Remarks Quotes - Page 2

• I apologize for the insensitivity of my remarks with respect to the mayor or his family, however I think it is important to note that this decision involves potential risk to innocent people.

  John Shadegg

  Thinking, People, Decision

  "Shadegg Apologizes For Saying NYC Mayor's Daughter Could Get Kidnapped" by Rachel Slajda, "Talking Points Memo" (TalkingPointsMemo.com), November 17, 2009.

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• 'You didn't build that' will be Obama's political epitaph: With these remarks, Obama has come out of the closet as a most odious collectivist, who believes religiously that government predation is a condition for production. Or, put simply, that the parasite created the host.

  Ilana Mercer

  Believe, Government, Political

  "'You Didn't Build That': Obama's Political Epitaph". www.wnd.com. July 27, 2012.

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• The technical procedures doubtless release energies in the artist that remain unused in the much more lightweight processes of drawing or painting (remark on printmaking).

  Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

  Artist, Drawing, Energy

  "Uber Kirchners Graphik, Genius 3, Book 2". Book by E. L. Kirchner, 1922.

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• How are we to adjudicate among rival ontologies? Certainly the answer is not provided by the semantical formula "To be is to be the value of a variable"; this formula serves rather, conversely, in testing the conformity of a given remark or doctrine to a prior ontological standard.

  Willard Van Orman Quine

  Doctrine, Answers, Variables

  Willard Van Orman Quine, Roger F. Gibson (2004). “Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine”, p.189, Harvard University Press

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• Hardest of all, as one becomes older, is to accept that sapient remarks can be drawn from the most unwelcome or seemingly improbable sources, and that the apparently more trustworthy sources can lead one astray.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Henry Kissinger, Trustworthy, Accepting

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.1565, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Our kiss was niticlimactic. It wasn't that the kiss was bad, but it was just a note of punctuation in our long conversation, a parenthetical remark made in order to assure each other of a deeply felt agreement, a mutual offer of companionship, which is so much more rare than sexual passion or even love.

  Nicole Krauss

  Passion, Kissing, Agreement

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• Take a moment from time to time to remember that you are alive. I know this sounds a trifle obvious, but it is amazing how little time we take to remark upon this singular and gratifying fact. By the most astounding stroke of luck an infinitesimal portion of all the matter in the universe came together to create you and for the tiniest moment in the great span of eternity you have the incomparable privilege to exist.

  Bill Bryson

  Luck, Together, Sound

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• Adieu, Lord Dain,” she answered without turning her head. “Have a pleasant evening with your cows.” Cows? She was merely trying to provoke him, Dain told himself. The remark was a pathetic attempt at a setdown. To take offense was to admit he’d felt the sting. He told himself to laugh and return to his… cows.

  Loretta Chase

  Laughing, Trying, Cows

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• 'When you were little, what inspired you to feel this way?'" Then he paused and asked, "Looking in the mirror and having it crack in two?" Instead of clobbering him, I laughed-the kind of laugh that escapes into the air before you can catch it. The kind of chuckle that shows a tiny form of acceptance. Trevor obviously didn't expect me to find his remark entertaining. He was primed for a fight. We both cracked up and locked eyes. His gaze lingered a little too long, not in a creepy way, but in a way that says I'm not ready to let this moment go.

  Ellen Schreiber

  Eye, Fighting, Acceptance

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• The damage can fester under layers of time and change, and an ignorant, thoughtless remark can easily reopen the wound.

  Alice Sebold

  Ignorant, Time And Change, Damage

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• The wolf said, "You know, my dear, it isn't safe for a little girl to walk through these woods alone." Red Riding Hood said, "I find your sexist remark offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status as an outcast from society, the stress of which has caused you to develop your own, entirely valid worldview. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must be on my way.

  James Finn Garner

  Girl, Stress, Riding

  "Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: Modern Tales for Our Life and Times (Little Red Riding Hood - A Politically Correct Fairy Tale)". Book by James Finn Garner, 1994.

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• Pass by the synthetic yarn department, then, with your nose in the air. Should a clerk come out with the remark that All Young Mothers In This Day and Age (why can't they save their breath and say "now"?) insist on a yarn which can be machine-washed and machine-dried, come back at her with the reply that one day, you suppose, they will develop a baby that can be machine-washed and -dried.

  Elizabeth Zimmermann

  Mother, Baby, Knitting

  Elizabeth Zimmermann (2012). “Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac: The Commemorative Edition”, p.18, Courier Corporation

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• It seemed an advantage to be traveling alone. Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others...Being closely observed by a companion can also inhibit our observation of others; then, too, we may become caught up in adjusting ourselves to the companion's questions and remarks, or feel the need to make ourselves seem more normal than is good for our curiosity.

