I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“It was a sordid scene. Philip leaned over the rail, staring down, and he ceased to hear the music. They danced furiously. They danced round the room, slowly, talking very little, with all their attention given to the dance. The room was hot, and their faces shone with sweat. It seemed to Philip that they had thrown off the guard which people wear on their expression, the homage to convention, and he saw them now as they really were. In that moment of abandon they were strangely animal: some were foxy and some were wolflike; and others had the long, foolish face of sheep. Their skins were sallow from the unhealthy life the led and the poor food they ate. Their features were blunted by mean interests, and their little eyes were shifty and cunning. There was nothing of nobility in their bearing, and you felt that for all of them life was a long succession of petty concerns and sordid thoughts. The air was heavy with the musty smell of humanity. But they danced furiously as though impelled by some strange power within them, and it seemed to Philip that they were driven forward by a rage for enjoyment. They were seeking desperately to escape from a world of horror. The desire for pleasure which Cronshaw said was the only motive of human action urged them blindly on, and the very vehemence of the desire seemed to rob it of all pleasure. The were hurried on by a great wind, helplessly, they knew not why and they knew not whither. Fate seemed to tower above them, and they danced as though everlasting darkness were beneath their feet. Their silence was vaguely alarming. It was as if life terrified them and robbed them of power of speech so that the shriek which was in their hearts died at their throats. Their eyes were haggard and grim; and notwithstanding the beastly lust that disfigured them, and the meanness of their faces, and the cruelty, notwithstanding the stupidness which was the worst of all, the anguish of those fixed eyes made all that crowd terrible and pathetic. Philip loathed them, and yet his heart ached with the infinite pity which filled him.
He took his coat from the cloak-room and went out into the bitter coldness of the night.”
Source: Of Human Bondage
“It was a sort of ferocious, quiet beauty, the sort that wouldn't let you admire it. The sort of beauty that always hurt.”
Source: The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, Book 2)
“It was a sort of peace I have rarely enjoyed since. As if we were the only two souls on earth—all of nature ours to enjoy. I wondered why a creator who had dreamt such beauty would have slandered it with such evil. Such grief. Why He had not been content to leave it unspoilt. I still wonder.”
“It was a soulless gaze, burning with a wild hatred that shouldn’t be there in anyone who could call themselves a parent.”
Source: Playmates
“It was a sound like someone trying not to make a sound.”
Source: Trying to Save Piggy Sneed: 20th Anniversary Edition
“It was a source of both terror and comfort to me then that I often seemed invisible - incompletely and minimally existent, in fact. It seemed to me that I made no impact on the world, and that in exchange I was privileged to watch it unawares.”
“It was a source of shame for my family that I was in rock and roll, which is so blue-collar. It just isn't done. And I felt it, too.”
“It was a special army, with no supplies but its sincerity, no uniform but its determination, no arsenal except its faith, no currency but its conscience. it was an army that would move but not maul. It was an army that would sing but not slay. It was an army that would flank but not falter. It was an army to storm bastions of hatred, to lay siege to the fortresses of segregation, to surround symbols of discrimination. It was an army whose allegiance was to God and whose strategy and intelligence were the eloquently simple dictates of conscience.
Why We Can't Wait 1963”
“It was a special feeling, irreplaceable, that was priceless. No queen on the throne could feel more important than me.”
“It was a special show that became a cult classic of sorts, and I made a lot of money for it.”
“It was a sphincter at the top of a black bowl. A fitting commentary on the FAYZ, Diana thought. A giant sphincter.”
“It was a splendid population - for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed at home - you never find that sort of people among pioneers - you cannot build pioneers out of that sort of material. It was that population that gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or consequences, which she bears unto this day - and when she projects a new surprise the grave world smiles as usual and says, "Well, that is California all over.”
Source: Mark Twain, the Globetrotter: Complete Travel Books, Memoirs & Anecdotes (Illustrated Edition): A Tramp Abroad, The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, Old Times on the Mississippi, Life on the Mississippi, Following the Equator & Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion, With Author’s Biography
“It was a splendid summer morning and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong.”
Source: John Cheever: Collected Stories and Other Writings
“It was a split [between the way I was saw myself…and the way I was expected to behave] that brought up to date the age-old dualism between body and soul, virgin and whore. (Haskell xiii)”
“It was a spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather.”
Source: Girl, Interrupted
“It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh... Even the streams were now lifeless... No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.”
