A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“At first, I was scared to be alone. No routines. No rules. Just me. But I think..." Taylor wiped a tear away. "I think I was always in the jungle. Before. It was always there. I think I had to come out here to find the answer."
"And what did you find?"
"I love myself. They make it so hard for us to love ourselves." Taylor stared off into the dark. Her face gleamed with tears. Snot ran over her lips. "The judges won't like that answer."
"Nobody's judging you."
Taylor choked on a sob. "Always," she whispered.”
Source: Beauty Queens
“At first, I was tempted to try to annihilate the label “Confederation,” because that would mean that there would be no divisions between different groups of people, and I thought that would mean that the beliefs of us INSURGENT LIABILITIES would be sought for, but I reasoned that if I annihilated the label “Confederation,” that would mean that I would have annihilated all confederations, which would exacerbate the situation; if a population lived in a totalitarian environment or any environment that limits citizens’ freedom of speech, then that would mean that the people who were silenced for their opinions officially lost their last mode of communicating their opinions: communication among themselves.”
Source: The Reformation
“At first I was thinking of it as superheroes who happened to be teenagers. Then I realized, no, I'm writing about teenagers who happen to be superheroes. Thinking like that changed everything for me. I started approaching the stories through the characters' core emotions, rather than leading with the superpowers.”
“At first I was very anxious about starting Twitter, because I didn't really know what was expected of me. I now feel fairly relaxed, in that's it a way of telling people things that you are doing, without any attempt to be entertaining. To me, even funny people who are tweeting, it just gives a glib impression. You know that it's been constructed, that it's not a thing that's just happened in that moment. So whatever you read, the best you get is, "Eh."”
“At first I wasn't sure that I had the talent, but I did know I had a fear of failure, and that fear compelled me to fight off anything that might abet it.”
“At first I wasn’t all that tempted by him, but then he killed the spider. Which was a huge point in his favor.” “Absolutely. I love men who kill bugs.” “And then when I was freaking out and couldn’t breathe, he was so…gentle.” Zoe sighed and colored, remembering. “He was holding me, and talking to me in that voice…you know, sort of low and rough around the edges…” “All the Nolans sound like that,” Justine said reflectively. “Like they’ve got a mild case of bronchitis. Totally hot.”
“At first I wonder if they are brothers; now I remember to wonder if they are robbers or rapists or murderers who've hired suits and photocopied leaflets in a cunning ploy to insinuate themselves into the quiet bungalows of defenceless strangers on hills in middles-of-nowhere, and I realise it would be very stupid to invite them in so they can see for themselves there's no garda here.”
Source: A Line Made By Walking
“At first, it didn't sound like Carney. But then, Big Mike had tended his crop of grudges like a farmer, inspecting the rows, taking care they got enough water and fertilizer so that they grew big and healthy.”
Source: Harlem Shuffle
“At first, it felt like control.
Later, it felt like permission.”
Source: WOLF SUIT: A Dark Supernatural Noir — Book 1
“At first, it seemed to me that I faced an all-or-nothing choice: I could either take on a lot of risk in pursuit of high returns (and occasionally find myself ruined) or I could lower my risk and settle for lower returns. But I needed to have both low risk and high returns, and by setting out on a mission to discover how I could, I learned to go slowly when faced with the choice between two things that you need that are seemingly at odds. That way you can figure out how to have as much of both as possible. There is almost always a good path that you just haven’t discovered yet, so look for it until you find it rather than settle for the choice that is then apparent to you.”
Source: Principles: Life and Work
“At first it seems as if begoing follows becoming. But look even closer and you will see that there are only flashes of lightning illuminating the empty sky.”
“At first it seems obvious, but the more you think about it the stranger the deductions from this axiom seem to become; in the end you cease to understand what is meant by it.”
“At first it upset me to realize how many people are, at heart, selfish. Now I take that in stride, but people's loneliness still gets to me.”
Source: Just One Wish
“At first it was a bit strange and daunting to have to wear a mask, but afterwards I came to enjoy it. In warm conditions, though, it started to slip off my face. Other times they used this double-sided sticky tape, and I literally couldn't get it off my face. I would feel like I was ripping my face off and I had a lot of cuts and bruises because of it-huge red marks. People might think it was method acting.”
“At first it was difficult for me to draw. My right hand doesn't work anymore so I had to train myself to use my left hand. But I persevered. The first one I ended up finishing was the duck.”
“At first it was exhilarating but when I realized it wasn't going away, it became scary and claustrophobic. Fame is a weird thing.”
“At first it was impressive, but after half and hour deadly monotonous. It was like everything German - overdone.”
“At first it was just a misdemeanor, but then you lost the "mis-de" and you just got meaner and meaner.”
“At first it was my brother's songwriting and I was just doing what everyone told me.”
“At first it was scary because I was like, Fuck, I'm in this all alone, but then I was like, Well, who the fuck else is going to fix this for you? I'm not gonna tell you how to live your life, but no-one is going to save you but yourself, Willow.”
“At first it was simply liking, Nastenka, but now, now ! I am just in the same position as you were when you went to him with your bundle. In a worse position than you, Nastenka,because he cared for no one else as you do.”
Source: White Nights and Other Stories
“At first it was the incomes of corporations, then of rich citizens, then of well-provided widows and opulent workers, and finally the wealth of housemaids and the tips of waitresses. This is all in line with the ability to pay doctrine. The poor, simply because there are more of them, have more ability to pay than the rich.”
Source: Income Tax: Root of All Evil
“At first it's pretty cool: the limitless fruit of knowledge hanging low in your path. Then you realize it's the only thing to eat around here.”
Source: Gruesome Playground Injuries; Animals Out of Paper; Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo: Three Plays
“At first, like a lot of trauma survivors, I was impatient and wanted immediate results. Once I caught myself in this behavior, I realized that it takes consistent commitment to heal patterns. After three or four months, I noticed a huge positive shift within myself. I felt a new level of happiness and contentment that I hadn't even known existed. I finally understood how my old trauma patterns had attracted drama in my present life. once I saw this dynamic, I made a conscious decision to "Drama Detox," and the patterns faded away.”
“At first, many people infected with the zombie virus experienced similar symptoms to Ebola.”
Source: Shamblers: The Zombie Apocalypse
“At first, meditation reveals to you, and then reminds you … every second, that among the body, the mind, and the awareness you are the third.”
“At first my father's job was clearing ruins. He had filed a sharp protest, however, justifying his disability over ten pages of closely spaced handwriting, buttressed by statements from witnesses and discharge papers from clinics for nervous diseases. His arguments were irrefutable, particularly if we take into consideration--aside from the actual facts--his polemical tone and his brilliant style. 'I hereby state for the attention of the esteemed Commissarist,' he wrote in his appeal, 'in connection with Item A-2, in which I took the liberty of citing the causes of my total incapacity and proving--if in a very sensible fashion--my abnormality as well as my complete mental and physical worthlessness, the worthlessness of a neurotic and alcoholic incapable of taking care of his family or himself, I hereby state, therefore, with a view to the most specific information possible on this matter, although each and every one of the aforementioned matters is in itself a physical amputation, I am stating that I am also flat-footed, a certificate to which effect I am appending from the draft board at Zalaegerszeg, by which I am exempt from military service by virtue of 100 percent flat-footedness. . .”
Source: Garden, Ashes
“At first, Old Madam Cheng was not very optimistic about Cheng Yujin’s marriage. When two calm and rational people were put together, no one would take the initiative to show emotions to the other. It was better to put a charming and innocent woman next to the Crown Prince, who surely would please him more. After all, men didn’t like women who were too smart. Like Huo Changyuan and Cheng Yumo, one was a formidable man, and the other was an innocent woman who knew nothing of the world. The man was the absolute authority, and the woman was relying wholeheartedly on the man, which was doing good for their relationship.
But who would have thought that the final result would be quite different?
Facts proved that smart people could live well anywhere. Two smart people put together only ended up twice as good. The so-called excellent men did not like smart and capable wives was merely a self-comfort of stupid people.”
Source: Greetings Ninth Uncle 九叔万福
“At first, one only recognizes particular instances to be worth of critique; critique appears synonymous with rejection, implying deficiency in the object. Over time, one discovers that everything warrants critique. This can produce cynicism: nothing is above reproach, nothing is pure, therefore nothing has value. But followed through to its logical conclusion, this insight inspires a profound optimism: if everything can be critiqued, then no matter how bleak things are, there is always a way to improve them. Those who comprehend this can pass beyond the binary of approval and disapproval to identify the conflicting currents within any subject of inquiry. There are sides to take inside every position, as well as between them.”
Source: Contradictionary
“At first one, then another, then almost every member of the crowd touches the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to me. It is an old an rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means goodbye to someone you love.”
Source: The Hunger Games
“At first opposites attract. Then opposites attack.”
“At first people asked us, 'Can you do it?' And we kept silent because we didn't believe in ourselves, we didn't believe that we could do things. Today people no longer say to us, 'Can you?' They say, 'When can you?' Because the Indians finally believe in themselves, they believe they can do things.”
“At first people ate simply because they were alive and because food was tasty. Modern people have come to think that if they do not prepare food with elaborate seasonings, the meal will be tasteless. If you do not try to make food delicious, you will find that nature has made it so.”
Source: The One-Straw Revolution
“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”
Source: The Secret Garden
“At first people thought I was really arrogant and a snob about music because I'm so intense about my production and sound, and because they knew I didn't like new music so much.”
“AT first Raoden stayed away from the library, because it reminded him of her. Then he found himself drawn back to it—because it reminded him of her.”
