I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“It had no end and therefore no beginning, yet it progressed. Thus it was timeless, infinitely present and so could be taken to be a representation of time, which cannot be pictured by those who imagine themselves linear subjects to it.”
Source: The Dark Crystal
“It had no taste; a rank smell of blood oozed from it, and I was forced to vomit almost immediately. I tried anew. If I could only keep it down, it would, in spite of all, have some effect. It was simply a matter of forcing it to remain down there. But I vomited again. I grew wild, bit angrily into the meat, tore off a morsel, and gulped it down by sheer strength of will; and yet it was of no use. Just as soon as the little fragments of meat became warm in my stomach up they came again, worse luck. I clenched my hands in frenzy, burst into tears from sheer helplessness, and gnawed away as one possessed. I cried, so that the bone got wet and dirty with my tears, vomited, cursed and groaned again, cried as if my heart would break, and vomited anew. I consigned all the powers that be to the lowermost torture in the loudest voice.”
“It had not been a long journey, but the memory of it filled her like an infection. She had felt tethered by time to the city behind her, so that the minutes stretched out taut as she moved away, and slowed the farther she got, dragging out her little voyage.”
“It had not been Edward and Jacob that I'd been trying to force together. It was the two parts of myself, Edward's Bella and Jacob's Bella but they could not exist together, and I never should have tried.”
Source: Eclipse
“It had not been the first time that we had said something like this to each other. It was not like guys went around saying it all the time to each other, but over the course of the years of being the best of friends; we had said it to each other. Justin had been the one to say it more often to me. It took me quite a few times before I could say it back to him. This was something much deeper and we both knew it.”
Source: Tormented Discovery
“It had not crossed my mind, but maybe it has Mourinho's because that is what Chelsea did two seasons ago to Xabi Alonso.”
“It had not occurred to me that marriage requires the same effort as a career. And unlike a career, marriage requires a joint effort.”
Source: Anchorwoman
“It had not rained, here on these north-facing slopes. Snow-fields stretched down from the pass into the valleys of moraine. We stowed the wheels, uncapped the sledge-runners, put on our skis, and took off—down, north, onward, into that silent vastness of fire and ice that said in enormous letters of black and white DEATH, DEATH, written right across a continent. The sledge pulled like a feather, and we laughed with joy.”
Source: The Left Hand of Darkness
“It had not seemed to matter that Rose was only eight years old. "More than eight," said Rose. "Nearly nine." "Darling Rose, even almost nearly nine-year-old's don't fall in love," said forgetful Caddy. Caddy tried very hard to comfort Rose when Tom had left. It was not an easy job. It was like trying to comfort a small, unhappy tiger. "Who said anything about falling in love?" growled Rose crossly. "Falling! Falling is by accident! I didn't fall in anything!" "Oh. Right. Sorry, Posy Rose." "And I am definitely not in love!”
“It had not yet been named Silicon Valley, but you had the defense industry, you had Hewlett-Packard. But you also had the counter-culture, the Bay Area. That entire brew came together in Steve Jobs.”
“It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B. It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way.”
Source: Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found
“It had nothing to do with the gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era.
It had only to do with how it felt to be in th wild. With what it was like to walk for miles for no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and desserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets.”
“It had nothing to do with whether the water was frightening, or whether he was able to swim or not. No matter how fast he swam, there was something hidden in the water that he couldn't escape from. Even if it looked like it was sleeping, it could wake up at any time and come to attack him. Fear of this hidden thing, fear of the shadows, all of these frightened feelings lived in Makoto's heart.”
Source: ハイ☆スピード！ [High Speed!]
“It had occurred, it had happened, and could never in his life be unhappened, never removed, a huge deadly black scar lasting forever.”
Source: The Green Knight
“It had occurred to him that if the undead don't realize that they are dead, he might easily be one of them himself.”
“It had occurred to Sean once - on a bender about ten years before with some buddies, Sean and a bloodstream full of bourbon turning philosophical - that maybe they HAD gotten in that car. All three of them. And what they now thought of as their life was just a dream state. That all three of them were, in reality, still eleven-year-old boys trapped in some cellar, imagining what they'd become if they ever escaped and grew up.”
“It had only one fault. It was kind of lousy.”
“It had rained on some vivid green ferns in Maine and it was quite beautiful. I was moving the camera slightly and studying the ground glass. Looking at those 20 square inches, trying to find out just what were the right elements to include.”
“It had rained overnight, a little pitter-patter of drops playing on her window sometime just after midnight. The storm had moved in and washed over the dusty outcroppings of Ginny's property. Everything was left with a dewy sense of renewal.
The ground was still damp but oddly warm against Julia's bare toes. A veil of steam floated up from the stone pavers, giving everything a mystical feel. She remembered these kinds of mornings. The recollection comforted her. Closing her eyes, she inhaled. Fresh air filled her lungs. She liked the sweet, organic smell that touched at the back of her throat and hinted of sage. Probably the rains had been responsible for releasing such an ethereal aroma.”
