Butler Quotes & Sayings

About twenty pages into Luke B. Goebel's Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours, I realized I was reading with one hand holding my forehead and one balled at my waist, kind of clenched, and gazing down into the paper like a man soon to be converged upon. Goebel's testimony comes on like that: engrossing, fanatical, full of private grief, and yet, at the same time, charismatic, tender, and intrepid, aglow with more spirit than most Americans have the right to wield. — Blake Butler

I mean, I made The Phantom, although The Phantom was, believe it or not, an independent film. It was just a very large, expensive independent film. — Gerard Butler

The private interest of the individual would not be sufficiently provided for by reasonable and cool self-love alone; therefore the appetites and passions are placed within as a guard and further security, without which it would not be taken due care of. — Joseph Butler

He was built like a Spartan (the Gerard Butler kind, Nom). — Adrianne Brooks

Sometimes they need to prove to themselves that they still own themselves, that they can still care for themselves, that they still have things - customs - that are their own."
"Sounds like an expression of the Human conflict," Aaor said.
"It is," I agreed. "They're proving their independence at a time when they're no longer independent ... — Octavia E. Butler

I love soccer. That's all I ever watch. I'll watch it all day if I can. But I'm too bloody old to play now. — Geezer Butler

Exploring is delightful to look forward to and back upon, but it is not comfortable at the time, unless it be of such an easy nature as not to deserve the name. — Samuel Butler

You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements. — William Butler Yeats

Time can but make it easier to be wise / Though now it seems impossible, and so / All that you need is patience. — William Butler Yeats

The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions. — Samuel Butler

Dear Scarlett! You aren't helpless. Anyone as selfish and determined as you are is never helpless. God help the Yankees if they should get you. -Rhett Butler — Margaret Mitchell

What shall I do for pretty girls Now my old bawd is dead? — William Butler Yeats

God and the Devil are an effort after specialization and the division of labor. — Samuel Butler

I'm trying to speak
to write-the truth. Im trying to be clear. I'm not interested in being fancy, or even original. Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them. — Octavia E. Butler

The more choices we have, the greater the need for focus. — Tom Butler-Bowdon

What we think we lack determines what we will become in life. — Tom Butler-Bowdon

Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental. — Samuel Butler

Everyone who terrifies you is sixty-five percent water. And everyone you love is made of stardust, and I know sometimes you cannot even breathe deeply, and the night sky is no home, and you have cried yourself to sleep enough times that you are down to your last two percent; but nothing is infinite, not even loss. You are made of the sea and the stars, and one day you are going to find yourself again. — Finn Butler

Prayers only help the person doing the praying, and then, only if they strengthen and focus that person's resolve. — Octavia E. Butler

It's always more interesting to make a movie about what is relevant in your society. What's the political global backdrop? What are our threats? What are we vulnerable to? Because that's what an audience vibes on - that is what people are interested in, universally. — Gerard Butler

If you think about it, if you've ever been to a Catholic service, it's practically a laser light show. It's very dramatic, very theatrical. The outfits they wear, it's all designed to be impressive. — Win Butler

It is doubtful whether mankind are most indebted to those who like Bacon and Butler dig the gold from the mine of literature, or to those who, like Paley, purify it, stamp it, fix its real value, and give it currency and utility — Charles Caleb Colton

Overhead the sky was melting, the cracked cream color rubbing off in cogs of brine.
The fields far ahead of me in endless pudding, studded here and there with what had been: homes and houses, hair and heirlooms, habits, hallways, hauntings, hope. — Blake Butler

He was like me - a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying. — Octavia E. Butler

Once you grow past Mommy and Daddy coming running when you're hurt, you're really on your own. You're alone, and there's no one to help you. — Octavia Butler

First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice. — Octavia E. Butler

Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits. — Samuel Butler

The wish to spread those opinions that we hold conducive to our own welfare is so deeply rooted in the English character that few of us can escape its influence. — Samuel Butler

Indeed it may be only by risking the incoherence of identity that connection is possible. — Judith Butler

There are so many interesting times we could have visited. — Octavia E. Butler

Without grievability, there is no life, or, rather, there is something living that is other than life. Instead, "there is a life that will never have been lived," sustained by no regard, no testimony, and ungrieved when lost. The apprehension of grievability precedes and makes possible the apprehension of precarious life. Grievability precedes and makes possible the apprehension of the living being as living, exposed to non-life from the start. — Judith Butler

I believe that he was really sorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he was not more sorry. — Samuel Butler

He who expects not to achieve will never do so. — Caron Butler

The soldier takes pride in saluting his Captain,
The devotee proffers a knee to his Lord,
Some back a mare thrown from a thoroughbred,
Troy backed its Helen, Troy died and adored;
Great nations blossom above,
A slave bows down to a slave. — William Butler Yeats

Religion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not. — Octavia E. Butler

There's a Lady Amelia Pembroke here to see you, my lord. She was most insistent."

Benedict glanced up from his desk. "I trust you informed her that I was not receiving, and refused to let her in?"

"Of course." The butler hesitated before continuing, "She said she would simply wait until you are receiving."

