W Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“what was myth in one world might always be fact in some other.”
“What was needed was a literary theory which, while preserving the formalist bent of New Criticism, its dogged attention to literature as aesthetic object rather than social practice, would make something a good deal more systematic and 'scientific' out of all this. The answer arrived in 1957, in the shape of the Canadian Northrop Fryes mighty 'totalization' of all literary genres, Anatomy of Criticism .”
Source: Literary Theory: An Introduction
“What was needed was a policy that increased the supply of money available for use and then ensured its use. Then the state of trade would have to improve.”
Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went
“What was Neil supposed to do with a truth like this? He was going to be dead in four months, five if he was lucky. He wasn't supposed to be this for anyone, Andrew least of all. Andrew said all year long—had said it to Neil's face just this week—that he didn't want anything. Neil shouldn't be the exception to that rule.”
Source: The King's Men
“What was new to our ears these days, and thrilling to hear, was the steadiness and justice of those who spoke, the abscence of panic and exaggeration the quiet insistence on legal processes as opposed to trial by suspicion. McCarthyism so repelled the English that they take special care not to be infected by it.”
Source: The View From The Ground
“What was new was the fact that, despite my heart doing its fight-or-flight, help-we're-prey-and-HEY-STUPID-THAT'S-A-VAMPIRE number, I was glad to see him. Ridiculous but true. Scary but true.”
“What was new was the symbolic force of the targets struck. The attackers did not just physically cause the highest buildings in Manhattan to collapse; they also destroyed an icon in the household imagery of the American nation.”
“What was nice about the nineties is that it was an example of music that responded to a desire of the times. It spoke to the social conditions of the times. Women were making more money. Women were saying, "My voice counts. If we're going out on a Friday night, I don't want to see a Rambo movie. I want to go see a singer/songwriter who sings about my life".”
“What was normal, indeed? Especially for a girl raised in a little yellow house by a divinity, a girl the cats talked to, a girl who was dressed by Coco and who danced with Jay, a girl who took a ride in a flying van, or a low-slung black car driven by a god of gangsters and thieves? A girl who had basically told Officer Friendly, with the fleshy bulbs on his forehead and his big pink nose, to fuck off?
A girl who had played Scrabble with the god of cowboys and ridden a big black horse-motorcycle to this magical fucking desert too. Couldn't forget that.”
Source: Spring's Arcana
“What was not possessed of the 'fat light'--an immanence that shed radiance over the world of gross matter--should be left to the portraitists of sausage-shaped ladies and their rich consorts.”
Source: American Meteor
“What was on the agenda was school and social life and those kinds of things. So I was the middle of five kids. So I had the great advantage of being able to play up to the older kids and play down to the younger kids and I think that's part of what propelled me to become a teacher at some point in my life. But it was a comfortable childhood. It was a privileged childhood.”
“What was on the other side?"
Donna said, "He said there was another world on the other side. He could see it."
"He... never went through it?"
"That’s why he kicked the shit out of everything in his apartment; he never thought of going through it, he just admired the doorway and then later he couldn’t see it at all and it was too late. It opened for him a few days and then it was closed and gone forever.”
Source: A Scanner Darkly
“What was once a barren patch of earth is now alive with hummingbirds and butterflies… It didn’t take much money, just time, energy, and the willingness to care.”
Source: Subversive Acts of Humanity : A Survival Guide for Choosing Evolution over Self-Destruction
“What was once a cottage industry dedicated to the discovery and development of new voices and works has become instead the raison d'etre for many a playwright's existence . . .. And since readings have become playwrights' main source of exposure, the nature of playwriting has changed to fit readings' needs. Investigation into what is eminently theatrical has been substituted - more and more these days - by what can simply come across and read well.”
“What was once a home she had taken apart one piece at a time, one day...She sold her belongings for money to buy food. First the luxuries: a small statue, a picture. Then the items with more utility: a lamp, a kettle. Clothes left the closet at a rate of a garment a day…she burned everything in the basement first; then everything in the attic. It lasted weeks, not months. Though tempted, she left the roof alone. She stripped the second floor, and the stairs. She extracted every possible calorie from the kitchen. she wasn’t working alone, because neighbourhood pirates simultaneously stole anything of value outside: door and window frames, fencing, stucco. They pillaged her yard. Breaking in was a boundary her neigbours had not yet crossed. But the animals had. Rats and mice and other vermin found the cracks without much effort. Like her, they sought warmth and scraps of food. With great reluctance, she roasted the ones she could catch. She spent her nights fighting off the ones that escaped.”
Source: Magenta
“What was once a tiny seed of belief for me has grown into the tree of life, so if your faith is a little tested in this or any season, I invite you to lean on mine. I know this work is God’s very truth, and I know that only at our peril would we allow doubt or devils to sway us from its path. Hope on. Journey on. Honestly acknowledge your questions and your concerns, but first and forever fan the flame of your faith, because all things are possible to them that believe.”
“What was once before you - an exciting, mysterious future - is now behind you. Lived; understood; disappointing. You realize you are not special. You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone's experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone's everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive. You are Ellen. All her meager sadnesses are yours; all her loneliness; the gray, straw-like hair; her red raw hands. It's yours. It is time for you to understand this. As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty; your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving - not coming from any place; not arriving any place. Just driving, counting off time.”
