Alphabetical Quotes & Sayings

Someone with an obsession for arranging things in alphabetical order was an abcedist, whereas someone with an obsession for arranging them in reverse alphabetical order was a zyxedist. — Walter Moers

By the grace of AEC, BNL, God, Green and Hayworth (alphabetical order), we should see neutrinos. — Leon M. Lederman

To guys like Mark, time was another weapon of the establishment, like alphabetical order. The great engineers, hackers - they didn't function under the same time constraints as everyone else. — Ben Mezrich

I was terrible at straight items. When I wrote obituaries, my mother said the only thing I ever got them to do was die in alphabetical order. — Erma Bombeck

Anne of Green Gables was cuddled up next to Huckleberry Finn; The Hunchback of Notre Dame was wedged tightly between Heidi and Little Women; and Nicholas Nickleby leaned in a familiar way against A Girl of the Limberlost. None of the books were in alphabetical order, which made it necessary to cock my head sideways to read each one of the spines. By the end of the third shelf I had begun to realize why librarians are sometimes able to achieve such pinnacles of crankiness: It's because they're in agony. If only publishers could be persuaded, I thought, to stamp all book titles horizontally instead of vertically, a great deal of unpleasantness could be avoided all round. — Alan Bradley

A dictionary is merely the universe arranged in alphabetical order. — Anatole France

Block D was at the farthest corner of the camp from Block C. Whoever had laid out the Camp of the Flies had no respect for alphabetical order. — Susan Kaye Quinn

Vitamin B proved to be not one vitamin but several, which is why we have B1, B2, and so on. To add to the confusion, Vitamin K has nothing to do with an alphabetical sequence. It was called K because its Danish discoverer, Henrik Dam, dubbed it "koagulations viatmin" for its role in blood clotting. — Bill Bryson

In third period Math, we were forced to sit in alphabetical order. Which put me right behind Logan, who was throwing all those passes to Aiden in the scrimmage. He took off his navy blazer and when he leaned forward to write, I could see muscles bulging across his back and shoulders. I can already tell Math is going to suck, but at least I'll have a nice view.
It's like what Grandpa always says about real estate. Location, location, location. — Jillian Dodd

Dictionary - opinion expressed as truth in alphabetical order. — John Ralston Saul

I love arranging my music, not in alphabetical order but by mood, creating playlists for when I have energy and want to work out or go-out party mixes and music to chill out to. — Natasha Bedingfield

To distract myself, I thought about all the cusswords I knew and arranged them in alphabetical order. — Sue Grafton

One time, Niall sat on the floor for hours trying to find a way of putting his M&M's in alphabetical order. — Louis Tomlinson

Godfrey's wife Charmian sat with her eyes closed, attempting to put her thoughts into alphabetical order which Godfrey had told her was better than no order at all, since she now had grasp of neither logic nor chronology. — Muriel Spark

And with alphabetical irony Nigeria follows New Zealand — David Coleman

The other day, I noticed I'd arranged my spices in alphabetical order when I was on the phone, without even realizing, and when I was a kid I was constantly cleaning and organizing things - my toys, my sister's cosmetics. — Jayma Mays

I refused to have bookshelves, horrified that I'd feel compelled to organise the books in some regimented system - Dewey or alphabetical or worse - and so the books lived in stacks, some as tall as me, in the most subjective order I could invent.
Thus Nabokov lived between Gogol and Hemingway, cradled between the Old World and the New; Willa Cather and Theodore Dreiser and Thomas Hardy were stacked together not for their chronological proximity but because they all reminded me in some way of dryness (though in Dreiser's case I think I was focused mainly on his name): George Eliot and Jane Austen shared a stack with Thackeray because all I had of his was Vanity Fair, and I thought that Becky Sharp would do best in the presence of ladies (and deep down I worried that if I put her next to David Copperfield, she might seduce him). — Rebecca Makkai

I plan to rearrange the alphabetical order because i think it has a very big error on the parts of the sequence of some letters. For example, I have just discovered that U and I should be together. — Patricia Barry

None of the books were in alphabetical order, which made it necessary to cock my head sideways to read each one of the spines. By the end of the third shelf I began to realize why librarians were sometimes able to achieve such pinnacle levels of crankiness: It's because they're in agony. — Alan Bradley

