A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“At first, that's who I was. I wanted to know more about this boy who lives among us, but who never truly speaks... But now I feel like finding out about him is one of the ways I found out about myself. I did not expect to love his words. I did no expect to find myself in the.”
Source: Matched
“At first the analysing physician could do no more than discover the unconscious material that was concealed from the patient, put it together, and, at the right moment, communicate it to him. Psychoanalysis was then first and foremost an art of interpreting. Since this did not solve the therapeutic problem, a further aim quickly came in view: to oblige the patient to confirm the analyst's construction from his own memory.”
“At first the ancient images of the Goddess did not interest me.”
“At first the art of music sought purity, limpidity and sweetness of sound. Then different sounds were amalgamated, care being taken, however, to caress the ear with gentle harmonies. Today music, as it becomes continually more complicated, strives to amalgamate the most dissonant, strange and harsh sounds. In this way we come ever closer to noise-sound.
This musical evolution is paralleled by the multipication of machines, which collaborate with man on every front. Not only in the roaring atmosphere of major cities, but in the country too, which until yesterday was totally silent, the machine today has created such a variety and rivalry of noises that pure sound, in its exiguity and monotony, no longer arouses any feeling.
To excite and exalt our sensibilities, music developed towards the most complex polyphony and the maximum variety, seeking the most complicated successions of dissonant chords and vaguely preparing the creation of musical noise.”
Source: The Art of Noise
“At first the brain weighs a potential partner, and if the partner fits our ancestral wish list, we get a spike in the release of sex chemicals that makes us dizzy with a rush of unavoidable infatuation. It's the first step down the primeval path of pair-bonding.”
Source: What is Mind?
“At first the cartoon medium was just a novelty, but it never really began to hit until we had more than tricks... until we developed personalities. We had to get beyond getting a laugh. They may roll in the aisles, but that doesn't mean you have a great picture. You have pathos in the thing.”
“At first, the damage seemed insignificant. But when the first heavy rain fell, the saturated ground gave way, collapsing ...”
Source: How to Catch a Níð-höggr: Without Popping the World
“At first the difference will be in whatever atmosphere I bring into it. It's not going to be like, 'I really want to do The Daily Show and I'd love to turn it into an abstract musical.' I like the format and the chance to satirize the news.”
“At first the English were very surprised by our disregarding the Hague Convention. But from 1916 onward they used at least as much poison as we did.”
Source: My life: the autobiography of a scientist
“At first the Hindus fought with success and nearly won the battle; but the issue was decided by the desertion of two Muslim commanders of Rama Raya's army, each in charge of seventy to eighty thousand men.”
“At first the kid kicking the back of my airplane seat was enraging. Then I imagined it was a broken massage chair and I kinda liked it.”
“At first the lives of women frightened me. They seemed so fragile, so dependent on fathers and husbands and brothers and lovers. Gradually, though, I noticed how supple their lives were beneath the surface. I saw, too, that sooner or later, by choice or by chance most women faced the task of adapting to a future on their own. When at my most optimistic, I thought of it as independence, in darker moods, as survival. Either way, women had to do it.”
Source: Without Reservations: The Travels Of An Independent Woman
“At first, the memories were hard to recall like pulling out old Christmas decorations from the back of a closet. One by one, the memories returned.”
Source: Our Perfect Murder
“At first, the mountains are mountains and streams are streams. Then, the mountains are not mountains and streams are not streams. But in the end, mountains are mountains again and streams are streams again.”
Source: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
“At first the music almost repelled me, it was so intense, and this man made no attempt to sugarcoat what he was trying to say, or play. It was hard-core, more than anything I had ever heard. After a few listenings I realized that, on some level, I had found the master, and that following this man's example would be my life's work.”
Source: Clapton: The Autobiography
“At first the relevance of chattel slavery to libertarian ideals was noted only in individual passages of isolated pamphlets.”
“At first the social worker may become too emotionally involved with his clients, so that when they fail he suffers, both because they are unhappy and because their failure is his failure, too. It’s hard to spend his days confronting devastating problems that he cannot fix—the misery and helplessness rub off on him. It may seem to him that to feel happy or spend money on himself is to betray the people he knows who are still suffering; or it may seem that his own unhappiness is a sign of his devotion. Perhaps he becomes angry, blaming systems and society for what he cannot fix himself.
Gradually, he learns to be more detached. He realizes that he needs to be tough, and to develop a thick skin. But if he becomes too detached, he stops caring about his clients at all. Perhaps he withdraws into cynicism and self-defense, as he feels his ideals and his sense of potency wither. Longer-serving people in the office notice the waning of his enthusiasm, and welcome him to their gallows-humor fellowship. He retreats into apathy and jokes and drinks after work. But even with his fellow apathetics to keep him company, the situation is depressing, and he looks for a way out.”
Source: Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help
“At first the solitude
charmed me like a prelude,
but so much music wounded me.”
“At first, the truth doesn't come as a friend.”
“At first, the wings weighed more than the chains, because with the chains we were not required to fly”
“At first the work had been tolerable from its novelty, but now it grew irksome, and he discovered that he had no aptitude for it, he began to hate it.”
Source: Of Human Bondage
“At first the, only subconsciously apprehended, approaching confluences of complex events make themselves known intuitively within the intellectual weather. Then comes a gradually awakening consciousness of the presence of new families of differentiating-out challenging concepts of every day prominence. It is with these randomly patterning families of separate concepts that evolution is about to deal integratively. As a now specific unitary problem it may be disposed of effectively when and if that unified problem becomes "adequately stated" and thereby comprehensibly solvable.”
“At first there is nothing, then there is a profound nothingness, after that a blue profundity.”
“At first there was nothing - a profound blue darkness running running deep, laced by skeins of starlight and pale phosphorescent flashes. This four o-clock hour was a moment of utter silence, the indrawn breath of dark, the absolute, trance-like balance between night and day. Then, when it seemed that nothing would ever move or live or know the light again, a hot wind would run over the invisible water. It was like a fore-blast of the turning world, an intimation that its rocks and seas and surfaces still stirred against the sun. One strained one's eyes, scarce breathing, searching for a sign. Presently it came. Far in the east at last the horizon hardened, an imperceptible line dividing sky and sea, sharp as a diamond cut on glass. A dark bubble of cloud revealed itself, warmed slowly, flushing from within like a seed growing, a kernel ripening, a clinker hot with locked-in fire. Gradually the cloud throbbed red with light, then suddenly caught the still unrisen sun and burst like an expanding bomb. Flares and streamers began to fall into the sea, setting all things on fire. After the long unthinking darkness everything now began to happen at once. The stars snapped shut, the sky bled green, vermillion tides ran over the water, the hills around took on the colour of firebrick, and the great sun drew himself at last raw and dripping from the waves. Scarlet, purple, and clinker-blue, the morning, smelling of thyme and goats, of charcoal, splintered rock and man's long sojourn around this lake”
Source: A Rose for Winter
“At first there was nothingthen nothing turned itself inside-out and became something”
“At first there was only light and sound. Bright, dazzling yellow that shone through the formless void of darkness and a cacophony of tuneless, unintelligible noise that frightened and confused her. The warmth of the sun was heavy and strong, and it burned. A sudden, brisk breeze cut through it, and her whole little body shivered. She curled into a ball. The noises were deep and resonant. There was thudding on the ground all around her and long, consistent growls from every direction. She opened her eyes and in the blur of yellow she began to see the great, blue sheet above and the endless, dusty ground below. Shadows loomed around her. Gigantic forms that blocked out the light and the heat. They reached out toward her, touched her. Finally, the sensory overload became too much. The bolts of panic shooting through her quivering flesh took hold. She raised her trunk into the air and screamed out…”
Source: Mighty Mary
“At first, they are searching for the truth. But when they finally discover it, they realize that it is not what they had imagined or hoped for. They refuse to accept it. Then, they begin searching for excuses and reasons to justify the reality they don't want to accept. They end up shifting the blame onto someone or something else because they don't want to fully accept the truth and reality.”
“At first, they did not show any of the symptoms that the men displayed. It would not take hold of them for about another hour or two.”
Source: The Manhattanville Incident: An Undead Novel
“At first, this ethic of love strikes us as rightly as beautiful. Yet, if we take it seriously, we will recognize that by its very goodness, it condemns us.”
Source: Why Believe?: A Reasoned Approach to Christianity
“At first trouble is a new experience - gradually you learn that - that it isn't fatal.”
“At first view it might seem not to square with the republican theory, to suppose either that a majority have not the right, or that a minority will have the force to subvert a government . . . . But theoretic reasoning in this, as in most other cases, must be qualified by the lessons of practice.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“At first, we both miss a few sharp bursts of wild punches and then, BANG! I catch him with a full swing left hook and he goes down like a ferret down a hole after a rabbit. When that punch landed, I broke my hand, again, and simultaneously broke his jaw. I wonder if that is an entry into the Guinness Book of records?”
Source: Born to Fight: The True Story of Richy Crazy Horse Horsley
“At first we didn't have a lot of access to New York City, but very quickly, I think people recognized if you were on the show that was a good thing. We always saw the show as a love letter to New York City.”
“At first we feel called by God and attracted by him. We grow in our vocation and get the impression that God has gripped us and will never let us go. We want to withdraw from him in order to escape his grasp. But he loves us too much to allow us to fall. He holds us fast, challenges us.”
“At first we had so much to catch up on we were talking a hundred words a second, barely even listening to the ends of one another's sentences before moving onto the next. And there was laughing. Lots of laughing. Then the laughing stopped and there was this silence. What the hell was it?
It was like the world stopped turning in that instant. Like everyone around us had disappeared. Like everything at home was forgotten about. It was as if those few minutes on this world were created just for us and all we could do was look at each other. It was like he was seeing my face for the first time. He looked confused but kind of amused. Exactly how I felt. Because I was sitting on the grass with my best friend Alex, and that was my best friend Alex's face and nose and eyes and lips, but they seemed different. So I kissed him. I seized the moment and I kissed him,”
Source: Love, Rosie
“At first we hope too much and later on, not enough.”
“At first we raced through space, like shadows and light; her rants, my raves; her dark hair, my blonde; black dresses, white. She's a purple-black African-violet-dark butterfly and I a white moth. We were two wild ponies, Dawn and Midnight, the wind electrifying our manes and our hooves quaking the city; we were photo negatives of each other, together making the perfect image of a girl.”
“At first, we should read with a blitheness practically bordering on superficiality; later on, with a conscientiousness close to distrust.”
Source: Polyglot: How I Learn Languages
“At first we will only skim the surface of the earth like young starlings, but soon, emboldened by practice and experience, we will spring into the air with the impetuousness of the eagle, diverting ourselves by watching the childish behavior of the little men or awling miserably around on the earth below us.”
“At first when I realized I was a romantic, I was sort of shocked and shamed. But it is true... that the material I work most with is emotion.”
“at first when the rain fell
from the sky so wide and deep
it smelled like sage, my favorite smell
I went up on the plateau to watch it come
to see the gifts it always brought
but this rain changed from blue to black
and left
nothing.”
Source: Matched
“At first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. What we should fear and dread, of course, is that we won't stop loving them, even after they are dead and gone. For I still love you with the whole of my heart, Prabaker. I still love you. And sometimes, my friend, the love that I have and can't give to you, crushes the breath from my chest. Sometimes, even now, my heart is drowning in a sorrow that has no stars without you, and no laughter, and no sleep.”
Source: Shantaram
“At first when you start a company, everything's gonna feel like a mess and it really should. It should feel like everyday there's a new problem, and what you're doing is fundamentally triaging.”
“At first you can stand the spotlight in your eyes. Then it blinds you. Others can see you, but you cannot see them.”
“At first you might wonder what you did to deserve such treatment. Nothing, probably, so that doesn't matter. What matters is that, eventually, the abuse becomes the status quo. It's no longer about the whats and whys (“what did I do?” “why are they doing this?”) but the whens and hows (“when are they going to do it?” “how are they going to get me?”). Persecution becomes inevitable, inescapable. And once you get into the victim mindset, you're fucked. The bullies don't even need to hurt you now; your poor, warped, pathetic brain is doing half the work for them.”
Source: Freaky Freshman
“At first, you really were just a nice stranger. Then you were my friend, and I really did want you to be happy and do your thing,” he explained softly. “And then it changed. The next thing I knew, you were telling me about some dick kissing you and it pissed me off more than anything ever had before
~Aaron×Ruby”
Source: Dear Aaron
“At first you think that your sadhana Is a limited part of your life. In time you realize that Everything you do is part of your sadhana.”
“At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see that in the end you will surely fail.”
“At first you're doing it for yourself, it's about what sounds good to you. It's about expressing yourself. Then you get comfortable as an artist and you find yourself and people get familiar.”
“At first, all is black and white. Black on white. That's where I'm walking, through pages. These pages. Sometimes it gets so that I have one foot in the pages and the words, and the other in what they speak of.”
Source: Underdogs