Quotes & Sayings About Changing The Subject

If I keep looking at her long legs I'm gonna have an accident. "How's that sister of yours?" I ask, changing the subject.
"She's waiting to beat you again at checkers."
"Is that right? Well, tell her I was goin' easy on her. I was tryin' to impress you."
"By losing?"
I shrug. "It worked, didn't it?"
I notice her fidgeting with her dress as if she needs to fix it to impress me. Wanting to ease her anxiety, I slide my fingers down her arm before capturing her hand in mine.
"You tell Shelley I'll be back for a rematch," I say.
She turns to me, her blue eyes sparkling. "Really?"
"Absolutely."
During the drive, I try and make small talk. It doesn't work. I'm not a small talk kind of guy. It's a good thing Brittany seems content without talking. — Simone Elkeles

You're not going to get any true confessions out of me," she said. "I'm a Leo, and our thing is changing the subject. — Ira Levin

The flow of people in a setting, their changing relationships to each other and their environment, and their constantly changing expressions and movements - all combine to create dynamic situations that provide the photographer with limitless choices of when to push the button. By choosing a precise intersection between subject and time, he may transform the ordinary into the extraordinary and the real into the surreal. — Constantine Manos

There are innumerable writing problems in an extended work. One book took a little more than six years. You, the writer, change in six years. The life around you changes. Your family changes. They grow up. They move away. The world is changing. You're also learning more about the subject. By the time you're writing the last chapters of the book, you know much more than you did when you started at the beginning. — David McCullough

It's important to see things in perspective. Automobile traffic is responsible for only 12 percent of total CO2 emissions. One should be able to point this out without being accused of changing the subject. — Martin Winterkorn

Stop changing the subject," Taylor snapped. "And think before you speak."
Roo pressed her lips together and then sighed. "How long do you want me to think?"
Niall let out a snort of laughter. — Barbara Elsborg

Who are you going swimming with?" Kinsley asked again.

"You're not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition," I replied.

"Stop changing the subject! With whom do you plan to swim?! — R.S. Grey

Sky passed out on the road today," Karen says, changing the subject. "Some adorable man-boy carried her inside." I laugh.
"Guy, Mom. Please just say guy. — Colleen Hoover

not warrant or represent at any time that the contents within are accurate due to the rapidly changing nature of the Internet. While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this publication, the Author and Publisher assume no responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretation of the subject matter herein. Any perceived slights of specific persons, people, or organizations are unintentional. In practical advice books, like anything else in life, there are no guarantees of results. Readers are cautioned to rely on their own judgment about their individual circumstances — Homer

People, he had said, were always being looked at as points, and they ought to be looked at as lines. There weren't any points, it was false to assume that a person ever was anything. He was always becoming something, always changing, always continuous and moving, like the wiggly line on a machine used to measure earthquake shocks. He was always what he was in the beginning, but never quite exactly what he was; he moved along a line dictated by his heritage and his environment, but he was subject to every sort of variation within the narrow limits of his capabilities.
...
She shut her mind on that too. There was danger in looking at people as lines. The past spread backward and you saw things in perspective that you hadn't seen then, and that made the future ominous, more ominous than if you just looked at the point, at the moment. There might be truth in what Bruce said, but there was not much comfort. — Wallace Stegner

Holmes," I asked as we stepped into the street, "I realise the question sounds sophomoric, but do you find that there are aspects of yourself with which you feel most comfortable? I only ask out of curiosity; you needn't feel obliged to answer." He offered me his arm and, formally, I took it. "'Who am I?' you mean." He smiled at the question and gave what was at first glance a most oblique answer. "Do you know what a fugue is?" "Are you changing the subject?" "No." I thought in silence for some distance before his answer arranged itself sensibly in my mind. "I see. Two discrete sections of a fugue may not appear related, unless the listener has received the entire work, at which time the music's internal logic makes clear the relationship. — Laurie R. King

What've we got this afternoon?" said Harry, hastily changing the subject. "Defense Against the Dark Arts," said Hermione at once. "Why," demanded Ron, seizing her schedule, "have you outlined all Lockhart's lessons in little hearts?" Hermione snatched the schedule back, blushing furiously. — J.K. Rowling

