David Speaking Quotes & Sayings

Give grace to your children today by speaking of sin and mercy. Tell Susan that she can relax into God's loving embrace and stop thinking that she has to perform in order to get her welcoming Father to love her. Tell David that he can have hope that even though he really struggles, he's the very sort of person Jesus loved being around. Dazzle them with his love. — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

At least part of the reason I am a SNOOT is that for years my mom brainwashed us in all sort of subtle ways. Here's an example. Family suppers often involved a game: if one of us children made a usage error, Mom would pretend to have a coughing fit that would go on and on until the relevant child had identified the relevant error and corrected it. It was all very self-ironic and lighthearted; but still, looking back, it seems a bit excessive to pretend that your small child is actually denying you oxygen by speaking incorrectly. — David Foster Wallace

Absolutely speaking, Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you is by no means a golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest man would have but little occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in such a case. — Henry David Thoreau

[On refusing to be silenced:] I do not pretend to be John the Baptist rebuking the Pharisees. I do not claim to be Nathan upbraiding David. I aspire only to be Balaam's ass, castigating his master. — Katharina Zell

When I came back from Bolivia, my Spanish was in some ways as good as my English. I am rusty today. But I am comfortable talking in Spanish. I am not flawless or fluent, but I am comfortable. It takes me a day or two speaking a lot of Spanish to get back into a rhythm. — David Dewhurst

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous. — David Hume

Besides, if I wanted to hear people speaking wall-to-wall French, all I had to do was remove my headphones and participate in what is known as 'real life,' a concept as uninviting as a shampoo cocktail. — David Sedaris

In speaking of arithmetic (algebra, analysis) as a part of logic I mean to imply that I consider the number-concept entirely independent of the notions or intuitions of space and time, that I consider it an immediate result from the laws of thought. — David Foster Wallace

Combining storytelling, humanity, and laughter will give you a huge advantage in your public speaking and the odds are good that you already have all the raw material you need. — David Nihill

Art talk is punk. Let the movie do your speaking for you. — David Denby

She shouldn't speak her thoughts; nothing good ever came of speaking your thoughts. — David Nicholls

Paris was all so ... Parisian. I was captivated by the wonderful wrongness of it all - the unfamiliar fonts, the brand names in the supermarket, the dimensions of the bricks and paving stones. Children, really quite small children, speaking fluent French! — David Nicholls

Speaking of bloodbaths, what happened at the meeting?
David — Dianne Duvall

THE OPENING OF EYES After R. S. Thomas That day I saw beneath dark clouds, the passing light over the water and I heard the voice of the world speak out, I knew then, as I had before, life is no passing memory of what has been nor the remaining pages in a great book waiting to be read. It is the opening of eyes long closed. It is the vision of far off things seen for the silence they hold. It is the heart after years of secret conversing, speaking out loud in the clear air. It is Moses in the desert fallen to his knees before the lit bush. It is the man throwing away his shoes as if to enter heaven and finding himself astonished, opened at last, fallen in love with solid ground. — David Whyte

The phenomena of the year take place every day in a pond on a small scale. Every morning, generally speaking, the shallow water isbeing warmed more rapidly than the deep, though it may not be made so warm after all, and every evening it is being cooled more rapidly until the morning. The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer. The cracking and booming of the ice indicate a change of temperature. — Henry David Thoreau

I believe that the making of art is primarily for the benefit of the artist. If what the artist has created communicates messages and feelings to others, then it is because of the universality of the human experience that is speaking through the work of art. — David Walker

Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it. — Henry David Thoreau

President David O. McKay put it beautifully when he said, speaking of mothers, 'This ability and willingness properly to rear children, the gift to love, and eagerness, yes, longing to express it in soul development, make motherhood the noblest office or calling in the world ... ' (Gospel Ideals, Salt Lake City: Improvement Era, 1953, pp. 453-54). — H. Burke Peterson

You'll learn far more by listening than you ever will by speaking. — David Estes

Zionism is only around 100 years old. It is the transformation from religion to nationalism, to materialism created by non-religious Jews who hated their religion. The reason why they use the name Israel, the Star of David, hijacking, stealing the identity of Judaism and the Jewish people is in order to gain a legitimacy for their existence that should lead people to say, 'oh, it is God given to them' and that they should use fear and intimidate people from speaking out against their actions because they will call those that do anti Semitic; it couldn't be anything further from the Truth. — Yisroel Dovid Weiss

