M I Homes Quotes & Sayings

I don't want to be one of those women who says horrible things about her husband, but your father had no right to take the hammer. I had that hammer when we were still dating, and he damn well knew it. — A.M. Homes

I will come up with a project that will wipe out poverty in the Philippines in two years. I want to remove the people from economic crisis by using the Marcos wealth. Long after I'm gone, people will remember me for building them homes and roads and hospitals and giving them food. — Imelda Marcos

I see a lot of homes that are supercool, and everything is very tasteful, but it's not warm. I'm really scared of rooms that look too serious. — Amanda Peet

I think one shouldn't pussyfoot, and just say that you write the stuff that you would like to read. So you write for yourself, no doubt about that. But I do have a sort of romantic idea of someone in their twenties, of a certain bent, and when they pick up a book by me, they think
as I have done on several occasions
'Ah, here is one for me. Here is a writer who I'll have to read all of, because they're speaking directly to me, and they're writing what I want to read.' And sometimes you're doing the signing queue and a reader comes past and you sign the book, and there's a little exchange of the eyes, where you think, 'Ah, that's one of them.' So there is that ideal reader. And it's someone who's discovering literature and homes in on you. I'm aware of such readers. — Martin Amis

Suffering is normal. Pain is normal, it is part of life ... What is its texture, the weight of our suffering? What is its meaning? Begin by touching it, by coming close to it, accepting it: Hello, suffering, I am here with you. I am beside you, one with you, I am you. I am suffering. — A.M. Homes

How can I tell anyone that there has always lived within me a rusty sense of disgust-a dull, brackish water that I suspect is my soul? — A.M. Homes

I always say - a prejudice on my part, I'm sure - you can tell a lot about a person's character from his choice of sofa. Sofas constitute a realm inviolate unto themselves.
This, however, is something that only those who have grown up sitting on good sofas will appreciate. It's like growing up reading good books or listening to good music. One good sofa breeds another good sofa; one bad sofa breeds another bad sofa. That's how it goes.
There are people who drive luxury cars, but have only second- or third-rate sofas in their homes. I put little trust in such people. An expensive automobile may well be worth its price, but it's only an expensive automobile. If you have the money, you can buy it, anyone can buy it. Procuring a good sofa, on the other hand, requires style and experience and philosophy. It takes money, yes, but you also need a vision of the superior sofa. That sofa among sofas. — Haruki Murakami

She starts to cry. 'It's just so terrible,' she says.
'Which part?,' I ask.
'Being human. — A.M. Homes

I'm a perpetrator! — Noah Homes

Can I ask you, what is your relationship to God?"
"Limited," I say. "Limited with the exception of spontaneous prayer in times of distress. — A.M. Homes

I do love being on television and in peoples' homes. I'm not an actor, so there is a connection that's real. — Rachel Zoe

They stood there, staring at each other, swelling up the whole room. I remember the sudden strange sensation that these were not my parents, these were not the same people I'd known last week. — A.M. Homes

It annoys the hell out of me when people say, This is the kitchen, and this is the bathroom. What am I, Helen Keller? I mean, it's pretty obvious when you're in a kitchen and when you're not. — A.M. Homes

Was there ever a time you thought - I am doing this on purpose, I am fucking up and I don't know why. — A.M. Homes

I have two homes in Malibu, a home in Canada that I'm building, and I just love pouring my heart out into this part of my life. — Pamela Anderson

A guy rubbed against me," I say. "But I think he was just trying to get by. He rubbed me, then said sorry. It was the 'sorry' that made me uncomfortable. The rub was kind of interesting, but when he apologized I felt like a creep because I actually liked it. — A.M. Homes

We therapists hear many stories of how people have been victimized, how they've had a succession of bad breaks and are product of 'dysfunctional' homes. On good days I'm sympathetic and try to hear them out, to encourage catharsis for their pain, then gradually lead them into problem-solving mode.

