Odd Quotes - Page 20

• I get described as 'interesting' a lot. People often call me odd, too. Maybe they mean ugly. Given the services of a plastic surgeon, I would get a pair of cheekbones.

  Anna Maxwell Martin

  Mean, People, Interesting

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• You are playing a character obviously, and everything you are saying is filtered through that person.  It is not you that is saying it.  It is filtered through a character that doesn’t have your own set of values - so it is not really odd.  Inevitably we help each other with a lot of line-learning.  Plus there is a familiarity which is quite nice.  We have done TV together before.

  Anna-Louise Plowman

  Nice, Character, Together

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• It is odd how we sometimes deny ourselves the very pleasure we have longed for and which is finally within our reach.

  Cynthia Rylant

  Sometimes, Pleasure, Deny

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• I preach that odd defiant melancholy that sees the dreadful loneliness of the human soul and the pitiful disaster of human life as ever redeemable and redeemed by compassion, friendship and love.

  John Derbyshire

  Loneliness, Compassion, Soul

  "The Guillotining of John Derbyshire". Interview with Alex Kurtagic, www.amren.com. April 12, 2012.

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• It was both odd and unjust, a real example of pitiful arbitrariness of existance, that you were born into a particular time & held prisoner there whether you wanted it or not. It gave you an indecent advantage over the past and made you a clown vis-a-vis the future.

  Daniel Kehlmann

  Real, Past, Example

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• Michael Ondaatje’s work taught me how to be at home in fragments, and how to think about a big story in carefully curated vignettes. All his books were odd, all of them ‘unfinished’ the way Chopin’s Études are unfinished: no wasted gestures, no unnecessary notes.

  Amitava Kumar

  Book, Home, Thinking

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• I did the occasional odd film, like Endless Love.

  Shirley Knight

  Film, Endless Love, Occasional

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• Against the odd's, I have persevered, I am the living attestation of the American dream. I am the extolment of this great nation. I have coffee and cocktails with presidents and dictators. I'm an international figure, a citizen of the world. I've made it.

  Don King

  Dream, Coffee, Boxing

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• If Shakespeare can compare all of life to a stage, maybe it's not odd to believe that part of the play can take place on a basketball court.

  Bill Russell

  Inspirational, Basketball, Believe

  Bill Russell, Taylor Branch (1980). “Second wind: the memoirs of an opinionated man”

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• And it occurred to me that in this new millennial life of instant and ubiquitous connection, you don't in fact communicate so much as leave messages for one another, these odd improvisational performances, often sorry bits and samplings of ourselves that can't help but seem out of context. And then when you do finally reach someone, everyone's so out of practice or too hopeful or else embittered that you wonder if it would be better not to attempt contact at all.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Sorry, Practice, Hopeful

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• It is odd to watch with what feverish ardour Americans pursue prosperity, ever tormented by the shadowy suspicion that they might not have chosen the shortest route to get it. They cleave to the things of this world as if assured they will never die, and yet rush to snatch any that comes within their reach, as if they expected to stop living before relishing them. Death steps in, in the end, and stops them, before they have grown tired of this futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes them.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Tired, Watches, World

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• Mankind are very odd creatures:
  one half censure what they practice,
  the other half practice what they censure;
  the rest always say and do as they ought.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Practice, Half, Mankind

  Benjamin Franklin (2007). “Poor Richard's Almanack”, p.61, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• But I was also doing odd jobs around Portland, like spreading gravel and transplanting bamboo trees.

  Elliott Smith

  Jobs, Tree, Portland

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• You may think it odd that there were three men to look after one tiny station, but the people who ran the railway knew that if you left two men together in a lonely place they would quarrel, but if you left three men, two of them could always grumble to each other about the third, and then they would be quite happy.

  Joan Aiken

  Lonely, Men, Thinking

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• Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times?

  Cornelia Funke

  Book, Inkdeath

  Cornelia Funke (2011). “Inkspell”, p.51, Chicken House

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• An odd thing occurs in the minds of Americans when Indian civilization in mentioned: little or nothing.

  Paula Gunn Allen

  Civilization, Mind, Odd Things

  Paula Gunn Allen (1986). “The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions”, Boston : Beacon Press

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• Englishmen are so odd. They are like a nest of Chinese boxes. It takes a very long time to get to the centre of them. When one gets there the result is unrewarding, but the process is instructive and entertaining.

  Ian Fleming

  Long, Chinese, Nests

  Ian Fleming (1961). “gilt-edged bonds”

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• Here's how the people live here, in big house-shaped boxes to keep off 'rain' and 'snow,' holes cut in the sides so they can see out. They move around in smaller boxes, painted different colours, with wheels on the corners. They need this box-culture because each person thinks of herself and himself as locked in a box called a 'body,' arms and legs, fingers to move pencils and tools, languages because they've forgotten how to communicate, eyes because they've forgotten how to see. Odd little planet. Wish you were here. Home soon.

  Richard Bach

  Moving, Rain, Home

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• Went up from my feet to my head,
  With little chills after it stealing-
  And my hands got as numb as the dead.
  A moment, and then it was over:
  The diamond blazed up in my eyes,
  And I saw in the face of my lover
  A questioning, strange surprise.
  Maybe 'twas the scent of the flowers,
  That heavy with fragrance bloomed near,
  But I didn't feel natural for hours;
  It was odd now, wasn't it, dear?
  Write soon to your fortunate Clara
  Who has carried the prize away,
  And say you'll come on when I marry;
  I think it will happen in May.

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Flower, Eye, Writing

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox (2016). “Complete Poetical Works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Delphi Classics)”, p.637, Delphi Classics

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• Problems, however, are rarely solved on the spur of the moment. They must be organized and dissected, then key issues isolated and defined. A period of gestation then sets in, during which these issues are mulled over. You put them in your mind and consciously or unconsciously work at them at odd hours of the day or night - even at work. It is somewhat analogous to trying to place a name on the face of someone you've met before. Often the solution to a problem comes to you in much the same way you eventually recall the name.

  William Redington Hewlett

  Night, Keys, Gestation Period

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• I can show you that the art of calculation has to do with odd and even numbers in their numerical relations to themselves and to each other.

  Plato

  Art, Plato, Numbers

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• Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

  Rick Cook

  Winning, Technology, Race

  "The Wizardry Compiled". Book by Rick Cook, 1989.

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• Regret is an odd emotion because it comes only upon reflection. Regret lacks immediacy, and so its power seldom influences events when it could do some good.

  William O'Rourke

  Regret, Reflection, Emotional

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• I remember preparing for my audition on the plane to L.A. — I was drawing all these weird vampire pictures and I am sure the gorgeous ladynext to me thought I was very odd.

  Lucy Fry

  Drawing, Vampire, Auditions

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• The universe had an odd sense of fairness; it took away things one did not want to give up, and then gave things one did not ask for.

  Laila Lalami

  Giving Up, Want, Fairness

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