So Intently Quotes & Sayings

You don't really want me on your team,' Lexie said. 'I'm totally terrible.'
'I know," Jake said. 'I want you on the other guy's team.'
Lexie swatted him with her free hand. "That is no way to talk with your girlfriend,' she said, forgetting for a moment that Bree was right there, intently watching them.
'You're right,' he said. 'My apologies, sugar plum. I'm sorry, honey pie. I'll never do it again, my little pumpkin. Is that better?'
She wrinkled her nose at him. ' feel so edible all of a sudden.'
'Cute enough to eat,' he said. — Tamara Summers

Your destiny is to fulfill those things upon which you focus most intently. So choose to keep your focus on that which is truly magnificent, beautiful, uplifting and joyful. Your life is always moving toward something. — Ralph Marston

Her gaze collided with the duke's. His eyes were a clear, pale green. Why was he staring so intently when there was hardly another woman less interesting than she? — Carolyn Jewel

She was quite a doll. She wore a white belted raincoat, no hat, a well-cherished head of platinum hair, booties to match the raincoat, a folding plastic umbrella, a pair of blue-gray eyes that looked at me as if I had said a dirty word. I helped her off with her raincoat. She smelled very nice. She had a pair of legs - so far as I could determine - that were not painful to look at. She wore night sheer stockings. I stared at them rather intently, especially when she crossed her legs and held out a cigarette to be lighted — Raymond Chandler

I saw you running," she says, her attention on the rabbit. "What were you running from?"
"Just running," I say. She watching me silently and intently, like a cat.
"Why?" she asks.
I shrug. "Why not?"
"It's not Productive." She says it like productivity is holy, the only thing worth having.
"So?" ~Amy — Beth Revis

For most of my life I've been a listener. At least in the beginning, I think the reason I listened so intently was to have a chance of hearing the train before it ran over me. — Steve Rasnic Tem

I was struck by Suu Kyi's warmth and generosity. No matter how petite she looks, she exudes amazing strength. More than anything else, I felt like I already knew her, like she was an old friend, because I'd been watching her so intently, and she was exactly what I had figured she would be. — Michelle Yeoh

Lenin could listen so intently that he exhausted the speaker. — Isaiah Berlin

Kishan spoke intently, "Kelsey is all that a man could ask for. She's perfect for you. She loves poetry and sits endlessly content while listening to you sing and play your guitar. She waited months for you to come after her, and she has risked her life repeatedly to save your mangy white hide. She's sweet and loving and warm and beautiful and would make you immeasurably happy."
There was a pause. Then I heard Ren say incredulously, "You love her."
Kishan didn't answer right away, but then said softly, almost so I couldn't hear it, "No man in his right mind wouldn't, which proves you aren't in your right mind. — Colleen Houck

And just as he who, with exhausted breath,
having escaped from sea to shore, turns back
to watch the dangerous waters he has quit, so did my spirit, still a fugitive,
turn back to look intently at the pass
that never has let any man survive. — Dante Alighieri

What Robert was trying to do so intently was, in fact, no more than craft. He did no more than copy my tics and twitches - even to the point of staring at my family portrait, a very personal part of my disguise, for his character research - — Jeff Lindsay

But when the Ents all gathered round Treebeard, bowing their heads slightly, murmuring in their slow musical voices, and looking long and intently at the strangers, then the hobbits saw that they were all of the same kindred, and all had the same eyes: not all so old or so deep as Treebeard's, but all with the same slow, steady, thoughtful expression, and the same green flicker. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Rarely, if ever, do they intently consider the life to come. Regarding this, C. S. Lewis writes, "If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. — Francis Chan

Believing is never a waste of time." Simon looked at me intently his eyes flickering. "Even if you're wrong you could have been right. Take me with my painting I don't know if I'm any good. So maybe I shouldn't try because maybe I'd be setting myself up for disappointment. But it's like you looking for old coins on the beach. Whether you find any or not is for bonus points it's the search that counts. It's the belief that they might be out there. — Amanda Howells

I'll give you some life advice," I said. "The first piece is: Listen and listen intently when you're being spoken to about something. The second: Take the high road. When presented with frustration or anger or discontentment with a situation or a person, don't reduce yourself to that level. Don't get into a conflict in that moment. You'll feel better about yourself for it." Well, to my surprise, this created a near frenzy in the room. The students were aghast. I was surprised by the reaction, so I said: "Tell me more about why that seems like bad advice to you." "I believe I should stand up for myself!" said one student. "I'm not saying you shouldn't stand up for yourself," I said. "I'm just saying, in the heat of the moment, walk away from it. — Tim Gunn

I'm not an expert or a trained ballistician. But it is a subject I've studied intently for 50 years, so I may know a thing or two. In my opinion, the JFK investigation was poorly handled. — Stephen Hunter

He looked up. "Is it time already?" She nodded.

He rose and waited as she gathered her things. The dog followed them out the door, but then he bounded down the stairs to the drive. The animal sniffed intently at something on the ground and then rolled, happily rubbing his head and neck in whatever it was.

Lord Swartingham sighed. "I'll have one of the stable boys wash him before he enters the Abbey again."

"Mmm," Anna murmured thoughtfully. "What do you think of 'Adonis'?"

He gave her a look so full of incredulous horror that she was hard-pressed not to laugh. "No, I suppose not," she murmured. — Elizabeth Hoyt

The surgeon tells me that you're a sorcerer," Pym said. "Is that so?"
Jaki looked to the captain with the glare of the masts in his eyes. "Yes."
Pym weighed this disclosure. "You speak with the dead?"
"Yes."
The captain's eyes screwed up intently. "What do they say to you?"
"They don't talk back."
Pym and Mister Blackheart laughed in unison ... The captain said, "Mister Blackheart wants to know what kind of sorcerer you are."
Jaki pondered a response and finally said, "I was learning to catch souls before my teacher was killed."
"Souls, eh? And what do you do with them after you catch them?"
"I put them back in their bodies."
"Ah, then you're telling us you're a surgeon. — A.A. Attanasio

But the sun itself, however beneficent, generally, was less kind to Coketown than hard frost, and rarely looked intently into any of its closer regions without engendering more death than life. So does the eye of Heaven itself become an evil eye, when incapable or sordid hands are interposed between it and the thing it looks upon to bless. — Charles Dickens

She wished she could understand her reaction to him. Why, her heart was pacing a wild beat again.
Madelyne dared a quick look up and found Duncan was watching her intently. He looked so handsome.
She wanted him to be ugly. — Julie Garwood

Holding back a cough and splutter I cover my mouth with my hand, so as not to lose any of the precious nectar I'm holding. Oh my! I intently watch the next guest to arrive in the reception, mesmerised, for all I know he could be walking on water for how his streamlined and buff body glides to the desk. — A.J. Walters

I almost panic then. The pleasure-power feeling flees, replaced by humiliation. It's obvious my husband doesn't recognize his own wife. Yet even in this public place, he can't be bothered to hide his admiration for a woman that he finds attractive.
He used to stare at me so intently, like I was the only thing in the world. Have I changed so much? Or maybe that mesmerizing gaze was just a weapon in his arsenal of appeal. Maybe he never actually saw.
Anger carries me the remaining distance. He is the one who should feel grimy with shame, not me. — Rae Carson

The essence of the Christian life is not attending meetings or even praying and fasting. The essence of the Christian life is looking intently for bits of God in everything and everyone, everyday, so that you see him a little more clearly, everyday, so that he becomes a little more dear to you, everyday. The essence of the Christian life is being unwilling to close your eyes at night until, having seen a little more of him, you have become a little more like him. — Ron Brackin

In our day, however, we have focused so intently on the immediate activity of cause and effect that for the most part we have ignored or denied the overarching causal power behind all of life. Modern man basically has no concept of providence. — R.C. Sproul

Nothing fixes a thing so intently in the memory as the wish to forget it — Cat Patrick

Ariel, Belle, Cinderella, Jasmine ... none of them had mothers."
I was still wasn't following, but she continued, obviously excited.
"When I was little, I used to think that meant that life had to make it up to them, for taking their mothers away, and so that's why they ended up having the whole fairy-tale happily-ever-after magic happen to them. The deserved it more than other girls." She looked at me intently. "Life will make it up to you, Anna. — Jessi Kirby

Adam leaned down and placed his lips next to her ear. He blew gently on it before he spoke. Mona leaned even closer into him as she listened intently to his words.
"Desdemona."
She moaned at the sound of her name on his lips.
"I need to tell you something." His words were accompanied by warm air caressing her skin.
"Before my time is done, I will watch the light fade from your eyes as you are sent to the hell you so deserve." Though his words promised destruction, the cadence of his voice still held her in a seductive rapture. — Quinn Loftis

Shaykha Sultana al-Zubaydiyya

Shaykha Sultana al-Zubaydiyya, famous scholar and saint, was the dauther of 'Ali al-Zubaydi, a man belonging to the martial Zubaydi clan of the tribe of Bani Haritha, itself an offshoot of the major tribe of Kinda, one of the most ancient and best known tribes of Southern Yemen.

