B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But that was Tom Mix. He was not made by the West; Tom Mix knew he was made for the West.”
Source: Mountain Killer: A Mountain Man Western Adventure
“But that was two years ago. She wasn’t sexy to me anymore. Now she was lethal.”
Source: Rival
“But that was war. Just about all he could find in its favor was that it paid well and liberated children from the pernicious influence of their parents.”
Source: Catch-22: A Novel
“But that was what happened when you lived on adrenaline. Each rush was somehow inferior to the last and became exponentially shorter.”
Source: Shadow Rising
“But that wasn't the chief thing that bothered me: I couldn't reconcile myself with that preoccupation with sin that, so far as I could tell, was never entirely absent from the monks' thoughts. I'd known a lot of fellows in the air corps. Of course they got drunk when they got a chance, and had a girl whenever they could and used foul language; we had one or two had hats: one fellow was arrested for passing rubber cheques and was sent to prison for six months; it wasn't altogether his fault; he'd never had any money before, and when he got more than he'd ever dreamt of having, it went to his head. I'd known had men in Paris and when I got back to Chicago I knew more, but for the most part their badness was due to heredity, which they couldn't help, or to their environment, which they didn't choose: I'm not sure that society wasn't more responsible for their crimes than they were. If I'd been God I couldn't have brought myself to condemn one of them, not even the worst, to eternal damnation. Father Esheim was broad-minded; he thought that hell was the deprivation of God's presence, but if that is such an intolerable punishment that it can justly be called hell, can one conceive that a good God can inflict it? After all, he created men, if he so created them that ti was possible for them to sin, it was because he willed it. If I trained a dog to fly at the throat of any stranger who came into by back yard, it wouldn't be fair to beat him when he did so.
If an all-good and all-powerful God created the world, why did he create evil? The monks said, so that man by conquering the wickedness in him, by resisting temptation, by accepting pain and sorrow and misfortune as the trials sent by God to purify him, might at long last be made worthy to receive his grace. It seem to me like sending a fellow with a message to some place and just to make it harder for him you constructed a maze that he had to get through, then dug a moat that he had to swim and finally built a wall that he had to scale. I wasn't prepared to believe in an all-wise God who hadn't common sense. I didn't see why you shouldn't believe in a God who hadn't created the world, buyt had to make the best of the bad job he'd found, a being enormously better, wiser and greater than man, who strove with the evil he hadn't made and who might be hoped in the end to overcome it. But on the other hand I didn't see why you should.”
Source: The Razor’s Edge
“But that wasn't what happened. What happened was they drove to Harry's and parked the Camaro next to an Audi and a Lexus and Gansey ordered flavors of gelato until the table wouldn't hold anymore and Ronan convinced the staff to turn the overhead speakers up and Blue laughed for the first time at something Gansey said and they were loud and triumphant and kings of Henrietta, because they'd found the ley line and because it was starting, it was starting.”
Source: The Raven Boys
“But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers to
people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.”
Source: The primrose path
“But that wasn't quite right. I called it a nine because I was saving my ten. And here it was, the great and terrible ten, slamming me again and again as I lay still and alone in my bed staring at the ceiling, the waves tossing me against the rocks then pulling me back out to sea so they could launch me again into the jagged face of the cliff, leaving me floating faceup on the water, undrowned.”
Source: The Fault in Our Stars
“But that wasn´t the first time I ever saw her. I saw her in the hallways at school, and at my mother’s false funeral, and walking the sidewalks in the Abnegation sector. I saw her, but I didn’t see her; no one saw her the way she truly was until she jumped. I suppose a fire that burns that bright is not meant to last.”
“But that we didn't have the level of experience in terms of working in the industry so you weren't sure and you needed to see it and this is an industry that the more you work the better you get and that the more opportunities you have the better you get.”
“But that we shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know; - that is a theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my power.”
“but that what was for him the greatest and most cruel injustice appeared to others a quite ordinary occurrence.”
Source: The Death of Ivan Ilyich
“But that which fanaticism formerly promised to the elect, science now accomplishes for all men.”
“But that which is useful is the better.”
Source: Meditations
“But that would leave Paxton to fend for herself, and the last thing any woman wanted in this kind of situation was to look around and see all the people who could help her doing nothing.”
Source: The Peach Keeper: A Novel
“But that would put me on a path that would make me totally divergent from who I am. I don't have to go through the heartache many other people go through, of figuring out what makes them "wealthy." I know what brings me joy.”
“But that's a side effect of alcohol, isn't it? Stopping to think about other people is not on the bar menu.”
“but that's alright because now everything'll be alright & we'll soothe the forever boys & girls & before we're thru we'll find a name for this Goddam Golden Eternity & tell a story too”
Source: Old Angel Midnight
“But that's always the way; it don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn't know no more than a person's conscience does I would pison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet ain't no good, nohow.”
“But that's how it is when you start wanting to have things. Now, I just look at them, and when I go away I carry them in my head. Then my hands are always free, because I don't have to carry a suitcase.”
Source: Comet in Moominland: Can Moomintroll save his beloved valley?
“But that's how life is. You never know how it's going to turn out, and you can't plan for everything. You just have to do your best dealing with things as they come and hope people forgive you when you make a mistake.”
“But that's how the heart is. Stubborn and foolish.”
Source: Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution
“But that's just the aim of civilization - to make everything a source of enjoyment.”
Source: Anna karenina (Arcadia Classics)
“But that's kind of an easy stance to be if you're a humor columnist, because you're tending to make fun of the government and the powerful. I'm sort of a soft-core libertarian in that my compass is generally pointing away from 'Let's let the government do this' Does it matter to me that it's Democrats who think we need more elaborate programs that involve shifting money from one group to another group or it's Republicans saying we need to take a harder look at what kinds of things people are watching on cable TV? Neither one of those things strikes me as a good idea.”
“But that's men all over ... Poor dears, they can't help it. They haven't got logical minds.”
Source: Busman's Honeymoon
“But that's not enough: To maintain energy security, one needs a supply system that provides a buffer against shocks. It needs large, flexible markets. And it's important to acknowledge the fact that the entire energy supply chain needs to be protected.”
“But that's not how most of the people mentioned in this book became wealthy. Most of them became wealthy by being well connected and crooked. And they are creating a society in which they can commit hugely damaging economic crimes with impunity, and in which only children of the wealthy have the opportunity to become successful.”
Source: Inside Job: The Financiers Who Pulled Off the Heist of the Century
“But that's not the name of a man, it's the name of a mountain! (...) "It is my name," Athos said calmly. "But you said your name was d'Artagnan." "I?" "Yes, you." "That is to say, someone said to me: 'You are M. d'Artagnan?' I replied: 'You think so?' My guards shouted that they were sure of it. I did not want to vex them. Besides, I might have been mistaken.”
“But that's not to say that the potential for the sun to shine doesn't exist. You know? Walk down the path towards the light, rather than walk into the darkness.”
“But that's not what an actor does. An actor finds things in the moment with a director and other actors that you don't have time to hand-draw or animate with a computer.”
“But that's one lifetime." Yeah." But while doing that one I'd want to be able to have done other stuff. Whole other lives- the one where I sail-" I know, on a boat you made yourself.”
Source: You Shall Know Our Velocity
“But that's one of the nice things about doing a stage show, if something doesn't work out, you have the luxury of working on it over time.”
“But that's part of faith. Believing and knowing despite what other people say, and despite what the world might think of your beliefs.”
Source: The Final Testament
“But that's the beauty of life: time is yours to keep and to change. Just a few minutes can be sufficient to carve a new road, a new track. Just a few minutes, and the void is kept at bay. You will live forever with that new road inside of you, stretching away to a place suggested, barely, on the horizon. For the shortest time, shorter than the shortest second's breath, you get to stand up to infinity. But eventually, and always, infinity wins.”
Source: Rooms
“But that's the challenge -- to change the system more than it changes you.”
Source: The Omnivore's Dilemma: The Search for a Perfect Meal in a Fast-Food World
“But that's the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don't want to know what people are talking about. I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can't read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can't even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.”
Source: Neither here nor there: travels in Europe
“But that's the hardest part of healing.' What?' Realizing there's no one to hate.”
“But that's the problem with love - it acts on you, works through you, resists your attempts to control.”
“But that's the problem with playing new music sometimes before the record comes out: You have a bunch of yayhoots with opinions.”
“But that's the thing about basketball: you don't play games on paper.”
Source: The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy
“But that's typical of me. "This is going to end in tears," I tell myself every time I balance a cup of coffee on the upholstered arm of the chair I'm sitting on. And then, lo and behold, the cup topples and even before it lands, I tell myself, "Told me so!" Not to spell out, or spill out, one of the metaphors of my life, but I always do the stupid thing and then I do it again. I never learn.”
Source: Him Her Him Again The End of Him
“But that's what happens when you allow a nice person to write a news paper serial for you; now the world thinks you're nice, too, which is silly in the extreme. Sadly, it's a burden that you must bear.”
Source: The Taming of a Scottish Princess
“But that's what love is, isn't it? When it hurts you more to see someone suffer than it does to take the pain away?”
Source: The Storyteller
“But that's what we all are-just stories. We only exist by how people remember us, by the stories we make of our lives. Without the stories, we'd just fade away.”
“But that's what you're doing, isn't it? You're part of the fight just as much as the Shadowhunters on the ship—and I know you can take some of my strength, I've heard of warlocks doing that—so I'm offering. Take it. It's yours.”
Source: Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instrument Series (3 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass
“But thats their image of us so we stay tense, holding our breath, hoping we wont be found out. - about being gay from the film Love My Life”
Source: Love My Life
“But that’s one advantage of fiction, you can speed up time.”
Source: Conversations with Julian Barnes
“But the "wise" person understands something else— that we are all connected and, therefore, his or her own happiness must include the happiness of others.”
“But the 'project of me' can never be enough, for it does not meet 'the other,' and real living involves meeting. The touch and contact with all of life, the full freedom of non-separation, the completeness of full relationship, and the radiance of compassionate ecstasy is what we are inherently hungry for.”
“But the - look, I think that this - the United States of America is still the most powerful economy in the world. It is an incredible engine for creativity and innovation. And it has the most - smartest, most effective workforce in the world. So we have a lot going for us, in spite of the fractiousness of our politics.”