Benedict put down his pen. "Wait where, pray?"

"Upon the front step, my lord. I'm afraid the lady brought... the lady brought... a book. She cannot be budged. — Erica Ridley

After a few years of watching the human species make things unnecessarily difficult for itself I have little hope that it will do anything more than survive and continue its cycle of errors. — Octavia E. Butler

Neither have they hearts to stay, nor wit enough to run away. — Samuel Butler

This desire of knowledge and the wonder which it hopes to satisfy are the driving power behind all the changes that we, with careless, question-begging inference, call progress. — Nicholas Murray Butler

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable. — Samuel Butler

Faith - you can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it. — Samuel Butler

Death and life were not
Till man made up the whole,
Made lock, stock and barrel
Out of his bitter soul — William Butler Yeats

Although our love is waning, let us stand by the lone border of the lake once more, together in that hour of gentleness. When the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep. — William Butler Yeats

No, the safest thing is to become an island. To make your house a citadel against all the garbage and ugliness in the world. How else can you be sure of anything? — Nickolas Butler

The film 'Black Orpheus' is one of my favorite films of all time, which is set in Carnival in Brazil. — Win Butler

The practical outcome of the foregoing was a conviction in Theobald's mind, and if in his, then in Christina's, that it was their duty to begin training up their children in the way they should go, even from their earliest infancy. The first signs of self-will must be carefully looked for, and plucked up by the roots at once before they had time to grow. Theobald — Samuel Butler

Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. — William Butler Yeats

Autobiography of a Yogi is justifiably celebrated as one of the most entertaining and enlightening spiritual books ever written. — Tom Butler-Bowdon

The history of art is the history of revivals. — Samuel Butler

There was one vampire movie that Gerard Butler was in, 'Dracula 2000,' and they touched on something interesting, but it only worked in the context of that particular movie, which was that the original vampire was Judas. — Amy Heckerling

You are horror and beauty in rare combination. — Octavia Butler

We start 'The Butler' in June and that's incredibly exciting for me because I get to work with the amazing Forest Whitaker again. It's a phenomenal script and a great, great role - I play his son. Oprah Winfrey is his wife and my mother. My character is a radical civil rights activist. — David Oyelowo

I am so happy to be on a show with writing I wanted to participate in. — Yancy Butler

I enjoy having breakfast in bed. I like waking up to the smell of bacon, sue me. And since I don't have a butler, I have to do it myself. So, most nights before I go to bed, I will lay six strips of bacon out on my George Foreman grill. Then I go to sleep. When I wake up, I plug in the grill. I go back to sleep again. Then I wake up to the smell of crackling bacon. It is delicious, it's good for me, it's the perfect way to start the day. — Michael Scott

All have been or believed themselves to be in danger from the pursuit of one they wished to avoid, while they have been anxious for the attentions of someone they wished to please. — Nancy Butler

If vampires were a separate species, and they were into genetic engineering, what would they engineer for? — Octavia E. Butler

I'm a fifty-three-year-old writer who can remember being a ten-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an eighty-year-old writer. — Octavia E. Butler

Business should be like religion and science; it should know neither love nor hate. — Samuel Butler

While Michael Angelo's Sistine roof,
His "Morning" and his "Night" disclose
How sinew that has been pulled tight,
Or it may be loosened in repose,
Can rule by supernatural right
Yet be but sinew. — William Butler Yeats

For those that love the world serve it in action, Grow rich, popular, and full of influence; And should they paint or write still is it action, The struggle of the fly in marmalade. — William Butler Yeats

Gladys.. work has kept you fit
And Bill.. you never moan
Well life's not for carrying cases
With a butler of your own — John Walter Bratton

Because I helped to wind the clock, I come to hear it strike. — William Butler Yeats

What made us dream that he could comb gray hair? — William Butler Yeats

There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. — Smedley Butler

I rub my hand down my face, frustrated. This girl in front of me tests my patience like hell.
When she ran to me after her dad kicked her out, I thought she still had feelings for me. She needed a place to stay, and I needed her. I offered her a room, thinking if she was around me every day, she would remember she loves me. I was dead wrong. Somewhere along the way, we switched roles, I became the one who so desperately needed her and she became cold and closed off. She isn't my savior; she's my punishment. — Brittany Butler

Do we need recourse to a happier state before the law in order to maintain that contemporary gender relations and the punitive production of gender identities are oppressive? — Judith Butler

When I was a vocalist, a lead singer in a rock band, I was a law student at the time. It wasn't a professional rock band, it was for fun. I was already way out of that by the time Phantom came along. Having to learn to sing, it was such duress, having to really try and get to such a quality. — Gerard Butler

You have an alarming streak of chivalry for a butler. I'd accuse you of aping your betters, but I have met your houseguests. — Caroline Dunford

To do more, is not necessarily to do better. — Katy Butler

Artemis grabbed her shoulders, for once abandoning his shell of icy composure. "Holly, Holly, speak to me. Your finger is it okay?"
Holly wiggled her fingers, then curled them into a fist.
"I think so," she said, and whacked Artemis right between the eyes. The surprised boy landed in a snowdrift for the third time that day.
Holly winked at an amazed butler.
"Now we're even," she said.
Commander Root didn't have many treasured memories. But in future days, when things were at their grimmest, he would conjure up this moment and have a quiet chuckle. — Eoin Colfer

