Ago When Quotes & Sayings

Poetry, as odd as it is, and as hard to figure out as it is, many times, it's almost something that we're used to. It's kind of like a dream language that we had centuries ago, so that when we speak poetically or write a poem about what's going on, a real difficult issue that's facing our communities, people listen. — Juan Felipe Herrera

People have always had this craving to have someone tell them the future. Long ago, kings would hire people to read sheep guts. There's always been a market for people who pretend to know the future. Listening to today's forecasters is just as crazy as when the king hired the guy to look at the sheep guts. — Charlie Munger

So why did you come over?" I said to Max.
He turned around and started walking backward. He spread his arms out wide. "For love!" He had to jerk his hands back in when they got too close to the flames.
Cole broke out in spasms of laughter.
"What is it?"
Cole looked at me. "I brought him over. Ages ago. — Brodi Ashton

It's an ethical pact I've made with myself and with the reader - not to invent. And when I can't remember, I say I can't remember. I'm just appalled by the memoirs published by people who regurgitate dialogue, conversations from when they were small children, and they go on for three or four pages. I can't even remember what we said to each other ten minutes ago! How can I remember what was said sixty years ago? It's not possible. — Paul Auster

what we think of when we envision the human past is partly a myth that tells more about where we think we're going wrong with our own lives today than anything that happened thousands and thousands of years ago. — Brenna Hassett

I never meant to hurt you, Isabel. Had I known what I would find when I came north, I would never have agreed to Leighton's request ... That is a lie. Had I known that I would find you when I came north, I would have come years ago. — Sarah MacLean

Actors in general have become very spoiled in the roles they choose these days. When I first started in this profession - about a hundred years ago in the last century - it was all about taking risks, it was about doing the job and honing the craft. — Brian Cox

What can I do for you, Arbitrator?" I asked.
"George, please. There is no hot water in my bathroom."
"Oh really?" You don't say.
"Yes. In fact, it's ice-cold." He raised a half-filled glass. Thin slivers of ice floated on its surface. "I drew this from the tap in my sink."
"How unfortunate. When did this happen?"
"About two minutes ago."
"While you were in the shower?"
"Yes."
"My apologies. I'll get right on that."
George squinted at me, his face thoughtful, and waved the call off.
Sophie leaned back and laughed. "You really love those trees. — Ilona Andrews

When I got to GM they were using a matrix method of management which means everybody has more than one boss. I first heard about that system many years ago. It's supposed to help with collaboration, but my assessment is that it's pretty hard to get geared for action that way. — Edward Whitacre Jr.

Light-headed, my body trembling from shoes to shoulders in random spells, like I swallowed a vibrator. It's always like this when I'm on the sauce. I dosed six hours ago. — David Wong

When David Fincher called me up a few years ago and said, 'Hey, I'd like you to score this film 'The Social Network,' I said, 'I'm flattered, but I really don't have any real experience scoring films, and I'd rather not screw it up on a high-profile project. And I like you and I don't want to compromise our friendship.' — Trent Reznor

Europeans, since the days when they began to believe in :progress" and in "evolution," that is to say since a little more than a century ago, profess to see a sign of inferiority in this absence of change, whereas for our part, we look upon it as a balanced condition which Western civilization has failed to achieve. — Rene Guenon

I'm a pretty forgetful guy, but everything she says, I remember. I remember what colour her hair ribbon was when we met on the first day of fifth grade. I remember that she loves orchids because they look delicate but aren't, really. From a single postcard she sent me when traveling with her family two summers ago. I remember what my name looks like in her handwriting. — Adi Alsaid

It's different now but I enjoy it more than I did then. I think I appreciate it more now and I love playing acoustically. This is the way I started. Herb and I met each other forty years ago when we were both eighteen years old, playing bluegrass, and that's what drew me into music, and I enjoyed every particular part of my career. But now I enjoy it because it's the twilight of my career, where I can play what I want and I can play when I want and where I want. And that's the greatest part it all. So it's sort of a right that I've earned. I can record records the way I want to. — Chris Hillman

