Native Quotes - Page 18

• Unfortunately, Childermass's French was so strongly accented by his native Yorkshire that Minervois did not understand and asked Strange if Childermass was Dutch.

  Susanna Clarke

  Yorkshire, Dutch, Strange

  Susanna Clarke (2009). “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell”, p.698, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• The Contessa was surely way ahead of her time, too, in believing that men were not only usless and idiotic, but downright dangerous. That idea wouldn't catch on big in her native country until the last three years of the Vietnam War.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Country, War, Believe

  Kurt Vonnegut (1998). “Bluebeard”, Dial Press

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• But first, on earth as vampire sent, Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent, Then ghastly haunt thy native place, And suck the blood of all thy race. There from thy daughter, sister, wife, At midnight drain the stream of life, Yet loathe the banquet which perforce Must feed thy livid living corse. Thy victims ere they yet expire Shall know the demon for their sire, As cursing thee, thou cursing them, Thy flowers are withered on the stem.

  Lord Byron

  Daughter, Flower, Blood

  Lord Byron (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Lord Byron (Illustrated)”, p.768, Delphi Classics

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• Can you imagine anything more tragic?' Rose asked. 'To be born a princess --native and to the manor born-- and then to forget who you are and settle for being something horrible like an--an accountant!

  Regina Doman

  Princess, Rose, Forget

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• To take possession of a city of which you are not a native you must first fall in love there.

  John Banville

  Falling In Love, Cities, Firsts

  John Banville (2009). “The Untouchable”, p.31, Vintage

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• Thus the white men and Native Americans were able, through the spirit of goodwill and compromise, to reach the first in what would become a long series of mutually beneficial, breached agreements that enabled the two cultures to coexist peacefully for stretches of twenty and sometimes even thirty days, after which it was usually necessary to negotiate new agreements that would be even more mutual and beneficial, until eventually the Native Americans were able to perceive the vast mutual benefits of living in rock-strewn sectors of South Dakota.

  Dave Barry

  Native American, Men, Mutual Benefit

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States”, p.12, Ballantine Books

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• There is nothing so American as our national parks. The scenery and the wildlife are native. The fundamental idea behind the parks is native. It is, in brief, that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us. The parks stand as the outward symbal of the great human principle.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Country, Ideas, People

  Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1938). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1934, Volume 3”, p.359, Best Books on

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• The native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; and enterprises of great pitch and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action.

  William Shakespeare

  Names, Hue, Hamlet And Ophelia

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 3, sc. 1, l. 56

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• It is a curious emotion, this certain homesickness I have in mind. With Americans, it is a national trait, as native to us as the roller-coaster or the jukebox. It is no simple longing for the home town or country of our birth. The emotion is Janus-faced: we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.

  Carson McCullers

  Country, Home, Simple

  Carson McCullers (1975). “The mortgaged heart”, Penguin Books Ltd

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• The misfortune of a young man who returns to his native land after years away is that he finds his native land foreign; whereas the lands he left behind remain for ever like a mirage in his mind. However, misfortune can itself sow seeds of creativity. ---- Afterword to "Hothouse" Brian Aldiss

  Brian Aldiss

  Creativity, Men, Years

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• . . .and every native has a story of winter – stories that usually begin, You call this a storm? And grow in the telling like battle tales shared by graying war veterans. It’s a peculiar character flaw to those of us from cold climates that we feel superior to those who have the sense to live elsewhere.

  Richard Paul Evans

  War, Character, Winter

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• I had a desire to see something besides my own shores, if only to be content to return to them someday. If I wish to live in my native land and love her, it should not be out of ignorance.

  Margaret George

  Travel, Ignorance, Land

  Margaret George (2011). “Mary Queen Of Scotland And The Isles”, p.52, Pan Macmillan

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• Whenever I saw her, I felt like I had been living in another country, doing moderately well in another language, and then she showed up speaking English and suddenly I could speak with all the complexity and nuance that I hadn't realized was gone. With Lucy I was a native speaker.

