Quotes about lay
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“Happiness is something you lay siege to, it is a battle like a game of go. I will take hold of all the pain and snuff it out.”

Shan Sa book The Girl Who Played Go

Source: The Girl Who Played Go

Pain, Happiness, Game

“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.”

David Brinkley (1920–2003) American journalist

Success, Motivational, Success, Attitude

“Like the Bible tells us, when a man will lay down his life for a friend, well, then there ain't no greater love in this here world than that.”

Bette Greene book Summer of My German Soldier

Source: Summer of My German Soldier

Love, Life, World

“What was Aristotle’s life?’ Well, the answer lay in a single sentence: ‘He was born, he thought, he died.’ And all the rest is pure anecdote.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

Life

“Still think she is worth it?” Mahon asked quietly.

“Of course. She is my mate.”

Mahon sighed. “So you decided then.”

“Do you think we’d be laying here bleeding in the snow if I wasn’t sure?”

“Good point.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds - Awake

Thinking

“I kept waiting for him to lay bare something more than this pointed unobjectionableness, but all that rose to the surface was more surface”

Philip Roth book American Pastoral

Source: American Pastoral

Waiting

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Money

“Sebastian lay a few feet away from her, on his back. There was a great blackened hole across the front of his chest. He turned his head toward her, his face taut and white with pain, and her heart contracted.
His eyes were green.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Pain, Heart

“Matthew wanted hours, days, weeks alone with her… he wanted all her thoughts and smiles and secrets. The freedom to lay his soul bare before her.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Scandal in Spring

Secret, Smile, Soul, Freedom

“Sometime I’ll lay down my wrath,
As I lay my body down
Between the ache of breath and breath,
Golden slumber in the bone.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Source: Collected Poems 1947-1997

“Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Books

“People want pretty much the same things: They wanted to be happy. Most young people seemed to think that those things lay somewhere in the future, while most older people believed they lay in the past.”

Nicholas Sparks book Nights in Rodanthe

Source: Nights in Rodanthe

Happiness, People, Thinking, Past

“AND what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Life, Perfection

“Our mind is the canvas on which the artists lay their colour; their pigments are our emotions; their chiaroscuro the light of joy, the shadow of sadness. The masterpiece is of ourselves, as we are of the masterpiece.”

Kakuzo Okakura book The Book of Tea

Source: The Book of Tea

Sadness, Light, Joy

“Troy's deformities lay deep down from a woman's vision, whilst his embellishments were upon the very surface; thus contrasting with homely Oak, whose defects were patent to the blindest, and whose virtues were as metals in a mine.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

Home

“They did not hear Grimble, as he lay dying, chant in the true voice of the Boreal Owl, in tones like chimes in the night, an ancient owl prayer”

Kathryn Lasky (1944) American children's writer

Source: The Capture

Night

“It's hard not to respond when a master of the art of kissing is laying one on you.”

Charlaine Harris book Living Dead in Dallas

Source: Living Dead in Dallas

Art, Kiss

“I've come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying
the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I
now enjoy.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker

Failure, Understanding, Past

“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.”

James Joyce Ulysses

Source: Ulysses

“If you lay a hand on me I'll ram your testicles so far up inside your abdomen it'll take a heart surgeon to get them out.”

Orson Scott Card book Children of the Mind

Source: Children of the Mind

Heart

“Dawn was coming. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Silence, Parting

“Now I lay me down to sleep my bomb proof cellar's good and deep but if I'm killed before I wake remember god it's for your sake amen.”

Dalton Trumbo book Johnny Got His Gun

Source: Johnny Got His Gun

God, Sleep

“Not many people can lay claim to having broken Time, and we did it purely by accident.”

James A. Owen The Search for the Red Dragon

Source: The Search for the Red Dragon

People, Time

“I think it was Milosz, the Polish poet, who when he lay in a doorway and watched the bullets lifting the cobbles out of the street beside him realised that most poetry is not equipped for life in a world where people actually die. But some is.”

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer

Source: Winter Pollen: Occasional Prose

Life, People, World, Thinking

“I went to the bedroom and lay on the floor, so as not to mess up the covers.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

“And you, Kibbles, had better lay off me. One more growl and I swear I’m going to geld you with a spoon. (Zarek)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

“I am sore wounded but not slain
I will lay me down and bleed a while
And then rise up to fight again”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Fight

“All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

“If love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

p. 219 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2162/2162-h/2162-h.htm#emancipation <br class="br">The Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation (1906)

Love

“Deep in the meadow, hidden far away
A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray
Forget your woes and let your troubles lay
And when again it's morning, they'll wash away.

Here it's safe, here it's warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm

The final lines are barely audible.

Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true
Here is the place where I love you.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Katniss Everdeen, Rue's song, p. 235
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, The Hunger Games (2008)

Love, Dreams, Forgetting

“Trust is not a passive state of mind. It is a vigorous act of the soul by which we choose to lay hold on the promises of God and cling to them despite the adversity that at times seeks to overwhelms us.”

Jerry Bridges (1929–2016) American writer

Source: Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts

God, Soul, Time

“Somewhere in the depths of solitude, beyond wilderness and freedom, lay the trap of madness.”

Edward Abbey book The Monkey Wrench Gang

Source: The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975)

Solitude, Freedom, Madness

“In death, they all looked the same. This morning they spoke, they breathed, they kissed their loved ones good-bye. And now they lay dead. Gone forever.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Love, Death, Kiss, Dead

“People say, "What is the sense of our small effort?" They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

People, Sense, Effort, Time

“We go to the past to lay the blame - since the past can't argue. We go to our past selves to account for our present miseries.”

Glen Duncan (1965) British writer

Source: Love Remains

Past

“You are safe," he said firmly. "You have my name and my family, my clan, and if necessary, the protection of my body as well. The man willna lay hands on ye again, while I live.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Family

“How folks lay claim to a loved one is they give you a name of their own. They figure to label you as their property.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

Love

“Suppose I lay down on the pavement and you run over me a few times with my own car… just for old times.”

Janet Evanovich book One for the Money

Source: One for the Money

Cars, Time

“I came home one night, some month ago, and I went to the closet in my bedroom… and a moth ate my sports jacket.
He was laying on the floor, nauseous, y'know.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Home, Sport, Night

“So why are we practicing this, anyway?" Percy asked. "Do you guys spend a lot of time laying siege to fortified cities?”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Guy, Time

“I lay in bed at night crying to myself. The only one who loved me and watched over me was someone I couldn't see or hear or touch.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Source: My Story

Love, Cry, Night

“Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when

the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self

lay lightly down, and slept.”

Maxine Kumin (1925–2014) American poet and author

Wolf, Change

“I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of a work of fiction should be to tell a story; and I have never believed that the novelist who properly performed this first condition of his art, was in danger, on that account, of neglecting the delineation of character — for this plain reason, that the effect produced, by any narrative of events is essentially dependent, not on the events themselves, but on the human interest which is directly connected with them. It may be possible in novel-writing to present characters successfully without telling a story; but it is not possible to tell a story successfully without presenting characters: their existence, as recognizable realities, being the sole condition on which the story can be effectively told. The only narrative which can hope to lay a strong hold on the attention of readers is a narrative which interests them about men and women — for the perfectly obvious reasons that they are men and women themselves.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: Collins explaining what he calls the literary principal guiding him, in the preface of the second edition of The Woman in White. Also in Reality's Dark Light: The Sensational Wilkie Collins by Maria K. Bachman & Don Richard Cox [University of Tennessee Press, 2003, ISBN 1-572-33274-3] ( p. xiv https://books.google.com/books?id=_X8AlmIp0dwC&pg=PR14)

Women, Men, Hope, Art

“I want to lay my kill at your feet.”

Annette Curtis Klause Blood and Chocolate

Source: Blood and Chocolate

“at the center of every fairy tale lay a truth that gave the story its power.”

Susan Wiggs (1958) American writer

Source: The You I Never Knew

Truth

“Zach,” I said as I lay there “Where did you go? When you were looking for me?”
I shifted in his arms, looked into his eyes.
“Crazy.” His voice was a whisper against my skin. “I went crazy.”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

“That night as I lay in bed, I thought of several things I could have said and mourned the fact that my wit usually bloomed late, peaking when it no longer mattered, during the solitary hours close to midnight.”

Siri Hustvedt (1955) novelist, essayist, poet

Source: The Blindfold

Night

“I had the brief notion that his heart, pressed flat as a flower, crimson and thin as tissue paper, lay in this file. It was a very thin one.”

Angela Carter (1940–1992) English novelist

Source: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

Flowers, Heart

“… and I went into the garden and lay down and looked at the stars in the sky and made myself negligible.”

Mark Haddon book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Source: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Star

“All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them.”

Ian McEwan book On Chesil Beach

Source: On Chesil Beach

Love

“The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Analects, The Great Learning
Context: The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.
Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.
From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides.

Family, Knowledge, Heart, Personality

“Each night I lie and dream about the one
Who kissed me and awakened my desire
I spent a single hour with him alone
And since that hour, my days are layed with fire.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Secret Circle Booklet

Lie, Dreams, Kiss, Night

“The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Art, Question

“But as i lay there, it only seemes like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Silence

“I'm tired of carrying around the weight of the world. I'm just going to lay it down now. It's my time to die, and it's your time to live. Don't mess it up.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

World, Time

“The beauty or ugliness of a character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and impulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among things willed.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Beauty, History

“They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things (1997)

Love, Law

“She had loved him. He knew this; he had never doubted it. But she had also asked him to kill her. If you love someone that much, you did not lay that sort of burden on him for the rest of his life.”

Jodi Picoult book The Pact

Source: The Pact

Love, Life

“Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, "Let Newton be!"”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

and all was light.
Epitaph intended for Sir Isaac Newton.

God, Law, Nature, Light

“I don't profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Sense

“Nico jumped into the crowd, kicking groins, smacking faces with the flat of his blade, bashing helmets with his pommel. In ten seconds, the Romans all lay groaning and dazed on the ground.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“He lay back, put his arm over his eyes, and tried to hold onto the anger, because the anger made him feel brave. A brave man could think. A coward couldn't.”

Stephen King book Misery

Source: Misery

Feeling, Thinking, Anger

“The road was frozen. The village lay quiet under the cold sky. Komako hitched up the skirt of her kimono and tucked it into her obi. The moon shone like a blade frozen in blue ice.”

Yasunari Kawabata book Snow Country

Source: Snow Country

“The whole summer lay ahead of us-time to rest, time to wait. And when the future comes-no matter what comes with it-I'll be smarter. I'll be stronger. I'll be ready.”

Ally Carter Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Source: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Time, Waiting, Future, Summer

“Life's not linear at all. It happens in lighting flashes. So fast you don't see those lay-you-out cold moments coming at you until you're Wile E. Coyote, steamrolled flat as a pancake by the Road Runner, victim of your own elaborate schemes.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

Life, Light

“His voice stopped and they looked for a long quiet moment into each other's eyes and between them lay the sunny lost youth that they had so unthinkingly shared.”

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist

Youth

“Wherever goodness lay, it did not lie in ritual, unthinking obeisance before a deity but rather, perhaps, in the slow clumsy, error-strewn working out of an individual or collective path.”

Salman Rushdie book The Enchantress of Florence

Source: The Enchantress of Florence

Lie, Error

“The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place.”

Michael Chabon book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Source: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

World

“So, does this make you visibly challenged? (Nick)
No, but if you don’t lay off me, I’m going to make you breathing impaired. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

“To her-
Hand in hand we come
Christopher Robin and I
To lay this book in your lap.
Say you're surprised?
Say you like it?
Say it's just what you wanted?
Because it's yours-
because we love you.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

Love, Books

“I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.”