But some days I mutter to myself, that if another patient comes in the door and says one word about being the product of a dysfunctional family, I'm going to stand up and do something dysfunctional to them.

ALL families are dysfunctional at times. And the biography is filled with stories of people who overcome the most miserable environments. — Alan Loy McGinnis

Normally I'm a movie freak. In fact, I am a movie. It's always me out there in a medium close-up. It's like there's a camera on me, trailing me, getting down every move. A long, slow, tracking shot of my life. — A.M. Homes

There is a sky and trees, a high wire fence, a long road, and at the end of it you are there, waiting for me. So glad to see you, I say, misses you so much, thought about you ever day. — A.M. Homes

Alice, I hand you her name gently, suggesting that if you hold it, carefully as I do, pressed close to the heart, you might at the end of this understand how confusing the beating of two such similar hearts can be and how one finally had to stop. — A.M. Homes

I'd have to say I'm most proud of my mentoring camp that I do in Dallas every year for one hundred boys from single-parent homes. I was raised by a mother who was a Sunday school teacher and a father who worked hard. Together they taught me to give back. — Steve Harvey

Mr. J.L.B Matekoni," she asked, "do you think that our souls grow as we get older?"
He did not answer immediately, but when he did, she thought his answer quite perfect. "Yes," he said. "Our souls get wider. They grow like the branches of a tree--growing outwards. And more birds come and make their homes in these branches. And sing a bit more." He stopped and looked a little awkward. "I'm talking nonsense, Mma."
"You're not," she said. — Alexander McCall Smith

I'm an actor. I'm just a creative person. I figure if I wasn't a good writer, I'd take to renovating homes ... not renovating ... decorating homes. — Andrea Gabriel

I'm not just a college professor. I'm the head of a department. I don't see myself fleeing an airborne toxic event. That's for people who live in mobile homes out in the scrubby parts of the county, where the fish hatcheries are. — Don DeLillo

I'm no longer just a candidate. I'm the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn't return. I've shared the pain of families who've lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who've lost their jobs. — Barack Obama

I don't know what's wrong with me. When I was a girl they had this aviary in one of my foster homes and I'd go in when no one was looking and put out watermelon rinds to feed the flies. There were all these flies that would have starved if I hadn't, and I'm not even wild about flies. They say it makes you a gentler person if you don't eat meat. But wasn't Hitler a vegetarian? — Susan Strasberg

I think you can write about what you know for about an hour and a half. Then you have to start bullshitting. So I say, lie to me and lie to me well. The only way to write well is to write accurately. Accuracy is not about the reader, it's about the subject and the character. — A.M. Homes

I'm imagining that paper books will evolve to become something akin to candles we have them in our homes and cherish their light but don't light our homes with them. Readers of Lincoln's era would likely be surprised at how well-lit our homes are and I think it's likely that we will be surprised at how well-read future book readers will be. — Steve Leveen

Let's say, 100 years ago, I'm not sure how many people had to empty out their relatives' homes; they just stayed in the same house, because they lived there. Nowadays, almost everyone, at least once in their life, somehow, has to deal with this experience. — Arnon Goldfinger

The Chinese say that having two homes is the way to madness. I'm not mad, but I definitely wish Hollywood would move to Trafalgar Square. But the life of an actor is a life of movement, isn't it? — Alice Eve

Years later Nixon aide John Ehrlichman seemed to offer up a smoking gun when he told a reporter: The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. — Chris Hayes

I'm teetering on the verge of tears and I feel like such a wuss. Who am I to be crying when all these people just got displaced from their homes? No one. That's who. — Anna Banks

An architect is a person who builds homes or structures, stadiums even. A Supreme Architect is someone who actually built the universe. So, if I say I am the Supreme Architecture, I'm letting Allah speak. I'm becoming a vehicle. — RZA

The more I know about business, the more I'm convinced that it is conducted in homes and churches far more than in office buildings. — Jurgen E. Schrempp

