O Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with O. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Once the Xerox copier was invented, diplomacy died.”
“Once the Xerox copier was invented, private diplomacy died. There's no such thing as secrecy. It's just a question of whether it's leaked or revealed openly.”
“Once their breathing calmed and the ringing in Zane's ears faded,he heard the muffled sound of Nick and Kelly in their bedroom,catcalling and applauding.Ty must have heard it as well,because they both began to laugh at the same time.
-Is wrong that I'm turned on by the idea of forcing your friends to listen to us having sex?-Zane asked with a frown.
Ty laughed harder.-Just don't tell Nick that.He'll offer to critique your performance.Or worse,join us-”
Source: Ball & Chain
“Once their trust grows stronger, reputation is built. And in the digital age, reputation is more expensive than anything.”
Source: 17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure
“Once there are good sentences on the page, I can feel a loyalty to them and start following their logic, and take refuge from myself.”
“Once there are more African Americans and Asian Americans behind the scenes as producers, writers, and directors, I think more inclusive casting will happen.”
“Once there are no more obstacles to overcome,
no sudden closeness to achieve,
the eyes open the windows to deception and lies,
when two intimate hearts become strangers again,
that’s how the love dies.”
Source: Cacophony of My Soul: When Love Becomes Poetry
“Once there had been joy, but now there was only sadness, and it was not, he knew, alone the sadness of an empty house; it was the sadness of all else, the sadness of the Earth, the sadness of the failures and the empty triumphs.”
Source: City
“Once there is a certain degree of Presence, of still and alert attention in human beings' perceptions, they can sense the divine life essence, the one indwelling consciousness or spirit in every creature, every life-form, recognize it as one with their own essence and so love it as themselves. Until this happens, however, most humans see only the outer forms, unaware of the inner essence, just as they are unaware of their own essence and identify only with their own physical and psychological form.”
“Once there is a distance between you and your thought process, a new freedom is born. With this freedom, a new perception arises.”
“Once there is oneness in heart, oneness of humanity will manifest alright”
Source: No Foreigner Only Family
“Once there is the slightest suggestion of combinational possibilities on the board, look for unusual moves. Apart from making your play creative and interesting it will help you to get better results.”
“Once there was a boy from the sea who fell in love with a girl from the desert.
[...]
But he wondered if a boy from the sea and a girl from the desert could ever survive together. He feared that she might burn him alive or that he might drown her. Until finally he stopped fighting it and set himself on fire for her.”
Source: Hero at the Fall
“Once there was a boy from the sea who fell in love with a girl from the desert. The boy knew she was dangerous...she was all fire and gunpowder, and her finger was always on a trigger. He guessed he was in trouble when those same fingers danced across the stories inked into his skin without seeming to understand how much power she had in her. Or how much power she could have over him.
...
He knew it when she drove him across the desert for fear that losing her would tear him in half. He knew it when he did lose her, and he would have torn the whole world apart looking for her.”
Source: Hero at the Fall
“Once there was a boy,” said Jace.
Clary interrupted immediately. “A Shadowhunter boy?”
“Of course.” For a moment a bleak amusement colored his voice. Then it was gone. “When the boy was six years old, his father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors – killing birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky.
“The falcon didn’t like the boy, and the boy didn’t like it, either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with beak and talons when he came near: For weeks his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He didn’t know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to tame. But the boy tried, because his father told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father.
“He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it – instead he tried to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. Hee fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat. Later it ate so savagely that its beak cut the skin of his palm. But the boy was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if the bird had to consume his blood to make that happen.
“He began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like likght. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he neary shouted with delight Sometimes the bird would hope to his shoulder and put its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud.
“Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands and broke its neck. ‘I told you to make it obedient,’ his father said, and dropped the falcon’s lifeless body to the ground. ‘Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.’
“Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he’d learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed.”
Source: City of Bones
“Once there was a boy with a wicked heart,' the troll woman said.
'No, that's not right,' Cardan interrupted. 'That's not how it goes. He had a wicked tongue.'
'Boys change,' she told him. 'And so do stories.”
Source: How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories
“Once there was a brief-lived demonstration against one of the professors, an old and bearded teacher of Germanic languages, who had been born in Munich and who as a youth attended the University of Berlin. But when the professor met the angry and flushed little group of students, blinked in bewilderment, and held out his thin, shaking hands to them, they disbanded in sullen confusion.”
Source: Stoner: A Novel
“Once there was a darkness, a deep and endless night, you gave me everything you had and oh, you gave me light”
“Once there was a girl who ate an apple not meant for her...Up until the apples, she had been living in a wonderful house in the wilderness, happy in her fate and her ways. She had seven aunts and seven uncles and a postdoctorate in anthropology.”
Source: Silently and Very Fast
“Once there was a girl who was too sure of herself. Not everyone would call her beautiful, but they admitted that she had a certain grace that intimidated more often than it charmed. She was not, society agreed, someone you wanted to cross. She keeps her heart in a porcelain box, people whispered, and they were right.”
Source: The Winner's Kiss
“Once there was a gypsy queen who wore on her wrist a chain of six lucky charms - a golden crown, a silver horse, a butterfly caught in amber, a cat's eye shell, a bolt of lightning forged from the heart of a falling star, and the flower of the rue plant, herb of grace. The queen gave each of her six children one of the charms as their lucky talisman, but ever since the chain of charms was broken, the gypsies had been dogged with misfortune.”
Source: The Gypsy Crown: Chain of Charms 1
“Once there was a little boy name Neftalí, who loved wild things wildly and quiet things quietly.”
Source: Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People
“Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away. So he said to his mother, "I am running away". "If you run away", said his mother, "I will run after you. For you are my little bunny".”
Source: The Runaway Bunny
“Once there was a little girl who played her music for a little boy in the wood. She was small and dark, he was tall and fair, and the two of them made a fancy pair as they danced together, dancing to the music the little girl heard in her head.”
Source: Wintersong
“Once there was a little girl who played her music for a little boy in the wood. She was the genius, he was the interpreter, and they were each the gardeners of the other's heart, taming, tilling, and tending the fertile soil of their souls until they blossomed into a far-reaching forest that encompassed the world.”
Source: Shadowsong
“Once there was a man who was afraid of his shadow.
Then he met it.
Now he glows in the dark.”
Source: Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day
“Once there was a place
I called home La Vigie”
“Once there was a princess who was very beautiful. She shone bright as the stars on a moonless night. But what difference did it make that she was beautiful? None. No difference." Why did it make no difference?" asked Abilene. Because," said Pellegrina, "She was a princess who loved no one and cared nothing for love, even though there were many who loved her.”
Source: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
“Once
There was a quiet island,
With a name.
You must believe me
When I say that sunlight,
Impure but beautiful,
Broke upon the bay, silvered
The unrepentant, burning moon.”
Source: The Best of Edwin Thumboo
“Once there was a race, quite unlike the human race - quite. I have no way of describing to you what they looked like or how they lived, but they had one characteristic you can understand: they were creative. The creating and enjoying of works of art was their occupation and their reason for being.”
“Once there was a Teacher when an Education System like today's didn't Exist.....His job was to Teach Life lessons to his students......Before he retired from his job he Said, " I don't know....How much you learned from my lectures or how much you can even remember from it but those words were my Life Experiences, pain, and Love.”
“Once there was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time is called the Dark Ages. He who can, does. He who cannot teaches.”
“Once there was a time when more girls than boys read comics, a time when comics for girls sold in the millions, outnumbering every other kind of comic book.
And it all started with Archie.”
Source: From Girls to Grrrlz : A History of Women's Comics from Teens to Zines
“Once there was a tree, and she loved a little boy.”
“Once there was an elephant Who tried to use the telephant. No! no! I mean an elephone Who tried to use the telephone. Dear me, I am not certain quite That even now I've got it right.”
“Once there was and once there was not a devout, God-fearing man who lived his entire life according to stoic principles. He died on his fortieth birthday and woke up floating in nothing. Now, mind you, floating in nothing was comforting, light-less, airless, like a mother’s womb. This man was grateful.
But then he decided he would love to have sturdy ground beneath his feet, so he would feel more solid himself. Lo and behold, he was standing on earth. He knew it to be earth, for he knew the feel of it.
