Inanimate Object Quotes & Sayings

I love bringing the inanimate object to life. — John Lasseter

Money is an inanimate object. It can do good works or bad works depending on the hands that wield it, and the hearts governing those hands. — Donald L. Hicks

My biggest fear? My biggest fear would be turning into an inanimate object. — Darren Criss

It's an essay that Sigmund Freud wrote about E.T.A. Hoffman's short story called "The Sandman" where someone mistakes an inanimate object for a living, breathing human being. And one of the things that Sigmund Freud really felt was that in modern life people assign qualities to objects around them that may not exist there whatsoever. — DJ Spooky

I stepped back, pivoted on a heel, and swivelled my hip for a side kick. It probably seemed, to a casual observer, that I was warming up, taking a few well-aimed kicks at an inanimate object.
But in my mind, THWACK, I was kicking, THWACK, a certain Master vampire, THWACK, in the face. — Chloe Neill

It is extraordinary that nobody nowadays under the stress of great troubles is turned into stone or a bird or a tree or some inanimate object; they used to undergo such metamorphoses in ancient times (or so they say), though whether that is myth or a true story I know not. Maybe it would be better to change one's nature into something that lacks all feeling, rather than be so sensitive to evil. Had that been possible, these calamities would in all probability have turned me to stone. — Anna Comnena

Her body lies in the bed like an inanimate object, an emptied bellow or shopping bag. Nothing has changed with her departure from the camp. Her body is still in their power, even more so now. Only now does S. understand that a woman's body never really belongs to the woman. It belongs to others - to the man, the children, the family. And in wartime to soldiers. — Slavenka Drakulic

No inanimate object is ever fully determined by the laws of physics and chemistry. — Michael Polanyi

Never fight an inanimate object. — P. J. O'Rourke

It was an ugly fucking house. Even angry as I was, I didn't want to go in. If it is possible for an inanimate object to glare, to growl, then that's exactly what this house did. In my seven-year-old mind I saw it pull aside the vines. I saw it wipe away the moss and bare its teeth. Imagination is a wonderful thing, right? — Kendare Blake

The Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object and so effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognized their voices the spell is broken. We have delivered them: they have overcome death and return to share our life. — Marcel Proust

I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and thus effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognised them the spell is broken. Delivered by us, they have overcome death and return to share our life.
And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) of which we have no inkling. And it depends on chance whether or not we come upon this object before we ourselves must die. — Marcel Proust

You know what I think? I think everyone should be able, just once, to make an inanimate object come to life and be his pal. Like an orange. Or a hammer. — Dave Eggers

She? You're not one of those people who name their cars and coffee mugs, are you? It's an inanimate object. Get over it. — Susan Ee

She was as unused to seeing tenderness in a man's eyes as she was to being caught off guard. Admiration? Amusement? Yes. Even desire. But those looks could be leveled at any inanimate object: a beautiful painting, a political cartoon, a French postcard. Tenderness was far more intimate, reserved for beings, not things. — Connie Brockway

Love could be immortalized. It could be remembered and written forever into the world, inscribed on some inanimate object. It could be wonderful words given by a loved one, or simple letters combined to show an unbroken bond." Alexis from "The Shoreline — Lindsay Chamberlin

It should also be born in mind that the research on 'movement' and the dynamic outlook on the world, which were the basis of Futurist theory, in no way required one to paint nothing but speeding cars or ballerinas in action; for a person who is seated, or an inanimate object, though apparently static, could be considered dynamically and suggest dynamic forms. I may mention as an example the 'Portrait of Madame S.' (1912) and the 'Seated Woman' (1914). — Gino Severini

A book which is left on a shelf is a dead thing but it is also a chrysalis, an inanimate object packed with the potential to burst into new life. — Susan Hill

Unless you've touched a corpse before, you can't comprehend the visceral wrongness of inert flesh wrapped around an inanimate object that wears your mother's face. — Elan Mastai

Any object, whether animate or inanimate, will have a size. Airplanes, boats, or musical string instruments vary in size just like animals and plants, and in all cases, their size and their material construction are totally different matters even though they affect one another. — John Tyler Bonner

I wasn't into Tolkien at school really. But the story is timeless, the themes that it touches on are contained in cultures all around the world. The innocent on a quest, the pretender, an inanimate object that holds evil - it's really strange that these themes are there in so many different countries' folklore. — Billy Boyd

I panicked when my son, Jett, stopped eating baby food. He's only two, but his food vocabulary is fantastic. He likes my baked tilapia and string beans with chopped garlic. But he really likes pizza. Sometimes every inanimate object to him is pizza. — Jill Scott

What my work is about is, 'Can something that is not an inanimate object be considered valuable?' — Tino Sehgal

There's something about seeing this little inanimate object coming to life that's just very exciting. That's why with 'Nightmare' I held out for so long to do it. — Tim Burton

All greatness in style begins, I imagine, with such respect, deep and passionate enough to produce a humility which will not assert itself at the expense even of inanimate things: out of which submissiveness a desire to serve is born, in disinterested accuracy toward the object, whatever it may be. — Freya Stark

I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object incapable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself. Why refer to lady crack pipe or good sir dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied? — David Sedaris

What stop-motion does best is present real objects magically brought to life in a very imperfect situation; the hand of the artist is there, the electricity of someone touching, massaging and torturing themselves to get life out of an inanimate object. — Henry Selick