One of the big changes in the Congress since I first came to Washington is that all of these folks go home every weekend. They used to play golf together; their families got to know each other, go to dinner at each other's homes at weekends - and these would be people who were political adversaries. — Robert M. Gates

In my teaching, I try to expose my students to the widest range of aesthetic possibilities, so I'll offer them stories from Anton Chekhov to Denis Johnson, from Flannery O'Connor to A.M. Homes, and perhaps investigating all that strange variation of beauty has rubbed off on me. Or perhaps that's why I enjoy teaching literature. — Chang-rae Lee

I'm feeling how profoundly my family disappointed me and in the end how I retreated, how I became nothing, because that was much less risky than attempting to be something, to be anything in the face of such contempt. — A.M. Homes

I've also never written about home in this way before. I guess a lot of it is subconscious and I am intuitively making these decisions when I'm writing. I wanted to communicate in the book that on one hand, being at home - both in our homes and in DeLisle - gives us a sense of belonging and family and safety, but at the same time, being in those places makes us less safe. — Jesmyn Ward

Anyone from my past I'm interested in, I've already stalked their homes. I like to go outside. — John Waters

I wanted to drive. I wanted to keep going, forward. I wanted to break out onto the highway, put my foot to the floor, turn on the radio, and sing along. — A.M. Homes

The Queen smiled with the tiniest twitch of a single corner of her mouth. "Why should I do that?"
"Because I'm coming," Octavian's image said, very quietly, "for you."
The Queen stood as unmoving as stone.
"When I'm finished," Octavian promised, "nothing will be left of your kind but stories. I will burn your homes. I will bury your warriors." His voice grew even softer. "I will blacken your sky with crows. — Jim Butcher

In all your years as a priest, I'm sure you've been asked this many times: 'Why does he do this if he loves us? Why does he shake down our homes? Destroy our cities? Let our children starve?' They ask these questions, not because they are confused... but because they suspect the truth. And you share their suspicions. — Richard Finney

It's really sweet when people tweet at me and say I'm their spirit animal or 'I wish she was my best friend,' which is the nicest compliment. For me, it's like, doing television is so personal because you're in people's homes, so the fact that people feel that way means so much to me. — Mindy Kaling

Wagstaff was a trim little man in a dark-blue uniform with an armband embroidered with the words CIVIL DEFENSE.
"Thank you, Headmaster, and good morning, young gentlemen. Yesterday, as I'm sure you'll remember, I spoke to you about the ways you can help your parents prepare their homes against the possibility of nuclear attack."
Clem grinned, noting Tash Harmsworth's scowl. Tash was a bugger for an incorrect proposition. — Mal Peet

I nodded. It was his checklist. Every time we were together we went through this. He ran down his list of people, events, even actual objects that were in my life. — A.M. Homes

I made myself a Muenster-cheese sandwich, with lettuce, tomato, mustard, and mayo, and went up to my room. Ingredients are important. — A.M. Homes

Give us a world where half our homes are run by men, and half our institutions are run by women. I'm pretty sure that would be a better world. — Sheryl Sandberg

I look. At the two-thirty spot I see a group of men watching two women kiss. I've never entirely understood why men like watching two women, or having two women at once. To me it just seems potentially confusing: four breasts, two whoosits, a lot of work to do ... I imagine blacking out from overload. — A.M. Homes

Given the circumstances, I think the rabbi did a very good job. What did you think?"
"It's my policy not to review funerals. — A.M. Homes

I'm concerned about the plight of children. But I'm not on a mission to get all the available orphans in the world adopted into Christian homes. — Andy Stanley

To go there with her and explain in greatest detail the goings-on, to suggest to her that perhaps the sickness she experiences, the nauseating turn, is her own internal structure cramped by the rise of a desire heretofore unknown. I would also suggest that the impulse to 'lose one's lunch,' to spill such rich and fine fare as the 3 or 4 peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches consumed under the elm by the canoe pond only an hour before, is not so much a mark of aversion as a pronouncement of attraction, the making room for greater possibility. — A.M. Homes

