I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“It occurred to me then that it was in times of struggle that I found the best parts of myself - courage, loyalty, an unexpected peace - and I always discovered what I needed to break through and go on.”
“It occurred to me then that the man might not be mad; I found this far more disquieting than the alternative.”
Source: Murder Mysteries
“it occurred to me what a simple thing reality is, how easy it is to make it work. It's just reality. Just housework. Just a home. Like running a simple machine. Once you learn to run it, it's just a matter of repetition. You push this button and pull that lever. You adjust a gauge, put on the lid, set the timer. The same thing, over and over.”
Source: The Elephant Vanishes
“It occurred to me when I was thirteen and wearing white gloves and Mary Janes and going to dancing school, that no one should have to dance backward all their lives.”
“It occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made of this question (the origin of the species) by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it”
“It occurred to me, then, how nearly real life resembles the first rehearsal of a play. We are all of us stumbling through it, doing our best to say the proper lines and make the proper moves, but not quite comfortable yet in the parts we've been given. Still, like players who trust that -despite all evidence to the contrary- the whole mess will make sense eventually, we keep on going, hoping that somehow things will work out for the best.”
Source: Shakespeare's Spy
“It occurred to me, when I was old enough to make rules of my own, that they should be fair and simple.”
“It occurred to Nelson, in a terrible reverie, that he had greatly underestimated these ants. That there could be dimensions to what was happening that were beyond him and that he couldn't possibly anticipate. That perhaps the ants were possessors of some kind of true intellect, capable of laying plans and responding to surprises in ways that were far more than instinctual. He drew his sidearm and whispered, almost to himself.
"Run.”
Source: Sapience
“It occurred to Norris at that moment that Hairy Armpits probably would never give this moment a second thought, whereas, for Norris, it was already congealing into something rock-hard in his chest. It would definitely be one of those repressed high school wounds that only decades of living on a yacht made of nachos would someday come close to healing.”
Source: The Field Guide to the North American Teenager
“It occurred to Raule that all children were monsters in the world and were instinctively aware of it. They were reminded of their anomalous nature by adults, whom they failed to resemble, and with whose habitations and tools their bodies were at odds. This was surely why the little girl played with the sequins so solemnly and with such intense concentration. She was doing nothing less than conjuring, out of pattern and colour, a world that conformed to her desires and obeyed her will. The boy, on the other hand, showed with the whole attitude of his being that he knew there was only the one world and he would kill it if he could.”
Source: The Etched City
“It occurred to Rosie that she couldn't hide either, even though the truth had been hidden from her. Now she was out from the shadows, out in the open for the first time in her life, standing in the harsh light.”
Source: Rosie's Umbrella
“It occurred to Sadie: She had thought after Ichigo that she would never fail again. She had thought she had arrived. But life was always arriving.”
Source: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
“It occurred to Susan that men were always waiting for something cataclysmic-love or war or a giant asteroid. Every man wanted to be a hot-headed Bruce Willis character, fighting against the evil foreign enemy while despising the domestic bureaucracy. Men just wanted to focus on one big thing, leaving the thousands of smaller messes for the women around them to clean up.”
“It occurred to them for the first time in their lives that what's divine can come in dark skin.”
“It occurs to her that she should record this flash of insight in her journal - otherwise she is sure to forget, for she is someone who is always learning and forgetting and obliged to learn again.”
Source: The Stone Diaries: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
“It occurs to her that there is one thing about people you can never understand well enough: how entirely inside themselves they are.”
Source: Pigs in Heaven
“It occurs to me as I write that this "white light," usually presented dippily (evidence of afterlife, higher power), is in fact precisely consistent with the oxygen deficit that occurs as blood flow to the brain decreases. "Everything went white," those whose blood pressure has dropped say of the instant before they faint.”
Source: The Year of Magical Thinking
“It occurs to me as we're all sitting here thinking of Mickey, he's probably somewhere getting an earful from Casey Stengel, and no doubt quite confused by now.”
“It occurs to me it is not so much the aim of the devil to lure me with evil as it is to preoccupy me with the meaningless.”
“It occurs to me one evening as I'm feeding the birds that all I did was put two birds in the aviary, some food and water and nothing else and now there are six of them. I know this is perfectly natural, it's one of the things life is all about, but to have it happen in my bedroom, under my own eyes, is magic.”
Source: Birdy
“It occurs to me that artists go forward by going backward, something which I have nothing against intrinsically when it is a reproduced retreat - as is the case with the better artists.”
“It occurs to me that at the beginning one works passionately to learn photography. This takes years, and the craft is usually formed during this period. Then as time passes one finds oneself more in the role of serving the medium... Then, as in the example of several masters that I have been privileged to know personally, it appears that by having devoted oneself totally to the medium, one becomes photography.”
“It occurs to me that cricket is not the true sport in London - gossip is.”
Source: The Sweet Far Thing
“It occurs to me that even though Zoya and I are both still alive, my life is already over. She will be taken from me soon and there will be no reason for me to continue without her. We are one person, you see. We are GeorgyandZoya.”
Source: The House of Special Purpose
“It occurs to me that for a long time she has been doing her own version of resisting.”
“It occurs to me that hearts and souls and lives can themselves be sites of unimaginable suffering.”
Source: S.
“It occurs to me that I really can't remember your face in any precise detail. Only the way you walked away through the tables in the café, your figure, your dress, that I still see.”
Source: Letters to Milena
“It occurs to me that in the year Shunkin's picture was taken—when she was thirty-six—Sasuke himself became blind; the last time he saw her she must have looked rather like this. Was the picture of her which he carried in his memory in old age as faded as this photograph? Or did his imagination make up for a gradually failing memory? Did he create an image of another lovely woman, of one altogether different from the woman in the photograph?”
“It occurs to me that it is the very thing that made her that will be the thing to finally take her down.”
Source: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
“It occurs to me that John McCain is as intellectually shallow as our current President....Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been....I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.”
“It occurs to me that just as the Carthaginians hired mercenaries to do their fighting for them, we Americans being in mercenaries to do our hard and humble work. I hope we may not be overwhelmed one day by peoples not too proud or too lazy or too soft to bend to the earth and pick up the things we eat.”
Source: Travels with Charley and Later Novels, 1947-1962
“It occurs to me that my sexuality is more fluid in my mind than it is in 3D. I often wish that my sexual desires were more malleable than they are. Being solely attracted to men sucks. It's like suffering from an irreversible case of Stockholm syndrome. I'm drawn to the very creature that has violated, oppressed, exploited, raped, kidnapped, subjugated, controlled, made fun of, manipulated, abused, belittled, objectified, persecuted, and condescended me and my people for centuries.”
Source: A Room Called Earth
“It occurs to me that our survival may depend upon our talking to one another.”
Source: Hyperion
“It occurs to me that perhaps I’ve always gravitated toward the weight of old things, the sacred sense surrounding them.”
Source: Voices of the Future: Stories of Myth & Memory
“It occurs to me that she is not unique--that all women compare lives. We are aware of whose husband works more, who helps more around the house, who makes more money, who is having more sex. We compare our children, taking note of who is sleeping through the night, eating their vegetables, minding their manners, getting into the right schools. We know who keeps the best house, throws the best parties, cooks the best meals, has the best tennis game. We know who among us is the smartest, has the fewest lines around her eyes, has the best figure--whether naturally or artificially. We are aware of who works full-time, who stays at home with the kids, who manages to do it all and make it look easy, who shops and lunches while the nanny does it all. We digest it all and then discuss with our friends. Comparing and then confiding; it is what women do.
The difference, I think, lies in why we do it. Are we doing it to gauge our own life and reassure ourselves that we fall within the realm of normal? Or are we being competitive, relishing others' shortcomings so that we can win, if only by default?”
Source: Heart of the Matter
“It occurs to me that the peculiarity of most things we think of as fragile is how tough they truly are. There were tricks we did with eggs, as children, to show how they were, in reality, tiny load-bearing marble halls; while the beat of the wings of a butterfly in the right place, we are told, can create a hurricane across an ocean. Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkable difficult to kill.”
“it occurs to me that there is so much I never knew about him--his past, his role in the resistance, what his life was like in the Wilds, before he came to Portland, and I feel a flash of grief so intense it almost makes me cry out: not for what I lost, but for the chances I missed.”
Source: Requiem
“It occurs to me that there's been a relatively recent tendency in the media to see prostitutes as victims and johns as exploiters. I don't think most prostitutes see themselves as victims or see their clients as exploiters, but that way of seeing prostitutes and johns is pretty common now outside of sex-work circles, and it's more shameful to be the exploiter than the exploited.”
“It occurs to me that we allow ourselves to imagine only such messages as we need to survive.”
Source: The Year of Magical Thinking
“It occurs to me that with all the television people watch, most of their acquaintances are actors.”
“It occurs to me to wonder: do I believe in any god, or even positively not believe, as James does? I believe in systems and methods. I believe in the beauties of philosophy and poetry. I believe that the work we do and leave behind us is our afterlife; and I believe that history lies, but sometimes so well that I can't bring myself to resent it. I believe that truth is beauty, but not, I'm afraid, the reverse. It doesn't seem sufficient to sustain one in life's rigorous moments. Perhaps I shall embrace Islam. Its standards for poetry seem very high.”
“It occurs to me,Jim,that you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don't you invest more time being interested?" Collin's advice from John Gardner that he took to heart.”
“It occurs to me: why is it mainly women, who to pass on the faith? Simply because the one who brought us Jesus is a woman. It is the path chosen by Jesus. He wanted to have a mother: the gift of faith comes to us through women, as Jesus came to us through Mary.”
“It occurs to us that so-called "freedom fries" kill many more Americans than terrorists ever do.”
“It offended him and mocked him: the fact that the world didn't die when his heart did.”
Source: My sad republic
“It offended his sense of himself, because he was an individual from an age of individuals, and a string of lights was, like him, an individual thing. No matter how little the thing had cost, to throw it away was to deny its value.”
Source: The Corrections: A Novel
“it offends the continuum of human dignity to treat people like the appendage of highly efficient machines.”
“It often appears that modern government has two modes, ignorant and malicious.”
“It often appears that modern government has two modes, ignorant or malicious.”
“It often appears that those who talk the most about going to heaven when you die talk the least about bringing heaven to earth right now, as Jesus taught us to pray: 'Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' At the same time, it often appears that those who talk the most about relieving suffering now talk the least about heaven when we die.”