If Quotes & Sayings

If literature has engaged me as a project, first as a reader, then as a writer, it is as an extension of my sympathies to other selves, other domains, other dreams, other territories. — Susan Sontag

The M-1 is the best tank in the world, if you can get it to the war in time, if you have a Saddam Hussein who'll give you seven months to move your forces in. — Ralph Peters

The university doesn't THINK; the university KNOWS. If the university says it's Thursday, then it's Thursday. — Carol Plum-Ucci

You don't need to be seeing someone to be in love with her. You can have lost touch with her, she can have hurt you, even inexplicably. If you ever felt that you really knew her and that it was what you knew that you loved, and if you remember what it was you once knew, why is it so crazy to retain that love still? — Elliot Perlman

Twenty years from now, I can look at this medal and say, 'I was the best quarter-miler in the world on that day.' If you don't think that's important, you don't know what's inside an athlete's soul. — Vincent Matthews

The African is not 'Communistic' in his thinking; he is
if I may coin an expression - 'communitary'. — Julius Nyerere

You young folks today think you invented the world," Aunt Will said. "Still, a dash of unlawful scrumping might work for you. A lot more folks have tried that recipe than my own, even if we don't hear testimonials."
She chuckled naughtily at that suggestion. Jesse giggled a bit herself.
The important thing was that her aunt was nodding and smiling again.
"But beware, DuJess," Aunt Will told her. "Every cure has its side effects. It only seems fair to warn you. I suspect that a regular tonic of Piney Baxley can be potently habit forming. — Pamela Morsi

If you love large, you've got to hurt large. If you've got a lot of light, you've probably got an equal amount of darkness. — Sarah McLachlan

If I had my child to raise all over again,
I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later.
I'd finger-paint more, and point the finger less.
I would do less correcting and more connecting.
I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.
I'd take more hikes and fly more kites.
I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play.
I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.
I'd do more hugging and less tugging. — Diane Loomans

Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, "to be free from freedom." — Eric Hoffer

I'm as fond of my body as anyone, but if I can be 200 with a body of silicon, I'll take it. - DANIEL HILL, COFOUNDER OF THINKING MACHINES CORP. — Michio Kaku

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. — Harry S. Truman

When we are able to stay present with the internal discomfort created by the idea that somebody else might be mad at us, we end up becoming a bodhisattva with tremendous integrity. We end up building confidence that we can say what we think and mean what we say, more and more often. This kind of integrity and dignity become contagious, and in the end, even if somebody doesn't agree with us, that person at least respects us for our dedication to living by our principles. — Ethan Nichtern

The earth will never be the same again
Rock, water, tree, iron, share this greif
As distant stars participate in the pain.
A candle snuffed, a falling star or leaf,
A dolphin death, O this particular loss
A Heaven-mourned; for if no angel cried
If this small one was tossed away as dross,
The very galaxies would have lied.
How shall we sing our love's song now
In this strange land where all are born to die?
Each tree and leaf and star show how
The universe is part of this one cry,
Every life is noted and is cherished,
and nothing loved is ever lost or perished. — Madeleine L'Engle

I have learned as a journalist that if you look long enough and hard enough and carefully enough, most truths are discoverable. — Edward Klein

The quality of life in America is dependent on the quality of the journalism. Most people don't realize that, but if you think about it, journalism is one of the pillars on which our society is perched. — Scott Pelley

No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and you connive and you plan, you're not superior to sex. It's a very risky game. A man wouldn't have two-thirds of the problems he has if he didn't venture off to get fucked. It's sex that disorders our normally ordered lives. — Philip Roth

So the researcher's central dilemma exists in an especially acute form in psychology: either the animal is not like us, in which case there is no reason for performing the experiment; or else the animal is like us, in which case we ought not to perform on the animal an experiment that would be considered outrageous if performed on one of us. Another — Peter Singer

I think violence in a cinematic context can be, if handled in a certain way, very seductive. — Kathryn Bigelow

How are you going to forget him if you keep talking about him? Darling, when things go wrong in life, this is what you do. You lift your chin, put on a ravishing smile, mix yourself a little cocktail ... and out you go. — Sophie Kinsella

When you are this hungry, you cannot even remember who you used to be, she whispered. Who you might have been, if not for the hunger. — Catherynne M Valente

