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 struggle treating Claude Rains as my lover, but we were friendly. It was no great love affair.”
“It was a style not of perfection, but warmth. Even mistakes had a good feeling about them”
Source: The Book Thief: Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition
“It was a subject [ volcanoes] that was dormant in me for a long time and it popped up 40 years ago when I made a [short] film on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe about a volcano that was about to explode and a single farmer refused to leave ["La Soufrière"].”
“It was a subtle refinement of God to learn Greek when he wished to write a book – and that he did not learn it better.”
“It was a subversive notion, the idea that she was free. Free to choose where to go and what to do with her time.”
Source: Restless
“It was a such a surprise, such an absolute shocking surprise to me to not know what you're doing and to find out that this thing that you don't even know how to do, that you're sure you don't know how to do, speaks to so many people and touches so many people in some way.”
“It was a sucker punch. But you know who gets hit by sucker punches? Suckers.”
“It was a sudden inspiration. But inspiration never came without a reason.”
Source: The Snowman: Harry Hole 7
“It was a summer of trying not to think too deeply. A summer of pretending that the end wasn't coming. A summer when I got lost in time, when I rarely knew what day it was, rarely cared about the hour. A summer so bright and warm it made me believe the heat would linger, that there would always be more days, that blood on handkerchiefs was an exercise in stain removal and not a sign of oblivion.”
Source: We Are Okay
“It was a sumptuous, oh, truly sumptuous autumn day, all Byzantine coppers and golds under a Tiepolo sky of enamelled blue, the countryside all fixed and glassy, seeming not so much itself as its own reflection in the still surface of the lake. It was the kind of day on which, latterly, the sun for me is the world’s fat eye looking on in rich enjoyment as I writhe in misery.”
Source: The Sea
“It was a Sunday afternoon, wet and cheerless; and a duller spectacle this earth of ours has not to show than a rainy Sunday in London.”
“It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close and stale. Maddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, made the brick and mortar echoes hideous. Melancholy streets in a penitential garb of soot, steeped the souls of the people who were condemned to look at them out of windows, in a dire despondency. In every thoroughfare, up almost every alley, and down almost every turning, some doleful bell was throbbing, jerking, tolling, as if the Plague were in the city and the dead-carts were going round. Everything was bolted and barred that could by possibility furnish relief to an overworked people. No pictures, no unfamiliar animal, no rare plants or flowers, no natural or artificial wonders of the ancient world - all taboo with that enlightened strictness, that the ugly South sea gods in the British Museum might have supposed themselves at home again. Nothing to see but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to breathe but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to change the brooding mind, or raise it up. Nothing for the spent toiler to do, but to compare the monotony of his seventh day with the monotony of his six days, think what a weary life he led, and make the best of it - or the worst, according to the probabilities.”
“It was a Sunday morning, a perfect day for fishing. I had asked several other guys, but knew they all had their own plans. To everyone else, it was just another day of fishing.”
Source: Murder on the Naval Base
“It was a sunny day, I was carrying a child in a white dress to be christened. The path to the church led up a steep slope, but I held the child in my arms firmly and without faltering. Then suddenly my footing gave way ... I had enough time to put the child down before plunging into the abyss. The child is our idea. In spite of all obstacles it will prevail.”
“It was a surprise, and a delight, to see children devour books. Without ever knowing it, they were receiving an education.”
Source: Alas, Babylon
“It was a surprise to me and a happy accident that it was such a skill [natural falsetto] - a latent skill and that there was a way to exploit it. And it was a key to playing great role Frankie Valli in such a huge show.”
“It was a survival thing: he didn't answer back, didn't say anything about job security for prison guards, debate the nature of repentance, rehabilitation, or rates of recidivism. He didn't say anything funny or clever, and, to be on the safe side, when he was talking to a prison official, whenever possible, he didn't say anything at all. Speak when you're spoken to. Do your own time. Get out. Go home. ... Rebuild a life.”
Source: American Gods
“It was a symbiotic relationship. Or codependent, whatever.
They needed me to be the bad guy.
And I needed them to be the good guys.
See, if they were the good guys, and I was on their team, then that automatically made me a good guy, too. Even if I was different.”
“It was a symphony of fire for the ages.”
Source: Fireman
“It was a symposium of horror and heroism, the like of which has not been known in the civilized world since man established his dominion over the sea.”
“It was a symptom of the insanity of human beings in a cosmos obviously designed for them to live in, but which they industriously prepare to make unlivable.”
“It was a tale well known to children all over Africa: Abu Kassem, a miserly Baghdad merchant, had held on to his battered, much repaired pair of slippers even though they were objects of derision. At last, even he couldn't stomach the sight of them. But his every attempt to get rid of his slippers ended in disaster: when he tossed them out of his window they landed on the head of a pregnant woman who miscarried, and Abu Kassem was thrown in jail; when he dropped them in the canal, the slippers choked off the main drain and caused flooding, and off Abu Kassem went to jail...
'One night when Tawfiq finished, another prisoner, a quiet dignified old man, said, 'Abu Kassem might as well build a special room for his slippers. Why try to lose them? He'll never escape.' The old man laughed, and he seemed happy when he said that. That night the old man died in his sleep.
We all saw it the same way. the old man was right. The slippers in the story mean that everything you see and do and touch, every seed you sow, or don't sow, becomes part of your destiny...
In order to start to get rid of your slippers, you have to admit they are yours, and if you do, then they will get rid of themselves.
