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A Quotes

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All A Quotes

“At what age did I start to think that where I was going was more important than where I already was? When was it that I began to believe that the most important thing about what I was doing was getting it over with? Knowing how to live is not something we have to teach children. Knowing how to live is something we have to be careful not to take away from them.”

“At what moment?" she asked him. "At what moment do we cease to be humans and become objects?" Blaise continued to make his way in silence, carrying the lamp at arm's length to spread its light as far as possible. When he finally replied, it was in a different voice from usual, deeper, calmer, and without the slightest stutter: "Some humans are objects while they're alive, Mademoiselle Eulalia.”

“At what point did men decide that women are "on the market" to "be picked?" "Pick me! Pick me!" Oh really? Is it really like that? I shall be the one to do the picking, thank you. No one will in any way line me up against the wall and take a pick. Men do not do the picking. Women do the picking. Only stupid women wish to be "picked out." This is the ancient way, this is the way of gods and angels. Women are not "on the market;" women are seated on thrones.”

“At what point does the narcissism and cruelty of childhood stop being adorable and start being a possible symptom of a mental disorder? I cannot answer this question. I don't understand Lori, despite four decades of attempts. Seeking to understand Lori is a black hole that sucks up everything around it. I'm tired of that. It meant that through much of my life in my family, I didn't get to have a story. This led me to an obsession with trying to think about the people, places, and things we don't think about.”

“At what point,” he asked, “does one decide on rafters and a rope? Answer: no points to be had. There is merely what happened, what is now happening and what will one day happen. Do we choose sleep? Hell no and bullshit – we fall. We give ourselves over to possibility, to whim and fancy, to the bed, the pillow, the tiny white tablet. And these choose for us. Gravity has a hand. Bear in mind trapdoors. We fall in love, yes? Tumble, in fact. Is it choice? Enough said.”

“At what point in your life do you say I have had enough... money, food, clothes, these possessions that we keep killing one another for even power and dominance? One advice, look at your age and declare that my age dictates I start doing this thing, I should stop doing this and that, I should say this and not that... in essence grow your brain to reason. Just like that.”

“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

“At what point, 2,000 years on from the life of Jesus, do we need a refresher course? Another 2,000 years? Imagine 100,000 years’ time – would the story of Moses’ burning bush amaze a generation laden with unimaginable scientific and technological wonders? Here lies religion’s biggest quandary. While science is squeezing the life out of God, how is religion going to muster a counterattack from here?”

“At what point, then, should one resist? When one's belt is taken away? When one is ordered to face into a corner? When one crosses the threshold of one's home? An arrest consists of a series of incidental irrelevancies, of a multitude of things that do not matter, and there seems no point in arguing about one of them individually...and yet all these incidental irrelevancies taken together implacably constitute the arrest.”

“At whatever point I find myself in the seasons of my life, I want to make irrefutably certain that I have invested myself in the passing season in a manner so complete and uncompromising that I am able to send it off richer than how it had arrived. And in having done so, I want to be confident in the fact that I have set a firm and glorious stage upon which to welcome a new season now unfolding. For you see, seasons turn on what we’ve left behind. And so whatever that is, might it be the best of myself so that the coming season might be the best of itself, and we therefore might have a chance to make the world better than itself.”

“At whatever time highly skilled physicians shall have developed the healing of illnesses by means of foods, and shall make provision for simple foods, and shall prohibit humankind from living as slaves to their lustful appetites, it is certain that the incidence of chronic and diversified illnesses will abate, and the general health of all mankind will be much improved. This is destined to come about. In the same way, in the character, the conduct and the manners of men, universal modifications will be made.”

“At work here is that powerful WYSIATI ("what you see is all there is") rule. You cannot help dealing with the limited information you have as if it were all there is to know. You build the best possible story from the information available to you, and if it is a good story, you believe it. Paradoxically, it is easier to construct a coherent story when you know little, when there are fewer pieces to fit into the puzzle. Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”

“At work, Sirine announces that this year will be an Arabic Thanksgiving with rice and pine nuts and ground lamb in the turkey instead of cornbread, and yogurt sauce instead of cranberries. Mireille sulks and says she doesn't like yogurt and Sirine says, annoyed, why can't we ever do things differently? And Um-Nadia says, girls, never mind already, we can have the for-crying-out-loud rice stuffing and I'll bring the can of the red berries sauce.”

“At work, they knew me to be capable but fragile. Quiet, clouded up with daydreams. Usually diligent, though sometimes inconsistent, moody. But also something else, something implacable: I was unsavvy in some fundamental, uncomfortable way. The sound of my loud, nervous laugh, like gargling gravel, was a social liability. I skipped too many office parties. They kept me on because my output was prolific and they could task me with more and more production assignments. When I focused, a trait I exhibited at the beginning of my time there, I could be detail-oriented to the point of obsession.”