I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“I did not imitate the skeptics who doubt only for doubting's sake, and pretend to be always undecided; on the contrary, my whole intention was to arrive at a certainty, and to dig away the drift and the sand until I reached the rock or the clay beneath.”
“I did not in late November start the plethora of linking my private life with public events again.”
“I did not initially take to the music of the Ramones, because I had never really heard of them before. Allan Arkush had given me a cassette of the Ramones and said, "You're their No. 1 fan, so I want you to know all of their songs and fall in love with these guys." I put the cassette on and I remember running around the house going, "Oh my God. That's music?"”
“I did not intend making a philippic against covetousness, a sin to which I believe no one here is addicted. Let us not, however, plume ourselves in not being guilty of a vice to which, as we have no natural bias so in not committing it, we resist no temptation. What I meant to insist on was, that exchanging a turbulent for a quiet sin, or a scandalous for an orderly one, is not reformation.”
Source: Coelebs in Search of a Wife
“I did not intend to be a writer. I first wanted to be a lawyer, like my father. Then I got bit by the bug of philosophy and wanted to be a philosophy professor. I went to graduate school and quickly discovered it was impossible for a woman in those days - this was the early fifties - to be a philosopher, so I gave that up.”
“I did not intend to cry out, but as you will see these small actions, associated in most people's minds with the ease and happiness of life, are to me still like knives in my heart to think of.”
Source: The Secret Scripture
“I did not intend to stay; I had no experience in the United States - I may have been here less than 24 hours - but I knew I would never get inside there. And 'there' not being America necessarily, but that harmonious mode of living that some people are lucky enough to have in this country.”
“I did not intend to write a funny book, at first. I did not know I was a humorist. I have never been sure about it. In the middle ages, I should probably have gone about preaching and got myself burnt or hanged.”
Source: Three Men in a Boat
“I did not join the resistance movement to kill people, to kill the nation. Look at me now. Am I a savage person? My conscience is clear.”
“I did not judge him any more than I did myself. He wanted pleasure, it seemed to me, as did everyone else, and if he went about finding pleasure in an unconventional way, what did that matter?”
Source: The Erotic Notebooks
“I did not just fall in love. I made a parachute jump.”
Source: I Love Myself when I Am Laughing ... and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader
“I did not kill my father, but I sometimes felt I had helped him on his way. And but for the fact that it coincided with a landmark in my own physical growth, his death seemed insignificant compared to what followed.”
“I did not know at first that it would be a series; I discovered after the first novel that I had more to say about it, so I did another. And another, and then the readers demanded yet more.”
“I did not know at the time, but what I did at that swimming pool [on the east side of Wilmington] paved the way for Barack Obama.”
“I did not know from a scientific perspective why I did not believe in evolution - but I knew from a Biblical perspective it had to be wrong or my faith was in trouble.”
Source: Lie: Evolution, The (25th Anniversary Edition): The Lie: Evolution/Millions of Years
“I did not know him, I knew my idea of him.”
Source: Stag's Leap
“I did not know how to paint a mural. I did not know how to prepare the surface. There was nobody from the Renaissance around who could advise me, and I did the best I could.”
“I did not know how to paint or even what to paint, but I knew I had to begin.”
“I did not know how to reach him, how to catch up with him... The land of tears is so mysterious.”
“I did not know I loved you until I heard myself telling so, for one instance I thought, "Good God, what have I said?" and then I knew it was true.”
“I did not know I was in my prime until afterwards.”
“I did not know I was lonely, she thought, until I was no longer alone.”
Source: The Girl in the Tower
“I did not know I was on a search for passionate aliveness. I only knew I was lonely and lost and that something was drawing me deeper beneath the surface of my life in search of meaning. There is a hunger in people to go to those deep depths; to know that our lives are sacred; that our hearts are truly capable of love. It is a yearning to be all the we can be. A longing for what is real.”
Source: The Dancing Animal Woman : A Celebration of Life
“I did not know I was to be outdone by a little magic boy and his tricks,” he said. “I salute you, magician.” He swept her a bow from horseback.
Vasya did not return the bow. “To small minds,” she told him, spine very straight, “any skill must look like sorcery.”
Source: The Girl in the Tower
“I did not know if the story was factually true or not, but it was emotionally true [...].”
Source: Black Boy
“I did not know in the beginning how important the trip would be but we knew that Iran was in the crosshairs of the Neo-Conservative movement. And when you listen to Mr. Ted Cruz, the Republican presidential hopeful, and when you listen to Mr. Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential candidate, when you listen to their language, it says to me that they are agents of the Neo-Conservative strategy.”
