Quotes & Sayings About Black Sheep

Within three months I had gone from being this black sheep of the town to suddenly becoming a pop star. — Alison Moyet

A family without a black sheep is not a typical family. — Heinrich Boll

Ah, you noticed that black sheep on the hills aren't nearly as plentiful as the white. They're a particularly hardy lot. — Hannah Reed

Ian's the black sheep."
"I thought I was the black sheep," said Seth, sounding almost hurt.
"No. You're the unfocused artistic one. I'm the responsible one. Ian's the wild, hedonistic one."
"What's hedonistic?" asked Kendall.
Her father considered. "It means you run up a lot of credit card bills you can't pay, change jobs a lot, and have a lot of ... lady friends. — Richelle Mead

The brotherhood of men does not imply their equality. Families have their fools and their men of genius, their black sheep and their saints, their worldly successes and their worldly failures. A man should treat his brothers lovingly and with justice, according to the deserts of each. But the deserts of every brother are not the same. — Aldous Huxley

Despite all her diligent efforts to remake herself into a model of propriety, when it come to falling in love she'd reverted to from and fallen in love with a man who was a renegade, a black sheep, a daring, cynical, tough social outcast who in some ways reminded her of the boys she'd known on the Chicago streets. — Judith McNaught

Are you freaking kidding me? You kissed Adrian "freakishly amazingly beautiful, broody, black sheep, I could take your clothes off without ever moving a muscle" Hebert, and he kissed you back? — Lynetta Halat

You laid black powder charges. To move a flock of sheep." Pulling her hand from his grip, she studied the craters in the road. "Sir, I remain unconvinced of your sanity. But there's no question you are male."
He raised a brow. "That much was never in doubt."
Her only answer was a faint deepening of her blush.
"I assure you, all the lunacy is my cousin's. Lord Payne was merely teasing, having a bit of sport at my expense."
"I see. And you were having a bit of sport at my expense, pretending to be injured."
"Come, now." He leaned toward her and murmured, "Are you going to pretend you didn't enjoy it?"
Her eyebrows lifted. And lifted, until they formed perfect twin archer's bows, ready to dispatch poison-tipped darts. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."
-Susanna & Bram — Tessa Dare

I had choosen the path of the black sheep rather than that of the unicorns and puppies. — Magenta Periwinkle

Look, the world's comforter, with weary gait,
His day's hot task hath ended in the west:
The owl, night's herald, shrieks-'tis very late;
The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest;
And coal-black clouds, that shadow heaven's light,
Do summon us to part, and bid good night. — William Shakespeare

Black Meg, the senior nanny, who patiently allowed Tiffany to milk her and then, carefully and deliberately, put a hoof in the milk bucket. That's a goat's idea of getting to know you. A goat is a worrying thing if you're used to sheep, because a goat is a sheep with brains. — Terry Pratchett

After all, the wool of a black sheep is just as warm. — Ernest Lehman

I dug the idea that I was being perceived as the black sheep of my family, but for me, it was like, I was a rebel, and that to me was most important. — Larry Bishop

An oceanic expanse of pre-dawn gray white below obscures a checkered grid of Saskatchewan, a snow plain nicked by the dark, unruly lines of woody swales. One might imagine that little is to be seen from a plane at night, but above the clouds the Milky Way is a dense, blazing arch. A full moon often lights the planet freshly, and patterns of human culture, artificially lit, are striking in ways not visible in daylight. One evening I saw the distinctive glows of cities around Delhi diffused like spiral galaxies in a continuous deck of stratus clouds far below us. In Algeria and on the Asian steppes, wind-whipped pennants of gas flared. The jungle burned in incandescent spots in Malaysia and Brazil. One clear evening at 20,000 feet over Manhattan, I could see, it seemed, every streetlight halfway to the end of Long Island. A summer lightning bolt unexpectedly revealed thousands of bright dots on the ink-black veld of the northern Transvaal: sheep. — Barry Lopez

