Quotes about stair (119 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Some people are like Slinkies. They aren't really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to my face when I push them down a flight of stairs.”

Patricia Briggs book Iron Kissed

Source: Iron Kissed

People , Smile

“Thou shalt prove how salt is the taste of another man's bread and how hard is the way up and down another man's stairs.”

Dante Alighieri book Paradiso

Canto XVII, lines 58–60 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Way

“Religionists have kept their followers in line by suppressing their egos. By making their followers feel inferior, the awesomeness of their god is insured. Satanism encourages its members to develop a good strong ego because it gives them the self-respect necessary for a vital existence in this life. If a person has been vital throughout his life and has fought to the end for his earthly existence, it is this ego which will refuse to die, even after the expiration of the flesh which housed it. Young children are to be admired for their driving enthusiasm for life. This is exemplified by the small child who refuses to go to bed when there is something exciting going on, and when once put to bed, will sneak down the stairs to peek through the curtain and watch. It is this child-like vitality that will allow the Satanist to peek through the curtain of darkness and death and remain earthbound.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Life , Death , God , Children

“Where is Polonius?
HAMLET
In heaven. Send hither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i' th' other place yourself. But if indeed you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs one step at a time.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Variant: Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs one step at a time.

Time

“I'd like to find whoever taught the Stump that extra work builds character and push him down the stairs," Neal told Kel at lunch.”

Tamora Pierce book First Test

Source: First Test

“An old farm is always more than the people under its roof. It is the past as well as the present, and vanished generations have built themselves into it as well as left their footsteps in the worn woodwork of the stair.”

Henry Beston book Northern Farm

Source: Northern Farm

People , Past

“Do you know how wizards like to be buried?"
"Yes!"
"Well, how?"
Granny Weatherwax paused at the bottom of the stairs.
"Reluctantly.”

Terry Pratchett book Equal Rites

Source: Equal Rites

“Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love,
But—why did you kick me down stairs?”

John Philip Kemble (1757–1823) British actor-manager

The Panel, Act i, Scene 1, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Altered from Isaac Bickerstaff's "'T is Well 't is no Worse"; also found in Debrett's "Asylum for Fugitive Pieces", vol. i., p. 15.

Love

“The kids are starting to burn this place and to trash it. They're dragging a grand piano down the stairs. It's the destruction of high culture, about which they're nothing but cynical, because they don't believe that hard work and sacrifice can produce something of any value. They want to bring it down and destroy it. You can see it in the story of Cain and Abel. Abel is hard working and everyone likes him, and he makes the proper sacrifices, so his life goes really well. And that's part of the reason that Cain hates him. He's jealous and resentful, but worse than that – if you're not doing very well and you're around someone who is doing very well it's painful, because the mere fact of their Being judges you. And so it's very easy to want to destroy that ideal so that you don't have to live with the terrible consequences of seeing it embodied in front of you. And so part of the reason that people want to tear things down is so that they don't have anything to contrast themselves against and to feel bad. And that's exactly what's happening here. Kids are destroying all of this culture, because the fact that it exists judges them.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

2017 Maps of Meaning 4: Marionettes and Individuals (Part 3) [54:55-56:15]
Maps of Meaning

Life , Pain , Hate , People

“Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn't any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up,
Isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery,
It isn't in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
"It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!"”

A.A. Milne book When We Were Very Young

When We Were Very Young (1924)

“And then the spring of [19]'48 I toddled off to Paris on a Liberty ship... Yes, and arriving in Le Havre on that Liberty ship and seeing all those—the sun was coming up—and seeing all those ships sunk.. It was hardly... I mean, war, war, war, war…. I went to Paris, and I stayed with Zuka and Louis [Mitelberg] [her husband then, the cartoonist 'Tim']. And I looked for a place—and found it on Rue Gallande. Across the river was Notre Dame. That was all of four dollars a month, with a hole on the stairs as a toilet and a spigot with cold water and one light-bulb. That was all the electricity there was. But this view, I mean, God!... Saint Julien le Pauvre [Greek Orthodox Church, oldest in Paris] was right in front of me. And so I painted there.”

Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) American painter

first side of the first tape
1975 - 1992, Oral history interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986

God , War , Spring , Light

“She wanted to put her head down on her knees and close her eyes. She felt the way she had years ago when she'd tumbled down the stairs and had the wind knocked out of her: a pain in the chest and stomach so strong it was hard to breathe.”

