“
Let's just say you may regret that second piece of cake.'
Oh my God. Regret cake? Whatever was about to happen must be truly evil.
”
”
Rachel Hawkins (Hex Hall (Hex Hall, #1))
“
Who're you going with, then?" said Ron.
"Angelina," said Fred promptly, without a trace of embarrassment.
"What?" said Ron, taken aback. "You've already asked her?"
"Good point," said Fred. He turned his head and called across the common room, "Oi! Angelina!"
Angelina, who had been chatting with Alicia Spinnet near the fire, looked over at him.
"What?" She called back.
"Want to come to the ball with me?"
Angelina gave Fred a sort of appraising look.
"All right, then," she said, and she turned back to Alicia and carried on chatting with a bit of a grin on her face.
"There you go," said Fred to Harry and Ron, "piece of cake.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4))
“
Debbie had to get up and slice me a thick piece of cake before she could answer. And I do mean thick. Harry Potter volume seven thick. I could have knocked out a burglar with this piece of cake. Once I tasted it, though, it seemed just the right size.
”
”
Maureen Johnson (Let It Snow)
“
SITTING TIGHT? Holing up? Waiting for answers?
Those are things I'm not good at.
Planning a massive attack against mechanical geeky-like things when i was already furious and itching to kill something?
Piece o'cake
”
”
James Patterson (Max (Maximum Ride, #5))
“
You see somethin' ya want, baby?"
"Maybe. I'm checking things out. Seeing if I'm interested," I shot back with my own evil grin.
"I see something I want," he drawled as he came toward me.
"You do?"
"Hell yeah, I do," he murmured. "I love chocolate." What? My excitement turned to confusion. His arm reached out beside me and took the piece of chocolate cake I'd brought him.
”
”
Abbi Glines (While It Lasts (Sea Breeze, #3))
“
Always remember the acronym for "FEAR" can mean one of two things: Fuck Everything And Run or Face Everything And Recover.
”
”
Cupcake Brown (A Piece of Cake)
“
Life's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World)
“
On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon
That night he had a stomach ache.
”
”
Eric Carle (The Very Hungry Caterpillar)
“
I feel good with my husband: I like his warmth and his bigness and his being-there and his making and his jokes and stories and what he reads and how he likes fishing and walks and pigs and foxes and little animals and is honest and not vain or fame-crazy and how he shows his gladness for what I cook him and joy for when I make him something, a poem or a cake, and how he is troubled when I am unhappy and wants to do anything so I can fight out my soul-battles and grow up with courage and a philosophical ease. I love his good smell and his body that fits with mine as if they were made in the same body-shop to do just that. What is only pieces, doled out here and there to this boy and that boy, that made me like pieces of them, is all jammed together in my husband. So I don't want to look around any more: I don't need to look around for anything.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
In Britain, a cup of tea is the answer to every problem.
Fallen off your bicycle? Nice cup of tea.
Your house has been destroyed by a meteorite? Nice cup of tea and a biscuit.
Your entire family has been eaten by a Tyrannosaurus Rex that has travelled through a space/time portal? Nice cup of tea and a piece of cake. Possibly a savoury option would be welcome here too, for example a Scotch egg or a sausage roll.
”
”
David Walliams (Mr Stink)
“
Observing and commenting, it is a piece of cake.
Experiencing and sharing, that is a piece of work.
”
”
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
“
Love is when you have a really amazing piece of cake, and it’s the very last piece, but you let him have it.
”
”
E. Lockhart (Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Weren't Complicated, I Wouldn't Be Ruby Oliver (Ruby Oliver, #4))
“
She talked about wanting to be a part of something, wanting to be desired, to be 'special', craving to be loved. She talked about experiencing the kind of loneliness so immense it could swallow you up. She called it 'loneliness that crowds couldn't cure'.
”
”
Cupcake Brown (A Piece of Cake)
“
All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece but not too much.
”
”
George Harrison (I, Me, Mine)
“
It's okay to be afraid. It's not okay to let the fear STOP you.
”
”
Cupcake Brown (A Piece of Cake)
“
In case you haven't noticed, as the result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut-jawed, pitiless war-lovers with appalling powerful weaponry - who stand unopposed.
In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazi's once were.
And with good reason.
In case you haven't noticed, our unelected leaders have dehumanized millions and millions of human beings simply because of their religion and race. We wound 'em and kill 'em and torture 'em and imprison 'em all we want.
Piece of cake.
In case you haven't noticed, we also dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class.
Send 'em anywhere. Make 'em do anything.
Piece of cake.
The O'Reilly Factor.
So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and a Chicago paper called "In These Times."
Before we attacked Iraq, the majestic "New York Times" guaranteed there were weapons of destruction there.
Albert Einstein and Mark Twain gave up on the human race at the end of their lives, even though Twain hadn't even seen the First World War. War is now a form of TV entertainment, and what made the First World War so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun.
Shrapnel was invented by an Englishman of the same name. Don't you wish you could have something named after you?
Like my distinct betters Einstein and Twain, I now give up on people too. I am a veteran of the Second World War and I have to say this is the not the first time I surrendered to a pitiless war machine.
My last words? "Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse."
Napalm came from Harvard. Veritas!
Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler.
What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations and made it all their own?
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (A Man Without a Country)
“
You're not looking for a partner," Ranger said. "You're looking for an enforcer. You hate to run. You must be worried about getting into that black dress. What did you eat just now? Piece of cake? Candy bar?"
"Everything," I said. "I just ate everything.
”
”
Janet Evanovich (High Five (Stephanie Plum, #5))
“
You know, people always warn children about taking candy from strange adults. But they never warn us adults about taking candy from strange children.
All those sweet-looking kids who sell boxes of candy bars on the street to help pay for schooling - how do we know what's in those bars? And don't even get me stated on that nefarious institution designed to lure unsuspecting customers into buying mysterious frosted goodies: the bake sale.
Adults, be warned: if a child wanted to poison you it would be a piece of cake! Literally a piece of cake.
”
”
Pseudonymous Bosch (This Book Is Not Good for You (Secret, #3))
“
In the beginning, I was put off by the harshness of German. Someone would order a piece of cake, and it sounded as if it were an actual order, like, 'Cut the cake and lie facedown in that ditch between the cobbler and the little girl'.
”
”
David Sedaris (Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls: Essays, Etc.)
“
There are those people who can eat one piece of chocolate, one piece of cake, drink one glass of wine. There are even people who smoke one or two cigarettes a week. And then there are people for whom one of anything is not even an option.
”
”
Abigail Thomas (Thinking About Memoir)
“
Adaptation is one of the great advantages to being born and bred in Jersey. We're simply not bested by bad air or tainted water. We're like that catfish with lungs. Take us out of our environment and we can grow whatever body parts we need to survive. After Jersey the rest of the country's a piece of cake. You want to send someone into a fallout zone? Get him from Jersey. He'll be fine.
”
”
Janet Evanovich (Three to Get Deadly (Stephanie Plum, #3))
“
There are so many people in this world that can be right for each other. If there weren’t, then cheating would never be an issue. Everyone would find their one true love and life would be great—relationships would be a piece of cake.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (This Girl (Slammed, #3))
“
I never in my life argued with a piece of cake or a bowl of ice cream.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Farewell Summer)
“
Piece of cake. Or toast, in your case. I'll stuff your toast, baby.
”
”
Chelsea M. Cameron (My Favorite Mistake (My Favorite Mistake, #1))
“
LADY LAZARUS
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
-- written 23-29 October 1962
”
”
Sylvia Plath (Ariel)
“
No matter what else you came up against, if you could smile and laugh while a monkey did you with chestnuts in a dank concrete basement while somebody took pictures, well, any other situation would be a piece of cake
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Choke)
“
Mr Freeman: "Art without emotion is like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag." He sticks his finger down his throat. "The next time you work on your trees, don't think about trees. Think about love, or hate, or joy, or pain- whatever makes you feel something, makes your palms sweat, or your toes curl. Focus on that feeling.
When people don't express themselves, they die on piece at a time. You'd be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside- walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a mack truck to come along and finish the job. It's the saddest thing I know.
”
”
Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak)
“
I am six years old and instead of celebrating with birthday cakes, I chew on a piece of charcoal.
”
”
Loung Ung
“
Ascribing meaning to life is a piece of cake compared to actually living it."
-from "Hear the Wind Sing
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Wind/Pinball: Two Novels)
“
Instead of asking WHY you had to do it, how about just thanking Him for safely bringing you THROUGH it.
”
”
Cupcake Brown (A Piece of Cake)
“
I'd learned not to put a question mark where God put a period.
”
”
Cupcake Brown (A Piece of Cake)
“
My attorney rubbed his hand across his mustache and the corners of his lips several times, as though the allegation was a piece of cake he’d just eaten that had deposited crumbs all over his mouth.
”
”
Alissa Nutting (Tampa)
“
How can you be afraid to feel? Isn’t fear a feeling? If you’re feeling fear, you’ve felt one of the most negative emotions there is to feel. Everything else should be a piece of cake.
”
”
Bashar
“
Meghan pushed her chocolate cheesecake across the table to me. I hadn’t gotten paid yet for November, so I had only ordered coffee. “Here,” she said.
“Don’t you want it?”
“Sure I want it. I ordered it. But I’m giving it to you.”
“Why?”
Meghan stood up and got me a fork. “Remember what Nora said about love? In your movie?”
“Love is when you have a really amazing piece of cake, and it’s the very last piece, but you let him have it,” I said.
“So it’s really amazing cake,” said Meghan. “And I want you to have it.
”
”
E. Lockhart (Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Weren't Complicated, I Wouldn't Be Ruby Oliver (Ruby Oliver, #4))
“
You do the foot work, and leave the results up to God.
”
”
Cupcake Brown (A Piece of Cake)
“
Love is a Heaven Cake, with clouds for icing. If there are two pieces left, I guess I can have seconds.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
“
Like slipping on a banana peel around a corner at eighty miles an hour. Piece of cake.
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (Steelheart (The Reckoners, #1))
“
I find the act of writing very painful. I can go a whole month without managing a single line, or write three days and nights straight, only to find the whole thing has missed the mark.
