Bland Quotes - Page 4

• When you close the book, does the story end? No! That's such a bland way to read. Every story goes on forever in our imaginations, and its characters live on.

  Mizuki Nomura

  Book, Character, Imagination

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• The boy may wrestle, when Night--working Fancy steals him to the arms Of nymph oft wish'd awake, and, 'mid the rage Of the soft tumult, ev'ry turgid cell Spontaneous disembogues its lucid store, Bland and of azure tinct.

  John Armstrong

  Boys, Night, Nymphs

  John Armstrong, “The Oeconomy Of Love”

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• [There was] only one news channel, overseen by a bland and complexly multicultural board of advisors. It broadcast in fifteen languages and was, as a rule, interesting in none of them.

  Robert Charles Wilson

  Interesting, Boards, News

  Robert Charles Wilson (2007). “Axis”, p.40, Macmillan

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• No visiting angel, or explorer from another planet, could have guessed that this bland orb [Earth] teemed with vermin, with world-mastering, self-torturing, incipiently angelic beasts.

  Olaf Stapledon

  Angel, Self, World

  "Star Maker" by Olaf Stapledon, Dover Books, (p. 15), 1930.

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• I could start this review by stating that Dumb and Dumberer lives up to its name, or by calling it stupid, moronic, and idiotic, but I believe that approach is a trap, since a movie like this might relish being the object of such bland invectives. Instead, let me try a few that can't possibly be misconstrued as twisted praise: unfunny, boring, torturous, and unwatchable. ... [N]o movie could be more aptly compared to raw sewage than this film - Directed By Troy Miller.

  James Berardinelli

  Stupid, Believe, Names

  "Dumb and Dumberer (United States, 2003)". A movie review, www.reelviews.net. 2003.

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• The discipline, nonetheless, is exacting: everything that can be observed should be observed, even if it is only recalled as the bland background from which the intriguing bits pop out like Venus in the evening sky. The goal is always finding something new, hopefully unimagined and, better still, hitherto unimaginable.

  Karl Barry Sharpless

  Sky, Goal, Discipline

  "Searching for New Reactivity". Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 08, 2001.

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• In its flawless grace and superior self-sufficiency I have seen a symbol of the perfect beauty and bland impersonality of the universe itself, objectively considered, and in its air of silent mystery there resides for me all the wonder and fascination of the unknown.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Air, Self, Perfect

  George H. Scithers, P. D Cacek, H. P. Lovecraft (2010). “Cat Tales 2: Fantastic Feline Fiction”, p.143, Wildside Press LLC

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• Right now religion has the romantic aura of the forbidden - Christ is cool. We need to bring it into the schools, which kids already hate, and associate it firmly with boredom, regulation, condescension, makework and de facto segregation ... Prayer in the schools will rid us of the bland no-offense ecumenism that is so infuriating to us anticlericals: Oh, so now you say Jews didn't kill Christ - a little on the late side, isn't it?

  Katha Pollitt

  Prayer, Hate, School

  Katha Pollitt (2007). “Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture”, p.30, Modern Library

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• I don't like the way most people dress on the golf course. I think it's pretty bland, pretty boring.

  Ian Poulter

  Golf, Thinking, People

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• It's not great if someone gives you sort of bland praise without giving you clear direction and say, "This is good, let's try it like this." I have worked with someone who seemed quite inarticulate and just would say, "That's good, that's good." That's very frustrating because - it's nice to know something is good but you know it can always change.

  Ralph Fiennes

  Nice, Clear Direction, Giving

  Interview with Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub, collider.com. February 10, 2014.

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• English life, while very pleasant, is rather bland. I expected kindness and gentility and I found it, but there is such a thing as too much couth.

  S. J. Perelman

  Kindness, Too Much, Found

  1971 In the Observer, 24 Sep.

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• some people seem to graze like sheep in the placid pastures of their faith. Some of them were born there and never broke away ... Others, after some wandering, found shelter there and are quiet and content. They look with a bland mystification at the mavericks.