Patricia Reilly Giff (1935) American children's writer

Source: Water Street (2006), Chapters 21-29, p. 139

Pain , Way , Strong

“I can see her lookin fast in her faded jeans
She's a hard lovin woman got me feelin mean
Sometimes I think its a shame when I get feelin better when I'm feelin no pain
Sundown you better take care if I find you been creepin round my back stairs
Sundown you better take care if I find you been creepin round my back stairs”

Gordon Lightfoot (1938) Canadian singer-songwriter

Sundown, Track 7, Reprise
Sundown (1974)

Pain , Thinking

“For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Black Cat

The Black Cat (1843)

“You have a choice. Live or die.
Every breath is a choice.
Every minute is a choice.
Every time you don't throw yourself down the stairs, that's a choice. Every time you don't crash your car, you re-enlist.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Variant: Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be. Every time you don't throw yourself down the stairs, that's a choice. Every time you don't crash your car, you re-enlist.
Source: Survivor

Cars , Time

“The stairs ended. I wished I knew the jackass who’d made the staircase so short. I’d throw him down the damn steps so he could count them with his head.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

“In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn't creak.”

Tom Robbins Skinny Legs and All

Skinny Legs and All (1990)

Life , Art , Housing

“I have no memory of climbing the stairs up to the roof. I don't even know how to get where I am, which is a problem since I'm going to have to get down, ideally in a way that doesn't involve dying.”

Holly Black book White Cat

Source: White Cat

Way , Problem , Memory

“Vision is not enough, it must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

“She decided she'd rather die in some less memorable way- maybe falling down the stairs, or going peacefully in her sleep at the age eighty, after a nice quiet life with Percy. Yes, that sounded good.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Life , Age , Way , Sleep

“For man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

Universe

“The missing stairs baffled Clary. What did vampires have against stairs?
-Clary, pg.266”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“Fading, fading: strength beyond hope and despair climbing the third stair. Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only.”

T.S. Eliot book The Waste Land

Source: The Waste Land and Other Poems

Hope , Despair

“He looked the boy up and down as if he had never seen a child before and wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do with one: eat it, ignore it or kick it down the stairs.”

John Boyne (1971) Irish novelist, author of children's and youth fiction

Source: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Boy

“I have walked a stair of swords,
I have worn a coat of scars.
I have vowed with hollow words,
I have lied my way to the stars
-Songs of Sapphique”

Catherine Fisher book Incarceron

Source: Incarceron

Way , Star

“The stairs aren't challenging enough anymore?" he asked.

Antonio laughed. "Challenge has nothing to do with it, Jer. I'd say it's the big bad wolf huffing and puffing at her door up there.”

Kelley Armstrong book Bitten

Source: Bitten

Wolf

“The man glanced down and made a face. "I see that many pigeons have pooped upon these stairs," he remarked. "I shall remain standing, if that's not too rude.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

“Children don’t know the meaning of yesterday, of the day before yesterday, or even of tomorrow, everything is this, now: the street is this, the doorway is this, the stairs are this, this is Mamma, this is Papa, this is the day, this the night.”

Elena Ferrante book My Brilliant Friend

Source: My Brilliant Friend

Children , Night

“Good-bye -- if you hear of my being stood up against a stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease or falling down the cellar stairs.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Life , Age , Disease , Way

“The actual stuff my family owned, those boxes under my stairs, I can't quite bear to look at. I like other people's things better. They come with other people's history.”

Gillian Flynn book Dark Places

Source: Dark Places

People , Family , History , Box

“Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

Life , Fate

“A Poem from Edna St. Vincent Millay:

Grown-up

Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Source: The Selected Poetry

Past

“Coach Hedge came pounding up the stairs with Hazel at his hooves.

“Where are they?” he demanded. “Who do I kill?”

“No killing!” Annabeth ordered. “Just defend the ship!”

“But they interrupted a Chuck Norris movie!”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

“One has not lived until one has carried a sixty-pound dog down a sweeping flight of stairs at half-past V in the morning.”

Connie Willis book To Say Nothing of the Dog

Source: To Say Nothing of the Dog

Dogs , Past

“Agh-uhh!” the baboon grunted. He turned and waddled up the stairs. Unfortunately, the Lakers jersey didn’t completely cover his multicolored rear.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“That ones yours, huh?"he asked, pointing to 3A."How come it just says 'Kyle'? Doesnt he have a last name?"
"Kyle wants to be a rock star,"Simon said, heading down the stairs."I think his working the one-name thing. Like Rihanna.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Star , Thinking

“The elevator to success is out of order. You'll have to use the stairs… one step at a time.”

