I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“I wonder, only in passing, whether the indelible ornamentation that man inscribes upon his own epidermis does not respond to a nostalgia for the universal internally generated coloring of corrollas, furs, shells, carapaces and wings. For man it has been necessary to create both works and tools outside of himself. But it may be that he retains an obscure nostalgia to create them on his own body, to make them a part of it rather than projecting them outwards onto an independent surface, where he is free to retouch them as he sees fit, which is precisely what painting and art are.”
“I wonder, sometimes, whether men and women in fact are capable of learning from history--whether we progress from one stage to the next in an upward course or whether we just ride the cycles of boom and bust, war and peace, ascent and decline.”
Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
“I wonder, What is it to be human? Especially now that we are so urban. How do we remember our connection with place? What is the umbilical cord that roots us to that primal, instinctive, erotic place? Every time I walk to the edge of this continent and feel the sand beneath my feet, feel the seafoam move up my body, I think, "Ah, yes, evolution." It's there, we just forget.”
“I wonder, what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures, deeds and battles. And sometimes there are storms at sea, or it takes you to strange cities and countries. All those things are somehow shut in a book. Of course you have to read it to find out. But it's already there, that's the funny thing. I just wish I knew how it could be.”
“I wonder, when a writer's blocked and doesn't have any resources to pull himself out of it, why doesn't he jump in his car and drive around the U.S.A.? I went last winter for seven thousand miles and it was lovely. Inexpensive, too.”
Source: Conversations with Jim Harrison
“I wonder, whether, if I had had any education I should have been more, or less, of a fool than I am. It would have deprived me surely of those exquisite moments of mental flatulence which every now and then inflate the cerebral vacuum with a delicious sense of latent possibilities-of stretching oneself to cosmic limits, and who would ever give up the reality of dreams for relative knowledge?”
Source: Her Brothers Her Journal
“I wonder, would I have transitioned from female to male if I was 30 years younger? Possibly. But if I had been born even 30 years later, because it seems like the technology will only get better, it seems like one might not ever need to settle down at all.”
“I wonder," he said, "whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again.”
“I wonder," she said. "Does this castle have a moat?" A group of servants were busy emptying the privy buckets into the moat when they were startled by a sudden drawn-out cry. They looked up in time see a scarlet-and-gold clad figure sail out of a first-story window, turn over once and then land with an enormus splash in the dark, rancid waters. They shrugged and went back to work.”
“I wonder-maybe the key is balance. Maybe it's about living in the moment while still keeping your eye on the big picture-on all the pictures.”
Source: Gimme a Call
“I wonder... if the Republican Party really wants to be branded right now as the party of tax cuts and torture? I mean that's what they're selling.”
“I wonder...would you rather have 100 from an average person or 10 from someone who is outstanding”
“I wondered a little why God was such a useless thing. It seemed a waste of time to have him. After that he became less and less, until he was... nothingness.”
“I wondered about her chicken-and-egg relationship with Dad. Which came first? Her helplessness or his controlling?”
“I wondered about Mrs. Winterbottom and what she meant about living a tiny life. If she didn't like all that baking and cleaning and jumping up to get bottles of nail polish remover and sewing hems, why did she do it? Why didn't she tell them to do some of the things themselves? Maybe she was afraid there would be nothing left for her to do. There would be no need for her and she would become invisible and no one would notice.”
“I wondered about my friendship with my mom. Is it friendship? How can it be? Friendship is chosen. Friendship is discovered. But a mother and a son have a bond that is necessary. If the son exists, the mother exists. She may have abandoned him, she may have abused him, she may have loved him and laughed with him. But no matter what, there is a relation that must be accounted for. So how could it be friendship? What does friendship with a parent mean?”
Source: Mother, Nature: A 5,000-Mile Journey to Discover if a Mother and Son Can Survive Their Differences
“I wondered about my inner child. In fact, I was troubled. Did I even have an inner child, I asked myself, given that, in essence, I’d just been born?”
Source: Beginner's Luke
“I wondered about the explorers who'd sailed their ships to the end of the world. How terrified they must have been when they risked falling over the edge; how amazed to discover, instead, places they had seen only in their dreams.”
Source: Handle with Care: A Novel
“I wondered about the half-life of regret.”
Source: A Gate at the Stairs
“I wondered about the science of storms and how sometimes it seemed that a storm wanted to break the world and how the world refused to break.”
“I wondered again why the right thing always seemed to be met with so much resistance, when you'd think it would be the easier path. You had to fight to be virtuous.”
Source: Someone Like You
“I wondered at him, so wise and so foolish, to have lived with me all these months and not know that the worst storms break inside a man.”
“I wondered: Did mom and Darren hurt us more by what they did or by what they didn't do? Which wounds us more-the hostile presence or the absent kindness?”
“I wondered: dies any man ever fully know any woman? He thinks he does--she is the girl living down the lane, the girl fetching water from the communal well, the girl who speaks in accents familiar, and suddenly one day, he finds out that she has been a stranger all along, a dreamer of dreams he never suspected, a poet of verses better than his, or a more effective physician, or a saint, ultimately unavailable to him or any man.
[Tony]”
Source: The East Indian
“I wondered — do buildings feel reborn too?”
Source: The Building Across My Window: Book by Yash Gadade
“I wondered how a man ever got an English girl into bed. What did they do with her hockey stick?”
Source: Caravans: A Novel of Afghanistan
“I wondered how and when I'd become capable of causing this kind of pain.”
Source: The Kite Runner
“I wondered how fully Sayed understood what had happened back in the apartment. The world as we knew it, was changed. Or, more likely, we had realised once and for all that the world was never as we thought.”
“I wondered how he'd learned to push the words away, to drown them, to not feel them pounding against his head and his heart, begging to be spoken.”
Source: The Law of Moses
“I wondered how I looked to her, in that place, and knew that even in a place that was nothing but knowledge that was the one thing I could not know. That if I look inward I would see only infinite mirrors staring into myself for eternity.”
“I wondered how I was going to do it and keep my job at Rolling Stone at the same time. They were very nice, and they let me disappear for two days a week for a couple of hours. That's how long shooting was.”
“I wondered how it could be that people could love God and hate one another.”
“I wondered how it would feel to be out there, on your own, in the middle of nowhere.”
Source: Still Me
“I wondered how long it could last. Maybe someday, years from now.If the pain would decrease to the point where I could bear it.I would be able to look back on those few short months that would always be the best of my life. And, if it were possible that the pain would ever soften enough to allow me to do that, I was sure that I would feel grateful for as much time as he'd given me. More than I'd asked for, more than I'd deserved. Maybe someday I'd be able to see it that way.”
Source: New Moon
“I wondered how long it could last. Maybe someday, years from now.If the pain would decrease to the point where I could bear it.I would be able to look back on those few short months that would always be the best of my life.”
“I wondered how long it took for a baby to become yours, for familiarity to set in. Maybe as long as it took a new car to lose that scent, or a brand-new house to gather dust. Maybe that was the process more commonly described as bonding: the act of learning your child as well as you know yourself.”
Source: Handle with Care: A Novel
“I wondered how long the ripple effect lasted after someone died. Maybe until everyone who knew them was dead too? Or was it something that went on for generation after generation because the damage was handed down, touching each new person and changing them, even if they don’t know why?”
Source: Life’s Too Short
“I wondered how many people had sung "By the dawn's early light' yesterday and were dead today.”
Source: Life As We Knew It
“I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth.”
Source: Daphne du Maurier Omnibus 4: Rebecca; My Cousin Rachel
“I wondered how many times I would be told 'Be joyous' before I died. Can a man arrange the sorrows and joys of his life to the Christian calendar?”
Source: As meat loves salt
“I wondered how many times in my life I had done something just because I wanted to without weighing the consequences.”
Source: The Travis Family Series, Books 1-3: Blue-Eyed Devil, Smooth Taking Stranger and Sugar Daddy
“I wondered how many years they would wallow in the mud before they realized there was something more to life than fleeting pleasures. Some would end up like me, throwing their lives away for the rush and thrill of it. I wondered how long it would take them to find out the best that drugs, alcohol, and partying had to offer was fleeting, temporary satisfaction that led to dependency and a compromised ability to find joy without those things. The more they turned to those things, the more their emotional, social, and psychological wellbeing would become dependent on them, and the harder it would be to be happy without them.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“I wondered how much of me would be left after tomorrow.”
Source: Smooth Talking Stranger: A Novel
“I wondered how much of the feeling of love is chemicals and cravings and dependency, and how much of the act of love is habit.”
Source: Out of Love
“I wondered how much time they'd spent practicing entrances like this one, smoothing away their rough edges and rendering them brief but potent expressions of effortless grace. I decided to stop thinking about it, and just be grateful that there was no circumstance, however, unlikely, that could put me in their place.”
Source: Once Broken Faith
“I wondered how people would take me being a country music singer. I thought about deviating from that and singing other things. But... it doesn't really make sense for me to try to be something that I'm not.”
“I wondered how television worked. I thought about how an interior decorator decided on colors and styles. I wondered, when babies tarted learning how to walk, if they didn't know that that couldn't walk.”
“I wondered how that felt, to really like yourself. And I wondered why some people didn't like themselves and others did. Maybe that's just the way it was.”
“I wondered how there could be a custody battle when Hong Kong was already a fully grown adult and all she wanted was exactly what her parents did, the wealth of the entire globe.”
Source: Diamond Hill
“I wondered how they would top the Pirates and skeletons and moonlight, because that's a pretty cool concept.”