A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“A fad or heresy is the exaltation of something which even if true, is secondary or temporary in its nature against those things which are essential and eternal, those things which always prove themselves true in the long run. In short, it is the setting up of the mood against the mind.”
“A faerie crouched beside me. It was very small, its frame skeletal with a face full of teeth and two sharp black stones for eyes tucked beneath a ravenskin that it seemed to wear as a sort of cloak, but the skin had been poorly cleaned and the eyes were absent. It had all the substance of cobwebs and was both there and not there; viewed from certain angles, it was merely the shadow of a stone, and from others, a live raven. It was digging around in my pockets with fingernails the length again of its spindly arms and sharp enough to slit my throat without my noticing the injury immediately.”
Source: Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
“A faerie heart is different from a human heart. Human hearts are elastic. They have room for all sorts of passions, and they can break and heal and love again and again. Faerie hearts are evolutionarily less sophisticated. They are small and hard, like tiny grains of sand. Our hearts are too small to love more than one person in a lifetime.”
“A faery’s home, usually shared with others, was often called a haunt, though grander ones might be called a court. There were other fae whose homes were fortresses, caves, dens, or lairs.
You didn’t want to go home with anyone who lived in a lair.”
Source: Lava Red Feather Blue
“A Faery Song
Sung by the people of Faery over Diarmuid and Grania, in their bridal sleep under a Cromlech.
We who are old, old and gay,
O so old!
Thousands of years, thousands of years,
If all were told:
Give to these children, new from the world,
Silence and love;
And the long dew-dropping hours of the night,
And the stars above:
Give to these children, new from the world,
Rest far from men.
Is anything better, anything better?
Tell us it then:
Us who are old, old and gay,
O so old!
Thousands of years, thousands of years,
If all were told.”
Source: The Rose
“A failed country is caused by a failed state.
A failed state is caused by lawlessness.
Lawless is caused by government officials , accepting bribes to not to do their job.”
“A failed experiment can be more important than a trivial design”
“A failed Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will provide safe haven for terrorists and extremists. It will embolden those who are trying to thwart the ambitions of reformers.”
“A failed Iraq would make America less secure.”
“A failed marriage is the most humiliating confirmation of the transitory seduction of the flesh. Lovers can explore every line, every curve and hollow, of the beloved's body, can together reach the height of inexpressible ecstasy; yet how little it matters when love or lust at last dies and we are left with disputed possessions, lawyers' bills, the sad detritus of the lumber-room, when the house chose, furnished, possessed with enthusiasm and hope has become a prison, when faces are set in lines of peevish resentment and bodies no longer desired are observed in all their imperfections with a dispassionate and disenchanted eye.”
“A failed personal experience is just fear and anxiety.”
“A failing grade does not denounce a child to fail in life. An IQ is what I would call an 'inadequate question', it may state our brain capacity or tell us how smart we are, but it does not predict our future. Happy Character Traits and positive Reinforcements will help a child succeed better than a number that means nothing”
“A failing state cannot stop a revolution whose time has come.”
“A failure becomes just one time at bat if you refuse to let it defeat you.”
“A failure doesn't mean you are unworthy, nor does it preclude success on the next try.”
“A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough.”
“A failure failure is the one who the enemy hacked his Twitter account so that he can keep quite.”
“A Failure in this Duty did once involve our Nation in all the Horrors of Rebellion and Civil War.”
“A failure is a Christian who also say the true.”
“A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in the experience.”
Source: The Philosophy of Elbert Hubbard
“A failure is always in the passenger seat in his or her life.”
Source: Boost Your Self Esteem
“A failure is like fertilizer; it stinks to be sure, but it makes things grow faster in the future.”
“A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.”
“A failure is not always your mistake, it may be mistakes of others. Some people cross your path and ruin all your work.”
“A failure is not one who has attempted and failed but one who has failed to attempt for fear of failing.”
“A failure isn't a failure if it prepares you for success tomorrow.”
“A failure often does not have to be a failure at all. However, you have to be ready for it-will you admit when things go wrong? Will you take steps to set them right?-because the difference between triumph and defeat, you'll find, isn't about willingness to take risks. It's about mastery of rescue.”
“A failure remains a failure only if we refuse to learn from it. Any situation that teaches us greater humility, sobriety, wisdom about self and others, responsibility, forgiveness, depth of reflection, and better decision making -\-\teaching us what's truly important-\-\is not an ultimate failure. Sometimes what we deem a failure at the time it happens actually serves to foster a change within us that creates an even greater success down the road.”
“A failure supplies knowledge that informs pivots, better directions, and perhaps more fitting approaches.”
Source: Endeavor: Cultivate Excellence While Making a Difference
“A failure teaches you that something can't be done-that way.”
