I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“I had to see and feel and be with the thing that I wanted to write about.”
“I had to set the mouse trap three times before I finally caught the mouse. And that’s because I under-estimated the mouse, I over-estimated the trap, and I under-estimated the fact that I over-estimated myself.”
“I had to sever my emotional cord to escape the anger and shame that silently slithered through my head, disconnecting myself from the stares and whispers that followed me down the hall.”
Source: Reason to Breathe
“I had to share a room with my sister, who is five and a half years older than I am. We didn't get along well, and I felt that I had no privacy. So books were my privacy, because no one could join me in a book, no one could comment on the action or make fun of it. I used to spend hours reading in the bathroom -- and we only had one bathroom in our small apartment!”
“I had to shoot shotguns for The Blues Brothers. But I don't like that stuff. Too butch for me.”
“I had to show that the Bible dealt with an encounter between God and Man. I thought only of the apartness of God. What I had to learn after that was the togetherness of Man and God - a union of two totally different kinds of beings.”
“I had to sign the paper to shut down the government. It's terrible.... [But] what the shutdown showed many, many people is the importance of the role of government. And as frustrated [as people get with] Washington, there are so many things [the government does] that are so important to people's lives every day. The panda cam, paying small businesses their loans - these are all things that shut down.”
“I had to sit down and explain to [her friend] that AA was for quitters”
“I had to sit in front of all these people, and act like I knew what I was doing. I faked my way through it pretty well.”
“I had to sit with my senses. This clear, beautiful intuition took over. I knew exactly how I felt, and I wasn't confused or clouded or compromised. I realized that none of my feelings had diminished, but I might have to lose someone I truly loved. I didn't want to run away from Claire, but I knew drug addiction was strong enough that I had to be willing, if need be, to let go of the person I'd just fallen in love with.”
“I had to skydive for the movie and I was terrified. Like everybody, I thought it was going to be one of those experiences that changes your life. It didn't.”
“I had to slow down. If I was going to listen to Venice properly I needed to hear the cadence of the place. I needed to stand still. I thought of Whitman observing the parade of humanity with lewd concentration. Walt had a good ear. He loved opera and knew how to sit perfectly still.”
Source: Eavesdropping
“I had to slow down once we got out onto the street. It was dark, so if we stayed away from the streetlights nobody would be likely to see our various wounds and blemishes, but the way we were staggering would draw attention anywhere. I pulled Juliet close to me and tried to pretend that we were lovers drunk on our own hormones-and, yeah, before you ask, that was an easy part to play. Every inch where our bodies touched was an inch I was painfully, achingly aware of.”
Source: Vicious Circle
“I had to smile at the man. I mean, you have to smile at idiots and children.”
Source: Fool Moon: Book two of The Dresden Files
“I had to smile when stories emerged questioning whether I was gay. Obviously I knew I wasn't but people were curiously desperate to suggest I was ... when you know a gay guy has a crush on you, it's the most flattering thing.”
“I had to smuggle an early Nokia camera cell phone into the country from Bahrain in 2004. There was a large black market for these banned phones, with smugglers hiding them inside car bumpers or car door frames, while customs officials and police used ultrasound devices to ferret them out.)”
Source: Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening
“I had to soften him up because, for whatever reason, all the Rock Chicks had an alternate Hot Bunch guy, Indy's was Eddie. Roxie's was Vance. Jules was Luke. Ava's was Lee. Mine was Mace.”
Source: Rock Chick Reckoning
“I had to spend countless hours, above and beyond the basic time, to try and perfect the fundamentals.”
“I had to spend my entire childhood in the Altensam dungeon like an inmate doing time for no comprehensible reason, for a crime he can't remember committing, a judicial error probably.”
Source: Correction: A Novel
“I had to stand in front of my refrigerator, which was open, dipping pretzels in cream cheese and stuffing them in my mouth. If I did that, I was good. Otherwise I was nauseous.”
“I had to start being aware of what I ate, what I'm planning to eat and take my twice-daily medication accordingly. That's not so difficult now, but when you're 10 years old, it's tough, let me tell you.”
“I had to start boxing because I missed working on something and learning and I guess there's a little more aggression in boxing. I couldn't really get that side of me out, but I used to be able to by hitting a volleyball. That's why I started boxing.”
“I had to steal to survive.”
“I had to stop drinkin, cuz I got tired of waking up in my car driving ninety.”
“I had to stop drinking alcohol, because I used to wake up nude in front of my car with my keys in my ass.”
“I had to stop driving my car for a while... the tires got dizzy.”
“I had to stop going to auditions thinking, 'Oh, I hope they like me.' I had to go in thinking I was the answer to their problem.”
“I had to stop him from arresting an old lady who let her dog urinate against the fire hydrant that was in front of Burgerville headquarters.
"You'll blow our cover."
"But what if there is a fire?"
"The fire department will come and put it out," I said.
"With what?"
"Water," I said.
"Not from that hydrant," Monk said. "It's inoperable."
"No, it's not," I said. "It can still be used."
"There is urine all over it," Monk said. "no fireman would dare touch it, nor would any other human being."
"Firefighters run into burning buildings," I said."They aren't going to care about some dog pee on a fire hydrant."
"They would if they knew," Monk said. "We should call and warn them. Call Joe right now. He can get the word out faster than we can."
"Every fire hydrant in the city has dog pee on it, Mr. Monk. It's how dogs mark their territory. I can guarantee you that every male dog that has passed that hydrant has pissed on it."
He looked at me, wide eyed, "No."
"It's what dogs do," I said. "The firefighters knows this."
Monk swallowed hard. "And they still use the hydrants?"
"Of course they do."
"They are the bravest men on earth," Monk said solemnly.”
Source: Mr. Monk in Outer Space
“I had to stop hoping so much that a ship would rescue me. I should not count on outside help. Survival had to start with me. In my experience, a castaway’s worst mistake is to hope too much and to do too little. Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one’s life away.”
“I had to stop linking every single thing that happened to me with Kennedy. Realization dawned then, that he was still my default. Over the past three years, we’d become each other’s habit. And though he’d broken his habit of me when he walked away, I’d not broken my habit of him. I was still tethering him to my present, to my future. The truth was, he now belonged only to my past, and it was time I began to accept it, as much as it hurt to do so.”
“I had to stop myself from laughing. Who needs help taking a pill?”
Source: The Selection Series 4-Book Collection: The Selection, The Elite, The One, The Heir
“I had to stop traveling alone because I missed so many planes. When somebody runs up to you in the airport and begins to tell you their life story, you can't say, 'Excuse me, boo,' as they're weeping on your bosom.”
“I had to study acting to basically educate myself.”
“I had to succeed. Failure means I would have to be homeless again.”
“I had to suffer, for had I not she’d be clinging to me even now, wanting me to stay with her. It hurts when someone won’t let go. Not only must we leave, we must tear ourselves from one who clings. My suffering served a purpose. She desperately wanted me to stay but her anguish in the final hours changed everything. It became her greatest desire for me to be free of pain and this ultimately made it easier for her to let me go.”
Source: Only Gone From Your Sight: Jack McAfghan's Little Therapy Guide to Pet Loss and Grief
“I had to surrender all that I was and knew. It was a necessary process to discover my real purpose in this life. No regrets.”
“I had to surrender to not worrying about the way I looked, how much I weighed...I am not a woman whose self-worth comes from her dress size.”
“I had to survive a lot. I didn't premeditate my life. Life just happened as it did. And I had to figure it out as I went along.”
“I had to take a bit of a break and fast for a while, but then I found myself very, very hungry when I got back to [song-writing].”
“I had to take a leaf out of her book. Smile to her face, but hold a knife to her back.”
Source: The Woman He Left Behind
“I had to take a physical to do this show. They had a lot of weird questions like, "Have you ever tried sugar or PCP?"”
“I had to take driving lessons in New York, which were really weird because it's not the safest thing in the world.”
“I had to take my makeup off at work every night. I wasn't allowed to do it at home because my mom said that when your work day is done, you're done with work.”
“I had to take responsibility, even if it meant saying no to an authority figure, because I was the authority on me.”
Source: The Reckoning: The Darkest Powers Trilogy
“I had to take the driver's test twice. And they don't make you parallel park anymore, but you can't hit the curb when you're backing up. And I hit the curb.”
“I had to teach myself how to breathe again, in a world without you in it.”
Source: Seven Days in June
“I had to teach myself to let go of the conventional rock way of playing guitar and singing. Some things you wouldn't expect to work, did and some things won't ever work.”
“I had to tell about my colonic, which expresses the fact why I'm so neat today as opposed to a few years ago. I never knew that the weight made that much difference.”
“I had to tell Dad, 'It will be okay and be positive; keep praying and have faith'. I have always known about cancer, but to be around someone who has it and to see what it does in such a short space of time was hard. It makes you think about your life, about what is important.”
“I had to tend to this flesh as if it were an honest gift, as if it had all been worth it. Why did living feel so invisibly brief and unbearably long at once?”