W Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“What did I have? My father's book and my silver coin-knife, both wrapped tight in a stolen pillowcase. Bad, snoring lightly beside me. Jane. Samuel. My own unwritten words waiting to change the shape of the world.
Surely all that outweighed what I didn't have: a mother, a father, a home. Surely it would be enough.”
Source: The Ten Thousand Doors of January
“What did I hope for, what did I expect, what rich future did I foresee, when the phantom of my first love, rising up for an instant, barely called forth one sigh, one mournful sentiment?”
Source: First Love and the Diary of a Superfluous Man
“What did I know about love? All I knew was that I couldn’t get Echo Emerson out of my mind. No doubt, I wanted her. I couldn’t rid my mind of images of her body writhing in pleasure against mine. That siren voice whispering my name. But she appealed to me in more than a physical way. I loved her smile, the light in her eyes when she laughed, and damn if she couldn’t keep up with me.”
Source: Pushing the Limits
“What did I know best that I had not written about
and Lost? What did I know about truly and care for the most?”
Source: Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition
“What did I know of any history besides my own, and even that hazy, half-remembered? There was a whole world spreading its roots outside my father’s house, and oaks just as old as the ones in our garden. I grew up with his words and the stories in the codex, but did I really know anything at all?”
Source: Juniper & Thorn
“What did I know of loving anything, beyond a longing, beyond being biased in one woman's direction.”
“What did I know of the kind of love that made it hard to breathe, where your body ached day and night for that connection with another, physically, mentally, spiritually? It was utterly new and terrifying and exhausting and wonderful. I was dazzled by the light that spilled from him into the shadow of my previous existence. He eclipsed everything, erased everything that had gone before. I was reborn—not just to him, but to myself. And I was ready for the adventure.”
Source: The Education of Sebastian
“What did i know of your fantasies? Why do we know so little about the fantasies of our parents? What do we know of somebody if we know nothing of the images passed to him by his imagination?”
Source: Night Train to Lisbon: A Novel
“What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?”
“What did I miss?" he asks, smile falling at the tension at the table.
Mom crosses her arms. She turns her ire on my father. "Centuries of pressuring women to be agreeable and conform to unrealistic emotional expectations."
"That doesn't seem fair." My father frowns.
"You're telling me," Mom huffs. Her jaw sets. I'm sure she's daydreaming about mutiny. Burning down the patriarchy. You know, little things.”
Source: Tokyo Ever After
“What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.”
Source: Chronicles
“What did I really think fifteen years ago? A nonbeliever, I felt guilty in the midst of all those believers. And since it seemed to me that they were in the right, I decided to believe, as you might decide to take an aspirin: It can't hurt and you might get better.”
Source: Foucault's Pendulum
“What did I tell you about Mister Safety Catch?' said Vimes weakly. When Mister Safety Catch Is Not On, Mister Crossbow Is Not Your Friend,' recited Detritus, saluting.”
Source: Night Watch
“What did I tell you? Something's happening!' cried Sam. '"The war's going well," said Shagrat; but Gorbag he wasn't so sure. And he was right there too. Things are looking up, Mr. Frodo. haven't you got some hope now?'
'Well, no, not much, Sam,' Frodo sighed. 'That's away beyond the mountains. We're going east not west. And I'm so tired. And the Ring is so heavy, Sam. And I begin to see it in my mind all the time, like a great wheel of fire.”
Source: The Return of the King
“What did I tell you, Mr. Pippin?' said Sam, sheathing his sword. 'Wolves won't get him. That was an eye-opener, and no mistake! Nearly singed the hair off my head!”
Source: The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings
“What did I think I was doing? What did she think she was doing? When I want to kiss people in that way now, with mouths and tongues and all that, it's because I want other things too: sex, Friday nights at the cinema, company and conversation, fused networks of family and friends, Lemsips brought to me in bed when I am ill, a new pair of ears for my records and CDs, maybe a little boy called Jack and a little girl called Holly or Maisie, I haven't decided yet. But I didn't want any of those things from Alison Ashworth. Not children, because we were children, and not Friday nights at the pictures, because we went Saturday mornings, and not Lemsips, because my mum did that, not even sex, especially not sex, please God not sex, the filthiest and most terrifying invention of the early seventies.”