“A failure to learn about Satan's plan for man here on earth would be fatal to the full exercise of free agency. The reason for this lies in the fact that . . . free agency is the opportunity to choose between good and evil. To intelligently make such a choice one must understand the alternatives-both of them. To the extent one is ignorant of these alternatives, to that same extent he has not made a complete choice. Until a person understands Satan's plan, he can never be certain he does not believe in it and is not helping to carry it out.”
“A failure to understand risk factors results in the inability to cultivate resilience.”
“A failure to understand something does not mean it is irrational. It may simply mean that it lies on the far side of our limited abilities to take things in and make complete sense of them.”
Source: The Living God: A Guide for Study and Devotion
“A failure will not appear until a unit has passed final inspection.”
Source: The complete Murphy's law: a definitive collection
“A faint blush melting through the light of thy transparent cheek like a rose-leaf bathed in dew.”
“A faint cry; I can't figure out if it's mine or if it's echoing the other half of my broken heart—the one beating in his chest.”
Source: We Are Everyone
“A faint glow streamed from behind the buildings into the sky, the reflection of thousands of unknown lights, the electric breath of the city.
She wanted to rest. To rest, she thought, and to find enjoyment some-where.
Her work was all she had or wanted. But there were times, like to-night, when she felt that sudden, peculiar emptiness, which was not emptiness, but silence, not despair, but immobility, as if nothing within her were destroyed, but everything stood still. Then she felt the wish to find a moment's joy outside, the wish to be held as a passive spectator by some work or sight of greatness. Not to make it, she thought, but to ac-cept; not to begin, but to respond; not to create, but to admire. I need it to let me go on, she thought, because joy is one's fuel.”
Source: Atlas Shrugged
“A faint, high pitched scream came from Etienne's pocket, accompanied by a drumbeat. "There are squirrels in my pants!" a girl cried as Phineas and Ferb's "Squirrels in My Pants"song began blaring from his phone.
Every immortal in the room turned to look at him.
Etienne scowled at his brother.
Laughing, Richart closed his cell phone and put it away. "I didn't change it. I just wanted to know what it was."
"Asshole.”
Source: Darkness Rises
“A faint light burned in the pit revealing a furry creature hunched over a stone slab, fiddling with something. At first Gregor raised a warning hand. He thought it was a rat. Then the creature lifted his head and Gregor recognized what was left of his dad.”
Source: Gregor the Overlander Collection:
“A Faint Music by Robert Hass
Maybe you need to write a poem about grace.
When everything broken is broken,
and everything dead is dead,
and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt,
and the heroine has studied her face and its defects
remorselessly, and the pain they thought might,
as a token of their earnestness, release them from themselves
has lost its novelty and not released them,
and they have begun to think, kindly and distantly,
watching the others go about their days—
likes and dislikes, reasons, habits, fears—
that self-love is the one weedy stalk
of every human blossoming, and understood,
therefore, why they had been, all their lives,
in such a fury to defend it, and that no one—
except some almost inconceivable saint in his pool
of poverty and silence—can escape this violent, automatic
life’s companion ever, maybe then, ordinary light,
faint music under things, a hovering like grace appears.
As in the story a friend told once about the time
he tried to kill himself. His girl had left him.
Bees in the heart, then scorpions, maggots, and then ash.
He climbed onto the jumping girder of the bridge,
the bay side, a blue, lucid afternoon.
And in the salt air he thought about the word “seafood,”
that there was something faintly ridiculous about it.
No one said “landfood.” He thought it was degrading to the rainbow perch
he’d reeled in gleaming from the cliffs, the black rockbass,
scales like polished carbon, in beds of kelp
along the coast—and he realized that the reason for the word
was crabs, or mussels, clams. Otherwise
the restaurants could just put “fish” up on their signs,
and when he woke—he’d slept for hours, curled up
on the girder like a child—the sun was going down
and he felt a little better, and afraid. He put on the jacket
he’d used for a pillow, climbed over the railing
carefully, and drove home to an empty house.
There was a pair of her lemon yellow panties
hanging on a doorknob. He studied them. Much-washed.
A faint russet in the crotch that made him sick
with rage and grief. He knew more or less
where she was. A flat somewhere on Russian Hill.
They’d have just finished making love. She’d have tears
in her eyes and touch his jawbone gratefully. “God,”
she’d say, “you are so good for me.” Winking lights,
a foggy view downhill toward the harbor and the bay.
“You’re sad,” he’d say. “Yes.” “Thinking about Nick?”
“Yes,” she’d say and cry. “I tried so hard,” sobbing now,
“I really tried so hard.” And then he’d hold her for a while—
Guatemalan weavings from his fieldwork on the wall—
and then they’d fuck again, and she would cry some more,
and go to sleep.
