I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“I asked about the price of the guitars, reminding him that if expected me to man the cash register, I’d need to know what to charge. He told me, 'There ain’t no set price on these babies. Take what the customer offers you. Even if it’s his soul.”
“I asked Agamemnon plainly about Iphigenia; he wept. Not as one cries out of pain, but out of fear. Out of weakness.”
“I asked Alicia to think about the people she knew whose work she admired.”
Source: The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate
“I asked all of our recruiters to give me all resumes of prospective employees with their name, gender, place of origin, and age blacked out. This simple change shocked me, because I found myself interviewing different-looking candidates - even though I was 100% convinced that I was not being biased in my resume selection process.”
“I asked all through third, fourth and fifth grade, when they were asking kids to be in the band, to be in the school band. But they wouldn't let me do it.”
“I asked an 85 year old professor, 'What makes you cry?' He said, 'Whenever I see or hear the truth.'”
“I asked.
-Animorphs #4, The Visitor page 22”
“I asked another friend what it's like being the mother of a black son. "The condition of black life is one of mourning," she said bluntly. For her, mourning lived in real time inside her and her son's reality. At any moment she might lose her reason for living. Though the white liberal imagination likes to feel temporarily bad about black suffering, there really is no mode of empathy that can replicate the daily strain of knowing that as a black person you can be killed for simply being black: no hands in your pockets, no playing music, no sudden movements, no driving your car, no walking at night, no walking in the day, no turning onto this street, no entering this building, no standing your ground, no standing here, no standing there, no talking back, no playing with toy guns, no living while black.”
Source: The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race
“I asked Baskerville whether the issue wasn’t about deadbeat dads who refuse to support their children. Baskerville replied: “The stereotype of the deadbeat dad is almost entirely feminist propaganda. Most of these fathers have not abandoned their children. They have had their children stolen from them by the family courts.” Baskerville paints a picture of judicial and legal corruption where, typically, the father is ordered out of the home and becomes homeless. If the father refuses to spend large amounts of money on an expensive lawyer he is penalized with unreasonably high child support payments. It is a case of plunder, only it occurs under the color of law.”
“I asked Bernd Heinrich if he knew why feeder birds, like finches, discard so many seeds. It turns out he and other scientiests did research on this back in the 1990s - of course, he did -measuring discarded seeds with painstaking accuracy. The short answer: Songbirds prefer shorter, fatter unshelled sunflower seeds, more depth than length, because they contain more oil. They take half a second to judge the seeds, dropping the low-density ones, until they find a seed to their liking.”
Source: The Backyard Bird Chronicles
“I asked Bill what career path he thought I should take, and he replied, “Live the artist’s life.” For years I pondered over his advice. What did it mean to “live the artist’s life?” I finally came to realize that there were no written codes, no hard and fast rules. You didn’t have to starve in a garret or drink yourself to death or cut off your ear. You didn’t even have to literally “make art” physically. The art was your life—your values, your outlook, your passions, your point of view. It was the things you cherished, whether they were people or places or ideas.”
Source: The Kitchen and the Studio: A Memoir of Food and Art
“I asked Chief Justice John Roberts about this definition of life - you know, what is life? The Supreme Court can't figure it out or doesn't want us to figure it out; the fact that we know that there is no life if there's no heartbeat and brainwaves.”
“I asked Dalai Lama the most important question that I think you could ask - if he had ever seen Caddyshack.”
“I asked Darrell Royal, the coach of the Texas Longhorns, why he didn't recruit me and he said: 'Well, Walt, we took a look at you and you weren't any good.'”
“I asked, "Does she think she's liberated?"
Bailey said, as if he had always known it, "Some folks say they want change. They just want exchange. They only want to have what the haves have, so they won't have it anymore....”
Source: A Song Flung Up to Heaven
“I asked each if [Yao Xingtong and Zhang Lanxin] was afraid of heights. Each said no, and although they had never had the action movie experience they were willing to be trained. Then I asked if they could swim, and each said yes, but she (gestures toward YX) is better. She said, I can also dive, in fact I once won a diving championship in an international competition. Then she said, "But big brother, I'm not very strong," and I said that's all right.”
“I asked for a glass of Chardonnay. And in a 9/11-like twist, they didn't have any. They offered me Pinot.”
“I asked for beauty...
The moon replied,
"Your Heart”
“I asked for bread, and I got a stone in the shape of a pedestal.”
Source: Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals
“I asked for help but I did not insist. Self-doubting, I undermined my own credibility.”
“I asked for help, which is the hardest thing in the world.”
“I asked for love and God gave me troubled women to help.”
“I asked for nothing from Theresa [May]. She asked for nothing from me. That's not the way we work.”
“I asked for small things, but even that became too much for you. So I told myself to expect less and then eventually accepted to expect nothing from you. And in that process, I stopped caring about what you wanted from me. You know the truth is simple, people change when they feel unheard and misunderstood. That’s what happened to me and that's why, your expectations don’t matter to me anymore and neither do you.”
Source: Life Simplified: Quote - Unquote
“I asked for strength,
and I received challenges to make me strong.
I asked for wisdom,
and I received problems to solve.
I asked for prosperity,
and I received skill and ability to work.
I asked for courage,
and I received danger to overcome.
In the end...
I received nothing that I wanted,
and everything that I needed”
“I asked for very little from life, and even this little was denied me.”
