Background That Goes Quotes & Sayings

I grew up with a very privileged background. My father served as one of the cabinet ministers in Arroyo's government, and he's been a congressman for many years, and he's running again. — Miguel Syjuco

The annual award of $5,000 goes to an author for a meritorious book published in the previous year for children or young adults. Scott O'Dell established this award to encourage other writers
particularly new authors
to focus on historical fiction. He hoped in this way to increase the interest of young readers in the historical background that has helped to shape their country and their world. — Scott O'Dell

There is no place in the service of worship where vanity and bad taste can so intrude as in the singing. There is, first, the improvised second part which one hears almost everywhere. It attempts to give the necessary background, the missing fullness to the soaring unison tone, and thus kills both the words and the tone. There is the bass or the alto who must call everybody's attention to his astonishing range and therefore sings every hymn an octave lower. There is the solo voice that goes swaggering, swelling, blaring and tremulant from a full chest and drowns out everything else to the glory of its own fine organ. There are the less dangerous foes of congregational singing, the 'unmusical' who cannot sing, of whom there are far fewer than we are led to believe, and finally, there are often those also who because of some mood will not join in the singing and thus disturb the fellowship. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The verdict of this court is that the accused are guilty of witchcraft. The maximum penalty the law allows is to be burned to death.However, in view of your previous good background I am disposed to be lenient. I therefore sentence you to be burned alive. — Richard Curtis

'Built This Pool' was an idea that I had for a song starting several years ago, and as we were in between takes of recording something, I was actually holding a guitar at the time, and I played this silly thing, and sang the lyrics to 'Built This Pool' kinda in the background. — Mark Hoppus

I have a strong art-history background. — Eli Roth

Engineering producers who don't play and have technology as a background may be the reason why there's a lot of cold non-musical music, for lack of a better description. — Bill Laswell

I'm living in this world. I'm what, a slacker? A "twentysomething"? I'm in the margins. I'm not building a wall but making a brick. Okay, here I am, a tired inheritor of the Me generation, floating from school to street to bookstore to movie theater with a certain uncertainty. I'm in that white space where consumer terror meets irony and pessimism, where Scooby Doo and Dr. Faustus hold equal sway over the mind, where the Butthole Surfers provide the background volume, where we choose what is not obvious over what is easy. It goes on ... like TV channel-cruising, no plot, no tragic flaws, no resolution, just mastering the moment, pushing forward, full of sound and fury, full of life signifying everything on any given day ... — Richard Linklater

She grabbed her bag and strode to the front door, able to hear the murmur of the Hudson in the background. She wondered if the house had a water view, or if the trees blocked it. Probably didn't matter to a being who could fly up for a good vantage point. — Nalini Singh

Sometimes in a relationship, we can be so caught up in our feelings for the other person that we squeeze God into the background. It becomes a confusing, emotional mess and we wonder why God isn't giving us more direction, when all the while He is there waiting to be allowed back into first place in our hearts. Only when He is truly in first place are we ready for a God-written love story. — Leslie Ludy

Conscientiousness on a survey seemed like a trifling matter. In life, it was a big deal. Conscientiousness - a tendency to be responsible, hardworking, and organized - mattered at every point in the human life cycle. It even predicted how long people lived - with more accuracy than intelligence or background. — Amanda Ripley

Missing someone has to be one of the worst human emotions. All the other feelings like anger and fear and horror get some much more airplay, as if their intensity gives them more value, but whereas those emotions come in violent bursts and are gone again, the gnawing ache of loss has to be simply endured. It's like background noise, it's always there, it never goes away. You just have to try to block it out, distract yourself, hope that tomorrow the hole they left behind has grown a little smaller. — Alexandra Potter

I had begun to grasp, in the past few weeks, one of the great and uncovenanted delights of Greece; a pre-coming of age present in my case: a direct and immediate link, friendly and equal on either side, between human beings, something which melts barriers of hierarchy and background and money and, except for a few tribal and historic feuds, politics and nationality as well... Existence, these glances say, is a torment, an enemy, an adventure and a joke which we are in league to undergo, outwit, exploit and enjoy on equal terms as accomplices, fellow-hedonists and fellow-victims. — Patrick Leigh Fermor

I look at people holdings hands in the hallways, and I try to think how it all works. At the school dances, I sit in the background, and I tap my toe, and I wonder how many couples will dance to 'their song.' In the hallways, I see the girls wearing the guys' jackets, and I think about the idea of property. And I wonder if anyone is really happy. — Stephen Chbosky

Perhaps what is inexpressible (what I find mysterious and am not able to express) is the background against which whatever I could express has its meaning. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

The most reckless sinner against his own conscience has always in the background the consolation that he will go on in this course only this time, or only so long, but that at such a time he will amend. We may be assured that we do not stand clear with our own consciences so long as we determine or project, or even hold it possible, at some future time to alter our course of action. — Johann Gottlieb Fichte

