I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“I once made love for an hour and fifteen minutes, but it was the night the clocks are set ahead.”
“I once made the mistake of going for a whole row of false eyelashes, which was just wrong as it gave me a sad, puppy-eyed look.”
“I once made the mistake of uttering the phrase "kill two birds with one stone" in [Aunt Marti's] presence. She corrected me. The proper phrase is "liberate two birds with one gesture.”
Source: It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree
“I once made the mistake of writing a story with David Corbett. The man smoked me. He can delineate the character and personality of an accordion in three strokes. I didn't even know accordions had character. This act of generosity and wisdom from a very good writer will help anyone who is staring at a blank page, any day, any time. Highly recommended.”
“I once met a beautiful, proper English girl. I bid her adieu.... she bid me a don't.”
“I once met a man who didn't have a heart. He told me he didn't have one. So I planted one inside him and he didn't even recognize it while it was growing. "What are these weird feelings?" he'd ask me. As if he'd never loved before, never felt before. "That's called a heart, you shithead" I explained. But then he took that heart and gave it as a gift to another. "Look, I have a gift for you" he told her. But that heart will die without me, you see. Hearts cannot be regifted.”
“I once met a man who had forgiven an injury. I hope some day to meet the man who has forgiven an insult.”
Source: Notes of Thought
“I once met a man who said he had visited every exotic place from the Grand Canyon to the Great Wall, but when I questioned him closely I discovered he hadn't seen the songbirds in his own backyard.”
“I once met a woman who'd been in therapy... and it seemed like the big thing she'd learned was to ignore everything she thought in the first hour of the day. That's when the negative stuff will try to bring you down, she said, and she was right about that but not much else. You come back from the night with your head and your soul empty, and bad things try to fill you up. There's a lot to get exercised about, if you let it. But if you've got a task, something to fill your head and move your limbs, by the time you've finished it the day has begun ands you're onto the next thing. You're over the hump, like I said.”
“I once met an economist who believed that everything was fungible for money, so I suggested he enclose himself in a large bell-jar with as much money as he wanted and see how long he lasted.”
“I once overheard him saying to my mother that, in spite of the lack of contemporary evidence, he believed a historical Jesus had existed, a Jewish teacher of morals, of great wisdom and gentleness, a prophet like Jeremiah or Ezekiel, but that he could not for his life understand how anyone could regard this Jesus as "Son of God". He found blasphemous and repellent the conception of an omnipotent God who could passively watch His Son suffer that bitter and lingering death on the cross, a Divine "Father" with less than a human father's urge to come to his child's assistance.”
Source: Reunion
“I once overheard the sweetest old woman behind me on a train tell her adorable old husband as he scoffed down a ham sandwich she had brought along, "If you ever yell at me to "stop bringing a ham sandwich with me every where we go" again? Next time I'm bringing a gun. And I'm blowing your God damn head off."”
“I once owned a collection of 77 novels that won the Pulitzer. The only good novel of the bunch was The Grapes of Wrath.”
“I once owned a really, really ugly pair of white leather boots. They were so bad. It was back in the '80s! It was just a really tacky fashion choice when I was in middle school, and I thought it was cool. I'm really embarrassed.”
“I once painted a concert singer and on the chestnut frame I carved the opening bars of Mendelssohn's Rest in the Lord. It was ornamental unobtrusive and to musicians I think it emphasized the expression of the face and pose of the figure.”
“I once performed The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald to about 15 sea captains. The song was about a ship that broke in half and sank.”
“I once picked up a woman from a garbage dump and she was burning with fever; she was in her last days and her only lament was: My son did this to me. I begged her: You must forgive your son. In a moment of madness, when he was not himself, he did a thing he regrets. Be a mother to him, forgive him. It took me a long time to make her say: I forgive my son. Just before she died in my arms, she was able to say that with a real forgiveness. She was not concerned that she was dying. The breaking of the heart was that her son did not want her. This is something you and I can understand.”
