Contraire Quotes & Sayings

In 1984, I turned to theater in the hopes of finding a more direct form of communication between me and my people. — Cherrie Moraga

Irene gasped. "Have you taken leave of your senses, Stuart?" she hissed. "Have you?"
Stuart closed his eyes.
"No," he said. "Au contraire." It was strong language for the Edinburgh New Town, but he had to say it.
"Don't au contraire me," said Irene.
But it was too late. He had. — Alexander McCall Smith

What ignited the rocket that sent you up into the vast regions of comedy, and why? I would say, for me, that philosophical treatise about having black beginnings and wanting love to compensate for that, wanting audiences and wanting attention - I say, "Au contraire." Completely opposite. I want the continuation of my mother's incredible love and attention to me. — Mel Brooks

Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution. Poignant longings for beauty, for an end to probing below the surface, for a redemption and celebration of the body of the world. Ultimately, having an experience becomes identical with taking a photograph of it. — Susan Sontag

For a lot of us drawing is a tyranny which impedes freshness and spontaneity. — Robert Genn

Au contraire..."
"What?" Constance demanded.
Curtain blinked.
~ The Perilous Journey — Trenton Lee Stewart

Touch can have two meanings: it can be an intimate gesture between equals, a way of saying: I care for you. But between people who are unequal, there's an asymmetry: the powerful may touch the weak - a pat on the back, for example; but the weak may not lay hands on the powerful. His touch probably meant nothing. Any touch I might receive from a family member would be difficult to interpret. It could be a gesture of affection, a bit of condescension, or worst of all, a sexual overture. Or perhaps it might be a confusing mixture of all of these. — Rebecca East

Oh, here's a clever one. Do you remember this question from the first test? It reads, 'What's wrong with this statement?' And do you know what Constance wrote in reply? She wrote, 'What's wrong with you? — Trenton Lee Stewart

There are websites that any government wants to block. The truth about the Internet is that it's extremely hard to block anything - extremely hard. You'll never get perfect blocking. — Bill Gates

Mason prefers to switch over to Tea, when it is Dixon's turn to begin shaking his head. "Can't understand how anyone abides that stuff." "How so?" Mason unable not to react. "Well, it's disgusting, isn't it? Half-rotted Leaves, scalded with boiling Water and then left to lie, and soak, and bloat?" "Disgusting? this is Tea, Friend, Cha, - what all tasteful London drinks, - that," pollicating the Coffee-Pot, "is what's disgusting." "Au contraire," Dixon replies, "Coffee is an art, where precision is all, - Water-Temperature, mean particle diameter, ratio of Coffee to Water or as we say, CTW, and dozens more Variables I'd mention, were they not so clearly out of thy technical Grasp, - — Thomas Pynchon

When it gets dark enough you can see the stars. — Russell Lynes

World events are moving very rapidly now. I pick up the Bible in one hand, and I pick up the newspaper in the other. And I read almost the same words in the newspaper as I read in the Bible. It's being fulfilled every day round about us. — Billy Graham

Not that I was obsessive or anything.
Au contraire, mon frere.
For the record, I would like to point out that it is NOT obsessive to memorize a boy's schedule so that you can accidentally bump into him. It is called being efficient. Why waste time and energy running around town trying to guess where a guy's going to be, when instead, you can actually know? And then you can actually be there. Pretty straightforward stuff, I tend to think. — Jess Rothenberg

The flimsy things broke apart as they crashed on the sidewalk, sheets of papers fluttering off like doves released from cages.
As he turned back to Selena, he braced himself, trying to think of a way to reassure her
Au contraire.
Selena was alive with excitement, her fangs flashing thanks to a huge smile, a giggling laugh bubbling out of her as she hung on to the door.
"Faster!" she yelled at Fritz. "Let's go even faster!"
"As you wish, mistress!"
A fresh roar from that massive piece of German engineering under the hood sent them careening not just down the sidewalk, but right up to the very edge of the laws of physics.
Selena looked over at him. "This is the best night ever! — J.R. Ward

The opposite of what is noised about concerning men and things is often the truth.
[Fr., Le contraire des bruits qui courent des affaires ou des personnes est souvent la verite.] — Jean De La Bruyere

Instead I crawled next to him, snuggling close. "Zach, wake up."
"Can't. Sleeping."
I pressed my mouth to his in a full, deep kiss.
"Second thought, not sleeping. — Jeri Smith-Ready

I figured my wife was about to start law school. If that whole baseball pitching thing didn't work out, I had something to fall back on. I figure I'd put a ring on her finger. Turns out she was the smart one. Turns out she was the gold digger, not me. — Tim Hudson

Everything I write about either I have gone through or I know somebody has gone through, so it's very close to me, but sometimes it's about taking those feelings and exaggerating on them a little bit: being a bit more dramatic but still keeping them relatable. — Tori Kelly

You may think that being chic has nothing to do with the most insignificant and mundane moments of the day. Moments like preparing your meals, emptying the dishwasher, and paying bills. But the secret is: those moments aren't insignificant. Au contraire. They are very significant. That's right - if you can change your attitude about making the pasta sauce, choosing your clothes for the day, folding the laundry, setting the table, or dealing with the incoming mail, you can completely change your life. — Jennifer L. Scott

During the first nineteen months of my life I had caught glimpses of broad, green fields, a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that followed could not wholly blot out. If we have once seen, "the day is ours, and what the day has shown." — Helen Keller

People think that if you are enlightened you are not in touch with the pulse of the physical. Au contraire! The higher you go, the deeper you become, and the more conscious you are of the physical and the sensorial. — Frederick Lenz

Au contraire, he's the person you wanted to be. One who was less arrogant, and undisciplined as a youth. One who was less like me. The Jean-Luc Picard you wanted to be, the one who did not fight the Nausicaan, had quite a different career from the one you remember. That Picard never had a brush with death, never came face to face with his own mortality, never realised how fragile life is or how important each moment must be. So his life never came into focus. He drifted for much of his career, with no plan or agenda, going from one assignment to the next, never seizing the opportunities that presented themselves. He never lead the away team on Milika Three to save the ambassador, or take charge of the Stargazer's Bridge when its Captain was killed. And no one ever offered him a command. He learned to play it safe. And he never, ever got noticed by anyone. — Q

Poor Kate," said Constance, "she's lost her marbles. — Trenton Lee Stewart

Accept your life and what it brings, I know tomorrow you find better things. — Ray Davies

What I'm trying to do is save and rescue the country if I can, and I'm doing my best to do it. — Najib Mikati

Young would-be novelists and poets believe that art is eternal. Au contraire: we are in the business of ephemera, the era of floating islands of trash, and most of the things we feel deeply and inscribe on the page will disappear. — Julie Schumacher