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1 " We, unaccustomed to courageexiles from delightlive coiled in shells of lonelinessuntil love leaves its high holy templeand comes into our sightto liberate us into life.Love arrivesand in its train come ecstasiesold memories of pleasureancient histories of pain.Yet if we are bold,love strikes away the chains of fearfrom our souls.We are weaned from our timidityIn the flush of love's lightwe dare be braveAnd suddenly we seethat love costs all we areand will ever be.Yet it is only lovewhich sets us free. "
― Maya Angelou
2 " If I could give you information of my life it would be to show how a woman of very ordinary ability has been led by God in strange and unaccustomed paths to do in His service what He has done in her. And if I could tell you all, you would see how God has done all, and I nothing. I have worked hard, very hard, that is all; and I have never refused God anything. "
― Florence Nightingale
3 " I can't believe this heat," Abbey said, taking her tunic and pulling it over her head. Underneath was a form-fitting top that showed a figure unaccustomed to idleness or excess. Kip stared at her the way he had at the shiney curves of the steel horse back in the garage. " Can you imagine what it must have been like hundreds of years ago, when weather changed just a few times a year?" she said, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. " Yeah, it must have looked great," Kip said. " What do you mean looked great?" Abbey said, turning her eye on Kip. " Must have been great, like you said," he corrected. "
4 " We've all grown unaccustomed to life, we're all lame, each of us more or less. We've even grown so unaccustomed that at times we feel a sort of loathing for real " living life," and therefore cannot bear to be reminded of it. For we've reached a point where we regard real " living life" almost as a labor, almost as a service, and we all agree in ourselves that it's better from a book. "
5 " What’d you need?" " Desuetude." " Reading again, are we? Could be dangerous. It means to become unaccustomed to. As in something gets discontinued, falls into disuse." " Thanks, man." " That it?" " Yeah, but we should grab a drink sometime. "
6 " My master wishes to see you," said the mounted man." When the planting's done," I said." Lord Barton is unaccustomed to waiting." " Then he should rejoice, for he'll learn something new today." I went back to the garden. Soon the servant left. "
7 " Rosemary was unaccustomed to worrying about what people thought of her memories. She certainly did not judge others on theirs. In a society that circulated memories as currency, such judgment was considered the height of prudishness. "
― Octavia Cade , Trading Rosemary
8 " Forgive me for saying so, Your Highness," Clarissa said slowly, " but for one as unaccustomed to good deeds as you, perhaps it would be best if you started with one on a smaller scale. Something like, I don't know, spreading bread crumbs for birds?" " Birds?" Valentina stared at Clarissa as if she had sprouted wings and would fly off. " Why on earth would I wish to feed birds?" " It was just a thought," Clarissa murmured. "
9 " If I'd been a cowboy, it might've ended well.Somewhere on the ramble, I'm sure I'd have to sellMy guns along the highway. My coins to the table To make a gambler's double, I'd double debts to pay.Prob'ly shrink and slink away, It mightn't've ended well.What If I'd been a sailor? I think it might've ended well.From August to MayFor a searat of man drifting through eternal blue, aboard the finest Debris.I might've called the shanties. From daybreak to storm's set, lines stay Taught, over rhythm unbroken.But, oh, there's a schism unspoken, a mighty calling of the lee.An absentminded Pirate, unaccustomed to the sea;To the land, a traitor. I think it mightn't've ended well. What might've worked for me? What might've ended well?Soldier, to bloody sally forth through hell?Teacher of glorious stories to tell?Man of gold, or stores to sell?Lover to a gentle belle? Maybe a camel;A seashell.What mightn't've been a life where it mightn't've ended well? "
― Dylan Thomas
