Pretty But Single Quotes & Sayings

It feels a little silly to annotate a game in which I didn't make a single move on my own, just following my preparation all the way. [ ... ] A pretty finale. I was obviously hoping for the beauty prize sacrificing both my rooks and all, but OK, Im [sic] afraid requirements are one makes a move of his own for that it seems. Something I could avoid doing in the last five rounds in Dresden. Silly game, this chess. — Jan Gustafsson

The two greatest works of war mythology in the west ... are the Iliad and the Old Testament ... When we turn from the Iliad and Athens to Jerusalem and the Old Testament we find a single-minded single deity with his sympathies forever on one side. And the enemy, accordingly, no matter who it may be, is handled ... pretty much as though he were subhuman: not a "Thou" but an "It." — Joseph Campbell

Why are the bad things always so much easier to believe? It shouldn't be that way but it is every single time, you're too sensitive, and too worried they say, you care too much about all the wrong things. One little whisper in your ear and the words tumble through your head like you're the one who thought them first. Hear them enough and pretty soon they're etched on the surface of your heart. — Kimberly McCreight

I'm a pretty forgetful guy, but everything she says, I remember. I remember what colour her hair ribbon was when we met on the first day of fifth grade. I remember that she loves orchids because they look delicate but aren't, really. From a single postcard she sent me when traveling with her family two summers ago. I remember what my name looks like in her handwriting. — Adi Alsaid

Pops gave him a cool stare that settled Tom down - a thing not always easy to do. "Son, do you know what history is?"
"Uh ... stuff that happened in the past?"
"Nope," he said, trying on his canvas change-belt. "History is the collective and ancestral shit of the human race, a great big and ever growing pile of crap. Right now, we're standin at the top of it, but pretty soon we'll be buried under the doodoo of generations yet to come. That's why your folks' clothes look so funny in old photographs, to name but a single example. And, as someone who's destined to buried beneath the shit of your children and grandchildren, I think you should be just a leetle more forgiving. — Stephen King

But you can't fault me on my footnotes. I've worked hard on them and they look pretty impressive. And almost all the sources I quote actually exist. I must confess, however, that the idea of putting footnotes in chapter 5, the autobiographical chapter, started out simply as a joke. Who but a biblical scholar would think of footnoting an autobiography? But the joke quickly got out of hand and become a significant part of that chapter. I plan someday to write a scholarly article consisting of a single sentence and a twenty-page footnote. — Jeffrey L. Staley

Good-girl-gone-queer Lindsay Lohan, divorced single mother Britney Spears, Caitlyn Jenner with her sultry poses, Kim Kardashian having the gall to show up on the cover of Vogue with her black husband: All of them are tied to the tracks and gleefully run over, less for what they've done than for the threat they pose to the idea that female sexuality fits within a familiar and safe pattern. If control over women's bodies were the sole point of the trainwreck, that would be terrifying enough. But it's only the beginning: Shame and fear are used to police pretty much every aspect of being female. After you've told someone what to do with her body, you need to tell her what to do with her mind. — Sady Doyle

We had expected three cots in our room, but found one large lumpy bed, a very worn carpet and a single overhead light. "You mean this is what these people got out of their revolution?" Martha daintily picked her way around the room. "Someone should tell them that they're about due for another." She wrinkled her pretty face in distaste. Ethel — Maya Angelou

I am quite happy that the Beatles came and went. There is even a sort of glory in not having it go on forever. There is a complete body of work that went from A to Z and it is all pretty damn good stuff. The one thing I am particularly proud of is that nearly every single bit of it has some good message. I feel fortunate when I look back. Life is not easy, but I've been very lucky - and I'm touching wood as I say that. — Paul McCartney

I've played pretty much every single-player RPG there is, has been, ever will be. But as far as the MMOs go, especially with the voice chat, it becomes like hanging out with your friends in a chat channel, and you're playing at the same time. So it becomes a lot more social than people would probably think. — Felicia Day

