a human being!"”
Non in alia re tamen damnosior quam in aedificando domum a Palatio Esquilias usque fecit, quam…Auream nominavit. De cuius spatio atque cultu suffecerit haec rettulisse. Vestibulum eius fuit, in quo colossus CXX pedum staret ipsius effigie…In ceteris partibus cuncta auro lita, distincta gemmis unionumque conchis erant; cenationes laqueatae tabulis eburneis versatilibus, ut flores, fistulatis, ut unguenta desuper spargerentur; praecipua cenationum rotunda, quae perpetuo diebus ac noctibus vice mundi circumageretur; balineae marinis et albulis fluentes aquis. Eius modi domum cum absolutam dedicaret, hactenus comprobavit, ut se diceret quasi hominem tandem habitare coepisse.

Sueton book The Twelve Caesars

Source: The Twelve Caesars, Nero, Ch. 31

Flowers , Water , Time , Parting

“My mom thinks my new daughter is exceptionally bright, because now she will lie on the floor and talk to the ceiling fan. I said, "Mom, Uncle Harold does that and y'all call him an alcoholic."”

Jeff Foxworthy (1958) American stand-up comedian

You Might Be a Redneck If… (1993)

Alcohol , Lie , Moms , Thinking

“People tend to think that mathematicians always work in sterile conditions, sitting around and staring at the screen of a computer, or at a ceiling, in a pristine office. But in fact, some of the best ideas come when you least expect them, possibly through annoying industrial noise.”

Edward Frenkel (1968) mathematician working in representation theory, algebraic geometry, and mathematical physics

Source: Love and Math, 2013, p. 145

People , Idea , Thinking

“The spider hung motionless, like a dull brown gem in an intricate necklace. The web was complete, now, the last strands laid delicately in place; it stretched from one side of the ceiling corner to the other, quivering gently in the rising air as though strummed by invisible hands.
For a moment Isgrimnur lost the thread of talk, important talk though it was. His eyes had drifted from the worried faces huddled near the fireplace in the great hall, roving up to the darkened corner, and to the tiny builder at rest.
There’s sense, he told himself. You build something and then you stay there. That’s the way it’s meant to be. Not this running here, running there, never see your blood-family or your home roofs for a year at a time.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 37, “Jiriki’s Hunt” (p. 619).

Family , Way , Home , Sense

“It was this indifference to the quality of his material that earned Liszt the contempt of his most distinguished contemporaries and of many of the most respectable critics and historians of posterity. It was, nevertheless, his greatest strength. It made it possible for him to manipulate the material ruthlessly, to concentrate on effects of realization with unprecedented intensity, and to integrate styles and techniques of performance into composition in a new way. His invention of novel keyboard effects and his mastery of musical gesture have always been undervalued, especially by pianists of the German school who prefer the kind of music that can be executed while soulfully regarding the ceiling. On the whole, the most genuine understanding of his music has been displayed by musicians of eastern Europe, and he may almost be considered as the founder of Russian pianism.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 8 : Liszt: On Creation as Performance

School , Music , Way , Understanding

“Gangsta rap-based filmings became the buildin blocks
For children with leakin ceilings catchin drippins with pots
Coupled with compositions from Pac, Nas's "It Was Written"
In the mix with my realities and feelings
Living conditions, religion, ignorant wisdom and artistic vision
I began to jot, tap the world and listen,”

Lupe Fiasco (1982) rapper

Albums, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor (2006)

Wisdom , Children , World , Religion

“Women today are less than half as likely as men to work in excess of 50 hours per week. (Again, working women put in more hours at home.) It is rarer still for women to sustain that commitment for 20 years and then, without having burned out, increase her hours still more as a CEO. But exactly because it is rare, women who are willing stand out as more exceptional. Women, as it turns out, are far more 'European'--working to live rather than living to work. But the glass ceiling is rarely cracked by healthy, balanced people who work to live.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 82.

