B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But there isn't a single word in the universe that you can think of that would describe the way you feel right now.”
Source: How to Make Friends with the Dark
“But there isn't actually a most beautiful person in the world, because there are so many kinds of beauty. Some people love roundness and softness, and other people love sharp edges and strong muscles. Some people like thick hair like a lion's mane, and other people like thin hair that pours down like an inky waterfall, and some people love someone so much they forget what they look like. Some people think the night sky full of stars at midnight is the most beautiful thing imaginable, some people think it's a forest in snow, and some people... Well, there are a lot of people with a lot of ideas about beauty. And love. When you love someone a lot, they just look like love.”
Source: Cinderella Liberator
“But there isn't any second half of myself waiting to plug in and make me whole. It's there. I'm already whole.”
“But there it is: Everyone is alone, for life, and maybe that's not such a bad thing.”
“But there it was- crackling inside my veins. Crackling beside veins of ice, and water.
And darkness.
Embers flared around us, floating in the air, and I sent out a breath of soothing dark, a breath of ice and water, as if it were a wind- a wind at dawn, sweeping clean the world.
The power did not belong to the High Lords. Not any longer.
It belonged to me- as I belonged only to me, as my future was mine to decide, to forge.
Once I discovered and mastered what the others had given me, I could weave them together- into something new, something of every court and none of them.”
Source: A Court of Mist and Fury
“But there it was, the Pacific Ocean... huge, stretching almost as wide as the sky, a living, writhing thing, pushing up against a comma-shaped strip of white beach.”
Source: Shadowland
“But there may never be enough to satisfy shareholders who expect to win back one hundred times their initial twenty billion dollar bet.”
Source: Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity
“But there must be some pleasure in condemning everything--in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.' 'You mean there is pleasure in having no pleasure.”
“But there really isn’t much difference between love and hate. They both get out of control easily, and one turns into the other. Trust me. I know.”
Source: Percy Jackson's Greek Gods
“But there remained a reflective solitude behind that laughter, that nagging sense of completion that didn't sit well on the shoulders of a woman who had just begun to open her eyes to the wide world.”
Source: Siege of Darkness
“But there remains the question: what righteousness really is. The method and secret and sweet reasonableness of Jesus.”
“But there’s a less obvious yet surprisingly powerful explanation for introverts’ creative advantage—an explanation that everyone can learn from: introverts prefer to work independently, and solitude can be a catalyst to innovation. As the influential psychologist Hans Eysenck once observed, introversion “concentrates the mind on the tasks in hand, and prevents the dissipation of energy on social and sexual matters unrelated to work.” In other words, if you’re in the backyard sitting under a tree while everyone else is clinking glasses on the patio, you’re more likely to have an apple fall on your head. (Newton was one of the world’s great introverts. William Wordsworth described him as “A mind forever / Voyaging through strange seas of Thought alone.”)”
Source: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
“But there's a price."
"Oh?" She knew what it would be, felt her whole body come alive in anticipation.
"Yes," he said. "Exactly that."
She forgot everything when he drew her into his arms, everything but the wonder and the magic of his touch, the intoxication of his kisses, the sting of his fangs that should have been painful but filled her with sensual pleasure.
She wrapped her arms around his neck when he carried her to her bed, her hands clumsy in their haste as she undressed him. He was so beautiful, his body perfectly formed, his belly ridged with muscle, his limbs long and lean. He watched over her, his eyes hot, as she removed her own clothing, then covered his body with hers.
They fit together well, she thought, her body somehow molding to his. She ran her hands over him, loving the play of emotions on his face as her hands caressed him.
He gave her free rein until, with a growl of impatience, he tucked her beneath him.
She felt the sweet sting of his fangs at her throat as he possessed her with a fierceness he had never shown before.
"Mine." His voice whispered in her ear, echoed off the walls. "Mine!”
Source: As Twilight Falls
“But there's a problem," Dr. Bramble said. He tapped his forehad. "And it's right up here." Our greatest talent, he explained, also created the monster that could destroy us. "Unlike any other organism in history, humans have a mind-body conflict: we have a body built for performance, but a brain that's always looking for efficiency." We live or die by our endurance, but remember: endurance is all about conserving energy, and that's the brain's department. "The reason some people use their genetic gift for running and others don't is because the brain is a bargain shopper.”
“But there's a sacredness which is not of thought, nor of a feeling resuscitated by thought. It is not recognizable by thought nor can it be utilized by thought. Thought cannot formulate it. But there's a sacredness, untouched by any symbol or word. It is not communicable. It is a fact.”
Source: Krishnamurtis Notebook
“But there’s a stillness to you. Like if you were a radio wave, you’d have your very own frequency.”
Source: What to Say Next
“But there’s a Sufi story that challenges the notion that people believe only because they need an opiate. Rabe’a al-Adiwiyah, a great woman saint of Sufism, was seen running through the streets of her hometown, Basra, carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she answered, ‘I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven or fear of hell, but because He is God.”
Source: Looking for Alaska
“But there's always a story behind the story. That's how the story never ends: Someone is always telling it, someone is always listening. A story is told about something someone else did once so that we won't make that same mistake now.”
“But there's always time for hot chocolate, made with milk and grated nutmeg, vanilla, chili, brown sugar, cardamom, and 70 percent couverture chocolate- the only chocolate worth buying, she says- and it tastes rich and just slightly bitter on the back of the tongue, like caramel as it begins to turn. The chili gives it a touch of heat- never too much, just a taste- and the spices give it that churchy smell that reminds me of Lansquenet somehow, and of nights above the chocolate shop, just Maman and me, with Pantoufle sitting to one side and candles burning on the orange-box table.”
Source: The Girl with No Shadow
“But there's another kind of strength we've got...It comes from knowing the difference between who you are and who they think you are.”
Source: Hester
“But there’s more. When I was on my way to the event today, Carolyn texted me and told me that Steve and Eve got married over break. Six months after he broke up with me, and after he kept telling me he didn’t see marriage in
his future! And did I tell you that he broke up with me at the school, during the Fitness Fun-a-Thon fundraising event
we worked at?” Her face grew reflective. “I was handing out bottled water when he asked me to go behind the hydration station so he could talk to me privately. The whole time, Eve kept staring at us from the finish line of the three-legged race.
She knew I was getting dumped before I did.”
Source: Melting the Millionaire's Heart
“But there's no guarantee that the world will change the way you want it to. I think that's the danger of changing the past that the minister was talking about.”
Source: フェアリーテイル 36 [Fearī Teiru 36]
“But there's no life more miserable than living out someone else's dream and not your own.”
“But there’s no such thing as just human. Humans can do incredible things sometimes.”
Source: Incarnate
“But there's nothing like your first {child}. They grow up so fast.”
Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain
“But there's nothing up there but the wounded!" I say. "Katniss" I hear the warning note in Haymitch's voice and know what's coming. Don't you even think about-!" I yank the earpiece free and let it hang from its wire.”
“But there's one thing you must remember. Whether you want it or not, once you have created bonds between you and other people, those bonds will never disappear.”
Source: ツバサ-RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- 19
“But there's only one other person besides me in the Monterey Bay area who could pick up on spectral sound waves-especially now that Jesse is going to school so far away-and that person happened to be away at a seminarian retreat in New Mexico. I knew because Father Dominic likes to keep his present (and former) students up to date on his daily activities on Facebook.
The day my old high school principal started his own Facebook account was the day I swore off social media forever. So far this has worked out fine since I prefer face-to-face interactions. It's easier to tell when people are lying.”
Source: Proposal
“But there's really no question. It always comes down to just two choices. Get busy living or get busy dying”
Source: Different Seasons
“But there’s something about sitting at someone else’s desk that makes you feel like looking in the drawers. I resisted the impulse briefly. Then I decided what the hell. I was a private investigator. Poking my nose in where it didn’t belong came with the territory.”
Source: The Man Who Tried to Get Away
“But there's something fundamentally wrong in a system where a girl like Meredith would even consider staying with a boy like Dylan if she has the chance to be free of him.”
Source: The Book of Ivy
“But there's something I want to make clear. You didn't do anything wrong to cause me not to fulfil the deal.'
I opened my eyes. 'Because you changed your mind and simply had no need of a Consort?'
'Especially not one who stabs me,' he remarked.
I frowned at the hint of teasing in his voice. 'Are you going to bring that up continuously?'
'Every chance I get.'
'Great,' I muttered, rolling my eyes despite the rising curiosity. 'Now I wish I'd stabbed you harder.'
'That's rude.'
'Some would consider leaving your Consort to be abandoned on a throne for three years rude,' I retorted. 'But what do I know?”
Source: A Shadow in the Ember
“But there seems to have been an actual decline in rational thinking. The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance. They were idolized and treated as leaders; their opinions were sought on everything and they took themselves just as seriously — after all, if an athlete is paid a million or more a year, he knows he is important … so his opinions of foreign affairs and domestic policies must be important, too, even though he proves himself to be both ignorant and subliterate every time he opens his mouth. (Most of his fans were just as ignorant and unlettered; the disease was spreading.)”
Source: To Sail Beyond the Sunset
“But there she is, and I am watching her through the Plexiglas, and she looks like Margo Roth Spiegelman, this girl I have known since I was two--this girl who was an idea that I loved.”
Source: Paper Towns
“But there she was, standing next to his mother, so beautiful, so radiant that he could not see anyone else.
Suddenly the rest of the world seemed like such a chore. He didn’t want to be here at this dance, with people he didn’t want to talk to and messages he didn’t particularly wish to deliver. He didn’t want to dance with young ladies he didn’t know, and he didn’t want to make polite conversation with people he did. He just wanted Billie, and he wanted her all to himself.
He forgot about Tallywhite. He forgot about pease, porridge, and pudding, and he stalked across the room with such single-minded purpose that the crowds seemed to melt from his path.
And somehow, amazingly, the rest of the world had not yet noticed her. She was so beautiful, so uncommonly alive and real in this room full of waxen dolls. She would not go undiscovered for long.
But not yet. Soon he would have to fight the throngs of eager young gentlemen, but for now, she was still his alone.”
Source: Because of Miss Bridgerton
“But there still prevails, even in nations well acquainted with commerce, a strong jealousy with regard to the balance of trade, and a fear, that all their gold and silver may be leaving them. This seems to me, almost in every case, a groundless apprehension; and I should as soon dread, that all our springs and rivers should be exhausted, as that money should abandon a kingdom where there are people and industry.”
Source: Essays Moral, Political, Literary: Revision of Great Book
“But there was a difference between being stuck and choosing to stay. Between being found and finding yourself.”
Source: Compulsion
“But there was a discipline, it was just that we didn't understand. We thought he was formless, but I think now he was tormented by order, what was outside it. He tore apart the plot - see his music was immediately on top of his own life. Echoing. As if, when he was playing he was lost and hunting for the right accidental notes. Listening to him was like talking to Coleman. You were both changing direction with every sentence, sometimes in the middle, using each other as a springboard through the dark. You were moving so fast it was unimportant to finish and clear everything. He would be describing something in 27 ways. There was pain and gentleness everything jammed into each number.”
Source: Coming Through Slaughter
“But there was a feeling building in me now that I hadn't felt since I'd shown up at this stupid party: I was excited. Something was going to happen. Either this would work, or it wouldn't. Either I would be spared, or I would die. Either death was something that could be fooled, outwitted, outplayed, or it was not. However things ended, I would learn something about the world in which, for the moment, I continued to live.”
Source: Intimations: Stories
“But there was a hockey game where they didn't even play hockey, they just threw the puck aside and started fighting. I saw that and I thought, 'Oh man, I'm a thug?' So I'm really disappointed in being called a thug.”
“But there was a kitten on my pillow, and it was purring in my face and vibrating gently with every purr, and, very soon, I slept.”
“But there was a sense of something tipping out of balance. The times seemed out of joint. There was too much decadence. Too much intensity. Too much change. Too much happiness juxtaposed with too much misery. Too much wealth next to too much poverty. The world was becoming faster and louder, and the social systems were becoming as chaotic and fragmented as jazz scores. So there was a craving, in some places, for simplicity, for order, for scapegoats and for bully-boy leaders, for nations to become like religions or cults. It happened every now and then.
It seemed, in the 1930s, that the whole course of humanity was at stake. As it very often does today. Too many people wanted to find an easy answer to complicated questions. It was a dangerous time to be human. To feel or to think or to care.”
Source: How to Stop Time
“But there was a shift in behavior that, while falling short of a mass outbreak of criminality, was readily discernible by social scientists. Edgar Allan Poe had used the phrase “the imp of the perverse” to describe the temptation to do the wrong thing simply because you could, and for many people the imp had become more persuasive.”
Source: Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom
“But there was a special kind of gift that came with embracing the chaos, even if I cursed most of the way. I'm convinced that, when everything is wiped blank, it's life 's way of forcing you to become acquainted with and aware of who you are now, who you can become. What is the fulfillment of your soul?”
“But there was a thing here that I never saw. I don't think you've ever seen it either. There were Americans came here and they put whiskey in the beer."
"No," I said.
"Oui. My God, yes, that's true. Et aussi une femme qui a vomis sur la table!"
"Comment?"
"C'est vrai. Elle a vomis sur la table. Et après elle a vomis dans ses shoes. And afterward they come back and say they want to come again and have another party the next Saturday, and I say no, my God, no! When they came I locked the door.”
“But there was a time when each of us stood naked before the world, confronting life as a serious problem with which we were intimately and passionately concerned. There was a time when it was of vital interest to us to find out whether there was a God or not. Obviously the existence or otherwise of a future life must be of the very first importance to somebody who is going to live her present one, because her manner of living it must hinge on the problem. There was a time when Free Love versus Catholic Morality was a question of as much importance to our hot bodies as if a pistol had been clapped to our heads.
Further back, there were times when we wondered with all our souls what the world was, what love was, what we were ourselves.”
Source: THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING
“But there was a time when each of us stood naked before the world, confronting life as a serious problem with which we were intimately and passionately concerned... There was a time when Free Love versus Catholic Morality was a question of as much importance to our hot bodies as if a pistol had been clapped to our heads. Further back, there were times when we wondered with all our souls what the world was, what love was, what we were ourselves.”
“But there was a young man who had been captivated. His name was Nwoye, Okonkwo's first son. It was not the mad logic of the Trinity that captivated him. He did not understand it. It was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow. The hymn about brothers who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer the vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul--the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed.He felt a relief within him as the hymn poured into his parched soul. The words of the hymn were like the drops of frozen rain melting on the dry palate of the panting earth.”
Source: Things Fall Apart
“But there was also a little of that thing they say about New Englanders: Being from here doesn't prevent me from doing anything, it just prevents me from enjoying it.”
“but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering.”
Source: The Echoes of the Jazz Age Collection: The Beautiful and Damned, Winter Dreams, The Great Gatsby, Babylon Revisited, The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and many more