I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“It was as unbelievable as the moon catching fire.”
Source: Life of Pi
“It was assumed that entire societies could be transformed and changed in a relatively short span of time if only enough people were prepared to accept and follow the principles and priorities set by a vanguard in possession of those timeless standards. The only things that remained to be done, [Isaiah] Berlin wryly noted, was to eliminate all obstacles (human and material) to progress before the process of building the radiant future could begin in earnest. This could be done in one step through violence or gradually through persuasion, threats, reeducation, disenfranchisement, dispossession of property, relocation, coercion, blackmail, denunciation, and, if necessary, terror.”
Source: Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes
“It was assumed that you can't touch evangelical Christians. "Oh, they're the Republican Right. Stay away from those people. Don't even try to talk to them." Well, what's interesting is that there were evangelical Christians who were voting for Kerry. There were right-to-lifers who were voting for Kerry. And it's interesting to listen to the reasons why. To ignore that segment of the electorate is moronic. Particularly if you don't know who those people are, or what their concerns are.”
“It was astonishing how much meaning could be crammed into a single word. How did such words not crumble under their own weight?”
Source: Tess of the Road
“It was astonishing how much of the art of warfare was like the social manipulation her mother had insisted she learn: picking battlegrounds, finding allies amongst the enemies of one's enemies...”
Source: A Court of Silver Flames
“It was astonishing that for some considerable distance around the mould growth the staphococcal colonies were undergoing lysis. What had formerly been a well-grown colony was now a faint shadow of its former self...I was sufficiently interested to pursue the subject.”
“It was astonishing that the pseudo wreckers, who knew perfectly well that they weren't wreckers, believed that military men and priests were being shaken up justifiably. The military men, who knew they hadn't worked for foreign intelligence services and had not sabotaged the Red Army, believed readily enough that the engineers were wreckers and that the priests deserved to be destroyed. Imprisoned, the Soviet person reasoned in the following way: I personally am innocent, but any methods are justified in dealing with those others, the enemies. The lessons of interrogation and the cell failed to enlighten such people. Even after they themselves had been convicted, they retained the blind beliefs of their days in freedom: belief in universal conspiracies, poisonings, wrecking, espionage.”
Source: The Gulag Archipelago
“It was astonishing to finally realize that my difficulties were part of a larger problem that wasn’t my fault alone, but my brain’s, that there was a scientific modus operandi behind everything I’d come to see as the peculiarities of a besieged personality. It was amazing to comprehend that all the cat-and-mouse games my mind plays, all its endless scheming and compensatory, roundabout thinking, not only owned a name, but was a disability many others also suffered from, in many cases knowingly.”
Source: My Dyslexia
“It was astonishing to see how angry Cersei could wax over accusations she knew perfectly well to be true.”
Source: A Clash of Kings: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Two
“It was astonishing when at one point, I got the idea of how to make artifical clouds with a collaborator, we had pictures made which were theoretically completely artificial pictures based upon that one very simple idea. And this picture everybody views as being clouds.”
“It was astronomical science that that built the Mauna Kea Observatories (MKO) and I have every expectation that it will be biological science that demolishes them.”
“It was at "Little Lodge" I was first menaced with Education. The approach of a sinister figure described as 'the Governess' was announced.”
Source: My Early Life: 1874-1904
“It was at a certain stage (you might have forgotten, haven't you?) that the United States actively collaborated with Saddam when he was at war with Iran: weapons were supplied, diplomatic and political support was provided and so on. Then the US fell out with him for some reason and decided to do away with him.”
“It was at a concert of lovely old music. After two or three notes of the piano the door was opened of a sudden to the other world. I sped through heaven and saw God at work. I suffered holy pains. I dropped all my defences and was afraid of nothing in the world. I accepted all things and to all things I gave up my heart. It did not last very long, a quarter of an hour perhaps; but it returned to me in a dream at night, and since, through all the barren days, I caught a glimpse of it now and then. Sometimes for a minute or two I saw it clearly, threading my life like a divine and golden track. But nearly always it was blurred in dirt and dust. Then again it gleamed out in golden sparks as though never to be lost again and yet was soon quite lost once more.”
