I Once Believed Quotes & Sayings

You are not that kind of man Pekkala. You are not the monster that your enemies once believed you to be. If you were, you would never have been such a formidable opponent for people like myself. Monsters are easy to defeat. With such people, it is only a question of blood and time, since there only weapon is fear. But you-you won the hearts of the people and the respect of your enemies. I do not believe you understand how rare a thing that is, and those whose hearts you won are out there still." Stalin brushed his hand towards the window, and out across the pale blue autumn sky. " They know how difficult your job can be, and how few of those who walk your path can do what must be done and still hold on to their humanity. They have not forgotten you. And I don't believe you have forgotten them". — Sam Eastland

It's a Catholic glacier. You can tell by the look of it. And the management." I said, no, I believed nothing but the extreme end of it was in a Catholic canton. "Well, then, it's a government glacier," said Harris. "It's all the same. Over here the government runs everything - so everything's slow; slow, and ill-managed. But with us, everything's done by private enterprise - and then there ain't much lolling around, you can depend on it. I wish Tom Scott could get his hands on this torpid old slab once - you'd see it take a different gait from this." I said I was sure he would increase the speed, if there was trade enough to justify it. — Mark Twain

I was never the sort of child who believed in "monsters under the bed" or vampires, or who needed a night-light in his bedroom; on the contrary, my father ... once laughingly told my mother that he thought I might suffer from a type of benign psychosis called "antiparanoia," in which I seemed to believe that I was the object of an intricate universal conspiracy to make me so happy I could hardly stand it. — David Foster Wallace

Somebody once asked me if I believed in God. It was probably the windup to some major proselytizing, but it's a good question. Do I believe in God? That somebody made all this happen for a reason, that there's something waiting for us after we die? That there's a purpose to all this crap? I don't know. I'd like to be able to say "Yes, of course" almost as much as I'd like to be able to say "Absolutely not," but there's evidence on both sides of the fence. Good people die for nothing, little kids go hungry, corrupt men hold positions of power, and horrible diseases go uncured. And I got Shaun, maybe the only person who could make it seem worthwhile to me. I got Shaun. So, is there a God? Sorry to dodge the question, but I just don't know. — Mira Grant

Once the record was mine, I had to use it like a Louisville Slugger. I believed, and still do, that there was a reason why I was chosen to break the record. I feel it's my task to carry on where Jackie Robinson left off, and I only know of one way to go about it. It's the only way I've ever had of dealing with things like fastballs and bigotry
keep swinging at them. — Hank Aaron

I remember something Mrs. Harbor once said on one of her crazy tangents in English: that Plato believed that the whole world - everything we can see - was just like shadows on a cave wall. We can't actually see the real thing, the thing that's casting the shadow in the first place. — Lauren Oliver

As he'd told me once, he had been the recipient of many I love yous over the years, but he'd never believed them because they hadn't been backed up with truth, trust, and honesty. The words meant little to him, which was why he refused to say them to me. I tried not to let him see how it hurt me that he wouldn't say them. I figured that was an adjustment I'd have to make to be with him. — Sylvia Day

I once believed I'd take whatever piece of him he was willing to give. That was no longer good enough. I wanted it all. — A.L. Jackson

I have always believed that once you identify the best person for a particular project and tell him or her exactly what you expect, you must put your complete trust in that person, allowing him or her to work independently without interference. If you do, the project is bound to succeed. — Verghese Kurien

I once believed man was different from other animals, but Yodok showed me that reality doesn't support this opinion. In the camp, there was no difference between man and beast, except maybe that a very hungry human was capable of stealing food from its little ones while an animal, perhaps, was not. — Kang Chol-Hwan

My name is Zak Bagans. I've never believed in ghosts until I came face to face with one. So I set out on a quest to capture what I once saw onto video ... With no big camera crews following us around, I am joined only by my fellow investigator Nick Groff and our equipment tech Aaron Goodwin. The three of us will travel to the some of most highly active paranormal locations, where we will spend an entire night, being locked down from dusk until dawn ... Raw ... Extreme ... These are our Ghost Adventures. — Zak Bagans

I was a young, & had deep loves, & my heart would overflow with enthusiasm! And I mingled with the crowd, I mixed with my fellow men, speaking my thought out loud! And they gaped back at me, without understanding. And I withdrew from them, & they said to me: Arrogant one! And from time to time in my solitude, my loves, my repressed enthusiasms broke out into odes, conversation; & my companions laughed and used to point at me as a madman. So I suffered, doubted, cursed, & no one believed me sincere. It's as if this heart, once so full of strength & love were annihilated. — Comte De Lautreamont