[...] she became known as the Rabi'a of Hadramawt.

[...] Shaykha Sultana became so engrossed in her spiritual pursuits that she never found it in herself to marry and beget children as was expected of her. Instead, she visited all the great men of the valley, sitting at the back of the mosques where the gatherings were held, and listening intently until she became well known and greatly respected by them.

Mostafa al-Badawi, A blessed Valley, Volume One, Wadi Hadramawt & the Alawi Tradition, Chapter 10, S. 95-97 — Mostafa Al-Badawi

You know, the one problem with building up unattainable fantasies in one's head," he said, staring intently at the television, "is that they grow so large they eventually burst, leaving nothing behind but disappointment. — Emigh Cannaday

I didn't really see the British punk movement, if that's what it was, as wildly original, because I had been listening so intently to all the New York music since 1973, really. — Morrissey

It's gratifying that people are watching that [Veep] intently and that hard. So it's been really nice and it's been really fun. — David Mandel

Without looking at Jacob, I said slowly, 'Well, it seeps into you. It doesn't make you forget yourself, but totally the opposite.' I chance a glance at him. He was watching me intently. No glaze in his eyes. So I continued more bravely: 'It connect you with everything and fills you with awe that you share the same space with something that glorious. Like a sunrise on a clear blue day of the most extraordinary piece of glass. And then suddenly'
my hands escaped their tight grip in my lap, and now my fingers splayed wide like fireworks in the air
'you have this epiphany that there's more to the world than just you and what you want or even who you are. — Justina Chen

I have to concentrate more intently when people speak. I always have to position myself on their right side so that I can hear out of my left ear. I sometimes get a crick in my neck from listening. But I don't there's too much else. — Stephanie Beacham

She listened intently, her chin in her hand, her elbow on her knee. Poe couldn't remember ever having felt so heard by anyone in all his life. — Greg Rucka

The church-growth movement of the 1960s brought many positive insights to the American landscape. However, one negative result is that it focused leaders so intently on their organization and strategies that it blinded them to the importance of place. Further, it created such a common vision of church that leaders actually began to believe that if they organized their churches according to the church-growth metrics, they would thrive no matter where they were located. These ideas eclipsed the theology of place almost altogether. But — Verlon Fosner

Mr. Winterborne," Pandora asked, her blue eyes lively with interest, "where do these board games come from? Who invents them?"
"Anyone who designs one could contract a printer to make some copies."
"What if Cassandra and I make one?" she asked. "Could we sell it at your store?"
"I don't want to make a game," Cassandra protested. "I only want to play them."
Pandora ignored her, focusing intently on Rhys.
"Come up with a prototype," he told her, "and I'll take a look at it. If I think I can sell it, I'll be your backer and pay for the first printing. In return for a percentage of your profits, of course."
"What is the usual percentage?" Pandora asked. "Whatever it is, I'll give you half."
Raising one brow, Rhys asked, "Why only half?"
"Don't I deserve the in-law discount?" Pandora asked ingenuously.
Rhys laughed, looking so boyish that Helen felt her heart quicken. "Aye, that you do. — Lisa Kleypas

When you're starving or wrapped up in a cycle of binge-ing-and-purging, or sexually obsessed with (someone), it is very hard to think about anything else, very hard to see the larger picture of options that is your life, very hard to consider what else you might need or want or fear were you not so intently focused on one crushing passion. I sat in my room every night, with rare exceptions, for three and a half years ... — Caroline Knapp

The most desired gift of love is not diamonds or roses or chocolate. It is focused attention. Love concentrates so intently on another that you forget yourself at that moment. Attention says, "I value you enough to give you my most precious asset - my time." Whenever you give your time, you are making a sacrifice, and sacrifice is the essence of love. Jesus modeled this: "Be full of love for others, following the example of Christ who loved you and gave Himself to God as a sacrifice to take away your sins" (Ephesians 5:2, LB). — Rick Warren

Oftentimes, those special brains, the ones that are capable of focusing more intently than others, do so at the expense of emotional maturity — Dan Brown

