Became Grandfather Quotes & Sayings

The history of China's "land reform" was written in the tears and blood of landowners like my great-grandfather. But the 300 million poor Chinese farmers were victims too. They gave the Communist Party their popular support, hoping to improve their living standards by taking property away from landowners. Instead, they became stepping stones for the Party to abolish private property rights once and for all. — Helen Raleigh

Extremes are for us as if they were not, and as if we were not in regard to them; they escape from us, or we from them. — Blaise Pascal

Although raised on the farm - my grandfather was an unsuccessful fundamentalist preacher turned farmer - my father and his brother both became professors. — Philip Warren Anderson

My dad was in the army. World War II. He got his college education from the army. After World War II he became an insurance salesman. Really, I didn't know my dad very well. He and my mother split up after the war. I was raised by my maternal grandmother and grandfather, and by my mother. — Al Pacino

It is hard for anyone under twenty to realise that death has already assigned them a number, which is going to come up one day. — James A. Baldwin

Food was always a big part of my life. My grandfather was one of 14 kids, and his parents had a pasta factory, so as a kid, he and his siblings would sell pasta door to door. After he became a movie producer, he opened up De Laurentiis Food Stores - one in Los Angeles and one in New York. — Giada De Laurentiis

When he was young, that God out of the Orient, then was he harsh and
revengeful, and built himself a hell for the delight of his favourites.
At last, however, he became old and soft and mellow and pitiful, more
like a grandfather than a father, but most like a tottering old grandmother. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Before we went to bed, Jake and Otto were called up to the living-room for prayers. Grandfather put on silver-rimmed spectacles and read several Psalms. His voice was so sympathetic and he read so interestingly that I wished he had chosen one of my favourite chapters in the Book of Kings. I was awed by his intonation of the word 'Selah.' 'He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom He loved. Selah.' I had no idea what the word meant; perhaps he had not. But, as he uttered it, it became oracular, the most sacred of words. — Willa Cather

One day while Lloyd George was making a political speech before a big crowd, a heckler yelled, "Wait a minute, Mr. George. Isn't it true your grandfather used to peddle tinware around here in an oxcart hauled by a donkey?" Lloyd George replied, "I digress just a moment and thank the gentlemen for calling that to my attention. It is true, my dear old grandfather used to peddle tinware with an old cart and a donkey. As a matter of fact, after this meeting is over, if my friend will come with me, I will show him that old cart, but I never knew until this minute what became of the ass." — David Lloyd George

In 1980 I was a red kid and no one could have said anything bad about the Soviet Union. At least this is how my grandfather used to remember me. Around 1981, I became a pro-capitalist person and it stuck. — Lubos Motl

It's barely changed since the faceless colour committee originally selected it in 1908 when the first map of the Underground was designed and the Bakerloo conclusively became brown, a very early twentieth-century brown, which brings something of the nineteenth century with it - the colour of Sherlock Holmes's pipe, a Gladstone bag, a grandfather clock. — Paul Morley

If you have used colour throughout most of your artistic life, try just black and white ... it will take your painting to another dimension where tone and form in all its permutations reign supreme. — David Luiz

It's because of my grandfather that I became a Young Avenger. But it's hard sometimes, to be a black kid carrying a name like "Patriot". I remember talking to Captain America about before he died, and he explained what Patriotism meant to him...
It wasn't about blindly supporting your government. It was about knowing what your country could be, what it should be... And trying to lead it there through your example. And holding it accountable when it failed. I remember he said: "There's noting patriotic about corruption or cover-ups... or defending them. But exposing them, well, that takes a hero. — Ed Brubaker

We have never done anything in a cynical fake way — Gordon Ramsay

It [the trip] captured five very long hours. If you want to know why, it is because Grandfather is Grandfather first and a driver second. He made us lost often and became on his nerves. I had to translate his anger into useful information for the hero. "Fuck," Grandfather said. I said, "He says that if you look at the statues, you can see that some no longer endure. Those are where Communist statues used to be." "Fucking fuck, fuck!" Grandfather shouted. "Oh," I said, "he wants you to know that that building, that building, and that building are all important." "Why?" the hero inquired. "Fuck!" Grandfather said. "He cannot remember," I said. — Jonathan Safran Foer

It took me six years to get close to Picasso. I learnt a lot from him, and he was an absolute genius. He almost became my grandfather at the time. It was like he was a magician or something. — Rene Burri

The battle proved a victory - at least in part - and soon after, his grandfather finally died, and Ser Elmo became Lord of Riverrun. But he did not long enjoy his station; he died on the march forty-nine days later, leaving his young son, Ser Kermit, to succeed him. — George R R Martin

My grandfather created a fortune that allowed him to live in luxury. He also went on to build the first industrial building in an area of San Paulo that eventually became one of the largest wholesale neighborhoods in the world. When my grandfather passed away, he left millions of dollars to my family as an inheritance. That inheritance, however, would have been worthless if he had not also given us his legacy of personal responsibility and work ethic. My grandfather refused to be defined by others, therefore setting not only the value of his product, but also of himself and his family. — Celso Cukierkorn

