Gestures Quotes - Page 14

• The one who decides who goes ahead has the upper hand, regardless of who gets to go. This is why many women do not feel empowered by such privileges as having doors held open for them. The advantage of going first through the door is less salient to them than the disadvantage of being granted the right to walk through a door by someone who is framed, by his magnanimous gesture, as the arbiter of the right-of-way.

  Deborah Tannen

  Power, Doors, Hands

  Deborah Tannen (1986). “That's not what I meant!: how conversational style makes or breaks relationships”

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• The gesture with which one generation guards the next is the movement, and the only time we see it clearly, of life itself.

  Storm Jameson

  Generations, Movement, Next

  Storm Jameson (2011). “The Journal of Mary Hervey Russell”, p.32, A&C Black

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• In the intercourse of social life, it is by little acts of watchful kindness recurring daily and hourly,--and opportunities of doing kindnesses if sought for are forever starting up,--it is by words, by tones, by gestures, by looks, that affection is won and preserved. He who neglects these trifles yet boasts that, whenever a great sacrifice is called for, he shall be ready to make it, will rarely be loved. The likelihood is, he will not make it; and if he does, it will be much rather for his own sake than for his neighbor's.

  George Augustus Henry Sala

  Kindness, Sacrifice, Opportunity

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• In Poland a man must be one thing: white or black, here or there, with us or against us -- clearly, openly, without hesitations. . . . We lack the liberal, democratic tradition rich in all its gradations. We have instead the tradition of struggle: the extreme situation, the final gesture.

  Ryszard Kapuscinski

  Struggle, Men, White

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• The so-called new Russian man is characterized mainly by his complete exhaustion. You may find yourself wondering if he has the strength to enjoy his new-found freedom. He is like a long-distance runner who, on reaching the finishing line, is incapable even of raising his hands in a gesture of victory.

  Ryszard Kapuscinski

  Distance, Men, Hands

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• Never raise your hand menacingly, but only in a friendly gesture!

  Sophie von La Roche

  Hands, Friendly, Raises

  Sophie von La Roche (1991). “The History of Lady Sophia Sternheim: Extracted by a Woman Friend of the Same from Original Documents and Other Reliable Sources”, p.197, SUNY Press

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• When you saw me with a dagger in hand - as if to throw at you - you didn't call for your guards. You didn't fear I was here to kill you. You looked over your shoulder to see what I was aiming at. That's the most loving gesture I think a man could receive from a woman. Unless you'd like to sit on my knee for a while.

  Robert Jordan

  Men, Thinking, Hands

  Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson (2013). “A Memory of Light”, p.316, Macmillan

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• To bow to the fact of our life's sorrows and betrayals is to accept them; and from this deep gesture we discover that all life is workable. As we learn to bow, we discover that the heart holds more freedom and compassion than we could imagine.

  Jack Kornfield

  Betrayal, Heart, Compassion

  Jack Kornfield (2008). “After The Ecstasy, The Laundry”, p.11, Random House

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• Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, in every gesture dignity and love.

  John Milton

  Love, Romantic, Eye

  John Milton, Elijah Fenton, Samuel Johnson (1821). “Paradise lost”, p.241

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• Odd, she thought, how intensely you knew a person, or thought you did, when you were in love - soaked, drenched in love - only to discover later that perhaps you didn't know that person quite as well as you had imagined. Or weren't quite as well known as you had hoped to be. In the beginning, a lover drank in every word and gesture and then tried to hold on to that intensity for as long as possible. But inevitable, if two people were together long enough, that intensity had to wane.

  Anita Shreve

  Two, Long, People

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• Our view of man will remain superficial so long as we fail to go back to that origin [of silence], so long as we fail to find, beneath the chatter of words, the primordial silence, and as long as we do not describe the action which breaks this silence. the spoken word is a gesture, and its meaning, a world.

