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B Quotes

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All B Quotes

“But when did you see her, talk to me? When did you see her go into the cave? Why did you threaten to strike a spirit? You still don't understand, do you? You acknowledged her, Broud, she has beaten you. You did everything you could to her, you even cursed her. She's dead, and still she won. She was a woman, and she had more courage than you, Broud, more determination, more self-control. She was more man than you are. Ayla should have been the son of my mate.”

“But when Dorry reached the top of the fence, she didn’t hop over. Instead, she perched herself up there, in a crouch, like a gargoyle at the top of a building. Despite the nightdress the barbed wire was digging into her soles, but her face showed no pain. No exhaustion. No worry. Dorry had balanced herself in that crouched position and then, even more remarkable, she stood. Because it was night, the dull silver fence was practically invisible, so the old woman seemed to be floating eight feet above the concrete court. Dorry levitated.”

“But when emotions get strong, humans have to do something. Some people encase their emotions by playing or exercising, whereas others calm their emotions by breaking things. People in the latter group could let their feelings out just by breaking furniture or the like. But Morino was unable to direct those feelings outward, so she'd directed them at herself.”

“But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.”

“But when fundamentals are doubted, as at present, we must try to recover the candour and wonder of the child; the unspoilt realism and objectivity of innocence. Or if we cannot do that, we must try at least to shake off the cloud of mere custom and see the thing as new, if only by seeing it as unnatural. Things that may well be familiar so long as familiarity breeds affection had much better become unfamiliar when familiarity breeds contempt. For in connection with things so great as are here considered, whatever our view of them, contempt must be a mistake. Indeed contempt must be an illusion. We must invoke the most wild and soaring sort of imagination; the imagination that can see what is there.”

“But when General Ziaul Haq introduced the strict blasphemy - 295 A, B, C - of Pakistan's penal code, then from 1986 to today there are hundreds cases that are registered under the protection of blasphemy law. And until today, no case against any minorities, and especially Christians, is proved in the higher court. The lower court would order punishment but the higher court would always acquit people. So it proves that this law is being used as a tool of victimization against minorities and innocent people of Pakistan.”

“But when he deals with the Winner that [Jesus] is the most romantic, in the sense most real. The world had always loved the Saint as being the nearest possible approach to the perfection of God. Christ, through some divine instinct in him, seems to have always loved the Winner as being the nearest possible approach to the perfection of man. His primary desire was not to reform people, any more than his primary desire was to relieve suffering. To turn an interesting thief into a tedious honest man was not his aim. He would have thought little of the Prisoner's Aid Society and other modern movements of the kind. The conversion of a Pharisee would not have seemed to him a great achievement by any means. But in a manner not yet understood of the world he regarded sin and suffering as being in themselves beautiful, holy things, and modes of perfection. It sounds a very dangerous idea. It is so. All great ideas are dangerous. That it was Christ's creed admits of no doubt. That is the true creed I don't doubt myself.”

“But when he thought to complain about the burden of its weight, he remembered that, because he had the jacket, he had withstood the cold of the dawn. We have to be prepared for change, he thought, and he was grateful for the jacket's weight and warmth. The jacket had a purpose, and so did the boy.”

“But when his accusers rose to speak they brought none of the charges I was expecting; they merely had several points of disagreement with him about their peculiar religion and about someone called Jesus, a dead man whom Paul alleged to be alive … Jonathan read on, fascinated by the story, there were so many interesting details. But then he paused – was it the true story it said it was?”

“But when I am alone, I do not have the effrontery to consider myself an artist at all, not in the grand old meaning of the word: Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt, Goya were great painters. I am only a public clown-a mountebank. I have understood my time and have exploited the imbecility, the vanity, the greed of my contemporaries. It is a bitter confession, this confession of mine, more painful than it may seem. But at least and at last it does have the merit of being honest.”

“but when i find a place to put my love, i will fucking die for you. i will hand over all my rations until you are fat and happy, and i am shriveled and happy. i will follow you across the country and i will take care of your dog and i will do your laundry. i will love you even when you yell at me. i will try to kiss you when you turn away. i will write poems and you won't read them. i will pretend that this is enough. this is enough. this is enough. this is enough. this is enough. this is-”