Clever Quotes - Page 24

• In this life you have to be your own hero. By that I mean you have to win whatever it is that matters to you by your own strength and in your own way. Like it or not, you are alone in a forest, just like all those fairy tales that begin with a hero who’s usually stupid but somehow brave, or who might be clever, but weak as a straw, and away he goes (don’t worry about the gender), cheered on by nobody, via the castles and the bears, and the old witch and the enchanted stream, and by and by (we hope) he’ll find the treasure.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Stupid, Hero, Mean

  Jeanette Winterson (2013). “The Powerbook”, p.155, Random House

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• When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Dream, Witty, Real

  Fernando Pessoa (2002). “The Book of Disquiet”, p.69, Penguin UK

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• How DARE the villainous cads be as clever as the heroes.

  Mercedes Lackey

  Hero, Cad, Dare

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• Hospitality is gold in this City; you have to be clever to figure out how to be welcoming and defensive at the same time. When to love something and when to quit. If you don't know how, you can end up out of control or controlled by some outside thing like that hard case last winter.

  Toni Morrison

  Winter, Cities, Gold

  Toni Morrison (1992). “Jazz”, Alfred a Knopf Inc

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• It's a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brain to crime it is the worst of all.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Men, Brain, Wicked

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1892). “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, p.195

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• The Doctor: Doctor Song, you've got that face on again. River: What face? The Doctor: The "He's hot when he's clever" face. River: This is my normal face. The Doctor: Yes it is. River: Oh, shut up. The Doctor: Not a chance.

  Steven Moffat

  Song, Doctors, Rivers

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• The nice thing about the queen of Flanders' daughter, had been that she did not laugh at him. A lot of people laughed at you when you went after the Questing Beast - and never caught it - but Piggy never laughed. She seemed to understand at once how interesting it was, and made several sensible suggestions about the way to trap it. Naturally, one did not pretend to be clever or anything, but it was nice not to be laughed at. One was doing one's best.

  T. H. White

  Daughter, Queens, Nice

  T. H. White (2011). “The Once and Future King”, p.248, Penguin

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• The strong live off the weak and the clever live off the strong.

  Neil Strauss

  Strong, Weak

  Neil Strauss (2011). “The Game”, p.224, Canongate Books

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• Violet said nothing, though big pearly tears, like a child's, trembled at her lashes. She suddenly missed John very much. Into him she could pour all the inarticulate perceptions, all the knowings and unknowings she felt, which, though he couldn't understand them really, he would receive reverently, and out of him would come then the advice, the warnings, the clever decisions she could never have made.

  John Crowley

  Children, Knowing, Decision

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• Do you know why Satan is so angry all the time? Because whenever he works a particularly clever bit of mischief God uses it to serve his own Rigteous purposes." "So God uses wicked people as his tools?" "God gives us the freedom to to do great evil, if we choose, then He uses his own freedom to create goodness out of that evil, for that is what He chooses." "So, in the long run, God always wins?" "Yes, in the short run though it can be uncomfortable.

  Orson Scott Card

  Running, Winning, Long

  Orson Scott Card (2013). “Ender's Game Boxed Set I: Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon”, p.509, Tor Science Fiction

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• The new America, instead, is fast becoming a vast ghetto in which all of us, conservatives and progressives, are being bled dry by a relatively tiny oligarchy of extremely clever financial criminals and their castrato henchmen in government, whose job is to be good actors on TV and put on a good show.

  Matt Taibbi

  Jobs, Ghetto, America

  Matt Taibbi (2010). “Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America”, p.33, Spiegel & Grau

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• You are very clever,' said the old man shyly. 'I would like to eat your brains, one day,' For some reason the books of etiquette that Daphne's grandmother had forced on her didn't quite deal with this. Of course, silly people would say to babies, 'You're so sweet I could gobble you all up!', but that sort of nonsense seemed less funny when it was said by a man in war paint who owned more than one skull. Daphne, cursed with good manners, settled for, 'It's very kind of you to say so.

