Famous quotes containing the word strokes:
“There are two kinds of fathers in traditional households: the fathers of sons and the fathers of daughters. These two kinds of fathers sometimes co-exist in one and the same man. For instance, Daughter’s Father kisses his little girl goodnight, strokes her hair, hugs her warmly, then goes into the next room where he becomes Son’s Father, who says in a hearty voice, perhaps with a light punch on the boy’s shoulder: “Goodnight, Son, see ya in the morning.””
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“While we were thus engaged in the twilight, we heard faintly, from far down the stream, what sounded like two strokes of a woodchopper’s axe, echoing dully through the grim solitude.... When we told Joe of this, he exclaimed, “By George, I’ll bet that was a moose! They make a noise like that.” These sounds affected us strangely, and by their very resemblance to a familiar one, where they probably had so different an origin, enhanced the impression of solitude and wildness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It was the bad ax-helve someone had sold me
“Made on machine,” he said, plowing the grain
With thick thumbnail to show how it ran
Across the handle’s long-drawn serpentine,
Like the two strokes across a dollar sign.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)