At the same time, though, I love writing. Ascribing meaning to life is a piece of cake compared to actually living it.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Hear the Wind Sing (The Rat, #1))
“
But what I was really thinking was that you talk about him like...like you talk about a piece of decadent chocolate cake.
”
”
Marissa Meyer (Heartless)
“
Once you give up your integrity, the rest is a piece of cake.
”
”
J.R. Ewing
“
You almost hold up your piece of paper and say, ‘The girl I like just gave me a treasure map to herself.’ But you don’t. You just don’t.
”
”
Laini Taylor (Night of Cake & Puppets (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1.5))
“
But there’s always been just a little tiny piece of me inside the size of a small slice of angel cake that knew somewhere somehow That I deserved better than someone like you.
”
”
Lana Del Rey (Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass)
“
I want you to make u and go halfzies on this cake. K? But. . . I want a piece too, so i guess we'll have to go thirdzies. . . Awwww, we're not going to be able to split the strawberry on top though. What should we do? Maybe I should just take it after all
strawberries are my favorite. . . oh! I forgot to ask Hiku-chan, Kau-chan do you like strawberries?
-Hunny
”
”
Bisco Hatori
“
If Evangeline had a dagger, she imagined she could have sliced into that night as if it were a cake and stolen a piece of it to take a bite of all the wondrous dark.
”
”
Stephanie Garber (Once Upon a Broken Heart (Once Upon a Broken Heart, #1))
“
Now, Hazel was not stupid. She knew that just because you see a piece of cake and a sign that says EAT ME doesn’t mean you should actually do it. And just because two giant ravens point you in the direction of a path doesn’t mean you should take it. But it was the only path she had.
”
”
Anne Ursu (Breadcrumbs)
“
She walks away, and I am too stunned to follow her. At the end of the hallways she turns and says, "Have a piece of cake for me, all right? The chocolate. It's delicious." She smiles a strange, twisted smile, and adds," I love you, you know." And then she's gone. I stand alone in the blue light coming from the lamp above me, and I understand: She has been to the compound before. She remembered this hallways. She knows about the initiation process. My mother was a dauntless.
”
”
Veronica Roth (Divergent (Divergent, #1))
“
Oprah got her money," she snapped. "You trying to get YOURS! No, turn off that fuckin' TV and get to studying!
”
”
Cupcake Brown (A Piece of Cake)
“
So what would you have asked for if you won?”
He doesn’t hesitate even one beat. “Your peanut butter chocolate cake with my name written in Reese’s Pieces.
”
”
Jenny Han (P.S. I Still Love You (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #2))
“
Everything isn’t a piece of cake. You say two plus two equals four, but do you know what happens when you add two piles of sand with two others, Tezee? You get one big pile of sand, not four!" - Aley
”
”
Shriya Sekhsaria (ONE- A Mos Maiorum Novel)
“
If you want self-esteem.” “Do estimable acts” ~ V, from A Piece of Cake: Memoir
”
”
Cupcake Brown
“
My girl looks at me like I'm a big piece of cake and she is the fattest kid in America craving me.
”
”
Toni Aleo (Boarded by Love (Bellevue Bullies, #1))
“
Why is every mom's concern about sex? There are more important things in life, like school, careers, poetry, books, ice cream, or learning how to make the perfect chocolate cake. It's so damn frustrating.
”
”
Isabel Quintero (Gabi, a Girl in Pieces)
“
Britain might be in the grip of rationing, but buying the materials for a homemade bomb was a piece of cake. (In fact, obtaining the ingredients for a decent cake would have been rather harder.)
”
”
Ben Macintyre (Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal)
“
It’s like this: if you have one piece of cake, and you eat it, that’s fine.
If you have two pieces of cake, you should probably share some with a friend. But maybe not. Occasionally we could all use two pieces of cake.
But if you have a whole cake, and you eat *all* of it, that’s not very cool. It’s not just selfish, it’s kinda sick and unhealthy.
”
”
Patrick Rothfuss
“
There are a lot of good things about dying. You are suddenly light and free and no longer afraid of death, sickness, judgement or religion; you don't have to grow up fated to replicate the lives of others.
But for the most important advantage of death is knowing something when I want to know it. Kon fayakon. Piece of cake. If I want to be somewhere, I am, just like that.
”
”
Shokoofeh Azar (The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree)
“
I wasn’t particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don’t have to die the next. All quite simple, if you want to look at it that way. Life’s no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe’s my own to fool with. Hence I can live with it. But after I’m dead, can’t I just lie in peace? Those Egyptian pharoahs had a point, wanting to shut themselves up inside pyramids.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World)
“
Oh, Kendra, before I forget, Gavin asked me to give you this letter." He held out a gray, speckled envelope.
"Happy birthday to you!" Seth exclaimed, his voice full of implications.
Kendra tried not to blush as she tucked the envelope away.
"Dear Kendra," Seth improvised, "you're the only girl who really gets me, you know, and I think you're very mature for your age--"
"What about some cake?" Grandma interrupted, holding the first piece out to Kendra and glaring at Seth.
”
”
Brandon Mull
“
I'm also getting a piece of chocolate cake...
