Former Quotes - Page 30

• If any person wants to see clearly just how much she has changed - whether for better or worse - let her revisit after some lapse of time any place where she has ones lived. She will meet her former self at every turn, with every familiar face, in every old recollection ... She will see how much she has gained in some respects, how much she has lost - irretrievably lost - in others.

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  Self, Lapses, Want

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• So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more.

  Epicurus

  Long, Age, Doe

  Letter to Menoeceus

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• She was just a shell of her former self, functioning and talking but hardly alive.

  Sarah Dessen

  Self, Talking, Shells

  Sarah Dessen (2004). “Dreamland”, p.33, Penguin

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• As if being a former vampire drone in a werewolf household were not shocking enough, the maid then opened her mouth and proved that she was also, quite reprehensibly, French.

  Gail Carriger

  Vampire, Drones, Mouths

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• Your former friend Luke " Poseidon corrected. "He once promised things like that. He was Hermes's pride and joy. Just bear that in mind Percy. Even the bravest can fall.

  Rick Riordan

  Fall, Pride, Joy

  Rick Riordan (2007). “The Titan's curse”

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• She preferred imaginary heroes to real ones, because when tired of them, the former could be shut up in the tin kitchen till called for, and the latter were less manageable.

  Louisa May Alcott

  Real, Hero, Tired

  Louisa May Alcott, Daniel Shealy (2013). “Little Women: An Annotated Edition”, p.412, Harvard University Press

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• Listen, you might want to pack a few of your things together before going to bed. The former bishop of Turkey will be coming tonight along with six to eight black men. They might put some candy in your shoes, they might stuff you into a sack and take you to Spain, or they might just pretend to kick you. We don't know for sure, but we want you to be prepared." This was the reward for living in the Netherlands. As a child you get to hear this story, and as an adult you get to turn around and repeat it.

  David Sedaris

  Children, Men, Eight

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• I decided to deflect her attitude by giving a long, Southern answer. I come from people who know how to draw things out. Annoy a Southerner, and we will drain away the moments of your life with our slow, detailed replies until you are nothing but a husk of your former self and that much closer to death.

  Maureen Johnson

  Attitude, Self, Long

  Maureen Johnson (2011). “The Name of the Star”, p.22, Penguin

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• Besides, I'd seen a really nice pair of shoes yesterday in the mall and I wanted them for my own. I can't describe the feeling of immediate familiarity that rushed between us. The moment I clapped eyes on them I felt like I already owned them. I could only suppose that we were together in a former life. That they were my shoes when I was a serving maid in medieval Britain or when I was a princess in ancient Egypt. Or perhaps they were the princess and I was the shoes. Who's to know? Either way I knew that we were meant to be together.

  Marian Keyes

  Nice, Princess, Eye

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• I knew it. You’re an alien,” said her former best friend, the pale, bespectacled creature with the spectacular cleavage. “Yes, I’m an alien and I still made cheerleader. And now I’m going to steal your boyfriend to prove girls can’t really be friends.” “I sat back timidly when you torched my house, killed my parents, and ate my dog. But now you’re stealing my boyfriend? That’s a step too far!

  Libba Bray

  Girl, Dog, House

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• Kellis-Amberlee is a fact of existence. You live, you die, and then you come back to life, get up, and shamble around trying to eat your former friends and loved ones. That’s the way it is for everyone.

  Mira Grant

  Trying, Way, Facts

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• Please, I'm a transgender former boy-bander. You think I don't know how to defend myself?

  Libba Bray

  Boys, Thinking, Transgender

  Libba Bray (2011). “Beauty Queens”, p.365, Scholastic Inc.

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• We are served by organic ghosts, he thought, who, speaking and writing, pass through this our new environment. Watching, wise, physical ghosts from the full-life world, elements of which have become for us invading but agreeable splinters of a substance that pulsates like a former heart.

  Philip K. Dick

  Wise, Writing, Heart

  Philip K. Dick (2012). “Ubik”, p.225, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• My spirits rose as I went deeper; into the forest; but I could not regain my former elasticity of mind. I found cheerfulness to be like life itself - not to be created by any argument. Afterwards I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of pain fill thoughts, is to dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired; and you find you still have a residue of life they cannot kill. So, better and worse, I went on, till I came to a little clearing in the forest.

