Abbreviated Quotes & Sayings

A Pike, in the California dialect, is a native of Missouri, Arkansas, Northern Texas, or Southern Illinois. The first emigrants that came over the plains were from Pike County, Missouri; but as the phrase, 'a Pike County man,' was altogether too long for this short life of ours, it was soon abbreviated into 'a Pike.' — Bayard Taylor

Axsem would say nothing more to any of them. No sooner had Fallon released him than he fled deep into the trees, staff in hand, with Hailos following after. Through the morning air, they heard the wail of his mourning. The scarred heart of the general was torn wide open by having to recall even one abbreviated story from his past. He needed time to coddle his mangled heart and push away the torturous memories. — S.R. Ford

Aristotle writes that persuasion is based on three things: the ethos, or personal character of the speaker; the pathos, or getting the audience into the right kind of emotional receptivity; and the logos, or the argument itself, carried out by abbreviated syllogisms, or something like deductive syllogisms, and by the use of example. — Randal Marlin

The child tends to be stripped of all social influences but those of the market place, all sense of place, function and class is weakened, the characteristics of region and clan, neighborhood or kindred are attenuated. The individual is denuded of everything but appetities, desires and tastes, wrenched from any context of human obligation or commitment. It is a process of mutilation; and once this has been achieved, we are offered the consolation of reconstituting the abbreviated humanity out of the things and the goods around us, and the fantasies and vapors which they emit. A culture becomes the main determinant upon morality, beliefs and purposes, usurping more and more territory that formerly belonged to parents, teachers, community, priests and politics alike. — Jeremy Seabrook

Writers acquire the hedge habit to conform to the bureaucratic imperative that's abbreviated as CYA, which I'll spell out as Cover Your Anatomy. They hope it will get them off the hook, or at least allow them to plead guilty to a lesser charge, should a critic ever try to prove them wrong. It's the same reason that lawsuit-wary journalists drizzle the words allegedly and reportedly throughout their copy, as in The alleged victim was found lying in a pool of blood with a knife in his back. — Steven Pinker

When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there's something within me that's ready to believe in life after death. And it's not the least bit interested in whether there's any sober evidence for it. — Carl Sagan

At heart, I have always been a coper, I've mostly been able to walk around with my wounds safely hidden, and I've always stored up my deep depressive episodes for the weeks off when there was time to have an abbreviated version of a complete breakdown. But in the end, I'd be able to get up and on with it, could always do what little must be done to scratch by. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

A pair of workman's brogans encased my feet, and for trousers I was furnished with a pair of pale blue, washed-out overalls, one leg of which was fully ten inches shorter than the other. The abbreviated leg looked as though the devil had there clutched for the Cockney's soul and missed the shadow for the substance. — Jack London

How come abbreviated is such a long word? — Steven Wright

As for tweeting and texting: impassioned discussions, particularly when they're intimate, don't work in abbreviated script messages. No relationship should begin or end in 140 characters. — Mariella Frostrup

That was what we call in the trade an Unscheduled Reality Excursion, usually abbreviated to 'Oh fuck.' — Charles Stross

The abbreviated exam week meant that Wednesday was the last day of school for us. And all day long, it was hard not to walk around, thinking about the lastness of it all. — John Green

Tim shot a cool thumbs up, and then walked over to the - somewhat - historic staircase of the industry. He flipped on the light for upstairs, and then made his way up the old flight of steps. The thin wooden panels creaked beneath his feet while dusty atmospheric ovations lifted to add a vintage textured rhythm to the analogically customized tuning of the antique patterned theme; synonymous with the abbreviated modernized antiquity categorized theme pertaining to the worn in structural exhibition, showcasing a glimpse into the early history of the industries humble beginnings. — Calvin W. Allison

All good books are about everything, abbreviated. — Andrew Smith

Even so, as was his custom, he writes the name in an abbreviated form: "Wllm Shaksp." It also has a large blot on the end of the surname, probably because of the comparatively low quality of the paper. Though it is only a deposition, it is also the only document in existence containing a transcript of Shakespeare speaking in his own voice. — Bill Bryson

Miss, n. A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate they are in the market. Miss, Misses (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound and sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. In the general abolition of social titles in this our country they miraculously escaped to plague us. If we must have them let us be consistent and give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to Mh. — Ambrose Bierce

When I got home, I told my dad the truth about Yazzie; I told him that he had belonged to Don and Nettie's grandson who was going into the Marine Corps, and he had given him to me because he couldn't keep him. Truth without embellishment, although one could argue that it was slightly abbreviated. My dad didn't seem to care where I'd gotten him.

"I've been thinking about getting a dog around here." My dad cooed as well as a gravely cowboy can. "He's a good boy, oh yes he is! He's a little beauty!"