Her mother paused for a moment before hanging up the phone. "Watch your back, dear. Every family needs a black sheep. It would be an awful lot of trouble for us to come up with another one, should something happen to you. — Deborah Blake

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name, liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names, liberty and tyranny. The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty. — Abraham Lincoln

I was a black sheep, but now I'm just a goat — Kendrick Lamar

[Phoebe Broome] 'Well,' she said at last. 'You've now met my father. At his worst.'
[Lord Vladimir] 'Being myself widely considered my family's most difficult member, I would not presume to comment.'
'That is ... gentlemanly of you. — Alison Sinclair

After the accident Black Sheep was pretty much at an end. — Lou Gramm

Every family needs a black sheep to call them on their bullshit. — Karina Halle

For the white man to ask the black man if he hates him is just like the rapist asking the raped, or the wolf asking the sheep, 'Do you hate me?' The white man is in no moral position to accuse anyone else of hate! Why, when all of my ancestors are snake-bitten, and I'm snake-bitten, and I warn my children to avoid snakes, what does that snake sound like accusing me of hate-teaching? — Malcolm X

One cannot blame an organization that picks up an occasional black sheep, one only takes exception if it retains an accumulation of them. — Dion Fortune

I'm the king of the 20th century. I'm the boogeyman, the villian, the black sheep of the family. — Alan Moore

I was kind of the black sheep with the Disney kids. I was uninterested in making friends with most of them. I didn't really fall into 'the Disney mold.' I was more or less the kid hanging out with the crew members and got along with them far better. — Adam Lamberg

I'm a prodigal son. The black sheep of a white flock. I shall die on the gallows. — William A. Drake

From the window, above the clatter of pots and the slamming of cabinets, Francis was singing, as though it was the happiest song in the world: 'We are the little black sheep who have gone astray ... Baa baa baa ... Gentlemen songsters off on a spree ... Doomed from here to eternity ... — Donna Tartt

I'm a Black Sheep hopelessly lost in a field of delicious Blue Grass. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

Some sheep were bleating away beside the track, pressed tight into a pen much too small. Foraged, no doubt, meaning stolen, some unlucky shepherd's livelihood vanished down the gullets and out the arses of Black Dow's army. Behind a screen of hides, not two strides from the flock, a woman was slaughtering 'em and three more doing the skinning and gutting and hanging the carcasses, all soaked to the armpits in blood and not caring much about it either. Two lads, probably just reached fighting age, were watching. Laughing at how stupid the sheep were, not to guess what was happening behind those hides. They didn't see that they were in the pen, and behind a screen of songs and stories and young men's dreams, war was waiting, soaked to the armpits and not caring. — Joe Abercrombie

I was really sporty and loved singing. I started off doing musical theater. I left university to go to drama school. So I was a bit of a black sheep. — Sophie Cookson

If I was a sheep, I'd be black. — Kirsty Eagar

He supposed it would be considered pastoral-there were trees clustered in a meadow, with two muscular black cows and two improbably fluffy sheep arranged beneath them-and in the sky were two winged cherubs so fat that surely the miracle in question as how they have gotten aloft at all. They would have needed to have the wingspans of albatrosses, not those foolish wee flaps sprouting from their shoulders, he decided, irritated. One of the cows was looking up at them with what he fancied was an expression of surpise and alarm. Which was precisely the expression he would wear if he'd suddenly noticed two fat cherubs bearing down on him. — Julie Anne Long

Maybe the one had to be lost for the others to be found? — Donna Tartt

When the Lord's white sheep become dirty gray, all black sheep feel more comfortable. — Vance Havner

He was to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was riding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a robber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her. Of course, she would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get married, and come home, and live in an immense house in London. Yes, — Oscar Wilde

I've always been a black sheep. That's a hard thing to be until you find your calling in life. I was bullied a lot at school, probably because I was perceived to be different from everyone else. — Natalie Dormer