Women , Men , People , Home

“No.3 Commando was very anxious to be chums with Lord Glasgow, so they offered to blow up an old tree stump for him and he was very grateful and said don't spoil the plantation of young trees near it because that is the apple of my eye and they said no of course not we can blow a tree down so it falls on a sixpence and Lord Glasgow said goodness you are clever and he asked them all to luncheon for the great explosion.
So Col. Durnford-Slater DSO said to his subaltern, have you put enough explosive in the tree?. Yes, sir, 75lbs. Is that enough? Yes sir I worked it out by mathematics it is exactly right. Well better put a bit more. Very good sir.
And when Col. D Slater DSO had had his port he sent for the subaltern and said subaltern better put a bit more explosive in that tree. I don't want to disappoint Lord Glasgow. Very good sir.
Then they all went out to see the explosion and Col. DS DSO said you will see that tree fall flat at just the angle where it will hurt no young trees and Lord Glasgow said goodness you are clever.
So soon they lit the fuse and waited for the explosion and presently the tree, instead of falling quietly sideways, rose 50 feet into the air taking with it ½ acre of soil and the whole young plantation.
And the subaltern said Sir, I made a mistake, it should have been 7½ not 75. Lord Glasgow was so upset he walked in dead silence back to his castle and when they came to the turn of the drive in sight of his castle what should they find but that every pane of glass in the building was broken.
So Lord Glasgow gave a little cry and ran to hide his emotions in the lavatory and there when he pulled the plug the entire ceiling, loosened by the explosion, fell on his head.
This is quite true.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Letter to his wife (31 May 1942)

Disappointment , Mathematics , Tree , Silence

“As if the butterfly, like the artist, were conscious of something not entirely congenial in the child's nature, it alternately sparkled and grew dim. At length it arose from the small hand of the infant with an airy motion that seemed to bear it upward without an effort, as if the ethereal instincts with which its master's spirit had endowed it impelled this fair vision involuntarily to a higher sphere. Had there been no obstruction, it might have soared into the sky and grown immortal. But its lustre gleamed upon the ceiling; the exquisite texture of its wings brushed against that earthly medium; and a sparkle or two, as of stardust, floated downward and lay glimmering on the carpet.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

"The Artist of the Beautiful" (1844)

Nature , Effort

“Through honeycombs of stone would now be wandering the passions in their clay. There would be tears and there would be strange laughter. Fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings. And dreams, and violence, and disenchantment.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 69 “Mr Rottcodd Again” (p. 396)

Death , Dreams , Birth , Tear

“Once a full-employment policy has been adopted… the economic ’system’ just on that account is significantly different. Its equilibrium position has been shifted to a rising curve of trend close to and following the employment ceiling. The conditions of stability about this new level are radically different because the region of operation is now within the less flexible and sharply non-linear range of employment saturation”

Arnold Tustin (1899–1994) British engineer

Source: The Mechanism of Economic Systems (1953), p. 128

“The Paleolithic hunters who painted the unsurpassed animal murals on the ceiling of the cave at Altamira had only rudimentary tools. Art is older than production for use, and play older than work. Man was shaped less by what he had to do than by what he did in playful moments. It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Source: Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), p. 20

Art , Optimism , Animals , Painting

“Find him, bind him, tie him to a pole and break his fingers to splinters,
Drag him to a hole until he wakes up naked
Clawing at the ceiling of his grave.”

Colin Meloy (1974) American musician

The Mariner's Revenge Song (Picaresque - 2005)
Lyrics

“It's bad to wake up and see a large cat in mid-leap from the rough vicinity of the ceiling.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

[b2jl1a$e39$1@panix2.panix.com, 2003]
2000s

Cats

“People like Hillary Clinton, who put those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, so that our daughters — and sons — can dream a little bigger and aim a little higher. People like Joe Biden, who's never forgotten where he came from and never stopped fighting for folks who work long hours and face long odds and need someone on their side again.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2000s, Democratic National Convention speech (2008)

People , Dreams , Fight , Daughters

“The ceiling fell? The ink ran dry? A student dared to smile?
Of every new disaster
I prove myself the master
By sending out more circulars, more circulars to file!
A missing kid? A kissing kid? A paper on the floor?
For every major crisis
One remedy suffices:
More circulars, more circulars, to put into a drawer!A crowded cafeteria?
A substitute's hysteria?
A visitor from Syria?
A missing Book Receipt?I merely send out circulars
To add to other circulars
To add to other circulars
Numerical and neat!”

