B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But the part I always, and will forever, look forward to more than any event is when I sleep at night, tasting dawn and hoping to find Avène shining her love at me alone the next morning.”
Source: Everything Works Out In The End
“But the participants [in war] never forgot the details of their experience, and like the Wandering Jew, they were condemned to remain their own history books, each containing a story they could not pass on to others and from which no one would learn anything of value.”
“But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown. We can only move on.”
Source: The Gemma Doyle Trilogy
“But the past couple of days I’ve missed you so much it’s felt like missing you is all I am.”
“But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past - or more accurately, pastness - is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past”
Source: Silencing the Past (20th anniversary edition): Power and the Production of History
“But the past holds her secrets dear, and try as I may, I cannot coax them out of her.”
Source: The Guinevere Deception
“But the past is long, and the future is short.”
Source: The Age of Miracles
“But the past is passed; why moralize upon it? Forget it. See, yon bright son has forgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turned over new leaves. Because they have no memory . . . because they are not human.”
Source: The Piazza Tales
“But the past months have taught me that there is no starting over. As the narrator of Martin in Space says, "I can't unsee what I've seen, I can't unlearn what I know. Each place, each decision, each experience, has become a part of me, no more than my head, no less than my heart."
Life is a series of decisions, forks in the road, this or that, yes or no, left or right. We make our choices, we select our path. When I was young, the options seemed unlimited, so many paths to travel. But here's what I didn't understand: Every path is a one-way street. There is no turning back, no changing your mind, no trying both options. There is only forward motion. With time, your decisions pile up, compounding, interweaving, slowly turning you into the person you are.”
Source: The Wonder Test
“But the path you end up on means that you have to close a lot of doors, too.”
“But the pear tree was as lovely as ever and as full of flower and as still.”
Source: Bliss
“But the peasants - how do the peasants die?”
“But the peculiar impact of white fragility on the dynamics between white women means that too often mainstream white feminists get hung up on being polite at the expense of being effective.”
Source: Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
“But the peculiarly interesting fact is that re-transference is also possible. A country or other unit which has been worshipped for years may suddenly become detestable, and some other object of affection may take its place with almost no interval. In the first version of H. G. Wells’s Outline of History, and others of his writings about that time, one finds the United States praised almost as extravagantly as Russia is praised by Communists today: yet within a few years this uncritical admiration had turned into hostility. The bigoted Communist who changes in a space of weeks, or even days, into an equally bigoted Trotskyist is a common spectacle. In continental Europe Fascist movements were largely recruited from among Communists, and the opposite process may well happen within the next few years. What remains constant in the nationalist is his state of mind: the object of his feelings is changeable, and may be imaginary.”
Source: Notes on Nationalism
“But the penciled sheets did not seem like nor smell like the library book so she had given it up, consoling herself with the vow that when she grew up, she would work hard, save money and buy every single book that she liked.”
Source: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
“But the people are ungrammatical, untidy, and their sins gaunt and ill-bred.”
Source: The Portable Walt Whitman
“But the people at home if we're doing a town meeting or a town format. You have to answer the question that is asked. And what people at home are gauging how does this candidate respond to the questioner? Do they show respect to the questioner? Do they try to understand why the questioner is asking that? Do they respond to the question? Is there a human connection between the two? It's where Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney in 2012. He lost the voters on who was a stronger leader, who had a vision for the future, but on who cares about people like me, he trounced Mitt Romney.”
“But the people cannot have wells, and so they take rain-water. Neither can they conveniently have cellars or graves, the town being built upon "made ground"; so they do without both, and few of the living complain, and none of the others.”
Source: Life On The Mississippi: Mark Twain's Collections
“But the people did get it. They had lost something -- not exactly their fear, but their patience. Suddenly it seemed unbearable to go on accepting these systems, these portly little idiots in their blue suits, for another year, and then for another day, another hour. That special sort of impatience is the power-surge of revolution.”
“But the people I admire have always been people like Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson and Jack Lemmon.”
“But the people in the old country love their children. We have big families, and by the time a child is a year old he knows where he fits in the family and what he should do and what he shouldn't do. He knows his parents love him but that they're not going to stand for any nonsense and tantrums. So he is satisfied and feels safe. American children never feel safe." -The Listener”
Source: The Listener
“But the people of Arizona, the people of America, have been promised that our borders would be secured for years and years and years, with it not happening. And I don't believe the people of America, certainly not the people of Arizona, are ready to discuss anything other at this point in time other than securing our borders.”
“But the people of Harappa lived in peace and prosperity for a period about as long as Christianity has been on the earth. And yet, not a single war. Quite the contrast, wouldn’t you say?”
Source: The Subtle Cause
“But the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Perea called Pella.”
“But the people of the disaster area fundamentally needed to understand that the rest of Australia had noticed their misery and their stoicism and their intense sense of community and determination to arise from the sodden wreckage of their homes, and that Australians would dig deep to help. I helped to describe the community ethos which quickly triumphed over incipient despair. It is this mobilisation of the unifying spirit that thrills us all, even as we mourn.”
“But the people only talked about how ugly her face looked. No one even bothered to mention what a sweet, kindhearted girl she was. Now, don’t be amazed! That is just the nature of humans, to notice the one flaw among a person’s ten good qualities.”
Source: The Ugly Princess
“But the people remember
that it happens again and again.
A boy and his toy;
a teenager on the phone;
friends coming home from a party;
a girl asking for the right way--
their breath and their light
taken in just one shot.
But the people still remember
that with each rising sun is a new day.
With each new year is a new dream;
a new seed of hope unearthed, dusted, and polished.
The people know
that there will be a time of peace.”
Source: The People Remember
“But the people who mattered were the people you chose instead of the people who were yours by an accident of birth. Real family was heart as much as, if not more than, blood.”
Source: Compulsion
“But the people who took the bus didn't experience the city as we experienced the city. The pain made the city more beautiful. The story made us different characters than we would have been if we had skipped the story and showed up at the ending an easier way.”
“But the perception of life as an organic unity is a slow achievement, and depends for its growth on a people's entry into the main current of world-events.”
Source: Iqbal centenary papers
“But the permitting, the authorizing of something always concealed an element of dubiousness for him, something vague and not quite spoken. When a dramatic circle, a reading room or tearoom was permitted in town, he would shake his head and say softly:
'That's very well, of course, it's all splendid, but something may come of it.'
- The Man in a Case”
Source: Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
“But the person who scored well on an SAT will not necessarily be the best doctor or the best lawyer or the best businessman. These tests do not measure character, leadership, creativity, perseverance.”
“But the person who stepped out of the front door was tall and thin, with short, spiky dark hair. he was wearing a gold mesh vest and a pair of silk pajama pants. He regarded Clary with mild interest, puffing gently on a fantastically large pipe as he did so. Though he looked nothing at all like a Viking, he was instantly and totally familiar. Magnus Bane”
Source: Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls
“But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior.”
Source: The Albert Einstein Collection: Essays in Humanism, The Theory of Relativity, and The World As I See It
“But the philosophical and scientific process which I call 'secularization' necessarily involves the divesting of spiritual meaning from the world of nature; the desacralization of politics from human affairs; and the deconsecration of values from the human mind and conduct.”
“But the picture of when we reason best that emerges from the research is far away from the classic image of rationality - the wise scholar alone in a study. Rather, we avoid error when we reason in groups - allowing the push and pull of argumentation to get us out of holes that we'd otherwise dig ourselves into.”
Source: For argument's sake: evidence that reason can change minds
“But the pistol, this Walther...it was as if it had been made for the express purpose of shooting people. With a chill Richie realized that was why it had been made. What else could you do with a pistol? Use it to light your cigarettes?”
Source: It
“But the place is rank with Time—why shouldn’t I wish to scrape away the strata?”
Source: North Woods
“But the places we come from don't leave us as easily as we leave them.”
Source: The God of Animals: A Novel
“But the plain fact is, no matter how many ifs had changed, I'd still be me. Maybe not this me, here with you. But I'd always be a zannie, Nita. I like what I am. I like hurting people.”
•pg.180 - Kovit”
Source: Only Ashes Remain
“But the plain fact of the matter is that, for any person to successfully lead others, he or she must deal with reality and be ready to accept the fact that leadership , at times, can bring out the worst in us. And understanding, as well as coming to grips with the darker side of your personality, is key to dealing with real-life situations.”
“But the plans were on display…” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” “With a flashlight.” “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” “So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
“But the poetry side is what appeals more to me today. Metaphor, just absurd linkages and coming up with categories, labeling, taxonomy, and I'd say that I do have some tools left. There are days I can't make a sentence out of anything, and anything I make looks clunky to me. But I still have a general grasp of the cliché, of the generic sentence. And if I didn't have that, I'd be a blob of putty on the floor.”
“But the point is: On the right, they’re pretending that our “truthfulness” is what’s really important to them. Which, ironically, is not true. What matters to them is discrediting anything that they believe harms their side. That is their prime directive. And unlike Kirk, they fuckin’ stick with it. They don’t just drop the protocol any time they feel like humping a green girl in a unitard. [video clip of Captain Kirk, pursuing a green girl in a unitard]
And this, this, is their genius. Conservatives are not looking to make education more rigorous and informative, or science more empirical or verifiable, or voting more representative, or the government more efficient or effective. They just want all those things to reinforce their partisan, ideological, conservative viewpoint.
~ Jon Stewart”
Source: The Daily Show (The Audiobook): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests
“But the point is to get a whole new generation of people and people in general more re-engaged in news, and this has happened a lot since September 11th of course.”
“But the point is, now, at this moment, or any moment, we're only cross-sections of our real selves. What we really are is the whole stretch of ourselves, all our time, and when we come to the end of this life, all those selves, all our time, will be us - the real you, the real me. And then perhaps we'll find ourselves in another time, which is only another kind of dream.”
“But the point of a ‘human error’ investigation is to understand why people’s assessments and actions made sense at the time, given their context, and without knowledge of outcome, not to point out what they should have done instead.”
Source: The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error
“But the point of protest isn't winning;
It's holding fast to the promise of freedom,
Even when fast victory is not promised.”
Source: Call Us What We Carry
“But the point of using the number was to show that sex was a great part of my life as basketball was a great part of my life. That's the reason why I was single.”
“But the point was to be carefree, independent. Artists can't be hampered by the dailiness of ordinary life--Tony felt strongly about that. Doing the same things every day, forever bothered about money. Art has to be freed from all that.”
Source: The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories