Sentences Quotes - Page 32

• Every country has its cocktail-party question. A simple one-sentence query, the answer to which unlocks a motherlode of information about the person you just met.... In Switzerland it is, Where are you from? That is all you need to know about someone.

  Eric Weiner

  Country, Party, Simple

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• The North American Church is at a critical juncture. The gospel of grace is being confused and compromised by silence, seduction, and outright subversion. The vitality of the faith is being jeopardized. The lying slogans of the fixers who carry religion like a sword of judgment pile up with impunity. Let ragamuffins everywhere gather as a confessing Church to cry out in protest. Revoke the licenses of religious leaders who falsify the idea of God. Sentence them to three years in solitude with the Bible as their only companion.

  Brennan Manning

  Religious, Confused, Lying

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• I know we're not saints or virgins or lunatics; we know all the lust and lavatory jokes, and most of the dirty people; we can catch buses and count our change and cross the roads and talk real sentences. But our innocence goes awfully deep, and our discreditable secret is that we don't know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don't care that we don't.

  Dylan Thomas

  Real, Dirty, Optimistic

  Dylan Thomas, Paul Ferris (1985). “The collected letters”, Scribner

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• Here is your final lesson - do not commit the crime for which you now serve the sentence. God said, "Vengeance is mine." [...] He believes in you.

  Alexandre Dumas

  Believe, Finals, Lessons

  "Fictional character: Abbe Faria". "The Count of Monte Cristo", www.imdb.com. January 23, 2002.

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• Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Stupid, Execution, Pity

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• Aunt Mercy put down her tiles, one at a time. I-T-C-H-I-N. Aunt Grace leaned closer to the board, squinting. "Mercy Lynne, you're cheatin' again! What kinda word is that? Use it in a sentence." "I'm itchin' ta have some a that white cake." "That's not how you spell it." At least one of them could spell. Aunt Grace pulled one of the tiles off the board. "There's no T in itchin'." Or not.

  Margaret Stohl

  Aunt, Cake, White

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• His mother?" Gracie couldn't believe it. Suzy Denton looked much too young to be his mother. And much too respectable. "But you're not a-" She cut herself off in mid-sentence as she realized what she'd almost let slip. Suzy's wedding ring clicked against the steering wheel as she gave it a hard smack. "I'm going to kill him! He's been telling that hooker story again, hasn't he?

  Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  Mother, Believe, Cutting

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• How could one sentence uttered in anger cause so much damage? But then words were the most powerful thing in the universe. Cuts and bruises always healed, but words spoken in anger were most often permanent. They didn’t damage the body, they destroyed the spirit. (Acheron)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Powerful, Cutting, Bruises

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2008). “Acheron: A Dark-Hunter Novel”, p.802, Macmillan

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• Do not put statements in the negative form. And don't start sentences with a conjunction. If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all. De-accession euphemisms. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

  William Safire

  Editing, Long, Sound

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• There are very few innocent sentences in writing.

  David Foster Wallace

  Writing, Innocent

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• He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Reading, Complaining

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.261, Univ of California Press

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• She entered the story knowing she would emerge from it feeling she had been immersed in the lives of others, in plots that stretched back twenty years, her body full of sentences and moments, as if awaking from sleep with a heaviness caused by unremembered dreams.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Dream, Sleep, Years

  FaceBook post by Michael Ondaatje from Apr 20, 2013

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• The problem is, or rather one of the problems, for there are many, a sizeable proportion of which are continually clogging up the civil, commercial, and criminal courts in all areas of the Galaxy, and especially, where possible, the more corrupt ones, this. The previous sentence makes sense. That is not the problem. This is: Change. Read it through again and you'll get it.

  Douglas Adams

  Clogging Up, Criminals, Problem

  Douglas Adams (2009). “So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish”, p.81, Pan Macmillan

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• I recently forced myself to read a book on quantum physics, just to try and learn something new. I was confused by the middle of the first sentence and it all went downhill from there. The only thing I can remember learning is that a parallel universe can theoretically be contained on the head of a needle. I don't really know what that means, but I am now more careful handling needles.

  Stephan Pastis

  Confused, Book, Mean

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• Many men would take the death-sentence without a whimper, to escape the life-sentence which fate carries in her other hand.

  T. E. Lawrence

  Fate, Men, Hands

  The Mint (1955) pt. 1, ch. 4

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• Good God. I don’t believe St. Vincent and the word ‘celibacy’ have ever been mentioned in the same sentence before.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Believe, Celibacy, Good God

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• A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Morning, Writing, Color

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers (Annotated Edition)”, p.86, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Words got in the way. The things we felt the hardest--like what it was like to have a boy touch you as if you were made of light, or what it meant to be the only person in the room who wasn't noticed--weren't sentences; they were knots in the wood of our bodies, places where our blood flowed backward. If you asked me, not that anyone ever did, the only words worth saying were I'm sorry.

  Jodi Picoult

  Sorry, Boys, Light

  Jodi Picoult (2009). “Handle with Care: A Novel”, p.397, Simon and Schuster

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• I’m busy sorting through our new collection of rhinestone jewelry. Should anyone be in the market for sparkly accessories the size of a hubcap, this is the place to get them. Earlier today, a customer picked up one of the enormous chandelier-style offerings and asked, 'Do those be genuine rhimestones?' I couldn’t even begin to explain everything that was wrong with her sentence, so I simply replied, 'Yes. They do be genuine.

  Jen Lancaster

  Offering, Style, Accessories

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• Humans generally get out the gist of what they need to say right at the beginning, then spend forever qualifying, contradicting, burnishing or taking important things back. Yor rareley miss anything by cutting most people off after two sentences.

  Richard Ford

  Cutting, Two, People

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• The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

  George R. R. Martin

  Eye, Responsibility, Men

  George R. R. Martin (2012). “George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones 5-Book Boxed Set (Song of Ice and Fire Series): A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and and A Dance with Dragons”, p.28, Bantam

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• Let animals live like animals; let humans live like humans. That's my whole philosophy in a sentence.

  Aravind Adiga

  Philosophy, Animal, Humans

  FaceBook post by Aravind Adiga from Jan 15, 2012

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• There is a line of poetry, a sentence in a fable, a word in an essay, by which my existence is justified; find that line, and immortality is assured.

  Alberto Manguel

  Lines, Fables, Justified

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.30, Vintage Canada

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• Being in the mood to write, like being in the mood to make love, is a luxury that isn't necessary in a long-term relationship. Just as the first caress can lead to a change of heart, the first sentence, however tentative and awkward, can lead to a desire to go just a little further.

  Julia Cameron

  Writing, Heart, Love Is

  Julia Cameron (1999). “The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life”, p.37, Penguin

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• You wrote this right?” he said. “It tells how to defeat Set.” Thoth unfolded the papyrus pages. “Oh, dear. I hate reading my old work. Look at this sentence. I’d never write it that way now.” He patted his lab coat pockets. “Red pen—does anyone have one?” Isis chafed against my willpower, insisting that we blast some sense into Thoth. One fireball, she pleaded. Just one enormous magical fireball? I couldn’t say I was tempted, but I kept her under control. “Since when does drool make you powerful?

  Rick Riordan

  Powerful, Hate, Reading

  Rick Riordan (2010). “The Kane Chronicles, The, Book One: Red Pyramid”, Hyperion

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