Misfiring Quotes & Sayings

Religion is nothing more than a useless and sometimes dangerous, evolutionary accident. Religious behavior may be a misfiring, an unfortunate byproduct of an underlying psychological propensity which in other circumstances is, or once was, useful. — Richard Dawkins

The equivalent of the moth's light-compass reaction is the apparently irrational but useful habit of falling in love with one, and only one, member of the opposite sex. The misfiring by-product - equivalent to flying into the candle flame - is falling in love with Yahweh (or with the Virgin Mary, or with a wafer, or with Allah) and performing irrational acts motivated by such love. — Richard Dawkins

Nobody likes my hair blonde! — Marissa Jaret Winokur

The actress (Heidi Swedberg) is this wonderful girl, and ... I love her! i couldn't figure out how to play off of her. Her instincts for doing a scene - where the comedy was - and mine were always misfiring. — Jason Alexander

Although I considered putting my eight years of Boy Scout experience and love for our nation to the test by joining the military, I did not want to put myself in a position where I might be commanded to take the life of another, and quickly ended my flirtation with military service. — Ashton Kutcher

I see love as an evolution of true friendship. — Robert Pattinson

Veteran colleagues at Apple used to call his "reality distortion field." Sometimes it was the inadvertent misfiring of memory — Walter Isaacson

It's impossible to move through the stages of grief when a person is both dead and alive, the way Min is. It's like she's living permanently in an airport terminal, moving from one departure lounge to another but never getting on a plane. Sometimes I tell myself that I'd do anything for Min. That I'd do whatever was necessary for her to be happy. Except that I'm not entirely sure what that would be. — Miriam Toews

[Jean] had the guts to kill herself, and I admire her for it, although, of course, she was quite crazy at the time, with a brain misfiring like a cross-wired laptop. Pressing the keystrokes love, the screen read die. Pressing the keystrokes survive, the screen read die. The damn thing, her mind-machine, was shot. — Tim Lott

We see only moths wheeling into our candle, and we ask the wrong question: Why are all these moths committing suicide? Instead, we should ask why they have nervous systems that steer by maintaining a fixed angle to light rays, a tactic that we notice only where it goes wrong. When the question is rephrased, the mystery evaporates. It never was right to call it suicide. It is a misfiring by-product of a normally useful compass. — Richard Dawkins

Crazy' is a term that's used incorrectly and far too often. It's also used with stigma and finality." He tapped his head. "We're all chemicals, Adrian. Our bodies, our brains. It's a simple yet vastly sophisticated system, and every so often, something goes awry. A cell mutation. A neuron misfiring. A lack of a neurotransmitter. — Richelle Mead

'The Haunted Man' is about communication barriers between men and women, and in that song it's a woman's wait for her husband to come back from war. The vision for me was of a group of men and women on the opposite sides of two cliffs, trying to move or sing to each other and communicate, but they're kind of misfiring. — Bat For Lashes

I like cashew nuts. — Domhnall Gleeson

I like things where I can do a physical transformation, and I love accents and voices, and I'm never going to play the same character twice. — Jessica Chastain

History is personal, Gwen understands that now. All you are seeing is what's before you, the rest is guesswork. — Alice Hoffman

It took me a while to see that the contrast between the racism directed at Billie and the compassion offered to addicted white stars like Judy Garland was not some weird misfiring of the drug war - it was part of the point. — Johann Hari

When a young man massacres innocents, we have been trained to believe that the act was due to improper levels of chemical enzymes and misfiring synapses. As we learn more about our cells, we forget more about our souls. — Gary Bauer

Those who will work hard will succeed,
While those shop choose to slack at their work will be in need. — Tristan Riggs

I had learnt the satisfaction which comes from hardship and the pleasure which derives from abstinence; the contentment of a full belly; the richness of meat; the taste of clean water; the ecstasy of surrender when the craving of sleep becomes a torment; the warmth of a fire in the chill of dawn. — Wilfred Thesiger

The supposed reality of misfiring synapses, chemical imbalances, frontal lobe anomalies and the like - did not sway her desire for escape into an alternate universe - where she could discover fascinating things about her inner world - or where she could hide from the real world. — Kelly Proudfoot

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. — William Shakespeare

The implication of nonconformity is intolerable to Communists. — Doan Van Toai

My God, you have beautiful hair in the firelight," he said softly, and I blinked. "It's like your thoughts, all cinnamon and wild untamed. I've always liked your hair. — Kim Harrison

What's really terrifying is when you realize that bureaucracy isn't simply a growth on the body of the State. If it were only that, it could be cut off. No, bureaucracy is the very essence of the State. — Vasily Grossman

One of the most effective forms of industrial or military sabotage limits itself to damage that can never be thoroughly proven - or even proven at all - to be anything deliberate. It is like an invisible political movement; perhaps it isn't there at all. If a bomb is wired to a car's ignition, then obviously there is an enemy; if public building or a political headquarters is blown up, then there is a political enemy. But if an accident, or a series of accidents, occurs, if equipment merely fails to function, if it appears faulty, especially in a slow fashion, over a period of natural time, with numerous small failures and misfiring- then the victim, whether a person or a party or a country, can never marshal itself to defend itself. — Philip K. Dick

Project X now, but it started as a Hunger Game. — Joe Budden

Think of Forrest Gump. For him, magic just kept happening because he was in total allowance of everything. His life was magic because he didn't limit the possibilities of what could show up for him by judging anything. You could say he wasn't smart enough to judge. Maybe he was smart enough NOT to. — Dain Heer