O Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with O. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Once upon a time . . .” “In the beginning was . . .” That’s the way it always starts off. Every story, gospel, history, chronicle, myth, legend, folktale, or old wives’ tale blues riff begins with “Woke up this mornin’. . . .”
“Once upon a time ... the only autonomous intelligences we humans knew of were us humans. We thought then that if humankind ever devised another intelligence that it would be the result of a huge project ... a great mass of silicon and ancient transistors and chips and circuit boards ... a machine with lots of networking circuits, in other words, aping-if you will pardon the expression-the human brain in form and function. Of course, AIs did not evolve that way. They sort of slipped into existence when we humans were looking the other way.”
“Once upon a time a Georgian printed a couple of books that attracted notice, but immediately it turned out that he was little more than an amanuensis for the local blacks--that his works were really the products, not of white Georgia, but of black Georgia. Writing afterward as a white man, he swiftly subsided into the fifth rank.”
“Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends. Then they betrayed her, so she destroyed them all.”
Source: The Rose Society
“Once upon a time,
a girl who believed in fairytales
stole the heart of a prince
who had sworn to never love.”
Source: A Curse for True Love
“Once upon a time, a king came to earth to tell stories, and the stories contained the mystery of eternal life.”
Source: The Storytelling God
“Once upon a time a man whose ax was missing suspected his neighbor's son. The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief and spoke like a thief. But the man found his ax while digging in the valley, and the next time he saw his neighbor's son, the boy walked, looked and spoke like any other child.”
“Once upon a time, a sister made a vow she didn't know how to break, and it broke her instead.
Once upon a time, a girl did the impossible, but she did it just a little too late.”
Source: Muse of Nightmares
“Once upon a time, a wise man said, "I have nothing to say!"
Wisdom does not always talk, it talks at the right time, saying the right words.”
Source: The Soldier Within
“Once upon a time, a witch laid a curse which cast a princess into an eternal slumber.
One day a young man appeared, intending to awake her.
But then, a voice whispers
"Awaken the princess from her sleep? What a cruel thing to do! For what if the princess wishes not to receive the kiss of awakening, but rather to continue to sleep forever?”
“Once upon a time ago, you loved me in Photoshop.
When I was monochromatic, you gave me texture.
You went through my layer mask and hit......'Reveal All'.
I remember when you stared at me like I was saturated;
but, sometimes I don't remember that once upon a time ago
without seeing your background image losing its magic lens.”
Source: Ink Blot in a Poet's Bloodstream
“Once upon a time, all children were homeschooled. They were not sent away from home each day to a place just for children but lived, learned, worked, and played in the real world, alongside adults and other children of all ages.”
Source: The Well-Adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling
“Once upon a time, all of us, no matter what we've grown up to do or who we've grown up to be, were little boys and girls, happy with nothing more than bouncing a ball against a wall”
Source: The Toymakers
“once upon a time all the rivers combined to protest against the action of the sea in making their waters salt. "When we come to you," sad they to the sea, "we are sweet and drinkable; but when once we have mingled with you, our waters become as briny and unpalatable as your own." The sea replied shortly, "Keep away from me, and you'll remain sweet.”
“Once upon a time an Athenian princesss named Prokne was wed to Tereus, king of the barbarous Thracians of the north. When Prokne's unfortunate sister, Philomela, came for a visit, Tereus fell madly in love with the girl locked her away and raped her, then cut out her tongue to prevent her from telling anyone of the crime. Philomela, however, wove into a cloth the story of her misfortune. When Prokne, receiving the cloth, understood what had befallen, she freed her sister, killed her own son, Itys, whom she had borne to Tereus, and served the child up to his father at a feast--the vilest revenge she could think of. When Tereus discovered the truth, in wrath he pursued the two sisters, thinking to kill them, but the gods transformed all three into birds: Tereus into the hoopoe (a large, crested bird with a daggerlike beak), Philomela into the swallow, which can only twitter unintelligibly, and Prokne into the nightingale, which spends the night singing 'Itys Itys!' in mourning for her dead son. All these birds have reddish spots, it is said, from getting spattered with the blood of the child.
...
It is interesting in our purposes because it shows in yet another way the great importance that clothmaking had in women's lives, becoming central to their mythology as well.”
Source: Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times
“Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo”
“Once upon a time' and that's how the story begins with the slow burn of memories”
“Once upon a time Apache land would have stretched farther than the horizon, through New Mexico almost to Texas, but as white men found gold, silver, turquoise, and copper beneath its surface they carved up the territory like children sneaking to the fridge and slicing off a chocolate cake bit by bit: hoping at first that the loss wouldn’t be noticed but ultimately not really caring.”
Source: Jewels: A Secret History
“Once upon a time at my university dorm,
They used to gather around to hear me mumble.
So I had to put my coding assignment aside,
I loved machines, more I loved workings mental.
Through a rollercoaster ride of uncharted ocean,
Engineer became monk, monk emerged scientist.
Despite the thrill of building cars and rockets,
I feel more alive in being the human bridge.
Thus goes the odyssey of the bulldozer on duty.
Before we innovate tech, we gotta renovate humanity.”
Source: Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect
“Once upon a time Baltimore was necessary.”
Source: A Stein Reader
“Once upon a time, before pizzerias or Taco Bells, there was a troll named Rumpelstiltskin who began to wonder what a human baby would taste like.”
Source: The Rumpelstiltskin Problem
“Once upon a time, before the boys were killed and when there were more horses than cars, before the male servants disappeared and they made do, at Upleigh and at Beechwood, with just a cook and a maid, the Sheringhams had owned not just four horses in their own stable, but what might be called a 'real horse', a racehorse, a thoroughbred. Its name was Fandango. It was stabled near Newbury. It had never won a damn thing. But is was the family's indulgence, their hope for fame and glory on the racecourses of southern England. The deal was that Pa and Ma - otherwise known in his strange language as 'the shower' - owned the head and body and he and Dick and Freddy had a leg each.
'What about the fourth leg?'
'Oh the fourth leg. That was always the question.”
Source: Mothering Sunday
“Once upon a time black was white and then it absorb all the hate.”
“Once upon a time, everything baked in an oven that was not bread was 'pie'.”
Source: Pie: A Global History
“Once upon a time fairy tales were told to audiences of young and old alike. It is only in the last century that such tales were deemed fit only for small children, stripped of much of their original complexity, sensuality, and power to frighten and delight.”
“Once upon a time freedom used to be life-now it's money. I guess the world really do change.”
Source: A Raisin in the Sun
“Once upon a time God put each of us on earth with a special gift. each gift is a unique spiritual power to share with humanity. Compassion with this power, we can see beyond our own needs and desires, and truly empathize with others. this will help alleviate suffering and spread happiness”
“Once upon a time, he might’ve chased her and tumbled her in the sheets with the promise of more in the future.”
Source: Soul Solution
“Once upon a time humans faced each other and pulled thoughts from minds, advanced rapidly, revolutionised industry and evolved explosively. Then one day they stopped, and stared at a box. They grew fat and awkward in public, stopped expressing emotions and couldn't figure out how to reverse it: they reinvented themselves from Emperors back into prawns, because someone turned the TV on.”
“Once upon a time I'd left Los Angeles and been swallowed down the throat of a life in which my sole loyalty was to my tongue. My belly. Myself. My mother called me selfish and so selfish I became. From nineteen to twenty-five I was a mouth, sating. For myself I made three-day braises and chose the most marbled meats, I played loose with butter and cream. My arteries were young, my life pooling before me, and I lapped, luxurious, from it. I drank, smoked, flew cheap red-eyes around Europe, I lived in thrilling shitholes, I found pills that made nights pass in a blink or expanded time to a soap bubble, floating, luminous, warm. Time seemed infinite, then. I begged famous chefs for the chance to learn from them. I entered competitions and placed in a few. I volunteered to work brunch, turn artichokes, clean the grease trap. I flung my body at all of it: the smoke and singe of the grill station, a duck's breast split open like a geode, two hundred oysters shucked in the walk-in, sex in the walk-in, drunken rides around Paris on a rickety motorcycle and no helmet, a white truffle I stole and shaved in secret over a bowl of Kraft mac n' cheese for me, just me, as my body strummed the high taut selfish song of youth. On my twenty-fifth birthday I served black-market fugu to my guests, the neurotoxin stinging sweetly on my lips as I waited to see if I would, by eating, die. At that age I believed I knew what death was: a thrill, like brushing by a friend who might become a lover.”
Source: Land of Milk and Honey
“once upon a time i decided love was too much like drowning
made myself an island where if i scream out the ocean swallows
entire cities until i see my suffering is small enough to cradle
before miracles went extinct...”
Source: Poems to Carry in Your Pocket
“Once upon a time
I fell in love
Lost myself
And find another one.”
“once upon a time, i met a flower. she was so innocent, yet so wise. she was glitter and wildness. softness and sweet fragrance. she was a flock of fireflies that danced through the forest and swam naked in moonlight. she was the first soul i bared myself to, only one i was completely honest with about the things that shamed me...we wandered through the world in a bubble of our own making, floating free, full of pastels so colorful, full of fairy dust, sunbeams, and feathers. we drew people towards us like sirens in the water, wanting what we had. but we fluttered away like butterflies hopping from lily pad to lily pad, giggling all the while. we told each other the real hard truth, and listened, and laughed and cried out our hearts. when i was going through a tough time, she once told me to pick a place, anywhere in the world, and she’d be there with me, even if she couldn't be...she was my flower. she taught me about generosity, about giving with deep trust that it would return somehow somewhere. and it always does. she taught me to love people for who they are, and to just let them be, in their own flower field. i met a flower. she taught me to live in love. to bloom, and listen. now i am alive, in love”
“Once upon a time I owned a watermelon.”