If you don't try to stop whatever is going on in your mind, but merely observe it, eventually you'll begin to feel a tremendous sense of relaxation, a vast sense of openness within your mind - which is in fact your natural mind, the naturally unperturbed background against which various thoughts come and go. — Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

I'm finding that people reading the book [ The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star] are saying, "You came from one background, I came from this background - you were a rock star, I was a CEO. I didn't have a heroin/coke problem, but I had a pill problem. But I also fell from grace, didn't know how to get recovery, and I am now in recovery." People tell me that their kids read it and told them they'll never do drugs - "This book really shows me where it goes." — Nikki Sixx

You see, astrology is like fortune-telling. If you can't get it right, you say, Well, if Venus was doing something peculiar in the background, that would alter your prognostication
because, of course, astrology is rubbish. — Quentin Crisp

I always devise a background so that it makes what your character goes through logical and keeps up the continuity. — Dexter Fletcher

You should not be hovering in the background, inflating the drama. Simply envelop him in love and affection and let him know that you will support his efforts, whatever they are. — Amy Dickinson

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

I don't come from money or an educated family background or any sort of supportive family life, so all of my choices are made on my own. — Cat Power

Academic credentials are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for having your ideas taken seriously. If a famous professor repeatedly says stupid things, then tries to claim he never said them, there's no rule against calling him a mendacious idiot - and no special qualifications required to make that pronouncement other than doing your own homework.Conversely, if someone without formal credentials consistently makes trenchant, insightful observations, he or she has earned the right to be taken seriously, regardless of background. — Paul Krugman

but the truth is that earth's climate never rests. It is in constant flux. Every event in history occurred against the background of some climate change. In particular, our planet has experienced numerous cycles of cooling and warming. During — Yuval Noah Harari

She said that sometimes she uses a formula when writing a short story, which goes ABDCE, for Action, Background, Development, Climax, and Ending. — Anne Lamott

At a time when history made its way slowly, the few events were easily remembered and woven into a backdrop, known to everyone, before which private life unfolded the gripping show of its adventures. Nowadays, time moves forward at a rapid pace. Forgotten overnight, a historic event glistens the next day like the morning dew and thus is no longer the backdrop to a narrator's tale but rather an amazing adventure enacted against the background of the over-familiar banality of private life. — Milan Kundera

TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK's life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background. — David C. Pollock

I speak of a clinical depression that is the background of your entire life, a background of anguish and anxiety, a sense that nothing goes well, that pleasure is unavailable and all your strategies collapse. — Leonard Cohen

I'm the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible ... — Elizabeth Wurtzel

It is in Christianity that our arts have developed; it is in Christianity that the laws of Europe
until recently
have been rooted. It is against a background of Christianity that all of our thought has significance. An individual European may not believe that the Christian faith is true, and yet what he says, and makes, and does will all spring out of his heritage of Christian culture and depend upon that culture for its meaning ... I do not believe that culture of Europe could survive the complete disappearance of the Christian faith. And I am convinced of that, not merely because I am a Christian myself, but as a student of social biology. If Christianity goes, the whole culture goes. — T. S. Eliot

I think that what most surprises anybody who goes into politics from even a modestly cerebral background is the vulgarity of much of the cut and thrust of politics. — Chris Patten

All goes to show that the soul in man is not an organ, but animates and exercises all the organs; is not a function, like the power of memory, of calculation, of comparison, but uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, but a light, is not the intellect or the will, but the master of the intellect and the will; is the background of our being, in which they lie,
an immensity not possessed and that cannot be possessed. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

People of great ability do not emerge, as a rule, from the happiest background. So far as my own observation goes, I would conclude that ability, although hereditary, is improved by an early measure of adversity and improved again by a later measure of success. — C. Northcote Parkinson

We who live in the civilized world are accustomed to a background roar that never goes away. It is the pounding of our machinery in the chest of the city, and it is the incessant blood of traffic rushing through the streets.
Here the silence never goes away. It is the foundation of all sound. One can hear into the jungle through the silence much farther than one can see into it through the trees. — Pirate Lanford

I couldn't believe it! I mean, I'd always dreamed of acting on the screen - my previous background was all theater - but I wasn't sure if the opportunity would ever present itself. Not only was this acting for the screen, this was acting in 'The Hunger Games!' I knew that I had to give this audition my all. — Jacqueline Emerson

I'm from a rural town outside of Stockholm, so in coming to L.A., I've been able to not think that much about my background. It's much easier for me in this big town, this big bubble to isolate myself from that and be a little more self-confident. I'm here to do my take on soul. — Erik Hassle

When you describe the miserable and unfortunate, and want to make the reader feel pity, try to be somewhat colder - that seems to give a kind of background to another's grief, against which it stands out more clearly. Whereas in your story the characters cry and you sigh. Yes, be more cold ... The more objective you are, the stronger will be the impression you make. — Anton Chekhov

For our ancestors music was something that you sat down to listen to, or which you made for yourself. It was a ceremonial event, in which you participated, either as a passive listener or as an active performer. Either way you were giving and receiving life, sharing in something of great social significance.
With the advent of the gramophone, the radio and now the iPod, music is no longer something that you must make for yourself, nor is it something that you sit down to listen to. It follows you about wherever you go, and you switch it on as a background. It is not so much listened to as overheard. — Roger Scruton

I come from an army background, and everyone at my home has a habit of getting up early. I continue this habit even today. — Esha Gupta

I sat down on a couch and closed my eyes and pictured myself. I couldn't see anything clearly. Wonderful! That's how it should be!
I am a blurry image constantly trying to come into focus, and just when, for an instant, I have myself in perfectly clarity, I appear as a figure in my own background, fuzzy as hair on a peach — Steve Toltz

If you look at classic Hollywood films, they tend to shoot close-ups on quite long lenses and the background it out of focus. You know, it's just a mush. — Tom Hooper

Rather than really have, like a close relationship to anything that's coming out today, people are just, they've got it on as background music. It's kind of the same way the cabdrivers use music; it's very disposable. — David Bowie

My background wasn't one blessed with all the luxuries in life. Nothing is forever and I realize that. — Junior Seau

Work is experienced as discipline--the background of which is ascesis--even though it also gives pleasure. One is allowed to become "depersonalized" in work, to forget the self (to lose contact with its most intimate feelings and needs)--indeed all that is necessary if one is to give oneself fully to the work. — Susan Sontag

I knew immediately that it was different from other photographs.
The night sky in the background was pure and black, so dark it made you dizzy if you stared at it too long. The rain drifted through the frame like a gentle mist, but right in the middle was a hollow area in the shape of a lima been. — Yoko Ogawa

Sometimes it's less about the character and more about the story for me. I'll play a rock in the background if I think the story is fantastic and I can be a part of it somehow. That's what I look for. — Zoe Kravitz

I could never feel like that about any public issue. Sometimes I wish I could. For me, if I'm honest, politics is background, news, almost entertainment. Something you switch on and off, like the TV. What I really worry about, what I can't switch off at will is, oh, sex, or dying or losing my hair. Private things. We're private people, aren't we, our generation? We make a clear distinction between private and public life; and the important things, the things that make us happy or unhappy are private. Live is private. Property is private. Parts are private. That's why the young radicals call for fucking in the streets. It's not just a cheap shock-tactic. It's a serious revolutionary proposition. — David Lodge

Just imagine, life to be a dance with different kind of rhythms depending on what music is playing in the background. Sometimes we may dance alone and that's OK, as some songs are simply meant to be danced like that. Practice! Don't stop! It's your dance! — Nico J. Genes

My background is that of a competitive athlete and a fighter, and I'm bringing something totally different to 'The Biggest Loser' that wasn't there before. — Cara Castronuova

You watch the country-music awards that they show on the television, and you see country music has reached about 1985. It's all huge processed drum sounds and chiming chorus guitars and programmed synths bobbling along in the background. — Andy Partridge

The Strict Father model takes as background the view that life is difficult and that the world is fundamentally dangerous. — George Lakoff

Horza recalled that the Culture's attitude to somebody who believed in an omnipotent God was to pity them, and to take no more notice of the substance of their faith than one would take of the ramblings of somebody claiming to be Emperor of the Universe. The nature of the belief wasn't totally irrelevant - along with the person's background and upbringing, it might tell you something about what had gone wrong with them - but you didn't take their views seriously. — Iain Banks

A translation needs to read convincingly. There's no limit to what can go into it in terms of background research, feeling, or your own interests in form and history. But what should come out is something that reads as convincing English-language text. — Jonathan Galassi

Using the Africanist model, each generation should take the family name to a higher place. My father's folks were sharecroppers in South Carolina. He went to Harlem. They were still poor, but they moved up. If my parents didn't do this and offer me this background, I wouldn't be here. — Ving Rhames

We made love on the living room floor with the noise in the background of a televised war and in that defeaning pleasure i thought i heard someone say if we walk away they'll walk away — Conor Oberst

When you have a background in combat sports, people think you're this martial arts expert, but really I'm just a guy who is able to do certain things without making a mess of himself. — Rick Yune

My films often have a spiritual dimension which comes from my Muslim background, and I'm happy to tackle that in cinema. — Asif Kapadia

It is a mistake to imagine that potentially great men are rare. It is the conditions that permit the promise of greatness to be fulfilled that are rare. What is so difficult to achieve is the cultural background that permits potential greatness to be converted into actual greatness. — Fred Hoyle

From what deep springs of character our personal philosophies issue, we cannot be sure. In philosophers themselves we seem always able to notice some deep internal correspondence between the man and his philosophy. Are our philosophies, then, merely the inevitable outcome of the body of fate and personal circumstance that is thrust upon each of us? Or are these beliefs the means by which we freely create ourselves as the persons we become? Here, at the very outset, the question of freedom already hovers in the background. — William Barrett