A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“As I ramble through life, whatever be my goal, I will unfortunately always keep my eye upon the doughnut and not upon the whole.”
“As I ran for president, I hoped that one child would come out of the ghetto like I did, could look at me walk across the stage with governors and senators and know they didn't have to be a drug dealer, they didn't have to be a hoodlum, they didn't have to be a gangster. They could stand up from a broken home, on welfare, and they could run for president of the United States.”
“As I reached the door, the constable said, “Good luck in Canada, son.” For a second I expected his voice to morph into Uncle Sid’s as he urged me to give his love to Rose Marie and the Mounties.”
Source: The Erkeley Shadows
“As I read and reread all the non-Christian or anti-Christian accounts of the faith, from Huxley..., a slow and awful impression gradually and graphically grew upon my mind - the impression that Christianity must be an extraordinary thing. It was attacked on all sides and for all contradictory reasons.”
“As I read deeper in the Zen poets, I soon stumbled upon Ikkyū, the fifteenth-century sword-wielding monk of Daitokuji, who had entered a temple at the age of six and gone on to express his contempt for the corrupt monasteries of his time in famously controversial poems. Like the Sixth Dalai Lama, in his way, Ikkyū had been a patron - and a laureate - of the local taverns, and of the pretty girls he had found therein; and like his Tibetan counterpart, or John Donne in our own tradition, he had deliberately conflated the terms of earthly love with those of devotion to the Absolute. The very name he gave himself, "Crazy Cloud", had played subversively on the fact that "cloud water" was a traditional term for monks, who wandered without trace, yet "cloud rain" was a conventional idiom for the act of love. His image of the "red thread" ran through the austere surroundings of his poems as shockingly as the scarlet peonies of Akiko. And in his refusal to kowtow to convention, the maverick monk had turned every certainty on its head: whores, he said, could be like ideal monks - since they inhabited the ideal Zen state of "no min" - while monks, in selling themselves for gold brocade, were scarcely different from whores. Many of his verses trembled with this ambiguity. One couplet, taken one way, was translated as "Making distinctions between good and evil, the monk's skill lies in knowing the essential condition of the Buddha and the Devil"; taken another way, it meant: "That girl is no good, this one will do; the monk's skill is in having the appetite of a devilish Buddha.”
Source: The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto
“As I read Mann in German for the first time, the full achievement - both literary and philosophical - of Death in Venice struck me forcefully, so that, when I was invited to give the Schoff Lectures at Columbia, the opportunity to reflect on the contrasts between novella and opera seemed irresistible.”
“As I read the Bible, it seems clear that God satisfies his "eternal appetite" by loving individual human beings. I imagine He views each halting step forward in my spiritual "walk" with the eagerness of a parent watching a child take the very first step.”
Source: Grace Notes
“As I read the messages, I stop breathing. I feel the trees crowding in through the windows. They whisper and press against my face, pushing branches into my mouth, and it’s suddenly too quiet in here. Too unbearably quiet, aside from the thud of blood in my temples.”
Source: Heads Will Roll
“As I read the Qur'an and prayed the Islamic prayers, a door to my heart was unsealed and I was immersed in an overwhelming tenderness.”
Source: Even Angels Ask: A Journey to Islam in America
“As I read you I fell in love with the holes between your words and I loved you most on the days you could not love yourself.”
“As I read, my suspicion that Jesus might really be the Messiah was confirmed.”
“As I readied these luxuriant ablutions, my dearest Katherine said, 'Webster, my darling, the pints of love essence you erupt at the peak of oral passion taste more intoxicating than even the richest European chocolate.' My beloved belched demurely into her fist, swallowed and said, 'All women should taste your delicious emissions.”
Source: Tell-All
“As I recall,” he said as his fingertip skimmed the tops of her breasts, “I enjoy the sounds a woman makes when I pleasure her.”
“Ye’d not enjoy these sounds.” She slapped his hand away. “And if ye take me, there’d be no pleasure.”
“As a maid, ye canna know that,” he said, lifting one of the long locks of her chestnut hair to his lips and inhaling her scent. “And I dinna think ye’ll scream, not in the way ye mean, in any case.”
“Ye’d have to tie me up and force yourself on me, because I’d fight ye, tooth and claw,” she said with assurance.
“Now there’s a thought,” he said. “I’ve heard some lassies enjoy being tied up.”
He could picture her in his mind, bound tight, her breasts bared, her legs splayed with her soft core wet and ready. She’d be helpless before him. He’d make her beg for release. He stood and walked to his horse to retrieve a length of rope.
“Shall we give it a try?”
“No!” she said, scrabbling away. “Please, no.”
“Dinna fret, Elspeth. I’ll no’ force ye,” he crooned softly, as if she were a frightened mare.”
Source: Sins of the Highlander
“As I recall, St. Paul stood by and held the coats of the men who were stoning him (Stephen). Apparently he wasn't a believer at the time. In fact, I think he was regarded as the most terrible enemy of the Church. And yet he later repented, didn't he? So I suggest you think of me, not as the enemy of God, but as an apostle who has not yet been stopped on the road to Damascus”
Source: Speaker for the Dead
“As I recall, I was still dressed when I fell asleep." "Just making sure you were comfortable." "And making yourself equally comfortable, I see.”
Source: Werewolves: Book One: Bitten, Stolen and Beginnings
“As I recall, my life as a child was so all-consuming that I barely had time to consider the future.”
“As I recall, this word's use means somewhere there is a tree that is now a - a two-legger. -Numair Salmalin”
“As I recall, you promised to CALL when you finished the book, not text.”
Source: The Fault in Our Stars
“As I recognized the beauty of the earth, I knew that my Heavenly Father loved me.”
“As I reflect back on what's worked for me in this [presidential] office it's been that I've gotten people who maybe didn't believe in the process to get engaged. Ironically, I've even gotten the other side that maybe didn't believe in the process to get engaged.”
“As I reflect on all my friends and colleagues in my life on this special occasion... Mother is only half the word that immediately comes to mind.”
“As I reflect on the caste system today, I realize that while laws may change, the deeper transformation must occur in the human mind. The sense of hierarchy, of being superior or inferior by birth, cannot be erased merely through legal frameworks. It must dissolve through education, compassion, and spiritual awakening.”
Source: Glimpses of My Worldview
“As I reflect on the results of election I will reflect on what we need to do in the future to take the party forward.”
“As I reflected in my bed
about this day's event,
of creatures small and great, you see,
a change I underwent.
I felt a part of something grand,
beyond what I can see.
I felt a part of everything,
and everything of me.”
Source: The Carpenter Bee
“As I regard physics and psychology as complementary types of examination, I am certain that there is an equally valid way that must lead the psychologist 'from behind' (namely, through investigating the archetypes) into the world of physics. As an example of background physics, I shall discuss a motif that occurs regularly in my dreams - namely, fine structure, in particular doublet structure of spectral lines and the separation of a chemical element into two isotopes.”
Source: Atom and Archetype: The Pauli/Jung Letters 1932-58
“As I rejected amnesty, so I reject revenge. I ask all Americans who ever asked for goodness and mercy in their lives, who ever sought forgiveness for their trespasses, to join in rehabilitating all the casualties of the tragic conflict of the past.”
“As I remember his laugh, there was nothing mad about it, it was more like the laugh of someone who has been the victim of a practical joke, a farce in which he had believed until suddenly he realized his folly.”
Source: The Forgotten Soldier
“As I remember it, the bases were loaded.”
“As I reread each book of the Bible, I fell in love all over again - not just with God's Word, but with God himself.”
“As I review my life, I feel I must have missed the point, either then or now.”
“As I review the great history of our nation, community organizers have been at the center of so many of our great social movements.”
“As I review the nature of the creative drive in the inventive scientists that have been around me, as well as in myself, I find the first event is an urge to make a significant intellectual contribution that can be tangible embodied in a product or process.”
“As I rise from my seat, my notes almost fly to the floor. I quickly clutch them to my body before I awkwardly enter the interview room in a fucked-up-question-mark posture, walking as though I’m ten shits behind.”
