Quotes about neck
page 2

“And there I was, 225 pounds, perpetually lost and confused, short legs, ape-like upper body, all chest, no neck, head too large, blurred eyes, hair uncombed, 6 feet of geek, waiting for her.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

Waiting

“She places her hands around my neck and rests her head on my shoulder. I can smell the sex on her, and my hope is that she can smell the love on me.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

Love, Hope, Sex

“I kissed her neck and shoulders. I felt faint with loving her so much.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

Love, Kiss

“The night's chilly breath tickles up my neck and finds my ear, whispering secrets only the wind knows.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Secret, Night

“If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”

Lenny Bruce (1925–1966) comedian and social critic

Children, School

“That might be nice, an extra pair of arms," Jace said. "Handy in a fight."
"Not if they're growing out of your…" Dorothea paused and smiled, not without malice. "Neck.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Smile, Fight

“Glory falls around us
as we sob
a dirge of
desolation on the Cross
and hatred is the ballast of
the rock
which lies upon our necks
and underfoot.”

Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter

"Glory Falls"
I Shall Not Be Moved (1990)
Source: Letter to My Daughter

“He bit the nape of my neck and I moaned.”

Patricia Briggs book Blood Bound

Source: Blood Bound

“Your retaliation is unspeakable. For this alone, you must forgive me for my treatment of you."
"Still high-handed?"
"Irisked my neck just now to say that in front of you.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Lothaire

Forgiveness

“Ivy turned. 'He bit you on the neck?' she said, deadpan serious but for her eyes. 'Oh, then it's got to be love. She won't let me bite her neck.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Dead Witch Walking

Love

“If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Problem, Housing

“He who waits for the sword to fall upon his neck will surely lose his head.”

Stephen R. Donaldson (1947) Novelist

Waiting

“Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy?”

Margaret Atwood book The Year of the Flood

Source: The Year of the Flood

World, Beauty, Feeling

“Do you want to hold it?' she asked, dangling the padded envelope in front of Hale with two fingers.

'No.'

'Do you want to touch it and kiss it and wear it around your neck?'

'Don't be silly,' he told her. 'Everyone knows green isn't my color.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

Color, Kiss

“I find her anecdotes more efficacious than sheep-counting, rain on a tin roof, or alanol tablets…. you will find me and Morpheus, off in a corner, necking.”

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

“Cursed?" I offered, my voice croaky because of my unshed tears.
"It isn't cursed." John said deliberately, rearranging the chain around my neck, "if you're wearing it. It's blessed.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Underworld

Tear

“Are we fighting?" I asked Morelli.
"No. Were discussing."
"Are you sure?"
"Am I yelling?" Morelli asked. "Is my face purple? Are the cords on my neck standing out? Am I waving my arms around?"
"No."
"The were not fighting.”

Janet Evanovich book Sizzling Sixteen

Source: Sizzling Sixteen

Fight

“There was a basket at her feet. She reached into it and lifted out the head of a young woman, a marquise. She wore Bourbon white to her death, but wears the tricolor now - white cheeks, blue lips, red dripping from her neck. Long live the revolution.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

Death

“You break your neck, and I’ll see it mended just so I can break it again.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Nynaeve al'Meara
(15 November 1990)

“Next to me, Saiman smiled.
"We all want what we can't have, Kate. I want you, you want love, and he wants to break my neck.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Love, Smile

“Let me give you free advice, kid. Whenever something is coming for you, snap its neck or double tap. Never, ever hesitate. It’s infinitely better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.” – Death”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

Death

“Okay. I've got a good one." Simon stroked Isabelle's hair feeling her lashes flutter against his neck as she closed her eyes. "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Feeling, Time

“Dalmatia,” Nico said, making Jason jump. Jason wished he could put a bell around Nico di Angelo’s neck to remind him the guy was there. Nico had this disturbing habit of standing silently in the corner, blending into the shadows.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Guy

“She still felt his gaze on her like the brush of a finger across the back of her neck, making her shiver.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“His fingers never ceased to amaze me. They could break a man's neck, bandage a wound, and slide sensually across bare skin.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

“Humans were built to look back; that's why we have that swivel joint in our necks”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“Truth is no harlot who throws her arms round the neck of him who does not desire her; on the contrary, she is so coy a beauty that even the man who sacrifices everything to her can still not be certain of her favors.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Source: The World as Will and Representation, Vol 1

Truth, Beauty

“Typical! I break my neck trying to get here, and I find you peacefully tidying up!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Holding a tear back makes them drain upward, higher and higher, until one day your head just explodes and you're left with a stub of a neck and nothing more.”

Alice Hoffman book Practical Magic

Source: Practical Magic

Tear

“A choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted tree stumps, sucking life out of death. I am the forest's conscience, but remember, the forest eats itself and lives forever.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Life, Death, Tree

“The only thing I could think of was turkey neck and turkey gizzards and I felt very depressed.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 6
Context: Then he just stood there in front of me and I kept on staring at him. The only thing I could think of was turkey neck and turkey gizzards and I felt very depressed.

