“
The Swiss have an interesting army. Five hundred years without a war. Pretty impressive. Also pretty lucky for them. Ever seen that little Swiss Army knife they have to fight with? Not much of a weapon there. Corkscrews. Bottle openers. ‘Come on, buddy, let’s go. You get past me, the guy in the back of me, he’s got a spoon. Back off, I’ve got the toe clippers right here.
”
”
Jerry Seinfeld
“
Soon enough his head would be swimming with tales of derring-do and high adventure, tales of beautiful maidens kissed, of evildoers shot with pistols or fought with swords, of bags of gold, of diamonds as big as the tip of your thumb, of lost cities and of vast mountains, of steam-trains and clipper ships, of pampas, oceans, deserts, tundra.
”
”
Neil Gaiman
“
I think the two greatest inventions in the history of mankind are the remote control and the fingernail clipper. Now, if someone could just combine those two, I’d be very eager to clip my nails from across the room.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Great Listener Seeks Mute Women)
“
Hold still," my father would say, while I held the ship in the bottle and he burned away the strings he'd raised the mast with and set the clipper ship free on its blue putty sea. And I would wait for him, recognizing the tension of that moment when the world in the bottle depended, solely, on me.
”
”
Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones)
“
I made a mental note to figure out some way to stop making mental notes and start making real notes. That way I might be able to delegate a few of them, and even remember what they were.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Owner's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #6))
“
Guns kill far more quickly and efficiently than knives, or crossbows, or toenail clippers; and, unlike bombs, you don't need to build one in your basement -- they come ready-made! There's a reason why guns are the overwhelming weapon of choice among mass murderers.
”
”
Quentin R. Bufogle
“
A North Korean soldier would later recall a buddy who had been given an American-made nail clipper and was showing it off to his friends. The soldier clipped a few nails, admired the sharp, clean edges, and marveled at the mechanics of this simple item. Then he realized with a sinking heart: If North Korea couldn’t make such a fine nail clipper, how could it compete with American weapons?
”
”
Barbara Demick (Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea)
“
The Thames is a wretched river after the Mersey and the ships are not like Liverpool ships and the docks are barren of beauty ... it is a beastly hole after Liverpool; for Liverpool is the town of my heart and I would rather sail a mudflat there than command a clipper out of London
”
”
John Masefield
“
Immediately after the race, even as he sat gasping for air in the Husky Clipper while it drifted down the Langer See beyond the finish line, an expansive sense of calm had enveloped him. In the last desperate few hundred meters of the race, in the searing pain and bewildering noise of that final furious sprint, there had come a singular moment when Joe realized with startling clarity that there was nothing more he could do to win the race, beyond what he was already doing. Except for one thing. He could finally abandon all doubt, trust absolutely without reservation that he and the boy in front of him and the boys behind him would all do precisely what they needed to do at precisely the instant they needed to do it. He had known in that instant that there could be no hesitation, no shred of indecision. He had had no choice but to throw himself into each stroke as if he were throwing himself off of a cliff into a void, with unquestioned faith that the others would be there to save him
”
”
Daniel James Brown (The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics)
“
The moon rose in silver splendor into an October sky strewn with pale clouds and brilliant stars. The clouds churned, a white-foam sea, and the moon was a vast, graceful clipper ship, its sails full of spectral light as it ran before the strength of the cold autumn winds.
”
”
Jim Butcher (Fool Moon (The Dresden Files #2))
“
Nailer smiled bitterly in the acrid wind. That was what thinking about clipper ships got you. A lungful of smoke because you weren't paying attention to what was around.
”
”
Paolo Bacigalupi (Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker, #1))
“
Is the burden of independent thought wearing you down? Do you dread the indecision that awaits every time you open your wardrobe? Are you embarrassed by your reticence when you hear other people discuss current affairs, music, relationships, etcetera? Don't worry, you're not alone. Help is just a pair of clippers away! We've helped thousands of sad losers avoid confronting their loneliness and inadequacy, and we can do the same for you. We'll tell you what to wear. We'll tell you what to think. We'll tell you what music to listen to. and most importantly, we'll bring you together with lots of people exactly the same as yourself — it's just like having friends!
”
”
Christopher Brookmyre (A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away)
“
Don’t try to create some kind of shape for your life as if you are shearing it with a pair of clippers. Don’t prune down your own life into the shape you think it should be. Don’t be a bonsai, be a mighty oak.
”
”
Mooji (Vaster Than Sky, Greater Than Space)
“
We had rarely seen our fathers in work boots before, toiling in the earth and wielding brand-new root clippers. They struggled with the fence, bent over like Marines hoisting the flag on Iwo Jima. It was the greatest show of common effort we could remember in our neighborhood, all those lawyers, doctors, and mortgage bankers locked arm in arm in the trench, with our mothers bringing out orange Kool-Aid, and for a moment our century was noble again.
”
”
Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides)
“
Help us, our Father, to show other nations an America to imitate—not the America of loud jazz music, self-seeking indulgence, and love of money, but the America that loves fair play, honest dealing, straight talk, real freedom, and faith in God. Make us to see that it cannot be done as long as we are content to be coupon clippers on the original investment made by our forefathers. Give us faith in God and love for our fellow men, that we may have something to deposit on which the young people of today can draw interest tomorrow. By Thy grace, let us this day increase the moral capital of this country. Amen.
”
”
Catherine Marshall (A Man Called Peter)
“
Funny he could take down a group of terrorists without blinking an eye, but come face to face with this gorgeous woman, and he lost his common sense.
”
”
Casey Clipper (Silent Love (The Love Series, #1))
“
Sometimes you needed to be an outsider to really appreciate how things worked.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Captain's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #5))
“
We can live in fear, or not.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Owner's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #6))
“
Nail clippers: As you may have noticed, trimming your nails is a traumatic event that requires three people, a beach towel, and a can of spray
”
”
Allie Brosh (Hyperbole and a Half)
“
There is no prettier sight in the world than a full-rigged, clipper-built brig, sailing sharp on the wind.
”
”
Richard Henry Dana Jr. (Two Years Before the Mast)
“
I’ve learned how to take out my own stitches: all you need is a pair of fingernail clippers & a strong stomach.
”
”
Lance Armstrong (It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life)
“
I watched him as he lined up the ships in bottles on his deck, bringing them over from the shelves where they usually sat. He used an old shirt of my mother's that had been ripped into rags and began dusting the shelves. Under his desk there were empty bottles- rows and rows of them we had collected for our future shipbuilding. In the closet were more ships- the ships he had built with his own father, ships he had built alone, and then those we had made together. Some were perfect, but their sails browned; some had sagged or toppled over the years. Then there was the one that had burst into flames in the week before my death.
He smashed that one first.
My heart seized up. He turned and saw all the others, all the years they marked and the hands that had held them. His dead father's, his dead child's. I watched his as he smashed the rest. He christened the walls and wooden chair with the news of my death, and afterward he stood in the guest room/den surrounded by green glass. The bottle, all of them, lay broken on the floor, the sails and boat bodies strewn among them. He stood in the wreckage. It was then that, without knowing how, I revealed myself. In every piece of glass, in every shard and sliver, I cast my face. My father glanced down and around him, his eyes roving across the room. Wild. It was just for a second, and then I was gone. He was quiet for a moment, and then he laughed- a howl coming up from the bottom of his stomach. He laughed so loud and deep, I shook with it in my heaven.
He left the room and went down two doors to my beadroom. The hallway was tiny, my door like all the others, hollow enough to easily punch a fist through. He was about to smash the mirror over my dresser, rip the wallpaper down with his nails, but instead he fell against my bed, sobbing, and balled the lavender sheets up in his hands.
'Daddy?' Buckley said. My brother held the doorknob with his hand.
My father turned but was unable to stop his tears. He slid to the floor with his fists, and then he opened up his arms. He had to ask my brother twice, which he had never to do do before, but Buckley came to him.
My father wrapped my brother inside the sheets that smelled of me. He remembered the day I'd begged him to paint and paper my room purple. Remembered moving in the old National Geographics to the bottom shelves of my bookcases. (I had wanted to steep myself in wildlife photography.) Remembered when there was just one child in the house for the briefest of time until Lindsey arrived.
'You are so special to me, little man,' my father said, clinging to him.
Buckley drew back and stared at my father's creased face, the fine bright spots of tears at the corners of his eyes. He nodded seriously and kissed my father's cheek. Something so divine that no one up in heaven could have made it up; the care a child took with an adult.
'Hold still,' my father would say, while I held the ship in the bottle and he burned away the strings he'd raised the mast with and set the clipper ship free on its blue putty sea. And I would wait for him, recognizing the tension of that moment when the world in the bottle depended, solely, on me.
”
”
Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones)
“
Brought down by a woman with black hair and dark eyes. A sexy wit and a sexier body. A bartender, coupon clipper, temp worker. A college drop out turned party girl, with loose morals, and legs that rarely closed.
”
”
Stylo Fantome (Degradation (The Kane Trilogy, #1))
“
Honey, have you seen my measuring tape?”
“I think it’s in that drawer in the kitchen with the scissors, matches, bobby pins, Scotch tape, nail clippers, barbecue tongs, garlic press, extra buttons, old birthday cards, soy sauce packets thick rubber bands, stack of Christmas napkins, stained take-out menus, old cell-phone chargers, instruction booklet for the VCR, some assorted nickels, an incomplete deck of cards, extra chain links for a watch, a half-finished pack of cough drops, a Scrabble piece I found while vacuuming, dead batteries we aren’t fully sure are dead yet, a couple screws in a tiny plastic bag left over from the bookshelf, that lock with the forgotten combination, a square of carefully folded aluminum foil, and expired pack of gum, a key to our old house, a toaster warranty card, phone numbers for unknown people, used birthday candles, novelty bottle openers, a barbecue lighter, and that one tiny little spoon.”
“Thanks, honey.”
AWESOME!
”
”
Neil Pasricha (The Book of (Even More) Awesome)
“
the great all-embracing sound that rose from the dazzling earth, a layered music, dense but deeply flowing, that was clippered insects rubbing their legs together, bird-notes, grass-stems chaffing and fretting in the breeze.
”
”
David Malouf (Fly Away Peter)
“
morning brought something worse—lawyers. First,
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Quarter Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #1))
“
Like That"
Love me like a wrong turn on a bad road late at night, with no
moon and no town anywhere
and a large hungry animal moving heavily through the brush in
the ditch.
Love me with a blindfold over your eyes and the sound of rusty
water
blurting from the faucet in the kitchen, leaking down through
the floorboards to hot cement. Do it without asking,
without wondering or thinking anything, while the machinery’s
shut down and the watchman’s slumped asleep before his small TV
showing the empty garage, the deserted hallways, while the thieves
slice through
the fence with steel clippers. Love me when you can’t find
a decent restaurant open anywhere, when you’re alone in a glaring
diner
with two nuns arguing in the back booth, when your eggs are
greasy
and your hash browns underdone. Snick the buttons off the front
of my dress
and toss them one by one into the pond where carp lurk just
beneath the surface,
their cold fins waving. Love me on the hood of a truck no one’s
driven
in years, sunk to its fenders in weeds and dead sunflowers;
and in the lilies, your mouth on my white throat, while turtles
drag
their bellies through slick mud, through the footprints of coots and
ducks.
Do it when no one’s looking, when the riots begin and the planes
open up,
when the bus leaps the curb and the driver hits the brakes and the
pedal sinks to the floor,
while someone hurls a plate against the wall and picks up another,
love me like a freezing shot of vodka, like pure agave, love me
when you’re lonely, when we’re both too tired to speak, when you
don’t believe
in anything, listen, there isn’t anything, it doesn’t matter; lie down
with me and close your eyes, the road curves here, I’m cranking up
the radio
and we’re going, we won’t turn back as long as you love me,
as long as you keep on doing it exactly like that.
”
”
Kim Addonizio (Tell Me)
“
Even with all the technology, information, and communications that they had, it still came down to men and women in frail boats doing hard, dirty work over long hours in an environment that would kill them if they weren’t both careful and lucky.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (South Coast (Shaman's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1))
“
The boys in the Clipper had been winnowed down by punishing competition, and in the winnowing a kind of common character had issued forth: they were all skilled, they were all tough, they were all fiercely determined, but they were also all good-hearted. Every one of them had come from humble origins or been humbled by the ravages of the hard times in which they had grown up. Each in his own way, they had all learned that nothing could be taken for granted in life, that for all their strength and good looks and youth, forces were at work in the world that were greater than they. The challenges they had faced together had taught them humility—the need to subsume their individual egos for the sake of the boat as a whole—and humility was the common gateway through which they were able now to come together and begin to do what they had not been able to do before.
”
”
Daniel James Brown (The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics)
“
Still, there was a better solution lurking in my hind brain. I just needed to pretend I wasn’t looking for it so it would come out.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Captain's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #5))
“
As soon as you think you know what’s going on, that’s the first sign that you haven’t a clue.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Owner's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #6))
“
I prefer to make my mistakes on purpose rather than by accident.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Captain's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #5))
“
If experience taught me anything, it was that feeling like I had things under control was usually the first symptom of a complete and utter lack of understanding.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Captain's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #5))
“
Damn it, Jimmy, I’m an accountant—not a fishermen.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (South Coast (Shaman's Tales From the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #1))
“
Nail clippers: As you may have noticed, trimming your nails is a traumatic event that requires three people, a beach towel, and a can of spray cheese.
”
”
Allie Brosh (Hyperbole and a Half)
“
We piled into the car, a 1955 Packard Clipper the color of canned peas that my mother had named Lizzie.
”
”
William Kent Krueger (Ordinary Grace)
“
I am too old for adventure," the Judge said, putting his clippers away, "but I hope I am not too old to do what I feel is right.
”
”
Stephen King (The Stand)
“
All things are transient. Buddha says it is so, and Hock Seng, who didn't believe in or care about karma or the truths of the dharma when he was young, has come in his old age to understand his grandmother's religion and its painful truths. Suffering is his lot. Attachment is the source of his suffering. And yet he cannot stop himself from saving and preparing and striving to preserve himself in this life which has turned out so poorly.
How is it that I sinned to earn this bitter fate? Saw my clan whittled by red machetes? Saw my businesses burned and my clipper ships sunk? He closes his eyes, forcing memories away. Regret is suffering.
”
”
Paolo Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl)
“
The Europa Clipper is scheduled for launch sometime around 2022. Costing approximately $2 billion, its purpose is to analyze the ice cover of Europa and the composition and nature of its ocean for signs of organic chemicals.
”
”
Michio Kaku (The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny BeyondEarth)
“
In the bathroom, he wrapped a towel around Reese’s neck and reached for his clippers. He gently pushed Reese’s head forward, and Reese closed his eyes, trying to remember the last time another man had touched him so tenderly.
”
”
Brit Bennett (The Vanishing Half)
“
He boarded the Pan American Clipper, said hello as always to Captain Pete, walked past a row of slot machines, and found a seat on the top deck, away from the other passengers. He faced south, toward Ship Island, which was not visible.
”
”
John Grisham (The Boys from Biloxi)
“
She proceeded with a rather credible and sharply focused verbal flensing that included commentary on parentage, unlikely applications of bodily parts, and ended with imprecations of toxic levels of insectile infestation of certain body cavities.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Captain's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #5))
“
Did Morris put anybody on Coltraine, specifically?”
“Clipper.”
“Die-For-Ty? Talk about the sex. How come so many death doctors are wholly iced?”
“A mystery I’ve pondered throughout my career.”
“No, seriously. Clipper’s like ummm. He’s gay and has a partner, but a yummy treat for the eyes. His partner’s an artist. He paints people, literally I mean. Body painting. They’ve been together about six years.”
“How do you know all this stuff?”
“Unlike you, I enjoy hearing about people’s personal lives, especially when it involves sex.”
“At least since Clipper’s not into women, you won’t be troubled by sexual fantasies.”
Peabody pursed her lips in thought. “I can work with it. Two naked guys, body paints, me. Oh yeah, endless possibilities.
”
”
J.D. Robb (Promises in Death (In Death, #28))
“
On a training mission, he’d watched as Nightstalker pilots cut their own landing zone using the rotors of the helicopter as giant hedge clippers. They’d been landing in a pine forest and he marveled as the helo dropped into the hole of its own making—pine
”
”
Doug Stanton (Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan)
“
Which didn't explain why Brant remained outside with Elizabeth, even when he started to suffer from heatstroke. Or maybe heatstroke was only the excuse he used for what happened next. With one eye pinned on Elizabeth, he stripped off his shirt, something he rarely did, and proceeded to perform feats of strength. He moved large rocks for no good reason, grunting as if he were leg-pressing a good five hundred pounds. He welded hedge clippers like Edward Scissorhands. And hoed like a lumberjack bent on clearing the Sierras.
It was heatstroke. It had to be. There was no other way to explain a thirty-eight-year-old man flexing and posing for a woman like some goddamned body builder in a competition.
And the worst part about it was she didn't even pay him the slightest bit of attention.
”
”
Katie Lane (Trouble in Texas (Deep in the Heart of Texas, #4))
“
(Joe) Dimaggio was, in fact, mostly just a cold fish. Not even his brother Dom, who played outfield for the Red Sox..., seemed to care much for the Yankee Clipper. As someone best summed up Dimaggio: "What kind of guy learns to love the most beautiful woman in the world only after she dies?
”
”
Frank Deford (Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter)
“
We can spend sixty-eight thousand dollars per TB patient in New York City, but if you start giving watches or radios here [Haiti], suddenly the international health community jumps on you for creating 'nonsustainable' projects. If a patient says, I really need a Bible or nail clippers, well, for God's sake!
”
”
Tracy Kidder (Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World)
“
There was a straightforward reason for what was happening. The boys in the Clipper had been winnowed down by punishing competition, and in the winnowing a kind of common character had issued forth: they were all skilled, they were all tough, they were all fiercely determined, but they were also all good-hearted.
”
”
Daniel James Brown (The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics)
“
What I do know is that worrying about it keeps me from doing the things I can do. If I can compartmentalize that by saying ‘Trust Iris,’ that’s good enough for me.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Owner's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #6))
“
You obviously have mistaken me for somebody with a clue. Unfortunately, I don’t even know where to buy a clue, and if I had one, I’m sure it would be to a different puzzle.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Full Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #3))
“
When you work for yourself? The boss is a jerk. Try not to let it bother you.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Owner's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #6))
“
Just a bunch of people who happen to work in the same place. No unity. No interdependence. It becomes easy to beat up on each other. Easy to have a ‘what’s in it for me’ attitude.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Double Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #4))
“
I've seen you work. I don't buy it. I’m not even gonna rent it for the weekend.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Half Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #2))
“
My father always told me that chasing after everything I wanted was a fool’s game, but that wanting everything I had would bring me happiness.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Owner's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #6))
“
Yo ho ho, Mr. Pall. I think it’s time we kicked a few butts, took a few risks, and called the cat rude names.” “We
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Captain's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #5))
“
And if anyone had told him that one day he would travel to worlds beyond this one, and experience the past, present and future as one, he would have said they were crazy.
”
”
B. Roman (The Crystal Clipper (The Secrets of the Moon Singer, #1))
“
Britta wanted to try to turn a guard. Tamara thought it was idiotic.
“What are you going to do? Buy him beer and tell him about Kropotkin?”
I envisioned the conversation:
Vanguard: Wage Slave, are you aware that you are but a wire nail in the toolbox of capitalism?
Wage Slave: I thought I was a chisel.
Vanguard: No, the petit bourgeois are the chisels.
Wage Slave: What about a washer set? Can I be a washer set?
Vanguard: No, my ferret, run free! For I have unlocked your collar with knowledge!
Wage Slave: I want to be a chisel.
Vanguard pushes screaming ferret through hole in fence cut by the clippers of noblesse oblige.
“Well, maybe we could bribe him,” said Britta. Tamara laughed.
“With what? Health insurance?
”
”
Vanessa Veselka (Zazen)
“
Ms. Arellone and Ms. Maloney were still debating decor, and I waited to see who would win. In a test of stubbornness between either of them and a rock, I’d bet on the rock to lose. We
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Owner's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #6))
“
Deep one night he was trimming his nose that would never walk again into sunlight atop living legs, busily feeling every hair with a Rotex rotary nostril clipper as if to make his nostrils as bare as a monkey’s, when suddenly a man, perhaps escaped from the mental ward in the same hospital or perhaps a lunatic who happened to be passing, with a body abnormally small and meagre for a man save only for a face as round as a Dharma’s and covered in hair, sat down on the edge of his bed and shouted, foaming,
”
”
Kenzaburō Ōe (The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away)
“
Ernie’s eyes were riveted on the collector’s hands as they slid the tickets together into a neat pack and punched a V-shaped nick in them with a sweep of the powerful clippers: then his eyes travelled to the collector’s face to see if it registered the pleasure which he himself could never have concealed had he been allowed to do it. He resented the man’s bored face, and placed him at once among the people who did not realise their luck. It was a mystery to him why so few people felt the fierce joy of clipping tickets.
”
”
R.C. Sherriff (The Fortnight in September)
“
Back home, we can't kill them fast enough," he says. "Even Grahamites offer blue bills for their skins. Probably the only thing they've ever done that I agreed with."
"Mmm, yes." Emiko's brow wrinkles thoughtfully. "They are too much improved for this world, I think. A natural bird has so little chance, now." She smiles slightly. "Just think if they had made New People first."
Is it mischief in her eyes? Or melancholy?
"What do you think would have happened?" Anderson asks.
Emiko doesn't meet his gaze, looks out instead at the circling cats amongst the diners. "Generippers learned too much from cheshires."
She doesn't say anything else, but Anderson can guess what's in her mind. If her kind had come first, before the generippers knew better, she would not have been made sterile. She would not have the signature tick-tock motions that make her so physically obvious. She might have even been designed as well as the military windups now operating in Vietnam—deadly and fearless. Without the lesson of the cheshires, Emiko might have had the opportunity to supplant the human species entirely with her own improved version. Instead, she is a genetic dead end. Doomed to a single life cycle, just like SoyPRO and TotalNutrient Wheat.
Another shadow cat bolts across the street, shimmering and shading through darkness. A high-tech homage to Lewis Carroll, a few dirigible and clipper ship rides, and suddenly entire classes of animals are wiped out, unequipped to fight an invisible threat.
"We would have realized our mistake," Anderson observes.
"Yes. Of course. But perhaps not soon enough.
”
”
Paolo Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl)
“
Loving the Hands
I could make a wardrobe
with tufts of wool
caught on thistle and bracken.
Lost - the scraps
I might have woven whole cloth.
"Come watch," the man says,
shearing sheep
with the precision of long practice,
fleece, removed all of a piece,
rolled in a neat bundle.
I've been so clumsy
with people people who've loved me.
Straddling a ewe,
the man props its head on his foot,
leans down with clippers,
each pass across the coat a caress.
His dogs, lying nearby,
tremble at every move - as I do,
loving the hands that have learned
to gentle the life beneath them.
”
”
Julie Suk (Lie Down with Me: New and Selected Poems)
“
I shall describe one example of this kind of world, the greatest planet of a mighty sun. Situated, if I remember rightly, near the congested heart of the galaxy, this star was born late in galactic history, and it gave birth to planets when already many of the older stars were encrusted with smouldering lava. Owing to the violence of solar radiation its nearer planets had (or will have) stormy climates. On one of them a mollusc-like creature, living in the coastal shallows, acquired a propensity to drift in its boatlike shell on the sea’s surface, thus keeping in touch with its drifting vegetable food. As the ages passed, its shell became better adapted to navigation. Mere drifting was supplemented by means of a crude sail, a membrane extending from the creature’s back. In time this nautiloid type proliferated into a host of species. Some of these remained minute, but some found size advantageous, and developed into living ships. One of these became the intelligent master of this great world. The hull was a rigid, stream-lined vessel, shaped much as the nineteenth-century clipper in her prime, and larger than our largest whale. At the rear a tentacle or fin developed into a rudder, which was sometimes used also as a propeller, like a fish’s tail. But though all these species could navigate under their own power to some extent, their normal means of long-distance locomotion was their great spread of sail. The simple membranes of the ancestral type had become a system of parchment-like sails and bony masts and spars, under voluntary muscular control. Similarity to a ship was increased by the downward-looking eyes, one on each side of the prow. The mainmast-head also bore eyes, for searching the horizon. An organ of magnetic sensitivity in the brain afforded a reliable means of orientation. At the fore end of the vessel were two long manipulatory tentacles, which during locomotion were folded snugly to the flanks. In use they formed a very serviceable pair of arms.
”
”
Olaf Stapledon (Star Maker (S.F. MASTERWORKS Book 52))
“
...at Newsweek only girls with college degrees--and we were called "girls" then--were hired to sort and deliver the mail, humbly pushing our carts from door to door in our ladylike frocks and proper high-heeled shoes. If we could manage that, we graduated to "clippers," another female ghetto. Dressed in drab khaki smocks so that ink wouldn't smudge our clothes, we sat at the clip desk, marked up newspapers, tore out releveant articles with razor-edged "rip sticks," and routed the clips to the appropriate departments. "Being a clipper was a horrible job," said writer and director Nora Ephron, who got a job at Newsweek after she graduated from Wellesley in 1962, "and to make matters worse, I was good at it.
”
”
Lynn Povich (The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace)
“
I really felt like it was coming together and I regretted that feeling with every step. If experience taught me anything, it was that feeling like I had things under control was usually the first symptom of a complete and utter lack of understanding. It was a lesson I thought I had learned well, but which continued to show me new variations with every iteration.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Captain's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #5))
“
September 22d, when, upon coming on deck at seven bells in the morning, we found the other watch aloft throwing water upon the sails; and, looking astern, we saw a small clipper-built brig with a black hull heading directly after us. We went to work immediately, and put all the canvas upon the brig which we could get upon her, rigging out oars for extra studding-sail yards, and continued wetting down the sails by buckets of water whipped up to the mast-head, until about nine o’clock, when there came on a drizzling rain. The vessel continued in pursuit, changing her course as we changed ours, to keep before the wind. The captain, who watched her with his glass, said that she was armed, and full of men, and showed no colors. We continued running dead before the wind, knowing that we sailed better so, and that clippers are fastest on the wind. We had also another advantage. The wind was light, and we spread more canvas than she did, having royals and sky-sails fore and aft, and ten studding-sails; while she, being an hermaphrodite brig, had only a gaff topsail aft. Early in the morning she was overhauling us a little, but after the rain came on and the wind grew lighter, we began to leave her astern. All hands remained on deck throughout the day, and we got our fire-arms in order; but we were too few to have done anything with her, if she had proved to be what we feared. Fortunately there was no moon, and the night which followed was exceedingly dark, so that, by putting out all the
”
”
Richard Henry Dana Jr. (Two Years Before the Mast)
“
But what a thirty-four it was. Don Hume on the port side and Joe Rantz on the starboard were setting the pace with long, slow, sweet, fluid strokes, and the boys on each side were falling in behind them flawlessly. From the banks of Lake Carnegie, the boys, their oars, and the Husky Clipper looked like a single thing, gracefully and powerfully coiling and uncoiling itself, propelling itself forward over the surface of the water. Eight bare backs swung forward and backward in perfect unison. Eight white blades dipped in and out of the mirrorlike water at precisely the same instant. Each time the blades entered the lake, they disappeared almost without a splash or ripple. Each time the blades rose from it, the boat ghosted forward without check or hesitation.
”
”
Daniel James Brown (The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics)
“
The Clipper pulled away from its moorage, entered Long Island Sound off Queens, and began its takeoff run, bumping across a mile-long fetch of open water before at last lifting off, shedding water like a breaching whale. With a cruising speed of 145 miles per hour, the plane would need about six hours to reach its first stop, Bermuda. It flew at eight thousand feet, which pretty much ensured that it would encounter every cloud and storm in its path. There would be turbulence but also luxury. White-jacketed stewards served full meals on china in a dining compartment with tables, chairs, and tablecloths. At dinner men wore suits, women dresses; at night the stewards made up beds in curtained berths. Honeymooners could book a private suite in the plane’s tail and swoon at the moonglade on the sea below.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz)
“
At first I thought he meant the Husky Clipper, the racing shell in which he had rowed his way to glory. Or did he mean his teammates, the improbable assemblage of young men who had pulled off one of rowing’s greatest achievements? Finally, watching Joe struggle for composure over and over, I realized that “the boat” was something more than just the shell or its crew. To Joe, it encompassed but transcended both—it was something mysterious and almost beyond definition. It was a shared experience—a singular thing that had unfolded in a golden sliver of time long gone, when nine good-hearted young men strove together, pulled together as one, gave everything they had for one another, bound together forever by pride and respect and love. Joe was crying, at least in part, for the loss of that vanished moment but much more, I think, for the sheer beauty of it.
”
”
Daniel James Brown (The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics)
“
It is a rare zek who has not known from three to five transit prisons and camps; many remember a dozen or so, and the sons of Gulag can count up to fifty of them without the slightest difficulty. However, in memory they get all mixed up together because they are so similar: in the illiteracy of their convoys, in their inept roll calls based on case files; the long waiting under the beating sun or autumn drizzle; the still longer body searches that involve undressing completely; their haircuts with unsanitary clippers; their cold, slippery baths; their foul-smelling toilets; their damp and moldy corridors; their perpetually crowded, nearly always dark, wet cells; the warmth of human flesh flanking you on the floor or on the board bunks; the bumpy ridges of bunk heads knocked together from boards; the wet, almost liquid, bread; the gruel cooked from what seems to be silage. And
”
”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation)
“
Darwin’s Bestiary
PROLOGUE
Animals tame and animals feral
prowled the Dark Ages in search of a moral:
the canine was Loyal, the lion was Virile,
rabbits were Potent and gryphons were Sterile.
Sloth, Envy, Gluttony, Pride—every peril
was fleshed into something phantasmic and rural,
while Courage, Devotion, Thrift—every bright laurel
crowned a creature in some mythological mural.
Scientists think there is something immoral
in singular brutes having meat that is plural:
beasts are mere beasts, just as flowers are floral.
Yet between the lines there’s an implicit demurral;
the habit stays with us, albeit it’s puerile:
when Darwin saw squirrels, he saw more than Squirrel.
1. THE ANT
The ant, Darwin reminded us,
defies all simple-mindedness:
Take nothing (says the ant) on faith,
and never trust a simple truth.
The PR men of bestiaries
eulogized for centuries
this busy little paragon,
nature’s proletarian—
but look here, Darwin said: some ants
make slaves of smaller ants, and end
exploiting in their peonages
the sweating brows of their tiny drudges.
Thus the ant speaks out of both
sides of its mealy little mouth:
its example is extolled
to the workers of the world,
but its habits also preach
the virtues of the idle rich.
2. THE WORM
Eyeless in Gaza, earless in Britain,
lower than a rattlesnake’s belly-button,
deaf as a judge and dumb as an audit:
nobody gave the worm much credit
till Darwin looked a little closer
at this spaghetti-torsoed loser.
Look, he said, a worm can feel
and taste and touch and learn and smell;
and ounce for ounce, they’re tough as wrestlers,
and love can turn them into hustlers,
and as to work, their labors are mythic,
small devotees of the Protestant Ethic:
they’ll go anywhere, to mountains or grassland,
south to the rain forests, north to Iceland,
fifty thousand to every acre
guzzling earth like a drunk on liquor,
churning the soil and making it fertile,
earning the thanks of every mortal:
proud Homo sapiens, with legs and arms—
his whole existence depends on worms.
So, History, no longer let
the worm’s be an ignoble lot
unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
Moral: even a worm can turn.
3. THE RABBIT
a. Except in distress, the rabbit is silent,
but social as teacups: no hare is an island.
(Moral:
silence is golden—or anyway harmless;
rabbits may run, but never for Congress.)
b. When a rabbit gets miffed, he bounds in an orbit,
kicking and scratching like—well, like a rabbit.
(Moral:
to thine own self be true—or as true as you can;
a wolf in sheep’s clothing fleeces his skin.)
c. He populates prairies and mountains and moors,
but in Sweden the rabbit can’t live out of doors.
(Moral:
to know your own strength, take a tug at your shackles;
to understand purity, ponder your freckles.)
d. Survival developed these small furry tutors;
the morals of rabbits outnumber their litters.
(Conclusion:
you needn’t be brainy, benign, or bizarre
to be thought a great prophet. Endure. Just endure.)
4. THE GOSSAMER
Sixty miles from land the gentle trades
that silk the Yankee clippers to Cathay
sift a million gossamers, like tides
of fluff above the menace of the sea.
These tiny spiders spin their bits of webbing
and ride the air as schooners ride the ocean;
the Beagle trapped a thousand in its rigging,
small aeronauts on some elusive mission.
The Megatherium, done to extinction
by its own bigness, makes a counterpoint
to gossamers, who breathe us this small lesson:
for survival, it’s the little things that count.
”
”
Philip Appleman
“
Ahoy!” a seaman called out. “The English frigate Polaris, ten days out from Antigua, bound for Portsmouth.”
“Ahoy, yerself!” It was O’Shea’s rough brogue. She’d never heard sweeter music. “This be the clipper Sophia, of no particular country at the moment. Seven days out from Tortola, bound for…well, bound for here. Captain requests permission to board.”
Gray. It had to be Gray.
The officers of the Polaris exchanged wary looks.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake.” Sophia pushed forward to the ship’s rail and cupped her hands around her mouth, calling, “Permission to board granted!”
A cheer rose up from the other ship’s deck. “It’s her, all right!” a voice called. Stubb’s, Sophia thought.
Oh, but she hardly cared who was on the other deck. She cared only for the strong figure swinging across the watery divide as the two ships came abreast. Turning back toward the center of the ship, she pushed her way through the sweaty throng of sailors, desperate to get to him. Her foot caught on a rope, and she tripped-
But it didn’t matter. Gray was there to catch her.
And he was still wearing those sea-weathered, fire-scarred boots. No doubt for sentimental reasons.
“Steady there,” he murmured, catching her by the elbows. She looked up to meet his beautiful blue-green eyes. “I have you.”
“Oh, Gray.” She launched herself into his arms, clinging to his neck as he laughed and spun her around. “You’re here.”
“I’m here.”
And he was. Every strong, solid, handsome inch of him. Sophia buried her face in his throat, breathing in his scent. Lord, how she’d missed him.
She pulled away, bracing her hands on his shoulders to study his face. “I can’t believe you came after me.”
“I can’t believe you actually left.” He lowered her to the deck, and her hands slid to his arms. “I thought you were bluffing with that bit. I’d have never allowed you to go.
”
”
Tessa Dare (Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy, #2))
“
I don't know just where I'm going
But I'm goin' to try for the kingdom if I can
'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man
When I put a spike into my vein
Then I tell you things aren't quite the same
When I'm rushing on my run
And I feel just like Jesus' son
And I guess I just don't know
And I guess that I just don't know
I have made very big decision
I'm goin' to try to nullify my life
'Cause when the blood begins to flow
When it shoots up the dropper's neck
When I'm closing in on death
You can't help me not you guys
All you sweet girls with all your sweet talk
You can all go take a walk
And I guess I just don't know
And I guess I just don't know
I wish that I was born a thousand years ago
I wish that I'd sailed the darkened seas
On a great big clipper ship
Going from this land here to that
I put on a sailor's suit and cap
Away from the big city
Where a man cannot be free
Of all the evils in this town
And of himself and those around
Oh, and I guess I just don't know
Oh, and I guess I just don't know
Heroin, be the death of me
Heroin, it's my wife and it's my life
Because a mainer to my vein
Leads to a center in my head
And then I'm better off than dead
When the smack begins to flow
Then I really don't care anymore
About all the Jim-Jims in this town
And everybody putting everybody else down
And all of the politicians makin' crazy sounds
All the dead bodies piled up in mounds, yeah
Wow, that heroin is in my blood
And the blood is in my head
Yeah, thank God that I'm good as dead
Ooohhh, thank your God that I'm not aware
And thank God that I just don't care
And I guess I just don't know
And I guess I just don't know
- Heroin
”
”
Lou Reed (Pass Thru Fire: The Collected Lyrics)
“
In February, after not getting to see the boys for weeks and weeks, completely beside myself with grief, I went to plead to see them. Kevin wouldn't let me in. I begged him. Jayden James was five months old and Sean Preston was seventeen months old. I imagined their not knowing where their mother was, wondering why she didn't want to be with them. I wanted to get a battering ram to get to them. I didn't know what to do.
The paparazzi watched it all happen. I can't describe the humiliation I felt. I was concerned. I was out being chased, like always, by these men waiting for me to do something they could photograph.
And so that night I gave them some material.
I went into a hair salon, and I took the clippers, and I shaved off all my hair.
Everyone thought it was hilarious. Look how crazy she is! Even my parents acted embarrassed by me. But nobody seemed to understand that I was simply out of my mind with grief. My children had been taken away from me.
With my head shaved, everyone was scared of me, even my mom. No one would talk to me anymore because I was too ugly.
My long hair was a big part of what people liked-I knew that. I knew a lot of guys thought long hair was hot.
Shaving my head was a way of saying to the world: Fuck you. You want me to be pretty for you? Fuck you. You want me to be good for you? Fuck you. You want me to be your dream girl? Fuck you. I'd been the good girl for years. I'd smiled politely while TV show hosts leered at my breasts, while American parents said I was destroying their children by wearing a crop top, while executives patted my hand condescendingly and second-guessed my career choices even though I'd sold millions of records, while my family acted like I was evil. And I was tired of it.
At the end of the day, I didn't care. All I wanted to do was see my boys. It made me sick thinking about the hours, the days, the weeks I missed with them. My most special moments in life were taking naps with my children, That's the closest I've ever felt to God-taking naps with me precious babies, smelling their hair, holding their tiny hands.
”
”
Britney Spears (The Woman in Me)
“
Look at that ship. That clipper cost me a queen’s ransom, even with the Kestrel thrown in the bargain. But it was the fastest ship to be had.” He took her hands in his. “Forget money. Forget society. Forget expectations. We’ve no talent for following rules, remember? We have to follow our hearts. You taught me that.”
He gathered her to him, drawing her hands to his chest. “God, sweet, don’t you know? You’ve had my heart in your pocket since the day we met. Following my heart means following you. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth if I have to.” He shot an amused glance at the captain. “Though I’d expect your good captain would prefer I didn’t. In fact, I think he’d gladly marry us today, just to be rid of me.”
“Today? But we couldn’t.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Oh, but we could.” He pulled her to the other side of the ship, slightly away from the gaping crowd. Wrapping his arms around her, he leaned close to whisper in her ear, “Happy birthday, love.”
Sophia melted in his embrace. It was her birthday, wasn’t it? The day she’d been anticipating for months, and here she’d forgotten it completely. Until Gray had appeared on the horizon, she hadn’t been looking forward to anything.
But now she did. She looked forward to marriage, and children, and love and grand adventure. Real life and true passion. All of it with this man. “Oh, Gray.”
“Please say yes,” he whispered. “Sophia.” The name was a caress against her ear. “I love you.”
He kissed her cheek and pulled away. “I’ve been remiss in not telling you. You can’t know how I’ve regretted it. But I love you, Sophia Jane Hathaway. I love you as no man ever loved a woman. I love you so much, I fear I’ll burst with it. In fact, I think I shall burst if I go another minute without kissing you, so if you’ve any mind to say yes, I’d thank you to-“
Sophia flung her arms around his neck and kissed him. Hard at first, to quiet the fool man; then gently, to savor him. oh, how she loved the taste of him, like freshly baked bread and rum. Warm and wholesome and comforting, with just a hint of spice and danger. “Yes,” she sighed against his lips. She pulled back and looked into his eyes. “Yes, I will marry you.”
His arms tightened about her waist. “Today?”
“Today. But you must let me change my gown first.” Smiling, she stroked his smooth cheek. “You even shaved.”
“Every day since we left Tortola.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I’ve a few new scars to show for it.”
“Good.” She kissed him. “I’m glad. And I don’t care if society casts us out for the pirates we are, just as long as I’m with you.”
“Oh, I don’t know that we’ll be cast out, exactly. We’re definitely not pirates. After your stirring testimony”-he chucked her under the chin-“Fitzhugh decided to make the best of an untenable situation. Or an unhangable pirate, as it were. If he couldn’t advance on his career by convicting me, he figured he’d advance it by commending me. Awarded me the Kestrel as salvage and recommended me to the governor for a special citation of valor. There’s talk of knighthood.” He grinned. “Can you believe it? Me, a hero.”
“Of course I believe it.” She laced her fingers at the back of his neck. “I’ve always known it, although I should curse that judge and his ‘citation of valor.’ As if you needed a fresh supply of arrogance. Just remember, whatever they deem you-gentleman or scoundrel, hero or pirate-you are mine.”
“So I am.” He kissed her soundly, passionately. “And which would you prefer tonight?” At the seductive grown in his voice, shivers of arousal swept down to her toes. “Your gentleman? Your scoundrel? Your hero or your pirate?”
She laughed. “I imagine I’ll enjoy all four on occasion. But tonight, I believe I shall find tremendous joy in simply calling you my husband.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “My love.”
“That, too.
”
”
Tessa Dare (Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy, #2))
“
Once the icon appears, you can then easily start using it by logging in to your Evernote account on web clipper. Then every time you see some content on the internet that you’d like to save, simply click on the Web Clipper tab and it will give you a number of options to save it in the right notebooks and by tagging them appropriately. The Web Clipper also gives you the option to either save the whole page, just the URL or just the image or all of it. So you can
”
”
David Garcia (The Complete Guide to Evernote: Including Tips, Tutorials and other Evernote Essentials!)
“
El moribundo frente marítimo al final había sucumbido al perverso huracán Yankee Clipper de 1938.
”
”
Douglas Preston (Costa maldita (Pendergast, #15))
“
Then he realized with a sinking heart: If North Korea couldn’t make such a fine nail clipper, how could it compete with American weapons?
”
”
Barbara Demick (Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea)
“
As you know, I run all our committee applications through a background check.” “Didn’t you do that months ago?” Daphne interrupted. Meredith put a hand up. “Yes, I thought I had. Apparently the agency misfiled Amber’s. They ran it last week and called me today.” “And?” Daphne prodded. “And when they ran the social, they discovered that Amber Patterson has been missing for four years.” She held up a copy of a missing person flyer, with a photo of a young woman with dark hair and a round face, who looked nothing like Amber. “What? That must be some sort of mistake,” Daphne said. Amber kept quiet, but her heartbeat slowed. So that was all. She could work with this. Meredith sat up straighter. “No mistake. I called the Eustis, Nebraska, records department. Same social security number.” She pulled out a photocopy of an article from the Clipper-Herald with the headline “Amber Patterson Still Missing” and handed it to Daphne. “Want to tell us about it, Amber, or whatever your name is?” Amber put her hands up to her face and cried real tears of panic. “It’s not what you think.” She choked back a sob. “What is it, then?” Meredith’s tone was steely. Amber sniffled and wiped her nose. “I can explain. But not to her.
”
”
Liv Constantine (The Last Mrs. Parrish)
“
I didn't drink coffee but kept an old Mr. Coffee around because the Yankee Clipper, Joe DiMaggio, had endorsed them.
”
”
Bobby Underwood (Chance at Heaven)
“
But it was the discovery of gold in California in 1849 that caused the clipper ships to dominate travel on the high seas.
”
”
John Kretschmer (Cape Horn to Starboard)
“
check the computer inventory against the actual stores.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Quarter Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #1))
“
Patience hit down hard on one of Nova’s legs. As soon as the clippers made an impact with his leg, Nova farted and shit started to flow from his ass as he cried
”
”
Mz. Biggs (Married to the Community D)
“
In the early years, top incomes were derived from capital, and the richest people were what Piketty and Saez call “coupon clippers,” who received most of their incomes from dividends and interest. The fortunes underlying these receipts were eroded over the century by increasingly progressive income and estate taxes. Those who used to live off their (or their ancestors’) fortunes have been replaced at the top by earners, people like CEOs of large firms, Wall Street bankers, and hedge fund managers, who receive their incomes as salaries, bonuses, and stock options. Entrepreneurial
”
”
Angus Deaton (The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality)
“
RECEPTIONIST LOOKED RIGHT through me as I crossed the carpeted lobby between glass-cased tanker models and clipper ship prints. I winked at her, and she spun away on her swivel chair. The frosted doors to the inner sanctum had bronze fouled anchors mounted in place of handles, and I pushed through humming a sea chanty under my breath. “Yo ho, blow the man down …” Beyond
”
”
William Hjortsberg (Falling Angel)
“
Today, some farms actually collect fleece without using any shears at all by injecting a protein growth factor into the sheep’s skin. This factor causes the hair to fracture in the deep follicle, allowing the fleece to peel off without scissors or clippers—a very high-tech approach.
”
”
Kurt Stenn (Hair: A Human History)
“
Between 1931 and 1946, Pan American Airways had 28 flying boats known as “Clippers,” These four radial engine aircraft were S-40’s and 42’s built in 1934, later replaced by Boeing 314 Clippers, that became the familiar symbol of the company. Following the war, Pan American Airways flew land based airliners such as the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, developed from the C-97, Stratofreighter, and a military derivative of the B-29 Superfortress, used as a troop transport, and the DC-4 series, converted from the blueprints of the C-54 Skymaster. Both of these airliners were originally developed for the United States Army Air Corps, during World War II. On January 1950 Pan American Airways Corporation adopted the name it had been unofficially called since 1943, and formally became “Pan American World Airways, Inc.” That September Pan American bought out American Airlines’ overseas division and simultaneously placed an order for 45 DC-6Bs, replacing their DC-4’s. Throughout Pan-American was known simply as Pan-Am.
The Douglas DC-6 is a four engine “Double Wasp” radial piston-powered airliner manufactured for long flights. It was built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1946 until 1958. More than 700 were built between those years and some are still flying today. The rugged, reliable DC-6B, was regarded as the ultimate piston-engine airliner, from the perspective of having excellent handling qualities and relatively economical operations.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
Leaning down, I open the bottom drawer, rifling through the random things Hunter left behind until I find what I’m looking for. I knew he had one. Quickly, I pull it out, along with its long black cord. As I plug it in, she watches me curiously. Checking the settings, I set them to something in the middle—not too short. Then, I quickly flip it on and run the clippers along the middle of my head.
”
”
Sara Cate (Give Me More (Salacious Players Club, #3))
“
was terrible to think that way. She knew it. The guilt swamped her as she packed her kit alongside the guys. They gathered in the launch pad to load the Clipper, the Light Blade’s shuttle. It would have them on the planet’s surface in a matter of minutes. “The Cloud Cat is away,” Colin reported, entering the chamber. “They’ve sent Gabriel, Carly, and Chris, surprisingly. It’s actually good, because—” “Wait a minute,” Anna said sharply. “Let’s not discuss them right now.” Colin smiled icily. He did not like being told what to do. That should never be forgotten. But he stood quietly as the surface crew packed into the shuttle. Siena, Ravi, and
”
”
Kekla Magoon (Infinity Riders (Voyagers #4))
“
It also didn’t hurt that Diane wore jeans that were one size larger than painted on
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Quarter Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #1))
“
It made him think of his last summer on the farm and, for some reason, of the night his grandfather, uneasy, not understanding, but with love, had shaved his head at his request with a pair of ancient clippers. If that’s what you want, tiger.
”
”
Gretchen Felker-Martin (Manhunt)
“
There are rules in this house, honey.” He fumbles with a clipper lighter, lights a cigarette, and takes a long drag. He peers at me through the smoke. “You gonna stick to the rules?
”
”
Ria Rees (One Hundred: Words / Days / Stories)
“
There’s nothing in this workup that indicates any problem.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Double Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #4))
“
When I’m running, I can think. Tai chi stops thinking. You have to focus too much on the now. Hands, feet, weight, balance, tension or release. It’s just not possible to think while you’re doing tai chi. At least not if you want to do it well. Running, on the other hand, got my brain into full motion.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Double Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #4))
“
Lemme think about that trusting Billy part. There’s a terrible power in belief.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Double Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #4))
“
It’s not how well you dance, Ishmael,” Mom had said. “It’s whether or not you mean it.” With Alvarez, I meant it—every last bit of it.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Half Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #2))
“
She tried to teach me to see things as they are, not as I’d wish them to be, and that’s probably the hardest thing to do. I haven’t mastered it yet. Someday, maybe.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Half Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #2))
“
it’s taken a near disaster to get us out of that pattern.” “Usually does,” Rachel said, thinking of Richard. “Usually does.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (South Coast (Shaman's Tales From the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #1))
“
It’s because I don’t know much about this place and I’m constantly asking the kinds of questions that nobody else does because they already know the answers. I’m so dumb, I have to ask.
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Owner's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #6))
“
she made her money by being a shrewd judge of character. Mean people only see other people as mean. It’s all they know, and they distrust anybody who isn’t
”
”
Nathan Lowell (Owner's Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #6))