What If Quotes - Page 29

• What if what you know isn’t what people want to hear?

  Jodi Picoult

  People, Want, Knows

  Jodi Picoult (2008). “Nineteen Minutes”, p.436, Simon and Schuster

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• Suddenly, madness was everywhere, and I was determined to learn about the impact it had on the way society evolves. I've always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn't? What if it is built on insanity?

  Jon Ronson

  Impact, Insanity, Way

  Jon Ronson (2012). “Jon Ronson's Adventures With Extraordinary People”, p.448, Pan Macmillan

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• And what if I never go of my own free will? Will you pitch me from some window so that I must fly or fall? Will you bolt all shutters after me? You had better, because I'll knock and knock and knock until I fall down dead. I'll have no wings that take me away from you.

  Anne Rice

  Fall, Wings, Window

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• what if it was enough to just stand here in the arms of someone who ared about her, to let his simple affection steady her for a little while? it felt so good just to be held.

  Lauren Kate

  Simple, Arms, Littles

  Lauren Kate (2012). “Lauren Kate: Fallen & Torment”, p.83, Random House

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• So what if I don't learn algebra?' 'Someday schools will be open again,' Mom said. 'Things will be normal. You need to do your work now for when that happens.' 'That's never going to happen,' Jon said. 'And even if schools do open up somewhere, they're not going to open up here. There aren't enough people left.' 'We don't know how many people are like us, holed up, making do until times get better.' 'I bet whoever they are, they aren't studying algebra,' Jon said.

  Susan Beth Pfeffer

  Mom, School, People

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• I...asked why purebloods despised me so. He replied, 'What if the difference between social strata stem not from genomics or inherent xcellence or even dollars, but merely differences in knowledge? Would this not mean the whole Pyramid is built on shifting sands?... fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror

  David Mitchell

  Mean, Mirrors, Pyramids

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• Are you kidding?" She looked at me as if I'd just dropped from the moon. Her cheeks were bright red. "What's the problem now?" I demanded. "Me, go with you to the...the 'Thrill Ride of Love'? How embarrassing is that? What if somebody saw me?" "Who's going to see you?" But my face was burning now, too. Leave it to a girl to make everything complicated. "Fine," I told her. "I'll do it myself." But when I started down the side of the pool, she followed me, muttering about how boys always messed things up.

  Rick Riordan

  Girl, Boys, Moon

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• ... I'm the fortieth-ugliest man in this bar. But so what! So what! What if someday she lets me kiss each one of her freckles again? She has like a million. But every one of them means something to me. Isn't this how people used to fall in love? I know we're living in Rubenstein's America, like you keep saying. But doesn't that just make us even more responsible for each other's fates? I mean, what if Eunice and I just said no to all this. To this bar. To this FACing. The two of us. What if we just went home and read books to each other?

  Gary Shteyngart

  Falling In Love, Book, Home

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• What if one of her father’s soldiers panicked and fired for no reason? Though pilots were carefully trained, mistakes happened and she didn’t want to be included in a statistics report under “uh-oh, my bad.”’ (Kiara)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Father, Mistake, Soldier

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2009). “Born of Night”, Macmillan

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• Science fiction does not attempt to predict. It extrapolates. It just says, "What if?" not what will be? Because you can never predict what will happen, particularly in politics and economics. You can to some extent predict in the technological sphere - flying, space travel, but even there we missed badly on some things, like computers. No one imagined the incredible impact of computers, even though robot brains of various kinds but the idea that one day every house would have a computer in every room and that one day we'd have computers built into our clothing, nobody ever thought of that.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  House, Flying, Brain

  Source: www.salon.com

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• What if everyone in the whole world suddenly decided to run away from his problems?" "Well, at least we'd all be running in the same direction!

  Charles M. Schulz

  Running, World, Problem

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• What if this were Hell, this absence of sleep, this poet's desert, this pain of living, this dying of not dying, this anguish of shadows, this passion over death and light.

