Morning Is Yellow Like A Desk Is Square
He always wanted to explain things. But no one cared. So he drew. Sometimes he would draw and it wasn't anything. He wanted to carve it in stone or write it in the sky. He would lie out on the grass and look up in the sky. And it would be only him and the sky and the things inside him that needed saying. And it was after that he drew the picture. It was a beautiful picture. He kept it under his pillow and would let no one see it. And he would look at it every night and think about it. And when it was dark, and his eyes were closed, he could still see it. And it was all of him. And he loved it. When he started school he brought it with him. Not to show anyone, but just to have with him like a friend. It was funny about school. He sat in a square brown desk Like all the other square brown desks And he thought it should be red And his room was a square brown room. Like all the other rooms. And it was tight and close. And stiff. He hated to hold the pencil and chalk, With his arm stiff and his feet flat on the floor. Stiff. With the teacher watching and watching. The teacher came and spoke to him. She told him to wear a tie like all the other boys. He said he didn't like them. And she said it didn't matter. After that they drew. And he drew all yellow and it was the way he felt about morning. And it was beautiful. The teacher came and smiled at him. 'What's this?' she said. 'Why don't you draw something like Ken's drawing? Isn't it beatiful?' After that his mother bought him a tie. And he always drew airplanes and rocket ships like everyone else. And he threw the old picture away. And when he lay alone looking at the sky, It was big and blue and all of everything, But he wasn't anymore. He was square inside. And brown. And his hands were stiff. And he was like everyone else. And the things inside him that needed saying didn't need it anymore. It had stopped pushing. It was crushed. Stiff. Like everything else.
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Black and stiff, but not a bad fit. Will you marry it?
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One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. Mend my life! each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do-- determined to save the only life you could save.
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But what Kezia liked more than anything, what she liked frightfully, was the lamp. It stood in the middle of the dining-room table, an exquisite little amber lamp with a white globe. It was filled all ready for lighting, though, of course, you couldn't light it. But there was something inside that looked like oil and moved when you shook it. The father and mother dolls, who sprawled very stiff as though they had fainted in the drawing-room, and their two little children asleep upstairs, were really too big for the doll's house. They didn't look as though they belonged. But the lamp was perfect. It seemed to smile at Kezia, to say, 'I live here.' The lamp was real.
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Geez, if I could get through to you, kiddo, that depression is not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling. Reduction, see? Of all feeling. People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile.
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The white youth of today have begun to react to the fact that the American Way of Life is a fossil of history. What do they care if their old baldheaded and crew-cut elders don't dig their caveman mops? They couldn't care less about the old, stiff-assed honkies who don't like their new dances: Frog, Monkey, Jerk, Swim, Watusi. All they know is that it feels good to swing to way-out body-rhythms instead of dragging across the dance floor like zombies to the dead beat of mind-smothered Mickey Mouse music.
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And though hard be the task, 'Keep a stiff upper lip'.
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Nero contrived all manners of punishments for the Christians that the most infernal imagination could design. In particular, he had some sewed up in skins of wild beasts, and then worried by dogs until they expired; and others dressed in shirts made stiff with wax, fixed to axletrees, and set on fire in his gardens, in order to illuminate the gardens. This persecution was general throughout the whole Roman Empire; but it rather increased than diminished the spirit of Christianity.
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A stiff apology is a second insult. The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.
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It's a very valuable function and requirement that you're performing, so have a great day and keep a stiff upper lip.
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A stiff apology is a second insult... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.
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In the defense of our nation, a president must be a clear-eyed realist. There are limits to the smiles and scowls of diplomacy. Armies and missiles are not stopped by stiff notes of condemnation. They are held in check by strength and purpose and the promise of swift punishment.
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Most human organizations that fall short of their goals do so not because of stupidity or faulty doctrines, but because of internal decay and rigidification. They grow stiff in the joints. They get in a rut. They go to seed.
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A hairy body, and arms stiff with bristles, give promise of a manly soul.
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Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement -- discouragement has a germ of its own, as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint.
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What is a fine person or a beauteous face, Unless deportment give them decent grace; Blessed with all other requisites to please, To want the striking elegance of ease; Awkward, embarrassed, stiff, without the skill Of moving gracefully, or standing
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Keep a stiff upper chin.
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I've tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic and the others give me a stiff neck or lockjaw.
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I have heard that stiff people lose something of their awkwardness under high ceilings, and in spacious halls. I think, sculpture and painting...
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When I die, I would like to be cremated and have my ashes put into the 'Mr.Coffee' machine. Brew up a cup of 'Joe.' It would one be stiff drink.
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Everybody's for democracy in principle. It's only in practice that the thing gives rise to stiff objections.
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Acts 7:51:
'You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!'
(NIV)
You stubborn and stiff-necked people, still heathen and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are always actively resisting the Holy Spirit. As your forefathers [were], so you [are and so you do]! [Exod. 33:3, 5; Num. 27:14; Isa. 63:10; Jer. 6:10; 9:26.](AMP)
Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
(KJV)
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Twenty can't be expected to tolerate sixty in all things, and sixty gets bored stiff with twenty's eternal love affairs.
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We mustn't be stiff and stand-off, you know. We must be thoroughly democratic, and patronize everybody without distinction of class.
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