Diversion Quotes - Page 4

• Attacking a provincial lord in his manor house, surrounded by guards...Honestly, Kell, I'd nearly forgotten how foolhardy you can be. "Foolhardy?" Kelsier asked with a laugh. "that wasn't foolhardy - that was just a small diversion. You should see some of the things I'm planning to do! Dockson stood for a moment then he laughed too. "By the Lord Ruler, it's good to have you back, kell! I'm afraid I've grown rather boring during the last few years" "We'll fix that" Kelsier promised.

  Brandon Sanderson

  Years, Laughing, House

  Brandon Sanderson (2010). “Mistborn: The Final Empire”, p.46, Macmillan

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• Because to the poor, books are not diversions. Book are siege weapons.

  Joe Queenan

  Book, Weapons, Siege

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• Prison always has been a good place for writers, killing, as it does, the twin demons of mobility and diversion

  Dan Simmons

  Doe, Mobility, Twins

  Dan Simmons (2011). “Hyperion”, p.231, Spectra

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• A Garden, an Elaboratory, a Work - house, Improvements and Breeding, are pleasant and Profitable Diversions to the Idle and Ingenious: For here they miss Ill Company, and converse with Nature and Art; whose Variety are equally grateful and instructing; and preserve a good Constitution of Body and Mind.

  William Penn

  Art, Work, Grateful

  William Penn (1782). “The Select Works of William Penn....”, p.127

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• Golf is an ideal diversion, but a ruinous disease.

  B. C. Forbes

  Golf, Disease, Ideals

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• I will tell you what rule I observed when I was young, and too much addicted to childish diversions-never to spend more time in mere recreation in one day than I spent in private religious devotions.

  Susanna Wesley

  Religious, One Day, Too Much

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• The ordinary patient goes to his doctor because he is in pain or some other discomfort and wants to be comfortable again; he is not in pursuit of the ideal of health in any direct sense. The doctor on the other hand wants to discover the pathological condition and control it if he can. The two are thus to some degree at cross purposes from the first, and unless the affair is brought to an early and happy conclusion this diversion of aims is likely to become more and more serious as the case goes on.

  Wilfred Trotter

  Pain, Health, Science

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• Not that happiness is dull. Only that it doesn't tell well. And of our consuming diversions as we age is to recite, not only to others but to ourselves, our own story.

  Lionel Shriver

  Age, Stories, Dull

  Lionel Shriver (2011). “We Need to Talk about Kevin”, p.17, Counterpoint Press

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• Leisure was the sine qua non of the full Renaissance. The feudal nobility, having lost its martial function, sought diversion all over Europe in cultivated pastimes: sonneteering, the lute, games and acrostics, travel, gentlemanly studies and sports, hunting and hawking, treated as arts.

  Mary McCarthy

  Sports, Art, Hunting

  Mary McCarthy (1956). “Venice observed”

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• Hamilton awkwardly folded himself into the passenger seat. "Couldn't you get something bigger?" he asked as he banged his knee against the dashboard. "We're supposed to be a diversion," Jonah said. "Got to make an entrance. Can't do that in a minivan, Giganto Boy. Can't do much in a minivan except look about as uncool as it gets." "Hey! My dad drives a minivan." "Snap.

  Judy Blundell

  Dad, Boys, Knees

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• I'm not such a bad fighter myself," Skye said. Po exploded with laughter. "Oh, fight him, Katsa. Please fight him. I can't imagine a more entertaining diversion.

  Kristin Cashore

  Laughter, Fighting, Fighter

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• Only Valek would consider an attempt on my life a fascinating diversion.

  Maria V. Snyder

  Fascinating

  Maria V. Snyder (2012). “Poison Study”, p.78, Harlequin

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• I think the great thing about grandparents is seeing another home, realising that people you love can have different priorities, different diversions, different opinions and lead quite different lives from the ones you see every day, and that is immensely valuable.

  Simon Hoggart

  Home, Thinking, People

  "Simon Hoggart's week: a stalking horse from the same stable" by Simon Hoggart, www.theguardian.com. February 1, 2013.

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• In many ways, my entire graphic novel career was a long diversion. Originally, all I wanted to do was to be an underground cartoonist and maybe bring out a groovy underground mag.

  Alan Moore

  Careers, Long, Way

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• I did not want to raise a genetically compromised child. I did not want my children to have to contend with the massive diversion of parental attention, and the consequences of being compelled to care for their brother after I died. I wanted a genetically perfect baby, and because that was something I could control, I chose to end his life.

  Ayelet Waldman

  Baby, Brother, Children

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• Days pass when I forget the mystery. Problems insoluble and problems offering their own ignored solutions jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing their colored clothes; caps and bells. And then once more the quiet mystery is present to me, the throng's clamor recedes: the mystery that there is anything, anything at all, let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything, rather than void: and that, 0 Lord, Creator, Hallowed one, You still, hour by hour sustain it.

  Denise Levertov

  Memories, Clothes, Offering

  Denise Levertov (1997). “The Stream & the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes”, p.33, New Directions Publishing

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• I flicked my eyes over to Steve again and saw him straighten. He would need a diversion just to start. “Explanations?” I bellowed. “Explanations? There’s your explanation…there!” I stabbed a finger dramatically towards the far corner of the room. Pathetic, really. I mean, talk about the oldest trick in the book. But it’s a good book, and the trick would have been cut from subsequent editions if it didn’t sometimes work.

  Stephen Fry

  Book, Mean, Eye

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• Just then Neville caused a slight diversion by turning into a large canary.

  J. K. Rowling

  Canaries

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• God is not a diversion.

  Desmond Tutu

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• What is one person's diversion may be another's supreme test.

  Margaret George

  May, Tests, Persons

  Margaret George (2011). “The Memoirs of Cleopatra”, p.37, Pan Macmillan

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• Let us assume that entertainment is the sole end of reading; even so I think you would hold that no mental employment is so broadening to the sympathies or so enlightening to the understanding. Other pursuits belong not to all times, all ages, all conditions; but this gives stimulus to our youth and diversion to our old age; this adds a charm to success, and offers a haven of consolation to failure. Through the night-watches, on all our journeyings, and in our hours of ease, it is our unfailing companion.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Reading, Night, Thinking

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• Illium, with his wings of silver-kissed blue and a face designed to seduce both males and females, not to mention his ability to do the most impossible acrobatics in the air, would provide a worthy diversion. The fact that he’d decided to ditch half his clothing was just icing on the cake.

  Nalini Singh

  Air, Blue, Cake

  Nalini Singh (2011). “Archangel's Consort”, p.63, Penguin

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• Chess is something more than a game. It is an intellectual diversion which has certain artistic qualities and many scientific elements.

  Jose Raul Capablanca

  Games, Intellectual, Quality

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• But having considered everything which has been said, one could by this believe that the earth and not the heavens is so moved, and there is no evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, this seems prima facie as much, or more, against natural reason as are all or several articles of our faith. Thus, that which I have said by way of diversion (esbatement) in this manner can be valuable to refute and check those who would impugn our faith by argument.

  Nicole Oresme

  Believe, Science, Heaven

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• The constitution has broken down. We have no enemies except the ones we select and direct towards the nearest nuclear bombs. They need an enemy to provoke, a diversion. This is the mentality of tenth-rate people who are in politics because corporate America likes them. They are malleable. They give them contracts to build missile shields that will never work. It's deeply corrupt.

  Gore Vidal

  Government, America, Broken

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