Source: The Second Chance Supper Club
“It had rained suddenly at suppertime,
now sunset was startling drops at the window. Stale peace of old bedtimes
filled the room. Love does not
make me gentle or kind, thought Geryon as he and his mother eyed each other
from opposite shores of the light.”
Source: Autobiography of Red
“It had replayed in her mind, over and over, growing in importance till it seemed her whole life could be slotted into two categories. Life before the kiss, and life after the kiss. Her life before the kiss had moved step by step ever closer to the predestined event. Meeting Dougal. And kissing him.”
Source: The Vampire With the Dragon Tattoo
“It had run as a column - I had worked at the paper since 1976, but the column had been running for 13 years, and I think it was a strong column, criticizing the war when the paper was supporting it.”
“It had seemed entirely sensible at the time. A simple way to test the truth of her claim that she had lain with de Villiers. To show her that lying to him was useless. To make a point.
Instead, he had ignited a desire that burned him like none he had ever felt before.
He had expected Lady Laurien d'Amboise to be a timid little convent mouse. Quiet and passive and pliant. Easily manageable. Instead she was outspoken and strong-willed...and stunning in a way he could not even describe.
An innocent beauty caught up in a deadly game that was none of her making....
Malcolm rose to leave, chuckling.
"And what is there to laugh about?"
Darach gave his jovial friend a dour look.
Malcolm stopped just long enough to do his best imitation of Darach. "'Simple. Kidnap one French lass, hold her for a fortnight, and return her to de Villiers after he meets our demands. Perfectly simple.”
Source: His Stolen Bride
“It had seemed like a good idea at the time, a sure-fire way to impress this girl, who was as cute as hell but wound tighter than one of his father’s antique clocks.”
Source: Numbered
“It had seemed like the beginning of happiness, and Clarissa is still sometimes shocked, more than thirty years later to realize that it was happiness; that the entire experience lay in a kiss and a walk. The anticipation of dinner and a book. The dinner is by now forgotten; Lessing has been long overshadowed by other writers. What lives undimmed in Clarissa's mind more than three decades later is a kiss at dusk on a patch of dead grass, and a walk around a pond as mosquitoes droned in the darkening air. There is still that singular perfection, and its perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more. Now she knows: That was the moment, right then. There has been no other.”
“It had seemed then that her daughter's absence had flooded Eleonor, flooded them both, and that with their words they were trying to bail themselves out. But their words were eggcups, and what they were describing was an ocean of absence too vast to be contained in such modest vessels.”
Source: Once Upon a River
“It had shocked me how the people I loved and trusted most had spat out words like daggers.”
Source: The Ultimate Religion
“It had started snowing, a thick wet layer of slush that won't stick. There are no cars on the road, nothing but big white flakes falling onto our faces, erasing the buildings around us, and the low swish of our feet on the road as we try to keep our footing, a soft wheeze humming from the bottom of my lungs from too much smoking.
In the middle of Nation Road, Mazzie turns to me without any warning. She grabs my arm and we both fall down, and then we're sitting there in the middle of the bare road, and for a few seconds we just sit there, quite, listening to the eerie silent noise of snow falling against land.
Snow covers Mazzie's eyelashes, making her look like a tiny ice princess– the closest she will ever come to wearing makeup.
"You look pretty," I say.
"Shut up.”
Source: Breathless
“It had started so well. The night after I wrote my first-ever blog entry, I made Bifteck Sauté au Beurre and Artichauts au Naturel- the first recipes in the meat and vegetable chapters of MtAoFC, respectively. The steak I merely fried in a skillet with butter and oil- butter and oil because not only did I not have the beef suet that was the other option, I didn't even know what beef but was. Then I just made a quick sauce out of the juices from the pan, some vermouth we'd had sitting around the house forever because Eric had discovered that drinking vermouth, even in martinis, made him sick, and a bit more butter. The artichokes I simply trimmed- chopping off the stalks and cutting the sharp pointy tops off all the leaves with a pair of scissors- before boiling them in salted water until tender. I served the artichokes with some Beurre au Citron, which I made by boiling down lemon juice with salt and pepper, then beating in a stick of butter. Three recipes altogether, in just over an hour.”
Source: Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously
“It had started to drizzle. The lamp poles cast a kaleidoscope of light dancing across the puddles in the road. The rain made Sam feel even more lost now, as if these shadowy events were invisible to the world. As if the night was cloaked in anonymity. This wasn’t a peaceful rain - it was a sad one. A drizzle, which wept for the inevitable. Sam knew even if she got Alison out of this alive, the cuts on their lives had already been made, pooling the blood of consequence beneath their feet as the night dragged on. Whichever way this went, they’d have scars from this night. Scars and scabs and things which could not be spoken. And that made her feel utterly hopeless.”
Source: Consequence
“It had struck me that the world was full of holes, holes which you could fall into, never to be seen again. I couldn't understand the difference between disappearance and death. Both seemed the same to me, both left holes. Holes in your heart holes in your life.”
Source: Maggot Moon Adult Edition
“It had taken Cyrus a while to come out of his shell. One of those “aw shucks, ma’am” kind of cowboys, he was so darned shy she thought she was going to have to throw herself on the floor at his boots for him to notice her. But once he had opened up a little, they’d started talking, joking around, getting to know each other. Before he left, they’d gone for a horseback ride through the snowy foothills up into the towering pines of the forest. It had been Cyrus’s idea. They’d ridden up into one of the four mountain ranges that surrounded the town of Gilt Edge – and the Cahill Ranch.
It was when they’d stopped to admire the view from the mountaintop that overlooked the small western town that AJ had hoped Cyrus would kiss her. He sure looked as if he’d wanted to as they’d walked their horses to the edge of the overlook.
The sun warming them while the breeze whispered through the boughs of the nearby snow-laden pines, it was one of those priceless Montana January days between snowstorms. That’s why Cyrus had said they should take advantage of the beautiful day before he left for Denver.
Standing on a bared-off spot on the edge of the mountain, he’d reached over and taken her hand in his. “Beautiful,” he’d said. For a moment she thought he was talking about the view, but when she met his gaze she’d seen that he’d meant her.
Her heart had begun to pound. This was it. This was what she’d been hoping for. He drew her closer. His mouth was just a breath away from hers – when his mare nudged him with her nose.
She could laugh about it now. But if she hadn’t grabbed Cyrus he would have fallen down the mountainside.
“She’s just jealous,” Cyrus had said of his horse as he’d rubbed the beast’s neck after getting his footing under himself again.
But the moment had been lost. They’d saddled up and ridden back to Cahill Ranch. AJ still wanted that kiss more than anything.”
Source: Wrangler's Rescue
“It had taken her a good deal of time before she believed that she was worth all that fierce affection he lavished upon her. To have it stolen away unjustly was that much more cruel.”
Source: Blameless
“It had taken her a while to figure it out, skirting around the Queer Club at school and going to virtual talks with Neela and in-person events with May, but once she tried the ace label on, she felt it fit her like a well-worn T-shirt. She didn't need a label to explain herself, but having 'ace' felt like armor; it was easy to drop a word, to be somewhat understood.”
Source: Not Good for Maidens
“It had taken thirty years for me to understand that regrets do not dissipate, they do not abate into sadness—they harden until they have formed into a small fist that often rests quietly in the pit of your stomach but that can suddenly, and without warning, land a punch so powerful you are left doubled over in pain, gasping for breath.”
Source: How to Forget: A Daughter's Memoir
“It had taken years to put themselves back together, and so what if some things didn’t get put back in the right place? At least they could hold themselves up.”
Source: The Rainbow Rowell YA Collection
“It had that comfortably sprung, lived-in look that library books with a lively circulation always get; bent page corners, a dab of mustard on page 331, a whiff of some reader's spilled after-dinner whiskey on page 468. Only library books speak with such wordless eloquence of the power good stories hold over us, how good stories abide, unchanged and mutely wise, while we poor humans grow older and slower.”
Source: Salem's Lot
“It had that kind of open-ended fear to it - like that feeling you get when you're driving and you see a cop. And you're not speeding. You don't have drugs. But you're just thinking, I hope he doesn't notice I'm driving.”
Source: Sleepwalk with Me: and Other Painfully True Stories
“It had the effect of cementing the Anglo-American alliance. What's the good of having bases if when you want to use them you're not allowed to by the home country. It made America realise that Britain was her real and true friend, when they were hard up against it and wanted something, and that no one else in Europe was. They're a weak lot, some of them in Europe you know. Weak. Feeble.”
“It had the old double keyboard, an entirely different set of keys for capitals and figures, so that the paper seemed a long way off, and the machine was as big and solid as a battle cruiser. Typing was then a muscular activity. You could ache after it. If you were not familiar with those vast keyboards, your hand wandered over them like a child lost in a wood. The noise might have been that of a shipyard on the Clyde. You would no more have thought of carrying one of those grim structures as you would have thought of travelling with a piano.”
“It had the tangled floor plan common to all hospitals, seemingly designed by someone who believed in the healing power of watching confused visitors aimlessly wander around hallways.”
Source: This Book Is Full of Spiders
“It had the taste of an apple peeled with a steel knife. (Sebastian Barnack assessing a Roederer 1916 champagne in Time Must Have a Stop)”
“It had things that it could do and which I thought were worthwhile: one would be South Africa, of course. And, as I said, I assumed a leadership role within the Commonwealth on that.”
“It had to be a mad dream, one that would give her the courage she would need to discard the prejudices of a class that had not always been hers but had become hers more than anyone’s. It had to teach her to think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end in itself.”
Source: Love in the Time of Cholera
“It had to be hammered home quite a bit because I didn't see any humour in my life at all.”
“It had to be U. U. was the only town I could still bear, the one spot in the atlas I'd already absorbed head-on. When you take too many of your critical hits in one place, that place can no longer hurt you.”
Source: Galatea 2.2
“It had to do with the way women throughout time has known the feel of love when it came to them.”
Source: Pirate Moon
“It had to go in, but it didn't.”
“It had to happen to you, to concentrate your whole life on one point, and then discover that you can do anything except live at that point.”
Source: This Business of Living
“It had to teach her to think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end it itself.”