Famous One Line Quotes & Sayings

Muqtada belongs to the most famous religious family in Iraq, which is the al-Sadr family. He's really the third in line. [Muqtada's father] drew his power from the first really important al-Sadr, Muhammad Baqir, who was executed by Saddam in 1980, together with his sister. So it's really a family of martyrs, and that's why Muqtada suddenly emerged from nowhere with the fall of Saddam. — Patrick Cockburn

He would give every penny he has (such is the malignity of the germ) to write one little book and become famous; yet all the gold in Peru will not buy him the treasure of a well-turned line. — Virginia Woolf

There's a famous line from a poem about the ocean," Mother had finally said to end the discussion. "'Water water every where, but not a drop to drink. — Mindy McGinnis

Mysteries are powerful, Cialdini says, because they create a need for closure. "You've heard of the famous Aha! experience, right?" he says. "Well, the Aha! experience is much more satisfying when it is preceded by the Huh? experience." By creating a mystery, the writer-astronomer made dust interesting. He sustained attention, not just for the span of a punch line but for the span of a twenty-page article dense with information on scientific theories and experimentation. — Chip Heath

I remember once I went to go see a movie, and in front of me in line there was a little boy who looked so eager to see it, like it was Christmas morning. When he got to the ticket booth it turned out there was only one ticket left; the manager was there and wanted to give it to me instead since I was famous. That's when I knew I'd hit it big. — Zach Braff

CK's famous line was 'you can break rules but don't break obligations. — Benedict Paramanand

The reason Steve Herrell's shop did so well is that it was famous for having a line! People brought folks from out of town to have the experience. — Seth Godin

English people are famous for never speaking out but only saying what they really feel about you behind your back. Americans believe the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I like exploring those, er, differences in national snippiness. — Rachel Johnson

I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is 'In 15 minutes everybody will be famous.' — Andy Warhol

I think my most famous was 'Poco's Legend.' It's a white album with a simple line drawing of a horse. It almost has a Picasso feel to it. I remember that Rusty Young, the lead singer of the band, said, 'I want you to draw a horse for the song 'Legend,' which is about a phantom spirit horse. I want you to do it in several lines.' — Phil Hartman

The United States had a long bipartisan tradition of negotiating with even its worst enemies, from John Kennedy
'Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate
to Richard Nixon's opening with China, to Ronald Reagan's famous 'walk in the woods' with MIkhail Gorbachev. Obama's position was firmly in line with longstanding diplomatic practice. George W. Bush's post-9/11 policy
'You are either for us or against us'
was the exception, and a bad one. It removed subtlety from international affairs. — Mark Bowden

The real secrets start leaking out when there are too many secrets because people can't remember what's a real secret. There's a very famous line by National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy: "If you guard your toothbrushes and your diamonds with equal zeal, you'll lose fewer toothbrushes and more diamonds." And that's where we are right now. — Ted Gup

I remember that famous line from Olympic runner Eric Liddell. People asked him why he ran and he said, 'When I run, I feel His pleasure.' When I lay my hands on the keyboard, that is exactly how I feel, I feel God's pleasure. It is what he made me to do. — Dave Sterrett

Keanu Reeves?" she asks in amazement. I nod. "What did he wish for?" "Isn't it obvious?" I say, waving a hand at the screen. "Fame." "That's why he's famous? Because of a wish?" "Have you seen his movies? Surely you didn't think he made it on his acting skills?" I grant wishes; I don't work miracles. Viola looks back at the screen, eyes screwed up in awe. "I guess that makes sense," she says faintly as my former master delivers a line poorly. "Wow. — Jackson Pearce

The Upton Sinclair of today's global economy is Charles Kernaghan, the New York based muckraker most famous for his expose of sweatshops producing the Kathie Lee Gifford line of clothing for Wal-Mart ... The Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights ... has been a leader in exposing sweatshops, mounting corporate campaigns, and fighting for the rights of vulnerable workers. — Charles Derber

I've always gone with Kafka's model of establishing the world from the first line, as in Kafka's famous line from Metamorphosis, "Gregor Samsa woke up from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a gigantic insect" (or beetle or cockroach, depending on the translation). I have to have that first line before I can go further. — Laurie Foos

I'm really not for famous people who design a line for a company, when you know it's not really them creating it but a team of designers, especially when there are so many talented people who've taken the time to go and study fashion. — Bonnie Wright

Fool!" cried the hunchback. "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line. — William Goldman

Our top story tonight: Famous TV dolphin flipper was arrested today on prostitution ring charges. He allegedly was seen transporting two 16 year olds across state line for immoral porpoises. — Colin Mochrie

The famous Florentine elegance, which attracts tourists to the shops on Via Tornabuoni and Via della Vigna Nuova, is characterized by austerity of line, simplicity, economy of effect. — Mary McCarthy

One of the reasons I got into fighting was because I'd never really been in a fight. It's like in Fight Club, the famous line, 'How much can you really know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?' ... It's the the clearest mirror you'll ever stand in front of. — Jon Fitch

Even Proust - there's a famous passage where Odette opens the door with a cold, she's sulky, her hair is loose and undone, her skin is patchy, and Swann, who has never cared about her until that moment, falls in love with her because she looks like a Botticelli girl from a slightly damaged fresco. Which Proust himself only knew from a reproduction. He never saw the original, in the Sistine Chapel. But even so - the whole novel is in some ways about that moment. And the damage is part of the attraction, the painting's blotchy cheeks. Even through a copy Proust was able to re-dream that image, re-shape reality with it, pull something all his own from it into the world. Because - the line of beauty is the line of beauty. It doesn't matter if it's been through the Xerox machine a hundred times. — Donna Tartt

One of the biggest misperceptions about places of genius, I'm discovering, is that they are akin to paradise. They are not. Paradise is antithetical to genius. Paradise makes no demands, and creative genius takes root through meeting demands in new and imaginative ways. "The Athenians matured because they were challenged on all fronts," said Nietzsche, in a variation of his famous "what doesn't kill you will make you stronger" line. — Eric Weiner

If you're famous and supposedly wise, it's always a good idea to have a tape recorder in the room. Never can tell when you might spew out a line or two worth printing somewhere. — Richard Elman

No space was given by the newspapers to the progress of the construction of the John Galt Line. No reporter was sent to look at the scene. The general policy of the press had been stated by a famous editor five years ago. "There are no objective facts," he had said. "Every report on facts is only somebody's opinion. It is, therefore, useless to write about facts." A — Ayn Rand

Eternity is a ham and two people" (also given as "Eternity is two people and a ham") is an old quip from the days when a ham was huge - far more than two people could finish. Irma Rombauer mentions this line in her famous cookbook, The Joy of Cooking. — Dorothy Parker

No further issues with Corinne Bishop or her kin in Detroit?" "Hunter didn't seem to be concerned," Gideon replied. "Said he had the situation under control." Lucan grunted, wry despite the weight of the discussion previously under way. "Where've I heard that line before? Famous last words from more than one of us over the course of the past year and a half. — Tina St. John

Tolstoy's famous line, all happiness is alike, but each pain is painful in its own way. — Haruki Murakami

Some people just don't want to put in the effort. I just show up and say some lines and I'm famous. Anyone living below the poverty line just needs to shape up or be shipped out, you know? — Zach Braff

I spent a year in Professor Baker's famous class at Harvard. There, too, I learned some things that were useful to me-particularly what not to do. Not to take ten lines, for instance, to say something that can be said in one line. — Eugene O'Neill

Radu had practiced the poem so often he could recite it in his sleep. He had stolen shiny bits from famous Arabic poems, gathering them like a raven to line his own nest. The language was dense and flowery, hyperbolic in the extreme. Murad listened, enraptured, as his reign was likened to the ocean and his posterity a mighty river. — Kiersten White

Bhagat Singh revered Lajpat Rai as a leader. But he would not spare even Lajpat Rai, when, during the last years of his life, Lajpat Rai turned to communal politics. He then launched a political-ideological campaign against him. Because Lajpat Rai was a respected leader, he would not publicly use harsh words of criticism against him. And so he printed as a pamphlet Robert Browning's famous poem, 'The Lost Leader,' in which Browning criticizes Wordsworth for turning against liberty. The poem begins with the line 'Just for a handful of silver he left us.' A few more of the poem's lines were:
'We shall march prospering, not thro' his presence;
Songs may inspirit us, not from his lyre,' and
'Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more.'

There was not one word of criticism of Lajpat Rai. Only, on the front cover, he printed Lajpat Rai's photograph! — Bipan Chandra

Nobody wants to end up super rich and famous - but divorced. I'm always clear on that and try to stay on the right side of the line. — Bear Grylls

Charlotte was in pain, Charlotte was in torment, but he himself had given her reason enough for that; and, in respect to the rest of the whole matter of her obligation to follow her husband, that personage and she, Maggie, had so shuffled away every link between consequence and cause that the intention remained, like some famous poetic line in a dead language subject to varieties of interpretation. What — Henry James

If the problem of the twentieth century was, in W. E. B. Du Bois's famous words, "the problem of the color line," then the problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of colorblindness, the refusal to acknowledge the causes and consequences of enduring racial stratification. — Naomi Murakawa

Wright is an interesting study of a superstar architect having both right and wrong influence. "All Architecture, worthy the name," he decreed in 1910, "will, henceforward, more and more be organic."12 So inspired by Viollet-le-Duc and Louis Sullivan, he inspired countless others (including young me) toward an organic approach to architecture. At the same time, the very pomposity of his decrees helped inflame a fatal egotism in generations of architects, and his most famous buildings belie his organic ideal. They were so totally designed - down to the screwheads all being aligned horizontally to match his prairie line - that they cannot be changed. To live in one of his houses is to be the curator of a Frank Lloyd Wright museum; — Stewart Brand

The cynical, caustic, acid-tongued New York drama critic Addison De Witt introduces his protege/date of the moment, a bimbo date and so-called actress named Miss Casswell (Marilyn Monroe) in another very famous line: "Miss Casswell is an actress, a graduate of the Copacabana School of Dramatic Art." — George Sanders

Nobody ever got their ass out of the ghetto by letting someone else step ahead of them in line. And no-one ever got rich and famous by laying back and hoping someone would notice who they are and what they do. — Snoop Dogg