I like to win. If I lose, I'm not very happy. — Hermann Maier

One second, we are surrounded by angels holding their swords. The next second, one of their arms drops and his sword thunks to the grass like a lead weight. The angel stares at his blade uncomprehendingly.
Another sword drops.
Then another.
Then a whole bunch, until all the other unsheathed swords fall, thudding on the grass like subjects bowing down to their queen.
The angels stare at the swords at their feet in utter shock.
Then everyone looks at me. Actually, it's probably more accurate to say they're looking at my sword.
"Whoa." That's about the most intelligent thing I can say right now. Did Raffe say something about an archangel sword intimidating other angel swords if she could gain their respect?
I swivel my eyes to look at the blade in my hands. Was that you, Pooky Bear? — Susan Ee

If your inner light is on, the darker it gets, the brighter you shine. — Matshona Dhliwayo

When writing a thank-you if you've had lunch with someone downtown, send an e-mail. If somebody is giving you a dinner party in his or her home and all the work that takes, that person deserves a written thank-you. — Letitia Baldrige

got to be regular if you want to be happy, — Stephen King

For me, the present agony of departure, the silent terror of leaving a place known to me if hated, the well-nigh impossible task of conquering the fear that possessed me. Not the fear of that hasty look round, the sudden plunge headlong and the giddy shock of hard, cold water, the river itself entering my lungs, rising in my throat, tossing me upon my back with my arms outflung - I could hear the sob strangled in my chest and the blood leave me - but fear of the certain knowledge that there was no returning, no possible means of escape, and no other thing beyond. — Daphne Du Maurier

Wait until you meet the therapist.
That bad?
Let's just say i can't believe he's a real person.
Like Santa Claus?
More like if Santa Claus and Ron Jeremy had a child and then that child had a child with Richard Simmons.
So, like a leprechaun?
Yes, Otter, exactly like a leprechaun.
I'm going to tell him I believe in Santa Claus, just to see what happens.
I dare you. — T.J. Klune

One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards will be at one's throat all the sooner. — David Mitchell

Being on the road is no excuse for having a poor diet. I don't like fast food, but if I have to, I'll order three plain grilled chicken sandwiches and throw out the buns. — Triple H

The businessman who wishes to gain a market by throttling a superior competitor, the worker who wants a share of his employer's wealth, the artist who envies a rival's higher talent - they're all wishing facts out of existence and destruction is the only means of their wish. If they pursue it, they will not achieve a market, a fortune, or an immortal fame - they will merely destroy production — Ayn Rand

If you've got a cat and a leg, you've got a happy cat. If you've got a cat and two legs, you've got a party. — George Carlin

If Ryan Giggs is worth £20 million, Dennis Bergkamp is worth £100 million — Marco Van Basten

Religions in general have to rediscover their roots. In Hinduism and the Koran, animals are described as equals. If you walk into a cathedral and look at the decorations of early Christianity, there are vines, animals, creatures and birds thriving all over the stonework. — Margaret Atwood

The physicist is like someone who's watching people playing chess and, after watching a few games, he may have worked out what the moves in the game are. But understanding the rules is just a trivial preliminary on the long route from being a novice to being a grand master. So even if we understand all the laws of physics, then exploring their consequences in the everyday world where complex structures can exist is a far more daunting task, and that's an inexhaustible one I'm sure. — Martin Rees

If you're paying attention, if your eyes and your ears and your mind are open, as they should be open. You can know and then, critically, hold on to that knowledge, even if he loves you (or seems to), even if he chooses you (or seems to), even if he promises to make you happy (which no one, not one person on the planet, can possibly do). And part of her, a big part of her, had obviously wanted to be the one who told them this. Because I am such a competent — Jean Hanff Korelitz

If anyone is going to see the gospel as true and good, satanic blindness and natural deadness must be overcome by the power of God. This is why the Bible says that even though the gospel foolishness to many, yet 'to those who are called ... Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians 1:24). The 'calling' is the merciful act of God to remove natural deadness and satanic blindness, so that we see Christ as true and good. The merciful act is itself a blood-bought gift of Christ. Look to him, and pray that God would enable you to see and embrace the gospel of Christ. — John Piper

