Describing Quotes - Page 8

A family with the wrong members in control; that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.

George Orwell

Family, Insulting, Phrases

The Lion and the Unicorn (1941) pt. 1 "England Your England"

15 Copy quote

Show source
Australia is so cool that it's hard to even know where to start describing it. The beaches are beautiful; so is the weather. Not too crowded. Great food, great music, really nice people. It must be a lot like Los Angeles was many years ago.

Mary-Kate Olsen

Beautiful, Beach, Nice

"Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

54 Copy quote

Show source
There's a difference between describing and evoking something. You can describe something and be quite clinical about it. To evoke it, you call it up in the reader. That's what writers do when they're good.

Margaret Atwood

Differences, Evoke, Reader

"Double bluff". Interview with Katharine Viner, www.theguardian.com. September 16, 2000.

16 Copy quote

Show source
I am not out to liberate anybody. You have to liberate yourself, and you are unable to do that. What I have to say will not do it. I am only interested in describing this state, in clearing away the occultation and mystification in which those people in the 'holy business' have shrouded the whole thing. Maybe I can convince you not to waste a lot of time and energy, looking for a state which does not exist except in your imagination.

U.G. Krishnamurti

People, Imagination, Energy

10 Copy quote
Parts exist only for purposes of figuring and describing, and as we figure the world out we become confused if we do not remember this all the time.

Alan Watts

Inspiring, Confused, Purpose

Alan Watts (2011). “The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”, p.69, Souvenir Press

13 Copy quote

Show source
In 1939 Winston Churchill, describing the 5000-mile peaceful border dividing Canada and the United States, said, 'That long frontier from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, guarded only by neighborly respect and honorable obligations, is an example to every country and a pattern for the future of the world.

Ronald Reagan

Country, Ocean, Long

United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan), Ronald Reagan (1982). “Ronald Reagan”

68 Copy quote

Show source
Educating Lawyers succeeds admirably in describing the educational programs at virtually every American law school. The call for the integration of the three apprenticeships seems to me exactly what is needed to make legal education more professional, to prepare law students better for the practice of law, and to address societal expectations of lawyers.

Stephen Wizner

Educational, School, Law

5 Copy quote
Literature is always best when it is celebrating its subjects darkly. ... And because it is often by describing the thing lost - a family, a moment of happiness, a child, a father - that we understand the full weight of what we had.

Bill Buford

Children, Father, Literature

4 Copy quote
Murder is a crime. Describing Murder is not. Sex is not a crime. Describing sex is.

Gershon Legman

Sex, Murder, Crime

Love & Death: A Study in Censorship (1949)

8 Copy quote

Show source
It was a different sexual situation going on than it is in the '80s and '90s, and I did a very poor job of describing that.

Wilt Chamberlain

Basketball, Jobs, 80s And 90s

7 Copy quote
Often while reading a book one feels that the author wouold heave preferred to paint rather than to wirte; one can sense the pleasure he derives from describing a landscape or a person, as if he were painting what he is saying, because deep in his heart he would have preferred to use brushes and colors.

Pablo Picasso

Art, Book, Reading

5 Copy quote
It's strictly coincidental that Pluto of course was named for the god of the underworld and we're describing these Halloween moons

Alan Stern

Halloween, Moon, Pluto

6 Copy quote
Describing the jury in the OJ Simpson murder trial: These people have served a longer sentence than some people who have committed murder.

Jeff Greenfield

People, Trials, Murder

4 Copy quote
The truth feels different from other things. The closest you can come to describing it is that it feels like taking a perfect breath.

David Levithan

Perfect, Different, Feels

4 Copy quote
I like real art. It's difficult to define 'real' but it is the best word for describing what I like to get out of art and what the best art has. It has the ability to convince you that it's present - that it's there. You could say it's authentic... but real is actually a better word, broad as it may be.

Frank Stella

Art, Real, May

26 Copy quote
And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism-that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism-you can't find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand.

Paul Ryan

Jobs, Pitfalls, Looks

"Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand's ideas: in the hot seat again". Speech at a 2005 Atlas Society event, atlassociety.org. April 30, 2012.

4 Copy quote

Show source
C.S. Lewis admitted, when he was asked to set forth his beliefs, that he never felt less sure of them than when he tried to speak of them. Photographers know this frailty. To them words are a pallid, diffuse way of describing and celebrating what matters. Their gift is to see what will be affecting as a print. Mute.

Robert Adams

What Matters, Way, Belief

Robert Adams (1994). “Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews”

4 Copy quote

Show source
In America, there might be better gastronomic destinations than New Orleans, but there is no place more uniquely wonderful. ... With the best restaurants in New York, you'll find something similar to it in Paris or Copenhagen or Chicago. But there is no place like New Orleans. So it's a must-see city because there's no explaining it, no describing it. You can't compare it to anything. So, far and away New Orleans.

Anthony Bourdain

New York, New Orleans, Cities

41 Copy quote
Stern accuracy in inquiring, bold imagination in describing, these are the cogs on which history soars or flutters and wobbles.

Thomas Carlyle

History, Imagination, Cogs

7 Copy quote
You write down a paragraph or two describing several different subjects creating a kind of story ingredients-list, I suppose, and then cut the sentences into four or five-word sections; mix em up and reconnect them. You can get some pretty interesting idea combinations like this. You can use them as is or, if you have a craven need to not lose control, bounce off these ideas and write whole new sections.

David Bowie

Writing, Cutting, Ideas

15 Copy quote
There exists a black kingdom which the eyes of man avoid because its landscape fails signally to flatter them. This darkness, which he imagines he can dispense with in describing the light, is error with its unknown characteristics. Error is certainty's constant companion. Error is the corollary of evidence. And anything said about truth may equally well be said about error: the delusion will be no greater.

Louis Aragon

Mistake, Eye, Men

7 Copy quote
Describing one competitive advantage of IBM's Deep Blue chess computer. It has no fear.

Yasser Seirawan

Fear, Blue, Chess

6 Copy quote
We tend to think of consecration only as yielding up, when divinely directed, our material possessions. But ultimate consecration is the yielding up of oneself to God. Heart, soul, and mind were the encompassing words of Christ in describing the first commandment, which is constantly, not periodically, operative (see Matt. 22:37). If kept, then our performances will, in turn, be fully consecrated for the lasting welfare of our souls (see 2 Ne. 32:9).

Neal A. Maxwell

Heart, Thinking, Soul

20 Copy quote
I still do not know what impels anyone sound of mind to leave dry land and spend a lifetime describing people who do not exist. If it is child's play, an extension of make believe - something one is frequently assured by people who write about writing - how to account for the overriding wish to do that, just that, only that, and consider it as rational an occupation as riding a bicycle over the Alps?

Mavis Gallant

Children, Believe, Writing

Mavis Gallant (2011). “Paris Stories”, p.366, New York Review of Books

7 Copy quote

Show source
To try to explain something as "I love it" and "It's fun" would be like describing the sunset over the middle of the ocean as "bright and pretty." It's just not that simple.

Tara Dakides

Fun, Ocean, Sunset

7 Copy quote