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Clerks Quotes

Browse 174 quotes about Clerks.

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Clerks Quotes

“The Landlord is a gentleman who does not earn his wealth. He has a host of agents and clerks that receive for him. He does not even take the trouble to spend his wealth. He has a host of people around him to do the actual spending. He never sees it until he comes to enjoy it. His sole function, his chief pride, is the stately consumption of wealth produced by others.”

PeopleDoeEnjoyWealthTroublePrideFunctionSpendingAgentsChiefsGentlemanHostSoleConsumptionClerksLandlord
Author:David Lloyd
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“On the evening bus, the tense, pinched faces of young file clerks and elderly secretaries tell us more than we care to know. On the expressways, middle management men pose without grace behind their wheels as they flee city and job.”

KnowsMenCareJobsFacesYoungCitiesBehindsGraceMiddleManagementEveningWheelsBusSecretaryElderlyFilesTenseClerksMiddle Management
Book:The Studs Terkel Reader: My American Century
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“Nature is located mainly in national parks, which are vast tracts of wilderness that have been set aside by the United States government so citizens will always have someplace to go where they can be attacked by bears. And we're not talking about ordinary civilian bears, either: We're talking about federal bears, which can behave however they want to because they are protected by the same union as postal clerks.”

WantHas BeensStatesGovernmentUnitedTalkingUnited StatesBearsCitizensOrdinaryUnionsBehaveParksWildernessProtectedCiviliansNot TalkingState GovernmentClerksNational ParksUnited States Government
Book:Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need
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“But God has the most fun with artists and writers: he inflames them with the desire to rival his own creations, then douses their overheated ambitions with a cold spray from the garden hose of reality. If they persist, he slams them to the ground and tweaks them on the proboscis for good measure. A fortunate few break free and prosper; the others lament the day they didn't become bank clerks.”

IfsRealityDesireArtistFunBreakCreationColdAmbitionGardenFortunatePersistRivalsSlamSprayLamentClerksTweakArtists And Writers
Author:Rick Bayan
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“Public opinion takes no offense at the endeavors of farmers, workers, clerks, teachers, doctors, ministers, and people from many other callings to earn as much as they can. But it censures the capitalists and entrepreneurs for their greed.”

PeopleOpinionTeacherCallingDoctorsEntrepreneurWorkersGreedMinistersEndeavorFarmersCapitalistOffensePublic OpinionClerksCensure
Book:Planning for freedom, and sixteen other essays and addresses
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“The confidentiality of the judicial process would not matter greatly to an understanding and evaluation of the legal system if the consequences of judicial behavior could be readily determined. If you can determine the ripeness of a cantaloupe by squeezing or smelling it, you don't have to worry about the produce clerk's mental processes.”

IfsMatterProcessUnderstandingWorryProduceBehaviorConsequenceDetermineDeterminedJudicialEvaluationClerksLegal SystemSqueezingRipenessConfidentiality
Author:Richard Posner
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“With Congress and the S.E.C. so heavily peopled by lawyers, and with lawyers having been so heavily involved in drafting financial disclosure documents now seen as bogus, there was a new "lawyer" joke every week. One such was: "The butcher says 'the reputation of lawyers has fallen dramatically', and the check-out clerk replies: "How do you fall dramatically off a pancake?”

FallWeekInvolvedJokesFinancialCongressLawyerChecksReputationFallenDocumentsButchersClerksDisclosurePancakesDrafting
Author:Charlie Munger
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“[The artist's aim is] not to instruct the viewer, but to give him information... . The artist would follow his predetermined premise to its conclusion, avoiding subjectivity. Chance, taste, or unconsciously remembered forms would play no part in the outcome. The serial artist does not attempt to produce a beautiful or mysterious object but functions merely as a clerk cataloguing the results of his premise.”

GivingDoePlayBeautifulFormArtistChanceResultsInformationObjectsProduceTasteFunctionAimConclusionMysteriousRememberedOutcomesAvoidingViewersPremisesSubjectivitySerialsClerksPredetermined
Author:Sol LeWitt
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“I had a lot of jobs, because I wanted to be an actor, and I had this bad habit of wanting to eat regularly. So, I had to make some money somewhere. I was everything from a stock worker in an Alexander's department store to flower delivery person to a messenger to a grocery clerk to a gas station attendant. I even worked in Macy's dusting off fur coats for two weeks.”

PersonsTwoWantedJobsActorsWeekFlowerHabitWorkersStoresDepartmentGasStationsCoatsTwo WeeksGroceriesFurDeliveryBad HabitsMessengersClerksGas StationsDepartment StoresFur CoatsMacy's
Author:Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs
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“Very interesting show. It's "Hotel" with the E missing. Hot L Baltimore. It was about a rundown hotel which had become kind of a residential not quite welfare but almost welfare hotel with a very bizarre collection of people.The desk clerk was played by Jamie Cromwell. That was his first big thing. Conchata Ferrell played April, the main of the two prostitutes, and my character didn't exist in the [stage] show.”

PeopleFirstsKindTwoCharacterShowsBigsInterestingStageMissingHotWelfareCollectionsHotelDesksBizarreBig ThingsVery InterestingAprilClerksBaltimoreJamieCromwell
Author:Richard Masur
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“Louis Brandeis beloved uncle, Lewis Dembitz, was an ardent abolitionist. His mother was an abolitionist in Kentucky at a time when Brandeis remembered hearing the shot from the confederate soldiers after the second battle of Bull Run. Amazing to think that he heard that and I studied with one of his last law clerks in college. And that encapsulates almost all of American history.”

