Intermittently Quotes & Sayings

Why shouldn't a mystical theology be possible? 'I want to touch God or become God,' I declared in my journal. All through that year I abandoned myself intermittently to these deliriums. — Simone De Beauvoir

I would say that my parents were intermittently proud of me. They couldn't hang onto it, you know? It would come and go, like the flu. — John Patrick Shanley

Winston Churchill, today an idealized hero of history, was in his time variously considered a bombastic blunderer, an unstable politician, an intermittently inspired orator, a reckless self-dramatizer, a voluminous able writer in an old-fashioned vein, and a warmongering drunkard. Through most of his long life he cut an antic, brilliant, occasionally absurd figure in British affairs. He never won the trust of the people until 1940, when he was sixty-six years old, and — Herman Wouk

The British left intermittently erupts like a pustule upon the buttock of a rather good country. Seventy years ago it opposed mobilisation against Adolf Hitler and worshiped the other genocide, Josef Stalin. It has marched for Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Andropov. It has slobbered over Ceausescu and Mugabe. It has demonstrated against everything and everyone American for a century. — Frederick Forsyth

I thought I'd be a journalist, and only pursued acting intermittently while studying. My very first interview as a journalist was with David Usher of Moist, and he called the magazine the next day to say it was the best interview he'd done for his solo album. I felt like a million euros. — Liane Balaban

Between 1831 and 1891, US armed forces - usually the Marines - invaded Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, Colombia, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Brazil, Haiti, Argentina, and Chile a total of thirty-one times, a fact not many of us are informed about in school. The Marines intermittently occupied Nicaragua form 1909 to 1933, Mexico from 1914 to 1919, and Panama from 1903 to 1914. To 'restore order' the Marines occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934, killing over two thousand Haitians who resisted 'pacification.' — Michael Parenti

Mr. Deacon, on the other hand, was in favour of abolishing, or ignoring, the existing world entirely, with a view to experimenting with one of an entirely different order. He was a student of Esperanto (or, possibly, one of the lesser-known artificial languages), intermittently vegetarian, and an advocate of decimal coinage. — Anthony Powell

This endured absence is nothing more or less than forgetfulness. I am, intermittently, unfaithful. This is the condition of my survival. — Roland Barthes

Human life was rarely shapely, only intermittently meaningful, its clumsiness the inevitable consequence of the victory of content over form, of what and when over how and why. — Salman Rushdie

Just know that the achievement of anything grand takes consistent effort year after year. Motivation can uphold you intermittently, but it has too few calories to sustain a life. — Chris Matakas

I cry intermittently, like a summer rain. I don't feel racked by the crying; in fact, it hydrates me. Then rage wells up in me, and I want to take a crowbar to all the cars in the neighborhood. — Anne Lamott

Recognize the call as a prime fact of human existence; (b) align life with it; (c) find the common sense to realize that accidents, including the heartache and the natural shocks the flesh is heir to, belong to the pattern of the image, are necessary to it, and help fulfill it. A calling may be postponed, avoided, intermittently missed. It may also possess you completely. Whatever; eventually it will out. It makes its claim. The daimon does not go away. — James Hillman

Peace is more the product of our day-to-day living than of a spectacular program, intermittently executed. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

I took the dog out for a walk tonight, and together we wandered across the meadow next door. It was a warm summer's night, dark, and moonless. There were a handful of fireflies flickering intermittently, some so close to me I could see they were burning green as they flew, and some further away, who seemed to be flashing white.
And in the sky above them a continual roil of distant summer lightning (the storm distant enough that it was silent) burned and flashed and illuminated the clouds. It seemed as if the lightning bugs were talking to the lightning, in a perfect call and response of flash and counterflash. I watched the sky and the meadow flash and flash while the dog walked ahead of me, and realised that I was perfectly happy ... — Neil Gaiman

There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives. — H.G.Wells

Creationist? Well, no, it's not creationist either. The point is that we are probably a bit less top-to-bottom thorough than, say, the Army Corps of Engineers. Well, actually, scratch that. We are probably about exactly as thorough as the Army Corps of Engineers, in that we are intermittently thorough. — Dave Eggers

Marie Calloway has a very specific literary personality that the reader is intrigued by: she's masochistic, loves to experiment, is quickly bored and intermittently self-hating, very hip, rebellious. Figuring her out is a gripping adventure. — Edmund White

Do not however suppose that the conclusion to be drawn will turn out to be one of despair. Angst is an intermittently fashionable emotion and the misreading of some existentialist texts has turned despair itself into a kind of psychological nostrum. But if we are indeed in as bad a state as I take us to be, pessimism too will turn out to be one more cultural luxury that we shall have to dispense with in order to survive in these hard times. — Alasdair MacIntyre

