Quotessence
Home / Quotes / B Quotes

B Quotes

Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.

All B Quotes

“But someone once described the contrast between a good life and a godly life as the difference between the top of the ocean and the bottom. On top, sometimes it's like glass -- serene and calm -- and other times it's raging and stormy. But hundreds of fathoms below, it is beautiful and consistent, always calm, always peaceful.”

“But something had changed in the world that Johnny and I knew. The innocence was lost, and nothing would ever be the same. I heard the words tumbling over and over in my mind. Nothing is ever gonna be the same...Nothing is ever gonna be the same... And a vision, the kind of postcard that fate sends you, flashed before my eyes. There was death in that vision. There was madness. There was fear. But it was blurred. I couldn't see it clearly. I couldn't see the detail. I didn't know if the death and madness were happening to me, or happening around me. And in a sense, I didn't care. In too many ways of shame and angry regret, I didn't care.”

“But something happened to you when you'd had lots of relationships, meaning lots of breakups as well. At first, it hurt terribly, and you thought you'd never be able to get over it. But then you learned to be circumspect. You were only hurt because the guy had taken away your dream of the relationship. You understood that hurt feelings were really only about ego, about the self-absorbed idea that every man you were with should love you, thay the universe owed you that.”

“But something magical happened to me when I went to Reardan. Overnight I became a good player. I suppose it had something to do with confidence. I mean, I'd always been the lowest Indian on the reservation totem pole - I wasn't expected to be good so I wasn't. But in Reardan, my coach and the other players wanted me to be good. They needed me to be good. They expected me to be good. And so I became good. I wanted to live up to the expectations. I guess that's what it comes down to. The power of expectations. And as they expected more of me, I expected more of myself, and it just grew and grew.”

“But something occurred to me as I sped through that dirty shroud of fog, something Vonnegut has been trying to explain to the rest of us for most of his life. And that is this: Despair is a form of hope. It is an acknowledgment of the distance between ourselves and our appointed happiness. At certain moments, it is reason enough to live.”

“But something very bad happened to the news media in the 1980s. Part of it was the 'public diplomacy' pressures from the outside. But part of it was the smug, snotty, sophomoric crowd that came to dominate the national media from the inside. These characters fell in love with their power to define reality, not their responsibility to uncover the facts. By the 1990s, the media had become the monster.”

“But sometimes children do not connect or reconnect so easily. They may feel so isolated that they retreat into a corner, or come out aggressively with both arms swinging. They may be annoying, obnoxious, or downright infuriating as they try desperately to signal us that they need more connection. These situations call for creating more playtime, not doling out punishment or leaving the lonely child all alone.”

“But sometimes it's like you just meet someone and you just know that you're totally connected, and this person is, like, your brother - or your sister. Even if they don't, like, recognize it, you feel it. And in a lot of ways it don't matter if they do or they don't see that for what it is - all you can do is put the feeling out there. That's your duty. Then you just wait and see what comes back to you. That's the deal.”