"Can I have a bite?" he asked, his voice smooth and sexy.
A bite of what? she wanted to ask, but didn't. She wasn't ready for that level of flirting. "Get your own slice, Gallagher."
"I can do that, Blake. I'm in the mood for something sweet it seems.
”
”
Carrie Ann Ryan (Love Restored (Gallagher Brothers, #1))
“
Oh, get off the cross!” V shouted when I shared my thoughts with her on the phone. “We need the wood!
”
”
Cupcake Brown (A Piece of Cake)
“
It's a piece of cake, being a lawyer or a doctor or a computer systems analyst or an accountant. Libraries are full of books telling you how to do it. The only textbooks for private eyes are on fiction shelves, and I don't remember ever reading one that told me how to interrogate an eight-year old without feeling like I was auditioning for the Gestapo.
”
”
Val McDermid (Crack Down (Kate Brannigan, #3))
“
I want you to make up and go halfzies on this cake, K? But... I want a piece too, so I guess we'll have to go thirdzies... Awwwwwwww, we're not going to be able to the strawberry on top though. What should we do? Maybe I should just take it after all strawberries are my favorite... oh! I forgot to ask Hiku-chan, Kau-chan, do you like strawberries?"
-Hunny
”
”
Bisco Hatori
“
What I do know is that love, real love, true unconditional love, transcends age, race, and religious beliefs. It sees the good, focuses on the good, and constantly emphasizes it.
”
”
Cupcake Brown (A Piece of Cake)
“
You guys are like drug dealers peddling adrenaline
”
”
Mary Calmes (Piece of Cake (A Matter of Time, #8))
“
We think there's a reason for everything, as if life was supposed to make sense. It's not exactly math. People aren't numbers. Everybody knows life doesn't make any sense at all, so we just better deal with the whole mess. Have a beer. Have a cup of coffee. Have a piece of cake. Go out to a movie. Enjoy the Popcorn.
”
”
Benjamin Alire Sáenz (He Forgot to Say Goodbye)
“
I don't know what happened. One minute, I was dreamin' about a fat piece of George Clooney and a hot date with some brown sugar pound cake, and the next thing I knew, the house was coming down on us.
”
”
Kami Garcia
“
It's just... I know we don't believe in soulmates," she says. "There are so many people in this world that can be right for each other. If there weren't, then cheating would never be an issue. Everyone would find their one true love and life would be great - relationships would be a piece of cake. But that's not how it is in reality, and I realize this. So... it just hurts, okay? It hurts me to know that there are other women out there in the world that could make you happy. I know it's immature and I was being petty and jealous, but... I just want to be your only one. I want to be your soulmate, even if I don't believe in them.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (This Girl (Slammed, #3))
“
My grandmother say you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas. A hard head makes a soft behind. Life is like a box of chocolates you never know what you're going to get.
”
”
Cupcake Brown (A Piece of Cake)
“
All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much.
”
”
George Harrison
“
Where there's cake, there's hope.
”
”
Lucy Dillon (A Hundred Pieces of Me)
“
Take the broken pieces of your life, bake a master cake out of it. Don't stand still like a lake; keep flowing like a stream!
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Dream big!: See your bigger picture!)
“
Humans will be like decayed gentry. We'll have the glorious mansion called the past that is falling into disrepair. We'll have a piece of land that we didn't look after very well called the planet. And we'll have some nice clothes and a lot of stories. We'll be fading aristocracy. We'll be Blanche Dubois in a moth-eaten silk dress. We'll be Marie Antionette with no cake.
”
”
Jeanette Winterson (Frankissstein: A Love Story)
“
Giving someone the benefit of the doubt is not so simple as it sounds. What it means, in fact, is being charitable--which, as the vicar is fond of pointing out, is the most difficult of the graces to master. Faith and hope are a piece of cake but charity is a Pandora's box: the monster in the cistern which, when the lid is opened, comes swarming out to seize you by the throat.
”
”
Alan Bradley (Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd (Flavia de Luce, #8))
“
God?" said Kate, revolted. "You don't look like any god to me, Christopher Heron! You look like a piece of gilded gingerbread, that's what you look like, one of those cakes they sell at a fair!
”
”
Elizabeth Marie Pope (The Perilous Gard)
“
The weather had freshened almost to coldness, for the wind was coming more easterly, from the chilly currents between Tristan and the Cape; the sloth was amazed by the change; it shunned the deck and spent its time below. Jack was in his cabin, pricking the chart with less satisfaction than he could have wished: progress, slow, serious trouble with the mainmast-- unaccountable headwinds by night-- and sipping a glass of grog; Stephen was in the mizentop, teaching Bonden to write and scanning the sea for his first albatross. The sloth sneezed, and looking up, Jack caught its gaze fixed upon him; its inverted face had an expression of anxiety and concern. 'Try a piece of this, old cock,' he said, dipping his cake in the grog and proffering the sop. 'It might put a little heart into you.' The sloth sighed, closed its eyes, but gently absorbed the piece, and sighed again.
Some minutes later he felt a touch upon his knee: the sloth had silently climbed down and it was standing there, its beady eyes looking up into his face, bright with expectation. More cake, more grog: growing confidence and esteem. After this, as soon as the drum had beat the retreat, the sloth would meet him, hurrying toward the door on its uneven legs: it was given its own bowl, and it would grip it with its claws, lowering its round face into it and pursing its lips to drink (its tongue was too short to lap). Sometimes it went to sleep in this position, bowed over the emptiness.
'In this bucket,' said Stephen, walking into the cabin, 'in this small half-bucket, now, I have the population of Dublin, London, and Paris combined: these animalculae-- what is the matter with the sloth?' It was curled on Jack's knee, breathing heavily: its bowl and Jack's glass stood empty on the table. Stephen picked it up, peered into its affable bleary face, shook it, and hung it upon its rope. It seized hold with one fore and one hind foot, letting the others dangle limp, and went to sleep.
Stephen looked sharply round, saw the decanter, smelt to the sloth, and cried, 'Jack, you have debauched my sloth.
”
”
Patrick O'Brian (H.M.S. Surprise (Aubrey & Maturin #3))
“
The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses.To explain — since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation — every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake. The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife.
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1))
“
Peachy. Alrighty, then. She’d just get in her car, run home to check her clothes, hair, and makeup, walk across the street to Jason’s apartment, knock on his door, stare at his masculine hotness in stupid adoration, probably insert her foot into her mouth fifty-five times in under five minutes, then go back to her place and relive the embarrassment all night long while replaying what she should’ve done or said had she been a sophisticated woman, instead of a blundering moron.
Done and done. Piece of cake.
”
”
Kelly Moran (Residual Burn (Redwood Ridge, #4))
“
That's just it, Eva said with a gleam in her eyes that matched the rhinestones on her glasses, you had to get somebody to teach you, to facilitate. Literacy wasn't like a piece of my mama's lemon cake you handed over to somebody on a plate.
”
”
Minrose Gwin (The Queen of Palmyra)
“
Comfort eating or pure greed? Most likely a mixture of both. Pieces of cake or biscuits or chocolate could instantly sweeten the sourness of my life. If you have been called gay all day in the playground, a cake when you returned home from school offered some consolation. A fairy cake of course.
”
”
David Walliams (Camp David)
“
While she pleaded for him not to cut through her name, he sliced enormous pieces of cake and plopped them on paper plates. Staring into each other’s eyes, they broke off bites and stuffed them in their mouths. Smacking loudly. Licking fingers. Laughing through icing-smeared grins. Eating cake the way it should be eaten, the way everybody wants to eat it.
”
”
Delia Owens (Where the Crawdads Sing)
“
I think about how lonely I am without you. How boring my day is without you. How much I miss hearing your voice and your laugh. How much I miss listening to music and eating cake with you.” We smiled shyly at each other. His gaze lifted, looking directly into my eyes. “I miss taking care of you,” he hesitated for a moment. “I miss my best friend and I want her back in my life.” His words glued every piece of my shattered heart back together.
”
”
Alison G. Bailey (Present Perfect (Perfect, #1))
“
Eddie saw great things and near misses. Albert Einstein as a child, not quite struck by a run-away milk-wagon as he crossed a street. A teenage boy named Albert Schweitzer getting out of a bathtub and not quite stepping on the cake of soap lying beside the pulled plug. A Nazi Oberleutnant burning a piece of paper with the date and place of the D-Day Invasion written on it. He saw a man who intended to poison the entire water supply of Denver die of a heart attack in a roadside rest-stop on I-80 in Iowa with a bag of McDonald’s French fries on his lap. He saw a terrorist wired up with explosives suddenly turn away from a crowded restaurant in a city that might have been Jerusalem. The terrorist had been transfixed by nothing more than the sky, and the thought that it arced above the just and unjust alike. He saw four men rescue a little boy from a monster whose entire head seemed to consist of a single eye.
But more important than any of these was the vast, accretive weight of small things, from planes which hadn’t crashed to men and women who had come to the correct place at the perfect time and thus founded generations. He saw kisses exchanged in doorways and wallets returned and men who had come to a splitting of the way and chosen the right fork. He saw a thousand random meetings that weren’t random, ten thousand right decisions, a hundred thousand right answers, a million acts of unacknowledged kindness. He saw the old people of River Crossing and Roland kneeling in the dust for Aunt Talitha’s blessing; again heard her giving it freely and gladly. Heard her telling him to lay the cross she had given him at the foot of the Dark Tower and speak the name of Talitha Unwin at the far end of the earth. He saw the Tower itself in the burning folds of the rose and for a moment understood its purpose: how it distributed its lines of force to all the worlds that were and held them steady in time’s great helix. For every brick that landed on the ground instead of some little kid’s head, for every tornado that missed the trailer park, for every missile that didn’t fly, for every hand stayed from violence, there was the Tower.
And the quiet, singing voice of the rose. The song that promised all might be well, all might be well, that all manner of things might be well.
”
”
Stephen King (Wolves of the Calla (The Dark Tower, #5))
“
Where is Frankie, anyway?" Dad asks. "It's almost noon. I'm surprised you two can stand the separation."
I take a deep breath and gulp down some orange juice.
Well, Dad, first Frankie lied to me about losing her virginity to the foreign exchange student on the soccer field, and how your first time can't be special and all that. Then we decided to have this twenty boy contest but we only met, like, half, and she lied again about sleeping with one of them when really they just kind of fooled around naked and broke up. Meanwhile, when I was casting off my virginity with boy number five (or was he six?), Frankie read my journal and found out that I was in love with Matt for a million years and by the way, right after you took that picture of us with all the cake and frosting, he kissed me and started this whole long thing that we weren't allowed to tell her about. Frankie was so mad that she threw my journal into the bottom of the ocean, where it was banished for all eternity with a lovesick mermaid who cries out pieces of sea glass. Are you going to eat that bacon?
...
"I'll probably see her later," I say.
”
”
Sarah Ockler (Twenty Boy Summer)
“
I told her that we go to work to provide for our families, attend school functions that our children are involved in, take a few pieces of cake we just baked over to our neighbor next door, drive our children to school in the morning. “No! No!” She said. “How do you worship?” I said we make love to our spouses, smile and greet someone we pass on the street, help our children with their homework, hold open a door for someone behind us. “Worship! I’m asking about worship!” She exclaimed. I asked her exactly what she had in mind. “You know-Rituals!” She insisted. I answered her that we practice those also and that they are a very important part of Muslim worship. I was not trying to frustrate her, but I answered her in this way in order to emphasize Islam’s comprehensive conception of worship.
”
”
Jeffrey Lang (Even Angels Ask: A Journey to Islam in America)
“
Suddenly being her age seemed great. She didn't have to look perfect. Hooray And think of all the senior discounts she had to look forward to not to mention Social Security Medicare and Medicaid. So what if she was afraid of getting old Big whoopdedoowho wasn't She wasn't alone everybody her age was in the same boat. She was going to relax and just let herself get older. Who cared if she wore twoinch heels instead of 3andahalf inch heels her feet hurt and not only that she was going to have a piec eof cake once in a while and she wasn't going to go anywhere she didn't feel like going anymore either. Bring on the Depends And the bunion pads and the Metamucil. And if she liked pretty music and old movies so what She wasn't hurting anyone.
Hazel had always said "If you're still breathing you're ahead of the game." And she'd been right. Life itself was something to look forward to and so for whatever time she had left she was going to enjoy every minute wrinkles and all. What a concept
”
”
Fannie Flagg (I Still Dream About You)
“
Julia", I answered breathlessly.
"Chloe, are you in the bathroom fucking that nice slice of man cake?"
"I'll be there in a second, okay?" I ended the call and shoved the phone back into my bag. I looked up at him, feeling my rational side return after the small interruption. "I should go."
"Look, I-" He was cut off as my phone rang again. I answered without bothering to look at the screen.
"God, Julia! I’m not in here fucking the piece of man cake!"
"Chloe?" Joel's confused voice sounded through the phone.
"Oh... hi." Shit. This could not be happening to me.
”
”
Christina Lauren (Beautiful Bastard (Beautiful Bastard, #1))
“
Apples
Ma's apple blossoms
have turned to hard green balls.
To eat them now,
so tart,
would turn my mouth inside out,
would make my stomach groan.
But in just a couple months,
after the baby is born,
those apples will be ready
and we'll make pies
and sauce
and pudding
and dumplings
and cake
and cobbler
and have just plain apples to take to school
and slice with my pocket knife
and eat one juicy piece at a time
until my mouth is clean
and fresh
and my breath is nothing but apple.
June 1934
”
”
Karen Hesse (Out of the Dust)
“
When you eat a carrot that is nothing but carrot it zooms through your system as a carrot. When you eat a piece of mass-produced carrot cake that contains 32 ingredients, your metabolism screeches to a halt while your body tries to figure out what all those things are that you just swallowed, and what it is supposed to do with them. Therefore, the problem isn’t “fat”, its piles of excess ingredients your body’s stacked on shelves and vowed to sort out later.
”
”
Cathy Guisewite
“
FOOD: See STEW, SCURVY, STEW, WAYBREAD (also known as Journey Cake) and STEW - though there are occasional BIRDS, FISH, RABBITS and pieces of cheese. Generally the diet is an unvaried one, although MARSH DWELLERS can work wonders with ROOTS. Puddings are unknown except occasionally in the Courts of KINGS. Tourists who suffer from diabetes should be quite safe.
”
”
Diana Wynne Jones (The Tough Guide to Fantasyland)
“
A stone lies in a river; a piece of wood is jammed against it; dead leaves, drifting logs, and branches caked with mud collect; weeds settle there, and soon birds have made a nest and are feeding their young among the blossoming water plants. Then the river rises and the earth is washed away. The birds depart, the flowers wither, the branches are dislodged and drift downward; no trace is left of the floating island but a stone submerged by the water; — such is our personality.
