I Am Ordinary Quotes & Sayings

Even though I am nearly deaf, I seem to be gifted with a kind of inner hearing which enables me to detect sounds and noises which the ordinary person does not hear. — Thomas A. Edison

Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am. There is no mystery about why this should be so. Stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines, your refrigerator full of your food, your closet full of your clothes
with all this taken away, you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. That's not always comfortable, but it is always invigorating. — Michael Crichton

Will: "You are not really dying, are you?"
Jem: "So they tell me."
Will: "I am sorry."
Jem: "No. Don't be ordinary like that. Don't say you're sorry. Say you'll train with me."
Will: "I'll train with you. — Cassandra Clare

I am not a speaker nor a preacher. I have no mission to change the world. I have no original words or teaching to give anyone. I reflect only what I've seen and heard - most ordinary, very common. I have no fascination for fresh ideas and activity. All enthusiasm for worldly endeavours and strivings have all but gone. For me, thoughts, words and deeds- the activities of life, are merely the utensils for serving out the 'prasad' of the Being-ness. — Mooji

Ironically, I am reliably informed that Michael McIntyre doesn't actually have a "man drawer", and invented the concept in order to ridicule ordinary people, for whom he has nothing but haughty contempt. — Stewart Lee

While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thirty years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination." (from "The Third and Final Continent") — Jhumpa Lahiri

I don't want to be considered a hero ... Imagine [if] young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary. — Miep Gies

Don't be silly, Phryne, I'm an - ' 'Invert?' said Phryne. 'Of course you are.' She said this as though he had just claimed to have blue eyes, as something utterly ordinary. 'And that means,' John persisted, 'that I am a sinner.' 'Rubbish,' said Phryne sharply. 'No one can help whom they love. I am positive that your God doesn't care a fig. — Kerry Greenwood

I am sorry," Will said.
"No," Jem said ... "Don't be ordinary like that. Don't say you're sorry. — Cassandra Clare

To see something spectacular and recognise it as a photographic possibility is not making a very big leap. But to see something ordinary, something you'd see every day, and recognize it as a photographic possibility - that is what I am interested in. — Stephen Shore

I'm not claiming to be anything out of the ordinary. I am not especially big or strong or brave or intrepid. — Roz Savage

I wanted to look at them because I feel, internally, that I am an ordinary person who has had an extraordinary life. — Sidney Poitier

I am not so foolish as to equate what happens under the influence of mescalin or of any other drug, prepared or in the future preparable, with the realization of the end and ultimate purpose of human life: Enlightenment, the Beatific Vision. All I am suggesting is that the mescalin experience is what Catholic theologians call "a gratuitous grace," not necessary to salvation but potentially helpful and to be accepted thankfully, if made available. To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and the inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large - this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual. — Aldous Huxley

In association with the ordinary run of men I have had but little to win or to lose ... My companions have with few exceptions exerted no marked influence on me ... So I am standing once more at the point where I must begin in another way. I shall now try to look calmly at myself and begin to act inwardly; for only in this way will I be able ... to call myself 'I' in a profounder sense ... So let the die be cast - I am crossing the Rubicon. This road no doubt leads me into battle, but I will not give up. — Soren Kierkegaard

I am not a hero, O.K.? I am not a hero. I am a very ordinary person. — Wael Ghonim

Runach smiled ruefully. "She doesn't tell me anything."
"Perhaps you intimidate her."
"Im certain thats not it"
Nicholas look at him, clear-eyed. "Runach, my dearest boy, you forget who you are
"
"Were
"
"Are," Nicholas stressed.
"There is nothing of what I was in my veins," Runach said, managing it without too much bitterness. "I am simply a man who will live an extraordinarily long time to enjoy my terribly ordinary life. There is nothing to be intimidated by."
"I think others would disagree, but we will leave that for the time being. — Lynn Kurland

I am delighted with the strong vote I have received. My message of positive leadership, patriotism and commitment clearly was resonating with tens of thousands of ordinary Irish people. — Michael D. Higgins

