Fine Quotes - Page 34

• There is nothing fine about being a child: it is fine, when we are old, to look back to when we were children.

  Cesare Pavese

  Children, Looks

  Diary entry for September 06, 1945. "This Business of Living: Diaries 1935-1950". Book by Cesare Pavese, 2009.

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• Portraits are to daily faces As an evening west To a fine, pedantic sunshine In a satin vest.

  Emily Dickinson

  Sunshine, Portraits, West

  Emily Dickinson, Ralph William Franklin (1999). “The Poems of Emily Dickinson”, p.84, Harvard University Press

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• Fine, large, meaningless, general terms like romance and business can always be related. They take the place of thinking, and are highly useful to optimists and lecturers.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Thinking, Romance, Optimist

  Sinclair Lewis (2012). “The Job: An American Novel”, p.44, The Floating Press

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• No joy for which thy hungering heart has panted, No hope it cherishes through waiting years, But if thou dost deserve it, shall be granted For with each passionate wish the blessing nears. Tune up the fine, strong instrument of thy being To chord with thy dear hope, and do not tire. When both in key and rhythm are agreeing, Lo! thou shalt kiss the lips of thy desire. The thing thou cravest so waits in the distance, Wrapt in the silences, unseen and dumb: Essential to thy soul and thy existence-- Live worthy of it--call, and it shall come.

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Hope, Strong, Distance

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox (2016). “Complete Poetical Works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Delphi Classics)”, p.573, Delphi Classics

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• I always tell new people in show business. I say, "Look, show business pays you a lot of money, because eventually you're gonna get screwed. And when you get screwed, you will have this pile of money off to the side already." And they go, "OK, OK. OK, you ready? You ready?" "I got screwed." "You got the pile of money?" "Yeah, I'm fine." I mean, that's the way it works.

  Jay Leno

  Mean, People, Looks

  "Jay Leno on leaving 'The Tonight Show'". Interview with Steve Kroft, www.cbsnews.com. January 26, 2014.

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• Pretending is the grease of non-relationships. Pretending is how you and I get through the day without ever having to know each other. When I walk in the room, you say to me, 'How are you?' Well, you don't want to know. And, frankly, I don't want to tell you. So I just say, 'Fine,' and you go, 'Fine.' And off we go.

  Mike Yaconelli

  Grease, Want, Rooms

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• A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine; Who sweeps a room as forThy laws Makes it and th'action fine.

  George Herbert

  Law, Rooms, Action

  'The Elixir', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously, 1633).

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• To me, it appears no unjust simile to compare the affairs of this great Continent to the mechanism of a clock, each state representing some one or other of the smaller parts of it which they are endeavoring to put in fine order without considering how useless & unavailing their labor is unless the great Wheel or Spring which is to set the whole in motion is also well attended to & kept in good order.

  George Washington

  Spring, Order, Useless

  George Washington, John Clement Fitzpatrick, David Maydole Matteson, United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission (1779). “The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799”, p.301

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• The true distinction ... between what is called a fine Regiment, and an indifferent one will ever, upon investigation, be found to originate in, and depend upon the care, or the inattention, of the Officers belonging to them.

  George Washington

  Care, Inattention, Found

  George Washington, David Maydole Matteson, United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission (1931). “The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799”

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• Life is a voyage, and we are all sailing under sealed orders. We plan, plot, scheme and arrange, and some fine day Fate steps in and our dreams are tossed into the yeasty deep. We grin and bear it--anyway we bear it: it is the only thing to do.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Life, Dream, Fate

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• Many authors write like amateur blacksmiths making their first horseshoe; the clank of the anvil, the stench of the scorched leather apron, the sparks and the cursing are palpable, and this appeals to those who rank "sincerity" very high. Nabokov is more like a master swordsmith making a fine blade; nothing is amiss, nothing is too much, there is no fuss, and the finished product must be handled with great care, or it will cut you badly.

  Robertson Davies

  Writing, Cutting, Care

  Review of Nabokov's Lolita, 1958.