Thinking

“he dared to explore her withered neck w/his fingertips…her hips w/their decaying bones, her thighs with their aging veins.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Age

“Claire, did I invite you to my barbeque?" Massie asked, her neck tilting to the right and her arms tightly crossed.
"Huh? No. I mean, I don't know," Claire said.
"Then why are you all up in my" Massie said through her teeth.”

Lisi Harrison book The Clique

Source: The Clique

“A happy childhood can't be cured. Mine'll hang around my neck like a rainbow, that's all, instead of a noose.”

Hortense Calisher (1911–2009) American novelist, short story writer, and memoirist

Queenie, 1971.

Happiness, Childhood

“Lying down to sleep on the earthen riverbank, I thought, Vrindavan is attracting my heart like no other place. What is happening to me? Please reveal Your divine will. With this prayer, I drifted off to sleep.
Before dawn, I awoke to the ringing of temple bells, signaling that it was time to begin my journey to Hardwar. But my body lay there like a corpse. Gasping in pain, I couldn’t move. A blazing fever consumed me from within, and under the spell of unbearable nausea, my stomach churned. Like a hostage, I lay on that riverbank. As the sun rose, celebrating a new day, I felt my life force sinking. Death that morning would have been a welcome relief. Hours passed.
At noon, I still lay there. This fever will surely kill me, I thought.
Just when I felt it couldn’t get any worse, I saw in the overcast sky something that chilled my heart. Vultures circled above, their keen sights focused on me. It seemed the fever was cooking me for their lunch, and they were just waiting until I was well done. They hovered lower and lower. One swooped to the ground, a huge black and white bird with a long, curving neck and sloping beak. It stared, sizing up my condition, then jabbed its pointed beak into my ribcage. My body recoiled, my mind screamed, and my eyes stared back at my assailant, seeking pity. The vulture flapped its gigantic wings and rejoined its fellow predators circling above. On the damp soil, I gazed up at the birds as they soared in impatient circles. Suddenly, my vision blurred and I momentarily blacked out. When I came to, I felt I was burning alive from inside out. Perspiring, trembling, and gagging, I gave up all hope.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps approaching. A local farmer herding his cows noticed me and took pity. Pressing the back of his hand to my forehead, he looked skyward toward the vultures and, understanding my predicament, lifted me onto a bullock cart. As we jostled along the muddy paths, the vultures followed overhead. The farmer entrusted me to a charitable hospital where the attendants placed me in the free ward. Eight beds lined each side of the room. The impoverished and sadhu patients alike occupied all sixteen beds. For hours, I lay unattended in a bed near the entrance. Finally that evening the doctor came and, after performing a series of tests, concluded that I was suffering from severe typhoid fever and dehydration. In a matter-of-fact tone, he said, “You will likely die, but we will try to save your life.””

Radhanath Swami (1950) Gaudiya Vaishnava guru

Republished on The Journey Home website.
The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (Tulsi Books, 2010)

Life, Death, Pain, Hope

“Tarzan of the Apes had decided to mark his evolution from the lower orders in every possible manner, and nothing seemed to him a more distinguishing badge of manhood than ornaments and clothing.
To this end, therefore, he collected the various arm and leg ornaments he had taken from the black warriors who had succumbed to his swift and silent noose, and donned them all after the way he had seen them worn.
About his neck hung the golden chain from which depended the diamond encrusted locket of his mother, the Lady Alice. At his back was a quiver of arrows slung from a leathern shoulder belt, another piece of loot from some vanquished black.
About his waist was a belt of tiny strips of rawhide fashioned by himself as a support for the home-made scabbard in which hung his father's hunting knife. The long bow which had been Kulonga's hung over his left shoulder.
The young Lord Greystoke was indeed a strange and war-like figure, his mass of black hair falling to his shoulders behind and cut with his hunting knife to a rude bang upon his forehead, that it might not fall before his eyes.
His straight and perfect figure, muscled as the best of the ancient Roman gladiators must have been muscled, and yet with the soft and sinuous curves of a Greek god, told at a glance the wondrous combination of enormous strength with suppleness and speed.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 13 : His Own Kind

God, War, Way, Home

“I've tried several varieties of sex, all of which I hate. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic; the others give me a stiff neck and/or lockjaw.”

Tallulah Bankhead (1902–1968) American actress

Tallulah, Darling: A Biography of Tallulah Bankhead (1980)

Hate, Sex

“I never believed, as many Marxists professed to do, that normative principles were irrelevant to the socialist movement, that, since the movement was of oppressed people fighting for their own liberation, there was no room or need for specifically moral inspiration in it. I thought no such thing partly for the plain reason that I observed enormous selfless dedication among the active communists who surrounded me in my childhood, and partly for the more sophisticated reason that the self-interest of any oppressed producer would tell him to stay at home, rather than to risk his neck in a revolution whose success or failure would be anyhow unaffected by his participation in it. Revolutionary workers and, a fortiori, bourgeois fellow-travellers without a particular material interest in socialism, must perforce be morally inspired.”

Gerald Cohen (1941–2009) Canadian philosopher

G. A. Cohen, Self-ownership, Freedom, and Equality https://books.google.com/books?id=oeUQjOLNY-wC&pg=PA3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 3

People, Travel, Home, Failure

“The tools of the academic designer are a piece of paper and a pencil with an eraser. If a mistake is made, it can always be erased and changed. If the practical-reactor designer errs, he wears the mistake around his neck; it cannot be erased. Everyone sees it.”