I've been trying to get into comedy for years. I had a meeting with one of the networks a couple years ago, a general meeting, and when they asked what I was looking for and I told them I'd prefer to do comedy, it was as if I had two heads. — Natalie Zea

History flung the accents on our names into the water when it took us across the Gulf of Siam thirty years ago. — Kim Thuy

Millions upon millions of years ago, when the continents were already formed and the principal features of the earth had been decided, there existed, then as now, one aspect of the world that dwarfed all other ... a mighty ocean, resting uneasily to the east of the largest continent, a restless ever-changing, gigantic body of water that would later be described as Pacific. — James A. Michener

There's a pizza place I want you to try, Ciccio's. You heard of it?"

"We can get good pizza on Fifth."

"No, you have to try this place, Matt. It's phenomenal."

"What's phenomenal, the pizza or the staff?" Since my divorce a few years ago, Scott - boss, friend, and eternal bachelor - had high hopes that I'd become his permanent wingman. It was impossible to talk him out of anything, especially when it involved women and food.

"You got me. You have to see this girl. We'll call it a work meeting. I'll put it on the company card." Scott was the type who talked about women a lot and about porn even more. He was severely out of touch with reality.

"I'm sure this qualifies as sexual harassment somewhere. — Renee Carlino

Years ago when I served as a missionary, we had a visit from Dr. James E. Talmage of the Council of the Twelve
a great student, a great teacher, great theologian, and a great prophet.. Here we sat at his feet every idle minute that we could find and plied him with questions and listened to his counsel.
On one occasion he said to us, I want to tell you missionaries something. The day of sacrifice is not past! The time will come, yet, when many Saints and even Apostles will yet lose their lives in defense of the truth! — Harold B. Lee

If we turn now to such vestiges of cult as are associated otherwise than with time and season, we discover a definite recognition of the survival of these nearly a century ago. Keightley, the old fairy mythologist, who did such yeoman service in the collection of much valuable elfin lore, says, as long ago as 1850, when referring to the confused nature of his subject: 'Indeed it could not well be otherwise, when we recollect that all these beings (the larger and greater fairies) once formed part of ancient and exploded systems of religion and that it is chiefly in the traditions of the peasantry that their memorial has been preserved. — Lewis Spence

When my mate died, it took me a very, very long time to come back."
It took her a moment to think of what to say.
"How long?"
"Two hundred three years, twenty-seven days ago. — Sarah J. Maas

You can find things in the traditional religions which are very benign and decent and wonderful and so on, but I mean, the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon. The God of the Bible - not only did He order His chosen people to carry out literal genocide - I mean, wipe out every Amalekite to the last man, woman, child, and, you know, donkey and so on, because hundreds of years ago they got in your way when you were trying to cross the desert - not only did He do things like that, but, after all, the God of the Bible was ready to destroy every living creature on earth because some humans irritated Him. That's the story of Noah. I mean, that's beyond genocide - you don't know how to describe this creature. Somebody offended Him, and He was going to destroy every living being on earth? And then He was talked into allowing two of each species to stay alive - that's supposed to be gentle and wonderful. — Noam Chomsky

The cover was pebbled black leather, the pages onionskin, and he opened it carefully. It was his first Bible, the one his mother had given him, the one that had taken its time showing him what he was supposed to do with his life, his size, that voice of his. It was the one used for his ordination, and when he had buried his mother on a autumn hillside in Tennesee five years ago. King James. He didn't care about the scholars or the accuracy or the bringing of his church into whatever century they claimed it was these days; he cared about the poetry, and about the comfort it brought to those who needed to hear it. — Charles L. Grant

When on a Sunday morning we hear the old bells ring out, we ask ourselves, "Is it possible! This is done on account of a Jew crucified two thousand years ago who said he was the Son of God. The proof of such an assertion is wanting". — Friedrich Nietzsche

Perhaps when I first arrived on this world so long ago I may have known more. Now, though, I do not have knowledge of as much as I used to. The years, many of them, have changed this world and the great societies flourish with change. Although I feel nothing but pride for this, I am saddened as well. For as the changes occur my knowledge of this world dwindles. As such, I seek to learn, to regain that which I have lost. Do you now understand?" ~ except from "Raging Land", book 2 of 3 in the "Patrons of Earth" Trilogy by A. N. Jones (quote is subject to change) — A.N. Jones