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• If children had teachers for judgment and eloquence just as they have for languages, if their memory was exercised less than their energy or their natural genius, if instead of deadening their vivacity of mind we tried to elevate the free scope and impulse of their souls, what might not result from a fine disposition? As it is, we forget that courage, or love of truth and glory are the virtues that matter most in youth; and our one endeavour is to subdue our children's spirits, in order to teach them that dependence and suppleness are the first laws of success in life.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Teacher, Children, Memories

  "Reflections and Maxims". Book by Luc de Clapiers, translated by E. Lee, pp. 185-186, 1903.

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• Seville is a tower full of fine archers.... Under the arch of the sky, across the clear plain, she shoots the constant arrow of her river.

  Federico Garcia Lorca

  Archer, Sky, Rivers

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• I think the American people have a generous instinct. They understand that we're a nation of immigrants. But if those folks are going to live in this country, they have to be put on a pathway to citizenship that involves them paying a fine, making sure that they are at the back of the line and not cutting in front of people who applied legally to come into the country.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Cutting, Thinking

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• I liked Truffaut a lot, I've felt a lot of admiration for his way to address the audience, and his storytelling.... La nuit américaine is adorable, and another film I like to see is L'enfant sauvage, with its fine humanism.

  Ingmar Bergman

  Adorable, Addresses, Way

  "Sydsvenska Dagbladet", Swedish daily newspaper, May 2002.

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• Moviegoers like to believe that those they have made stars are great actors. People used to say that Gary Cooper was a fine actor probably because when they looked in his face they were ready to give him their power of attorney.

  Pauline Kael

  Stars, Believe, People

  Pauline Kael (1991). “Movie love: complete reviews 1988-1991”, E P Dutton

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• I've never seen black men with fine white women. They be ugly. Mugly dogs.

  Spike Lee

  Dog, Men, White

  Spike Lee, Cynthia Fuchs (2002). “Spike Lee: Interviews”, p.38, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• No joy so great but runneth to an end,No hap so hard but may in fine amend.

  Robert Southwell

  Joy, May, Ends

  Saint Robert Southwell (1856). “The poetical works of the Rev. Robert Southwell”, p.47

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• Hongry rooster don't cackle w'en he fine a wum.

  Joel Chandler Harris

  Roosters

  'Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings' (1880) 'Plantation Proverbs'

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• Thank God it has rained all day. I say thank God, though rain is no rarity, because it is the duty of every man to be thankful for whatever happens by the will of the Omnipotent Creator; yet it was not so agreeable to any of my party as a fine day would have been.

  John James Audubon

  Party, Rain, Men

  Robert Buchanan, John James Audubon (2005). “Life and Adventures of Audubon the Naturalist”, p.259, Cosimo, Inc.

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• I believe that architects should design gardens to be used, as much as the houses they build, to develop a sense of beauty and the taste and inclination toward the fine arts and other spiritual values.

  Luis Barragan

  Spiritual, Art, Believe

  "Contemporary Architects". Book by Muriel Emanuel and Dennis Sharp, 1980.

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• Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues.

  William Shakespeare

  Issues, Spirit, Touched

  William Shakespeare (2009). “Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and All's Well that Ends Well”, p.29, Bantam Classics

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• Ladies are always of great use to the party they espouse, and never fail to win over numbers to it. Lovers, according to Sir William Petty's computation, make at least the third part of sensible men of the British nation; and it has been an uncontroverted maxim in all ages, that though a husband is sometimes a stubborn sort of a creature, a lover is always at the devotion of his mistress. By this means, it lies in the power of every fine woman, to secure at least half a dozen able-bodied men to his Majesty's service.

  Joseph Addison

  Husband, Lying, Party

  Joseph Addison (1860). “The Freeholder. Swift's notes on the Free-holder. The Plebian, by Sir Richard Steele, with The Old whig, by Mr. Addison. The Lover”, p.17

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• I've never had a block. I'm talking within the limits of my abilities. But in my own small way, I've had an embarrassment of riches. I'll have five ideas and I'm dying to do them all. It takes weeks or months where I agonize and obsess over which to do next. I wish sometimes someone would choose for me. If someone said, Do idea number three next, that would be fine. But I have never had any sense of running dry.

  Woody Allen

  Running, Block, Talking

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• Avery fine city; the four principal streets are the fairest for breadth, and the finest built that I have ever seen in one city together? In a word,'tis the cleanest and beautifullest, and best built city in Britain, London excepted.

  Daniel Defoe

  Cities, Together, Four

  1724-7 Of Glasgow. A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, letter 12.

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