Source: Silent Spring
“It was a staggering moment when I first heard the news. Lennon was a most talented man and above all, a gentle soul. John and his colleagues set a high standard by which contemporary music continues to be measured.”
“It was a standard fantasy when you fell in love to imagine you could go back in time and find your beloved growing up, appear there, save him or her, get together as adolescents, by magic, and go on together, fighting for one another, into old age, never wavering.”
Source: Subtle Bodies
“It was a standard white-bread hot dog bun oozing with orangey-pink lobster meat, dotted with tiny slices of celery ribs, and held together by globs of creamy mayonnaise. "Careful," Jaime warned, stretching the plate out closer to Hazel's lap. "It's sort of a two-hand situation."
Hazel brought the soggy roll to her mouth and bit down at one end. A mouthful of buttery, lemony goodness greeted her, and she swooned. "S'good," she mumbled, wiping the corners of her mouth. It wasn't just good. It was heavenly and tasted exactly the way she'd always thought that summer should.”
Source: Wishful Thinking
“It was a star," Mrs. Whatsit said sadly. "A star giving up its life in battle with the Thing. It won, oh, yes, my children, it won. But it lost its life in the winning.”
Source: A Wrinkle in Time
“It was a stark choice: shoes or food; beauty or sustenance; the sensible or the self-indulgent. "I'll take the shoes," she said firmly.”
Source: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built
“It was a starship, and it was all that word implied. Off-dirt, the void, distant worlds whose names he couldn't spell.”
Source: Ravenor
“It was a start, and a start is all anyone needs to put an end to something.”
Source: Misadventurous
“It was a startling task to undertake, for the Book of Mormon had never been illustrated before, at least on any professional level. There were no precedents.”
“It was a state of aloneness. It was the kind of place that started shooting political prisoners because it suspected that they would enjoy solitary confinement and internal exile too much.”
Source: Care of Wooden Floors
“It was a step forward to charge Pinochet with terrorism, and to acknowledge that the essence of the crime is the use of political violence to induce great fear in society and against those who are innocent, and not just such violence that is directed against the state by opposition groups.”
“It was a stick-figure drawing. Two people holding hands. A thin man in black and a girl, half his height with short hair, and wide eyes. The stick-girl’s head was cocked slightly, and a small red spot marked her arm. Three similar spots, no bigger than periods, dotted the stick-man’s chest. The stick-man’s mouth was nothing more than a faint grim line.
Beneath the drawing ran a single sentence: I made a friend.
Victor.
“You okay?”
Eli blinked, felt the cop’s hand on his arm. He slid free, folded the paper, and put it in his pocket before anyone could see or say otherwise…Eli went back the way he’d come. He didn’t stop, not until he was safely in his car. In the relative privacy of the side street in Merit, he pressed his hand against the drawing in his pocket, and a phantom pain started in his stomach.”
Source: Vicious
“It was a stillness so profound one had to adjust one’s hearing to it.
....
The silence seemed to be trying to tell him something about itself.”
Source: 1Q84 Book 1
“It was a store-bought sugar cookie. Not as good as Mamma's, of course. Mamma made hers with a secret ingredient- ricotta cheese- and thick, sweet icing. Now that was a cookie.”
Source: Summer by the Sea
“It was a stormy and dark night; vast clouds covered the heavens, concealing the stars; the moon would not rise till midnight.”
Source: The Three Musketeers - Volume 1
“It was a story called ‘The Hero’ which I sold to Galaxy magazine in 1970, for $94.”
“It was a strange combination to absorb - the everyday concerns of the town doctor stuck in the middle of a discussion of his early days in seventeenth-century London.”
“It was a strange feeling going into a church I did not know for a service that I did not really believe in, but once inside I couldn't help a feeling of warmth and security. Outside there were wars and road accidents and murders, striptease clubs and battered babies and frayed tempers and unhappy marriages and people contemplating suicide and bad jokes, but once in St. Martin's there was peace. Surely people go to church not to involve themselves in the world's problems but to escape from them.”
“It was a strange lightness, a drifting feeling. Zero gravity. I understood that everything that once seemed solid and immovable might just float away. And that this was a truth of life, not an illusion in the grieving mind of a child. Everything that is hard and heavy in your world is made up of billions of molecules in constant motion offering the illusion of permanence. But it all tends toward breaking down and falling away. Some things just go more quickly, more surprisingly, than others.”
“It was a strange man, a kind of black humorist, a true philosopher. One day he said: "If my books could ensure an increase in the number of murders, well, it will mean that they have been quite useful in some way or another."”
