Curious Quotes - Page 7

• The poetical tendency of the present and of the preceding century has been divided in a manner singularly curious. One loud and conspicuous faction of bards, giving way to the corrupt influences of a decaying general culture, seems to have abandoned all the properties of versification and reason in its mad scramble after sensational novelty; whilst the other and quieter school constituting a more logical evolution from the poesy of the Georgian period, demands an accuracy of rhyme and metre unknown even to the polished artists of the age of Pope.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  School, Artist, Mad

  "The Allowable Rhyme". Book by H. P. Lovecraft, 1915.

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• Everything in life that deviates from the straight and, so to speak, normal line, makes people first curious and then indignant.

  Stefan Zweig

  People, Lines, Firsts

  "Beware of Pity". Book by Stefan Zweig, 1939.

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• It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is, and what shifts we make to escape thinking. There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds.

  James Russell Lowell

  Reading, Thinking, Mind

  James Russell Lowell (1864). “Fireside Travels”, p.124

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• As to the pretty girls who went past, from the day on which I had first known that their cheeks could be kissed, I had become curious about their souls. And the Universe had appeared to me more interesting.

  Marcel Proust

  Girl, Women, Past

  Marcel Proust (2006). “Remembrance of Things Past”, p.648, Wordsworth Editions

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• The real stars of society are tired of appearing there. He who is curious to gaze at them must often migrate to another hemisphere, where they are more or less alone.

  Marcel Proust

  Stars, Real, Tired

  Marcel Proust (2006). “Remembrance of Things Past”, p.64, Wordsworth Editions

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• Theory is a dirty word in some managerial quarters. That is rather curious, because all of us, managers especially, can no more get along without theories than libraries can get along without catalogs and for the same reason: theories help us make sense of incoming information.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Dirty, Library, Information

  Henry Mintzberg (2009). “Managers Not Mbas: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.43, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Gertrude Stein, all courage and will, is a soldier of minimalism. Her work, unlike the resonating silences in the art of Samuel Beckett, embodies in its loquacity and verbosity the curious paradox of the minimalist form. This art of the nuance in repetition and placement she shares with the orchestral compositions of Philip Glass.

  Elizabeth Hardwick

  Art, Glasses, Silence

  Elizabeth Hardwick (1998). “Sight-readings: American Fictions”, Random House Incorporated

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• According to my observations, mankind are among the most easily tamable and domesticable of all creatures in the animal world. They are readily reducible to submission, so readily conditionable (to coin a word) as to exhibit an almost incredibly enduring patience under restraint and oppression of the most flagrant character. So far are they from displaying any overweening love of freedom that they show a singular contentment with a condition of servitorship, often showing a curious canine pride in it, and again often simply unaware that they are existing in that condition.

  Albert J. Nock

  Character, Pride, Animal

  "Memoirs of a Superfluous Man" by Albert J. Nock, (p. 314), 1943.

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• By some curious mischance, a couple of my plays managed to hit an area where commercial success was feasible. But it's wrong to think I'm a commercial playwright who has somehow ceased his proper function. I have always been the same thing - which is not a commercial playwright. I'm not after the brass ring.

  Edward Albee

  Couple, Thinking, Play

  "Conversations with Edward Albee". Book edited by Philip C. Kolin, 1988.

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• Isn't all religions curious? If they weren't you wouldn't get anyone to believe them.

  Sean O'Casey

  Believe, Ifs

  Sean O'Casey (1932). “Juno and the Paycock: A Tragedy in Three Acts”, Samuel French

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• I was like, I don't know if I can hold that promise [to wait until marriage to have sex] because this guy at camp is really cute. Sex wasn't talked about in my home, but I was a very curious young girl.

  Katy Perry

  Cute, Girl, Sex

  Interview in Cosmopolitan magazine, August 2009.

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• To fall for," "to be fallen for"--I feel in these words something unspeakably vulgar, farcical, and at the same time extraordinarily complacent. Once these expressions put in an appearance, no matter how solemn the place, the silent cathedrals of melancholy crumble, leaving nothing but an impression of fatuousness. It is curious, but the cathedrals of melancholy are not necessarily demolished if one can replace the vulgar "What a messy business it is to be fallen for" by the more literary "What uneasiness lies in being loved.

  Osamu Dazai

  Love, Lying, Fall

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.47, New Directions Publishing

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• As the classes in modern life come together, we have become much more intensely class conscious. It's a very curious thing. But I deal with human beings with whom I've come in contact and have had a chance to closely observe. Their upper-classness is not a matter of particular fascination for me.

  Louis Auchincloss

  Class, Together, Fascination

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• It is curious how an age of public self-revelation, and of the use of psychological jargon, should also be an age when self-examination is rarely practised.

  Anthony Daniels

  Self, Age, Use

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• Artistically I'm curious. But in life? No. I can go to a restaurant and order the same thing for 10 years.

  Chris Rock

  Order, Years, Restaurants

  Source: www.theguardian.com

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• I think I was able to endure risks not because I was ambitious about great stories but I was curious as a journalist.

  Hark-Joon Lee

  Thinking, Risk, Ambitious

  "This journalist didn’t just interview North Korean defectors, he followed them on their escape". Interview with Anna Fifield, www.washingtonpost.com. June 20, 2015.

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• A home life where it's so full of so many rigorous ideas about the way things should be, this word "should," I think is absolutely toxic to children. It hurts their personalities, it hurts their points of view in the world, it hurts their ability to be open and caring and curious. An element of allowance in a family, is, I think, really a positive thing.

  Mark Ruffalo

  Hurt, Children, Home

  "Mark Ruffalo and Maya Forbes on How YouTube and Wes Anderson Helped Shape Infinitely Polar Bear". Interview with Richard Lawson, www.vanityfair.com. June 19, 2015.

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• If you thought when you got your job at 20 that it would never change you were misinformed. Retrain yourself to be curious.

  Eric Schmidt

  Jobs, Never Change, Ifs

  "Google's Big Tent event: porn, copyright, Eric Schmidt and all". www.theguardian.com. May 23, 2012.

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• When you saw the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," that was Michael [Jackson]'s story write large. Born as an elderly person, Benjamin Button was, in the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel and in the film starring Brad Pitt, he dies as a newborn child. Michael Jackson's childhood was one of enormous, prodigious production.He was a child prodigy, he was a wunderkind.

  Michael Eric Dyson

  Children, Writing, Elderly

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I just really like ants, and I really like science. I was interested and curious about the quantum world and the physics behind how it all works.

  Evangeline Lilly

  Ants, World, Physics

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• I would be curious about one of those Jane Austen women - you know - long-suffering, dutiful - but all right in the end - a plump 19th century type, five foot four, ringlets, brown eyes, long fingers.

  Peter Greenaway

  Eye, Feet, Long

  "Fictional character: Philip Emmenthal". 8 1/2 Women, 1999.

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• I was always curious about the anxiety a person would feel when you open your mouth and you have an accent. You could have a Ph.D. or be a lawyer, but as soon as you say something, you may be diminished in the eyes of someone else.

  Dinaw Mengestu

  Eye, Anxiety, Mouths

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• Every poet has his dream reader: mine keeps a look out for curious prosodic fauna like bacchics and choriambs.

  W. H. Auden

  Dream, Looks, Poet

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• Editors are licensed to be curious.

  William Zinsser

  Editors

  William Zinsser (2005). “Writing about Your Life: A Journey Into the Past”, p.130, Da Capo Press

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• When I was very young I was very shy but at the same time I was very open cause I was very curious so I wanted to try many things.

  Sylvie Guillem

  Trying, Shy, Causes

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