Wrenches Quotes

• A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop.

  Robert Hughes

  Motivational, Perseverance, Determination

  35 Copy quote

• If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.

  Rip Torn

  Underdog, Balls, Dodgeball

  10 Copy quote

• If men can quilt and take over the kitchen, then women can pick up a wrench and fix a leaky pipe.

  Hanna Rosin

  Quilts, Men, Kitchen

  9 Copy quote

• My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Monkeys, Way, Machinery

  Dashiell Hammett (2010). “The Maltese Falcon”, p.95, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  31 Copy quote

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• A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.

  Joan Didion

  Love, Forever, Shapes

  FaceBook post by Joan Didion from Jul 19, 2011

  10 Copy quote

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• When you're dealing with monkeys, you've got to expect some wrenches.

  Alvah Bessie

  Monkeys

  10 Copy quote

• In times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings--artists, scientists, clowns and philosophers--to create order. In times such as ours, however, when there is too much order, too much management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relive the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption.

  Tom Robbins

  Men, Artist, Order

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”, p.215, Bantam

  20 Copy quote

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• Being ill like this combines shock - this time I will die - with a pain and agony that are unfamiliar, that wrench me out of myself.

  Harold Brodkey

  Pain, Agony, Shock

  8 Copy quote

• I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.

  Maya Angelou

  Positive, Sweet, Believe

  Maya Angelou, Jeffrey M. Elliot (1989). “Conversations with Maya Angelou”

  7 Copy quote

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• A library is an adjustable wrench for opening the head.

  Matthew Tobin Anderson

  Library, Opening

  5 Copy quote

• Don't throw a monkey-wrench into the machinery.

  Philander Chase Johnson

  Monkeys, Machinery

  Everybody's Magazine, p. 36, May 1920.

  4 Copy quote

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• In my deepest troubles, I frequently would wrench myself from the persons around me and retire to some secluded part of our noble forests.

  John James Audubon

  Noble, Forests, Trouble

  John James Audubon (1996). “Selected Journals and Other Writings”, Penguin Group USA

  41 Copy quote

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• All my life I have been a poor go-to-sleeper. No matter how great my weariness, the wrench of parting with consciousness is unspeakably repulsive to me.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Insomnia, Matter, Consciousness

  Vladimir Nabokov (2011). “The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov”, p.488, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

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• You will have all kinds of trials to pass through. And it is quite as necessary for you to be tried as it was for Abraham and other men of God, and (said he) God will feel after you, and He will take hold of you and wrench your very heart strings, and if you cannot stand it you will not be fit for an inheritance in the Celestial Kingdom of God.

  John Taylor

  Heart, Men, Inheritance

  8 Copy quote

• Imitate time; it destroys everything slowly; it undermines, it wears away, it detaches, it does not wrench.

  Joseph Joubert

  Time, Doe

  Joseph Joubert (1867). “Some of the "Thoughts" of Joseph Joubert”, p.105

  7 Copy quote

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• Tie my handlebars to the stars so I stay on track & if my intentions stray I'll wrench them away,then I'll take my leave & I won't even look back

  Adam Young

  Stars, Ties, Track

  5 Copy quote

• The unmarried woman seldom escapes a widowhood of the spirit. There is sure to be some one, parent, brother, sister, friend, more comfortable to her than the day, with whom her life is so entwined that the wrench of parting leaves a torn void never entirely healed or filled.

  Charlotte Mary Yonge

  Brother, Grief, Loss

  Charlotte Mary Yonge (2015). “Delphi Complete Novels of Charlotte Mary Yonge (Illustrated)”, p.8801, Delphi Classics

  8 Copy quote

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• I—I adore you, too. Well, I don't know if I adore you. That's not really the word I'd use. But I—I—" I managed to wrench it out. God, this was hard! "I love you." "Of course you do," he said, totally unsurprised. "WHAT? I finally tell you my deepest, most personal feelings and you're all, 'Yeah, I already got that memo'? This, this is why you drive me nuts! This is why it's so hard to tell you things! I take it back.

  MaryJanice Davidson

  Love You, Nuts, Feelings

  4 Copy quote

• Mr. Tulip lived his life on that thin line most people occupy just before they haul off and hit someone repeatedly with a wrench.

  Terry Pratchett

  People, Lines, Haul

  7 Copy quote

• My first novel was rejected by some of the most eminent publishers in the world. Starting again was a real wrench.

  Wilbur Smith

  Real, World, Firsts

  "Wilbur Smith, author - portrait of the artist". Interview with Laura Barnett, www.theguardian.com. January 15, 2013.

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• And the world said, Child, you will not be missed. You are cheaper than a wrench, your back is a road; Your death is a table in a book. You had our wit, our heart was sealed to you: Man is the judgment of the world.

  Randall Jarrell

  Children, Book, Heart

  Randall Jarrell (1956). “Selected Poems”

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• Youth wrenches the sceptre from old age, and sets the crown on its own head before it is entitled to it.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Age, Crowns, Youth

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1888). “Longfellow's Days: The Longfellow Prose Birthday Book : Extracts from the Journals and Letters of H. W. Longfellow”

  7 Copy quote

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• If your work is deathwork, one weapon is not enough, just as a plumber would not answer an urgent service call with a single wrench.

  Dean Koontz

  Answers, Weapons, Murder

  Dean Koontz (2014). “The Odd Thomas Series 7-Book Bundle: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, Odd Hours, Odd Apocalypse, Odd Interlude, Deeply Odd”, p.619, Bantam

  4 Copy quote

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• Art is too popular. If plumbing was as popular as art is we would have amateur plumbers running around brandishing wrenches and Roto-Rooters, climbing in and out of sewers and writing gibberish about pipe systems. And none of our our toilets would work.

  Walter Darby Bannard

  Running, Art, Writing

  11 Copy quote