B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But when she turned her back to the lights, she saw that the night was so dark...She could not see the stars. The world felt as high as the depthless night sky and deeper than she could know. She understood, suddenly and keenly, that she was too small to run away, and she sat on the damp ground and cried.”
“But when she was a home, her unworthiness was more apparent to her, mostly with she focused on the clutter. When she focused on individual items, however, her possessions seemed more comforting than threatening. The irony that her hoard could be comforting and tormenting at the same time was clear to her.”
Source: Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things
“But when she was annoyed with me, she had a cold way of saying “Apparently” in answer to almost anything I said, making me feel stupid.
“Um, I can’t find the can opener.”
“Apparently.”
“There’s going to be a lunar eclipse tonight.”
“Apparently.”
“Look, sparks are coming out of the wall socket.”
“Apparently.”
Source: The Goldfinch
“But when she was scared, she was a child again, and she was more afraid of being a child again than anything else in her life.”
Source: Harrow the Ninth
“But when she was scared, she was a child again, and she was more scared of being a child again than anything else in her life.”
Source: Harrow the Ninth
“But when someone is on a winning horse, and everything looks wonderful, it's very hard as an outsider to persuade them something is wrong.”
“But when someone says 'Paul Simon', don't you just inevitably think of a piece of wonder bread just sittin' there on a counter top?”
“But when spring and summer happens, it's intuition. Everything is based on intuition. There's not too much time to overthink, over-complicate. Those wild strawberries, they might be there for two days.”
“But when that information travels only to a privileged few, when it is used to profit at the expense of the investing public, when that information comes by way of favored access rather than by acumen, insight or diligence, we must ask, 'Whose interest is really being served?'.”
“But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh! sweet friends, hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits and salted pork cut up into little flakes! the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt... we dispatched it with great expedition.”
Source: MOBY-DICK (WITH NOTES)(BIOGRAPHY)(ILLUSTRATED): OR, THE WHALE
“But when the 'Glee' audition came around, my manager literally had to talk me into it. I was petrified to sing in front of anyone.”
“But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me.”
“But when the conquered spirit breaks free And indicates a new light Who'll take care of the cats?”
Source: Selected poems
“But when the dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.”
Source: Cry, the Beloved Country
“But when the door shuts on us, all that vanishes. The shell-like covering which our souls have excreted to house themselves, to make for themselves a shape distinct from others, is broken, and there is left of all these wrinkles and roughnesses a central oyster of perceptiveness, an enormous eye. How beautiful a street is in winter!”
Source: Selected essays
“But when the dust has drunk the blood of men, no resurrection comes for one who's dead.”
Source: The Tragedies of Aeschylos: A New Translation with a Biographical Essay, and an Appendix of Rhymed Choral Odes
“But when the fairy sang the whole world listened to him. Stephen felt clouds pause in their passing; he felt sleeping hills shift and murmur; he felt cold mists dance. He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands. In the fairy’s song the earth recognized the names by which it called itself.”
Source: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
“But when the flash flood crosses your path, when the lion leaps at you from the grasses, advanced self-awareness is an unaffordable indulgence. The brain stem does its best.”
Source: Firefall
“But when the fox hath once got in his nose, He'll soon find means to make the body follow.”
Source: The plays and poems of William Shakspeare
“But when the good people do know, as they certainly do, that three million persons (at the least estimate) were starved to death in one year by the methods they approve, why do they still fraternize with the murderers and support the measures? Because they have been told that the lingering death of the three millions might ultimately benefit a greater number. The argument applies equally well to cannibalism.”
Source: God of the Machine
“But when the group is literally capable of changing our perceptions, and when to stand alone is to activate primitive, powerful, and unconscious feelings of rejection, then the health of these institutions seems far more vulnerable than we think.”
Source: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
“But when the heart grows too full, it overflows. And mine, inevitably, overflows on to a page.”
Source: The Priory of the Orange Tree
“But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Galatians 5:22”
“But when the other end of the line picked up, it was his voicemail that answered, not the man himself. "I know how devastated you must be to miss me," his cheery voice said, "but leave a message, and I'll try to ease your agony as soon as possible.”
Source: Vampire Academy: The Complete Collection
“But when the purity and community equations proved to be bad math, everything 'just crumbled.' How could she believe anything evangelicalism taught her if the one thing they said was most important - remain pure before marriage and you will have a blissful sexual life after marriage and be supported by the larger community - wasn't true?
"To me, it meant there was no God," Muriel said[.]”
“But when the religious go within and discover God or Love directly, it is not possible to spread fear and hate. And, when those that are politically involved go within and discover Peace or Happiness directly, it is not possible to spread fear and hate. The 'religious' and the 'politically involved' are then speaking the same language ...”
Source: The Human Experience Is The Dance Of Heaven And Earth: A Call Home To Peace
“But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking? The entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the central catacomb; the self that took the veil and left the world -- a coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors.”
Source: Monday or Tuesday: Eight Stories
“But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.”
“But when the thing that is scaring you is already Jesus, who are you supposed to pray to?”