I just believed it easily, the way you might believe and in fact remember that you once had another set of teeth, now vanished but real in spite of that. Until one day, one day when I may even have been in my teens, I knew with a dim sort of hole in my insides that now I didn't believe it anymore. — Alice Munro

I once heard a writer say, 'It's easy to write a novel, you just slit your wrist and let it bleed on the pages.' She was right...Sophocles and Freud believed that we are defined by our fears. There's a lot of truth to that. When you share your greatest fears, your vulnerability, we bond in that honesty. We connect with each other and we don't feel so alone. And that's what books are really about. Connecting. — Richard Paul Evans

I realized once again that what I believed myself to be was an arbitrary deformation, a rational mask floating in the infinite unexplored internal shadows. Later, I understood that diseases do not actually sicken us; they sicken what we believe ourselves to be. Health is achieved by overcoming prohibitions, quitting paths that are not right for us, ceasing to pursue imposed ideals, and becoming ourselves: the impersonal consciousness that does not define itself. — Alejandro Jodorowsky

My mother had more than once remarked that my father was one of the war's casualties, that the Sam Hall who came back wasn't the one who left, the one she'd fallen in love with. I didn't doubt that she believed this certain truth, or even that it was true, after a fashion. But it was a nice way of ignoring another simple truth
that people changed, with or without wars, and that we sometimes don't know people as well as we think we do, that the worst errors in judgment often result from imagining we understand what has escaped us entirely. — Richard Russo

I understand that computers, which I once believed to be but a hermaphrodite typewriter-cum-filing cabinet, offer the cyber literate increased ability to communicate. I do not think this is altogether a bad thing, however it may appear on the surface. — David Mamet

I Am Primate

I was once taught, that I am a soul in a body.
I once believed I was separate from the earth.
A stranger in a strange land,
a sinner in need of a Savior.
But, isn't this my home? This beautiful world?
Isn't this my form?
These hands, these eyes, this touch?
Am I to believe I have violated a rule,
just by being born?
Who claims this right to judge,
and on what authority do you stand?
The truth screams out from my cells.
I am not the imagination of a God,
I am a voice in the earth,
I am that which you deny!
The earth is my home and the stars my destiny.
I will touch the planets through
the hands of my children
. . . not the will of your ghost!
I am a voice in the evolutionary continuum
and I claim the right to be alive,
without your story.
For I Am Human, I Am Proud,
and I AM . . . PRIMATE! — Christopher Zzenn Loren

It's human nature to be timid in the face of obstacles, but I have learned to believe that challenges are opportunities for genius to shine. In order to feel alive, we have to accomplish things that we once believed we could not. — Dominique Moceanu

I was like you once, long time ago. I believed in the dignity of man. Decency. Humanity. But I was lucky. I found out the truth early, boy.
And what is the truth, Stark?
It's all very simple. There's no such thing as the dignity of man. Man is a base, pathetic and vulgar animal. — Charles Grandison Finney

It's not words, so much, just my mind going blank and thoughts reaching up up up, me wishing I could climb through the ceiling and over the stars until I can find God, really see God, and know once and for all that everything I've believed my whole life is true, and real. Or, not even everything. Not even half. Just the part about someone or something bigger than us who doesn't lose track. I want to believe the stories, that there really is someone who would search the whole mountainside just to find that one lost thing that he loves, and bring it home. — Sara Zarr

My advice to those who think they have to take off their clothes to be a star is, once you're boned, what's left to create the illusion? Let em wonder. I never believed in giving them too much of me. — Mae West

Tonight I saw myself in the dark window as
the image of my father, whose life
was spent like this,
thinking of death, to the exclusion
of other sensual matters,
so in the end that life
was easy to give up, since
it contained nothing: even
my mother's voice couldn't make him
change or turn back
as he believed
that once you can't love another human being
you have no place in the world. — Louise Gluck

I have long believed that celebrity, the way we worship and package and sell our pop stars, is what filled the need for gods that was once filled by the pictures in stained glass. Hollywood is post-Christian Venice - in other words, a pantheon of saints without the hassle and heartache of religion. — Rich Cohen

I once believed soft, warm, beautiful things could never flourish in an environment of hard concrete and cold, dark bricks. — Tom Winton

