B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But grief is the ultimate unrequited love. However hard and long we love someone who has died, they can never love us back. At least that is how it feels.”
“But grief isn't an oyster – you can't swallow it whole.”
Source: Finding Grace
“But grief makes a monster out of us sometimes . . . and sometimes you say and do things to the people you love that you can't forgive yourself for.”
“But grief still has to be worked through. It is like walking through water. Sometimes there are little waves lapping about my feet. Sometimes there is an enormous breaker that knocks me down. Sometimes there is a sudden and fierce squall. But I know that many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.”
Source: Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage
“But grief, too, is a kind of alchemy,
a slow and painful reshaping.
It does not stay as lead,
Though it feels it will,
pressing, suffocating, unyielding.
Time enters the crucible,
and with it, the heat of memory,
The fire of longing,
The slow stirring of what it means to love
and to lose.”
Source: Time With Trees: 1995–2025, A Collected Work
“But grieving people are selfish. They won’t let you comfort them and they say you don’t understand and they make you feel useless when all your life you’ve been functional to them.”
“But groundless hope, like unconditional love, is the only kind worth having.”
“But Grover’s voice was already growing fainter. ‘Sweet dreams. Don’t let me die!”
Source: Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters
“But grownups were always in a turmoil, every possible action muddied over by thoughts of the consequences, by self-doubt, by selfimage, by feelings of love and responsibility. Every possible choice seemed to have drawbacks, and sometimes he didn't understand why the drawbacks were drawbacks. It was very hard.”
Source: THE SHINING
“But guilt at the missing details hampered my ability to remember, forced me to put off asking more detailed questions. It was already clear that I would one day (when I became that better version of myself) open a special notebook and sit down with my mother, and she would start at the very beginning, and then there would be some meaning to it all – and a system, a family tree, and every cousin and nephew would be in their rightful place, and at the end of it there would be a book.”
Source: In Memory of Memory
“But guilt is guilt. It doesn't go away. It can't be nullified. It can't even be fully understood, I'm certain - it's roots run too deep into private and long-standing karma. About the only thing that saves my neck when I get to feeling this way is that guilt is an imperfect form of knowledge. Just because it isn't perfect doesn't mean that it can't be used. The hard thing to do is to put it to practical use, before it gets around to paralyzing you.”
“But guilt isn't smart. It isn't logical. It doesn't only live in the places it belongs.”
Source: See How They Run
“But guilt never travels alone. Guilt begets regret. Regret begets shame. And the three cling to us mercilessly. At first we embrace them out of a sense of obligation, only to discover that they are not our allies. They will suffocate and kill us if they can have their way.”
Source: Jesus or Nothing
“But Gulf War Syndrome is not one cause, not one illness. It is many causes, many illnesses.”
“But guys like Mason McCarthy stayed glued to your brain long after they had left you behind. They charmed their way into your heart and pants with their smooth words and sinister good looks and then ditched you the second you were deemed old news.
Still, I wanted him. That was the scariest part—not his assumed womanizing, not that he could disrupt my life and tear my heart into tiny pieces, but that I would let him.”
“But guys such as Allen and William are more supportive than most men.”
“But had I accepted the pickle juice, I would be drinking pickle juice right now.”
“But had we become so awfully used to this love because it was the only kind of love we thought existed? What if love was supposed to be easier and not only be about 'fighting through the hard times and the dark clouds'? And what if there weren't supposed to be this many dark clouds and what if love was not supposed to be this hard?”
Source: Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
“But hail thou Goddess sage and holy, Hail, divinest Melancholy, Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the sense of human sight, And therefore to our weaker view O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue.”
“But Hale didn't follow. For a second he just stood and stared out over his empire. It was like he was lost in a dream when he said, "So, your dad broke into the patent office." "Yep," Kat told him. "How many goats am I going to owe him for that?" "More than you've got, big guy. Way more than you've got.”
“But Hale wasn't just a member of her crew who had messed up. He was Hale. Her Hale. And Kat just wanted him back.”
Source: Heist Society: Perfect Scoundrels
“But Hamlet is death's ambassador while Falstaff is the embassy of life.”
Source: Falstaff: Give Me Life
“But hands are sacred things. Touch is personal, fingers of love, feelers of blind eyes, tongues of those who cannot talk.”
Source: The Bone People: A Novel
“But happiness ... happiness grows at our own firesides," she said. "It is not to be picked in strangers' gardens." ~ The House at Riverton”
“But happiness is a liar, for it makes us believe it will last forever, when it never does.”
Source: Babylonia
“But happiness is being able to hope, however faintly, for happiness. So, at least, we must believe if we are to live in the world of today.”
Source: Blue Bamboo: Tales by Dazai Osamu
“But happiness is brittle, and if men and circumstances don't destroy it, it is threatened by ghosts.”
“But happiness is no respecter of persons.”
“But happiness is not always loud and bright and crowded. Happiness ripens like a watermelon, sweet and rosy on the inside with only a thin top layer altogether free of small black pits. And, like a watermelon, the whole thing can be covered with a plain dark rind.”
“But happiness isn't like unhappiness. You recover from it!”
Source: Piaf: a biography
“But happy moments came rarely and unexpectedly in the Baudelaires' lives, and the three siblings had learned to accept them.”
Source: The Austere Academy
“But harboring regrets is making love to the past, and there is no movement here.”
Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice
“But hard bitten cynicism leaves one feeling peevish, and too much of it can do lasting damage to your heart.”
“But harder still it has proved to resist and rule the dragon Money, with his paper wings. Chancellors and Boards of Trade, Pitt, Peel, and Bobinson, and their parliaments, and their whole generation, adopted false principles, and went to their graves in the belief that they were enriching the country which they were impoverishing.”
“But harmony is limitation. Thus rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality. Unlimited possibility and abstract creativity can procure nothing.”
Source: RELIGION IN THE MAKING
“But Harry . . . even if we had met and married three years ago, you’d still say it wasn’t enough time.” “You’re right. I can’t think of a single day of my life that wouldn’t have been improved with you in it.” “Darling,” she whispered, her fingertips coming up to stroke his jaw, “that’s lovely. Even more romantic than comparing me to watch parts.” Harry nipped at her finger. “Are you mocking me?” “Not at all,” Poppy said, smiling. “I know how you feel about gears and mechanisms.”
Source: Tempt Me at Twilight
“But Harry had eyes only for the man who stood in the largest portrait directly behind the headmaster’s chair. Tears were sliding down from behind the half-moon spectacles into the long silver beard, and the pride and the gratitude emanating from him filled Harry with the same balm as phoenix song.
At last, Harry held up his hands, and the portraits fell respectfully silent, beaming and mopping their eyes and waiting eagerly for him to speak. He directed his words at Dumbledore, however, and chose them with enormous care. Exhausted and bleary-eyed though he was, he must make one last effort, seeking one last piece of advice.
“The thing that was hidden in the Snitch,” he began, “I dropped it in the forest. I don’t know exactly where, but I’m not going to go looking for it again. Do you agree?”
“My dear boy, I do,” said Dumbledore, while his fellow pictures looked confused and curious. “A wise and courageous decision, but no less than I would have expected of you. Does anyone else know where it fell?”
“No one,” said Harry, and Dumbledore nodded his satisfaction.
“I’m going to keep Ignotus’s present, though,” said Harry, and Dumbledore beamed.
“But of course, Harry, it is yours forever, until you pass it on!”
“And then there’s this.”
Harry held up the Elder Wand, and Ron and Hermione looked at it with a reverence that, even in his befuddled and sleep-deprived state, Harry did not like to see.
“I don’t want it,” said Harry.
“What?” said Ron loudly. “Are you mental?”
“I know it’s powerful,” said Harry wearily. “But I was happier with mine. So…”
He rummaged in the pouch hung around his neck, and pulled out the two halves of holly still just connected by the finest thread of phoenix feather. Hermione had said that they could not be repaired, that the damage was too severe. All he knew was that if this did not work, nothing would.