If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear. — Joanna R. Macy

I never thought of myself as anything but plain and ordinary until you came along. The way you look at me, the way you see me ... you pull something out of me. When I want to hide, you urge me forward. When I think I'm not good enough, you make me believe I am. When I feel anything but pretty, you convince me I'm beautiful. Just being around you makes me feel special. You don't think you're good at loving people, but you are. Your friends, your family ... the level of love that you have for people astounds me. You don't think people love you back, but they do. They fiercely love you. I fiercely love you. I've never met anyone as passionate as you, as kindhearted as you ... as amazing as you. You love with every fiber of your soul. You inspire me every day. And if you'll agree to be my husband, I'll do my best to make you proud of me, to inspire you. — S.C. Stephens

So what have I learned that is helpful? Well, if you are white, like I am, you can't get rid of the privilege you have, but you can use it for good. Don't say I don't even notice race! like it's a positive thing. Instead, recognize that differences between people make it harder for some to cross a finish line, and create fair paths to success for everyone that accommodate those differences. Educate yourself. If you think someone's voice is being ignored, tell others to listen. If your friend makes a racist joke, call him out on it, instead of just going along with it. If the two former skinheads I met can have such a complete change of heart, I feel confident that ordinary people can, too. — Jodi Picoult

I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls. — Anais Nin

I held a brief debate with myself as to whether I should change my ordinary attire for something smarter. At last I concluded it would be a waste of labour. "Doubtless," though I, "she is some stiff old maid ; for though the daughter of Madame Reuter, she may well number upwards of forty winters; besides, if it were otherwise, if she be both young and pretty, I am not handsome, and no dressing can make me so, therefore I'll go as I am." And off I started, cursorily glancing sideways as I passed the toilet-table, surmounted by a looking-glass: a thin irregular face I saw, with sunk, dark eyes under a large, square forehead, complexion destitute of bloom or attraction; something young, but not youthful, no object to win a lady's love, no butt for the shafts of Cupid. — Charlotte Bronte

I think that those of us who are ordinary disappear easily into the backdrop of life and we take things for granted. We often wake up in our lives and wonder how we got there. But the characters I create, the people I am drawn to, are quite extraordinary (and not always in wholesome ways), and they offer us the chance to understand who we really are and how we became who we are. — Chris Abani

Yes, I am confusing literature with life. I'm declaring my own ordinary life to be a work of literature. — Tadeusz Konwicki

What I am proposing this year are not lofty concepts far removed form the daily struggle so of ordinary Georgians. They are proposals that directly effect the lives of the people we serve. — Roy Barnes

I am so thankful to MOTHER for making my ordinary life extraordinary. MOTHER - Multiplied Opportunities Through Her Endless Reinvention. — Olarewaju Oladipo

When I look at what the world does and where people nowadays believe they can find happiness, I am not sure that that is true happiness. The happiness of these ordinary people seems to consist in slavishly imitating the majority, as if this were their only choice. And yet they all believe they are happy. I cannot decide whether that is happiness or not. Is there such a thing as happiness? — Zhuangzi

I am convinced that pilgrimage is still a bona fide spirit-renewing ritual. But I also believe in pilgrimage as a powerful metaphor for any journey with the purpose of finding something that matters deeply to the traveler. With a deepening of focus, keen prepartion, attention to the path below our feet, and respect for the destination at hand, it is possible to transform, even the most ordinary journey into a sacred journey, a pligrimage. — Phil Cousineau

I do not know how I shall develop, but for the present, I am continuing to work within ordinary, generally known terrain, different only because of a deep substratum, which leads those who are receptive to sense the finer regions. — Piet Mondrian

This place was as dark and carried the same scent of pine trees that was common to the forest. She could hear the wind lightly swaying the branches, but there were no sounds out of the ordinary. Everything seemed the same.
"What am I missing?" Ursula asked curiously, though she wondered whether Aleana had stopped just to see what she'd say or do.
Aleana giggled. "So the charm really does hide it from human sight." She gave the air a knock, and strangely there was a sound, just like she was knocking on wood. — Cailee Francis