Bel Kaufmanová book Up the Down Staircase

Part III, ch. 16 (Paul Barringer)
Up the Down Staircase (1965)

Books , Smile , Kiss

“How did I think up my drawings and my ideas for painting? Well I'd come home to my Paris studio in Rue Blomet at night, I'd go to bed, and sometimes I hadn't any supper. I saw things, and I jotted them down in a notebook. I saw shapes on the ceiling..”

Joan Miró (1893–1983) Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist

from: Miro, on English Wikipedia
Miró's quote on 'automatic painting and drawing', explaining the start of his work 'Harlequin's Carnival' he made in Paris, strongly admired then by Surrealists like André Breton
1915 - 1940

Home , Idea , Thinking , Drawing

“I do not think that word “compromise” means what Mr. Ryan thinks it means. Above all, he failed to offer the one thing the White House won’t, can’t bend on: an end to extortion over the debt ceiling. Yet even this ludicrously unbalanced offer was too much for conservative activists, who lambasted Mr. Ryan for basically leaving health reform intact.Does this mean that we’re going to hit the debt ceiling? Quite possibly; nobody really knows, but careful observers are giving no better than even odds that any kind of deal will be reached before the money runs out. Beyond that, however, our current state of dysfunction looks like a chronic condition, not a one-time event. Even if the debt ceiling is raised enough to avoid immediate default, even if the government shutdown is somehow brought to an end, it will only be a temporary reprieve. Conservative activists are simply not willing to give up on the idea of ruling through extortion, and the Obama administration has decided, wisely, that it will not give in to extortion.So how does this end? How does America become governable again?”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Regarding the ongoing 2013 U.S. government shutdown
[Paul Krugman, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/opinion/krugman-the-dixiecrat-solution.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1381867276-0uKEJS5eBZAKIo/by2ipKQ, The Dixiecrat Solution, New York Times, October 13, 2013, October 15, 2013]
The New York Times Columns

Money , Health , Idea , Thinking

“It was dark. Something had fallen on top of the cabin light, turning the cabin into a black tunnel. I couldn’t hear anything at all. The roll didn’t stop. It continued to port, and for just a few seconds I was sitting on the ceiling in the dark.”

Abby Sunderland (1993) Camera Assistant, Inspirational Speaker and Sailor

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 155

Light

“We must review oil deregulation law and study the following: Removing VAT, lowering tariff, re-imposing price ceilings and prohibiting price manipulation. We should also spend on research and development to find alternate and indigenous sources of energy. The summit will not accomplish anything other than to highlight the ignorance and incompetence of energy officials who need to call a summit just to find out what’s going on.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Philippine Star http://www.philstar.com:8080/headlines/37151/chiz-backs-scrapping-oil-tariff
2008, Statement: on Energy Summit

Law , Study

“My first piece of advice — and I mean this from the bottom of my heart — is that we should not get so carried away that we adopt a Logan's Run policy in which conservatives beyond a certain age are twirled around the ceiling of a big stadium and then blown-up to the cheers of younger conservatives.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

July 19, 2004 http://web.archive.org/web/20040421/www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200407190837.asp
2000s, 2004

Age , Heart

“If I was in Congress, I would not vote to raise the debt ceiling.”