The moon was bright with dark, wispy clouds dancing erratically across its troubled face, creating an eerie effect of shadow upon shadow. The surrounding marshes were alive as if energized by some powerful, irritable force causing its denizens to become restless. Young Joe Billie shuddered and hunched his shoulders slightly. ' Gator moon,' he thought. He remembered his Grandfather telling him of this; that when the moon was full, the swamp creatures became restless and irritable, especially the bull gators. "This was not the time to hunt the big creatures," Grandfather had said. "The gator moon make them want to fight and kill. If you hunt them then, you will become the hunted. Even brave men fear the gator moon. — Max Ray

He was a hidden God, full of secrecy. Truly, he did not come by his son otherwise than by secret ways. At the door of his faith stands adultery.
Whoever extols him as a God of love, does not think highly enough of love itself. Did not that God want also to be judge? But the loving one loves irrespective of reward and requital.
When he was young, that God out of the Orient, then was he harsh and revengeful, and built himself a hell for the delight of his favourites.
At last, however, he became old and soft and mellow and pitiful, more like a grandfather than a father, but most like a tottering old grandmother. [...] and one day he suffocated of his all-too-great pity. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I have made so many mistakes..
Wondering if I can now call myself an 'Expert'! — Abha Maryada Banerjee

The all-father made the world," he shouted. "He built it with his hands from the shattered bones and the flesh of Ymir, his grandfather. He placed Ymir's brains in the sky as clouds, and his salt blood became the seas we crossed. If he made the world, do you not realize that he created this land as well? And if we die here as men, shall we not be received into his hall? — Neil Gaiman

You can't change the past, only your perception of it; but you can control the future. — Steven Redhead

My father had been my Moses, bringing me to life. Then my grandfather became my Joshua, carrying me through my childhood and teen years into adulthood. — Wes Moore

What would Grandfather think of this jump I'm taking? Would this be one time he would tell me to hang on to the edge with all my might? Would he say to cling to the side of the board until my fingers became bloody and scraped? Or would he say that it was all right to let go? — Ally Condie

Every day before supper and before we went to services on Sundays my grandmother would read the Bible to me, and my grandfather would pray. We even had devotions before going to pick cotton
in the fields. Prayer and the Bible, became a part of my everyday thoughts and beliefs. I learned to put my trust in God and to seek Him as my strength — Rosa Parks

It is the search for beauty ... That is what it is. We find ourselves on this earth
gods and men
and we know that it is beautiful. That is one of the few things we understand
beauty; because it is there, in the world, and we can see it all about us. We want beauty. It requires our love. It just does. — Alexander McCall Smith

It's a funny thing, now; I very often think of my poor wife, but I cannot think of her very much at any one time." "Often, but a little at a time, like poor old Swann," became one of my grandfather's favourite phrases, which he would apply to all kinds of things. — Marcel Proust

At the negotiations in Irvine, it became clear to me that there was no side I could stand on. The English despise me and my countrymen don't trust me. Wallace and the others are rebelling in the name of Balliol. I cannot fight with them. It would be as much a betrayal of my oath as when I was fighting for England. I know what I must do. What I should have done months ago.'
Robert felt embarrassed, about to say the words. Inside, his father's voice berated him, but he silenced it. 'I want you to weave my destiny,' he finished. 'As you did for my grandfather.'
When she spoke, her voice was low. 'And what is your destiny?'
He met her eyes now, all hesitation and embarrassment gone. 'To be King of Scotland.'
A smile appeared at the corners of her mouth. It wasn't a soft smile. It was hard and dangerous. 'I will need something of yours,' she said, rising. — Robyn Young

Every business decision I ever made I learned from my grandfather Papa Sam. He moved here from Russia when he was a boy. He worked his way up selling newspapers and ladies' handbags, and eventually, he became Cadillac Sam, one of the biggest car dealers in Chicago. — Bobbi Brown

Grandfather used to call the rain 'the erotic ritual between heaven and Earth.' The rain represented the seeds sown in the Earth's womb by heaven, her roaring husband, to further life. Rainy encounters between heaven and Earth were sexual love on a cosmic scale. All of nature became involved. Clouds, heaven's body, were titillated by the storm. In turn, heaven caressed the Earth with heavy winds, which rushed toward their erotic climax, the tornado. The grasses that pop out of the Earth's warm center shortly after the rain are called the numberless children of Earth who will serve humankind's need for nourishment. The rainy season is the season of life. Yes, it had rained the night before. — Malidoma Patrice Some

Like all magical mysteries, the secrets of the Great Work have a triple meaning: they are religious, philosophical and natural. Philosophical gold in religion is the Absolute and Supreme Reason; in philosophy, it is truth; in visible nature, it is the sun: in the subterranean and mineral world, it is the purest and most perfect gold. Hence the search after the Great Work is called the Search for the Absolute, and this work itself is termed the operation of the sun. — Eliphas Levi

As events developed, the debate about jobs and energy extraction in general became more divisive. Those at one extreme embraced the industry as an expression of old-fashioned free enterprise. It offered work that built character and brought deserving rewards for those with initiative, whether they be roughnecks working twelve-hour shifts, investors staking their capital, or researchers staking their reputation on the next big discovery. At the other end of the spectrum were those who saw the industry as a relic of grandfather clauses and cronyism that dated to a period of predatory exploitation, when fantastical deals were pitched by door-to-door peddlers, manufacturing waste was buried in lagoons on private property, and unions were nonexistent. The middle ground was occupied by an untold number of consumers used to cheap plentiful energy, and property owners, who had their worries but also were able to calculate how much a mineral rights lease might be worth. — Tom Wilber