  Ann Patchett

  Country, Gone, Nuance

  "Truth & Beauty: A Friendship". Book by Ann Patchett, www.sfgate.com. 2004.

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• A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.

  C. S. Lewis

  Men, Errors, Age

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• Potassium cyanide," says the talent wrangler as she leans over to pick up a paper napkin off the floor. "Found naturally in the cassava or manioc roots native to Africa, used to tint architectural blueprints in the form of the deep-blue pigment known as Prussian blue. Hence the shade 'cyan' blue.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Roots, Blue, Paper

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• Thierry had no idea why they were called French doors. His native countrymen weren't stupid enough to put them in their homes.

  Lynn Viehl

  Stupid, Home, Doors

  Lynn Viehl (2005). “Private Demon: A Novel of the Darkyn”, p.80, Penguin

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• Having a place means that you know what a place means...what it means in a storied sense of myth, character and presence but also in an ecological sense...Integrating native consciousness with mythic consciousness

  Gary Snyder

  Character, Mean, Consciousness

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• Life would be impossible on such a planet. It wouldn't get enough heat and light, and if it rotated there would be total darkness half of every day. There wouldn't be any native inhabitants. You couldn't expect life - which is fundamentally dependent on light - to develop under such extreme conditions of light deprivation. Half of every axial rotation spent in Darkness! No, nothing could exist under conditions like that.

  Isaac Asimov

  Light, Darkness, Would Be

  "Darkness in literature: 'Nightfall' by Isaac Asimov" by Richard Lea, www.theguardian.com. December 19, 2012.

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• Choices are funny things-ask a native tribe that's eaten grubs and roots forever if they're unhappy, and they'll shrug. But give them filet mignon and truffle sauce and then ask them to go back to living off the land, and they will always be thinking of that gourmet meal. If you don't know there's an alternative, you can't miss it.

  Jodi Picoult

  Thinking, Land, Funny Things

  Jodi Picoult (2009). “Handle with Care: A Novel”, p.202, Simon and Schuster

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• Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never are.

  Herman Melville

  Islands, Maps, West

  Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.57

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• Why don’t you purchase an Italian dictionary? I will assume the expense.” “I have one,” she said, “but I don’t think it’s very good. Half the words are missing.” “Half?” “Well, some,” she amended. “But truly, that’s not the problem.” He blinked, waiting for her to continue. She did. Of course. “I don’t think Italian is the author’s native tongue,” she said. “The author of the dictionary?” he queried. “Yes. It’s not terribly idiomatic.

  Julia Quinn

  Thinking, Italian, Waiting

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• Our defeat was always implicit in the victory of others; our wealth has always generated our poverty by nourishing the prosperity of others - the empires and their native overseers. In the colonial and neocolonial alchemy, gold changes into scrap metal and food into poison.

  Eduardo Galeano

  Victory, Gold, Poison

  Eduardo Galeano (1997). “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent”, p.2, NYU Press

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• I don't understand why people never say what they mean. It's like the immigrants who come to a country and learn the language but are completely baffled by idioms. (Seriously, how could anyone who isn't a native English speaker 'get the picture,' so to speak, and not assume it has something to do with a photo or a painting?)

  Jodi Picoult

  Country, Mean, People

  Jodi Picoult (2012). “The Jodi Picoult Collection #4: Change of Heart, Handle with Care, and House Rules”, p.941, Simon and Schuster

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• It is a strange world," I murmered, more to myself than to the native soul. "The strangest," he agreed.

  Stephenie Meyer

  Soul, World, Strange

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• At noon I observed a bevy of nude young native women bathing in the sea, and I went and sat down on their clothes to keep them from being stolen.

  Mark Twain

  Sea, Clothes, Noon

  Mark Twain (2008). “Roughing It: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.249, ReadHowYouWant.com

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