Prefaced Quotes & Sayings

Every tyranny imaginable is possible when prefaced by the notion that it is for the well-being of the populace. — Steven Erikson

I remember, working on 'Lost,' I learned very quickly the way that I had to approach the material or even ask the director questions. It was always prefaced with, 'Would it be wrong for me to assume?' Because I didn't know where my character on 'Lost' was going. — Nestor Carbonell

I DIDN'T KNOW what a date was and I wasn't an anomaly. Most of the girls I knew didn't get asked out on dates. People got together through alcohol and a process of elimination. — Stephanie Danler

The TEN Commandments are not prefaced with "If you're in the mood". — Laura C. Schlessinger

My career as a magazine writer was largely prefaced on the idea of curiosity, to go on adventures and weasel my way into the lives of people that I admire. — John Hodgman

Dunes slithered slowly across the landscape like ravenous parasites, leeching the plants of their nutrients, leaving behind withered husks. The sand rode the wind currents, swirling like dervishes. The worst, though, were the monster wind storms that raked the land, prefaced by a wall of sand reaching a mile or so into the sky, bringing the blackness of night. — J.R. McLemore

It's a sad and grotesque thing that you and your friends have become so accustomed to lies that the truth has to be prefaced because it's inherently surprising, a startling departure from the lies that comprise your lives. — Caroline Kepnes

Don't wait for anyone to deputize you or authorize you or empower you. You have to just start out with yourself ... and put one foot in front of the other. — Hazel Henderson

What I say should always be prefaced with this: I'm not really politically articulate. I just try to be like Thomas Paine: what is common sense? So when I say these things to you, I am speaking from a humanist point of view. I just look around and see what's wrong. — Patti Smith

Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed. — Corita Kent

Come on, gentleman; let us drink to our stupidity. — Santosh Kalwar

Not much good has ever been prefaced by variations of "Have a seat." I thought of headmasters' offices and electric chairs. — Melissa Jensen

I think that every so-called history book and film biography should be prefaced by the statement that what follows is the author's rendition of events and circumstances. — Barbara Kruger

As comfortable as I was with my adoption, the nature-versus-nurture question has been a big one for me. I adore my parents, but I always wondered if I would feel a different kind of love-not more or less, just different-for someone who was biologically related. — Emily Procter

[H]e looked at me gravely and asked, "Are you ready?"

"No," I said. "I'm pretty sure I've never been ready for anything that had to be prefaced with that question. — Mira Grant

I was carrying a beautiful alcoholic conflagration around with me. The thing fed on its own heat and flamed the fiercer. There was no time, in all my waking time, that I didn't want a drink. I began to anticipate the completion of my daily thousand words by taking a drink when only five hundred words were written. It was not long until I prefaced the beginning of the thousand words with a drink. — Jack London

If a man were to look over the fence on one side of his garden and observe that the neighbor on his left had laid his garden path round a central lawn; and were to look over the fence on the other side of his garden and observe that the neighbor on his right had laid his path down the middle of the lawn, and were then to lay his own garden path diagonally from one corner to the other, that man's soul would be lost. Originality is only to be praised when not prefaced by the look to right and left. — Quentin Crisp

There are other ways women have been made to disappear. There is the business of naming.In some cultures women keep their names, but in most their children take the father's name, and in the English-speaking world until very recently, prefaced by Mrs. You stopped, for example, being Charlotte Bronte and became Mrs. Arthur Nicholls. Names erased a woman's genealogy and even her existence. — Rebecca Solnit

A depressing and difficult passage has prefaced every page I have turned in life. — Charlotte Bronte

I knew the men were probably terrible people who whistled at pretty girls, treated their wives like servants, and voted for Nixon every chance they got, but as far as I was concerned, they beat the hell out of a Volvo-load of liberals for hard work and good times. — James Crumley

Even though my entire writing persona is prefaced on me not being an expert, I kind of am an expert. I know a lot. — Jonathan Gold

A friend told me of visiting the Dalai Lama in India and asking him for a succinct definition of compassion. She prefaced her question by describing how heart-stricken she'd felt when, earlier that day, she'd seen a man in the street beating a mangy stray dog with a stick. "Compassion," the Dalai Lama told her, "is when you feel as sorry for the man as you do for the dog." — Marc Ian Barasch

For exams, I swotted so hard because I couldn't bear the thought of not coming first. — Lily James