You told me once you believed in God. The old man waved his hand. Maybe, he said. I got no reason to think he believes in me. Oh I'd like to see him for a minute if I could. What would you say to him? Well, I think I'd just tell him. I'd say: Wait a minute. Wait just one minute before you start in on me. Before you say anything, there's just one thing I'd like to know. And he'll say: What's that? And then I'm goin to ast him: What did you have me in that crapgame down there for anyway? I couldnt put any part of it together. Suttree smiled. What do you think he'll say? The ragpicker spat and wiped his mouth. I dont believe he can answer it, he said. I dont believe there is a answer. — Cormac McCarthy

But he was Kade's God, and once upon a time, Samuel, Danyel, and even Lucifer's. They believed in him, so I guess I should too. — Cameo Renae

The whole business of the bourgeois and the class war was different from what we proles were told. These people were sure they had a role in the world; I don't mean just in business, copying those people who had had great power when they themselves had little power. What they believed was that when it came down to it, they were putting the world into some sort of order, that with them in charge, the lords of the world would not be such great lords as they had been and the proles would not remain in abject poverty, as we once were. They thought the whole world would eventually accept their values; that even while one group moved down and another one up, they, the bourgeois, would keep their position - even in a world where everything was being turned upside down. — Sandor Marai

I once believed in causes, too. Had my pointless point of view. Life went on no matter who was wrong or right. — Billy Joel

Chess worked for a wholesale grocery firm. He had thought of being a history teacher, but his father had persuaded him that teaching was no way to support a wife and get on in the world. His father had helped him get this job but told him that once he got in he was not to expect any favors. He didn't. He left the house before it was light, during this first winter of our marriage, and came home after dark. He worked hard, not asking that the work he did fit in with any interests he might have had or have any purpose to it that he might have once honored. No purpose except to carry us both toward that life of lawnmowers and freezers which we believed we had no mind for. I might marvel at his submission, if I thought about it. His cheerful, you might say gallant, submission.
But then, I thought, it's what men do. — Alice Munro

Falling in love is not a spur of the moment thing. There wasn't love at first sight as I always believed there to be. It crept and overpowered me. Once I was in its power, it was the most amazing feeling in the world. — Eveli Acosta

No Arturo, there never was a sea. You dream and you wish, but
you go on through the wasteland. You will never see the sea again. It was a
myth you once believed.-But, I have to smile, for the salt of the sea is in my
blood, and there may be ten thousand roads over the land, but they shall never
confuse me, for my heart's blood will ever return to its beautiful source. — John Fante

Part of me tingled with excitement. This was it. I was finally going to be with Will. We were going to make love for the first time - after all this time.
But the voices of doubt mocked me. What do you think you're doing? You can't give yourself to him - you've already been had! And by his father.
I reached the landing of the stairs and squeezed my eyes shut, desperately battling the raging war in my mind. If I'm with Will, it can erase the past. Our love is powerful enough to take the rape away. I truly believed I could delude myself into accepting he was my first - that what happened in Coach T's office was false. Yes, once we were together, it would change.
Melanie — Katie Ashley

College had once been my greatest aspiration; it stood for everything my mother did not - intellectualism, feminism, freedom. But being kidnapped had given me plenty of time to think, and somewhere between all that fear and dread, I'd realized that was the wrong reason to go to college. That the potential for those things had been inside of me all along, only I'd never realized because I hadn't believed myself strong enough to break free without an intermediary. — Nenia Campbell

A true Arab knows how to catch a fly in his hands,"
my father would say. And he'd prove it,
cupping the buzzer instantly
while the host with the swatter stared.
In the spring our palms peeled like snakes.
True Arabs believed watermelon could heal fifty ways.
I changed these to fit the occasion.
Years before, a girl knocked,
wanted to see the Arab.
I said we didn't have one.
After that, my father told me who he was,
"Shihab" - "shooting star"
a good name, borrowed from the sky.
Once I said, "When we die, we give it back?"
He said that's what a true Arab would say. — Naomi Shihab Nye

I knew why earlier generations once believed that the sun circled the earth. Because, in our limited imaginations, that is how we lived our lives. -Mrs. Tuesday's Departure — Suzanne Anderson

I believed in clemency, once," Captain Noble said, at last, "A long time ago, before I learned that the world is a hard place, and those who cannot bear what befalls them, no matter how ill, will be crushed in favor of those who will. There is no clemency, Ellis, only survival. — G.L. Tysk

Falling in love, we said; I fell for him. We were falling women. We believed in it, this downward motion: so lovely, like flying, and yet at the same time so dire, so extreme, so unlikely. God is love, they once said, but we reversed that, and love, like heaven, was always just around the corner. The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always, for the incarnation. That word, made flesh.
And sometimes it happened, for a time. That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain. You would look at the man one day and you would think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done; and you would know too why your friends had been evasive about it, at the time.
There is a good deal of comfort, now, in remembering this. — Margaret Atwood

My dad had once told me a definition of faith and I had not forgotten it: 'Faith is to believe something you do not see. The result of that faith is to see what you believed'. — Braam Malherbe

I've always been progressive on social issues: pro-choice, pro-gun control, and pro-gay rights - even when I was a Republican. The big difference is that I once believed the private sector would address America's social problems. But then I saw firsthand that this wasn't going to happen. — Arianna Huffington

Which means we couldn't possibly turn a blind eye to the poor or declare "comfort and safety" our top priority. If we really believed, then we'd never be happy living healthy, affluent lives while ignoring the 25,000 people who will die of starvation that same day. Once we are believers, we can't begrudge our enemies or live a totally self-absorbed life. Believing in Jesus means transformation - how could it mean anything less? One who says, "I believe" and lives for herself doesn't believe at all. — Jen Hatmaker

I used to be an atheist, which means I didn't believe in things that couldn't be observed. I believed that once you're dead, you're dead forever, and you don't feel anything, and you don't even dream. It's not that I believe in things that can't be observed now, because I don't. It's that I believe that things are extremely complicated. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Sick in my soul I tried to face the ordeal of seeking forgiveness. From whom? What God, what Christ? They were myths I once believed and now they were beliefs I felt were myths. — John Fante

Joe Schenck, a top 20th Century-Fox executive, once said to me that he really believed I had a future, and that was because I was the only girl who could survive so many bad pictures. — Gene Tierney

There's something about having people around you giving you support that is - it's motivating, and once I got that support from people then I believed I could do anything. — Prince

Betsy Trotwood don't look a likely subject for the tender passion, but the time was, Trot, when she believed in that man most entirely. When she loved him, Trot, right well. When there was no proof of attachment and affection that she would not have given him. He was a fine-looking man when I married him", said my aunt, with an echo of her old pride and admiration in her tone. "I was a fool; and I am so far an incurable fool on that subject, that, for the sake of what I once believed him to be, I wouldn't have even this shadow of my idle fancy hardly dealt with. For I was in earnest, Trot, if ever a woman was. There, my dear. Now, you know the beginning, middle, and end, and all about it. We won't mention the subject to one another any more; neither, of course, will you mention it to anybody else. This is my grumpy, frumpy story, and we'll keep it to ourselves, Trot! — Charles Dickens

I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that absolutely everything was physical and that all emotions were reductive to little electrical impulses in your neurons. And I found that I didn't believe that. But what the emotions really are, I don't have an alternative theory. — Tom Stoppard

Once, I believed that space could
have no power over faith, just as I believed the heavens declared the glory of God's
handwork. Now I have seen that handwork, and my faith is sorely troubled. — Arthur C. Clarke

Once, I believed in you like a poem, turned your heart into a metaphor for my heart, turned our mouths into honey and caramel lozenges.
But metaphors come and metaphors go,
and not even seasons have the courtesy to stay till dawn. — Shinji Moon

These ears aren't to be trusted.
The keening in the night, didn't you hear?
Once I believed all the stories didn't have endings,
but I realized the endings were invented, like zero,
had yet to be imagined.
The months come around again,
and we are in the same place;
full moons, cherries in bloom,
the same deer, the same frogs,
the same helpless scratching at the dirt.
You leave poems I can't read
behind on the sheets,
I try to teach you songs made of twigs and frost.
you may be imprisoned in an underwater palace;
I'll come riding to the rescue in disguise.
Leave the magic tricks to me and to the teakettle.
I've inhaled the spells of willow trees,
spat them out as blankets of white crane feathers.
Sleep easy, from behind the closet door
I'll invent our fortunes, spin them from my own skin.