If you think about it, I was at college, and then three months later, I was a massive pop star. It's stress-making, especially when you're a bit of an oddball as I was, the black sheep left to your own devices, and then suddenly everyone's interested in you. — Alison Moyet

This is absurd," Colin grumbled. "At this rate, we'll arrive next Tuesday."
"Stop talking. Start moving." Bram nudged a sheep with his boot, wincing as he did. With his leg already killing him, the last thing he needed was a pain in the arse, but that's exactly what he'd inherited, along with all his father's accounts and possessions: responsibility for his wastrel cousin, Colin Sandhurst, Lord Payne.
He swatted at another sheep's flank, earning himself an indignant bleat and a few inches more.
"I have an idea," Colin said.
Bram grunted, unsurprised. As men, he and Colin were little more than strangers. But during the few years they'd overlapped at Eton, he recalled his younger cousin as being just full of ideas. Ideas that had landed him shin-deep in excrement. Literally, on at least one occasion.
Colin looked from Bram to Thorne and back again, eyes keen. "I ask you, gentlemen. Are we, or are we not, in possession of a great quantity of black powder? — Tessa Dare

London is a friend whom I can leave knowing without doubt that she will be the same to me when I return, to-morrow or forty years hence, and that, if I do not return, she will sing the same song to inheritors of my happy lot in future generations. Always, whether sleeping or waking, I shall know that in Spring the sun rides over the silver streets of Kensington, and that in the Gardens the shorn sheep find very green pasture. Always the plaited threads of traffic will wind about the reel of London; always as you up Regent Street from Pall Mall and look back, Westminster will rise with you like a dim sun over the horizon of Whitehall. That dive down Fleet Street and up to the black and white cliffs of St. Paul's will for ever bring to mind some rumour of romance. There is always a romance that we leave behind in London, and always London enlocks that flower for us, and keeps it fresh, so that when we come back we have our romance again. — Stella Benson

[Vincent Van Gogh] 'Oh Theo, don't you think I'm the black sheep, do you?'
[Theo Van Gogh] 'I'm more inclined to consider you as an ass.' — Irving Stone

After 27 years, I walked out of my first one a few months ago. Black Sheep with Chris Farley. — Gene Siskel

A night of exhilaration, of boredom and terror, in which the merest of sounds took on other forms - grew large in the expanse of darkness. After several hours the sheep gradually stopped calling to each other from accross the river banks, and a brittle quiet descended. I desperately wanted to walk down to the water's edge. To see the black river in the moonlight. But a mixture of reason and fear kept me locked along the safe paths high above. — Richard Skelton

In the king's bed is always found, just before it becomes a museum piece, the droppings of the black sheep. — Nathanael West

Liv, stop it!" hissed Mia. "You look like a lovelorn sheep!"
I gave a start. "As bad as that? Oh, that's terrible." I added - and I was to regret it in the course of the day - "If you see me looking like that again, give me a nudge or throw something at me. Promise?"
"With pleasure," said Mia, and three hours later, because she always kept her promises, I was black and blue around the ribs and had been hit by assorted flying objects: several chestnuts, a spoon, and a blueberry muffin. — Kerstin Gier

It is understandable how this shame came into being. The nation made the black man's color a stigma. Even linguistics and semantics conspire to give this impression. If you look in Roget's Thesaurus you will find about 120 synonyms for blacK, and right down the line you will find words like smut, something dirty, worthless, and useless, and then you look further and you find about 120 synonyms for white and they all represent something high, noble, pure, chaste - right down the line. In our language structure, a white lie is a little better than a black lie. Somebody goes wrong in the family and we don't call him a white sheep, we call him a black sheep. We don't say whitemail, but blackmail. We don't speak of white-balling somebody, but black-balling somebody. The word 'black' itself in our society connotes something that is degrading. It was absolutely necessary to come to a moment with a sense of dignity. It is very positive and very necessary. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I'm from a family of bankers and businessmen, and here I am, the artist, the black sheep. — Matthew Quick

