Skimming Quotes

Old age is a flight of small cheeping birds skimming bare trees above a snow glaze. Gaining and failing they are buffeted by a dark wind - But what? On harsh weedstalks the flock has rested - the snow is covered with broken seed husks and the wind tempered with a shrill piping of plenty. (William Carlos Williams)
You can look at any painting ever done of Jesus over the centuries, and you can spot immediately that he's not English, 'cos he's very often shown wearing sandals, but never with socks. I think that would be an English Messiah's look, wouldn't it? - socks, sandals, khaki shorts skimming the knee, little Fair Isle slipover - in case it turns, 'cos it's deceptive, the desert - and I think, instead of all that camp and rather beautiful 'Oh Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?' business - instead of all that - I think he'd be up there trying to make the best of it - 'cos moping doesn't help, does it? I think he'd be up there going, 'Cor, here's a pretty pickle. No, I didn't do it either, but you don't like to say, do you?' (Wrap Up Warm tour, May 2004) View quote
Linda Smith
The case for dumping iPhone, or at least threatening to do so in order to renegotiate Apple's subsidy requirement away, seems pretty open and shut. Apple has things all its own way right now - skimming the lion's share of the profits off the carriers' business without having to shoulder their risks. But this is an unstable situation, because the carriers' investors won't tolerate it indefinitely. What happens when they revolt? View quote
Eric S. Raymond
He has only half learned the art of reading who has not added to it the more refined art of skipping and skimming. View quote
Arthur Balfour
I remember when rock was young, Me and Suzie had so much fun Holding hands and skimming stones. Had an old gold Chevy and a place of my own. But the biggest kick I ever got Was doing a thing called the Crocodile Rock. While the other kids were Rocking Round the Clock, We were hopping and bopping to the Crocodile Rock. View quote
Elton John
My retainers keep me on ice. Dry ice. It slows my metabolism, takes the edge off my appetite, slightly. I lie, bound with heavy chains, between two great slabs of it, naked and sweating, trying to sleep through the torment of a summer's day. They've given me the local fall-out shelter, the very deepest room they could find, as I requested. Yet my senses move easily through the earth and to the surface, out across the lazy, warm suburbs, restless emissaries skimming the sun-soaked streets. If I could rein them in I would, but the instinct that drives them is a force unto itself, a necessary consequence of what I am and the reason I was brought into being. Being, I have discovered, has certain disadvantages. I intend seeking compensation, just as soon as the time is right. View quote
Greg Egan
Their love as a dragonfly, skimming over echo park, stoppin to visit the lotus. Eating dreams and drinking blue sky. View quote
Janet Fitch
It is not a question of skimming the surface of the art, it must be probed to its depths, for to seize upon superficial things only is to degenerate into mediocrity and obscurity. View quote
Jean-Georges Noverre
The half moon sailed high, sharp-winged shadows skimming across it, and the conical hills and the vine-shrouded trees washed silver-green under the moonlight had the look of a decaying city millennia after a great catastrophe. View quote
Lucius Shepard
Lightly tripping o'er the land, Deftly skimming o'er the main, Scarce our fairy wings bedewing With the frothy mantling brine, Scarce our silver feet acquainting With the verdure-vested ground; Now like swallows o'er a river Gliding low with quivering pinion, Now aloft in ether sailing "Leisurely as summer cloud;" Rising now, anon descending, Swift and bright as shooting stars, Thus we travel glad and free. View quote
Hartley Coleridge
The whole beauty of the Film is that it has a certain fixed speed. The way you see it is mechanically conditioned. I mean, take a painting - you can just glance at it, or you can stare at the left hand top corner for half an hour. Same thing with a book. The author can't stop you from skimming it, or staring at the last chapter and reading backwards. The point is, you choose your approach. When you go into a cinema it's different. There's the film, and you have to look at it as the director wants you to look at it. He makes his points, one after another, and he allows you a certain number of seconds or minutes to grasp each one. If you miss anything he won't repeat himself, and he won't stop to explain. He can't. He's started something and he has to go through with it. (Christopher Isherwood)