Ifs Quotes - Page 30

• At bed-time I went into my room and put out the light. I didn't get undressed. I lay on my bed and looked out of the window at the stars. I read in a book that the stars can take you anywhere. I've never wanted to be an astronaut because of the helmets. If I were up there on the moon, or by the Milky Way, I'd want to feel the stars round my head. I'd want them in my hair the way they are in paintings of the gods. I'd want my whole body to feel the space, the empty space and points of light. That's how dancers must feel, dancers and acrobats, just for a second, that freedom.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Stars, Book, Moon

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• If you view everything through the lens of fear, then you tend to stay in retreat mode. You can just as easily see a crises or problem as a challenge, an opportunity to prove your mettle, the chance to strengthen and toughen yourself, or a call to collective action. By seeing it as a challenge, you will have converted this negative into a positive purely by a mental process that will result in positive action as well.

  Robert Greene

  Opportunity, Views, Challenges

  50 Cent, Robert Greene (2010). “The 50th Law”, p.6, Profile Books

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• You can find love when you are famous if you are the same person you were before you were famous.

  Tamar Braxton

  Finding Love, Persons

  "Tamar Braxton Talks Spin-Off, Kim Kardashian" by Rob Shuter, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 4, 2012.

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• I'm not bleaching my skin, and if I was bleaching my skin and I felt like saying so, I would, but for the record, I am not.

  Tamar Braxton

  Skins, Records, Bleaching

  "The ‘Real’ Tamar Braxton" by Brooke Obie, www.ebony.com. May 14, 2013.

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• Poles must understand history but we must also overcome it if it is obstructing our contemporary goals.

  Donald Tusk

  Goal, Overcoming, Contemporary

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• When I was a young man, I shined the shoes of Louis Armstrong and Louis Jordan! Music was just everywhere like that. And in my family, everyone could play something, and if they couldnt play, they could sing.

  Chuck Brown

  Men, Play, Shoes

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• I cant lie - I love talking to the people at my shows. Im so grateful to all my fans. I couldnt do it for this long without them. So if they want to come past to say hi and whatnot, then its part of my job to talk to them - and you know, it might be the best part of my job, too.

  Chuck Brown

  Jobs, Lying, Grateful

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• Beauty is, in some way, boring. Even if its concept changes through the ages... a beautiful object must always follow certain rules. A beautiful nose shouldn't be longer than that or shorter than that, on the contrary, an ugly nose can be as long as the one of Pinocchio, or as big as the trunk of an elephant, or like the beak of an eagle, and so ugliness is unpredictable, and offers an infinite range of possibility. Beauty is finite, ugliness is infinite like God.

  Umberto Eco

  Beautiful, Eagles, Elephants

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• The most underrated player in NBA history is Dominique Wilkins. Right behind him is Gary Payton. He never has gotten the respect he deserves. If he doesn't spend the rest of his days in Seattle, I hope he goes someplace where he has a chance to win a title.

  Charles Barkley

  Winning, Player, Nba

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• If you aren't getting flak, you aren't over the target.

  Gifford Pinchot

  Target

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• Naming is nice. It took me days before I was able to speak a name for my first child (what if people did not like it?), and I suspect we gave her a secret, second name as well, to keep her safe.

  Anne Enright

  Children, Nice, Names

  "Author, author: Name that plume" by Anne Enright, www.theguardian.com. August 8, 2008.

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• I think I've inspired a lot of people, and I'm one, if I get a letter and someone's in serious shape, I'll call them. I relate to these people.

  Ron Santo

  Thinking, People, Shapes

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• I don't expect any red carpet to the big leagues. If the opportunity comes, then it comes. But I don't think I'm owed anything.

  Ryne Sandberg

  Opportunity, Thinking, League

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• If you're in the minor leagues, you want to get to the majors.

  Ryne Sandberg

  League, Want, Minors

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• If the thing is impossible, you need not trouble yourselves about it; if possible, try for it.

  John Ruskin

  Trying, Needs, Impossible

  John Ruskin (2015). “Lectures on Architecture and Painting”, p.53, John Ruskin

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• If an urn lacks the characteristics of an urn, how can we call it an urn?

  Confucius

  Characteristics

  Confucius (1950). “The Best of Confucius”

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• Things are going to go wrong, and I think we are false to life if we don’t portray it. But there is also the hope that some lucky clown is going to come along and stumble into the gold mine. And I think you are also entitled to hold out that hope.

  James A. Michener

  Thinking, Gold, Lucky

  "Storytelling Phenomenon". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. January 10, 1991.

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• Programs of a political nature are important end products of social quality that can be effective only if the underlying structure of social values is right. The social values are right only if the individual values are right. The place to improve the world is first in one's heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Heart, Social Values, Hands

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, Ch. 25, 1974.

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• I learned something then. And I believe it still. There is a value in taking a stand, whether or not anybody may be noticing it, and whether or not it is a risky thing to do. And if even those who are in danger can raise their lonely voices, isn't it more that is required of all of us, in this land where liberty had her birth? In America the true patriots are those who dare speak truth through power.

  Teresa Heinz

  Lonely, Believe, Land

  Teresa Heinz's address to the Democratic National Convention at the FleetCenter in Boston, www.washingtonpost.com. July 27, 2004.

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• You gotta have life your way. If you ain't losing your mind, you ain't partying right.

  Young Jeezy

  Party, Mind, Way

  "Young Jeezy Talks Plies Collabo, Says Next Album Will Drop In June". Interview with Shaheem Reid, www.mtv.com. March 2, 2010.

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• I think the suicides in my first book came from the idea of growing up in Detroit. If you grow up in a city like that you feel everything is perishing, evanescent and going away very quickly.

  Jeffrey Eugenides

  Suicide, Growing Up, Book

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• If you want to do things, do things.

  Grace Paley

  Want

  Grace Paley (2014). “The Collected Stories”, p.29, Macmillan

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• The sentences I write have their roots in song and poetry, and take their bearings from music and painting, as much as from the need to impart mere information, or mirror anything. I am not a realist writer, even if I seem like one.

  Colm Toibin

  Song, Writing, Mirrors

  "Exclusive Interview: Colm Toibin Talks About His New Story Collection". Interview with Anis Shivani, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 20, 2011.

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• If your life just falls apart early on, you can put it together again. Its the people who are always on the brink of crisis who dont hit bottom who are in trouble.

  Anne Enright

  Fall, Together Again, People

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• There must be a connection between the lust for power and impotentia coeundi. I liked Marx, I was sure that he and his Jenny had made love merrily. You can feel it in the easy pace of his prose and in his humor. On the other hand, I remember remarking one day in the corridors of the university that if you screwed Krupskaya all the time, you'd end up writing a lousy book like Materialism and Empiriocriticism.

  Umberto Eco

  Book, Writing, Hands

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