A Bad Man Quotes & Sayings

Facing a dangerous man was always a bad business, but at least one could calculate the odds in such an encounter. When you were facing the dead, however, everything changed. — Stephen King

This woman's work is exceptional. Too bad she's not a man. — Edouard Manet

It was one thing to be attracted to bad boys, something I usually didn't suffer from. It was another to be attracted to bad men. Mad Rogan was a really bad, bad man. — Ilona Andrews

Sounding hoarse, Dare whispered, "Tell me what you want."
The feel of his broad, strong hand against her left her quaking inside - in a good way. The tremble sounded in her tone as she tried to explain. "I want to be whole again. I want to be me, the person I was before I was taken to Tijuana."
Dare said nothing. Molly felt his hesitation, his indecision. God love the man, he didn't want to take advantage of her.
"I know what I want, Dare." She covered his hand with her own, pressed him closer. "I want to replace the bad memories with new ones. Better ones."
His hand curved around her, but he said nothing.
Watching his face, Molly whispered, "I want to do that now, with you. — Lori Foster

The socializing hadn't been so bad, he acknowledged, and he couldn't say he minded the food, though a man would do better with a good beef sandwich. Still it was plentiful, even if you did have to pick your way through half of it to get to something recognizable. — Nora Roberts

... He was a bad courtier and painted an ambiguous picture entitled La Menzogna or Falsehood, to show what he felt about the need for dissimulation to achieve success; a man holds up a mask to indicate to his companion that he must adopt it if he wants to make progress at court... ... The clear message was that Rosa was not prepared to demean himself in that way. — Jonathan Scott

And then he kissed me.
I've been kissed before - plenty of times - some good, some bad, but I don't think I've ever been kissed quite like how Ben kissed me.
I've had other girls tell me that sometimes, when the right man kisses them, it's like the entire world disappears and it's just the two of them - connected by some sort of pseudo-magical connection. Like fairytale perfection from some childhood tale.
There was nothing childlike, nor innocent about the way Ben kissed me. When our lips met, when our tongues tangled, it was like nothing I've ever felt before. It wasn't a kiss - it was a promise, a promise which suggested that if I let him into my bed, there'd be indentations in my four-poster from the ties he'd use to fasten me there... — Chelsey Nichols

A second-century rabbi said that if 999 angels gave a bad account of a man and one angel reported favorably, God would hear the one angel; even if 999 parts of that one angel's report were unfavorable, God would hearken to the favorable part. — Israel Shenker

Ah! but a man cannot be held to write down in cold blood the wild and black thoughts that storm his brain when an uncontrolled passion has battered a breach for them. Yet, unless he sets up as a saint, he need not hate himself for them. He is better employed, as it humbly seems to me, in giving thanks that power to resist was given to him ... — Anthony Hope

All mechanical habits are bad and slavish, and this one is ferocious as well. Of course, if you look upon the work of the revolutionist as the mere wresting of certain definite concessions from the government, then the secret sect and the knife must seem to you the best weapons, for there is nothing else which all governments so dread. But if you think, as I do, that to force the government's hand is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end, and that what we really need to reform is the relation between man and man, then you must go differently to work. Accustoming ignorant people to the sight of blood is not the way to raise the value they put on human life. — Ethel Lilian Voynich

What are you doing here?" Dastien stomped over to me, his eyes a bright shade of amber. He was pissed and looking like a crazy-man. "Reading." What was his problem? I lifted my mug and took a sip while he stared. He gave a desperate laugh and sank into the seat across from me. "I haven't felt this out of control in years." He leaned forward, putting his head in his hands. "No. I don't think I was ever this inept." I should've felt bad for him, but I didn't. It reassured me. If — Aileen Erin

