I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“I should like to save the Shire, if I could - though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. But I don't feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.”
Source: The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings
“I should like to say that good batsman are born, not made; but my long experience comes up before me, and tells me that it is not so.”
“I should like to say that I am as proud of my Chinese heritage and background as I am devoted to modern science, a part of human civilization of Western origin, to which I have dedicated and I shall continue to dedicate my work.”
Source: Selected Papers, 1945-1980, with Commentary
“I should like to say that I left off smoking because I considered it a mean form of slavery, to be condemned for moral as well as physical reasons; but though I see the folly of smoking clearly now, I was blind to it for some months after I had smoked my last pipe. I gave up my most delightful solace, as I regarded it, for no other reason than that the lady who was willing to fling herself away on me said that I must choose between it and her.”
“I should like to see any kind of man, distinguishable from a gorilla, that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of.”
“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.”
“I should like to see you try.”
“I should like to sleep like a cat, with all the fur of time, with a tongue rough as flint, with the dry sex of fire; and after speaking to no one, stretch myself over the world, over roofs and landscapes, with a passionate desire to hunt the rats in my dreams.”
“I should like to suggest that at least on the face of it a stroke by stroke story of a copulation is exactly as absurd as a chew by chew account of the consumption of a chicken's wing.”
Source: On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry
“I should like to suggest to you that the cause of all the economic troubles is that we have an economic system which tries to maintain an equality of value between two things, which it would be better to recognise from the beginning as of unequal value.”
“I should like to take the wind and water and sand as a motif and work with them, but it has to be simplified in most cases to colour and force lines, just as music has done with sound.”
“I should like to take this opportunity to name you Sherlock and point out that there is no shit.”
“I should like to think that we'll find peace on this Earth at some point and come to a collective consciousness of COMPASSION for each other, where we say, 'Enough! Let us live as one!'”
“I should like to tidy things up and disappear.”
“I should like to underline: no people, no country, in which a Communist dictatorship has been established, ever found its way out of it.”
“I should like to write about what happens when fictive people encounter and are embellished by real people.”
Source: An Italian Journey
“I should like to write four lines at a time, describing the same feeling, as a musician does; because it always seems to me that things are going on at so many different levels simultaneously.”
Source: The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Vol. Five: 1932-1935
“I should like, if I could, to leave a humble gift -- a bit of chaste prose that had caught up some noble moods.”
Source: Desiderata: Words for Life
“I should live for today and not be agitating all the time.”
“I should love to do a novel, about one abnormal character seeing present-day life, very ordinary life, yet arresting through it, abnormality, until at the end the reader sees, and with little reluctance, that he is not abnormal at all, and that the main character might as well be himself.”
“I should love to satisfy all, if I possibly can; but in trying to satisfy all, I may be able to satisfy none. I have, therefore, arrived at the conclusion that the best course is to satisfy one’s own conscience and leave the world to form its own judgment, favorable or otherwise.”
“I should make very forges of my cheeks
That would to cinders burn up modesty
Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed?
Heaven stops the nose at it and the moon winks,
The bawdy wind that kisses all it meets
Is hushed within the hollow mine of earth
And will not hear ’t. What committed!
Impudent strumpet!”
“I should, many a good day, have blown my brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my mother-in-law; and, even then, if I could have been certain to haunt her…”
“I should meet many people who do not know anyone personally who has been raped or molested as a child. But I can't remember seeing a newspaper without a rape or molestation charge in it somewhere, and when I ask groups how many people know someone personally with a history of molestation, almost always, every hand in the room goes up.”
Source: Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders
“I should mention here that librarians tell me never to tell this story, and especially never to paint myself as a feral child who was raised in libraries by patient librarians; the tell me they are worried that people will misinterpret my story and use it as an excuse to use their libraries as free day care for their children.”
Source: The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction
“I should mention that I am a member of the board of directors of Dimensional Fund Advisors.”
“I should mention that I took piano lessons beginning when I was four. My mother was my first teacher, and it was a wonderful way to bond with her. She was a terrific supporter of my musical career. I knew I wanted to be in music since I began lessons, and I enjoy the various facets that my career has led me.”
“I should mention that while I was growing up, Einstein was presented as a worthy role model for a young boy who was good at his studies.”
“I should mention there are many European countries right now that already protect children from Wi-Fi, so it's not like this is some preposterous idea. This is already embraced by many countries all around the world. I don't think it is preposterous to suggest that public health needs greater protection in this country, especially that of children, among whom there is a rising tide of brain cancer right now.”
“I should mention Vittorio Storaro, who was Bernardo Bertolucci's cinematographer. You watch those films and they are exceptional.”
“I should mortify a dozen Sir Johns if it might aid my investigation." - Elizabeth Bennet”
Source: Murder & Matchmaking
“I should much rather see a reasonable agreement with Arabs based upon living together than the creation of a Jewish state.”
“I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain—especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state.”
Source: The Ultimate Quotable Einstein
“I should never be able to fulfill what is,I understand, the first duty of a lecturer-to hand you after an hour's discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks and keep on the mantelpiece forever".”
Source: A Room of One’s Own
“I should never be able to fulfill what is, I understand, the first duty of a lecturer - to hand you after an hour's discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks, and keep on the matel piece forever”
Source: A Room of One's Own / Three Guineas
“I should never be left alone with my mind for too long.”
“I should never conclude were I to speak to you of all the misfortunes which have their origin in the faulty carriage of the body. All these defects, mortifying for those who have contracted them, cannot be remedied except in their early stages. A habit born in childhood is strengthened in youth, becomes deeply rooted in adulthood and is incurable in old age.”
“I should never deem a man of ordinary caliber worthy of my devotion.”
Source: The Awakening
“I should never go with rumors because they're often not correct.”
“I should never have asked you to come back here.'
'Just don't leave me behind,' I say, feeling immensely vulnerable. 'That's what I want, for the game I won all those years ago.'
'I promise you,' he says. 'If it is within my power, we leave together.'
I nod. 'We will find the reliquary and ruin her,' I tell him. 'And then I will never come back.”
Source: The Stolen Heir
“I should never have dreamed of purpose, I am coming to the conclusion that privacy, the small individual lives of men, are preferable to all this inflated macrocosmic activity.”
Source: Midnight’s Children
“I should never have kissed [him]. That's where it all went wrong. I never kiss any of those other men, for a damn good reason. Kissing is dangerous. It's probably too near your brain or something. Or your nose. That's probably it. Spongiform erectile tissue. That's what gets you in trouble.”
Source: Paladin's Hope
“I should never have made a good scientist, but I should have made a perfectly adequate one.”
“I should never have made my success in life if I had not bestowed upon the least thing I have ever undertaken the same attention and care that I have bestowed upon the greatest.”
Source: Letters of Charles Dickens: 1833-1870
“I should never have made you stay here," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "But I could not help myself."
Alice took a step toward him. "I know. You are tired of being alone. You told me."
"You don't know," he said in a low, almost hostile voice. He shook his head. "I don't even know what I'm doing with you. You're not like anyone else who's in my life-" He stopped abruptly. "Did you ever drink too much wine, Alice?" He held up the glass in his hand and waggled it idly, making the ruby contents swirl.
"I'm not one to overindulge."
"No, you wouldn't be," he said wryly. "Allow me to explain, then, that the more you drink, the more thirsty you become. Not all the wine in the world can assuage the thirst for water. Water. Wine makes you merry, but a man needs water to keep him alive. Pure, clean, sweet water." He sighed, silent for a moment. He stared almost bitterly into the fire. "I am parched, Alice, scorched like a wasteland, burning like a damned soul in hell. I thirst."
"I know," she whispered.”
Source: Lord of Fire
“I should never have played with fire and I did. And I got very burned.”
“I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive.”
“I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.”
“I should never make anything of a fisherman. I had not got sufficient imagination”
Source: Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog
“I should never seek a job in my life, my mission in life is to create jobs. I am not a job seeker, I am a job giver.”