Surnames Quotes

• A name is so important. A surname connects you to your past, to your family. Even a given name has meaning - why did your parents pick that particular one?

  Kelley Armstrong

  Past, Names, Parent

  "Secrets Blog Tour: Interview with Kelley Armstrong & Giveaway". Interview with Melissa Montovani, www.yabookshelf.com. October 1, 2015.

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• Fathers, sons, brothers, men everywhere: Your legacy will not perish if you take your partner's surname, or she keeps hers.

  Zoe Saldana

  Brother, Father, Son

  "Zoe Saldaña stands behind husband's decision to take her name, 'redefine masculinity'". www.foxnews.com. June 10, 2015.

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• There are many times where even I, at certain points in the evening, after a few drinks, can't pronounce my own surname.

  Milla Jovovich

  Evening, Drink, Certain

  "Milla Jovovich Can't Pronounce Her Name When She Is Drunk". www.icelebz.com. August 17, 2009.

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• People tend to try to find something to talk about Zuma. My surname is very nice and simple. Very simple, so they like pronouncing it all the time. So what's the problem?

  Jacob Zuma

  Nice, Simple, Zuma

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• It's very hard to step into a job when people are just dismissing you as a pretty face, and saying you got your job only because your surname is McMahon.

  Julian McMahon

  Jobs, People, Faces

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• I cannot feel like a duchess in my mother’s sitting room.” “What do you feel like, then?” “Hmmm.” She took a sip of her tea. “Just Daphne Bridgerton, I suppose. It’s difficult to shed the surname in this clan. In spirit, that is.” “I hope that is a compliment,” Lady Bridgerton remarked. Daphne just smiled at her mother. “I shall never escape you, I’m afraid.” She turned to Gareth. “There is nothing like one’s family to make one feel like one has never grown up.

  Julia Quinn

  Mother, Tea, Sitting

  Julia Quinn (2005). “It's in his kiss”

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• When desire, having rejected reason and overpowered judgment which leads to right, is set in the direction of the pleasure which beauty can inspire, and when again under the influence of its kindred desires it is moved with violent motion towards the beauty of corporeal forms, it acquires a surname from this very violent motion, and is called love.

  Socrates

  Love, Inspiration, Inspire

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• I'm aware people will think I've had an easy way into a dream career. My view is, if anyone has opportunities, they'll take them. My surname opens doors, but those doors will slam firmly if I'm no good.

  Tamara Ecclestone

  Dream, Opportunity, Thinking

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• I was advised by an American agent when I was about 19 to change my surname.

  Rachel Weisz

  Change, Agents

  Interview with Emma Forrest, www.indexmagazine.com. 2001.

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• Try as i do, i can't recall her surname. Indeed, her very abstractedness and insubstantial personality seemed to say 'forget me'; she seemed to live in parenthesis.

  Muriel Spark

  Personality, Trying, Forget

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• There's this common perception that having a famous last name is all you need. A surname may get you a meeting, but if there's no talent you won't get the part.

  Lily Collins

  Names, Perception, Needs

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• In more static societies, like Ireland, you can tell where a person is from by their surname, or where their grandparents are from.

  Anne Enright

  Grandparent, Static, Persons

  "Author, author: Name that plume" by Anne Enright, www.theguardian.com. August 8, 2008.

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• My imagination? No, I don't think it's VIVID at all. On the contrary, it's not nearly potent enough. My poor imaginative faculties have always needed...extentions. That's why I'm here with you. You're smiling again, or rather you're SMIRKING. Funny word, smirk. Rather like an extraterrestrial surname. Simon Smirk. How do you think that sounds?

  Thomas Ligotti

  Thinking, Imagination, Sound

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• There's a scientific hypothesis that every person's name is a primary suggestive command that contains the entire script of their life in highly concentrated form. . . . According to this point of view, there is only a limited number of names, because society only needs a limited number of human types. Just a few models of worker and warrior ants, if I could put it like that. And everybody's psyche is preprogrammed at a basic level by the associative semantic fields that their first name and surname activate.

