B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But people turn on their televisions. They turn on their televisions and they see what's happening in Iraq. The American people are not stupid. And the one thing they understand, they understand how incredibly mismanaged and bungled this war has been by the civilians in this administration. And - I mean, you can't paper over that, any more than you can paper over Katrina.”
“But people who do not know me are surprised to see me as a real person I guess.”
“But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish desires and schemes that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For love of money is the root of all of evil and some having pursued its power, fall from faith and end in sorrow.”
“But people who really know me, know that I am not a bad boy at heart I am a big teddy bear.”
“But people who think they can project themselves into deafness are mistaken because you can't. And I'm not talking about imagining what a deaf person's whole life is like I even mean just realizing what it is like for an instant.”
“But people who've gotten that far into the faith never totally shake it. To be a former believer is to perpetually return to the scene of the crime. It's been ten years since I left Moody, and I still find myself stalling on the Christian radio station to hear a call-in debate, or lurking around the religion section of chain bookstores, perusing the titles on the Christianity shelves like a porn addict sneaking a glance at a Victoria's Secret Catalog.”
Source: Interior States: Essays
“But people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning. No use, that is. No plot.”
Source: The Handmaid's Tale
“But people will laugh at all sorts of things.”
“But Percy Jackson has always been reliable. You have nothing to fear. Besides, he likes me. I taught him everything he knows.”
She frowned. “You did?”
I found her innocence somewhat charming. So many obvious things she did not know. “Of course. Now let’s go up.”
Source: The Hidden Oracle
“But Percy was still woozy from the poison, so they sat on the edge of the ruined golden dome for a few minutes to let Percy catch his breath . . . or catch his water, whatever a son of Poseidon catches when he's at the bottom of the ocean”
Source: The Blood of Olympus
“But, perfect is a lie. We´re all human--riddled with flaws and imperfections.”
Source: The Neighbor War
“But Perfection never appealed to me.
It's the beauty and honesty behind imperfections, that I fall in love with.”
“But perhaps age has taught me that the earth is still new, molten at the core and still forming, that black leaves in the winter forest will crawl with life in the spring, that our story is ongoing and it is indeed a crime to allow the heart's energies to dissipate with the fading of light on the horizon.”
Source: A Dave Robicheaux Ebook Boxed Set: Neon Rain, Heaven's Prisoners, Excerpt from The Glass Rainbow
“But perhaps because Elizabeth was a woman and not, in his view, a direct competitor …”
Source: Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast
“But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun.; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic monotony that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
“But perhaps God's purpose in the world (I am only thinking aloud here) is to draw his creatures to him. And you have to admit that tragedies like this one at Virginia Tech help to do that!”
“But perhaps he had enough animal strength and detached intelligence that he could make another start.”
Source: Islands in the stream
“But perhaps I really am meant to do something for this island. Or perhaps I should, after what you’ve told me, whether I’m meant to or not.”
Source: Urchin and the Heartstone
“But, perhaps, I should have known then, I should have known that night, standing in the kitchen, that foul meat in the air- looking back on it now, I see that it was the end and the beginning of something more than dinner. More than ruined appetite, a postponed meal, a marriage strained, a freezer unplugged. I could smell the death between them.”
Source: White Bird in a Blizzard
“But perhaps it's that Grey is dead. It still feels like the moon fell out of the sky.”
Source: The Square Root of Summer
“But perhaps more important, as someone wishing to make a comment or two about contemporary life and values, I don't have to dig through libraries or travel to exotic lands to arrive at a view of our modern situation refracted through the lens of the preindustrial world, or the uncommercialized, unfranchised, perhaps unsanitized-and therefore supposedly more "authentic"-perspective ofthe Third World. Very simply, this is because that "other" world, as alien as if separated by centuries in time, is the one from which I came”
“But perhaps my art is the art of a lunatic, I thought, mere glittering quicksilver, a blue soul breaking in upon my pictures.”
“But perhaps people who liked to write aways made lists! Just for the fun of it.”
“But perhaps she has given me the strength and the madness to write about the things that I once desired so long to put against the world.”
“But perhaps someday, when we are ready to die of exhaustion and ignorance, I shall be able to disown our garish tombs and go and stretch out in the valley, under the same light, and learn for the last time what I know.”
Source: The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
“But perhaps that made me want it even more, to prove that passion was not just inherently gifted as some people believed, but that passion could be earned by anyone, a commoner or noble, even if they did not have intrinsic skill.”
Source: The Queen's Rising
“But perhaps that's what having children is like, she doesn't know, perhaps you can't avoid going completely stupid.”
Source: The Winners
“But perhaps that was just the way of power: no such thing as too much.”
Source: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
“But perhaps that's why we take snaps...to provide false evidence to underpin the false claim that we were happy. Because the thought that we weren't happy at least for some time during our lives is unbearable. Adults order children to smile in the photos, involve them in the lie, so we smile, we feign happiness.”
“But perhaps the best part of all was that I, Sydney Katherine Sage, guilty of constantly analyzing the world around me, well, I stopped thinking.”
“But perhaps the enthusiastic sensibility of young women of her age also played a role. This feeling sought release at every opportunity, and with it Grete now felt tempted to want to make Gregor's situation even more terrifying, so that then she would be able to do even more for him than now.”
Source: The Metamorphosis
“But perhaps the greatest attraction of Mormonism was the promise that each follower would be granted an extraordinarily intimate relationship with God. Joseph taught and encouraged his adherents to receive personal communiqués straight from the Lord. Divine revelation formed the bedrock of the religion.”
Source: Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
“But perhaps the greatest escapism of all is to take refuge in the domesticity of the past, the home that history and literature become, avoiding the one moment of time in which we are not at home, yet have to live: the present.”
“But perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban.”
“But perhaps the most important innovation in the doctrine of jihad was its outright prohibition of all but strictly defensive wars. “Fight in the way of God those who fight you,” the Quran says, “but do not begin hostilities; God does not like the aggressor” (2:190). Elsewhere the Quran is more explicit: “Permission to fight is given only to those who have been oppressed ... who have been driven from their homes for saying, 'God is our Lord' ” (22:39; emphasis added).”
Source: No God But God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam
“But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those that we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.”
Source: The Elephant Whisperer: Learning About Life, Loyalty and Freedom From a Remarkable Herd of Elephants
“But perhaps the most overlooked feature of her life was that she was human, and therefore fallible.”
Source: Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume I: 1940-1956
“But perhaps the next step isn't to, once again, expand the otherwise narrow definition of marriage but to altogether abolish the false distinction between married families and other equally valid but unrecognized partnerships.”
“But perhaps the painful awareness of loneliness is an invitation to transcend our limitations and look beyond the boundaries of our existence. The awareness of loneliness might be a gift we must protect and guard, because our loneliness reveals to us an inner emptiness that can be destructive when misunderstood, but filled with promise for those who can tolerate its sweet pain.”
Source: The Wounded Healer
“But perhaps the rest of us could have separate classes in science appreciation, the wonder of science, scientific ways of thinking, and the history of scientific ideas, rather than laboratory experience.”
“But perhaps the truth newly discovered is itself only temporary and when new discoveries are made these truths too will be abandoned. But one truth remains for ever, and that is the search for truth.”
“But perhaps the universe is suspended on the tooth of some monster.”
“But perhaps there are in us forces other than mind and heart, other even than the senses - mysterious forces which take hold of us in the moments when the others are asleep; and perhaps it was such forces that Melchior had found in the depths of those pale eyes which had looked at him so timidly one evening when he had accosted the girl on the bank of the river, and had sat down beside her in the reeds - without knowing why - and had given her his hand.”
Source: Jean-Christophe, Vol. 1
“But perhaps there are insensitive hearts, still incapable of receiving this Light because the weight of their sins prevents them from seeing it. Let them not imagine that they Light is absent because they do not see it, for on account of their sins they are in darkness. ‘And the Light shone in the darkness, and the darkness understood it not’ (Jn 1:5). Therefore, Brothers, like the blind man exposed to the sun, the sun being present to him but he being absent from the sun, so the insensitive one, the sinner, the impious has a blind heart.”
“But perhaps there are points about which one never grows old. And it is no more agreeable at sixty-three to feel that a young woman no longer considers you a man than it is at sixteen to feel that she still considers you a child.”
Source: The Roots of Heaven
“But perhaps there are two sides to everyone.”
Source: Building Monsters
“But perhaps this is all to the good. Perhaps it’s best to live with the possibility that around any corner, at any time, may come the person who reminds you of your own capacity to surprise yourself, to put at risk everything that’s dear to you. Who reminds you of the distances we have to bridge to begin to know anything about one another. Who reminds you that what seems to be—even about yourself—may not be. That like him, you need to be forgiven.”
“But perhaps this is what goes wrong with long marriages--you state your opinions, your likes and dislikes, at the beginning and then forget to mention when they change" (135).”
“But perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who never really sought it.”
Source: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
“But perhaps, tonight, Eleanor should do as Madeline would do- and live for the moment. Tonight, she would abandon her fears and behave as any young lady would who danced her first dance at her first ball with the most handsome man in the room.
Catching a glimpse of the dancers in one of the mirrors, she admired one young lady who moved with grace, who dressed with flare and whose hair looked dashing and sophisticated. As Eleanor watched, the lady imitated Eleanor's movements. She wore Eleanor's clothing. And Eleanor realized... the dashing female was herself.
She was the one who danced like a dream. Her haircut had transformed her face. She appeared younger, joyful, strikingly modish. She looked less like Madeline and more like... like Eleanor might have looked if her stepmother had never made her appearance in Eleanor's life.
Eleanor laughed at herself. Foolish to think a simple cut could change her, but spying herself unaware made her realize that looks were deceiving. No matter how frightened she felt inside, no one could see past the fashionable facade.
No one except Mr. Knight. He took her hand for the promenade and looked into her eyes. He had a way of dancing that was almost like... making love. With him, she felt like the finest dancer in the world. They moved together, and when the music ended, she couldn't restrain her smile.
She was happy. Tonight, for this moment, she was happy.”
Source: One Kiss From You