”
”
Cyril Connolly (The Unquiet Grave: A Word Cycle by Palinurus)
“
Our poor human heart is flawed: it is like a cake without the frosting: the first two acts of the theatre without the climax. Even its design is marred for a small piece is missing out of the side. That is why it remains so unsatisfied: it wants life and it gets death: it wants Truth and it has to settle for an education; it craves love and gets only intermittent euphoria’s with satieties. Samples, reflections and fractions are only tastes, not mouthfuls. A divine trick has been played on the human heart as if a violin teacher gave his pupil an instrument with one string missing. God kept a part of man's heart in Heaven, so that discontent would drive him back again to Him Who is Eternal Life, All-Knowing Truth and the Abiding Ecstasy of Love.
”
”
Fulton J. Sheen
“
Rawls became famous for creating a new definition of justice, which boils down to this: a society is fair if it looks like something we would design before knowing how we would come into the world. He imagined a fictional “original position,” the position we would be in if we were told we were about to be born, but were not told about the circumstances we would be born into—how tall or short we would be, or of what race or nationality, or what resources or personal qualities we would have. This vision of justice is often compared to being asked how you would want a cake to be divided if you did not know which piece will be yours: equally, of course.
”
”
Pete Buttigieg (Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future)
“
From the railway station far away the sharp clang of a bell...In half an hour the train starts, and there is so much still to say that has been left unsaid...The mothers, fearful and fussy, look for their sons in among the crowd like hens in search of their chicks; their wizened faces are hard and wrinkled like winter apples, they carry huge baskets on their arms, over-filled with the last delicacies which their fond, toil-worn hands will prepare for the beloved son for the next three years:--a piece of smoked bacon, a loaf of rye bread, a cake of maize-flour.
The gypsies have struck up a melancholy Magyar folksong: the crowd breaks up in isolated groups, mothers and father with their sons whisper in the dark corners of the bran. The father who did his service thirty years ago gives sundry good advice—no rebellion, quiet obedience, no use complaining or grumbling, the three years are quickly over. The mother begs her darling not to give way to drink, and not to get entangled with one of the hussies in the towns; women and wine, the two besetting temptations that assail the Magyar peasant—let the darling boy resist both for his sorrowing mother’s sake.
”
”
Emmuska Orczy (A Bride of the Plains)
“
The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses.
To explain — since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation — every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake.
The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife.
Trin Tragula — for that was his name — was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.
And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space, or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectrographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake.
“Have some sense of proportion!” she would say, sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day.
And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex — just to show her.
And into one end he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake, and into the other end he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it.
To Trin Tragula’s horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.
”
”
Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy omnibus 2: Tot ziens en bedankt voor de vis / Grotendeels ongevaarlijk / En dan nog iets… (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #4-6))
“
Take this. When you’re ready, I want to put it on your finger. I want you to meet my son. I want you to let me bring you into my world – because I need you there. The media crap is just PR. Piece of cake for you, trust me. There are a hundred people ready to help us nail it. Let me help you rebuild your faith, because that’s who you are, and I love who you are.
‘Remember last fall, when you needed to be reckless, and I told you to use me? Well, now, it’s time to be fearless. I can’t promise that you won’t be hurt again, because life can suck. And, sometimes, it hurts like hell. I’m asking you to have faith in one thing, for now: the fact that when we’re alone, I’m just Reid, and you’re just Dori, and we’re going to love each other for the rest of our lives.’
She’s staring at me, the velvet-covered box clutched in her hand. I lean forward and kiss her, tasting her tears or my own, I don’t know which. ‘Come to me when you’re ready to be fearless. Unless you can look me in the eye right now and tell me you don’t love me.’
Lower lip trembling, she says nothing, and I kiss her again before I leave.
”
”
Tammara Webber (Here Without You (Between the Lines, #4))
“
You saved me, you should remember me.
The spring of the year; young men buying tickets for the ferryboats.
Laughter, because the air is full of apple blossoms.
When I woke up, I realized I was capable of the same feeling.
I remember sounds like that from my childhood,
laughter for no cause, simply because the world is beautiful,
something like that.
Lugano. Tables under the apple trees.
Deckhands raising and lowering the colored flags.
And by the lake’s edge, a young man throws his hat into the water;
perhaps his sweetheart has accepted him.
Crucial
sounds or gestures like
a track laid down before the larger themes
and then unused, buried.
Islands in the distance. My mother
holding out a plate of little cakes—
as far as I remember, changed
in no detail, the moment
vivid, intact, having never been
exposed to light, so that I woke elated, at my age
hungry for life, utterly confident—
By the tables, patches of new grass, the pale green
pieced into the dark existing ground.
Surely spring has been returned to me, this time
not as a lover but a messenger of death, yet
it is still spring, it is still meant tenderly.
”
”
Louise Glück
“
My wife and I had called on Miss Stein, and she and the friend who lived with her had been very cordial and friendly and we had loved the big studio with the great paintings. I t was like one of the best rooms in the finest museum except there was a big fireplace and it was warm and comfortable and they gave you good things to eat and tea and natural distilled liqueurs made from purple plums, yellow plums or wild raspberries.
Miss Stein was very big but not tall and was heavily built like a peasant woman. She had beautiful eyes and a strong German-Jewish face that also could have been Friulano and she reminded me of a northern I talian peasant woman with her clothes, her mobile face and her lovely, thick, alive immigrant hair which she wore put up in the same way she had probably worn it in college. She talked all the time and at first it was about people and places.