  Leopold Sedar Senghor

  Pain, Sleep, Passion

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• I always imagined music trapped inside my clarinet, not trapped inside of me. But what if music is what escapes when a heart breaks?

  Jandy Nelson

  Heart, Break, Clarinet

  Jandy Nelson (2010). “The Sky Is Everywhere”, p.63, Penguin

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• When we got to the part where we had to improvise an argument in a poetic language, I got cold feet. "I can't do this," I said. "I don't know what to say." "Say anything," he said. "You can't make a mistake when you improvise." "What if I mess it up? What if I screw up the rhythm?" "You can't," he said. "It's like drumming. If you miss a beat, you create another." In this simple exchange, Sam taught me the secret of improvisation, one that I have accessed my whole life.

  Patti Smith

  Mistake, Simple, Feet

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• I’m staying here tonight. I can bunk on the floor. (Nathan) What if I say no? (Terri) I’ll just break in after you go to sleep and still bunk on the floor. (Nathan)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Sleep, Tonight, Bunk

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• What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it is really a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things.

  Shigeru Miyamoto

  Warrior, Thinking, Doors

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• And a question stirred within me: What if he, this yellow-eyed creature, in his disorderly, filthy mound of leaves, in his uncomputed life, is happier than we are?

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Yellow, Life Is, Filthy

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• Why couldn't she have this, just enjoy this, without creating obstacles, digging up problems, worrying about mistakes, about tomorrow's? Why let the maybe's, the what if's, the probabilities spoil something so lovely?

  Nora Roberts

  Mistake, Creating, Worry

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• What if all I'd ever known was how it had been for the past three years - me being an unwanted outsider in my own family? I might have turned out like Aphrodite, and I might still be letting my parents control me because I was hoping desperately that I would be good enough, make them proud, so that some day they would really love me.

  P. C. Cast

  Past, Years, Parent

  P. C. Cast, Kristin Cast (2013). “House of Night Series Books 1-4: Marked, Betrayed, Chosen and Untamed”, p.212, St. Martin's Griffin

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• When you want something so bad it hurts,” he said quietly, “and you bury it, bury it so deep that you convince yourself it no longer matters . . . and someone tells you you can have it, it's terrifying. What if you take the chance and you're wrong? What if you let yourself feel the loss and it's this huge pain and you can't put it back in the box?

  Nalini Singh

  Hurt, Pain, Loss

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• Perhaps she was just looking for love in the wrong places. In all the safe places. What if love was not safe at all?

  Mary Balogh

  Looking For Love, Safe, Ifs

  Mary Balogh (2009). “Then Comes Seduction”, p.17, Dell

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• What if someone picks on me?" I asked Then I'll pick on them". What if someone picks my nose?" I asked. The I'll pick your nose, too" Rowdy said.

  Sherman Alexie

  Rowdy, Noses, Said

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• What did he have to mope about, really? What more did he want?...Love. Purpose. Those are the things that you can't plan for. Those are the things that just happen. And what if they don't happen? Do you spend your whole life pining for them? Waiting to be happy?

  Rainbow Rowell

  Waiting, Purpose, Want

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• Everybody is waiting for the end to come, but what if it already passed us by? What if the final joke of Judgment Day was that it had already come and gone and we were none the wiser? Apocalypse arrives quietly; the chosen are herded off to heaven, and the rest of us, the ones who failed the test, just keep on going, oblivious. Dead already, wandering around long after the gods have stopped keeping score, still optimistic about the future.

  Jonathan Nolan

  Optimistic, Long, Waiting

  "Memento Mori". Short story by Jonathan Nolan, www.esquire.com. January 29, 2007.

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• Simple molecules combine to make powerful chemicals. Simple cells combine to make powerful life-forms. Simple electronics combine to make powerful computers. Logically, all things are created by a combination of simpler, less capable components. Therefore, a supreme being must be in our future, not our origin. What if "God" is the consciousness that will be created when enough of us are connected by the Internet?!!

  Scott Adams

  God, Powerful, Future

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