Tipping confounds me because it is not a reward but a travel tax, one of the many, one of the more insulting. No one is spared. It does not matter that you are paying thousands to stay in the presidential suite in the best hotel: the uniformed man seeing you to the elevator, inquiring about your trip, giving you a weather report, and carrying your bags to the suite expects money for this unasked-for attention. Out front, the doorman, gasconading in gold braid, wants a tip for snatching open a cab door, the bartender wants a proportion of your bill, so does the waiter, and chambermaids sometimes leave unambiguous messages, with an accompanying envelope, demanding cash. It is bad enough that people expect something extra for just doing their jobs; it is an even more dismal thought that every smile has a price. — Paul Theroux

It is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has given one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in private life. Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold entrees. — Oscar Wilde

But the well-intended idea had gone very bad. Filling a place with people who had no hope and knew they were about to descend into a rotten, horrific spiral of insanity ended up creating some of the most wretched anarchic zones ever known to man. With the residents well aware that there could be no real punishment or consequences worse than what they already faced, crime rates grew astronomically. And so the developments became havens of debauchery. — James Dashner

As for Nigel, she had no wish to burden him with useless remorse even if a note from her would have achieved that object ... "Poor old Hilary," he would say, "bad luck"
and it might be that, secretly, he would be rather relieved. Because she guessed that she was, slightly, on Nigel's conscience, and he was a man who wished to feel comfortable with himself. — Agatha Christie

At This Moment Of Time

Some who are uncertain compel me. They fear
The Ace of Spades. They fear
Loves offered suddenly, turning from the mantelpiece,
Sweet with decision. And they distrust
The fireworks by the lakeside, first the spuft,
Then the colored lights, rising.
Tentative, hesitant, doubtful, they consume
Greedily Caesar at the prow returning,
Locked in the stone of his act and office.
While the brass band brightly bursts over the water
They stand in the crowd lining the shore
Aware of the water beneath Him. They know it. Their eyes
Are haunted by water

Disturb me, compel me. It is not true
That "no man is happy," but that is not
The sense which guides you. If we are
Unfinished (we are, unless hope is a bad dream),
You are exact. You tug my sleeve
Before I speak, with a shadow's friendship,
And I remember that we who move
Are moved by clouds that darken midnight — Delmore Schwartz

You know Sven? The man who takes care of the gym?' he asked. He waited till he got a nod from Nicholson. 'Well, if Sven dreamed tonight that his dog died, he'd have a very, very bad night's sleep, because he's very fond of that dog. But when he woke up in the morning, everything would be all right. He'd know it was only a dream.'
Nicholson nodded. 'What's the point exactly?'
The point is if his dog really died, it would be exactly the same thing. Only he wouldn't know it. I mean he wouldn't wake up till he died himself. — J.D. Salinger

The thought of Kate having that sort of experience, of another man touching her, created a vague knot in his chest. He'd far rather imagine her as virginal and untouched, waiting for him to be her Prince Charming. Damn, he had it bad. — Aden Lowe

You know, I think a lot of times what happens when we as actors know we're playing a bad guy is we get into bad guy mode. You know what, man? In real life, bad people do good things too and good people do bad things. So you don't necessarily have to be the stereotypical bad guy to still do bad things. — Laz Alonso

And I saw then and there you take a man half-bad and a women half-bad and put their two good halves together and you got one human all good to share between. — Ray Bradbury

I really feel stateless, which is not bad, because I always felt a man without a country was not encumbered by narrow loyalties. — Morley Safer

The bad principle is that any man should hold over another the power to bind and loose. It's a false relationship to stand in towards one's fellows — Ethel Lilian Voynich

The man who called it "near beer" was a bad judge of distance. — Philander Chase Johnson

Freedom is what we all seek, but it's what we do with that freedom that ultimately defines our character. In the end, a man's character cements his fate, good or bad. — Sonny Barger

They were bound together by a tie which angels may not blush to approve. A man who can attach to him a woman however base in heart and corrupt in life, is not all bad. A woman who can maintain her trust, who can waste her money like water to stand by her friend, amid the darkest clouds that can gather, that woman cannot be all evil. And if in vice, and degradation, and pollution, and infamy, she rises so far above it all as to vindicate her original nature, I must confess that I honor this trait most of all. — Phillip Margulies