Sean Hannity (1961) American television host, conservative political commentator

Hannity
Fox News
Television
2011-04-12
Fox vs. Fox: Debt Ceiling Edition
Media Matters for America
2011-04-13
http://mediamatters.org/research/201104130014
2011-08-01

“Nothing helped; I was fading helplessly away with open eyes, staring straight at the ceiling. Finally I stuck my forefinger in my mouth and took to sucking on it. Something began stirring in my brain, some thought in there scrambling to get out, a stark-staring mad idea: what if I gave a bite? And without a moment's hesitation I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my teeth together. I jumped up. I was finally awake.”

Knut Hamsun book Hunger

Hunger (1890), p. 110

Idea , Help , Madness

“Our instruments have no way of measuring this feeling
Had ever got below the floor
Or penetrate the ceiling ~ Destination”

Steve Kilbey (1954) British artist

Lyrics

Way , Feeling

““I don’t understand what you mean,” I confessed in a baffled tone. Niamh gave me a long, cool, faintly amused glance.
“Don’t you? No, I can see that you do not,” she said. And with that she rolled over, her face turned from me, and fell asleep…leaving me staring at the ceiling, completely mystified, pondering the inexplicable perversities of the female mind.”

Lin Carter book Under the Green Star

Source: Under the Green Star (1972), Chapter 17, “A Knife in the Dark” (pp. 112-113)

Understanding

“"Did you ever taste beer?" "I had a sip of it once," said the small servant. "Here's a state of things!" cried Mr Swiveller, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "She never tasted it — it can't be tasted in a sip!"”

Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop

Source: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), Ch. 57

Beer

“She was crazy but he needed her. Oh I am in so much trouble he thought, and stared blindly up at the ceiling as the droplets of sweat began to gather on his forehead again.”

Stephen King book Misery

Misery (1987)

“The first-century church in Jerusalem clearly had it. And they didn't have any fancy accoutrements. So it can't possibly be stained-glass windows, hand-carved cherubs, custom silk tapestries, gold-inlaid hymnals, thousand-pipe organs, marble floors, mile-high steeples, hand-painted ceilings, mahogany pews, giant cast-iron bells, and a three-piece, thousand dollar suit. It doesn't stick any better to a young, hip, shaved-headed pastor with rimmed glasses, a goatee, and tattoos than it does to an older, stately gentleman in a robe. Nor is it spotlights and lasers, video production, satellite dishes, fog machines, shiny gauze backdrops, four-color glossy brochures, sexy billboards, loud "contemporary" music, free donuts, coffee shops, hip bookstores, break dancing or acrobatics, sermon series named after television shows, a retro-modern matching chair and table onstage, or blue jeans and Heelys. It is not being on television, being on the Internet, or being on book and magazine covers. It is real. It is genuine.”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

Books , Music , Color , Coffee

“I wrote the first 5,000 words of William the Antichrist. It had a demon named Crawleigh. He drove a Citroen 2CV, and was ineffectual. Proper demons like Hastur and Ligur loathed him. It had a baby swap. I sent it to a few friends for feedback. Then my graphic novel Sandman happened, and it was almost a year later that the phone rang.
"It's Terry," said Terry. "'Ere. That thing you sent me. Are you doing anything with it?"
"Not really."
"Well, I think I know what happens next. Do you want to sell it to me? Or write it together?"
"Write it together," I said, because I was not stupid, and because that was the nearest I was ever going to get to Michaelangelo phoning to ask if I wanted to paint a ceiling with him.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

Good Omens: How Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett wrote a book (2014)

Stupidity , Thinking , Baby , Painting

“When it was all gone, the dream of floating toward bursting stars, and the flesh returned to hold my blood in its prosaic channels, when the room returned, the dirty sordid room, the vacant meaningless ceiling, the weary wasted world, I felt nothing but the old sense of guilt, the sense of crime and violation, the sin of destruction.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Source: Ask the Dust (1939), Chapter Sixteen

World , Dreams , Star , Sense

“She looks like the real thing,
She tastes like the real thing,
My fake plastic love.
But I can't help the feeling,
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turned and ran.”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

Fake Plastic Trees
Lyrics, The Bends (1995)

Love , Feeling , Help

“Maybe the ghosts have a glass ceiling? Break through that glass ceiling ghosts! I plan to.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

Ghost Hunters. October 31, 2006.
In reference to moving up the World Wrestling Entertainment roster, despite a lack of a conventional wrestling physique.
Ghost Hunters

“After a considerable walk through the forest, where I became acquainted with several of the little lakes I am so fond of, I came to Hestehaven and Lake Carl. Here is one of the most beautiful regions I have ever seen. The countryside is somewhat isolated and slopes steeply down to the lake, but with the beech forests growing on either side, it is not barren. A growth of rushes forms the background and the lake itself the foreground; a fairly large part of the lake is clear, but a still larger part is overgrown with the large green leaves of the waterlily, under which the fish seemingly try to hide but now and then peek out and flounder about on the surface in order to bathe in sunshine. The land rises on the opposite side, a great beech forest, and in the morning light the lighted areas make a marvelous contrast to the shadowed areas. The church bells call to prayer, but not in a temple made by human hands. If the birds do not need to be reminded to praise God, then ought men not be moved to prayer outside of the church, in the true house of God, where heaven's arch forms the ceiling of the church, where the roar of the storm and the light breezes take the place of the organ's bass and treble, where the singing of the birds make up the congregational hymns of praise, where echo does not repeat the pastor's voice as in the arch of the stone church, but where everything resolves itself in an endless antiphony — Hillerød, July 25, 1835”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1830s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1830s

Men , God , Beauty , Bird

“The world took a shape which he could grasp, though he could not comprehend it. Above him, on both sides, below him, as far as he could see, bodies floated. They were arranged in vertical and horizontal rows. The up-and-down ranks were separated by red rods, slender as broomsticks, one of which was twelve inches from the feet of the sleepers and the other twelve inches from their heads. Each body was spaced about six feet from the body above and below and on each side.
The rods came up from an abyss without bottom and soared into an abyss without ceiling. That grayness into which the rods and the bodies, up and down, right and left, disappeared was neither the sky nor the earth. There was nothing in the distance except the lackluster of infinity.”

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

Source: The Riverworld series, To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971), Chapter 1 (p. 3)

World

“Lying on my hotel bed, mesmerized by the lazy turns of the ceiling fan, I pondered the possibility that I was nuts. It wasn’t unheard of, even in the days of the Bitchun Society, and even though there were cures, they weren’t pleasant.”

Cory Doctorow book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)

Lying

“I foresee great refinements in the field of short-pulse microwave signaling, whereby several simultaneous programs may occupy the same channel, in sequence, with incredibly swift electronic communication; vastly important developments in microwave technique, whereby present clumsy connecting leads between wall or floor sockets and electric devices like toasters and vacuum sweepers may become unnecessary; gigantic magnetrons and klystrons, or their successors, will generate megawatts in microwaves; living rooms and their occupants will be heated by high-frequency waves from walls or ceilings; short waves will be generally used in the kitchen for roasting and baking, almost instantaneously”

Lee De Forest (1873–1961) American inventor

"Dawn of the Electronic Age" http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/03/20/dawn-of-the-electronic-age/, Popular Mechanics, January 1952

Communication

“I carried this rubber ball with me all the time. I squeezed it to strengthen my fingers and wrists and my friend and I would walk to and from school throwing the rubber ball back and forth. Many times at night, I laid in the bed and threw the ball against the ceiling and caught it. Baseball was my whole life. I would forget to eat because of baseball and one time my mother wanted to punish me. She started to burn my bat, but I got it out of the fire and saved it. Many times today she tells me how wrong she was and how right I was to want to play baseball. I bought my parents their home in Puerto Rico and gave them possessions they never thought they’d ever see. All from baseball.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in “Clouter Clemente: Popular Buc; Rifle-Armed Flyhawk Aims At Second Bat Crown”
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1964</big>

Life , School , Home , Parent

“I'm spending nights just dreaming / And playing the music loud / They're banging on the ceiling / They're praying that I'll soon be out.”

Kim Wilde (1960) English pop singer

Fit in
Teases and Dares (1984)

Dreams , Music , Night

“They talked quietly, lying on their backs and letting the words float up to the ceiling as though they were talking to themselves. By reason of their calmness they could tell each other everything without shame, without its sounding like a confession. Nor were they surprised at what they found out about each other.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 191

Lying

“That’s how we’ve always moved this country forward, by all of us coming together on behalf of our children, folks who volunteer to coach that team, to teach that Sunday school class, because they know it takes a village. Heroes of every color and creed who wear the uniform and risk their lives to keep passing down those blessings of liberty, police officers and the protesters in Dallas who all desperately want to keep our children safe. People who lined up in Orlando to donate blood because it could have been their son, their daughter in that club. Leaders like Tim Kaine who show our kids what decency and devotion look like. Leaders like Hillary Clinton who has the guts and the grace to keep coming back and putting those cracks in that highest and hardest glass ceiling until she finally breaks through, lifting all of us along with her.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2010s, 2016 Democratic National Convention (2016)

Children , People , School , Color

“I set to work. I pointed a mural for the main wall: Introduction to the New National Theatre. The other interior walls, the ceiling and the friezes depicted the forerunners of the contemporary actor – a popular musician, a wedding jester, a good woman dancing, a copyist of the Torah, the first poet dreamer, and finally a modern couple flying over the stage. The friezes were decorated with dishes and food, beigels and fruits spread out on well-laid tables. I looked forward to meeting the actors who passed me: 'Let us agree. Let's join forces and throw out all this old rubbish. Let's work a miracle!”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

c. 1921
Quote from 'Chagall in the Yiddish Theater', Avram Kampf, as quoted in Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 – 1922, editor Christoph Vitali, exhibition catalogue, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1991, p. 101
1920's

Food , Wedding , Dance , Flying

“why does accountability keep hitting a glass ceiling?”

Rachel Maddow (1973) American journalist

The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (May 5, 2009)

“Although "jumping to conclusions" is an expression, rather than an activity, it is as dangerous as jumping off a cliff, jumping in front of a moving train, and jumping for joy. If you jump off a cliff, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful landing unless there is something below you to cushion your fall, such as a body of water or an immense pile of tissue paper. If you jump in front of a moving train, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful voyage unless you are wearing some sort of train-proof suit. And if you jump for joy, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful bump on the head, unless you make sure you are standing someplace with very high ceilings, which joyous people rarely do. Clearly, the solution to anything involving jumping is either to make sure you are jumping to a safe place, or not to jump at all.”

Daniel Handler book The Vile Village

Lemony Snicket
The Vile Village (2001)

Pain , People , Water , Chance

“I'm not going to vote. I won't vote for a Catholic and I won't vote for a damned Republican. Maybe I've said that before. My ancestors were all Catholic and not very far back. And I have reason to hate the church.
I feel a curious kinship, though, with the Middle Ages. I have been more successful in selling tales laid in that period of time, than in any other. Truth it was an epoch for strange writers. Witches and werewolves, alchemists and necromancers, haunted the brains of those strange savage people, barbaric children that they were, and the only thing which was never believed was the truth. Those sons of the old pagan tribes were wrought upon by priest and monk, and they brought all their demons from their mythology and accepted all the demons of the new creed also, turning their old gods into devils. The slight knowledge which filtered through the monastaries from the ancient sources of decayed Greece and fallen Rome, was so distorted and perverted that by the time it reached the people, it resembled some monstrous legend. And the vague minded savages further garbed it in heathen garments. Oh, a brave time, by Satan! Any smooth rogue could swindle his way through life, as he can today, but then there was pageantry and high illusion and vanity, and the beloved tinsel of glory without which life is not worth living.
I hate the devotees of great wealth but I enjoy seeing the splendor that wealth can buy. And if I were wealthy, I'd live in a place with marble walls and marble floors, lapis lazulis ceilings and cloth-of-gold and I would have silver fountains in the courts, flinging an everlasting sheen of sparkling water in the air. Soft low music should breathe forever through the rooms and slim tigerish girls should glide through on softly falling feet, serving all the wants of me and my guests; girls with white bare limbs like molten gold and soft dreamy eyes.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