Joe Girard (1928–2019) American salesman

For Team , Time , Success

“Do you know how sometimes - when you are riding your bike and you start skidding across sand, or when you miss a step and start tumbling down the stairs - you have those long, long seconds to know that you are going to be hurt, and badly?”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Hurt

“Good-bye Dr. Steve,' I said, then climbed the stairs and went to the fifth floor to die.”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

“Life tells you to take the elevator, but love tells you to take the stairs.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Love , Life , Motivational

“I feel ill,” he announced. “I’m going to bed, where I may die.” He tottered piteously to the stairs. “Bury me beside Mrs. Pentstemmon,” he croaked as he went up then to bed.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

Feeling

“Is it advisable to spread out all the conveniences of culture before people to whom a few steps up a stair to a library is a sufficient deterrent from reading?”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

People , Reading

“Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

Books

“Tessa put a hand against the wall as she made her way numbly down the stairs. What had she almost done? What had she nearly told Will?”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Way

“We were young. We were bored. And the old electroshock therapy machine was just under the stairs in a box next to the Hoover.”

Augusten Burroughs (1965) American writer

Source: Running With Scissors

Box

“If you fall down those stairs and break both of your legs, don't come running to me!”

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer

Source: Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me?

“No!" Leo yelled.
"Uhhh," Nico groaned from the floor.
"Piper!" Jason cried.
"Monkey!" Frank yelled.
"Not monkeys," Hazel grumbled. "I think those are dwarfs."
"Stealing my stuff!" Leo yelled, and ran for the stairs.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Thinking

“And I was crying for gravity. It had sent me down the stairs, and I'd thought that meant something, but maybe it was just the direction that all things tend to flow.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Source: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Cry

“In my little box
At the top of the stair
With my Indian rug
And a pipe to share.”

Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter

Pocahontas
Song lyrics, Rust Never Sleeps (1978)

Box

“When you reach for a star
Only angels are there
And it's not very far
Just a step on a stair
Take a look at those clowns
And the tricks that they play
In the circus of life
Life is bitter and gay There are clowns in the night
Clowns everywhere
See how they run
Run from despair …”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

This was a song written for the soundtrack of The Magician of Lublin (1979), based on the 1960 novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer; Kate's singing of it appears at times in the background within the film - YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkfbkVKmbG0
Song lyrics, Singles and rarities

Life , Angels , Star , Despair

“[After the 1990 bus accident] I could not feel my legs, and I knew that I was paralysed. For me, this was a premonition of my worst fate proved right. When I was a child, I always ran up the stairs two at a time, and when I reached the top I would say to myself, one day I won't be able to do this because like my father I will lose the use of my body. Now I knew it had happened. For months afterwards I was locked back in myself, just as I had been when I was a child. But also part of my premonition had always been, strangely, that I would lose my body but in the end it would be all right.”

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

cubanet.org (May 15, 2000}
2007, 2008

Fate , Feeling , Time , Parting

“The room is like a cave, and has books I love in it. The main door was closed up and a smaller opening was made under the stairs. (I went away while all this was happening.) The furniture is locked in, and part of me is locked in too, or I hope it is, although I often made a bid to escape. I have left instructions that I would like to be buried here when I die or a bit before, the cave bricked up.”

Colm Tóibín (1955) Irish novelist and writer

Writers' rooms: Colm Tóibín http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/jul/13/writers.rooms.colm.toibin#, The Guardian (13 July 2007)

Love , Books , Hope , Parting

“Behind the top hats, a little lady wearing lila-coloured tights was balancing on a tightrope in the middle of all that blue-grey tobacco-laden air. I sauntered in among the standing clientele. I was on the lookout for an attractive girl. Yes – that one wasn’t bad. When she became aware of my gaze her facial expression changed to that of a frozen mask and she stared emptily into space. I found a stair – and collapsed into it – tired and listless. Everyone clapped. The Lila-clad tightrope-walker curtsied, smiled and disappeared. A group of Romanian singers took her place. There was love and hate – and longing and reunion – and lovely dreams – and that soft music melting together with the colours. The melted notes became green palm trees and steely blue water floating in the blue haze of the room. An artwork is a crystal. A crystal has a soul and a mind, and the artwork must also have these.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

a note of Munch, written in Ekely, 1929; Munch Museum
1896 - 1930

Love , Hate , Smile , Dreams

“I came up stairs into the world, for I was born in a cellar.”

