W Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“When a bill was put before the state legislature in Jefferson City that would have prohibited anyone who owned a saloon from holding elective office and reporters asked what he thought of it, Alderman Jim said probably the bill was intended as a way of improving the reputation of saloonkeepers.”
Source: Truman
“WHEN A BIRD IS ALIVE... IT EATS ANTS....WHEN BIRD IS DEAD...ANTS EAT THE BIRD.
TIME AND CIRCUMSTANCES CAN CHANGE AT ANYTIME. DON'T DEVALUE OR HURT ANYONE IN LIFE. YOU MAY BE POWERFUL TODAY.' BUT REMEMBER. TIME IS MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU.!!! ONE TREE MAKES A MILLION MATCH STICKS...BUT ONLY ONE MATCH STICK NEEDED TO BURN A MILLION TREES...”
“When a bishop at the first shot abandons the worship of Christ and rallies his flock round the altar of Mars, he may be acting patriotically... but that does not justify him in pretending...that Christ is, in effect, Mars.”
Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more
“When a black Jacksonian looks about his home community, he sees a city of over 150,000, of which 40% is Negro, in which there is not a single Negro policeman or policewoman, school crossing guard, or fireman.”
“When a black person has no electricity, no water, they call it the ghetto. When white people have no electricity and no water, they call it camping.”
“When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of a globe he doesn't notice that the track he has covered is curved. I was lucky enough to have spotted it.”
“When a blind man says, 'God is good,' this should be an eye-opener to those who can see.”
“When a Blood Wolf has its teeth out, it doesn’t take much to make it snap.”
Source: Ignite the Stars
“When a body acts upon another one, it is always immediately or through some intermediate body; this intermediate body is in general what one calls a machine.”
“When a body is in an alkaline state, it avoids disease, but when it's in an acidic state - where you're eating a lot of processed foods, meat, dairy - you're not going to have that hydration in your body, and you're not going to have that ability to fight off disease, and it's going to impact your immune system and the inflammation in your body too.”
“When a body moves, it's the most revealing thing. Dance for me a minute, and I'll tell you who you are.”
“When a body's this old, she can claim to be as wise as she wants.”
Source: The Final Tide
“When a bomb actually goes off, there's a lot of confusion, and people often don't know a bomb has gone off. For a long time, people might think there's been an electrical malfunction or something else that's exploded.”
“When a book and a head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the book?”
“When a book comes from the publisher and you see it for the first time... Of course it's not remotely like seeing a baby for the first time, but I can remember with each book what room I was in when I opened it. That would be excitement, though, I think. Not pride.”
“When a book comes out I wonder if one person will buy it. It's agony. Of course it's stupid, but it's agony.”
“When a book is alive, really alive, you feel it. You put it to your ear here, and you feel it breathe, sometimes laugh, sometimes cry, just like a person, a little person.”
“When a book is in its final stages, I've just got to be home, looking at it seventeen hours a day, and that's fine. But all that initial creation of the early drafts, I'd just as soon write it on the road in any extreme place. That's sort of ideal.”
“When a book is just a plot, you know, two men fight for the love of a woman in a wild frontier, I immediately ask, 'Why?'”
“When a book is read an irrevocable thing happens — a murder, followed by an imposture. The story in the mind murders the story on the page, and takes its place.”
“When a book leaves its author's desk it changes. Even before anyone has read it, before eyes other than its creator's have looked upon a single phrase, it is irretrievably altered. It has become a book that can be read, that no longer belongs to its maker. It has acquired, in a sense, free will. It will make its journey through the world and there is no longer anything the author can do about it. Even he, as he looks at its sentences, reads them differently now that they can be read by others. They look like different sentences. The book has gone out into the world and the world has remade it.”
Source: Joseph Anton: A Memoir
“When a book leaves your hands, it belongs to God. He may use it to save a few souls or to try a few others, but I think that for the writer to worry is to take over God's business.”
Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor
“When a book of mine comes out, I instantly go hunting the net, not for praise, but for criticism, because that's how you learn, from people who don't have to be polite to you.”
“When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and manly thoughts, seek for no other test of its excellence. It is good, and made by a good workman.”
“When a book's pattern and the shape of its inner life is as plain to the reader as it is to the author -- then perhaps it is time to throw the book aside, as having had its day, and start again on something new.”
Source: The Golden Notebook
“When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature.”
Source: Raymond Chandler Speaking
“When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance, it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball.”
Source: The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959
“When a bookworm finally decides to leave the house, perhaps to explore some literary destination in one of her novels, she will be surprised to know that there is a volatile, often antagonistic force in the real world known as the weather.”
“When a boy becomes a man, he must choose between the life he was given and who he wants to be. Remember who you want to be.”
“When a boy… discovers that he is more given into introspection and consciousness of self than other boys his age, he easily falls into the error of believing it is because he is more mature than they. This was certainly a mistake in my case. Rather, it was because the other boys had no such need of understanding themselves as I had: they could be their natural selves, whereas I was to play a part, a fact that would require considerable understanding and study. So it was not my maturity but my sense of uneasiness, my uncertainty that was forcing me to gain control over my consciousness. Because such consciousness was simply a steppingstone to aberration and my present thinking was nothing but uncertain and haphazard guesswork.”
Source: Confessions of a Mask
“When a boy feels as if no one cares about him, or as if he will never amount to anything, he truly believes it doesn’t matter what he does.”
“When a boy finds someone who takes an interest in him, he responds and follows.”
“When a boy leads a boy, he stays a boy. When a man leads a boy, he becomes a man.”
“When a boy's first romantic interlude is with Pheobe the Dog-Faced Girl, he feels a need to get out into the world and find a new life.”
Source: Freaks: Alive, on the Inside!
“When a boy writes off the world it's done with sloppy misspelled words
If a girl writes off the world it's done in cursive.”
“When a branch of mathematics ceases to interest any but the specialists, it is very near its death, or at any rate dangerously close to a paralysis, from which it can be rescued only by being plunged back into the vivifying source of the science.”
“When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.”
“When a bride insists on telling her lover everything, I suspect she is looking for a father, not a husband.”
Source: Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage
“When a broken heart heals, it becomes stronger than anything in the world.”
“When a broken tank is filled with water, It certainly will leak on every side. Weak men who grow rich Seldom leave an inheritance.”
“When a bud breaks it becomes a flower, when a heart breaks it becomes divine.”
“When a bud opens up,
Let her bloom
And let her show you how
She made it through the storm.”
Source: Where Written Words Remain: Route to My Soul
“When a buddha is painted, not only a clay altar or lump of earth is used, but the thirty-two marks, a blade of grass, and the cultivation of wisdom for incalculable eons are used. As a Buddha has been painted on a single scroll in this way, all buddhas are painted buddhas, and all painted buddhas are actual buddhas.”
“When a builder builds he clears the ground for his new foundations. Then he sees that the basic structure will support the whole. Should we not also clear the mind - at least that part of it that we can reach - of the ruins of past thinking, before building our palace of dharma which will one day reach the sky.”
“When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it.”
“When a building is as good as that one, f#*@ the art.”
“When a building is so complete within itself, I always think, "Why do I even have to go inside it?" I would love to do architecture that people can have a free hand in the making of it. We've done spaces where things are hinged and they can go out or in, but that's not freedom. That's supermarket freedom, or the notion that you can have anything you want as long as the supermarket carries it. We would love to do a space where you go inside and there's nothing there. You might have a seat and when you don't need it anymore you get up and it disappears.”
“When a bull is being lead to the slaughter, it still hopes to break loose and trample its butchers. Other bulls have not been able to pass on the knowledge that this never happens and that from the slaughterhouse there is no way back to the herd. But in human society there is a continuous exchange of experience. I have never heard of a man who broke away and fled while being led to his execution. It is even thought to be a special form of courage if a man about to be executed refuses to be blindfolded and dies with his eyes open. But I would rather have the bull with his blind rage, the stubborn beast who doesn't weigh his chances of survival with the prudent dull-wittedness of man, and doesn't know the despicable feeling of despair.”
“When a bullet leaves the barrel, it kills two
people—the target and the shooter. One’s body, the other’s conscience.”
Source: Diamonds and Stones: An Unlikely Story
“When a bully is held accountable for his actions, his future actions will change. Bad behavior only continues for those who allow it.”