Hyman George Rickover (1900–1986) United States admiral

Paper Reactors, Real Reactors (1953)

Change

“Chicken-neck weakness is like a god now. And being totally passive, and being a huge jellyfish slacker who looks like a fried egg in a chair. That is the culture of this, okay? The worship of being destroyed. Literally, I've now discovered the secrets of it. … And everyone's wearing like pink and little green non-threatening, you know, colors, and this is what we face. This is what men look like now, on average. In fact, I used to bash men who were all into being big and muscular with tattoos and black on and going "raagh", now I get it! You don't wanna be like these people! Okay? I used to get mad at guys trying to act tough—no, no! That's good! Do that! In fact, I think I'm gonna just go all out with cut-off sleeves and drive a big fast car and be like "graagh", 'cause I mean I'm starting to get it! Men are running to that, because they see the armies… literally men in pastels… Now there's men everywhere wearing dresses, I'm telling you! It's like, they're just like "New World Order, slaughter me, please!"”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

And the New World Order is like "Act like a jellyfish coward and giggle at all reality", and they're like "Yes, yes!" "Alex Jones: I'm So Trendy Rant!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBA-sa97UYg March 2012. 2012

Men, God, People, Secret

“And the difficultest job a man can do,
Is to come it brave and meek with thirty bob a week,
And feel that that's the proper thing for you.

It's a naked child against a hungry wolf;
It's playing bowls upon a splitting wreck;
It's walking on a string across a gulf
With millstones fore-and-aft about your neck;
But the thing is daily done by many and many a one.
And we fall, face forward, fighting, on the deck.”

John Davidson (1857–1909) Scottish poet

"Thirty Bob a Week", p. 97
Ballads and Songs (1894)

Feeling, Wolf, Fight

“Dear Brethern! Let us remove hatred and jealousy from our hearts…. The doors of penance of your return to the fold of your former real faith are wide open to let you in. Shed the burden put on your necks by force and under compulsion. Befriend the truth and help us in spreading the truth, because God helps those who help themselves.”

Pandit Lekh Ram (1858–1897) Hindu leader

Risala-i-Jihad, Treatise on Holy War, or the basis of the Mohammedan religion, 1892, quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p.108-9

God, Truth, Jealousy, Faith

“I have always used rather large execution squads, since I declined to use men who were specialists for shots in the neck (Genickschussspezialisten). Each squad shot for about one hour and was then replaced. The persons who still had to be shot were assembled near the place of the execution, and were guarded by members of those squads, which at the moment did not take part in the executions.”

Paul Blobel (1894–1951) German SS officer and Holocaust perpetrator

Quoted in "The Eichmann Kommandos" - Page 157 - by Michael Angelo Musmanno - 1961.

Men, Parting, Personality

“Around his neck a ribbon clung,
Close to his heart a picture hung :
I saw the face — it was not mine;
I saw, too, a small dagger shine,
A curious toy — you know the rest.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(1831-2) The Convict
The Monthly Magazine

Heart

“Your Highness is a juvenile excrescence that feels like the work of 11-year-old boys in love with dungeons, dragons, warrior women, pot, boobs and four-letter words. One of the heroes even wears the penis of a minotaur on a string around his neck. I hate it when that happens.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/your-highness-2011 of Your Highness (April 6, 2011) Reviews, One-star reviews

Love, Women, Hate, Feeling

“On a bough,
The only one chained by the honeysuckle,
Sat two white Doves, upon each neck a tint
Like the rose-stain within the delicate shell
Of the sea-pearl, as Love breathed on their plumes.
And each was mirror'd in the other's eyes,
Floating and dark, a paradise of passion.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(10th May 1823) Poetical Catalogue of Paintings - Two Doves in a Grove. Mr. Glover's Exhibition.
24th May 1823) Inez see The Improvisatrice (1824
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Love, Passion, Sea

“I think it was when I got to the butterflies -- in that brief, beautiful image comprising life, death and technology -- that the hair on the back of my neck began to stand on end. All at once, the pleasure I took in reading was altered irrevocably. Before then I had never noticed, somehow, that stories were made not of ideas or exciting twists of plot but of language. And not merely of pretty words and neat turns of phrase, but of systems of imagery, strategies of metaphor.”

Michael Chabon (1963) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

Close Encounters http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62470-2002Apr4, Washington Post (April 7, 2002) On reading Rocket Man by Ray Bradbury

Life, Death, Pleasure, Beauty

“I'm telling you, they have their hands around the neck of the republic. They are much farther ahead, we're just figuring it out. They have their hands around the neck of this republic and they are about to snap it, if we don't wake up.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2000s, 2009

“It was wildly exciting. It certainly wasn't the highest feeling I've ever had, but it was one of them. In those days, security was not as good as today. Just afterwards, some chap was able to get at me and stab the back of my neck with a cigarette. It wasn't very pleasant.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Describing the scene at Conservative central office after winning the 1970 general election.[citation needed]
Leader of the Opposition

Feeling

“"Just what kind of noose are you offering to put round my neck, here? Is this treason?"
"Worse," Cazaril sighed. "Theology."”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Curse of Chalion (2000), p. 333

“However devoutly a girl may worship the man of her choice, there always comes a time when she feels an irresistible urge to haul off and let him have it in the neck.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Joy in the Morning

Joy in the Morning (1947)

Feeling, Girl, Time

“All I want
Is one break
Which is not
My neck.”

J. P. Donleavy book The Ginger Man

The Ginger Man (1955; New York: Delacorte Press, 1973) p. 319.

“I used to be able to look at myself and grin without giving a damn about how ugly it made me look. Now I was looking at myself the same way those people did back there. I was looking at a big guy with an ugly reputation, a guy who had no earthly reason for existing in a decent, normal society. That's what the judge had said.
I was sweating and cold at the same time. Maybe it did happen to me over there. Maybe I did have a taste for death. Maybe I liked it too much to taste anything else. Maybe I was twisted and rotted inside. Maybe I would be washed down the sewer with the rest of all the rottenness sometime. What was stopping it from happening now? Why was I me with some kind of lucky charm around my neck that kept me going when I was better off dead?”

Mickey Spillane book One Lonely Night

One Lonely Night (1951)

Death, People, Way, Guy

“We're all a bunch of badminton birdies who just got batted from the Republican side of the court to the Democrat side. We'll eventually get batted back again, of course, unless libertarians can manage to do something about it. If your principal concern, like mine, is freedom, there's absolutely no discernable difference between the two 'majors,' and for all practical purposes, they're one big party — the Boot On Your Neck party — pretending to be two.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

Interview, Ari Armstrong, "Catching Up with L. Neil Smith".

Freedom

“(About Hard Hats) "These tin hats get in the way a bit" "I shouldn't think for the life of me that if the whole thing came down it'd stop you getting a shorter neck"”

Fred Dibnah (1938–2004) English steeplejack and television personality, with a keen interest in mechanical engineering

Unsourced

Life, Way, Thinking

“[make drawings of] series of instruments and players; their shapes, twisting of the hands, arms and neck of the violinist; for example, puffing out and hollowing of the cheeks of bassoonists, oboists, etc..”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

Quote from Degas' Notebook (undated); as quoted in Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition, Anne Distel, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (New York, N.Y.) 1975, pp. 81-82
quotes, undated

Drawing

“I'm gonna get one of those tracheotomies, so I can smoke two cigarettes at the same time! I'm gonna get nine tracheotomies, all around my neck, I'll be Tracheotomy Man! He can smoke a pack at a time, he's Tracheotomy Man!”

Denis Leary (1957) American actor and comedian

Standup routines, No Cure for Cancer (1993)

Time

“Aggression has been committed, and the country's leadership, not only Muammar Gaddafi, has been killed. And how was it killed? Well, if they had shot him in a battle, it's one thing, but they humiliated and tormented him, they shot at him, they violated him when he was wounded, they twisted his neck and arms, and then they tortured him to death. It's worse than the Nazis once did. Besides, the United States, Italy, France and Germany have up to $150 billion of Libyan money now. They are very interested to grab this wealth. Everything will be even worse in Libya, because it has colossal deposits of resources, and everyone has rushed there to grab those riches.”

Alexander Lukashenko (1954) President of Belarus since 20 July 1994

Reaction upon the death of Muammar Gaddafi, 3 November, 2011. http://wireupdate.com/libya-belarusian-president-lukashenko-says-nato-did-worse-than-the-nazis.html.

Death, Money, Country, Wealth

“Kerchak was dead.
Withdrawing the knife that had so often rendered him master of far mightier muscles than his own, Tarzan of the Apes placed his foot upon the neck of his vanquished enemy, and once again, loud through the forest rang the fierce, wild cry of the conqueror.
And thus came the young Lord Greystoke into the kingship of the Apes.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 11 : "King of the Apes"

Cry, Dead

“The state owned monopolies are among the greatest millstones round the neck of the economy…Liberals must stress at all times the virtues of the market, not only for efficiency but to enable the widest possible choice…Much of what Mrs Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph say and do is in the mainstream of liberal philosophy.”

Jo Grimond (1913–1993) British soldier, politician and academic

Jo Grimond, The Future of Liberalism (October, 1980).

Time

“I never practiced a fretless ever, because the strings eat the neck up. So I would only play it on gigs.”

Jaco Pastorius (1951–1987) Musician, producer, educator

Modern Electric Bass, Jaco Pastorius (1985)

“Strangely the tumescence began to subside, the flesh at his neck to pale. Any sovereign or broken yo-yo must feel after a short time lying inert, rolling, falling: suddenly to have its hands it cannot escape. Hands it doesn’t want to escape. Know that the simple clockwork of itself has no more need for symptoms of inutility, lonesomeness, directionlessness, because now it has a path marked out for it over which it has no control. That’s what the feeling would be, if there were such things as animate yo-yos.”

Thomas Pynchon book V.

Source: V. (1963), Chapter Eight

Feeling, Lying, Time, Animals

“Everyone goes to the 'Grands-Boulevards' and let himself loose... Do not picture these in costume, they are not for the most part.... perhaps a clown with a big nose, or two girls with bare necks and short skirts.... the parade of the queens of the halls [Paris’ markets] is also one of the events.... Some are pretty but look awkward in their silk dresses and crowns, particularly as the broad sun displays their defects – perhaps a neck too thin or a painted face which shows ghastly white in the sunlight.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

In a letter to his mother, Paris, May 11, 1907; as quoted in Edward Hopper, Gail Levin, Bonfini Press, Switzerland 1984, p. 27
1905 - 1910

Girl, Sun, Parting, Painting

“Her neck is like a stately tower,
Where Love himself imprison'd lies”

Thomas Lodge (1558–1625) English dramatist and writer

Poem, Rosalynde

Love

“I can only stick my neck out and offer my humble beliefs. If I become an outsider by doing so, this won't be a great hardship as I've been that as far back as I can remember — something strange and unacceptable in the eyes of those who believe they see straight. At least it's given me courage of a kind, which I'd like every Australian to acquire.”

Patrick White (1912–1990) English-born Australian writer

Australians in a Nuclear War (1983)

Courage

“I have always regretted having gotten involved with literature up to my neck. I would have preferred to have been a monk; but, as I said, I was torn between wanting fame and wishing to renounce the world. The basic problem is that if God exists, what is the point of literature? And if He doesn’t exist, what is the point of literature? Either way, my writing, the only thing I have ever succeeded in doing, is invalidated.”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

The Paris Review interview (1984)

God, World, Way, Literature

“Catherine announced that he died of hemorrhoidal colic, and people who went to the funeral wondered why, in that case, the large bandage was tied around his neck. And that, gentle reader, is what comes from playing with dolls at the wrong time.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Catherine the Great

People, Time

“p>The inherent contradictions and binds men find themselves in in trying to become less macho in their relationship with a woman were poignantly expressed in a letter written by a young man to a New York newspaper in response to an article that addressed itself to a question posed by a woman writer—whether women would be able to think of a non-macho man as sexy. The letter writer wrote:I am by nature a gentle and non-aggressive 27-year-old man who often finds women turned off sexually by my tenderness and non-macho view of the world. I have come to realize that for all their talk, a lot of women still want the hairy, sexy, war-mongering, aggressive machoman of their dreams. So after several fruitless years as a gentle poet-man, I now turn myself into a heavy machismo when I go out with a woman. It works. I open the doors, I order the food and drinks, I decide which movie or play we will see. I keep my shirt unbuttoned down past my nipples and wear a gold chain around my neck with a carved elephant tusk medallion, and if the relationship is not working out, I make the first move and tell my companion that I'm sorry but we're through.The sad thing about all this is that it works.”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

After all those years of being naturally sensitive and gentle, and now I've got to turn myself inside out just to appear sexy. It's fun and it's nice, but I do wish I could just be myself again.</blockquote>
Who Is the Victim? Who Is the Oppressor?, pp. 165–166
The New Male (1979)

Women, Men, War, World

“Once there was a megalomaniac in the Sugamo hospital who called himself "Ashiwara Shōgun." He hung a cardboard medal around his neck and bestowed dignified words to those he met to take with them on their way. Now that the war is over, we can see clearly that what the military did wasn’t at all different. And now they want to reintroduce medals yet again… After winning the Russo-Japanese war, we thought we’d won colonies. But what really came of it? After losing the Second World War, we realized that we had only earned the hatred of the Russians… Everyone is talking about loyalty to the fatherland. The question is simply where this loyalty will take us. I too was completely convinced when I went to war against the Russians, but after our defeat, I realized that we had done something that we shouldn’t have. In any case, it’s better not to make war in the first place.”

Kodo Sawaki (1880–1965) Japanese zen Buddhist monk

Zen ni kike (To you) (Tokyo: Daihorinkaku, 1987)

War, World, Way, Question

“It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow necked bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)

People, Soul

“The Hungarian lieutenant went around with a basket and retrieved the last possessions from those who chose not to go on tasting the bitterness of fear.
"There are eighty of you in the car," the German officer added. "If anyone goes missing, you will all be shot, like dogs."
The two disappeared. The doors clanked shut. We had fallen into the trap, up to our necks. The doors were nailed, the way back irrevocably cut off. The world had become a hermetically sealed cattle car.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Night (1960)

World, Fear, Dogs, Cars

“Making it onto the GB Cycling squad and fighting through my second tumour so much faster than I did my first time round is one of my greatest achievements. I believe 100% that following a plant based lifestyle got me back on my bike 6 weeks to the day after having my tumour removed from my spinal cord in my neck. … I feel better now at 36 and after three major neck surgeries than I have ever felt in my life and I owe that to a vegan diet. It is also great to know that you’re not only giving your body the best nourishment but your also not hurting any animals and helping the planet.”

David Smith (rower) (1978) British rower

"David Smith, MBE, vegan paralympian" http://www.greatveganathletes.com/david-smith-mbe-vegan-paralympian, interview with GreatVeganAthletes.com (2015).

Life, Feeling, Time, Help

“It was quite fashionable to poke fun at Hugo. You remember Gide’s “Victor Hugo is the greatest French poet, alas!” or Cocteau’s “Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo.” Anyway, I hated rhetoric and eloquence. I agreed with Verlaine, who said, “You have to get hold of eloquence and twist its neck off!” Nonetheless, it took some courage. Nowadays it is common to debunk great men, but it wasn’t then.”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

The Paris Review interview (1984)

Men, Hate, Fashion, Courage

“b>One of the loveliest and most magnificent events that can happen in the country is when ponies take fright, particularly in a herd. A meadow-pippit has flown past. The ponies' fear is at first blended with play, even with mockery, amusement touched with a shudder, not unlike the behavior of the mentally ill. They trot as if they were retreating from a slow-moving stream of fire, but with lightning in every action, storm in every nerve; swinging their heads everywhere as if the front of their necks were made of elastic, gracefully flirting their tails. They can even pause for a moment, and start biting and boxing, with those romantic mating cries of theirs. Then all at once it is as if the fire has started flowing right under these strange creatures, they charge away like a storm incarnate over scree and bogs and landslides, dipping the tips of their toes for a fractional moment into the furnace that blazes beneath their hooves, cutting across waterfalls, gullys, and boulders, galloping steeply for a while until they stand trapped at last on some ledge high in the mountaintops, there to die and be eaten by birds.”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

Fear, Behavior, Bird, Past

“Sex was an infringement, an attack, an invasion; there was no other way he could see it; every act, however magical and intensely enjoyed, and however willingly conducted, seemed to carry a harmonic of rapacity. He took her, and however much she gained in provoked pleasure and in his own increasing love, she was still the one that suffered the act, had it played out upon her and inside her. He was aware of the absurdity of trying too hard to develop the comparison between sex and war; he had been laughed out of several embarrassing situations trying to do so (“Zakalwe,” she would say when he tried to explain some of this, and she would put her cool slim fingers behind his neck and stare out from the rambunctious black tangle of her hair. “You have serious problems.””

Iain Banks Culture series

She would smile), But the feelings, the acts, the structure of the two were to him so close, so self-evidently akin, that such a reaction only forced him deeper into his confusion.
Source: Culture series, Use of Weapons (1990), Chapter IX (pp. 144-145).

Love, War, Pleasure, Smile

“If the neck of the giraffe elongates an inch at a time, then the full panoply of supporting structures need not arise at every step. The coordinated adaptation can be built piecemeal. Some animals may slightly elongate the neck, others the legs; still others may develop stronger neck muscles. By sexual reproduction, the favorable features of different organisms may be combined in offspring.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"The Tallest Tale", p. 310
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

Support, Time, Animals

“Yes, there is some truth to the accusation that I resented being bypassed for Groat in 1960. He had a good season but the records will show I contributed a lot more to winning the pennant. I think, too, that a lot of the writers were moved by their racial feelings. An MVP endorsement looks good in the record of a potential manager, and it'll be a long time before we have a colored manager; longer still before there will be a colored Puerto Rican manager. Anyway, it wasn't my 'imagination' hurting me when I complained, it really was my neck. […] And the doctor says the wrenching of my neck was caused by some unconscious adjustment I had been trying to make because of my back.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "All-Star Case of Roberto Clemente"
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1970</big>

Truth, Color, Feeling, Imagination

“Among the group of people waiting at the fortress was a schoolgirl in a brown and yellow uniform holding a green eiderdown quilt and, by the loop at its neck, a red hot-water bottle.”

Nadine Gordimer book Burger's Daughter

Burger's Daughter (1979) First lines

People, Water, Waiting

“The old man nodded, as if his neck was afraid of the weight of his head.”

Raymond Chandler book The Big Sleep

Source: The Big Sleep (1939), chapter 2

“In so far as the intention of education is to train the child for a vocation it is a millstone around his neck.”

John Carroll (1944) Australian professor and author

Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974), p. 34

Education, Training

“Two Japanese soldiers have climbed over the garden wall and are about to break into our house. When I appear they give the excuse that they saw two Chinese soldiers climb over the wall. When I show them my party badge, they return the same way. In one of the houses in the narrow street behind my garden wall, a woman was raped, and then wounded in the neck with a bayonet. I managed to get an ambulance so we can take her to Kulou Hospital… Last night up to 1,000 women and girls are said to have been raped, about 100 girls at Ginling Girls' College alone. You hear nothing but rape.
get the normal city life going as soon as possible. In the latter process we are glad to cooperate in any way we can. But even last night between 8 and 9 p. m. when five Occidental members of our staff and Committee toured the Zone to observe conditions, we did not find any single Japanese patrol either in the Zone or at the entrances!”

John Rabe (1882–1950) German businessman

17 December 1937

Life, Women, Way, Girl

““That’s a sweet piece,“ said Jean, briefly forgetting to be aggravated. “You didn’t snatch that off a street.“
“No,“ said Locke, before taking another deep draught of the warm water in the decanter. “I got it from the neck of the governor’s mistress.“
“You can’t be serious.“
“In the governor’s manor.“
“Of all the—“
“In the governor’s bed.“
“Damned lunatic!“
“With the governor sleeping next to her… It is possible,“ said Locke with a sheepish grin, “that I have been slightly too bold.“”

Scott Lynch book Red Seas Under Red Skies

Reminiscence “The Capa of Vel Virazzo” section 6 (pp. 70-71)
Red Seas Under Red Skies (2007)