William Congreve Love for Love

Act II, scene vii; comparable to: "Born in a cellar, and living in a garret", Samuel Foote, The Author, act 2; "Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred", Lord Byron, A Sketch
Love for Love (1695)

World

“Her mouth
Was roses gather'd from the south,
The warm south side of Paradise,
And breathed upon and handed down,
By angels on a stair of stars.”

Joaquin Miller (1837–1913) American judge

IV, p. 28.
The Ship in the Desert (1875)

Angels , Star

“I went up to my room, up the dusty stairs of Bunker Hill, past the soot-covered frame buildings along that dark street, sand and oil and grease choking the futile palm trees standing like dying prisoners, chained to a little plot of ground with black pavement hiding their feet. Dust and old buildings and old people sitting at windows, old people tottering out of doors, old people moving painfully along the dark street. The old folk from Indiana and Iowa and Illinois, from Boston and Kansas City and Des Moines, they sold their homes and their stores, and they came here by train and by automobile to the land of sunshine, to die in the sun, with just enough money to live until the sun killed them, tore themselves out by the roots in their last days, deserted the smug prosperity of Kansas City and Chicago and Peoria to find a place in the sun. And when they got here they found that other and greater thieves had already taken possession, that even the sun belonged to the others; Smith and Jones and Parker, druggist, banker, baker, dust of Chicago and Cincinnati and Cleveland on their shoes, doomed to die in the sun, a few dollars in the bank, enough to subscribe to the Los Angeles Times, enough to keep alive the illusion that this was paradise, that their little papier-mâché homes were castles. The uprooted ones, the empty sad folks, the old and the young folks, the folks from back home. These were my countrymen, these were the new Californians. With their bright polo shirts and sunglasses, they were in paradise, they belonged.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Money , People , Sadness , Angels

“Ginger: [hauling Clarice up stairs in a wheelchair]: This ivory tower needs some ramps!
Clarice: What are you saying, Ginger?! Build ramps and anyone could get up!! The whole school would be overrun by black commie dykes in wheelchairs! Really, now!”

Alison Bechdel book Dykes to Watch Out For

#31, "Groves of Academe" (1988), collected in New, Improved! DTWOF (1990).
Dykes to Watch Out For

School

“Man's books are but a climbing stair,
Lain step by step, like stairs of stone;
The stairway here, the temple there —
Man's lampad honor, and his trust,
The God who called him from the dust.”

Joaquin Miller (1837–1913) American judge

"The Larger College".
In Classic Shades, and Other Poems (1890)

God , Books

“They went on playing quietly and waiting for Sam (who had gone back to the bedroom to seek Tommy) and for their turns to see Mother. Bonnie meanwhile, with a rueful expression, was leaning out the front window, and presently she could not help interrupting them, 'Why is my name Mrs Cabbage, why not Mrs Garlic or Mrs Horse Manure?' They did not hear her, so intent were they, visiting each other and inquiring after the health of their respective new babies. They did not hear her complaining to Louie that, instead of being Mrs Grand Piano or Mrs Stair Carpet, they called her Garbage, 'Greta Garbage, Toni Toilet,' said she laughing sadly, 'because they always see me out there with the garbage can and the wet mop; association in children's naïve innocent minds you see!'
'Oh no, it isn't that, protested Louie, Garbage is just a funny word: they associate you with singing and dancing and all those costumes you have in your trunk!”

Christina Stead book The Man Who Loved Children

'Do you think so?' Bonnie was tempted to believe. 'Mrs Strip Tease?'
The Man Who Loved Children (1940)