And he, he would play that scene
once only, once and a half, and tell himself
that he was going to carry it for a very long time
and that there was nothing he could do
but carry it. He went out onto the porch, and listened
to the forest in the summer dark, madrone bark
cracking and curling as the cold came up.
It’s not the story though, not the friend
leaning toward you, saying “And then I realized—,”
which is the part of stories one never quite believes.
I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain
it must sometimes make a kind of singing.
And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps—
First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing”
Source: Sun under Wood
“A faint sheen of perspiration made Simone's face glow, and every part of him felt warm and alive. I want you, he thought. God, I want you. He used his free hand to cup the side of her face. Her skin was so soft...so dewy and creamy and perfect. He wanted to touch every inch of her. He wanted to lick the salt sheen from her breasts and her belly and her legs. He wanted to taste the deep places.”
Source: Nothing Like Love
“A faint singing seemed to issue from the walls... yes, it was as though the walls themselves were singing!... The song became plainer... the words were now distinguishable... he heard a voice, a very beautiful, very soft, very captivating voice... but, for all its softness, it remained a male voice... The voice came nearer and nearer... it came through the wall... it approached... and now the voice was in the room, in front of Christine. Christine rose and addressed the voice, as though speaking to some one:
"Here I am, Erik," she said. "I am ready. But you are late."
Raoul, peeping from behind the curtain, could not believe his eyes, which showed him nothing. Christine's face lit up. A smile of happiness appeared upon her bloodless lips, a smile like that of sick people when they receive the first hope of recovery.
The voice without a body went on singing; and certainly Raoul had never in his life heard anything more absolutely and heroically sweet, more gloriously insidious, more delicate, more powerful, in short, irresistibly triumphant. He listened to it in a fever and he now began to understand how Christine Daaé was able to appear one evening, before the stupefied audience, with accents of a beauty hitherto unknown, of a superhuman exaltation, while doubtless still under the influence of the mysterious and invisible master.
The voice was singing the Wedding-night Song from Romeo and Juliet. Raoul saw Christine stretch out her arms to the voice as she had done, in Perros church-yard, to the invisible violin playing The Resurrection of Lazarus and nothing could describe the passion with which the voice sang:
"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"
The strains went through Raoul's heart.”
Source: Phantom of the Opera
“A faint smell of lilac filled the air. There was always lilac in this part of town. Where there were grandmothers, there was always lilac.”
“A faint smile flickered across his lips, then fell as he thought. ' I don't think I've ever loved the world like you do. I remember being afraid of it. And then angry with it. And then just — deciding not to feel too strongly about it.”
Source: Beach Read
“A faint smile played on his lips. "Obedience does not come naturally to you, does it"
"No...sir"
"I must take some blame for that, I suppose. The sea does not like to be restrained.”
Source: The lightning thief
“A faint smile showed on his face. ‘The Giant! You and Groen have your little joke all to yourselves, I fancy. Everyone takes it for granted the Giant is the Moloch of Machinery—They don’t see that the real Giant is that pigmy figure—man. The individualist who endures through Stone and Iron and who though civilizations crumble and die, fights his way through yet another Glacial Age to rise in a new civilization of which we do not dream . . .’ His smile broadened. ‘As I grow older I am more and more convinced that there is nothing so pathetic, so ridiculous, so absurd, and so absolutely wonderful as Man—”
Source: Giant's Bread
“A faint smile that made every tiny hair on her body rise in quivering attention. "How fast can you run?" A wolf's question.”
Source: Kiss of Snow
“A faint smile touched his lips. “How militant you’re being. What if I don’t choose to stay? Will I be chained to your wrist like a diplomat’s briefcase?”
“If necessary.” She blinked back tears of anger and exhaustion. “I’ll do anything I can to keep you here. It’s stupid of you to even think of leaving me when you love me. And you do love me. Why don’t you admit it?”
“I love you,” he said obediently.
“You’re so damned frightened that I’m going to be hurt—” She stopped and tried to steady her voice. “Well, if you don’t stay with me, I’ll get Penny and Mac to give me the most dangerous assignments they can dredge up. Beirut, investigative reporting, drug running.”
The smile disappeared from Jordan’s face. “The hell you will.”
Source: Man From Half Moon Bay
“A faint terror lest she begin to curtsy took hold of Rupert.”
Source: A Countess Below Stairs
“A faint tickling on the back of his right hand caused Eragon to look down. A huge, wingless cricket clung to his glove. The insect was hideous: black and bulbous, with barbed legs and a massive skull-like head. Its carapace gleamed like oil.”
Source: Inheritance