Durham Quotes & Sayings

Who can explain just how he became the person he is? It does not happen this day or that one. It is a gradual evolution that happens largely unheralded. He simply was who he now was. — David Anthony Durham

And as for other men, who worked in tank-rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting,-sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out into the world as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard! This contributed to the passing of the Pure Food Act of 1906. — Upton Sinclair

A woman's greatest knack is how well she can hide how much sleep she's been missing. There's a little tally board inside each of us labeled, "Number of days since someone has told me I look tired" that resets itself whenever we make the mistake of looking like we feel. And the alternative? Even if you fulfill obligations, party like you mean it, and somehow get your sleep, your decisions will be too well-informed to be spontaneous. You'll never be susceptible to life. — Gabe Durham

Imagine, they said, living an existence where the words out of your mouth changed the very fabric of the world around you. — David Anthony Durham

This magnificent poem [Exodus 15:1-21] has been much analyzed, dissected, scanned, and compared with an array of supposed precedent and counterpart works. It has been variously attributed and dated, and forced into a wide variety of forms and Sitze im Leben. There have been attempts to determine some parts of it as early and some parts as late, and to describe therefrom an evolution of both its form and its content. None of these attempts has been entirely successful. The best of them have amounted to no more than helpful suggestions, while the worst of them have been fiction bordering fantasy. — John I. Durham

You're not going to die in a rickshaw in Durham. — Kyle Miller

If only we were angels, with transparent bodies and transparent thoughts ... — John Durham Peters

Taylor Durham was in a gay man's heaven, with all those tight bodies swaying back and forth to the music. Grinding together in harmony. — Shakuita Johnson

I knew you read the Symposium in the vac," he said in a low voice.
Maurice felt uneasy.
"Then you understand - without me saying more - "
"How do you mean?"
Durham could not wait. People were all around them, but with eyes that had gone intensely blue he whispered, "I love you. — E. M. Forster

He never even thought of tenderness and emotion; his considerations about Durham remained cold. Durham didn't dislike him, he was sure. That was all he wanted. One thing at a time. He didn't so much as have hopes, for hope distracts, and he had a great deal to see to. — E. M. Forster

Very little of what he learned of people's actions began or ended with either the noble ideals or the fiendish wickedness he had been taught lay behind all great struggles. There was something comforting in this. — David Anthony Durham

The moment you begin to consider having more than someone else, you begin to fear you might end up with less than someone else. — David Anthony Durham

Durham Cathedral, like all great buildings of antiquity, is essentially just a giant pile of rubble held in place by two thin layers of dressed stone. But - and here is the truly remarkable thing - because that gloopy mortar was contained between two impermeable outer layers, air couldn't get to it, so it took a very long time - forty years to be precise - to dry out. As it dried, the whole structure gently settled, which meant that the cathedral masons had to build doorjambs, lintels, and the like at slightly acute angles so that they would ease over time into the correct alignments. And that's exactly what happened. After forty years of slow-motion sagging, the building settled into a position of impeccable horizontality, which it has maintained ever since. To me, that is just amazing - the idea that people would have the foresight and dedication to ensure a perfection that they themselves might never live to see. — Bill Bryson

He glanced helplessly at Ruby, hoping for some help. She was a scribe and had more experience with dwarves than the six hours that Durham had acquired. He's assumed that, as a fellow human, she would make an effort to be some sort of cultural ambassador to help him survive past lunch. Ruby's current interpretation of being helpful seemed to be a silent smirk. — Jeffery Russell

This really isn't fair," Mena said. "What is 'fair'?" asked one of the watchers called Devoth. "I don't know this word. — David Anthony Durham

Or was it just the eyes of the watcher that gave character to the world? — David Anthony Durham

No, I haven't decided where to live yet. He thought, I haven't decided if I want to live yet. — David Anthony Durham

Women's football does have its knockers. — Adrian Durham

I believe that if you speak from your heart each time you open your mouth, you cannot go wrong. — David Anthony Durham

The wise say many things, enough to confuse the rest of us — David Anthony Durham

I played the cello from when I was ten, and then I bought a guitar from the father of some friends of mine and played that for a while. And then when I was fourteen or so, I bought a guitar - a real nice one - in Durham, North Carolina, that I worked with up until I was about twenty-five. — James Taylor

The fellows who amuze me are the Albanians. An Albanian on the mash is almost exactly like the medieval swells of the Italian frescoes & the first ones we met quite startled us. They wear the tight-fitting trunk hose made of woolen stuff hooked up the back of the leg. It is white with long black stripes of embroidery down the leg & at the top in front the shirt is pulled through slashes. They are long slim chaps with dandy little moustaches & are most theatrical in effect. — Edith Durham

