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Ordinary Quotes

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Ordinary Quotes

“This sounds an extraordinary statement to make, but in fact all truth is very ordinary.”

Facts Sound Truth Is Ordinary Extraordinary Statements

Author:Brian Perkins

“It's not that you get a cliché and then wiggle it about or use synonyms. You don't take an ordinary decorative paragraph and give it style. What you're trying to do is be faithful to your perceptions and transmit them as faithfully as you can. I say these sentences until they sound right. There's no objective reason why they're right. They just sound right to me.”

Giving Writing Trying Reason Use Sound Style Perception Ordinary Sentences Objectives Reason Why Faithful Paragraph Transmit Being Faithful Synonym

Author:Martin Amis

“The psychical condition of men's minds may be compared with a set of bells close together, and so arranged that in the ordinary man a bell rings only when one beside it sounds, and the vibration lasts only a moment. In the genius, when a bell sounds it vibrates so strongly that it sets in action the whole series, and remains in action throughout life. The latter kind of movement often gives rise to extraordinary conditions and absurd impulses, that may last for weeks together and that form the basis of the supposed kinship of genius with insanity.”

“I want here to make three suggestions: first, that the doubts the ordinary man feels about religion are justified, and need not be stifled or concealed; second, that there is no ground for the view that Christianity is the only alternative to communism, or that there can be no sound character training that is not based on religion; and, third, I want to make some practical suggestions to the parents who are not believers, on what they should tell the children about God, and what sort of moral training they should give them.”

“Success in business does not depend upon genius. Any young man of ordinary intelligence who is normally sound and not afraid to work should succeed in spite of obstacles and handicaps if he plays the game fairly and keeps everlastingly at it.”

Ifs Men Should Doe Play Success Young Games Sound Depends Genius Succeed Ordinary Obstacles Young Man Spite Not Afraid Business Success Handicaps

Author:James Cash Penney

“Big money buys access in Washington, and access purchases influence. It is as simple as that. And they have basically given a green light, a further green light, after Citizens United, to the biggest money to have the bigger voice in our politics, and to sound out and drown out the voice of just ordinary citizens.”

Bigs Light Given Sound Voice Simple United Influence Citizens Ordinary Bigger Green Access Ordinary Citizens Green Lights Citizens United

Author:Mark Shields

“I just want to sleep and exercise and travel for fun. And relax. It sounds so ordinary, but I haven't done it for 20 years.”

Want Years Done Fun Sound Sleep Havens Exercise Ordinary Relax Want To Sleep

Author:Hillary Clinton

“Our common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connexions they have found worth marketing, in the lifetimes of many generation; these surely are likely to be more numerous, more sound, since they have stood up to the long test of thee survival of the fittest, and more subtle, at least in all ordinary and reasonably practical matters, than any that you or I are likely to think up in our arm-chairs of an afternoon-the most favoured alternative method.”

“When Ke$ha tries to rap like L'Trimm, she sounds like any ordinary lonely teenage girl stuck in a nowhere town, singing along to her radio and dreaming of a party where she's the star. Ke$ha's greatness is that in her voice, you can hear both the loser girl and the star. All hail the Queen of Noi$e!”

Trying Dream Girl Stars Sound Voice Party Greatness Singing Ordinary Lonely Towns Radio Rap Stuck Queens Loser Teenage Hail Teenage Girl

Author:Rob Sheffield

“He wondered vaguely whether in the abolished past it had been a normal experience to lie in bed like this, in the cool of a summer evening, a man and a woman with no clothes on, making love when they chose, talking of what they chose, not feeling any compulsion to get up, simply lying there and listening to peaceful sounds outside. Surely there could never have been a time when that seemed ordinary?”

Men Has Beens Feelings Past Lying Sound Talking Listening Bed Normal Summer Clothes Ordinary Get Up Peaceful Evening Making Love Compulsion Summer Evening

Book:Animal Farm and 1984

Source: Animal Farm and 1984

“Theologians in all the great faiths have devised all kinds of myths to show that this type of kenosis, of self-emptying, is found in the life of God itself. They do not do this because it sounds edifying, but because this is the way that human nature seems to work. We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind.”

Way Humans Kind Self Shows Seems Found Sound Behinds Creative Human Nature Possibility Type Ordinary Myth All Kinds Theologian Great Faith

Book:The Spiral Staircase

Source: The Spiral Staircase

“The reader's ear must adjust down from loud life to the subtle, imaginary sounds of the written word. An ordinary reader picking up a book can't yet hear a thing; it will take half an hour to pick up the writing's modulations, its ups and downs and louds and softs.”

Writing Book Sound Hours Half Written Reader Ordinary Picks Ears Loud Subtle Imaginary Ups & Downs Written Word

Author:Annie Dillard

“I should hate to be a regular girl with a sugar-plum voice. I should hate to have swan-like lashes, and a thick, sooty neck. I sound as though I’m joking, I know, but I should truly hate to be like Leanne, so charming and ordinary and stuffed with clichéd feelings. I’m glad I’m the ice maiden. Who wants to be crying over every stray dog? Not I. Scratch my surface and what do you see? More surface.”

Knows Want Should Feelings Hate Girl Sound Voice Dog Cry Ordinary Surface Glad Ice Necks Sugar Thick Charming Scratches Maidens Swans Lashes Plums Stray Dogs

Book:Chime

Source: Chime

“Don't make it sound like that. Like some ordinary sort of grief. It's not like that. They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite. Over. This is a fresh wound every day.”

Sound Grief Source Ordinary Wounds Heal Finite Time Heals Time Heals All Time Heals All Wounds

Book:The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess

Source: The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess

“Certainly being proficient in an instrument does have its problems. Because the better you get, the more you just start sounding like an ordinary guitarist. There are certainly guitarists that transcend that and do really find their sound and all that sort of stuff.”

Doe Problem Stuff Sound Ordinary Instruments Guitarist

Author:Nick Cave

“... In contrast to the "banality of evil," which posits that ordinary people can be responsible for the most despicable acts of cruelty and degradation of their fellows, I posit the "banality of heroism," which unfurls the banner of the heroic Everyman and Everywoman who heed the call to service to humanity when their time comes to act. When that bell rings, they will know that it rings for them. It sounds a call to uphold what is best in human nature that rises above the powerful pressures of Situation and System as the profound assertion of human dignity opposing evil.”