Might Have Been Quotes - Page 13

• This attempt to isolate cell constituents might have been a failure if they had been destroyed by the relative brutality of the technique employed. But this did not happen.

  Albert Claude

  Cells, Technique, Brutality

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• All one's work might have been better done; but this is a sort of reflection a worker must put aside courageously if he doesn't mean every one of his conceptions to remain forever a private vision, an evanescent reverie.

  Joseph Conrad

  Work, Mean, Reflection

  Joseph Conrad (2015). “Complete Short Stories of Joseph Conrad (Including His Memoirs, Letters & Critical Essays: Unforgettable Tales like Heart of Darkness, Point of Honor, Falk, Secret Sharer, The Return & Freya of Seven Isles”, p.734, e-artnow

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• I was a baby when I came into the world--otherwise I might have been smart enough to become a different person.

  Frank Wedekind

  Baby, Smart, Different

  Frank Wedekind (2010). “Spring Awakening: A Play”, p.25, Macmillan

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• In the Bible (Hebrews, 6:19), hope is ‘an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.’ Here [in Watts painting], Hope is blindfolded, seated on a globe and playing a lyre of which all but one of the strings are broken . . . Hope’s attempts to make music appear futile and several critics argued that the work might have been more appropriately titledDespair. Watts explained that ‘Hopeneed not mean expectancy. It suggests here, rather, the music which can come from the remaining cord’.

  George Frederic Watts

  Mean, Anchors, Broken

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• Be what you are becoming without clinging to what you might have been; what you might yet be.

  Luce Irigaray

  Might, Becoming, Clinging

  Luce Irigaray (1985). “This Sex which is Not One”, p.214, Cornell University Press

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• Hilary Clinton might have been a better pick than me.

  Joe Biden

  Might, Clinton, Has Beens

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• Well. There was noting to be done for it. Things had happened as they did, time's arrow had yet to be reversed by humans, done was done. If a man spent his life looking over his shoulder at every possible branching of his path he could have taken, he would never accomplish anything. One must learn from history so as not to repeat it, but one must not waste one's energy or time worrying about what might have been. Sorry . . . but people die every day and the galaxy continues on quite well without them. Consider yourself lucky you are one of those as yet unselected by the Fates.

  Steve Perry

  Sorry, Taken, Learning

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• I would have been a much more popular Wolrd Champion if I had always said what people wanted to hear. I might have been dead, but definitely more popular.

  Jackie Stewart

  People, Champion, Might

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• If the afternoon had been blue,
  there might have been less desire.

  Carlos Drummond de Andrade

  Blue, Desire, Afternoon

  Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Thomas Colchie, Mark Strand (1986). “Travelling in the Family: Selected Poems”, New York : Random House

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• Dig deep into its communitarian ethos and it reads more like an America that might have been, an America fervently devoted to the quaint goals of working together and getting along. Of course, this America does exist. It's called Canada.

  Sarah Vowell

  Ethos, America, Goal

  Sarah Vowell (2008). “The Wordy Shipmates”, p.33, Penguin

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• The locker at the end of her bed had no lock, and one of the hinges was busted. She opened it up. There was a thing in it. The thing might have been a sandwich at some point, or an animal, or a human hand...but what it was now was fuzzy and putrid. A minute later, Ginny was down the stairs, out the door, and gone.

  Maureen Johnson

  Animal, Doors, Hands

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• In this whole screwed-up town, you're the only thing that's always been right to me," he whispered. "I love you, Claire." She saw something that might have been just a flash of panic go across his expression, but then he steadied again. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I do. I love you.