Speaking from experience, because I have three daughters, I think it's always important to give your daughter the confidence that she needs so that she won't look elsewhere for approval and feeling love and acceptance. — David Charvet

Talking on a cell phone makes us four times as likely to have an accident - the same as a driver who has a blood alcohol content of .08 percent, which qualifies as intoxicated in most states. The risk is equal for drivers holding their phones to their ears and for those speaking through a hands-free device. In both cases, researchers suggest, the drivers generate mental images of the unseen person at the other end of the line, which conflicts with their capacity for spatial processing. "It's not that your hands aren't on the wheel," says David Strayer, the director of the Applied Cognition Laboratory at the University of Utah, "it's that your mind is not on the road. — Tony Schwartz

I think sometimes I get carried away, like I'm speaking to an imaginary audience rather than just trying to figure something out for myself. Ideally, I try to balance that - that I'm asking these questions of myself, how does this work, why does this happen, what's going on here. — David Byrne

The talent, including the talent for history - and I do think there are people who just have a talent for it, the way you have a talent for public speaking or music or whatever - it shouldn't be allowed to lie dormant. It should be brought alive. — David McCullough

I don't think I have ever done anything for this age of children before, a pre-school audience. Generally speaking, we don't have vivid memories of that age and what influenced us, yet clearly they are hugely formative years and it's really important that we can create television of a high quality for that audience. — David Tennant

I have no idea how he knows when I need him. We can go weeks without speaking, and then, when my blue moods threaten to turn black, he will show up and tell me my moods are
azure
indigo
cerulean
cobalt
periwinkle
and suddenly the blue will not seem so dark, more like the color of a noon-bright sky.
He brings the sun. — David Levithan

Just as the pious man prays without speaking a word and the Almighty hearkens unto him, so the artist with true feelings paints and the sensitive man understands and recognizes it. — Caspar David Friedrich

If an art form is marginalized it's because it's not speaking to people. — David Foster Wallace

The old woman is talking to herself. In between speaking to us, she's saying things like, A finger for breakfast, a hand for lunch, an ear for dinner, munch, munch, munch! — David Estes

Speaking in front of a large crowd is not pleasant. Once it gets rolling, it's okay. But beforehand, it's murder. — David Lynch

Powerful new drug-free treatments have been developed for depression and for every conceivable type of anxiety, such as chronic worrying, shyness, public speaking anxiety, test anxiety, phobias, and panic attacks. The goal of the treatment is not just partial improvement but full recovery. — David D. Burns

Generally speaking, I resolve to change my life on average maybe thirty to forty times a week, usually at about two a.m, drunk, ore early the next morning, hungover. — David Nicholls

The first sentence of the truth is always the hardest. Each of us had a first sentence, and most of us found the strength to say it out loud to someone who deserved to hear it. What we hoped, and what we found, was that the second sentence of the truth is always easier than the first, and the third sentence is even easier than that. Suddenly you are speaking the truth in paragraphs, in pages. The fear, the nervousness, is still there, but it is joined by a new confidence. All along, you've used the first sentence as a lock. But now you find that it's the key. — David Levithan

I would clear the table and Hugh would do the dishes, neither of us speaking and both of us wondering if this just might be the one to do it. 'I hear you guys broke up over a plastic hand,' people would say, and my rage would renew itself. — David Sedaris

Opening a play is just tough. The idea that actors are weirdly protected from it is a myth. If you imagine yourself having to spend two and a bit hours cooking bolognaise, remembering a whole major work by David Hare and speaking it at the correct moment between chopping carrots and stirring the onions in front of an audience - the normal human response is 'Please, can I go to the airport?' — Bill Nighy

If the actors speaking Dothraki or High Valyrian or Castithan or whatever make a mistake, who would know but the creator? Who would care? The truth is probably one in a thousand people will notice, and of those who do, maybe a quarter will care. In the 1980s that amounts to nothing. In the new millennium, though, one quarter of 0.001 percent can constitute a significant minority on Twitter. Or on Tumblr. Or Facebook. Or Reddit. Or — David J. Peterson