I'm very, very lucky to be a working actor, but I've also been careful. I don't just take anything. 'Durham County' came to me. You have to look at the quality of work you do, and 'Durham' set the standard. I wait for things that keep me really interested. — Hugh Dillon

One must find rhythms others' ears don't hear. — David Anthony Durham

long, pointed nose jutted forth from its cheeks, its face more leather than stone. Like a mask. Rye did not come from a home with many rules, but the ones she lived by were absolute and unbreakable. The first House Rule flashed through her mind. HOUSE — Paul Durham

I've been out on the book tour going through Pittsburgh, St Louis and Cleveland, Dayton and Orlando, Raleigh-Durham. I sign many books for people. — Jamie Farr

When she spread her wings and leaped screeching into the air she had not the slightest doubt that every hand below her would stretch to catch her. And if one could leap from a height with no fear of falling, could one not be said to possess the secret of flight? Just like a bird, just like a god. — David Anthony Durham

She sat, rediscovering the fullness of her first tongue in one long submersion. Again and again she would pause on a word Melio uttered. She would roll it around in her mind, feeling the contours of it. At times her mouth gaped open, her lips moving as if she were drinking in his words instead of breathing. — David Anthony Durham

She realized that the world was a dance of a million fates. In this dance she was but a single soul. — David Anthony Durham

Respect flows two ways and can mean as much to the giver as to the one receiving. — David Anthony Durham

I get nostalgic about having lived in Ames, Iowa, even though being a vegetarian in Iowa is not fun. But I really love Durham more than any place I've ever been; some small towns can be really provincial and strangling, but Durham is the best city in the world. — John Darnielle

The happiest moments of my childhood were spent on my grandmother's front porch in Durham, N.C., or at her sister's farmhouse in Orange County, where chickens paraded outside the kitchen's screen door and hams were cured in the smokehouse. — Andre Leon Talley

There is a peculiar pleasure in riding out into the unknown. A pleasure which no second journey on the same trail ever affords. — Edith Durham

No, make something different from war. Don't allow your enemies to be enemies. Make them something else, because otherwise they have a power over you that they should not have. If you think in the same ways as the past, you will only get new versions of the past. Think differently. That's what I'm saying. — David Anthony Durham

Scourge of the Betrayer is as harsh and profane as anything RichardK Morgan or Joe Abercrombie serves up. Fortunately, Saylards has the skills -and the humor - to pull it off. Snappy dialogue, political intrigue, shadycharacters, gripping action sequences, a poor guy that has no idea what he'sgotten himself into ... Yeah, there's a lot to like about this debut. — David Anthony Durham

Sometimes when I've got a baseball player alone, I'll just read Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman to him. And the guys are so sweet, they always stay and listen. Course, a guy'll listen to anything if he thinks its foreplay. — Ron Shelton

I sleep lightly and tread to keep my head out of the sea of dreams. — David Anthony Durham

The plan was simple. Once on the Plain of Idavoll, we were going to follow the immortal strategy of Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh and "announce [our] presence with authority. — Kevin Hearne

When I was a young boy, growing up in Durham, North Carolina, the women in my family were truly passionate about their clothes; nothing was more beautiful to me than women dressing with the utmost, meticulous attention to accessories, shoes, handbags, hats, coats, dresses and gloves to attend Sunday church services. — Andre Leon Talley

It's okay to be yourself. An original always worth more than a copy.
- Alif , Velvet di Durham - — Aishah Madadiy

In his Kingly Office, The Prince of the Kings of the Earth: which Title sets out Christ not only to be God, equal with the Father, but as Mediator, King of his Kirk. He is called, Prince of the Kings of the Earth; not as if Kings, and all great Men, or others, were in the same Manner Subjects to him in the Relation that Believers are, (in which respect his Kingly Office extendeth no further, nor his Priestly and Prophetical Office) but though so he have not such a near Relation to them, nor they to him; yet he is King over them, to refrain them that they prejudge not his Kirk; and to judge them for any Wrongs or Prejudice they do to them, and to inflict temporal Judgments on them here, and eternal hereafter, when he shall be their Judge, and the Books shall be opened at the great Day. — James Durham

Zachary Jernigan can't write a bad story. He couldn't even if he tried. Each and every time I start one of his inventive, carefully crafted, thoughtful and mind-bending tales I know I'm in for a treat. This collection is sci-fi at its intelligent best. — David Anthony Durham

Courtney Durham was molested in a cake shop today. — Eric Bishop-Potter

The Athenaeum always managed to have a scribe on hand whenever anything interesting seemed like it might happen. Durham avoided scribes, figuring that 'interesting' was not a word that was necessarily synonymous with 'pleasant'. — Jeffery Russell

I have been known on occasion to howl at the moon. — Crash Davis

Again he thought of his own losses, and he wondered why it was that the things a person had lost - or might lose - defined him more than the things he yet possessed. — David Anthony Durham

They are strewn with the wreckage of dead Empires-past Powers only the Albanian "goes on for ever." — Edith Durham

Revenge is the easiest of emotions to understand and to manipulate. — David Anthony Durham

He wrote: 'We make ourselves real by telling the truth — Geoffrey Durham

It's a mass agitation of ambitious cocks! — David Anthony Durham

She said, A king is the best and worst of men. Of course. Of course. — David Anthony Durham

The world was not to be trusted. Loved persons were always stolen. Dreams always squashed. That was life as she understood it. — David Anthony Durham

Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.
Crash Davis Bull Durham — Ron Shelton

If you can find a man sold out to God, you can rest assured he'll always treat you with the dignity, respect, and love you deserve. — Cassandra Durham

Long ago, I was lucky enough to shoot 'Flashpoint' and 'Durham County' at the same time. It doesn't happen often in an actor's life that you get two great parts simultaneously. — Hugh Dillon

My family's support and the negative environment of the day toward blacks in South Carolina became the forces that led me out of the South - first to New York, then to Philadelphia, where I found opportunity in the form of a PAL gym and my trainer, Yank Durham. — Joe Frazier

For the past thirty-nine years since I had graduated from college, I had called my parents on Sundays. They had expected and looked forward to the ritual. After Dad died, I still called Mom on Sundays. Most of the time I dreaded the call because she had become more and more insular and was full of complaints about the assisted living facility, the other residents, her health, everything. She had become narrow in her interests in life, more negative, more critical, and unhappier. I was reminded of something I had heard from a psychologist about what happens as we age. He said we become more of who we are, not less. Our energy to fight back the negative attributes we all possess is not as strong as we get older. So we can become more cantankerous, more irritable. I also remembered what my father had often said: "There but for the grace of God go I." That Sunday I placed the — Janis Heaphy Durham

John's bearing record, points out his faithfulness according to the Charge and Commission given him; what is given him to deliver, he keeps not up; what he receives in charge, he discharges. — James Durham

She would never be caught unprepared again, she swore to herself. She would never trust. Never love. Never put faith in other human beings again. She would learn all she could of the shape and substance of the world, and she would find a way to survive in it. — David Anthony Durham

Did you know that more than 65% of the people who label themselves "born again Christians" seldom or never read the Bible? Of those who do read the Bible, did you know that the majority only read it during church or organized group Bible studies? — James A. Durham

That's what I think is smart about 'Durham County.' It's not derivative of anything American. It's more in the vein of the BBC miniseries I grew up with. — Michelle Forbes

Before her, with sharp blue eyes and perfectly coiffed blond hair, was Josephine Marie Elizabeth Cavendish, Her Grace, the Duchess of Durham, widow of the fifth duke, and aunt to the Cavendish siblings.
One did not call her Josie. Amelia had asked. — Maya Rodale

They fed him a diet made up entirely of knowledge. — David Anthony Durham

I assure you, Miss Durham, there is always recourse. Consequence is a faithful companion in all deeds, whether good or bad, and it can teach us like nothing can to change our ways when we have done wrong. Besides, if there is no repentance, then what was the point of God's great sacrifice?" "I do not know," she answered — V.R. Christensen

She was a nightmare of beauty and menace living right there above them, a being part raptor, part human, part divine. She knew without question that she could sweep down on them and inflict upon all of them a terrible vengeance if she wished. She had the capacity for violence within her, residing beside her heart. — David Anthony Durham

We have come to this earth upon a mission ... that we may have power to go forth and warn the nations of the earth ... As elders of Israel, very few of us fully comprehend our position, our calling, our relationship to God, our responsibility, or work the Lord requires at our hands — G. Homer Durham

Peter Lucas and I live in Durham but spend a great of time in North Wales, where we have a cottage in the mountains, and in Vermont, USA, with my sister - who is a children's writer married to a poet. — Anne Stevenson

