W Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“When he takes me in his arms, and speaks to me softly, I see the world through rose-colored glasses.”
“When he takes the knife to the canvass the servants find him lying dead with a knife through is heart and "withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage." and the portrait "in all the wonders of his exquisite youth and beauty." p 349”
“When he talked his eyes went away from mine and then he forced himself to look straight at me and he began to explain and I knew that he felt very strange with me and that he hated me, and it was funny sitting there and talking like that, knowing he hated me.”
“When he talked to you, you seemed to fit in, but when someone else was talking, or he would be distracted, you jsut looked lonely over there. At least to me. But whenever I would tell you that, you'd say "I'm fine. I just slip out of it, you know?" And I'd say "I'll catch you," and you would say, "It's not the kind of slipping you can catch.”
“When he talks about life under the Khmer Rouge, he uses phrases very unlike him—“true hell,” “more than insane,” “below zero.”
“When he tells us about his Father, we distrust him. When he shows us his Home, we turn away, but when he confides to us that he is acquainted with grief, we listen, for that also is an acquaintance of our own.”
Source: The Letters of Emily Dickinson
“When He tells us to love our enemies He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”
Source: The Hiding Place
“When he thought of her, it rather amazed him, that he had let that girl with her violin go. Now, of course, he saw that her self-effacing proposal was quite irrelevant. All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them. Love and patience- if only he had had them both at once- would surely have seen them both through.”
“When he thought of his history, what resonated with him now was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him.”
Source: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
“When he[Thresh] shouts, I jump, never having heard him speak above a mutter. "What'd you do to that little girl? You kill her?"
Clove is scrambling backwards on all fours, like a frantic insect, too shocked to even call for Cato. "No! No, it wasn't me!"
"You said her name. I heard you. You kill her?" Another thought brings a fresh wave of rage to his features. "You cut her up like you were about to do to this girl here?"
"No! No, I-" Clove sees the stone, about the size of a small loaf of bread in Thresh's hand and loses it. "Cato!" she screeches. "Cato!"
"Clove!" I hear Cato's answer, but he's too far away, I can tell that much, to do her any good. What was he doing? Trying to get Foxface or Peeta? Or had he been lying in wait for Thresh and just badly misjudged his location?
Thresh brings the rock down hard against Clove's temple. It's not bleeding, but I can see the dent in her skull and I know that she's a goner.”
Source: The Hunger Games
“When he time comes to leave, just walk away quietly and don't make any fuss.”
Source: Banksy: wall and piece
“When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is Metaphysics.”
“When he told F. of his disgust at the eyelid's movement, he must have been sixteen. When he decided to study medicine, he must have been nineteen; by then, having already signed on to the contract to forget, he no longer remembered what he had said to F. three years before. Too bad for him. The memory might have alerted him, might have helped him see that his choice of medicine was wholly theoretical, made without the slightest self- knowledge.
Thus he studied medicine for three years before giving up with a sense of shipwreck. What to choose after those lost years? What to attach to, if his inner self should keep as silent as it had before? He walked down the broad outside staircase of the medical school for the last time, with the feeling that he was about to find himself alone on a platform all the trains had left.”
“When he told me he no longer loved me, I fell to my knees.”
Source: Plum Blossoms in Paris
“When he told me that he would fight forever, I knew that he would have to be defeated.”
Source: The Red Queen
“When he took a bite of his sandwich, the bread seemed to swell up in his mouth. He could hardly swallow it and pushed his plate aside.”
Source: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Books 1-3
“When he took BP everybody would kind of stop what they were doing and watch.”
“When he took out his math notebook an hour later, he found a mass of long purple worms crawling around near the binding and between the pages.
The kids sitting near him saw them and started pointing and screaming.
“Todd,” Mr. Hargrove, the math teacher, said sternly, “I think we saw enough of your worms at the Science Expo. I know you’re attached to them. But do you have to bring them to math class?”
