What If Quotes - Page 27

• My platitudes don't hold their interest and I can hardly blame them for that. My real stories are all out of date. So what if I can speak firsthand about the Spanish flu, the advent of the automobile, world wars, cold wars, guerrilla wars, and Sputnik — that's all ancient history now. But what else do I have to offer? Nothing happens to me anymore. That's the reality of getting old, and I guess that's really the crux of the matter. I'm not ready to be old yet.

  Sara Gruen

  Real, War, Sputnik

  4 Copy quote

• What if it can't be worked out? What if I'm—what if I'm broken for good?

  Alyson Noel

  Broken, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you might call it the 'what if - what then' approach to writing and illustration.

  Chris Van Allsburg

  Writing, Asking Questions, Illustration

  9 Copy quote

• That and when you're doing live action you don't normally get to see the thing before it's in production. In this case we'd go in every couple weeks and look at animatic and sketches. The way they do it - is they'll put it up on a screen and the storyboard artist who worked on that sequence will talk you through it. Kind of like a pitch session. Then they would leave and we would sit there with the directors and say 'Alright - what if we change that? What if we do that?' It's very different from live action.

  Jonathan M. Goldstein

  Couple, Artist, Directors

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• What if people knew they were recycled? Would that change anything?

  Ann Brashares

  People, Recycled, Ifs

  Twitter post from Jan 11, 2013

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is in the turmoil of chaos that we discover what, if anything, we are.

  Orson Scott Card

  Chaos, Turmoil, Ifs

  Orson Scott Card (2013). “The Shadow Quintet”, p.528, Macmillan

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• ... but to remain historically accurate, I would have had to leave out an important question that I felt needed to be addressed, which is, 'What if Jesus had known kung fu?

  Christopher Moore

  Jesus, Important, Kung Fu

  Christopher Moore (2009). “Lamb: A Novel”, p.388, Hachette UK

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Suppose I could shoot myself in the mouth, but what if I miss? People will laugh at me.

  George Carlin

  People, Laughing, Missing

  4 Copy quote

• It terrified me to consider: What if, as a grown-up, I craved another body beside me as still as this one? What then?

  Augusten Burroughs

  Body, Stills, Terrified

  Augusten Burroughs (2008). “A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father”, p.35, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a great pleasure to escape sometimes from the restless class of Reformers. What if these grievances exist? So do you and I.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Class, Sometimes, Pleasure

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.106, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• What if imagination and art are not frosting at all, but the fountainhead of human experience?

  Rollo May

  Art, Imagination, Experience

  13 Copy quote

• ("Let's stand under a tree," she said. "Why?" "Because it's nicer." "Maybe you should sit on a chair, and I'll stand above you, like they always do with husbands and wives." "That's stupid." "Why's it stupid?" "Because we're not married." "Should we hold hands?" "We can't." "But why?" "Because, people will know." "Know what?" "About us." "So what if they know?" "It's better when it's a secret." "Why?" "So no one can take it from us.")

  Nicole Krauss

  Husband, Stupid, Hands

  "The History of Love". Book by Nicole Krauss, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• But...what if I mistime it?" Gilan smiled widely. "Well, in that case, I'll probably lop your head off your shoulders." Horace and Gilan

  John Flanagan

  Cases, Shoulders, Wells

  5 Copy quote

• ... I was reminded of a remark of Willa Cather's, that you can't paint sunlight, you can only paint what it does with shadows on a wall. If you examine a life, as Socrates has been so tediously advising us to do for so many centuries, do you really examine a life, or do you examine the shadows it casts on other lives? Entity or relationships? Objective reality or the vanishing point of a multiple perspective exercise? Prism or the rainbows it refracts? And what if you're the wall? What if you never cast a shadow or rainbow of your own, but have only caught those cast by others?

  Wallace Stegner

  Life, Wall, Exercise

  Wallace Stegner (1990). “The Spectator Bird”, p.101, Penguin

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• My tendency as an actor was to correct people, was to say, 'What if we tried it this way, what about if we tried that way?' That's terrible habit for an actor, but that's a good habit for director. So I became a director.

  David Mamet

  People, Way, Directors

  "David Mamet's Conservative Conversion". "Hannity" with Sean Hannity, www.foxnews.com. July 08, 2011.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• We love to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is the color of colors. This plant speaks to our blood....What a perfect maturity it arrives at! It is the emblem of a successful life concluded by a death not premature, which is an ornament to Nature. What if we were to mature as perfectly, root and branch, glowing in the midst of our decay, like the poke!

  Henry David Thoreau

  Successful, Maturity, Roots

  4 Copy quote

• I mean, what if love isn't a yes-or-no question? It's not either you're in love or you're not. I mean, aren't there different levels? And maybe these things, like words and expectations and whatever, don't go on top of the love. Maybe it's like a map, and they all have their own place, and then when you see it from the sky - whoa.

  David Levithan

  Mean, Sky, Expectations

  4 Copy quote

• Yuki: What could I learn from a stupid cat like you? You didn't even know that Jason isn't really a bear! He's a character in a horror film!
  Kyo: So what if I didn't know? Like I'd waste my time watching some dumb movie about a bear!
  Yuki: You truly are an idiot...

  Natsuki Takaya

  Stupid, Character, Cat

  "Fruits Basket". Animation, Comedy, Drama, www.imdb.com. (2001 - ).

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• What if a dawn of a doom of a dream bites this universe in two, peels forever out of his grave, and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?

  e. e. cummings

  Dream, Two, Forever

  e. e. cummings (2014). “100 Selected Poems”, p.75, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn't need a shoulder? What if they need the arms or something like that? You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things.

  Stephen Chbosky

  Love You, Thinking, Needs

  Stephen Chbosky (2013). “The Perks of Being a Wallflower YA edition”, p.189, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• On a surface level, regionalism is gone, if we define regionalism as human culture. But, what if we define regionalism as something older than human culture?

  Cynthia Daignault

  Culture, Gone, Levels

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our country right or wrong is an evil motto - what if your country be in the wrong? It will only compound her injury. I wish to serve the republic with an honest and fearless criticism.

  Horace Greeley

  Country, Evil, Fearless

  18 Copy quote

• Be generous with your heart! The more we spontaneously give, the more connected and enriched we will feel. What if we use each other as our living temples, and put our best offering foot forward to see what direction life points us? I believe that if we live in a state of offering - even if we think we have nothing to offer - life blesses us and we feel more at peace with who we are and what we have.

  Agapi Stassinopoulos

  Believe, Heart, Thinking

  "The Power of Offering: How Offering Can Instantly Unbind the Heart" by Agapi Stassinopoulos, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 17, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• My ideas often come from strong mental images. When I'm observing some relatively ordinary thing, I'll think, "What if...." and out of that brainstorming a story emerges.

  Cassandra Clare

  Strong, Thinking, Ifs And

  "The Last Book of The Mortal Instruments Series Has Arrived, and It's Full of Juicy Lust and Betrayal". Interview with Alexandra Schwartz, www.glamour.com. May 29, 2014.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We all have those moments where we realize how easily our lives could be so different, for better or for worse. I met my husband at a gym in NYC! What if I'd joined a different gym? What if I hadn't worked out in the afternoons? These questions are endless.

  Allison Winn Scotch

  Husband, Nyc, Different

  Source: www.glamour.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source