Clockwork Quotes - Page 3

• Somewhere, deep within her, surfaces a tiny clockwork submarine. There are times when you can only take the next step. And then another.

  William Gibson

  Next Steps, Submarines, Tiny

  William Gibson (2003). “Pattern Recognition”, p.106, Penguin

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• For there was a conspiracy of dullness in the world, a universal plan to shut out the resurgences of spirit which might interfere with clockwork. Better to keep your elevation unseen until it is higher than strangers' hands can reach to pull you down to their level.

  Tennessee Williams

  Hands, Unseen, World

  Tennessee Williams (1994). “Collected Stories”, p.128, New Directions Publishing

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• Were "A Clockwork Orange" or "Blue Velvet" released today, would they have the same power to shock that they had when they came out? Are we too inured by that torrent of images and the ridiculousness of modern political life, so that nothing shocks us anymore? What does it take to shock someone today - or at least jolt them? I don't have an answer. I'm just asking the question.

  Alexander Payne

  Political, Today, Modern

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• The point of the dragonfly's terrible lip, the giant water bug, birdsong, or the beautiful dazzle and flash of sunlighted minnows,is not that it all fits together like clockwork--for it doesn'tbut that it all flows so freely wild, like the creek, that it all surges in such a free, finged tangle. Freedom is the world's water and weather, the world's nourishment freely given, its soil and sap: and the creator loves pizzazz.

  Annie Dillard

  Beautiful, Nature, Freedom

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• the State only aims at instilling those qualities in its public by which its demands are obeyed, and its exchequer is filled. Its highest attainment is the reduction of mankind to clockwork. In its atmosphere all those finer and more delicate liberties, which require treatment and spacious expansion, inevitably dry up and perish. The State requires a taxpaying machine in which there is no hitch, an exchequer in which there is never a deficit, and a public, monotonous, obedient, colorless, spiritless, moving humbly like a flock of sheep along a straight high road between two walls.

  Ouida

  Wall, Moving, Government

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• Great literature has always been written in a like spirit, and is, indeed, the Forgiveness of Sin, and when we find it becoming the Accusation of Sin, as in George Eliot, who plucks her Tito in pieces with as much assurance as if he had been clockwork, literature has begun to change into something else.

  William Butler Yeats

  Pieces, Literature, Becoming

  William Butler Yeats (2017). “Ideas of Good and Evil”, p.79, Litres

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• An army formed of good officers moves like clockwork; but there is no situation upon earth less enviable, nor more distressing, than that person's who is at the head of troops which are regardless of order and discipline.

  George Washington

  Moving, Army, Order

  George Washington (1795). “Official Letters to the Honorable American Congress,: Written, During the War Between the United Colonies and Great Britain, by His Excellency, George Washington, Commander in Chief of the Continental Forces, Now President of the United States”, p.272

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• I had a couple of really cool friends when I was a kid, and we'd find cool music and movies and show them to each other. My friend Dennis had a copy of 'A Clockwork Orange' and he'd already seen it once, and he was like, 'We need to watch this.' I was sleeping over his house - and I think we were literally 15 - and we watched it.

  Gerard Way

  Couple, Sleep, Kids

  "Catching Up With The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys Writer Gerard Way". Interview with Sean Edgar, www.pastemagazine.com. June 12, 2013.

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• As a bio major, I figured "free will" meant chemicals in your brain telling you what to do, the molecules bouncing around in a way that felt like choosing but was actually the dance of little gears--neurons and hormones bubbling up into decisions like clockwork. You don't use your body; it uses you.

  Scott Westerfeld

  Decision, Brain, Molecules

  Scott Westerfeld (2006). “Peeps”, p.6, Penguin

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• Will: "Nice place to live, isn't it? Let's hope they left something behind other than filth. Forwarding addresses, a few severed limbs, a prostitute or two ..." Jem: "Indeed. Perhaps, if we're fortunate, we can still catch syphilis." "Or demon pox," Will suggested cheerfully, trying the door under the stairs.

  Cassandra Clare

  Nice, Doors, Two

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• How rude. Many who have gazed upon me have compared the experience to gazing at the radiance of the sun." Jem still had his eyes closed. "If they mean it gives you a headache, they aren't wrong.

  Cassandra Clare

  Mean, Eye, Giving

  Cassandra Clare (2013). “The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess”, p.326, Simon and Schuster

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• Picture a tall, dark figure, surrounded by cornfields... NO, YOU CAN'T RIDE A CAT. WHO EVER HEARD OF THE DEATH OF RATS RIDING A CAT? THE DEATH OF RATS WOULD RIDE SOME KIND OF DOG. Picture more fields, a great horizon-spanning network of fields, rolling in gentle waves... DON'T ASK ME I DON'T KNOW. SOME KIND OF TERRIER, MAYBE. ...fields of corn, alive, whispering in the breeze... RIGHT, AND THE DEATH OF FLEAS CAN RIDE IT TOO. THAT WAY YOU KILL TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE. ...awaiting the clockwork of the seasons. METAPHORICALLY.

  Terry Pratchett

  Dog, Cat, Dark

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• Colon has always thought that heroes had some special kind of clockwork that made them go out and die famously for god, country and apple pie, or whatever particular delicacy their mother made. It had never occurred to him that they might do it because they'd get yelled at if they didn't.

  Terry Pratchett

  Mother, Country, Hero

  Terry Pratchett (2009). “Jingo: (Discworld Novel 21)”, p.175, Random House

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• The movies I cannot go without and that I watch annually are 'A Clockwork Orange,' 'Scarface' and 'Fantasia.'

  Nicolas Cage

  Orange, Watches, Fantasia

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• Clockwork could not run counter to its nature. The seconds, minutes, and hours moved only forward. Patient, precise, and unstoppable. Memory was an indulgence, an illusion that broke like a wave upon the juggernaut of time. The past remained the past.

  Matthew J. Kirby

  Running, Memories, Past

  Matthew J. Kirby (2012). “The Clockwork Three”, p.155, Scholastic Inc.

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• Sometimes, when I have to do something I don't want to do, I pretend I'm a character from a book. It's easier to know what they would do.

  Cassandra Clare

  Book, Character, Want

  Cassandra Clare (2013). “The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess”, p.216, Simon and Schuster

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• A clockwork heart can't replace the real thing.

  Dru Pagliassotti

  Real, Heart, Steampunk

  Dru Pagliassotti (2017). “Clockwork Heart”, p.88, EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing

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• As the clockwork of the millennia moved a notch in front of their eyes, it had taken their thoughts from small things and reminded them of how vulnerable they were to time.

  Mark Helprin

  Taken, Eye, Vulnerable

  Mark Helprin (1989). “Winter's Tale”, Pocket Books

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• They lay there for a few seconds, in the dark, in the future, listening to the fabulous clockwork of their hearts and lungs, and loving each other

  Michael Chabon

  Heart, Dark, Listening

  Michael Chabon (2012). “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (with bonus content): A Novel”, p.380, Random House

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• Do you remember when we stood together on Blackfriars Bridge?” he asked softly, and his eyes were like that night had been, all black and silver. “Of course I remember.” “It was the moment I first knew I loved you,” Jem said. “I will make you a promise. Every year, Tessa, on one day, I will meet you on that bridge. I will come from the Silent City and I will meet you, and we will be together, if only for an hour. But you must tell no one.

  Cassandra Clare

  Princess, Eye, Night

  Cassandra Clare (2014). “Clockwork Princess”, p.499, Simon and Schuster

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• Ah,” said a voice from the doorway, “having your annual ‘everyone thinks Will is a lunatic’ meeting, are you? “It’s biannual,” said Jem. “And no, this is not that meeting.

  Cassandra Clare

  Thinking, Voice, Doorways

  Cassandra Clare (2013). “Clockwork Prince”, p.327, Simon and Schuster

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• In January we start saving money, getting out of credit card debt, funding our retirement accounts, and we're doing wonderful. Then, every single year like clockwork, starting in November, all of you fall into this trap that says, 'I have to buy this gift... I can't show up at this party and not have something for everybody.

  Suze Orman

  Retirement, Party, Fall

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• Now I basically just read spy stories because they're about solving a puzzle within the constraints of history. It's the tick tock, the clockwork that I'm interested in.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Spy, Stories, Tick

  Interview with Malcolm Gladwell, www.interviewmagazine.com. March 13, 2017.

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• Sorrento, August. For two weeks now I haven't heard a German word or understood an Italian one. This way one can manage to live with people; everything goes like clockwork and no irksome misunderstanding can arise.

  Karl Kraus

  Communication, Italian, August

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & one-and-a-half truths: selected aphorisms”

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• Your angel cannot protect you against that which neither god nor the devil had made

  Cassandra Clare

  Angel, Devil, Made

  Cassandra Clare (2010). “Clockwork Angel”, p.322, Simon and Schuster

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