I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“If a body meet a body coming through the rye. Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy.”
“If a book about failures doesn't sell, is it a success?”
“If a book comes from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and author-craft are of small amount to that.”
Source: The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle
“If a book could speak, it might reveal the happiness it feels from being held every day.”
Source: Tales of Habib the Hoaxter: Sometimes Hoaxed, Always Good for a Laugh
“If a book has a predictable storyline or familiar situations, there's little satisfaction for me in writing it. A woman deciding which man she'll spend her life with? I've read that story a million times, but a stepmother deciding which of her children she'll save in a freak accident? Now that's a challenge.”
“If a book has no index or good table of contents, it is very useful to make one as you are reading it.”
“If a book I've committed myself to review turns out to be 'disappointing' I make an effort to present it objectively to the reader, including a good number of excerpts from the text, so that the reader might form his or her own opinion independent of my own.”
“If a book is easy and fits nicely into all your language conventions and thought forms, then you probably will not grow much from reading it. It may be entertaining, but not enlarging to your understanding. It’s the hard books that count. Raking is easy, but all you get is leaves; digging is hard, but you might find diamonds.”
“If a book is not alive in the writer's mind, it is as dead as year-old horse-shit”
“if a book is not good enough for a grownup, it is not good enough for a child.”
“If a book is really good, it deserves to be read again, and if it's great, it should be read at least three times.”
“If a book is well written, I always find it too short.”
Source: Sense and Sensibility
“If a book is worth reading at all, it is worth reading more than once. Suspense is the lowest of excitants, designed to take your breath away when the brain and heart crave to linger in nobler enjoyment. Suspense drags you on; appreciation causes you to linger.”
“If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying.”
Source: The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings
“if a book isn't self-explanatory, then it isn't worth reading.”
“If a book really wants the patronage of a great name, it is a bad book; and if it be a good book, it wants it not.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell you it again when you're fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you're reading a whole new book.”
Source: Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016, with a Journal of a WriterÕs Week
“If a book wants to question and doubt many things that are taken for granted or codified, how can the writer manage to do that, to put all those things in doubt? Apparently he has to write, his only tool is language, but what language should he use? That’s where the problem begins, because if he uses the language that expresses the world he is attacking, that language will betray him. How can he denounce something with the tools that are used by the enemy, that is, the stratified, codified language, a language already used by the masters and their disciples?”
Source: Clases de literatura: Berkeley, 1980
“If a book were written all in numbers, it would be true. It would be just. Nothing said in words ever came out quite even. Things in words got twisted and ran together, instead of staying straight and fitting together. But underneath the words, at the center, like the center of the Square, it all came out even. Everything could change, yet nothing would be lost. If you saw the numbers you could see that, the balance, the pattern. You saw the foundations of the world. And they were solid.”
“If a bout of "creepy face" sets in, the trick is to look away from the camera between shots and turn back only when necessary. This also limits how much of your soul the camera can steal.”
Source: Bossypants
“If a boxer ever went as crazy as Nijinsky all the wowsers in the world would be screaming 'punch-drunk.' Well, who hit Nijinsky? And why isn't there a campaign against ballet? It gives girls thick legs”
“If a boy doesn't respect his mother...run!”
Source: Suzy Freaking Q: The defintive renegade high school handbook on what to say and what to do about guys, friends, parents and more.
“If a boy, if a man, asks you if you're all right and you say yes, he'll always believe you and get on with what he wants to do. It's just the way they're made.”
Source: This Is All
“If a brain is exercised properly, anyone can grow intelligence, at any age, and potentially by a lot. Or you can just let your brain idle - and watch it slowly, inexorably, go to seed like a sedentary body.”
“If a branch is too rigid, it will break. Resist, and you will perish. Know how to yield, and you will survive.”
Source: Lieh-tzu: A Taoist Guide to Practical Living
“If a brand genuinely wants to make a social contribution, it should start with who they are, not what they do. For only when a brand has defined itself and its core values can it identify causes or social responsibility initiatives that are in alignment with its authentic brand story.”
“If a brand wants to build social communities, capital and influence, it must become the chief celebrant of its community, not its celebrity. This simple shift in approach unlocks enormous transformative potential for brands.”
“If a British guy saw someone at the wheel of a Rolls- Royce, he'd say 'come the revolution and we'll take that away from you, mate', where the American would say 'one day I'll have one of those, when I have worked hard enough'. It's unfortunate we Australians inherited the British mentality.”
“If a brutal scene is shown for no reason except to shock, then it is bad.”
“If a budget is designed to show our values, it's clear where the majority stands: against opportunity, against education, and against America's hard-working, tax-paying middle class.”
“If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.”
Source: The Code of Hammurabi
“if a builder builds a house and the house falls and kills some one in the house the owners may kill the builder.”
“If a building becomes architecture, then it is art.”
“If a building is falling on you, you don't concern yourself with the horn of an approaching car. You deal with the most immediate peril first. That's survival.”
Source: Madwand
“If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it's a failure.”
“If a building makes us light up, it is not because we see order; any row of file cabinets is ordered. What we recognize and love is the same kind of pattern we see in every face, the pattern of our own life form. The same principles apply to buildings that apply to mollusks, birds or trees. Architecture is the play of patterns derived from nature and ourselves.”
Source: The Old Way of Seeing
“If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.”
“If a bullfrog had wings it wouldn't bump his behind every time he
hopped.”
“If a bunch of activists want to create the concept of "gay infertility" and then tax all the rest of us to compensate them for the fact that they can't have babies, then that's gonna happen. You haven't missed anything yet. I'm just teasing you as to what's coming. Gays now think it's not fair they can't have babies, so they're calling that "infertility," and it will require mandatory health insurance because of it. Yeah, I know they're not infertile but that doesn't matter; they can't have babies.”
“If a bunch of people who barely know you, who have no idea what you've been through, the good you do, the love you give and receive, the valued person you are or at the very least trying to be... criticize or judge you, their opinion matters, why? Ponder that one. And when you realize it doesn't, resume living your life. It’s what YOU think of YOU that matters.”
“If a bunch of Republicans are too stiff- necked, too proud, or in some cases too committed to the old order, after the election, I think they're going to be very sobered by their position.”
“If a bush is too big, don't ask "should I?" Go ahead and cut it. If it lives, great. If it dies, replace it with something better suited!”
“If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.”
“If a business has to be told that it needs more focus, accountability and decisiveness, there is a bigger problem at hand.”
“If a business is not ethical, it will fail, perhaps not right away but eventually.”
“If a business is to be considered a continuous process, instead of a series of disjointed stop-and-go events, then the economic universe in which a business operates-and all the major events within it-must have rhyme, rhythm, or reason.”
“If a business is underperforming, then the assumptions are wrong”
“If a business isn’t efficiently utilizing resources, then it’s a bad investment. A wasteful business is an unprofitable business. That may or may not show on their P&L for the current year, but you better believe it shows somewhere.”
“If a business sells alcohol to someone who is clearly intoxicated, and that person commits personal or property damage, the business that sold them the booze can be held partly liable. These laws place the onus on suppliers to ensure their customers behave safely and to remove any incentive to overserve someone in pursuit of profit. Levant asks why sportsbooks should not be partly liable if they allow someone with an obvious gambling problem to continue betting and that person commits a financial crime to keep up their habit.”
Source: Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling
“If a caddie can help you, you don't know how to play golf.”
Source: Dead Solid Perfect