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A Quotes

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All A Quotes

“As a young rookie NFL player, you go to the rookie symposium and the one thing they tell you is, "You guys know what the NFL stands for?" Everybody looks around like, "National Football League...?" The guy's like, "Nope - Not For Long." They tell you right there to get prepared for your second life. You take that in, and I've always been one to prepare early, to see ahead and anticipate and believe in great things happening, and they do. I'd already known that concept and appreciated that concept, but for me, I was always going to be here for a while. I just believed in that.”

“As a young woman working in journalism, I assumed harassment and discrimination came with the territory and that you just had to get on with the job. As I rose to senior positions, it took me awhile to realise that just because I'd survived relatively unscathed didn't mean the younger women joining the profession would do so, and it isn't until you hit a certain age that the reality of ageism - which is much more acute for women - kicks in.”

“As a young woman, Ama Ata Aidoo the freedom fighter vowed never to write love stories. Let’s delight in the fact that over the years she has changed her mind about the value of writing about love, as her rich edited collection of highly original and diverse ‘African Love Stories’ demonstrates. She has traveled her path and had the courage to grow and change while retaining her deep commitment to Pan- Africanism. Love flourishes, after all is said and done.”

“As a young woman, I dreamed of changing the world. In my twenties, I went to Africa to try and save the continent, only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving. Indeed, when I was there, I saw some of the worst that good intentions, traditional charity, and aid can produce.”

“As a young writer, I was on guard against the Latina in me, the Spanish in me because as far as I could see the models that were presented to me did not include my world. In fact, 'I was told by one teacher in college that one could only write poetry in the language in which one first said Mother. That left me out of American literature, for sure.”

“As a younger man, I burned with enthusiasm for my work: I was to be a warrior, the champion of reviled or exiled passions. I would assail the forces marshaled to enslave these passions, the tyrannies imposed in the name of factitious moralities, the sadistic compulsions disguised as highest law. I would be, in my silent, expensive way, the apostle of a thrilling freedom. When did it abandon me, that faith? How often have I heard it repeated, nearly verbatim, that commonplace of every educated, sophisticated patient: I don’t believe in judgment, in divine judgment; I don’t believe that someone is sitting up in the sky frowning down at me. In the past I would have thought: Yes, you do— and that is your problem. In the fullness of time I would assist them in shaking free of this secret conviction. Now, though, my calling has deserted me. The premise wasn’t wrong: most patients suffer more than they know from obscure inner persecutions. What I did not realize, however, was how deeply I myself believed in such a judgment, how along with my patients I embraced with inalienable fidelity that very conviction. This conviction did not presume a personified judge— bearded, severe, enthroned. It presumed instead a law, inhuman, abstract, and implacable, the law to which we owed our lives, the law to which we owed our reckoning. Failure, worth, crisis, potential, fulfillment. Every patient returns to these words again and again. They are the words from which my profession is made, and each of these words presumes a judgment, a mark attained or missed. No one enters my office who does not believe in his very marrow that judgment, some judgment, is absolute and fixed. The person I am meant to be: that mythical creature, that being whom each patient longs and dreads to become, is itself a judgment, a standard one does not devise but to which one must account. What or who set the standard? What or who measured the body for its soul? What or who meant them to be the people they were meant to be? I am certain: belief in judgment is not what my patients reject or grow out of. The belief in judgment is what they cling to. Beneath their affections and afflictions, judgment is their one true love.”

“As a younger person, my philosophy was jump off a cliff. I realize now that there are stairs and elevators. I am learning every day to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me. I can even ask for help! Not feeling that I have to know everything, and that’s where the growth comes in, in the not knowing.”

“As a youngster, I read of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. As a student, I wrote English reports on science fiction. And as a fighter pilot, I observed the selection of the Mercury astronauts. All this was fascinating, but I really didn't think I would ever be a part of it. It was only when my good friend Ed White was selected as a Gemini astronaut that I decided to join NASA as part of the Apollo program.”

“As a youth, I hated myself for not being good enough. All my inadequacies and failures, not being kind enough, generous or understanding enough, would assail me at night. It became a habit to be guilty and self castigating, not liking myself because I was unworthy... I really tortured myself.”

“As Abby began to trust Justine more, the lack of trust she had for her husband became more apparent and uncomfortable for her. As she attempted to discuss these concerns with her husband his abuse of her worsened. At the same time, her trust in her cousin was strengthening. When Abby decided to leave her husband, seeing little chance for change in their relationship, Justine was the first person she called for help.”