Earnest Quotes - Page 9

• It was inevitable: Yankel fell in love with his never-wife. He would wake from sleep to miss the weight that never depressed the bed next to him, remember in earnest the weight of gestures she never made, long for the un-weight of her un-arm slung over his too-real chest, making his widower's rememberences that much more convincing and his pain that much more real.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Pain, Real, Sleep

  Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.48, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• You're so earnest about morality that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Hate, Thinking, Morality

  Sinclair Lewis (2015). “Babbitt”, p.56, Penguin

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• A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

  Don DeLillo

  Solitude, Way, Endless

  Don DeLillo, Thomas DePietro (2005). “Conversations with Don DeLillo”, p.134, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Lincoln?” she (Beth) asked. “Yes?” “Do you believe in love at first sight?” He made himself look at her face, at her wide-open eyes and earnest forehead. At her unbearably sweet mouth. “I don’t know,” he said. “Do you believe in love before that?” Her breath caught in her throat like a sore hiccup. And then it was too much to keep trying not to kiss her.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Sweet, Believe, Eye

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• It's amazing how much you can learn if your intentions are truly earnest.

  Chuck Berry

  Intention, Ifs

  Chuck Berry (1987). “Chuck Berry: The Autobiography”, Random House Value Publishing

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• Elinor was to be the comforter of others in her own distresses, no less than in theirs; and all the comfort that could be given by assurances of her own composure of mind, and a very earnest vindication of Edward from every charge but of imprudence, was readily offered.

  Jane Austen

  Mind, Comfort, Given

  Jane Austen (2014). “Jane Austen Collection: illustrated - 6 eBooks and 140+ illustrations”, p.190, Ageless Reads

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• No, I'm not religious, I'm sorry to say. But I was once and shall be again. There is no time now to be religious." "No time. Does it need time to be religious?" "Oh, yes. To be religious you must have time and, even more, independence of time. You can't be religious in earnest and at the same time live in actual things and still take them seriously, time and money and the Odéon Bar and all that.

  Hermann Hesse

  Religious, Sorry, Independence

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• When he speaks to you he speaks with an earnest vibe and an earnest energy.

  Dwayne Johnson

  Inspire, Energy, Speak

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• At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

  Samuel Johnson

  Birthday, Time, Age

  'A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland' (1775) 'Col'

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• There has not been a war in South America for fifty years, and I have every confidence that the countries of Central and South America are deeply in earnest in the maintenance of peace.

  Frank B. Kellogg

  Country, War, Years

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• but it is also true, if this brings her any consolation, that if, before every action, we were to begin weighing up the consequences, thinking about them in earnest, first the immediate consequences, then the probably, then the possible, then the imaginable ones, we should never move beyond the point where our first thought brought us to a halt.

  Jose Saramago

  Moving, Thinking, Firsts

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• Many wise words are spoken in jest, but they don't compare with the number of stupid words spoken in earnest.

  Sam Levenson

  Funny, Wise, Stupid

  Sam Levenson (2016). “You Don't Have to Be in Who's Who to Know What's What: The Choice Wit and Wisdom of Sam Levenson”, p.86, Open Road Media

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• I would love to do a western. I would love to play an explorer. That is always something that has really captured my imagination since I was a kid, like James Cook or Magellan or Earnest Shackleton.

  John C. Reilly

  Kids, Play, Imagination

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• You can't get there alone. People have to help you, and I do believe in karma. I believe in paybacks. You get people to help you by telling the truth, by being earnest.

  Randy Pausch

  Karma, Believe, People

  YouTube Channel "Carnegie Mellon University"/"Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", www.youtube.com. December 20, 2007.

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• About my career I was serious and earnest, sometimes impatient.

  Gene Tierney

  Careers, Serious, Sometimes

  Gene Tierney, Mickey Herskowitz (1979). “Self-portrait”, Peter Wyden

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• Things can be funny only when we are in fun. When we're 'dead earnest,' humor is the only thing that is dead.

  Flip Wilson

  Fun

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• I do like my rock stars to be a little larger than life. I don't mind the earnest ones at all, but I do like a bit of individuality.

  Elton John

  Stars, Rocks, Individuality

  "A star is reborn". Interview with Amy Raphael, www.theguardian.com. September 19, 2004.

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• A word in earnest is as good as a speech.

  Charles Dickens

  Words Of Wisdom, Speech

  Charles Dickens (1870). “Novels”, p.38

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• Quotes about Life Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, and things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art; to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Life, Death, Dream

  "A Psalm of Life" st. 1 - 2 (1838)

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• At least I was true. My intellectual abilities gave me a release, and an excuse. I shunned company because I preferred books; and the dreams I confided to my father were of becoming a scholar in good earnest, and going to University. It was unheard-of several shocked governesses were only too quick to tell me, when I spoke a little too boldly -- but my father nodded and smiled and said, 'We'll see.' Since I believed my father could do anything -- except of course make me pretty -- I worked and studied with passionate dedication, lived in hope, and avoided society and mirrors.

  Robin McKinley

  Dream, Father, Book

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• I think it's worth trying to be a mother who delights in who her children are, in their knock-knock jokes and earnest questions. A mother who spends less time obsessing about what will happen, or what has happened, and more time reveling in what is.

  Ayelet Waldman

  Mother, Children, Thinking

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• Mr. Gilbert had the earnest mania for self-improvement which has blighted the lives of so many young men.

  Christopher Morley

  Men, Self, Young

  Christopher Morley (2013). “The Haunted Bookshop”, p.14, Melville House

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• His brow is seamed with line and scar; His cheek is red and dark as wine; The fires as of a Northern star Beneath his cap of sable shine. His right hand, bared of leathern glove, Hangs open like an iron gin, You stoop to see his pulses move, To hear the blood sweep out and in. He looks some king, so solitary In earnest thought he seems to stand, As if across a lonely sea He gazed impatient of the land. Out of the noisy centuries The foolish and the fearful fade; Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes, Time hath not dimmed, nor death dismayed.

  Walter de La Mare

  Lonely, Kings, Stars

  Walter De la Mare (1920). “Collected Poems, 1901-1918”

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• We all stood and gathered our backpacks and I looked at the floor around my chair to make sure I hadn’t dropped anything. I was terrified of unwittingly leaving behind a scrap of paper on which were written all my private desires and humiliations. The fact that no such scrap of paper existed, that I did not even keep a diary or write letters except bland, earnest, falsely cheerful ones to my family (We lost to St. Francis in soccer, but I think we’ll win our game this Saturday; we are working on self-portraits in art class, and the hardest part for me is the nose) never decreased my fear.

  Curtis Sittenfeld

  Soccer, Art, Writing

  Curtis Sittenfeld (2005). “Prep: a novel”

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• We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.

  John Steinbeck

  Wife, Faithful, Attention

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.103, Penguin

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