Something Elusive Quotes & Sayings

i have been told many times by family, friends, colleagues and strangers that I, a black African Muslim lesbian, am not included in this vision; that my dreams are a reflection of my upbringing in a decadent, amoral Western society that has corrupted who I really am. But who am I, really? Am I allowed to speak for myself or must my desires form the battleground for causes I do not care about? My answer to that is simple: 'no one allows anyone anything.' By rejecting that notion you discover that only you can give yourself permission on how to lead your life, naysayers be damned. In the end something gives way. The earth doesn't move but something shifts. That shift is change and change is the layman's lingo for that elusive state that lovers, dreamers, prophets and politicians call 'freedom'. — Diriye Osman

Personal happiness seems mysteriously and frustratingly elusive. Even when people achieve it, they can't hold onto it. That is the greatest clue, the biggest hint, the surest sign that something's amiss. — Neale Donald Walsch

There is something perverse about more then enough. When we have more, it is never enough. It is always somewhere out there, just out of reach. The more we acquire, the more elusive enough becomes. — Aleatha Romig

I think comedy's something you can't learn. It's an instinct, which makes it rather elusive. — Julie Walters

But the voice goes on, calling us, beckoning us, luring us to think that there might be such a thing as justice, as the world being put to rights, even though we find it so elusive. We're like moths trying to fly to the moon. We all know there's something called justice, but we can't quite get to it. — N. T. Wright

These tiny groups that make us feel loved and save and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers - partnerless, tired, awake. We won't have those next year. We won't live on the same block as all our friends. We won't have a bunch of group texts.
This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse, I'm scared of losing this web we're in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now. — Marina Keegan

If you can play guitar and sing, you can probably get a gig down the road playing at a restaurant, but don't throw your life away chasing something that is so elusive it will only lead you to regret and may turn you bitter. — Cliff Richard

I've always been more than a little mystified by poets who seem to think talking to people as directly as possible is a bad thing. I mean, I don't want to set up a straw man here: I understand that for many poets - and for me, at times - writing truly means writing in a way that is difficult, simply because the poem is trying to grasp for something elusive. So the difficulty of the poem is just unavoidable, and not in any way artificially imposed. So "as possible" is the key part of the phrase above, I suppose. — Matthew Zapruder

...the state of perfection is an elusive goal; demanding something so obscure as almost unattainable and can become a compulsive, crazy making squirrel-on-a-wheel way of living. — David W. Earle

A warm, ragged breath disturbed the hairs on my forehead, and my blood began pricking as I realized where exactly I had retreated: right into Mr. Braddock, our strange connection humming through the hairsbreadth of distance between our bodies, our faces. I froze, forcing myself to stop shoving against him further. Before I understood anything, a rough, large hand brushed my chin, my face tipped upwards, and his mouth caught mine, and suddenly my entire body was on fire. Whatever odd sensation had thrummed between us before was just the stroke of a violin bow to this clash of an orchestra. I felt the world pass between our lips, tasting champagne, hunger, and something indefinably darker, while his hand ignited sparks down my cheek to the nape of my neck. He wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me closer, forcing that elusive essence to run deeper than my skin, deeper than my veins, until my very bones vibrated. — Tarun Shanker

He hadn't known a man could want like he did. He wanted her even though she made him wish for things he'd never even considered, things he wasn't certain he even believed existed. He wanted to risk, to reach for that ever-elusive something that snaked through him whenever she set those green eyes on him. — Sarah Grimm

Elusive, spectacular, utterly at home, the fact of these British goshawks makes me happy. Their existence gives the lie to the thought that the wild is always something untouched by human hearts and hands. The wild can be human work. It — Helen Macdonald

I think the strangest thing that exists, is how there are seven billion people on the planet and yet, so many people can spend their whole lives looking for somebody to love and never, ever find that. There are so many things that we can find in other people - friendship, learning processes, enrichment - so many things, nevertheless, the most elusive and fragile of all the things we can possibly find in another human being, is love. To be the one that someone loves and for that person to be the one that you love. Why is this difficult to find? My answer is that, because out of the seven billion, there really is only one. You don't find something and make it work; you find the one and when you do, you work until it works. The problem is finding the one. Many, many people are born and die never finding that. — C. JoyBell C.

