Abrasive Quotes & Sayings

Consider that the earth is a processing plant, a factory. Picture a tumbler used to polish rocks: a rolling drum filled with water and sand. Consider that your soul is dropped in as an ugly rock, some raw mineral or natural resource, crude oil, mineral ore. And all conflict and pain is the abrasive that rubs us, polishes our soul, refines us, teaches and finishes us over lifetime after lifetime. — Chuck Palahniuk

Somehow, later, exhausted and dismayed by these sapping, abrasive, attriting episodes, they came to a sort of truce; but it was at the expense of any closeness. — Iain M. Banks

If anything, I feel that the current generation of listeners of heavy music are progressing a bit passed their gateway bands and are digging deeper than they used to and understanding more abrasive and complex music and art. It's like being around an unfamiliar language long enough that it eventually begins to make sense. — Jacob Bannon

Is all pink entirely banned?'
'Not if it's like a sassy pink,' I say. 'But if it's a sweet, girl pink, yes. Maybe some shade of sarcastic pink if it isn't too abrasive. — Laura Nowlin

Hating hurts the hater the most. Hating is not a salve for the wounded soul, it is an abrasive that keeps the soul wounded and raw and oversensitive. — Jack R. Rose

I'm brash and abrasive but that's because I've noticed when people are nice and polite they never get anywhere. — Mahathir Mohamad

You are never persuasive when you're abrasive. — Rick Warren

Trickster stories are pleasurable, contradictory, annoying, abrasive. They're powerful, transformational acts of liberation because they are not nailed down to the real, to the representation of something in the world. — Gerald Vizenor

People don't tend to employ me. I'm the wrong personality type. Or rather, people do tend to employ me for a short time and then they sack me. A film broker once told me, as she terminated my contract, that I have a misleading sort of face.
"You're pretty", she complained. "Your features are symmetrical and there was an article in Grazia that says human beings are programmed to find those with symmetrical features more pleasing to they eye. So this isn't my fault, I was simply responding to a biological imperative. You've even teeth, so when you smile, you look ... sweet, I suppose. But you're not, are you?"
"I hope not," I said.
"You see, there you go again. You're a smart-arse and you've no ability to filter your thoughts
"
"And my thoughts are often abrasive."
"Exactly."
"I'll just get my brushes and sponges and leave."
"If you would. — Marian Keyes

When you depersonalize abrasive behavior and see it as a call for help you become a catalyst for the best kind of change. — Marilyn Suttle

The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality. — Richard M. Nixon

Aristotle declared that, 'It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.' Does the intrinsic tension between opposing ideas create a lamplight of stereoscopic vision? Does the mental friction generated by antinomy, a contradiction between two apparently equally valid principles or between inferences correctly drawn from such principles, lead to war within the mind or does the natural rasping of abrasive thoughts spur the mind to create soothing metaphorical thoughts in order to attain conceptual peace? — Kilroy J. Oldster

I believe how you looked was supposed to mean, something graver, more substantial: I'd gaze at my poor face and think, "It's still not there." Apparently I still do. What isn't there? Beauty? Not likely. Wisdom? Less. Is how we live or try to live supposed to embellish us? All I see is the residue of my other, failed faces.
But maybe what we're after is just a less abrasive regard: not "It's still not there," but something like "Come in, be still. — C. K. Williams

There is a terrific disadvantage in not having the abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily. Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn't write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn't any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press. — John F. Kennedy

I wished I could get up in the morning and look at the day the way I used to when I was a child. I wished I could walk down the streets and not hear those constant, abrasive sounds from the mouths of the opposite sex. Damn, I wished the world would let me be myself. — Rita Mae Brown

There is something very fragile about the beginning stages of psychic development. Eventually, one becomes very strong and the cushioning isn't as necessary. It's still logical because we live in an abrasive world. — Frederick Lenz

Never be arrogant or abrasive. Treat your opponent respectfully if they really and truly believe they are right. — Jane Goodall

She decided to be honest. "You" - she pointed at Dee-Ann - "kill at the slightest provocation. I hit for no other reason than I feel like it. And MacDermot is rude and abrasive." Cella put her arms around each woman's shoulders and hugged them in tight. "Oh, my God! I just realized. I love you guys!"
"You're touchin' me," Dee-Ann complained.
"Yeah, but at least this time it's not 'cause I'm hitting you. — Shelly Laurenston

There are three basic-types of communications, between people of equal status: Abrasion: I clash with you, you clash with me: process continues till we're both exhausted. Parasitic: I complain, you build me up: process continues till I suck all your energy out. Symbiotic: I build-you-up or make you laugh, you build-me-up or make me laugh: process can continue indefinitely, giving us both more energy, making us both feel better, than when the exchange started. Do not be abrasive or parasitic, nor allow others, to be that way with you. Seek: symbiotic exchanges; symbiotic people, and, be mindful of your every word. — Richard Skeet

The dial of the clock wears out unevenly;
Most worn
Is the area round eight.
As it is stared at with abrasive glances
unfailingly twice a day,
It is weathered away.
On the other side
The area at two
Is only half as worn,
For closed eyes at night
Pass without stopping.
If there is one who possesses a flat watch evenly worn,
It is he who, failing at the start, is running one lap behind.

Thus the world is always
A lap fast--
The world he thinks he sees
Has not yet begun.
Illusory time,
When the hands stand vertically on the dial;
Without the bell announcing the raising of the curtain,
The play has come to an end. — Kobo Abe

Money by Martin Amis. I read it when I was 15, I read it hundreds of times since then and it always makes me laugh. Amis has managed to create a world that is both funny and abrasive. I'd love to play John Self, the depraved hero, who's without illusions, he created. — Robert Pattinson

What really kills me - it really rips me up - is when people think I'm abrasive, inconsiderate or ungrateful because I don't go outside in a bikini and wave to the paparazzi. Come on! — Kristen Stewart

At two-tenths the speed of light, dust and atoms might not do significant damage even in a voyage of 40 years, but the faster you go, the worse it is
space begins to become abrasive. When you begin to approach the speed of light, hydrogen atoms become cosmic-ray particles, and they will fry the crew ... So 60,000 kilometers per second may be the practical speed limit for space travel. — Isaac Asimov

Sherlock Holmes gets to be brilliant, solitary, abrasive, Bohemian, whimsical, brave, sad, manipulative, neurotic, vain, untidy, fastidious, artistic, courteous, rude, a polymath genius. Female characters get to be Strong. — Sophia McDougall

We must express the view, based on our empirical observations, that a substantial number of journalists are ignorant, lazy, opinionated, and intellectually dishonest. The profession is heavily cluttered with aged hacks toiling through a miasma of mounting decrepitude and often alcoholism, and even more so with arrogant and abrasive youngsters who substitute 'commitment' for insight. The product of their impassioned intervention in public affairs is more often confusion than lucidity. — Conrad Black

The global village is a place of very arduous interfaces and very abrasive situations. — Marshall McLuhan

I purposely used a pretty cocky, abrasive writing style in Sex and Crime, to stir up some drama. My confrontational style quickly became the talk of the scene. Some of the things I wrote were so inflammatory, people had to vent about it on online forums. So suddenly everyone in the scene was talking about Sex and Crime, just as I had hoped. I enjoyed playing the role of agitator, and people from competing hacking crews didn't even realize that the more they bitched about the things I wrote, the more credibility and notoriety they were adding to my scene mag. Thanks to all the positive as well as negative feedback I was getting, the things I wrote actually mattered. Suddenly I was the most important opinion maker in the scene. — Oliver Markus

Human experience comes suspended in the sickly-sweet amniotic fluid of commercial photography. And a world normally animated by abrasive differences is blithely reduced to a single, homogeneous National Geographic way of seeing. — Geoffrey Batchen

[A]s often happens to assertive women, the men in the federation considered her abrasive, overbearing. They whispered privately that she was 'emotionally volatile' and did not have a 'second gear' in her public manner. Strong men are considered fiery, strong women are volatile. — Jere Longman

You get a stain on your pants. Your favorite pair of pants. You wash them ten times in a row at 160 degrees. You scrub and scour and rub. You bring in the heavy artillery. Bleaches. Abrasive cleaners. But the spot doesn't go away. If you scrub and scour too long, it will only be replaced by something else. By a stretch of fabric that is thinner and paler. The paler cloth is the memory. The memory of the spot. Now there are two things you can do. You can throw the pants away, or you can walk around for the rest of your life with the memory of the stain. But the paler cloth reminds you of more than just the stain. It also reminds you of when the pants were still clean. — Herman Koch

McGlade is a bit, um, abrasive," Jack said. "If he says something rude, you have to promise not to kill him." I smiled. Jack didn't. "I'm serious. Promise me." "I promise. I don't kill people just because they're rude." "Yeah, well, that's because you haven't met Harry yet." She — J.A. Konrath

I like risky parts - abrasive characters the audience won't necessarily like. — Tim Curry

What is assertive in a man can appear abrasive in a woman, and female leaders risk appearing too feminine or not feminine enough. — Barbara Kellerman

We were the first people who did investigative stuff, who asked occasionally abrasive, occasionally confrontational questions. — Mike Wallace

Strength on its own in a woman is quite abrasive and not terribly attractive all the time, — Stella McCartney

There are few things more abrasive to the human spirit, even in Patagonia, than someone standing behind you chomping and sucking ice cubes. — Paul Theroux

I'm not an abrasive person. I do speak my mind, but my goal is never to offend. I don't intentionally want to strike a chord. — Trevor Noah

Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict. — Saul Alinsky

I didn't know myself well, and still don't. But I did know, and know now, the few people I loved and trusted. My feeling for them is one part of me I have never quarreled with, even though my relations with them have more than once been abrasive. — Wallace Stegner

Isocrates: Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress. — Michael Lewis

Life id far more abrasive experiencing it's individual components than the sum itself — Scott Hildreth

