Defensive Device Quotes & Sayings

Four elements, Hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, also provide an example of the astonishing togetherness of our universe. They make up the "organic" molecules that constitute living organisms on a planet, and the nuclei of these same elements interact to generate the light of its star. Then the organisms on the planet come to depend wholly on that starlight, as they must if life is to persist. So it is that all life on the Earth runs on sunlight. [Referring to photosynthesis] — George Wald

Defensive devaluation is a protective device that makes love bad, trust unimportant and people "no darn good any way". People who have been deeply hurt in their relationships will often devalue love so it doesn't hurt so much. And they often become resigned to never loving again. — Henry Cloud

The fact is, when I wrote 'Juno' - and I think this is part of its charm and appeal - I didn't know how to write a movie. And I also had no idea it was going to get made! — Diablo Cody

If you do not say a thing in an irritating way, you may as well not say it at all because people will not trouble themselves about anything that does not trouble them. — George Bernard Shaw

I used to be very routine-based and the new thing in my life is not having a clear, full-time existence. — Alastair Campbell

It's the kind of storm that only happens on the highveld, the thunder loud and rapid. Zanele doesn't speak. I need her to. Maybe she is counting the people who have died since we first met. — Arushi Raina

Why on earth do you carry a mirror around with you?"
"It's purely a defensive device. We seldom quarrel, and this is one of the reasons. Can you imagine yourself getting all worked up and contorted and illogical and then coming face to face with yourself, looking at yourself exactly as you look to everyone else? — Theodore Sturgeon

As this is one of those deep observations which very few readers can be supposed capable of making themselves, I have thought proper to lend them my assistance; but this is a favour rarely to be expected in the course of my work. Indeed, I shall seldom or never so indulge him, unless in such instances as this, where nothing but the inspiration with which we writers are gifted can possibly enable anyone to make the discovery. — Henry Fielding

Magic requires will, but words shape will, turn it, direct it, reflect it from one target to another. — Brent Weeks

Mistah Kurtz--he dead. — Joseph Conrad

The profit of the one is the profit of the other. — Frederic Bastiat

We could have died just now. We didn't. Maybe we'll die tomorrow. I don't know. What matters is that we're alive now. — Richelle Mead

If you look at the 9/11 highjackers, certainly they were educated, some even had university degrees, but nobody really checked their mothers, who were nearly all illiterate. — Greg Mortenson