Quotes About Spines

I have a sort of tactility about music. I go into record stores and just run my fingers over it, the spines.

The apartment was entirely, was only, for her: a wall of books, both read and unread, all of them dear to her not only in themselves, their tender spines, but in the moments or periods they evoked… Her self, then, was represented in her books; her times in her records; and the rest of the room she thought of as a pure, blank slate.

Lion's mane mushrooms are not your classic-looking cap-and-stem variety. These globular-shaped mushrooms sport cascading teeth-like spines rather than the more common gills.

Warriors armed themselves with spears made of alligator and fish bones, and stingray spines, which also made good cutting edges and gaffs for domestic use. Fish harpoons doubled as war spears. Shells were used as dippers, spoons, bowls, hammers, awls, and digging and hacking tools. Big spiky conch shells were strapped to the heads of war clubs.

Learning to decipher words had only added to the pleasures of holding spines and turning pages, measuring the journey to the end with a thumb-riffle, poring over frontispieces. Books! Opening with a crackle of old glue, releasing perfume; closing with a solid thump.

And what the sharp old medic suggested to the Pentagon sent shivers down their spines and set the alarm bells ringing all the way to the White House

Books. They tumbled from the bleeding sky like wounded birds. The spines snapping open and the pages fanning white. Black letters slipping off the slanted pages and falling, falling to the ground where they... Shatter.

I find this division of people into three groups - skiers, allergy sufferers and drivers - very convincing. It is a good, straightforward typology. Skiers and hedonists. They are carried down the slopes. Whereas drivers prefer to take date in their hands, although their spines often suffer as a result; we all know life is hard. Whereas the allergy sufferers are always at war.