Also: seriously, broomsticks? He was going to fly on, basically, a line segment? Wasn't that pretty much the single most unstable shape you could possibly find, short of attempting to hold on to a point marble? Who'd selected that design for a flying device, out of all the possibilities? Harry had been hoping that it was just a figure of speech, but no, they were standing in front of what looked for all the world like ordinary wooden kitchen broomsticks. Had someone just gotten stuck on the idea of broomsticks and failed to consider anything else? It had to be. There was no way that the optimal designs for cleaning kitchens and flying would happen to coincide if you worked them out from scratch. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

What you're doing--it's the right thing. Going after what you love despite everything you've done, and I won't sugarcoat it, you've done some pretty lousy things, but you did it all because you love this single human being so much you couldn't help yourself. There is an honesty to that. — Tarryn Fisher

But he is pretty. God, I hope he's not an asshole. Do you think there's any chance he's both non-orifice and single? I mean, seriously. What are the chances? — Laini Taylor

This was a really amazing part of your adventure, Hamlet. You're sure that, should you ever one day write a book about this story or perhaps a stage production, you'd DEFINITELY include this scene. Why, you'd have to be literally crazy to write a story where you journey to England, get attacked by pirates - actual pirates! - but then just sum up that whole adventure in a single sentence. Hah! That'd be the worst. Who puts a pirate-attack scene in their story and doesn't show it to the audience? Hopefully nobody, that's who! Even from a purely structural viewpoint, you've got to give the audience something awesome to make up for all the introspection you've been doing; that just seems pretty obvious is all. — Ryan North

I guess we're pretty lucky that we can't give each other alien STD's or babies, huh?" And THAT, folks, is why I'm still single. I'd like to blame the fermented tree sap, but I think we all know that I just have a horrible case of foot-in-mouth disease. It might even be lethal. — Mara Frost

When you're in a single-parent home, they try to give you a good foundation, but by the time you're 4 or 5 years old, from that point on you're pretty much on your own. — George Foreman

The truth is, every son raised by a single mom is pretty much born married. I don't know, but until your mom dies it seems like all the other women in your life can never be more than just your mistress. — Chuck Palahniuk

Not to sound too deep or weird, but I assume that the occasions once you pretty take pleasure in surfing are the occasions you are extremely kind of getting a single with nature. — Kelly Slater

If you set out alone and sovereign, unconnected to a family, a religion, a nationality, a tradition, a class, then pretty soon you are too lonely, too self-invented and unique, and too much aware that there is no one else like you in the world. If you submerge yourself completely in something - your town or your profession or your hobby - then pretty soon you have to struggle up to the surface because you need to be sure that even though you are a part of something big, some community, you still exist as a single unit with a single mind. It is the fundamental contradictoriness of the United States of America - the illogical but optimistic notion that you can create a union of individuals in which every man is king. — Susan Orlean

Of the numerous regrettable elements that go to make up the unlawful carnal-knowledge industry, I should single out for distinction the look of undisguised contempt that is often worn on the faces of its female staff. Some of the working 'hostesses' may have to simulate delight or even interest - itself a pretty cock-shriveling thought - but when these same ladies do the negotiating, they can shrug off the fake charm as a snake discards an unwanted skin. — Christopher Hitchens

My personal style is eclectic, I would say. I always like to mix and match things. Uh, but the thing is that it changes every single day. So if I'm feeling you know a little more rebellious, one day I may dress a little more punk rock. But most of the time I say, pretty consistently, I'm feminine. — Crystal Reed

People talk about how fast life can go from good to bad. How on day you're happy, everything is going fine, and then something happens. Someone dies or someone leaves. There's an illness or an accident. Life as you know it slips away. But it can got the other way too. You can go from god-awful to pretty OK in a single day. That's what happened to us, and it was just as jarring. — Laura M. Flynn

I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much; my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold onto it. And then it flows through me like rain, and I can't feel anything but gratitude - for every single moment of my stupid, little life. You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure; but don't worry ... .you will someday. — Alan Ball

