Robinson Quotes & Sayings

My reputation is largely the creature of the kindly imaginings of my flock, whom I chose not to disillusion, in part because the truth had the kind of pathos in it that would bring on sympathy in its least bearable forms. — Marilynne Robinson

- I can paint that fucking cave. — Kim Stanley Robinson

If a rise in wages does not raise prices, a fall will not reduce them. — Joan Robinson

If I was the Jackie Robinson of golf, I sure didn't do a very good job of it. Jackie was followed by hundreds of great black ballplayers who have transformed their sport ... But there are hardly any black kids coming up through the ranks of golf today. — Charlie Sifford

There is no strictly secular language that can translate religious awe. — Marilynne Robinson

What use was there in calling a day by a certain name, or thinking of it as anything but weather? They knew what time of the year it was when the timothy bloomed, when the birds were fledging. They knew it was morning when the sun came up. What more was there to know? If Doll was going to be lost forever, Lila wanted to be right there with her, holding to the skirt of her dress. She had — Marilynne Robinson

Apparently, organizers kept Elvis Presley from joining his school's glee club. They said his voice would ruin their sound. — Ken Robinson

God uses no magic wand to simply wave bad things into nonexistence. The sins that he remits, he remits by making them his own and suffering them. The pain and heartaches that he relieves, he relieves by suffering them himself. These things can be shared and absorbed, but they cannot be simply wished or waved away. They must be suffered. — Stephen E. Robinson

causing a refugee crisis rated at ten thousand katrinas. One — Kim Stanley Robinson

You build your mind, so make it into something you want to live with. — Marilynne Robinson

BMX is kind of a big guy sport, you know. — Donny Robinson

Ideology is a straight-edge ruler in a fractal universe. — Marilynne Robinson

Someone once said there was a comparison between Sugar Ray Leonard and Sugar Ray Robinson. Believe me, there's no comparison. Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest. — Sugar Ray Leonard

I was reading Emily Dickinson and Edwin Arlington Robinson, but these weren't the poets that influenced me. I think Gwendolyn Brooks influenced me because she wrote about Chicago, and she wrote about poor people. And she influenced me in my life by giving me a blurb. I would see her in action, and she listened to every single person. She didn't say, "Oh, I'm tired. I gotta go." She was there, and present, with every single person. She's one of the great teachers. — Sandra Cisneros

While the past is the past, it often affects our decisions later on in life. — K.A. Robinson

I'm not interested in a persona. — Chris Robinson

We had been assured by our elders that intelligence was a family trait. All my kin and forebears were people of substantial or remarkable intellect, thought somehow none of them had prospered in the world. Too bookish, my grandmother said with tart pride, and Lucille and I read constantly to forestall criticism, anticipating failure. If my family were not as intelligent as we were pleased to pretend, this was an innocent deception, for it was a matter of indifference to everybody whether we were intelligent or not. People always interpreted our slightly formal manner and our quiet tastes as a sign that we wished to stay a little apart. This was a matter of indifference, also, and we had our wish. — Marilynne Robinson

It was the kind of light that rests on your shoulders the way a cat lies on your lap. So familiar. — Marilynne Robinson

Is this narcissism? Solipsism? Idiocy (from the Greek word idios, for self)? Would Turing acknowledge it as a proof of human behavior? Well, perhaps. They drove Turing to suicide too. — Kim Stanley Robinson

As of late, 'Boyz n the Hood' really impacted me because I grew up in that same neighborhood. It was the first time I saw a true reflection of me, my neighborhood and my surroundings. — Wendy Raquel Robinson

That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either. — Marilynne Robinson

I wasn't looking for notoriety [when we marched]. But if that's what it took [to get attention], I didn't care how many licks I got. It just made me even more determined to fight for our cause. — Amelia Boynton Robinson

The only thing you're taking out of here is your spirit and your soul, so we need to be conscious to try and develop that part of ourselves, because we're all spiritual creatures. — Smokey Robinson

It is only a little planet, but how beautiful it is. — Robinson Jeffers

Electricity is life but electricity is an invisible fist punching up your spine, knocking your brains right out of your skull. — Ray Robinson

Apocalyptic thinking happens on the left as well as on the right, and in environmentalism, that's a terrible approach to take. Because it isn't true. — Kim Stanley Robinson

That's what the family is for,' he said. 'Calvin says it is the Providence of God that we look after those nearest to us. So it is the will of God that we help our brothers, and it is equally the will of God that we accept their help and receive the blessing of it. As if it came from the Lord Himself. Which it does. So I want you boys to promise me that you will help each other. — Marilynne Robinson

That old black coat he always wore to preach in was the one he put over her shoulders one evening when they were walking along the road together and he was throwing rocks at the fence posts the way a boy would do, still shy of her. But on a Sunday morning, with the sermon in front of him he'd spent the week on and knew so well he hardly need to look at it, he was a beautiful old man, and it pleased her more than almost anything that she knew the feel of that coat, the weight of it. — Marilynne Robinson

Dostoyevsky described hell as perhaps nothing more than a room with a chair in it. This room has several chairs. A young man sits in one. — Bruce Robinson

When I was a child, I read books. My reading was not indiscriminate. I preferred books that were old and thick and hard. I made vocabulary lists. — Marilynne Robinson

Yes. My mother was and still is a Folk Singer. She was very involved in the political movements for Unions and Civil rights. She sang with Pete Seeger among others. My father was an Actor. — Vicki Sue Robinson

Mostly in movies an actor has to come to a mark, an X, and deliver his line - but that's so artificial, that's not how people really behave. — Bruce Robinson

Rhythm is everything in boxing. Every move you make starts with your heart, and that's in rhythm or you're in trouble. — Sugar Ray Robinson

The second you walk off down that road I'll start telling myself you're gone for good, and why wouldn't you be, and I'll start trying to hate you for it. I will hate you for it. I might even leave here entirely. — Marilynne Robinson

I started in dance classes when I was, like, seven years old. And the arts in general, it kept me not only off the street, I grew up in South Central Los Angeles, so it kept my mind focused. It kept me passionate about something. So I wasn't easily distracted. — Wendy Raquel Robinson

What you do for yourself dies with you when you leave this world, what you do for others lives on forever. — Ken Robinson

It is true for everyone that the experience that society gives to us, or denies us, is profoundly formative. — Marilynne Robinson

It's funny, after a while, you get tired of having to fight someone because they don't like the way you look. — Chris Robinson

I can remember standing in the middle of the field after the race and seeing the American flag raised and hearing 'The Star Spangled Banner' and all the people singing it. Then I walked off the field and just kind of enjoyed the feeling. — Elizabeth Robinson Schwartz

What I found fascinating was just how quickly the best of the young Negro League players were drafted into the major leagues once Branch Rickey broke the color line by hiring Jackie Robinson. It was clear that all of the major league owners already knew the talents of the black ballplayers that they had refused to let into their league. — Walter Dean Myers

I don't write the way I speak. I'm afraid you would think I didn't know any better. I don't write the way I do for the pulpit, either, insofar as I can help it. That would be ridiculous, in the circumstances. I do try to write the way I think. But of course that all changes as soon as I put it into words. And the more it does seem to be my thinking, the more pulpitish it sounds, which I guess is inevitable. I will resist that inflection, nevertheless. — Marilynne Robinson

Grief was an actual weight, he thought. It felt like a physical burden. You carried it with you all day, unsheddable. Your shoulders, by nightfall, felt dragged down." p 320 — Roxana Robinson

The way we're going ... if I called up another pitcher, he'd just hang up the phone on me. — Frank Robinson

Memory is a haunting. — Kim Stanley Robinson

They need policies and visions that speak to their own interests and circumstances and not to be reduced to data points in some abstract political competition. — Ken Robinson

Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement. And it's the one thing that I believe we are systematically jeopardizing in the way we educate our children and ourselves. — Ken Robinson

I've enjoyed my time in the game, whether it be managing Luton in the top flight, taking Spurs to Wembley or, as director of football, pinpointing players such as Jermain Defoe, Paul Robinson and Robbie Keane with real sell-on value. — David Pleat

I don't think I'm a home run hitter. Most of my home runs are line drives. If I hit it, thanks God. But it's not the kind of thing that I think about. I just go out there and try to have a better season than I had before. Home runs are not in my mind. — Robinson Cano

With time and experience comes a different perception of what's going on around you. — Chris Robinson

Me, I have a science fiction writer's conviction that the damn robot is supposed to speak
human, not the other way around. — Spider Robinson

I wish I was perfect as you think I am. I wish I were good. I'm not. I want to be good enough. For you, — Rachel Robinson

Anger is always - always - fear in disguise. — Spider Robinson

The only difference was, you could play the music again and again; a life plays only once. — Peter Robinson

So you attempt what De Bruik attempted, in her Free Radical Binds to Macromolecule." "We all attempt what De Bruik attempted, in one way or another." In Free Radical De Bruik had represented the macromolecule, an RNA strand, as a passacaglia, a ground base repeated again and again, in patterns of four that alternated regularly. This was a simple icon, a metaphor in which the repeated ground base stood for the repeated proteins in the RNA; fine. And the free radical's part was a test for any trumpet player. — Kim Stanley Robinson

Mysteriously, almost unaccountably, my family had ended up in the trees, sort of like the Swiss Family Robinson. — Richard Preston

I just didn't have anything to say, so I said nothing. — Frank Robinson

Then it's a matter of troubleshooting, grasping the bull by the horns, seizing the nettle, coping and hoping, damning torpedoes and trying any old thing. — Kim Stanley Robinson

Who would wave a flag to be rescued if they had a desert island of their own? That was the thing that spoilt Robinson Crusoe. In the end he came home. There never ought to be an end. — Arthur Ransome

But your ability to forgive is worthless if you cannot turn it upon yourself. If you do not, the darkness you seek to defeat will eat you from the inside. — Jeremy Robinson

He walked towards me. My heart was pounding like a nineties warehouse rave. — Lucy Robinson

I am in a state of categorical unbelief. I don't even believe God doesn't exist, if you see what I mean. (Jack Boughton) — Marilynne Robinson

Morality is a check upon the strongest temptations. — Marilynne Robinson

Somebody said I sound like an old lady, and I was really insulted by that. I'm trying to sound like Skip James and Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye. — Tom Waits

Civilization is a race between education and catastrophe. - H. G. Wells — Ken Robinson

Friends: people who borrow my books and set wet glasses on them. — Edwin Arlington Robinson

Life is not linear, it is organic. We create our lives symbiotically as we explore our talents in relation to the circumstances they help create for us — Ken Robinson

When you had the world and your body as canvases, why deal in squares of wallpaper? — Kim Stanley Robinson

Most friendships, if the end at all, end not by earthquake, but by erosion. Your time together, which you used to take for granted, becomes something you need to schedule.
Slowly you're aware that the easy intimacy you shared got lost somewhere. You talk more and more about the past. — Alex Robinson

I'm blessed, because I enjoy every part of my life. I enjoy writing songs. I've been trying to write songs since I was five years old. — Smokey Robinson

I was elected by the women of Ireland, who instead of rocking the cradle, rocked the system. — Mary Robinson

I know." She sighed. "We'll all say that. We'll all go on and make the place safe. Roads, cities. New sky, new soil. Until it's all some kind of Siberia or Northwest Territories, and Mars will be gone and we'll be here, and we'll wonder why we feel so empty. Why when we look at the land we can never see anything but our own faces. — Kim Stanley Robinson

Though it might be invidious to mention individuals, yet I may be allowed to say how much I owe to the constant help of my wife, not quite my first, but much my most consistent collaborator, and over the longest period of years. — Robert Robinson

Eden Robinson is one of those rare artists who comes to writing with a skill and maturity that has taken the rest of us decades to achieve. — Thomas King

Well, but you two are dancing around in your iridescent little downpour, whooping and stomping as sane people ought to do when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water. — Marilynne Robinson

I play the piano and write music. — Anwar Robinson

We are moved to respond to the fact of human brilliance, human depth in all its variety because it is the most wonderful thing in the world, very probably the most wonderful thing in the universe. — Marilynne Robinson

Ramona was willing to talk about anything, now, about things beyond the present moment. Childhoods in El Modena and at the beach. The boats offshore. Their work. The people they knew. The huge rocks jumbled under them: "Where did they come from, anyway?" They didn't know. It didn't matter. What do you talk about when you're falling love? It doesn't matter. All the questions are, Who are you? How do you think? Are you like me? Will you love me? And all the answers are, I am like this, like this, like this. I am like you. I like you. — Kim Stanley Robinson

There's so many wonderful gospel people out there, and I don't necessarily want to compete with those people. — Smokey Robinson

Why must we be left, the survivors picking among the flotsam, among the small, unnoticed, unvalued clutter that was all that remained when they vanished, that only catastrophe made notable? — Marilynne Robinson

I don't plan on writing biographies of great sports stars who are still playing ball. But I did write one on Jackie Robinson, who was playing ball in the 20th century. — David A. Adler

Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value. It is a process; it's not random. — Ken Robinson

Where's the need of singing now? — Edwin Arlington Robinson

had decided while she was in bed that she would never speak to her again. But she wanted Marnie to see her. She wanted her to look out of her window and see her down there on the staithe, and remember the mean, cruel thing she had done. If — Joan G. Robinson

Is anger always just fear flung outward at the world? Can anger ever be a fuel for right action? Can anger make good? We — Kim Stanley Robinson

In games there are rules, but in life the rules keep changing. — Kim Stanley Robinson

Robinson Crusoe, the first capitalist hero, is a self-made man who accepts objective reality and then fashions it to his needs through the work ethic, common sense, resilience, technology, and, if need be, racism and imperialism. — Carlos Fuentes

The worst thing in the world was the way I felt when I wanted us to be like the families in the books in the library, when I just wanted Daddy Glen to love me like the father in Robinson Crusoe. (209) — Dorothy Allison

You can't just give someone a creativity injection. You have to create an environment for curiosity and a way to encourage people and get the best out of them. — Ken Robinson

I got four volumes of the letters and speeches of Oliver Cromwell. He is prominent among the great unread, and treated so oddly by history that I wanted to hear his side of things. — Marilynne Robinson

Few of us take the pains to study the origin of our cherished convictions. — James Harvey Robinson

What I had to learn was, that I'm responsible for my perception of things. — Chris Robinson

The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the heartbreaking beauty
Will remain when there is no heart to break for it. — Robinson Jeffers

A person's native tongue influences the way he or she perceives music. The same succession of notes may sound different depending on the language the listener learned growing up.12 As evidence, speakers of tonal languages including Mandarin are more likely than Westerners to have perfect pitch. In one study, 92 percent of Mandarin speakers who began the music lessons at or before the age of five had perfect pitch compared to 8 percent of English speakers with comparable music training. — Ken Robinson

Beethoven was just music, and it didn't matter if he could hear it or not - he could feel it. He could hear it in his mind. He could write it down hearing it in his mind. He was just music. Yeah, he's one of my favorite writers of all times. — Smokey Robinson

It's nice to come into a town and be referred to as the manager of the Cleveland Indians instead of as the first black manager. — Frank Robinson

Rhythm is everything in boxing ... — Sugar Ray Robinson

You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as ROBINSON CRUSOE never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years - generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco - and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad - ROBINSON CRUSOE. When I want advice - ROBINSON CRUSOE. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much - ROBINSON CRUSOE. I have worn out six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and ROBINSON CRUSOE put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain.
— Wilkie Collins

Mr. Robinson was a polished sort of person. He was so clean and healthy and pleased about everything that he positively shone - which is only to be expected in a fairy or an angel, but is somewhat disconcerting in an attorney. — Susanna Clarke

There was some sort of maze-learning experiment involved in my final grade and since I remember the rat who was my colleague as uncooperative, or perhaps merely incompetent at being a rat, or tired of the whole thing, I don't remember how I passed. — Marilynne Robinson

I watched Ali, studied Ali, and I studied Sugar Ray Robinson. I watched them display showmanship. I watched them use pizzazz, personality, and charisma. I took things from them and borrowed things from them because boxing is entertainment. — Sugar Ray Leonard