[Worshipping God] is like fellating someone who intermittently stubs fags out on your head for no good reason. And we all know how unsatisfying that can be. — Charlie Brooker

If we define Megaphone as the composite of hundreds of voices we hear each day that come to us from people we don't know, via high-tech sources, it's clear that a significant and ascendant component of that voice has become bottom-dwelling, shrill, incurious, ranting, and agenda-driven. It strives to antagonize us, make us feel anxious, ineffective, and alone; convince us that the world is full of enemies and of people stupider and less agreeable than ourselves; is dedicated to the idea that, outside the sphere of our immediate experience, the world works in a different, more hostile, less knowable manner. This braindead tendency is viral and manifests intermittently; while it is the blood in the veins of some of your media figures, it flickers on and off in others. — George Saunders

Even those we know best are strangers, whom we understand, if we ever do, intermittently. — Richard Lloyd Parry

[Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all "progressive" thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don't only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flag and loyalty-parades ... Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a grudging way, have said to people "I offer you a good time," Hitler has said to them "I offer you struggle, danger and death," and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet — George Orwell

Modern relationships are cauldrons of contradictory longings: safety and excitement, grounding and transcendence, the comfort of love and the heat of passion We want it all, and we want it with one person. Reconciling the domestic and the erotic is a delicate balancing act that we achieve intermittently at best. It requires knowing your partner while remaining open to the unknown, cultivating intimacy that respects privacy. Separateness and togetherness alternate, or proceed in counterpoint. Desire resists confinement, and commitment mustn't swallow freedom whole. — Esther Perel

It is not good to repudiate the dead because then they do not leave you alone, they are like dogs that bark intermittently at night. — Edna O'Brien

I wanted so many times while driving to flip, to skid and flip and fall from the car and have something happen. I wanted to land on my head and lose half of it, or land on my legs and lose one or both. I wanted something to happen so my choices would be fewer, so my map would have a route straight through, in red. I wanted limitations, boundaries, to ease the burden; because the agony, Jack, when we were up there in the dark, was in the silence! All I ever wanted was to know what to do. In these last months I've had no clue, I've been paralyzed by the quiet, and for a moment something spoke to me, and we came here, or came to Africa, and intermittently there were answers, intermittently there was a chorus and they sang to us and pointing, and were watching and approving, but just as often there was silence, and we stood blinking under the sun, or under the black sky, and we had to think of what to do next. — Dave Eggers

The life of theoretical philosophy is the best and happiest a man can lead. Few men are capable of it and then only intermittently. For the rest there is a second-best way of life, that of moral virtue and practical wisdom. — Aristotle.

We're coming near to the end of the bridge, and the road is once more bathed in the neon light of the street lamps so his face is intermittently in the light and the dark. And it's such a fitting metaphor. This man, whom I once thought of as a romantic hero, a brave shining white knight - or the dark knight, as he said. He's not a hero; he's a man with serious, deep emotional flaws, and he's dragging me into the dark. Can I not guide him into the light? — E.L. James

"This compound should be available from most good drugstores." I got increasingly annoyed with this phrase because in the world I lived in, even ordinary soap was available only intermittently ... In an economy that operated by central planning, shortages of just about everything were commonplace." the author dexcribing life in Hungary in the 1950s under Communist Russian rule. — Andrew S. Grove

The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim - for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives - is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal. Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. — George Orwell

The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim-for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives -is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal. — George Orwell

A life of living free and taking endless satisfaction from a person's promiscuous meanderings entails intermittently retooling oneself to meet a desired future. Perhaps the most difficult challenge of life is detecting when the ground moves beneath us and then nimbly shifting our mental perspective. — Kilroy J. Oldster

All the world suffers from the usury of the Jews, their monopolies and deceit. They have brought many unfortunate people into a state of poverty, especially the farmers, working class people and the very poor. Then as now Jews have to be reminded intermittently anew that they were enjoying rights in any country since they left Palestine and the Arabian desert, and subsequently their ethical and moral doctrines as well as their deeds rightly deserve to be exposed to criticism in whatever country they happen to live. — Pope Clement VIII

Because knowledge rapidly deteriorates unless it is used constantly, maintaining within an organization an activity that is used only intermittently guarantees incompetence. — Peter Drucker

I came to Los Angeles and did auditions for television. I made a terrible mess of most of them and I was quite intimidated. I felt very embarrassed and went back to London. I got British television jobs intermittently between the ages of 23 and 27, but it was very patchy. — Michael Fassbender

While we may lose track of certain goals intermittently throughout the decades, I think we as a nation can be nimble when we need to be. All the buzz today is on the need for science literacy. That is on the agenda in ways it hasn't been in previous decades. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

So the absurdity of happiness is that it is embarrassing to discuss or even mention, impossible to define or measure, may not be achievable at all - or, at best, only intermittently and unconsciously - and may even turn into its opposite if directly pursued, but that it frequently turns up unexpectedly in the course of pursuing something else. There is no tease more infuriating ... It is tempting to forget the whole thing and simply fall back on the couch with a remote control in one hand and a beer in the other. — Michael Foley

The view from the apartment's one window was of another building's gray ferroconcrete wall, which was intermittently lit by the white neon flicker from the Ringer Hut noodle shop sign across the street. As — Karl Taro Greenfeld

When you're not the lead on a series, you work intermittently, even if you're in every episode. — Jim Beaver

Why then do you fear love in particular more than earthly existence in general?" Kafka replied as if from an astral distance: "You write: 'Why be more afraid of love than of other things in life?' And just before that: 'I experienced the intermittently divine for the first time, and more frequently than elsewhere, in love.' If you conjoin these two sentences, it's as if you had said: 'Why not fear every bush in the same way that you fear the burning bush? — Franz Kafka

This is how most people live: alive, but not conscious; conscious but not aware; aware, but intermittently. — Sebastian Faulks

The old man dance, where I tense up, shuffle my feet intermittently, complain about the music volume, and sit down for a rest. — David Thorne

Those who act on excitement act intermittently; this is hardly the way to avoid regression. Those whose understanding comes from emotional perceptions are as confused as they are enlightened; this is not a lamp that is constantly bright. — Zicheng Hong

And the time to say it was days ago, perhaps weeks ago, but it was never said. Like the fireflies she used to keep in Mason jars, the promise of its telling had glowed intermittently.
"I love you," he said. And now the fireflies shone with a constant light. — Kathy Hepinstall

The Crusades, waged intermittently from 1095 to 1291, but which continued in waves for centuries after that, were military campaigns sanctioned principally by the Roman Catholic Church to reclaim the Holy Land. American students barely learn about the Crusades, but they are essential to understanding the wars of the last decade. — Richard Engel

Intermittently she caught the gist of his sentences and supplied the rest from her subconscious, as one picks up the striking of a clock in the middle with only the rhythm of the first uncounted strokes lingering in the mind. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Identity is gradual, cumulative; because there is no need for it to manifest itself, it shows itself intermittently, the way a star hints at the pulse of its being by means of its flickering light. But at what moment in this oscillation is our true self manifested? In the darkness or the twinkle? — Sergio Chejfec

All progressive thought has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain ... Hitler, because in his joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don't only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. — George Orwell

I don't think I've ever been face to face with pure evil, so I don't think I've ever seen it with my own eyes. But I do understand human frailty and I do understand the capacity of people to be intermittently noble and virtuous and fallible. — Tom Hiddleston

The sort of people who intermittently review their children, she thinks, rather than raise them. — Robert Jackson Bennett

Indeed, under his splenetic exterior Maclintick harboured all kind of violent, imperfectly integrated sentiments. Moreland, for example, impressed him, perhaps rightly, as a young man of matchless talent, ill equipped to face a materialistic world. At the same time, Maclintick's own hag-ridden temperament also punished him for indulging in what he regarded as sentimentality. His tremendous disapproval of sexual inversion, encountered intermittently in circles he chose to frequent, was compensation for his own sense of guilt at this hero-worshipping of Moreland; his severity with Gossage, another effort to right the balance. — Anthony Powell

At the time, I prayed to God only intermittently, and then mainly to ask for things, such as: "Please let me get an A on my next test." "Please let me do well in Little League this year." "Please let my skin clear up for the school picture." I used to envision God as the Great Problem Solver, the one who would fix everything if I just prayed hard enough, used the correct prayers, and prayed in precisely the right way. But when God couldn't fix things (which seemed more frequent than I would have liked), I would turn to St. Jude. I figured that if it was beyond the capacity of God to do something, then surely it must be a lost cause, and it was time to call on St. Jude. — James Martin

Originally the structure was ... a modern narrator who would appear intermittently and talk about his memories of his grandmother, which would then be juxtaposed against scenes from the past. But the stories from the past were always more interesting that the things in the present. I find this almost endemic to modern plays that veer between past and present ... So as we've gone on developing GOLDEN CHILD, the scenes from the past have become more dominant, and all that remains of the present are these two little bookends that frame the action. — David Henry Hwang

Character acting is a much braver pursuit than a guy who runs around and intermittently clenches his jaw muscles. — Ryan Reynolds