Sleep, Water, Forgetting

“I never saw more perfect loveliness.
It ask'd, it had no aid from dress: her robe
Was white, and simply gather'd in such folds
As suit a statue: neck and arms were bare;
The black hair was unbound, and like a veil
Hung even to her feet; she held a lute,
And, as she paced the ancient gallery, waked
A few wild chords, and murmur'd low sweet words,
But scarcely audible, as if she thought
Rather than spoke:—the night, the solitude,
Fill'd the young Pythoness with poetry.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Solitude, Perfection, Night

“Now he was in a holding pen with various members of the Kuala Lumpur criminal fraternity and they scared him […] They ranged from a Chinese gang member, whose dragon tattoo foraged up his arm and curled around his neck, to a large, [sic] Indian man with a jet-black moustache and pocked-marked face, brooding in a corner. The majority of his cellmates appeared from their accents to be Indonesians, part of the large contingent of illegal immigrant sin Malaysia. […] At least, he thought, the government should be proud that their efforts to integrate the various races in Malaysia into a cohesive society were bearing such fruit. It was a very multi-racial group that was penned in together.”

Shamini Flint book Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder

Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder, Cap 8

Effort, Appearance, Tattoo, Parting

“Here I am, because of the People of Paris [ Paris Commune ], up to my neck in politics. President of the Federation of Artists, member of the Commune committee, city council delegate and delegate for Public Education: the four most important posts in Paris. I get up, I have breakfast, and I preside and sit on committees twelve hours a day. Now my head is starting to spin. But in spite of all this worry and trying to understand unfamiliar things, I am really happy..”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

Quote from a letter to his parents (30th April 1870); as cited in 'Courbet Speaks', 'Courbet-dossier', Musée-dOrsay http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/courbet-dossier/courbet-speaks.html 1870s

Happiness, People, Education, Communication

“Once I saw the village butcher [in his youth, in Russia] slice the neck of a bird and drain the blood out of it. I wanted to cry out, but his joyful expression caught the sound in my throat... This cry, I always feel it there. When, as a I drew a crude portrait of my professor, I tried to rid myself of this cry, but in vain. When I painted the beef carcass it was still this cry that I wanted to liberate. I have still not succeeded.”

Chaim Soutine (1893–1943) painter

remark to his friend and biographer
Source: Soutine et son temps, Emile Szittya, La Bibliothèque des Arts, Paris, 1955, pp. 107-108; as quoted in Chaim Soutine, Catalogue Raisonné, eds. Maurice Tuchman, Esti Dunow, Klaus Perls, Benedikt Taschen Verlag, p. 16

Youth, Feeling, Bird, Painting

“As though there were a tie
And obligation to posterity.
We get them, bear them, breed, and nurse:
What has posterity done for us.
That we, lest they their rights should lose,
Should trust our necks to gripe of noose?”

John Trumbull (poet) (1750–1831) American poet

Canto ii, line 121.
McFingal (1775-1782)

“[She was the first pop singer to perform for a Pope. ] And a woman at that. Apparently Pope John Paul II and his boys -- is that what you call them? -- loved one of my songs and thought I was puting spiritual messages in my music. I'm not religious as such. Dogma and I don't get along. They knew all that, but the Pope was celebrating 50 years as a priest, and he asked for me. Quite an audience -- bishops, cardinals, a handful of nuns -- and me, covered from neck to ankles.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

www.huffingtonpost.com (September 7, 2007)
2007, 2008

Love, Music, Boy

“From thence the King marched towards the mountains of Nagrakote, where he was overtaken by a storm of hail and snow. The Raja of Nagrakote, after sustaining some loss, submitted, but was restored to his dominions. The name of Nagrakote was, on this occasion, changed to that of Mahomedabad, in honour of the late king. Some historians state, that Feroze, on this occasion, broke the idols of Nagrakote, and mixing the fragments with pieces of cows flesh, filled bags with them, and caused them to be tied round the necks of Bramins, who were then paraded through the camp. It is said, also, that he sent the image of Nowshaba to Mecca, to be thrown on the road, that it might be trodden under foot by the pilgrims, and that he also remitted the sum of 100,000 tunkas, to be distributed among the devotees and servants of the temple.”

Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309–1388) Tughluq sultan

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated into English by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, 4 Volumes, New Delhi Reprint, 1981. p. 263 Vol I.
Variant: From thence the King marched towards the mountains of Nagrakote, where he was overtaken by a storm of hail and snow. The Raja of Nagrakote, after sustaining some loss, submitted, but was restored to his dominions. The name of Nagrakote was, on this occasion, changed to that of Mahomedabad, in honour of the late king. Some historians state, that Feroze, on this occasion, broke the idols of Nagrakote, and mixing the fragments with pieces of cows flesh, filled bags with them, and caused them to be tied round the necks of Bramins, who were then paraded through the camp. It is said, also, that he sent the image of Nowshaba to Mecca, to be thrown on the road, that it might be trodden under foot by the pilgrims, and that he also remitted the sum of 100,000 tunkas, to be distributed among the devotees and servants of the temple.

Mountain, Change, Loss

“Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada are the horns, the head, the neck, the shins, and the hoof of the ox, and the United States are the ribs, the sirloin, the kidneys, and the rest of the body.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Source: The Autobiography of William Cobbett (1933), Ch. 2, p. 28.