Source: The Light in the Clearing (EasyRead Large Bold Edition)
“Once upon a time .... I want to have a little house with sunlight on the floor, A chimney with a rosy hearth and lilacs by the door. (Nancy Bird Turner)”
Source: Martha's Vineyard, Isle of Dreams
“Once upon a time I was falling in love, now I'm only falling apart.”
“Once upon a time I was riding on the top of a First Avenue bus, when I heard a mythical housewife say to another, "Molly, my dear, I would have bought that new brand of toilet soap if only they hadn't set the body copy in ten point Garamond." Don't you believe it. What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.”
“Once upon a time I was such a good liar; I could talk the fish right into my mouths.”
Source: A Fire Upon The Deep
“Once upon a time,' I whispered, "there was a girl who got away.' The light burned a little less brightly through my lids. Maybe. 'Once upon a time there was a girl who changed her fate,' I said, louder. The words ran together like beads on a string. Like a story, or a bridge I could climb-- up, up, up, like a nursery-rhyme spider. 'She grew up like a fugitive, because her life belonged to another place." I held my fingertips out, feeling the ice of them melt the wall's fine, hot fizzing. 'She remembered her real mother, far away on an Earth made of particles and elements and /reason/. Not stories. And she ripped a hole in the world so she could find her way home. And she lived happily ever after in a place far, far from the Hinterland,' I said. I begged. 'And the freeze left her skin. And she found her real mother in the world where she had left her.' Slowly, slowly, I opened my eyes.”
Source: The Hazel Wood
“Once upon a time, I wish I had sneezed. The end.”
“Once upon a time I would’ve leaped at the rare opportunity of curling up with Mom on the couch. But now it sort of felt like too little too late. I had someone else waiting for me.”
Source: Shiver Series (Shiver, Linger, Forever, Sinner)
“Once upon a time, I wrote a book. People seemed to dig it, so I wrote another and one after that. That’s when Hollywood came knocking at my back door. As soon as I cashed that check, I wrapped my lips around the mighty erection that is the film industry and sucked hard, just like a good whore should. Unfortunately, I had to be taught not to orphan the balls.”
“Once upon a time, in a part of America called the North Shore of Long Island,
Not far from New York,
Lived a very small girl on a very large estate.
The house on the grounds had many rooms, and many servants,
And in the garage were many cars,
And out on the water were many boats.
There were gardeners in the gardens,
And a chauffeur to drive the cars,
And a boatman who hauled out the boats in the fall
And scraped their bottoms in winter
And put them back in the spring.
From the windows of her room
The girls could look out on an indoor tennis court
And an outdoor tennis court; an indoor swimming pool
And an outdoor swimming pool
And a pool in the garden for goldfish.
Life was pleasant here,
For this was as close to heaven as one could get
On Long Island.
But then one day the girl grew up
And went beyond the walls of the grounds
And found the world.”
Source: Sabrina Fair
“Once upon a time in faraway land, a young prince lived in a shining castle...
It was a very good story.
It often entertained the women who lay in her black hole of a room, manacled to a hard, cold bed.
She had enjoyed its repetition in her mind for years. Sometimes she remembered bits differently: sometimes the rose was pink as a sunset by the sea. But that never resonated as well as red as blood....”
Source: As Old as Time
“Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened.”
Source: On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
“Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat down the Little Missouri River in pursuit of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized rowboat. After several days on the river, he caught up and got the draw on them with his trusty Winchester, at which point they surrendered. Then Roosevelt set off in a borrowed wagon to haul the thieves cross-country to justice. They headed across the snow-covered wastes of the Badlands to the railhead at Dickinson, and Roosevelt walked the whole way, the entire 40 miles. It was an astonishing feat, what might be called a defining moment in Roosevelt’s eventful life. But what makes it especially memorable is that during that time, he managed to read all of Anna Karenina. I often think of that when I hear people say they haven’t time to read.”
“Once upon a time, in the glory days of the early internet, when UX wasn’t even an afterthought, websites were clunky, confusing and about as user-friendly as a cactus. Have any of you ever seen those fonts or animated gifs from the early inter- net? A sight to be seen.”
Source: Confident UX: The Essential Skills for User Experience Design
“Once upon a time in the land of Shinar, God came down to see the city and the tower. People were united and spoke in one language. Then God confound their language and caused them scattered all over the planet earth. I believe, because of our technology, there will be one computer-based language on earth. Then God will come back again and make us all scattered all over the stars constellation.”
“Once upon a time, in the not-so-distant past, very weird people were effectively isolated from all the other very weird people.
But today, the internet makes it possible for very weird people from anywhere on the planet to get on the internet and talk to one another.”
“Once upon a time in the storybooks, people who lied were the bad guys; witches, evil kings, or some other dark nefarious creature. Somewhere over the last twenty to forty years that has changed. Not only is lying okay, some feel there should be compassion shown for those who lie.”