I often begin movies with music in my head; it's a very important dimension to me. Not just the music itself, but how to use music in film: when and how and subtlety. I don't like to be too sweet in my stories, and I like the abrasive clang, the contrasting of sounds and cultures. — Mira Nair

Be sure to expose yourself to criticism: A fine polish requires an abrasive. — Marilyn Vos Savant

I really subscribe to that old adage that you should never let the audience get ahead of you for a second. So if the film's abrasive and wrongfoots people then, y'know, that's great. But I hope it involves an audience. — Paul Thomas Anderson

In the beginning, New York and I had kind of a love-hate relationship. It seemed so abrasive compared to Europe. But the transformation here in recent years is really something. I don't think I would have seen as much change if I'd lived in any other city in the world. — Shalom Harlow

The methods of peaceful protests are not capable of being effective, because in reality most people pay little attention to things that are not abrasive. — Assata Shakur

Etiquette enables you to resolve conflict without just trading insults. Without etiquette, the irritations in modern life are so abrasive that you see people turning to the law to regulate everyday behavior. This frightens me; it's a major inroad on our basic freedoms. — Judith Martin

Find ways for people to shape their work and the company In addition to stripping leaders of the traditional tools of power and relying on facts to make decisions, we give Googlers uncommon freedom in shaping their own work and the company. Google isn't the first to do so. For over sixty-five years, 3M has offered its employees 15 percent of their time to explore: "A core belief of 3M is that creativity needs freedom. That's why, since about 1948, we've encouraged our employees to spend 15% of their working time on their own projects. To take our resources, to build up a unique team, and to follow their own insights in pursuit of problem-solving."103 Post-it Notes famously came out of this program, as did a clever abrasive material, Trizact, which somehow sharpens itself as it's used. — Anonymous

And if clever rabbit doesn't quite have what it takes, abrasive Eeyore certainly doesn't either. Why not? Because of what we could call the Eeyore Attitude. You might say the while rabbit's little routine is that of knowledge for the sake of being clever, and while Owl's is that of knowledge for the sake of appearing wise, Eeyore's is knowledge for the sake of complaining about something. As anyone who doesn't have it can see, the Eeyore attitude gets in the way of things like wisdom and happiness, and pretty much prevents any sort of real accomplishment in life. — Benjamin Hoff

You need to shelter yourself from the abrasive forces of life that drain you and keep you in a lower state of mind. — Frederick Lenz

Scholars of the Therin Collegium, from their comfortable position well inland, could tell you that the wolf sharks of the Iron Sea are beautiful and fascinating creatures, their bodies more packed with muscle than any bull, their abrasive hide streaked with every color from old-copper green to stormcloud black. Anyone actually working the waterfront in Camorr and on the nearby coast could tell you that wolf sharks are big aggressive bastards that like to jump. — Scott Lynch

This woman did not know me, but she knew this stretch of trail. She didn't know if I was kind or mean, gentle or abrasive, honest or a liar. She didn't need to know what I had accomplished in life or what I had wasted. She just knew that if I was there in her hospital on my birthday, I was probably feeling a little lost. On that basis alone, i mattered to her. — Russ Ramsey

Bossy means "given to ordering people around, highhanded, domineering, overly authoritative, dictatorial, abrasive." ... Could it be that girls are called bossy when they're ... well, bossy? Could it be that boys are also called bossy for the same reason? — Matt Walsh

Just like your father, Ryan - blunt, abrasive and cursing like a sailor." He moved closer until he was just inches from him and added with a wink, "Everything I liked about him. — Franca Storm

Hip-hop to me right now is really easy listening. It's very easy listening, like there's nothing abrasive about it. There's no album that I put in my car that makes me roll down the windows - all the windows - and ride past the club line three times before I get out the car. — Pusha T

Normal? I'm not normal enough for you?" Carlos says. "You want this guy instead? Did you notice his hair doesn't move? That's not normal. You want to date him again, go ahead. Hell, if you want to marry him and be Kiara Barra the rest of your life, be my guest."
"That's not want I
"
"I don't want to hear it. Hasta," Carlos says, ignoring me and walking away.
I feel my face heat in embarrassment as I look at Michael. "Sorry. Carlos can he abrasive sometimes."
"Don't apologize. The guy obviously has major issues and, for the record, my hair moves ... when I want it to. — Simone Elkeles

A writer doesn't only need the time when he's actually writing - he or she has got to have time to think and time just to let things work out. Nothing is worse for this than society. Nothing is worse for this than the abrasive, if enjoyable, effect of other people. — Nadine Gordimer

Grief and guilt. A powerful combination. Guilt like a liquid, a thin liquor, seeping everywhere, informing everything, saturating the whole-corrosive, like seawater, scented with the rich stench of ordure and corruption, and carrying with it hard, abrasive shards of grief. — Simon Mawer

The scolding voice is her own, so abrasive and quick, yet so powerless to move her. — Carol Shields

You have two choices, two paths to take as a comedian. You can tackle the difficult subjects and be harsh about it, be brash, be abrasive. But adding hatred to racism is not going to help everybody. So I like to have fun around it. — Trevor Noah