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Commonplace Quotes

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Commonplace Quotes

“My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built. Life is commonplace; the papers are sterile; audacity and romance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world. Can you ask me, then, whether I am ready to look into any new problem, however trivial it may prove?”

LifeRomanceCriminalsBoredomCommonplaceAudacitySherlock HolmesEngineSterile
Book:The Complete Sherlock Holmes: Volume II
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“I'm sorry." "Sorry? For what?" He straightened and moved a bit closer, sounding honestly puzzled. "I am not much of a conversationalist, I'm afraid. I am not used to - to any of this. You must find this terribly..." "Terribly what?" "Boring." She faced him squarely then, for she refused to shy away from difficulties. He let out a short bark of laughter. "Boring? My dear Miss Bainbridge, boring is definitely something you are not." "I don't know how you can say that," she retorted somewhat crossly. "There is really no need for you to be polite. I haven't said any of the things I should. I have been blunt and no doubt impolite. I have never danced before with any man I haven't known since I could toddle. And now I cannot even come up with the most commonplace remark." His chuckle was low and warm [...]. "Oh, you know what I mean." Really the man was maddening. "You shouldn't laugh at someone who is admitting their grievous social ineptitude." "What else should I do?" His teeth glinted in the darkness. "Let me assure you that I have danced with a great many girls whom I have not known since childhood. And I have heard a great many commonplace remarks. It is, quite frankly, a relief to enjoy the quiet and cool of the garden without hearing that the weather is quite nice this evening or that the breeze is most refreshing or that the party is so enjoyable.”

PartyConversationWeatherCommonplaceTalkConversationalistSocial IneptitudeSocial Inadequacy
Book:A Winter Scandal
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“It's possible, in a poem or a short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things-- a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring-- with immense, even startling power. It is possible to write a line of seemingly innocuous dialogue and have it send a chill along the reader's spine-- the source of artistic delight, as Nabokov would have it. That's the kind of writing that most interests me.”

WritingCommonplaceOn Writing1983
Author:Raymond Carver
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“In a modern world, increasingly filled with pop culture fads and gimmicks, Lisa Morton reveals much of the underbelly history and unknown facts regarding the biggest pop culture event in history-Halloween. Her sheer delight and well-researched enthusiasm in tackling many of the unrecognized aspects of this monstrous topic makes one wonder what we don't know about everything else that should be as commonplace to our psyche as a bag of candy.”

KnowsWorldShouldWellsFactsCultureWonderModernEventsAspectFilledDelightPopsEnthusiasmBagsSheerHalloweenTopicsCandyModern WorldPop CultureCommonplaceMonstrousFadsGimmicksTacklingEvents In History
Author:Del Howison
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“Book love is something like romantic love. When we are reading a really great book, burdens feel lighter, cares seem smaller, and commonplaces are suddenly delightful. You become your best optimistic self. Like romantic love, book love fills you with a certain warmth and completeness. The world holds promise.”

WorldFeelsBookSelfSeemsCareCertainReadingLove IsPromiseBurdenOptimisticWarmthRomantic LoveReally GreatDelightfulCommonplaceLightersGreat BookCompletenessBook Love
Book:The Little Guide to Your Well-read Life
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“I've never recognized 'emo' as a genre of music. I always thought it was the most retarded term ever. I know there is this generic commonplace that every band that gets labeled with that term hates it. They feel scandalized by it. But honestly, I just thought that all the bands I played in were punk rock bands. The reason I think it's so stupid is that - what, like the Bad Brains weren't emotional? What - they were robots or something? It just doesn't make any sense to me.”

ThinkingKnowsFeelsReasonHateTermBrainRocksStupidEmotionalBandHonestlyGenrePunkRobotsCommonplacePunk RockRock BandsRetardedGenericEmoGenres Of Music
Author:Guy Picciotto
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“[I]t is necessary to insist upon this extraordinary but undeniable fact: experimental science has progressed thanks in great part to the work of men astoundingly mediocre, and even less than mediocre. That is to say, modern science, the root and symbol of our actual civilization, finds a place for the intellectually commonplace man and allows him to work therein with success.”