Source: Steppenwolf
“It was at a conference in Cyprus in 1976, where the theme was the rights of small nations, that I first met Edward Said. It was impossible not to be captivated by him: of his many immediately seductive qualities I will start by mentioning a very important one. When he laughed, it was as if he was surrendering unconditionally to some guilty pleasure. At first the very picture of professorial rectitude, with faultless tweeds, cravats, and other accoutrements (the pipe also being to the fore), he would react to a risqué remark, or a disclosure of something vaguely scandalous, as if a whole Trojan horse of mirth had been smuggled into his interior and suddenly disgorged its contents. The build-up, in other words, was worth one's effort.”
Source: Hitch 22: A Memoir
“It was at a performance art space that's no longer around, Gusto House... All of these great performers from all over the country lived on the Lower East Side, and they would take somebody's living room that opened right onto the street, open the door and charge tickets and put up chairs.”
“It was at a vividly bad time in Norman Mailer's life that I met him, and a sort of water-treading time in mine. He had stabbed his wife, and I was a copy boy at Time magazine.”
Source: Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary, and Off-Screen Secrets
“It was at Auschwitz that human beings underwent their first mutations. Without Auschwitz, there would have been no Hiroshima. Or genocide in Africa. Or attempts to dehumanize man by reducing him to a number, an object: it was at Auschwitz that the methods to be used were conceived, catalogued, and perfected. It was at Auschwitz that men mutilated and gambled with the future. The despair begotten at Auschwitz will linger for generations.”
Source: One Generation After
“It was at Bell Labs that I first made direct contact with real semiconductor experts and thus began to fully understand what amazing materials they were and what they could do.”
“It was at first almost as if he hadn't wanted to kiss her. His mouth was hard on hers, unyielding; then he put both arms around her and pulled her against him. His lips softened. She could feel the rapid beat of his heart, taste the sweetness of apples still on his mouth. She wound her hands into his hair, as she'd wanted to do since the first time she'd seen him. His hair curled around her fingers, silky and fine. Her heart was hammering, and there was a rushing sound in her ears, like beating wings”
Source: Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls
“It was at first communicated to you that the Government, by order of the Jemiet had decided to destroy completely all the Armenians living in Turkey...An end must be put to their existence, however criminal the measures taken may be, and no regard must be paid to either age or sex nor to conscientious scruples.”
“It was at Harvard not quite forty years ago that I went into an anechoic [totally silent] chamber not expecting in that silent room to hear two sounds: one high, my nervous system in operation, one low, my blood in circulation. The reason I did not expect to hear those two sounds was that they were set into vibration without any intention on my part. That experience gave my life direction, the exploration of nonintention. No one else was doing that. I would do it for us. I did not know immediately what I was doing, nor, after all these years, have I found out much. I compose music.”
“It was at home I learned the little I know. Schools always appeared to me like a prison, and never could I make up my mind to stay there, not even for four hours a day, when the sunshine was inviting, the sea smooth, and when it was joy to run about the cliffs in the free air, or to paddle in the water.”
“It was at Inver Slane, to the north of Leinster, the sons of Gaedhal of the Shining Armour, the Very Gentle, that were called afterwards the Sons of the Gael, made their first attempt to land in Ireland to avenge Ith, one of their race that had come there one time and had met with his death.”
Source: Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland
“It was at Long Huruk that we encountered the vortex of the dream time of which we had so far only touched the periphery, for this was the semi-nomadic community of mystics and dream wanderers.”
Source: Ring of Fire: An Indonesia Odyssey
“It was at my back, the silence, making shivers at my back, and I couldn't turn, though my mind began racing. Don't let it be Milkman. Oh please, don't let it be Milkman. Then I did turn and it wasn't Milkman. It was everybody else. Every single person was staring at me in the shop.”
Source: Milkman
“It was at once a miracle and the most natural thing in the world.”
Source: Three plays
“It was at our library that I found Nancy Drew and fell in love with the genre. I've been grateful ever since for those tolerant, book-loving librarians who allowed a child like me to read what I wanted to read.”
“It was at that age that poetry came in search of me.”
“It was at that moment he realized that his spirit was truly human once more. For he no longer remembered how to be alone without being lonely.”
Source: Everwild
“It was at that moment Stephanie became acutely aware of the paradox of the police wife.
She must be humble and grateful; she had a role to play for Jason and his profession. Although what she was feeling inside was contrary to what was expected, in a way she belonged to society as a movie star belongs to their fans. She stood for hours shaking hands and hugging well-wishers, hearing generic statements that were meant to ease her pain but couldn’t, making decisions to appease the people who wanted to grieve with her, and all the while the line of mourners kept getting longer.
Stephanie wasn’t ungrateful. She was numb. When you live your life simply and are suddenly thrown into the spotlight, it becomes difficult to manage, understand, and cope. Being the center of attention because of a death brings a chaos that most people will never experience. Stephanie shared her husband, her grief, and her family with the public at the most private moment of her life. She knew that it was her responsibility as the wife of a public servant. For that, they thanked her.”
Source: The Price They Pay
“It was at that moment that I once again saw her life as precarious. I could feel all my dreams and plans start to crumble. My many fears began to return. Without even knowing what was wrong, I was fighting for her life all over again”
Source: In the Absence of Angels
“It was at that point Ginny felt a presence and turning to look into his eyes she knew destiny was waiting, just around the corner, over the hill. His dark limpid pools, full of hope and wonder, gazed longingly at her and slowly, as his stare captured her heart, a hush descended. All that surrounded them slipped away into darkness until she could see only him. What happened next was a blur.”
Source: Heaven Scent
“It was at that point I fully appreciated Michael’s generous spirit, his lack of selfish motives. By giving himself to people like me, he gives himself the greatest gift imaginable: Michael fills his world with an energy and fulfillment that will sustain him well beyond his ability to contribute.”
“It was at the beginning of all this tabloid frenzy. Our garbage was being gone through, and we were involved in all these chases getting home, and people camping out on our property to get pictures.”
“It was at the moment of the fall of day when every man may pass as handsome and every woman as comely.”
Source: Stories of Red Hanrahan
“It was at the point where I was convinced of my own death that God finally convinced me of His life. And I stand amazed that my death birthed His life.”
“It was at thirteen years old that Marya Morevna learned how to keep a secret, and that secrets are jealous things, permitting no fraternization.”
Source: Deathless
“It was at this period that Drogo realised how far apart men are whatever their affection for each other, that if you suffer the pain is yours and yours alone, no one else can take upon himself the least part of it; that if you suffer it does not mean that others feel pain even though their love is great: hence the loneliness of life.”
Source: The Tartar Steppe
“It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterward were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.”
Source: The Hobbit: 75th Anniversary Edition
“It was at this time that backgammon was invented and began to be popular. It is a kind of paradigm of how wealth is acquired, which in this world is not the reward of intelligence or ability, just as luck is not a product of skill... If luck favours the player, he gets what he wants; if it doesn't, a skilled and prudent man cannot win that which fortune only bestows on whom it likes. It is thus that the good things of this world are apportioned by chance.”
Source: From The Meadows of Gold
“It was at this time that she entirely gave up on reading. The covers of books looked like coffins to her, either shabby or ornate, and what was inside them might as well have been dust.”
Source: A Wilderness Station: Selected Stories, 1968-1994
“It was at times like this that one of those waves of bestiality ran through the mine, the sudden lust of the male that came over a miner when he met one of these girls on all fours, with her rear in the air and her buttocks busting out of her breeches.”
Source: Germinal
“It was August 28th, 1963, and the greatest civil rights coalition in modern history had descended upon Washington. Hundreds of thousands of protesters trekked through the heat, stretching from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial.”
“It was August, Indian summer hot, morning but not morning, a sunrise without any sunrise colors. The sky was gray-dark above and gray-light below, no pink or orange or real color at all--just lightness pushing back darkness through air hot-cold as fever chills.”
Source: Children of Promise
“It was August. The cicadas swarmed overhead, iridescent wings beating the air as they flew above the landscape, breathing fresh air for the first time in seventeen years. Each summer brought a new brood, erupting forth from the earth, like corpses rising on judgment day, a reminder of the never-ending cycle of life and decay.”
Source: Ravaged by the Rancher
“It was August who taught me I didn’t always have to listen. I might just have to look.”
Source: Boy Swallows Universe
“It was autumn and falling stars
Covered the shrivelled forms
Crouched in the moonlight.”
Source: The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
“It was autumn, the springtime of death.”
“It was autumn, the springtime of death. Rain spattered the rotting leaves, and a wild wind wailed. Death was singing in the shower. Death was happy to be alive. The fetus bailed out without a parachute. It landed in the sideline Astroturf, so upsetting the cheerleaders that for the remained of the afternoon their rahs were more like squeaks.”