Source: Synecdoche, New York: The Shooting Script
“What was once called the objective world is a sort of Rorschach ink blot, into which each culture, each system of science and religion, each type of personality, reads a meaning only remotely derived from the shape and color of the blot itself”
“What was once dormant is now a Creeping Thing”
Source: Mumbo Jumbo: A Novel
“What was once easy became confused and hard, which brings us back to the mystic question, who is God?”
“What was once foolishness to us-a crucified God-must become our wisdom and our power and our only boast in this world.”
“What was once impossible now summons us to dismantle the walls between ourselves and our sisters and brothers, to dissolve the distinctions between flesh and spirit, to transcend the present limits of time and matter, to find, at last, not wealth or power but the ecstasy (so long forgotten) of commonplace, unconditional being. For the atom's soul is nothing but energy. Spirit blazes in the dullest of clay. The life of every woman or man-the heart of it-is pure and holy joy.”
“What was once, is no longer.”
Source: The Miniaturist
“What was once justified as sanctioned by God is now properly reviled as an unconscionable violation of human rights.”
“What was once obvious to them was no longer quite as obvious. Why was it that humans lost sight of truth so quickly?”
Source: Complete Circle Series: Hardcover Box Set: Box Set
“What was once thought can never be unthought.”
“What was once thought, so it shall become.”
“What was once to me mere matter of the fancy now has grown the vast necessity of heart and life.”
Source: Idylls of the King
“What was once underground is now coming to the surface.”
“What was once was hell to me, and reflected back with negativity, now has become the tools of positivity, sharing my experiences helps others to understand and grow stronger.”
“What was once your crown will now be your collar, and you will wear it until you learn what it is to submit.”
Source: Conquering the Queen
“What was once your pain, will be your home.”
“What was our life like? I almost don't remember now. Though I remember it, the space of time it occupied. And I remember it fondly.”
Source: The Sportswriter
“What was particularly impressive by the [Donald] Trump campaign at the time is how they were so organized around the WikiLeaks stuff.”
“What was past was past. I suppose that was the general attitude.”
Source: Literary Occasions: Essays
“What was peculiar about the West was not that it participated in the worldwide evil of slavery, but that it later abolished that evil, not only in Western societies but also in other societies subject to Western control or influence. This was possible only because the anti-slavery movement coincided with an era in which Western power and hegemony were at their zenith, so that it was essentially European imperialism which ended slavery. This idea might seem shocking, not because it does not fit the facts, but because it does not fit the prevailing vision of our time.”
Source: Black Rednecks and White Liberals
“What was premeditated murder if not calculated leverage?”
“What was pretty crazy was to plan a wedding around a tour. It felt very getting-hitched-in-Vegas style. It was like, we played a show in Salt Lake City, ran to New Mexico, we got married, and then I was off to Lisbon.”
“What was previously perceived as nerdy is now viewed as original. What I like about nerdiness, geekiness, is it doesn't really matter what you're into - it just means you're not a follower.”
“What was rage but a cover for some secret fragility, some sorrow?”
Source: Tess of the Road
“What was real, he knew now, was the soil beneath a man's feet. The earth, the natural world, from which could be derived every necessity. and on which were preserved the imprints of every man, woman, and child that had ever lived.”
Source: The Clockmaker's Daughter
“What was really funny is that as I got older all those guys who called me a sissy in junior high school wanted me to be their best friend because they wanted to meet all the girls that I knew in figure skating.”
“What was really great with Eleanor Roosevelt - I mean, of course, we all have this stereotypical, really satirical almost, version of how she speaks. What was really interesting to me was I found various radio and TV appearances of hers, but there was one talk show that I saw her on; she was the only woman, it was all men. They were talking about policy - I think it was after she was First Lady. I think it was more in the U.N. days.”
“What was really interesting in his speech, which, by the way, had (inaudible) footnotes - the written version of it - which might be a personal record for Donald Trump - the source of a lot of his numbers on the free trade section of the speech came from an organization called the Economic Policy Institute, which was a think tank or is a think tank that was founded by labor unions to promote the labor unions' point of view on free trade agreements.”
“What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life--daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.
These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements. “Life” does not mean something vague, but something very real and concrete, just as life’s tasks are also very real and concrete. They form man’s destiny, which is different and unique for each individual. No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response. Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. At other times it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. Sometimes man may be required simple to accept fate, to bear his cross. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand.
When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.”
“What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.”
Source: Man's Search for Meaning
“What was sad was knowing she was most likely the last reminder that there might never be another go. We might still communicate, might still meet for coffee, but the dream was gone, the hand across the table was gone, the square itself was gone.”
Source: Enigma Variations
“What was safety, anyway, but the sound of a bomb falling on someone else's home?”
Source: American War
“What was said about all of us? We're stupid. You'll never work in a town again. How do you look your four children in the eye? You've sold your soul. You know, it went on and on.”
“What was said about him, what the females needed to believe about him, was just oral masturbation for mouths that needed to be otherwise occupied.”
Source: Lover Unbound: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood