Phrases Quotes - Page 28

• I wish I had coined the phrase 'tyranny of choice,' but someone beat me to it. The counterintuitive truth is that have an abundance of options does not make you feel privileged and indulged; too many options make you feel like all of them are wrong, and that you are wrong if you choose any of them.

  Susan Orlean

  Choices, Wish, Doe

  "Bootless" by Susan Orlean, www.newyorker.com. November 30, 2010.

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• A family with the wrong members in control; that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.

  George Orwell

  Family, Insulting, England

  The Lion and the Unicorn (1941) pt. 1 "England Your England"

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• You can't just have slogans, you can't just have catchy phrases. You have to have an agenda. And I think what the Republican Party has to do, if it's going to incorporate the tea party efforts in it, is to come up with an agenda that the American people can see, touch, and actually believe in, and something they believe in.

  Colin Powell

  Party, Believe, Thinking

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• The one phrase you can use is that success has a thousand fathers, and failure is an orphan.

  Alan Price

  Success, Father, Congratulations

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• Every once in a while, you let a word or phrase out and you want to catch it and bring it back. You can't do that. It's gone, gone forever.

  Dan Quayle

  Funny, Forever, Gone

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• It's in the history books, the Holocaust. It's just a phrase. And the truth is it happened yesterday. It happened to my mother. I never met my grandfathers or my grandmothers. They were all wiped up in the gas chambers of Nazi Germany.

  Gene Simmons

  Mother, Book, Yesterday

  "Parker Spitzer" with Kathleen Parker and Eliot Spitzer, www.cnn.com. December 2, 2010.

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• After you've read a novel, you only retain a vague memory of its contents. You remember the atmosphere, the odd image or phrase or vivid cameo.

  Arthur Smith

  Memories, Atmosphere, Vivid

  "Arthur Smith" by Arthur Smith, www.theguardian.com. April 3, 2002.

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• I think no woman I have had ever gave me so sweet a moment, or at so light a price, as the moment I owe to a newly heard musical phrase.

  Stendhal

  Music, Sweet, Thinking

  Stendhal (1952). “To the happy few: selected letters of Stendhal [pseud.]”

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• With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Epic, Race, Modern Journalism

  "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72". Book by Hunter S. Thompson, 1973.

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• But for a few phrases from his letters and an odd line or two of his verse, the poet walks gagged through his own biography.

  John Updike

  Two, Biographies, Literature

  John Updike (2012). “Odd Jobs: Essays and Criticism”, p.838, Random House

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• No writer, no matter how gifted, immortalizes himself unless he has crystallized into expressive and original phrase the eternal sentiments and yearnings of the human heart.

  Alfred de Vigny

  Heart, Matter, Yearning

  Alfred de Vigny (1905). “Cinq Mars ...”

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• There's nothing I find quite as annoying as the phrase 'I told you so.'

  Ayelet Waldman

  Annoying, Told You So

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• Professional reviewers read so many bad books in the course of duty that they get an unhealthy craving for arresting phrases.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Book, Literature, Duty

  Evelyn Waugh (1983). “The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh”, Methuen

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• After people have repeated a phrase a great number of times, they begin to realize it has meaning and may even be true.

  H. G. Wells

  Numbers, People, Literature

  HG Wells, Rudy Rucker, Colin Wilson (2013). “The Last Books of H.G. Wells: The Happy Turning: A Dream of Life & Mind at the End of its Tether”, p.4, Monkfish Book Publishing

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• A marvellous power of expression over language often distinguishes genius; but Shakespeare in his phrases seems independent of the bonds of language as of the bonds of metre.

  George Edward Woodberry

  Independent, Expression, Genius

  George Edward Woodberry (1916). “Shakespeare: An Address”

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• For a while" is a phrase whose length can't be measured.At least by the person who's waiting.

  Haruki Murakami

  Time, Waiting, Length

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “South Of The Border, West Of The Sun”, p.146, Random House

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• Ever hear of the phrase, Banging you're head on a brick wall?" Ah, but you forget, Darren, vampires can break brick walls with their heads.

  Darren Shan

  Wall, Vampire, Bricks

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• She felt detached from her family, and thought it strange how they had lavished so much attention on her, as a child, and then at some appointed, prearranged time they seemed to stop the flow of affection and being the expectations - as if, for a brief phrase, you were expected to absorb love (and get enough), and then, for a much longer and more serious phase, you were expected to fulfill certain obligations.

  John Irving

  Children, Expectations, Attention

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• It is time to browse through the precious books that have meant the most to you that you may rediscover illuminating phrases and sentences to light your pathway to the future.

  Wilferd Peterson

  Book, Light, Pathways

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• If I had a large amount of money I should certainly found a hospital for those whose grip upon the world is so tenuous that they can be severely offended by words and phrases and yet remain all unoffended by the injustice, violence and oppression that howls daily about our ears.

  Stephen Fry

  Ears, World, Violence

  "Loose Ends", BBC Radio 4, 1987.

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• …a lady of what is commonly called an uncertain temper --a phrase which being interpreted signifies a temper tolerably certain to make everybody more or less uncomfortable.

  Charles Dickens

  Uncertain, Temper, Uncomfortable

  Charles Dickens (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Dickens (Illustrated)”, p.2469, Delphi Classics

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• How do you say 'bring me sausage and eggs or I'll slit your throat' in Italian?" "Look it up in the phrase book.

  Regina Doman

  Book, Italian, Eggs

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• Want to talk about Shakespeare's sonnets?" asked Orphu of Io. Are you shitting me?" The moravecs loved the ancient human colloquial phrases, the more scatological the better. Yes," said Orphu. "I am most definitely shitting you, my friend.

  Dan Simmons

  Ios, Want, Ancient

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• People speak because they are afraid of silence. They speak mechanically whether aloud or to themselves. They are intoxicated by this vocal gruel that ensnares every object and every being. They talk about rain and fine weather; they talk about money, about love, about nothing. And even when they are talking about their most exalted love, they use words uttered a hundred times, threadbare phrases.

  Andreï Makine

  Rain, Talking, Weather

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• Rude am I in my speech, And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace.

  William Shakespeare

  Blessed, Rude, Speech

  'Othello' (1602-4) act 1, sc. 3, l. 76

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