Source: High Fidelity
“What did I think of Princeton? Well, the answer to that question requires a story. When I first arrived, I looked around me at the Gothic buildings - younger, I later learned, than many of the mosques of this city, but made through acid treatment and ingenious stone-masonry to look older.”
Source: The Reluctant Fundamentalist
“What did I think? Right then I was thinking about my father, specifically his habit of treating everyone with courtesy and consideration, of how he used to stop on lower Division Street and converse genially with old black men from the Hill whom he knew from his early days as a route man. His kindness and interest weren't feigned, nor did they derive, I'm convinced, from any perceived send of duty. His behavior was merely an extension of who he was. But here's the thing about my father that I've come to understand only reluctantly and very recently. If he wasn't the cause of what ailed his fellow man, neither was he the solution. He believed in "Do unto Others." It was a good, indeed golden, rule to by and it never occurred to him that perhaps it wasn't enough. "You ain't gotta love people," I remember him proclaiming to the Elite Coffee Club guys at Ikey's back in the early days. Confused by mean-spirited behavior, he was forever explaining how little it cost to be polite, to be nice to people. Make them feel good then they're down because maybe tomorrow you'll be down. Such a small thing. Love, he seemed to understand, was a very big thing indeed, its cost enormous and maybe more than you could afford if you were spendthrift. Nobody expects that of you, asny more than they expected you to hand out hundred-dollar bills on the street corner.
And I remember my mother's response when he repeated over dinner what he'd told the men at the store. "Really, Lou? Isn't that exactly what we're supposed to do? Love people? Isn't that what the Bible says?”
Source: Bridge of Sighs
“What did I think was wrong?
That made it sound as if nothing was reallywrong, I only thought it was wrong.”
Source: the bell jar
“What did I want? I wanted the war to be over so I could ask her out.”
Source: Salt to the Sea
“What did I want to wish for? I closed my eyes and thought of Aunt Gert and what she'd told me about finding her own way. I wanted that too, more than anything.
"Help me follow my bliss," I whispered, the words equal parts hope and prayer. "Show me how to seek joy and give joy to others. Show me what comes next.”
Source: The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie
“What did I want with prestige? The British Open paid the winner $600 in American money. A man would have to be two hundred years old at that rate to retire from golf.”
“What did Isabelle want?" Jace asked. Alec hesitated. "Isabelle says the Queen of the Seelie Court has requested an audience with us." "Sure," said Magnus. "And Madonna wants me as a backup dancer on her next world tour." Alec looked puzzled. "Who's Madonna?" "Who's the Queen of the Seelie Court?" said Clary. "She is the Queen of Faerie," said Magnus. "Well, the local one, anyway." Jace put his head in his hands. "Tell Isabelle no." "But she thinks it's a good idea," Alec protested. "Then tell her no twice.”
Source: Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instrument Series (3 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass
“What did Isabelle want?" Jace asked. Alec hesitated. "Isabelle says the Queen of the Seelie Court has requested an audience with us." "Sure," said Magnus. "And Madonna wants me as a backup dancer on her next world tour.”
Source: Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instrument Series (3 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass
“What did it avail to pray when he knew his soul lusted after its own destruction?”
Source: The Best of James Joyce
“What did it feel like, I wondered, to love someone that much? So much that you couldn't even control yourself when they came close, as if you might just break free of whatever was holding you and throw yourself at them with enough force to easily overwhelm you both.”
Source: This Lullaby
“What did it for me was a blurb on the back of a book I was reading. The blurber wrote - I just looked it up - that "Trials have provided some of the best examples of 'micro-history' or the 'new narrative'...." And that was it.”
“What did it matter if he existed for two or for twenty years? Happiness was the fact that he had existed.”
“What did it matter to me? Did I think that by making you rational about one thing, I could make you rational about everything? Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to save you from your fears”
Source: The Lover's Dictionary: A Novel
“What did it mean for a black woman to be an artist in our grandmothers' time? In our great-grandmothers' day? It is an answer cruel enough to stop the blood.”
Source: Everyday Use
“What did it mean, he thought I never needed to be on bed rest? Why was he so flippant about it? I wasn’t a statistic. You don’t stop another human being’s life for months and then say you didn’t have to go through that, but no biggie, right?”
Source: Knocked Down: A High-Risk Memoir
“What did it mean to be a Christian? It did not mean to be a good person, to be more Christ-like or to get my act together. It meant the king of the universe was at the center of my life. I got to trust in His wisdom instead of my own. He was my Lord and I was His disciple, His chosen, His beloved.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“What did it mean to be called “lord”? I’ll assume you’ve never had the honor, since I doubt any of you happen to be British royalty. (And, if by chance you are, then let me say, “Hello, Your Majesty! Welcome to my stupid book. Can I borrow some cash?”)”
Source: The Scrivener's Bones: Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians
“What did it mean to have the power of both life and death inside, battling for dominance?”
Source: Ruin
“What did it mean, the first time, a thinking creature looked deeply into another's eyes? Did it take a hundred thousand years before this happened or it was the first thing they did, transcendingly, the thing that made them higher, made them modern, the gaze that demonstrates we are lonely in our souls?”
Source: The Body Artist
“What did it say about me that my “practice boyfriend” was better at taking care of me than the man I’d thought would be my life partner? How had I never noticed? Scratch that—of course I had. I just…I suppose I hadn’t thought I deserved better. It was an awful sort of feeling, to come to terms with the fact that Brendon had been a horrible boyfriend when I’d put him on a pedestal for so long.”
Source: Cloudy With a Chance of Bad Decisions
“What did it say when a man had fewer clothes than books?”
“What did it take to claim a person, really? One perfect night? A few weeks of phone calls, hundreds of texts, all of them full of future plans and promises made?...You can't measure love by time put in, but the weight of those moments. Some in life are light, like a touch. Others, you can't help but stagger beneath.”
Source: Once and for All
“What did Jesus Christ say to the Teamsters? 'Do nothing till I get back.”
Source: Transgressions: Ten Novellas from Transgressions
“What did Jesus come to do? God saves.”
“What did Jesus say to the headwaiter at the Last Supper? 'Separate checks, please.'”
Source: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
“What did John Ashcroft say about moderates, he said, quote, there are two things you find in the middle of the road, a moderate and a dead skunk and I don't want to be either.”
“What did journalists know of tech, anyway? Who gave a damn about the press? We were the Good Guys. Changing the World. Doing the Important Stuff.”
Source: Numbercaste
“What did Kevin Ye get arrested for anyway? Didn't he steal a car?"
"He stole the driver's ed car."
I laughed. Then I saw how Adam was looking at me.
"He gave it back."
"They MAKE you give stuff back, Lori, after they arrest you for stealing it.”
Source: Endless Summer
“What did Kiyoaki mean by his question? If one were forced to hazard a guess, it would be that he was trying to say that he had no interest in anything at all. He thought of himself as a thorn, a small, poisonous thorn jabbed into the workmanlike hand of his family. And this was his fate simply because he had acquired little elegance. A mere fifty years before, the Matsugaes had been a sturdy, upright samurai family, no more, eking out a frugal existence in the provinces. But in a brief span of time, their fortunes had soared. By Kiyoake’s time, the first traces of refinement were threatening to take hold on a family that, unlike the court of nobility, had enjoyed centuries of immunity to the virus of elegance. And Kiyoake, like an ant that senses the approaching flood, was experiencing the first intimations of his family’s rapid collapse.
His elegance was the thorn. And he was well aware that his aversion to coarseness, his delight in refinement, were futile; he was a plant without roots. Without meaning to undermine his family, without wanting to violate its traditions, he was condemned to do so by his very nature. And this poison would stunt his own life as it destroyed his family. The handsome young man felt that this futility typified his existence.
(p13.)”
Source: Spring Snow
“What did liberals do that was so offensive to the Republican Party? I'll tell you what they did. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water act. What did conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things, everyone. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.”
“What did Mira show your attacker last week? he asked, desperate to turn the attention away from himself now. Yakut shrugged. Only he can know. The girl has no knowledge of what her eyes reflect. Thank God for that. Niko hated to think of the education she might have just gotten otherwise.”
“What did moths bump into before the electric light bulb was invented? Boy, the lightbulb really screwed the moth up didn't it? Are there moths on their way to the sun now going, It's gonna be worth it!.”
“What did my arms do before they held you?”
“What did my fingers do before they held him? What did my heart do, with its love?”
Source: Winter Trees