“I once played a sheriff who thought he could do the job without a gun. I was dead in twenty-seven minutes of a thirty minute show.”
“I once played the chief part in a rather exciting business without ever once budging from London . And the joke of it was that the man who went out to look for adventure only saw a bit of the game, and I who sat in my chambers saw it all and pulled the strings. 'They also serve who only stand and wait,' you know.”
Source: The Complete Works of John Buchan (Unabridged): Thriller Classics, Spy Novels, Supernatural Tales, Short Stories, Poetry, Historical Works, The Great War Writings, Essays, Biographies & Memoirs – All in One Volume
“I once punched a bloke in the face for saying 'Hawk the Slayer' was rubbish, when what I should have said 'Dad, you're wrong.'”
“I once read a quote that I think was Michelle Pfeiffer in an article, who said that she thought people went into acting because maybe if you could convince millions of people to like you, you will finally like yourself, approve of yourself. I don't know if that may have been a part of it.”
“I once read a story by this guy named Harlan Ellison ending: That night it rained, everywhere in the known universe. I was never too sure what the ending meant in terms of Ellison's story, but anyone who sits alone in a motel room for hours, watching the rain wash the world away, begins to understand. Knows what it feels like.”
Source: Death Will Have Your Eyes
“I once read about a guy who lost his arms in a fire. The nurse took pity on him and gave him a hand job. I don't even get that.”
Source: Dry: A Memoir
“I once read about a meeting of economists who agreed that if their forecasts were 33 1/3 % correct, that was considered a high mark in their profession. Well, of course, I know you cannot invest in securities successfully with odds like that against you if you place dependence solely upon judgement as to the right securities to own and the right time or price to buy them. Then, too, I read somewhere about the man who described an economist as resembling ‘a professor of anatomy who was still a virgin.’”
“I once read an analysis on conspiracy theorists, which posited that they, more than most, crave security and order. So it's easier to believe that big bad shadowy forces are in control, because that way, someone is still in control. But f**k you if you're spreading bulls**t.”
“I once read in a Bible commentary that the word "Christian" means "little Christs." What an honor to share Christ's name! We can be bold to call ourselves Christians and bear the stamp of his character and reputation. When people find out the you are a Christian, they should already have an idea of who you are and what you are like simply because you bear such a precious name.”
“I once read in my physics book that the universe begs to be observed, that energy travels and transfers when people pay attention. Maybe that's what love really boils down to--having someone who cares enough to pay attention so that you're encouraged to travel and transfer, to make your potential energy spark into kinetic energy.”
Source: My Heart and Other Black Holes
“I once read somewhere that, in any relationship, the one who cares the least is the one with all the power.”
Source: Man and Boy: A Novel
“I once read that forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a different past...but forgiving is not the same as obliterating memory.”
“I once read that if the folds in the cerebral cortex were smoothed out it would cover a card table. That seemed quite unbelievable but it did make me wonder just how big the cortex would be if you ironed it out. I thought it might just about cover a family-sized pizza: not bad, but no card-table. I was astonished to realize that nobody seems to know the answer. A quick search yielded the following estimates for the smoothed out dimensions of the cerebral cortex of the human brain.
An article in Bioscience in November 1987 by Julie Ann Miller claimed the cortex was a "quarter-metre square." That is napkin-sized, about ten inches by ten inches. Scientific American magazine in September 1992 upped the ante considerably with an estimated of 1 1/2 square metres; thats a square of brain forty inches on each side, getting close to the card-table estimate. A psychologist at the University of Toronto figured it would cover the floor of his living room (I haven't seen his living room), but the prize winning estimate so far is from the British magazine New Scientist's poster of the brain published in 1993 which claimed that the cerebral cortex, if flattened out, would cover a tennis court. How can there be such disagreement? How can so many experts not know how big the cortex is? I don't know, but I'm on the hunt for an expert who will say the cortex, when fully spread out, will cover a football field. A Canadian football field.”
Source: The Burning House : Unlocking the Mysteries of the Brain
“I once read that in any good marriage, one partner is the gardener and the other is the garden. We take it in turns to be either.”
“I once read that love is like a rose: we fixate on the blossom, but it's the thorny stem that keeps it alive and aloft. I think marriage is like that. Like my father said, the things of greatest value are the things we fight for. And in the end, if we do it right, we value the stem far more than the blossom”
Source: Finding Noel
“I once read that most people are afraid to live alone because to live alone means to die alone. They have visions of themselves eating their breakfast, enjoying the dripping sluice of a ripe plum, and then suddenly the lights go out and they fall face-first into their pancakes. People, it seems, are less afraid of loneliness than worrying about what other people will think when they’re found in some unappealing, disintegrating state, tongue out, one leg curled underneath the other, internal fluids in a puddle on the floor, etcetera. Most people are afraid that if left alone, they will not be found. Being found is apparently of the utmost importance to people.”
Source: The Convalescent
“I once read that people who study others are wise but those who study themselves are enlightened.”
Source: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny
“I once read that the only way to enjoy life is to observe everything with a sense of detached amusement. I don't always do that, but it serves you well to keep it in mind.”
“I once read that you die because you see the Angel of Death, and you fall in love. And you fall in love so hard your soul is sucked out through your eyes, and that's the moment of death. It's a lovely, strange old Jewish legend.”
“I once received a cape that was made from the little purple bags that Crown Royal Whisky comes in.”
“I once received a letter from an old lady in California who informed me that when the tired reader comes home at night, he wishes to read something that will lift up his heart. And it seems her heart had not been lifted up by anything of mine she had read. I think that if her heart had been in the right place, it would have been lifted up.”
Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
“I once recommended [in a San Francisco Chronicle column] that a third arm - a plastic arm - be sewn at the base of the spine so that people could have a tripod to sit on while waiting in line, and it was taken seriously.”
“I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promiise. This means nothing to you, because to you promises mean nothing... But later, she will forget her promise. She will forget she had a grandmother.”
“I once said coaching a first-year team was a religious experience. You do a lot of praying - but most of the time the answer is NO.”
“I once said that CGI makes you less inventive. At the time I was bemoaning the loss of the practical stunt. If a stunt can be done practically and safely, I'd rather do it old-style.”
“I once said that effort is between you, and you, and nobody else. The same can be true between and individual and their camera. What you're shooting is between you and you and nobody else. Outcomes are for the audience. The action is yours alone.”
“I once said that it was unacceptable for Japan to remain "an isolated prosperous island." At one time, it might have been all right for Japan to avoid sending any citizens to dangerous areas [even as part of international efforts] and just wish for its own people's happiness. That time is gone.”
“I once said the Queen of England could use some fashion advice.”
Source: I Can't Believe I Said That!: An Autobiography
“I once said to a boy, ‘You’re a really good kisser,’ and he said, ‘You’re only as good as the person you’re kissing.' I think it’s the same with the music. If someone [says], ‘Your music is really provocative,’ I’m only as provocative as the person that’s listening to it.”
“I once said to my father, when I was a boy, 'Dad we need a third political party.' He said to me, 'I'll settle for a second.'”
“I once said to someone when I was playing Lady Macbeth and they said: "That's tricky, emotionally, what do you do about murdering your husband's cousin?" And there are, of course, things that aren't in your personal repertoire that you have to somehow understand by reading or watching other things and listening to other people talk about them.”
“I once said to someone, If I could shave my head and wear no makeup and get a part just on my talent, I would be the happiest person in the world.”
“I once said, "You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent." When Bobby Jindal entered the Republican campaign, my comment should have been covered again, more prominently. I mean, Jindal is not Native American, he's a real Indian.”