Source: Give It Back
“As I rode back to Detroit, a vision of Henry Ford's industrial empire kept passing before my eyes. In my ears, I heard the wonderful symphony which came from his factories where metals were shaped into tools for men's service. It was a new music, waiting for the composer with genius enough to give it communicable form.
I thought of the millions of different men by whose combined labor and thought automobiles were produced, from the miners who dug the iron ore out of the earth to the railroad men and teamsters who brought the finished machines to the consumer, so that man, space, and time might be conquered, and ever-expanding victories be won against death.”
Source: My Art, My Life
“As I rolled over, stretching out, my only thought was to go back to the dream I'd been having, which I couldn't remember, other than that it had been good, in that distant, hopeful way unreal things can be.”
Source: Lock and Key
“As I run, I wonder how many of these people helped buy my leg.
I wonder about the deep, wide abyss between good intentions and concrete action, and how many of them leapt across it.”
Source: The Running Dream
“As I rush and roar seeking to learn from he who taught me before my before.
I realize that he cancelled my never for forever to bring me closer to the door.
At his feet I speak, with my heart silenced by his magnificence , he allows me to peak at the marvelousness he created me to be. The embrace, the love, the laughter, the reception. Living in the world erased my memory of home, now there is no need for pockets; it's all shalom!”
“As I said a moment ago, there is no higher priority in our budget, or certainly in the budgets of the past few years, than providing for what is needed for the protection and security of our country and support of our troops.”
“As I said back in 1984, the idea of logistics is not only about oil, about ammunitions and supplies but also about images.”
“As I said before, [patriotism] is distinct from acting to benefit the government - a distinction that's increasingly lost today.”
“As I said before, I'm prepared to be prepared and I think that remains the same, you know there's no way to really know what it's going to feel like. I think for each individual it's different.”
“As I said before, stones to me is meant things that hurt people, things that cause pain and thats what this song is about.”
“As I said earlier, there are no writers who could create a literary vision of the new reality.”
“as i said her nostrils flared like a white lion, i blinked and she was gone. what one imagines. i dream moldy words. at times she yawned, as i said that, and her nostrils flared most beautifully.”
Source: Distant Visions, Again and Again
“As I said, I don’t expect you to understand—”
“And I don’t,” he cut in. “Ye ask how I can live a life that I know will end with the hangman’s noose. Well, at least I am alive. Ye might as well have climbed inside yer husband’s coffin and let yerself be buried with his corpse.”
Her hand flashed out before she’d thought about it, the smack against his cheek loud in the little courtyard.
Silence had her eyes locked with Michael’s, her chest rising and falling swiftly, but she was aware that Bert and Harry had looked up. Even Mary and Lad had paused in their play.
Without taking his gaze from hers, Michael reached out and grasped her hand. He raised her hand to his lips and softly kissed the center of her palm.
He looked at her, her hand still at his lips. “Don’t take to yer grave afore yer time, Silence, m’love.”
Source: Scandalous Desires
“As I said in my last book, birds are mean. They're the only pet that, when they escape, the owners are relieved. You can tell a species is evil by doing this simple math. If my blond lab Molly was the size of T-Rex, that would just mean more kibble, more work for the gardener in the backyard, and a harder time moving her to my wife's side of the bed at night. If birds were the size of a T-Rex, the streets would be littered with human remains.”
“As I said in my state of the state address, we can no longer rely on gaming and sales taxes to pay our way. Indian gaming next door in California is eroding our major industry in Nevada.”
“As I said in my State of the Union address ensuring the security of the United States and the safety of our people demands a smart, patient and disciplined approach to the world.”
“As I said in one of my songs, we're still abolishing slavery, but nobody says it's a good thing. Nobody justifies it.”
“As I said in the Times and will say again here, I do, however, believe that most members of our community - as well as the majority of heterosexuals - cannot and do not choose the gender of the persons with whom they seek to have intimate relationships because, unlike me, they are only attracted to one sex.”