A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“And what do I mean by the word 'perfection'? That I shall not try to explain but only say, 'Perfection makes me laugh.' Not cynically, I hasten to add, 'With joy.”
Source: At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches
“And what do I think about? What thoughts do I have! - What thoughts! a whole host, multitude, and world of thoughts, I keep devising new ones and reworking old ones, some of the old ones are concluded and are only thought of as conclusions, whole worlds of new ones come crashing into my fingers, and it never ends.”
Source: Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947-1954
“And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?”
Source: SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE
“And what do the poets have to say about it?
— They only lie!”
Source: The Poetry of Jaroslav Seifert
“And what do the Theban hoplites see in this extended rending of the sky, this white-bright glory of Enlil's lightning? The future, but not theirs: paired cavalry fighters; formed ranks of armored death; grim men on their tall horses with lightning limning weapons tailored to the task; men spoiling for a fight if the gods allowed - the Sacred Band of Stepsons, out from shadows and the dark.”
Source: The Sacred Band
“And what do we have here? A scary monster, cowboy, and a fairy princess! Here's a hit of ecstasy, run along now.”
“And what do you know of love?” He was so close—had neared without her realizing it.
“I think love should make you happy. It should make you into the best possible version of yourself.”
Source: The Assassin and the Empire
“And what do you like to do, little man?" "I like-books," James had said. While standing in the bookshop, with a parcel of books under his arm. The lady had given him a pitying look. "I read-erm-rather a lot," James went on, dreary master of the obvious. King of the obvious. Emperor of the obvious.”
Source: Nothing but Shadows
“And what do you really do? asked Tiffany. The thin witch hesitatied for a moment, and then: We look to ... the edges, said Mistress Weatherwax. There's a lot of edges, more than people know. Between life and death, this world and the next, night and day, right and wrong ... an' they need watchin'. We watch 'em, we guard the sum of things. And we never ask for any reward. That's important.”
“And what do you say of lovers of wine... they are glad of any pretext of drinking any wine”
Source: The Plato Collection [47 Books]
“And what do you think the prerequisite for kindness is? Have you ever tried to be kind to someone better off than you?”
Source: What Strange Paradise
“And what do you think will happen to you when you find life is just too good to be left alone? You'll start living it.”
“And what do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, feeling a large hollowness growing inside him.
“You know quite well, don’t you?” replied the crow, hopping up onto the bar with a neat flap of his wings. The bird cocked his head and looked him in the eye. “Don’t tell me an Irishman like you, born and bred in the old country, has forgotten the tale of Cú Chulainn?”
“’Tisn’t the sort of thing you can forget,” he told the crow. “Especially that statue in the Dublin General Post Office. A handsome piece of work that is, illustrating how Cú Chulainn knew death was near and tied himself to a post so he could die standing upright, like the hero he was.”
“Cú Chulainn was a hero indeed,” admitted the crow. “And his enemies couldn’t kill him until the Morrighan lit on his shoulder, stealing his strength, weakening him…”
“Right you are. The Morrighan,” he said. The very thought of that fearsome warrior goddess, with her crimson cloak and chariot, set his heart to pounding in his bony old chest.
“And what form did the Morrighan take, might I ask?” inquired the bird.
“A crow,” he said, feeling a great trembling overtake him. “So is that it? Are you the Morrighan come for me?”
“What do you think Daniel Malone?”
Source: St. Patrick's Day Murder
“And what do you want?”
I almost choked. “How could you even ask me that, Henry?”
He sighed. “Because I’m thousands of miles away. Because I Skyped into your living room late one night and there’s a dude sitting next to you in the dark. Because Thanet tells me things. And Tennyson sent me a picture of you in a dress that looks like lingerie.”
“It’s not that bad,” I said.
“I didn’t say it was bad, Meg. It’s about a million miles from bad.” His voice was breaking with exasperation. “Things are crazy here, and I’m questioning everything.”
Source: Perfect Glass
“And what do you want right now?" Right now I itch to heal his wounds and forget my own. He touches my cheek with the tips of his fingers. My breath hitches. "Do you want to kiss me, Alex?" I whisper. "Dios mio, I want to kiss you ... to taste your lips, your tongue." He gently traces my lips withthe tips of his fingers. "Do you want me to kiss you? Nobody else would know but the two of us.”
“And what do you wish?' he said at last. 'That what should be shall be,' she answered.”
Source: The Lord of the Rings: One Volume
“And what doe they tell us vainly of new opinions, when this very opinion of theirs, that none must be heard but whom they like, is the worst and newest opinion of all others, and is the chief cause why sects and schisms doe so much abound and true knowledge is kept at distance from us ; besides yet a greater danger which is in it.”
Source: Areopagitica
“And what does a person with such romantic temperament seek in the study of the classics?
"If by romantic you mean solitary and introspective, I think romantics are frequently the best classicists.”
“And what does anyone know about traitors, or why Judas did what he did?”
Source: Wide Sargasso Sea
“And what does every child believe every adult capable of doing? Of actually being able to bend the world to an inner desire, exactly what the child is busily practicing in his passionate play.”
Source: Magical child: rediscovering nature's plan for our children
“And what does helping someone really mean? Helping them to be like everyone else, or helping them to be themselves?”
Source: Annie on My Mind
“And what does it amount to?" said Satan, with his evil chuckle. "Nothing at all. You gain nothing; you always come out where you went in. For a million years the race has gone on monotonously propagating itself and monotonously reperforming this dull nonsense--to what end? No wisdom can guess! Who gets a profit out of it? Nobody but a parcel of usurping little monarchs and nobilities who despise you; would feel defiled if you touched them; would shut the door in your face if you proposed to call; whom you slave for, fight for, die for, and are not ashamed of it, but proud; whose existence is a perpetual insult to you and you are afraid to resent it; who are mendicants supported by your alms, yet assume toward you the airs of benefactor toward beggar; who address you in the language of master to slave, and are answered in the language of slave to master; who are worshiped by you with your mouth, while in your heart--if you have one--you despise yourselves for it. The first man was a hypocrite and a coward, qualities which have not yet failed in his line; it is the foundation upon which all civilizations have been built.”
Source: The Mysterious Stranger
“And what does it matter when light enters the room where a child sleeps and the waking mother, opening her eyes, wishes more than anything to be unwakened by what she cannot name?”
Source: Collected Poems
“And what does it matter whether God speaks to us from amongst the thorns or the flowers?”
“And what does it mean -- dying? Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and only the five we know are lost at death, while the other ninety-five remain alive.”
Source: The plays of Anton Chekov: nine plays including The seagull ... and others
“And what does really matter? That is easy: thinking and doing, doing and thinking--and these are the sum of all wisdom. . . . Both must move ever onward in life, to and fro, like breathing in and breathing out.”
Source: Goethe's world view: presented in his reflections and maxims
“And what does reward virtue? You think the communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you'll pardon me, American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout?”
“And what does the rain say at night in a small town, what does the rain have to say? Who walks beneath dripping melancholy branches listening to the rain? Who is there in the rain’s million-needled blurring splash, listening to the grave music of the rain at night, September rain, September rain, so dark and soft? Who is there listening to steady level roaring rain all around, brooding and listening and waiting, in the rain-washed, rain-twinkled dark of night?”
Source: The Town and the City
“And what else could I do with my life but try to write? I was raised by books, Jolyon, a pack of writers weaned me, like Mowgli brought up by his wolves.”
Source: Black Chalk
“And what else could we have come here for, except to sense these tiny victories? Not the big victories that crush and kill the victor. Not the wars and civil ructions, but the saving grace of a Hollandaise sauce that has escaped all the possibilities of culinary disaster and is being spread like a yellow prayer on a plump cod steak - victoriously.”
Source: On Canaan's Side
“And what else is music but a space for us to live in, for a while.”
Source: Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons
“And what else is one to do when presented so unexpectedly with such stupefying intrigue but continue turning the pages back in time, a time when a wave of excess carried the American aristocracy and titled Europeans to grand ships and grander estates for extravagant parties never before seen and never seen thereafter. They stumbled onto the laps of married lovers, champagne spilling onto polished marble floors, betrayal and indecency dressed up in custom-made suits and an air of refinement honed since birth. This was the Jazz Age. The Crazy Years. Les Années Folles, as she often said.”
Source: Lady Be Good: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale
“And what else is she?" Jerome asked. Jazza didn't offer any reply so I chimed in with, "A bitchweasel?" "A bitchweasel!" Jazza's face lit up. "She's a bitchweasel! I love my new roommate.”
Source: The Name of the Star
“And what else would he get into? Kavinsky's dead so--Jesus Chrirst, listen to me. Jesus Christ." The cave walls crumbled yet more; the ritual before had been imperfect. Gansey sat back against the wall and closed his eyes. Adam watched him swallow. Again he heard Gansey's voice in the cave. "It's okay," Adam said. He did not care that Joseph Kavinsky was dead, but he liked that Gansey did. "I know what you meant.”
Source: Blue Lily, Lily Blue
“And what, exactly, does this Band of Exiles plan to do? Host events? Organise party-planning committees?'
Lucien's metal eye clicked faintly and narrowed. 'You can be as much of an asshole as that mate of yours, you know that?'
True. I sighed again. 'I'm sorry. I just-'
'I don't have anywhere else to go.' Before I could object, he said. 'You ruined any chance I have of going back to Spring. Not to Tamlin, but to the court beyond his house. Everyone either still believes the lies you spun or they believe me complicit in your deceit. And as for here...' He shook off my grip and headed for the door. 'I can't stand to be in the same room as her for more than two minutes. I can't stand to be in this court and have your mate pay for the very clothes on my back.”
Source: A Court of Frost and Starlight
“And what exactly is a dream and what exactly is a joke?”
“And what exactly is a frog hair, Ms. Monroe?”
Source: Revealed Truth: A Journey From Fear to Faith
“And what exactly is nature walking? It's any and every kind of walking you can do in the natural world. The activity encompasses strolling, striding, sauntering, stepping, treading, tramping, traipsing, traversing, rambling, roving, roaming, racewalking, hiking, meandering, wandering, wending, pacing, peregrinating, perambulating ... in natural surroundings.”
“And what exotic part of the world do you come from?”
“and what fantasy can there possibly be in misery? You sense that it will at length grow weary, that it is exhausting itself in constant tension, this inexhaustible fantasy, because after all one matures, outgrows one's former ideals; they are shattered into dust and fragments; and if you have no other life, it behoves you to construct one from those same fragments.”
Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“And what fate befalls mutineers?”
“And what fun is it being a genius if no one appreciates you?”
Source: The Black Prism: Book 1 of Lightbringer
“And what gift of America to the rest of the world is actually most appreciated by the rest of the world? It is African American jazz and its offshoots. What is my definition of jazz? Safe sex of the highest order.”
Source: Armageddon in Retrospect
“And what god do you serve, then?”
“Whichever will grant me good fortune.”
“I don’t think gods work that way.”
“I don’t think I care.”
Source: Six of Crows
“And what goes around comes around just like the blades on the chainsaw”
“And what good is a voice when so few will listen?”
Source: Of Beast and Beauty
“And what good is it to me that you're here now? Where where you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you, how dare you come to me now, when I am this?”
Source: The Last Unicorn
“And what greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship.”
Source: The Portable Emerson: New Edition
“And what greater delight and wonder can there be than to leave the straight lines of personality and deviate into those footpaths that lead beneath brambles and thick tree trunks into the heart of the forest where live those wild beasts, our fellow men?”
Source: Street Haunting
“And what greater might do we possess as human beings than our capacity to question and to learn?”