B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But these speculations are too nightmarish. Better to feel 'I shall never know'.”
Source: The Sea, The Sea
“But these were dreams - and very ambitious dreams - of the future. For the present, he wrote what he could and set about the pleasurable task of revealing his talents to the world.
To his mild surprise, the world remained singularly unimpressed.
'You have some excellent material here/ wrote one publisher, 'but our reader feels the presentation to be a little laborious, and consequently we do not... etc...'
Well, that was pretty much the story. Winter drew on; Owen eked out his remaining money on food and fuel, then learnt a little about hunger and cold.
One publisher took the trouble to send a list of reading, so that he might submit the kind of book they required, and he sought out the titles at the local library. He read with growing interest, and soon saw where he had gone wrong.
The field seemed to be held by a group of writers whose terse, taut style suggested the breathless delivery of some vital message, the gist of which seemed to be that man had a mean destiny and that all was for the worst in the worst of all possible worlds. Owen was by this time so impoverished that he might have sought to share their generous publishing rights and big sales, but for the fact that he could not master the trick of seeing the Universe as a meaningless mistake, or the Human race as sick and soulless automata.
He could have joined another, minor school, who wove elegant references to myth and faery-tale into their novels. He was, after all, seeking to do the same. But to his amazement he found that they did so, not with the intention of suggesting that the apparently commonplace might be wonderful, but that the apparently wonderful was, after all, merely commonplace.
On a superficial reading they appeared to embody the ancient traditions in their works, but Owen, who could not get the knack of superficial reading, discerned that they were merely holding up a highly polished mirror to such subjects from a safe distance, producing as a result a diminished reflection, a perfect pigmy reversal of all that myth, legend and even homely folktales intended. While the ancient writers offered a simple, sometimes crude, or even ridiculous surface, beneath which the reader might discover unguessed levels of meaning, the work of the modern myth-mongers presented a clever, intricate and finely crafted surface, beneath which lay - nothing at all. And how could it have been otherwise, when true devotion to the Eternal Mysteries found no place in their hearts? There was no bedrock of belief.
So he went his own outmoded way, as the days grew colder and the cupboard became bare. He was not aware that his circumstances affected his state of mind, but an objective eye might then have discovered in his work - in the sombre pages of The Night Before Winter, for instance - a distinctly darker thread.
"The White Road”
Source: The White Road
“But these were essentially the accoutrements that appeal to all people who are not actually rich but who want to look rich, though all they manage to do is look like each other: damasks, ebony, plants, rugs and bronzes, anything dark and gleaming-everything that all people of a certain class affect so as to be like all other people of a certain class. And his arrangements looked so much like everyone else's that they were unremarkable, though he saw them as something truly distinctive.”
Source: The Death of Ivan Ilych
“But these weren't the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin, the kind a seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around-they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don't recognize them for what they are until it's too late.”
Source: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
“But these words people threw around - humans, monsters, heroes, villains - to Victor it was all just a matter of semantics. Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.”
Source: Vicious
“But they (the infantry) had no use for boys of twelve and thirteen, and before I had a chance in another war, the desire to kill people to whom I had not been introduced had passed away.”
Source: The Complete Works of Mark Twain: All 13 Novels, Short Stories, Poetry and Essays
“But they all stood beneath the cross, enemies and believers, doubters and cowards, revilers and devoted followers. His prayer, in that hour, and his forgiveness, was meant for them all, and for all their sins. The mercy and love of God are at work even in the midst of his enemies. It is the same Jesus Christ, who of his grace calls us to follow him, and whose grace saves the murderer who mocks him on the cross in his last hour.”
Source: The Cost of Discipleship
“But they also awarded a quite respectable 55th place to Enoch Powell, thereby demonstrating that, for certain sections of the population, being an unpleasant racist constitutes no bar to greatness.”
Source: Kings and Castles
“But they always just laugh off everything I say, when really I want absolutely nothing more than to destroy the world they live in and to watch them suffer, alone and miserable, trying to live in my world for a change!”
“But they are many and he is alone.
This has not come to pass yet, he thinks, this is not happening. I am not dying. This is my fate, what shall be. This is the future, it has not happened yet.”
“But they are not going to take on Big Oil because Big Oil is very generous at campaign time, and this is all about the elections. They want to pretend that they are doing something meaningful.”
“But they beckoned; leaves were alive; trees were alive. And the leaves being connected by millions of fibres with his own body, there on the seat, fanned it up and down; when the branch stretched he , too, made that statement.”
Source: Mrs. Dalloway
“But they can rule by fraud, and by fraud eventually acquire access to the tools they need to finish the job of killing off the Constitution.'
'What sort of tools?'
'More stringent security measures. Universal electronic surveillance. No-knock laws. Stop and frisk laws. Government inspection of first-class mail. Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests, and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is charged with a crime. A law making it unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest. Laws establishing detention camps for potential subversives. Gun control laws. Restrictions on travel. The assassinations, you see, establish the need for such laws in the public mind. Instead of realizing that there is a conspiracy, conducted by a handful of men, the people reason—or are manipulated into reasoning—that the entire population must have its freedom restricted in order to protect the leaders. The people agree that they themselves can't be trusted.”
Source: The Eye in the Pyramid
“But they can't know how the dark space inside me is growing. I lie to them. I can't get out of the dark hole. 'Peace is here' it whispers.”
Source: Breathless
“But they did not chatter much, for the boy, when he liked a person, would as soon sit silent in his company as speak.”
Source: The Celestial Omnibus and other Stories
“But they didn't know what they were doing! They didn't know! My head was swimming. The Howlers were what someone else had made them. How do you hate a creature for doing what it has been taught to do?”
Source: The Attack
“But they don't use law-they use law for their interests. They don't go by law, international, federal, local-nothing! They go by whatever is expedient to protect the interests that are at stake.”
“But they feel pain! They have feelings! And yet you call yourself a Celestial Spirit Mage?”
“But they fight in the name of the creator."
"I don't care if they fight in the name of broccoli. The goal remains the same.”
Source: Taste of Darkness
“But they fly. It is what fledged birds must do, and she's always known that. The nest can't always be full.”
Source: The Silver Dark Sea
“But they gave me Finn.
He said it like maybe it was worth the trade. Like it was something he would do again if he had the choice. Like he would take a man's legs and give away years of his own freedom if it was the only way. I thought how that was wrong and terrible and beautiful all at the same time.”
Source: Tell the Wolves I'm Home
“but they had also settled into the maddening familiarity of friendship; maddening for her at least.”
Source: One Day
“But they had found the Tansy Patch a charming place and were glad to go again. For the rest of the vacation there was hardly a day when they did not go up to it-- preferably in the long, smoky, delicious August evenings when the white moths sailed over the tansy plantation and the golden twilight faded into dusk and purple over the green slopes beyond and fireflies lighted their goblin torches by the pond.”
Source: Emily of New Moon
“But they had learned an important lesson about how defeating poverty is more difficult than it seems at first.”
Source: Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
“But they had, perversely, been living among people who were peering into the wrong end of the telescope, or something, and who had convinced themselves that the opposite was true - that the world had once been a splendid, orderly place...and that everything had been slowly, relentlessly falling apart ever since.”
“But they have two other Rights; those of sitting when they please, and as long as they please, in which methinks they have the advantage of your Parliament; for they cannot be dissolved by the Breath of a Minister, or sent packing as you were the other day, when it was your earnest desire to have remained longer together.”
Source: Memoirs of the life and writings of Benjamin Franklin ...
“But they {journalists} are still viewed as a rather privileged category. True, they no longer can ride buses free or go to the movies for free as was the case in Mussolini’s day. But they can still get into most museums or exhibitions without paying. If you’re a smooth operator you can get complimentary tickets for shows or the opera. Until recently, you could get a 30% discount on all domestic flights (now it’s 15%). And if you have trouble with any of your utilities,the utility company’s press office will be glad to give you a have in working things out. In addition, since many Italian journalists have a different sense of what constitutes a conflict of interest from what we do in the United States, they often accept any manner of gifts or paid vacations from companies they regularly cover.”