The managers and superintendents and clerks of Packingtown were all recruited from another class, and never from the workers; they scorned the workers, the very meanest of them. A poor devil of a bookkeeper who had been working in Durham's for twenty years at a salary of six dollars a week, and might work there for twenty more and do no better, would yet consider himself a gentleman, as far removed as the poles from the most skilled worker on the killing beds; he would dress differently, and live in another part of the town, and come to work at a different hour of the day, and in every way make sure that he never rubbed elbows with a laboring man. Perhaps this was due to the repulsiveness of the work; at any rate, the people who worked with their hands were a class apart, and were made to feel it. — Upton Sinclair

Commemoration of Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, Teacher, 1901 Be not afraid to pray ... to pray is right. Pray if thou canst with hope; but ever pray Though hope be weak, or sick with long delay. Whatever is good to wish, ask that of heaven; But if for any wish thou darest not pray, Then pray to God to cast that wish away. — Hartley Coleridge

The rose goes in the front big guy — Crash Davis

We really are 15 countries, and it's remarkable that each of us thinks we represent the real America. The Midwesterner in Kansas, the black American in Durham - both are certain they are the real American. — Maya Angelou

I shall speak only of the part I have stayed in- the districts of Lakes Ochrida and Presba. Here there are Greeks, Slavs, Albanians, and Vlahs. Of Turks, except officials and such of the army as may be quartered on the spot, there are few. The Albanians, I believe, are all Moslem. Should there be any Christians they would be officially classed as Greeks. A large part of the land near Lake Presba is owned by Moslem Albanians as ' chiftliks '(farms). — Edith Durham

It is a paradox that men will gladly devote time every day for many years to learn a science or an art; yet will expect to win a knowledge of the gospel, which comprehends all sciences and arts, through perfunctory glances at books or occasional listening to sermons. The gospel should be studied more intensively than any school or college subject. They who pass opinion on the gospel without having given it intimate and careful study are not lovers of truth, and their opinions are worthless. — G. Homer Durham

It would have been fun to have played Tim Robbins' role in Bull Durham. — Garth Brooks

In the realm of love and sex, it's girls who are in the position of working hard to adapt themselves to the needs and fantasies of the mercurial males whose approval and attention they seek. — Meenakshi Gigi Durham

Miscommunication is the scandal that motivates the very concept of communication in the first place. — John Durham Peters

It's not how good you can play when you play good. It's how good you play when you play bad and we can play as bad as anyone in the country. — Hugh Durham

Everyone always wants to talk about 'True Blood' and 'Battlestar Galactica' - no one's even interested in 'Durham County.' It blew my mind when I came to Canada and no one asked me about the show. So many people didn't even know about it. They didn't even know it was on the air! It's very curious to me. — Michelle Forbes

You've got to understand that the world's full of men who are little better than animals ... Problem is that a man is different from an animal. In the quiet afterward we know when we've done wrong. — David Anthony Durham

Open scatter is more fundamental than coupled sharing; it is the stuff from which, on splendid occasions, dialogue may arise. — John Durham Peters

I did a show called 'Wonderland' a few years back, and I was fortunate enough to spend a full-on two weeks - I'm talking 13-15 hours a day - with the doctors and patients at Bellevue in New York. That served me well for 'Durham County.' — Michelle Forbes

A truth may be useful without being understood, indeed without being believed. — Frank Durham

The economic hardship of my family and of many others, a century ago, was caused by a monopoly, the American Tobacco Company, which had eliminated all competitors and thus was able to reduce as it pleased the prices it paid to farmers. The American Tobacco Company was the work of James B. Duke of Durham, North Carolina, and New York City, who, disregarding any other consideration, followed a capitalist logic to absolute control of his industry and, incidentally, of the economic fate of thousands of families such as my own. — Wendell Berry

To fatten a pig, a farmer will feed him well. The pig must think his life a paradise, never knowing he gorges himself so that he will be fatter for the knife later on. — David Anthony Durham

Worst of any, however, were the fertilizer men, and those who served in the cooking rooms. These people could not be shown to the visitor,
for the odor of a fertilizer man would scare any ordinary visitor at a hundred yards, and as for the other men, who worked in tank rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting,
sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out to the world as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard! — Upton Sinclair

At one point I had a stretch where it was working on 'In Treatment,' then 'True Blood,' then 'Durham County,' then 'True Blood,' then 'In Treatment' again. If I didn't have that little dose of 'True Blood' in the middle, I might have lost my mind. — Michelle Forbes

Figuring out the secret of the universe is like trying to read a brand after the steer's been made into hamburger."

~Will Durham from Crossroads, A Music Novel — M.T. Bass

Observe the great Advantage and Benefit, the Privilege and Prerogative that Christ's Servants have beyond all others; Christ writes his Letters to them; there is not a word written to Kings and great Men; but it is to shew his Servants things to come to pass — James Durham