B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But what makes my job so great is there's no one answer that's right for every restaurant.”
“But what makes wage slaves? Wages!”
“But...what makes you Nathan--what makes you so special--is that you are both White Witch and Black Witch, both dark and full of light. That's what I love about you. What I've always loved. And I love you still, Nathan, and I know I always will. But you're changing. And now...now what I fear is that you'll get the amulet and you'll hone the Gifts you took from your father. You'll be invulnerable and you'll kill more people, many, many more people. I fear you won't be able to stop and you'll lose yourself completely. And then I'll come to dread you too.”
Source: Half Lost
“But what man does out of despair, is not necessarily a key to his character. I have always thought that the real key is in that which he seeks for his enjoyment.”
Source: Atlas Shrugged
“But what manner of use would it be ploughing through that darkness?' asked Drinian. Use?' replied Reepicheep. 'Use, Captain?' If you mean by filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honour and adventures. And here is as great an adventure as I have ever heard of, and here, if we turn back, no little impeachment of all our honours.”
“But what many psychologists have done, probably because they did well on a test themselves and everyone wants high self esteem, is to create this little box and then do their research inside it.”
“But what matter whether I was born or not, have lived or not, am dead or merely dying. I shall go on doing as I have always done, not knowing what it is I do, nor who I am, nor where I am, nor if I am.”
Source: Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
“But what Mayil liked the most was how birds behaved when they disagreed. If one bird was angry with another, it simply flew away. There was no shouting, harsh words, or noise. Birds both loved and fought in silence”
Source: The Postwoman and Other Stories
“But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day.”
Source: Sybil, Or, The Two Nations
“But what Mom never told me is that along the way, you find sisters, and they find you. Girls are cool that way.”
Source: Viola in Reel Life
“But what more oft in nations grown corrupt,
And by their vices brought to servitude,
Than to love bondage more than liberty,
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty.”
“But what most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvelous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones.”
Source: Democracy in America
“But what must be the character of that policy, which aims at national prosperity through the impoverishment of a large proportion of the home producers, with a view to supply foreigners at a cheaper rate, and give them all the benifet of the national privation and self denial?”
Source: A Treatise on Political Economy: Or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth
“But what my colleagues and I have found and have tried desperately to get across to others in the business of correction and forensic psychology is that dangerousness is situational. If you can keep someone in a well-ordered environment where he doesn’t have choices to make, he may be fine. But put him back in the environment in which he did badly before, his behavior can quickly change.”
Source: Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit
“But what of faith? What of fidelity and loyalty? Complete trust? Faith is not granted by tangible proof. It comes from the heart and the soul. If a person needs proof of god's existence, then the very notion of spirituality is diminished into sensuality and we have reduced what is holy into what is logical.”
Source: Siege of Darkness
“But what of faith? What of fidelity and loyalty? Complete trust? Faith is not granted by tangible proof. It comes from the heart and the soul. If a person needs proof of god's existence, then the very notion of spirituality is diminished into sensuality and we have reduced what is holy into what is logical.-Drizzt Do'urden”
“But what of life whose bitter hungry sea Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night Covers the days which never more return? Ambition, love and all the thoughts that burn We lose too soon, and only find delight In withered husks of some dead memory.”
Source: The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Poems and poems in prose
“But what of the voice and judgment of conscience? The difficulty is that we have a conscience behind our conscience, an intellectual one behind the moral. ... We can see quite well that our opinions of what is noble and good, our moral valuations, are powerful levers where action is concerned; but we must begin by refining these opinions and independently creating for ourselves new tables of values.”
“But what of you?” Gabriel said, and they
were very close now, almost touching. “It is
your choice to make now, to stay or return.”
“I will stay,” Cecily said. “I choose the
war.”
Gabriel let out the breath he hadn’t realized
he was holding. “You will give up your
home?”
“A drafty old house in Yorkshire?” Cecily
said. “This is London.”
“And give up what is familiar?”
“Familiar is dull.”
“And give up seeing your parents? It is
against the Law …”
She smiled, the glimmer of a smile.
“Everyone breaks the Law.”
