Possession Quotes - Page 36

• I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them--with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.

  Eudora Welty

  Book, Smell, Library

  Eudora Welty (1998). “Stories, Essays, and Memoir”

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• But what the working-class can do, when once they grow into a solidified organization, is to show the possessing class, through a sudden cessation of all work, that the whole social structure rests on them; that the possessions of the others are absolutely worthless to them without the workers' activity; that such protests, such strikes, are inherent in the system of property and will continually recur until the whole thing is abolished - and having shown that effectively, proceed to expropriate.

  Voltairine de Cleyre

  Class, Organization, Social

  "Direct Action". Voltairine de Cleyre's Address in Chicago, dwardmac.pitzer.edu. January 21, 1912.

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• Love fills everything. It cannot be desired because it is an end in itself. It cannot betray because it has nothing to do with possession. It cannot be held prisoner because it is a river and will overflow its banks. Anyone who tries to imprison love will cut off the spring that feeds it, and the trapped water will grow stagnant.

  Paulo Coelho

  Love, Spring, Cutting

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• Reality prior to my language exists as an unthinkable thought. . . . life precedes love, bodily matter precedes the body, and one day in its turn language shall have preceded possession of silence.

  Clarice Lispector

  Reality, Silence, One Day

  Clarice Lispector (1988). “The Passion According to G.H.”, p.169, U of Minnesota Press

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• Never a possession, always the possessor, with skin as pale as smoke, and eyes tawny and sharp as yellow wine: Desire is everything you have ever wanted. Whoever you are. Whatever you are. Everything.

  Neil Gaiman

  Wine, Eye, Yellow

  "Season of Mists (The Sandman #21: Prologue)". Book by Neil Gaiman, December 1990 – July 1991.

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• Even if you forget everything else I want you to always remember that you are a person of value, and you have a friend who loved you enough to give you his most valued possession.

  Bette Greene

  Forget Everything, Giving, Want

  Bette Greene (1993). “Morning Is a Long Time Coming”, Laurel Leaf

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• Of the two powers, the two categories that take possession of us when we enter the world (from where?), space is by far the less mysterious. It, too, undergoes transformations. Time, on the other hand, is a hostile element, truly treacherous, I would even say against human nature.

  Stanislaw Lem

  Hands, Two, Space

  "Highcastle: A Remembrance".

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• A man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions.... He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer--because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement.

  Ayn Rand

  Self Esteem, Men, Giving

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• The process of writing is a little like madness, a kind of possession not altogether benign.

  Joanne Harris

  Writing, Littles, Madness

  Joanne Harris (2010). “Blackberry Wine”, p.210, Random House

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• The books and magazines streamed in. He could buy them all, they piled up around him and even while he read, the number of those still to be read disturbed him. … they stood in rows, weighing down his life like a possession which he did not succeed in subordinating to his personality.

  Thomas Mann

  Book, Numbers, Personality

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• You have been a very foolish boy, wasting your time dreaming of impossible things when you speak of Mr. Pontellier setting me free! I am no longer one of Mr. Pontelliere's possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose. If he were to say, 'Here Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,' I should laugh at you both.

  Kate Chopin

  Dream, Boys, Impossible Things

  "The Awakening". Book by Kate Chopin, 1899.

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• And it's Gryfindor in possession again, as Johnson takes the Quaffle - Flint alongside her - poke him in the eye, Angelina - it was a joke, professor, it was a joke.

  J. K. Rowling

  Eye, Professors, Johnson

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• When you are wrestling for possession of a sword, the man with the handle always wins.

  Neal Stephenson

  Wrestling, Winning, Men

  Neal Stephenson (2003). “Snow Crash”, p.20, Spectra

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• Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Time, Men, Lost

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• In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his hip, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford.

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Couple, Party, Men

  Elizabeth Gaskell (2009). “Cranford”, p.4, The Floating Press

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• I've got to think that that was unethical," Joshua said. "Josh, faking demonic possession is like a mustard seed." "How is it like a mustard seed?" "You don't know, do you? Doesn't seem at all like a mustard seed, does it? Now you see how we all feel when you liken things unto a mustard seed? Huh?

  Christopher Moore

  Thinking, Doe, Mustard Seed

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• Present global culture is a kind of arrogant newcomer. It arrives on the planetary stage following four and a half billion years of other acts, and after looking about for a few thousand years declares itself in possession of eternal truths. But in a world that is changing as fast as ours, this is a prescription for disaster. No nation, no religion, no economic system, no body of knowledge, is likely to have all the answers for our survival. There must be many social systems that would work far better than any now in existence. In the scientific tradition, our task is to find them.

  Carl Sagan

  Years, Survival, Answers

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• This is not just a simple story of "money can't buy happiness." Or maybe that's just what it is. And if it is, why shouldn't it be? Because if this is something we are already supposed to know, then why don't we know it? Why do we chase and scrabble and fight for things to flaunt, why? Why do we reach for power over other people, and through the thin superiority of our possessions, believe we have it? Why do we let money make people bigger, and allow those without it to be made smaller? How did we lose the truth in the frantic, tribal drumbeat of more, more, more?

  Deb Caletti

  Believe, Fighting, Simple

  Deb Caletti (2009). “The Fortunes of Indigo Skye”, p.256, Simon and Schuster

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• American society [...] not only sanctions gross and unfair relations among men, but it encourages them. Now, can that be denied? No. Rivalry, competition, envy, jealousy, all that is malignant in human character is nourished by the system. Possession, money, property--on such corrupt standards as these do you people measure happiness and success.

  Philip Roth

  Character, Men, People

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• ...it is a very risky thing for anyone to go about proclaiming the truth simply because he finds himself in possession of concrete documentary proofs or on the evidence of his own eyes, which is always overestimated.

  Jorge Amado

  Eye, Documentaries, Proof

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• Your ideal possession candidate's a thirteen-year-old recently orphaned schizophrenic girl three days away from her period on her way to see the shrink with whom she's romantically besotted.

  Glen Duncan

  Girl, Years, Three

  Glen Duncan (2007). “I, Lucifer: Finally, the Other Side of the Story”, p.26, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• [Peter Pan] has never broken his terrible habit of eavesdropping. So, maybe that wasn't the rustle of pages you heard while this story lasted, but Peter Pan himself, listening in. In exchanged for a story of yours, he might show you his most prized possession: James Hooks' map of Neverland. In exchange for a smile, he may show you Neverland itself.

  Geraldine McCaughrean

  Broken, Listening, Hook

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• Loneliness is a drug, a narcotic; it grows through veins, through nerves and muscles; it assumes some right of possession over your body and mind; it feeds itself, and creates its own requirement. Loneliness and solitude are walls.

  R.J. Ellory

  Wall, Loneliness, Drug

  R. J. Ellory (2010). “A Quiet Belief in Angels: A Novel”, p.100, The Overlook Press

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• The true value of man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectability is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent and proud. If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand.

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Real, Humility, Men

  "Anti-Goeze (1778)". "God Is Not Great". Book by Christopher Hitchens. Chapter 19, 2007.

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• Let me out," Harry said again. "No," Dumbledore repeated. "If you don't - if you keep me in here - if you don't let me-" "By all means continue destroying my possessions," said Dumbledore. "I daresay I have too many.

  J. K. Rowling

  Mean, Destroying, Said

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