Gestures Quotes - Page 28

• I try to see the whole woman,' Eddie said to Hannah. 'Of course I recognize that she's old, but there are photographs - or the equivalent of photographs in one's imagination of anyone's life. A whole life, I mean. I can picture her when she was much younger than I am - because there are always gestures and expressions that are ingrained, ageless. An old woman doesn't see herself as an old woman, and neither do I. I try to see her her whole life in her. There's something so moving about someone's whole life.

  John Irving

  Moving, Mean, Expression

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• My art is just an effort to express the truth of my being in gesture and movement. It has taken me long years to find even one absolutely true movement.

  Isadora Duncan

  Dance, Art, Taken

  Isadora Duncan (2013). “My Life (Revised and Updated)”, p.33, W. W. Norton & Company

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• O my brother Futurists ! All of you, look at yourselves! In the name of that Human Pride we so adore, I proclaim that the hour is nigh when men with broad temples and steel chins will give birth magnificently, with a single trust of their bulging will, to giants with flawless gestures.

  Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

  Brother, Pride, Men

  "Mafarka il Futurista". Book by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Preface, 1909.

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• None of us should be ashamed to speak of our class power or lack of it. Overcoming fear, even the fear of being immodest, and acting courageously to bring issues of class- especially radical standpoints – into the discourse of blackness is a gesture of militant defiance, one that runs counter to bourgeois insistence that we think of “money” in particular and class in general as private matters.

  Bell Hooks

  Running, Thinking, Class

  bell hooks (2012). “Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations”, p.179, Routledge

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• Geric," she called. He turned back around. "What kind of flowers were they?" "I don't rightly know," he said. He made faltering gestures with his hands, forming their size and shape from the air. "They were yellow, and smallish, and had lots of petals." "Thank you," she said. "They were beautiful.

  Shannon Hale

  Beautiful, Flower, Air

  Shannon Hale (2010). “The Goose Girl”, p.187, A&C Black

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• Speech as known to us was unnecessary. A fragment of a sentence amounted almost to a long-winded redundancy. A gesture, a grunt, the curve of a facial line--even a significantly timed pause yielded informational juice.

  Isaac Asimov

  Curves, Long, Juice

  Isaac Asimov (2004). “Second Foundation”, p.19, Spectra

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• Crooked Warden, I will fear no darkness for the night is yours," muttered Locke, pointing the first two fingers of his left hand into the darkness. The Dagger of the Thirteenth, a thief's gesture against evil. "Your night is my cloak, my shield, my escape from those who hunt to feed the noose. I will fear no evil, for you have made the night my friend." "Bless the Benefactor," said Jean, squeezing Locke's left forearm. "Peace and profit to his children.

  Scott Lynch

  Peace, Children, Night

  Scott Lynch (2015). “The Gentleman Bastard Series 3-Book Bundle: The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies, The Republic of Thieves”, p.1253, Del Rey

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• In the sixties, the recycling of pop culture turning it into Pop art and camp had its own satirical zest. Now we're into a different kind of recycling. Moviemakers give movies of the past an authority that those movies didn't have; they inflate images that may never have compelled belief, images that were no more than shorthand gestures and they use them not as larger-than-life jokes but as altars.

  Pauline Kael

  Art, Past, Zest

  "A Bad Dream/A Masterpiece". Review of "The Moon in the Gutter" on September 19, 1983. "State of the Art". Book by Pauline Kael, p. 48, 1985.

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• A dog – a collie – went up to Eric, looked up at his face, and growled. “Shoo,” Eric said, making an imperious gesture with his hand.

  Charlaine Harris

  Dog, Hands, Eric

  Charlaine Harris (2009). “Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set”, p.898, Penguin

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• It's impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because of what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too many shapes which can never be fully described, too many flavors, in the air or on the tongue, half-colors, too many.

  Margaret Atwood

  Mean, Air, Color

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.134, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I fight against the gluttony of time with so many very amusing weapons with gestures and with three attitudes and with charming phrases; with tears and with tinsel, and with sugar-coated pills, and with platitudes slightly regilded. Yes, and I fight him also with little mirrors wherein gleam confusedly the corruptions of lust, and ruddy loyalty, and a bit of moonshine, and the pure diamond of the heart's desire, and the opal cloudings of human compromise: but, above all, I fight that ravening dotard with the strength of my own folly.

  James Branch Cabell

  Loyalty, Attitude, Heart

  James Branch Cabell (1948). “The Witch-woman: A Trilogy about Her”, Amereon Limited

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• What [Tulio Serafin] said that impressed me was: "When one wants to find a gesture, when you want to find how to act on stage, all you have to do is listen to the music. The composer has already seen to that." If you take the trouble to really listen with your soul and with your ears - and I say soul and ears because the mind must work, but not too much also - you will find every gesture there. And it is all true, you know.

  Maria Callas

  Soul, Mind, Ears

  "Maria Callas: The Callas Conversations" by Maria Callas. an Interview in Paris with Lord Harewood for the BBC (April 1968). EMI Classics DVD, 2004.

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• Let us ask... how things work at the level of on-going subjugation, at the level of those continuous and uninterrupted processes which subject our bodies, govern our gestures, dictate our behaviors, etc... we should try to discover how it is that subjects are gradually, progressively, really and materially constituted through a multiplicity of organisms, forces, energies, materials, desires, thoughts, etc. We should try to grasp subjection in its material instance as a constitution of subjects.

  Michel Foucault

  Power, Desire, Trying

  "The History of Sexuality". Book by Michel Foucault, p. 97, 1984.

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• One of the problems is that the notion of cancer has been so normalized. You hear about it so often, and it's not ok... it's not ok to normalize this disease. And with all of the pinkwashing that goes on where companies are selling products based on breast cancer month it's a lovely gesture, but consumers get so used to it that it becomes more normal.

  Jennifer Beals

  Cancer, Selling Products, Lovely

  "Jennifer Beals Speaks Out Against 'Pinkwashing'". www.nbcwashington.com. November 01, 2011.

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• Bill said, "She is mine." I wondered if my hands would move. They would. I raised both of them, making an unmistakable one-fingered gesture. Eric laughed, and Bill said "Sookie!" in shocked admonishment. "I think that Sookie is telling us she belongs to herself," Eric said softly.

  Charlaine Harris

  Moving, Thinking, Hands

  Charlaine Harris (2009). “Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set”, p.742, Penguin

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• There seems to be no agent more effective than another person in bringing a world for oneself alive, or, by a glance, a gesture, or a remark, shriveling up the reality in which one is lodged.

  Erving Goffman

  Reality, Agents, Alive

  "Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction". Book by Erving Goffman, p. 38, 1971.

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• No gesture is too small when done with gratitude.

  Oprah Winfrey

  Thank You, Gratitude, Grateful

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• Morality's not practical. Morality's a gesture. A complicated gesture learnt from books.

  Robert Bolt

  Book, Morality, Complicated

  "A Man For All Seasons". Play by Robert Bolt, 1960.

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• They have assumed the names and gestures of their enemies, but have held on to their own, secret souls; and in this there is a resistance and an overcoming, a long outwaiting.

  N. Scott Momaday

  Names, Long, Soul

  N. Scott Momaday, Matthias Schubnell (1997). “Conversations with N. Scott Momaday”, Univ Pr of Mississippi

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• We must love men more than things, and I admire and weep more for the soldiers than for the churches which were only the recording of an heroic gesture which today is reenacted at every moment.

  Marcel Proust

  War, Men, Soldier

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• I am Retired Leisure. I am to be met with in trim gardens. I am already come to be known by my vacant face and careless gesture, perambulating at no fixed pace nor with any settled purpose. I walk about; not to and from.

  Charles Lamb

  Retirement, Garden, Purpose

  Charles Lamb (1835). “Essays of Elia [both series]; to which are added, Letters, and Rosamund, a tale”, p.218

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• Women can be vivacious. We are allowed more varieties of facial expression and gestures. Men must be rocklike.

  Gloria Steinem

  Men, Expression, Vivacious

  Gloria Steinem (2012). “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions”, p.293, Open Road Media

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• We are hungry for tenderness,
  in a world where everything abounds
  we are poor of this feeling
  which is like a caress
  for our heart
  we need these small gestures
  that make us feel good
  Tenderness
  is a disinterested and generous love,
  that does not ask anything else
  to be understood and appreciated.

  Alda Merini

  Heart, Generous Love, Feel Good

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• In the distance, the gestures of animals look human, the gestures of human beings bestial.

  Malcolm De Chazal

  Distance, Animal, Looks

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• Eventually I saw that the path of the heart requires a full gesture, a degree of abandon that can be terrifying. Only then is it possible to achieve a sparkling metamorphosis.

  Carlos Castaneda

  Heart, Degrees, Path

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