I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“I once heard someone say, it was not the journey or the destination that mattered most, but the company.”
Source: The Cat Who Taught Zen: A Beautifully Illustrated Exploration of Self-Discovery
“I once heard someone say morality was method. Do you hold with that? I suppose you wouldn't. You would say that morality was vested in the aim, I expect. Difficult to know what one's aims are, that's the trouble, specially if you're British.”
Source: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
“I once heard someone say that prayer is more than words. It's a stance you take, a position you claim. You throw your body against the door to keep the demons from advancing and stay put until they go away.”
“I once heard someone say that success is not hocus pocus but focus focus.”
“I once heard someone say that the concept of moderation seems a little extreme, and tonight...I agree.”
“I once heard that all reactions to life could be summed up in one of three words every child knows: yikes, yum and yuk. The 100,000 other words in the English language are just refinements and explications of the basic emotions conveyed by these three words. “Yikes” expresses the primary negative but protective emotion of fear; “yum” and “yuk” are the simplest ways to express the fundamental judgments of good and bad which underlie all of life’s experiences.”
Source: Ya Gotta Laugh
“I once heard that contractions are like this: a belt around your middle that is tightened agonizingly in ever elongating instances that arrange themselves in a pattern of pain.”
Source: A Blue One
“I once heard that joy and happiness do different things to the body. Happiness, which works itself out in the sympathetic nervous system, makes you excitable and energetic. It's important but fleeting, grounded in the immediacy of a moment or the whim of a feeling. Joy is more tranquil. It has to do with the parasympathetic nervous system, and it's much more about peace than vibrancy.”
Source: This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
“I once heard that Lord Martin can recall the exact details of every race he's ever been in and all the mistakes the other skippers made, and he doesn't require a chart or tide table when he's at the wheel. He keeps everything stored in his head like a scientific tactician.”
Source: Surrender to a Scoundrel
“I once heard that Paul Seymour said as much as winning an NBA Championship, he'd like to see the Celtics lose a game after Auerbach brought out the cigar so he could go up to Arnold and stuff the cigar in his face.”
“I once heard that Quentin Tarantino, who I obviously love and think is a genius, says that there's no such thing as guilty pleasure, there's only pleasures. And I do love that idea, because I do think that there's a pretentiousness when people make a list of their favorite things. I like to live a life where I don't think of my pleasures as guilty pleasures.”
“I once heard that women dress for women -- not for men -- and I think that has some truth to it. Men, what do they know? They don't know if you gain or lose five pounds. They're oblivious to those kinds of things. A lot of men will say "I like you just as you are." And you're like "But I'm bloated!" If they're attracted to you, they're attracted to you.”
“I once heard the activist John Perkins say, “You don’t give dignity, you affirm it.”
Source: This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
“I once heard the survivors of a colony of ants that had been partially obliterated by a cow's foot seriously debating the intention of the gods towards their civilization.”
Source: The lives and times of Archy and Mehitabel
“I once heard this saying that God keeps breaking your heart until it opens. And ain't that the truth. Think about it. Every struggle, every challenge, every adversity brings you closer to your heart, to your true self, to who you really are. Sometimes you got to be broken down to the point where you feel powerless to discover your ultimate and true power.”
“I once heard two ladies going on and on about the pains of childbirth and how men don't seem to know what real pain is. I asked if either of them ever got themselves caught in a zipper.”
“I once held a belief that life made sense, that working toward a dream would birth substance. Nothing else mattered. I soon discovered that success is as long-lasting as any of life’s novelties.
We’ve all been happy with new things, only to be disappointed later. Dolls and soldiers our parents toiled to give us found their way to pedestals, then to the back of closets.
I’d always dreamed of marrying a woman I loved and watching my children grow. I wonder if our lives should be filled with the pursuit of such dreams, those magical hopes interwoven into our story. Our stories are decorative shells for the crabs we really are, both protecting and exposing us to the manic outside.”
