Slab Boy Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Slab Boy. Here they are! All 19 of them:

Gulls wheel through spokes of sunlight over gracious roofs and dowdy thatch, snatching entrails at the marketplace and escaping over cloistered gardens, spike topped walls and treble-bolted doors. Gulls alight on whitewashed gables, creaking pagodas and dung-ripe stables; circle over towers and cavernous bells and over hidden squares where urns of urine sit by covered wells, watched by mule-drivers, mules and wolf-snouted dogs, ignored by hunch-backed makers of clogs; gather speed up the stoned-in Nakashima River and fly beneath the arches of its bridges, glimpsed form kitchen doors, watched by farmers walking high, stony ridges. Gulls fly through clouds of steam from laundries' vats; over kites unthreading corpses of cats; over scholars glimpsing truth in fragile patterns; over bath-house adulterers, heartbroken slatterns; fishwives dismembering lobsters and crabs; their husbands gutting mackerel on slabs; woodcutters' sons sharpening axes; candle-makers, rolling waxes; flint-eyed officials milking taxes; etiolated lacquerers; mottle-skinned dyers; imprecise soothsayers; unblinking liars; weavers of mats; cutters of rushes; ink-lipped calligraphers dipping brushes; booksellers ruined by unsold books; ladies-in-waiting; tasters; dressers; filching page-boys; runny-nosed cooks; sunless attic nooks where seamstresses prick calloused fingers; limping malingerers; swineherds; swindlers; lip-chewed debtors rich in excuses; heard-it-all creditors tightening nooses; prisoners haunted by happier lives and ageing rakes by other men's wives; skeletal tutors goaded to fits; firemen-turned-looters when occasion permits; tongue-tied witnesses; purchased judges; mothers-in-law nurturing briars and grudges; apothecaries grinding powders with mortars; palanquins carrying not-yet-wed daughters; silent nuns; nine-year-old whores; the once-were-beautiful gnawed by sores; statues of Jizo anointed with posies; syphilitics sneezing through rotted-off noses; potters; barbers; hawkers of oil; tanners; cutlers; carters of night-soil; gate-keepers; bee-keepers; blacksmiths and drapers; torturers; wet-nurses; perjurers; cut-purses; the newborn; the growing; the strong-willed and pliant; the ailing; the dying; the weak and defiant; over the roof of a painter withdrawn first from the world, then his family, and down into a masterpiece that has, in the end, withdrawn from its creator; and around again, where their flight began, over the balcony of the Room of Last Chrysanthemum, where a puddle from last night's rain is evaporating; a puddle in which Magistrate Shiroyama observes the blurred reflections of gulls wheeling through spokes of sunlight. This world, he thinks, contains just one masterpiece, and that is itself.
David Mitchell (The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet)
The phone rang. “Hauptmans’ mortuary,” I answered. “You stab ’em, we slab “em.” Baba Yaga was wearing off on me. “Hard-boiled is the best way to eat eggs,” said Baba Yaga. “But I’ve quit eating eggs—it upset my household. What did the boy-who-isn’t-a-boy have to say?” I decided I didn’t want to know what inspired the information about eggs.” “She hung up. I’d just replaced the handset when it rang again. “Yes?” I said. “I’m waiting for more cleverness,” Baba Yaga said. “Hauptman House of Horrors, don’t mind the screaming—we don’t. Something of the sort.” “Okay,” I said. “Hauptman House of Horrors—” “Sssss,” she said.
Patricia Briggs (Fire Touched (Mercy Thompson, #9))
This was a beautiful, old wood, all massive oak and ash trees finding footing among great slabs of cracked stone. Ferns sprang from rocks and verdant moss grew up the sides of the tree trunks. The air itself was scented with green and growing and water. The light was golden through the leaves. Everything was alive, alive.
Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1))
Tía has never lied to me. From the beginning, any questions I asked she answered. Whether it was about sex, or boys, healing or the Saints. I keep rocking next to her. Sometimes words need time to form; the minutes like slabs building a ramp out the mouth.
Elizabeth Acevedo (Clap When You Land)
…a bar he sometimes sneaked into called The Slab. (They served bloody marys and zombies – stiff drinks they called them – and the jukebox only played dirges. A spotlight pinned dead go-go boys in cages, and though he’d never ventured to the refrigerated back room, he’d heard stories.)
