Scratches Quotes - Page 11

• Sometimes it occurs to me that the job of a serious cultural critic mostly consists in telling the generality of people that their opinions - on films, on books, on all manner of widgets, gadgets and even the latest electronic fidgets - simply aren't up to scratch.

  Will Self

  Jobs, Book, People

  "Will Self considers the Coen brothers". www.theguardian.com. February 11, 2011.

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• My family and I built my whole career from scratch.

  Maria Sharapova

  Careers, My Family, Whole

  "Maria Sharapova: My love for tennis stopped me from walking away". Interview with Donald McRae, www.theguardian.com. June 14, 2010.

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• What does it mean to be a used white wife, a mother, a tragic girl writing poems? Sandra Simonds gets into these messy words and then tears them apart. Sometimes with the words of others. And sometimes with poems made from scratch. They aren't all bad, these words. But they aren't all good either. And that is where Mother was a Tragic Girl gets its power. You will at moments be laughing but then you will also at moments just as much be crying. If Antigone was alive and decided to write some poems about the nuclear family, she would write them like Sandra Simonds. These are tough.

  Juliana Spahr

  Girl, Mother, Writing

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• If they'd been dogs, they would have all been in the yard eating grass and trying to yak up whatever was making them feel so lousy. Not a bone gnawed, not a ball chased-all tails went unwagged. Oh, life is a fast cat, a short leash, a flea in that place where you just can't scratch.

  Christopher Moore

  Dog, Cat, Trying

  Christopher Moore (2009). “The Lust Lizard Of Melancholy Cove: Book 2: Pine Cove Series”, p.44, Hachette UK

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• They were now both ready, not to begin from scratch, but to continue with a love that had survived for thirteen years in hibernation. They were no longer travellers without baggage. They were no longer twenty. They'd both been around the block a bit and had suffered without the other. They'd both lost their way without the other.  Each had tried to find love with other people. But all that was now finished.

  Guillaume Musso

  Love, Block, Years

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• This week my son thinks he's the Supremes.All of them. So we can scratch "straight"off the list. At least I hope we can. As a gay kid he'll be a natural leader. Put him in a macho bullshit environment and he's going to have a hard time. I don't want that to happen. (Let's also not forget Wei's immortal words to him nine minutes after he was born, when she first stared into those big brown eyes: "Oh, honey. Promose me you'll grow up to like boys. Because I don't want any other woman in your life except me.")

  Steve Kluger

  Growing Up, Eye, Kids

  Steve Kluger (2009). “My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park”, p.44, Penguin

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• I am slow to learn and slow to forget that which I have learned. My mind is like a piece of steel, very hard to scratch any thing on it and almost impossible after you get it there to rub it out.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Mind, Steel, Pieces

  Abraham Lincoln, Bob Blaisdell (2013). “Abraham Lincoln's Wit & Wisdom”, p.8, Courier Corporation

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• The guy behind the counter scratches his neck. “Are you being serious?” Her face is stoic. “Absolutely. I never kid about teddy bears.

  Jessica Sorensen

  Kids, Guy, Faces

  Jessica Sorensen (2013). “The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden”, p.91, Hachette UK

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• And don't pay attention to Christina. Your face doesn't look that bad." He smiles a little. "I mean, it looks good. It always looks good. i mean--you look brave. Dauntless." His eyes skirt mine, and he scratches the back of his head. The silence grows between us. It was a nice thing to say, but he acts like it means more than just words. I hope I am wrong. I could not be attracted to Al-- I could not be attracted to anyone that fragile. I smile as much as my bruised cheek will allow, hoping that will diffuse the tension.

  Veronica Roth

  Nice, Mean, Eye

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• But to be perfectly frank, this childish idea that the author of a novel has some special insight into the characters in the novel ... it's ridiculous. That novel was composed of scratches on a page, dear. The characters inhabiting it have no life outside of those scratches. What happened to them? They all ceased to exist the moment the novel ended.

  John Green

  Character, Ideas, Special

  "The Fault in Our Stars". Book by John Green, January 10, 2012.

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• A question like “do you love me?” was an itch our doctors told us not to scratch.

  Shane Koyczan

  Doctors, Do You Love Me

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• Do you know him well?" I ask.I am too curious; I always have been. "Everyone knows Four," she says. "We were initiates together.I was bad at fighting,so he taught me every night after everyone was asleep." She scratches the back of her neck, her expression suddenly serious. "Nice of him." She gets up and stands behind the members sitting in the doorway. In a second, her serious expression is gone,but I still feel rattled by what she said, half confused by the idea of Four being "nice" and half wanting to punch her for no apparent reason.

  Veronica Roth

  Confused, Nice, Fighting

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• There's a power that comes with silence. I had grown to fear the unsaid thing. So it felt like a release to say it-to admit that the risk wasn't just inside our walls-it was inside my skin. I was willing to claw, scratch, and bleed until I'd found it.

  Ally Carter

  Wall, Silence, Risk

  Ally Carter (2012). “Gallagher Girls: Out of Sight, Out of Time”, p.53, Hachette UK

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• He's helped me a lot over the years." "I'm sure he has. You scratch his back. He scratches yours." "I have skin allergies. I'm itchy.

  Darynda Jones

  Years, Skins, Allergies

  Darynda Jones (2013). “Fifth Grave Past the Light”, p.117, Macmillan

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• It's like if you plant something in the concrete and if it grow and the rose petal got all kinds of scratches and marks, you ain't gonna say, 'Damn, look at all the scratches and marks on the rose that grew from the concrete.' You're gonna be like, 'Damn, a rose grew from the concrete?'

  Tupac Shakur

  Music, Rose, Looks

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• It is strange how the elderly fall silent when they ought to go on speaking, obliging the young to learn everything from scratch.

  Jose Saramago

  Fall, Elderly, Goes On

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• My mother's blueberry pie from scratch was amazing. I still make it today.

  Geoffrey Zakarian

  Mother, Pie, Today

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• Now suppose both death and hell were utterly defeated.  Suppose the fight was fixed.  Suppose God took you on a crystal ball trip into your future and you saw with indubitable certainty that despite everything — your sin, your smallness, your stupidity — you could have free for the asking your whole crazy heart’s deepest desire: heaven, eternal joy.  Would you not return fearless and singing?  What can earth do to you, if you are guaranteed heaven?  To fear the worst earthly loss would be like a millionaire fearing the loss of a penny — less, a scratch on a penny.

  Peter Kreeft

  Crazy, Heart, Loss

  Peter Kreeft (1989). “Heaven, the Heart's Deepest Longing”, p.82, Ignatius Press

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• Scratch an altruist and watch a hypocrite bleed.

  Michael Ghiselin

  Hypocrite, Watches, Opportunism

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• No hint of genuine charity ameliorates our vision of society, once sentimentalism has been laid side. What passes for cooperation turns out to be a mixture of opportunism and exploitation. Scratch an altruist and watch a hypocrite bleed.

  Michael Ghiselin

  Hypocrite, Vision, Watches

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• Raising people is not some lark. It's serious work with serious repercussions. It's air-traffic control. You can't step out for a minute; you can barely pause to scratch your ankle.

  Kelly Corrigan

  Air, People, Larks

  Kelly Corrigan (2014). “Glitter and Glue: A Memoir”, p.186, Ballantine Books

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• Ive been fortunate to come on places where the question isnt why did I do it? The question to me is always, why didnt anybody else do it before me? Those are the ones that I scratch my head about.

  Todd McFarlane

  Fortunate

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• An art form requires genius. People of genius are always troublemakers, meaning they start from scratch, demolish accepted norms and rebuild a new world. The problem with cinema today is the dearth of troublemakers. There’s not a rabble-rouser in sight. There was still one, but he went beyond troublemaker to court jester. He clobbered the status quo. That’s Godard. We’re fresh out of ‘bad students.’ You’ll find students masquerading as bad ones, but you won’t find the real article, because a genuine bad student upends everything.

  Henri Langlois

  Art, Real, Sight

  "Henri Langlois: The Phantom of the Cinémathèque". Documentary, Biography, History, www.imdb.com. 2004.

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• Have you ever started to wave at someone and then realized they weren’t really waving at you, so you abort and go for a head scratch instead? That’s how I felt.

  Tim Tharp

  Wave, Felt

  Tim Tharp (2008). “The Spectacular Now”, p.128, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• Learn how to cook! That's the way to save money. You don't save it buying hamburger helpers, and prepared foods; you save it by buying fresh foods in season or in large supply, when they are cheapest and usually best, and you prepare them from scratch at home. Why pay for someone else's work, when if you know how to do it, you can save all that money for yourself?

  Julia Child

  Home, Hamburgers, Pay

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