Source: Unnatural Truth
“I once hit Quentin on the head with my ball and chain.”
“I once jokingly told someone that every book is like a relationship. They're four or five years long - that's not so bad. They're serious. They demand a lot of attention. But I remember thinking that I wanted to have one with someone who's not so crazy and peculiar and demanding.”
“I once knew a chap who had a system of just hanging the baby on the clothes line to dry and he was greatly admired by his fellow citizens for having discovered a wonderful innovation on changing a diaper.”
“I once knew a fellow who committed robbery with violence, and he was sentenced to a long prison stretch and 12 strokes of the cat. He'd been injured during the robbery, so they put him in hospital to make him better so that they could make him worse. During the administration of the cat, he fainted after six strokes, and the doctor put him in hospital again. And he got very friendly with the nurses and the doctors, and after a while they got him well enough to go back and take the next six strokes. I saw him afterward and I said: "Oh, Jesus—that bloody law, that bloody judge!" But he said: "I don't want the fellow who made the law, and I don't want the fellow who passed the sentence. All I want is the fellow who held the bloody whip.”
“I once knew a girl who didn't know where anywhere was in the world. Not a clue. I asked her if she knew where Africa was and she answered, 'Is it the orange one on a map?'”
“I once knew a man out of courtesy help a lame dog over a stile, and he for requital bit his fingers.”
“I once knew a man who stole a Ferris Wheel.”
“I once knew a man who was heir to the throne of a great kingdom, he lived as a ranger and fought his destiny to sit on a throne but in his blood he was a king. I also knew a man who was the king of a small kingdom, it was very small and his throne very humble but he and his people were all brave and worthy conquerors. And I knew a man who sat on a magnificent throne of a big and majestic kingdom, but he was not a king at all, he was only a cowardly steward. If you are the king of a great kingdom, you will always be the only king though you live in the bushes. If you are the king of a small kingdom, you can lead your people in worth and honor and together conquer anything. And if you are not a king, though you sit on the king’s throne and drape yourself in many fine robes of silk and velvet, you are still not the king and you will never be one.”
“I once knew a woman who had a reputation as a snob and a gossip. I would avoid her at parties because I did not want to participate in her judgmental inquisition. It rarely felt like her questions were based on genuine interest and caring, but rather an attempt to gather information that she could use behind my back. I had her number and could see past her overly eager friendliness. Her attempts to be the expert on everyone else’s business have continued to make a poor impression on me these many years later. If your gut reaction is "Why do you want to know?" trust your instincts.”
Source: The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact
“I once knew a writer who, after saying beautiful things about the sea, passed through a Pacific hurricane, and he became a changed man.”
Source: Sailing Alone Around the World
“I once knew an otherwise excellent teacher who compelled his students to perform all their demonstrations with incorrect figures, on the theory that it was the logical connection of the concepts, not the figure, that was essential.”
Source: Space and Geometry in the Light of Physiological, Psychological and Physical Inquiry
“I once knew it. I only hope that I can regain my own identity, once I decide that Perry Mason and myself have come to the parting of the road. Perry Mason has become a career for me . . . all I know is that I work, eat and sleep Perry Mason.”
“I once knew of a girl whose story forms the substance of the diary. Whether he has seduced others I do not know... we learn of his desire for something altogether arbitrary. With the help of his mental gifts he knew how to tempt a girl to draw her to him without caring to possess her in any stricter sense.
I can imagine him able to bring a girl to the point where he was sure she would sacrifice all then he would leave without a word let a lone a declaration a promise.
The unhappy girl would retain the consciousness of it with double bitterness because there was not the slightest thing she could appeal to. She could only be constantly tossed about in a terrible witches' dance at one moment reproaching herself forgiving him at another reproaching him and then since the relationship would only have been actual in a figurative sense she would constantly have to contend with the doubt that the whole thing might only have been an imagination.”
