Predicaments Quotes - Page 6

Chess, which exists predominantly in two dimensions, is one of the world's most difficult games. Three-dimensional chess is an invitation to insanity. But human relationships, even of the simplest order, are like a kind of four-dimensional chess, a game whose pieces and positions change subtly and inexorably between moves, whose players stare dumbly while their powerful positions deteriorate into hopeless predicaments and while improbable combinations suddenly become inevitable. To make matters worse, some games are open to any number of players, and all sides are expected to win.

Robert Grudin

Powerful, Moving, Winning

Robert Grudin (1997). “Time and the Art of Living”, p.95, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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The apartments of the rich are cabinets of curiosities: a conglomeration of classical antiquity, gothic, renaissance; Louis XIII... Something from every century but our own, a predicament that has arisen in no other period... so that we seem to be subsisting on the ruins of the past, as if the end of the world were near.

Alfred de Musset

Past, Curiosity, World

"Confession d'un Enfant du Siécle". Book by Alfred de Musset, 1836.

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Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits on a hot stove will verify without any intellectual argument whatsoever that he is in an undeniably low-quality situation: that the value of his predicament is negative. This low quality is not just a vague, woolly-headed, crypto-religious, metaphysical abstraction. It is an experience. It is not a judgment about an experience. It is not a description of experience. The value itself is an experience. As such it is completely predictable. It is verifiable by anyone who cares to do so.

Robert M. Pirsig

Religious, Intellectual, Quality

"Lila : An Inquiry Into Morals". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1991.

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The predicament of a person in a restaurant who is unable to determine his or her designated restroom (e.g., turtles and tortoises).

Rich Hall

Humorous, Turtles, Tortoises

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Children are not a zoo of entertainingly exotic creatures, but an array of mirrors in which the human predicament leaps out at us.

John Updike

Zoos, Children, Mirrors

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Create some psychological space between you and your project by imagining you're doing it for someone else or contemplating what advice you'd give to another person in your predicament.

Daniel H. Pink

Space, Giving, Advice

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How could you communicate with the future? It was impossible. Either the future would resemble the present in which case it would not listen to him, or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless.

George Orwell

Different, Would Be, Impossible

George Orwell (1983). “1984”, p.32, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility──of being unable to undo what one has done──is the faculty of forgiving. The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises. Both faculties depend upon plurality, on the presence and acting of others, for no man can forgive himself and no one can be bound by a promise made only to himself.

Hannah Arendt

Men, Forgiving, Promise

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...it is in the nature of original contemporary art to present itself as a bad risk. And we the public...should be proud of being in this predicament, because nothing else would seem to us quite true to life; and art, after all, is supposed to be a mirror of life.

Leo Steinberg

Art, Mirrors, True Life

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If you look at Shakespeare's history plays, what the setting of monarchy allows is this extraordinary intensification of emotions and predicament.

Tom Hooper

Play, Looks, Emotion

"Q&A with 'King's Speech' director Tom Hooper". Interview with Walter Addiego, www.sfgate.com. February 4, 2011.

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She sifted, sighed, and stared up at the ceiling, trying to think about anything but Lord Maccoon, her current predicament, or Lord Akeldama's safety. Which meant she could do nothing but reflect on the complex plight of her mama's more recent embroidery project. Thins, in itself, was a worse torture than any her captors could devise.

Gail Carriger

Thinking, Safety, Trying

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Because it's much more pleasant to be obsessed over how the hero gets out of his predicament than it is over how I get out of mine.

Woody Allen

Hero, Obsessed, Pleasant

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At last, however, he began to think -- as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too . . .

Charles Dickens

Thinking, Words Of Wisdom, Done

Charles Dickens (1858). “A Christmas Carol”, p.46

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She was my mother. I couldn't threaten to slap, stab, beat or even name call her. I tried to think of something to scare her into never mentioning the predicament with the Dreamsnatcher again. I'll become a swinger," I said. her eyes bugged. Uptight rearing made her uncomfortable with alternate lifestyles. "That's right. threesomes, foursomes, and more. bones knows about a thousand chicks who'd love to hop into bed with us. It'll be kinky, we'll get out freak on.-

Jeaniene Frost

Mother, Eye, Thinking

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How does the saying go? When two locusts fight, it is always the crow that feasts.' Is that a Luo expression?' I asked. Sayid's face broke into a bashful smile. We have a similar expression in Luo,' he said, 'but actually I must admit that I read this particular expression in a book by Chinua Achebe. The Nigerian writer. I like his books very much. He speaks the truth about Africa's predicament. the Nigerian, the Kenya - it is the same. We share more than divides us.

Barack Obama

Book, Fighting, Expression

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How sad it was, Carmen thought, that you acted awful when you were desperately sad and hurt and wanted to be loved. How tragic then, the way everyone avoided you and tiptoed around you when you really needed them. Carmen knew this vicious predicament as well as anyone in the world. How bitter it felt when you acted badly to everyone and ended up hating yourself the most.

Ann Brashares

Hurt, Hate, World

Ann Brashares (2012). “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Complete Collection”, p.640, Delacorte Press

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I saw one of my primary tasks was to do what I could to restore confidence, to ensure that people knew and cared about their predicament and that governments were committed to helping. Equally an optimism had to be engendered, a belief that not only would they recover but would emerge 'bigger, brighter and better than ever.'

Peter Cosgrove

Leadership, Government, People

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She looked at me as if for a moment she would seek someone who would understand the dreadful predicament of a woman, in this world ruled by men.

Philippa Gregory

Men, World, Ifs

Philippa Gregory (2008). “The Other Boleyn Girl (Movie Tie-In)”, p.47, Simon and Schuster

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