Single Sentence Quotes - Page 2

• If life's lessons could be reduced to single sentences, ther would be no need for fiction.

  Scott Turow

  Would Be, Needs, Fiction

  "'To hell with Perry Mason'". Interview with Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. November 24, 2002.

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• The apostle Paul never seemed to exhaust the topic of grace - what makes us think we can? He just kept coming at it and coming at it from another angle. That's the thing about grace. It's like springtime. You can't put it in a single sentence definition, and you can't exhaust it.

  Max Lucado

  Thinking, Grace, Definitions

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• Good writing is the hardest form of thinking. It involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear. If the writing is good, then the result seems effortless and inevitable. But when you want to say something life-changing or ineffable in a single sentence, you face both the limitations of the sentence itself and the extent of your own talent.

  Pat Conroy

  Life Changing, Writing, Thinking

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• Charles de Foucauld, the found of the Little Brothers of Jesus, wrote a single sentence that's ahad a profound impact on my life. He said, "The one thing we owe absolutely to God is never to be afraid of anything." Never to be afraid of anything, even death, which, after all, is but that final breakthrough into the open, waiting, outstretched arms of Abba.

  Brennan Manning

  Brother, Jesus, Fear

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.160, Multnomah

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• Alethea Black can drop you into a dream with a single sentence, then convince you it's real. Her characters' best hopes and worst fears usually come to pass, often in fabulous ways, but their adventures feel inevitable and true-not only because Ms. Black richly imagines her people, but because she loves them. I Knew You'd Be Lovely is a lovely debut, with masterful prose and inspired invention on every page.

  Ralph Lombreglia

  Dream, Real, Adventure

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• A single sentence will suffice for modern man. He fornicated and read the papers. After that vigorous definition, the subject will be, if I may say so, exhausted.

  Albert Camus

  Men, Paper, May

  Albert Camus (1960). “Collected fiction”

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• 
…Abe didn’t say a word. He made straight for his journal and wrote down a single sentence. One that would radically alter the course of his life, and bring a fledgeling nation to the brink of collapse.
I hereby resolve to kill every vampire in America.

  Seth Grahame-Smith

  America, Vampire, Made

  "Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter". Book by Seth Grahame-Smith, April 29, 2010.

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• I found that many gifted people are so afraid of writing a poor story that they cannot summon the nerve to write a single sentence for months. The thing to say to such people is: "See how *bad* a story you can write. See how dull you can be. Go ahead. That would be fun and interesting. I will give you ten dollars if you can write something thoroughly dull from beginning to end!" And of course, no one can.

  Brenda Ueland

  Fun, Writing, People

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• If words had weight, a single sentence from Death would have anchored a ship.

  Terry Pratchett

  Weight, Ships, Sentences

  Terry Pratchett (2008). “The Colour Of Magic: (Discworld Novel 1)”, p.107, Random House

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• I always thought old age would be a writer’s best chance. Whenever I read the late work of Goethe or W. B. Yeats I had the impertinence to identify with it. Now, my memory’s gone, all the old fluency’s disappeared. I don’t write a single sentence without saying to myself, ‘It’s a lie!’ So I know I was right. It’s the best chance I’ve ever had.

  Samuel Beckett

  Memories, Lying, Writing

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• If I had to define a major depression in a single sentence, I would describe it as a "genetic/neurochemical disorder requiring a strong environmental trigger whose characteristic manifestation is an inability to appreciate sunsets.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Strong, Sunset, Appreciate

  Robert M. Sapolsky (2004). “Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping - Now Revised and Updated”, p.272, Macmillan

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• He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front. He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.

  Erich Maria Remarque

  Sleep, Army, Expression

  All Quiet on the Western Front ch. 12 (1929) (translation by A. W. Wheen) See Beers 1

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• What was Aristotle’s life?’ Well, the answer lay in a single sentence: ‘He was born, he thought, he died.’ And all the rest is pure anecdote.

  Martin Heidegger

  Anecdotes, Answers, Born

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• In a single sentence the moral is: admit that complexity always increases, first from the model you fit to the data, thence to the model you use to think about and plan about the experiment and its analysis, and thence to the true situation.

  John Tukey

  Thinking, Data, Simplicity

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• I think a single sentence by Van Gogh is better than the whole work of all the art critics and art historians put together.

  John Olsen

  Art, Thinking, Together

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• 'They fell in love.' Such a rare and special event cannot be done justice by one statement; it involves so much more than that single sentence could explain: it means two people that were brave enough to show their scars, vulnerability, rough edges, happiest thoughts, along with their worst fears, and find a mutual respect, appreciation, and fondness for one another; they achieved a gift that not many people get to experience in their lifetime in its truest form.

  Carlos Salinas

  Love, Appreciation, Mean

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• I don't think there is a single sentence in this whole book [East of Eden] that does not either develop character, carry on the story or provide necessary background.

  John Steinbeck

  Book, Writing, Character

  John Steinbeck (1990). “Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters”, p.133, Penguin

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• Advertising companies hire the very brightest, wittiest young people to write for them. Not one single sentence of it is worth repeating. Why? Because it wasn't meant.

  Brenda Ueland

  Writing, People, Advertising

  Brenda Ueland (1987). “If You Want to Write”

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• In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. - Manifesto of the Communist Party

  Karl Marx

  Party, Liberty, May

  Karl Marx (2015). “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, p.18, Booklassic

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• All things are made of atoms - little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Distance, Moving, Knowledge

  "The Feynman Lectures on Physics". Physics textbook by Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, and Matthew Sands, volume I; lecture 1, "Atoms in Motion"; section 1-2, "Matter is made of atoms"; p. 1-2, 1964.

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• I have devoted my whole life to the study of Nature, and yet a single sentence may express all that I have done. I have shown that there is a correspondence between the succession of Fishes in geological times and the different stages of their growth in the egg,-this is all. It chanced to be a result that was found to apply to other groups and has led to other conclusions of a like nature.

  Louis Agassiz

  Nature, Science, Eggs

  Louis Agassiz (2003). “Agassiz on Evolution: Methods of study in natural history”

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• You might reduce Lombardi's coaching philosophy to a single sentence: In any game, you do the things you do best and you do them over and over and over.

  George Halas

  Teamwork, Philosophy, Games

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• Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year.

  Horace Mann

  Inspirational, Success, Reading

  Horace Mann, William Bentley Fowle (1841). “Common School Journal”

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