S Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with S. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Standing in the shadows, gathering my resolve. I'd been among too many people, living according to their rules for too long. It was clouding my vision, gnawing away at my confidence and certainty, making me doubt the instincts that kept me alive all these years. I needed to remember who I was, who I had always been: A woman who was unafraid.”
Source: Atalanta
“Standing in this spot, I couldn't help but imagine the future of Seoul myself. But the Seoul I imagine is not a flashy city bristling with skyscrapers. What I dream of is a peaceful and profound historically rich city that has been restored, at least within the city walls, to the way it was before.”
Source: Seoul's Historic Walks in Sketches
“Standing is harder than moving.”
“Standing knee deep in a river and dying of thirst.”
“Standing naked on the beach with all of my secrets between my legs, I look out into the water and up deep into the stars. I beg the sparkling lanterns of light to cure me of myself…”
Source: Born Ready: Unleash Your Inner Dream Girl
“Standing navies, as well as standing armies, serve to keep alive the spirit of war even in the meek heart of peace. In its very embers and smoulderings, they nourish that fatal fire, and half-pay officers, as the priests of Mars, yet guard the temple, though no god be there.”
Source: White-jacket; Or, The World in the Man-of-war
“Standing near someone you love in a time of trouble is its own reward.”
“Standing near the door, we dipped our fingers in the holy water, crossed and blessed ourselves, and proceeded up to the sleeping-room, in the usual order, two by two.”
Source: Awful Disclosures ... Second edition, revised by the Rev. J. J. Slocum
“Standing on "tip toe", one stands not firmly. Straining in stride, one cannot walk far. Flaunting of deeds, one is unfavorably noticed. Being self-righteous, one is not respected. Boasting of self, one's merit is unrecognized. Glorifying of self, one loses the opportunity for greatness. From the viewpoint of Tao These represent imperfect Te, Valued as are filth or disease.”
“Standing on a golden perch behind the door was a decrepit-looking bird that resembled a half-plucked turkey. Harry stared at it and the bird looked balefully back, making its gagging noise again. Harry thought it looked very ill. Its eyes were dull and, even as Harry watched, a couple more feathers fell out of its tail.
Harry was just thinking that all he needed was for Dumbledore's pet bird to die while he was alone in the office with it, when the bird burst into flames.
Harry yelled in shock and backed away into the desk. He looked feverishly around in case there was a glass of water somewhere but couldn't see one; the bird, meanwhile, had become a fireball; it gave one loud shriek and next second there was nothing but a smoldering pile of ash on the floor.
The office door opened. Dumbledore came in, looking very somber.
"Professor," Harry gasped. "Your bird- I couldn't do anything- he just caught fire-"
To Harry's astonishment, Dumbledore smiled.
"About time, too," he said. "He's been looking dreadful for days; I've been telling him to get a move on."
He chuckled at the stunned look on Harry's face.
"Fawkes is a phoenix, Harry. Phoenixes burst into flame when it is time for them to die and are reborn from the ashes. Watch him..."
Harry looked down in time to see a tiny, wrinkled, newborn bird poke its head out of the ashes. It was quite as ugly as the old one.
"It's a shame you had to see him on a Burning Day," said Dumbledore, seating himself behind his desk. "He's really very handsome most of the time, wonderful red and gold plumage. Fascinating creatures, phoenixes. They can carry immensely heavy loads, their tears have healing powers, and they make highly faithful pets.”
Source: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
“Standing on a ledge again. Everyone laughs at dancing monkey with the typewriter. Not for long, though.”
“Standing on a street corner in Manhattan two days after Diallo's murder, having just come from a meeting of concerned citizens to plan an organized response, I was so filled with frustration and sorrow that I turned to the woman beside me waiting for the light to change and asked 'What do you think about the cops shooting that man forty-one-times?'
She looked startled, confused--could she not feel the palpable rage, pain, and fear that pulsed through the black veins of this city and other cities across the nation?
'I don't know. I have to wait until all the facts are in. I'm sure they had a reason,' she finally responded.
Perhaps she saw the disgust and disappointment on my face. Stepping off the curb as the light turned green, she added, 'I mean, he must have done something.”
Source: Police Brutality: An Anthology
“Standing on a street corner waiting for no one is power.”