What was it about babies and puppies that made everyone talk with their lips pushed out in that kissy-faced way? I left Yazzie in my dad's enthusiastic care and climbed up to my room — Amy Harmon

The perks of working in Japan are that you might go for two weeks every three or four months, so you do work an abbreviated schedule. But you really make up for the abbreviated schedule by how hard you have to fight, how much you've got to be in shape. — Owen Hart

The individual is denuded of everything but appetites, desires, and tastes, wrenched from any context of human obligation or commitment. It is a process of mutilation; and once this has been achieved, we are offered the consolation of reconstituting the abbreviated humanity out of the things and the goods around us, and the fantasies and vapors which they emit. — Jeremy Seabrook

The embryological record is almost always abbreviated in accordance with the tendency of nature (to be explained on the principle of survival of the fittest) to attain her needs by the easiest means. — Francis Maitland Balfour

I wasn't kidding about the flying-kids part. Or the talking-dog part.
Anyone who's up to speed on the Adventures of Amazing Max and Her Flying, Fun-Loving Cohorts, you can skip this next page or so. Those of you who picked up this book cold, even thought it's clearly part three of the series, well, get with the program, people! I can't take two days to get you caught up on everything! Here's the abbreviated version (which is pretty, I might add):
A bunch of mad scientists (mad crazy not mad angry- though a lot of them seem to have anger-management issues, especially around me) have been playing around with recombinant life-forms, where they graft different species' DNA together. — James Patterson

In abbreviated form, by a kind of symbol, only the most essential information is passed on and passed on only to those concerned. It is more than a metaphor to describe the price system as a kind of machinery for registering change, or a system of telecommunications which enables individual producers to watch merely the movement of a few pointers, as an engineer might watch the hands of a few dials, in order to adjust their activities to changes of which they may never know more than is reflected in the price movement. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

Margaret laughed. "Sure thing. Sorry, Ave. I'll go and get the tea." Ave. If Avice had been feeling less awful, she would have corrected her: there was nothing worse than an abbreviated name. — Jojo Moyes

After all, I need to be a godfather slash uncle. I think the term is 'guncle'." "Guncle?" "Abbreviated, 'gay uncle'. — Sean Kennedy

The phone in my hand buzzed. Logan had just texted I Love You - so cute how he never abbreviated it. — Jeri Smith-Ready

Your zeal to face life's rough and tumble, your ardor to accept the responsibilities of adulthood is hardly congruent with the aspirations of most graduate students ... ' He shook his head of disagreeable hair. 'I need not tell you,' he deplored, sinking to paralipsis, 'that there resides in almost every one of 'em the unconscious desire not to grow up. For once the academic goal is attained and the doctorate irradicably abbreviated after the name, the problem of facing the world is confronted. The subtlest, most unremitting drive of the student is his unconscious proclivity to postpone the acceptance of responsibility as long as possible. — Millard Kaufman

Someday I will tell my grandchildren that I lived in the era when OK was abbreviated to K. — Demetri Martin

In our rapid and externalized world, language has become ghostlike, abbreviated to code and label. Words that would mirror the soul carry the loam of substance and the shadow of the divine. The sense of silence and darkness behind the words in more ancient cultures, particularly in folk culture, is absent in the modern use of language. Language is full of acronyms; nowadays we are impatient of words that carry with them histories and associations. — John O'Donohue

Modern man no longer works at what cannot be abbreviated — Paul Valery

The Raven's author_ _ _

Walked down the road, abbreviated so we're told. _ _

The bus came by and one departed,
That is to say, he got this. _ _ _

Come on now, it's time to play.
When water's cold it is that way. _ _ _

Put the pieces together, then roll you die.
Natural 20! Flying higt!
Find the boxes, nearly there:
Level up to 7, here is there. — Megan Frazer Blakemore

And when, after fifteen years of bingeing, barfing, starving, needles and tubes and terror and rage, and medical crises and personal failure and loss after loss - when, after all this, you are in your early twenties and staring down a vastly abbreviated life expectancy, and the eating disorder still takes up half your body, half your brain, with its invisible eroding force, when you have spent the majority of your life sick, when you do not yet know what it means to be 'well,' or 'normal,' when you doubt that those words even have meaning anymore, there are still no answers. You will die young, and you have no way to make sense of that fact.
You have this: You are thin. — Marya Hornbacher

My favourite two festivals have always been the Big Day Out and Summersonic in Japan. The Big Day Out is a little more fun because it lasts longer. It's like an abbreviated version of the Warped tour because you get to play with the same people every day, which is really fun. — Gerard Way

She glanced pointedly at the flopping tadpole.
"What?"
"Take it back."
"You're kidding, right?" he said disbelievingly.
"Do we have time?"
He considered that. "Yes, but
"
"Then, no I'm not."
"That lake was three hops ago," he said impatiently.
"If you don't take it back it's going to die, and while you may think it's just a pathetic little thing with an abbreviated little life that hardly even signifies in the fairy scheme of things, I'll bet in the tadpole scheme of things it's really looking forward to becoming a frog. Now take it back. A life is a life. I don't care how tiny an almighty fairy thinks it is."
One dark brow arched and he inclined his head. "Yes, Gabrielle." Scooping up the tadpole in one big hand, gently enough that it gave her pause, he popped out.
-Gabrielle and Adam Black — Karen Marie Moning

If you wanted to greet him or get his attention, you had to say: "Oh, Mr. Forest-Ranger-who-stands-in-the-tower-watching-out-for-forest fires!" If you abbreviated it, or, heaven help us, addressed him simply as "David," you would get no response. — Katherine Paterson

I start with a beat sheet, which is more of an abbreviated outline. It hits all the major plot points. From there, I move to note cards. But the most important part of my process is my inspiration board. — Kami Garcia

Even this abbreviated rundown of mind-brain philosophies would not be complete without what the Australian philosopher David Chalmers calls "don't-have-clue materialism." This is the default position of those who have no idea about the origins of consciousness or the mind but assert that "it must be physical, as materialism must be true," as Chalmers puts it. "Such a view is held widely, but rarely in print." One might add that many working scientists hold this view without really reflecting on the implications of it. — Jeffrey M. Schwartz