(from, The Fox-Wife's Invitation) — Jeannine Hall Gailey

I had once believed that we were all masters of our fate
that we could mold our lives into any form we pleased ... I had overcome deafness and blindness sufficiently to be happy, and I supposed that anyone could come out victorious if he threw himself valiantly into life's struggle. But as I went more and more about the country I learned that I had spoken with assurance on a subject I knew little about ... I learned that the power to rise in the world is not within the reach of everyone. — Helen Keller

For my entire life, I had oscillated between fear at my worst moments and a sense of safety and stability at my best. I was either being chased by the bad terminator or protected by the good one. But I had never felt empowered - never believed that I had the ability and the responsibility to care for those I loved. Mamaw could preach about responsibility and hard work, about making something of myself and not making excuses. No pep talk or speech could show me how it felt to transition from seeking shelter to providing it. I had to learn that for myself, and once I did, there was no going back. Mamaw's — J.D. Vance

May I rest with you, lass?"
"Are you feverish again?" She sat up at once as if she had neglected to ascertain his health first before she tried to rest.
"Nay, lass. I am well, but you appear to be shivering."
She glanced at Gunnolf, who quickly hid his grin and closed his eyes.
"Aye, you may," she said, and Niall tried not to show how eager he was to hold her close again.
Before she snuggled against his chest, she felt his forehead, just in case, and he took her hand and kissed it.
"No fever, aye?"
"You are fine, thank the Lord." And then she cuddled against his chest, and he believed, despite their circumstances, he had found a bit of heaven. — Terry Spear

When I was younger, I thought, 'Ok, I'm supposed to do this project because it'll help my career,' but that didn't work because I ended up doing movies that I worked really hard on but I didn't really like and they didn't turn out well, so it was like I lost double. Once I just started working with people and projects I believed in, everything changed and I suddenly had a career that I loved and that I was proud of. — James Franco

I believed, rather more accurately, that a work resolutely thought out and sought for in the hazards of the mind, systematically, and through a determined analysis of definite and previously prescribed conditions, whatever its value might be once it had been produced, did not leave the mind of its creator without having modified him, and forced him to recognize and in some way reorganize himself. I said to myself that it was not the accomplished work, and its appearance and effect in the world, that can fulfill and edify us; but only the way in which we have done it. — Paul Valery

I tried not to let my relief show. I'd been a passenger in Jae's car a total of three times, and after each trip, I forced myself not to kiss the ground in thanks once I got free of the Explorer. He'd learned to drive in Seoul. Apparently, no one believed in turn signals or lanes in South Korea, because Jae drove like a drunk butterfly heading to its next fermented flower. — Rhys Ford

The Empress Marie-Louise once asked me if I believed in ghosts.
'I find it hard to believe in something I've never seen,' I told her.
But perhaps ghosts aren't meant to be seen. Perhaps they are meant to be felt. — Michelle Moran

Once my heart was captured, reason was shown the door, deliberately and with a sort of frantic joy. I accepted everything, I believed everything, without struggle, without suffering, without regret, without false shame. How can one blush for what one adores? — George Sand

I have always trusted my impulses. I have always believed that once I'm in the circumstances, whatever they may be, I will find the right way. — Kurt Eichenwald

I believed in a return to Nature once. But how can we return to Nature when we have never been with her? Today, I believe that we must discover Nature. After many conquests we shall attain simplicity. It is our heritage. — E. M. Forster

Do dogs understand death? Do they have souls? Do they go to heaven? I have alway believed so, but this [event] confirmed that all of God's creatures , humans and animals, have a soul and that we will all be reunited in heaven. My pastor once told me, "If there are no dogs in heaven, I don't want to go." I agree. — Glenwood McNabb

My world had gone from normal to magical in only a few days. Everything I'd once believed to be true had been turned upside down, and even though it was crazy and possibly dangerous, I loved every second of it. — Michelle Madow

Cinder gaped at her stepmother, her own anger eclipsed with a surprising jolt of pity. This woman was full of so much ignorance it was almost like she wanted to stay that way. She saw what she wanted, believed anything to support her limited view of the world. ( ... )Five years she had lived with this woman, and never once had she seen Cinder as she was. As Kai saw her, and Thorne and Iko and all the people who trusted her. All the people who knew her.
She shook her head, finding it easier than she'd expected to dismiss her stepmother's words. I'm done trying to explain myself to you. I'm done seeking your approval. I'm done with you. — Marissa Meyer

