Awful Quotes - Page 23

• When people say it's a funny thing about them, you will probably be able to control your hysterics. They are only getting ready to announce the shattering fact that they don't like something. And it's not going to be something that's really quite awful, like suttee or apartheid; it's going to be something small.

  Peg Bracken

  Funny Things, People, Able

  Peg Bracken (1969). “I Didn't Come Here to Argue”

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• My father was a writer, so I grew up writing and reading and I was really encouraged by him. I had some sort of gift and when it came time to try to find a publisher I had a little bit of an "in" because I had his agent I could turn to, to at least read my initial offerings when I was about 20. But the only problem was that they were just awful, they were just terrible stories and my agent, who ended up being my agent, was very, very sweet about it, but it took about four years until I actually had something worth trying to sell.

  Anne Lamott

  Sweet, Father, Reading

  Big Think Interview, bigthink.com.

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• I would say that the writers I like and trust have at the base of their prose something called the English sentence. An awful lot of modern writing seems to me to be a depressed use of language. Once, I called it "vow-of-poverty prose." No, give me the king in his countinghouse. Give me Updike.

  Martin Amis

  Kings, Writing, Giving

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• When the blessed Spirit, that bloweth where it listeth, visits you and stirs the plumage of the soul, seek no cowardly shelter from it, but fling yourself upon it, and, though its sweep be awful, you shall be sustained. Only do this, do all, not in presumptuous daring, but in divine submission; in dependence, not on any strength that can be spent, but on the ever-living stay of all that trust in Him.

  James Martineau

  Blessed, Visits You, Soul

  James Martineau (1905). “A Martineau year book: Extracts from sermons”

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• All the untidyactivity continues, awful but cheerful.

  Elizabeth Bishop

  Cheerful

  Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “One Art: Letters”, p.287, Macmillan

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• Humor is really one of the hardest things to define, very hard. And it's very ambiguous. You have it or you don't. You can't attain it. There are terrible forms of professional humor, the humorists' humor. That can be awful. It depresses me because it is artificial. You can't always be humorous, but a professional humorist must. That is a sad phenomenon.

  Heinrich Böll

  Depressing, Humorous, Form

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• At first, being a female role model really terrified me. But it hasn't turned out to be an awful burden. I get a lot of letters from women who tell me that, after watching Xena, they have bought the Harley-Davidson they always wanted or left an abusive relationship.

  Lucy Lawless

  Female Role Models, Roles, Letters

  "Is it a bird?". The Sunday Times, July 27, 1997.

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• There are so many kinds of awful men One can't avoid them all. She often said She'd never make the same mistake again: She always made a new mistake instead.

  Wendy Cope

  Mistake, Men, Kind

  1986 'Rondeau Redouble¤'.

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• I saw The Sound of Music again recently, and I loved it. Probably it's a more valuable film now than when it first came out, because some of the things it stood for have already disappeared. There's a kind of naive loveliness about it, and love goes by so fast ... love and music and happiness and family, that's what it's all about. I believe in these things. It would be awful not to, wouldn't it?

  Julie Andrews

  Believe, And Love, Sound

  Photoplay, September 1973.

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• There are more useful systems developed in languages deemed awful than in languages praised for being beautiful - many more.

  Bjarne Stroustrup

  Beautiful, Being Beautiful, Language

  "Bjarne Stroustrup: The Problem with Programming". Interview with Jason Pontin, www.technologyreview.com. January 01, 2007.

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• Awful as the consideration of eternity is, it is a source of great consolation to the righteous.

  Charles Buck

  Eternity, Consideration, Source

  Charles Buck (1831). “Anecdotes, religious, moral, and entertaining”, p.44

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• My first job was with the Burns Detective Agency. They sent me over to the East River to guard coal barges during these god-awful hours like three to six in the morning. It wasn't a very difficult job -- all I had to do was make a round every fifteen minutes -- but it turned out to be a great environment for writing. I was completely alone in a little outhouse with an electric heater and a little desk.

  Sam Shepard

  Morning, Jobs, Writing

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• It seems to me that the arts are rather flourishing. There's an awful lot of bad art about because of this, but that's true of every great era. I'm sure there was a lot dreadful art in the Renaissance that we fortunately don't see today.

  Louis Auchincloss

  Art, Renaissance, Today

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• I have this great test to see if a girl's a real friend. When we're shopping I'll pick out an outfit that I know looks hot and one that is awful. If my friend says the bad one looks good, I know she's not a good friend.

  Paris Hilton

  Girl, Real, Good Friend

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• How do you get rid of the trash? It's out there in society, it's going on every day. You can educate children an awful lot easier than you can get rid of the trash.

  Joycelyn Elders

  Children, Easier, Trash

  "Straight Talk From a Straight Shooter Journeys: Joycelyn Elders Was Known for Her Outspokenness During Her Run". Los Angeles Times, July 03, 1997.

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• We wouldn't want to be like the Swiss, would we? That would be awful! We'd be rich!

  Nigel Farage

  Would Be, Want, Rich

  "Ukip's Nigel Farage ridicules David Cameron's EU referendum speech" by Esther Addley, www.theguardian.com. January 23, 2013.

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• Each of the actors need to have their justification for saying something awful. You want everyone to have a positive and negative thing. Even a positive thing needs to have darkness in it. It needs to have depth.

  M. Night Shyamalan

  Darkness, Depth, Negative

  Source: collider.com

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• [Drug] Addiction is awful, the worst if it is your kid. Plenty of loving parents who did everything "right" find themselves with kids caught up with drugs, and plenty of absentee parents have kids who never touch the stuff.

  Roxanne Roberts

  Kids, Addiction, Parent

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• And I sing and sing of awful things The pleasure that my sadness brings.

  Conor Oberst

  Sadness, Pleasure

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• Oh, it was awful, and I vowed to myself I would never, ever push myself to the edge that much again. It was really frightening. Because absolutely everything seemed to be impossible to deal with, just little things became major - noise, if someone had a radio on, or even the sound of traffic, or being in someone's company for longer than 10 minutes - I started to find it all too much.

  Elaine Paige

  Radio, Littles, Noise

  "Show Girl". www.theguardian.com. April 16, 2000.

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• There's a tolerance and this is a really big thing when it comes to really increasing the whole sense of getting something done and boosting the economy. Obviously not everything is going to be a bonanza, some things are going to be awful, but wouldn't it be great if we had a fantastic window dresser to do something with those windows on Fairfield green and those Victoria's Secret windows. I love girls in bras in panties, but these are just mannequins. Wouldn't it be great if some local artists got together and said, "Hey, Victoria's Secret, let's do something!" We need that.

  Tina Weymouth

  Girl, Artist, Tolerance

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• Body odour (known also as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting condition with an awful, nauseating smell.

  Gao Xingjian

  Smell, Body, Scent

  Gao Xingjian (2000). “Soul Mountain”

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• I think when a man first discovers that two and two is four, there is 'beauty' in that; and we can see why. But if people stand and look at the moon and one says 'I think it's just beautiful tonight' and the other says 'The moon makes me feel awful' we are both 'clear'. A geometric shape - we know why we like it; and an unreasonable shape; it has a certain mystery that we recognize as real; but it is difficult to put these things in an objective way.

  William Baziotes

  Beautiful, Real, Moon

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• Tomorrows were full of awful things. Today, now, was the essential.

  Ariana Franklin

  Essentials, Today, Tomorrow

  Ariana Franklin (2007). “Mistress of the Art of Death”, p.384, Penguin

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• The reader might reflect that an awful lot of supposing has to take place in order for the quantity theory of money to be true.

  Paul Ormerod

  Order, Supposing That, Might

  "The Death of Economics". Book by Paul Ormerod, 1994.

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