Retroactively Def Quotes & Sayings

People need space to survive. — Ingrid Betancourt

I will here venture upon a little description of him. He stood full six feet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. I have seldom seen such brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and burnt, making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the deep shadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences that did not seem to give him much joy. — Herman Melville

There was a crackle. Kobe's voice came through the cans. "What would you guys do," he said, apropos of nothing, "if Jules turned into a lizard?"

Another crackle. "Hey!" Jules said.

"It wouldn't happen," said Jacob, and I saw him shrug in the half-light.

"But what if?"

I pressed the talk button on my cans. "There's an old fish tank in our garage," I said. "I'd put Jules in it, and then get a heat rock from the pet shop."

I heard Sam's low chuckle. "Make sure you wash your hands first."

"Why?"

"So you don't get any lizardy diseases."

"I don't have any lizardy diseases!" Jules's voice was getting higher.

"Not yet, but wait until you're a lizard."

"What's a heat rock?" asked Jacob.

"It's a rock," I told him, "that you heat up. Lizards like them. Anyway, once I'd done that, I'd take you to see my cousin Adam."

"IS HE A WIZARD? — Lili Wilkinson

I've just kept on ceaselessly painting in order to learn painting. — Vincent Van Gogh

That's why you call it a budget. You set it and you don't budge. — Jennifer Morrison

Other Afghans from American, or from Europe," Amra says, "they come and take picture of her. They take video. They make promises. Then they go home and show their families. LIke she is zoo animal. I allow it because I think maybe they will help. But they forget. I never hear from them. — Khaled Hosseini

Bombs know no ism but barbarism. The laws that successfully govern a peaceful and democratic society do not interfere with the only law bombs know, which is the law of gravity. — Clare Boothe Luce

I read somewhere that a man should tell the story of his life at the age of forty, and this deadline is fast approaching as I write these lines, only a few short weeks remain before this ominous birthday arrives. — Juan Gabriel Vasquez

Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we've turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform. The — Susan Cain

I always wanted to be a feature filmmaker and tried to treat that experience as some sort of elite film school where I could learn the craft, and got paid to learn the craft. — Mark Romanek

I get scared because things are finite, and I don't want them to be finite with you. — J.J. Johnson

An honest money system is the only alternative. — Frederick Soddy

Nixon didn't mellow with his success, he became embittered by it. — John Dean

If to break loose from the bounds of reason, and to want that restraint of examination and judgment which keeps us from choosing or doing the worst, be liberty, true liberty, madmen and fools are the only freemen: but yet, I think, nobody would choose to be mad for the sake of such liberty, but he that is mad already. — John Locke