Sieve And The Sand Quotes

She leaned out of the window slow and sleepy, and the light came through her nightdress like sand through a sieve.

If you read fast and read all, maybe some of the sand will stay in the sieve.

What is terrifying, I think, about the World Government is not that the world is held under an iron fist, but that the world is sand scooped up in a sieve. The people running it have no more idea than us why there are lights in the sky above the Arby's or why there are ghost cars. Terrifying, right? I think the grand conspiracy of our world is just an argument between idiots.

The sages have a hundred maps to give That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree They rattle reason out through many a sieve That stores the sand but lets the gold go free And all these things are less than dust to me Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young. You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one saw: tell no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for titles. Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O yes, W. Remember your epiphanies written on green oval leaves, deeply deep, copies to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the world, including Alexandria? Someone was to read them there after a few thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della Mirandola like. Ay, very like a whale. When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once ... The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again a damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada. Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a midden of man's ashes. He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel: isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells. He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara's. Am I not going there? Seems not.

It was like an exercise in hope', she said after a pause. 'Loving her, I mean. Sometimes I'd think she'd come around. Sometimes I'd look her in the eyes and think that I was looking at a true friend. Then she'd say something, make some off-the-cuff comment, and the whole cycle would begin all over again. It was like pouring sand into a sieve. Nothing stuck.

Trumpets blared. ’Denham’s Dentifrice.’ Shut up, thought Montag. Consider the lilies of the field. ’Denham’s Dentifrice.’ They toil not — ’Denham’s —’ He tore the book open and flicked the pages and felt them as if he were blind, he picked at the shape of the individual letters, not blinking. ’Denham’s. Spelled: D-E-N —’ They toil not, neither do they … A fierce whisper of hot sand through empty sieve. ’Denham’s does it!’ Consider the lilies, the lilies, the lilies … ’Denham’s dental detergent.’ ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ It was a plea, a cry so terrible that Montag found himself on his feet, the shocked inhabitants of the loud car staring, moving back from this man with the insane, gorged face, the gibbering, dry mouth, the flapping book in his fist. The people who have been sitting a moment before, tapping their feet to the rhythm of Denham’s Dentifrice, Denham’s Dandy Dental Detergent, Denham’s Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice, one two, one two three, one two, one two three. The people whose mouths had been faintly twitching the words Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice. The train radio vomited upon Montag, in retaliation, a great ton-load of music made of tin, copper, silver, chromium, and brass. The people were pounded into submission; they did not run; there was no place to run; the great air-train fell down its shafts in the earth. ’Lilies of the field.’ ’Denham’s.’ ’Lilies, I said!’ The people stared. ’Call the guard.’ ’The man’s off —’ ’Knoll View!’ The train hissed to its stop. ’Knoll View!’ A cry. ’Denham’s.’ A whisper. Montag’s mouth barely moved. ‘Lilies …’ The train door whistled open. Montag stood. The door gasped, started shut. Only then did he leap past the other passengers, screaming his mind, plunge through the slicing door only in time. He rain on the white tiles up through the tunnels, ignoring the escalators, because he wanted to feel his feet move, arms swing, lungs clench, unclench, feel his throat go raw with air. A voice drifted after him, ‘Denham’s Denham’s Denham’s,’ the train hissed like a snake. The train vanished in its hole.

St. Lawrence River May 1705 Temperature 48 degrees During the march, when Mercy was finding the Mohawk language such a challenge and a pleasure to learn, Ruth had said to Eben, “I know why the powwow’s magic is successful. The children arrive ready.” The ceremony took place at the edge of the St. Francis river, smaller than the St. Lawrence but still impressive. The spray of river against rock, of ice met smashing into shore, leaped up to meet the rain. Sacraments must occur in the presence of water, under the sky and in the arms of the wind. There was no Catholic priest. There were no French. Only the language of the people was spoken, and the powwow and the chief preceded each prayer and cry with the rocking refrain Listen, listen, listen. Joanna tugged at Mercy’s clothes. “Can you see yet?” she whispered. “Who is it? Is he from Deerfield?” They were leading the boy forward. Mercy blinked away her tears and looked hard. “I don’t recognize him,” she said finally. “He looks about fourteen. Light red hair. Freckles. He’s tall, but thin.” “Hungry thin?” worried Joanna. “No. I think he hasn’t got his growth yet. He looks to be in good health. He’s handsomely made. He is not looking in our direction. He’s holding himself very still. It isn’t natural for him, the way it is for the Indians. He has to work at it.” “He’s scared then, isn’t he?” said Joanna. “I will pray for him.” In Mercy’s mind, the Lord’s Prayer formed, and she had the odd experience of feeling the words doubly: “Our Father” in English, “Pater Noster” in Latin. But Joanna prayed in Mohawk. Mercy climbed up out of the prayers, saying only to the Lord that she trusted Him; that He must be present for John. Then she listened. This tribe spoke Abenaki, not Mohawk, and she could follow little of it. But often at Mass, when Father Meriel spoke Latin, she could follow none of it. It was no less meaningful for that. The magic of the powwow’s chants seeped through Mercy’s soul. When the prayers ended, the women of John’s family scrubbed him in sand so clean and pale that they must have put it through sieves to remove mud and shells and impurities. They scoured him until his skin was raw, pushing him under the rough water to rinse off his whiteness. He tried to grab a lungful of air before they dunked him, but more than once he rose sputtering and gasping. The watchers were smiling tenderly, as one smiles at a new baby or a newly married couple. At last his mother and aunts and sisters hauled him to shore, where they painted his face and put new clothing, embroidered and heavily fringed, on his body. As every piece touched his new Indian skin, the people cheered. They have forgiven him for being white, thought Mercy. But has he forgiven them for being red? The rain came down harder. Most people lowered their faces or pulled up their blankets and cloaks for protection, but Mercy lifted her face into the rain, so it pounded on her closed eyes and matched the pounding of her heart. O Ruth! she thought. O Mother. Father. God. I have forgiven.

She's like sand slipping through your fingers, water through. sieve. You can't keep what you can never grasp.

Maybe part of feeling tired of trying is that on some level, we believe we have to try in order to be loved. When there is no strength left and we feel like a broken mess, we wonder what there could possibly be about us that God would want. We don’t want to live like this, and other people seem to be overwhelmed by the broken record of pain that has become our lives, so we just assume God feels the same way. Our souls can’t help but cry out, “How is this love? How can this be the way God wants my life to be?” Standing with empty hands and nothing but broken pieces of our former selves, we have important questions that need to be answered: Does anyone see me? Am I valuable? Am I worthy? Does anyone really love me, unconditionally? And we’re scared to death that the answer to all those questions is “No!” But we keep asking because we are made to seek answers. We ask our families, our friends, our churches, our leaders, and even social media. We perform for validation—for love—by trying harder, saying the right things, and playing the parts that have always brought the applause and approval our souls crave. But even when the people in our lives try to answer these questions for us, the answers never seem to be enough to make us feel seen, valuable, worthy, and loved. Every attempt slips quickly through our needy souls like sand in a sieve. God is the only one who can answer our questions and give us the validation we seek, but we’re not always on speaking terms with God when we feel like He has hurt our feelings. Even so, that doesn’t keep God from trying to get through to us.

But that’s the thing about Story that these guys don’t realize. She’s like sand slipping through your fingers. Water through a sieve.  You can’t keep what you can never grasp.