Democracy triumphed in the cold war because it was a battle of values - between one system that gave preeminence to the state and another that gave preeminence to the individual and freedom. Not long ago, I was told about an incident that illustrated this difference: An American scholar, on his way to the airport before a flight to the Soviet Union, got into a conversation with his cab driver, a young man who said that he was still getting his education. The scholar asked, "When you finish your schooling, what do you want to be, what do you want to do?" The young man answered, "I haven't decided yet." After the scholar arrived at the airport in Moscow, his cab driver was also a young man who happened to mention he was still getting his education, and the scholar, who spoke Russian, asked, "When you finish your schooling, what do you want to be, what do you want to do?" The young man answered: "They haven't told me yet. — Ronald Reagan

Because that happened to me when I was little, this is how I will now treat other people"; "Because so and so beat me up and hurt me a long time ago, that gives me the right to treat people the way I treat them, today"; "Because life was hard on me, life should be hard on everyone else around me" - does this sound/ look familiar? It's called victim mentality. When people choose to be the direct product of everything that happened to them, the direct product of every single pair of hands that hurt them. And the world, to these people, must bend over backwards in order to accommodate their wounds. Some people don't want to be loved; they just want to make the world pay. — C. JoyBell C.

First they burned her - that was last month. Actually just two weeks ago. Now they're starvng him. When he's dead, they'll burn him too.
Oh, how jolly. All this burning of family members in the summertime. — Lydia Davis

It is not unknown for fathers with a brace of daughters to reel off their names in order of birth when summoning the youngest, and I had long ago become accustomed to being called 'Ophelia Daphne Flavia, damn it. — Alan Bradley

I live in a war zone. I would never have imagined 37 years ago when I started practicing law that there would still be so much discrimination against women, so much denial of women's rights. — Gloria Allred

Jack, who apparently always had to be moving in some way, had made up for the missing knife by grabbing a half loaf of French bread and methodically ripping it into tiny pieces.
"What," I said, narrowing my eyes. "Why don't faeries like bread?"
"Hmm?" Jack looked up, then shrugged. "I dunno."
Lend picked up a piece, crumbling it. "My dad said he thought it was because it was the staff of life for people."
"Nasty stuff tastes like mold," Jack said. "I tried a piece once a while ago when I was still trying to force myself to eat normal food so I could stay here. It was like a shock to my whole system." He shuddered at the memory. — Kiersten White

Surprising. It was just like Marlow. It was accepted in silence. No one took the trouble to grunt even; and presently he said, very slow - I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago - the other day ... Light came out of this river since - you say Knights? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker - may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was — Joseph Conrad

The Australian Aboriginal cave paintings, from this period, are the first hints of religion that humans have as proof of religious behaviour. The caves in which the paintings are found date to 50,000 years ago through forensic geology and carbon dating. Most of the images found in their religious stories and ceremonies are depicted in these caves. We also have confirmation from the aborigines themselves that these images are their religious images. These paintings also are likely to be significant evidence for linking the use of Amanita Muscaria to its use 50,000 years ago. This is because 50,000 years ago was when humanity entered Australia and also because Amanita Muscaria produces religious like experiences. — Leviak B. Kelly

Something settiled inside me, something heavy and hard. It stayed there, and i could not think of one thing to make it go away. I thought, So this must be living, this must be the beginning of the time people later refer to as 'years ago, when I was young'. — Jamaica Kincaid

I should point out that I was intimately involved with a group of women here a year and a half ago when there was an effort made by a right wing element in the President's party to get him to turn back the clock. — Birch Bayh

I'll admit that I was staring. Suddenly my whole perspective had flipped inside out, like when you look at an inkblot picture and see just the black part. Then your brain inverts the image and you realize the white part makes an entirely different picture, even though nothing has changed. That was Alex Fierro, except in pink and green. A second ago, he had been very obviously a boy to me. Now she was very obviously a girl. — Rick Riordan

I can only say the first thing that pops into my mind is I remember, years ago, seeing kind of a has-been country singer working - when I first moved to Nashville - in a bar in a Holiday Inn. — Jimmy Buffett

How could Mark be halfway across the world when she would have sworn he'd been in this room with her only seconds ago? — Teresa Medeiros

I was a waitress years ago when I was first trying to become an actress, waiting tables in New York City. — Kim Dickens

He was standing in the Inner Court, shouting for his enemy. When Guenever saw him, and he saw her, the electric message went between their eyes before they spoke a word. It was as if Elaine and the whole Quest for the Grail had never been. So far as we can make it out, she had accepted her defeat. He must have seen in her eyes that she had given in to him, that she was prepared to leave him to be himself-to love God, and to do whatever he pleased-so long as he was only Lancelot. she was serene and sane again. she had renounced her possessive madness and was joyful to see him living, whatever he did. They were young creatures-the same creatures whose eyes had met with the almost forgotten click of magnets in the smoky Hall of Camelot so long ago. And, in truly yielding, she had won the battle by mistake. — T.H. White

The few things I'd sacrificed, or put on hold, to be with my husband and
baby were worth it. That broken boy on the beach seemed like a lifetime ago. Years had passed, college and the NFL, marriage and a baby, but every once in a while, when Jude looked over at me and gave me that slow, knowing smile of his, I was that girl in a black string bikini all over again, longing for a boy I never thought could be mine. — Nicole Williams

The ghostly presence of virtual particles defies rational common sense and is nonintuitive for those unacquainted with physics. Religious belief in God, and Christian belief that God became Man around two thousand years ago, may seem strange to common-sense thinking. But when the most elementary physical things behave in this way, we should be prepared to accept that the deepest aspects of our existence go beyond our common-sense intuitions. — Antony Hewish

We don't like murders here, said a man's voice, low and threatening, from the back of the crowd. Megan glanced at Cassie and her friends. They looked away, as if they didn't see what was happening.
Anger boiled in her chest. Why wouldn't they leave her alone? She hadn't killed anyone. She hadn't killed Harlen Trooper, all those years ago. She knew it and the judge knew it. She hadn't even been charged.
If I wanted to, I could have you all killed, she thought, and was stunned when the thought didn't scare her the way it should. She looked at their faces, stony and stubbled, shiny with alcoholic sweat. The power in her chest hadn't worked against Ktana Leyak, but it could against them, this miserable bunch of humans with their heavy boots and beer guts.
She pictured those guts exploding. She pictured the terror in their eyes when they realized they were messing with the wrong fucking demon, they were -
Demon? — Stacia Kane

A long time ago, when all the grandfathers and grandmothers of today were little boys and little girls or very small babies, or perhaps not even born, Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie left their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. — Laura Ingalls Wilder

What is the greatest surprise you have found about life?" a university student asked me several years ago. "The brevity of it," I replied without hesitation ... Time moves so quickly, and no matter who we are or what we have done, the time will come when our lives will be over. As Jesus said, "As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work" (John 9:4). — Billy Graham

I self-deprecate. When I first got here two years ago, I didn't realise that in America you can't go into the room and put yourself down. — Sophie Winkleman

The first time Raffaele ever saw Adelina, it was a stormy-wracked night that changed her life and, indeed, the world. He recalls looking down from the window in his Dalia lodging to see a girl with silver-bright hair, conjuring an illusion of darkness such that he had never seen. He remembers the day she first came to his chambers in Estenzia, when Enzo was still alive and she was still innocent, and the way she looked up at him with her uncertain, damaged gaze. He remembers her test, and what he said to Enzo that night. How long ago that had been. How he had judged her wrongly. — Marie Lu

When my mother passed away several years ago - well, wait a minute. Actually, she didn't 'pass away.' She died. Something about that verb, 'to pass away' always sounds to me as if someone just drifted through the wallpaper. No, my mother did not pass away. She definitely died. — Steve Allen

And don't succumb too much to the spell of these cases. I have seen many other fragments of the cross, in other churches. If all were genuine, our Lord's torment could not have been on a couple of planks nailed together, but on an entire forest.'
'Master!' I said, shocked.
'So it is, Adso. And there are ever richer treasuries. Some time ago, in the cathedral of Cologne, I saw the skull of John the Baptist at the age of twelve.'
'Really?' I exclaimed, amazed. Then, siezed by doubt, I added, 'But the Baptist was executed at a more advanced age!'
'The other skull must be in another treasury,' William said, with a grave face. I never understood when he was jesting. — Umberto Eco

When I knew I was pregnant four years ago with a boy, a friend suggested I call him Cary, but I initially resisted. There was only one Cary Grant. But a week before he was due, I started thinking it would be wonderful to pass the name on to him. And anyway, my father wasn't Cary to me. He was Dad. — Jennifer Grant

Reading in the car was so much my personal journey that when my mother urged me to put down my book and look out the window, I would protest, But I just looked an hour ago! — Gloria Steinem

When one of my teammates botches a shot, the coach tells him to stop being a girl. I wish I could tell him that I was a girl two days ago, and two days before that. Nothing is different. A shot is a shot. — David Levithan

Years ago, when I was in Siena for the first time, I saw the works of Duccio, whose deeply emotional painting from the thirteenth century has never left me. — Siri Hustvedt

It's maybe every third person now (who calls out 'Norm!' when they see me). It used to be every other person. It's faded a bit, but not too much. They're always going to remember me that way. I decided a long time ago that if I'm going to let this make me crazy, I'm going to be certifiable, so I just roll with it. — George Wendt

Thousands of years ago, when kitties first domesticated humans, we did it so that someone would scratch our butts. — Didjeradoo Via Jeremy Greenberg

I didn't say, "I'll call you." I didn't hug her because of the wet clothes. Just a quick kiss. Then I turned and left. I made my way quietly down the hallway to the stairwell. I could tell she thought she wasn't going to see me again. I had to admit she might be right. The knowledge was as damp and dispiriting as my sodden clothes. I came to the first floor and looked out at the entranceway of the building. For a second I pictured the way she had hugged me here. It already seemed like a long time ago. I felt an unpleasant mixture of gratitude and longing, streaked with guilt and regret. And in a flash of insight, cutting with cold clarity through the fog of my fatigue, I realized what I hadn't been able to articulate earlier, not even to myself, when she'd asked me what I was afraid of. It had been this, the moment after, when I would come face to face with knowing that it would all end badly, if not this morning, then the next one. Or the one after that. — Barry Eisler

Decades ago, women suffered through horrifying back-alley abortions. Or, they used dangerous methods when they had no other recourse. So when the Republican Party launched an all-out assault on women's health, pushing bills to limit access to vital services, we had to ask: Why is the GOP trying to send women back ... to the back alley? — Lisa Edelstein

There's a poem by Adrienne Rich I first read twenty years ago called "Splittings" that I thought of when I read your letter. The last two lines of the poem are: "I choose to love this time fore once / with all my intelligence. — Cheryl Strayed

How is it we could have a system where schools could remain lousy for 50 years and yet you do exactly the same thing this year that they did 50 years ago when it didn't work then, and no one feels any pressure to change? — Geoffrey Canada

One of the questions I face when working on a book about a historical event is whether I should visit the actual place that I'm writing about. No matter how scrupulously maintained a historic house or battlefield may be, it is nothing like it was in the long-ago past. — Nathaniel Philbrick

The daily disappearance and the subsequent rise of the sun appeared to many of the ancients as a true resurrection; thus, while the east came to be regarded as the source of light and warmth, happiness and glory, the west was associated with darkness and chill, decay and death. This led to the custom of burying the dead so as to face the east when they rose again, and of building temples and shrines with an opening toward the east. To effect this, Vitruvius, two thousand years ago, gave precise rules, which are still followed by Christian architects. — Isaac Newton

Chloe had her knees pulled up, one arm wrapped around them. Her other hand was entwined with Derek's. He leaned back against the tree. Slumping, as if it was holding him up. His face glowed with sweat and his eyes were closed.
When I'd seen Derek in wolf form, I figured werewolves grew when they shifted, like the ones in movies. They didn't. He was really that big. Even slumped, he was more than a head taller then Chloe. A huge football player of a guy.
Beside me, Daniel whispered, "I was going to tell him off for bullying you. But I'm having second thoughts."
I smiled at him. "I don't blame you."
Despite his size, Derek was obviously no older than us. His cheeks were dotted with mild acne and I could see the ghosts of fading pocks, as if it had been much worse not too long ago. Dark hair tumbled into his eyes as he rested with his head bent forward. — Kelley Armstrong

I had strict rules for looking at porn. First off, I wasn't allowed to think about suicide after I looked at it. Years ago, when I'd first figured out I was a sucker for a nice hairy chest, I thought for sure I would have to kill myself before I was eighteen. The closer I got to eighteen the more I had to rethink that solution. — Perry Moore

When I did musicals in London a number of years ago, I was in a workshop scenario for a year or more with 'Bombay Dreams.' — Raza Jaffrey

You have no reason to be sorry for anything, ma petite."
Her clenched fist lay over his heart, the three diamonds in her palm. "You think I can't read your body? Feel the heaviness in your mind as you try to shield me? I can't change who I am, not even for you. I know I'm failing you, causing you discomfort."
A slow smile curved his mouth. Discomfort. Now,there was a word for it. His hand crushed her hair, ran it through his fingers. "I have never asked you to change, nor would I want you to. You seem to forget that I know you better than anyone. I can handle you."
She turned her head so that he could see the silver stars flashing in her blue eyes, a smoldering warning. "You are so arrogant,Gregori, it makes me want to throw things.Do you hear yourself? Handle me? Ha! I try to say I'm sorry for failing you, and you act the lord of the manor. Being born centuries ago when women were chattel does not give you an excuse. — Christine Feehan

In places where a loved one has died, time stops for eternity. If I stand on the very spot, one says to oneself, like a prayer, might I feel the pain he felt? They say that on a visit to an old castle or whatever, the history of the place, the presence of people who walked there many years ago, can be felt in the body. Before, when I heard things like that, I would think, what are they talking about? But i felt I understood it now. — Banana Yoshimoto

When I had my daughter, Louisanna, two and a half years ago, I started recording every funny or sweet thing she said or did on my phone. — Leelee Sobieski

When I was first elected to parliament 18 years ago, one of the many things that struck me and that I still feel now is how the Labour Party, the party of collective action, can, at MP level and above, behave in such an individualistic way. — Bob Ainsworth

It's amazing how a strip of sticky plastic will make my kids' pain vanish. Lucas will be howling about a stepped-on finger, but as soon as the SpongeBob Band-Aid touches his pinkie, he's all smiles. My sons are so convinced of the magical healing powers of Band-Aids, they think they can solve almost any problem. A couple of years ago, when out Sony TV blew a fuse, Jasper stuck a Band-Aid on the screen hoping to revive it. — A. J. Jacobs

I'm afraid of children my own age. They kill each other. Did it always use to be that way? My uncle says no. Six of my friends have been shot in the last year alone. Ten of them died in car wrecks. I'm afraid of them and they don't like me because I'm afraid. My uncle says his grandfather remembered when children didn't kill each other. But that was a long time ago when they had things different. — Ray Bradbury

Maui is a beautiful island. It's really the site of an ancient civilization that we've forgotten about, a civilization that existed millions of years ago. When their time came, they left this world and another race was born, the race of human beings. — Frederick Lenz

My brother distrusts the essential truth of memories; I distrust the way we colour them in. We each have our own cheap-mail-order paintbox, and our favourite hues. Thus, I remembered Grandma a few pages ago as "petite and unopinionated". My brother, when consulted, takes out his paintbrush and counterproposes "short and bossy. — Julian Barnes

Her time has come," answered Miss Lizzie. "That's why I didn't marry Harvey - long ago when he asked me. I was afraid of 'that'. So afraid." "I don't know," Miss Lizzie said. "Sometimes I think it's better to suffer bitter unhappiness and to fight and to scream out, and even to suffer that terrible pain, than just to be safe." She waited until the next scream died away. "At least she knows she's living. — Betty Smith

Jay Wexler is my kind of writer
a weird one, and a wry one, and one who isnt afraid to act silly in a sort of bait-and-switch that, to the readers surprise, moves him as much as it makes him laugh. Like all the best comedians, Wexler is clearly nursing a heart that the world broke a long time ago. Ed Tuttle is a book that cant decide what it wants to be when it grows up, but as with most cases of arrested development, theres something very serious going on behind all the antics. Plus, there are pictures. — Ron Currie Jr.