“Cecy,” he said, and closed the distance
between them, though it was not much, and
then he was kissing her—his hands awkward
around her shoulders at first, slipping on the
stiff taffeta of her gown before his fingers
slid behind her head, tangling in her soft,
warm hair. She stiffened in surprise before
softening against him, the seam of her lips
parting as he tasted the sweetness of her
mouth. When she drew away at last, he felt
light-headed. “Cecy?” he said again, his
voice hoarse.
“Five,” she said. Her lips and cheeks were
flushed, but her gaze was steady.
“Five?” he echoed blankly.
907/1090
“My rating,” she said, and smiled at him.
“Your skill and technique may, perhaps, require
work, but the native talent is certainly
there. What you require is practice.”
“And you are willing to be my tutor?”
“I should be very insulted if you chose another,”
she said, and leaned up to kiss him
again.”
“But what offering can I consecrate to you, oh Master? -
You, who have bestowed hearing upon all creatures?
- My memory of one spring day,
In the evening, in Russia, - a stallion ...
Running alone from the hamlet across to us
The pale horse, a tethering-peg dangling from his fetlock,
To spend a night solitary in the meadow;
How he shook his tangled mane,
Tossed in time to his haughty step,
Despite his clumsily impeded gallop.
How the fountains leapt up of his charger’s blood!
He intuited the vastnesses and, oh from that
He sang! He heard! - yes, your cycle of legends
Was embraced within him.
His image: that I offer.”
Source: Sonnets to Orpheus
“But what people don't tell you is that when you start to achieve your dreams, it doesn't stop there. You don't get a gold star and then spend your days basking in your accomplishments. No, you have to keep working. You certainly don't have time to celebrate. Instead, the bar moves higher and the pressure to maintain success becomes a weight that threatens to crush you if you lose focus.”
Source: Escaping the Friendzone
“But what physician has not had patients who don't make any sense at all? To tell the truth, they're our stock-in-trade. We talk and write about the ones we can make sense of.”
Source: The Thanatos Syndrome
“But what really bugged the living crap out of me was that my mother had more friends than I did. How saw was that?”
Source: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
“But what really changes society are social movements, shifting how we think about things.”
“But what really excited me was the idea that humans had a tremendous pre-history that went back millions of years. I wanted to go to Africa to find some of these creatures.”
“But what really happened? The answer is simple: the lovers survive and flourish.”
Source: Atonement
“But what really intrigued Gianni was the one dessert that all of his friends had been baffled by- the cassata- a Sicilian cake, originating from Palermo and Messina, that consisted of sponge cake dipped in liqueur, layered with ricotta cheese and candied peel, and covered with a marzipan shell and icing; candied fruit in the shape of cherries and slices of citrus fruit topped the cake.”
Source: Rosalia's Bittersweet Pastry Shop
“But what really is immorality? And what does helping someone really mean? Helping them to be like everyone else, or helping them to be themselves?”
“But what really matters is not what you believe but the faith and conviction with which you believe.”
Source: Mysteries
“But what really matters is what's under the hood, and without continued attention to routine maintenance and repairs, it isn't long before the same old engine spoils the new ride.”
Source: Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption
“But what right had I to these highest joys, when all around me was nothing but misery and struggle for a moldy bit of bread; when whatsoever I should spend to enable me to live in that world of higher emotions must needs be taken from the very mouths of those who grew the wheat and had not bread enough for their children?”
“But what's braver?' Emmanuel said. 'Naming the bigots and possibly being killed for it? Or living in silence in order to protect yourself and those you love?'
I think bravery had more to do with making the choice and less to do with the choice it self. In that situation, bravery was both living and dying.”
Source: Echoes of the Struggle
“But what's left on earth that I haven't tried?" Prince Lír demanded. "I have swum four rivers, each in full flood and none less than a mile wide. I have climbed seven mountains never before climbed, slept three nights in the Marsh of the Hanged Men, and walked alive out of that forest where the flowers burn your eyes and the nightingales sing poison. I have ended my betrothal to the princess I had agreed to marry — and if you don't think that was a heroic deed, you don't know her mother. I have vanquished exactly fifteen black knights waiting by fifteen fords in their black pavilions, challenging all who come to cross. And I've long since lost count of the witches in the thorny woods, the giants, the demons disguised as damsels; the glass hills, fatal riddles, and terrible tasks; the magic apples, rings, lamps, potions, swords, cloaks, boots, neckties, and nightcaps. Not to mention the winged horses, the basilisks and sea serpents, and all the rest of the livestock." He raised his head, and the dark blue eyes were confused and sad.
"And all for nothing," he said. "I cannot touch her, whatever I do. For her sake, I have become a hero — I, sleepy Lír, my father's sport and shame — but I might as well have remained the dull fool I was. My great deeds mean nothing to her.”
Source: The Last Unicorn
“But what's the point of freedom? Do you think you can change anything?'
'Of course not. We are waiting.'
'For what?'
'Until the world changes on it's own. That is the one truth of history. Everything ends. Civilisations, empires, however powerful and strong. They all end, sooner or later. When it does, we will be there, with all the old ideas and thoughts, preserved and ready to blossom.”
Source: Arcadia
“But what’s the point of love if people die?” Ferris said, still staring down at Boomer.
“That’s what music is for,” said Billy Jackson.”
Source: Ferris
“But what's the use of arguing with a man? You belong, Mr. Smith, to a sex devoid of a sense of logic. To bring a man into line, there are just two methods: one must either coax or be disagreeable. I scorn to coax men for what I wish. Therefore, I must be disagreeable.”
Source: Daddy-Long-Legs
“But what's the use of beauty if one's life is drowning in gloom?”
Source: The Fragile Thread of Hope
“But what science cannot understand, it dismisses.”
Source: The First Codex
“But what shall I do when instead of a heart this fear is beating in my body?”
Source: Letters to Milena
“But what she feels is sometimes hard to express...Much of what is best in her is warped on the voyage from within to without.”
Source: Of A Boy
“But what she was really trying to say was this: I like music better than anything in the world, after you.”
Source: Everything Is Illuminated
“but what should we do when the highborn and wealthy take to crime? Indeed, if a poor man will spend a year in prison for stealing out of hunger, how high would the gallows need to be to hang the rich man who breaks the law out of greed?”
Source: Snuff: (Discworld Novel 39)
“But what shouldn't happen is, you shouldn't have the taxpayers from states that are managing their situations well paying for those states that are not.”
“But what sin is to the moralist and crime to the jurist so to the scientific man is ignorance.”
“But what struck me was the book-madness of the place--books lay scattered across the unmade bed and the top of a battered-looking desk, books stood in knee-high piles on the floor, books were crammed sideways and right side up in a narrow bookcase that rose higher than my head and leaned dangerously from the wall, books sat in stacks on top of a dingy dresser. The closet door was propped open by a pile of books, and from beneath the bed a book stuck out beside the toe of a maroon slipper.”
Source: Dangerous Laughter
“But what that means, sadly is that he has no depth. He’s never had to work for anything in his life.”
Source: Let It Snow
“But what the evil people do, that's their responsibility. The burden they have to carry. Sure, when we see 'em starting on causing some hurt, we've got to try and stop 'em, but mostly what the rest of us should be concerning ourselves with is doing right by others. Every time you do a good turn, you shine the light a little further into the dark. And the thing is, even when we're gone, that light's going to keep shining on, pushing the shadows back.”
“But what the fuck ... ever gave you the idea that Locke was the first name I was actually born with?”
Source: The Lies of Locke Lamora
“But what the hell are you looking for?" Hoshino asked after they'd eaten.
"I don't know. But I think - "
" - that you'll know it when you see it. And until you see it, you won't know what it is."
"Yes, that's correct."
...
"Mr. Hoshino?"
"Yeah?"
"It might take some time before I find it.”
Source: Kafka on the Shore
“But what the hell, I thought as I lay there in the dark. It could be souls rot away with the body, too. What did anything matter in the long run anyway, except memories? And they only lived on in corpses that couldn't talk.”
Source: Love Stories Are Too Violent for Me: The Definitive Rerelease of the Cult Classic