Reverse Quotes - Page 4

• He had an opinion of himself, I think, that was too high for his own good. Or maybe it was the reverse. Maybe it was a low opinion that he kept trying to erase.

  Tim O'Brien

  Thinking, Trying, Opinion

  Tim O'Brien (2009). “The Things They Carried”, p.82, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The success of any trap lies in its fundamental simplicity. The reverse trap by the nature of its single complication must be swift and simpler still.

  Robert Ludlum

  Lying, Simplicity, Fundamentals

  Robert Ludlum (2013). “The Jason Bourne Series 3-Book Bundle: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum”, p.465, Bantam

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• And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy. But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer - by demonstration - would take care of that, too. For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program. The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done. And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" And there was light...

  Isaac Asimov

  Men, Light, Giving

  "The Last Question". Science Fiction Quarterly, archive.org. November 1956.

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• It is a mistake to regard age as a downhill grade toward dissolution. The reverse is true. As one grows older, one climbs with surprising strides.

  George Sand

  Funny, Wisdom, Mistake

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• It occurs to me to wonder: do I believe in any god, or even positively not believe, as James does? I believe in systems and methods. I believe in the beauties of philosophy and poetry. I believe that the work we do and leave behind us is our afterlife; and I believe that history lies, but sometimes so well that I can't bring myself to resent it. I believe that truth is beauty, but not, I'm afraid, the reverse. It doesn't seem sufficient to sustain one in life's rigorous moments. Perhaps I shall embrace Islam. Its standards for poetry seem very high.

  Emma Bull

  Lying, Philosophy, Believe

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• Freud thought that a psychosis was a waking dream, and that poets were daydreamers too, but I wonder if the reverse is not as often true, and that madness is a fiction lived in like a rented house

  William H. Gass

  Dream, Psychosis, House

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• There are people. There are stories. The people think they shape the stories, but the reverse if often closer to the truth. Stories shape the world. They exist independently of people, and in places quite devoid of man, there may yet be mythologies.

  Alan Moore

  Men, Thinking, People

  "Down Among the Dead Men". Swamp Thing Annual #2, 1985.

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• Over to my left is the big grey wall in front of the church. Are we the Thoughts of God? a poster asks. No, I realise. It's the reverse.

  Scarlett Thomas

  Wall, Church, Posters

  Scarlett Thomas (2008). “The End Of Mr. Y”, p.363, Canongate Books

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• The strong are strengthened by reverses; the trouble is that the true meaning of events scores next to nothing in the match we play with men. Appearances decide our gains or losses and the points are trumpery. And a mere semblance of defeat may hopelessly checkmate us.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Strong, Loss, Men

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• People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon....This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us [Joshua 10:13]that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.

  Martin Luther

  Moon, People, Heaven

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• The mishandling of food and equipment with panache was always admired; to some extent, this remains true to this day. Butchers still slap down prime cuts with just a little more force and noise than necessary. Line cooks can't help putting a little English on outgoing plates, spinning them into the pass-through with reverse motion so they curl back just short of the edge. Oven doors in most kitchens have to be constantly tightened because of repeatedly being kicked closed by clog-shod feet. And all of us dearly love to play with knives.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Cutting, Doors, Knives

  Anthony Bourdain (2011). “Tony Bourdain boxset: Kitchen Confidential & Medium Raw”, p.26, A&C Black

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• It is more important that you should know about the reverses than about the successes of the war. We shall have all eternity to celebrate the victories, but we have only the few hours before sunset in which to win them. We are not winning them as we should, because the fact of the reverses is so little realized, and the needed reinforcements are not forthcoming, as they would be in the position were thoroughly understood...So we have tried to tell you the truth the uninteresting, unromantic truth.

  Amy Carmichael

  Christian, War, Inspiration

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• To begin with, I turn back time. I reverse it to that quaint period, the thirties, when the huge middle class of America was matriculating in a school for the blind. Their eyes had failed them, or they had failed their eyes, and so they were having their fingers pressed forcibly down on the fiery Braille alphabet of a dissolving economy.