England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control - that, perhaps is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase. — George Orwell

I suppose I look acceptable, the black (haired) sheep among the Barrett blondes. — Stephanie Wardrop

I was literally the black sheep of the family, and there were definitely moments of discomfort while my grandmother was working through her racism. — Lisa Bonet

When the Lord's sheep are a dirty grey, all black sheep are more
comfortable. — Vance Havner

It's a well-known fact that black sheep should never have lambs. You know what you get when you take a black sheep and give it a lamb? You get a thing called "supervised visitation" that's what. — Laurie Notaro

Lieutenant Mortas is the black sheep of the family--I thought you knew that. — Henry V. O'Neil

In families children tend to take on stock roles, as if there were hats hung up in some secret place, visible only to the children. Each succeeding child selects a hat and takes on that role: the good child, the black sheep, the clown, and so forth. — Ellen Galinsky

Anyhow, whether undergraduate or shop boy, man or woman, it must come as a shock about the age of twenty - the world of the elderly - thrown up in such black outline upon what we are; upon the reality; the moors and Byron; the sea and the lighthouse; the sheep's jaw with the yellow teeth in it; upon the obstinate irrepressible conviction which makes youth so intolerably disagreeable - "I am what I am, and intend to be it," for which there will be no form in the world unless Jacob makes one for himself. The Plumers will try to prevent him from making it. Wells and Shaw and the serious sixpenny weeklies will sit on its head. — Virginia Woolf

But for the young Laban, these black sheep were sympathetic figures, and by letting them appear on stage, he gave them an opportunity to be heard. — Evelyn Doerr

Yeah, ignore me." Aaro pawed through the bags until he found one with stenciled hearts on it. "By the way, you never did tell me your size. Hope nothing binds or pinches your tender pink places, babe."
He let the bag fly. It landed on Lily's lap. She shrank back as if it were a venomous snake. Fuck-me-please panties spilled out. A tangle of satin, lace and silk. Red, black, peach, flesh-tone.
Bruno growled expletives in a Calabrese dialect as he shoved underwear into the bag. It was his standard tension reliever. None of the people he insulted knew he was commenting on their grandmother's predilection for sex with sheep.
"I am not wearing that slutty, disgusting stuff." Lily's voice was haughty. "Certainly not after you're pawed it. Dog."
"Arf, arf." Aaro's tone was more cheerful than it had been so far any time this morning. "I love it when she spits bile. — Shannon McKenna

To rally every black sheep is my goal. — Julian Cope

We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa! We're little black sheep who've gone astray, Baa-aa-aa! Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, Baa! Yah! Bah! — Rudyard Kipling

He was your usual man when it came to romance, which is to say he couldn't recite Baa Baa Black Sheep when sober, whereas when drunk, sixteen cantos of Byron's Don Juan was par for the course. — Tyne O'Connell

In the early '70s, I started to feel like Philadelphia soul was the black-sheep brother of rock and roll. I decided to try to get away from it. — Daryl Hall

I feel kind of like the black sheep in Congress, but here I am. — Sonny Bono

I saw a young sister, just before this service; and I said to her, "When did you find the Lord?" She replied, "It was when I was very ill." Yes, it is often so; God makes us ill in body that we may have time to think of Him, and turn to Him ... What would become of some people if they were always in good health, or if they were always prospering? But tribulation is the black dog that goes after the stray sheep, and barks them back to the Good Shepherd. I thank God that there are such things as the visitations of correction and of holy discipline, to preserve our spirit, and bring us to Christ. — Charles Spurgeon

I feel like you can't judge a book by its cover, that's always been the story of my life. I can walk into any restaurant and people would be floored to learn that I know what I do about wine, let alone that I ran one of the best wine programs in the world. — Andre Hueston Mack