From a letter to Harold Preece (received October 20, 1928)
Letters

Life , God , Hate , Children

“Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Concession speech http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=572270, Washington D.C., June 7, 2008.
Presidential campaign (January 20, 2007 – 2008)

Time

“I have to say that I find Ali’s argument truly revolting—not just because it’s intellectually weak and actually deceptive, but because it debases the entire realm of university scholarship of which I’m a member. When I see pieces like hers—lame apologetics that are meant from the outset to reinforce an opinion already held—I thank Ceiling Cat that I am a scientist: a member of the guild in which using your scholarship to reinforce emotional commitments is considered a sin.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" At last it happens: a professor blames ISIS’s sex slavery on the West https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/at-last-it-happens-a-professor-blames-isiss-sex-slavery-on-the-west/" August 23, 2015

Cats , Universe

“Down through the ceiling comes a fire siren and people screaming that we're supposed to ignore. The gunshots and tires squeeling, sounds wee have to pretend are okay. They don't mean anything. It's just television. An explosion vibrates down from the upstairs. A woman begs someone not to rape her. It's not real. It's just a movie. We're the culture that cried wolf.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 17

People , Wolf

“The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books - a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Attributed without source to Einstein in Mieczyslaw Taube, Evolution of Matter and Energy on a Cosmic and Planetary Scale (1985), page 1
Disputed

Books , Understanding , Universe

“So from a brazen vase the trembling stream
Reflects the lunar or the solar beam:
Swift and elusive of the dazzled eyes,
From wall to wall the dancing glory flies:
Thence to the ceiling shoot the glancing rays,
And o'er the roof the quivering splendor plays.”

Christopher Pitt (1699–1748) English poet

Book VIII, line 33
The Æneid of Virgil (1740)

Dance

“She called today, Pretending not to care at all, For days and weeks, Now he’s hanging from the ceiling, What a life, Oh what a life, Was it a life? ~ "Sense"”

Pete Yorn (1974) American musician

Song lyrics

Life , Sense

“My old lip color could barely keep up with my busy schedule. In the time it takes to notice the wide discrepancy between my salary and that of my male peers, I'd have to reapply! In the seconds to count the number of women in high political office, seated on corporate executive boards and featured in film and television over the age of 40, my lip color would be as invisible as this glass ceiling only inches above my head! L'Oreal. Because I am worth it. And because holding myself to an impossible standard of beauty keeps me from starting a riot!”

Maria Bamford (1970) American actress and comedian

How to WIN! (2006)

Women , Age , Beauty , Color

“Ceiling insulation is… preferable to roof-top insulation.”

Ken Kern American writer

The Owner Built Home: A How-to-do-it Book (1972)

“So how do you do it?
With just words and just music
Capture the feeling
That my earth is somebody's ceiling
Can I deliver in sound
The weight of the ground
of a cemetery
in the center of Queens”

Sara Bareilles (1979) American pop rock singer-songwriter and pianist

"Chasing the Sun"
Lyrics, The Blessed Unrest (2013)

Music , Feeling

“I knew more things in the first ten years of my life than I believe I have known at any time since. I knew everything there was to know about our house for a start. I knew what was written on the undersides of tables and what the view was like from the tops of bookcases and wardrobes. I knew what was to be found at the back of every closet, which beds had the most dust balls beneath them, which ceilings the most interesting stains, where exactly the patterns in wallpaper repeated. I knew how to cross every room in the house without touching the floor, where my father kept his spare change and how much you could safely take without his noticing (one-seventh of the quarters, one-fifth of the nickels and dimes, as many of the pennies as you could carry). I knew how to relax in an armchair in more than one hundred positions and on the floor in approximately seventy- five more. I knew what the world looked like when viewed through a Jell-O lens. I knew how things tasted—damp washcloths, pencil ferrules, coins and buttons, almost anything made of plastic that was smaller than, say, a clock radio, mucus of every variety of course—in a way that I have more or less forgotten now. I knew and could take you at once to any illustration of naked women anywhere in our house, from a Rubens painting of fleshy chubbos in Masterpieces of World Painting to a cartoon by Peter Arno in the latest issue of The New Yorker to my father’s small private library of girlie magazines in a secret place known only to him, me, and 111 of my closest friends in his bedroom.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