Everyone laughed. Todd could feel his face growing hot.
“Todd’s saving them for lunch!” Danny exclaimed from two rows behind him.”
Everyone laughed even louder.
Thanks a bunch, Danny, Todd thought angrily. He scooped the worms up, carried them to the window, and lowered them to the ground.”
Source: Go Eat Worms!
“When he touches a wall the ooze grows thicker, drawn to his and as if he's become a gravity well for the darkness - and it occurs to me that the dark must be in love with the light. Yet one must always kill the other.”
Source: Challenger Deep
“When he touches me, the sky and the earth switch places.”
Source: This Sky
“When he tries to extend his power over objects, those objects gain control of him. He who is controlled by objects loses possession of his inner self... Prisoners in the world of object, they have no choice but to submit to the demands of matter! They are pressed down and crushed by external forces: fashion, the market, events, public opinion. Never in a whole lifetime do they recover their right mind!... What a pity!”
“When he turned back toward her, he kissed her deeply. "Don't ever doubt that I love you," he said, cupping her chin in his strong hands. "That will never change." Beck's taught body covered hers, alive and vital, charged with desire. And then they became one.”
Source: Foretold
“When he turned from his victim, I would see even blood teeming in him, and I would have given all the world to see him white again, my marble god, my graven Father in our private bed.”
Source: The Vampire Armand
“When he turned he saw Ygritte. She stood beneath the scorched stones of the Lord Commander's Tower, cloaked in darkness and in memory.”
Source: A Dance with Dragons
“When he turned on the tape-transport once more, Arctor was saying, "-- as near as I can figure out, God is dead." Luckman answered, "I didn't know He was sick.”
Source: A Scanner Darkly
“When he turned the handle of the gate, he stood, transfixed, as it opened like the cover of a book onto a scene that seemed too perfect to be real. An effusive garden grew between the flagstone path and the house, foxgloves waving brightly in the breeze, daisies and violets chattering over the edges of the paving stones. The jasmine that covered the garden wall continued its spread across the front of the house, surrounding the multipaned windows to tangle with the voracious red flowers of the honeysuckle creeper as it clambered over the roof of the entry alcove. The garden was alive with insects and birds, which made the house seem still and silent, like a Sleeping Beauty house. Leonard had felt, as he took his first step onto the path, as if he were walking back through time; he could almost see Radcliffe and his friends with their paints and easels set up on the lawn beyond the blackberry bramble...”
Source: The Clockmaker's Daughter
“When he turned to face her, the drawn look on his face was one of absolute agony as if Luce had just ripped his heart out”
Source: The Fallen Series: 4-Book Collection
“When he unleashes on her everything falls together. Like a crick in the neck snapped into place, the boy's brain pops and is put right. It is a beautiful undoing, a beautiful becoming. He doesn't stop to think about it when the punches follow her down to the ground. He doesn't stop to notice when she goes still or when the pool of blood under her head pillows out into a great, liquid heart. He doesn't stop until he's pulled off her and he doesn't start to think again until that night, when he's back at home. For hours and hours his brain stays beautifully popped into place.”
Source: Ruthless
“When he utilizes combined energy, his fighting men become as it were like unto rolling logs or stones. For it is the nature of a log or stone to remain motionless on level ground, and to move when on a slope; if four-cornered, to come to a standstill, but if round-shaped to go rolling down.”
Source: Strategy Six Pack
“When he utilizes combined energy, his fighting men become, as it were, like rolling logs or stones... The energy developed by good fighting men is as the momentum of a round stone rolled down a mountain thousands of feet in height.”
Source: The Art of War
“When he wakes sometimes from dark dreams of broken cradles, and compasses without bearings, he pushes the unease down, lets the daylight contradict it. And isolation lulls him with the music of the lie.”
Source: The Light Between Oceans
“When he walked into Cookie's, everyone shouted, "Happy New Year," and he found a bit of a smile had been hiding somewhere way back in his heart.”
