O Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with O. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Once when Bion was at sea in the company of some wicked men, he fell into the hands of pirates; and when the rest said, "We are undone if we are known,"-"But I," said he, "am undone if we are not known.”
“Once, when Geronda Joseph underwent a great temptation, he went into the desert to pray, and as he was crying out to God, he saw a vision of a large, beautiful bird singing. In a moment, he found himself in Paradise where there were many birds. The birds were angels, and among them was the large bird, singing and keeping the bass note. Imagine that! He saw it with his own eyes!”
Source: Daily Quotes from "Words of the Heart" by Gerondissa Makrina Vassopoulou
“Once when I asked a chieftain in a certain province if he was a Christian, he said "I am not yet quite one, but I am making a beginning." I asked him what he knew of being Christian, and he said: "I know how to swear to God, and play cards a bit, and I am beginning to steal.”
“Once when I had remarked on the affection quite often found between cat and dog, my friend replied, "Yes. But I bet no dog would ever confess it to the other dogs.”
Source: The Four Loves
“Once when I looked up, I happened to see a sea eagle poised on magisterial wings above the knurled summit of the mountain behind my tent. It was a scene of peerless tranquility, tossed out in Nature's devil-may-care way, which says: Just open your eyes, my friend, and I'll astonish you every minute of your life.”
Source: Last Places: A Journey in the North
“Once when I looked up, I happened to see a sea eagle poised on magesterial wings above the knurled summit of the mountain behind my tent. It was a scene of peerless tranquility, tossed out in Nautre's devil-may-care way, which says: Just open your eyes, my friend, and I'll astonish you every minute of your life.”
Source: Last Places: A Journey in the North
“Once, when I straighten up, I am beaten till I bleed.
I no longer know where I am in the world.”
Source: The Last Jew of Treblinka
“Once when I told sex workers about my own sex work, it ended up building inappropriate trust with some people. But there have been events now - like covering the protests against Backpage at the Village Voice - where I've talked to sex workers who don't necessarily know that I've done sex work.”
“Once when I was 16 I had my car taken away from me for being past curfew. Oh, and I said a bad word once, and I actually did get my mouth washed out with soap.”
“Once, when I was a child, I dreamed that Grimbeard the Ghastly, on the deck of his ship The Endless Journey, threw the sword Endeavor up into the air. Up and up it spun, through the inky blackness, across the cavernous span of a hundred years, until, entirely of its own accord, my own left hand sprang out of space and stars and never-ending time and caught it. Now that I am so very old, I am dreaming once again. And in my dream, I am the one throwing the sword. It is spinning now, in the black starlit waters of my dream, right above your head, dear reader. A sword that may look second-best, and secondhand, but but carries the memories of a thousand lost fights, a history lesson in itself. Reach out, and catch it by the hilt. Swear by its name, Endeavor, to do your utmost to make the world a better place than when you arrived in it. For look! There will be dragons all around you, as camouflaged as a Stealth Dragon.”
Source: How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury
“Once, when I was a kid, I had impressed my mother, intuitively dipping a whole raw pepper into ssamjang paste at a barbecue restaurant in Seoul. The bitterness and spice of the vegetable perfectly married with the savory, salty taste of the sauce, itself made from fermented peppers and soybeans. It was a poetic combination, to reunite something in its raw form with its twice-dead cousin. "This is a very old taste," my mother had said.”
Source: Crying in H Mart
“Once when I was a little child of six or so, I watched a spider spinning its web in a corner of the house. Before the spider had even finished its job, a mosquito flew right into the web and was trapped there. The spider didn't pay it any attention at first, but went on with what it was doing; only when it was finished did it creep over on its pointy toes and sting that poor mosquito to death. As I sat there on that wooden floor and watched Hatsumomo come reaching for me with her delicate fingers, I knew I was trapped in a web she had spun for me.”
Source: Memoirs Of A Geisha
“Once when I was at Newark Mall, me, my friends, my cousin, and my bodyguard were shopping and looking for suitcases cuz we had all these clothes. On our way out, two girls started whispering. The next thing we know, we had at least 200-300 people walking behind us, like the whole mall!”
“Once when I was cooking I burned my arm with scalding water. I went to the Emergency Room of the Hospital. When the doctor came in he looked at me and looked at my chart, and looked at me and looked at my chart, then looked at me again and said, "I loved your show!" He told me that when he was doing his internship he would come home every night stressed out, but he would watch a late night rerun of the Andy Griffith Show and relax and fall asleep. He said, "I wouldn't be a doctor, if it wasn't for the Andy Griffith Show".”
“Once when I was golfing in Georgia, I hooked the ball into the swamp. I went in after it and found an alligator wearing a shirt with a picture of a little golfer on it.”
Source: The Truth about Golf: And Other Lies
“Once when I was lost I asked a policeman to help me find my parents. I said to him, 'Do you think we'll ever find them?' He answered, 'I don't know, kid. There are so many places they can hide.”
“Once when I was working for the Daily News, I was summoned back to work from vacation because Donald Trump announced he was getting a divorce.”
“Once when I went over my work with my Washington University professor, the late great Stanley Elkin, he pointed to a passage of mine and said: Stop vamping. It has remained a caution.”
“Once, when I were a child, I were kicked by a small mule. Neither the mule nor I had any sense. I were trying to make the mule go one way, but the mule was trying to make me go another. I were for hitching the mule onto a plow. The mule were for nibbling grass. So, after that kicking, I learned right then and there to respect animals and peoples when they are not of the same mind as you are.”
Source: The Return of Simple
“Once when I'd been in a lot of bunkers, my caddie told me he was getting blisters from raking so much.”
“Once, when Jackson questioned why Gwen allowed Lincoln to spend so much time with "the girls," Gwen took her cue from him. She walked away, but not without a glancing blow of, "It builds character, Jackson. Something you may want to consider developing.”
Source: Smuggler's Cove
“Once when Larry the Cable Guy was on Conan's show, Conan O'Brien was so offended by Larry's material, he had to walk away from the desk he was so offended.”
“Once, when Mazen had been a child, he'd asked his mother if the stories she told were truth or fiction. Many years later, he still remembered her answer.
"Every story is a memory," she had once said. "A tale that happened neither here nor there, but in another time and place. Our job as storytellers is to describe that reality as we understand it. It is the listen who must determine what is and is not." He remembered the way her voice had fallen to a whisper as she spoke, as if she were sharing some precious secret with him. "Remember, Mazen, there is no such thing as a single truth. There are just the stories we tell others, and the ones we tell ourselves.”
Source: The Ashfire King
“Once when my father-in-law was leaving the house after lunch to return to the field to work, my mother-in-law said, 'Albert, you get right back in here and tell me you love me.' He grinned and jokingly said, 'Elsie, when we were married, I told you I loved you, and if that ever changes, I'll let you know.' It's hard to overuse the expression, 'I love you.' Use it daily.”
“Once when Phocion had delivered an opinion which pleased the people, he turned to his friend and said, "Have I not unawares spoken some mischievous thing or other?"”
“Once, when she received a 98 on a math test, he asked what had happened to the other two points. It was sort of a joke.”
Source: The Girl Who Counted Numbers
“Once when the Yankee's Lou Pinella was batting he questioned a Palermo strike call. Pinella demanded, "Where was that pitch at?" Palermo told him that a man wearing Yankee pinstripes in front of 30,000 people should not end a sentence with a preposition. So Pinella, no dummy, said, "OK, where was that pitch at, asshole?"”
“Once when we were fifteen, River (Phoenix) and I went out for this fancy dinner in Manhattan and I ordered soft-shell crabs. He left the restaurant and walked around on Park Avenue, crying. I went out and said, "I love you so much. Why?" He had such a pain that I was eating an animal, that he hadn't impressed on me what was right. I loved him for that. For his dramatic desire that we share every belief, that I be with him all the way”
“Once, while at a party in London, the editor of the literary reviews page of a major newspaper struck up a conversation with me, and we chatted pleasantly until he asked what I did for a living. “I write comics,” I said; and I watched the editor’s interest instantly drain away, as if he suddenly realized he was speaking to someone beneath his nose.
Just to be polite, he followed up by inquiring, “Oh, yes? Which comics have you written?” So I mentioned a few titles, which he nodded at perfunctorily; and I concluded, “I also did this thing called Sandman.” At that point he became excited and said, “Hang on, I know who you are. You’re Neil Gaiman!” I admitted that I was. “My God, man, you don’t write comics,” he said. “You write graphic novels!”
He meant it as a compliment, I suppose. But all of a sudden I felt like someone who’d been informed that she wasn’t actually a hooker; that in fact she was a lady of the evening.
This editor had obviously heard positive things about Sandman; but he was so stuck on the idea that comics are juvenile he couldn’t deal with something good being done as a comic book. He needed to put Sandman in a box to make it respectable.”
