Theme Quotes - Page 9

• The young man shivered. He rolled the stock themes of fantasy over in his mind: cars and stockbrokers and commuters, housewives and police, agony columns and commercials for soap, income tax and cheap restaurants, magazines and credit cards and streetlights and computers... 'It is escapism, true,' he said, aloud. 'But is not the highest impulse in mankind the urge toward freedom, the drive to escape?

  Neil Gaiman

  Men, Agony, Car

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• We're in English class, which for most of us is an excruciating exercise in staying awake through the great classics of literature. These works - groundbreaking, incendiary, timeless - have been pureed by the curriculum monsters into a digestible pabulum of themes and factoids we can spew back on a test. Scoring well on tests is the sort of happy thing that gets the school district the greenbacks they crave. Understanding and appreciating the material are secondary.

  Libba Bray

  School, Exercise, Class

  "Going Bovine". Book by Libba Bray, September 22, 2009.

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• Do me a favor?” he whispered. Beth's hold tightened on his hand. ”Anything, what do you need?” ”Hum the Jeopardy theme.” There was a pause.Then Beth burst out laughing and swatted his shoulder. ”Wrath-” ”Actually,take your clothes off and hum it while doing some belly grooves.” As his shellan bent down and kissed his forehead, he looked up at her through his wraparounds. ”You think I'm kidding? Come on, we both need the distraction. And I promise I'll tip well” "You never carry cash." He extended his tongue and swept it over his upper lip. "I plan on working it off.

  J.R. Ward

  Thinking, Hands, Clothes

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• The theme of the dance was "Great Romances," or some such nonsense. There were projections of supposedly great couples from the past on the walls of the gym. Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Hermione and Ron, Bonnie and Clyde, etc.

  Gabrielle Zevin

  Wall, Couple, Past

  Gabrielle Zevin (2011). “All These Things I've Done”, p.177, Macmillan

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• You know it’s a bad sign when the theme song from Titanic describes your relationship.

  Julia Spencer-Fleming

  Song, Knows

  Julia Spencer-Fleming (2015). “The Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne Series, Books 4-6: To Darkness and to Death; All Mortal Flesh; I Shall Not Want”, p.434, Macmillan

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• William Saroyan wrote a great play on this theme, that purity of heart is the one success worth having. "In the time of your life--live!" That time is short and it doesn't return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition.

  Tennessee Williams

  Writing, Heart, Loss

  Tennessee Williams (1945). “The Glass Menagerie”, p.105, New Directions Publishing

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• Her face ... was a one-of-a-kind, a surprising variation on a familiar theme - a variation that made observers think, Yes - that would be another very nice way for people to look. What Beatrice had done with her face, actually, was what any plain girl could do. She overlaid it with dignity, suffering, intelligence, and a piquant dash of bitchiness.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Girl, Nice, Thinking

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• When I was growing up, I didn't really know much about being popular or cliques or anything like that. In elementary school and middle school, you start to kind of realize what it's all about. There are cool kids, and then there's you, and you're just trying to figure out where you fit in.I learned a lot about acceptance and rejection,Those are the themes that you'll find spread throughout my music and weaved in throughout all of the lyrics. I really know what it's like to be accepted, and I also know what it's like to be rejected. And those are lessons I learned in Wyomissing.

  Taylor Swift

  Growing Up, Kids, School

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• Lady gagas "hair" is my theme song.

  Taylor Swift

  Song, Hair, Gaga

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• The world is full of abandoned meanings. In the commonplace I find unexpected themes and intensities.

  Don DeLillo

  World, Unexpected, Abandoned

  Don DeLillo (2011). “White Noise”, p.205, Pan Macmillan

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• The theme of the diary is always the personal, but it does not mean only a personal story: it means a personal relationship to all things and people. The personal, if it is deep enough, becomes universal, mythical, symbolic; I never generalize, intellectualise. I see, I hear, I feel. These are my primitive elements of discovery. Music, dance, poetry and painting are the channels for emotion. It is through them that experience penetrates our bloodstream.