“It was a strange moment, like when you get sad after sex, and it feels like it's too late in the afternoon, even if it's morning, or night, and you turn away from the other person, and they turn away from you, and you lie there, and when you turn back towards them you can both see each other's moles. Usually there seem to shadows from Venetian blinds all across your legs.”
Source: Feed
“It was a strange monster, for beneath its exterior it was frightened and sickened by its own violence. It chastised itself for its savagery. And sometimes it had no heart for violence and rebelled against it utterly.”
Source: Graceling
“It was a strange season coaching under that new [Alderson] regime. I felt like I was watching the deterioration of the Mets organization. They seemed to have no identity. My concern was that the character of the players they were looking for superseded the talent they brought to the table. Character on a team is important, but you've got to have the horses to win.”
“It was a strange sensation, the thawing of a frozen heart.”
Source: Love and Other Sins
“It was a strange thing. I had been viewing the marriage question with such trepidation--- the ceremony, the spectacle, all that came after it, in the form of this strange and beautiful kingdom that would thence be half mine. And yet, as I sat there upon the lake amidst the tree-shadow and reflected light and the dragonflies tussling with the wind, I no longer knew why I had been so afraid. Likely it was also the threat of Queen Arna hanging over us like a guillotine--- well, the prospect of imminent death tends to put things into perspective. It was not that my worries vanished--- no magic could manage that. I only realized how much smaller they were than the world that lay before me. A world that I wanted, even after all I had seen, and amidst such a thicket of danger. I wanted it very much. And I especially wanted to share it with Wendell.”
Source: Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales
“It was a strange thing, really, seeing my boyfriend's naked ass thrusting between widespread thighs. Was that what he looked like when he was on top of me? Because I had to say he appeared rather ridiculous, pumping away like an unhinged bunny. Then again, I'd never liked that particular method of his; I'd rarely orgasmed when pounded like a piece of meat. His partner, however, didn't seem to have that problem. Either she was faking it, or she loved it. But her rather enthusiastic squeaks of delight cut short as she caught sight of me, and all the color drained from her face.
Sadly, it took Greg a bit longer to realize she'd frozen beneath him; Greg always was a bit of a selfish lover. When he finally noticed, he was as smooth as ever, observing me from over his sweaty shoulder without making a move to get off the woman.
Silence fell like a hammer. Or maybe an ax. Why not? An ax could sever more than one thing today. Greg swallowed twice, his gaze darting over me, like he couldn't quite believe I was there. In my own home.
His voice was somewhat shaky when he finally spoke. "You're early."
So many things to say. Scream, maybe? Cry? But I was numb. Completely numb. So I said the only thing I could. "Funny, I think I arrived just in time.”
Source: Make It Sweet
“It was a strange thing, this feeling of empathy. He'd never experienced it before. He realized that what hurt this woman hurt him as well, that what made her bleed caused a hemorrhage of pain within his soul.”
Source: Wicked Intentions: Number 1 in series
“It was a strange thing, to still be in love with your wife and to not know if you liked her. What would happen when this was all over? Could you forgive someone if she hurt you and the people you love, if she truly believed she was only trying to help? I had filed for divorce, but that wasn't what I really wanted. What I really wanted was for all of us to go back two years, and start over. Had I ever really told her that?”
Source: The Jodi Picoult Collection #4: Change of Heart, Handle with Care, and House Rules
“It was a strange universe. The more she learned, the stranger it seemed, and she doubted she would ever find the answers to all her questions.”
Source: To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
“It was a strangely disorienting feeling, to have something you'd relied on for so long start to change, like finding out that gravity no longer worked on Mondays.”
Source: Shiver Trilogy (Shiver, Linger, Forever)
“It was a stretch to imagine that Barbara Walters might want to give it all up for Ed Couch, but Evelyn tried her hardest. Of course, even though she was not religious, it was a comfort to know that the Bible backed her up in being a doormat.”
Source: Fried Green Tomatoes, Can't Wait to Get to Heaven, and I Still Dream About You: Three Bestselling Novels
“It was a strike against me that I didn't wear baggy jeans and jerseys and that I never hustled, never sold drugs.”
“It was a strong effort of the spirit of good; but it was ineffectual. Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction”
Source: Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus
“It was a struggle financing CNN, but I did it without ever asking the government for a nickel.”
“It was a struggle for me as a kid and everyone knows struggle, whether it's financially, economically, your dreams of becoming whatever you want to be.”