Quivering, as if she couldn't decide whether to laugh or frown. I love my mom, and I have no idea how she can find Rafe funny. It must be a gene I missed. "So, are you two excited for your first day?" Mom asked. Changing the subject. Nicely done, Mom. "I can't wait," Rafe and I said together. Only his voice clearly meant "I can wait," while my voice meant "I'm so excited that I'm about to explode! — James Patterson

Here on the edge of the river, the motifs are very plentiful, the same subject seen from a different angle gives a subject for study of the highest interest and so varied that I think I could be occupied for months without changing my place, simply bending a little more to the right or left. — Paul Cezanne

Is Tyson okay?" I asked. The question seemed to take my dad by surprise. He's fine. Doing much better than I expected. Though "peanut butter" is a strange battle cry. "You let him fight?" Stop changing the subject! You realize what you are asking me to do? My palace will be destroyed. "And Olympus might be saved." Do you have any idea how long I've worked on remodeling this palace? The game room alone took six hundred years. "Dad - " Very well! It shall be as you say. But my son, pray this works. "I am praying. I'm talking to you, right?" Oh ... yes. Good point. — Rick Riordan

Yossarian decided to change the subject. "Now you're changing the subject." he pointed out diplomatically. "I'll bet I can name two things to be miserable about for every one you can name to be thankful for. — Joseph Heller

In a world that is constantly changing, there is no one subject or set of subjects that will serve you for the foreseeable future, let alone for the rest of your life. The most important skill to acquire now is learning how to learn. — John Naisbitt

I might have been through some changes, but changing the way I look wasn't one of the major ones. To be honest. I'm sick of the whole subject of my hair. I mean, are you just sitting there looking at my hair, or are you looking at me? — Jon Bon Jovi

In general, we imagine rivers to be subject to a kind of dynamic equilibrium, largely stable geologic features, with processes like regional incision or subtle shifts in mountain building causing short- and medium-term variation around some slowly changing mean condition, but in fact it is far more common to see dramatic change over short periods, with long periods of stability between in what geologists refer to as 'dynamic metastable equilibrium.'
It is the same with families, memory, the history of a person's life, what we believe to be true. — Katharine Haake

I don't have stylistic loyalty. That's why people perceive me changing all the time. But there is a real continuity in my subject matter. As an artist of artifice, I do believe I have more integrity than any one of my contemporaries. — David Bowie

Newness only becomes mere evil in its totalitarian format, where all the tension between individual and society, that once gave rise to the category of the new, is dissipated. Today the appeal to newness, of no matter what kind, provided only that it is archaic enough, has become universal, the omnipresent medium of false mimesis. The decomposition of the subject is consummated in his self-abandonment to an ever-changing sameness. — Theodor Adorno

Woman, you got a mouth on you."

"It's not 1955 any longer. Women swear as much as men."

"I miss women who talk about women things."

"You're changing the subject. Keep it up and I'll talk about my period. That's a woman thing. — Edie Ramer

I don't know how they do it. I don't know how anybody
does it, waking up every morning and eating and moving
from the bus to the assembly line, where the teacherbots
inject us with Subject A and Subject B, and passing
every test they give us. Our parents provide the list of
ingredients and remind us to make healthy choices: one
sport, two clubs, one artistic goal, community service, no
grades below a B, because really, nobody's average, not
around here. It's a dance with complicated footwork and
a changing tempo.
I'm the girl who trips on the dance floor and can't find
her way to the exit. All eyes on me. — Laurie Halse Anderson

Changing the subject is one of the most difficult arts to master, the key to almost all the others. — Cesar Aira

The past is not simply the past, but a prism through which the subject filters his own changing self-image. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

You cannot meet someone for a moment, or even cast eyes on someone in the street, without changing. That is my subject. — Carolyn Kizer

That is what makes the Bush regime different: after the attacks of September 11, it dared to demand the right to torture without shame. That left the administration subject to criminal prosecution - a problem it dealt with by changing the laws. — Naomi Klein