Source: The Life And Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006), p. 36

Life , Women , Secret , World

“But I don’t even think you hear me at all
Under your medieval ceiling behind your biblical wall”

Rufus Wainwright (1973) American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer

Jericho
Song lyrics, Out of the Game (2012)

Thinking

“I can't relax here. These people have no pubic hair anywhere. We have pubic hair on the ceiling.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On dining out at a friend's house.
Monster (2004)

People

“"Well, maybe I'm a latent homosexual." He considered that for a moment. "Or maybe I'm a latent heterosexual. Anyway, I'm pretty latent. I don't know why. Of course, I've taken a number of stabs at it, but then I start thinking about the futility of it all and I give up. Maybe it's because you're expected to do something and after a certain point all I want to do is lie there and stare at the ceiling."”

Margaret Atwood book The Edible Woman

The Edible Woman (1969)

Lie , Thinking

“If you make the light dominate too much, the breadth of the planes leads to the absence of half tints, and consequently to discoloration; the opposite abuse is harmful above all in big compositions destined to be seen from a distance, like ceilings, etc. In the latter form of painting, Paul Veronese goes beyond Rubens through the simplicity of his local color and his breadth in handling the light... Veronese had greatly to strengthen his local color in order that it should not appear discolored when immunized by the very broad light he threw on it.”

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) French painter

Quote in Delacroix's Journal of 1850; as cited in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, pp. 230 – 231
1831 - 1863

Color , Light , Appearance , Painting

“Why would we do this? she asked, watching smoke trickle towards the ceiling. A whole world of rigid rules covering temperature, convection and Brownian motion all busily pretending to be truly chaotic.”

Jon Courtenay Grimwood (1953) British writer

Source: Stamping Butterflies (2004), Chapter 39 (pp. 246-247)

World

“What is happening here?
Something is going on
That's not quite clear.
Somebody turn on the light,
We're gonna have a party.
It's starting tonight.

Oh, what a feeling!
When we're dancing on the ceiling.”

Lionel Richie (1949) American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer and actor

Dancing on the Ceiling, co-written with Mike Frenchik and Carlos Rios.
Song lyrics, Dancing on the Ceiling (1986)

Feeling , Light , Dance

“In the stories about life and death, the soul often floats above the goodbye moment, hovering over police cars at highway accidents, or clinging like a spider to hospital room ceilings. These are people who receive a second chance, who somehow, for some reason, resume their place in the world. Eddie, it appeared, was not getting a second chance.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

Life , Death , People , World

“Aim for the sky and you’ll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you’ll stay on the floor.”

Bill Shankly (1913–1981) Scottish footballer and manager

Attributed to Shankly in 2013, thirty years after Shankly's death. However, very similar sayings are found anonymously from the late twentieth-century.
Disputed
Source: http://www.empireofthekop.com/2013/07/26/liverpool-should-aim-for-epl-title-and-possibly-finish-in-the-top-four-by-liverpool_red1/
Source: Harrington and Kavanagh, Prayer for Parish Groups: Preparing and Leading Prayer for Group Meetings https://books.google.com/books?id=tnpYzxOSsDoC&pg=PT120&dq=%22Aim+for+the+sky%22+ceiling&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAGoVChMIoszvpuGkyAIVyD6ICh0pVwwm#v=onepage&q=%22Aim%20for%20the%20sky%22%20ceiling&f=false, p. 32, 1998