He laid the broken wand upon the headmaster’s desk, touched it with the very tip of the Elder Wand, and said, “Reparo.”
As his wand resealed, red sparks flew out of its end. Harry knew that he had succeeded. He picked up the holly and phoenix wand and felt a sudden warmth in his fingers, as though wand and hand were rejoicing at their reunion.
“I’m putting the Elder Wand,” he told Dumbledore, who was watching him with enormous affection and admiration, “back where it came from. It can stay there. If I die a natural death like Ignotus, its power will be broken, won’t it? The previous master will never have been defeated. That’ll be the end of it.”
Dumbledore nodded. They smiled at each other.
“Are you sure?” said Ron. There was the faintest trace of longing in his voice as he looked at the Elder Wand.
“I think Harry’s right,” said Hermione quietly.
“That wand’s more trouble than it’s worth,” said Harry. “And quite honestly,” he turned away from the painted portraits, thinking now only of the four-poster bed lying waiting for him in Gryffindor Tower, and wondering whether Kreacher might bring him a sandwich there, “I’ve had enough trouble for a lifetime.”
Source: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
“But Harry - what if You-Know-Who's with him?'
'Well - I was lucky once, wasn't I?' said Harry, pointing at his scar.' I might get lucky again.'
Hermione's lip trembled and she suddenly dashed at Harry and threw her arms around him.
'Hermione!'
'Harry - you're a great wizard, you know.'
'I'm not as good as you', said Harry, very embarrassed, as she let go of him.
'Me!' said Hermione. 'Books! And cleverness! There are more important things - friendship and bravery and - oh Harry - be careful!”
Source: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
“But, Hasan, you have to be brave, and the courage to do what's right has to be greater than your fear of getting hurt.”
“But hate is hard to hold on to. You have to want it. I don’t want it.”
Source: Brothersong
“But have a care! It is a bitter blade, and steel serves only those that can wield it. It will cut your hand as willingly as aught else.”
“But have we Holy Ghost power — power that restricts the devil's power, pulls down strongholds, and obtains promises? Daring delinquents will be damned if they are not delivered from the devil's dominion. What has hell to fear other than a God-anointed, prayer-powered church?”
“But have you ever overheard two women discussing men? Men are crude liars, comparing their drabs, but women - I'd rather have [an] anatomist dissect me alive than to listen to the things the ladies say about us when they think they are alone.”
“But have you ever seen one?....They shook their heads. "Not Physically, no. But if you look at this passage - " Man, she liked that Bible. I'd read it and could definitely understand it's appeal, but I didn't have time for this.”
“But have you ever tried to walk away from a flirtation? It's good advice to do so, maybe. But it's like telling someone to walk away from a dragon's hoard of gold. It's so rare, so unusual and so completely overwhelming to feel that attention on you, to feel those warmth-giving hormones flood your brain and your body. It feels like an intrinsic good. Natural, and normal, and right. Yes, you could choose not to proceed. But also, no, you can't.”
Source: The Secret Loves of Geeks
“But have you never noticed that when one has been trying to do something really good one is much nearer committing some special sin than when one keeps on in the selfish, matter-of-fact prudence of minding one's own business, and that alone?”
“But have you wine and music still,And statues and a bright-eyed love,And foolish thoughts of good and ill,And prayers to them who sit above?”
Source: Selected poems
“But haven't all ambitious people something of the monstrous about them? You, sir, for instance, if you will forgive me, are a little bit monstrous.”
“But having a really good understanding of history, literature, psychology, sciences - is very, very important to actually being able to make movies.”
“But having considered everything which has been said, one could by this believe that the earth and not the heavens is so moved, and there is no evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, this seems prima facie as much, or more, against natural reason as are all or several articles of our faith. Thus, that which I have said by way of diversion (esbatement) in this manner can be valuable to refute and check those who would impugn our faith by argument.”