With admirable vigour, Everest, the obese pasty kid, begins listing the world's serial killers in alphabetical order. 'Jeffrey Dahmer; Charles 'The Axe' Eden; Freddy 'The Fox' Flanagan...' Steadily advancing through the monsters, jowls redder and redder as he refuses to breathe. If ever Queen B thought that her sister had secretly dropped her son on his head during one of her binges, then it's now, even his albino eyes are glowing red. — Jonathan Dunne

The bookcases were lined with titles, hundreds of books shelved by subject in alphabetical order.-Everything from aberrant behavior to the mysteries of zen. — Tami Hoag

The middle ages did not care much for alphabetical order, because they were committed to rational order. To the medieval mind, the universe [is] a harmonious whole whose parts are related to one another. It was the responsibility of the author or scholar to discern these rational relationships
of hierarchy, or of chronology, or of similarities and differences, and so forth. — Matthew Battles

What bothers me is that health professionals give fancy names to conditions or learning difficulties that will irritate the patients; like OCD not being in alphabetical order, putting an 'S' in 'lisp,' and making dyslexia a word that no one can spell. It's just mean. — Suzanne Wright

At that point, I sat down and made an alphabetical list of all the crime related words I could think of. So here I am now, nearly half-way through, probably tied up until the year 2015 or SO. — Sue Grafton

Okay everybody, line up in alphabetical order according to your height. — Casey Stengel

Sir Everard had never been himself a student, and, like his sister Miss Rachael Waverley, held the vulgar doctrine, that idleness is incompatible with reading of any kind, and that the mere tracing the alphabetical characters with the eye, is in itself a useful and meritorious task, without scrupulously considering what ideas or doctrines they may happen to convey. With — Walter Scott

Dictionary: The universe in alphabetical order. — Anatole France

Alphabetical order had to be invented to help people organize the first dictionaries. On the other hand, we may have reached a point where alphabetical order has gone obsolete. Wikipedia is ostensibly in alphabetical order, but, when you think about it, it's not in any order at all. You use a search engine to get into it. — James Gleick

Build a name. Personal branding is all about name building. I don't just mean alphabetical name, but a name that can be spelt in the skills you have and pronounced with the things you do — Israelmore Ayivor

The church was stuffed with mourners, of course. No one from work - I tried to keep my life and my magazine separate - but otherwise everybody Andrew and I knew was there. It was disorientating, like having the entire contents of one's address book dressed in black and exported into pews in non alphabetical order. — Chris Cleave

I can't imagine how much time it took Matt Bucy to cut up 'The Wizard of Oz' and reassemble every word of dialog into alphabetical order. The resulting movie is called 'Of Oz the Wizard.' — Mark Frauenfelder

It was the pleasure that a liar takes in his lie as it enters the world wearing the accent and raiment of the truth, sounding so right and plausible that
if he is any kind of liar at all
he begins, himself, to believe it. It was the pleasure that a maker of golems takes as the force of his words, the rhythm and accuracy of his alphabetical spells, blow life into the cold clay nostrils, and the great stony hand unclenches and reaches for his own. — Michael Chabon

I invited Intuition to stay in my house when my roommates went North. I warned her that I am territorial and I keep the herb jars in alphabetical order. Intuition confessed that she has a 'spotty employment record.' She was fired from her last job for daydreaming.

When Intuition moved in, she washed all the windows, cleaned out the fireplace, planted fruit trees, and lit purple candles. She doesn't cook much. She eats beautiful foods, artichokes, avocadoes, persimmons and pomegranates, wild rice with wild mushrooms, chrysanthemum tea. She doesn't have many possessions. Each thing is special. I wish you could see the way she arranged her treasures on the fireplace mantle. She has a splendid collection of cups, bowls, and baskets.
Well, the herbs are still in alphabetical order, and I can't complain about how the house looks. Since Intuition moved in, my life has been turned inside out. — J. Ruth Gendler

And for the citation of so many authors, 'tis the easiest thing in nature. Find out one of these books with an alphabetical index, and without any farther ceremony, remove it verbatim into your own ... there are fools enough to be thus drawn into an opinion of the work; at least, such a flourishing train of attendants will give your book a fashionable air, and recommend it for sale. — Miguel De Cervantes

I start at the beginning, mentally screaming every obscenity I can in alphabetical order. Then I start setting them to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat — Kiersten White

Hungry Joe collected lists of fatal diseases and arranged them in alphabetical order so that he could put his finger without delay on any one he wanted to worry about. — Joseph Heller

He would insult the Universe. That is, he would insult everybody in it. Individually, personally, one by one, and (this was the thing he really decided to grit his teeth over) in alphabetical order. — Douglas Adams

Mrs Weaver nosed among the books, too dim-witted to grasp that they were in alphabetical order. — George Orwell

Today an applicant who couldn't pass the typing test blamed it on me for giving her a trick keyboard because the keys weren't in alphabetical order. — Jenny Lawson

I hadn't thought about the balance in mood. You see that we did it in alphabetical order, so if there's any kind of shape, or any kind of flow, it's random. Gender ... we didn't think much about it. It was sort of interesting to see that women often were choosing women and men often were choosing men. And sometimes they wouldn't and that was fun. I didn't know that I would be excited by that, until I saw it happen. — Lorin Stein

We're out of time, Payton. You said it yourself: the only way we'll make it is for us to go into this together. I know we can do this. But I need you to believe it. You need to believe ... in us."
Peyton didn't say anything for a long moment, and J.D. could literally hear his heart beating. Then she finally answered.
"It would have to be called Kendall and Jameson."
It took J.D a moment to catch on. Then he grinned. "No way. Jameson and Kendall. It's alphabetical."
"You told our boss that you banged me on top of your desk."
"Kendall and Jameson sounds great — Julie James

Jamie: Maybe you could stop being a neat freak and ease off with barking orders at me.
Dante: I resent the neat-freak statement. And I do not bark.
Jamie: Sure you don't, Popeye.
Dante: And it wouldn't kill you to use the shoe rack. I mean, it's right by the door.
Jamie: Stop putting my CD's in chronological order, and I'll work on the shoe rock thing.
Dante: How about alphabetical order?
Jamie: How about you go to therapy? — Suzanne Wrightt

Dictionary: Opinion presented as truth in alphabetical order. — John Ralston Saul

I also wanted remembering the past relevant to the present. Some people wanted me to put the names in alphabetical order. I wanted them in chronological order so that a veteran could find his time within the panel. It's like a thread of life. — Maya Lin

Malachi Smith. Crispin Jones. Suzette Boudrot. Claude Le Breton." Matthew paused as Ransome searched the ledger's entries for the names. "You should have kept them in chronological order instead of alphabetical. That's how I remember them." Ransome — Deborah Harkness

I didn't know the draft was in alphabetical order. — Henrik Zetterberg

My grandfather had a proper bookcase of egghead books, and he gave them to me in alphabetical order. So we moved from Aeschylus to the Brontas, and I can still remember the great relief of going from the dipus cycle to Jane Eyre. — Jill Paton Walsh

Want me to come?" Tod ran his hand up my back, over my shirt. "If you keep her busy, I could convert the filing system from 'alphabetical' to 'most deserving of psychiatric help.'" He leaned closer, and I knew no one else would hear whatever came out of his mouth next. "I've been meaning to make some special notations in Nash's file anyway. Imagine the level of help he could receive if they knew the root of his recent academic decline was a deep-seated fear of the letter Q." I laughed. I couldn't help it. And though everyone else at the table looked curious, no one asked what Tod had said. They were finally starting to learn. "Thanks, but it's hard enough to take grief counseling seriously without you singing 'Living Dead Girl' at the top of your lungs behind the counselor's back. — Rachel Vincent

I've never thought much of strictly organised and methodical study. You can't arrange a library in alphabetical order until you've collected one. — Walter Moers

What is the matter with you?"
"You want an alphabetical list? — Elisa Nader

I can hear the library humming in the night,
a choir of authors murmuring inside their books
along the unlit, alphabetical shelves,
Giovanni Pontano next to Pope, Dumas next to his son,
each one stitched into his own private coat,
together forming a low, gigantic chord of language. — Billy Collins

I love lists. Always have. when I was 14, I wrote down every dirty word I knew on file cards and placed them in alphabetical order. I have a thing about about collections, and a list is a collection with purchase. (Wired Magazine, "Step One: Make a List", October 2012) — Adam Savage