I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.”
Source: Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog
“I plot as I go. Many novelists write an outline that has almost as many pages as their ultimate book. Others knock out a brief synopsis... Do what is comfortable. If you have to plot out every move your characters make, so be it. Just make sure there is a plausible purpose behind their machinations. A good reader can smell a phony plot a block away.”
“I plot my ascent daily.”
“I plotted to take you from everything you knew, and I did, but that's nowhere near the worst of my crimes. I've killed people, Poppy. There is so much blood on my hands that they will never be clean. I will overthrow the Queen who cared for you, and many more will die in the process. I am not a good man.' He swallowed hard. 'But I am trying to be right now.'
...
'I don't want you to be good.' Without even realising it, I had lifted my other hand, fisting the front of his shirt. 'I want you.”
Source: From Blood and Ash
“I plowed fields with horses and worked as a hired hand in high school for 50 cents a day.”
“I pluck the package of yuzu gummies from Eriku's palm and pop one in my mouth. "Umai!" I moan. "Now I know where all your energy comes from." I am fueled by sugar and love. The rest of the afternoon, I eat yuzu gummies, and by the end of our session, I know the ins and outs of ionic, metallic, and covalent bonds.
After that, he brings a new sweet every day. "It will help with your memory," he asserts. "Scents and flavors create specialized neurological pathways." He flips open a textbook. "Today is Tokyo Banana and intermolecular force." It goes on. Meito Cola Mochi Candy paired with changes of substances. Hokkaido melon with mascarpone-cheese-flavored Kit Kats and inorganic chemistry. We finish with Eiwa coffee-flavored marshmallows and organic chemistry.”
Source: Tokyo Dreaming
“I pluck up the good lissome herbs of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, digest them by musing, and lay them up at length in the high seat of memory.”
“I plucke up the goodlie greene herbes of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, chawe them by musing, and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together; that I, having tasted the sweetenes, l may the lesse perceave the bitternes of this miserable life.”
“I plucked a honeysuckle where The hedge on high is quick with thorn, And climbing for the prize, was torn, And fouled my feet in quag-water; And by the thorns and by the wind The blossom that I took was thinn'd, And yet I found it sweet and fair.”
Source: Selected poems
“I plucked a ruby off the nearest plant and threw it at Hades.”
“I plucked a sprig of rosemary from the pot in the windowsill, and as I inhaled its fresh scent, something flashed in my mind.
I went to the pantry and took out a jar of wildflower honey. I held it up to make sure I had enough, and the sun lit it up like a jar of gold. There was that flash again- I almost had it, but it slipped away.
I preheated the oven and mixed my ingredients. I sprinkled in the fragrant rosemary. Remember, Mimi. What have you forgotten?
By the time I got the pan in the oven, Dad had come downstairs. He sniffed the air. "Rosemary, huh? What are you making?"
"Rosemary-honey-olive oil muffins."
"Did you add white pepper, like we talked about last time?"
I grinned. "A tiny bit. Next time, do you think we should try it with goat's milk?”
Source: Midsummer's Mayhem
“I plucked one feather from my hood and left it on his forehead, for, his, head.
For a souvenir, for a warning, for a lick of night in the morning.
For a little break in the mourning.”
Source: Grief Is the Thing with Feathers
“I plucked one plump black olive from the plate and put it in my mouth immediately before saying, “Well, I feel bad for you, then.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I love antipasto.”
“I guess I don’t understand why that’s a problem.”
“Because,” I emphasized, cutting into a piece of salmon. “I don’t like to share.” I quickly slipped the smoked meat in my mouth before winking at him.
His smile finally met his eyes again. “Good to know, because I’m not the sharing kind of guy either.” He winked back at me, but it was so blatantly comical that I couldn’t help the laugh that flew out of my mouth.
“Something tells me you’re not talking about cured meats,” I said before slapping his hand away from my olives.
“I knew you were smart.”
I swallowed the olive I’d snatched from his hand and glared at him, while mouthing, “Mine.”
“Funny, that’s what I was thinking, too,” he said, looking directly at me.”
Source: He Found Me
“I plugged my phone in where the blender used to be. I called someone. They went "Aaaaahhhh..."”
“I plunged eagerly and passionately into the wilderness, as if in the hope of thus penetrating into the very heart of this Nature, powerful and maternal, there to blend with her living elements.”
Source: Noa Noa: The Tahitian Journal
“I plunged into sleep full force once this arrangement had been made. It was an exciting time in my life. I felt hopeful. I felt I was on my way to a great transformation.”
Source: My Year of Rest and Relaxation
“I plunged into the job of creating something from nothing.... Though I hadn't a penny left, I considered cash money as the smallest part of my resources. I had faith in a living God, faith in myself, and a desire to serve.”
“I point at a window to my left, and it explodes. Particles of glass rain over us. ‘You’ll have to do better than that,' I say.”
“I point out truths when I see them, Brightlord Sadeas. Each man has his place. Mine is to make insults. Yours is to be in-sluts.”
Source: The Way of Kings
“I pointed at some bright-orange little bells that looked lethal to me. "Are they all edible?"
"I would not be serving them to the guests if they weren't," he said. "These chanterelles, they have exquisite taste. These are straw mushrooms." He pointed to a cluster of thin white stalks. "These we call cèpe. These big ones are trumpet royale. And these, morels- although you must never pick these for yourself. The false morels look very similar and can be fatal. Try the chanterelles. You must cook some for your queen. She will approve."
"But that thing you were going to buy. How does one cook that?" It looked like a dirty ball of earth.
He rolled his eyes. "That, chérie, is worth more per gram than gold. It is a truffle. You do not have truffles?"
"No."
"Then let me instruct you. The truffle is a fungus that grows on the roots of certain oak trees. Under the soil, you understand. They can only be located by specially trained dogs, oh, and by pigs if they can get at them. They have a deliciously different flavor. We make the truffle oil for cooking, or we use a small amount to raise the quality of the dish.”
Source: Above the Bay of Angels
“I pointed at the little kids goading each other to jump from rib cage to shoulder and Gus answered just loud enough for me to hear over the din, 'Last time, I imagined myself as the kid. This time, the skeleton.”
Source: The Fault in Our Stars
“I pointed in the general vicinity of my left ovary, "This is Beam Me Up." Then to my right. "And this is Scotty." Garret chuckled and buried his face in his hands. He asked.”
Source: First Grave on the Right
“I pointed out that men, society looks at aging men and say they get more distinguished; some say they get more handsome, more authoritative, and so forth. I said it's unfair. It's the way it works. It's sadly not that was the when women age. Sadly.”
“I pointed out that the Atlanta Olympic bomber - as well as Timothy McVeigh and the people who protest against gay rights at military funerals - are Christians but we journalists don't identify them by their religion.”
“I pointed to a Black man standing nearby and said, "If I had said something up there on that stage today that was crazy, that Black man — even though he doesn't know me — would have pulled me aside and asked me what the fuck I was talking about. I told him that white people need to do the same thing.”
Source: The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6' 4", African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama's Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian
“I pointed to a red-tailed hawk half a mile above us. I watched the hawk to see if it was Chubb. Strange things happen in the animal world when a loved one dies, that's a fact. They honor our passage with far more reverence than we do theirs.”
Source: The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness: Three Lyrical Short Stories of Texas, Appalachia, and the Untamed American West
“I pointed to an article with bold headlines reporting that the police had refused to allow the PAP to hold a rally at Empress Place, and then to the last paragraph where in small type it added the meeting would take place where we were now. I compared this with a prominent report about an SPA rally. This was flagrant bias.”
Source: The Singapore Story (Student Edition): Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew
“I pointed to the wound. "It's missing," I said. My grandmother smiled, and that was all it took for me to stop seeing the scar, and to recognize her again. "Yes," she said. "But see how much of me is left?”
Source: The Storyteller
“I poisoned my skin,” Genya said harshly, “my lips. So that every time he touched me—” She shuddered slightly and glanced at David. “Every time he kissed me, he took sickness into his body.” She clenched her fists. “He brought this on himself.”
“But the poison would have affected you too,” Nikolai said.
“I had to purge it from my skin, then heal the burns the lye would leave. Every single time.” Her fists clenched. “It was well worth it.”
Nikolai rubbed a hand over his mouth. "Did he force you?"
Genya nodded once. A muscle in Nikolai's jaw ticked.”
-//-
She held up her hands, warding us off. “I don’t want your pity,” she said ferociously. Her voice was raw, wild. We stood there helplessly. “You don’t understand.” She covered her face with her hands. “None of you do.”
“Genya—” David tried.
“Don’t you dare,” she said roughly, tears welling up again. “You never looked at me twice before I was like this, before I was broken. Now I’m just something for you to fix.”
I was desperate for words to soothe her, but before I could find any, David bunched up his shoulders and said, “I know metal.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Genya cried.
David furrowed his brow. “I … I don’t understand half of what goes on around me. I don’t get jokes or sunsets or poetry, but I know metal.” His fingers flexed unconsciously as if he were physically grasping for words. “Beauty was your armor. Fragile stuff, all show. But what’s inside you? That’s steel. It’s brave and unbreakable. And it doesn’t need fixing.”
Source: Ruin and Rising
“I poke around in the pile, about to settle on some cod chowder, when Peeta holds out a can to me. “Here.” I take it, not knowing what to expect. The label reads LAMB STEW.”
Source: Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, Book 3)
“I police the police.”
“I ponder if we are more defined by the container we are in than what we are inside. Would we recognize ourselves if we could expand beyond our bodies?”
“I ponder this. “Is it easier for you? If I do not struggle?”
“Innitely.”
“Then it is decided.” My gaze lifts to the stars above. “I will go gently. For you.”
When my eyes finally fall back on Death, I almost don’t believe what I’m seeing.
She is smiling.”
“I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name.”
“I pondered on this desert hospitality and, compared it with our own. I remembered other encampments where I had slept, small tents on which I had happened in the Syrian desert and where I had spent the night. Gaunt men in rags and hungry-looking children had greeted me, and bade me welcome with the sonorous phrases of the desert. Later they had set a great dish before me, rice heaped round a sheep which they had slaughtered, over which my host poured liquid golden butter until it flowed down on to the sand; and when I protested, saying 'Enough! Enough!', had answered that I was a hundred times welcome. Their lavish hospitality had always made me uncomfortable, for I had known that as a result of it they would go hungry for days. Yet when I left them they had almost convinced me that I had done them a kindness by staying with them”
Source: Arabian Sands
“I pondered the day away at the changing shapes of passing clouds, lazing in the shade of palm trees.”
Source: A Heart Made of Tissue Paper
“I pondered what else I should take for him. Flowers seemed wrong; they're a love token, after all. I looked in the fridge, and popped a packet of cheese slices into the bag. All men like cheese.”
Source: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
“I poo poo the chit.' The attendant looked stunned. 'You cannot poo-poo the chit!' I do.' Kate said solemnly. 'I do poo-poo.' We'll walk.”
“I poop in the backyard... I wear disposable diapers.”
“I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop.”
Source: Too Loud a Solitude
“I pop gum. My parents get so annoyed with me. I know my dad wishes he never taught me how to do that.”
“I pop into Barrett's, ducking beneath the bright-red awning into the tiny shop, which is packed with fresh cuts of everything, from delicate lamb chops to meaty pork roasts covered in thick layers of fat. Mountains of fat sausages beckon from within the glass case, in more varieties than I could ever imagine---wild boar and apple, venison, chicken and sage, beef and garlic. A musty funk fills the store, giving the place an air of rustic authenticity.
I order three Cornish hens (or, as the British call them, poussin) and then head back toward Pomona, the small food shop I visited this morning, remembering the fresh, crusty loaves of bread on their shelves. I grab a loaf of challah, its braided crust shiny and golden brown, along with some celery, an onion, some mushrooms, and a few spices. Before I pay, I also throw a bunch of speckled bananas, a pot of Greek yogurt, and some flour and sugar into my basket. The ingredients are slightly different here than they are back home---"self-raising flour," "caster sugar"---but I'm sure I can re-create the banana bread I developed for a famous morning-show host back in Chicago. It's one of my most popular recipes to date, and I'm sure it would taste great with a cup of tea.”
Source: Too Many Cooks
“I popped out of a bamboo, fallen from the sky.
Leave no leaf ripped, don't you ruin the nature.
It makes me bitter, remembering inhuman past.”
Source: My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
“I popped the tape into the VCR and watched a pretty, middle-aged Italian woman in a flowered housedress and frilly apron hold up various fish and shellfish as she spoke to the tape in rapid, enthusiastic Italian, espousing the virtues of the seafood. She was standing at a battered wooden table in what appeared to be her own kitchen. After she finished showing off the fish, she beheaded and eviscerated them, and then washed them in a chipped white enamel bowl full of water that sat on the table. She put the cleaned pieces on a brightly painted platter, chosen, I'm sure, with less deliberation than our Jonathan would have required. She poured olive oil into a large, slightly dented pot that sat on a small two-burner stove and then in a flash chopped a couple of onions and a good amount of garlic and put them in the oil. While the aromatics became, well, aromatic, she cut up a half dozen fresh tomatoes and a healthy amount of herbs and added them to the pot. She stirred everything around, and before long she had all the fish and shellfish in the pot.”
Source: Last Bite
“I pore over every word on the cereal box at breakfast, often more than once. You can ask me anything about shredded wheat.”
“I portray myself as wicked, hoping I will not be regarded as wicked. But I may be wicked in the biblical sense”
Source: My Wicked, Wicked Ways: The Autobiography of Errol Flynn
“I posed for a gay magazine, which caused much comment. But it doesn't bother me. Gay people are fighting the same kind of stereotyping that bodybuilders are: People have certain misconceptions about them just as they do about us.”
“I posed nude to show my parents they couldn't dictate to me any more - that I control my life.”
“I positively think that ladies who are always enceinte quite disgusting; it is more like a rabbit or guinea-pig than anything else and really it is not very nice.”
“I positively, positively, positively want to play. I've got everything else so why not a gold medal? I want to play.”