By a man's finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser-knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt-cuff - By each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable. You know that a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick; and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I would say I am an ordinary bowler but one with a really big heart, and that's what has stood me in good stead in all these years. — Harbhajan Singh

Writing, to me, is the meaning of life. My life became something special because of writing. My desk is for me what the phone booth is for Clark Kent: Here I become Superman. I can do anything I want when I'm writing. I'm not afraid anymore. I can take anything from my imagination. I can save the world when I'm writing. But as soon as I leave the desk, I become Clark Kent again. Trust me, I am the most ordinary person in the world. I'm a good husband, I don't yell at anyone, never lose it. But I don't have a single idea for my literature in everyday life. When I run, cook or relax on the beach, there is absolutely nothing on my mind. — Haruki Murakami

Girls my age never use the word "fair". Ordinary girls as young as I am are basically indifferent to whether things are fair or not. The central question for them is not whether something is fair but whether or not it's beautiful or will make them happy. "Fair" is a man's word, finally, but I can't help feeling that it is also exactly the right word for me now. — Haruki Murakami

I welcome each new day with a hopeful expectancy that I, too, will rise above the ordinary. For I am not content to live a merely "normal" life or settle for an average existence. No, I am destined for more
much, much more. — Melody Carlson

Most of us live in a condition of secrecy: secret desires, secret appetites, secret hatreds and relationship with the institutions which is extremely intense and uncomfortable. These are, to me, a part of the ordinary human condition. So I don't think I'm writing about abnormal things ... Artists, in my experience, have very little center. They fake. They are not the real thing. They are spies. I am no exception. — John Le Carre

She would not say of any one in the world that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, far out to the sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day. Not that she thought herself clever, or much out of the ordinary. How she had got through life on the few twigs of knowledge Fraulein Daniels gave them she could not think. She knew nothing; no language, no history; she scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that. — Virginia Woolf

Dear you,
Yes, you. The person reading this right now.
If you're anything like me, sometimes you might feel like you don't matter. Like you're completely ordinary, unremarkable, boring, invisible. Like if you disappeared, nobody would notice.
Don't.
Don't feel that way.
You are extraordinary. You are remarkable. You are interesting. You are dazzling. Your presence is noticed and appreciated. You are moonbeams and starlight, a sugar rush, the sound of laughter like bells. You are a soft breeze on a sweltering summer day, the wonder of a year's first snow, and the magic of a million smiling faces.
You mean something to someone out there. You mean something to someone right here. You are important, and the footprints you leave in this world make a difference. Even though you might not always realize it, you are wonderful.
You matter. And I am happy you exist. — Emily Trunko

[I] am reading No Ordinary Joes. Should have had a medical checkup before I started it. Colton makes us fall in love with these guys, then puts our hearts in harm's way. It's lovely and ghastly and extremely powerful. His best yet. — Katherine Dunn

Ive been waiting for this moment,
The one where looking back doesn't seem fascinating anymore & looking forward doesn't seem to be the greatest seek, I am so darn content with creating and living right now that there honestly isn't any room left for the ordinary. — Nikki Rowe

That's what I am, Frank thought, an ordinary genius. He had unlocked the secret of radio. The sport of the ordinary! Brillliant me like Reed Seymour couldn't figure this out for the life of them! Reed was ashamed of radio ... radio was a cinch if you kept reaching down and grabbing up handfuls of the ordinary. — Garrison Keillor

I am able more and more to make use of that long patience you have taught me by your tenacious example; that patience which, disproportionate to ordinary life which seems to bid us haste, puts us in touch with all that surpasses us. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Understanding is the reward of obedience. Obedience is the key to every door. I am perplexed at the stupidity of the ordinary religious being. In the most practical of all matters he will talk and speculate and try to feel, but he will not set himself to do. — George MacDonald