Yet he wanted to see. I desire light, he thought, and light appeared. I want sunlight, not any light, and at night it shall be moonlight. His desires were granted. Let there be grass. I love the feel of grass beneath my feet. And so it was. I no longer wish to be naked. Only robes of the finest silk must touch my skin. And shelter, I need a grand palace whose entrance has double-sided stairs, and the floors must be marble and the carpets Persian. And food, the finest of food. His breakfast was English; his midmorning snack French. His lunch was Chinese. His afternoon tea was Indian. His supper was Italian, and his late-night snack was Lebanese. Libation? He had the best of wines, of course, and champagne. And company, the finest of company. He demanded poets and writers, thinkers and philosophers, hakawatis and musicians, fools and clowns.
And then he desired sex.
He asked for light-skinned women and dark-skinned, blondes and brunettes, Chinese, South Asian, African, Scandinavian. He asked for them singly and two at a time, and in the evenings he had orgies. He asked for younger girls, after which he asked for older women, just to try. The he tried men, muscular men, skinny men. Then boys. Then boys and girls together.
Then he got bored. He tried sex with food. Boys with Chinese, girls with Indian. Redheads with ice cream. Then he tried sex with company. He fucked the poet. Everybody fucked the poet.
But again he got bored. The days were endless. Coming up with new ideas became tiring and tiresome. Every desire he could ever think of was satisfied.
He had had enough. He walked out of his house, looked up at the glorious sky, and said, “Dear God. I thank You for Your abundance, but I cannot stand it here anymore. I would rather be anywhere else. I would rather be in hell.”
And the booming voice from above replied, “And where do you think you are?”
“Once there was Louis Armstrong blowing his beautiful top in the muds of New Orleans; before him the mad musicians who had paraded on official days and broke up their Sousa marches into ragtime. Then there was swing, and Roy Eldridge, vigorous and virile, blasting the horn for everything it had in waves of power and logic and subtlety - leaning into it with glittering eyes and a lovely smile and sending it out broadcast to rock the jazz world.”
Source: On the Road
“Once there was The People - Terror gave it birth.”
Source: Rudyard Kipling's Tales of Horror and Fantasy
“Once there were 'outside' and 'inside' paintings-now there is no difference.”
“Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.”
Source: The Road
“Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea; the other was elected vice president of the United States. And nothing was heard of either of them again.”
“Once they are through the process of education, most people lose the capacity of wondering, of being surprised. They feel they ought to know everything, and hence that it is a sign of ignorance to be surprised or puzzled by anything.”
“Once they arrive, affirmative action kids are generally left to sink or swim academically. Brown (University) offers plenty of counseling and tutoring to struggling students, but, as any academic Dean will tell you, it's up to the students to seek it out, something that a drowning minority student will seek to avoid at all costs, fearing it will trumpet a second-class status.”
“Once they ask you to keep a secret and you do, they have you by the balls. Set boundaries and never keep secrets and lies. Speak up – It's the only way to change your future.”
“Once they call you a Latin Lover, you're in real trouble. Women expect an Oscar performance in bed.”
“Once they’d even brought the minister of the Unitarian church, whom I’d never really liked at all. He was terribly nervous the whole time, and I could tell he thought I was crazy as a loon, because I told him I believed in hell, and that certain people, like me, had to live in hell before they died, to make up for missing out on it after death, since they didn’t believe in life after death, and what each person believed happened to him when he died.”
Source: the bell jar
“Once they found out that they were not human, they could not be controlled and therefore could not be trusted; so could be harmful to society.”
Source: The Polymorph
“Once they got into the idea of seeing directly for themselves they also saw there was no limit to the amount they could say. It was a confidence building assignment too, because what they wrote, even though seemingly trivial, was nevertheless their own thing, not a mimicking of someone else’s.”
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“Once they had the barrel on flat, dry ground, Hiram pried open the lid. The pungent air set free from the mess of fermenting corn smelled exactly like pineapples.
Shine couldn’t fill her lungs up fast enough. She had only ever savored one of the strange, spiky-headed fruits—- for Christmas one year, a rare treat in these parts—- but she had declared it “divine.” That sweetness in the escaping air was a good sign.”
Source: The Moonshine Women
“Once they have been affected---once "it" sets in---codependency takes on a life of its own. It is similar to catching pneumonia or picking up a destructive habit. Once you've got it, you've got it.
If you want to get rid of it, YOU have to do something to make it go away. It doesn't matter whose fault it is. Your codependency becomes your problem; solving your problems is your responsibility.”
Source: Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself