Needle English Quotes

Love is so small it can tear itself through the eye of a needle

his ability to do crosswords in English—it was the acid test of fluency in a foreign language.

How could I forget. I was her ghost daughter, sitting at empty tables with crayons and pens while she worked on a poem, a girl malleable as white clay. Someone to shape, instruct in the ways of being her. She was always shaping me. She showed me an orange, a cluster of pine needles, a faceted quartz, and made me describe them to her. I couldn’t have been more than three or four. My words, that’s what she wanted. ”What’s this?” she kept asking. ”What’s this?” But how could I tell her? She’d taken all the words. The smell of tuberoses saturated the night air, and the wind clicked through the palms like thoughts through my sleepless mind. Who am I? I am a girl you don’t know, mother. The silent girl in the back row of the classroom, drawing in notebooks. Remember how they didn’t know if I even spoke English when we came back to the country? They tested me to find out if I was retarded or deaf. But you never asked why. You never thought, maybe I should have left Astrid some words. I thought of Yvonne in our room, asleep, thumb in mouth, wrapped around her baby like a top. ”I can see her,” you said. You could never see her, Mother. Not if you stood in that room all night. You could only see her plucked eyebrows, her bad teeth, the books that she read with the fainting women on the covers. You could never recognize the kindness in that girl, the depth of her needs, how desperately she wanted to belong, that’s why she was pregnant again. You could judge her as you judged everything else, inferior, but you could never see her. Things weren’t real to you. They were just raw material for you to reshape to tell a story you liked better. You could never just listen to a boy playing guitar, you’d have to turn it into a poem, make it all about you.

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.' Matthew 19:24. This verse has always rather worried rich men who tend to ask themselves how much a really damned big needle would cost.

Villages in the English countryside were cut off by the snow,

How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

Redditch: Christ, I hadn't even expected to be here. I was only standing in Redditch 'cause I was told it was a no-hoper. They bloody-well lied. Needles everywhere, you know that? Half the world's needles, made in sodding.. I was holding out for Cheam, or Chester. A 'ch' place, a nice little English 'ch' place. Not 'Redditch', listen to that. It's not a name, it's a fucking noise. What is it, 'Redditch'? Sounds like a frog vomiting. And they told me it was Worcestershire, another lie! Atkins: It is Worcestershire. Redditch: Oh Humphrey, it's Birmingham. Everyone knows it is, listen to the sodding accent. I imagined meadows and steeples and farmyards and haystacks. Well, do you know what, shall I tell you something? You can't find a haystack in Redditch cause of all the fucking needles!

The several duties of instruction in this establishment were thus discharged. English grammar, composition, geography, and the use of the dumb-bells, by Miss Melissa Wackles; writing, arithmetic, dancing, music, and general fascination, by Miss Sophia Wackles; the art of needle-work, marking, and samplery, by Miss Jane Wackles; corporal punishment, fasting, and other tortures and terrors, by Mrs Wackles.

Have you heard the songs they sing here in Kilanga?” he asked. “They’re very worshipful. It’s a grand way to begin a church service, singing a Congolese hymn to the rainfall on the seed yams. It’s quite easy to move from there to the parable of the mustard seed. Many parts of the Bible make good sense here, if only you change a few words.” He laughed. “And a lot of whole chapters, sure, you just have to throw away.” “Well, it’s every bit God’s word, isn’t it?” Leah said. “God’s word, brought to you by a crew of romantic idealists in a harsh desert culture eons ago, followed by a chain of translators two thousand years long." Leah stared at him. “Darling, did you think God wrote it all down in the English of King James himself?” “No, I guess not.” “Think of all the duties that were perfectly obvious to Paul or Matthew in that old Arabian desert that are pure nonsense to us now. All that foot washing, for example. Was it really for God’s glory, or just to keep the sand out of the house?” Leah sat narrow-eyed in her chair, for once stumped for the correct answer. “Oh, and the camel. Was it a camel that could pass through the eye of a needle more easily than a rich man? Or a coarse piece of yarn? The Hebrew words are the same, but which one did they mean? If it’s a camel, the rich man might as well not even try. But if it’s the yarn, he might well succeed with a lot of effort, you see?” He leaned forward toward Leah with his hands on his knees. “Och, I shouldn’t be messing about with your thinking this way, with your father out in the garden. But I’ll tell you a secret. “When I want to take God at his word exactly, I take a peep out the window at His Creation. Because that, darling, He makes fresh for us every day, without a lot of dubious middle managers.

For the next half-hour or so there was nothing to be done but sit and suffer it. We had Madame Tetrazzini trilling about the hissing and sissing of the needle, like a princess at the back of a cave with the sea monster snuffling outside it. We had Señor Caruso searching bravely for The Lost Chord in a forest of alien English vowel sounds. We had McCormack’s Kathleen Mavourneen, Clara Butt longing for her Ain Folk in accents suggesting that they might be found somewhere south of Hyde Park, a tenor whose name I forgot summoning Jerusalem, Jerusalem, and everybody looking devout over their empty teacups.

Sand burns outside their windows in every direction. Compass needles spin in their twinned minds: everywhere they look, they are greeted by horizon, deep gulps of blue. People think of the green pastoral when they think of lovers in nature. Those English poets used the vales and streams to douse their lusts into verse. But the desert offers something that no forest brook or valley ever can: distance. A cloudless rooming house for couples. Skies that will host any visitors’ dreams with the bald hospitality of pure space. In terms of an ecology that can support two lovers in hot pursuit of each other, this is the place; everywhere you look, you’ll find monuments to fevered longing. Craters beg for rain all year long. Moths haunt the succulents, winging sticky pollen from flower to flower.

17 uAnd as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and  vknelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to  winherit eternal life?” 18And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 19You know the commandments:  x‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 20And he said to him, “Teacher,  yall these I have kept from my youth.” 21And Jesus,  zlooking at him,  aloved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go,  bsell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have  ctreasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 dDisheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. 23And Jesus  elooked around and said to his disciples,  f“How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter  gthe kingdom of God!” 24And the disciples  hwere amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again,  i“Children,  jhow difficult it is [2] to enter  gthe kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter  gthe kingdom of God.” 26And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, [3] “Then who can be saved?” 27Jesus  klooked at them and said,  l“With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.

Of course L has not been reading the Odyssey the whole time. The pushchair is also loaded with White Fang, VIKING!, Tar-Kutu: Dog of the Frozen North, Marduk: Dog of the Mongolian Steppes, Pete: Black Dog of the Dakota, THE CARNIVORES, THE PREDATORS, THE BIG CATS and The House at Pooh Corner. For the past few days he has also been reading White Fang for the third time. Sometimes we get off the train and he runs up and down the platform. Sometimes he counts up to 100 or so in one or more languages while eyes glaze up and down the car. Still he has been reading the Odyssey enough for a straw poll of Circle Line opinion on the subject of small children & Greek. Amazing: 7 Far too young: 10 Only pretending to read it: 6 Excellent idea as etymology so helpful for spelling: 19 Excellent idea as inflected languages so helpful for computer programming: 8 Excellent idea as classics indispensable for understanding of English literature: 7 Excellent idea as Greek so helpful for reading New Testament, camel through eye of needle for example mistranslation of very similar word for rope: 3 Terrible idea as study of classical languages embedded in educational system productive of divisive society: 5 Terrible idea as overemphasis on study of dead languages directly responsible for neglect of sciences and industrial decline and uncompetitiveness of Britain: 10 Stupid idea as he should be playing football: 1 Stupid idea as he should be studying Hebrew & learning about his Jewish heritage: 1 Marvellous idea as spelling and grammar not taught in schools: 24 (Respondents: 35; Abstentions: 1,000?) Oh, & almost forgot: Marvellous idea as Homer so marvellous in Greek: 0 Marvellous idea as Greek such as marvellous language: 0 Oh & also: Marvellous idea but how did you teach it to a child that young: 8