Edward glanced at me, then back at Olaf. The Greeks believed that once there were no male and female, that all souls were one. Then the souls were torn apart, male and female. The Greeks thought that when you found the other half of your soul, your soul mate, that it would be your perfect lover. But I think if you find your other half, you would be too much alike to be lovers, but you would still be soul mates. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Acknowledging that a woman's right to be safe from a gender-based attack was a "civil right," I believed, was critically important in changing the American consciousness. When a right reaches the status and categorization of a "civil right," it means the nation has arrived at a consensus that is nonnegotiable. Violence against women would no longer be written off ... Once our criminal justice system
at the local, state and federal levels
recognized these as serious and inexcusable crimes, women could stop blaming themselves. — Joe Biden

I've always believed that a hoarder house is a house full of quitting. To make a change, the hoarder has to stop quitting and start trying. The hoarder has to want to change...

When hoarders quit, they are cheating their potential. Every time they quit, they are taking a shortcut and they know it. The guilt builds, which is why hoarders can't allow themselves to quit again, not even once. Quitting on small actions eventually leads to completely giving up. — Matt Paxton

I once fell 20 feet from a tree, was knocked unconscious, and when I picked myself up and straggled home, my parents thought I was making it up. However, when my brother and I fabricated a story about an encounter with a bear, they believed that! So maybe I learned very early on that fiction was more interesting to listeners! — Sharon Creech

Though I couldn't have articulated it at the time, for years my deepest fear was that I was a weakling, powerless to temptation, and that I - the victim - would break under pressure every time. I was a victim, all right - a victim to my own erroneous belief system. Satan quickly detected my fears and preyed on them, doing everything he could to confirm what I believed. Once again we see a huge reason why we must believe we are who God says we are and that we can do all things through Christ. Satan will always discourage and demoralize us if we don't. — Beth Moore

Once I believed that sooner or later I would come across a really wise person; today I couldn't even say what wisdom is. — Fausto Cercignani

Time is weird. That much is obvious. Sometimes I think everything happens at once, which is anything but obvious and even weirder. I feel sorry for people who brag about 'living in the moment'; they're like people who come into the cinema after the film has started or people who drink Diet Coke - they're missing out on the best part. I think time is like the dial on a radio. Most people like to settle on a station with a clear signal and no interference. But that doesn't mean you can't listen to two or even three stations at the same time; it doesn't mean synchrony is impossible. Until quite recently, people believed it was impossible for a universe to fit inside two atoms, but it fits. Why dismiss the idea that on time's radio you can listen to the entire history of humanity simultaneously? — Marcelo Figueras

Once people needed heaven and hell, Elysium and Faerie. They believed. Belief is the great creative force, the faith that moves mountains. If Someone had not believed in us, so they say, we would never have been born. I have spent my darkest hours wondering what kind of a Creator would have believed in me. Kal — Jan Siegel

In my teens I saw the world in only black and white. Now I know that most things exist in a certain gray area. Though it took a while to get here, I now call this gray area home. I once believed that participating in a capitalist economy would be the death of me, but now realize that agonizing over the political implications of every move I make isn't exactly living. — Sophia Amoruso

I once believed that life was a gift. I thought whatever I wanted I would someday possess. Is that greed, or only youth? Is it hope or stupidity? As far as I was concerned the future was a book I could write to suit myself, chapter after chapter of good fortune. All was right with the world, and my place in it was assured, or so I thought then. I had no idea that all stories unfold like white flowers, petal by petal, each in its own time and season, dependant on circumstances and fate. ~ Green Heart, Alice Hoffman — Alice Hoffman

But even if the captain rewrites his own history, how could it affect your reality? I'm from a place you call a fairy tale, and I'm still here."
"But . . . the Vaadi Al-Maas was real once. People believed in it."
"I believe in you. Simple enough, right?" His smile was heartbreaking. — Heidi Heilig

I asked him once what he believed to be the basic flaw in the character of Germans, and he replied "obedience." When I consider the ghastly orders obeyed by underlings of Columbus, or of Aztec priests supervising human sacrifices, or of senile Chinese bureaucrats wishing to silence unarmed, peaceful protesters in Tiananmen Square only three years ago as I write, I have to wonder if obedience isn't the basic flaw in most of humankind. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The thing is, I don't know if these stories he was telling were mine, or his, or someone else's. You spend your life among words, listening, making sense out of what you say and out of what you imagine other people are saying to you, believing that something in particular happened like this or that, as a result of this or that, with these or those consequences. But it is never so simple, is it? I suppose that if we read about ourselves in a book, we wouldn't recognize ourselves, we wouldn't realize that those people doing certain things and behaving in a particular manner are us. I always believed that I knew Alejandro, that I knew him intimately, I mean, the way you might know a doll you've once taken to pieces. But it wasn't true. — Alberto Manguel