Hey everyone. This is Elizabeth Stone, the one who wrote a A BOY I ONCE KNEW and BLACK SHEEP AND KISSING COUSINS. To those of you who read either one, thanks! But another Elizabeth Stone, not me, wrote WOMEN AND THE CUBAN REVOLUTION and VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. Just setting the record straight! — Elizabeth Stone

Me? I'm the king of the twentieth century. I'm the bogeyman. The villain ... The black sheep of the family. — Alan Moore

I'm like the black sheep of my family. — Juan Pablo Di Pace

In that moment, Lisette loved that man.
Loud complaints erupted, accomplished by the usual slurs slung at the immortal black sheep.
Bastien shrugged them off as his gaze met hers.
Thank you, she told him telepatheically.
His lips tilted up the tiniest bit.
Unfortunately, Seth and David both picked up on the thought and turned back to her with matching frowns, gazes sharpening.
Merde.
"Why haven't you been around lately?" Seth queried. — Dianne Duvall

The genesis of my coat, made from fine wool, spinning backwards through the looms, onto the body of a lamb, a black sheep a bit apart from the flock, grazing on the side of a hill. A lamb opening its eyes to the clouds that resemble for a moment the woolly backs of his own kind. — Patti Smith

I told you what I was when we began. I'm the black iris watered by poison. The wolf that raised its head among sheep and devoured its way, ruthless and bloody, to freedom. I never forgave, never forgot.
I didn't feel sorry. I felt bad. As in bad girl, not guilty. And feeling bad made me feel so fucking good. — Leah Raeder

I was the black sheep of the family, and my mother never really understood me. — Andre Rieu

Followed white rabbit. Became black sheep. - Gabrille Maconi — Rachel Fershleiser

Somehow I think it was declared very early on that I was the - if not the black sheep of the family, not a very good student. — Dustin Hoffman

Julian: What's black inside, white outside, and hot?
Jenny: What?
Julian: A wolf in sheep's clothing.
Jenny: Is that what you are?
Julian: Me? No, I'm a wolf in wolf's clothing. — L.J.Smith

When I was on 'One Life to Live,' I always wanted to delve into my character, Layla, to find out why she was the black sheep of the family. I so wanted to have some edge. I have no idea why there was a reluctance to do that or why we so rarely see it. — Tika Sumpter

A black sheep is a biting beast. — Thomas Bastard

I'm the black sheep. — Sienna Miller

Back when we was in school in Mississippi, we had Little Black Sambo. That's what you learned: Anytime something was not good, or anytime something was bad in some kinda way, it had to be called black. Like, you had Black Monday, Black Friday, black sheep ... Of course, everything else, all the good stuff, is white. White Christmas and such. — B.B. King

I always believed I was an ugly duckling in a family of swans, you know? I was such a black sheep, and it was the same way in high school ... I was just kind of that awkward theater kid with a bunch of athletes ... it was very 'Glee.' — Lindsay Pearce

I was always the black sheep of the family and always told that I was dumb, and I had a low IQ and did badly in school. — Francis Ford Coppola

Mr. Rush said to Drew, "I think I see what the matter is. You were the youngest child. The irresponsible black sheep of the Morrow Mafia. Now, without warning, you're Jan Brady."
"Who?" Drew asked.
"The middle child from The Brady Bunch," I said.
"The pretty one?" Drew asked.
"No," Mr. Rush and I said together. — Jennifer Echols

Baa Baa Black Sheep' makes Marx's Capital look like Mary Poppins. — Terry Eagleton

I'm a little bit more unusual so I consider myself as the black sheep. — Ann Wilson

My husband sings Baa Baa black sheep and we pretend
that all's certain and good, that the marriage won't end. — Anne Sexton

I write, as far as I can tell, because writing is a black sheep sibling of prayer, an urgent struggle against a bad connection, intent, hopeful, innocent, never quite good enough. — Kirk Wilson

V's smile didn't last long. "Don't get your romantic side fired up about me and Jane, buddy.
She's human."
Butch's jaw dropped and he pulled a bobble. "No, really? That's such a shocker! And here I thought she
was a sheep."
V shot Butch a fuck-ya stare. — J.R. Ward

Ryder Delaney was the one imperfection in my life.He was the bad boy,black sheep,the one your mother always warned you about.He had
only one hard-and-fast rule-Don't Fall In Love — Paige Weaver

An astronomer, a physicist, and a mathematician (it is said) were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all Scottish sheep are black!" To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!" The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black. — Simon Singh

Families, by and large, like most groups, resist change. If one member of a family wants to move away, this is regarded as a betrayal, for example. If one member of a family is fat and tries to lose weight, often other members of the family will sabotage the effort. If one member of the family wants to get out of a role he or she has been playing for years, this is usually difficult ot do because the rest of the family tries not to let it happen. If your role is clown, you remain the clown. If your role is responsible oldest child, you probably keep that role within your family for your entire life. If you are the black sheep, you'll find it very diffcult to change colors in the eyes of your family no matter how many good deeds you do. — Edward M. Hallowell

I'll bet he misses it."
"Almost as much as I miss him being on the road."
She frowned. "You don't really mean that."
"Mostly not."
"Good. But I do sort of get it," she said slowly. "The siblings-driving-you-crazy thing. My sisters .
. well, they're perfect. As far as my parents are concerned."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. They're married."
"And that's perfect, huh? What about you? You're successful, right? Your column is pretty big."
"Oh, it's huge," she said, her tone overdramatic, earning a chuckle from Cole. "I'm kind of a big
deal. But I don't have a husband, so ... my parents think maybe I'm not such a big deal."
"So, you're the black sheep."
"Baaaaa."
"Nice."
"Thanks. — Maisey Yates

There is a public perception that Paris Hilton is the black sheep of the family. — Jerry Oppenheimer

I have been blessed with many curses in my life, not the least of which was being born half Lebanese and half American. Throughout my life, these contradictory parts battled endlessly, classed, never coming to a satisfactory conclusion. I shuffled ad nauseam between the need to assert my individuality and the need to belong to my clan, being terrified of loneliness and terrorized of losing myself in relationships. I was the black sheep of my family, yet an essential part of it. — Rabih Alameddine

I was considered the black sheep of the family, neighbours didn't want their kids playing with me. — Michelle Pfeiffer

Some things seem to be viewed in similar ways by many people, and I think we should take another look at these and truly question them. In our search for our own truth we need to ensure that we are not acting like sheep, merely following the herd behaviour.
One of these areas is that things are often regarded as opposites, things like black and white, day and night, light and dark, are obvious examples. A more open view might say they are opposite sides of one coin. I would go a little further and suggest to you that they are actually part of the same thing. Just as the coin cannot exist without its two sides, I would suggest that our world cannot exist without these so called opposites because they give us a spectrum to exist in, a matrix, or framework, that stretches between the two extremes (or polarities) to include every variation of light and shade that we sense or experience in-between. — Julia Woodman

And now here I am, suddenly, after all these years, home. I am not exactly the black sheep of my family, but it is not like I am grazing in pastels. Getting — George Hodgman

We've all been in positions where we felt out of place or not accepted for whatever reason. For me, that's been my life. I've always been that person that stood out. And what makes you an outcast is what makes you unique, and you should harness that. Being a black sheep gives you creative license to do sh*t differently. — Andre Hueston Mack

I never really was good at being a family general man, really. I hardly ever spent any time with my mum and dad whatever, really, or brothers or sisters. We just really didn't get along. I was pretty much like the black sheep of the family, to be honest. — Andrew Chan

Do not cringe and make yourself small if you are called the black sheep, the maverick, the lone wolf. Those with slow seeing say that a noncomformist is a blight on society. But it has been proven over the centuries, that being different means standing at the edge, that one is practically guaranteed to make an original contribution, a useful and stunning contribution to her culture. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Being a black sheep is a way I would describe myself. — Gin Wigmore