Fixed Quotes - Page 32

• I'll follow him to the ends of the earth,' she sobbed. Yes, darling. But the earth doesn't have any ends. Columbus fixed that.

  Tom Robbins

  Earth, Woodpeckers, Columbus

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Still Life with Woodpecker”, p.122, Bantam

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• Jamie," I said, "how, exactly, do you decide whether you're drunk?" Aroused by my voice, he swayed alarmingly to one side, but caught himself on the edge of the mantelpiece. His eyes drifted around the room, then fixed on my face. For an instant, they blazed clear and pellucid with intelligence. "och, easy, Sassenach, If ye can stand up, you're not drunk." He let go of the mantelpiece, took a step toward me, and crumpled slowly onto the hearth, eyes blank, and a wide, sweet smile on his dreaming face.

  Diana Gabaldon

  Letting Go, Dream, Sweet

  Diana Gabaldon (2015). “The Outlander Series Bundle: Books 1, 2, 3, and 4: Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn”, p.1124, Delacorte Press

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• He couldn’t say the words, had spent too long in Silence, but he’d learned other ways to speak. Taking the paperweight she’d knocked off her desk out of his pocket, he put it in her hands. “It’s fixed. As long as you don’t mind more than a few scars.

  Nalini Singh

  Hands, Long, Silence

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• Memories images, once they are fixed in words, are erased.

  Italo Calvino

  Memories

  Italo Calvino (2013). “Invisible Cities”, p.94, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• What they had between them was still as fragile as flickering candle flame, as delicate as eggshell - and he knew that if it shattered, if he somehow let it break and be destroyed, something inside him would shatter too, something that could never be fixed.

  Cassandra Clare

  Flames, Eggshells, Break

  Cassandra Clare (2010). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instrument Series (3 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass”, p.607, Simon and Schuster

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• Why haven't we fixed sick yet? You scientists there-- put down those starfish and HELP us. I hereby demand that all the people who are good at math make the world free of illness. The rest of us will write you epic poems and staple them together into a booklet.

  Daniel Handler

  Writing, Math, Epic

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• From the end of the bar, the bartender threw a sidelong look at him, so Clarence pulled out a broken Bluetooth headset and fixed it to his ear. "I learned this trick while traveling with Mikey," Clarence told Nick. "Makes my brand of crazy the same as everyone else's.

  Neal Shusterman

  Crazy, Broken, Bars

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• Claire found herself staring at his feet, which were in bunny slippers. Myrnin looked down. "What?" he asked. "They're quite comfortable." He lifted on to look at it, and the ears wobbled in the air. "Of course they are," she said. Just when she thought Myrnin was getting his mental act together, he'd do something like that. Or maybe he was just messing with her. He liked to do that, and his dark eyes were fixed on her now, assessing just how weirded-out she was. Which, on the grade scale of zero to Myrnin, wasn't much.

  Rachel Caine

  Zero, Eye, Dark

  Rachel Caine (2009). “Fade Out: The Morganville Vampires”, p.15, Penguin

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• Laws, it is said, are for the protection of the people. It's unfortunate that there are no statistics on the number of lives that are clobbered yearly as a result of laws: outmoded laws; laws that found their way onto the books as a result of ignorance, hysteria or political haymaking; antilife laws; biased laws; laws that pretend that reality is fixed and nature is definable; laws that deny people the right to refuse protection. A survey such as that could keep a dozen dull sociologists out of mischief for months.

  Tom Robbins

  Book, Ignorance, Reality

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• Rhianon, he said, hold my hand, Rhianon. She did not hear him, but stood over his bed and fixed him with an unbroken sorrow. Hold my hand, he said, and then: why are your putting the sheet over my face?

  Dylan Thomas

  Hands, Sorrow, Bed

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• Silence. How long it lasted, I couldn't tell. It might have been five seconds, it might have been a minute. Time wasn't fixed. It wavered, stretched, shrank. Or was it me that wavered, stretched, and shrank in the silence? I was warped in the folds of time, like a reflection in a fun house mirror.

