caked QUOTES

1 " How do you know me, girl?” He asked, his voice caked with venom. There was movement from the curtains and the throng of vamps seemed to cry out as one, in a sound of pure surprise.My head turned towards the figure of a young man. He looked like an angel, dressed in white and gold, but whether that was because he caused Petrel to stop or the flickering candlelight from the sconces above us, I couldn’t say. "

2 " My Papa's Waltz:

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt. "

― Theodore Roethke

3 " There they are. Two girls built like pagan fertility dolls, resting on their haunches, caked from head-toe in the multi-shaded come of every man who gave his offering before me "

― Tyler Knight , Burn My Shadow: A Selective Memory of an X-Rated Life

4 " Women are no longer required to be chaste or modest, to restrict their sphere of activity to the home, or even to realize their properly feminine destiny in maternity. Normative femininity [that is, the rules for being a good woman] is coming more and more to be centered on women’s body—not its duties and obligations or even its capacity to bear children, but its sexuality, more precisely, its presumed heterosexuality and its appearance. . . . The woman who checks her makeup half a dozen times a day to see if her foundation has caked or her mascara has run, who worries that the wind or the rain may spoil her hairdo, who looks frequently to see if her stockings have bagged at the ankle, or who, feelingfat, monitors everything she eats, has become, just as surely as the inmateof Panopticon, a self-policing subject, a self committed to a relentless self-surveillance. This self-surveillance is a form of obedienceto patriarchy. "

5 " The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked with dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. "

6 " I took his razor from the shower floor, bits of his black hair still caked between the blades. I took his toothbrush from the sink counter and sucked on the bristles, trying to find the taste of him, but there was only the flavor of watery mint toothpaste....I pulled the sheets off the bed with the idea that I could gather up the imprint of him and save it. I thought, I can unfurl the sheets on our old bed at home. I can lie in the creases formed by his body. I can sleep with him again. "

7 " somewhere along the dust-chocked Guatemalan road between...and ...was where I confirmed that I preferred traveling around the slow, bone-rattling way: by bus,with ordinary people. The bus we were riding in had been repainted in bright reds. The inside was colorful too: the seats had springs popping out of the upholstery, and the floor was caked with dirt and garbage. Chickens, some tied in bunches and others wandering loose, squawked noisily. Bouncing along a road to a place I had never been, and would never go back to, suddenly felt exciting, liberating even "

8 " Before the sparrow arrived, you had almost stopped thinking about flight. Then, last winter, it soared through the sky and landed in front of you, or more precisely on the windowsill of the covered balcony adjoining your bedroom. You knew the grimy window panes were caked with dead ants and dust, and smelt as sour as the curtains. But the sparrow wasn’t put off. It jumped inside the covered balcony and ruffled its feathers, releasing a sweet smell of tree bark into the air. Then it flew into your bedroom, landed on your chest and stayed there like a cold egg. "

― Ma Jian , Beijing Coma

9 " I shall strip away layer after layer of grime -- the toffee-colored varnish and caked soot left by a lifetime of dissembling -- until I come to the very thing itself and know it for what it is. My soul. My self. "

― John Banville , The Untouchable

10 " Even at such a tender age, I knew that life is lived in leftovers, account ledgers, and timetables rather than in the Platonic sphere of perfect theory. I couldn't float sylphlike around Love Hall in the flowing robes of indeterminacy for the rest of my life, however much I wished there to be no change. I had to accept my responsibilities and, at least in the eyes of the world and at least for the time being, nail my colors to a mast. Unless I wished to appear a strange wonder for the rest of time, caked in circus makeup covering the truth inches beneath, the mast would be male. "

― Wesley Stace , Misfortune

11 " When a mosquito sees a light in the darkness, it is drawn to it by an urge too powerful to resist. Even if the light is a bug zapper, caked with the carcasses of all the mosquito's electrocuted relatives, the poor insect will still use the last flap of its wings to fly to its death. It simply can't help it. "

12 " John G. turns on him, hands on hips, hair caked with snow. 'Hey, buddy, let me tell you something. Drugs are the only thing I got. I am a drug addict. That's all I've ever been and that's all I'll ever be. Even if I'm not putting a needle in my arm or pipe in my mouth right this second, the thought is still in my mind.' He taps the side of his head. 'And if I decide I'm gonna get high to deal with the pressures in my life, there's not a fuckin' thing you can do about it. "

13 " What the hell happened to your leg?" Ang asked him. Matt looked down at his shin, which was scraped and oozing and seemed to be caked in mud. " Crashed." " Crashed what?" Ang asked. " My mountain bike. We just got back." " You crashed, then what? Rolled in dirt?" He laughed. " Something like that actually. It's not a successful ride if you don't bleed." He must not have noticed the look of horror on my face, because he asked, suddenly enthusiastic, " You guys ride?" Angelo and I just looked at each other, and he seemed to realize that was a " no." " Too bad. Well, make yourselves at home. Beer's in the fridge. I have to get cleaned up. Kickoff's in ten minutes." " Football?" Angelo asked. Matt looked at his as if he had just asked if the sky was really blue. " Yeah! First game of the regular season!" We just stared blankly at him, and he just laughed and disappeared down the hall. Angelo looked at me with a smile on his face. " Four fags watchin' football. Must be pretty fuckin' cold in hell right now. "

14 " The noir hero is a knight in blood caked armor. He's dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he's a hero the whole time. "

― Frank Miller

15 " My daddy wanted me to be a farmer; feel the smoothness of Alabama clay and become one of the first blacks in my town to own land. But, I was worried about my history being caked with that southern clay, and I subscribed to a different kind of teaching and learning in my bones and in my spirit. "