Referring Quotes

• Horses are very keen on body language, and what I refer to as “presence”, and expression. They know quite a bit about you before you ever get to ‘em. They can read things about you clear across an arena.

  Buck Brannaman

  Horse, Animal, Expression

  "The Real “Horse Whisperer”". Interview with Andrew Howley, voices.nationalgeographic.org. June 16, 2011.

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• One is seduced and battered in turn. The result is presumably wisdom. Wisdom! We are clinging to life like lizards. Why is it so difficult to assemble those things that really matter in life and to dwell among them only? I am referring to certain landscapes, persons, beasts, books, rooms, meteorological conditions, fruits. In fact, I insist on it. A letter is like a poem, it leaps into life and shows very clearly the marks, perhaps I should say thumbprints, of an unwilling or unready composer.

  James Salter

  Book, Landscape, Letters

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• In referring to her earlier statement that he had was not her type because he was "a dollar short when it came to maturity and a day late when it came to peace." I may have been wrong about that," she conceded. "You are a complicated man, but happily complicated. You have found a way to be at home with the world's confusion, a way to embrace the chaos rather than struggle to reduce it or become its victim. It's all part of the game to you, and you are delighted to play. In that regard, you may have reached a more elevated plateau of harmony than...ummph.

  Tom Robbins

  Struggle, Home, Maturity

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• Well, I knew that goat would be a little gold mine," I say. Yes, of course I was referring to that, not the lasting joy you gave your sister you love so much you took her place in the reaping," says Peeta drily.

  Suzanne Collins

  Joy, Gold, Would Be

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• Leo smiled and stroked her hair. 'We'll both be fine, Marks. We've just begun our journey...and there's so much we have yet to do.' He spoke more softly as he heard her breathing turn even and steady. 'Rest against my heart. Let me watch over your dreams. And know that tomorrow morning, and every morning after that, you'll awaken next to someone who loves you.' 'Dodger?' she mumbled against his chest, and he grinned. 'No, your confounded ferret will have to stay in his basket. I was referring to myself.' 'Yes, I know.' Catherine slid her hand up to his cheek. 'Only you,' she said. 'Always you.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Dream, Morning, Love You

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• You can be our critic. Would you dig that? (Yes, he was the last Man in America who could say “dig” with a straight face without referring to the process of using a tool to remove dirt from the ground.)

  Jordan Sonnenblick

  Men, America, Tools

  Jordan Sonnenblick (2010). “Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie”, p.108, Scholastic Inc.

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• (Referring to the piano's natural shape) Isn't it a shame when those big fat opera singers lean against the pianos and bend them?

  Victor Borge

  Piano, Shapes, Opera

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• Looks like he's lost a guinea and found a farthing," Horace said, then added, unnecessarily, "Will, I mean." Halt turned in his saddle to regard the younger man and raised an eyebrow. "I may be almost senile in your eyes, Horace, but there's no need to explain the blindly obvious to me. I'd hardly have thought you were referring to Tug.

  John Flanagan

  Mean, Eye, Men

  John Flanagan (2011). “Halt's Peril (Ranger's Apprentice Book 9)”, p.25, Random House

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• When it seems impossible that a deep connection with another person could just go away instead of changing form. It seems impossible that you will one day look up and say the words "I used to date someone who lived in that building," referring to a three-year relationship. As simple as if it was a pizza place that is now a dry cleaner's. It happens. Keep walking.

  Sloane Crosley

  Simple, Years, Going Away

  Sloane Crosley (2010). “How Did You Get This Number”, p.132, Penguin

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• If you're referring to the incident with the dragon, I was barely involved. All I did was give your uncle a little nudge out of the door.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Uncles, Doors, Dragons

  "Fictional character: Gandalf". "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", en.wikiquote.org. 2001.

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• Are you referring to the fact that you can't walk across a flat, stable surface without finding something to trip over?

  Stephenie Meyer

  Twilight, Facts, Surface

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• When referring to an individual, including yourself, never use the word 'just'.

  Gordon B. Hinckley

  Use, Individual, Including

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• These books can't possibly compete with centuries of established history, especially when that history is endorsed by the ultimate bestseller of all time." Faukman's eyes went wide. "Don't tell me Harry Potter is actually about the Holy Grail." "I was referring to the Bible." Faukman cringed. "I knew that.

  Dan Brown

  Book, Eye, Holy Grail

  Dan Brown (2003). “The Da Vinci Code: A Novel”

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• Always, always, always referring every goddam thing that happens right back to our lousy little egos.

  J. D. Salinger

  Ego, Littles, Happens

  j.d. salinger (1961). “franny and zooey”

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• When we speak the word 'life,' it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from its surface of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach.

  Antonin Artaud

  Life, Understanding, Facts

  Antonin Artaud (1958). “The Theater and Its Double”, p.13, Grove Press

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• Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I'm referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly. He cannot feel any Gods presence in his life. He is the 21st century man.

  David Bowie

  Men, Light, Mind

  "Rock's Heathen Speaks". Livewire Magazine Interview, www.bowiewonderworld.com. June 16, 2002.

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• I don't think the Tea Party people are racist, except maybe a tiny portion of them. But there has been a deliberate effort - again, referring to Fox Broadcasting - to inject the race issue into it. They have actually called Obama a racist on television.

  Jimmy Carter

  Party, Thinking, Race

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• 'Moderate Republican' is simply how the blabocracy flatters Republicans who vote with the Democrats. If it weren't so conspicuous, the 'New York Times' would start referring to 'nice Republicans' and 'mean Republicans'

  Ann Coulter

  New York, Nice, Mean

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• Bill Gates wants people to think he's Edison, when he's really Rockefeller. Referring to Gates as the smartest man in America isn't right... wealth isn't the same thing as intelligence.

  Larry Ellison

  Inspirational, Men, Thinking

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• The term 'genre' eventually becomes pejorative because you're referring to something that's so codified and ritualised that it ceases to have the power and meaning it had when it first started.

  Christopher Nolan

  Firsts, Genre, Term

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. August 27, 2002.

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• Today when we say the West we are already referring to the West and to Russia. We could use the word 'modernity' if we exclude Africa, and the Islamic world, and partially China.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Islamic, Russia, Use

  Interview With Joseph Pearce, www.catholiceducation.org. February, 2003.

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• People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth.

  Raoul Vaneigem

  Love, Positive, Struggle

  Guy Debord, Ivan Chtcheglov, Asger Jorn, Raoul Vaneigem, Mustapha Khayati (2014). “Situationism: A Compendium”, p.102, Bread and Circuses Publishing

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• He's not safe, but he's good (referring to Aslan, the Lion, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)

  C. S. Lewis

  Lions, Safe, Witch

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• If you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows (referring to "trickle down" economics).

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Horse, Oats, Sparrows

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• Stop comparing or boast at your victories. He was referring to enormous vitality and strength of God of Jesus seeking union with us. The living acts of a Christian become somehow the acts of Christ.

  Brennan Manning

  Christian, Jesus, Victory

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