I don't believe we need a good conservative judge, and I don't believe we need a good liberal judge. I subscribe to the Justice Potter Stewart standard. He was a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. And he said the mark of a good judge, good justice, is that when you're reading their decision, their opinion, you can't tell if it's written by a man or woman, a liberal or a conservative, a Muslim, a Jew or a Christian. You just know you're reading a good judicial decision. — John F. Kerry

If you get to the top on your own, who'll take the picture? — Thomas Dewar, 1st Baron Dewar

If you seek creative ideas go walking.
Angels whisper to a man when he goes for
a walk. — Raymond I. Myers

If the national coach lets decisions be made from outside, he's lost the team. — Jurgen Klinsmann

View a stumbling block as a learning opportunity. If you allow it to defeat you, it will. Honestly, if I give everything I have, I can't be disappointed with the outcome. — Elana Meyers

So Positive Psychology takes seriously the bright hope that if you find yourself stuck in the parking lot of life, with few and only ephemeral pleasures, with minimal gratifications, and without meaning, there is a road out. This road takes you through the countryside of pleasure and gratification, up into the high country of strength and virtue, and finally to the peaks of lasting fulfillment: meaning and purpose — Martin Seligman

Tobacco ... is not prohibited in the Scriptures, though, as Samuel Butler points out, St. Paul would no doubt have denounced it if he had known of it. — Bertrand Russell

I believe in the Bible. I believe that all good things come from God. I don't believe I'd sing the way I do if God hadn't wanted me to.' — Elvis Presley

I consider myself a lyricist first and foremost, but if you get something else out of what I do, that's fine too. I'm not sitting back here telling people how they have to take my stuff. We just want to play music, and hope that people like it. — John Darnielle

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish, and men do,
I shall have only good to say of you. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

Our minds should not be empty because if they are not preoccupied by good, evil will break in upon them. — Samuel Johnson

If I'm at home on my own and the writing isn't going well, I clean my house. And there have been times in the past few years when my house has looked really clean. — Peter Mullan

If they don't read, if they don't love reading; if they don't find themselves compulsively reading, I don't think they're really a writer. — Rita Dove

Oprah Winfrey represents the most ingenious and creative expression of black spiritual genius in the public mainstream that we've had in quite a long time, if ever. — Michael Eric Dyson

But now he felt as if the whole world were tipping backwards over his head, and this, he couldn't help feeling, was a very worrying thing for the world to do. — Douglas Adams

If we inspire others, they would accept our influence and they would remember it for their whole lives. — Saaif Alam

The young have to kill the old. The young, if they want to achieve their own platform, have to diminish the reputations of the ones that have gone before. That's how life works. — Moby

Whoa." Adrian leapt up and rushed to Jill's side. "You need to let this go. What, are you going to start a fight with some girl?"
Reed turned his glare on Adrian. "Stay out of this."
"The hell I will! You're crazy."
If anyone had asked me to make up a list of people most likely to risk a fight in defense of a lady's honor, Adrian Ivashkov would have been low on that list. Yet there he stood, face hard and hand sitting protectively on Jill's shoulder. I was in awe. And impressed. — Richelle Mead

We could sit around and talk if you'd like."
"Okay." She crossed her arms and tried to look casual. "So what's up?"
"Considering what you're wearing beneath that sheet, and what we just heard in the hallway, you might want to rephrase that particular statement. — Jill Shalvis

I found myself speaking softly as if I were telling an old tale to a young child. And giving it a happy ending, when all know that tales never end, and the happy ending is but a moment to catch one's breath before the next disaster. — Robin Hobb

No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings. — Peter Drucker

I've been thinking that when people break up there's usually a reason, and whatever it is, it's still going to be there even if we do get back together. — Paula Stokes

What matters here are the works - finally without them his life would be uninteresting. What matters, that is, are the astonishing things that he left behind. If we can get the life in relation to the works, then it can take off. — Stephen Greenblatt

If you want to hear more like this, just subscribe to my face. — Aarti Patel

Death does determine life. Once life is finished it acquires a sense; up to that point it has not got a sense; its sense is suspended and therefore ambiguous. However, to be sincere I must add that for me death is important only if it is not justified and rationalized by reason. For me death is the maximum of epicness and death. — Pier Paolo Pasolini

If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream. — Rene Magritte

If you use Hollywood as the test tissue for mankind, what could the prognosis be? — Pauline Kael

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like I'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself
if I could just come in I swear I'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me. — Miranda Lambert

Trades are happening, and I have two players that if they don't get their crap together I'm going to castrate them."

