A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Actually, I think it's the opposite. We know each other so well there isn't anything left to say. Sometimes it's nice just sitting here with you all, thinking. It's only best friends who can be comfortable with silence, wouldn't you say?”
Source: The Bellwether Revivals
“Actually, I think living's the worst habit.”
Source: Hearts in Atlantis
“Actually I've never seen a cycle-maintenance problem complex enough really to require full-scale formal scientific method. Repair problems are not that hard. When I think of formal scientific method an image sometimes comes to mind of an enormous juggernaut, a huge bulldozer-slow, tedious, lumbering, laborious, but invincible. It takes twice as long, five times as long, maybe a dozen times as long as informal mechanic's techniques, but you know in the end you're going to get it. There's no fault isolation problem in motorcycle maintenance that can stand up to it. When you've hit a really tough one, tried everything, racked your brain and nothing works, and you know that this time Nature has really decided to be difficult, you say, "Okay, Nature, that's the end of the nice guy," and you crank up the formal scientific method.”
“Actually I walk around with the Emmy wherever I go, but I'm very casual about it.”
“Actually I want to scare away method actors because it's a pain. It's like, 'Come on, what are you doing? It's not real. What are you doing? Oh, you're really brooding. Okay, good. Go to your trailer. I'll see you in an hour.'”
“Actually I was born in 1940 in Blackpool because my family lived in Manchester but Manchester was being bombed. So my mother was sent away to Blackpool to have me and then went back; so I lived my first eighteen years in Manchester and then emigrated to the States when I was eighteen.”
“Actually I was more of a breaker than a thrower - most of them putters. I broke so many of those that I probably became the world's foremost authority on how to putt without a putter.”
Source: How to keep your temper on the golf course
“Actually, I was the very lowest ranked member of the crew. I would only be “in command” if I were the only remaining person.”
What do you know? I’m in command”
Source: The Martian
“Actually I was writing with people that didn't get records.”
“Actually, I wouldn't mind a Malibu and coke."
"You're having a fucking pint."
"Is my choice of drink too gay for you?"
"Malibu and coke is a pussy drink. Last I heard you were strictly anti-pussy.”
Source: The Ghost on My Couch
“Actually I'd always thought he sat in the library with a slim volume of metaphysical poetry until the commissioner called him on the bat phone and summoned him into action. Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale - to the Jag mobile.”
Source: Whispers Under Ground
“Actually I'd had a certain amount of experience in Europe in the inter-war period, as a banker, and I was also a member of the Board of Directors of the International Chamber of Commerce.”
“Actually I'm a big fan of Spielberg and the way he shoots action scenes.”
“Actually I'm more culturally Muslim than religiously but being Muslim is an important part of my identity. As Muslim, I feel it's important to counter any form of bigotry, be it anti-Semitism, homophobia, racism, etc. These forms of hate share a common denominator of misinformation and intentional fear mongering.”
“Actually I'm more passionate about dancing than I am about singing.”
“Actually I'm not that involved in the fan site.”
“Actually I'm pretty adamant about, you know, the whole God thing and it seems that skeptics are by and large atheists or something approaching that, which I strongly identify with. So it turned out to be a good thing and I have become enthusiastically part of it.”
“Actually I'm taking her for a ride," I say slyly, inching my hand up the back of Ella's leg and she slaps the back of my head playfully. "I'm taking you for a ride in my car. And you think I'm the pervert.”
“Actually I'm writing as best I can, in order to keep the momentum and the career there, but I want to live.”
“Actually I've never had formal training, I was lucky enough to continue working most of my career and aside from sitting in on a couple of classes, here and there, I basically just use my own instincts.”
“Actually ideas are everywhere. It's the paperwork, that is, sitting down and thinking them into a coherent story, trying to find just the right words, that can and usually does get to be labor.”
“Actually if a writer needs a dictionary he should not write. He should have read the dictionary at least three times from beginning to end and then have loaned it to someone who needs it. There are only certain words which are valid and similes (bring me my dictionary) are like defective ammunition (the lowest thing I can think of at this time).”
Source: Selected Letters, 1917-1961
“Actually, in its essence, democracy is a totalitarian ideology, though not as extreme as Nazism, fascism or communism. In principle, no freedom is safe in a democracy, every aspect of the individual's life is potentially subject to government control. At the end of the day, the minority is completely at the mercy of the whims of the majority. Even if a democracy has a constitution limiting the powers of the government, this constitution too can be amended by the majority. The only fundamental right you have in a democracy, besides running for office, is the right to vote for a political party. With that solitary vote you hand over your independence and your freedom to the will of the majority.”
Source: Beyond Democracy: Why democracy does not lead to solidarity, prosperity and liberty but to social conflict, runaway spending and a tyrannical government
“Actually in the moment in which the idea has life, when it's listened to read, engaged with, acted on stage, it gains another dimension, it becomes three dimensional.”
“Actually it broke my heart to hear that we were going to have to part ways, ... It's a business and they had to do what they had to do.”
“Actually it deals ("as usual" I was about to say!) with Life, Love and Death. Because nothing in fact is more important. To occupy oneself with. To think of. To worry over. To be happy about. And so on.”
Source: Face to Face: A Film
“Actually it is annoying to see a grown up exhibiting pettiness in a way that shows they are proud of it. Worse if they are senior government officials.”
“Actually it is quite devastating to realise how few people ever think at all. They mostly take their ideas from what they are told on the wireless, television, or in the newspapers, from people who are prepared to take a reasonable fee. To suggest anything different makes you tread on many corns of vested interest. No professional pathfinder likes you for doing it.”
Source: The Power of the Pendulum
“Actually, it’s rather curious. We are face-to-face with one of the most complex theological issues. Does a foot, detached from its body…have an afterlife?”
Source: Portrait of a Drunk
“Actually it seems to me that one can hardly say anything either bad enough or good enough about life.”
“Actually it was easier than you'd think. We were the guys who had the opportunity to play for something. Only 26 players on the eight teams had that chance. We would wake up in the morning and have a reason to train. We are able to have four weeks to play at this level. Since the first day our policy was not to talk about the labor situation. Our goal was to win. We'll enjoy it for one night. Then the reality of the owners locking us out sets in.”
“Actually it was the mark of the stupid, which is what you get for sitting under a tree during a thunderstorm.”
Source: Chomp
“Actually, it wasn't the idea of Buddy sleeping with somebody that bothered me. I mean I'd read about all sorts of people sleeping with each other, and if it had been any other boy I would merely have asked him the most interesting details, and maybe gone out and slept with somebody myself just to even things up, and then thought no more about it.”
Source: the bell jar
“Actually, Jake said, isn't life what we make it, wherever we are, whenever we may be - wherever it is that we are?”
Source: Home in Time for Christmas
“Actually John, Paul Rutherford, and Trevor Watts, and several other rather well known English jazz musicians had got their training by joining the Air Force, which was a pretty standard way for people to get some kind of musical education in those days.”
“Actually, judging by Pinterest alone, I'm pretty sure a lot of people would look forward to hanging out in such a beautiful library. Just not people Peter knows. He thinks I'm so quirky. I'm not planning on being the one to break the news to him that I'm actually not that quirky, that in fact lots of people like to stay home and bake cookies and scrapbook and hang out in libraries. Most of them are probably in their fifties, but still. I like the way he looks at me, like I am a wood nymph that he happened upon one day and just had to take home to keep.”
Source: Always and Forever, Lara Jean
“Actually, Laurence is hardly ever home; this is the first I’ve seen him in weeks. Which can only mean one thing: Red Dwarf marathon.”
Source: All the Birds in the Sky
“Actually learning ancient Greek was a brilliant practice of mine because you'd sit there and you'd read a sentence and sometimes it would take you a day, an entire day to figure out one sentence. But it really trains you to be analytical, to think in a certain way to try and interpret what something means. So I've been thinking like that my whole life and then I love Machiavelli and I love thinking about politics that way. So it's sort of all that put together and then the good luck to meet a man who is sort of interested in the same thing.”
“Actually loneliness has a kind of fascination; it's a state of egotistical, inner grace that you can achieve only by standing guard on old, forgotten roads that no one travels anymore.”
Source: The Fencing Master
“Actually lowering the cost of insurance would be accomplished by such things as making it harder for lawyers to win frivolous lawsuits against insurance companies.”
“Actually,” Matthew said mildly, “the available figures indicate that as soon as soap is mass-produced at an affordable price, the market will increase approximately ten percent a year. People of all classes want to be clean, Mr. Mardling. The problem is that good quality soap has always been a luxury item and therefore difficult to obtain.”
“Mass production,” Mardling mulled aloud, his lean face furrowed with thought. “There is something objectionable about the phrase…it seems to be a way of enabling the lower classes to imitate their betters.”
Matthew glanced at the circle of men, noting that the top of Bowman’s head was turning red—never a good sign—and that Westcliff was holding his silence, his black eyes unreadable.
“That’s exactly what it is, Mr. Mardling,” Matthew said gravely. “Mass production of items such as clothing and soap will give the poor a chance to live with the same standards of health and dignity as the rest of us.”
“But how will one sort out who is who?” Mardling protested.
Matthew shot him a questioning glance. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
Llandrindon joined in the discussion. “I believe what Mardling is asking,” he said, “is how one will be able to tell the difference between a shopgirl and a well-to-do woman if they are both clean and similarly dressed. And if a gentleman is not able to tell what they are by their appearance, how is he to know how to treat them?”
Stunned by the snobbery of the question, Matthew considered his reply carefully. “I’ve always thought all women should be treated with respect no matter what their station.”
“Well said,” Westcliff said gruffly, as Llandrindon opened his mouth to argue.
No one wished to contradict the earl, but Mardling pressed, “Westcliff, do you see nothing harmful in encouraging the poor to rise above their stations? In allowing them to pretend there is no difference between them and ourselves?”
“The only harm I see,” Westcliff said quietly, “is in discouraging people who want to better themselves, out of fear that we will lose our perceived superiority.”
Source: Scandal in Spring
“Actually, May have been thinking of something her mom had said. About how you didn't make friends, but let them happen.”
Source: May Bird and the Ever After
“Actually men are closer to having the ability to act egoistic when it comes to a crisis situation.”
“Actually my first eight books were historical novels, but they were never published”
“Actually my relationships with my girlfriends have become that much deeper and more profound, because I'm like, huh, yeah, I don't have to judge you, or you judge me. It was a lot of - I didn't want to be that crazy girlfriend.”
“Actually "nerve" is one of the qualities it takes to tackle a first novel, the others being inflated ego and a gambler's sense of crazed bravado, all of which I felt imbued with, more or less, when I sat down to write my account of one woman's efforts to keep her ex-husband, a deranged fence jumper, out of her apartment and life.”
Source: A Tale of Five Cities & Other Memoirs
“Actually ninety-nine percent of my acting has nothing to do sci-fi or fantasy, I consider it a good part of my acting, and enjoy the roles I play.”
“Actually, no, I wasn't thinking about STDs." Because apparently, I'm an idiot. Turns out, I was more worried about babies than I was rabies.”
Source: Someone to Love
“Actually, no. I won't ever go digital. I work with thirty-five or large format. I like the hand-jobs, you know. And I still do most of my own printing. I've developed such a profound distaste for touch-up and modern artifice—comes from snapping too many derelicts and detritus, perhaps, but I love it. Photo bloody Shop can go stuff it. A picture should be honest, even if the subject is contrived on the ground, you know; not dolled-up for advertising punch or sex appeal.”
“Actually, no man is as funny as me or any woman I’ve ever met.”
Source: Queenie