  Alain de Botton

  Company We Keep, Expectations, Curiosity

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• When they [visitors to his studio:] learn about the six-week daily-strip deadline and the 12-week Sunday-page deadline, a visitor almost never fails to remark: "Gee, you could work real hard, couldn't you, and get several months ahead and then take the time off?" Being, as I said, a slow learner, it took me until last year to realize what an odd statement that really is. You don't work all of your life to do something so you don't have to do it.

  Charles M. Schulz

  Real, Sunday, Years

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• Meaning is a shaky edifice we build out of scraps, dogmas, childhood injuries, newspaper articles, chance remarks, old fillms, small victories, people hated, people loved; perhaps it is because our sense of what is the case is constructed from such inadequate materials that we defend it so fiercely, even to death.

  Salman Rushdie

  People, Childhood, Victory

  "Imaginary Homelands". Book by Salman Rushdie, 1991.

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• Sylvia had given him a scalding lecture, the gist of it being that whatever a woman enjoyed wearing was feminine and anything she didn't enjoy wearing wasn't, and if he was too stubborn and old fashioned to understand that, he could go and soak his head in a bucket of cold water. He hadn't quite forgiven her yet for saying they would have to look hard to find a bucket big enough to fit his head in to, but he admired the sass behind the remark.

  Anne Bishop

  Water, Lectures, Sass

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• Owen meany who rarely wasted words and who had the conversation-stopping habit of dropping remarks like coins into a deep pool of water... remarks that sank, like truth, to the bottom of the pool where they would remain untouchable.

  John Irving

  Water, Stopping, Coins

  John Irving (2012). “A Prayer for Owen Meany: A Novel”, p.31, Harper Collins

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• I would not be you for a kingdom.' The remark was too naïve to rouse anger; I merely said - 'Very good.' 'And what would you give to be ME?' she inquired. 'Not a bad sixpence - strange as it may sound', I replied. 'You are but a poor creature.' 'You don't think so in your heart.' 'No; for in my heart you have not the outline of a place: I only occasionally turn you over in my brain.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Heart, Thinking, Giving

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• As the possibility of a relationship had faded, Emma had endeavored to harden herself to Dexter's indifference and these days a remark like this caused no more pain than, say, a tennis ball thrown sharply at the back of her head.

  David Nicholls

  Pain, Tennis, Balls

  David Nicholls (2009). “One Day”, p.60, Hachette UK

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• Simply put, dramatic irony is when a person makes a harmless remark, and someone else who hears it knows something that makes the remark have a different, and usually unpleasant, meaning. For instance, if you were in a restaurant and said out loud, "I can't wait to eat the veal marsala I ordered," and there were people around who knew that the veal marsala was poisoned and that you would die as soon as you took a bite, your situation would be one of dramatic irony.

  Daniel Handler

  People, Waiting, Different

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• At that point I asked myself: How is it that she is not amazed at herself, that she keeps her lips closed and makes no such remark?

  Franz Kafka

  Lips, Amazed

  Franz Kafka “Franz Kafka Vol 2”, Lulu.com

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• Nature's silence is its one remark, and every flake of world is a chip off that old mute and immutable block.

  Annie Dillard

  Block, Silence, World

  Annie Dillard (2016). “Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters”, p.65, Canongate Books

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• Why should we girls not have the same privileges as men? Why do we police ourselves so stringently- whittling each other down with cutting remarks or holding ourselves back from greatness with a harness woven of fear and shame and longing? If we do not deem ourselves worthy first, how shall we ever ask for more?

  Libba Bray

  Girl, Cutting, Greatness

  Libba Bray (2015). “The Gemma Doyle Trilogy”, p.1487, Delacorte Press

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• Isaac Asimov's remark about the infantilism of pseudoscience is just as applicable to religion: 'Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold.' It is astonishing, moreover, how many people are unable to understand that 'X is comforting' does not imply 'X is true'.

  Richard Dawkins

  People, Comforting, Doe

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.20, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There is something about talking in the night, with the shreds of sleep around your ears, with the silences between one remark and another, the town dark and dreaming beyond your own walls. It draws the truth out of you, straight from its little dark pool down there, where usually you guard it so careful, and wave your hands over it and hum and haw to protect people's feelings, to protect your own . . . You can bring out the jaggedest feelings - if you are my wife and know how to state them calm - into the night quiet. They will float there for consideration, harming no one.

  Margo Lanagan

  Dream, Wall, Sleep

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