Ordinary Quotes - Page 8

• A clown needn't be the same out of the ring as he has to be when he's in it. If you look at photographs of clowns when they're just being ordinary men, they've got quite sad faces.

  Enid Blyton

  Men, Acting, Looks

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• Mothers were much too sharp. They were like dogs. Buster always sensed when anything was out of the ordinary, and so did mothers. Mothers and dogs both had a kind of second sight that made them see into people's minds and know when anything unusual was going on.

  Enid Blyton

  Mother, Dog, Sight

  Enid Blyton (2013). “The Mystery of the Hidden House”, p.68, Egmont UK

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• Do you know what constitutes a great poet? He is a person without shame, incapable of blushing. Ordinary fools have moments when they go off by themselves and blush with shame; not so the great poet.... If you really have to quote someone, quote a geographer; that way you won't give yourself away. (p 44)

  Knut Hamsun

  Giving, Way, Fool

  Knut Hamsun (2011). “Mysteries”, p.33, Souvenir Press

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• ...you could not measure love on a scale of degrees, and now she understood that it was the same with pain. Pain might escalate upward and, just when you thought you'd reach your limit, begin to spread sideways, and spill out, and touch other people, and mix with their pain. And grow larger, but somehow less oppressive. She had thought herself trapped in a place outside the ordinary feeling lives of people; she had not noticed how many other people were trapped in that place with her.

  Kristin Cashore

  Pain, People, Feelings

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• It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, who may not be who we essentially are.

  Alain de Botton

  Home, Self, Encounters

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• When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose.

  Brené Brown

  Fear, Feelings, Lenses

  Brené Brown (2013). “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead”, p.18, Penguin UK

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• Eating, drinking, dying - three primary manifestations of the universal and impersonal life. Animals live that impersonal and universal life without knowing its nature. Ordinary people know its nature but don't live it and, if they think seriously about it, refuse to accept it. An enlightened person knows it, lives it, and accepts it completely. He eats, he drinks, and in due course he dies - but he eats with a difference, drinks with a difference, dies with a difference.

  Aldous Huxley

  Drinking, Animal, Thinking

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• May you be ordinary, as the poet once wished the new-born baby.

  Julian Barnes

  Baby, May, Poet

  Julian Barnes (2011). “The Sense of an Ending”, p.144, Random House

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• He strode over to the ruined church. This, Blue had discovered, was how Gansey got places - striding. Walking was for ordinary people.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Blue, People, Church

  Maggie Stiefvater (2012). “The Raven Boys”, p.210, Scholastic Inc.

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• Please. She sighed. 'Can't a girl have high standards? I don't want an ordinary boy.

  Sarah Dessen

  Girl, Boys, High Standards

  Sarah Dessen (2006). “The Truth About Forever”, p.90, Penguin

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• you could be ordinary and attempt something extraordinary, without being able to explain it in a logical way.

  Rachel Joyce

  Able, Way, Logical

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• Music [is] the third rail of life. You grabbed it to shock yourself out of the dull drag of hours. To feel something. To burn with all the emotions you didn't get to experience in the ordinary run of school, TV, and loading the dishwasher after dinner.

  Joe Hill

  Running, School, Dull

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• Every day is ordinary, until it isn't.

  Bernard Cornwell

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• There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Stupid, Elephants, Magic

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Hobbit”, p.8, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I feel all agitated, like one of those snow globes you see resting peacefully on shop counters. I was perfectly happy being an ordinary, dull little Swiss village. But now Jack Harper’s come and shaken me up, and there are snowflakes all over the place, whirling around until I don’t know what I think anymore. And bits of glitter, too. Tiny bits of shiny, secret excitement.

  Sophie Kinsella

  Thinking, Snow, Secret

  Sophie Kinsella (2004). “Can You Keep a Secret?”, Random House Digital, Inc.

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• If you truly want to escape the ordinary, you'll simply need to keep evolving. Whether what you seek is above or below.

  Ryohgo Narita

  Needs, Want, Evolve

  Ryohgo Narita (2015). “Durarara!!, Vol. 1 (light novel)”, p.171, Hachette UK

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• ...the great lesson is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one's daily life, in one's neighbors, friends, and family, in one's backyard.

  Abraham Maslow

  Inspirational, Faith, Family And Friends

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• We like to think of our champions and idols as superheroes who were born different from us. We don’t like to think of them as relatively ordinary people who made themselves extraordinary.

  Carol S. Dweck

  Thinking, Idols, People

  Carol S. Dweck (2006). “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success”, p.90, Random House

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• Body tension will always be present if our good feeing is just ordinary, self-centered happiness. Joy has no tension in it, because joy accepts whatever is as it is.

  Joko Beck

  Self, Joy, Body

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• Well, you can think what you want, so long as you remember - no matter how ordinary things seem between us - I'm still here, still in love with you, and care about you more than any other guy, evil or otherwise, ever will.

  Richelle Mead

  Love You, Thinking, Long

  Richelle Mead (2013). “The Indigo Spell: A Bloodlines Novel”, p.20, Penguin

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• I sit there thinking about how much courage it takes to live an ordinary life.

  Colum McCann

  Thinking, Ordinary Life

  Colum McCann (2009). “Let The Great World Spin”, p.49, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• There's ordinary people out there doing extraordinary things.

  Neal Shusterman

  People, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Things

  Neal Shusterman (2013). “UnWholly”, p.401, Simon and Schuster

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• For anyone to understand a regime like the GDR, the stories of ordinary people must be told. Not just the activists or the famous writers. You have to look at how normal people manage with such things in their pasts.

  Anna Funder

  Past, People, Looks

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• The further I wake into this life, the more I realize that God is everywhere and the extraordinary is waiting quietly beneath the skin of all that is ordinary. Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond, and music is in both the flowing violin and the water dripping from the drainage pipe. Yes, God is under the porch as well as on top of the mountain, and joy is in both the front row and the bleachers, if we are willing to be where we are.

  Mark Nepo

  Light, Broken, Water

  Mark Nepo (2011). “The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have (Gift Edition)”, p.24, Conari Press

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• Ordinary persons, he said, smiling, found no differences between men. The artist found them all.

  Alexander Theroux

  Artist, Men, Differences

  Alexander Theroux (1981). “Darconville's cat”, Doubleday Books

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