Occured Quotes & Sayings

One of the worst incidents of that era caused no complaints at all: this was a sort of good-natured firepower demonstration, which occured one Sunday morning about three-thirty. For reasons that were never made clear, I blew out my back windows with five blasts of a 12 gauge shotgun, followed moments later by six rounds from a .44 Magnum. It was a prolonged outburst of heavy firing, drunken laughter, and crashing glass. Yet the neighbors reacted with total silence. For a while I assumed that some freakish wind pocket had absorbed all the noise and carried it out to sea, but after my eviction I learned otherwise. Every one of the shots had been duly recorded on the gossip log. Another tenant in the building told me the landlord was convinced, by all the tales he'd heard, that the interior of my apartment was reduced to rubble by orgies, brawls, fires, and wanton shooting. He had even heard stories about motorcycles being driven in and out the front door. — Hunter S. Thompson

You're dressed for dancing," she said in her throaty stage voice.
"Being undressed for dancing occured to me, but I didn't think Merris would like it. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Ah-there's our boy!" Bill pointed at the head of the crowd as they neared the stadium.
A lean,muscular boy was running, faster than the others,his back to Luce. His hair was dark brown and shiny, his shoulders deeply tanned and painted with intersecting red-and-black bands. When he turned his head slightly to the left,Luce caught a quick glimpse of his profile.He was nothing like the Daniel she had left in her parents' backyard. And yet-
"Daniel!" Luce said. "He looks-"
"Different and also precisely the same?" Bill asked.
"Yes."
"That's his soul you recognize. Regardless of how you two may look on the outside,you'll always know each other's souls."
It hadn't occured to Luce until now how remarkable it was that the recognized Daniel in every life. Her soul found his. "That's ... beautiful."
Bill scratched at a scab on his arm with a gnarly claw. "If you say so. — Lauren Kate

I had long ago learned to ignore things I could not resolve. Whenever I was faced with such choices, something always occured to tip the scales one way or another and relieve me of the decision.
I watched the skies for portents from the Gods. — W.A. Hoffman

For whom, it suddenly occured to him to wonder, was he writing this diary? For the future, for the unborn. — George Orwell

It is important to recognise that you may have dismissed intuitive experiences as pure chance when they occured. Now is the time to open your thoughts to the probability that you are far more intuitive than you ever realised. — Sylvia Clare

One of the most startling phenomena I ever witnessed occured in the South after the Arab- israelei Six-day war. I doubt if the world has ever seen such a rapid ceasefire in anti-semetism. I heard one Southern man after another say in tones that i can only describe as gleeful: 'by dern, those Jew boys sure can fight!' One man seriously recommended that Congress pass a special act making Moshe Dayan an American citizen so that he could become Secretary of Defense. He had obviously found a new hero;'as he put it 'That one-eyed bastid would wipe out anybody offin the map whut gave us any trouble. — Florence King

He slowed his pace a little. He was thirty and there was grey in his hair, yet he had a queer feeling that he had only just grown up. It occured to him that he was merely repeating the destiny of every human being. Everyone rebels against the money-code, and everyone sooner or later surrenders. He had kept up his rebellion a little longer than most, that was all. And he had made such a wretched failure of it! — George Orwell

What year these events transpired is of no consequence. Where they occured is not important. The time is always, and the place is everywhere. — Dean Koontz

She looked like something that might have occured to Ibsen in one of his less frivolous moments. — P.G. Wodehouse

It occured to Starling how much Roden would benefit from an elbow smash in the hinge of his jaw. — Thomas Harris

Agitaion over happenings which we are powerless to modify, either because they have not occured, or else are occuring at an inaccesible distance from us, achieves nothing beyond the onoculation of here and now with the remote or anticipated evil that is the object of our distress. — Aldous Huxley

It never ceased to amaze me how she just had the facts always, in her head. It occured to me that if, or when, she died, a whole load of facts, a body of knowledge, might disappear without a trace. — Olivia Sudjic