I've spent years trying to block out how you look. And sound. And feel. And before this show, I'd gotten pretty good at it. But now, here you are, in front of me every day, and it blows my mind that a single touch from you still has the power to ruin me. And whenever it happens, I forget about the choices I've made, and the circus my life's become, and I want you. Consequences be damned. — Leisa Rayven

I was there to get a Ph.D. in English literature. That's not true. I was there to read a lot of books and to discuss them with bright, insightful, book-loving people, an expectation that I pretty quickly learned was about as silly as it could be.
Certainly there were other people who loved books, I'm sure there were, but whoever had notified them ahead of time that loving books was not the point, was, in fact, a hopelessly counterproductive and naive approach to the study of literature, neglected to notify me. It turned out that the point was to dissect a book like a fetal pig in biology class or to break its back with a single sentence or to bust it open like a milkweek pod and say, "See? All along it was only fluff," and then scatter it into oblivion with one tiny breath. — Marisa De Los Santos

Said. Karen inhaled deeply and blew until there was no more air in her lungs and smoke filled the room but there wasn't a single candle still burning. "Never underestimate the power of a strong woman," she said breathlessly. "Amen," Hannah murmured. Kim motioned toward the bar. "Momma's choice tonight. Mexican buffet, which comes before cake." "Not for me. I'm having a slice of that cake right now. It's my birthday and I want dessert first. Momma always let me do that on my birthday when I was a little girl," Karen said. "Yes, I did, and if you want your cake first tonight, then have at it," Hannah agreed. "Well, I'm getting into those tacos," Edith said. "Y'all have to try my watermelon salsa. I hadn't made it in years, but it turned out pretty good considering that the watermelon wasn't as good as I like it to be." "What's in it?" Sue asked. — Carolyn Brown

Water: 35 liters, Carbon: 20 kg, Ammonia: 4 liters, Lime:1.5 kg, Phosphrus: 800 g, salt: 250g, saltpeter:100g, Sulfer: 80g, Fluorine: 7.5 g, iron: 5.6 g, Silicon: 3g, and 15 other elements in small quantities ... thats the total chemical makeup of the average adult body. Modern science knows all of this, but there has never been a single example of succesful human trasmutation. It's like there's some missing ingredient ... Scientists have been trying to find it for hundreds of years, pouring tons of money into research, and to this day they don't have a theory. For that matter, the elements found in a human being is all junk that you can buy in any market with a child's allowence. Humans are pretty cheaply made. — Hiromu Arakawa

The single most important thing anyone needs to know about me," Kate hepburn said, "is that I am totally, completely the product of two damn fascinating individuals who happened to be my parents. I've had a pretty remarkable life, but compared to my mother and father, I'm dull. — Christopher Andersen

I love audiences, but they're not there to drive the bus. Whenever you ask opinions or anticipate opinions you can get pretty terrible art, or non-art. You need a single guiding intelligence, even in a collaborative form. — William Monahan

Is this a book club? How do they join? Do they ever pay? These are the things I ask myself when I sit here alone, after Tyndall or Lapin or Fedorov has left. Tyndall is probably the weirdest, but they're all pretty weird: all graying, single-minded, seemingly imported from some other time or place. There are no iPhones. There's no mention of current events or pop culture or anything, really, other than the books. I definitely think of them as a club, though I have no evidence that they know one another. Each comes in alone and never says a word about anything other than the object of his or her current, frantic fascination. — Robin Sloan

Ask a child's guardians what it takes to be good at their jobs, and most will answer with a single word ...
SACRIFICE.
Parents give up so much: time, sleep, freedom, money, intimacy ...
pretty much everything but complaining how much they sacrifice. — Brian K. Vaughan

I wish I could say when Michael's dark eyes met mind, I was completely cool and collected about seeing him again after all this time, and that I laughed airily and said all the right things. I wish I could say after having pretty much single-handedly brought democracy to a country I happen to be a princess of, and written a four-hundred-page romance novel, and gotten into every college to which I applied (even if it's just because I'm a princess), that I handled meeting Michael for the first time again after throwing my snowflake necklace in his face almost two years ago with total grace and aplomb.
But I totally didn't. — Meg Cabot