Robert Dunbar (Martyrs and Monsters)
Eve turned away as a whispered “yes, ma'am” reached her ears. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Why was she saving this asshole? Eve opened her eyes and unlocked the heavy steel bolt securing the five-by-two slab of oak. She looked back, ready to give him the signal to haul ass, when all the air punched from her lungs. Naked. It was the only word her stunned mind could form. Eve spun in place, and her rear bumped against the door. Guerin stood there, completely nude, with his briefs and coat in his grip. “W-wh-what are you doing?” Dear God, she was stuttering like a young girl who'd never seen “boy parts” before.
Jessica Lee (Undying Desire (The Enclave, #3))
The U.S. Olympic eight-oared crew was as cool as could be, though. Every afternoon they boarded a boat and made their way out to the New York Athletic Club’s private retreat, Huckleberry Island, a mile off Travers Island, out in the cool waters of Long Island Sound. The island was twelve acres of paradise, and the boys fell in love with it the moment they stepped out of their launch and onto a beach in one of its many small granite coves, wearing the Indian headbands with turkey feathers that club members donned whenever they visited the island. They leapt off stone ledges, plunged into the cool green water of the sound, swam, horsed around, then stretched out on warm flat slabs of granite, toasting themselves brown before plunging back into the water again.
Daniel James Brown (The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics)
The last time I saw Collin was in 1917, at the foot of Mort-Homme. Before the great slaughter, Collin’d been an avid angler. On that day, he was standing at the hole, watching maggots swarm among blow flies on two boys that we couldn’t retrieve for burial without putting our own lives at risk. And there, at the loop hole, he thought of his bamboo rods, his flies and the new reel he hadn’t even tried out yet. Collin was imaging himself on the riverbank, wine cooling in the current his stash of worms in a little metal box and a maggot on his hook, writhing like… Holy shit. Were the corpses getting to him? Collin. The poor guy didn’t even have time to sort out his thoughts. In that split second, he was turned into a slab of bloody meat. A white hot hook drilled right through him and churned through his guts, which spilled out of a hole in his belly. He was cleared out of the first aid station. The major did triage. Stomach wounds weren’t worth the trouble. There were all going to die anyway, and besides, he wasn’t equipped to deal with them. Behind the aid station, next to a pile of wood crosses, there was a heap of body parts and shapeless, oozing human debris laid out on stretchers, stirred only be passing rats and clusters of large white maggots. But on their last run, the stretcher bearers carried him out after all… Old Collin was still alive. From the aid station to the ambulance and from the ambulance to the hospital, all he could remember was his fall into that pit, with maggots swarming over the open wound he had become from head to toe… Come to think of it, where was his head? And what about his feet? In the ambulance, the bumps were so awful and the pain so intense that it would have been a relief to pass out. But he didn’t. He was still alive, writhing on his hook. They carved up old Collin good. They fixed him as best they could, but his hands and legs were gone. So much for fishing. Later, they pinned a medal on him, right there in that putrid recovery room. And later still, they explained to him about gangrene and bandages packed with larvae that feed on death tissue. He owed them his life. From one amputation and operation to the next – thirty-eight in all – the docs finally got him “back on his feet”. But by then, the war was long over.
Jacques Tardi (Goddamn This War!)
Gulls wheel through spokes of sunlight over gracious roofs and dowdy thatch, snatching entrails at the marketplace and escaping over cloistered gardens, spike-topped walls and treble-bolted doors. Gulls alight on whitewashed gables, creaking pagodas and dung-ripe stables; circle over towers and cavernous bells and over hidden squares where urns of urine sit by covered wells, watched by mule-drivers, mules and wolf-snouted dogs, ignored by hunchbacked makers of clogs; gather speed up the stoned-in Nakashima River and fly beneath the arches of its bridges, glimpsed from kitchen doors, watched by farmers walking high, stony ridges. Gulls fly through clouds of steam from laundries’ vats; over kites unthreading corpses of cats; over scholars glimpsing truth in fragile patterns; over bath-house adulterers; heartbroken slatterns; fishwives dismembering lobsters and crabs; their husbands gutting mackerel on slabs; woodcutters’ sons sharpening axes; candle-makers, rolling waxes; flint-eyed officials milking taxes; etoliated lacquerers; mottled-skinned dyers; imprecise soothsayers; unblinking liars; weavers of mats; cutters of rushes; ink-lipped calligraphers dipping brushes; booksellers ruined by unsold books; ladies-in-waiting; tasters; dressers; filching page-boys; runny-nosed cooks; sunless attic nooks where seamstresses prick calloused fingers; limping malingerers; swineherds; swindlers; lip-chewed debtors rich in excuses; heard-it-all creditors tightening nooses; prisoners haunted by happier lives and ageing rakes by other men’s wives; skeletal tutors goaded to fits; firemen-turned-looters when occasion permits; tongue-tied witnesses; purchased judges; mothers-in-law nurturing briars and grudges; apothecaries grinding powders with mortars; palanquins carrying not-yet-wed daughters; silent nuns; nine-year-old whores; the once-were-beautiful gnawed by sores; statues of Jizo anointed with posies; syphilitics sneezing through rotted-off noses; potters; barbers; hawkers of oil; tanners; cutlers; carters of night-soil; gate-keepers; bee-keepers; blacksmiths and drapers; torturers; wet-nurses; perjurers; cut-purses; the newborn; the growing; the strong-willed and pliant; the ailing; the dying; the weak and defiant; over the roof of a painter withdrawn first from the world, then his family, and down into a masterpiece that has, in the end, withdrawn from its creator; and around again, where their flight began, over the balcony of the Room of the Last Chrysanthemum, where a puddle from last night’s rain is evaporating; a puddle in which Magistrate Shiroyama observes the blurred reflections of gulls wheeling through spokes of sunlight. This world, he thinks, contains just one masterpiece, and that is itself.