... and it occured to me then and forever afterwards, that films, theatre books and poems were just a fraud. It's only music that doesn't deceive, it doesn't pretend to be anything else except what it is. Music. — Lars Saabye Christensen

I had another reason for seeking Him, for trying to espy His face, a professional one. God and literature are conflated in my mind. Why this is, I'm not sure. Perhaps because great books seem heavensent. Perhaps because I know that each nove is a puny but very valiant attempt at godlike behavior. Perhaps because there is no difference between the finest poetry and most transcendent mysticism. Perhaps because writers like Thomas Merton, who are able to enter the realm of the spirit and come away with fine, lucid prose. Perhaps because of more secular writers, like John Steinbeck, whose every passage, it seems to me, peals with religiousity and faith. It once occured to me that literature - all art really - is either talking to people about God, or talking to God about people. — Paul Quarrington

While notable advances in certain parts of the world in woman's rights have occured in the last hundred years, the centuries of conditioning and the mentality that views women as inferior still prevade our world today. — Frederick Lenz

It occured to me that we will never be young again. — Anthony Swofford

After many months of writing, it occured to me that it might be possible to photograph, in the flesh, what I was attempting to capture in words. I bought a Rolleiflex camera and began to take pictures of objects or structures that were used and abused by human hands — Wright Morris

It occured to him that he might have to grow comfortable with happiness, because it might not abandon him this time. — Marie Rutkoski

Who are you?" she inquired, as the cat passed by.
I'm the cat that looked at a king," he replied.
And I," she remarked with a toss of her head, "am the cow that jumped over the moon."
Is that so?" said the cat. "Whatever for?"
The cow stared. She had never been asked that question before. And suddenly it occured to her that there might something else to do than jumping over moons. — P.L. Travers

I thought you'd want the honor of taking down Martino."
"Oh, hell yes."
"Then what's with the look?"
"It just occured to me that as U.S. attorney, you're now in a position of authority over me."
Cameron raised an eyebrow. "Yuo're right, Agent Pallas. There is a new sheriff in town."
"Cute. How long have you been waiting to say that?"
(Jack & Cameron) — Julie James

It had not occured to me to mourn losing those things until now. I had done each of those things, somewhere along the way, for a last time - without realizing it was the last time. And even after I knew that I was no longer a child, somehow I'd assumed those things could have come back to me. Or that I could have gone back to them. But watching the movies on this day, I became aware of infinite losses. — Katherine Center

It occured to me that eating is the only form of professionalism most people ever attain. — Don DeLillo

You are a possibility that has never occured before and will never occur again. No one else has had or will ever have your unique combination of talents, experiences and dreams. So don't waste that uniqueness. — Patrick Combs

Then it occured to me that the elicate shades of feeling, of reaction, are the result of communication, and without such communication they tend to disappear. A man with nothing to say has no words. — John Steinbeck

...sitting in David's armchair, contemplating the many books that lined his shelves, a thought occured to me. It was a very human thought; it surprised me, i checked myself for viruses. — Liz Moore

It occured to me the other day that I've made out with more people on camera than I have in real life! — Alicia Witt

Has it ever occured to you that crazy cat people may be sane and you be the the crazy one? — Quitillian Blue

Memory has a way of distorting the past, of making certain events seem larger and more significant in retrospect than they ever could have been at the time they occured. — Tom Perrotta

Listening now, it occured to me that I hadn't come very far over the yars -- no farther really than from one "gang bang" to another, save that I had learned, as B. had yet to learn, that tomorrow the pain would be even greater. — Frederick Exley

It has occured to Charlotte that men are full of petulant nonsense,and that their supposed strength is rather less than a girl's. — Sheila Kohler

No encounter occured that day, and I was glad of it; I took out of my pocket a little Homer I had not opened since leaving Marseilles, reread three lines of the Odyssey, learned them by heart; then, finding sufficient sustenance in their rhythm and reveling in them at leisure, I closed the book and remained, trembling, more alive than I had thought possible, my mind numb with happiness. — Andre Gide