Source: The Seducer’s Diary
“I once knew of a minstrel who bragged of having had a thousand women, one time each. He would never know what I knew, that to have one woman a thousand times, and each time find in her a different delight, is far better. I knew now what gleamed in the eyes of old couples when they stared at each other across a room...My familiarity with her was a more potent love elixir than any potion sold by a hedge-witch in the market.”
Source: Fool's Assassin
“I once knew one person in a leadership position who promoted diversity, unfortunately their policy excluded groups that were not aligned to his demeanour”
“I once laboured hard for the free will of man, until the grace of God at length overcame me.”
“I once lay in a hospital myself
praying to keep myself alive
and I’ve lain on several grounds too
and I know for a fact
it’s not very different
praying to get to stay alive
and praying to want to
stay alive.”
Source: He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss
“I once lay in a white hospital for the dying and the dying self, where some god pissed a rain of reason to make things grow only to die, where on my knees I prayed for LIGHT, I prayed for l*i*g*h*t, and praying crawled like a blind slug into the web where threads of wind stuck against my mind and I died of pity for Man, for myself, on a cross without nails, watching in fear as the pig belches in his sty, farts, blinks and eats.”
“I once listed all the good things I did over the past year, and then turned them into resolution form and backdated them. That was a good feeling”
Source: It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It
“I once listened to a woman describe a group of men marching toward her house with sticks lit afire, screaming things like 'git the nigger' and 'kill the nigger bitch.' Those tiki torches weren't about protest. They were about a statement. It said, 'We're still here because we never left.”
“I once listened to an Indian on television say that God was in the wind and the water, and I wondered at how beautiful that was because it meant you could swim in Him or have Him brush your face in a breeze.”
Source: Blue Like Jazz: Movie Edition: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
“I once lived in a place where the opinion of others mattered. It suffocated me, nearly broke me. So you’ll understand me, Feyre, when I say that I know what you feel, and I know what they tried to do to you, and that with enough courage, you can say to hell with a reputation. You do what you love, what you need”
Source: A Court of Mist and Fury
“I once lived in Malta", she said. "For three years. The water there is terrible. Undrinkable. Like diluted seawater. And the bread they bake there is salty. Not because they put salt in it, but because the water they make it with is salty. The bread is not bad, though, I rather like Malta's bread".”
Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
“I once locked my keys out of my car. I had to break out of my car with a coat hanger.”
“I once looked in the mirror at myself and noticed that, without a doubt, I am a sexy man. In fact, I don't think I'll ever get married...it just wouldn't be fair for my spouse to catch me enjoying a look in the mirror more than having sex with her.”
“I once looked like Norman Mailer in a picture with bad lighting.”
“I once lost a bill betting on the Red Sox,
...But that's another topic.”
“I once lost five years listening to a Pink Floyd album.”
Source: Ghost Story: A Novel of the Dresden Files
“I once loved a girl who almost loved me, but not as much as she loved John Cusack.”
Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
“I once loved a girl, her skin it was bronze With the innocence of a lamb, she was gentle like a fawn I courted her proudly but now she is gone Gone as the season she's taken”
“i once loved
someone who kept saying…
“be smaller. now smaller, still.“
but as small as i made myself,
it was never, ever small enough.
because my light was never the problem…
their own darkness was.
so the next time i love,
i want to love someone who says…
“brighter. now brighter, still…
you could never, ever shine too much.”
“i once loved someone
who tried to control me, and so
it became somewhere i couldn't breathe.
but i also once loved someone i couldn't trust…
and that was a kind of prison, too.
because freedom and trust aren't
strangers to each other…
like there’s a way you feel yourself
pulled so strongly to someone who makes
you feel free… and i also think you don’t ever feel
more like letting your heart run wild than you
do with someone to whom the state
of your heart matters.”
Source: she's flowers and fire
“I once made a check of all books in my fourth-grade classroom. Of the slightly more than six hundred books, almost one quarter had been published prior to the bombing of Hiroshima; 60 percent were either ten years old or older.”