Source: The Sandman Companion
“Once, while at my uncle’s farm my father took me for a ride on my uncle’s buckboard. Not knowing any better, my father took the bridle off of the horse to give him a break. It seemed reasonable to me, but any farmer will tell you that’s not what he should have done. Thinking that he was free and then realizing that he wasn’t, the horse bolted, dragging the wagon down a path and then through a stone quarry where the buckboard was reduced to kindling wood. After my uncle found out what had happened, things were not quite the same for some time to come. Fortunately, the horse survived with only a few scratches but the buckboard was beyond repair and poor Pop never lived down this occurrence. I guess that he wasn’t much of an equestrian either.”
“Once, while we were out on the water, the sun went down over the rim of the earth, and threw a soft, rosy light over the White City.”
Source: The Story of My Life
“Once wide coercive powers are given to governmental agencies for particular purposes, such powers cannot be effectively controlled by democratic assemblies.”
“Once, within the dark threads of her existence, love was the reason she fought through all her troubles. Now it was the same reason that drove her toward her uncertain fate. She would welcome her own death once everything was over.”
Source: Crimson Exchange
“Once women are not excluded, I don't think any of us will give a damn what pronouns are used. That wasn't the point.”
“Once women begin to question the inevitability of their subordination and to reject the conventions formerly associated with it, they can no longer retreat to the safety of those conventions.”
Source: The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations
“Once women begin to question the inevitability of their subordination and to reject the conventions formerly associated with it, they can no longer retreat to the safety of those conventions. The woman who rejects the stereotype of feminine weakness and dependence can no longer find much comfort in the clich? that all men are beasts. She has no choice except to believe, on the contrary, that men are human beings, and she finds it hard to forgive them when they act like animals.”
Source: The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations
“Once women find a way to form community, everyone reaps the rewards.”
“Once women find sisterhood, there's nothing stronger.”
“Once women invented farming, and began to keep and breed animals, they discovered the crucial function of the rooster and the henhouse. Fathers suddenly gained a function, and could do what only women had been able to do for all those millions of years--point at a child and say, "That is my son," "That is my daughter." Patriarchy quickly followed, beginning about five thousand years ago; a very short time in the development of our species, but covering all of recorded history.”
“Once, words had rendered Liesel useless, but now… she felt an innate sense of power. It happened every time she deciphered a new word or pieced together a sentence. She was a girl. In Nazi Germany. How fitting that she was discovering the power of words.”
Source: The Book Thief
“Once words have been said there is no way to un-say them”
Source: The Sea Of Forgotten Memories
“Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it.”
Source: Conversations with Ernest Hemingway
“Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it. Financial security then is a great help as it keeps you from worrying.”
“Once ye made up yer mind to do somethin', 'tis better t'stumble o'er the small hillock of jump-ahead than t'bash yer head on the jagged rocks of did-nothing. Old Woman Nora of Loch Lomand to her three wee granddaughtersone cold evening”
“Once, years ago, Alex had been kicked in the gut by a full-grown stallion. The blow had staggered him. For several endless seconds, he hadn’t been able to breathe. His vision had blurred. For a crazy instant, he’d even felt as though his heart had stopped beating. That was how he felt now. As if, for a suspended moment, everything inside him lurched to a stop.
As feeling slowly began to return to his body, pain accompanied it—a relentless, mind-numbing pain centered in his chest. He’d heard people say their hearts were broken. A few times in his life, he had even used the expression himself.
But until now, the saying hadn’t really had meaning. The human heart didn’t actually break, after all. It didn’t come apart, piece by piece, and drop, along with a man’s stomach, to the region of his boots.
Like hell, it didn’t.
Annie Trimble, the town moron. Only she wasn’t a moron at all. She was deaf. Stone-deaf. And, God forgive him, he had been stone-blind.”
Source: Annie's Song
“Once you 'got' Pop, you could never see a sign again the same way again. And once you thought Pop, you could never see America the same way again.”
Source: POPism: The Warhol Sixties
“Once you abstract from this, once you generalize and postulate Universals, you have departed from the creative reality, and entered the realm of static fixity, mechanism, materialism.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)
“Once you accept a label you may have to wear it for the rest of your short life. Don't accept any negative label from anyone no matter who they are.
If you have accepted any negative label, it's time to take them off of you.”
“Once you accept an idea, it's an idea whose time has come.”
“Once you accept and rejoice in your authenticity, you begin to see things as YOU are. You begin to see the authentic self is the Soul made visible. Godspeed on your journey to wholeness.”