Life and death lived inside each other. That's what occured to me. Death was inside all of us, waiting for warmer nights, a compromised system, a beetle, as in the now dying black timber on the mountains. — Peter Heller

Piaget- ... A stage then, we may say, is an integrated set of operational structures that constitute the thought processes of a person at a given time. Development involves the transformation of such " structures of the whole" in the direction of greater internal differentiation, complexity, flexibility and stability. A stage represents a kind of balanced relationship between a knowing subject and his or her environment. In this balanced or equilibrated position the person assimilates what is to be "known" in the environment into her or his existing structures of thought. When a novelty or challenge emerges that cannot be assimilated into the present structures of knowing then, if possible, the person accommmodates, that is , generates new structures of knowing. A stage transition has occured when enough accommodation has been undertaken to require ( and make possible) a transformation in the operational pattern of the structural whole of intellectual operations. — James W. Fowler

And it suddenly occured to me that maybe peace was possible. — Michelle Cohen Corasanti

After my bypass surgery I knew I had to change my lifestyle, and then it occured to me - I don't have a lifestyle. — David Letterman

I am Chandubhai' is good or bad focused applied awareness (shubha-ashubha upyoga). 'I am Pure Soul', is the focused pure applied awareness of the Self (shuddha upayog). With good-bad focused applied awareness (shubha-ashubha upayog) instillation in the worldly life occured. — Dada Bhagwan

Darius held Stark back from launching himself at Neferet, and Duantia spoke quickly into the rising tension. 'Neferet, I think we can all agree that there are many unanswered questions about the tragedy that occured on our island today. Stark, we also understand the passion and rage you feel at the loss of your Priestess. it is a hard blow for a Warrior to-'
Duantia's wisdom was cut off by the sound of Aretha Franklin belting out the chorus from "Respect," which was coming from the little Coach purse Aphrodite had slung over her shoulder.
Oopsie, um, sorry 'bout that.' Aphrodite frantically unzipped her purse and dug for her iPhone. — P.C. Cast

When a massive failure to preserve the integrity of an ecosystem occured, no one escaped the consequences. — Terry Brooks

I've learned a lot about women. I think I've learned exactly how the fall of man occured in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, and Adam said one day, Wow, Eve, here we are, at one with nature, at one with God, we'll never age, we'll never die, and all our dreams come true the instant that we have them. And Eve said, Yeah ... it's just not enough is it? — Bill Hicks

His eyes were closing again, all of their own accord, so that he lay in red, pain-filled darkness. It occured to him that he was dying and he didn't care.
'He's alive!' Blue said again 'He's breathing!'
'I can't see him breathing. — Herbie Brennan

Of course the Curies died. They identified ionizing radiation while bathing in it. There were risks involved in being your own guinea pig. But there was a long tradition of scientists doing just that: of paying for the expansion of human knowledge with their lives. I didn't deserve to be categorized with them, because honestly, I wasn't interested in the greater good. I just wanted to make myself better legs. I didn't mind other people benefiting in some long-term indirect way but it wasn't what motivated me. I felt guilty about this for a while. Every time a lab assistant looked at me with starstruck eyes, I felt I should confess: Look, I'm not being heroic. I'm just interested in seeing what I can do. Then it occured to me that maybe they all felt this way. All these great scientists who risked their themselves to bring light to darkness, maybe they weren't especially altruistic either. Maybe they were like me, seeing what they could do. — Max Barry

Accurate scholarship can
unearth the whole offence
from luther untill noe
that has driven a culture mad.
From what occured at linz
what huge imago made
a psychopathic god.
i and the public know
what all schoolchildren learn
those to whom evil is done
do evil in return. — W. H. Auden

It is not so much as to say that something has occured; but to describe the very essence of the occurance. One must take hold of his readers and pull them into his world ... the world that he has penned, with the utmost care and attentiveness.
And then, when the readers are fully submerged in this magnificently crafted place of wonder; they will see, and touch, and smell, and feel all the elements of the author's imagination. — Jason W. Blair

It occured to her that pleasure, no matter how deep, was a ghostly, ephemeral thing. Love might make the world go round, but she was convinced it ws the cries of the badly wounded andf deeply afflicted which spun the universe on the great glass pole of it's axis. — Stephen King

My past told me no, but miracles had occured since Echo entered my life. — Katie McGarry

Bastian had climbed a dune of purplish-red sand and all around him he saw nothing but hill after hill of every imaginable color. Each hill revealed a shade or tint that occured in no other. The nearest was cobalt blue, another was saffron yellow, then came crimson red, then indigo, apple green, sky blue, orange, peach, mauve, turquoise blue, lilac, moss green, ruby red, burnt umber, Indian yellow, vermillion, lapis lazuli, and so on from horizon to horizon. And between the hill, separating color from color, flowed streams of gold and silver sand. — Michael Ende

But then it occured to him that any progress he had made on his quest so far he had made by accepting the help that had been offered to him. — Neil Gaiman

All of us have read of what occured during that interval. The tale is in every Englishman's mouth; and you and I, who were children when the great battle was won and lost, are never tired of hearing and recounting the history of that famous action. Its rememberance rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of those brave men who lost the day. They pant for an opportunity of revenging that humiliation; and if a contest, ending in a victory on their part, should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving its cursed legacy of hatred and rage behind to us, there is no end to the so-called glory and shame, and to the alterations of successful and unsuccessful murder, in which two high-spirited nations might engage. Centuries hence, we Frenchmen and Englishmen might be boasting and killing each other still, carrying out bravely the Devil's code of honor. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The word genius was whispered into my ear the first things I ever Heard while I was still mewling in my crib, laughs Orson (Welles), so it never occured to me that I wasn't until middle age — Barbara Leaming

it occured to her that kissing and being kissed were two different things. and being kissed by someone you've really wanted to is something else again. — Emily Franklin

It hadn't even occured to me that somebody would believe mine. — Sarah Dessen

He would insist, too, on being present at the weighing which occured at the beginning of every term. The whole school would be required to sit, naked, one by one on a red velvet weighing machine under the direction of the matron, while the headmaster smoked his pipe ruminatively above. He also insisted on supervising sixth form showers, which was slightly odd, as this as not the sort of task headmasters normally undertake ... I have no reason to suppose there was anything in the slightest bit improper about his attendance on these occasions. Perhaps his interest was medical. — Auberon Waugh

Maybe she had become tired of being the girlfriend of a condemned man. It also occured to me that maybe she was sick, or dead. These things happen. [ ... ] Anyway, after that, remembering Marie meant nothing to me. That seemed perfectly normal to me, since I understood very well that people would forget me when I was dead. — Albert Camus

I just had never occured to me to think that anything inherent to me was to blame for the things that went wrong (or the things that never even happened at all) with the other guys before him. Maybe it was all the time I'd had to decide I was cool and good and worthy without anyone else's help. — Katie Heaney

But again and again, we should reflect back to the darkness of the cocoon. In order to inspire ourselves forward, we must look back to see the contrast with the place we came from. You see, we cannot reject the world of the cocoon - which out which we may create a new cocoon. When we see the suffering that occured in the old cocoon, that inspires us to go forward in our journey of warriorship. It is a journey that is unfolding within us. — Chogyam Trungpa

The road now stretched across open country, and it occured to me - not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience - that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good. It was a pleasant diaphragmal melting, with elements of diffused tactility, all this enhanced by the thought that nothing could be nearer to the elimination of basic physical laws than deliberately driving on the wrong site of the road. — Vladimir Nabokov

Maybe all the events of the last few months had occured for just one reason - to bring Thad and me together. Perhaps our being here on the Titanic wasn't pre-destination, but rather, destiny. — Suzanne Weyn

You think a student leaves each week because they are out of the academy. This is just a cover up to hide serious injury that has occured! Malachi has only one ear and is now wearing one of those joke rubber ones - it's very noticeable but people are too polite to say! — David Sneddon

The whole terrible fight occured in the area of imagination. That is the precise location of our battlefield. It is there, that we experience our victories and defeats. — Haruki Murakami

The acomodador or giving-up point: there is always an event in our lives that is responsible for us failing to progress: a trauma, a particularly bitter defeat, a disappointment in love, even a victory that we did not quite understand, can make cowards of us and prevent us from moving on. As part of the process of increasing his hidden powers, the shaman must first free himself from that giving-up point and, to do so, he must review his while life and find out where it occured. — Paulo Coelho

Has it ever occured to you, Master Ninefingers, that a sword is different from other weapons? Axes and maces and so forth are lethal enough, but they hang on the belt like dumb brutes. But a sword ... a sword has a voice.
Sheathed it has little to say, to be sure, but you need only put your hand on the hilt and it begins to whisper in your enemy's ear. A gentle word. A word of caution. Do you hear it?
Now, compare it to the sword half drawn. It speaks louder, does it not? It hisses a dire threat. It makes a deadly promise. Do you hear it?
Now compare it to the sword full drawn. It shouts now, does it not? It screams defiance! It bellows a challenge! Do you hear it? — Joe Abercrombie

The term "teenager" had not long been invented, and it never occured to him that the separateness he felt, which was both painful and delicious, could be shared by anyone else. — Ian McEwan

I still had this idea that there was a whole world of marvelous golden people somewhere, as far ahead of me as the seniors at Rye when I was in the sixth grade; people who knew everything instinctively, who made their lives work out the way they wanted without even trying, who never had to make the best of a bad job because it never occured to them to do anything less then perfectly the first time. Sort of heroic super-people, all of them beautiful and witty and calm and kind, and I always imagined that when I did find them I'd suddenly know that I Belonged among them, that I was one of them, that I'd been meant to be one of them all along, and everything in teh meantime had been a mistake; and they'd know it too. I'd be like the ugly duckling among the swans. — Richard Yates

That was it. Shogo stopped breathing. The dim yellow light falling from the ceiling of the pilothouse shone on his pale face. He seemed at ease.
"Shogo!" Shuya yelled. He still had more to say. "You'll see Keiko! You'll be happy with her! You're
"
It was too late. Shogo couldn't hear anything anymore. But his face just looked so damned peaceful.
"Damn it." Shuya's lips trembled along with his words. "Damn it."
Holding Shogo's hands, Noriko was crying.
Shuya also put his hand on Shogo's thick hand. A thought occured to him. He searched through Shogo's pockets and found the red bird call. He pressed it into Shogo's right hand and closed his hands over it so he could hold it. Shuya then finally burst into tears. — Koushun Takami

I let that swim around in my aching head for a few minutes - "the arsenal of megadeath ... the arsenal of megadeath" - and then, for some reason I can't quite explain, I began to write. Using a borrowed pencil and a cupcake wrapper, I wrote the first lyrics of my post-Metallica life. This song was called "Megadeth" (I dropped the second "a"), and though it would never find its way onto an album, it did serve as the basis for the song "Set the World Afire." It hadn't occured to me then that Megadeth-as used by Senator Cranston, megadeath referred to the loss of one million lives as a result of nuclear holocaust-might be a perfectly awesome name for a thrash metal band. — Dave Mustaine

I was stunned. I pulled the phone away and looked quizzically at the hole-punched speaker. Aside from the blood obligation to be my sister's maid of honor, it had never occured to me that I would get asked to be in anyone's wedding. I thought we had reached an understanding, the institution of marriage and I. Weddings are the like the triathlon of female friendship: the Shower, the Bachelorette Party, and the Main Event. It's the Iron Woman and most people never make it through. They fall off their bikes or choke on ocean water. I figured if I valued my life, I'd stay away from weddings and they'd stay away from me. — Sloane Crosley

There is an ending [to Infinite Jest] as far as I'm concerned. Certain kind of parallel lines are supposed to start converging in such a way that an "end" can be projected by the reader somewhere beyond the right frame. If no such convergence or projection occured to you, then the book's failed for you. — David Foster Wallace