I'd once been told that if a man wanted something he did not have, no matter how elusive that thing was, if his feet do not restrain him from chasing it, he would eventually grab it. This was our case. — Chigozie Obioma

Of course, the abolition of Hell meant that such thoughts were now the merest fantasy. Isobel was agnostic as to what, if anything, lay in store for us after this life; that there was a world of spirit seemed to her to be a possibility that we should not exclude. Consciousness was an elusive entity about which we knew very little, other than that it came into existence when certain conditions were present- a sufficient mass of brain cells operating in a particular way. But could we really say much more than that about where it was located & whether it could survive in other conditions? The fact that a plant grew in one place did not mean that it could not grow in another. And if something lay behind this consciousness, orchestrated it & and the conditions that produced it, then why should we not call this something God? — Alexander McCall Smith

Mysterious beings we seek from birth; what does that mean to me? Something we seek, and as we age it becomes more elusive, yet our spirit remains willing, but our flesh grows weak. — Anton Szandor LaVey

In spite of his exceeding mental perturbation, Simpson struggled hard to detect its nature, and define it, but the ascertaining of an elusive scent, not recognized subconsciously and at once, is a very subtle operation of the mind. And he failed. It was gone before he could properly seize or name it. Approximate description, even, seems to have been difficult, for it was unlike any smell he knew. Acrid rather, not unlike the odor of a lion, he thinks, yet softer and not wholly unpleasing, with something almost sweet in it that reminded him of the scent of decaying garden leaves, earth, and the myriad, nameless perfumes that make up the odor of a big forest. Yet the 'odor of lions' is the phrase with which he usually sums it all up.
("The Wendigo") — Algernon Blackwood

Respect can be as elusive as the unicorn. I know something of this because I write books that are set in the Middle Ages, and the historical novel is often seen as the unwanted stepchild in the fictional family. I know even more about respect - or the lack thereof - because I live in New Jersey. — Sharon Kay Penman

There is something else I am after, out here in the wild. I am searching for an even more elusive prey ... something that can only be found through the help of wilderness. I am looking for my heart. — John Eldredge

Anton had the feeling that by doing something which was within his power but which he could not quite think of, he could undo everything and return to the way they had been before, sitting around the table playing a game. It was as if he had forgotten a name remebered a hundred times before and now on the tip of his tongue, but the harder he tried to recall it, the more elusive it became. — Harry Mulisch

Insofar as one can talk of a Vionnet school, it comes mostly from my having been an enemy of fashion. There is something superficial and volatile about the seasonal and elusive whims of fashion which offends my sense of beauty. — Madeleine Vionnet

Even our behavior and emotions seem to have been shaped by a prankster. Why do we crave the very foods that are bad for us but have less desire for pure grains and vegetables? Why do we keep eating when we know we are too fat? And why is our willpower so weak in its attempts to restrain our desires? Why are male and female sexual responses so uncoordinated, instead of being shaped for maximum mutual satisfaction? Why are so many of us constantly anxious, spending our lives, as Mark Twain said, "suffering from tragedies that never occur"? Finally, why do we find happiness so elusive, with the achievement of each long-pursued goal yielding not contentment, but only a new desire for something still less attainable? The design of our bodies is simultaneously extraordinarily precise and unbelievably slipshod. It is as if the best engineers in the universe took every seventh day off and turned the work over to bumbling amateurs. — Randolph M. Nesse

The daughter of the literary biographer Leslie Stephen, and close friend of the innovative biographer of the Victorians, Lytton Strachey, Woolf herself put forward, in 'The New Biography' (1927) (reviewing work by another biographer acquaintance, Harold Nicolson), her own memorable theory of biography, encapsulated in her phrase 'granite and rainbow'. 'Truth' she envisions 'as something of granite-like solidity', and 'personality as
something of rainbow-like intangibility', and 'the aim of biography', she proposes, 'is to weld these two into one seamless whole' (E4 473). The following short biographical account ofWoolf will attempt to keep to the basic granitelike facts that Woolf novices need to know, while also occasionally attending in brief to the more elusive, but equally relevant, matter of rainbow-like personality. — Jane Goldman

Perhaps it had something to do with the case becoming too neat, all the evidence suddenly lining up and cooperating with their theory. Or maybe his doubts were based on something as unreliable as "intuition," though Carlson had never been a big fan of that particular aspect of investigative work. Intuition was often a way of cutting corners, a nifty technique of replacing hard evidence and facts with something far more elusive and capricious. The worst investigators Carlson knew relied on so-called intuition. He — Harlan Coben

There is something about saying, 'We always do this,' which helps keep the years together. Time is such an elusive thing that if we keep on meaning to do something interesting, but never do it, year would follow year with no special thoughtfulness being expressed in making gifts, surprises, charming table settings, and familiar, favorite food. Tradition is a good gift intended to guard the best gifts. — Edith Schaeffer

Greatness is not this wonderful, esoteric, elusive, godlike feature that only the special among us will ever taste, it's something that truly exists in all of us. — Will Smith

To feel that our faith is threatened can easily turn to fear. But, judging from the long and varied history of thinking within Christianity, "being right" is elusive, and the Bible is never something we will actually master. The relentless and sinful human habit of creating God to look like ourselves, and thus distorting God, is also a constant problem. The choice we all need to make daily is whether we are willing to hold our narratives with an open hand and let God rewrite them when necessary. — Peter Enns

Maybe children just want whatever it is they don't get. And then they grow up and give their children what they wanted, be it silence or information, affection or independence
so that child, in turn, craves something else. With every generation the pendulum swings from opposite to opposite, stillness and peace so elusive. — Laura Moriarty

So how do we connect with this elusive changeless side of life? By doing deeds that are so kind and loving they create something that "lives on and on in the heart and soul." Inward, meditative retreat isn't enough if we want to make a connection to the changeless. We need to be good for something, to reach out to those in need with a kind word, a moment of attention, some hope. Unpretentious as it sounds, that's the key to dealing with change, and it's the essence of Edgar Cayce's social vision. — Mark A. Thurston

An empathic way of being can be learned from empathic persons. Perhaps the most important statement of all is that the ability to be accurately empathic is something which can be developed by training. Therapists, parents and teachers can be helped to become empathic. This is especially likely to occur if their teachers and supervisors are themselves individuals of sensitive understanding. It is most encouraging to know that this subtle, elusive quality, of utmost importance in therapy, is not something one is "born with", but can be learned, and learned most rapidly in an empathic climate. — Carl Rogers

I'd like to see fashion slow down a bit. What freaks me out about fashion today is the speed - the speed of consuming, the speed of ideas. When fashion moves so fast, it takes away something I always loved, which is the idea that fashion should be slightly elusive. Hard to grasp, hard to find. — Raf Simons

She wished she could capture the moment and make it physical somehow, turn it into something that she could hold in her hands, or put somewhere safe like she would a book or a vase. But life wasn't like that. You didn't get to hold on to the moments that defined you or touch the things that touched you - not in the palm of your hand or with the tips of your fingers, at least. Destiny's machinations were as elusive as a sculptor's tool, swooping in, changing your contours, and then moving on to the next piece of clay. — J.R. Ward

My mother will emerge with a towel on her head, Nefertiti fashion, and a good terry-cloth robe, and make herself a tall gin-and-tonic and look like a movie star for an hour. Being around her is like being on safari; there is an elusive something we are after, in difficult conditions, and we will look good in the getting there. — Padgett Powell

If the invention of derivatives was the financial world's modernist dawn, the current crisis is unsettlingly like the birth of postmodernism. For anyone who studied literature in college in the past few decades, there is a weird familiarity about the current crisis: value, in the realm of finance capital, parallels the elusive nature of meaning in deconstrucitonism. According to Jacques Derrida, the doyen of the school, meaning can never be precisely located; instead, it is always 'deferred,' moved elsewhere, located in other meanings, which refer and defer to other meanings - a snake permanently and necessarily eating its own tail. This process is fluid and constant, but at moments the perpetual process of deferral stalls and collapses in on itself. Derrida called this moment an 'aporia,' from a Greek term meaning 'impasse.' There is something both amusing and appalling about seeing his theories acted out in the world markets to such cataclysmic effect. — John Lanchester

The value of work, and of always learning something new, and what it takes to achieve excellence. I really believe in those things that you have to dedicate yourself and spend time, that excellence is elusive. It's a little maddening, to try to have that level of discipline in your life, and I don't succeed all the time. But I do try. — Ben Affleck

I hope that I capture something in my work that is about the elusive, the magical and powerful and the transformative. The writing in itself is transformative for me. — H. Raven Rose

There is something about a mass-market Luxury Cruise that's unbearably sad. Like most unbearably sad things, it seems incredibly elusive and complex in its causes and simple in its effect: on board the Nadir - especially at night - I felt despair. The wor's overused and banalified now, despair, but it's a serious word, and I'm using it seriously. — David Foster Wallace

If the object of meditation were something concrete, something solid and graspable - an image or a statue or a dot on the floor or a candle - it would be much more of a concentration exercise. But the breath is very elusive; even if you wanted to give it one hundred percent attention, it would be difficult because it is so ephemeral, so light, so airy and spacious. As the object of meditation, it brings a sense of softness and gentleness. — Pema Chodron

At that elusive moment when we transcend our ordinary performance and feel in harmony with something else-whether it's a glorious sunset, inspiring music or another human being-our studies have shown that what we are really coming in sync with is ourselves. Not only do we feel more relaxed and at peace, but this entrained state increases our ability to perform well and offers numerous health benefits. — Doc Childre

I got that familiar mania - there is information somewhere here, and I can find it, I have to. A good librarian is not so different from a prospector, her whole brain a divining rod. She walks to books and stands and wonders: here? Is the answer here? The same blind faith in finding, even when hopeless. If someone caught me when I was in the throes of tracking something elusive, I would have told them: but it's out there. I can feel it. — Elizabeth McCracken

The kiss was innocent
innocent enough
but it was also full of something not unlike what Virginia wants from London, from life; it was full of a love complex and ravenous, ancient, neither this nor that. It will serve as this afternoon's manifestation of the central mystery itself, the elusive brightness that shines from the edges of certain dreams; the brightness which, when we awaken, is already fading from our minds, and which we rise in the hope of finding, perhaps today, this new day in which anything might happen, anything at all. — Michael Cunningham

The feeling of emptiness is usually a sign that we have put our trust in something that can't sustain us. It reminds us that we were created to trust in our heavenly Father and nothing else. We were created to enjoy the many things God gives without making them the center of our lives. When we confuse the two, our lives feel out of kilter. To feel better, we try again and search for love apart from God, but when we finally realize that it is elusive, we forsake the quest and quietly despair. Keep probing. Life is ultimately about God. — Edward T. Welch

Perfection is something everyone strives for, but it's elusive and may be an illusion. — R.L. Griffin

What a hypocrite I am; I spend my whole life reading books that allude to happiness, when I refuse to experience it. Sadness is an emotion you can trust. It is stronger than all of the other emotions. It makes happiness look fickle and untrustworthy. It pervades, lasts longer, and replaces the good feelings with such an eloquent ease you don't even feel the shift until you are suddenly wrapped in its chains. How hard we strive for happiness, and once we finally have the elusive feeling in our grasp, we hold it briefly, like water as it trickles through our fingers. I don't want to hold water. I want to hold something heavy and solid. Something I can understand. I understand sadness, and so I trust it. We are meant to feel sadness, if only to protect us from the brief spiels of happiness. Darkness is all I'll ever know; maybe the key is to make poetry out of it. — Tarryn Fisher

Emma was happy. She realized that happiness is something that springs from the generous treatment of others, and that until one makes that connection, happiness may prove elusive. — Alexander McCall Smith

I wanted to find something I was passionate about, something with the possibility of upward movement, and I wanted freedom. I need to be outside living life, not stuck in an office. I figured I could either be out selling condos in Miami, or I could move to L.A. and chase after that elusive actor's job. — Dawn Olivieri

I had many things to say, I did not have the words to say them. Painfully aware of my limitations, I watched helplessly and language became an obstacle. It became clear that it would be necessary to invent a new language ... I would pause at every sentence, and start over and over again. I would conjure up other verbs, other images, other silent cries. It still was not right. But what exactly was "it"? "It" was something elusive, darkly shrouded for fear of being usurped, profaned. All the dictionary had to offer seemed meager, pale, lifeless. — Elie Wiesel

The desert wears ... a veil of mystery. Motionless and silent it evokes in us an elusive hint of something unknown, unknowable, about to be revealed. Since the desert does not act it seems to be waiting
but waiting for what? — Edward Abbey

There was more, he was sure. He could feel it. Something deeper. More profound. More worthy. More likeable. It was like a bittersweet yearning for something that was so familiar it hurt. Something he'd lost without even knowing he'd lost it. Something elusive that floated just beyond his grasp. — Alan McCluskey

Funny . . . humanity's great at the tiny patterns. We can find quarks in an atom and Jesus's face in a tortilla. But that big picture is so elusive, so overwhelming, people refuse to believe something as obvious as their life in Des Moines affects lives in Delhi. — P.J. Manney

That swimming, sloping, elusive something about the dark-bluish tint of the iris which seemed still to retain the shadows it had absorbed of ancient, fabulous forests where there were more birds than tigers and more fruit than thorns, and where, in some dappled depth, man's mind had been born ... — Vladimir Nabokov

My homesickness wasn't truly for home, I realized. It was for something more elusive. A silent, low-grade, unnamed yearning persisted inside me. It was always there, a reaching feeling that grew stronger when I was alone and listened for it. The rain understood what it was. — Caragh M. O'Brien

What really interests me about capturing and suspending movement is that I get to experience something invisible and inaudible, as elusive and fleeting as thought itself, and give it form ... Maybe my paintings are all just little fragments of the Cosmic Dance suspended in time. — James Nares

They passed out of the shade beneath the eaves and flew into sunglare and silence and it was an action she only partly saw, elusive and mutely beautiful, the birds so sunstruck they were consumed by light, disembodied, turned into something sheer and fleet and scatter-bright. — Don DeLillo