10 " Imagine you are Siri Keeton:You wake in an agony of resurrection, gasping after a record-shattering bout of sleep apnea spanning one hundred forty days. You can feel your blood, syrupy with dobutamine and leuenkephalin, forcing its way through arteries shriveled by months on standby. The body inflates in painful increments: blood vessels dilate; flesh peels apart from flesh; ribs crack in your ears with sudden unaccustomed flexion. Your joints have seized up through disuse. You're a stick-man, frozen in some perverse rigor vitae.You'd scream if you had the breath.Vampires did this all the time, you remember. It was normal for them, it was their own unique take on resource conservation. They could have taught your kind a few things about restraint, if that absurd aversion to right-angles hadn't done them in at the dawn of civilization. Maybe they still can. They're back now, after all— raised from the grave with the voodoo of paleogenetics, stitched together from junk genes and fossil marrow steeped in the blood of sociopaths and high-functioning autistics. One of them commands this very mission. A handful of his genes live on in your own body so it too can rise from the dead, here at the edge of interstellar space. Nobody gets past Jupiter without becoming part vampire. "
― , Blindsight (Firefall, #1)
11 " Waldo, I say-that is-aren't you tired, my boy?" Professor Buckley, suppressing a yawn, was unaccustomed to others matching his wakefulness wink for wink, as it were, and seemed jealous of the competition Waldo presented in that regard. " Who can sleep?" Waldo replied. " We're on another of these crazy roads, we can't find the interstate...." " Yes, I suppose you're right." The Professor interrupted, taking off his thick spectacles and polishing them on his bright tie. " I, on the other hand, never sleep, as I'm sure you're aware." Waldo smiled. The Professor had little in life to be vain about, and he wasn't going to stop him from expressing a little pride now and then. "
12 " In all the world there is no desolation more complete than the polar night. It is a return to the Ice Age— no warmth, no life, no movement. Only those who have experienced it can fully appreciate what it means to be without the sun day after day and week after week. Few men unaccustomed to it can fight off its effects altogether, and it has driven some men mad. "
― , Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
13 " She was flushed and felt intoxicated with the sound of her own voice and the unaccustomed taste of candor. It muddled her like wine, or like a first breath of freedom. "
― Kate Chopin , The Awakening
14 " His touch was simple, but specific, meant to show me he could be like a lover, gentle, intimate, but also that he was a man unaccustomed to hearing the word no. Yes. I understood. He was a man, and I? I was nothing but a girl, not even a woman. I was meant to fall at his feet and worship at the altar of his masculinity, grateful that he’d deigned to acknowledge me. All this, from a simple touch. "
― C.J. Roberts
15 " Nothing gives a sadder sense of decay than this loss or suspension of the power to deal with unaccustomed things, and to keep up with the swiftness of the passing moment. [Speaking of self-posed isolation in old age.] "
― Nathaniel Hawthorne
16 " I was a woman unaccustomed to guilt, and it drowned me - pulling me deeper, cutting off my air supply. "
― Alessandra Torre , Moonshot
17 " My sperm came out into the water, unaccustomed to the light, and instantly it became a misty, stringy kind of thing and swirled out like a falling star, and I saw a dead fish come forward and float into my sperm, bending it in the middle. "
― Richard Brautigan , Trout Fishing in America
18 " they'd become unaccustomed to the brightness of their own city, and, faced with it now in all its intensity, they cupped their hands over their eyes as if staring into the sun. "
― Jennifer E. Smith
19 " Hazel, like nearly all wild animals, was unaccustomed to look up at the sky. What he thought of as the sky was the horizon, usually broken by trees and hedges. "
― Richard Adams , Watership Down (Watership Down, #1)
20 " The lengths to which you’re prepared to go to please a housekeeper make me wonder about the servant situation in Scotland. Good help must be thin on the ground.” Vale widened his eyes and took a drink.“She’s more to me than a housekeeper,” Alistair growled.“Wonderful!” Vale slapped him on the back. “And about time, too. I was beginning to worry that all your important bits might’ve atrophied and fallen off from disuse.”He felt unaccustomed heat climb his throat. “Vale… "
― Elizabeth Hoyt , To Beguile a Beast (Legend of the Four Soldiers, #3)
