Slate Quotes

• I am a blank slate - therefore I can create anything I want.

  Tobey Maguire

  Want, Blank, I Can

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• I try and reduce myself to an almost blank slate and hope to God that I am creative.

  Ben Kingsley

  Creativity, Creative, Trying

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• [London is] like the sight of a heavy sea from a rowing boat in the middle of the Atlantic.... One lives in it, afloat but half submerged in a heavy flood of brick, stone, asphalt, slate, steel, glass, concrete, and tarmac, seeing nothing fixable beyond a few score white spires that splash up like spits of foam above the next glum wave of dirty buildings.

  V. S. Pritchett

  Dirty, Sight, Sea

  V.S. Pritchett (2009). “Mr. Beluncle: A Novel”, p.13, Modern Library

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• The city and nature, the built stone and the found stone, concrete and slate, poetry addresses them all democratically.

  Shirley Geok-lin Lim

  Cities, Addresses, Stones

  "Walking with Her Muse: An Interview with Shirley Geok-lin Lim". Contemporary Women's Writing, Volume 8, Issue 2, 1 July 2014, Pages 123 - 135, academic.oup.com. June 22, 2013.

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• I've heard some designers talk about the design process being centred on invention, starting with a blank slate. I admire that and occasionally I'm capable of that, but I have to admit that I really have trouble working with completely open briefs.

  Michael Bierut

  Design Process, Trouble, Designer

  Source: facingsideways.com

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• I am very fond of the oyster shell. It is humble and awkward and ugly. It is slate-colored and unsymmetrical. Its form is not primarily beautiful but functional. I make fun of its knobbiness. Sometimes I resent its burdens and excrescences. But its tireless adaptability and tenacity draw my astonished admiration and sometimes even my tears. And it is comfortable in its familiarity, its homeliness, like old garden gloves when have molded themselves perfectly to the shape of the hand. I do not like to put it down. I will not want to leave it.

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Beautiful, Fun, Humble

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1975). “GIFT FROM THE SEA”

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• Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but every day is a clean slate and a fresh opportunity.

  Gretchen Rubin

  Opportunity, Succeed, Sometimes

  "Happiness: Should You Have Goals Or Resolutions?" by Gretchen Rubin, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 18, 2008.

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• Blank-slate friendships were thin and temperamental. She knew that. There was no history there to cement people together, for better or worse.

  Sarah Addison Allen

  People, Together, Blank

  Sarah Addison Allen (2010). “The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel”, p.113, Bantam

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• Qhuinn's eyes shifted away from his buddy--and just happened to measure the distance down to the stone patio below. Hmm . . . doing a swan dive onto all that slate might just get the images of those two out of his head... of course, it would also turn his brain into scrambled eggs, but really, was that such a bad thing?

  J.R. Ward

  Broken Heart, Distance, Eye

  J.R. Ward (2010). “Lover Mine: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood”, p.420, Penguin

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• A baby is such a blank slate, like training the understudy for a role you're planning to leave. You truly hope your replacement will do the play justice, but in secret you want future critics to say you played the character better.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Baby, Character, Play

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• Blot your misdeeds out (if you are particularly conscientious), by a good deed, as soon as you can; just as we did a correct sum at school on the slate, where an incorrect one was only half rubbed out. It was better than wetting our sponge with our tears; both less loss of time where tears had to be waited for, and a better effect at last.

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  School, Loss, Tears

  Elizabeth Gaskell (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell (Illustrated)”, p.1131, Delphi Classics

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• Patch's eyes were slate black, darker than a million secrets stacked on top of each other. He dropped his gaze to the ring in his hand, turning it over slowly. "Swear you'll never stop loving me," I whispered. Ever so slightly, he nodded.

  Becca Fitzpatrick

  Eye, Hands, Black

  Becca Fitzpatrick (2013). “The Complete Hush, Hush Saga: includes Hush, Hush; Crescendo; Silence and Finale”, p.296, Simon and Schuster

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• Nothing mattered much to me for a time there, after you told me you could never love me, Anne. There was nobody else -- there never could be anybody else for me but you. I've loved you ever since that day you broke your slate over my head in school.

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  School, Broke

  Lucy Maud Montgomery (2015). “Anne of Green Gables Collection: Anne of Green Gables, Anne of the Island, and More Anne Shirley Books”, p.664, Xist Publishing

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• There's nothing so attractive as a blank slate. Take one attractive man, slap on a thick coat of daydream, and voila, the perfect man. With absolutely no resemblance to reality.

  Lauren Willig

  Reality, Men, Perfect

  Lauren Willig (2007). “The Deception of the Emerald Ring”, p.112, Penguin

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• Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day's chalking.

  Frederick Buechner

  Sleep, Night, Grace

  FaceBook post by Frederick Buechner from Jan 01, 2016

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• My room is cleared. My head is cleared. Earlier, around dawn, I took out the last load of trash. I look around and see what's left. Nothing. There is no more Daelyn Rice. As I was. As I am. Or will become. I'm a blank slate

  Julie Anne Peters

  Dawn, Looks, Lasts

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• I've loved you ever since that day you broke your slate over my head in school.

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  School, Broke

  Lucy Maud Montgomery (2016). “Anne of the Island”, p.236, Youcanprint

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• Composing is like driving down a foggy road toward a house. Slowly you see more details of the house-the color of the slates and bricks, the shape of the windows. The notes are the bricks and the mortar of the house.

  Benjamin Britten

  Bricks And Mortar, Fog, Color

  "The Classical Music Experience: Discover the Music of the World's Greatest Composers". Book by Julius H. Jacobson (p.341), 2008.

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• The strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate... is a totalitarian's dream.

  Steven Pinker

  Dream, Pursuit Of Happiness, Desire

  "Steven Pinker: the optimistic voice of science" by Andrew Anthony, www.theguardian.com. September 17, 2011.

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• It’s unfortunate that we live in such a panicked, dysmorphic society where women don’t even give themselves a chance to see what they’ll look like as older persons. I want to have some idea of what I’ll look like before I start cleaning the slates.

  Julia Roberts

  Ideas, Giving, Looks

  "Julia Roberts: I’m A Hindu, I Don’t Believe In Botox". www.huffingtonpost.com. August 4, 2010.

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• Every American wants a clean slate, but nobody wants to lose what they've got.

  Rob Sheffield

  Want, Clean, Loses

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• When I pointed to him his palms slipped slightly, leaving greasy sweat streaks on the wall, and he hooked his thumbs in his belt. A strange spasm shook him, as if he heard fingernails scrape slate, but as I gazed at him in wonder the tension slowly drained from his face. His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears. “Hey, Boo,” I said. “Mr. Arthur, honey,” said Atticus, gently correcting me. “Jean Louise, this is Mr. Arthur Radley. I believe he already knows you.

  Harper Lee

  Wall, Believe, Sweat

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• Love is not an equation, it is not a contract, and it is not a happy ending. Love is the slate under the chalk, the ground that buildings rise, and the oxygen in the air. It is the place you come back to, no matter where your headed

  Jodi Picoult

  True Love, Love Is, Air

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• Without memories to cloud it, the mind perceives with absolute clarity. Each observation stands out in stark relief. In the beginning, when there's not yet a smudge, the slate still blank, there is only the present moment: each vital detail, shocked color, the fall of light. Like film stills. The mind relentlessly open to the world, deeply impressed, even hurt by it: not yet gauzed by memory.

  Nicole Krauss

  Hurt, Memories, Fall

  Nicole Krauss (2003). “Man Walks Into a Room”, p.138, Anchor

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• The desirable virgin is sexy but not sexual. She's young, white, and skinny. She's a cheerleader, a babysitter; she's accessible and eager to please (remember those ethics of passivity!). She's never a woman of color. SHe's never a low-income girl or a fat girl. She's never disabled. "Virgin" is a designation for those who meet a certain standard of what women, especially young women, are supposed to look like. As for how these young women are supposed to act? A blank slate is best.

  Jessica Valenti

  Girl, Sexy, Color

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