ThinkingRunningLastsLawMotherHeardCollegeBattleShotsSoldierHearingRememberedBelovedAmerican HistoryUnclesBullsArdentClerksKentuckyConfederateAbolitionistLouis Brandeis
Author:Jeffrey Rosen
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“The prison-industrial complex employs millions of people directly and indirectly. Judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, prison guards, construction companies that build prisons, police, probation officers, court clerks, the list goes on and on. Many predominately white rural communities have come to believe that their local economies depend on prisons for jobs.”

PeopleBelieveJobsCommunityWhiteCompanyMillionsEconomyJudgingGoes OnDependsPoliceCourtPrisonComplexesDefenseListsLocalsOfficersConstructionAttorneyClerksProsecutorProbationRural CommunitiesDefense AttorneysPrison GuardsConstruction Company
Author:Michelle Alexander
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“There's a part of me that is angry. Not in the sense of, "Gee, George is an angry guy!" I mean, anyone who's been with me five minutes, five years, whatever, they would tell you they've rarely seen me in a moment of anger. Yes, I can become highly irritated in a line that's moving slowly, or with a clerk who's incompetent. But I don't yell. I don't get rude. I am clear about what I expect. In a store, my mother always told me, "Ask for the manager immediately. It changes the tone of the conversation."”

MeanMomentsMovingMotherGuyRudeIrritatedClerks
Author:George Carlin
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“People don't know where to place me. Terry Gilliam used me as a quirky cop in 'Twelve Monkeys', and then he hired me again to be an effeminate hotel clerk in 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'. Another time, I was shooting this indie film 'The Souler Opposite' and six days a week, I'm playing this big puppy dog, then I come to the 'NYPD Blue' set and become this scumbag.”

PeopleKnowsBigsFilmUsedWeekDogSixOppositesBlueShootingHotelTwelveCopMonkeysVegasLas VegasPuppyLoathingQuirkyClerksAnother TimePuppy DogFear And LoathingIndie FilmsScumbagsNypd
Author:Christopher Meloni
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“My parents were working class folks. My dad was a bartender for most of his life, my mom was a maid and a cashier and a stock clerk at WalMart. We were not people of financial means in terms of significant financial means. I always told them, 'I didn't always have what I wanted. I always had what I needed.' My parents always provided that.”

PeopleMeanWantedMotherParentTermClassMomNeededDadMy DadFinancialFolksMy MomSignificantWorking ClassMaidsClerksBartenderWalmartCashiers
Author:Marco Rubio
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“It was amazing to me then, and still is, that so many people who wander into bookshops don't really know what they're after--they only want to look around and hope to see a book that will strike their fancy. And then, being bright enough not to trust the publisher's blurb, they will ask the book clerk the three questions: (1) What is it about? (2) Have you read it? (3) Was it any good?”

PeopleKnowsWantLooksStillsBookEnoughThreeAsksStrikesWanderFancyPublishersClerksBookshops
Author:Mary Ann Shaffer
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“I like to change liquor stores frequently because the clerks got to know your habits if you went in night and day and bought huge quantities. I could feel them wondering why I wasn't dead yet and it made me uncomfortable. They probably weren't thinking any such thing, but then a man gets paranoid when he has 300 hangovers a year.”

IfsThinkingKnowsMenFeelsYearsMadeNightWonderHugeHabitDrinkingStoresUncomfortableQuantityLiquorParanoidHangoverClerksLiquor Stores
Author:Charles Bukowski
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“Olive's private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as "big bursts" and "little bursts." Big bursts are things like marriage or children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee's, let's say, or the waitress at Dunkin' Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really.”

ThinkingKnowsNeedsWellsChildrenLittlesBigsViewsKnow HowDangerousDependsCurrentsCoffeeIntimacyFriendlyUnseenTrickyOlivesClerksWaitressDonutsDunkin Donuts
Book:Olive Kitteridge
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“At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others -- poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner -- young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.”

SometimesMomentsYoungNightFeltWaitingPoorFrontsLonelinessWindowDinnerRestaurantsTwilightSolitaryHauntingDuskEnchantedClerksPoignantMetropolitan
Book:The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works
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“Pass by the synthetic yarn department, then, with your nose in the air. Should a clerk come out with the remark that All Young Mothers In This Day and Age (why can't they save their breath and say "now"?) insist on a yarn which can be machine-washed and machine-dried, come back at her with the reply that one day, you suppose, they will develop a baby that can be machine-washed and -dried.”

ShouldAgeYoungMotherAirBabyOne DayMachinesBreathsNosesDepartmentThis DayRemarksClerksKnittingSyntheticYarnYoung Mother
Book:Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac: The Commemorative Edition
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“In the high school classroom you are a drill sergent, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low-level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counselor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a politician, a therapist, a fool, a traffic cop, a priest, a mother-father-brother-sister-uncle-aunt, a bookeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw.”

SchoolLastsMotherFatherLevelsCryBrotherFoolPoliticianLowsHigh SchoolDressesCriticsPhilosopherSingersShouldersCodeDancerPriestsClassroomScholarCopTrafficUnclesClownAuntPsychologistTherapistsStrawsConductorDrillsClerksCounselorCollaboratorsRabbiRefereeLow LevelBrother SisterDress CodeTap DancersShoulder To Cry On
Book:Teacher Man: A Memoir
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