Source: Razzmatazz
“When he walked out into the lots to catch his horse, he felt grown and complete for the first time in his life.”
Source: Lonesome Dove
“When he wanted, he could radiate charm and sincerity, but I often wonder in these later days if anything about him was as it seemed. I think now he was a man fighting constantly to escape the bars of an invisible cage.”
Source: DUNE
“When he was a child, that man wanted to travel, too. But he decided first to buy his bakery and put some money aside. When he's an old man, he's going to spend a month in Africa. He never realized that people are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.”
Source: The Alchemist
“When he was a kid, it used to feel like his parents disappeared when the got drunk. As the levels of their glasses went down, he could sense them pulling away from him, as if they were together on the same boat, slowly pulling away from the shore where Oliver was left stranded, still himself, still boring, sensible Oliver, and he'd think, Please don't go, stay here with me, because his real mother was funny and his real father was smart, but they always went. First his dad got stupid and his mum got giggly, and then his mum got nasty and his dad got angry, and so it went until there was no point staying and Oliver went to watch movies in his bedroom. He'd had his own VCR in his bedroom. He'd had a privileged upbringing, had never wanted for anything.”
Source: Truly Madly Guilty
“When he was a kid, Tasvak had tried to reason, but could not understand why his stepbrothers kept bullying him. But he had realized one thing very early – that nobody was going to protect him, not even his father.”
Source: The Timingila
“When he was a young man he prayed constantly for chastity; but years later he realized that while his lips had been saying 'Oh Lord, make me chaste,' his heart had been secretly adding, 'But please don't do it just yet.”
Source: The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics
“When he was about twelve or thirteen he walked into his parents' bedroom in the half-house on Jackson Road not expecting his father to be there, and the old man was standing in front of his bureau in just socks and an undershirt, innocently fishing in a drawer for his undershorts, that boxer style that always looked sad and dreary to Harry anyway, and here was his father's bare behind, such white buttocks, limp and hairless, mute and helpless flesh that squeezed out shit once a day and otherwise hung there in the world like linen that hadn't been ironed....”
Source: Rabbit is Rich
“when he was afraid to changed he had been holding on to the illusion of Old Cheese that was no longer there”
Source: Who Moved My Cheese?
“When he was alone on the mat in the storeroom that night, closed in and in the dark, he felt a panic cutting through his misery. He sat up in alarm and heaved for air. He was too old for sobbing in the dark, but he could not stop. After what seemed a long time, the nausea eased, and he stretched out on the floor mat and tried to sleep. He remembered his father sitting silent and sullen on the bus, then striding in front of him past the blue mosque. He remembered his look of rage, his last words to him.”
Source: Theft
“When he was born, I looked at my little boy and felt an unconditional love I never knew was inside me. As he grew, and I watched him stagger about, squeak his first words, and turn into a beautiful little boy, that feeling did not change.”
“When he was done adding sloe gin and grenadine, Danny shoved the glass across the counter to Drew. "Try that and tell me what it needs."
Drew took a sip, then coughed and set the glass down. "That's awful."
Danny scowled and tossed a dripping tablespoon at him. "You're awful. I'm looking for constructive feedback, asshole. What does it need?"
Drew threw the tablespoon back. "It needs to be taken out and shot."
"Make your own damn drink, Mr. Mixology.”
Source: The Replacement
“When he was done, he got up. I pulled my dress down. And he said "if you want to go back down to your friends, that's alright.”
Source: Daisy Jones & The Six
“When he was dry, he believed it was alcohol he needed, but when he had a few drinks in him, he knew it was something else, possibly a woman; and when he had it all -- cash, booze, and a wife -- he couldn't be distracted from the great emptiness that was always falling through him and never hit the ground.”
Source: Angels
“When he was fifteen, he started slicing the
bottom of his feet, so he would feel it every time he walked.”
Source: Hideaway
“When he was hidden in shadows, he looked up at the night sky. He had no choice. He pressed his hands against his forehead, trying to think of another possibility. There was none.