A recent invention, vocal language may date back only ca. 200,000 years. As human primates, we have not fully come to grips with the prolonged, face-to-face closeness required for speech. Speaking to a stranger, e.g., stresses our autonomic nervous system's sympathetic (i.e., fight-or-flight) division, which a. speeds our heartbeat, b. dilates our pupils, and c. cools and moistens our hands. The limbic brain's hypothalamus instructs the pituitary gland to release hormones into the circulatory system, arousing our blood, sweat, and fears. — David B. Givens

Perhaps this was the first instance of that quiet way of "speaking for" a place not yet occupied, or at least not improved as much as it may be, which their descendants have practised, and are still practising so extensively. Not Any seems to have been the sole proprietor of all America before the Yankees [ ... ] At any rate, I know that if you hold a thing unjustly, there will surely be the devil to pay at last. — Henry David Thoreau

The first heartbreak is the hardest one, because you don't know what to expect," Lynn told him, and David knew she was speaking from experience. "It will get better, I promise. You just have to give it time. — Geoff Laughton

There were so many other people in my life.
I had spent all of my time listening,
learning the longings we all have in common.
I never took the time to hear them in myself
and I heard them speaking to him.
The desire for desire, that hope
for hope, the possibility of everything
truly possible. I had so many friends,
so many nods and conversations,
so many things I'd always wanted
to say to someone. — David Levithan

I wanted to write plays. I was at Yale graduate school at the time for English literature, not for acting ... I liked the idea of collaboration, and I thought if I'm gonna write plays, I should learn something about speaking the lines that I might try to write. — David Duchovny

Here I am: a Russian-speaking Jew living in Canada, and you, an Indian ex-patriot living in San Francisco. All of a sudden we commune in this moment about a much older Russian political dissident.That's the human part of being human: feeling those moments. — David Bezmozgis

Speaking to the subject is the most overrated thing in journalism, — David Remnick

That night was the first time I understood the covering. The covering is the fire. It is the strength, courage, and power Yahweh equips us with. It girds a man's loins when he needs it and lets a man know that Yahweh forgives him when he fails. It snaps our legs when we need it. It speaks Yahweh's wise counsel ... It comes only from Yahweh, who alone is the shepherd that we need. — Cliff Graham

He stretched his arm above my head, and my heart skipped a beat. "I've been thinking about this a lot." "This?" David toyed with the hair on top of my head. "This." "K-kissing?" He pressed his body against mine, and I stopped breathing. "Speaking of which." "I haven't brushed my teeth," I blurted, then realized what an extremely stupid thing that was to say. His eyes crinkled. "Hmmm, did you brush them this morning?" "Yes," I croaked. "Good." He tilted his head. "Bu - — Shannon Greenland

Maybe then you comprehend, speaking one language only is a prison! — David Mitchell

Trench says a wild man is a willed man. Well, then, a man of will who does what he wills or wishes, a man of hope and of the future tense, for not only the obstinate is willed, but far more the constant and persevering. The obstinate man, properly speaking, is one who will not. The perseverance of the saints is positive willedness, not a mere passive willingness. The fates are wild, for they will; and the Almighty is wild above all, as fate is. — Henry David Thoreau

For the serious and dedicated guitarist, learning to play and master the Guitar represents The Path or Way of Enlightenment of which there is no end. Ultimately, playing the Guitar represents the Path to Spiritual Perfection. The guitarist is always a student on this Path. To become a master of the Guitar, relatively speaking, is to always be a student of the Guitar, continually learning and growing with the instrument. The master never thinks of him or herself as a master, but rather as the eternal student on whatever Path he or she is walking in life. We are all students here on this little green earth. — David Cherubim

Tyler reacted to this for some reason, looking at John with a "when are people gonna learn" look, and then he spat on the ground. Tobacco spitting is a kind of nonverbal communication in many parts of the Midwest. He must have spilled his coffee a lot as a kid because he had one of those big spill-proof mugs, the kind that flare way out at the bottom. It looked like he was speaking into a megaphone every time he took a drink. I — David Wong

The event of creation did not take place so many eons ago, astronomically or biologically speaking. Creation is taking place every moment of our lives. — David Suzuki

Things began to come together, and I went from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. "Is thems the thoughts of cows?" I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window. — David Sedaris

Many of my colleagues operate from a mistaken notion that rational thought can come from only objective discourse, devoid of emotions. To me, speaking from the heart and with passion is not antagonistic to reason. — David Sue

Steady labor with the hands, which engrosses the attention also, is unquestionably the best method of removing palaver and sentimentality out of one's style, both of speaking and writing. — Henry David Thoreau

And so he set about restoring them, using the tricks he had learned over the years. He went to them, speaking to each of them in tones so low that none of the others could hear, getting their names, gently touching them, asking about their pains, their fears, gently eliciting their stories, reminding them of why they had run in the first place. — David Bradley

You've got to marinate your head, in that time and culture.
You've got to become them.
(Speaking about researching, and reading, and immersing yourself in History) — David McCullough

Generally speaking, the political news, whether domestic or foreign, might be written today for the next ten years with sufficientaccuracy. Most revolutions in society have not power to interest, still less alarm us; but tell me that our rivers are drying up, or the genus pine dying out in the country, and I might attend. — Henry David Thoreau

Psalm 73:1: "Truly God is good to Israel, to such as are pure in heart." Here the psalmist is speaking prophetically, distinguishing Israel as people whose hearts have been cleansed - which is possible only through the blood of Christ. — David Wilkerson

Materialism is a conviction based not upon evidence or logic but upon what Carl Sagan (speaking of another kind of faith) called a "deep-seated need to believe." Considered purely as a rational philosophy, it has little to recommend it; but as an emotional sedative, what Czeslaw Milosz liked to call the opiate of unbelief, it offers a refuge from so many elaborate perplexities, so many arduous spiritual exertions, so many trying intellectual and moral problems, so many exhausting expressions of hope or fear, charity or remorse. In this sense, it should be classified as one of those religions of consolation whose purpose is not to engage the mind or will with the mysteries of being but merely to provide a palliative for existential grievances and private disappointments. Popular atheism is not a philosophy but a therapy. — David Bentley Hart

All the experiences in your life- from single conversations to your broader culture- shape the microscopic details of your brain. Neurally speaking, who you are depends on where you've been. Your brain is a relentless shape-shifter, constantly rewriting its own circuitry- and because your experiences are unique, so are the vast detailed patterns in your neural networks. Because they continue to change your whole life, your identity is a moving target; it never reaches an endpoint. — David Eagleman

Am I a good person? Deep down, do I even really want to be a good person, or do I only want to seem like a good person so that people (including myself) will approve of me? Is there a difference? How do I ever actually know whether I'm bullshitting myself, morally speaking? — David Foster Wallace

As technological civilization diminishes the biotic diversity of the earth, language itself is diminished. As there are fewer and fewer songbirds in the air, due to the destruction of their forests and wetlands, human speech loses more and more of its evocative power. For when we no longer hear the voices of warbler and wren, our own speaking can no longer be nourished by their cadences. As the splashing speech of the rivers is silenced by more and more dams, as we drive more and more of the land's wild voices into the oblivion of extinction, our own languages become increasingly impoverished and weightless, progressively emptied of their earthly resonance.17 — David Abram

Metaphorically speaking, some very bright people suggest that citizens of the twenty-first century will be best protected by masks and shields, while I prefer the image of a light saber. — David Brin

Plain speaking is necessary in any discussion of religion, for if the freethinker attacks the religious dogmas with hesitation, the orthodox believer assumes that it is with regret that the freethinker would remove the crutch that supports the orthodox. And all religious beliefs are 'crutches' hindering the free locomotive efforts of an advancing humanity. There are no problems related to human progress and happiness in this age which any theology can solve, and which the teachings of freethought cannot do better and without the aid of encumbrances. — David Marshall Brooks

In the 1992 election, Mr. Clinton raised discrete fortunes from a gorgeous mosaic of diversity and correctness. From David Mixner and the gays he wrung immense sums on the promise of lifting the ban on homosexual service in "the military" - a promise he betrayed with his repellent "don't ask, don't tell" policy. From a variety of feminist circles he took even larger totals for what was dubbed "The Year of the Woman," while he and his wife applauded Anita Hill for her bravery in "speaking out" about funny business behind the file cabinets. — Christopher Hitchens

David knew that the very quality of his worship was not based on his own volition but on the object of his worship - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Though our affections for God may wax and wane, His character is unchanging! We even see David speaking to his own soul, demanding of it, "Bless the Lord!" — Laura Story