All of a sudden I became aware of a little star in one of those patches and I began looking at it intently. That was because the little star gave me an idea: I made up my mind to kill myself that night. I had made up my mind to kill myself already two months before and, poor as I am, I bought myself an excellent revolver and loaded it the same day. But two months had elapsed and it was still lying in the drawer. I was so utterly indifferent to everything that I was anxious to wait for the moment when I would not be so indifferent and then kill myself. Why
I don't know. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The true aspiration of art should be to reduce the need for it. It is not that we should one day lose our devotion to the things that art addresses: beauty, depth of meaning, good relationships, the appreciation of nature, recognition of the shortness of life, empathy, compassion, and so on. Rather, having imbibed the ideals that art displays, we should fight to attain in reality the things art merely symbolises, however graciously and intently. The ultimate goal of the art lover should be to build a world where works of art have become a little less necessary — Alain De Botton

You haven't seen your father since you were eight?'
He shook his head.
'No word. No contact. No nothing?'
'Nothing.'
Daisy's eyes looked right and left before coming back to his. 'Is he alive?'
Erik turned looked into the blue-green eyes studying him so intently. He was surprised he had revealed this to someone he barely knew. Normally this was the card he kept closest to his chest. Yet something about Daisy looking at him, her expression calm and interested, sympathetic but not pitying, tactfully curious, seemed to be reaching into the tangle of emotions comprising the experience of being so cruelly deserted, and gently drawing out a thread. — Suanne Laqueur

Since every evil is found in sin, either as a consequence or as the sin itself, when we want to pray wholeheartedly to get rid of evil, we should say, think, or mean this little word - sin, nothing else. No other words are needed. On the other hand, if we pray intently to get anything good, we should cry out in word, thought, or longing nothing but this word - God, nothing else. No other words are needed; for God's very nature is goodness, and he's the source of everything good. Don't spend time wondering why I chose these two words over all of the others. I looked into it and found none better. If I had, or if God had taught me different ones, I would have chosen them over these, but I can think of no shorter words that so well represent everything good or everything evil. Follow my example. Don't analyze words at length because studying them isn't the same as doing the work of contemplative prayer. Only grace gives this gift. — Anonymous

He almost danced to the fridge, found the three least hairy things in it, put them on a plate and watched them intently for two minutes. Since they made no attempt to move within that time he called them breakfast and ate them. Between them they killed a virulent space disease he'd picked up without knowing it in the Flargathon Gas Swamps a few days earlier, which otherwise would have killed off half the population of the Western Hemisphere, blinded the other half, and driven everyone else psychotic and sterile, so the Earth was lucky there. — Douglas Adams

His gaze was fixed so intently on me that, though I had been determined to look him in the eye as his equal, I found myself having to stare down at the corner of the table in order to stammer out a word. — Karen Maitland

So the books for the Englishman, as he listened intently or not, had
gaps of plot like sections of a road washed out by storms, missing
incidents as if locusts had consumed a section of tapestry, as if
plaster loosened by the bombing had fallen away from a mural at night. — Michael Ondaatje

Rather than whinge on how another has treated you, give a thought to what it is your upset with? Is It really them or is it yourself.. Did they cross a boundary or have you not set one? Did they communicate rudely or are you not listening intently. We so often blame, because it's easier than to confront our vulnerable selves. But the truth is, no one can make you feel inferior if you do not give them the power! — Nikki Rowe

Anxiety becomes high energy when taken to the light. For me, it worked like this: I used to live in a constant state of anxiety, worrying about the past and the future. Now I do my best to focus my attention on the present moment. So the mental energy I used to waste on worrying is channeled into the present, making me better able to focus intently and enthusiastically on a task (whether work or play). In a similar way, perfection becomes tenacity, and compulsivity becomes drive. Traits that once brought us down can lift us up when taken to the light. — Jenni Schaefer

But mostly, I missed watching you two together; I missed watching you watch him, and him watch you; I missed how thoughtful you were with each other, missed how thoughtlessly, sincerely affectionate you were with him; missed watching you listen to each other, the way you both did so intently. — Hanya Yanagihara

Listen,' she said. 'Have you ever felt sick? I mean nauseous, like you knew you were going to throw up?' The doctor made a gesture like Well sure. 'But that's just in your stomach,' Kate Gompert said. 'It's a horrible feeling but it's just in your stomach. That's why the term is "sick to your stomach." ' She was back to looking intently at her lower carpopedals. 'What I told Dr. Garton is OK but imagine if you felt that way all over, inside. All through you. Like every cell and every atom or brain-cell or whatever was so nauseous it wanted to throw up, but it couldn't, and you felt that way all the time, and you're sure, you're positive the feeling will never go away, you're going to spend the rest of your natural life feeling like this. — David Foster Wallace

After I'd drawn the grasses, I started seeing them. Whereas if you'd just photographed them, you wouldn't be looking as intently as you do when you are drawing, so it wouldn't affect you that much. — Martin Gayford

We are like prison soldiers committed to an idea. The hills slant upwards tall and unmoving, like giant watchful things if we were not rushing and moving so intently it would be nice to stop and appreciate their own silent ancient beauty. — Annie Fisher

Suppressing a chuckle, Dajon leaned and peered intently into her eyes. "What are you doing?" she snapped. "Trying to see if there are two of you in there." He grinned and then furrowed his brow. "The transformation is so swift and unpredictable, I know not which of you to expect, vixen or enchantress. — MaryLu Tyndall

Are you acquainted with the mood of mind in which, if you were seated alone, and the cat licking its kitten on the rug before you, you would watch the operation so intently that puss's neglect of one ear would put you seriously out of temper? — Emily Bronte

Nick watched her intently as he tried to sort through the anarchy of his thoughts. His usual appetite had vanished after their walk this morning. He had not eaten breakfast ... had not done anything, really, except to wander around the estate in a sort of daze that appalled him. He knew himself to be a callous man, one with no honor, and no means of quelling his own brutish instincts. So much of his life had been occupied with basic survival that he had never been free to follow higher pursuits. He had little acquaintance with literature or history, and his mathematical abilities were limited to matters of money and betting odds. Philosophy, to him, was a handful of cynical principles learned through experience with the worst of humanity. By now, nothing could surprise or intimidate him. He didn't fear loss, pain, or even death.
But with a few words and one awkward, innocent kiss, Charlotte Howard had devastated him. — Lisa Kleypas

But you smiled at me and said consolingly, "People come back again."
"Yes" I said, "they come back, but then they have forgotten".
There must have been something odd, something passionate in the way I said that to you. For you rose to your feet as well and looked at me, affectionately and very surprised. You took me by the shoulders. "What's good is not forgotten; I will not forget you," you said, and as you did so you gazed intently at me as if to memorise my image. — Stefan Zweig

They did not talk, not because they hated conversation, but because they wanted to listen intently to the voice of God in silence; they did not dislike eating, but were feeding on the Word of God so that they did not have room for earthly food or time to bother with it; they did not avoid company because it bored them, but, as one of them said, 'I cannot be with you and with God.'34 It was not a dislike of sleep that made them keep vigil, but an eager and longing attitude of waiting for the coming of Christ: — Benedicta Ward

Any subject is good for opera if the composer feels it so intently he must sing it out. — Gian Carlo Menotti

As the geometer intently seeks
to square the circle, but he cannot reach, through thought on thought, the principle he needs, so I searched that strange sight. — Dante Alighieri

There's a good kind of crazy, Kaylee," he insisted softly, reaching out to wrap his warm hand around mine. "It's the kind that makes you think about things that make your head hurt, because not thinking about them is the coward's way out. The kind that makes you touch people who bruise your soul, just because they need to be touched. This is the kind of crazy that lets you stare out into the darkness and rage at eternity, while it stares back at you, ready to swallow you whole."
Tod leaned closer, staring into my eyes so intently I was sure he could see everything I was thinking, but too afraid to say. "I've seen you fight, Kaylee. I've seen you step into that darkness for someone else, then claw your way out, bruised, but still standing. You're that kind of crazy, and I live in that darkness. Together, we'd take crazy to a whole new level. — Rachel Vincent

Tell me about your family, I said. And so she did. I listened intently as my mother went through each branch of the tree. Years later, after the funeral, Maria had asked me questions about the family - who was related to whom - and I struggled. I couldn't remember. A big chunk of our history had been buried with my mother. You should never let your past disappear that way. — Mitch Albom

It was flattering to have someone listen so intently to something that was so personal. — Jude Deveraux

So ... what's your truth, Logan?'Logan stared at him so intently that Tate wondered what was going on inside his head before he replied,'I think you are,' leaving Tate speechless. — Ella Frank