David Mitchell (The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet)
All Brewton belonged to them. Crump wanted to stay around and cash in on that fact but Santo talked him into driving him and Mary Tate and Craig back to Birmingham. Willy, Ruben and Pi did stay. The last Craig saw of them they each had a gin and tonic in hand and were chatting to interested little groups of Brewtonites. This was at Seymour Hanes's barbecue after the rodeo, in honor of Santo-Crump. 'Stay hungry,' Santo told Willy as they were leaving. Willy was unhurt except for a bruised tail and a few glamorous abrasions on his face, but he looked like a different man. The clown had told Santo at the rodeo that Willy had wedged his hand under the rope with the left-hand glove. 'I love you,' he told Santo. 'Hang in there,' Santo said and poked at his belly. 'Peace,' said Pi. Ruben smiled. They took ten slabs of barbecue ribs in a sack and ate them in the car. When Mary Tate finished hers she leaned against Craig, tucked her legs under her and put her left hand up high on his leg. Her face was flushed and beautiful. 'I loved you today, Swamp. You had fun, didn't you?' Craig's head was already beginning to buzz. His thoughts were going soft and he wanted to sleep. She kissed him slowly and quietly and he saw a thought distract her, saw it ripple over her eyes. 'How come that boy said he loved you, baby?' she asked Santo. 'Huh? Oh. He didn't mean me exactly,' Santo said and went back to talking rodeo with Shorty Crump.
Charles Gaines (Stay Hungry)
Jessica… Jesse! You have to stop this now!” Patrick held the arm that she was going to use to strike her victim still as gently as he could while still retaining control of the limb. Jessica stopped and forcefully pulled her arm out of Patrick's grip before glaring at him and the now unconscious doctor. Then she spoke firmly and resolutely. “What was I supposed to do? Let her cut open our son? Let her risk any chance of us saving him?” “No, of course not! But look closer Jessica. Look at the table! Look at the boy.” When Patrick asked her to look, she was suddenly furious at him. She did not want to look at her poor dead Alexander, cold on a metal slab. She knew, however, that she would eventually have to look so she did. What she saw made her feel worse not better. It was not her son on the autopsy table. It was another teenage boy that was about Alexander's age but not the same weight, eye colour, or hair colour. She put her hands to her face and cried then.
L.B. Ó Ceallaigh (Souls' Inverse (Red Sun #1))
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.
Caroline B. Cooney (The Ransom of Mercy Carter)
Two boys play with a soccer ball. Their clothes are patched and dotted with stains, one brown shirt with Snoopy as the Flying Ace but with chunks of white worn away, Snoopy’s existence precarious. Their ball is scuffed. Somewhat deflated. Most likely it was found, discarded by someone who had one better, and the empty lot they’re in is scattered with broken slabs of concrete and thick, scraggly thistles. But the boys are in heaven. Olivia lifts her camera, wanting to capture their joy, the way they’ve adapted the physical obstacles into part of their game, but with one click, she realizes that in truth it’s everything else that makes the photo interesting, that makes their joy stand out. It’s their circumstance. Their stains and tears. Their broken field.
Gian Sardar (Take What You Can Carry)
Why is that tight ass uniform so hot on him?” Elise murmured under her breath. “Because his buttcheeks are like two slabs of iron and we never get to appreciate that enough,” I answered simply. “We?” she chuckled and I snorted. “Hey, I can appreciate the male form,” I said.
