Unusual Quotes - Page 2

• The unusual is only found in a very small percentage, except in literary creations, and that is exactly what makes literature.

  Julio Cortazar

  Literature, Creation, Found

  23 Copy quote

• Life is extraordinarily suave and sweet with certain natural, witty, affectionate people who have unusual distinction and are capable of every vice, but who make a display of none in public and about whom no one can affirm they have a single one. There is something supple and secret about them. Besides, their perversity gives spice to their most innocent occupations, such as taking a walk in the garden at night.

  Marcel Proust

  Witty, Sweet, Night

  Marcel Proust (1957). “Pleasures and days: and other writings”

  27 Copy quote

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• Genealogy of American Finance is a treasure trove of information on American banking and its history, in an unusual -- and unusually useful -- format.

  John Steele Gordon

  Banking, Treasure, Information

  7 Copy quote

• I could cut silhouettes almost as soon as I could manage to hold a pair of scissors. I could paint, too, and read, and recite; but these things did not surprise anyone very much. But everybody was astonished about the scissor cuts, which seemed a more unusual accomplishment. The silhouettes were very much praised, and I cut out silhouettes for all the birthdays in the family. Did anyone warn me as to where this path would lead? Not in the least; I was encouraged to continue.

  Lotte Reiniger

  Cutting, Accomplishment, Path

  72 Copy quote

• Good design is a great combination of common sense, unusual imagination, clarity of purpose–with a prerequisite knowledge of structure, values, color, aesthetic insight and a deep reverence for the love of life.

  Millard Sheets

  Love Life, Clarity Of Purpose, Color

  9 Copy quote

• 'The Devil in the Dark' impressed me because it presented the idea, unusual in science fiction then and now, that something weird, and even dangerous, need not be malevolent. That is a lesson that many of today's politicians have yet to learn.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Fear, Dark, Ideas

  4 Copy quote

• I feel as though I have lived many lives, experienced the heights and depths of each and like the waves of the ocean, never known rest. Throughout the years, I looked always for the unusual, for the wonderful, for the mysteries at the heart of life.

  Leni Riefenstahl

  Ocean, Heart, Years

  Leni Riefenstahl (1992). “The sieve of time: the memoirs of Leni Riefenstahl”

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• I was once hired to write a column for 'The Guardian' and then got fired before I'd submitted my first one. That was unusual. Most newspapers wait until I've written at least one piece for them before firing me.

  Toby Young

  Writing, Waiting, Pieces

  8 Copy quote

• Most good fiction also has a character the writer seems to know more deeply than anyone can actually be known in life, but a few unusual writers can make something great without that.

  Nell Freudenberger

  Character, Fiction, Knows

  Interview with Jennifer L. Knox, www.newyorker.com. June 14&21, 2010.

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• It is not new or unusual for the real Americans, meaning those immigrants who came to America a little bit longer ago, to fear the outsiders, the pretenders, the newcomers.

  Luis Gutierrez

  Real, America, Littles

  87 Copy quote

• When you embrace the uncertain, life opens up unusual new paths. Seeds sown way back bloom as flowers, in ways one can never fathom.

  Subroto Bagchi

  Flower, Way, Path

  Subroto Bagchi (2008). “Go Kiss World”, p.111, Penguin UK

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• Redundancy is ambiguous because it seems like a waste if nothing unusual happens. Except that something unusual happens-usually .

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Waste, Ambiguous, Redundancy

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2012). “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder”, p.45, Random House

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• It is as pleasant as it is unusual to see thoroughly good people getting their deserts.

  Charles Williams

  People, Desert, Pleasant

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• I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Motivational, Wise, Men

  Abraham Lincoln, Bob Blaisdell (2005). “The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln: A Book of Quotations”, p.69, Courier Corporation

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• Time changes every man. Unusual circumstances change them in unusual ways

  Bryant Gumbel

  Men, Way, Circumstances

  9 Copy quote

• Valuing unusual conduct is not as good as being careful about ordinary actions.

  Zicheng Hong

  Taoism, Ordinary, Action

  8 Copy quote

• It's an unusual way to write a crime novel, to have these lingering, fairly large story points, but it's something I knew I had to do if I wanted to write a sequel...but, you know, people still have to read and enjoy this book, or it's a moot point.

  Tod Goldberg

  Book, Writing, Crime Novels

  Source: therumpus.net

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• If the unusual never happened there would be no difference in people and then there wouldn't be any fun in life. The game would become merely a matter of addition and subtraction. It would make of us a race of bookkeepers with plodding minds. It's the guessing that develops a man's brain power.

  Jesse Lauriston Livermore

  Fun, Men, Race

  11 Copy quote

• The people I know who seem to make unusual efforts at rationality, are unusually honest, or, failing that, at least have unusually bad social skills.

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Skills, People, Effort

  "Honesty: Beyond Internal Truth". lesswrong.com. June 06, 2009.

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• I've seen men who thought they were brave turn out to be shameful cowards. Other people, who thought they were capable of the utmost self-sacrifice, proved to be hardened egotists. And the opposite, too - cowards doing things which needed toughness and unusual courage..... What does it all boil down to in the end? One must judge a man by what he does, and not by what he thinks he would do. Until a man faces the test, he can deceive himself endlessly.

  Jerzy Andrzejewski

  Sacrifice, Men, Thinking

  Jerzy Andrzejewski, David J. Welsh (1991). “Ashes and Diamonds”, p.81, Northwestern University Press

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• It is a mistake to think of creative activity as something unusual

  Jacob Bronowski

  Mistake, Thinking, Creative

  7 Copy quote

• If people aren't laughing at you, you aren't saying anything very unusual. So let your voice be loud and strong, dare to try things that may fail.

  Joline Godfrey

  Strong, Failure, Voice

  7 Copy quote

• You do not become a ''dissident'' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.

  Vaclav Havel

  Responsibility, Careers, Patriotism

  "The Power of the Powerless". Book by Václav Havel, 1979.

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• It doesn't seem too unusual to have a live hermit crab here in Atlantic City, but when you think I brought it all the way from Texas, it's unusual.

  Phyllis George

  Thinking, Texas, Cities

  11 Copy quote

• And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps.

  H. L. Mencken

  Children, School, Thinking

  18 Copy quote