Unusual Quotes - Page 20

• Genius of the highest kind implies an unusual intensity of the modifying power.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Genius, Kind, Intensity

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Greenough Thayer Shedd (1854). “The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions”, p.446

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• Among the Diaries beginning with the second quarter of our century, there is frequent mention of a lady then becoming famous for her beauty and her wit: "an unusual combination," in the deliberate syllables of one of the writers, who is, however, not disposed to personal irony when speaking of her.

  George Meredith

  Book, Becoming, Diaries

  George Meredith (1897). “Diana of the Crossways: A Novel”, p.51, Wayne State University Press

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• I've written about a lot of different things, but the whole idea of writing for another character is unusual for pop music... Most of the repertory is love songs, and most of mine isn't. I don't know if that's a mental defect, or shyness, or what.

  Randy Newman

  Song, Writing, Character

  "Set List: Randy Newman". Interview with Sam Adams, music.avclub.com. May 31, 2011.

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• There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual.

  Barbara Pym

  Heart, Broken, Way

  Barbara Pym (2011). “No Fond Return Of Love”, p.13, Hachette UK

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• In [chess], where the pieces have different and "bizarre" motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex, is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Errors, Profound, Pieces

  Edgar Allan Poe (2008). “Edgar Allan Poe Annotated and Illustrated Entire Stories and Poems”, p.352, Bottletree Books LLC

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• It is not morbidity which draws crowds to scenes of disaster or unusual joy. It is the desire to participate in a moment when life breaks through to some higher level of intensity so that one's own life might take fire from that sudden spurted flame.

  Maya Deren

  Fire, Flames, Break Through

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• I love inventing names, but I also collect unusual names, so that I can look through my notebook and choose one that suits a new character.

  J. K. Rowling

  Notebook, Character, Names

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• Safe from the Neighbors is a novel of unusual richness and depth, one that's as wise about the small shocks within a marriage as it is about the troubled history of Mississippi. Steve Yarbrough is a formidably talented novelist, shuttling between the past and present with a grace that feels effortless.

  Tom Perrotta

  Wise, Past, Grace

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• It [the memoir "In The Body of the World"] wrote me. I joke about it, but this book was so unusual. It just started to come out. I really feel like it came straight from my body. I think it was both an expression of what I had gone through, but also it just felt like everything had come together in my body and it needed to tell that story.

  Eve Ensler

  Book, Thinking, Expression

  "Interview with Eve Ensler: In The Body of the World". Interview with Marianne Schnall, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 29, 2013.

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• I used to sing in the church choir. People would say it was unusual for such a small girl to have such a big voice. They would say, 'She sounds like she's grown.'

  Jennifer Hudson

  Girl, Church Choir, Voice

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• Loving and parenting a dog as a single parent can create all sorts of new and unusual problems, but also new sources of joy.

  Jenna Morasca

  Dog, Joy, Parent

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• People always say to me, Youre really attractive - in an unusual way. No one ever just says, Youre attractive.

  Carrot Top

  People, Way, Attractive

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• Music, from being an ordered succession of sounds, has become a matter of "sonorities", and anyone who can produce a brightly coloured brick of unusual shape is henceforth hailed as an architect.

  Constant Lambert

  Sound, Shapes, Matter

  "Music, Ho!". Book by Constant Lambert, Hogarth Press edition, "Toute réaction est vraie", p. 91, 1985.

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• Coast to Coast AM may just be the most unusual show I have ever witnessed or been a part of. You really almost have to be born into that arena, I think, in order to handle it. I was very lucky in that's the way I was guiding my own career. It was this thirst to really get to the bottom of some of these stories that kept pushing me.

  George Noory

  Thinking, Order, Careers

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• It is very unusual for a country to ask guys who are not politicians to come and run the country.

  Mario Monti

  Running, Country, Guy

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• It is rather unusual for Italy to be at the forefront of pro-market initiatives.

  Mario Monti

  Initiative

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• A reader is entitled to believe what he or she believes is consonant with the facts of the book. It is not unusual that readers take away something that is spiritually at variance from what I myself experienced. That's not to say readers make up the book they want. We all have to agree on the facts. But readers bring their histories and all sets of longings. A book will pluck the strings of those longings differently among different readers.

  Richard Ford

  Believe, Book, Different

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• Until he lost all his money, my father was a successful north London Jewish businessman. He was unusual among his immediate family in that he was enormously cultured and had an incredible library.

  Anthony Horowitz

  Father, Successful, Library

  "Anthony Horowitz: My family values". Interview With Liza Campbell, www.theguardian.com. July 9, 2010.

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• But when we start to focus in on what our own mind is up to, for instance, it is not unusual to quickly go unconscious again, to fall back into an automatic-pilot mode of unawareness. These lapses in awareness are frequently caused by an eddy of dissatisfaction with what we are seeing or feeling in that moment, out of which springs a desire for something to be different, for things to change.

  Jon Kabat-Zinn

  Spring, Fall, Focus

  Jon Kabat-Zinn (2005). “Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life”, Hyperion

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• I have a few unusual fans, as you can imagine, so I try to protect the privacy of my home life.

  Karin Slaughter

  Home, Trying, Fans

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• When dictators feel their support slipping among adults, it is not unusual for them to alter school textbooks in the hope of enlisting impressionable youths in their cause.

  Samantha Power

  School, Support, Causes

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• He's managed to make himself something highly unusual for a man at this stage of his career: unclassifiable. Unpredictable. Tom Jones is no joke

  Ken Tucker

  Men, Careers, Stage

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• That is ever the difference between the wise and the unwise: the latter wonders at what is unusual; the wise man wonders at the usual.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Men, Differences

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, p.7, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

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• I used to go round to Aunt Mimi's house and John would be at the typewriter, which was fairly unusual in Liverpool. None of my mates even knew what a typewriter was. Well they knew what it was but they didn't hae one. Nobody had one.

  Paul McCartney

  Aunt, Typewriters, House

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• One of the main things that's appealing about games is that you know a game can be won. It's an unusual game that's impossible to win.

  Jesse Schell

  Winning, Games, Impossible

  "Why games will take over our lives". Interview with John D. Sutter, www.cnn.com. April 5, 2010.

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