  Maurice Merleau-Ponty

  Men, Views, Long

  Maurice Merleau-Ponty (2002). “Phenomenology of Perception”, p.214, Psychology Press

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• My most persistent memory of stand - up is of my mouth being in the present and my mind being in the future: the mouth speaking the line, the body delivering the gesture, while the mind looks back, observing, analyzing, judging, worrying, and then deciding when and what to say next. Enjoyment while performing was rare - enjoyment would have been an indulgent loss of focus that comedy cannot afford.

  Steve Martin

  Memories, Loss, Worry

  Steve Martin (2008). “Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life”, p.13, Simon and Schuster

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• They belonged to that vast group of human automata who go through life without neglecting to perform a single one of the gestures executed by the surrounding puppets.

  Edith Wharton

  Groups, Puppets, Neglect

  Edith Wharton (2016). “The House of Mirth: Edith Wharton”, p.47, VM eBooks

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• All these are readers, and their gestures, their craft, the pleasure, the responsibility and the power they derive from reading, are common with mine. I am not alone.

  Alberto Manguel

  Reading, Responsibility, Crafts

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• Even the merest gesture is holy if it is filled with faith.

  Franz Kafka

  Holiness, Holy, Filled

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• Jack: Actually, I was found. Lady Bracknell: Found? Jack: Uh, yes, I was in... a handbag. Lady Bracknell: A handbag? Jack: Yes, it was... [makes gestures] Jack: an ordinary handbag.

  Oscar Wilde

  Ordinary, Handbags, Found

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• What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I am essentially a serious person, is that I find myself extremely ridiculous, not in the sense of the small-scale ridiculousness of slap-stick comedy, but rather in the sense of ridiculousness that seems intrinsic to human life and that manifests itself in the simplest actions and the most extraordinary gestures.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Serious Person, Sticks, Ridiculous

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• Verses are not, as people think, feelings (those one has early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a verse one must see many cities, men, and things, one must know the animals feel how birds fly, and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the morning.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Morning, Flower, Animal

  Rainer Maria Rilke, John J. L. Mood (1994). “Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations”, p.112, W. W. Norton & Company

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• But I also know that sometimes Adam needs to do things the dramatic way. He is fond of the Grand Gesture

  Gayle Forman

  Needs, Way, Sometimes

  Gayle Forman (2009). “If I Stay”, p.60, Penguin

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• If I had it to do all over again . . . I wouldn't change a thing.'. . . the final expression of narcissism, the last gesture of self-congratulation.

  Steve Erickson

  Congratulations, Self, Expression

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• In the post-Warhol era a single gesture such as uncrossing one's legs will have more significance than all the pages in War and Peace.

  J. G. Ballard

  War, Legs, Pages

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• At the door, there was one of those moment when two people realize that they like each other more than they know each other. This is nicer than the opposite situation, but more awkward. You try to remember the protocol for touching. You hate to gush, or presume to much, yet you are unwilling to let the moment pass without without some gesture

  Emma Donoghue

  Hate, Doors, Opposites

  Emma Donoghue (1995). “Hood”

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• Ascension seemed at such times a natural law. If one added to it a law of completion - that everything must finally be made comprehensible - then some general rescue of the sort I imagined my aunt to have undertaken would be inevitable. For why do our thoughts turn to some gesture of a hand, the fall of a sleeve, some corner of a room on a particular anonymous afternoon, even when we are asleep, and even when we are so old that our thoughts have abandoned other business? What are all these fragments for , if not to be knit up finally?

  Marilynne Robinson

  Fall, Aunt, Law

  Marilynne Robinson (2004). “Housekeeping: A Novel”, p.92, Macmillan

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• No exclusive,” I said aloud, watching Al for his opinion and seeing him shake his head and hold his hands out in a “bigger” gesture. He didn’t even know how large the offer was, and he thought I could get one bigger.

  Kim Harrison

  Hands, Als, Opinion

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• You were at the age where you could fall in love with a girl over an expression, over a gesture

  Junot Diaz

  Girl, Falling In Love, Expression

  Junot Diaz (2012). “This Is How You Lose Her”, p.88, Faber & Faber

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