“In Ireland, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting.
In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea.
I liked the Irish way better.”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“I'm not a goddamned faith healer! I don't talk to God! I'm a mechanic and her goddamned engine was broken!
--Joanne ”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“friends don't threaten friends' distributor caps”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“He fell ass over tea Kettle”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“Why do airline pilots always call passengers "folks"? I don't usually take umbrage at generic terminology--I'm one of those forward-thinkers who believes that "man" encompasses the whole darned race -- but at whatever 0'clock in the mornning. I thought it would be nice to be called sometihng that suggested unwashed masses a little less.”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“Since I didn't have any world-class fencing skills, I kicked Cernunnos in the nuts again. I didn't have to know how to use a sword to do that, and he was standing there like he was asking for it, so it seemed justified. Shock and rage filled his green eyes all over again and he doubled. I guess there must be rules that people fighting gods usually followed. Next time, maybe someone would give me a primer.”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“I rested my forehead on a grease spot I'd left on the window earlier. The airlines, I thought, must have custodians who clean the windows, or there'd be an inches-thick layer of goo on them from people like me.
That thought was proof positive that I shouldn't be allowed to stay up for more than eighteen hours at a time. I have a bad habit of following every thought to its miserable, pathetic little end when I'm tired. I don't mean to. It's just that my brain and my tongue get unhinged. Though some of my less charitable acquaintances would say this condition didn't require sleep deprivation.”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“By the time I could see again, the captain had announced the final descent into Seattle. Couldn't they find a less ominous phrase for it? I don't like flying as it is, even without the implication that before landing I might want to have all my worldly and spiritual affairs in order.”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“We circled around and came in from the northwest.” I lifted my wrist to show him the compass on my watch band, although I hoped that, being the pilot, he knew we’d approached from the northwest. “I was looking out the window. I saw a woman running down the street. There was a pack of dogs after her and a guy with a switchblade down the street in the direction she was running.”
“Ma’am,” he said, still very patiently. I reached out and took a fistful of his shirt. Actually, at the last moment, I grabbed the air in front of his shirt. I didn’t think security could throw me out of the airport for grabbing air in a threatening fashion, not even in this post-9/11 age.
“Don’t ma’am me . . .”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“You seriously think you got some kind of god after you?” Gary asked. Marie nodded. Gary turned to me. “I vote we drop her off at a loony bin and run for the hills.”
“Are you asking me to run away with you, Gary? After such a short, violent courtship?”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
C.E. Murphy
Born place: in Kenai, Alaska, The United States
Born date June 1, 2018
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“Sheep follow blindly. We’re not supposed to be sheep.”
― David Baldacci, quote from Divine Justice
“He taught me to stand up for what I believe in, to shout it out at the top of my lungs. He taught me to feel—the deep, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, soul-singing kind of emotion I had avoided for so long. He taught me about the importance of life. He taught me about the beauty of death. He also taught me about love.”
― Michelle Leighton, quote from For the Love of a Vampire
“I’d way rather defend myself against a man with a stick than a social worker with good intentions.”
― Wendelin Van Draanen, quote from Runaway
“This wish to satisfy someone greater than the Self, to be found acceptable, to belong at last, is a struggle familiar to many psychotherapy patients. In their lives they waste themselves on wondering how they are doing, on trying to figure out the expectations of others so that they can become someone in the eyes of others. They try to be practical, to be reasonable, to figure it all out in their heads. It is as though if only they could get the words straight in their heads, if only they could find the correct formula, then everything else in their lives would be magically straightened out. They are sure there is a right way to do things, though they have not yet found it. Someone in authority must know...It is as thought if it were discovered that two and two really did not equal four (but five), then at that moment all over the world every machine would stop operating, all of the lights would go out. (110)”
― quote from If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him: The Pilgrimage Of Psychotherapy Patients
“I don't understand the human heart. Only pain makes it grow stronger. Only sorrow makes it kind. Contentment makes it wither, and joy seems to build walls around it.”
― Douglas Coupland, quote from The Gum Thief
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The British Museum I...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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