Life is depressing and hopeless enough, without imbibing further depression and hopelessness through story. I don't care how realistic people like to think that is. It's not what inspires me, or makes me love and cherish a book or a television show or a movie. When I am imbibing fiction, I want to be inspired. I want bold tales, told boldly. I want genuine Good People who, while not perfect, are capable of rising beyond their ordinary beginnings. To make a positive difference in their world. Even when all hope or purpose might seem lost. Because this is what I think fiction - as originally told around the campfires, through verbal legend - ought to do, more than anything else: Illuminate the way, shine a spiritual beacon, tell us that there is a bright point in the darkness, a light to guide the way, when all other paths are cast in shadow. — Brad R. Torgersen

Hillary Clinton does represent the establishment. I represent, I hope, ordinary Americans, and by the way, who are not all that enamored with the establishment, but I am very proud to have people like Keith Ellison and Raul Grijalva in the House, the co-chairmen of the House Progressive Caucus. — Bernie Sanders

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods. — Bertrand Russell

I am just an ordinary Catholic. — Maggie Gallagher

I am shocked at the attitude of our American troops. They have no respect for death, the courage of an enemy soldier, or many of the ordinary decencies of life. — Charles Lindbergh

I am gagged and imprisoned. I can't even speak. I want to kick a football in a park with my son. Ordinary, banal life: my impossible dream. — Salman Rushdie

Spotted Park Bench
I am a park bench.
Ordinary words cannot
express my thoughts on birds. — J. Patrick Lewis

There are days when I am convinced that Heaven starts already, now, in this ordinary life just as it is, in all its incompleteness, yet, this is where Heaven starts.. see within yourself, if you can find it. I walked through the field in front of the house, lots of swallows flying, everywhere! Some very near me..it was magical. We are already one, yet we know it not. — Thomas Merton

I want to tell all those who believe in God that I am not the Chosen One. I also want to tell all the atheists that I am not a history-maker. I am but an ordinary person. Unfortunately, I have not been able to walk the ordinary person's path. My path is, in reality, the journey of a civilization. — Liu Cixin

I am an ordinary person, but carried to extremes. — Fay Weldon

For I'm afraid of loneliness; shiveringly, terribly afraid. I don't mean the ordinary physical loneliness, for here I am, deliberately travelled away from London to get to it, to its spaciousness and healing. I mean that awful loneliness of spirit that is the ultimate tragedy of life. When you've got to that, really reached it, without hope, without escape, you die. You just can't bear it, and you die. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

I am convinced that the deepest desire within each of us is to be liberated from the controlling influences of our own psychic madness or patterns of fear. All other things - the disdain of ordinary life, the need to control others rather than be controlled, the craving for material goods as a means of security and protection against the winds of chaos - are external props that serve as substitutes for the real battle, which is the one waged within the individual soul. — Caroline Myss

Ivanov: You only qualified last year, my dear friend, you're still young and confident, but I am thirty-five. I have the right to give you some advice. Don't marry a Jew or a psychopath or a bluestocking but choose yourself someone ordinary, someone a shade of grey, with no bright colour and no superfluous noises. In general, construct your whole life on a conventional pattern. The greyer, the more monotonous the background, the better. My dear fellow, don't do
battle against thousands all on your own, don't tilt against windmills, don't beat your head against walls ... And may
God preserve you from all kinds of rational farming, newfangled schools, fiery speeches ... Shut yourself in your shell and do your little God-given business ... It's snugger, healthier and more honest. — Anton Chekhov

My head aches so, so excuse this walking there like an ordinary with a white cat will explain, I think. I can speak three languages, four with English, and am sure I could be useful interpreting if you arrange such thing in France I'm sure I could control everything with the belts all bound around everybody like it was Wednesday. It — F Scott Fitzgerald

I am interested in the ordinary sort of threat. I know that people are interested in things like serial killers and what have you, but actually, those aren't the sort of crimes that really happen very much. The sort of crimes that happen tend to be more of a domestic nature and quite banal, but the psychology behind them is always fascinating. — Paula Hawkins

Ordinary philosophy is like a hound hunting his own tail. The more he hunts the farther he has to go, and his nose never catches up with his heels, because it is forever ahead of them. So the present is already a foregone conclusion, and I am ever too late to understand it...The truth is that we travel on a journey that was accomplished before we set out; and the real end of philosophy is accomplished, not when we arrive at, but when we remain in, our destination (being already there) - which may occur vicariously in this life when we cease our intellectual questioning — Benjamin Paul Blood

He studied the woman before him, not as lovely as she once was, ordinary in appearance, scarred by living, abandoned by many, breathtakingly to be near and altogether unforgettable. "I have no friends," she spoke forth hauntingly. "I am alone." He couldn't believe it. But then he could for the rare creature near enough to touch was out of their league. She wasn't envied for the shallowness of appearance or the superficiality of status or possessions; she was envied for being uncommon and for possessing indomitable strength, something only a lifetime of suffering could shape. — Donna Lynn Hope

I am no longer a Silent Brother," he said. "Only an ordinary man. My name is James, James Carstairs. But everyone calls me Jem. — Cassandra Clare

The contest, " said Pott, "shall be prolonged so long as I have health and strength, and that portion of talent with which I am gifted. From that contest, sir, although it may unsettle men's minds and excite their feelings, and render them incapable for the discharge of the every-day duties of ordinary life; from that contest, sir, I will never shrink, till I have set my heel upon the Eatanswill Independent. I wish the people of London, and the people of my country to know, sir, that they may rely upon me; - that I will not desert them, that I am resolved to stand by them, sir, to the last. — Charles Dickens

She says to me, but were we ever intimate? How intimate were we really? Sure, there were the ordinary familiarity-type things - our bodies, our bodily discharges and stains and seepages, an encyclopedic knowledge of each other's family grudges, knowledge of each other's early school yard slights, our dietary peccadilloes, our tv remote control channel-changing styles. And yet ...
And yet?
And yet in the end did we ever really give each other completely to the other? Do either of us even know how to really share ourselves? Imagine the house is on fire and I reach to save one thing - what is it? Do you know? Imagine that I am drowning and I reach within myself to save that one memory which is me - what is it? Do you know? What things would either of us reach for? Neither of us know. After all these years we just wouldn't know. — Douglas Coupland

I'd just like to see thinking come back in style. I haven't heard a new idea in eight years. Let's get ordinary people arguing and talking again. I want to trigger new circuits in their nervous systems. That's the philosopher's job and I am the most important philosopher at this time. — Timothy Leary

Tales of ordinary characters would appeal to a larger class , but I have no wish to make such an appeal . The opinions of the masses are of no interest to me , for praise can truly gratify only when it comes from a mind sharing the author's perspective . There are probably seven persons in all , who really like my work and they are enough . I should write even if I were the only patient reader , for my aim is merely self expression . I could not write about ' ordinary people ' because I am not in the least interested in them . Without interest there can be no art . Man's relations to man do not captivate my fancy . It is man's relations to the cosmos - to the unknown - which alone arouses in me the spark of creative imagination . — H.P. Lovecraft

I do not mind Bedouins, - I am not afraid of them; because neither Bedouins nor ordinary Arabs have shown any disposition to harm us, but I do feel afraid of my own comrades. — Mark Twain

In a sense I am able to interrogate myself, address myself from that slight distance and enter a kind of dialogical relationship with myself. Because I'm saying, "Look, these are things that have happened to me, but how odd they are or how ordinary they are [is up to the reader to decide]." — Paul Auster

Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray ... I am myself the matter of my book. — Michel De Montaigne

It matters not at all that I do not want to marry, that I am afraid of the wedding, afraid of consummating the marriage, afraid of childbirth, afraid of everything about being a wife. Nobody even asks if I have lost my childhood sense of vocation, if I still want to be a nun. Nobody cares what I think at all. They treat me like an ordinary young woman, bred for wedding and bedding, and since they do not ask me what I think, nor observe what I feel, there is nothing that gives them pause at all. — Philippa Gregory

I'm not having much of a life. It's not awful, just ordinary. I am trying to accommodate the memories of the life I had with the life I am now living, and I just can't do it. After being behind the wheel of a Lamborghini going 140 down Sunset Drive at four a.m., it's hard to get up and put on a polyester shirt and sell books at Barnes and Noble. But I'm not ashamed of it. — Robert Goolrick

I am afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create and destroy money. And they who control the credit of a nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people. — Richard McKenna

I was working with a Crookes tube covered by a shield of black cardboard. A piece of barium platino-cyanide paper lay on the bench there. I had been passing a current through the tube, and I noticed a peculiar black line across the paper ...
The effect was one which could only be produced in ordinary parlance by the passage of light. No light could come from the tube because the shield which covered it was impervious to any light known even that of the electric arc ...
I did not think I investigated ...
I assumed that the effect must have come from the tube since its character indicated that it could come from nowhere else ... It seemed at first a new kind of invisible light. It was clearly something new something unrecorded ...
There is much to do, and I am busy, very busy.
[Describing to a journalist the discovery of X-rays that he had made on 8 Nov 1895.] — Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen

My personal interest in ordinary people is unlimited, but I am fascinated by the challenge of portraying true greatness adequately with my camera. — Yousuf Karsh

It's like I am inside this ethereal sphere wherein exists no logic, no reasoning, no typicality, no explanations, no realism, no comparisons, nothing ordinary, and no normalcy. And then if you are to understand me, you have to step into my realm and leave all of those things behind. I'm not typical. I'm not ordinary. And I'm not normal. And I never will be . So I don't see the point of waking up in the morning and wishing to be so. — C. JoyBell C.

That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in. and the best of me is diligence. — William Shakespeare

Because Jesus was strong for me, I am free to be weak;
because Jesus won for me, I am free to lose;
because Jesus was someone, I am free to be no one;
because Jesus was extraordinary, I am free to be ordinary;
because Jesus succeeded for me, I am free to fail. — Tullian Tchividjian

you know a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick and if I show too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all." -Sherlock Holmes — Arthur Conan Doyle

I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be denounced by some as highly irreligious; but he who denounces them is bound to show why it is more irreligious to explain the origin of man as a distinct species by descent from some lower from, through the laws of variation and natural selection, than to explain the birth of the individual through the laws of ordinary reproduction. The birth both of the species and of the individual are equally parts of that grand sequence of events, which our minds refuse to accept as the result of blind chance. — Charles Darwin

The church has long used the concept of sacraments
outward signs of inward grace
to name the spaces where God meets us in an especially present way. For many Christians, however, that language seems abstract, even (sadly) foreign. Dean Nelson lovingly explores those spaces of encountering God; his luminous book has helped me see anew the sacred in the ordinary. I am grateful. — Lauren F. Winner

I fear that I am ordinary, just like everyone. — Pumpkins Smashing

I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences. Today is one of those experiences. — Sonia Sotomayor

I guess that's how it goes. Opposites attract. He was the sunshine to my rain. He could find the best in an ordinary day of clouds and I gravitated towards his rays. He taught me how wonderful life could be and he gave me so much. And for that, I am truly grateful. — Katherine Owen

Oh, my dear, if you only knew how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane. — Bram Stoker

I am not a fan of the magical quick fix in any fiction, including fantasy, scifi and comic books. Unless Dr. Who is involved, and then only because we get to use the phrase 'Timey-wimey wibbliness' which, I'm sure you'll agree, there are not enough occasions to drop into ordinary adult conversation. — Chris Dee

Higgins: I'm an ordinary man, who desires nothing more than just an ordinary chance, to live exactly as he likes, and do precisely what he wants. An average man am I, of no eccentric whim, Who likes to live his life, free of strife Doing whatever he thinks is best for him, Well, just an ordinary man — Rex Harrison

