Parsed Out Quotes & Sayings

Don't be a writer. Writing is an escape from something. You be a scientist. — Sinclair Lewis

We have these images, these icons before us that are not reality. — Lauryn Hill

Chris[topher] Reeve wisely parsed the difference between optimism and hope. Unlike optimism, he said, 'Hope is the product of knowledge and the projection of where the knowledge can take us. — Michael J. Fox

This must be the taste of Language -
the tongue mapped by many colors,
parsed by the vowels of memory, the roof
of the mouth the dome of a world
circumscribed by consonants, whose edges
suggest the sour-sweetness of oranges,
the bittermelon's green rind, the river-
scent of mangoes all the way to the grove. — Marjorie M. Evasco

The being level speaks the language of art, music, color shape and pattern directly
a language that requires no words
is not limited by words
nor does it have the specificity of words and thus cannot be broken onto parts that can be manipulated or analyzed by the intellect. It must be swallowed, whole not parsed, sorted and justified. — Thomas Campbell

How do you know that, Philo, dear?"
But Philologos had had enough of being condescended to. "Because, Lamion, I am not as dumb as you think I am, even if you are."
By the time Lamion had parsed this to make sure that there was in fact an insult at the end of it, Hilarion had laid a restraining hand on his arm. — Megan Whalen Turner

She would almost prefer to fold her arms and sink into an eternal slumber, so that the great longing of her soul for peaceful rest would at last be gratified. — Jennifer Chiaverini

Metaphors, similes, puns - all manner of metonymy - I'm interested in language that cannot be parsed by a machine - language that can only be understood through acculturation. — Joshua Cohen

Mathematics is concerned with "all possible worlds." — David Malet Armstrong

The Massachusetts elite had read everything in sight, some of it too closely. As would be said of logic-loving Ipswich minister John Wise, those men were not so much the masters as the victims of learning. They had read and reread bushels of witchcraft texts. They parsed legal code. They knew their history. They worked in the sterling name of reason. — Stacy Schiff

I loved the stage and then grew to love the camera. — Christine Lahti

There is no free speech in football. Information is parsed by monosyllabic head coaches, who dictate who gets to speak to whom and when. — Jane Leavy

Everyone knows, or should know, that everything we type on our computers or say into our cell phones is being disseminated throughout the datasphere. And most of it is recorded and parsed by big data servers. Why do you think Gmail and Facebook are free? You think they're corporate gifts? We pay with our data. — Douglas Rushkoff

I don't believe in "writers block." Lower your standards and keep writing. You can always go back later and make it better. Unless your name is Harlan Ellison, in which case your sentences come out perfectly parsed each time. — Marvin J. Wolf

Of the two thousand original copies printed of The History of Love, some were bought and read, many were bought and not read, some were given as gifts, some sat fading in bookstore windows serving as landing docks for flies, some were marked up with pencil, and a good many were shredded to pulp along with other unread or unwanted books, their sentences parsed and minced in the machine's spinning blades. — Nicole Krauss

I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. — Christopher Buckley

My dad is here," She hissed, hoping to give Gabriel enough of a head start so he could make it to the elevators before Tom took out one of his hunting rifles and shot him.
"I know, I called him."
She turned to Gabriel in wide-eyed disbelief. "Why would you do that? He wants to kill you."
The Professor pulled himself up to his full height. "I want to marry you. That means that I need to make amends with your father. I want to be able to be in the same room without him attempting to shoot me. Or castrate me. — Sylvain Reynard

The physical universe was a language with a perfectly ambiguous grammar. Every physical event was an utterance that could be parsed in two entirely different ways, one casual and the other teleological, both valid, neither one disqualifiable no matter how much context was available. — Ted Chiang

I remember one English teacher in the eighth grade, Florence Schrack, whose husband also taught at the high school. I thought what she said made sense, and she parsed sentences on the blackboard and gave me, I'd like to think, some sense of English grammar and that there is a grammar, that those commas serve a purpose and that a sentence has a logic, that you can break it down. I've tried not to forget those lessons, and to treat the English language with respect as a kind of intricate tool. — John Updike

Tears are the safety value of the heart when too much pressure is laid on it . — Albert Smith

Every Valentine's Day, the student council sponsered a holiday fundraiser by selling roses that would be delievered in class. The roses came in four colors:white, yellow, red, pink, and the subtleties of thier meaning were parsed and analyzed by the female population to no end. Mimi had always understood it thus:white for love, yellow for friendship, red for passion, and pink for a secret crush. — Melissa De La Cruz

I came up with this idea to create an app. And the premise of the app is this: every problem in the bar business goes away when there's sales. You increase revenue and you solve every problem. It's when the revenues are low that [the business] doesn't work. So I wanted to put together an app that focused on top-line revenue, guest experience, and business management in a more organized way. — Jon Taffer

Fishing in rainy conditions may make fisherman seem crazy to the great mass of unimaginative people, but then few fishermen care what they think — John Gierach

I did my English A level in England, and we studied Shakespeare. I had great, great high school teachers, and we parsed the text within an inch of its life. — Joss Whedon

A man is what he is, not what men say he is. His character no man can touch. His character is what he is before his God and his Judge; and only himself can damage that. His reputation is what men say he is. That can be damaged; but reputation is for time, character is for eternity. — John Bartholomew Gough

No, I don't party; no, I don't dress in black leather and chains; that's not my style. That's how I was raised. I worry about getting good grades and I go to church and I watch sci-fi movies and I generally follow the rules. Most people would call me a geek or a nerd. You've called me that many times. But that isn't everything that defines me. I mean, look at me, sitting here in a rainstorm under a tree that's probably going to kill us when the lightning hits it, holding the hand of a pretty cool girl who really is the opposite of me, a girl that I happen to be in love with. A girl I couldn't have imagined would want to be with me. But here she is, letting me hold her hand, trying to tell me why she isn't good enough for me. That's crazy. — Cindy C. Bennett