  Marjorie Holmes

  Sheep, People, Religion

  Marjorie Holmes (1985). “I'Ve Got to Talk to Somebody, God: A Woman's Conversations With God”, Doubleday Books

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• To me, a person's identity is composed of both an 'I' and a 'we.' The 'I' finds itself in love, work, and pleasure, but it also locates itself within some meaningful group identity - a tribe, a community, a 'we.' America is too big and bland a tribe for most of us.

  Letty Cottin Pogrebin

  Meaningful, America, Community

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• in our culture, the professional, and largely white, middle class is taken as a social norm - a bland and neutral mainstream - from which every other group or class is ultimately a kind of deviation.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Taken, Class, White

  Barbara Ehrenreich (1989). “FEAR OF FALLING”, Pantheon

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• O sleep! O sleep!
  Do not forget me. Sometimes come and sweep,
  Now I have nothing left, thy healing hand
  Over the lids that crave thy visits bland,
  Thou kind, thou comforting one.
  For I have seen his face, as I desired,
  And all my story is done.
  O, I am tired.

  Jean Ingelow

  Sleep, Healing, Tired

  Jean Ingelow (1874). “The Poetical Works of Jean Ingelow”, p.133

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• For each glass, liberally large, the basic ingredients begin with ice cubes in a shaker and three or four drops of Angostura bitters on the ice cubes. Add several twisted lemon peels to the shaker, then a bottle-top of dry vermouth, a bottle-top of Scotch, and multiply the resultant liquid content by five with gin, preferably Bombay Sapphire. Add more gin if you think it is too bland... I have been told, but have no personal proof that it is true, that three of these taken in the course of an evening make it possible to fly from New York to Paris without an airplane.

  Isaac Stern

  New York, Taken, Airplane

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• I've always wanted to write energetic, atypical sentences, i.e., sentences that were not normal or bland.

  George Saunders

  Writing, Normal, Energetic

  Interview with Andy Ward, www.slate.com. January 7, 2013.

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• [On U.S. universities:] The bland leading the bland.

  Camille Paglia

  Education, University

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• American eroticism has always been of a different provenance and complexion than the European variety, an enjoyment both furtive and bland that is closer to a blushing cartoon than a sensual celebration.

  Molly Haskell

  Sensual, Cartoon, Different

  Molly Haskell (2016). “From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies, Third Edition”, p.21, University of Chicago Press

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• I can't bear to be around people who are bland or bored or uninterested (or to employ them).

  Anita Roddick

  Bored, People, Bears

  Anita Roddick (1994). “Body and soul: profits with principles, the amazing success story of Anita Roddick & the Body Shop”, Three Rivers Press

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• The turkeys that most Americans eat for Thanksgiving are turkeys - losers that are mass produced and bland.

  Marian Burros

  Thanksgiving, Turkeys, Loser

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• Desire is insatiable not because the goods of the world are too few, too uniform, or too bland. Desire burns through the goods of the world, even though these goods are not false or intrinsically unsatisfactory.... Desire shatters the economy of things; it disputes the tyranny of objects. IT longs for the great emptiness, which is beauty and love without limitation.

  Wendy Farley

  Beauty And Love, Desire, Uniforms

  Wendy Farley (2005). “The Wounding and Healing of Desire: Weaving Heaven and Earth”, p.13, Westminster John Knox Press

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• I mean its a weekly occurrence that somebody will complain that Top Gear was on last night - and you just sit back and wait for the complaints. But if you start to pay attention to everyones concerns, you end up with something bland and boring. So you sort of have to ignore everybody in order to do the show how we want to do it.

  Jeremy Clarkson

  Mean, Night, Order

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• Concocting a good guest list is like seasoning a gourmet sauce. Too many similar ingredients and it's bland. Too much variety in the seasoning and the result may be overpowering.

  Sheila Ostrander

  Sauce, Too Much, Ingredients

  Sheila Ostrander (1968). “Etiquette for today”

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• The complaints of contemporary writes, who deplore the increase of luxury and deprevation of manners, are commonly expressive of their peculiar temper and situation. There are few observers who possess a clear and comprehensive view of the revolutions of society, and who are capable of discovering the nice and secret springs of action which impel, in the same uniform direction, the bland and capricious passions of a multitude of individuals.

  Edward Gibbon

  Spring, Nice, Passion

  Edward Gibbon (1828). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.501

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