You're not human, Eleanore Jones. I think that somewhere inside you, you must know that. You must always have known. You're not made of ordinary bone or blood but of something else completely."
"Really. What am I of, then? Kelp and jellyfish, I suppose?"
"You are made of magic."
He said it in an absolutely unremarkable way, as if instead he'd just said, I had coffee this morning or the floor needs mopping. — Shana Abe

It's a pity I am so impatient and careless, as any ordinary person could learn all the techniques of photography in a week. It is the democratic art, i.e. technical skill is practically eliminated - the more foolproof cameras become with focusing and exposure gadgets the better - and artistic quality depends only on choice of subject. — W. H. Auden

I cannot forbear adding to these reasonings an observation, which may, perhaps, be found of some importance. In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. — David Hume

And she is your holy Mary. And I am so ordinary. — Paula Cole

I like to live life in an understated way because that's who I am - an ordinary guy who has experienced an extraordinary journey. — Simon Weston

Where am I?" Magnus croaked.
"Nazca."
So Magnus was still in Peru. That indicated that he had been rather more sensible than he'd feared.
"Oh, so we went on a little trip."
"You broke into a man's house," Catarina said. "You stole a carpet and enchanted it to fly. Then you sped off into the night air. We pursued you on foot."
"Ah," said Magnus.
"You were shouting some things."
"What things?"
"I prefer not to repeat them," Catarina said. She was a weary shade of blue. "I also prefer not to remember the time we spent in the desert. It is a mammoth desert, Magnus. Ordinary deserts are quite large. Mammoth deserts are so called because they are larger than ordinary deserts."
"Thank you for that interesting and enlightening information, — Cassandra Clare

I am not saying, of course, that most tramps are ideal characters; I am only saying that they are ordinary human beings, and that if they are worse than other people it is the result and not the cause of their way of life. — George Orwell

On reflection, I am always pleasantly surprised when ordinary members of the public stop me in the street to say, 'Thank you,' I guess for making travel and other goods and services affordable to them. — Stelios Haji-Ioannou

It may be true that "expressing ourselves," giving free rein to our "natural" impulses, gives us momentary relief from our inner tensions, but we remain trapped in the endless circle of our usual habits. Such a lax attitude doesn't solve any serious problems, since in being ordinarily oneself, one remains ordinary. As the French philosopher Alain has written, "You don't need to be a sorcerer to cast a spell over yourself by saying 'This is how I am. I can do nothing about it. — Matthieu Ricard

The Normal is the good smile in a child's eyes:-alright. It is also the dead stare in a million adults. It both sustains and kills-like a god. It is the Ordinary made beautiful: it is also the Average made lethal. The Normal is the indispensable, murderous God of Health, and I am his priest. My tools are very delicate. My compassion is honest. I have honestly assisted children in this room. I have talked away terrors and relieved many agonies. But also-beyond question-I have cut from the parts of individuality repugnant to this god, in both his aspects. Parts sacred to rarer and more wonderful gods. And at what length ... Sacrifices to Zeus took at the most, surely, sixty seconds each. Sacrifices to the Normal can take as long as sixty months. — Peter Shaffer

I am an ordinary human being who is impelled to write poetry ... I still do feel that a poet has a duty to words, and that words can do wonderful things, and it's too bad to just let them lie there without doing anything with and for them. — Gwendolyn Brooks

Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. — C.S. Lewis

I do what I feel, that's all. I am an ordinary photographer working for his own pleasure. That's all I've ever done. — Andre Kertesz

Ordinary moments make the life. This is what she knew to be trustworthy and this is what I learned, eventually, from those years we spent together. No leaps or falls. I inhale the little drizzly details of the past and know who I am. What I failed to know before is clearer now, filtered up through time, an experience belonging to no one else, not remotely, no one, anyone, ever. I watch her use the roller to remove lint from her cloth coat. Define coat, I tell myself. Define time, define space. — Don DeLillo