Symbols Quotes - Page 23

• I don't wish to be the symbol of anything. I'm only myself.

  Ayn Rand

  Wish

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.777, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you’re looking for a spiritual allegory in the style of C.S. Lewis, I guess you could piece something together with Lorne Michaels as a symbol for God and my struggles with hair removal as a metaphor for virtue

  Tina Fey

  Spiritual, Struggle, Hair

  Tina Fey (2011). “Bossypants”, p.5, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When are the world's political parties going to get appropriate symbols: snake, louse, jackal, ... trash can, clown face, ... dollar bill with bat wings on it?

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Party, Snakes, Wings

  16 Copy quote

• Could you please explain to me exactly what the staff is that you carry?" Cronus proudly held the symbol of his power and authority aloft. "It is the scepter that denotes my control of the Physical Realms. All who defy me should look on it and tremble." "Oh, I see! Do you know, I thought it was a giant toothpick, or perhaps something you shoved into other parts of you anatomy. I never realized it represented your supposed right to rule," said Her Vampiric Majesty lightly.

  Stuart Hill

  Giants, Looks, Majesty

  Stuart Hill (2011). “The Icemark Chronicles #3: Last Battle of the Icemark”, p.357, Scholastic Inc.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it. Nobody in any other game would be crazy enough to hire me. I wouldn't even make a good ditch-digger, I'd start tearing apart the sewer-system, trying to pick-axe and unearth all those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave in the paper-mines for all time.

  Margaret Atwood

  Crazy, Games, Mind

  Margaret Atwood (1989). “The Edible Woman”, New Canadian Library

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Could words and symbols wield such power? Could mere scribblings on parchment unmake a person's moral fiber? Weren't we made of sterner stuff?

  Karen Marie Moning

  Moral Fiber, Stuff, Made

  Karen Marie Moning (2016). “The Fever Series 7-Book Bundle: Darkfever, Bloodfever, Faefever, Dreamfever, Shadowfever, Iced, Burned”, p.356, Dell

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• You must realize that the true desire to express affection can be motivated by things other than true love.... In short, one might simply say: save your kisses--you might need them someday. And when anyof you--men and women--are given entrance to the heart of a trusting young friend, you stand on holy ground. In such a place you must be honest with yourself--and with your friend--about love and the expression of it's symbols.

  Bruce C. Hafen

  Heart, Kissing, Men

  10 Copy quote

• Do you understand any of this?" he said, pointing to the lines and symbols that covered the massive screens. "Some people understand the value of an education." Hale stretched and crossed his legs, the settled his arm around Kat's shoulders. "That's sweet, Kat. Maybe later I'll buy you a university. And an ice cream." "I'd settle for the ice cream." "Deal.

  Ally Carter

  Sweet, Ice Cream, People

  53 Copy quote

• The Old Language really was beautiful, Blay thought. Staring at the symbols, for one brief, ridiculous moment he imagined his own name across Qhuinn's shoulders, carved into that smooth skin in the manner of the mating ritual. Never going to happen. They were destined to be best friends...which, compared to strangers, was something huge. Compared to lovers? It was the cold side of a locked door.

  J.R. Ward

  Beautiful, Doors, Names

  J.R. Ward (2010). “Lover Mine: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood”, p.28, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• But then you hear that he can't hear you, you see that he can't see you. You are not here--and you haven't even died yet. You see yourself through his eyes, as The Generic Woman, the skirted symbol on the ladies' room door.

  Melissa Bank

  Eye, Doors, Rooms

  Melissa Bank (2000). “The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing”, p.151, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds - the cemeteries - and they're a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here. Going by, you try to be as quiet as possible, better to let them sleep. Greek, Roman, sepulchres- palatial mausoleums made to order, phantomesque, signs and symbols of hidden decay - ghosts of women and men who have sinned and who've died and are now living in tombs. The past doesn't pass away so quickly here. You could be dead for a long time

  Bob Dylan

  Sleep, Past, Men

  Bob Dylan (2011). “Chronicles”, p.157, Simon and Schuster

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Given the nature of spiders, webs are inevitable. And given the nature of human beings, so are religions. Spiders can't help making fly-traps, and men can't help making symbols. That's what the human brain is there for - the turn the chaos of given experience into a set of manageable symbols.

  Aldous Huxley

  Men, Brain, Spiders

  12 Copy quote

• In our time, the symbol of state intrusion into the private life is the mandatory urine test.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Tests, Life Is, Intrusion

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays”, p.64, Atlantic Books Ltd

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• For our people, butterflies are a symbol of hope. It's said that if you capture one in your hands and whisper your dreams to it, it will carry them up to the heavens so that the wish can be granted.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Dream, Butterfly, Hands

  4 Copy quote

• It's disquieting to reflect that one's dreams never symbolize one's real wishes, but always something Much Worse... If I really wanted to be passionately embraced by Peter, I should dream of dentists or gardening. I wonder what unspeakable depths of awfulness can only be expressed by the polite symbol of Peter's embraces?

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Dream, Real, Wish

  4 Copy quote

• We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges.

  Gene Wolfe

  Believe, Defining, Truth Is

  Gene Wolfe (1994). “Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'”, p.14, Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I am dead--I say it that way because from the things I know, I do not expect to live long enough to read this book in its finished form--I want you to just watch and see if I'm not right in what I say: that the white man, in his press, is going to identify me with "hate". He will make use of me dead, as he has made use of me alive, as a convenient symbol, of "hatred"--and that will help him escape facing the truth that all I have been doing is holding up a mirror to reflect, to show, the history of unspeakable crimes that his race has committed against my race.

  Malcolm X

  Hate, Book, Men

  Malcolm X (2015). “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, p.388, Ballantine Books

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Never mind. Point being that you don't have to get too worked up about us, dear educated minds. You don't have to think of us aas real girls, real flesh and blood, real pain, real injustice. That might be too upsetting. Just discard the sordid part. Consider us pure symbol. We're no more real than money.

  Margaret Atwood

  Girl, Pain, Real

  4 Copy quote

• There is something inspiring and sublime about the little forget-me-not flower. I hope it will be a symbol of the little things that make your lives joyful and sweet.

  Dieter F. Uchtdorf

  Sweet, Flower, Sublime

  8 Copy quote

• You send me all these roses. Every time I think the last bouquet has arrived, finally, another turns up. I’m running out of vases. I didn’t know roses came in so many colors. You say they’re the perfect symbols of love because they have thorns and love is pain. I say life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something. And you don’t get it. You say you love me, but you don’t speak my language. You don’t even realize I’m an orchid girl.

  Erin Morgenstern

  Girl, Running, Pain

  67 Copy quote

• Reading with an eye towards metaphor allows us to become the person we’re reading about, while reading about them. That’s why there is symbols in books and why your English teacher deserves your attention. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if the author intended the symbol to be there because the job of reading is not to understand the author’s intent. The job of reading is to use stories as a way into seeing other people as a we ourselves.

  John Green

  Teacher, Jobs, Book

  4 Copy quote

• I don't know whether you can look at your past and find, woven like the hidden symbols on a treasure map, the path that will point to your final destination.

  Jodi Picoult

  Past, Woven, Finals

  Jodi Picoult (2009). “Handle with Care: A Novel”, p.80, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Batman: a force of chaos in my world of perfect order. The dark side of the Soviet dream. Rumored to be a thousand murdered dissidents, they said he was a ghost. A walking dead man. A symbol of rebellion that would never fade as long as the system survived. Anarchy in black.

  Mark Millar

  Dream, Dark, Men

  6 Copy quote

• WARNING: The following is a transcript of a digital recording. In certain places, the audio quality was poor, so some words and phrases represent the author's best guesses. Where possible, illustrations of important symbols mentioned in the recording have been added. Background noises such as scuffling, hitting, and cursing by the two speakers have not been transcribed The author makes no claims for the authenticity of the recording. It seems impossible that the two young narrators are telling the truth, but you, the reader, must decide for yourself.

  Rick Riordan

  Illustration, Background Noise, Two

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

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance.

  John Keats

  Night, Thinking, Hands

  1818 'When I Have FearsThat I May Cease to Be'.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source