Phrases Quotes - Page 29

• Perhaps it is not-being that is the true state, and all our dream of life is inexistent; but, if so, we feel that these phrases of music, these conceptions which exist in relation to our dream, must be nothing either. We shall perish, but we have as hostages these divine captives who will follow and share our fate. And death in their company is somehow less bitter, less inglorious, perhaps even less probable.

  Marcel Proust

  Dream, Fate, Bitter

  Marcel Proust (2015). “Swann's Way”, p.381, Vintage

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• But we are living in a sceptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated or hyper-educated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which belonged to an older day.

  James Joyce

  Humanity, Age, Quality

  "Dubliners".

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• The nature of the labyrinth, I scribbled into my spiral notebook, and the way out of it. This teacher rocked. I hated discussion classes. I hated talking, and I hated listening to everyone else stumble on their words and try to phrase things in the vaguest possible way so they wouldn't sound dumb, and I hated how it was all just a game of trying to figure out what the teacher wanted to hear and then saying it. I'm in class, so teach me.

  John Green

  Notebook, Teacher, Talking

  John Green (2015). “Looking For Alaska Special 10th Anniversary Edition”, p.30, Penguin

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• For, like almost everyone else in our country, I started out with my share of optimism. I believed in hard work and progress and action, but now, after first being 'for' society and then 'against' it, I assign myself no rank or any limit, and such an attitude is very much against the trend of the times. But my world has become one of infinite possibilities. What a phrase - still it's a good phrase and a good view of life, and a man shouldn't accept any other; that much I've learned underground. Until some gang succeeds in putting the world in a strait jacket, its definition is possibility.

  Ralph Ellison

  Country, Attitude, Hard Work

  Ralph Ellison (1980). “Invisible man”, Vintage

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• It's hard to believe. Where does the times go?' Betty sighs. 'I've always hated that phrase. It makes it would like time went on a holiday, and is expected back any day now. Time flies is another one I hate. Apparently, time does quite a bit of traveling, though.

  Gabrielle Zevin

  Hate, Believe, Holiday

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• Actually we did not have the feelings we said we had until we spoke them--at least I didn't; to phrase them was to invent them and own them.

  Philip Roth

  Feelings, Spokes, Said

  Philip Roth (1989). “Goodbye, Columbus”, p.33, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• When a phrase is born, it is both good and bad at the same time. The secret of its success rests in a crux that is barely discernible. One's fingertips must grasp the key, gently warming it. And then the key must be turned once, not twice.

  Isaac Babel

  Keys, Secret, Born

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• why shouldn't he? All life is just a progression toward and then a recession from one phrase-- 'I love you

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Life, Love You, Progression

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2015). “Flappers and Philosophers”, p.20, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• That pompous phrase (graphic novel) was thought up by some idiot in the marketing department of DC. I prefer to call them Big Expensive Comics.

  Alan Moore

  Marketing, Idiot, Bigs

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• Desperate times call for desperate measures" is an aphorism which here means "sometimes you need to change your facial expression in order to create a workable disguise." The quoting of an aphorism, such as "It takes a village to raise a child," "No news is good news," and "Love conquers all," rarely indicates that something helpful is about to happen, which is why we provide our volunteers with a disguise kit in addition to helpful phrases of advice.

  Daniel Handler

  Love, Children, Mean

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• To hear the phrase "our only hope" always makes one anxious, because it means that if the only hope doesn't work, there is nothing left.

  Daniel Handler

  Hope, Mean, Anxiety

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• Someday she might replace whatever of her had gone away by some prosthetic device, a dress of a certain color, a phrase in a letter, another lover.

  Thomas Pynchon

  Color, Gone Away, Dresses

  Thomas Pynchon (2012). “The Crying of Lot 49”, p.76, Penguin

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• If you use a colloquialism or a slang word or phrase, simply use it; do not draw attention to it by enclosing it in quotation marks. To do so is to put on airs, as though you were inviting the reader to join you in a select society of those who know better.

  William Strunk, Jr.

  Air, Quotation Marks, Attention

  WILLIAM STRUNK, JR. (1959). “THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE”

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• It’s only when you’ve lost someone that you realize the nonsense of that phrase “It’s a small world”. It isn’t. It’s a vast, devouring world, especially if you’re alone.

  Clive Barker

  World, Realizing, Nonsense

  Clive Barker (1984). “Clive Barker's Books of Blood: Volumes One, Two and Three”

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• There exists a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.

  George Orwell

  People, Trouble, Metaphor

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• The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.

  T. S. Eliot

  Writing, Poetry, Feelings

  T. S. Eliot (2014). “Selected Essays”, p.17, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• To knot a sentence up properly, it has to be thought out carefully, and revised. New phrases have to be put in; sudden changes of subject must be introducted; verbs must be shifted to unsuspected localities; short words must be excised with ruthless hand; archaisms must be sprinkled like sugar-plums upon the concoction; the fatal human tendency to say things straightforwardly must be detected and defeated by adroit reversals; and, if a glimmer of meaning yet remain under close scrutiny, it must be removed by replacing all the principal verbs by paraphrases in some dead language.

  Aleister Crowley

  Hands, Plums, Verbs

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• What all these lofty and vague phrases boil down to is that the court can impose things that the voters don't want and the Constitution does not require, but which are in vogue in circles to which the court responds.

  Thomas Sowell

  Circles, Doe, Want

  Thomas Sowell (1996). “Knowledge And Decisions”, p.296, Basic Books

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• It's not because I've -what is the phrase? -'swept you off your feet' by my -er- ardor?

  Margaret Mitchell

  Feet, Ardor

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• Life would go out in a 'fraction of a second' (that was the phrase), but all night he had been realizing that time depends on clocks and the passage of light. There were no clocks and the light wouldn't change. Nobody really knew how long a second of pain could be. It might last a whole purgatory--or for ever.

  Graham Greene

  Pain, Night, Light

  Graham Greene (1971). “The Power and the Glory”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• Open the hood of a car and it will tell you something about the people who designed it, is just one of many phrases I’m tortured by.

  Bret Easton Ellis

  People, Car, Hood

  Bret Easton Ellis (2014). “American Psycho: Picador Classic”, p.312, Pan Macmillan

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• The early cars already are drawing deep breaths past my door. And last night's phrases sick with lack of basis are still writhing on my floor.

  Fiona Apple

  Past, Night, Doors

  Song: Not About Love, Album: Extraordinary Machine, 2005

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• Sam Vimes could parallel process. Most husbands can. They learn to follow their own line of thought while at the same time listening to what their wives say. And the listening is important, because at any time they could be challenged and must be ready to quote the last sentence in full. A vital additional skill is being able to scan the dialogue for telltale phrases such as "and they can deliver it tomorrow" or "so I've invited them for dinner?" or "they can do it in blue, really quite cheaply.

  Terry Pratchett

  Husband, Blue, Skills

  "The Fifth Elephant". Book by ‎Terry Pratchett, 1999.

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• O, Times! O, Manners! It is my opinion That you are changing sadly your dominion I mean the reign of manners hath long ceased, For men have none at all, or bad at least; And as for times, altho' 'tis said by many The "good old times" were far the worst of any, Of which sound Doctrine I believe each tittle Yet still I think these worst a little. I've been a thinking -isn't that the phrase?- I like your Yankee words and Yankee ways - I've been a thinking, whether it were best To Take things seriously, Or all in jest

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Believe, Mean, Men

  Edgar Allan Poe (2014). “Complete Collection of Edgar Allan Poe - 170+ eBooks (Complete Tales, Poems, Novels, Essays, Miscellaneous, Play)”, p.702, Ageless Reads

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• The 'control of nature' is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man.

  Rachel Carson

  Nature, Philosophy, Men

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.297, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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