  Victor Pelevin

  Warrior, Views, Names

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• There is no English surname, however ancient and dignified, that cannot instantly be improved by the prefix ‘Spanker’.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Ancient

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• The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.

  William Butler Yeats

  Christian, Passion, Writing

  William Butler Yeats (1955). “Letters”

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• After that, we had a short conversation about how your body can sometimes seem totally separate. She said her body can feel like a distant bureaucracy controlled by telegrams from her brain, and I said my body is sometimes like that of Mario Mario, being controlled with a Nintendo joypad. Mario's surname is Mario.

  Joe Dunthorne

  Brain, Nintendo, Body

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• You can't just trot out a brown face or a Spanish surname and expect people are going to vote for your party or your candidate.

  Antonio Villaraigosa

  Party, People, Faces

  "DNC Chair: Democrats Will 'Set The Record Straight'". "Tell Me More" with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. September 4, 2012.

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• You can find virtually everybody black back as far as the 1870 census. Why 1870? That's when the ex-slaves first have surnames. But if you find your great-great-grandfather in 1870 and it says he's 50, that means he was born in 1820 and you're back to 1820 already. For an American that's pretty damned good, you know?

  Henry Louis Gates

  Mean, Black, Grandfather

  "35 Million Ways to Be Black". Interview with Adam Hochschild, www.motherjones.com. March 14, 2007.

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• When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a temporal, his Christian name.

  Jonathan Swift

  Christian, Spiritual, Men

  Jonathan Swift (1823). “The Select Works of Jonathan Swift: Containing the Whole of His Poetical Works, the Tale of a Tab, Battle of the Books, Gulliver's Travels, Directions to Servants, Art of Punning, Etc”, p.300

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• My nickname is Bondy. But not because of the Bond films - it was my surname a long time before I did those.

  Samantha Bond

  Long, Nicknames, Film

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• Harriet Jones: Did you notice when they fart, if you'll pardon the word, it doesn't just smell like a fart, if you'll pardon the word, it's something else. What is it? It's more like, um... Rose Tyler: Bad breath. Harriet Jones: That's it! The Doctor: Calcium decay. Now that Narrows it down!.. Calcium phosphate. Organic calcium. Living calcium. Creatures made out of living calcium. What else - what else? Hyphenated surnames. Yes! That narrows it down to one planet! Raxacoricofallapatorius! Mickey Smith: [sarcastically] Oh yeah, great! We can write 'em a letter.

  Russell T Davies

  Writing, Doctors, Smell

  "Doctor Who (World War Three)". TV Series, www.imdb.com. April 23, 2005.

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• Amy Winehouse - her surname's beginning to sound like a description of her liver.

  Russell Brand

  Funny, Amy, Sound

  "30 years of the Brit awards: memorable moments" by Alexandra Topping, www.theguardian.com. February 16, 2010.

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• Molly wants to know her father's name," Arch said to them. "Why don't you give her a hint?" His first name with 'splatter,'" said Ripkins. And 'matter'," said Blister. Also 'fatter,'" said Ripkins. Likewise 'chatter'," added Blister. And his surname?" Arch asked. It rhymes with 'that again'," said Ripkins. And 'Flanagan," put in Blister. Also, um...'pad a fin'?" offered Ripkins. Arch and Blister looked at him. 'Pannikin!'" he said proudly. Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Molly screamed. "You don't know what you're talking about!

  Frank Beddor

  Father, Talking, Names

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• And this is Nymphadora-" "Don't call me Nymphadora, Remus," said the young witch with a shudder. "It's Tonks." "-Nymphadora Tonks, who prefers to be known by her surname only," finished Lupin. "So would you if your fool of a mother had called you 'Nymphadora,' " muttered Tonks.

  J. K. Rowling

  Mother, Fool, Witch

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