  George MacDonald

  Pain, Lying, Tired

  George MacDonald (1858). “Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women”, p.92

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• What you think of as they past is a memory trace, stored in the mind, of a former Now. When you remember the past, you reactivate a memory trace -- and you do so now. The future is an imagined Now, a projection of the mind. When the future comes, it comes as the Now. When you think about the future, you do it now. Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present. Their reality is "borrowed" from the Now.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Memories, Thinking, Reflection

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• Maybe I was worrying for nothing. Maybe it had just been casual for him, and I wouldn't even have to tell him it couldn't happen again. After all, the man was a couple hundred years older than me and a former gigolo. I certainly hadn't robbed him of his virginity.

  Jeaniene Frost

  Couple, Men, Years

  Jeaniene Frost (2010). “Halfway to the Grave: A Night Huntress Novel”, p.159, Hachette UK

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• When I told you I wanted to try, I spoke the truth. When I turned away, it was for my former court, and when I tried to make another faery love me, it was for that court. I’ve lived for my whole life trying to bring the Summer Court back to the strength it once was. In all of those years, in centuries , I’ve only wished myself free of duty because of one reason. You.

  Melissa Marr

  Summer, Years, Trying

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• They were angry, I thought. Horrified. These teenagers, with their hormones, making out beneath a video broadcasting the shattered voice of a former father.

  John Green

  Father, Teenager, Voice

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• Let me express how much I don't care on a scale of one to bite me," the former detective said.

  Darynda Jones

  Care, Detectives, Scales

  Darynda Jones (2012). “Third Grave Dead Ahead”, p.171, Macmillan

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• There is a stage you reach, Deagle thinks, a time somewhere in early middle age, when your past ceases to be about yourself. Your connection to your former life is like a dream or delirium, and that person who you once were is merely a fond acquaintance, or a beloved character from a storybook. This is how memory becomes nostalgia. They are two very different things - the same way that a person is different from a photograph of a person.

  Dan Chaon

  Love, Dream, Memories

  "Stay Awake". Book by Dan Chaon, February 7, 2012.

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• The difference between a simpleton and an intelligent man, according to the man who is convinced that he is of the latter category, is that the former wholeheartedly accepts all things that he sees and hears while the latter never admits anything except after a most searching scrutiny. He imagines his intelligence to be a sieve of closely woven mesh through which nothing but the finest can pass. 

  R.K. Narayan

  Intelligent, Men, Differences

  R. K. Narayan (1988). “A Writer's Nightmare: Selected Essays, 1958-1988”, p.87, Penguin Books India

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• I've got a gig," Jim said. I sat up in my bed, wide-awake. A gig was good- I needed the money. "Half." "Third." "Half." "Thirty-five percent." Jim's voice hardened. "Half." The phone went silent as my former Guild partner mulled it over. "Okay, forty." I hung up.(...) The phone rang. I let it ring twice before I picked it up. "Fine." Jim's voice had a hint of a snarl in it. "Half.

  Ilona Andrews

  Voice, Phones, Half

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• The history of a man's soul, even the pettiest soul, is hardly less interesting and useful than the history of a whole people; especially when the former is the result of the observations of a mature mind upon itself, and has been written without any egotistical desire of arousing sympathy or astonishment. Rousseau's Confessions has precisely this defect – he read it to his friends.

  Mikhail Lermontov

  Men, People, Interesting

  "A Hero of Our Time". Book by Mikhail Lermontov, 1841.

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• ...first thing is that I love you. And the second thing is that as much as I honor your former profession, I don’t think your geese care much for your betrothed and I hope they hadn’t any plans on sharing our bed.

  Shannon Hale

  Love You, Thinking, Honor

  Shannon Hale (2009). “The Goose Girl”, p.379, A&C Black

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• Nick as in my former boyfriend Nick. Ex-rat, ex-boyfriend, ex-alive if I ever got hold of him Nick.

  Kim Harrison

  Ex Boyfriend, Alive, Rats

  Kim Harrison (2013). “Black Magic Sanction”, p.32, HarperCollins UK

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