“If it came on the evening news tonight that there were five grizzly bears roaming around Cobb County, do you know what would happen by six o'clock in the morning? They would all be dead. Because every redneck in four states would be out there with a rifle, trying to shoot one, right? And whoever could shoot the biggest one would be a hero. They would have his picture on the front page, "Bubba shot the Grizzly Bear" and saved the village. That is exactly what happened to the dragons. If you could figure out a way to kill a dragon, they would be telling stories about you around the campfire. People killed dragons for meat, because they were a menace, to prove that you were a hero, or to prove that you are superior, in competition for land, or for medicinal purposes. Many ancient recipes call for dragon blood, dragon bones, dragon saliva, why? Gilgamesh is famous for slaying a dragon. A Chinese legend tells about a guy named Yu that surveyed the land of China. It says, that after the Flood he surveyed the land, he divided it off into sections. He built channels to drain water off to sea and make the land livable again. Many snakes and dragons were driven from the marshlands. You know that's normal that if you want to build a city. You have to drive off the dragons, then build your city. It was expected that you have got to drive the dragons away or kill them. Why would the Chinese calendar have eleven real animals: the pig, the duck, the dog, and … the dragon? Why would they put just one "mythical" animal in there? Could it be at the time they that they came up with these animals there were 12 real animals? There is one of the oldest pieces of pottery on Planet Earth. It's a piece of slate from Egypt; the first dynasty of United Egypt. It shows long necked dragons […] Why would they put long necked dinosaurs on pottery 3,800 years ago? Here are two long necked dinosaurs with a sheep in between them in their mouths. Here is a hippo tusk from the twelve century B. C., showing an animal with a long neck, and a long tail. Here's a cylinder seal, showing what appears quite obviously to be a long neck dinosaur. The Bible talks about a fiery flying serpent, in Isaiah 14.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), Dinosaurs and the Bible

People, Dogs, Way, Guy

“On entering life, then, young people meet with various collective opinions, more or less narrow-minded. The more the individual has it in him to become a real personality, the more he will resist following a herd. But even if an inner voice says to him; “Become thyself! Be thyself!” he hears its appeal with despondency. Has he a self? He does not know; he is not yet aware of it. He therefore looks about for a teacher, an educator, one who will teach him, not something foreign, but how to become his own individual self.
We had in Denmark a great man who with impressive force exhorted his contemporaries to become individuals. But Søren Kierkegaard’s appeal was not intended to be taken so unconditionally as it sounded. For the goal was fixed. They were to become individuals, not in order to develop into free personalities, but in order by this means to become true Christians. Their freedom was only apparent; above them was suspended a “Thou shalt believe!” and a “Thou shalt obey!” Even as individuals they had a halter round their necks, and on the farther side of the narrow passage of individualism, through which the herd was driven, the herd awaited them again one flock, one shepherd.
It is not with this idea of immediately resigning his personality again that the young man in our day desires to become himself and seeks an educator. He will not have a dogma set up before him, at which he is expected to arrive.”

Georg Brandes (1842–1927) Danish literature critic and scholar

Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), pp. 9-10

Life, People, Education, Idea

“When people look of non-avian dinosaur they’re thinking of extrapolating a cow up to that size. Mammals are much much denser than birds are, because a lot of the skeletons of sauropods (the big, long-necked ones—Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus and the like) and theropod dinosaurs are just air. Theropods don’t have solid bones like we do; they have hollow bones. Sauropods don’t, but they have tremendous air sacs that fill up a lot of their bodies. And thus they weigh way less than a mammal scaled up to that size.”

Mark Norell (1957) American paleontologist

As quoted in "How Dinosaurs Loved: An Interview with Dr. Mark Norell on Dino Relations" http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/t-rexxx-how-dinosaurs-lived-loved-and-tasted-q-a-with-dr-mark-norell-american-museum-of-natural-history, Vice (March 20, 2012)

People, Way, Bird, Thinking

“What evil is there in seeing a man possess a woman? Why, the beasts would be more free than we! It seems to me that that which is given us by nature for our own preservation ought to be worn round the neck as a pendant and in the hat for a medal.”

Pietro Aretino (1492–1556) Italian author, playwright, poet, satirist, and blackmailer

Edward Hutton (1922) Pietro Aretino, the scourge of princes. p. 65

Nature, Evil

“Al Utbi, the author of Tarikh-i-Yamini, writes how Sultan Mahmud punished Nawasa Shah: “Satan had got the better of Nawasa Shah, for he was again apostatizing towards the pit of plural worship, and had thrown off the slough of Islam, and held conversation with the chiefs of idolatry respecting the casting off the firm rope of religion from his neck. So the Sultan went swifter than the wind in that direction, and made the sword reek with the blood of his enemies. He turned Nawasa Shah out of his government, took possession of all the treasures which he had accumulated, re-assumed the government, and then cut down the harvest of idolatry with the sickle of his sword and spear. After God had granted him this and the previous victory, which were tried witnesses as to his exalted state and proselytism, he returned without difficulty to Ghazna.””

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

Utbi, in Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 2
Quotes from Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi

God, Religion, Victory