I think there's some pretty amazing language in the Bible. — Win Butler

When my father was vigorous and lucid, (my mother) regarded medicine as her wily ally in a lifelong campaign to keep old age, sickness, and death at bay. Now ally and foe exchanged masks. Medicine looked more like the enemy, and death the friend. (p. 184) — Katy Butler

We've got all night to make up for years of wondering about it." - Butler — Cat Porter

I don't want easy. I want the impossible. I want love so thick, I drown in it; it's the only thing worth having and, I'm sorry Kona, you're a nice guy when you're not acting like an entitled jackass, but I really don't think you're capable of being anything more than that. — Eden Butler

Criminal justice is what happens after a complicated series of events has gone bad. It is the end result of failure
the failure of a group of people that sometimes includes, but is never limited to, the accused person. — Paul Delano Butler

Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before. — William Butler Yeats

Tobacco ... is not prohibited in the Scriptures, though, as Samuel Butler points out, St. Paul would no doubt have denounced it if he had known of it. — Bertrand Russell

All through the years of our youth
Neither could have known
Their own thought from the other's,
We were so much at one. — William Butler Yeats

War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. — Smedley Butler

Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God. — Samuel Butler

The nineteenth-century clergyman William Barnes preferred wheelsaddle to bicycle and folkwain to omnibus. By the same token forceps would be nipperlings, and pathology would be painlore. Some of his new words recalled the language of Old English poetry: he proposed glee-mote in place of concert, and the wonderful cellar-thane instead of butler. — Henry Hitchings

Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky With all their ancient faces like rain- beaten stones, And all their helms of silver hovering. — William Butler Yeats

A passion-driven exultant man sings out
Sentences that he has never thought ... — William Butler Yeats

America is the best half-educated country in the world. — Nicholas M. Butler

Bad design is the default mode, since it takes the least effort to create. — David Butler

Most of us, if we're not careful, tend to dehumanize the enemy. — Octavia E. Butler

While Fledging is a different type of book, The Parable series serve as cautionary tales. I wrote the Parable books because of the direction of the country. You can call it save the world fiction, but it clearly doesn't save anything. — Octavia Butler

Are we not, ethically speaking, obligated to stop its (violence) further dissemination, to consider our role in instigating it, and to forment and cultivate another sense of a culturally and religiously diverse global political culture? — Judith Butler

I went through a period when I was rebellious and a mess of a person. — Austin Butler

My grandfather is the king, my Dad's the prince, I guess that makes me the butler. — Adam Petty

He is greatest who is most often in men's good thoughts. — Samuel Butler

I think people really need to think what it's like to have all of society arrayed against you. — Octavia E. Butler

The would-be maturing believer is not challenged to any adult faith or service to the world, much less mystical union. Everyone ends up in a muddled middle, where "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity," as William Butler Yeats put it. — Richard Rohr

I want you to understand the words. I want you taste the words. I want you to love the words. Because the words are important. But they're only words. You leave them on the paper and you take the thoughts and put them into your mind and then you as an actor recreate them, as if the thoughts had suddenly occurred to you. — Daws Butler

Embrace diversity. Unite - Or be divided, robbed, ruled, killed By those who see you as prey. Embrace diversity Or be destroyed. — Octavia E. Butler

I'd rather see the others."
"What others?"
"The ones who make it. The ones living in freedom now."
"If any do."
"They do."
"Some say they do. It's like dying, though, and going to heaven. Nobody ever comes back to tell you about it. — Octavia E. Butler

The Samaritans and the Jews were enemies, two tribes caught in an ancient argument about birthright and ethnicity who lived in segregated neighborhoods. By Jesus's time they were forbidden to have contact with each other, and violent squabbles sometimes erupted. The lawyer, who was a Jew, surely knew of both the informal customs and formal laws separating the two groups. Samaritans and Jews were not good neighbors. Yet Jesus turns the ancient Jewish command to love your neighbor into a story about these hostile groups. The man in the ditch, who is Jewish, is bypassed by those close to him by tribal ties (most likely the priest and the Levite were afraid the thieves were still about in the area and that they might be the next victim) and is eventually rescued by a Samaritan. Thus Jesus enlarges the sphere of neighborhood to include those we deem objectionable. — Diana Butler Bass

I found that I couldn't muster any belief in a literal heaven or hell, anyway. I thought the best we could all do was to look after one another and clean up the various hells we've made right here on earth. — Octavia E. Butler

She pushed the revelation about Dr. Kruger into a side pocket of her mind, to be examined more thoroughly another time. Who would ever have suspected that he was shy? That any grownups were, for that matter, and especially a person as important as a doctor? — Beverly Butler

Bound to seek recognition of its own existence in categories, terms, and names that are not of its own making, the subject seeks the sign of its own existence outside itself, in a discourse that is at once dominant and indifferent. Social categories signify subordination and existence at once. In other words, within subjection the price of existence is subordination. — Judith Butler