Jane Austen book Emma

Source: Emma

“The leaves had fallen from the trees and lay crisp and crackling beneath his feet. Picking one up he marveled, not for the first time, at the perfection of nature where leaves were most beautiful at the very end of their lives.”

Louise Penny book The Brutal Telling

Source: The Brutal Telling

Beauty, Nature, Tree, Time

“… from what he knew about the Creatures of the Dark they wouldn't waste their time laying elaborate traps. They'd just eat someone.”

Mercedes Lackey book The Phoenix Unchained

Source: The Phoenix Unchained

Time

“Then she lay on her back and gazed at the cloudless sky. Mr. Beebe, whose opinion of her rose daily, whispered to his niece that that was the proper way to behave if any little thing went wrong.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View

Way

“And in this passion for understanding her soul lay close to his; she had him all to herself. But he must be made abstract first.”

D.H. Lawrence book Sons and Lovers

Source: Sons and Lovers

Soul, Understanding, Passion

“Gentle lady, do not sing
Sad songs about the end of love;
Lay aside sadness and sing
How love that passes is enough.

Sing about the long deep sleep
Of lovers that are dead, and how
In the grave all love shall sleep:
Love is aweary now.”

James Joyce book Chamber Music

Source: Chamber Music

Love, Sadness, Lovers, Sleep

“Why do men delight in work? Fundamentally, I suppose, because there is a sense of relief and pleasure in getting something done—a kind of satisfaction not unlike that which a hen enjoys on laying an egg.”

Gene Bedell

Three Steps to Yes: The Gentle Art of Getting Your Way
—H. L. Mencken O

Men, Pleasure, Sense

“…but there they lay, sprawled across the field, craved far more by the vultures than by wives.”

Homér Iliad

Source: The Iliad

“I get tired of hearing it's a crummy world and that people are no damned good. What kind of talk is that? I know a place in Payette, Idaho, where a cook and a waitress and a manager put everything they've got into laying a chicken-fried steak on you.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

People, World, Cooking

“He touched the rough crucifix that lay against his chest and whispered to the moving air, "Lord, that she might be safe, she and my children." Then turned his cheek to her reaching hand and touched her throught the veils of time.”

Diana Gabaldon book The Scottish Prisoner

Source: The Scottish Prisoner

Children, Time

“he(Quinn)put his hand out to his friend. “I’ll lay my life down for you. With or Without that piece of paper”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Enshrined

Life

“Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"The Sick Chamber," The New Monthly Magazine (August 1830), reprinted in Essays of William Hazlitt, selected and edited by Frank Carr (London, 1889)
Source: Essays of William Hazlitt: Selected and Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Frank Carr

Secret, Books, Soul

“Once lay down the rule that the job comes first and you throw that job open to every individual, man or woman, fat or thin, tall or short, ugly or beautiful, who is able to do that job better than the rest of the world.”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Source: Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

World, Beauty

“She did not believe that things could remain the same in different places, and since the portion of her life that lay behind her had been bad, no doubt that which remained to be lived would be better.”

Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary

Source: Madame Bovary

Life

“The early morning belongs to the Church of the risen Christ. At the break of light it remembers the morning on which death and sin lay prostrate in defeat and new life and salvation were given to mankind”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

Life, Death, Light, Christ

“I don’t know, I don’t feel right unless I’ve got the sea and mountains nearby. People are mostly a product of where they were born and raised. How you think and feel’s always linked to the lay of the land, the temperature. The prevailing winds, even.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

People, Feeling, Mountain, Thinking

“More than anything, she wanted to crawl across the bloody sand toward the place where Jace’s body lay, crawl to him and lay down beside him and put her arms around him, even though he was gone.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“The Montana sunset lay between the mountains like a giant bruise from which darkened arteries spread across a poisoned sky.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: The Diamond as Big as the Ritz & Other Stories

Mountain

“Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

Shirley Jackson book The Haunting of Hill House

Source: The Haunting of Hill House (1959), Ch. 1
Context: No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

Silence, Housing

“I've always liked, someday the lamb will lay by the lion…. but it won't get much sleep.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Sleep