It was just a book. An inanimate object. The only power it held was what she chose to give it. It could only be important in her life if she made it such.
Of course, that didn't explain why she half expected it to glow in the dark every time she peered into her satchel. — Julia Quinn

Destination is a primordial intention born in the mind of the creator that promoted him to create a certain object of inanimate nature, animate nature and the highest creature, a human being — Sunday Adelaja

I find very reasonable the Celtic belief that the souls of our dearly departed are trapped in some inferior being, in an animal, aplant, an inanimate object, indeed lost to us until the day, which for some never arrives, when we find that we pass near the tree, or come to possess the object which is their prison. Then they quiver, call us, and as soon as we have recognized them, the spell is broken. Freed by us, they have vanquished death and return to live with us. — Marcel Proust

Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal weapons. The possession of a good rifle, as well as the skill to use it well, truly makes a man the monarch of all he surveys. It realizes the ancient dream of the Jovian thunderbolt, and as such it is the embodiment of personal power. For this reason it exercises a curious influence over the minds of most men, and in its best examples it constitutes an object of affection unmatched by any other inanimate object. — Jeff Cooper

I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. It was pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing, animate or inanimate. — Frederick Douglass

Pronouns really don't matter in a song - 'I' or 'he' or 'she' or even subscribing a lyric to an inanimate object. — Conor Oberst

Imagine a day when all plants and trees go on a strike, a bandh just for a day. All of us will die for want of oxygen." Reading this, I was instantly reminded of Bolivia's recent legislation (in December 2010) to grant all nature equal rights as humans. Justice William O. Douglas, writing against a 1972 decision by the United States Supreme Court, wrote, "Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation ... So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life ... The voice of the inanimate object, therefore, should not be stilled. — Anonymous

I always design the hat with the wearer in mind; otherwise, it's an inanimate object. — Philip Treacy

He planned for his son or daughter to have three or four toys, minimal sports equipment, and a thousand books. He didn't care for the rhymed nonsense of Dr. Seuss, but preferred anything that instilled basic knowledge sets. He could abide a talking animal, but not an inanimate object that spoke. — John Brandon

To me, respect for human life begins with making it more difficult to obtain an inanimate object that is designed to snuff it out. — Jean Hanff Korelitz

Inanimate objects can be classified scientifically into three major categories: those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost. The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately to defeat him, and the three major classifications are based on the method each object uses to achieve its purpose. As a general rule, any object capable of breaking down at the moment when it is most needed will do so. — Russell Baker

Carefully I leaned over and adjusted the baby blanket higher over his chest.
"Dane," I said softly, "remember that thing you told me about the duck and the tennis ball? About how baby ducks get attached to the first thing they see after they're born?"
"Imprinting."
"How does that work again? ... "
"After the duckling is hatched, there's a window of time during which another creature, or even an inanimate object, is stamped onto his nervous system, and he becomes bonded to it. In the study I read, a duckling became imprinted to a tennis ball."
"How long is the window of time?"
Dane's voice was half-wary, half-amused. "Why? Are you afraid you're the tennis ball?"
"I don't know. It's possible Luke is the tennis ball."
-Ella & Dane — Lisa Kleypas

The animators bring their own spontaneity to it as well, because when they do a take of a shot it really is like just one continuous activity for them. They launch into it and do it, and they're not even quite sure how it's going to turn out when they're doing it. They're sort-of sculpting their way through a scene and trying to make this inanimate object alive. — Wes Anderson

And I was very successful at baby photography ... Strange isn't it? Because some of my portraits of babies were - I used dramatic lighting, shadow lighting, and I didn't use flash. We didn't have flash in those days, we just had floodlights, and I was photographing babies as I would an object - an inanimate object, for that matter. — Julius Shulman

To all the kids from the "special" reading class back in high school (the one where you tried to form words using wooden blocks)
PLEASE stop telling me that I can't blame an "inanimate object" for the off-the-hook gun violence in this country. YES! ... I CAN!!! I blame all the "inanimate objects" in Congress who refuse to pass sensible gun legislation because they're too chicken-shit to take on Wayne LaPierre and the gun lobby. — Quentin R. Bufogle

It's amazing how these little guys can say things that a mortal human could never get away with. There's some sort of unspoken license ... when outlandish things come out of an inanimate object, somehow it equals humor. — Jeff Dunham

If I didn't understand what was happening at the time, he says, then it doesn't matter. I'm no more to blame than the knife is to blame in a stabbing, or the car in a collision.
"But I'm not an inanimate object," I argued. "I'm a person."
He looked confused for a moment and then laughed. "Of course, Charlie. But I wasn't referring to now. I meant before the operation."
Smug, pompous - I felt like hitting him too. "I was a person before the operation. In case you forgot - "
"Yes, of course, Charlie. Don't misunderstand. But it was different ... " And then he remembered that he had to check some charts in the lab. — Daniel Keyes

But before a computer became an inanimate object, and before Mission Control landed in Houston; before Sputnik changed the course of history, and before the NACA became NASA; before the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka established that separate was in fact not equal, and before the poetry of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech rang out over the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Langley's West Computers were helping America dominate aeronautics, space research, and computer technology, carving out a place for themselves as female mathematicians who were also black, black mathematicians who were also female. — Margot Lee Shetterly