Parlor Trick Quotes & Sayings

Every one of us is a walking set of contradictions. The great among us are no different, except that their contradictions tend to run to extremes. — Jeffrey S. Young

And a man accepting a kiss as 'punishment' has to be the most overplayed parlor trick since the time of the First Emperor. Next to accepting a drink as punishment. Oh, the torture of it!"

"I didn't say I wouldn't enjoy it. This is merely a chance for you to know what it is to have a kiss you were in complete control of."

"It's hardly the same. You're still allowing me this liberty, as if it were a gift you were bestowing."

"Miss Yue-ying," he sighed. "Show some mercy. — Jeannie Lin

Zara." He sighs. The wind bellows outside. "How can I make you understand this? I need your mom. If I don't get her, more boys will die."
"That's ridiculous."
"No, it's just how it is."
I think for a second. "If that's true, then why did Ian try to turn me?"
He loses his composure. His face shifts into something worried, something almost human. "Did he kiss you?"
"Almost. Betty killed him first."
He almost smiles. He pulls his hand through his hair. "Betty is fierce."
"Is that why you stay away when she's here?"
"Not even a pixie wants to tangle with a tiger."
He blows on the ember in his hand. It turns to dust.
"You seem like you could handle almost anything," I say.
"This?" He smirks. "Parlor tricks. — Carrie Jones

I hang out with all the crew on set. It just makes it easier to work. You feel more comfortable around everyone. — Alexa Vega

I've been extremely lucky having been in the army when I was a boy of fourteen. — Norman Wisdom

I will be thirty years old again in thirty seconds. I will take the best room in the Grand Central or the Orndorff Hotel. I will dine on oysters and palomitas and wash them down with white wine. Then I will go to the Acme or Keating's or the Big Gold Bar and sit down and draw my cards and fill an inside straight and win myself a thousand dollars. Then I will go to the Red Light or the Monte Carlo and dance the floor afire. Then I will go to a parlor house and have them top up a bathtub with French champagne and I will strip and dive into it with a bare-assed blonde and a redhead and an octoroon and the four of us will get completely presoginated and laugh and let long bubbly farts at hell and baptize each other in the name of the Trick, the Prick, and the Piper-Heidsick. — Glendon Swarthout

Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. The only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow. — Tony Robbins

Strong men greet war, tempest, hard times. They wish, as Pindar said, to tread the floors of hell, with necessities as hard as iron. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Even though I smoke, just because I'm a dumbass doesn't mean anyone else has to be. — Gerald McRaney

I don't think anyone thinks that the SAT score is a measure of your innate intelligence. It is not. That is a fallacious concept, and we at Kaplan, and others who are in a position, should be out there making sure people know this is nothing, this score does not have anything to do with your innate intelligence. — Jonathan Grayer

If you focus on the humanity of your stories, your characters, then the horror will be stronger, scarier. Without the humanity, the horror becomes nothing more than a tawdry parlor trick. All flash and no magic, and worst of all, no heart. — Don Roff

Nature is more powerful than education; time will develop everything. — Benjamin Disraeli

Belittling nostalgia is a frightened man's parlor trick. Be grateful for any prize. Even a paper fortress, albeit briefly, provides shelter from the rain. — Amy Koppelman

Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We'll find out soon enough," Xavier growled. "You don't see too many V Star 250s around here"
"How do you know the bike model?" I asked.
"I'm a boy. We like engines — Alexandra Adornetto

We all have a central fiction about ourselves, a favored delusion about talent or untapped potential. Most of us hang on to it as if it were a lifesaver, even though the obsession with it is often the very thing that drags us down and prevents us from fulfilling some lesser but more obtainable goal. — Stephen McCauley

The single biggest reason companies fail is they overinvest in what is, as opposed to what might be. — Gary Hamel

For a few moments, the secrets of the universe are opened to us. Life is a cheap parlor trick. That's the miserable truth. — Jonathan Nolan

The coward's weapon, poison. — John Fletcher

You know the parlor trick.
wrap your arms around your own body
and from the back it looks like
someone is embracing you
her hands grasping your shirt
her fingernails teasing your neck
from the front it is another story
you never looked so alone
your crossed elbows and screwy grin
you could be waiting for a tailor
to fit you with a straight jacket
one that would hold you really tight. — Billy Collins

Your existance hinders on no one but yourself. Only you can write your destiny. Fate is a mere parlor trick designed to coax you into believing otherwise. There is always a choice. — Chani Lynn Feener

It is no parlor trick: There is a skull and, in the dark, it is glowing. Somehow it is now floating above us all. Listen: The skull is speaking. It is saying your name. It knows about you and your favorite flower and all about your tenth birthday. But it does not matter. You are not convinced. For some reason, you are still full of doubt. You stare into the dark, looking for wires. Grasping for strings, you hold your hands out. — Joe Meno

For want of a Pilate of their own, some Christians would accept a Constantine or whomever might be the current incarnation of Caesar. — Wendell Berry

"He's already been found, like I said," Jeb answers, his attention on the hand pressed at my neck. He narrows his eyes, and with a subtle flick of his fingers, Morpheus's shadow rises from the floor and wrestles Morpheus away from me.
Growling, Morpheus shoves the dark silhouette aside, then glares at Jeb. "Amateur. Cheap parlor tricks."
Jeb gives him a vicious grin. "A pupil is only as good as his tutor." — A.G. Howard