It's a beautiful moment when you finally shift into knowing something you have been believing. This 90-day adventure was that for me. I shifted into truly accessing all of this information I had read, believed and otherwise accepted as truth. Accessing the information, and exploring it, allowed me to live it firsthand. What was once simply an energy of thought has solidified into concrete truth. Into knowing. — Camille Lucy

Madame Picard believed that a child should be allowed to read anything: 'A book never does any harm if it is well written.' While she was there, I had once asked permission to read Madame Bovary and my mother, in an oversweet voice, had said: 'But if my darling reads books like that at his age, what will he do when he grows up?' 'I shall live them!' This reply had met with the most complete and lasting success. — Jean-Paul Sartre

Eventually, a governess realized I needed spectacles. When I first put them on my face, I can't even tell you ... it was like a miracle." "Finally seeing properly?""Knowing I wasn't hopeless." A knot formed in her throat. "I'd believed there was something incurably wrong with me, you see. But suddenly, I could see the world clear. And not only the parts in the distance, but the bits within my own reach. I could focus on a page. I could explore the things around me, discover whole worlds beneath my fingertips. I could be good at something, for once. — Tessa Dare

The central miscalculation of the Religious Right has been its failure to recognize the real nature of the battle, how long it's been waged, and the high price we've been willing to pay for entry into the political theater. I write as an evangelical Christian who once believed that America is a Christian nation that lost its way. I'm still an evangelical Christian, but I no longer believe that this nation, or any nation in this fallen world, can truly be 'under God. — Michael Babcock

I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose - there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one? — Clara Schumann

I've always believed in God. I remember once a guy asked me what it was like to be self-employed. I said, I'm not self employed. I work for God. The pay is good; He works me hard. — Jack Canfield

Well, it [evolution] is a theory, it is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science and is not yet believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was believed. But if it was going to be taught in the schools, then I think that also the biblical theory of creation, which is not a theory but the biblical story of creation, should also be taught. — Ronald Reagan

Once I believed I would live forever. Death never entered my mind. Then one day, death surprised me! — Vaddey Ratner

I wrote to find beauty and purpose, to know that love is possible and lasting and real, to see day lilies and swimming pools, loyalty and devotion, even though my eyes were closed, and all that surrounded me was a darkened room. I wrote because that was who I was at the core, and if I was too damaged to walk around the block, I was lucky all the same. Once I got to my desk, once I started writing, I still believed anything was possible. — Alice Hoffman

I told [Bill Gates] I believed every word of what I said but that I should never have said it in public. I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger. — Steve Jobs

Once, before leaving on vacation, I copied an entire page from an Alice Munro story and left it in my typewriter, hoping a burglar might come upon it and mistake her words for my own. That an intruder would spend his valuable time reading, that he might be impressed by the description of a crooked face, was something I did not question, as I believed, and still do, that stories save you. — Jincy Willett

In my opinion miracles will never confound a realist. It is not miracles that bring a realist to faith. A true realist, if he is not a believer, will always find in himself the strength and ability not to believe in miracles as well, and if a miracle stands before him as an irrefutable fact, he will sooner doubt his own senses than admit the fact. And even if he does admit it, he will admit it as a fact of nature that was previously unknown to him. In the realist, faith is not born from miracles, but miracles from faith. Once the realist comes to believe, then, precisely because of his realism, he must also allow for miracles. The Apostle Thomas declared that he would not believe until he saw, and when he saw, he said: "My Lord and My God!" Was it the miracle that made him believe? Most likely not, but he believed first and foremost because he wished to believe, and maybe already fully believed in his secret heart even as he was saying: "I will not believe until I see. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I believe I've passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage.
I've found that just surviving is a noble fight.
I once believed in causes too; I had my pointless points of view.
And life went on no matter who as wrong or right. — Billy Joel

I once believed in faith - that if I patiently waited, something good will happen. But at the end of the chapter, I found myself devastated. Years have gone by and I'm back at chapter one again. I've tried several times already and ended up in the same ending. It was always a different title, same story; different choices made but ending up with the same plot and finale. I grew tired of this never ending maze, wandering endlessly and finally giving up faith. — Raphael Paolo Augustine Camanag

A lecturer once told me I could never be a director. I was 16. I believed him. — Paddy Considine

I believed that one person owes a duty to another with no payment for it in return. I believed that it was my duty to love a woman who gave me nothing, who betrayed everything I lived for, who demanded her happiness at the price of mine. I believed that love is some static gift which, once granted, need no longer be deserved - just as they believe that wealth is a static possession which can be seized and held without further effort. I believed that love is a gratuity, not a reward to be earned just as they believe it is their right to demand an unearned wealth. And just as they believe that their need is a claim on my energy, so I believed that her unhappiness was a claim on my life. For the sake of pity, not justice, I — Ayn Rand

...I never once believed what they wanted us to believe - that we as black people are inferior to whites... — Darcus Howe

One day I saw something very strange, people walking around who looked like they had come directly from the grave, their skin was so pale. Mzungus. They carried a black machine that flashed bright when they pointed it at me. I screamed. I thought the machine was going to harm me, and so I fled. Later I learned it was a camera. Its flash and their voices terrified me. We didn't see them often, less than once in a year. But whenever I saw them, I ran and hid.
I had many ideas about them; first, I did not expect them to be smart, because they loved to take pictures of silly things like chickens on the street, shanties, and other things that were not interesting. Second, since I had seen a kid touching their skin and shouting, "How are you?," for many years I believed the name for all white people was "How are you?" I touched their skin as well and found it soft, but I was surprised and a bit disappointed because I thought touching it would leave a mark on my skin too. — Kennedy Odede

Jeff didn't believe in work-life balance," says Kim Rachmeler. "He believed in work-life harmony. I guess the idea is you might be able to do everything all at once. — Brad Stone

We believed optimistically that Laurie was a reformed character. I told my husband, on the last day of Laurie's confinement, that actually one good scare like that could probably mark a child for life, and my husband pointed out that kids frequently have an instinctive desire to follow the good example rather than the bad, once they find out which is which. We agreed that a good moral background and thorough grounding in the Hardy Boys would always tell in the long run.
("Arch-Criminal") — Shirley Jackson

His father could not have vanished like a sea-bubble on the sand! To have known a great man - perhaps I do not mean such a man as my reader may be thinking of - is to have some assurance of immortality. One of the best of men said to me once that he did not feel any longing after immortality, but, when he thought of certain persons, he could not for a moment believe they had ceased. He had beheld the lovely, believed therefore in the endless. — George MacDonald

My stepmother is not only powerful because the people fear her, she is powerful because she can make them love her when she needs them to. We think that if we choose to do only good, then we are only good. We can make people happy. We can offer tranquility or contentment or love, and that must be good. We do not see the falsehood becoming its own brand of cruelty."
The ship trembled and their speed increased. Luna blurred beneath them.
"Once," Winter continued, pushing the words out of her lungs. "Once I believed with all my heart that I was doing good. But I was wrong. — Marissa Meyer

And what happens then?
When?
After you're dead.
Dont nothing happen. You're dead.
You told me once you believed in God.
The old man waved his hand. Maybe, he said. I got no reason to think he believes in me. Oh I'd like to see him for a minute if I could.
What would you say to him?
Well, I think I'd just tell him. I'd say: Wait a minute. Wait just one minute before you start in on me. Before you say anything, there's just one thing I'd like to know. And he'll say: what's that? And then I'm goin to ast him: What did you have me in that crapgame down there for anyway? I couldnt put any part of it together.
Suttree smiled. What do you think he'll say?
The ragpicker spat and wiped his mouth. I dont believe he can answer it. I dont believe there is an answer. — Cormac McCarthy

At some point, I figured that it would be more effective and far funnier to embrace the ugliest, most terrifying things in the world
the Holocaust, racism, rape, et cetera. But for the sake of comedy, and the comedian's personal sanity, this requires a certain emotional distance. It's akin to being a shrink or a social worker. you might think that the most sensitive, empathetic person would make the best social worker, but that person would end up being soup on the floor. It really takes someone strong
someone, dare I say, with a big fat wall up
to work in a pool of heartbreak all day and not want to fucking kill yourself. But adopting a persona at once ignorant and arrogant allowed me to say what I didn't mean, even preach the opposite of what I believed. For me, it was a funny way to be sincere. And like the jokes in a roast, the hope is that the genuine sentiment
maybe even a goodness underneath the joke (however brutal) transcends. — Sarah Silverman