“I did not know it by the name of passion. I did not understand the nature of the bond that drew the two together; but I understood its workings very well. I knew what they would give for it and give up for it; I knew how far they would go — I knew there were no lengths they would not go to. I realized they got something out of it I could not get: I did not realize that I was jealous of it, jealous of whatever it was they gave each other, and did not give me. But though experience could not tell me what it was, my instincts were beginning to have a clue.”
Source: The go-between
“I did not know it then, but Frida had already become the most important fact in my life. And would continue to be, up to the moment she died, 27 years later.”
“I did not know it was possible to be so miserable and live but I am told that this is a common experience.”
Source: The letters of Evelyn Waugh
“I did not know it would be like this," complained Viviana. "I hate slugs."
"They like you," said Caitri, subtracting one from Viviana's sleeve. "Anyway, you said you wanted to come," she added primly.
"I said I wanted to come but I never said I would not grumble.”
Source: The Lady of the Sorrows
“I did not know many of the details relevant to the Iran and contra initiatives.”
“I did not know much history when I became a bombardier in the U.S. Air Force in World War II. Only after the War did I see that we, like the Nazis, had committed atrocities... Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, my own bombing missions. And when I studied history after the War, I learned from reading on my own, not from my university classes, about the history of U.S. expansion and imperialism.”
“I did not know my soul until I saw it's reflection in your eyes.”
“I did not know of any single soul who succeed in life without a mentorship.”
Source: Think Great: Be Great!
“I did not know old Eleanora any longer. She had died a long time ago and left this hollowed husk, where there once was a human being capable of love and trust and taking leaps of faith. The me from now cowered at the perspective of reaching out to anyone.”
Source: ... of Ravens and Sundowns: Eleanora's Sundown, #2
“I did not know that 'poetess' was an insult, and that I myself would some day be called one. I did not know that to be told I had transcended my gender would be considered a compliment. I didn't know — yet — that black was compulsory. All of that was in the future. When I was sixteen, it was simple. Poetry existed; therefore it could be written; and nobody had told me — yet — the many, many reasons why it could not be written by me.”
“I did not know that [ the Chancellor Angela Merkel is a bit frightened of dogs]. I wanted to make her happy. When I learned that she does not like dogs, I apologized, of course.”
“I did not know that children think the hard questions they ask are easy and thus expect easy answers to them, and that they are disappointed when they get cautious, complex answers.”
“I did not know that history is like a blood stain that keeps on showing on the wall no matter how many new owners take possession, no matter how many times we pint over it.”
“I did not know that I would grow to be my mothers evil seed and do these evil deeds.”
“I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.”
Source: Life Without Principle
“I did not know that my entire personality, my entire being, could be discarded as the byproduct of my anatomy. What if I really am just someone with a large prefrontal cortex...and nothing more?”
“I did not know that Ramos would prefer to send his ball up to the heavens.”
“I did not know that the first step in any domestic violence relationship is to seduce and charm the victim. I also did not know that the second step is to isolate the victim. The next step in the domestic violence pattern is to introduce the threat of violence and see how she reacts. We victims know something you [non-victims] usually don't. It's incredibly dangerous to leave an abuser, because the final step in the domestic violence pattern is to 'kill her'. Over 70% of domestic violence murders happens after the victim has ended the relationship.”
“I did not know that the planning for biological and chemical warfare was so widespread in England, and even in France before France fell. It was news to me that there had been talk, even in the First World War, of dropping Colorado beetles on German potato crops and that kind of thing.”
“I did not know that we cry with our muscles. The pain is not surprising, but its physicality is: my tongue unbearably bitter, as though I ate a loathed meal and forgot to clean my teeth; on my chest, a heavy, awful weight; and inside my body, a sensation of eternal dissolving. My heart – my actual physical heart, nothing figurative here – is running away from me, has become its own separate thing, beating too fast, its rhythms at odds with mine. This is an affliction not merely of the spirit but of the body, of aches and lagging strength.”
Source: Notes on Grief
“I did not know the woman I would be
nor that blood would bloom in me
each month like an exotic flower,
nor that children,
two monuments,
would break from between my legs.”
“I did not know the work of mourning Is a labor in the dark We carry inside ourselves”
Source: Gabriel: A Poem
“I did not know the work of mourning
Is like carrying a bag of cement
Up a mountain at night
The mountaintop is not in sight
Because there is no mountaintop
Poor Sisyphus grief
I did not know I would struggle
Through a ragged underbrush
Without an upward path
...
Look closely and you will see
Almost everyone carrying bags
Of cement on their shoulders
That’s why it takes courage
To get out of bed in the morning
And climb into the day.”
Source: Gabriel: A Poem
“I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.”