  Anais Nin

  Mean, Discovery, People

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• One piece of advice I have is: Want something else more than success. Success is a lovely thing, but your desire to say something, your worth, and your identity shouldn’t rely on it, because it’s not guaranteed and it’s not permanent and it’s not sufficient. So work hard, fall in love with the writing — the characters, the story, the words, the themes — and make sure that you are who you are regardless of your life circumstances. That way, when the good things come, they don’t warp you, and when the bad things hit you, you don’t fall apart.

  Veronica Roth

  Falling In Love, Writing, Character

  Amazon.com Q&A with Author, www.amazon.com.

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• Life is not a theme park, and if it is, the theme is death.

  Russell Brand

  Parks, Life Is, Ifs

  Russell Brand (2008). “My Booky Wook”, p.119, Hachette UK

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• People need routines. It's like a theme in music. But it also restrictsyour thoughts and actions and limits your freedom. It structures your priorities and in some cases distorts your logic.

  Haruki Murakami

  People, Priorities, Needs

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• My needs were simple I didn't bother much with themes or felicitous phrases and skipped fine descriptions of weather, landscapes and interiors. I wanted characters I could believe in, and I wanted to be made curious about what was to happen to them. Generally, I preferred people to be falling in and out of love, but I didn't mind so much if they tried their hand at something else. It was vulgar to want it, but I liked someone to say 'Marry me' by the end.

  Ian Mcewan

  Believe, Fall, Character

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• If there is one ‘constant’ in the structure and theme of the wonder tale, it is transformation.

  Jack Zipes

  Transformation, Wonder, Structure

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• Love is not a theme. It's an atmosphere, a mood.

  Cecelia Ahern

  Love Is, Atmosphere, Mood

  Cecelia Ahern (2007). “If You Could See Me Now”, Hyperion

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• Every true writer is like a bird; he repeats the same song, the same theme, all his life. For me, this theme as always been revolt.

  Alberto Moravia

  Song, Bird, Revolt

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• I have been happy, though in a dream. I have been happy-and I love the theme: Dreams! in their vivid colouring of life As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Dream, Fleeting, Vivid

  Edgar Allan Poe, William Heath Robinson (2013). “The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe”, p.113, Courier Corporation

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• If Gone With the Wind has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong, and brave, go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't.

  Margaret Mitchell

  Strong, Fighting, Wind

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• I suppose all of my films have a common theme. If I think about it, though, the only theme I can think of is really a question: Why can’t people be happier together?

  Akira Kurosawa

  Thinking, People, Together

  Akira Kurosawa, Bert Cardullo (2008). “Akira Kurosawa: Interviews”, p.162, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• They were like English teachers who took the fun out of a perfectly good book by breaking it down into themes and sentence structures

  Tawni O'Dell

  Teacher, Fun, Book

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• In my lifetime I was to write only one book, this would be the one. Just as the past Lingers in the present, all my writings after night, including those that deal with biblical, Talmudic, or Hasidic themes, profoundly bear it's stamp, and cannot be understood if one has not read this very first of my works. Why did I write it? Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of the madness, the immense, terrifying madness that had erupted in history and in the conscience of mankind?

  Elie Wiesel

  Book, Writing, Biblical

  Elie Wiesel (2012). “Night”, p.4, Hill and Wang

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• A red traffic light loomed, and Cecilia slammed her foot on the brake. The fact that Polly no longer wanted a pirate party was breathtakingly insignificant in comparison to that poor man (thirty!) crashing to the ground for the freedom that Cecilia took for granted, but right now, she couldn’t pause to honor his memory, because a last-minute change of party theme was unacceptable. That’s what happened when you had freedom. You lost your mind over a pirate party.

  Liane Moriarty

  Memories, Party, Men

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• The theme you choose may change or simply elude you, but being your own story means you can always choose the tone. It also means that you can invent the language to say who are you and what you mean.

  Toni Morrison

  Inspirational, Mean, Elude You

  Toni Morrison's Commencement Address to the Wellesley College Class of 2004, web.wellesley.edu. 2004.

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