Source: The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa
“I asked for very little from life, and even this little was denied me. A nearby field, a ray of sunlight, a little bit of calm along with a bit of bread, not to feel oppressed by the knowledge that I exist, not to demand anything from others, and not to have others demand anything from me - this was denied me, like the spare change we might deny a beggar not because we're mean-hearted but because we don't feel like unbuttoning our coat.”
Source: The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa
“I asked for wonder, and He gave it to me.”
Source: The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
“I asked Fred Astaire once when he was about my age if he still danced, and he said 'Yes, but it hurts now.' That's exactly it. I can still dance too, but it hurts now!”
“I asked Geertrui the other day what she thought love is-real love, true love. She said that for her real love is observing another person and being observed by another person with complete attention. If she's right, you only have to look at the pictures Rembrandt painted of Titus, and there are quite a lot, to see that they loved each other. Because that is what you're seeing. Complete attention, one of the other..."but in that case," he said, speaking the words as the thought came to him, "all art is love, because all art is about looking closely, isn't it? Looking closely at what's being painted."
"The artist looking closely while he paints, the viewer looking closely at what has been painted. I agree. All true art, yes. Painting, Writing-literature-also. I think it is. And bad art is a failure to observe with complete attention. So, you see why I like the history of art. It's the study of how to observe life with complete attention. It's the history of love.”
“I asked God "Why, why, why?" I turned my face away and wished that I were imagining it all. I had tasted the bitterest essence of war, the sight of helpless comrades being slaughtered, and it filled me with disgust.”
Source: With the Old Breed: The World War Two Pacific Classic
“I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.”
“I asked God for a girl and God gave me love instead.”
“I asked God if it was a sin and He didn't say anything.”
“I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said”
Source: In the Palm of Your Hand: A Poet's Portable Workshop
“i asked God to give me a love via synchronicity so when it was my time to allow someone into my heart ~ he entered my world, as if by magic.”
“I asked God to help me understand the story of the forest and what it means to be a tree in that story.”
“I asked God: Who am I to the universe?
Why do i exist?
God said: You are a part of this universe, actually your mind is and you are leading it too.”
“I asked her about life, and it was as if she rummaged around in a dusty chest to get me the answers.”
“I asked her, dreamily, if we had met, and when she told me that we had not, I gave her a little finger wave, the type a leprechaun might offer a pixie who was floating by on a maple leaf. "Well, hi there," I whispered.”
Source: Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls: Essays, Etc.
“I asked her for Adidas and she bought me Zips.”
“I asked her if I was black or white. She replied "You are a human being. Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!”
“I asked her on a date for Friday at 8:00. She said, “Some other time, maybe.” So I said, “How about 8:01?””
Source: There are Two Typos of People in This World: Those Who Can Edit and Those Who Can't
“I asked her once what criteria she used when she hired people.
"I choose those who are hurt, and exhausted," she answered right away.
I couldn't help but smile. Since I thought wanting to help people who suffered in some way when dealing with books was a wonderful reason. When I heard what she said next, though, my smile retreated.
"And people who have secrets. Put those to good use, use their weaknesses to make them at my beck and call."
"Why would you do that?"
"People change. You don't know what's going to happen next. If something does happen, I want to be able to deal with it. To protect you, and this place."
My aunt was certainly not just some kind, charitable person. I knew this from a long time ago, but her words now only reinforced it.”
Source: Dinner at the Night Library
“I asked her to look at me and after a few moments - (pause) - after a few moments she did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. (Pause. Low) Let me in.”
Source: The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett
“I asked her what a true story was because I thought that all stories were made up. She said a true story was called fact, and a made-up story was called ficton. Auntie May said a made-up story is a bit like telling lies, only the people who read them knew that already and so it didn’t matter”
“I asked her why my father resisted the guards when they always won in the end. Why didn't he just save himself the pain and pay them what they wanted? She told me that sometimes, you can't choose what happens to you, but you can choose who you become because of it. That's why my father fought back.”
Source: The Forbidden Wish
“I asked her, "Are you an optimist or a pessimist?" She looked at her watch and said, "I'm optimistic." "Then I have some bad news for you, because humans are going to destroy each others as soon as it becomes easy enough to, which will be very soon." "Why do beautiful songs make you sad?" "Because they aren't true." "Never?" "Nothing is beautiful and true." She smiled, but in a way that wasn't just happy, and said, "You sound just like Dad.”
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
“I asked Hillary why she had chosen Yale Law School over Harvard. She laughed and said, "Harvard didn't want me." I said I was sorry that Harvard turned her down. She replied, "No, I received letters of acceptance from both schools." She explained that a boyfriend had then invited her to the Harvard Law School Christmas Dance, at which several Harvard Law School professors were in attendance. She asked one for advice about which law school to attend. The professor looked at her and said, "We have about as many woen as we need here. You should go to Yale. The teaching there is more suited to women." I asked who the professor was, and she told me she couldn't remember his name but that she thought it started with a B. A few days later, we met the Clintons at a party. I came prepared with yearbook photos of all the professors from that year whose name began with B. She immediately identified the culprit. He was the same professor who had given my A student a D, because she didn't "think like a lawyer." It turned out, of course, that it was this professor -- and not the two (and no doubt more) brilliant women he was prejudiced against - who didn't think like a lawyer. Lawyers are supposed to act on the evidence, rather than on their prejudgments. The sexist professor ultimately became a judge on the International Court of Justice.
I told Hillary that it was too bad I wasn't at that Christmas dance, because I would have urged her to come to Harvard. She laughed, turned to her husband, and said, "But then I wouldn't have met him... and he wouldn't have become President.”
“I asked him "Who said you could fool around with my wife" he said everybody.”