When I meet a historian who cannot think that there have been great men, great men moreover in politics, I feel myself in the presence of a bad historian, and there are times when I incline to judge all historians by their opinion of Winston Churchill
whether they can see that, no matter how much better the details, often damaging, of man and career become known, he still remains quite simply, a great man. — Geoffrey Elton

The times are never so bad but that a good man can make shift to live in them. — Thomas More

The inference is, that God has restated the superiority of the West. God always does like that when a thousand white people surround one dark one. Dark people are always "bad" when they do not admit the Divine Plan like that. A certain Javanese man who sticks up for Indonesian Independence is very lowdown by the papers, and suspected of being a Japanese puppet. — Zora Neale Hurston

When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it - a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand - as a final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it's bad art. — Marc Chagall

Man was born to live with his fellow human beings. Separate him, isolate him, his character will go bad, a thousand ridiculous affects will invade his heart, extravagant thoughts will germinate in his brain, like thorns in an uncultivated land. — Denis Diderot

Is Snowden a good man or a bad man? I have no clue and even less interest. — John McAfee

A good man who did a bad thing. — Mary Matalin

A man who knows the court is master of his gestures, of his eyes and of his face; he is profound, impenetratable; he dissimulates bad offices, smiles at his enemies, controls his irritation, disguises his passions, belies his heartm speaks and acts against his feelings. — Jean De La Bruyere

It can never be bad to have a foundation as a man - a black man. - in a time when women are dying for men. Women have started to become lovers of each other as a result of not having enough men. — Usher

Outside the gates of the finca, watching the passing rows of tin-roofed shacks which represented the residential section of San Francisco de Paula, I began to think about The Old Man and the Sea, and I realized it was Ernest's counterattack against those who had assaulted him for Across the River. It was an absolutely perfect counterattack and I envisioned a row of snickering carpies bearing the likenesses of Dwight Macdonald and Louis Kronenberger and E.B. White, who in the midst of cackling, "Through! Washed Up! Kaput!" suddenly grab their groins and keel over. It is a rather elementary military axiom that he who attacks must anticipate the counterattack, but the critics, poor boys, would never make General Staff. As Ernest once said, "One battle doesn't make a campaign but critics treat one book, good or bad, like a whole goddamn war. — A. E. Hotchner

Josh wanted to be the one to break the color barrier. When the Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson he knew it was over for him. He wasn't going to make the big leagues, and he also knew that because of his health and his bad knees his career with the Grays was about over. He didn't know what to do with himself. They say a man can't die of a broken heart, and I guess that's true. But I'll tell you this, all of this sure lessened Josh's will to keep going, to keep fighting to stay alive. — Ted Page

The man said that a portion of track just up into the mountain pass had been damaged by a rockslide early that morning, and they had shut down the whole system for maybe as long as the rest of the summer. The man shook his head, incredulous, disgusted, but also delighted in the way that people are often delighted by bad news, or the opportunity to discuss bad news that does not immediately affect them. — Amanda Coplin

It strikes me as bad manners for a magazine to accept one of my advertisements and then attack it editorially - like inviting a man to dinner then spitting in his eye. — David Ogilvy

The next day I was driven down to New York City to take the physical. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen. Several hundred young men, maybe even a thousand, in their skivvies, walking around an enormous room, all of us lost, dazed, and confused.
Some of these guys had dodged the draft and were there under the watchful eyes of dozens of federal marshals lined up against one of the walls. After eight hours of being poked, prodded, stuck, and poked again, I was given a large red envelope. I had been rejected. I had the respiratory problems of an old man, high blood pressure, partial loss of hearing, very bad teeth, very flat, very wide feet and I tested positive for tuberculosis.
"Frankly," the doctor said, "I don't know how the hell you're even standing up," and that was when the sergeant told me that if they bottled everything that was wrong with me "we could take over the world without a shot. — John William Tuohy

The maxim, as has been already said, is a general statement, and people love to hear stated in general terms what they already believe in some particular connexion: e.g. if a man happens to have bad neighbors or bad children, he will agree with any one who tells him 'Nothing is more annoying than having neighbors,' or, 'Nothing is more foolish than to be the parent of children.' The orator has therefore to guess the subjects on which his hearers really hold views already, and what those views are, and then must express, as general truths, these same views on these same subjects. This is one advantage of using maxims. — Aristotle.