Not liking to think of him so, and wondering if they had guessed at dinner why he suddenly became irritable when they talked about fame and books lasting, wondering if the children were laughing at that, she twitched the stockings out, and all the fine gravings came drawn with steel instruments about her lips and forehead, and she grew still like a tree which has been tossing and quivering and now, when the breeze falls, settles, leaf by leaf, into quiet. It didn't matter, any of it, she thought. A great man, a great book, fame—who could tell? She knew nothing about it. But it was his way with him, his truthfulness—for instance at dinner she had been thinking quite instinctively, If only he would speak! She had complete trust in him. And dismissing all this, as one passes in diving now a weed, now a straw, now a bubble, she felt again, sinking deeper, as she had felt in the hall when the others were talking, There is something I want—something I have come to get, and she fell deeper and deeper without knowing quite what it was, with her eyes closed. And she waited a little, knitting, wondering, and slowly rose those words they had said at dinner, "the China rose is all abloom and buzzing with the honey bee," began washing from side to side of her mind rhythmically, and as they washed, words, like little shaded lights, one red, one blue, one yellow, lit up in the dark of her mind, and seemed leaving their perches up there to fly across and across, or to cry out and to be echoed; so she turned and felt on the table beside her for a book. And all the lives we ever lived And all the lives to be, Are full of trees and changing leaves, she murmured, sticking her needles into the stocking. And she opened the book and began reading here and there at random, and as she did so, she felt that she was climbing backwards, upwards, shoving her way up under petals that curved over her, so that she only knew this is white, or this is red. She did not know at first what the words meant at all. Steer, hither steer your winged pines, all beaten Mariners she read and turned the page, swinging herself, zigzagging this way and that, from one line to another as from one branch to another, from one red and white flower to another, until a little sound roused her—her husband slapping his thighs. Their eyes met for a second; but they did not want to speak to each other. They had nothing to say, but something seemed, nevertheless, to go from him to her. It was the life, it was the power of it, it was the tremendous humour, she knew, that made him slap his thighs. Don't interrupt me, he seemed to be saying, don't say anything; just sit there. And he went on reading. His lips twitched. It filled him. It fortified him. He clean forgot all the little rubs and digs of the evening, and how it bored him unutterably to sit still while people ate and drank interminably, and his being so irritable with his wife and so touchy and minding when they passed his books over as if they didn't exist at all. But now, he felt, it didn't matter a damn who reached Z (if thought ran like an alphabet from A to Z). Somebody would reach it—if not he, then another. This man's strength and sanity, his feeling for straight forward simple things, these fishermen, the poor old crazed creature in Mucklebackit's cottage made him feel so vigorous, so relieved of something that he felt roused and triumphant and could not choke back his tears. Raising the book a little to hide his face, he let them fall and shook his head from side to side and forgot himself completely (but not one or two reflections about morality and French novels and English novels and Scott's hands being tied but his view perhaps being as true as the other view), forgot his own bothers and failures completely in poor Steenie's drowning and Mucklebackit's sorrow (that was Scott at his best) and the astonishing delight and feeling of vigour that it gave him.

She looked strangely out of place here on a naval ship full of rough tars, her fine clothes and proud bearing reminding him that he had plucked her from a world he had never known, would never know, a world that was as different from anything he had ever inhabited—even when he was the Irish Pirate and celebrated, feted and entertained by some of the most influential leaders of patriot Boston—as ice was from flame. She was English quality. High-born and haughty, her father and now her brother, only one step down from a prince. Whereas he was just a poor Irishman trying to make a fresh start in a new and emerging country. She was, in short, unreachable. Untouchable. Unobtainable. No matter how heavily she invaded his thoughts, no matter how much he enjoyed needling her, no matter how hard his damned cock pushed against his breeches at the very sight of her.

pair of knitting needles,

The New England wilderness March 1, 1704 Temperature 10 degrees She had no choice but to go to him. She set Daniel down. Perhaps they would spare Daniel. Perhaps only she was to be burned. She forced herself to keep her chin up, her eyes steady and her steps even. How could she be afraid of going where her five-year-old brother had gone first? O Tommy, she thought, rest in the Lord. Perhaps you are with Mother now. Perhaps I will see you in a moment. She did not want to die. Her footsteps crunched on the snow. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. The Indian handed Mercy a slab of cornmeal bread, and then beckoned to Daniel, who cried, “Oh, good, I’m so hungry!” and came running, his happy little face tilted in a smile at the Indian who fed him. “Mercy said we’d eat later,” Daniel confided in the Indian. The English trembled in their relief and the French laughed. The Indian knelt beside Daniel, tossing aside Tommy’s jacket and dressing Daniel in warm clean clothing from another child. Nobody in Deerfield owned many clothes, and if she permitted herself to think about it, Mercy would know whose trousers and shirt these were, but she did not want to think about what dead child did not need clothes, so she said to the Indian, “Who are you? What’s your name?” He understood. Putting the palm of his hand against his chest, he said, “Tannhahorens.” She could just barely separate the syllables. It sounded more like a duck quacking than a real word. “Tannhahorens,” he said again, and she repeated it after him. She wondered what it meant. Indian names had to make a picture. She smiled carefully at the man she had thought was going to burn her alive as an example and said, “I’ll be right back, Tannhahorens.” She took a few steps away, and when he did nothing, she ran to her family. Her uncle swept her into his arms. How wonderful his scratchy beard felt! How strong and comforting his hug! “My brave girl,” he whispered, kissing her hair. “Mercy, they won’t let me help you.” In a voice as childish and puzzled as Daniel’s, he added, “They won’t let me help your aunt Mary, or Will and Little Mary either. I tried to help your brothers and got whipped for it.” He stammered: Uncle Nathaniel, whose reading choices from the Bible were always about war, and whose voice made every battle exciting. He needed her comfort as much as she needed his. “Uncle Nathaniel,” she said, “if I had done better, Tommy and Marah--” “Hush,” said her uncle. “The Lord set a task before you and you obeyed. Daniel is your task. Say your prayers as you march.” In a tight little pack behind Uncle Nathaniel stood her three living brothers. How small and cold they looked. Sam lifted his chin to encourage his sister and said, “At least we’re together. Do the best you can, Mercy. So will we.” They stared at each other, the two closest in age, and Mercy thought how proud their mother would be of Sam. “Mercy,” cried her brother John, panicking, “you have to go! Go fast,” he said urgently. “Your Indian is pointing at you.” Tannhahorens was watching her but not signaling. He isn’t angry, thought Mercy. I don’t have to be afraid, but I do have to return. “Find out your Indian’s name,” she said to her brothers. “It helps. Call him by name.” She took the time to hug and kiss each brother. How narrow their little shoulders; how thin the cloth that must keep them from freezing. She had to go before she wept. Indians did not care for crying. “Be strong, Uncle Nathaniel,” she said, touching the strange collar around his neck. “Don’t tug it,” he said wryly. “It’s lined with porcupine quill tips. If I don’t move at the right speed, the Indians give my leash a twitch and the needles jab my throat.” The boys laughed, pantomiming a hard jerk on the cord, and Mercy said, “You’re all just as mean as you ever were!” “And alive,” said Sam. When they hugged once more, she felt a tremor in him, deep and horrified, but under control.

Fulton laid a heavy hand on Emma’s knee, there in the larger of Chloe’s two parlors, and Emma quickly set it away. “God’s eyeballs, Emma,” Fulton complained in a sort of whiny whisper, “we’re practically engaged!” “It’s not proper to talk about God’s anatomy,” Emma said stiffly, squinting at the needlework in the stand in front of her before plunging the needle in. “And if you don’t keep your hands to yourself, you’ll just have to go home.” Fulton gave an exaggerated sigh. “You’d think a girl would learn something, living in the same house with Chloe Reese.” Emma’s dark blue eyes were wide with annoyance when she turned them on Fulton. “I beg your pardon?” “Well, I only meant—” “I know what you meant, Fulton.” “A man has a right to a kiss now and then, when he’s willing to promise the rest of his life to a woman!” Emma narrowed her eyes, planning to point out that he wasn’t the only one with a lifetime on the line, but before she could speak, Fulton grabbed her and pressed his dry mouth to hers. She squirmed, wondering why on earth those romantic English novels spoke of kissing as though it were something wonderful, and when she couldn’t get free, she poked Fulton in the hand with her embroidery needle. He gave a shout and jerked back, slapping at his hand as though a bug had lighted there. “Damn it all to perdition!” he barked. Emma calmly rethreaded her needle and went back to embroidering her nosegay. It was a lovely thing of pink, lavender, and white flowers, frothed in baby’s breath. It was never good to let a man get too familiar. “Good night, Fulton,” she said. Stiffly, Fulton stood. “Won’t you even do me the courtesy of walking me to the gate?” he grumbled. Thinking of the respectability that would be hers if she were to marry Fulton someday, Emma suppressed a sigh, secured her needle in the tightly drawn cloth, and rose to her feet. Her arm linked with his, she walked him to the gate. The

My Father, having liquidated the store, had some merchandise left, stuff which he could not dispose of in such a short span of time. We had a "servant's room" and there Father stashed cartons of scissors, combs, needles, all imported merchandise from Germany. Knives, scissors, needles, razor blades- all these goods were manufactured in the factories in Solingen and started to get scarcer since the war broke out. We actually lived on the proceeds of this liquidation for some time. However, it was going to run out and no new way of making a living was in sight. In the meantime, I started to teach English privately as there were many people, anxious to learn the language. Thus we got by, but times were uncertain and the future was troubling.

Conquest is the needle which stitched together virtually all of the “great nations” which we know today—allowing such multitribal hodgepodges as Germans, Russians, Arabs, Japanese, English, and French to convince themselves that they have always been ein Volk—one folk with a unique bloodline and history.

CHRISTMAS FUSS IN BARBADOS IN THE 70’S 1.BUY A BOTTLE OF FALERNUM 2.PUT DOWN CONGOLEUM IN THE SHEDROOF, AFTER SCRUBBING/VARNISHING THE FLOOR 3.WASH DOWN THE HOUSE AND CLEANED THE WINDOWS 4.BAKE GREAT CAKE AND PUDDING 5.GRATE COCONUTS TO MAKE SWEETBREAD 6.HUNG UP CURTAIN RODS/ NEW CURTAINS ON CHRISTMAS EVE 7.TRUST CREAM SACHETS IN FANCY BOTTLES/BIG WHEEL COLOGNE, SKIN SOFTENERS FROM AVON LADY 8.BUY ENGLISH APPLES AND A SHADDOCK FROM THE MARKET 9.WEED AROUND THE HOUSE 10. A CASE OF SOFT DRINKS-JU-C, FRUTEE, BIM, BBC GINGER, COKES 11.GO TO ELLIS QUARRY AND GET SOME MARL 12.PICK GREEN PEAS 13.STEEP SORREL 14.CHANGE THE CUSHION COVERS 15.SANDPAPER THE MAHOGANY CHAIRS 16.CLEAN THE CABINET AND WASHED ALL THE FINE CHINA 17.BUY HAM IN WHITE BURLAP BAG 18.DECANTER OF PORT WINE 19.PICK UP CLOTHES FROM THE NEEDLE WORKER 20.WASH AND PRESS HAIR 21.BUY PIECE OF FRESH PORK 2016

Light pierced her eyes like a thousand needles. Shea stumbled, then felt a strong hand close like a vise around her upper arm, preventing her from falling. Murmuring a thank you, she fumbled in her pocket for her dark glasses to cover her streaming eyes. “What are you doing here alone, unprotected?” The voice was pitched low, the dialect and accent eerily similar to Jacques’. Shea’s breath caught in her throat, and she struggled for release. The tall, dark-haired man merely pushed her into the shadows, her back to the wall of the building, his large frame easily blocking hers. “Who are you?” he asked. “You are small and fair for one of us.” His hand caught her chin so that she met the penetration of his sunglass-shaded eyes. “Your scent is familiar to me but elusive. How is it I did not know of your existence?” For just a moment satisfaction curved his mouth. “You are free. That is good.” “I don’t know you, sir, and you’re scaring me. I’m in a great hurry, so please let me go.” Shea used her coolest, most disdainful voice, and she deliberately spoke English. The man was enormously strong, and it terrified her. “I am Byron.” He gave only his first name, as if that should be enough. “I am a male of our race, you a single female. The sun is climbing, and you did not give yourself enough time to seek refuge from the dawn. I can do no other than help you, offer my protection.” He switched easily to heavily accented English. His voice seemed to slide right inside her. He gave the illusion of being a gentleman, so friendly, yet he had not released her or moved even an inch to allow her to get by him. He inhaled, dragged her scent into his lungs. Suddenly his entire demeanor changed. His body stiffened. His fingers dug into her arm. White teeth gleamed a predator’s flash of warning. “Why did you not answer me when I spoke to you?