MenFactsModernCivilizationRootsExtraordinaryThanksSymbolsMediocreCommonplaceModern ScienceExperimental Science
Book:the Revolt of the Masses
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“The nineteenth century, utilitarian throughout, set up a utilitarian interpretation of the phenomenon of life which has come down to us and may still be considered as the commonplace of everyday thinking. ... An innate blindness seems to have closed the eyes of this epoch to all but those facts which show life as a phenomenon of utility”

ThinkingMayStillsFactsShowsSeemsEyeCenturyEverydayInterpretationPhenomenonBlindnessInnateUtilityCommonplaceNineteenth CenturyEpochUtilitarian
Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
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“If mankind were all intellect, they would be continually changing, so that one age would be entirely unlike another. The great conservative is the heart, which remains the same in all ages; so that commonplaces of a thousand years' standing are as effective as ever.”

IfsYearsHeartWould BeAgeMankindThousandStandingRemainsConservativeIntellectThousand YearsCommonplaceGreat Conservative
Book:Passages from the English Note-books of Nathaniel Hawthorne
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“A Wise man knows that much of what he says and does is commonplace and trivial. His thoughts are not all solemn and sacred in his own eyes. He is able to laugh at himself and is not offended when others make him a subject whereon to exercise their wit.”

KnowsMenDoeEyeAbleLaughingWiseSubjectsExerciseSacredWitOffendedSolemnCommonplace
Book:Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion
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“My curiosity was in no way cruel. Deviations from the commonplace attracted me strongly, as they still do; and to me the hermaphrodite and the living skeleton were interesting for the same reason as was Creatore, or the resplendent Guardsmen of the bands - because such people did not often come my way, and I hoped that they might impart some great revelation to me, some insight which would help me to a clearer understanding of the world about me.”

PeopleWorldWayStillsReasonHelpingMightUnderstandingInterestingBandCuriosityInsightMy WayRevelationsHelp MeCommonplaceImpartSkeletonsDeviationHermaphrodites
Author:Robertson Davies
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“Usually when I drank too much, I could guess why I did so, the objective being to murder a state of consciousness that I didn't have the courage to sustain--a fear of heights, which sometimes during the carnival of the 1960s accompanied my attempts to transform the bourgeois journalist into an avant-garde novelist. The stepped-up ambition was a commonplace among the would-be William Faulkners of my generation; nearly always it resulted in commercial failure and literary embarrassment.”

SometimesStatesWould BeConsciousnessToo MuchGenerationsAmbitionMurderObjectivesJournalistNovelistsHeight1960sEmbarrassmentDrankCommonplaceBourgeoisMy GenerationAvant GardeStates Of ConsciousnessCarnivals
Author:Lewis H. Lapham
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“The acceptance of ambiguity implies more than the commonplace understanding that some good things and some bad things happen to us. It means that we know that good and evil are inextricably intermixed in human affairs; that they contain, and sometimes embrace, their opposites; that success may involve failure of a different kind, and failure may be a kind of triumph.”

KnowsHumansKindMayMeanDifferentSometimesHappensEvilUnderstandingAcceptanceFailureOppositesEmbraceGood ThingsAffairThings HappenTriumphGood And EvilBad ThingsDifferent KindsAmbiguityCommonplaceBad Things Happen
Book:Clearing the ground
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“Science fiction that's just about people wandering around in space ships shooting each other with ray guns is very dull. I like it when it enables you to do fairly radical reinterpretations of human experience, just to show all the different interpretations that can be put on apparently fairly simple and commonplace events. That I find fun.”

PeopleHumansDifferentShowsFunSimpleSpaceFictionEventsGunScience FictionShipsWanderRadicalShootingDullInterpretationRaysHuman ExperienceCommonplaceWandering AroundDifferent InterpretationsReinterpretation
Author:Douglas Adams
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