Her companion had a very pleasant voice, was small, very dark, with her hair cut like Joan of Arc in the Boutet de Monvel illustrations and had a very hooked nose. She was working on a piece of needlepoint when we first met them and she worked on this and saw to the food and drink and talked to my wife. She made one conversation and listened to two and often interrupted the one she was not making. Afterwards she explained to me that she always talked to the wives. The wives, my wife and I felt, were tolerated. But we liked Miss Stein and her friend, although the friend was frightening. The paintings and the cakes and the eau-de-vie were truly wonderful. They seemed to like us too and treated us as though we were very good, well-mannered and promising children and I felt that they forgave us for being in love and being married - time would fix that - and when my wife invited them to tea, they accepted.
”
”
Ernest Hemingway (A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition)
“
Like I said last time, the world our parents grew up in is history. All the old rules, we've thrown them out. We're the ones making the future. We're the founding fathers. Hand us universal Wi-Fi and soup dumplings and we'll fix the world.
So how do you fit in? What if you can't code? What if you've never been able to build anything more than a birdhouse? It doesn't matter. You've got skills that you probably disniss as tricks. That dance you can do, that song you can sing, the painting hanging in your room, those are all skills we need.
See there's a reason my status online is recruiting for the future.
We broke some eggs and we baked a cake. It was delicious, really amazing cream cheese frosting. I saved you a piece, but I don't want to give it to you. I want to teach you how to bake your own cake from scratch. Only, instead of flour and water and eggs, I want you to make something with oil paints, yarn, peptides, or computer parts.
The revolution is now. Welcome aboard. And, uh, get ready to create...
”
”
Leopoldo Gout (Genius: The Revolution (Genius, 3))
“
At five minutes to five,Jim walked into Mary's office, wearing his gray sweater and balancing four pieces of birthday cake on two plates. He put the plates down on Mary's empty desk and glanced at the doorway to Nick's office. "Where's Mary?" he asked.
"She left almost an hour ago," Lauren said. "She said to tell you that the nearest fire extinguisher is beside the elevators-whatever that means. I'll be right back.I have to take these letters in to Nick."
As she got up and started around the desk, she was looking down at the letters in her hand,and what happened next stunned her into immobility. "I miss you,darling," Jim said, quickly pulling her into his arms.
A moment later he released her so suddenly that Lauren staggered back a step. "Nick!" he said. "Look at the sweater Lauren gave me for my birthday. She made it herself.And I brought you a piece of my birthday cake-she made that too." Seemingly oblivious to Nick's thunderous countenance,he grinned and added, "I have to get back downstairs." To Lauren he said, "I'll see you later, love." And then he walked out.
In a state of shock, Lauren stared at his retreating back.She was still staring after him when Nick spun her around to face him. "You viindictive little bitch,you gave him my sweater! What else has he gotten that belongs to me?"
"What else?" Lauren repeated, her voice rising. "What are you talking about?"
His hands tightened. "Your delectiable body, my sweet.That's what I'm talking about."
Lauren's amazement gave way to comprehension and then to fury. "How dare you call me names, you hypocrite!" she exploded, too incensed to be afraid. "Ever since I've known you, you've been telling me that there's nothing promiscuous about a woman satisfying her sexual desires with any man she pleases.And now-" she literally choked on her wrath "-and now,when you think I've done it,you call me a dirty name. You of all people-you,the United States contender for the bedroom Olympics!
”
”
Judith McNaught (Double Standards)
“
Then Bacchus and Silenus and the Maenads began a dance, far wilder than the dance of the trees; not merely a dance of fun and beauty (though it was that too) but a magic dance of plenty, and where their hands touched, and where their feet fell, the feast came into existence- sides of roasted meat that filled the grove with delicious smells, and wheaten cakes and oaten cakes, honey and many-colored sugars and cream as thick as porridge and as smooth as still water, peaches, nectarines, pomegranates, pears, grapes, straw-berries, raspberries- pyramids and cataracts of fruit. Then, in great wooden cups and bowls and mazers, wreathed with ivy, came the wines; dark, thick ones like syrups of mulberry juice, and clear red ones like red jellies liquefied, and yellow wines and green wines and yellow-green and greenish-yellow.
But for the tree people different fare was provided. When Lucy saw Clodsley Shovel and his moles scuffling up the turf in various places (when Bacchus had pointed out to them) and realized that the trees were going to eat earth it gave her rather a shudder. But when she saw the earths that were actually brought to them she felt quite different. They began with a rich brown loam that looked almost exactly like chocolate; so like chocolate, in fact, that Edmund tried a piece of it, but he did not find it all nice. When the rich loam had taken the edge off their hunger, the trees turned to an earth of the kind you see in Somerset, which is almost pink. They said it was lighter and sweeter. At the cheese stage they had a chalky soil, and then went on to delicate confections of the finest gravels powdered with choice silver sand. They drank very little wine, and it made the Hollies very talkative: for the most part they quenched their thirst with deep draughts of mingled dew and rain, flavored with forest flowers and the airy taste of the thinnest clouds.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (Prince Caspian (Chronicles of Narnia, #2))