A man is not good or bad for one action. — Thomas Fuller

Had I known you had pure, or what you thought were pure intentions, in that silly mind of yours, I wouldn't have tried to kill you."
Philip let out a bark of laughter. "Well, as far as apologies go, that wasn't half bad. Not every day a man comes in and apologises for wishing you dead. — Rachel Van Dyken

[When I was with the wrong man], it felt like our relationship was a gigantic puzzle - a huge existential and emotional quiz that, if I applied myself to enough, I would solve and gain the result of True Love. After all, the ingredients for us to be the perfect couple were there ... The problem was just that he was unhappy. I knew that. I knew it in my bones. When I found the way the way to make him happy, everything would be fine. He was broken, and I was going to fix him - then the good bit of our relationship would start to happen. We were just in the tricky, early bit of love, where I'd undo all the bad stuff and let him finally be who he was, secretly, inside. Secretly, inside, he did love me. My steadfastness would provide it. If it didn't work, it was simply because I hadn't tried hard enough. — Caitlin Moran

middle of the room, stands my stylist, Micah, beside a foldaway beauty chair, arranging cosmetics and other paraphernalia atop his portable vanity table, as he sings along with the music playing from his Tab. He's a good looking man, tall and broad shouldered, with dark chocolate skin, gaping flesh-holes in both ears, black dreadlocks pulled back into a thick ponytail and heavy eye make-up which makes his eyes appear to pop out of his face. Too bad he's gay. — M.L. Sparrow

A nuclear bomb is a man's way of saying, 'I'm gonna fuck up the earth.' A woman would never make a nuclear bomb. They would never make a weapon that kills. They'd make a weapon that makes you feel bad for a while ... That's why there should be a woman president, there would never be any wars. You know this, it's the truth. There would never be a war; just every twenty-eight days: some severe negotiations. — Robin Williams

What I mean is, things like that happen. They may seem might cruel and unfair, but that's how life is a part of the time. But that isn't the only way life is. A part of the time, it's mighty good. And a man can't afford to waste all the good part, worrying about the bad parts. That makes it all bad — Fred Gipson

Good work does not matter, because a man is judged by his worst output and another man takes all the credit of his best as a rule. Bad work does not matter, because other men do worse, and incompetents hang on longer in India than anywhere else. Amusements do not matter, because you must repeat them as soon as you have accomplished them once, and most amusements only mean trying to win another person's money. Sickness does not matter, because it's all in the day's work, and if you die another man takes over your place and your office in the eight hours between death and burial. — Rudyard Kipling

Does evil come from inside ,from the dark depths of the human soul or does it come from outside ,from the objective conditions of human life?
This question divides all people into two large groups: believers and materialists. For believers all evil and good is in man. Hence denying violence because it's directed toward the outside, is a fight with an imaginary, nonexistent evil. Violence should be directed toward ourselves, inside, in the form of repentance or asceticism.
To assert that evil is outside, that a man is evil because the conditions in which he lives are bad, that changes in these conditions would bring changes in man,to insist that man is a result of outside circumstances, is from the religious point of view the most godless and the most inhuman idea which has ever appeared in the human mind. Such an opinion degrades man to a thing, to a helpless executor of outside, mechanical, unconscious forces. — Alija Izetbegovic

But happiness is good health and a bad memory they say, and I am a happy, happy man. — Tiffany Reisz

There's a story in 'Kabu Kabu' called 'Bakasi Man' where I got to explore the mind of a 'bad man.' It was fun. — Nnedi Okorafor

Washington is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country. — Horace Greeley

Must I carry this?" he asked, indicating his empty coffee cup.

"No, you can just throw it away."

Bad choice of words. Ax threw the coffee cup. He threw it hard. It hit one of the cashiers in the head.

"Hey!"

Sorry, it was an accident, man," I yelped.

-Animorphs #5, The Predator page 20 — K.A. Applegate

I drink because I don't stand a chance and I know it. I couldn't drive a truck and I couldn't get on the cops with my build. I got to sling beer and sing when I just want to sing. I drink because I got responsibilities that I can't handle ... I am not a happy man. I got a wife and children and I don't happen to be a hard-working man. I never wanted a family ... Yes, your mother works hard. I love my wife and I love my children. But shouldn't a man have a better life? Maybe someday it will be that the Unions will arrange for a man to work and to have time for himself too. But that won't be in my time. Now, it's work hard all the time or be a bum ... no in-between. When I die, nobody will remember me for long. No one will say, "He was a man who loved his family and believed in the Union." All they will say is," Too bad. But he was nothing but a drunk no matter which way you look at it." Yes they'll say that. — Betty Smith

Too bad!' the feisty poet responded.
'Yes, too bad!' the stranger agreed, his eye flashing, and went on: 'But here is a question that is troubling me: if there is no God, then, one may ask, who governs human life and, in general, the whole order on earth?'
'Man governs it himself' Homeless angrily hastened to reply to this admittedly none-too-clear question.
'Pardon me,' the stranger responded gently, 'but in order to govern, one needs, after all, to have a precise plan for a certain, at least somewhat decent, length of time. Allow me to ask you, then, how can man govern, if he is not only deprived of the opportunity of making a plan for at least some ridiculously short period -well, say, a thousand years- but cannot even vouch for his own tomorrow? — Mikhail Bulgakov

That's the moment I realized how incredibly lucky I am to have spent eighteen years with a man who can laugh at bad gun-control jokes whole a severed bear head is lying on his pillow. — Jenny Lawson

But I found signs of their trespass: a burned patch planted with a fistful of grain, a tree felled or stripped of fruit, a deer strung up in a snare. I never saw a poacher. They were too cunning, and for cause: the foresters would take a man's hands and eyes and leave him to the mercy of the wolves for such an offense. It was bad enough to steal the king's game, but snares were an abomnination. The gods abhor weapons that leave the hand, coward' weapons such as javelins, bows and arrows, slings. No man or beast should die by such means. — Sarah Micklem

Oh, shut the fuck up," Sean snapped. "I love you, man, OK? I missed you. Is that so hard to take? Does that scare you so damn bad?"
Kev looked away. "No," he said quietly. "It doesn't scare me. I missed you, too. All of you. It was a really long eighteen year."
Bruno looked at all four men in turn. Seconds passed. Nothing.
His disbelief grew. That was it? That was all? Oh, for the love of Christ. These guys were emotional retards, every last one of them. — Shannon McKenna

I didn't invent the rainy day, man. I just own the best umbrella. That's one of my favorite lines of all time. It's from a movie called Almost Famous. I think what it means is that life is going to throw all kinds of stuff at you, good and bad. But all you can do is get out there and try to stay dry. — Valerie Thomas

Nose to nose with her, he gave her his best bad dog snarl. You've forgotten who and what you're dealing with here, princess. So let me jar your memory. I'm not on your father's short list of men you can bring home to dinner. I'm not a nice man. So if all you're looking for is sex ... just keep this up and you're liable to get it. And don't expect some polite little in-and-out and 'oh darling, that was lovely.' You come to my bed, I'm going to fuck you, and there won't be anything polite about it. — Cindy Gerard

A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances. — James Allen

A man never has good luck who has a bad wife. — Henry Ward Beecher

She told me, "I sexualize men. You can't just be afraid of men that sexualize women when I do practically the same thing, and I'm a woman." I told Lily the honest fucking truth. "You can't physically overpower a fucking man the way that a man can overpower you." It doesn't matter who's thinking about sex. We all are. It matters who's in a position of dominance. Who has the chance to abuse that - and it's mostly men. Bad fucking men. — Krista Ritchie