  Rachel Caine

  Fear, Believe, Love You

  Rachel Caine (2009). “Lord of Misrule: The Morganville Vampires”, p.84, Penguin

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• In history there are no control groups. There is no one to tell us what might have been. We weep over the might have been, but there is no might have been. There never was. It is supposed to be true that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. I don't believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God--who knows all that can be known--seems powerless to change.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Believe, Blood, Knowing

  Cormac McCarthy (2013). “The Border Trilogy”, p.227, Pan Macmillan

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• She loves you," the Prince cried. "She loves you still and you love her, so think of that--think of this too: in all this world, you might have been happy, genuinely happy. Not one couple in a century has that chance, not really, no matter what the storybooks say, but you could have had it, and so, I would think, no one will ever suffer a loss as great as you.

  William Goldman

  Couple, Love You, Loss

  William Goldman (2013). “The Princess Bride: An Illustrated Edition of S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure”, p.286, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• We can't afford to waste tears on might-have-beens. We need to turn the tears into sweat that can take us to what can be.

  Denis Waitley

  Regret, Sweat, Tears

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• Contrary to popular belief and hope, people don't usually come running when they hear a scream. That's not how humans work. Humans look at other humans and say, 'Did you hear a scream?' because the first scream might have been you screaming inside your head, or a horse backfiring.

  Terry Pratchett

  Running, Horse, People

  Terry Pratchett (2009). “Unseen Academicals: (Discworld Novel 37)”, p.365, Random House

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• If you listen to your fears, you will die never knowing what a great person you might have been.

  Robert H. Schuller

  Motivational, Success, Courage

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• The cream-tiled walls were spattered here and there with old dried bloodstains, deep gouges that might have been clawmarks, and all kinds of graffiti. As usual, someone had spelt Cthulhu wrongly.

  Simon R. Green

  Wall, Graffiti, Usual

  Simon R. Green (2003). “Something from the Nightside”, p.17, Penguin

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• They just kept grinning at me from over the stupid sign, Dopey because he's too dumb to know any better, Doc because – well, I guess because he might have been glad to see me. Doc's weird that way. Sleepy, the oldest, just stood there, looking … well, sleepy.

  Meg Cabot

  Stupid, Dumb, Might

  Meg Cabot (2009). “Love You to Death”, p.2, Pan Macmillan

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• Well, sure, but I don't bring God into it. I think shower massage might have been invented by the devil. God invented the missionary position.

  Janet Evanovich

  Thinking, Devil, Missionary

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• Things might have been different if she hadn't been able to drift; if she'd had to concentrate on her next meal, instead of dwelling on all the injuries she felt we'd done her. An unearned income encourages self-pity in those already prone to it.

  Margaret Atwood

  Self, Dwelling, Meals

  Margaret Atwood (2000). “The Blind Assassin”, Random House Large Print Publishing

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• So for all that we might speak words in each other's vicinity, this could never develop into anything that could be called a conversation. It was as though we were speaking in different languages. If the Dalai Lama were on his deathbed and the jazz musician Eric Dolphy were to try to explain to him the importance of choosing one's engine oil in accordance with changes in the sound of the bass clarinet, that exchange might have been more worthwhile and effective than my conversations with Noboru Wataya.

  Haruki Murakami

  Oil, Trying, Musician

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”, p.78, Random House

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• Mr Lorry asks the witness questions: Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked down stairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick at the top of a staircase, and fell down stairs of his own accord.

  Charles Dickens

  Might, Stairs, Lorry

  Charles Dickens (2010). “A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations (Oprah's Book Club): Two Novels”, p.62, Penguin

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• Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Inspirational, Sad, Regret

  Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Cat's Cradle: A Novel”, p.279, Dial Press

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• My own feeling about JJ, without knowing anything about him, was that he might have been a gay person, because he had long hair and spoke American. A lot of Americans are gay people, aren’t they? I know they didn’t invent gayness, because they say that was the Greeks. But they helped bring it back into fashion. Being gay was a bit like the Olympics: it disappeared in ancient times, and then they brought it back in the twentieth century. Anyway, I didn’t know anything about gays, so I just presumed they were all unhappy and wanted to kill themselves.

  Nick Hornby

  Fashion, Gay, Hair

  "A Long Way Down". Book by Nick Hornby, June 7, 2005.

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