Silly bug, fly on the wall, our first fight and how quickly we are over it. Of course I don't hate you, dearest, beloved, most cherished, I owe you everything. — A.M. Homes

Today's the day. The clock is ticking. I have been summoned to speak. I go before the committee with a chance to exonerate myself, to extricate, or at least explain the debacle that has become my life.
A statement, a simple speech, a song and dance that will set them straight, an incandescent incantation, a charming presentation, a shoe of sorts, the show of shows, it's the only chance I've got. My appeal must be appealing, not entirely revealing, tucking the tendency to be argumentative, artfully augmenting my audacity with the acuity of my observation and the alarming accuracy of my action. What can I possibly say or do? Act normal. — A.M. Homes

It's not about you it's about human behavior. You know how there will be a report on TV of some woman who kills herself and her kids, and everyone acts like that's so shocking"
I nod "I guess so"
"What's shocking," Cheryl says, "is that it doesn't happen more often. What's shocking is that everyone says they fell in love with their child the minute it was born, what's shocking is that no one is honest about how hard it all is. So-am I surprised that some lady drowns her children and shoots herself? No. I think it's sad; I wish people had noticed that she was struggling, I wish she could have asked for help. What shocks me is how alone we all are — A.M. Homes

I don't know that you're ever going to persuade New Zealanders that they're not going to own their own homes and I'm not going to try. — Helen Clark

What does 'stuck' mean?" "It means I should make some big decision, I should do some enormous thing. And I can't do anything. I can't stand my life, and I can't change it." "Maybe it's not an enormous thing," he says. "Maybe you have to do one small thing and then another small thing. — A.M. Homes

I'm there for my son 24/7, because I don't want him to take the road we took. I believe if I had a father around, I would've learned plenty things. There was no father there to tell me look here son, this is the wrong way to go. When we were coming up, we learned through trial and error. Anthony 'Ada' Allen, one of the former leaders and founders of the Rebellion Raiders street gang. — Drexel Deal

Nursing homes and rest homes are all the rage round here. Most of us will be in them before very long. Do you fancy that? Are you looking forward to it? No, neither am I. But I'm doing something about that. Just whisky and cigarettes, so far, mostly. — Andrew Davies

I've always enjoyed stories that take place in the future but my one disappointment was that the future books described never came. We're not on other planets, there are no flying cars, and the only robots we have in our homes just sweep the floor. So I wanted to write about a future that I thought could really happen. People ask me when I tell them the title of the book, 'Are we all dead?' The good news is, no. We're still here. And I even think the future in my book is strangely hopeful, although I'm sure there will be people who strongly disagree. — Albert Brooks

This is the truth: We are a nation accustomed to being afraid. If I'm being honest, not just with you but with myself, it's not just the nation, and it's not just something we've grown used to. It's the world, and it's an addiction. People crave fear. Fear justifies everything. Fear makes it okay to have surrendered freedom after freedom, until our every move is tracked and recorded in a dozen databases the average man will never have access to. Fear creates, defines, and shapes our world, and without it, most of us would have no idea what to do with ourselves. Our ancestors dreamed of a world without boundaries, while we dream new boundaries to put around our homes, our children, and ourselves. We limit our potential day after day in the name of a safety that we refuse to ever achieve. We took a world that was huge with possibility, and we made it as small as we could. — Mira Grant

I don't define success by how much money someone makes. I don't define success by how many trophies or plaques or awards someone has.
I don't define it by membership in exclusive clubs or the ability to name-drop about someone's famous friends.
I don't define it by how many luxury cars or opulent homes someone might own or how many sumptuous vacations they might taken in exotic locales all over the globe.
I don't define success ... oh, hell, I'm just kidding. Actually, all that stuff is fantastic! — Celia Rivenbark

I own two beautiful homes, and I'm always half-expecting the cops to pull in, seize me with firm compassion, and escort me out. — MaryJanice Davidson

I'm nothing you can catch now. I am black powder, I am singe, I am the bomb that bursts the night. — A.M. Homes

I think fiction can help us find everything. You know, I think that in fiction you can say things and in a way be truer than you can be in real life and truer than you can be in non-fiction. There's an accuracy to fiction that people don't really talk about - an emotional accuracy. — A.M. Homes

I'm not saying the whole world will work this way, but with Airbnb, people are sleeping in other people's homes and other people's beds. So there's a level of trust necessary to participate that's different from an eBay or Facebook. — Brian Chesky

The homes
I've built
in people
are falling
apart
and I'm
afraid
of being
homeless. — Ameena Karaja

For the first time, I understand that, as much as one might desire change, one has to be willing to take a risk, to free-fall, to fail, and that you've got to let go of the past. — A.M. Homes

I believe in staying open to possibility. What is the point of not believing, closing the door? Just leave it open, see what comes in. — A.M. Homes

My mind leaps to my theory about presidents - that there are two kinds, ones who have a lot of sex and the others who start wars. In short - and don't quote me, because this is an incomplete expression of a more complex premise - I believe blow jobs prevent war. — A.M. Homes

I once jokingly told someone that every book is like a relationship. They're four or five years long - that's not so bad. They're serious. They demand a lot of attention. But I remember thinking that I wanted to have one with someone who's not so crazy and peculiar and demanding. — A.M. Homes

I love my foot. If I had to send a part of myself to represent myself in some other country, or in some other way, I would amputate my foot and send it wrapped in white tissue on a silk-embroidered cushion. I would send my foot because it is me, more me than I'm willing to let on. — A.M. Homes

I'm in between homes right now, but my last house was dope. — Method Man

There ain't no such thing as black Muslims. That's how they tried to cut off all my brothers in the rest of the world and divide us in America and make other Muslims think that we are not with them.We are all the same. I recognise them and they recognise me. I'm invited to all of their homes all over the world and I'm invited to Muslim countries. — Muhammad Ali

What I've learned only recently is that all of this opportunity came at a tremendous cost. You see, Xers and millennials are the product of the largest divorce generation in history (yeah, I'm talking about you, Boomers). It's obvious how clueless I was even with my stable background, and here my peers were growing up in broken homes. Many of them grew up without dads. — Lisa Anderson

I'm always so surprised when people fill their homes up with stuff. — David Karp

I don't know anything anymore. Is that normal? Is it normal to notice the enormity of everything and just go blank? — A.M. Homes

I think mobile homes are a blight on the planet. Attractive, affordable housing is possible, and I'm out to prove it. — Dan Phillips

I must absorb everything while I'm still singing and step onto the stages of my many homes, and look out at the familiar surroundings, at the people who have come to hear me, to hear music. — Marilyn Horne

I've spent a lot on clothes. I'm not kidding when I say I could have bought several country homes with the money. I've also given a lot away over time. I had a lovely Yves Saint Laurent jacket that I'd only worn once or twice, but I'm one for spring cleaning rather than storing my clothes. — Donna Air

I'm going to start these art museums that are basically converted homes, and I have one for modern art, and I have one for 19th century European art, and one for French impressionism. I've got Japanese. — Larry Ellison

Well, when people ask where I'm from, I usually say the Midwest, because that covers both homes, in a way. Obviously I was born in Omaha, but when people say, "Where do you come from," we'll say Milwaukee. I mean Jennifer was certainly born in Milwaukee, and that's where I spent a big chunk of my adult life, so we usually say we came here from Milwaukee. That's usually how it's referenced is we're from Milwaukee, yeah. — Peter Buffett

I turned the steering wheel as far as I could. The old blue Volvo didn't believe in power steering.
"More," my father said.
I thought I was going to die. I thought I might have a heart attack. I thought if I ever had to drive that car, I'd end up looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"I think I'm having a heart attack," I said.
"What?"
"Never mind. — A.M. Homes

I am very interested in loyalty, even if the person to whom one is loyal is flawed, criminal, or otherwise in the wrong. — A.M. Homes

How anybody can compose a story by word of mouth face to face with a bored-looking secretary with a notebook is more than I can imagine. Yet many authors think nothing of saying, 'Ready, Miss Spelvin? Take dictation. Quote no comma Sir Jasper Murgatroyd comma close quotes comma said no better make it hissed Evangeline comma quote I would not marry you if you were the last person on earth period close quotes Quote well comma I'm not so the point does not arise comma close quotes replied Sir Jasper twirling his moustache cynically period And so the long day wore on period End of chapter.'
If I had to do that sort of thing I should be feeling all the time that the girl was saying to herself as she took it down, 'Well comma this beats me period How comma with homes for the feebleminded touting for custom on every side comma has a man like this succeeded in remaining at large mark of interrogation. — P.G. Wodehouse

I'm trying to be morally responsible and no more. I don't have an agenda I'm trying to push. People talk about Three Days of the Condor as being anti-government but the last statement in that movie is the CIA guy saying to Robert Redford, "Ask 'em when they're running out. Ask 'em when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask 'em when their engines stop. Ask 'em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You want to know something? They won't want us to ask 'em. They'll just want us to get it for 'em!" — Sydney Pollack

I never was a person who wanted a handout. I was a cafeteria worker. I'm not too proud to ask the Best Western manager to give me a job. I have cleaned homes. — Shirley Jackson

I see the pain of miserly love in young people,' I say. 'You don't have that kind of melancholy on your face. But I'm careful not to step on your feet when I speak with you. It's not like dancing. It's like a stone walkway with a little grass between the cracks. It's strong but I will try to tread carefully and not ruin it. In Muslim homes you leave your shoes outside. This is how I behave with you. — Erri De Luca

My audience are the same people who bought my albums years ago. These people are now married, with their own homes, their own families. If I'm in concert, I get people now who bring their kids. — Helen Reddy

I liked the fact she understood how we all have little secret habits that seem normal enough to us, but which we know better than to mention out loud. — A.M. Homes

And I can't help but wonder, did George want to kill me too? I have no doubt that the only thing that stopped him was narcissism-to kill me was also to kill some part of himself, which might also explain why Nate and Ashley survived. — A.M. Homes

Even though I thought I wouldn't - could never - I do enjoy looking at him. It is like seeing one's self, like seeing one's self with a certain sense of remove. — A.M. Homes

I'm always happy when people choose to get another dog because it's a healthy and healing thing to do, and there are millions of them needing homes. But there is no single time frame to do it in because grieving is an intensely personal experience. — Jon Katz

I want to create a foundation, like a maison, in my home in the Marais. I am going to leave everything there. I am only passing through. I'm not a proprietor of anything, even if I have homes and things. — Azzedine Alaia

I think about how truly interesting and odd it is that when a woman marries, traditionally she loses her name, becoming absorbed by the husband's family name - she is in effect lost, evaporated from all records under her maiden name. I finally understand the anger behind feminism - the idea that as a woman you are property to be conveyed between your father and your husband, but never an individual who exists independently. And on the flip side, it is also one of the few ways one can legitimately get lost - no one questions it. — A.M. Homes

Lillian comes out of the kitchen carrying an artefact, the blue metal tin marked Danish Butter Cookies that if I didn't know better I would swear had been in the family for generations - when the Jews left Egypt, they took with them the tins of Danish Butter Cookies. And tins, which as best as I could tell never included Danish Butter Cookies, traveled from house to house, but always, always found their way back to Lillian. — A.M. Homes

I'm trying to find some piece of myself that is truly me, a part that I would be willing to wear like a jewel around my neck. — A.M. Homes