  Terry Pratchett

  Baby, Sweet, War

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• I mean, anyone can let Danger out but the really clever thing is finding somewhere for it to go afterwards.

  Tove Jansson

  Mean, Danger, Findings

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• And I love Jane Austen's use of language too--the way she takes her time to develop a phrase and gives it room to grow, so that these clever, complex statements form slowly and then bloom in my mind. Beethoven does the same thing with his cadence and phrasing and structure. It's a fact: Jane Austen is musical. And so's Yeats. And Wordsworth. All the great writers are musical.

  Andrew Clements

  Giving, Musical, Mind

  Andrew Clements (2008). “Things Hoped For”, p.77, Penguin

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• Which would you rather be if you had the choice--divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  Beautiful, Choices, Ifs

  Lucy Maud Montgomery (2016). “Anne of Green Gables”, p.18, Xist Publishing

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• I do remember what I said. The promise. To protect her. If I'd done that ... even if I didn't make it, you wouldn't've had to jump. I want you to know I did save you. Not when it counted, of course. But after that. Every night after that. I'd see it all again, do something different. Faster or more clever, you know? Dozens of times, lots of different ways ...Every night I save you.

  Joss Whedon

  Night, Promise, Different

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• Sister, they send you out for one and you bring back two... and a half. Such a clever girl.

  Stephenie Meyer

  Girl, Two, Half

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• I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left. ALGERNON: We have. JACK: I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about? ALGERNON: The fools? Oh! about the clever people of course. JACK: What fools.

  Oscar Wilde

  Sick, People, Wish

  Oscar Wilde (1930). “The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Importance of Being Earnest ; The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Works of Oscar Wilde”

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• Clever plastic surgery can restore an appearance of youth, but nothing changes the expression of age and experience in the eyes.

  M.C. Beaton

  Eye, Expression, Age

  M. C. Beaton (2011). “As the Pig Turns: An Agatha Raisin Mystery”, p.31, Minotaur Books

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• Has the dark shadow really disappeared? Or is it inside me, concealed, waiting for its chance to reappear? Like a clever thief hidden inside a house, breathing quietly, waiting until everyone’s asleep. I have looked deep inside myself, trying to detect something that might be there. But just as our consciousness is a maze, so too is our body. Everywhere you turn there’s darkness, and a blind spot. Everywhere you find silent hints, everywhere a surprise is waiting for you.

  Haruki Murakami

  Dark, Breathing, Blind Spots

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• But am I clever and right or clever and wrong?

  Cassandra Clare

  Cassandra Clare (2011). “Clockwork Prince”, p.263, Simon and Schuster

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• Good morning. You have a moment?" It's clever the way she says it, not as a question. I would have to contradict her in order to have my moment back. I make a note to use the method in the future.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Morning, Order, Use

  Maggie Stiefvater (2011). “The Scorpio Races”, p.78, Scholastic UK

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• Cleverness, after all, has its limitations. Its mechanical judgments and clever remarks tend to prove inaccurate with passing time, because it doesn't look very deeply into things to begin with.

  Benjamin Hoff

  Looks, Tao Of Pooh, Judgment

  "The Tao of Pooh". Book by Benjamin Hoff, 1982.

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• There is no good talking to him," said a Dragon-fly, who was sitting on the top of a large brown bulrush; "no good at all, for he has gone away." "Well, that is his loss, not mine," answered the Rocket. "I am not going to stop talking to him merely because he pays no attention. I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying." "Then you should definitely lecture on Philosophy," said the Dragon-fly.

  Oscar Wilde

  Philosophy, Loss, Dragons

  Oscar Wilde, Isobel Murray (1998). “Complete Shorter Fiction”, p.134, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Dali blinked at me. "Would you mind making coffee while you're dancing? I smell it on the bottom shelf, either first or second jar on the left." I opened the first jar and looked inside. Coffee. The label said BORAX. "What's up with the labels?" Dali shrugged. "You're in the house of a cat whose job is to spy. He thinks he's clever. I'd be careful with the silverware drawer. There might be a bomb in it.

  Ilona Andrews

  Jobs, Coffee, Cat

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