Children , Health , Thinking , Singing

“I wanted to go away, in the midst of something entirely different,
I had been there, in the house of torture,
I have seen people being kicked, men’s bodies scorched,
nails pulled out with pliers.
Armed with flame and cudgels, grinning men in shirt sleeves.
Where I could hear my friends being thrown headlong
down the stairs.
Night was as day, and long shrieks wounded me.
In vain I tried to think of wooded lanes and flowers,
a serene life and human words.
The thought seized up, it was as if a wound were opened up
again and again and endlessly searched.
From the mouth struck, teeth and blood came out,
and lamenting moans from the deep throat.
Away, away from that house, from that street and town,
from anything similar to it.
I must save myself, keep up my mind,
that I should not be led to madness by these memories.
Oh, if we could go back to a void, from which a new order,
a maternal opening could come forth,
if I hear a certain tone of voice even in jest, I shudder.
My unhappiness is that I avoid the sight of suffering,
hospitals and prisons.
I have yearned for high solitudes, lands of still sunshine
and sweet shadows,
but I would always be pursued by the ghosts of human beings.
All of a sudden I feel the need of distraction and play,
to lose myself in the noise of the fairground.
I remain with you, but forgive me
if you see me sometimes act like a madman.
I try to heal myself by myself, as an animal,
trusting that the wounds will close.
I stop to listen to the simple conversations of the women
in the marketplace, with their dialectical lilt.
I rejoice at the footsteps of running children,
their overpowering calls.
Because you do not know the absurdity of my dreams,
the fixed expressions, the incomprehensible gestures.
There is turmoil inside me, which seems to ridicule me.
And I cannot cry out, not to be like them.
Tomorrow I will go towards some music, now I am getting ready.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Life , Women , Men , Children

“Be kind, Helen, I am so tired of thinking;
There are so many difficult corridors of thought,
With equal iron banisters leading back again:
So many stone stairs, Helen, up which I sought
To rediscover the windy sky, and stand, blinking,
In the lost sunlight: as bright as pain,
Helen. I would give almost anything now
Even for pain.”

T. H. White (1906–1964) author

"Lost".

Pain , Thinking

“When this old world starts getting me down
And people are just too much for me to face,
I climb way up to the top of the stairs
And all my cares just drift right into space.
On the roof, it's peaceful as can be
And there the world below can't bother me.
Let me tell you now.”

Carole King (1942) Nasa

Up on the Roof (1962), co-written with Gerry Goffin, performed by The Drifters
Song lyrics, Singles

People , World , Peace , Way

“…it is a revolution without any mandate from the people. (Cheers.) Now, gentlemen, it is in the first place a revolution in fiscal methods…this Budget is introduced as a Liberal measure. If so, all I can say is that it is a new Liberalism and not the one that I have known and practised under more illustrious auspices than these. (Cheers.) Who was the greatest, not merely the greatest Liberal, but the greatest financier that this country has ever known? (A voice, "Gladstone.") I mean Mr. Gladstone. (Cheers.) With Sir Robert Peel—he, I think, occupied a position even higher than Sir Robert Peel—for boldness of imagination and scope of financing Mr. Gladstone ranks as the great financial authority of our time. (Cheers.) Now, we have in the Cabinet at this moment several colleagues, several ex-colleagues of mine, who served in the Cabinet with Mr. Gladstone…and I ask them, without a moment's fear or hesitation as to the answer that would follow if they gave it from their conscience, with what feelings would they approach Mr. Gladstone, were he Prime Minister and still living, with such a Budget as this? Mr. Gladstone would be 100 in December if he were alive; but, centenarian as he would be, I venture to say that he would make short work of the deputation of the Cabinet that waited on him with the measure, and they would soon find themselves on the stairs and not in the room. (Laughter and cheers.) In his eyes, and in my eyes, too, as a humble disciple, Liberalism and Liberty were cognate terms. They were twin-sisters. How does the Budget stand the test of Liberalism so understood and of Liberty as we have always comprehended it? This Budget seems to establish an inquisition, unknown previously in Great Britain, and a tyranny, I venture to say, unknown to mankind…I think my friends are moving on the path that leads to Socialism. How far they are advanced on that path I will not say, but on that path I, at any rate, cannot follow them an inch. (Loud cheers.) Any form of protection is an evil, but Socialism is the end of all, the negation of faith, of family, of prosperity, of the monarchy, of Empire.”

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929) British politician

Loud cheers.
Speech in Glasgow attacking the "People's Budget" (10 September 1909), reported in The Times (11 September 1909), pp. 7-8.

People , Fear , Family , Faith

“As a first step in preparing the analytic scheme, all of the interviews were read by one of our staIr members and the replies were broken down into "thought units." A thought unit is defined as a statement about a single event or condition that led to a feeling, a single characterization of a feeling, Or a description of a single effect.”

Frederick Herzberg (1923–2000) American psychologist

Source: The motivation to work, 1959, p. 38

Feeling , Reading

“As darkness falls
The walls grow luminous and warm, the walls
Tremble and glow with the lives within them moving,
Moving like music, secret and rich and warm.
How shall we live tonight? Where shall we turn?
To what new light or darkness yearn?
A thousand winding stairs lead down before us;
And one by one in myriads we descend
By lamplit flowered walls, long balustrades,
Through half-lit halls which reach no end.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Secret , Music , Flowers , Light

“Let me be transparent about my affection for cops. When you dial 911, whether you are white or black, the cops come, and they come quickly, and they come quickly whether they are white or black. That’s what cops do, in addition to all of the other hard and difficult and dangerous and frightening things that they do. They respond to homes in the middle of the night where a drunken father, wielding a gun, is threatening his wife and children. They pound up the back stairs of an apartment building, not knowing whether the guys behind the door they are about to enter are armed, or high, or both.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Children , Guy , Home , Night

“The noise against me is only the means by which the Jews and Communists are attempting and with good success to implement a further dismemberment of Germany. I think that if I resigned as I threatened to do yesterday, it would simply discredit me to no purpose... This august lady [Fifteenth Army]... has the job of reviewing the strategy and tactics of the war to see how the former conformed to the unit plans and how the tactics changed. Were it not for the fact that it will be, so far as I am concerned, a kick up stairs, I would like it much better than being a sort of executioner to the best race in Europe.
Later when people wake up to what is going on here, I can admit why I took the job.
Am I weak and a coward? Am I putting my posthumous reputation above my present honor? God how I wish I knew…
P. S. No one gives a damn how well Bavaria is run. All they are interested in now is how well it is ruined.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

Letter to Beatrice (29 September 1945), published in The Patton Papers (1996), edited by Martin Blumenson Vol. 2 , p. 786 https://books.google.com/books?id=XGP_AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA786

God , War , People , Thinking

“"You stupid mutt! How could you? My baby!
[Jacob] backed out the front door now as I stalked him, half-running backward down the stairs. "It wasn't my idea, Bella!"
"I've held her all of one time, and already you think you have some moronic wolfy claim to her? She's mine. […] How dare you imprint on my baby? Have you lost your mind?"”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

Bella Cullen and Jacob Black, p. 449
Twilight series, Breaking Dawn (2008)

Stupidity , Idea , Thinking , Time

“…He was firmly attached to the Mahomedan religion, and made a point of destroying all Hindoo temples. In the city of Mutra he caused musjids and bazars to be built opposite the bathing-stairs leading to the river and ordered that no Hindoos should be allowed to bathe there. He forbade the barbers to shave the beards and beads of the inhabitants, in order to prevent the Hindoos following their usual practices at such pilgrimages…”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Sultãn Sikandar Lodî (AD 1489-1517) Mathura (Uttar Pradesh)
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

Religion

“And I go down the stairs again
with the screeching of my worn out
soul

P. G. tunes instruments
for his golden arm
alchemy in a metropolitan shell

The squeak of time was
thrown back into the cracks
where the plaster has the form of a twisting branch

and my veins are sturdy trunks,
scaly, for drops of green sap
nourishment rising
from the bowels of the earth,
…”

Caterina Davinio (1957) Italian writer

The Book of Opium (1975 - 1990), (Heroin) P. G.'s Basement
Source: Caterina Davinio, Il libro dell'oppio 1975 – 1990 (The Book of Opium 1975 – 1990), Puntoacapo Editrice, Novi Ligure 2012. English translation by Caterina Davinio and David W. Seaman.

Soul , Time

“Far away like frightened birds, the echo of our feet floated through the upper floors. We climbed three flights of stairs and proceeded the length of another hall. At the end was a door. The Negro opened it.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Bird

“She hurried at his words, beset with fears,
For there were sleeping dragons all around,
At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears —
Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found. —
In all the house was heard no human sound.
A chain-droop’d lamp was flickering by each door;
The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound,
Flutter’d in the besieging wind’s uproar;
And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.”

John Keats The Eve of St. Agnes

Stanza 40
Poems (1820), The Eve of St. Agnes

Fear , Way , Sleep , Housing

“Well I don't know why I came here tonight.
I got the feeling that something ain't right.
I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs.
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you.”

Gerry Rafferty (1947–2011) Scottish singer and songwriter

Stuck in the Middle with You, written with Joe Egan, from the Stealers Wheel album Stealers Wheel (1972).
Song lyrics, With Stealers Wheel

Feeling

“A sinning nun, her face in a plate of cakes, caught my eye as I descended on the moving stair.”

Carole Morin British writer

Penniless in Park Lane

“We passed upon the stair, we spoke of was and when
Although I wasn't there, he said I was his friend
Which came as some surprise I spoke into his eyes
I thought you died alone, a long long time ago.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

The Man Who Sold the World
Song lyrics, The Man Who Sold the World (1970)

Time

“Let those whose Hearts and Hands are strong
Tell eager Tales of mighty Deeds;
Enough if my sequestered song
To hush'd and twilight Gardens leads!

Clear Waters, drawn from secret Wells
Perchance may fevered Lips assuage;
The Tales an elder Pilgrim tells
To such as go on Pilgrimage.

Such the soft Path my Words would trace,
Thus with the moving Waters move;
So leave, across the Ocean's Face,
A glimmering Stair to Hope and Love.”

A. C. Benson (1862–1925) English essayist, poet, author and Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge

Prologue.
The Isles of Sunset (1904)

Love , Secret , Hope , Strong

“Philip Marlow: You're the girl in all those songs. De-dum.
Nurse Mills: What songs?
Philip Marlow: The songs, the songs, the bloody, bloody songs.
Nurse Mills: I wish I knew what you were talking about.
Philip Marlow: The songs you hear coming up the stair.
Nurse Mills: Sorry?
Philip Marlow: When you're a child, when you're supposed to be asleep. Those songs.”

Dennis Potter (1935–1994) English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist

The Singing Detective (1986)

Girl

“By June 1949 people had begun to realize that it was not so easy to get programs right as at one time appeared. I well remember when this realization first came on me with full force.
The EDSAC was on the top floor of the building and the tape-punching and editing equipment one floor below. […] It was on one of my journeys between the EDSAC room and the punching equipment that "hesitating at the angles of stairs" the realization came over me with full force that a good part of the remainder of my life was going to be spent in finding errors in my own programs.”

Maurice Wilkes (1913–2010) British computer scientist

Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer, MIT Press, 1985, p. 145. (The quoted phrase is from T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral.)

Life , People , Error , Appearance

“If you want to make an audience laugh, you dress a man up like an old lady and push her down the stairs. If you want to make comedy writers laugh, you push an actual old lady down the stairs.”

Tina Fey (1970) American comedian, writer, producer and actress

On Comedy
Source: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/11/03/anchor-woman

Funny

“I had seen him [Mahatama Gandhi] from a distance This was going to be the first personal contact. As I ascended the stairs of Manibahavan…I was feeling the thrill of anticipation of a great event. I entered the room and the awe which the scene inside inspired in my heart has not been erased from my memory. I sat in front of the Mahatma…After a while Gandhiji turned to me and asked me about the work that I was doing…He then inquired about my situation. Would I have to face any difficulties if I came away to join the movement? I reflected for a few fleeting moments. I asked myself…How can an army like this function if every soldier who is recruited has to place his personal difficulties before the General. I replied to him that I had no problems for his consideration. Then an interesting conversation followed. Lala Lajpat Rai took up the thread and asked Gandhiji to permit me to proceed to the Punjab, the place of my origin and join him, in the work of the movement there. Thereafter Shankarlal Banker put forward the argument that since my political birth was in Bombay I should stick to this place. The Mahatma gave his verdict in favour of Bombay and thus the interview ended. I found that Bunker was the key figure in the organization in Bombay then and a number of activities were being carried out under his personal direction.”

Gulzarilal Nanda (1898–1998) Prime Minister of India

In, p. 5-6
Gulzarilal Nanda: A Life in the Service of the People

Feeling , Birth , Problem , Memory

“From the windows of my office in Boston … I can see the Golden Stairs from Boston Harbor where all eight of my great-grandparents set foot on this great land for the first time. That immigrant spirit of limitless possibility animates America even today.”

Ted Kennedy (1932–2009) United States Senator

Attributed to a 2007 Senate speech by Kathy Kiely, "Kennedy 'fashioned the modern day legal system of immigration' " http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090826/NEWS01/908260380/Kennedy++fashioned+the+modern+day+legal+system+of+immigration+, USA Today, 26 August 2009
Attributed

Time , Animals