Sly Quotes - Page 3

• I've always loved black culture; I don't know any other way to put it. Since I was a kid I loved music and early jazz, Sly and the Family Stone.

  Robert Greene

  Kids, Black, Culture

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• The Thieves of Manhattan is a sly and cutting riff on the book-publishing world that is quite funny unless you happen to be an author, in which case the novel will make you consider a more sensible profession-like being a rodeo clown, for example, or a crab-fisherman in the Bering Sea.

  Carl Hiaasen

  Book, Cutting, Sea

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• We are kindred all of us, killer and victim, predator and prey, me and the sly coyote, the soaring buzzard, the elegant gopher snake, and trembling cottontail, the foul worms that feed on our entrails; all of them, all of us. Long live diversity, long live the earth!

  Edward Abbey

  Journey, Snakes, Hiking

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.34, Simon and Schuster

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• The chimpanzees in the zoos do it, Some courageous kangaroos do it Let's do it, let's fall in love. I'm sure giraffes on the sly do it, Even eagles as they fly do it, Let's do it, let's fall in love.

  Cole Porter

  Falling In Love, Zoos, Eagles

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• For the task assigned them Men aren't smart enough or sly Any rogue can blind them With a clever lie.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Clever, Smart, Lying

  Bertolt Brecht, Desmond Ivo Vesey, Eric Bentley (1964). “The Threepenny Opera”, p.75, Grove Press

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• I've had my say out, and I shall be the' easier for't all my life. There's no pleasure i' living, if you're to be corked up forever, and only dribble your mind out by the sly, like a leaky barrel.

  George Eliot

  Forever, Mind, Opinion

  George Eliot (2016). “George Eliot Collection: Middlemarch, Adam Bede, Silas Marner, The Lifted Veil, and The Mill on the Floss”, p.329, Xist Publishing

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• Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch, The owl very gravely got down from his perch, Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic (Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic.

  James Thomas Fields

  Owl, Fault Finding, Faults

  James Thomas Fields, “The Owl-Critic”

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• The typical entrepreneur is no longer the bold and tireless man of Marshall, or the sly and rapacious Moneybags of Marx, but a mass of inert shareholders, indistinguishable from rentiers, who employ salaried managers to run their concerns.

  Edwin Arlington Robinson

  Running, Men, Entrepreneur

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• This morning it occurred to me for the first time that my body, my faithful companion and friend, truer and better known to me than my own soul, may be after all only a sly beast who will end by devouring his master.

  Marguerite Yourcenar

  Morning, Faithful, Soul

  Marguerite Yourcenar (1954). “Memoirs of Hadrian”, New York, Farrar

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• Long before "American Idol" people used to call me a diva. And I be like, "Hold on, are you calling me something else on the sly? You gonna call me a diva, call me a good diva."

  Jennifer Hudson

  Idols, Long, People

  "'Idol' Finalist Jennifer Hudson Believes She Was Robbed". Interview with Corey Moss, www.mtv.com. April 23, 2004.

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• Fear, if it be not immoderate, puts a guard about us that does watch and defend us; but credulity keeps us naked, and lays us open to all the sly assaults of ill-intending men: it was a virtue when man was in his innocence; but since his fall, it abuses those that own it.

  Owen Feltham

  Fall, Men, Abuse

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• The novella is at once the most elegant and demanding form: a writer must balance the looseness of a novel with the concision of a short story, a feat that only the bravest and most talented of us can manage. In Brazil, Jesse Lee Kercheval proves, yet again, that she is exactly the right writer for the job. A wild American picaresque, Brazil snaps along briskly, yet feels full-fleshed, and brims with a sly wit and grace.

  Lauren Groff

  Jobs, Grace, Balance

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• As on many mornings in Marin, there is this sly strip of fog - water in it's most mystical incarnation - slithering over, around, and through the hills, making everything look ancient and unsolved.

  Jaimal Yogis

  Morning, Fog, Water

  Mu Soeng, Jaimal Yogis (2010). “Saltwater Buddha: A Surfers Quest to Find Zen on the Sea (Large Print 16pt)”, p.7, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Lysistrata: Oh, Calonicé, my heart is on fire; I blush for our sex. Men will have it we are tricky and sly...Calonicé: And they are quite right, upon my word!Lysistrata: Yet, look you, when the women are summoned to meet for a matter of the last importance, they lie abed instead of coming.Calonicé: Oh, they will come, my dear; but 'tis not easy you know, for a woman to leave the house. One is busy pottering about her husband; another is getting the servant up; a third is putting her child asleep or washing the brat or feeding it.

  Aristophanes

  Sex, Husband, Children

  Aristophanes (2013). “The Eleven Comedies”, p.147, Simon and Schuster

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• I met Jay Jonhson. I won him the way poor people occasionally win the lottery: Shameless perseverance and embarrassingly dumb luck, and every time I see one of those sly, toothless, beaten-down souls on TV holding a winning ticket, I think, Go, team.

  Amy Bloom

  Perseverance, Team, Winning

  Amy Bloom (2010). “Where The God Of Love Hangs Out”, p.55, Granta Books

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• The life of an Indian is like the wings of the air. That is why you notice the hawk knows how to get his prey. The Indian is like that. The hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal. For instance, the coyote is sly, so is the Indian. The eagle is the same. That is why the Indian is always feathered up, he is a relative to the wings of the air.

  Black Elk

  Native American, Animal, Air

  John Gneisenau Neihardt, Black Elk, Raymond J. DeMallie (1984). “The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's teachings given to John G. Neihardt”, Univ of Nebraska Pr

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• Although we often hear that data speak for themselves, their voices can be soft and sly

  Frederick Mosteller

  Science, Data, Voice

  Frederick Mosteller, Stephen E. Fienberg, Robert E. K. Rourke (2013). “Beginning Statistics with Data Analysis”, p.234, Courier Corporation

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• There's nothing I can do that's going to drive you away, is there?" I murmured. Owen flashed me a sly grin. "Finally figuring that out, are you? I nodded. His grin deepened. "Well, it sure took you long enough.

  Jennifer Estep

  Long, Enough, Wells

  Jennifer Estep (2011). “Tangled Threads”, p.324, Simon and Schuster

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• Tell me about this Wizard Howl of yours." "He's the best wizard in Ingary or anywhere else. If he'd only had time, he would have defeated that djinn. And he's sly and selfish and vain as a peacock and cowardly, and you can't pin him down to anything." "Indeed? Strange that you should speak so proudly such a list of vices, most loving of ladies." "What do you mean, vices? I was just describing Howl. He comes from another world entirely, you know, called Wales, and I refuse to believe he's dead!

  Diana Wynne Jones

  Selfish, Believe, Mean

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• Sometimes I think about the sly, flickering line that separates being spared from being rejected. Sometimes I think of the ancient gods who demanded that their sacrifices be fearless and without blemish, and I wonder whether, whoever or whatever took Peter and Jamie away, it decided I wasn't good enough.

  Tana French

  Sacrifice, Thinking, Fearless

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• How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but — mainly — to ourselves.

  Julian Barnes

  Cutting, Challenges, Stories

  "The Sense of an Ending". Book by Julian Barnes, www.penguin.co.uk. 2001.

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• But doubt is wily and cunning and never, as it is sometimes said to be, loud or defiant. It is unassuming and sly, not bold or assertive - and the more unassuming, the more dangerous.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Doubt, Sometimes, Loud

  Soren Kierkegaard, George Pattison (2010). “Spiritual Writings: A New Translation and Selection”, p.13, Harper Collins

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• At the core, our motives are always self-serving, Kate. Altruism is a fog created by sly minds seeking to benefit from the energy and skill of others. Nothing more.

  Ilona Andrews

  Fog, Self, Skills

  Ilona Andrews (2009). “Magic Strikes”, p.67, Penguin

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• We would lie on coral sand, below sugary stars, watching Cassiopeia mount her throne and the Great Bear wash its paws in the South. I would say, "I have a secret to tell you." And, folding me in your arms, boyish and sly, you would answer: "Whisper it into my mouth.

  Diane Ackerman

  Stars, Lying, Secret

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems”, p.102, Vintage

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• I'm a fool, to confuse this with goodness. I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly.

  Margaret Atwood

  Too Much, Fool, Greedy

  Margaret Atwood (1988). “Cat's eye”, Doubleday, 1989

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