Faces The Group Quotes & Sayings

I am a member of a small, nearly extinct minority group, a kind of urban lost tribe who insist, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, on the sanctity of being on time. Which is to say that we On-timers are compulsively, unfashionably prompt, that there are only handfuls of us in any given city and, unfortunately, we never seem to have appointments with each other. — Ellen Goodman

Both the radical and reformist sides of this debate will insist that their approach will lead to salvation, whereas the reciprocal approach will ultimately lead to doom. (More specifically, reformists will accuse radicals of "holding back the movement," and radicals will accuse reformists of "reinforcing the gender system.") The problem with both these approaches is that they fail to appreciate that queer people are a heterogeneous group. Each of us faces a unique set of circumstances, and therefore we may respond quite differently to any given situation. But even more importantly, these approaches fail to realize that because queer people are marked, we have been placed in a double bind. Neither prescribed solution gets to the heart of the problem: the fact that other people mark us as queer, and by doing so, they will perceive, interpret, and treat us differently than the straight majority no matter what course of action we take. — Julia Serano

The past, if there is such a thing, is mostly empty space, great expanses of nothing, in which significant persons and events float. Nigeria was like that for me: mostly forgotten, except for those few things that I remembered with an outsize intensity. These were the things that had been solidified in my mind by reiteration, that recurred in dreams and daily thoughts: certain faces, certain conversations, which, taken as a group, represented a secure version of the past that I had been constructing since 1992. But there was another, irruptive, sense of things past. The sudden reencounter in the present, of something or someone long forgotten, some part of myself I had relegated to childhood and to Africa. — Teju Cole

We lived only to dance. What was the true characteristic of a queen, I wondered later on; and you could argue that forever. "What do we all have in common in this group?" I once asked a friend seriously, when it occurred to me how slender, how immaterial, how ephemeral the bond was that joined us; and he responded, "We all have lips." Perhaps that is what we all had in common: no one was allowed to be serious, except about the importance of music, the glory of faces seen in the crowd. We had our songs, we had our faces! We had our web belts and painter's jeans, our dyed tank tops and haircuts, the plaid shirts, bomber jackets, jungle fatigues, the all-important shoes. — Andrew Holleran

Humble people walk comfortably in every group. No one is either too beneath them or too above them for their own sense of well-being. They are who they are, people with as much to give as to get, and they know it. And because they're at ease with themselves, they can afford to be open with others... Having discovered who we are and having opened ourselves to life and having learned to be comfortable with it, we know that God is working in us. We know, most of all, that whatever happens we have nothing to fear... we are free of the false hopes and false faces and false needs that once held us down. We can fly now. Let all the others scratch and grapple for the plastic copy of life. We have found the real thing. — Joan D. Chittister

The Eagles, let's face it, they were a pretty cool group, Fleetwood Mac, Blondie. I had this really eclectic background in music. — Meredith Brooks

Some of the more industrious ones were washing the windshields of cars that had been trapped by the red light. I used to see them from inside cars and think they brought it on themselves, and they probably did but now it didn't make a difference. I went over to the fire and warmed my hands with the group. I looked at their faces: idiots, criminals, retards, schizophrenics, paranoids, rejects, fuck-ups, broken-down failures. Alone, once children, never asked to be put on this earth, they ended up as jurors. Their lives were the verdict: the system, the man, something had failed. — Arthur Nersesian

When a group of people are forced to navigate a minefield together, everyone feels a grudging sense of comfort when someone else gets blown up. Though there may be other unseen landmines left in the ground, each death creates a safe spot. A landmine cannot explode twice in the same place. Sure, the explosion robs the survivors of a comrade. Still, each death makes everyone's next step marginally safer. So everyone keeps walking with grief on their faces, and relief in their hearts. Their own deaths are further postponed by the end of another life. — Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

People didn't call blacks names anymore, at least not to their faces. Italians weren't wops or dagos, and there were no more kikes, Japs, chinks, or spics in polite conversation. Everybody had a group to protest and stick up for them. But women were still being called names by men. Why? Where was our group? It's not fair. — Fannie Flagg

Human mental identities are not like shoes, of which we can only wear one pair at a time. We are all multi-dimensional beings. Whether a Mr. Patel in London will think of himself primarily as an Indian, a British citizen, a Hindu, a Gujarati-speaker, an ex-colonist from Kenya, a member of a specific caste or kin-group, or in some other capacity depends on whether he faces an immigration officer, a Pakistani, a Sikh or Moslem, a Bengali-speaker, and so on. There is no single platonic essence of Patel. He is all these and more at the same time. — Eric Hobsbawm

I suspect we could have done the whole thing on acid ... except for some of the people; there were faces and bodies in that group who would have been absolutely unendurable on acid. — Hunter S. Thompson

Abstract and conceptual painters face different demons than representational painters, but neither group has a monopoly on either authenticity or originality. — Steven Whitney

Not too long ago, I was speaking at Princeton, and some of the students asked me how they were to choose which issue of social justice is the most important. The question made me cringe. Issues? These issues have faces. We're talking not only about ideas but also about human emergencies. My response to the well-intentioned Princeton students was, Don't choose issues; choose people. Come play in the fire hydrants in North Philly. Fall in love with a group of people who are marginalized and suffering, and then you won't have to worry about which cause you need to protest. Then the issues will choose you. — Shane Claiborne

The very lack of opportunity the group faces creates a self-defeating cycle and puts pressure on members to limit their aspirations. — Rosabeth Moss Kanter

not uncomfortable with who they are, but are uncomfortable with expressing who they are. In a group, there's always that pressure to be outgoing. When they don't live up to it, you can see it in their faces." Mike — Susan Cain

A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp. — George Orwell

The Earth faces environmental problems right now that threaten the imminent destruction of civilization and the end of the planet as a livable world. Humanity cannot afford to waste its financial and emotional resources on endless, meaningless quarrels between each group and all others. there must be a sense of globalism in which the world unites to solve the real problems that face all groups alike. — Isaac Asimov

I think one of the main challenges that the World Bank faces is creating an organizational structure that doesn't get in the way of its staff. We have fantastic staff. People told me as I was coming into the organization that the greatest asset of the World Bank Group is its staff, and I think there's no question that that's the case. — Jim Yong Kim

After breakfast they went whooping and prancing out on the bar, and chased each other round and round, shedding clothes as they went, until they were naked, and then continued the frolic far away up the shoal water of the bar, against the stiff current, which latter tripped their legs from under them from time to time and greatly increased the fun. And now and then they stooped in a group and splashed water in each other's faces with their palms, gradually approaching each other, with averted faces to avoid the strangling sprays, and finally gripping and struggling till the best man ducked his neighbor, and then they all went under in a tangle of white legs and arms and came up blowing, sputtering, laughing, and gasping for breath at one and the same time. — Mark Twain

I am completely honest and truthful when I say I don't want a gold for myself. I want a gold for the team. You go up there and do it as a collective group and it's so much more satisfying, I mean you look around and you see the faces and just wow, this was a team effort and we did this together. It's incredible and that's my dream. I wanna win a gold medal and see the flag go up, hear the national anthem and just know that I did it with my brothers standing next to me. — Jonathan Horton

It was a bland, tranquilized, life-adjusted, group-integrated sort of face
the face turned out in thousands of copies every year by the educational production lines on Terra. — H. Beam Piper

As he continued, one could see obvious disappointment on the faces of the white committee members. By trying to convince the Negroes that I was the main obstacle to a solution they had hoped to divide us among ourselves. But Ralph's statement left no doubt. From this moment on the white group saw the futility of attempting to negotiate us into a compromise. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I do not think he [Reagan] put names and faces together but for a small group of people. There were a few, perhaps half a dozen reporters, that Reagan recognized, including my colleague Lou Cannon, and some from television and the wire services. The rest of us were faces. — David E. Hoffman

I went to New York for Fashion Week and girls showed up waiting to see me. It's funny because there's a group of girls who I actually recognize because they always show up. It's nice and I'm like, 'Hi girls! I recognize your faces!' It's just like a feel-good experience. — Katie Cassidy

Now this girl was about twenty-one years old. A sweet little coed. Spends a night with a married man. Goes home the next day and tells her mama and daddy. Don't ask me why. Maybe just to rub their faces in it. They decide she needs a lesson. Whole family drives out into the desert, right out to that spot we just passed. All three of them plus the girl's pet dog. Papa tells the girl to dig a shallow grave. Mama gets down on her hands and knees and holds the dog by the collar. When the girl is all through digging, papa gives her a .22 caliber revolver and tells her to shoot the dog. A real touching family scene. Make a good calendar for some religious group to give away. The girl puts the weapon to her temple and kills herself. Now isn't that a heartwarming story? Restores my faith in just about everything. — Don DeLillo

Life is a journey of faces. Each face sees a new group of people changing the face of life and living! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The small tuft of fronds or katydid legs above each eye, still
numbering the units in each group;
the shadbones regularly set about the mouth, to droop or rise — Marianne Moore

This week a group of activists, known as Anonymous, hacked the Twitter account of the KKK. The KKK is furious. They said Anonymous is just a bunch of cowards who don't have the courage to show their faces. — Conan O'Brien

Already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group and then excited with triumph glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Each person in the group said something except for me. My silence became noticed. About halfway through the meeting I started to think, I've got to talk. Today, I've got to talk. Fear racked me so bad that sweat ran down my sides. I thought, After the curly-haired woman stops talking I'll raise my hand. A man with a cocky smile told the curly woman that her story was nothing compared to his, he'd been passed out cold from heroin and God knows what, and I wanted to tell him to quit glorifying hinself. I was just about to say the words, a few faces turned toward me as if they could sense my imminent speech, when a man across the circle interrupted.
The opportunity passed; what I wanted to say wouldn't fit now. I tilted on the back two legs of the chair and waited for my desire to speak and be noticed and be part of the group to travel back through my nervous system. Up the synapses condemnation rushed: Why couldn't I spit something out like a normal person? — Daphne Scholinski

I know this from the hollow sound that persists after the men's prayer, and from their faces pressed against the window of supplication. And from their coloring, the complexion of people who respond to fear of the absurd with zeal. As for me, I don't like anything that rises to heaven, I only like things affected by gravity. I'll go so far as to say I abhor religions. All of them! Because they falsify the weight of the world. Sometimes I feel like busting through the wall that separates me from my neighbor, grabbing him by the throat, and yelling at him to quit reciting his sniveling prayers, accept the world, open his eyes to his own strength, his own dignity, and stop running after a father who has absconded to heaven and is never coming back. Have a look at that group passing by, over there. Notice the little girl with the veil on her head, even though she's not old enough to know what a body is, or what desire is. What can you do with such people? Eh? — Kamel Daoud