Some girls are pretty, and it's like they were destined for it. They were meant to be pretty, and as for the rest of us, well, we get to exist on the outer edges of life. It's like moths. They're the same as butterflies, aren't they? They're just gray. They can't help being gray, they just are. But butterflies, they're a million different colors, yellow and emerald and cerulean blue. They're pretty. Who'd dare kill a butterfly? I don't know of a single soul who'd lift a finger against a butterfly. But most anybody would swat at a moth like it was nothing, and all because it isn't pretty. Doesn't seem fair, not at all. — Jenny Han

It is a queer weapon, a shotgun. Every effort to secure additional range is well paid for. A bird may be going away at tremendous speed, "burning the air" as a youngster would put it. Seemingly nothing but chain-lightning, which zig-zagged a bit, could stop him. A crack of the gun and that wild flier is dead in the air, a full forty yards away. Right then the conviction comes to us that man never made another weapon so deadly as the shotgun. However, go back another forty yards, set the bird up on the limb of a tree and you might shoot at him all day and not kill him. The shotgun is a deadly weapon but its range is strictly limited and we are ourselves pretty well convinced that nothing less than a two-inch cannon will regularly kill single game-birds at one-hundred yards, with any kind of shot that can be put in the gun. — Charles Askins

He made no reply to that, so she continued, gently wiping around his nose, over the broad brow, and up the craggy cheekbones. Not a handsome face. Not pretty or comely. But it was a good face, she thought. Certainly masculine. Certainly one she was attracted to. She paused, swallowing at the thought. She did not know this man. She knew of him - knew that he would without hesitation fling himself into a filthy hole to save her son, knew he was kind to silly dogs and quarrelsome old women, knew he could, with a single, certain look, make her insides heat and melt - but she did not know him. — Elizabeth Hoyt

We had our own sort of divorce back a while," I said.
"Yes."
"I was pretty crazy, I think."
"Yes," Susan said.
"You were pretty crazy," I said.
"Yes," she said. "I was."
"And we leapt tall buildings at a single bound."
"We were probably leaping the wrong ones," Susan said, "in those days."
"Maybe," I said. "But maybe those days helped us to leap the right ones now, and more gracefully. — Robert B. Parker

I think you'd have to be a pretty brave man to say "never go out of style," but men's suiting has been relatively stable for 100 years now. The single-breasted, two-button gray flannel suit, you could've worn it in exactly the same cut, shape and fabric in 1910 as you wear it in 2010. — Patrick Grant

Seemingly every culture before our own has had a single acceptable way to raise a baby. These cultures wouldn't have cared about the new scientific findings: they already knew how babies worked. Their answers were all very different, mind you, but they had this in common: all the other answers were wrong.

Such confidence makes sense. If you have to raise a baby, not study a baby, you'd better settle on an answer, and as long as you have settled on an answer, you may as well be certain about it. Pretty much everyone has been very certain. But if everyone has been very certain, and everyone's certainty has been very different, you start to suspect that there aren't that many certainties after all. There's no one true path. Or put another way: the one true path is forked. — Nicholas Day

You know, I guess there's enough information out there to support that I'm a crazy, wild dude and rock and roll and this, that and the other. And there's enough information to support that, you know, I'm a single father, that, you know, has been a pretty standup guy in his community and pretty private about that stuff. But it's on both sides. — Kid Rock

I read 'The Hobbit' but not a single one of the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy. I had to lie about this pretty much all through high school. I still say it apologetically. — Andrew Rosenthal

Suppose you had seven credit cards in your purse or wallet and you lost one. Wouldn't you leave the six and go search for the missing one until you found it? I lost a credit card recently and never once pulled out the one I hadn't lost to obsess over it. I felt no urgency about my un-lost credit card. I didn't call a single person to say that I still had my American Express Card. But I did start calling around to see if anyone had seen my lost MasterCard. When you lose something important, you obsess over it; you get preoccupied with it. It's pretty much all you think about. Remember the last time you couldn't find your phone? — Andy Stanley