Winter again. The summer people have gone. The early morning walks are solitary once more. Fog wraps the ocean and sky like a wet, gray glove. Sprinting through the frosty dune grass, my dog Buddy emerges soaked and grinning. He's become a man-child, his boundless puppy love and mindless exuberance caroming off the walls in a muscular body. He lives by one rule: To be alive is to be gloriously happy. Not a bad way to be, I often remind myself.

Comfortable in the ebb and flow of each other's idiosyncracies and needs, he keeps me company while I work, I join him often in his play. His unflagging high spirits urge me to cram activity and joy into every waking moment as he does. By so doing, I tell myself, I will multiply my allotted time by dog years and dilate the remaining seasons accordingly. A good way to look at life, I figure. — Lionel Fisher

To invent out of knowledge means to produce inventions that are true. Every man should have a built-in automatic crap detector operating inside him. It also should have a manual drill and a crank handle in case the machine breaks down. If you're going to write, you have to find out what's bad for you. Part of that you learn fast, and then you learn what's good for you. — Ernest Hemingway,

I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn't groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor of pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again. — Sylvia Plath

I feel bad for these preachers man, they're on their jets doing all of that stuff because there's a lot of people living hell on earth. — Ryan Montgomery

Possibly everyone now dead considered his own death as a freak accident, a mistake. Some bad luck caused it. Every enterprising man jack of them, and every sunlit vigorous woman and child, too, who had seemed so alive and pleased, was cold as a meat hook, and new chattering people trampled their bones unregarding, and rubbed their hands together and got to work improving their prospects till their own feet slipped and they went under themselves ... Every place was a tilting edge. — Annie Dillard

Man is physically as well as metaphysically a thing of shreds and patches, borrowed unequally from good and bad ancestors, and a misfit from the start. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is bad enough that our geniuses cannot do anything useful, but it is worse that no man is fit for society who has fine traits.He is admired at a distance, but he cannot come near without appearing a cripple. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The agreements of human society embrace not only protection against murder, but thousands of other things, and it is certainly true that in America - not to mention other continents - the whites have excluded the blacks from some of the benefits of those agreements. It is said that the exclusion has sometimes even extended to murder - that in parts of this country a white man may kill a black one, if not with impunity, at least with a good chance of escaping the penalty which the agreement imposes. That's bad. It's deplorable, and I don't blame black men for resenting it. But you are confronted with a fact, not a theory, and how do you propose to change it? — Rex Stout

God is universal," spluttered the priest.
The imam nodded strong approval. "There is only one God."
"And with their one god Muslims are always causing troubles and provoking riots. The proof of how bad Islam is, is how uncivilized Muslims are,: pronounced the pandit.
"Says the slave-driver of the cast system," huffed the imam. "Hindus enslave people and worship dressed-up dolls."
"They are golden calf lovers. They kneel before the cows," the priest chimed in.
"While Christians kneel before a white man! They are flunkies of a foreign god. They are nightmare of all nonwhite people. — Yann Martel

In the life of the individual man, virtue is the sole good; such things as health, happiness, possessions, are of no account. Since virtue resides in the will, everything really good or bad in a man's life depends only upon himself. He may become poor, but what of it? He can still be virtuous. A tyrant may put him in prison, but he can still persevere in living in harmony with Nature. He may be sentenced to death, but he can die nobly, like Socrates. Therefore every man has perfect freedom, provided he emancipates himself from mundane desires. Stoicism — Piper Kerman

One day the farmer's horse ran away. His neighbors cried "such bad luck" to which he replied "maybe." His horse returned the next day with three wild horses. His neighbors shouted "that's wonderful" and the old farmer replied "maybe." The next day his son rode one of the wild horses, fell off, and broke his leg. The neighbors called it a "terrible misfortune." The old man replied "maybe." The day after, the army came to the village to draft young men, but the son was spared thanks to his broken leg. The neighbors said the farmer was lucky how things turned out, and the old man answered "maybe. — Peter Morville

You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as ROBINSON CRUSOE never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years - generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco - and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad - ROBINSON CRUSOE. When I want advice - ROBINSON CRUSOE. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much - ROBINSON CRUSOE. I have worn out six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and ROBINSON CRUSOE put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain.
— Wilkie Collins

CBS news anchor Dan Rather has interviewed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. When asked what it was like to talk to a crazy man, Saddam said, 'It's not so bad.' — Conan O'Brien

Street music is always good even it is bad, because actually there is only one melody over there: The melody of life struggle of a poor man! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

If you fellows have been hunted from one end of the country to the other as I have been, you'll understand what a bad man's reputation is built on. I've had credit for more killings than I ever dreamt of — Doc Holliday

Yet as bad as she felt, it was nothing compared to the stark despair she saw in Rafferty's eyes. It was so total, and went so deep, that it made her forget her own hurt to see it. It was the look of a man who'd given up deep inside where it mattered most, and for Maggie, who was a survivor to her very toes, it was profoundly disturbing. — Caroline Cross

One man lies in his words, and gets a bad reputation; another in his manners, and enjoys a good one. — Henry David Thoreau

Caselli was a modest, taciturn man, in whose sad but proud eyes could be read:
- He is a great scientist, and as his 'famulus', I am also a little great;
- I, though humble, know things that he does not know;
- I know him better than he knows himself; I foresee his acts;
- I have power over him; I defend and protect him;
- I can say bad things about him because I love him; that is not granted to you — Primo Levi

Every year the aspiring photographer brought a stack of his best prints to an old, honored photographer, seeking his judgment. Every year the old man studied the prints and painstakingly ordered them into two piles, bad and good. Every year the old man moved a certain landscape print into the bad stack. At length he turned to the young man: "You submit this same landscape every year, and every year I put it on the bad stack. Why do you like it so much?" The young photographer said, "Because I had to climb a mountain to get it." A — Annie Dillard

I met an immortal humani once, a man called William Shakespeare, who wrote that there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. -Aoife the Shadows — Michael Scott

It doesn't have to be that bad,' Chade said quietly. 'Most prisons are of our own making. A man makes his own freedom, too. — Robin Hobb

In my opinion it is unwise to judge a young man by his school record. We have too many examples of bad students becoming distinguished men, and, on the other hand, of brilliant students not being at all remarkable in life. — Frank Wedekind

Two pages of the passive voice - just about any business document ever written, in other words, not to mention reams of bad fiction - make me want to scream. It's weak, it's circuitous, and it's frequently tortuous, as well. How about this: My first kiss will always be recalled by me as how my romance with Shayna was begun. Oh, man - who farted, right? A simpler way to express this idea - sweeter and more forceful, as well - might be this: My romance with Shayna began with our first kiss. I'll never forget it. I'm not in love with this because it uses with twice in four words, but at least we're out of that awful passive voice. — Stephen King

The only remedy for bad habits is counter habits; all the bad habits that have left their impressions are to be controlled by good habits. Go on doing good, thinking holy thoughts continuously; that is the only way to suppress base impressions. Never say any man is hopeless, because he only represents a character, a bundle of habits, which can be checked by new and better ones. Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits alone can reform character. — Swami Vivekananda

There is a natural disposition with us to judge an author's personal character by the character of his works. We find it difficult to understand the common antithesis of a good writer and a bad man. — Edwin Percy Whipple

It lent a Man a certain peace of mind ... to ride through threats and terrors unhearing: it even lent a man a certain real protection, for he could not hear temptation and bad advice to be swayed by it, but it was no protection at all when power reached out with tangible results and brought down the lightning. — C.J. Cherryh

Evil denotes the lack of good. Not every absence of good is an evil, for absence may be taken either in a purely negative or in aprivative sense. Mere negation does not display the character of evil, otherwise nonexistents would be evil and moreover, a thing would be evil for not possessing the goodness of something else, which would mean that man is bad for not having the strength of a lion or the speed of a wild goat. But what is evil is privation; in this sense blindness means the privation of sight. — Thomas Aquinas

Things I learned from a man called "The Nazarene"
1- Being poor does not equal being miserable.
2- People will judge you, but their judgment should not define who you are.
3- Going against what others hold as true is not necessarily a bad thing.
4- Everyone is sacred.
5- Life is sometimes a lonely and dry place, like desert, but those times are there to help us meditate on what is truly important in our lives.
6- Complaining or getting angry because there is a storm in our lives solves nothing; embrace the storm and keep calm.
7- Treasure and protect the children of the world, they hold the key of what is pure and innocent; they are the way to freedom.
8- We are free to be who we want to be, it is our choice to be slaves or kings.
9- Fear nothing.
10- The person you don't like is also your neighbor.
11- The words following "I AM" define who we are, we must choose wisely. — Martin Suarez

The effect on men has been very bad, too, of the omission of women's history, because men have been given the impression that they're much more important in the world than they actually are. It has fostered illusions of grandeur in every man that are unwarranted. If you can think as a man that everything great in the world and its civilization was created by men, then naturally you have to look down on women. And naturally, you have to have different aspirations for your sons and for your daughters. — Gerda Lerner

No doubt Pain as God's megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul. — C.S. Lewis

His name was Anderson and he had little gift for communication. Like most technicians, he had a
terror and a contempt for speculation. The inductive leap was not for him. He dug a step and pulled himself up one single step, the way a man climbs the last shoulder of a mountain. He had great contempt, born of fear, for the Hamiltons, for they all half believed they had wings - and they got some bad falls that way.
Anderson never fell, never slipped back, never flew. His steps moved slowly, slowly upward, and in the end, it is said, he found what he wanted - color film. He married Una, perhaps, because she had little humor, and this reassured him. Una wrote bleak letters without joy but also without self-pity. She was well and she hoped her family was well. — John Steinbeck

I'm a big Brad Pitt fan. He's really talented. I think a lot of men are intimidated by him, saying he's just a pretty boy or whatever, but he is a bad man. I think he can act. — Ice-T

I frowned with disappointment. I'm not sure what I'd expected to see, although a short, dark-haired man standing beneath a floating neon arrow that read BAD GUY HERE would have been nice. A suspect and quick confession wouldn't have been amiss, either. This was a lot harder than in the movies. — Chloe Neill

You been down to the bottom with a bad man, babe
But you're back were you belong — Bob Dylan

Idle Jeffrey, when asking his cousin for money: "I fear I have not a mercenary tendency."

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and his cousin, Plantagenet Palliser: "Men must have mercenary tendencies or they would not have bred. The man who plows, so he may live, does so because, luckily, he has mercenary tendencies."

Jeffrey: "Just so, but you see I am less lucky than the plowman."

Palliser: "There is no vulgar error so vulgar, that is to say common or erroneous, as that by which men have been taught to say that mercenary tendencies are bad. The desire for wealth is the source of all progress. Civilization comes from what men call greed. Let your mercenary tendencies be combines with honesty, and they cannot take you astray. — Anthony Trollope

Hark ye,'said the father, 'a bad-tempered man will never make a good-tempered horse. You've not learned your trade yet, Samson. — Anna Sewell

A really good style comes only when a man has become as good as he can be. Style is character. A good style cannot come from a bad undisciplined character. — Norman Mailer

Are you pair mad? You pitch up as if you own the place, and then you offer to relieve me of two centuries' worth of
equipment?' He glared across the wooden expanse at Marcus and Qadir. 'An officer fresh out of his napkin, and a chosen man in fancy dress with a bad suntan. Well, the pair of you can fuck right off. — Anthony Riches