My advice to women is the same advice I would give to any young man trying to make it in the business of making film: Engage your fans and turn your fans into your community. Realize that we all have failures and can turn those failures into successes through tenacity and through being open to changing. Stick to your story, and choose subject matter that is close to you, touches your heart and your agenda in life, listen carefully and don't give up. Don't sacrifice your vision. Be open but don't sacrifice - for anything, actually. — Ondi Timoner

So," I said climbing to my feet and changing the subject ASAP, "I had a dream last night someone tried to burn me alive, and I'm not entirely sure it was a dream."
Devon stiffened. Chase's pupils pulsed.
Subject successfully changed.
"Now who's ready to eat? — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The "family" has clearly emerged anew in the late 1970s as a central subject for discussion, debate, research and writing in bothscholarly and popular arenas. Anxiety over whether or not the family as a basic social institution is dying has diminished. In its stead has emerged a fairly broad consensus around the position that the family is "here to stay," but that it certainly is changing. — Sheila Kamerman

that is subject to accelerated revenue recognition as a result of aggressive management estimates is one that has "multiple deliverables." In this type of arrangement, the seller provides several distinct, but intermingled deliverables over an extended period of time. For example, wireless telecom companies often package mobile phone service and a cell phone handset together in the same contract. Sometimes the handset is sold to the customer at a greatly discounted price (or even given away for free), as long as the customer also agrees to a two-year service contract. Accounting rules require the seller to allocate a portion of the total contract value to the handset (to be recognized as revenue up front) and a portion to the service contract (to be recognized over the life of the contract). The seller uses assumptions in estimating how to split the revenue between the two deliverables. By changing these assumptions or — Howard M. Schilit

One of the problems we've had is that the ICT curriculum in the past has been written for a subject that is changing all the time. I think that what we should have is computer science in the future - and how it fits in to the curriculum is something we need to be talking to scientists, to experts in coding and to young people about. — Michael Gove

I'm not changing the subject, just providing a methodical walkthrough of your fragile glass house and very impressive stone collection. — Colette Moody

Don't be so damned patronizing. Your performance so far has been a little less than dazzling."
"I didn't mean no harm," I said and kissed her. "That a new dress?"
"Ah! Changing the subject, you coward. — Dashiell Hammett

Ten-to-one odds Callum has either Sore or Lance on Bryn-duty tonight," I said, changing the subject with an unspoken apology for bringing up the previous one at all. "You Macalisters seem to be Team Bryn favorites at the moment."
Devon's lips settled into an easy, practiced smirk, and the nearly imperceptible tension in his neck and shoulder muscles receded. "If there's any justice in this world, watching you should convince them how lucky they've been to be blessed with a son such as myself."
"He says with patented Smirk Number Three."
Devon shook his head and made a sound somewhere in the neighborhood of tsk-tsk. "You're getting rusty, Bronwyn. That was clearly Smirk Number Two: sardonic with a side of wit. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Math. It's your favorite subject. Which surprises you. Last year your teacher tried to convince you that you had a real "aptitude" for math, but all you got in the end was a B minus. The truth is you weren't even trying. But then you got low Cs and Ds in all your other classes and you weren't trying there, either, so maybe you are good at math after all.
You like it because either you're right or you're wrong. Not like social studies and definitely not like English, where you always have to explain your answers and support your opinions. With math it's right or it's wrong and you're done with it. But even that's changing, my teacher said now you have to explain how you solved the problem and support your answer, saying that having the right answer isn't as important as explaining how you got it and bam, just like that, you hate math. — Charles Benoit

So ... you like her, Gabe?' Lauren pressed.
'Yes,' he answered, starting work on his spreadsheet again in an effort to stave off more questions.
'She's great, isn't she?'
Shit. A smile tugged at his mouth and Lauren was standing right next to him. No question she could see it. He tried to cover himself by changing the subject. — Victoria Dahl

A man who has made up his mind on a given subject twenty-five years ago and continues to hold his political opinions after he has been proved to be wrong is a man of principle; while he who from time to time adapts his opinions to the changing circumstances of life is an opportunist. — A.P. Herbert

The indolence I love is not that of a lazy fellow who sits with his arms across in total inaction, and thinks no more than he acts, but that of a child which is incessantly in motion doing nothing, and that of a dotard who wanders from his subject. I love to amuse myself with trifles, by beginning a hundred things and never finishing one of them, by going or coming as I take either into my head, by changing my project at every instant, by following a fly through all its windings, in wishing to overturn a rock to see what is under it, by undertaking with ardor the work of ten years, and abandoning it without regret at the end of ten minutes; finally, in musing from morning until night without order or coherence, and in following in everything the caprice of a moment. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Excuse me? You're a lady?"
"I bought a title on the Internet. I own one square inch of Scotland. And you're changing the subject. — Rachel Caine

I said it, just like that. No stupid jokes, no changing the subject. For once, I wasn't embarrassed, because it was the truth. I had fallen. I think I had always been falling. And she might as well know, if she didn't already, because there was no going back now. Not for me. — Kami Garcia

Tyson okay?" I asked. The question seemed to take my dad by surprise. He's fine. Doing much better than I expected. Though "peanut butter" is a strange battle cry. "You let him fight?" Stop changing the subject! You realize what you are asking me to do? My palace will be destroyed. "And Olympus might be saved." Do you have any idea how long I've worked on remodeling this palace? The game room alone took six hundred years. "Dad - " Very well! It shall be as you say. But my son, pray this works. "I am praying. I'm talking to you, right? — Rick Riordan

Being a medium who can communicate with souls isn't the same as one who can interact with them. It's the difference between listening in on a conversation and changing the subject. — S. Kelley Harrell

So she did the English thing. She changed the subject. — Steve Hockensmith

you cannot be friends either with boy or man unless you give yourself away in the process, and Mr. Pembroke did not commend this. He, for "personal intercourse," substituted the safer "personal influence," and gave his junior hints on the setting of kindly traps, in which the boy does give himself away and reveals his shy delicate thoughts, while the master, intact, commends or corrects them.
Originally Rickie had meant to help boys in the anxieties that they undergo when changing into men: at Cambridge he had numbered this among life's duties. But here is a subject in which we must
inevitably speak as one human being to another, not as one who has authority or the shadow of authority, and for this reason the elder school-master could suggest nothing but a few formulae. Formulae, like kindly traps, were not in Rickie's line, so he abandoned these
subjects altogether and confined himself to working hard at what was easy. — E. M. Forster

I shall never find a better document for a phenomenology of a being which is at once established in its roundness and developing in it. Rilke's tree propagates in green spheres a roundness that is a victory over accidents of form and the capricious events of mobility. Here becoming has countless forms, countless leaves, but being is subject to no dispersion: If I could ever succeed in grouping together all the images of being, all the multiple, changing images that, in spite of everything, illustrate permanence of being, Rilke's tree would open an important chapter in my album of concrete metaphysics. — Gaston Bachelard

Whenever Roosevelt (Theodore) expected a visitor, he sat up late the night before, reading up on the subject in which he knew his guest was particularly interested. For Roosevelt knew, all the leaders royal road to a person's heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most. — Dale Carnegie

A day or two after my love pronouncement, now feral with vulnerability, I sent you the passage from Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes in which Barthes describes how the subject who utters the phrase "I love you" is like "the Argonaut renewing his ship during its voyage without changing its name." Just as the Argo's parts may be replaced over time but the boat is still called the Argo, whenever the lover utters the phrase "I love you," its meaning must be renewed by each use, as "the very task of love and of language is to give to one and the same phrase inflections which will be forever new. — Maggie Nelson

To the audience, it's like I'm changing the subject every five seconds, but to me, my show's almost like a 90-minute song that I know exactly. I wrote every note, and I know exactly where everything is. — Steven Wright

The way men are seen in photography, in fashion, and the way that men look at pictures of themselves has changed in recent years. It is a subject that has come into focus: The masculine image, a man's personal style, changing attitudes to the male face and body, — Mario Testino

For you she learned to wear a short black slip
and red lipstick,
how to order a glass of red wine
and finish it. She learned to reach out
as if to touch your arm and then not
touch it, changing the subject.
Didn't you think, she'd begin, or
Weren't you sorry. . . .

To call your best friends
by their schoolboy names
and give them kisses good-bye,
to look away when they say
Your wife! So your confidence grows.
She doesn't ask what you want
because she knows.

Isn't that what you think?

When actually she was only waiting
to be told Take off your dress---
to be stunned, and then do this,
never rehearsed, but perfectly obvious:
in one motion up, over, and gone,
the X of her arms crossing and uncrossing,
her face flashing away from you in the fabric
so that you couldn't say if she was
appearing or disappearing. — Deborah Garrison

The truth is, that the concept of God which I had always entertained, and which I had accused Christians of teaching to the world, was a concept of a being who was simply impossible. He was infinite and yet finite; perfect and imperfect; eternal and yet changing - subject to all the variations of emotion, love, sorrow, hate, revenge, that men are prey to ...
What a relief it was for me, now, to discover not only that no idea of ours, let alone any image, could adequately represent God, but also that we should not allow ourselves to be satisfied with any such knowledge of Him. — Thomas Merton

Truth is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. Truth has no need to adapt to the changing times, for it is timeless. Time must adapt to it. What is Truth today, was so long ago and will remain so long from now. Truth does not change, only living beings' understanding of Truth changes. Living beings speak and live according to their own understanding. Yet our understanding is subject to the time in which we live. This is how we may recognize Truth, it is true no matter when it is spoken and no matter who speaks it. — C W Newman

In this story the father represents the Heavenly Father Jesus knew so well. St. Paul writes: "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses" (2 Corinthians 5:19 - American Standard Version). Jesus is showing us the God of Great Expenditure, who is nothing if not prodigal toward us, his children. God's reckless grace is our greatest hope, a life-changing experience, and the subject of this book. — Timothy Keller

How's that sister of yours?" I ask, changing the subject.
"She's waiting to beat you again at checkers."
"Is that right? Well, tell her I was goin easy on her. I was tryin' to impress you."
"By losing?"
I shrug. "It worked, didn't it?"
I notice her fidgeting with her dress as if she needs to fix it to impress me. Wanting to ease her anxiety, I slide my fingers down her arm before capturing her hand in mine.
"You tell Shelley I'll be back for a rematch," I say.
She turns to me, her blue eyes sparkling. "Really?"
"Absolutely. — Simone Elkeles

The transition from subject to observer was instantaneous, sensations, sights, and sounds changing from instruments of torment to a fascinating display of electronic signals. The spectra included thousands of frequencies, visual, audio and psi bands alike, each customized for a specific effect, a pseudo symphony for an audience of one. — Marcha A. Fox

Now before going to a party, I just tell myself to listen with affection to anyone who talks to me, to be in their shoes when they talk, to try to know them without my mind pressing against theirs, or arguing, or changing the subject. No. My attitude is: 'Tell me more.' This person is showing me his soul. It is a little dry and meager and full of grinding talk just now, but presently he will begin to think, not just automatically to talk. He will show his true self. Then he will be wonderfully alive.' ... Creative listeners are those who want you to be recklessly yourself, even at your very worst, even vituperative, bad-tempered. They are laughing and just delighted with any manifestation of yourself, bad or good. For true listeners know that if you are bad-tempered it does not mean that you are always so. They don't love you just when you are nice; they love all of you. — Brenda Ueland

The changing styles are the expression of a restless search for something which shall commend itself to our aesthetic sense; but as each innovation is subject to the selective action of the norm of conspicuous waste, the range within which innovation can take place is somewhat restricted. The innovation must not only be more beautiful, or perhaps oftener less offensive, than that which it displaces, but it must also come up to the accepted standard of expensiveness. — Thorstein Veblen

Women who were housewives, who were pretty miserable ... felt inspired by her book and their life changed. They didn't become megastars, but they became a librarian or something. I've heard women say again and again when the subject of Germaine comes up: 'Well, her book changed my life for the better.' And they'll be modest women living pretty ordinary lives, but better lives. — Germaine Greer