  Tennessee Williams

  School, Eye, Class

  Tennessee Williams (1945). “The Glass Menagerie”, p.5, New Directions Publishing

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• . . . in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker . . .

  Charles Dickens

  Healing, Order, Expectations

  Charles Dickens (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Dickens (Illustrated)”, p.7428, Delphi Classics

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• Eerily, the coronation was kind of a reverse of Tatianaʹs funeral. What was the old saying? The queen is dead. Long live the queen

  Richelle Mead

  Queens, Long, Funeral

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• ...the first thing you do at the end is reflect on the beginning. Maybe it's some form of reverse closure, or just the basic human impulse toward sentimentality, or masochism, but as you stand there shell-shocked in the charred ruins of your life, your mind will invariably go back to the time when it all started. And even if you didn't fall in love in the eighties, in your mind it will fee like the eighties, all innocent and airbrushed, with bright colors and shoulder pads and Pat Benatar or The Cure on the soundtrack.

  Jonathan Tropper

  Falling In Love, Color, Mind

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• At times it seems as if arranging to have no commitment of any kind to anyone would be a special freedom. But in fact the whole idea works in reverse. The most deadly commitment of all is to be committed only to one's self. Some come to realize this after they are in the nursing home.

  John D. MacDonald

  Relationship, Home, Commitment

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• I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.

  Ned Vizzini

  Life, Sad, Depression

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• My heart shoots into my throat every time I think I see his loping walk, or catch sight of some floppy brown hair on a boy - but it's never him, and each time it isn't, my heart does a reverse trajectory down into the very pit of my stomach.

  Lauren Oliver

  Heart, Boys, Thinking

  Lauren Oliver (2010). “Before I Fall”, p.223, Hachette UK

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• There's a gang of boys on bikes blocking the road ahead. They've got their hoods up, cigarettes shielded. The sky's a really strange colour and there's hardly anyone else about. I slow right down. "What shall I do?" "Reverse," Zoey says. "They're not going to move." I wind down the window. "Oi!" I yell "Move your arses!" They turn languid, shift lazily to the edge of the road and grin as I blow kisses at them. Zoey looks stunned, "What's got into you?" "Nothing- I just haven't learned reversing yet.

  Jenny Downham

  Block, Moving, Kissing

  Jenny Downham (2007). “Before I Die”, David Fickling Books

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• Good. Now the first thing you do is press in the clutch and slide the gear into reverse." She placed his hand on the gear shift in the center of her car, and showed him how to move it up and down. "You know, you really shouldn't fondle that in front of me, Grace. It's cruel." "Julian! Do you mind? I'm only trying to show you how to shift my gears." He snorted. "I wish you'd shift my gears like that.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Moving, Hands, Car

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• This means, in a way, that true light is dependent on the presence of other lights. Take the others away and darkness results. Yet the reverse is not true: take away darkness and there is only more darkness. Darkness can exist by itself. Light cannot.

  N.K. Jemisin

  Mean, Light, Darkness

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• What happened when you woke up?" "I was having a dream. I don’t know what it was, but when I woke up, I had this awful realization that I was awake. It hit me like a brick in the groin." "Like a brick in the groin, I see." "I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare." "And what is that nightmare, Craig?" "Life." "Life is a nightmare." "Yes.

  Ned Vizzini

  Dream, Wake Up, Realization

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• Marc/Faythe/Jace love triangle moment: "This isn't about you...." "Well, it should be!" he shouted, and I flinched. "Everything I do is about you, and I want the reverse to be true, too." I wiped more tears, my throat aching with words that would only make this worse. "What, you need a reminder? That's what he was doing, right? And now you smell like him. You probably taste like him. You should taste like me..." He was on me before I could even catch my breath.

  Rachel Vincent

  Smell, Tears, Needs

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• There is, I have heard, a little thing called sunrise, in which the sun reverses the process we all viewed the night before. You might assume such a thing as mythical as those beasts that guard the corners of the earth, but I have it on the finest authority, and have, indeed, from time to time, regarded it with my own eyes.

  Lauren Willig

  Eye, Night, Sunrise

  Lauren Willig (2012). “The Garden Intrigue: A Pink Carnation Novel”, p.145, Penguin

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