Source: Three Fantasies - Tales from the Cosmere: Elantris, The Emperor's Soul, Warbreaker
“At first reading, these are stories about love and marriage and the conventional heterosexual happily-ever-after. Only at the second does a sneaky doubt perhaps creep in to suggest that maybe marriage is not the best thing that could ever happen to these women. It has been suggested that with these clever layers of meaning, Jane was perhaps even more subversive than we give her credit for. Yes, she was writing for the commercial market. But she was also writing for her female cronies, for Martha Lloyd, Cassandra and Miss Sharp. She glibly provided the happy endings that society expected, but in an off-hand, almost perfunctory fashion. You don’t have to believe in Jane’s happy endings if you don’t want to. I like to think that this is the band of spinsters’ last laugh.”
“At first she beckoned and lured one into her world; then, she blurred the passageways, confused all the images, as if to elude detection.”
“At first, she bucked like a wild stag beneath me, and she tried to scream, but the pillow did a good job of muffling her voice. Before long, the bucking stopped, and my wife’s corpse, blue without oxygen, appeared below me like a hideous phantom.”
Source: The Odd and The Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction
“At first she couldn't see the faces, because the lights were pointing towards her, and beyond that glare everything seemed like darkness. Except for a mesmerizing milky way of camera flashes and phone torches.
She could hear them, though.
Human beings when there's enough of them together acting in total unison become something else. The collective roar made her think of another kind of animal entirely. It was at first kind of threatening, as if she was Hercules facing the many-headed Hydra who wanted to kill him, but this was a roar of total support, and the power of it gave her a kind of strength.
She realised, in that moment, that she was capable of a lot more than she had known.”
Source: The Midnight Library
“At first she dreamed of sheep, of going to school, of cats drinking milk. Little by little she dreamed of blue sheep, of going to school in the middle of the woods, of cats drinking milk from golden saucers. And her dreams became increasingly dense and acquired colours that were difficult to dilute into words.”
“At first she felt overwhelmed by the house, its airy symmetry its silence. Now she was accustomed to the place, but she caught herself wondering, Is this still Berkeley? George's neighborhood felt as far from Telegraph as the hanging gardens of Babylon. You could get a good kebab in Jess's neighborhood, and a Cal T-shirt, and a reproduction NO HIPPIES ALLOWED sign. Where George lived, you could not get anything unless you drove down from the hills. Then you could buy art glass, and temple bells, and burled-wood jewelry boxes, and dresses of hand-painted silk, and you could eat at Chez Panisse, or sip coffee at the authentically grubby French Hotel where your barista took a bent paper clip and drew cats or four-leaf clovers or nudes in your espresso foam. You returned home with organic, free-range groceries, and bouquets of ivory roses and pale green hydrangeas, and you held dinner parties where some guests got lost and arrived late, and others gave up searching for you in the fog. That was George's Berkeley, and even in these environs, his home stood apart, hidden, grand, and rambling; windows set like jewels in their carved frames, gables twined with wisteria of periwinkle and ghostly white.”
Source: The Cookbook Collector
“At first she was overjoyed that he would be with her, but then she recalled that human people could not live under the water, and he could only visit her father's palace as a dead man.”
Source: The Little Mermaid
“at first sight everyone seems like human.”
“At first sight experience seems to bury us under a flood of external objects, pressing upon us with a sharp and importunate reality, calling us out of ourselves in a thousand forms of action.”
Source: The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry
“At first sight, joy seems to be connected with being different. When you receive a compliment or win an award, you experience the joy of not being the same as others. You are faster, smarter, more beautiful, and it is that difference that brings you joy. But such joy is very temporary. True joy is hidden where we are the same as other people: fragile and mortal. It is the joy of belonging to the human race. It is the joy of being with others as a friend, a companion, a fellow traveler. This is the joy of Jesus, who is Emmanuel: God-with-us.”
Source: Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith
“At first sight nothing seems more obvious than that everything has a beginning and an end, and that everything can be subdivided into smaller parts. Nevertheless, for entirely speculative reasons the philosophers of Antiquity, especially the Stoics, concluded this concept to be quite unnecessary. The prodigious development of physics has now reached the same conclusion as those philosophers, Empedocles and Democritus in particular, who lived around 500 B.C.E. and for whom even ancient man had a lively admiration.”
“At first sight, his address is certainly not striking; and his person can hardly be called handsome, till the expression of his eyes, which are uncommonly good, and the general sweetness of his countenance, is perceived.”
Source: Sense and Sensibility:: A Novel. In Three Volumes
“At first sight, one does not see what relations there can be between religion and logic.”
Source: Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society
“At first sin was as fragile as a spiders thread, and finally as stout as a ship's hawser; sin arrived as a passerby, next lingered for a moment, then came as a visitor, and finally became master of the house.”
Source: Coat of Many Colors: Pages from Jewish Life