Caroline Peckham (Warrior Fae (Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac, #5))
Say, cut it out!” Chet bellowed. “I have half a mind not to give you fellows any lunch at all!” “Ho! Now you want us to starve!” Biff laughed as he and the Hardys lifted out succulent sandwiches, a jar of home-preserved peaches, a gallon Thermos of chilled milk, and slabs of chocolate cake. “Lucky for you, Chet,” Joe teased, “you brought enough so there’s some food left for you.” The heavy-set boy, though pretending indignation, settled down to enjoy his share of the lunch. Then the Hardys and Biff followed Chet’s example and took a nap after the hearty meal. “Not a bad idea,” Joe murmured as he dozed off.
Franklin W. Dixon (While the Clock Ticked (Hardy Boys, #11))
The New England wilderness March 1, 1704 Temperature 10 degrees The Indian next to Mr. Williams interrupted him roughly. “We kill. You tell.” Mr. Williams ceased to pray. “Joe Alexander escaped last night,” he said. “If anyone else tries to escape, they will burn the rest of us alive.” Burn alive? Burn innocent women and children because one young man flew from their grasp? Her Indian stood some distance away amid the other warriors. He was now wearing a vivid blue cloth coat of European design. In one hand he held his French flintlock, and over his shoulder hung his bow and a full otter-skin quiver--actually, the entire dead otter, complete with face and feet. His coat hung open to show a belt around his waist, from which hung his tomahawk and scalping knife. His skin was not red after all, but the color of autumn. Burnished chestnut. His shaved head gleamed. He looked completely and utterly savage. He might sorrow for a dead brother warrior, but grief would make him more likely to burn a captive, not less likely. Mercy imagined kindling around her feet, a stake at her back, her flesh charring like a side of beef. Beside her, Eben seemed almost to faint. Mercy had the odd thought that she, an eleven-year-old girl, might be stronger than he, a seventeen-year-old boy. The English were silent, entirely able to believe they might be burned. The first person to move was Mercy’s Indian. Sharply raising one hand, bringing the eyes of all upon him, he pointed to Mercy Carter. She was frozen with horror. His finger beckoned. There could be no mistake. The meaning was come. There was no speech and no movement from a hundred captives and three hundred enemies. It was the French Mercy hated at that moment. How could they stand by and let other whites be burned alive? 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.
Caroline B. Cooney (The Ransom of Mercy Carter)
I want to get some fresh air,” I say, and move around him, stepping off onto the stone slabs and promptly sinking with one heel into the narrow space between them. “Oops!” I say idiotically, ignoring the hand that Luca is stretching out to help me. The last thing I need right now is to touch him, for all sorts of reasons. I keep walking, pulling my heel out from between the paving stones; mercifully, it comes out without catching or ripping off. I honestly think that even if it did, I would keep going; I’d walk on a sandal without a heel all night, balance on my toes, pretend nothing had happened, and think it a fair price to pay for my flight into the comparative darkness of the chill-out area, where Luca can’t see the sweat on my face. He’s following me. I can hear his leather-soled shoes on the stone. And I have no idea where I’m going. I feel ridiculous. Luckily, ahead of me I see a terrace with tables, and I walk toward it as if I’d planned to head there all along. “You want a drink?” he asks. He gestures over to the right, and I see the white gleam of the long bar, the translucent milky-white pillars shining as if we’re underwater. I don’t need to drink any more alcohol tonight. Especially in the company of Luca. “Maybe some water. I’m really thirsty.” He nods, turns, and walks toward the bar. I watch him go. Tall, lean, with a nice firm bum in his black jeans. Exactly what I like in a boy. And then I feel my face flaming, because this isn’t just some boy at an airport, or viewed from a car. This is real. He’s real. He’ll be back in just a few minutes, and I won’t have the faintest idea what to say to him…
Lauren Henderson (Flirting in Italian (Flirting in Italian #1))
Girls eat vengefully. Have you noticed this? Girls eat salads for revenge on their shorts. Girls eat cheeseburgers for revenge on their judgmental great-aunts. I once gagged while eating a slab of carrot cake that I did not want because an elderly relative had patted my leg with her dry hand and reminded me that I'd soon need to fit into my wedding dress. Boy, I showed her.
Katie Anthony (Feminist Werewolf)
I’m shanty Irish. A south Boston boy—you’ll hear the accent when I get excited or drunk,” Hennessey said. “We know potatoes. But most of us still can’t make a decent slab of hash browns to save our lives. We can boil stuff like nobody’s business, but frying is too exotic.
Neal Stephenson (The Cobweb: A Novel)