Imagine, Bishop, that you have a beloved cat, but that your cat is not with you. If you close your eyes and further imagine you are petting your cat, the same neurons in your brains are activated as if you were petting the actual cat. Our minds may know the difference between its models and reality itself, but it prefers its models. So much so that we apprehend reality through our models, rather than directly via the sense. When I'm speaking to you, I have a little bishop in my head, and though I speak out load, I'm speaking to my little bishop. When you answer, I can only perceive you through my model of you.
Mentars also make models, but they don't apprehend reality through them. They end up, not with little people in their minds, but with highly complex rule sets. They relate to their models in the same way we relate to weather models, as things to consult, but not to conflate with external reality. — David Marusek

Dr. Prem, a world renowned speaker delivers flawless speeches on various topics including leadership, public speaking, business management and global healthcare. Dr. Prem is well informed and his speeches are well researched. — David Nelson

Fictionally speaking, desire is the sugar in human food. — David Foster Wallace

I like dogs considerably more than I like humans. That doesn't make me antihuman; there are plenty of humans I'm very fond of. But generally speaking, if I simultaneously meet a new human and a new dog, I'm going to like the dog more. I'm certainly going to trust the dog more. — David Rosenfelt

If, while writing your novel, it starts "speaking" to you, don't answer back, keep it talking. — David John Griffin

When we gather for worship, whether with a handful in a storefront chapel or with thousands in St. Peter's Square, we perform a drama with different parts-speaking and singing and praying and giving money and baptizing and eating bread and drinking wine-all for the delight of God. — David Jeremiah

We commonly do not remember that it is ... always the first person that is speaking. — Henry David Thoreau

Speaking for the nation as a whole entails understanding and feeling the pain, as well as understanding the aspiration of the different cultural, social and political make-up of the nation. — David Blunkett

Christians, for instance, are not, properly speaking, believers in religion; rather, they believe that Jesus of Nazareth, crucified under Pontius Pilate, rose from the dead and is now, by the power of the Holy Spirit, present to his church as its Lord. — David Bentley Hart

Generally speaking, you like to dance with the girl that brung you, and if you can't sometimes you have to shoot her. — David Bonderman

I'm speaking to you man to man," he said, "not doctor to patient. How much longer can you continue denying yourself? You can't live without warmth." "Warmth?" I said, sending him a 'shut up' message. "Yes. Sexual expression. David, you don't even masturbate." We were silent for at least a minute. My intrigues huddled within me like guerilla warriors, hiding behind other thoughts. Finally, I thought of something to say: "If we're going to talk man to man and not doctor to patient, then I don't think you should charge me for this hour. — Scott Spencer

Love leads us to write poetry because love improves our hearing; like prayer, poetry is every bit as much about listening as it is about speaking. To 'get' the poem is to hear the eloquence of the silence that it calls forth through its manifestation of love. — David Patterson

Literary fiction and poetry are real marginalized right now. There's a fallacy that some of my friends sometimes fall into, the ol' "The audience is stupid. The audience only wants to go this deep. Poor us, we're marginalized because of TV, the great hypnotic blah, blah." You can sit around and have these pity parties for yourself. Of course this is bullshit. If an art form is marginalized it's because it's not speaking to people. One possible reason is that the people it's speaking to have become too stupid to appreciate it. That seems a little easy to me. — David Foster Wallace

The Moms revealed that if you're not crazy then speaking to someone who isn't there is termed apostrophe and is valid art. — David Foster Wallace

When the Bible uses the words salvation, Savior, and save, it's speaking of the total work of God in bringing people from a state of death - hopeless separation from God - to a state of everlasting life through the forgiveness of sin, based on the merits of Christ Jesus who died and rose again. Saving us is the greatest and most concrete demonstration of God's love, the definitive display of His grace throughout time and eternity. — David Jeremiah

Many of these policies were proposed by wonks who are comfortable only with traits and correlations that can be measured and quantified. They were passed through legislative committees that are as capable of speaking about the deep wellsprings of human action as they are of speaking in ancient Aramaic. They were executed by officials that have only the most superficial grasp of what is immovable and bent about human beings. So of course they failed. And they will continue to fail unless the new knowledge about our true makeup is integrated more fully into the world of public policy, unless the enchanted story is told along with the prosaic one. — David Brooks

Much is said about the progress of science in these centuries. I should say that the useful results of science had accumulated, but that there had been no accumulation of knowledge, strictly speaking, for posteriry; for knowledge is to be aquired only by corresponding experience. How can be know what we are told merely? Each man can interpret another's experience only by his own. — Henry David Thoreau

A story must be judged according to whether it makes sense. And 'making sense' must be here understood in its most direct meaning: to make sense is to enliven the senses. A story that makes sense is one that stirs the senses from their slumber, one that opens the eyes and the ears to their real surroundings, tuning the tongue to the actual tastes in the air and sending chills of recognition along the surface of the skin. To make sense is to release the body from the constraints imposed by outworn ways of speaking, and hence to renew and rejuvenate one's felt awareness of the world. It is to make the senses wake up to where they are. — David Abram

Punctuationally speaking, wonder is a period at the end of a statement we've long taken for granted, suddenly looking up and seeing the sinuous curve of a tall black hat on its head, and realizing it was a question mark all along. — David James Duncan

I never found it frustrating not speaking. — David Selby

The Doctor' is the kind of character - because the guest cast is changing all the time, there are very few constants in the show, so the 'Doctor'- when you're there, you're in it a lot. You're speaking a lot. — David Tennant

The fraud part of me was always there, just as a puzzle piece, objectively speaking, is a true piece of the puzzle even before you see how it fits. — David Foster Wallace

On my fifth trip to France I limited myself to the words and phrases that people actually use. From the dog owners I learned "Lie down," "Shut up," and "Who shit on this carpet?" The couple across the road taught me to ask questions correctly, and the grocer taught me to count. Things began to come together, and I went from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. "Is thems the thoughts of cows?" I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window. "I want me some lamb chop with handles on 'em. — David Sedaris

Often, architects work too hard trying to make their buildings look different. It's like we're actors let loose on a stage, all speaking our parts at the same time in our own private languages without an audience. — David Chipperfield

If you have the power to hit people over the head whenever you want, you don't have to trouble yourself too much figuring out what they think is going on, and therefore, generally speaking, you don't. Hence the sure-fire way to simplify social arrangements, to ignore the incredibly complex play of perspectives, passions, insights, desires, and mutual understandings that human life is really made of, is to make a rule and threaten to attack anyone who breaks it. This is why violence has always been the favored recourse of the stupid: it is the one form of stupidity to which it is almost impossible to come up with an intelligent response. It is also of course the basis of the state. — David Graeber

When I read some of the rules for speaking and writing the English language correctly, I think any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it. — Henry David Thoreau

If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through. Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, to drown anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough within me, and all over me, to pervade my entire existence. — Charles Dickens

I never understood people who said their greatest fear was public speaking, or spiders, or any of the other minor terrors. How could you fear anything more than death? Everything else offered moments of escape: a paralyzed man could still read Dickens; a man in the grips of dementia might have flashes of the must absurd beauty. — David Benioff

Despite the feeling that we're directly experiencing the world out there, our reality is ultimately built in the dark, in a foreign language of electrochemical signals. The activity churning across vast neural networks gets turned into your story of this, your private experience of the world: the feeling of this book in your hands, the light in the room, the smell of roses, the sound of others speaking. — David Eagleman

My best advice is never to address any woman as Madam unless she holds a high position in government or you happen to find yourself in a brothel speaking to its owner. — David B. Lentz

Its emotional character ... is probably mostly indescribable except as a sort of double bind in which any/all of the alternatives we associate with human agency - sitting or standing, doing or resting, speaking or keeping silent, living or dying - are not just unpleasant but literally horrible. — David Foster Wallace

The big debate right now is if Saddam is alive or dead. He's dead, then he's alive, then dead, then alive. It's just confusing. Today they showed videotape, and Saddam was speaking at his own funeral. — David Letterman

In this house, speaking and thinking — David Baldacci

[W]hile people are making a big fuss over Gruber's calling Americans stupid, they ought to be far more outraged that he admitted the administration purposefully lied to us. This is the real story, and it reveals, once again, the character and mentality of this entire administration, for Gruber was speaking not merely for himself but about the entire administration, beginning with Obama. — David Limbaugh

In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits. — Henry David Thoreau