Precise Quotes - Page 5

• The only thing that makes one an artist is making art. And that requires the precise opposite of hanging out; a deeply lonely and unglamorous task of tolerating oneself long enough to push something out.

  David Rakoff

  Lonely, Art, Opposites

  FaceBook post by David Rakoff from Oct 23, 2016

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• Love is a kind of dementia with very precise and oft-repeated clinical symptoms. You blush in each other's presence, you both hover in places where you expect the other to pass, you are both a little tongue-tied, you both laugh inexplicably and too long, you become quite nauseatingly girlish, and he becomes quite ridiculously gallant. You have also grown a little stupid.

  Louis de Bernieres

  Stupid, Love Is, Long

  Louis de Bernieres (2012). “Corelli's Mandolin: A Novel”, p.399, Vintage

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• I have not been able to discover whether there exists a precise French equivalent for the common Anglo-American expression 'killing time.' It's a very crass and breezy expression, when you ponder it for a moment, considering that time, after all, is killing us.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Expression, Able, Common

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays”, p.98, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Delirium: 'What's the name of the word for the precise moment when you realize that you've actually forgotten how it felt to make love to somebody you really liked a long time ago?' Dream: 'There isn't one.' Delirium: 'Oh. I thought maybe there was.'

  Neil Gaiman

  Dream, Names, Long

  "Sandman: Brief Lives: 3". Comic book by Neil Gaiman, 1994.

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• THING TO TRY: If you are asked to describe a suspect to a police sketch artist, describe in precise detail, the features of the police sketch artist. This is one of the rare instances where two people can do one self-portrait.

  Demetri Martin

  Artist, Self, Two

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• And so, from the first, we separated our pleasure. She lay on the rug and I lay at right angles to her so that only our lips might meet. Kissing in this way is the strangest of distractions. The greedy body that clamors for satisfaction is forced to content itself with a single sensation and, just as the blind hear more acutely and the deaf can feel the grass grow, so the mouth becomes the focus of love and all things pass through it and are re-defined. It is a sweet and precise torture.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Sweet, Kissing, Focus

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• And I too wanted to be. That is all I wanted; and this is the last word. At the bottom of all these attempts which seemed without bounds, I find the same desire again: to drive existence out of me, to rid the passing moments of their fat, to twist them, dry them, purify myself, harden myself, to give back at last the sharp, precise sound of a saxophone note. That could even make an apologue: there was a poor man who got in the wrong world.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Men, Giving, Desire

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• When do these three days expire?" "That's what pisses me off. I don't know. He was annoyingly vague." "The nerve. Threatening you and not being precise about it.

  Karen Marie Moning

  Three, Nerves, Threatening

  Karen Marie Moning (2016). “The Fever Series 7-Book Bundle: Darkfever, Bloodfever, Faefever, Dreamfever, Shadowfever, Iced, Burned”, p.841, Dell

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• There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.

  Lord Kelvin

  Science, Discovery, Measurement

  "Is Scientific Genius Extinct?" by Ross Pomeroy, bigthink.com.

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• You said he was a soldier. You don't suppose...?" "Oh, Gods." Ignata blinked. "You think something could be wrong down there?" All of them looked at William, who chose this precise moment to slide the wet shirt back on his back, which required him to flex, raising his arms. "That would be a shame," Cerise murmured.

  Ilona Andrews

  Thinking, Soldier, Would Be

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• Accidents are not accidents but precise arrivals at the wrong right time.

  Dejan Stojanovic

  Right Time, Accidents, Arrivals

  "Being Late". Poem by Dejan Stojanovic,

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• He wouldn't write a letter because he couldn't without beginning it 'Dear Sylvia' and ending it 'Yours sincerely' or 'truly' or 'affectionately.' He's that sort of precise imbecile. I tell you he's so formal he can't do without all the conventions there are and so truthful he can't use half of them.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Writing, Use, Half

  Ford Madox Ford (2012). “Parade's End”, p.34, Vintage

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• She was a keen observer, a precise user of language, sharp-tongued and funny. She could stir your emotions. Yes, really, that's what she was so good at - stirring people's emotions, moving you. And she knew she had this power...I only realized later. At the time, I had no idea what she was doing to me.

  Haruki Murakami

  Moving, Ideas, People

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• The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations - all of them rearranging themselves so this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In your heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is, you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secret arrows were pointing here, the universe and time itself crafted this long ago, and you are just now realizing it, you are just now arriving at the place you were always meant to be.

  David Levithan

  Falling In Love, Silly, Heart

  David Levithan (2013). “Every Day”, p.19, Egmont UK

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• Men walk through tragedy, quietly, calm and precise on the outside, tearing themselves to shreds inside.

  Steven Herrick

  Men, Tragedy, Calm

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• The whole thing was the precise opposite of what I figured it would be: slow and patient and quiet and neither particularly painful nor particularly ecstatic

  John Green

  Opposites, Would Be, Patient

  John Green (2012). “The Fault in Our Stars”, p.207, Penguin

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• Perfect hexagonal tubes in a packed array. Bees are hard-wired to lay them down, but how does an insect know enough geometry to lay down a precise hexagon? It doesn't. It's programmed to chew up wax and spit it out while turning on its axis, and that generates a circle. Put a bunch of bees on the same surface, chewing side-by-side, and the circles abut against each other - deform each other into hexagons, which just happen to be more efficient for close packing anyway.

  Peter Watts

  Circles, Axes, Perfect

  Peter Watts (2014). “Firefall”, p.193, Head of Zeus

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• Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.

  E. O. Wilson

  Stars, Confused, Real

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• Because this exact leaf had to grow in that exact way, in that exact place, so that precise wind could tear it from that precise branch and make it fly into this exact face at that exact moment. And, if just one of those tiny little things had never had happened, I'd never have met ya. Which makes this leaf the most important leaf in human history

  Neil Cross

  Wind, Important, Tears

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• You can give words, but you can't take them. And when words are given, that is when they are shared. We remember what that was like. Words so real they were almost tangible. There are conversations you remember, for certain. But more than that, there is the sensation of conversation. You will remember that, even when the precise words begin to blur.

  David Levithan

  Real, Giving, Tangible

  David Levithan (2014). “Two Boys Kissing”, p.35, Egmont UK

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• Even if we don't have a precise idea of exactly what took place at the beginning, we can at least see that the origin of the universe from nothing need not be unlawful or unnatural or unscientific.

  Paul Davies

  Ideas, Religion, Atheism

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• Considering the great importance to the public liberty of the freedom of the press, and the difficulty of submitting it to very precise rules, the laws have thought it less mischievous to give greater scope to its freedom than to the restraint of it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Law, Giving, Liberty

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• But remember that intent is everything. One does not just jump, one lifts into the air, one rises. In the same way the lifted leg of an arabesque becomes a wing, and not a mechanical leverage like a raised trap door. This is the precise difference between dancing and acrobatics. The dancer tries to express something; the acrobat merely pulls, raises, stretches and grinds. The acrobat is lost in a web of muscles the dancer is all but invisible in projected idea.

  Agnes de Mille

  Dance, Wings, Ideas

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• Trying to capture the physicists' precise mathematical description of the quantum world with our crude words and mental images is like playing Chopin with a boxing glove on one hand and a catcher's mitt on the other.

  George Johnson

  Science, Hands, Boxing

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• What we think is less than what we know; What we know is less than what we love; What we love is so much less than what there is. And to that precise extent we are so much less than what we are.

  R. D. Laing

  Love Is, Thinking, Spirituality

  R.D Laing (1967). “The Politics of Experience”

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