She had long ago learned not to refuse when God brought a need to her attention. — Robin Lee Hatcher

Years ago I read an interview with Paula Fox in which she said that in writing, truth is just as important as story. Reading that interview was the first time I really understood that there's no point in trying to impress people with my cleverness when I can just try to write honestly about what matters most to me. — Molly Antopol

Militant atheists seek to discredit religion based on a highly selective reading of history. There was a time not long ago - just a couple of centuries - when the Western world was saturated by religion. Militant atheists are quick to attribute many of the most unfortunate aspects of history to religion, yet rarely concede the immense debt that civilization owes to various monotheist religions, which created some of the world's greatest literature, art, and architecture; led the movement to abolish slavery; and fostered the development of science and technology. One should not invalidate these achievements merely because they were developed for religious purposes. If much of science was originally a religious endeavor, does that mean science is not valuable? Is religiously motivated charity not genuine? Is art any less beautiful because it was created to express devotion to God? To regret religion is to regret our civilization and its achievements. — Bruce Sheiman

How immense must be the force of life which turns a baby , who can just distinguish a great blot of blue and purple on a black background, into the child who thirteen years later can feel all that I felt on May 5th 1895 - now almost exactly to a day, forty-four years ago - when my mother died. — Virginia Woolf

When I got to the house about an hour ago, James took one look at me and said, "Damn, girl, your parents put out some good product." I think it was a compliment, but I'm not quite sure. — Lauren Barnholdt

I looked him up and down. Once before I'd seen Jericho Barrons wearing jeans and a T-shirt. It's like sheet-metaling a W16 Bugatti Veyron engine - all 1,001 horsepower of it - with the body of a '65 Shelby. The height of sophisticated power sporting in-your-face, fuck-you muscle. The effect is disturbing.
He had more tattoos now than he'd had a few days ago.when I'd last seen him wearing nothing but a sheen of sweat, his arms were unmarked. They were now sleeved in intricate crimson and black designs, from bicep to hand. A silver cuff gleamed in his wrist. There were chains on his boots.
"Slumming, huh?" I'd said
You should talk, said those dark eyes, as they swept my black leather ensemble. — Karen Marie Moning

I'm not the type to generalise about an entire generation. I think the most general thing I can say, is that things are way more dispersed, and way more de-centralised than they were twenty years ago. I don't really feel like people talk about my generation the way people would talk about Generation X in their early 90's when Nirvana blew up. I feel like there was an easier, more coherent narrative to find, than you can now. — Chris Baio

It seems like such a long time ago when I thought the world of him. He was some exotic planet and I was his favorite satellite. But he's no planet, just the final fading light of an already dead star.

And I'm not a satellite. I'm space junk, hurtling as far as I can away from him. — Nicola Yoon

I did it because you are a beautiful, desirable woman, and a long time ago, someone made you think you weren't. I'm not saying a few lessons from me can undo everything, but I want you to see a little bit of what I see when I look at you. — Elizabeth Harmon

When you consider what you would love to accomplish in your life but feel ill-prepared to bring it about, picture the eighty-nine Michelangelo living five centuries ago, painting, sculpting, and writing. Imagine he is telling you that you can create whatever you desire, and the great danger is not in having too much hope, but in reaching what you have perceived as hopeless. — Wayne Dyer

When our Paleolithic ancestors began making tools from stone over three million years ago, they had no understanding they were entering into one of the most successful symbiotic relationships this planet has ever seen. From those humble, preverbal beginnings, humans and technology have lifted one another, improved each other's lot, made possible the most amazing partnership imaginable. — Richard Yonck

Parks scratches his neck. "Really? Even when she told me not to say?" She holds his gaze. "You let her go out there on her own. I already know damn well that you don't see a risk to Melanie as worth taking into account. But I do. And I want to know why you thought it was okay to send her out there." "You're wrong," Parks says. "Am I? About what?" "About me." He plants his butt against the opened cowling of the generator, folds his arms. "Okay, not that wrong. A couple of days ago, I said we should cut the kid loose. She pulled our irons out of the fire twice since then, and on top of that she's turned into a really good scout. I'd be sorry to lose her." Justineau — M.R. Carey

When he brought it to me four years ago, Rodney King had just arrived, I was involved in the clean-up of L.A. and I guess it was part of my experience. — Kathryn Bigelow

I found the second story that I'd ever written, 20 years ago in Wellington. It was written in the third person, the person most girls use when they want to talk about themselves but don't think anyone will listen. — Chris Kraus

My musical genius reached its apex thirty years ago when I played the triangle in Haydn's children's symphony, so I could not play unless you needed someone to make one sustained note! — May Sarton

Two-Minute Tyler got nixed two weeks ago," she said.
Vaughn looked unmistakably pleased, hearing this. "Why?"
She slid her arms around his neck. "Because when he kissed me, I pictured you instead."
"Well, I hope you soaked it up, Sinclair. Because that was the last first kiss you'll ever have." He
bent his head, his voice low and possessive. "All the rest are mine. — Julie James

[There's] a joke that I've done forever: 'Nowadays they say that the largest majority of people will be Latino and you'll tell scary stories to your grandkids: "A long time ago when I was growing up, there used to be people who were white," and the kid says, "Really?" and you say, "Yeah, like the man who cuts our grass."' I've had that line forever and I love it. — George Lopez

It's very hard to be a screenwriter. I remember getting a couple of awards. I got a PEN West award a million years ago when I did Running on Empty, and I sat in the room with all these writers. They wrote everything from novels to non-fiction to children's books to journalism - any kind of writing - and I realized that there was no one in the room who would ever read anything I'd written. — Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal

I understand how difficult it can be for an African-American in today's society. In fact, I can relate to black people very well indeed. My ancestors once owned slaves, and it is in my lineage to work closely with the black community. However, just because they were freed over a century ago doesn't mean they can now be freeloaders. They need to be told to work hard, and the incentives just aren't there for them anymore. When I'm president I plan to work closely with the black community to bring a sense of pride and work ethic back into view for them. — Mitt Romney

When we see the shadow on our images, are we seeing the time 11 minutes ago on Mars? Or are we seeing the time on Mars as observed from Earth now? It's like time travel problems in science fiction. When is now; when was then? — Bill Nye

When I went to the Oscars - the only time I've ever been to the Oscars - a few years ago, I wore this Prada dress covered in cooking utensils. I got drunk at the end of the night and started ripping them off and giving them as presents to people, so that was fun. I'm pretty sure that was the point of it, that's how Miuccia meant for it to go I'm sure. — Carey Mulligan

One of the things that I'm so proud of [about] that movie [Brokeback Mountain], was to see, within the past basically 10 years, how much has changed. When the Supreme Court [issued a ruling] just a little while ago, I felt like we had been part, a little part and parcel of that movement. — Jake Gyllenhaal

Los Angeles didn't get like this often. He hated it when it did. And this time it was holding on. It had been brutal at the cemetery three weeks ago. His father's nine widows had looked ready to drop. The savage light had leached the color from the flowers. The savage heat had got at the mound of earth from the grave even under its staring green blanket of fake grass. He'd stayed to watch the workmen fill the grave. The earth was dry. Even the sharp walls of the grave were dry. What the hell was he doing remembering that? — Joseph Hansen

When I hear about something that's hot, I back away from it. So I go and discover the stuff I wasn't paying attention to five years ago. — Colin Munroe

How long ago the day is
when at last I look at it
with the time it has taken
to be there still in it — W.S. Merwin

When you get over the anxiety, you discover you should have been mad a long time ago. — Amy Clampitt