Source: An Accidental Autobiography: The Selected Letters of Gregory Corso
“Standing on deck, feeling the weight of his camera in his hand, Ettore realizes again that he has spent all his years since he was a child trying to capture what cannot be spoken, to manifest visually a world both trapped in darkness and defined by it.”
Source: The Shadow King
“Standing on soil feels so much different than standing on city pavement; it lets you look inward and reflect and see who you really are, while you see a beautiful, unspoiled land as far as the eye can see. It allows your inner life to grow”
“Standing on that platform, I said a silent prayer. I thanked God for giving me the strength and the opportunity to come back, to play basketball again, and to be part of that whole magnificent Olympic experience. It's a memory I will always cherish.”
“Standing on the bare ground,--my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.”
“Standing on the bridge, looking across at that empty city, everything in the compass of my gaze had been set there by a human hand. Somehow those pylons had been strung with wire, and those towers raised, and roofs tiled. There had been food and drink for millions of mouths. I don't cry easy, but my vision blurred as I stared on the ruins of what we had been, and I watched the small band of men in rags move toward it to pick at it like birds on the carcass of some giant.”
“Standing on the court and holding up that trophy - it's so great you want to keep doing it over and over again.”
“Standing on the defensive indicates insufficient strength; attacking, a superabundance of strength.”
Source: The Art of War
“Standing on the edge of another creek at fifty-five is like years haven’t happened at all. It’s a journey this life, a crossing of creeks on stepping stones where so much comes to depend on maintaining balance on every careful placing of the foot.”
Source: Richard Wagamese Selected: What Comes From Spirit
“Standing on the edge of that darkness, she felt the stirrings of reckless want. A wild sort of bravery beat within her, taking up the hollow space in her chest where a heart should have resided.”
Source: The Hearts We Sold
“Standing on the edge with my patients — abiding with them — means that I must harbor a true awareness that I, too, could lose my child through the play of circumstance over which I have no control. I could lose my home, my financial security, my safety. I could lose my mind. Any of us could.”
Source: Falling Into the Fire: A Psychiatrist's Encounters with the Mind in Crisis
“Standing on the fringes of life... offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.”
“Standing on the lifeless fringes of life,
embracing nonexistent forms
like winds that have stopped blowing,
I would have been living in illusions,
with fossils of life’s scraps;
if your love had not embraced me.”
“Standing on the Moon looking back at Earth - this lovely place you just came from - you see all the colours, and you know what they represent. Having left the water planet, with all that water brings to Earth in terms of colour and abudance life, the absence of water and atmosphere on the desolate surface of the Moon gives rise to a stark contrast.”
“Standing on the snow-covered plain, as if in a pasture amid the hills, I cut my way first through a foot of snow, and then a foot of ice, and open a window under my feet, where, kneeling to drink, I look down into the quiet parlor of the fishes, pervaded by a softened light as through a window of ground glass, with its bright sanded floor the same as in summer; there a perennial waveless serenity reigns as in the amber twilight sky, corresponding to the cool and even temperament of the inhabitants. Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”
“Standing on the top of this Monte d'Ora watching the sun come radiantly alive, Turi Guiliano was filled with youthful glee that he had escaped his enemies. He would never obey another human being again. He would choose who should live and who should die, and there was no doubt in his mind that all he would do would be for the glory and freedom of Sicily, for good and not for evil. That he would only strike for the cause of justice, to help the poor. that he would win every battle, that he would win the love of the oppressed.
He was twenty years old.”
“Standing on the yarndarm of the USS Constitution, looking down at Boston Harbor two hundred feet below, I wished I had the natural defences of a turkey buzzard. Then I could projectile-vomit on Percy Jackson and make him go away.”
Source: The Ship of the Dead
“Standing on your own two feet creates stability.”
Source: BECOME: Unleash the Power of Moral Character and Be Proud of the Life You Choose
“Standing out like a punk guitarist in a mariachi band.”
Source: Firefight
“Standing out makes you unique. Standing alone makes you strong. Standing for something makes you remembered.”
Source: Sips And Little Portions
“Standing outside the cultural hysteria the trend is fairly clear. It is a trend toward temporal compression and the emergence of ambiguity.”
“Standing ovations have become far too commonplace. What we need are ovations where the audience members all punch and kick one another.”
Source: Napalm & Silly Putty
“Standing quietly in the shade of the literary giant Dostoyevsky, his wife Anna is often erased from the historical record.”
Source: The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky
“Standing quite still I looked at him. Needless to say Konradin hadn't giggled. He hadn't clapped either. But he looked at me.”
Source: Reunion
“Standing, Rider lifted his arms and stretched. His shirt rode up, baring a sliver of his stomach. My gaze dropped and focused in. His lower stomach was unbelievably taut. Defined.
Nice.
Very nice.
Cheeks flushing, I looked away and caught Hector’s knowing gaze. Crap. I needed to be better about checking out guys. Like incognito style.”
Source: The Problem with Forever
“Standing Rock is a moment in history. We really have to grab it and go with it.”
“Standing, stiffly, awkwardly, facing each other.”
Source: The Midnight Library
“Standing still is always more tiring than walking”
Source: Because of Miss Bridgerton
“Standing still is never a good option. Not in the ring, and not in life... When you stop moving, you're done.”
“Standing still is never an option so long as inequities remain embedded in the very fabric of the culture.”
Source: Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity
“Standing still is the fastest way of moving backwards in a rapidly changing world.”
“Standing there at the stage door to the rest of your life. Time to dip your toe into the deep end. Try things. Say hi already. Laugh a lot. Mess up. Apologize. Mess up again. Hug people. Take chances. Trust yourself. Lose things. Get over it. Hold your friends close. Gather your strength. Gain wisdom and beautiful stories. Be brave, and you'll have the time of your life.”
“Standing there, gaping at this monstrous and inhumane spectacle of rock and cloud and sky and space, I feel a ridiculous greed and possessiveness come over me. I want to know it all, posess it all, embrace the entire scene intimately, deeply, totally...”
Source: Desert Solitaire
“Standing there, I had the feeling of putting on armour, taking up secret weapons, becoming like a dreamer, invulnerable for the moment—safe in my dream. Now I could face the world, having no part in life; the presence of waiting phantoms could be forgotten. I was outside everything, surrendered unconditionally to my dream, giving no thought to my next move, prepared to obey whatever impulse next reaches me from the unseen.”
Source: Eagles' Nest
“Standing there…it was as if Victorine was looking right through time, staring straight at me. I could almost hear her voice. She’s been erased from history and it just seems so wrong. I felt she was daring me to do something about it.”
“…she put the napkin over her head and the tiny creature [ortolan] into her mouth. Then every other thought was driven from her head by the sheer physical effect of the hot bird burning her overstuffed mouth…Her teeth came down and a spurt of juice shot across her tongue. She almost jumped out of her seat; the flavor was so strong, so primal. She chewed again and the sound of bones crunching clanged in her ears….It was all hazelnuts, sweet-edged with bitter…figs, Armagnac, blood shot through her body. Another shatter of bone and she was tasting dark meat—the thigh perhaps—with its gamey flavor.”
“Standing there, peering around his room, Pete realized something that should have dawned on him years ago: Science really did suck. (Russell was right.) There just wasn’t any point to it. Sure, in its most altruistic distillation, science saved lives—but when had it ever made those lives worth living? The cold machine called science’s sole purpose, and Pete knew it now, was to drain the wonder out of things, to sap the imagination of its juices, to rob possibilities from dreamers. Science explained without ever getting to the crux of the matter, locking us all into a single paradigm of thought: that all we are is randomly accumulated stardust hanging out on a larger clump of randomly accumulated stardust that is spiraling out and away from other chunks of randomly accumulated stardust, on a collision course with an empty infinity.”
Source: Canis Major
“Standing there small among the boxes of Kandy Kakes that rose like brownish cartoon cliffs around him, he resembled the videos I'd seen of sea lions floating angelically among the kelp, black bodies filmed from below, their shapes cut out in bright sunlight, bodies mistakable for those of a human being. I felt the memory of a shadowy arm around me, a watcher again, sitting there on the couch with my boyfriend, watching the animals become prey. Somewhere there were giant whales feeding on creatures too small to see, pressing them against fronds of baleen with a tongue the size of a sedan. There were polar bears killing seals, tearing ovoid chunks from out of their smooth, round bellies. In the surrounding vastness of the warehouse, I heard something scratching against the concrete floor and knew there were rats here, scraping a thin film of nutrient from the dry packaged matter that surrounded them. Life was everywhere, inescapable, imperative.”
Source: You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine
“Standing there, staring at the long shelves crammed with books, I felt myself relax and was suddenly at peace.”
Source: Q's Legacy: A Delightful Account of a Lifelong Love Affair with Books