He wiped at the hot tears stinging his eyes, then slowly he lifted his arms to the fathomless black sky. He could endure anything if he knew Serena was safe. Anything.
"Father of night and evil, I call you." A primitive vibration trembled in the air. He knew the Atrox was near.
"Allow me to cross over and become your servant again."
A deadly cold throbbed through him with the ancient rhythm of evil.
"I come freely," Stanton added and felt something collapse inside him. "Take me back to the night."
Spears of lightning crackled across the sky and a concussion boomed through the earth, releasing the sulfurous smells of hell. Then a raven-black cloud seeped up from the ground and hovered around him.
Stanton held an image of Serena's face deep inside him as he breathed the icy spirit of the Atrox back into his body. The chill seeped deep inside him, wintry tentacles reaching down to his bones. The Atrox embraced him and welcomed him back to its congregation. Its raw power surged through him and when Stanton opened his eyes, he again ruled the night.
The world around him seemed sharper now, as if he could see in the dark. His pain was gone and in its place he felt a dark joy. He grinned as the wild rapture seized him. This time he was no longer invitus. Evil pulsed through him without guilt or worry, consequence or remorse. He breathed in the feel of it, then leaned back and became a black mist, hissing into the air.”
Source: The Sacrifice
“When he was in college, a famous poet made a useful distinction for him. He had drunk enough in the poet's company to be compelled to describe to him a poem he was thinking of. It would be a monologue of sorts, the self-contemplation of a student on a summer afternoon who is reading Euphues. The poem itself would be a subtle series of euphuisms, translating the heat, the day, the student's concerns, into symmetrical posies; translating even his contempt and boredom with that famously foolish book into a euphuism.
The poet nodded his big head in a sympathetic, rhythmic way as this was explained to him, then told him that there are two kinds of poems. There is the kind you write; there is the kind you talk about in bars. Both kinds have value and both are poems; but it's fatal to confuse them.
In the Seventh Saint, many years later, it had struck him that the difference between himself and Shakespeare wasn't talent - not especially - but nerve. The capacity not to be frightened by his largest and most potent conceptions, to simply (simply!) sit down and execute them. The dreadful lassitude he felt when something really large and multifarious came suddenly clear to him, something Lear-sized yet sonnet-precise. If only they didn't rush on him whole, all at once, massive and perfect, leaving him frightened and nerveless at the prospect of articulating them word by scene by page. He would try to believe they were of the kind told in bars, not the kind to be written, though there was no way to be sure of this except to attempt the writing; he would raise a finger (the novelist in the bar mirror raising the obverse finger) and push forward his change. Wailing like a neglected ghost, the vast notion would beat its wings into the void.
Sometimes it would pursue him for days and years as he fled desperately. Sometimes he would turn to face it, and do battle. Once, twice, he had been victorious, objectively at least. Out of an immense concatenation of feeling, thought, word, transcendent meaning had come his first novel, a slim, pageant of a book, tombstone for his slain conception. A publisher had taken it, gingerly; had slipped it quietly into the deep pool of spring releases, where it sank without a ripple, and where he supposes it lies still, its calm Bodoni gone long since green. A second, just as slim but more lurid, nightmarish even, about imaginary murders in an imaginary exotic locale, had been sold for a movie, though the movie had never been made. He felt guilt for the producer's failure (which perhaps the producer didn't feel), having known the book could not be filmed; he had made a large sum, enough to finance years of this kind of thing, on a book whose first printing was largely returned.”
Source: Novelty: Four Stories
“When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he'd even bothered.”
Source: The Phantom Tollbooth 50th Anniversary Edition
“When he was in the army he'd picked up a great many girls: sometimes nothing happened except a lot of talk, and that was all right too: because it didn't matter what you said to them, for in those transient moments lies or truth were arbitrary and you were whatever you wanted to be.”
Source: Summer Crossing