Source: My Home Sweet Rome: Living (and loving) in Italy's Eternal City
“But they know about us, they know, the four corners, and the chairs nearby us. Discerning shadows also know, and even the table keeps quiet.”
“But they know. They all know. And what am I against so many…?”
Source: The Journals of Sylvia Plath
“But they love each other," Clary said, appalled. "Isn't that what love means? That you're supposed to be there for the other person to turn to, no matter what?" Luke looked toward the river, at the dark water moving slowly under the light of the autumn moon. "Sometimes, Clary," he said, "love just isn't enough.”
“But they love each other. Isn't that what love means? That you're supposed to be there for the other person to turn to, no matter what?”
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 they need to worry and betray time with urgencies false and otherwise, purely anxious and whiny, their souls really won't be at peace unless they can latch to an established and proven worry and having once found it they assume facial expressions to fit and go with it, which is, you see, unhappiness, and all the time it all flies by them and they know it and that too worries them no end.”
Source: On the Road
“But they never again passed up the opportunity to read a good book, together.”
Source: Good Dogs, Great Listeners: The Story of Charlotte, Lily and The Litter
“But they never last, the golden days. And it can be sad, the sun in the afternoon, can't it? Yes, it can be sad, the afternoon sun, sad and frightening.”
“But they never notice the following inconsistency: this so-called worst-case event, when it happened, exceeded the worst case at the time.”
Source: Incerto 4-Book Bundle: Fooled by Randomness The Black Swan The Bed of Procrustes Antifragile
“But they none of them create the psychological conditions in which I first saw, or desired to see, the flower.”
“But they produced nothing but talk and at that not very good talk. A few like Slab actually did what they professed; turned out a tangible product. But again, what? Cheese Danishes.”
Source: V.
“But they're coming. They're coming soon and you want to be ready.”
Source: Borne
“But they're not really paper dolls," Melanie said. "And I don't really play with them, not like moving them around and dressing them up and everything. They're just sort of a record of a game I play. I make up a family and then I find people who look like them in magazines and catalogues, just so I'll remember them better.”
Source: The Egypt Game
“But they're too shy to speak when my mother-in-law doesn't; sometimes they open their mouths to begin, but they never get as far as the first sentence. You must get used to an ocean of silence, and just swim about in it as well as you can.”
Source: The Buccaneers
“But they're your parents," Malcolm said to him once a year or so. "You can't just stop talking to them." But you could, and you did: he was proof of that. It was like any relationship, he felt—it took constant pruning, and dedication, and vigilance, and if neither party wanted to make the effort, why wouldn't it wither?”
Source: A Little Life
“But they say if you dream a thing more than once, it's sure to come true.”
“But they say that people who aren't confident in themselves tend to be more flashy”
Source: 好きっていいなよ。5 [Suki tte Ii na yo 5]
“But they tell you that if you hate yourself hard enough, you can grab just a tail feather or two of perfection. Chasing perfection was your duty and your birthright, as a woman, and I would never know what it was like—this thing, this most important thing for girls.”
Source: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman
“But they that hold God to be [an incorporeal substance]do absolutely make God to be nothing at all. But how? Were they atheists? No. For though by ignorance of the consequence they said that which was equivalent to atheism, yet in their hearts they thought God a substanceSo that this atheism by consequence is a very easy thing to be fallen into, even by the most godly men of the church.”
“But they told me a man should be faithful, and walk when not able, and fight till the end but I'm only Human.”
“But they wanted you. Time is not something you give back. The very next moment may be answer to your prayer. To deny that is to deny the most important part of the future.”
“But they were all here—Edward, Sawyer, Atticus and Holden. John Kincaid's four sons. Bonded by brotherhood. Forged into men by the badges they wore. Reunited by grief.”
“But they were all thinking the selfsame thing: I might be a disgrace to my country. I might be a coward, even. But I'm not up there in those woods getting shot at”
Source: Shiloh
“But they were as different as fire and ice. Robert Kennedy thought Eugene McCarthy was pompous, petty, and venal. McCarthy thought Kennedy was a spoiled, unintelligent demagogue.”