He took in a sharp breath. "Don't castrate my teammates, sweetheart, it will affect how they play. — Toni Aleo

When I create works of art, I do it because it is part of me and I must create. But afterward, when the work is done, I hope that it'll speak to people, that it'll open up their hearts or their minds. That cannot happen if the art is buried for safekeeping. — Nalini Singh

We find the general work of mankind is being carried on from day to day by the mass of people acting in harmony as if by instinct. If they were instinctively violent, the world would end in no time. — Mahatma Gandhi

No, no, no, no, no. Sex should not be fun, okay? Sex can be lots of things - thrilling, romantic, scary, mindless, dirty, dangerous, frantic, forbidden, freaky - but if you're finding it 'fun,' you're doing it wrong. — Mil Millington

Women in particular need to keep an eye on their physical and mental health, because if we're scurrying to and from appointments and errands, we don't have a lot of time to take care of ourselves. We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own 'to do' list. — Michelle Obama

If you look at satellite photographs of the Far East by night, you'll see a large splotch curiously lacking in light. This area of darkness is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. — Barbara Demick

No doubt he was smiling. He smiled a lot, as if the world were a secret joke that only he was clever enough to understand. — George R R Martin

The sorrow of war inside a soldier's heart was in a strange way similar to the sorrow of love. It was a kind of nostalgia, like the immense sadness of a world at dusk. It was a daness, a missing, a pain which could send one soaring back into the past. The sorrow of the battlefield could not normally be pinpointed to one particular event, or even one person. If you focused on any one event it would soon become a tearing pain. — Bao Ninh

The claim of fine tuning is subjective. As I stated before, no measurement in physics is perfect. The amount of precision we demand can be increased or decreased at our whim. We could have an approximate measurement that has a huge margin of error and call it finely-tuned if we so desire. Theists, in particular, have a lot of such desire. They so badly want God to be an indispensable part of our universe's creation, so they see finely-tuned constants.
They also tend to sweep under the rug the following fact: the vast majority of our universe is hostile to life, and they fail to consider that another hand in the proverbial deck might yield a better universe than ours, one teaming with life on every planet throughout the cosmos. — G.M. Jackson

I'm just wondering if I'll feel it when it happens. Will I get really full? Like, is there room in me for that? Your cock is ginormous. I don't know how cum will fit, too. I should cum on your cock first to see what that feels like. Cumming on your fingers was spectacular. — Alexa Riley

If you are convinced that you are not capable of doing something, you can only do it badly. — Eraldo Banovac

If leadership is the act of going beyond what is ... it begins by going beyond what is within ourselves. — Kevin Cashman

If you want a different life, you gotta start doing and learning different things. — Jane Kenyon

If your teachers suggest that your poems are sentimental, that is only half of it. Your poems probably need to be even more sentimental. Don't be less of a flower, but could you be more of a stone at the same time? — Mary Ruefle

In real life, Snow White stays dead and Rapunzel grows old, alone in her tower. In real life, you gotta have enough sense to stay away from ugly bitches offering you shiny apples and have enough balls to cut off your own hair and use it as a ladder if needs be. In real life, you gotta save yourself and the only happy endings are the ones paid for in massage parlors. — Amy Sumida

J. R. R. Tolkien, the near-universally-hailed father of modern epic fantasy, crafted his magnum opus The Lord of the Rings to explore the forces of creation as he saw them: God and country, race and class, journeying to war and returning home. I've heard it said that he was trying to create some kind of original British mythology using the structure of other cultures' myths, and maybe that was true. I don't know. What I see, when I read his work, is a man trying desperately to dream.
Dreaming is impossible without myths. If we don't have enough myths of our own, we'll latch onto those of others - even if those myths make us believe terrible or false things about ourselves. Tolkien understood this, I think because it's human nature. Call it the superego, call it common sense, call it pragmatism, call it learned helplessness, but the mind craves boundaries. Depending on the myths we believe in, those boundaries can be magnificently vast, or crushingly tight. — N.K. Jemisin

When faced with a problem, we have two options: solve it or wish for it to go away. If you don't solve it, it will never go away. — Vinita Kinra

I wasn't sure what I'd done to deserve such a wonderful gift, and I wasn't sure if it was insolent, but I thanked God for fallen angels. — Jamie McGuire

I say to Israel, the Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as president of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the program. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty. — Wilford Woodruff

In 1986, I read a remarkable article by Israel Rosenfield in The New York Review of Books in which he discussed the revolutionary work and views of Gerald M. Edelman. Edelman was nothing if not bold. We are at the beginning of — Oliver Sacks

The idea of gas engines was by no means new, but this was the first time that a really serious effort had been made to put them on the market. They were received with interest rather than enthusiasm and I do not recall any one who thought that the internal combustion engine could ever have more than a limited use. All the wise people demonstrated conclusively that the engine could not compete with steam. They never thought that it might carve out a career for itself. That is the way with wise people
they are so wise and practical that they always know to a dot just why something cannot be done; they always know the limitations. That is why I never employ an expert in full bloom. If ever I wanted to kill opposition by unfair means I would endow the opposition with experts. They would have so much good advice that I could be sure they would do little work. — Henry Ford

If we cut open the bud of a beautiful rose in order to see how it is 'packed' and what it is going to look like, what sort of a bloom will we get? — Ian Gardner

If anyone can make anything, anywhere. It fundamentally changes the meaning of business. — Neil Gershenfeld

From the 1980s onward, manufacturers of products advertised as uniquely healthy because they were low in fat or specifically in saturated fat (not to mention "gluten free, no MSG & 0g trans fat per serving") took to replacing those fat calories with sugar to make them equally, if not more, palatable, and often disguising the sugar under one or more of the fifty-plus names by which the fructose-glucose combination of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup might be found. Fat — Gary Taubes

Beckett wrapped a huge arm around Kyle's waist and slammed her body into his. "Sometimes when girls advertise, they get what they're asking for." Kyle twisted so her back was to his chest. "Are you threatening or promising, big daddy?" Beckett spun her around and held her face to his so their lips almost touched. The crowd went wild with perceived sexual tension. "If I was threatening you, you'd already be beggin' for your real daddy," Beckett whispered — Debra Anastasia

If you're funny, you can find a stage to get on. If you're good, you'll start to get work and eventually get paid. — Ted Alexandro

Create a "library" of positive thoughts & a "dustbin" for negative, if you want to kick some ass in future". — Kaushal Yadav

If there's anything I've learned it's that love is an unstoppable human drive, fierce and universal, and that sex is the physical manifestation of love. And that sex without love is missing the whole damn point. Sex brings us home to love. — Sarah Katherine Lewis

Scheele, it was said, never forgot anything if it had to do with chemistry. He never forgot the look, the feel, the smell of a substance, or the way it was transformed in chemical reactions, never forgot anything he read, or was told, about the phenomena of chemistry. He seemed indifferent, or inattentive, to most things else, being wholly dedicated to his single passion, chemistry. It was this pure and passionate absorption in phenomena-noticing everything, forgetting nothing-that constituted Scheele's special strength. — Oliver Sacks

It really helps if you know your subject matter immediately. I find that enormously useful because then you can concentrate on all the usual novelistic things - the character, the plot and so forth - and you don't have to spend an enormous amount of time learning another trade, essentially. — Gregory Benford

Am I proud of being straight? No. You know why? Because if I start acting proud, that's going to make me seem kind of gay. — Stephen Colbert

If a man wants to be always in God's company, he must pray regularly and read regularly. When we pray, we talk to God; when we read, God talks to us. — Isidore Of Seville

If they bomb us while we're asleep, will we wake up dead? — Allayne Webster

A loaf of bread, the Walrus said, Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed
Now if you're ready, Oysters, dear, We can begin to feed! — Lewis Carroll

They just change. Their body changes. Their abilities - the things they do that make them who they are - leave, sometimes temporarily, sometimes forever. Every day they wake up with that big what if?
And nothing is scarier than a life filled with what ifs - living by day without predictability and control. Some people end up losing feeling. Some have uncontrollable spasms. Some can't function. Some end up blind or in a wheelchair. Some end up bedridden and paralyzed.
It's hard to know who "some people" will be. — Lindsey Leavitt