  Haruki Murakami

  Fun, Reflection, Mirrors

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from May 15, 2015

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• I believed that by fixing it down in words, I could force sense from all that had happened, that effect would follow cause, and the reason for each event come clear to me. But then I returned one day, to find all my careful scribing gone to fragments of vellum lying in a trampled yard with wet snow blowing over them. I sat my horse, looking down at them, and knew that, as it always would, the past had broken free of my effort to define and understand it. History is no more fixed and dead than the future. The past is no further away than the last breath you took.

  Robin Hobb

  Horse, Lying, Past

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• I don't know what sort of world she will live in and I have no fixed opinions concerning how she should live in it. I only know that if she does not come to value what is true above what is useful, it will make little difference whether she lives at all.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Differences, Doe, World

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• How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June… . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that—for that—I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!

  Oscar Wilde

  Eye, June, Giving

  The Picture of Dorian Gray ch. 2 (1891)

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• He put his cold hands on either side of my face and fixed his golden eyes on mine. "Would you please tell me what you're thinking? Before I go mad?

  Stephenie Meyer

  Eye, Thinking, Hands

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• We were not born critical of existing society. There was a moment in our lives (or a month, or a year) when certain facts appeared before us, startled us, and then caused us to question beliefs that were strongly fixed in our consciousness-embedded there by years of family prejudices, orthodox schooling, imbibing of newspapers, radio, and television. This would seem to lead to a simple conclusion: that we all have an enormous responsibility to bring to the attention of others information they do not have, which has the potential of causing them to rethink long-held ideas.

  Howard Zinn

  Responsibility, Simple, Years

  "Changing Minds, One at a Time" by Howard Zinn, progressive.org. May 10, 2005.

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• She was his north star, the fixed point round which his world turned. For as long as his heart beat, or hers, he believed they would always share a destiny.

  David Gemmell

  Stars, Heart, Destiny

  Stella Gemmell, David Gemmell (2009). “Troy: Fall Of Kings”, p.376, Random House

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• We have two alternatives: either we question our beliefs - or we don't. Either we accept our fixed versions of reality- or we begin to challenge them. In Buddha's opinion, to train in staying open and curious - to train in dissolving our assumptions and beliefs - is the best use of our human lives.

  Pema Chodron

  Buddhist, Reality, Two

  Pema Chodron (2002). “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times”, p.26, Shambhala Publications

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• There is a gulf fixed between those who can sleep and those who cannot. It is one of the greatest divisions of the human race.

  Iris Murdoch

  Sleep, Race, Division

  Iris Murdoch (2002). “Nuns and Soldiers”, p.35, Penguin

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• Perhaps this is our strange and haunting paradox here in America -- that we are fixed and certain only when we are in movement. At any rate, that is how it seemed to young George Webber, who was never so assured of his purpose as when he was going somewhere on a train. And he never had the sense of home so much as when he felt that he was going there. It was only when he got there that his homelessness began.

  Thomas Wolfe

  Home, America, Purpose

  Thomas Wolfe (2016). “You Can't Go Home Again”, p.57, Thomas Wolfe

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• The future is an ever-shifting maze of possibilities until it becomes the present. The future I have shown you tonight is not yet fixed. But it is more likely to become so with the passing of every day because nothing is being done to turn it aside. If you would change it, do as I have told you.

  Terry Brooks

  Mazes, Tonight, Done

  Terry Brooks (2000). “The Scions of Shannara”, p.35, Del Rey

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• Thomas: Is it [my brain] fixed? Brenda: It worked, judging from the fact that you're not trying to kill us anymore.

  James Dashner

  Judging, Brain, Trying

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• I like to borrow a metaphor from the great poet and mystic Rumi who talks about living like a drawing compass. One leg of the compass is static. It is fixed and rooted in a certain spot. Meanwhile, the other leg draws a huge wide circle around the first one, constantly moving. Just like that, one part of my writing is based in Istanbul. It has strong local roots. Yet at the same time the other part travels the whole wide world, feeling connected to several cities, cultures, and peoples.

  Elif Safak

  Strong, Moving, Writing

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• I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Stars, Believe, Men

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.8, Simon and Schuster

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• If you do not help me," Tessa said to Jem, "I swear, I will change into you, and I will lift him myself. And then everyone here will see what you look like in a dress." She fixed him with a look. "Do you understand?

  Cassandra Clare

  Dresses, Looks, Helping

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