Source: Cruddy: A Novel
“But when the wave of passion sweeps over her, she does not renounce the brilliant smile of life, she does not hypocritically wrap herself up in a faded cloak of female virtue. No, she holds out her hand to her chosen one and goes away for several weeks to drink from the cup of love’s joy, however deep it is, and to satisfy herself. When the cup is empty, she throws it away without regret and bitterness. And again to work.”
“But when there were certain moments or scenes that required a very specific nuance or performance, I myself would act out the scene or the sequence and that would inspire the actors. Of course, I can't really express emotions on camera, but I was very active in showing a certain action or a blocking for an actor. I would also participate in certain stunts myself and because of that, I would get bruises or cuts on my knees and elbows.”
“But when they began handing out doctorates for comparative folk dancing and advanced fly-fishing, I became too stink in’ proud to use the title. I won’t touch watered whiskey and I take no pride in watered-down degrees.”
“But when they changed their plans time and time again, the dates became confused, the periods were mislaid, and one day seemed so much like another that one could not feel them pass.”
Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude
“But when they got to the room...he thought how stupid it was not to realize what it would be like: the sprung, creaky bed, sheets that hadn't been changed from the time before, and the woman herself as she undressed and the clothes came away like the store wrapping on an uncooked chicken, a large piece of meat sitting down on the bed and nothing to do with him.”
Source: Something to Write Home About
“But when they made love he was offended by her eyes. They behaved as though they belonged to someone else. Someone watching. Looking out of the window at the sea. At a boat in the river. Or a passerby in the mist in a hat.
He was exasperated because he didn't know what that look meant. He put it somewhere between indifference and despair. He didn’t know that in some places, like the country that Rahel came from, various kinds of despair competed for primacy. And that personal despair could never be desperate enough. That something happened when personal turmoil dropped by at the wayside shrine of the vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible, public turmoil of a nation. That Big God howled like a hot wind, and demanded obeisance. Then Small God (cozy and contained, private and limited) came away cauterized, laughing numbly at his own temerity. Inured by the confirmation of his own inconsequence, he became resilient and truly indifferent. Nothing mattered much. Nothing much mattered. And the less it mattered, the less it mattered. It was never important enough. Because Worse Things had happened. In the country that she came from, poised forever between the terror of war and the horror of peace, Worse Things kept happening.
So Small God laughed a hollow laugh, and skipped away cheerfully. Like a rich boy in shorts. He whistled, kicked stones. The source of his brittle elation was the relative smallness of his misfortune. He climbed into people’s eyes and became an exasperating expression.”
Source: The God of Small Things
“But when they were done, I wondered if there would be a next time. I felt good. I wasn’t dead, yet something was dead. Perhaps I’d managed my peculiar objective of partial suicide. I was lighter, airier than I’d been in years.”
Source: Girl, Interrupted
“But when they were walking in the gardens one of them, or perhaps both, began a sentence with 'Do you remember...', that powerful insidious phrase which can upset the most carefully formal conversation.”
Source: Less than angels
“But when things were passed to you, you were supposed to pass them on to someone else eventually too.”
Source: Greenglass House
“But when this happens to you - and I think other people would identify with this - suddenly, colors are brighter. You see everything.”
“But when, through the open door of the cross and the name and power of Jesus Christ, I commend myself to the Father's heart, then God cancels all my past, accepts all my present, swears His holy name for my future and the love of God take me over. Then fear goes out of my heart, because love has come in.”
Source: The Attributes of God: A Journey Into the Father's Heart
“But when to sin our biased nature leans, The careful Devil is still at hand with means; And providently pimps for ill desires.”
“But when to-morrow comes, yesterday's morrow will have been already spent: and lo! a fresh morrow will be for ever making away with our years, each just beyond our grasp.”
“But when two people feel something, they ought to respect that enough to figure it out”
Source: The Witness
“But when war becomes literally continuous , it also ceases to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity. Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded.”
Source: 1984
“But when Warren has spoken on national security, she has invariably spouted warmed-over, banal Democratic hawk tripe of the kind that she just recited about Israel and Gaza. During her Senate campaign, for instance, she issued wildly militaristic – and in some cases clearly false – statements about Iran and its nuclear program that would have been comfortable on the pages of The Weekly Standard.”
“But when we allow and expect each other to change and, even more to the point, when we witness the learning, the changing, the grieving, with curiosity and patience and care and love; when we make room for and witness and invite each other's unfixing and so are unfixing ourselves; when we join the grieving, or when we join in grieving, and when we do it again and again, making of that soft, mutual, curious, groundless witnessing not only an endeavor, but also a practice (we're talking about practice again); when we do these things, we fall apart into one another. We fall into each other.”
Source: Inciting Joy: Essays
“But when we are following the light, even its extinction is a guide.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)
“But when we are nostalgic, we take pictures”
“But when we are willing to walk in the way of Love, to embody the light of Christ to everyone we encounter, we open ourselves to see and understand the journeys of so many other people…we not only honour the perspective and experience of our brother or sister, but we…learn and have our eyes opened to a new way of being. Because our big, wild and diverse God is at work in millions of systems, philosophies, cultures, religions and people beyond our own.”
Source: Nomad: A spirituality for travelling light
“But when we begin to live from within outward, in touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves, and allowing that power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense. For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to give up of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alter native in our society. Our acts against oppression become integral with self, motivated and empowered from within.”
Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches