Unexceptional Quotes & Sayings

But then again, he would think, what about his life- and about Jude's life, too- wasn't it a miracle? He should have stayed in Wyoming, he should have been a ranch hand himself. Jude should have wound up - where? In prison, or in a hospital, or dead, or worse. But they hadn't. Wasn't it a miracle that someone who was basically unexceptional could life a life in which he made millions pretending to be other people, that in that life that person would fly from city to city, would spend his days having his every need fulfilled, working in which he was treated like the potentate of a small, corrupt country? Wasn't it a miracle to be adopted at thirty, to find people who loved you so much that they wanted to call you their own? Wasn't it a miracle to have survived the unsurvivable?Wasn't friendship its own miracle, the finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely? Wasn't this house, this beauty, this comfort, this life a miracle? — Hanya Yanagihara

Her seductive power, however, did not lie in her looks [ ... ]. In reality, Cleopatra was physically unexceptional and had no political power, yet both Caesar and Antony, brave and clever men, saw none of this. What they saw was a woman who constantly transformed herself before their eyes, a one-woman spectacle.
Her dress and makeup changed from day to day, but always gave her a heightened, goddesslike appearance. Her words could be banal enough, but were spoken so sweetly that listeners would find themselves remembering not what she said but how she said it. — Robert Greene

Suddenly realised that if he felt that he had achieved nothing it was because he had failed to cherish what he had in fact done. He had filled his days doing ordinary, unexceptional things and thought nothing of them. But they were far from nothing: — Alexander McCall Smith

I'm not embarrassed about having, you know, no experience," Luce said quietly-these walls were thin. "It's just, do you ever feel like nothing has happened to you? Like you know you have destiny, but all you've seen of life so far is unexceptional? I want my life to be different. I want to feel that it's begun. I'm waiting for kiss. But sometimes I feel like I could wait forever and nothing would ever change. — Lauren Kate

This book is dedicated to the uncool, uncoordinated, unexceptional, uncharming, uninteresting, and especially the unashamed. To everyone from the Awkwards to the Zeroes, living as the proud oddballs they are. This book is dedicated to my people. — Drew Hayes

I reject the notion that America is in a well-deserved decline, that she and her citizens are unexceptional. I do not believe America is the problem in the world. I believe America is the solution to the world's problems. — Rush Limbaugh

I think, consciously or not, what we readers do each time we open a book is to set off a search for authenticity. We want to get closer to the heart of things, and sometimes even a few good sentences contained in an otherwise unexceptional book can crystallize vague feelings, fleeting physical sensations, or, sometimes, profound epiphanies. pg. xvi — Maureen Corrigan

Nobody would believe that Richard left evening pleasures promptly because it gave him longer in his valet's company, that he took such care over his clothing because it made two hours' dressing with Cyprian unexceptional. That he would rather talk to a liveried servant than to any of the gentlemen who were his closest friends. — K.J. Charles

He showed the words "chocolate cake" to a group of Americans and recorded their word associations. "Guilt" was the top response. If that strikes you as unexceptional, consider the response of French eaters to the same prompt: "celebration. — Michael Pollan

In spite of all my efforts to create a neat, tidy, obedient, moderate, unexceptional persona, I was simply
too weird for them; until that is, my first female tutor was hired. — Salman Rushdie

One should never risk a joke, even of the mildest and most unexceptional charters, except among people of culture and wit. — Jean De La Bruyere

For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner ... on an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies ... That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is very good for us to understand that. — Carl Sagan

Along with Islam and Christianity, Judaism does insist that some turgid and contradictory and sometimes evil and mad texts, obviously written by fairly unexceptional humans, are in fact the word of god. I think that the indispensable condition of any intellectual liberty is the realisation that there is no such thing. — Christopher Hitchens

There's a reason why I tell this story. To me these Sunday painters represent myo - the strangeness of beauty - an idea that transcendence can be found in what's common and small. Rather than wishing for singularity and celebrity and genius (and growing all gloomy in its absence), these painters recognize the ordinariness of their talents and remain undaunted.
It's the blessings in life, not in self, that they mean to express.
And therein lies the transcendence. For as people pursue their plain, decent goals, as they whittle their crude flutes, paint their flat landscapes, make unexceptional love to their spouses - in their numbers across cultures and time, in their sheer tenacity as in the face of a random universe they perform their small acts of awareness and appreciation - there is a mysterious, strange beauty. — Lydia Minatoya

The people who went on that airplane were unexceptional. — Paul Greengrass

Consider Steve Jobs. One biographer said, "Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead he was a genius." Jobs dropped out of college, went to find himself in India, and at one point was forced out of Apple, the company he co-founded, when sales were slow in 1985. Few would have predicted the level of his success by his death. "Think different" became the slogan of a multinational monolith that fused art and technology under his guidance. Jobs may have been average or unexceptional in many domains, but his vision and ability to think differently made him a genius. — Brian Hare

I found Toronto an immensely likeable city, spacious and gentle and slightly dignified, but in a low-key, friendly way. The only people who didn't seem to think much of it were its inhabitants, who could hardly wait for you to ask directions, because that gave them the perfect opportunity to apologise for it. What they were apologising for I never understood. I think they felt uninteresting, compared with America. I took the opposite view; I remember reading about the doctrine of American "Exceptionalism" and thinking that what I liked so much about Canadians was that they consider themselves unexceptional. This modest, unthreatening attitude seems to produce a nation that is stable, safe, decent and well respected. It's just a shame that for seven months of the year it's so cold that only Canadians would put up with it. — John Cleese

1970's was a time when English medium schools left such a distinctive impression in the field of education that middle-class parents with unexceptional income clamoured for admissions in private schools even before the birth of their offsprings. One occasion when catholicity genuinely assisted parents was when obtaining a spot for their children at catholic schools despite intense competition. — Neetha Joseph

The value of your life is in all the unexceptional details. — Carol Mason

A few weeks ago my uncle came over to borrow my dad's socket set and when he asked my dad how he was my dad said oh unexceptional. Living quietly with my disappointments. And how are you — Miriam Toews

Do you ever feel like 'nothing' has happened to you? Like you know you have a destiny, but all you've seen of life so far is unexceptional? I want my life to be different. I want to feel that it's begun. I'm waiting for 'that' kiss. — Lauren Kate

One realizes that everything about the world that seems so unexceptional and drearily predictable is in fact charged with an immense and imponderable mystery. In that instant one is aware, even if the precise formulation eludes one, that everything one knows exists in an irreducibly gratuitous way: "what it is" has no logical connection with the reality "that it is"; nothing within experience has any "right" to be, any power to give itself existence, any apparent "why." The world is unable to provide any account of its own actuality, and yet there it is all the same. In that instant one recalls that one's every encounter with the world has always been an encounter with an enigma that no merely physical explanation can resolve. One cannot dwell indefinitely — David Bentley Hart

She ducked from her doorway and pressed on, neither too fast nor too slow, soft bootheels silent on the dewy cobbles, her unexceptional hood drawn down to an inconspicuous degree, the very image of a person with just the average amount to hide. — George R R Martin

What we readers do each time we open a book is to set up on a search for authenticity. We want to get closer to the heart of things, and sometimes even a few good sentences contained in an otherwise unexceptional book can crystallize vague feelings, fleeting physical sensations, or, sometimes, profound epiphanies. — Maureen Corrigan

I believe a person who strives to keep a great attitude is refusing a life of mediocrity. God isn't calling you to a life of mediocrity. Think of what the word mediocre means. The dictionary defines mediocre as "of only moderate quality; not very good." Synonyms for the word mediocre are words such as average, undistinguished, unexceptional, lackluster, and forgettable. Do these words describe how you want your life to be remembered? I seriously doubt they do. You want your life to be remembered as inspiring and exceptional. If you seek God's direction and plan for your life, he will lead and empower you to reach your full potential and inspire others. — Mark R. Lile

Science has an uncomfortable way of pushing human beings from center stage. In our prescientific stories, humans began as the focal point of Nature, living on an Earth that was the center of the universe. As the origins of the Earth and of mankind were investigated more carefully, it became clear that Nature had other interests beyond people, and the Earth was less central than previously hoped. Humankind was just one branch of the great family of life, and the Earth is a smallish planet orbiting an unexceptional sun quite far out on one arm of a run-of-the-mill spiral galaxy. — Seth Lloyd

The pain was as unexpected as a thunderclap in a clear sky. Eddis's chest tightened, as something closed around her heart. A deep breath might have calmed her, but she couldn't draw one. She wondered if she was ill, and she even thought briefly that she might have been poisoned. She felt Attolia reach out and take her hand. To the court it was unexceptional, hardly noticed, but to Eddis it was an anchor, and she held on to it as if to a lifeline. Sounis was looking at her with concern. Her responding smile was artificial. — Megan Whalen Turner