Ghosh sighed. 'I hope one day you see this as clearly as I did in Kerchele. The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”
Source: Cutting for Stone
“It was a tear of joy, but also one of sadness. Joy for her daughter’s freedom, but sadness that she would never see her. I expect the former outweighed the latter, for such was a mother’s love, be she made of flesh or wood. Some things were universal.”
Source: Calamity at Conclave
“It was a terminal station during the commuter rush. The backs of the crowd formed a sort of current, surging through the automatic ticket gate one after another, and the sight didn't surprise me or trigger any real emotion. When had I stopped being startled by how many people lived in one town, each of them with their own separate lives? I was aware of the fatigue I was carrying. I was thirty-one, and the weariness of those thirty-one years had seeped into me. It wasn't that big a deal. But it was not nothing, either.”
Source: The Place Promised in Our Early Days
“It was a terrible day for baseball, it was a worse day for Congress.”
“It was a terrible decision, and I confess I'd make it again.”
“It was a terrible psychic blow... Ebbets Field was replaced by a housing project. How could a father tell his son where Duke Snider used to hit one? Point out Apartment 5Q?”
“It was a terrible thing sure, but we live in a world that had no shortage of terrible things. You can't stop all of them.”
Source: Sadie
“It was a terrible thing to be scared all the time. Frightened that he’d say the wrong thing and embarrass himself. Nervous that he’d draw too much attention, and people would begin to expect too much. Terrified that he’d be injured either physically or emotionally, left exposed for the world to judge.”
Source: In Broad Strokes
“It was a terrible thing to do undergo, but during the year I stood there I had time to think that the greatest loss I had known was the loss of my heart.”
Source: The Wizard of Oz
“It was a terrifying feeling. And if it was love, he wanted none of it.”
“It was a testament to the resilience of humanity. Give a man a tree and he will make it into a boat; give him a leaf and he will curve it into a cup and drink water from it; give him a rock and he will make a weapon to protect himself and his family. Give a man a small box and a limit of 140 characters to type into it, and he will adapt it to fight an oppressive dictatorship in the Middle East.”
Source: Hatching Twitter
“It was a texture. The blackness was so intense.”
“It was a Thompson submachine gun. She calmly lowered the seat back in place.
She stuck the stock under her left armpit and clutched the front handle.
“Jesus!” I yelled. “Did you always have that there?”
“Yes!”
“What the hell were you waiting for?”
“I was waiting until we got into a jam,” she turned and hefted the Tommy gun rearward. “Cover your ears!”
Source: The Lucifer Stone
“It was a though we’d been living for a year in a dense grove of old trees, a cluster of firs, each with its own rhythm and character, from whom our bodies had drawn not just shelter but perhaps even a kind of guidance as we grew into a family.”
Source: Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology
“It was a thought, that. Not to attach yourself to a man, but to confront instead the open world, the wide fields of France and Spain, the ocean, anything. Not just to hitch a lift with the first fellow who looked as though he knew where he was going, but just to go.”
Source: Longbourn
“It was a thunderingly beautiful experience-voluptuous, sexual, dangerous, and expensive as hell.”
Source: Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut
“It was a time before Facebook and Instagram and texting. I imagine it must be easier now, for college students. Home must not feel so far away anymore. But how do you cut the apron strings if the strings are virtual?”
Source: Beware of Love in Technicolor
“It was a time for warm embraces, for smiles, for toasts and reconciliations, for renewing old friendships and making new ones, for laughter and kisses.
It was a good time, a golden autumn, a time of peace and plenty.
But winter was coming.”
Source: Fire & Blood
“It was a time I slept in many rooms, called myself by many names. I wandered through the quarters of the city like alluvium wanders the river banks. I knew every kind of joy, ascents of every hue. Mine was the twilight and the morning. Mine was a world of rooftops and love songs.”
Source: Rooftop Soliloquy
“It was a time in her life when she would seek out mirrors whenever she cried, finding comfort in being a witness to her own grief. A time from which every memory has a strange timeless lucidity.”
Source: Wivenhoe
“It was a time of astonishing courage, a time of betrayal and disaster […] when girls and boys thought nothing of stepping into the clear blue sky.”
Source: We Own the Sky
“It was a time of beautiful brutal illusions.”
Source: Family Testament
“It was a time of dark dreams. They washed in like flotsam on the night tide, slipping beneath doorways and window latches, rising through the streets and hills; and the little fishing-town of Scarlock foundered deep.”
Source: On Dark Shores: The Lady
“It was a time of great loneliness. He had a group of friends, and suddenly I had no one and did not understand why. I felt excluded. Some days, the majority was in high school and did not know who to talk to. And that is something really terrible when you're twelve years old.”
“It was a time of madness, the sort of mad-hysteria that always presages war. There seems to be nothing left but war--when any population in any sort of a nation gets violently angry, civilization falls down and religion forsakes its hold on the consciences of human kind in such times of public madness.”
Source: Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth: Also Addresses Before Georgia Legislature Woman's Clubs, Women's Organizations and Other Noted Occasions
“It was a time of turmoil at colleges and universities. And I saw some very smart people and very privileged people behaving irresponsibly. And I couldn't help making a contrast between some of the worst of what I saw on the campus and the good sense and the decency of the people back in my own community.”
“It was a time of uncommon possibility and freedom, when Detroit created wondrous and lasting things. But life can be luminescent when it is most vulnerable.”
Source: Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story
“It was a time of youth and war, and there was never so much love around.”
Source: The Rich Boy
“It was a time period in the 1960, when a generation of souls looked at the established society, looked at the pettiness, the greed, the hate, and rejected it and tried to create something new. Their creation neither succeeded nor failed. It was another experience.”