Creatures Quotes - Page 14

• She was a sweet girl but not really pretty, a rough sketch of a woman with a little of everything in her, one of those silhouettes which artists draw in three strokes on the tablecloth in a café after dinner, between a glass of brandy and a cigarette. Nature sometimes turns out creatures like that.

  Guy de Maupassant

  Girl, Sweet, Artist

  123 Copy quote

• Human beings, whatever their backgrounds, are more open than we think, that their behavior cannot be confidently predicted from their past, that we are all creatures vulnerable to new thoughts, new attitudes. And while such vulnerability creates all sorts of possibilities, both good and bad, its very existence is exciting. It means that no human being should be written off, no change in thinking deemed impossible.

  Howard Zinn

  Attitude, Mean, Past

  Howard Zinn (2011). “The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy”, p.157, Seven Stories Press

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Readers understand that the books celebrate female power. In the romance novel, the woman always wins. With courage, intelligence and gentleness she brings the most dangerous creature on the earth, the human male, to his knees.

  Jayne Ann Krentz

  Book, Winning, Romance

  Jayne Ann Krentz (1992). “Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance”, p.5, University of Pennsylvania Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Here in this moment we are beautiful, nocturnal creatures and our thoughts and words are jewels guarded by the moon.

  Henry Rollins

  Beautiful, Moon, Jewels

  Henry Rollins (2009). “The Portable Henry Rollins”, p.311, Villard

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• God has committed himself, ever since creation, to working through his creatures--in particular, through his image-bearing human beings--but they have all let Him down.

  N. T. Wright

  Creation, Committed, Humans

  9 Copy quote

• The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man's place in the universe.

  Jack London

  Zero, Men, Imagination

  Jack London (2008). “To Build a Fire”, p.6, The Creative Company

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Farm animals are far more aware and intelligent than we ever imagined and, despite having been bred as domestic slaves, they are individual beings in their own right. As such, they deserve our respect. And our help. Who will plead for them if we are silent? Thousands of people who say they ‘love’ animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been treated so with little respect and kindness just to make more meat.

  Jane Goodall

  Kindness, Animal, Intelligent

  59 Copy quote

• Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one may bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of them, hundreds of them, and we are all to blame for them. [...] If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Hero, Heart, Angel

  "The Brothers Karamazov". Book by Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1879 - 1880.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• We may indeed in counsel point to the higher road, but we cannot compel any free creature to walk upon it. That leadeth to tyranny, which disfigureth good and maketh it seem hateful.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  May, Hateful, Tyranny

  26 Copy quote

• This one isn’t just any old horse. There’s a nobility in his eye, a regal serenity about him. Does he not personify all that men try to be and never can be? I tell you, my friend, there’s divinity in a horse, and specially in a horse like this. God got it right the day he created them. And to find a horse like this in the middle of this filthy abomination of a war, is for me like finding a butterfly on a dung heap. We don’t belong in the same universe as a creature like this.

  Michael Morpurgo

  Horse, War, Butterfly

  7 Copy quote

• You must live life with the full knowledge that your actions will remain. We are creatures of consequence.

  Zadie Smith

  Live Life, Action, Consequence

  Zadie Smith (2003). “White Teeth”, p.86, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The lifetime of a human being is measured by decades, the lifetime of the Sun is a hundred million times longer. Compared to a star, we are like mayflies, fleeting ephemeral creatures who live out their lives in the course of a single day.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Fleeting, Ephemeral

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.241, Ballantine Books

  62 Copy quote

  Show source

• It may...be judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion; but when I see a fellow-creature about to perish through the cowardice of her pretended friends, I wish to be allowed to speak, that I may say what I know of her character.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Character, Wish, May

  4 Copy quote

• It is what is left to him," said Will. "Do you not recall what he says to Lucie? 'If it had been possible... that you could have returned the love of the man you see before yourself- flung away, wasted, drunken, poor creature of misure as you know him to be- he would have been conscious this day and hour, in spite of his happiness, that he would bring you misery, bring you to sorrow and repetance, blight you, disgrace you, pull you down with him

  Cassandra Clare

  Men, Sorrow, Misery

  Cassandra Clare (2013). “Clockwork Prince”, p.67, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Like most qualities, cuteness is delineated by what it isn't. Most people aren't cute at all, or if so they quickly outgrow their cuteness ... Elegance, grace, delicacy, beauty, and a lack of self-consciousness: a creature who knows he is cute soon isn't.

  William S. Burroughs

  Cute, Cat, Self

  10 Copy quote

• Hello, darling. Sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.

  Richard Siken

  Sorry, Should Have, Together

  Richard Siken, “Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out”

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• The real trouble is that 'kindness' is a quality fatally easy to attribute to ourselves on quite inadequate grounds. Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment. Thus a man easily comes to console himself for all his other vices by a conviction that 'his heart's in the right place' and 'he wouldn't hurt a fly,' though in fact he has never made the slightest sacrifice for a fellow creature. We think we are kind when we are only happy: it is not so easy, on the same grounds, to imagine oneself temperate, chaste, or humble.

  C. S. Lewis

  Hurt, Kindness, Real

  20 Copy quote

• This creature softened my heart of stone. She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity.

  Joseph Stalin

  Heart, Feelings, Humanity

  "Young Stalin" by Simon Sebag Montefiore, (p. 193), 2007.

  620 Copy quote

  Show source

• Jason glanced at the creature. It remained the same distance away as before, still as a statue. "What do you want?" Jason asked. No answer. "Are you the thing that followed Tark? You should keep following him. He's the real mastermind. Shoo. Go hide." No response. "Okay, how about you stand guard while I sleep. Keep the giants away. Sound good? All in favor, hold perfectly still. Fine, I guess we have a deal.

  Brandon Mull

  Distance, Real, Sleep

  Brandon Mull (2013). “Brandon Mull's Beyonders Trilogy: A World Without Heroes; Seeds of Rebellion; Chasing the Prophecy”, p.470, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love is self deception. I am a living creature. Hate is only self love. I am a double feature.

  Henry Rollins

  Hate, Love Is, Self

  4 Copy quote

• A faint light burned in the pit revealing a furry creature hunched over a stone slab, fiddling with something. At first Gregor raised a warning hand. He thought it was a rat. Then the creature lifted his head and Gregor recognized what was left of his dad.

  Suzanne Collins

  Dad, Light, Hands

  Suzanne Collins (2011). “Gregor the Overlander Collection:”, p.154, Scholastic Inc.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I kept thinking there were two kinds of adults: There were...miserable creatures who scoured the earth in search of something to hurt. And then there were people like my parents, who walked around zombically, doing whatever they had to do to keep walking around.

  John Green

  Hurt, Real, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• Flawed, imperfect creatures! That's what we both are, oga! That's what we ALL are!

  Nnedi Okorafor

  Imperfect, Flawed

  Nnedi Okorafor (2011). “Who Fears Death”, p.119, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning - not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach home at last.

  Frederick Buechner

  Christmas, Home, Heart

  32 Copy quote

• Yeah,I know you're a creature of the night.Bringer of death,sucker of blood, needer of tans,so on and so forth. And oddly enough,I'm still unimpressed." He narrowed his eyes. "How do you know what I am,child?" What is it with paranormals and calling me "child?" I'd be seventeen in Decemder. How about a nice "ma'am" or something?

  Kiersten White

  Children, Nice, Eye

  4 Copy quote