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Ordinary Quotes

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Ordinary Quotes

“Iraq was only the latest in a succession of countries. Earlier, there was Cuba, Nicaragua, Libya, Granada, Panama. But this time it wasn't just your ordinary brand of friendly neighborhood frenzy. It was frenzy with a purpose. It ushered in an old doctrine in a new bottle: the doctrine of preemptive strike, also known as the United States can do whatever the hell it wants, and that's official. The war against Iraq has been fought and won, and no weapons of mass destruction have been found, not even a little one.”

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Author:Arundhati Roy
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“I started as a community organizer. Every one of my campaigns was premised on getting new people involved. And if there's a theme in my public career it's that if ordinary people get involved then good things happen. So I want to see the Democratic Party move in that direction. And what that means is that we aren't just micro-targeting to eke out presidential victories; it means that we're showing up in places where right now we're not winning a lot.”

PeopleIfsWantMeanHappensMovingWinningCommunityPartyCareersVictoryInvolvedRight NowOrdinaryGood ThingsDemocraticCampaignsThings HappenPresidentialThemeOrdinary PeopleGet InvolvedDemocratic PartyShowing UpOrganizer
Author:Barack Obama
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“To travel a circle is to journey over the same ground time and time again. To travel a circle wisely is to journey over the same ground for the first time. In this way, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the circle, a path to where you wish to be. And when you notice at last that the path has circled back into itself, you realize that where you wish to be is where you have already been ... and always were.”

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Author:Neale Donald Walsch
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“We have these earthly bodies. We don't know what they want. Half the time, we pretend they are under our mental thumb, but that is the illusion of the healthy and the protected. Of sedate lovers. For the body has emotions it conceives and carries through without concern for anyone or anything else. Love is one of those, I guess. Going back to something very old knit into the brain as we were growing. Hopeless. Scorching. Ordinary.”

KnowsWantBodyLove IsEmotionBrainHalfGrowingLoversHealthyOrdinaryIllusionConcernCarrieHopelessProtectedThumbsScorching
Author:Louise Erdrich
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“Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous. I want to be a writer who reminds others that these moments exist; I want to prove that there is infinite space, infinite meaning, infinite dimension. But I am not always in what I call a state of grace. I have days of illuminations and fevers. I have days when the music in my head stops. Then I mend socks, prune trees, can fruits, polish furniture. But while I am doing this I feel I am not living.”

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Author:Anais Nin
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“A bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. "You want to be careful with those," Ron warned Harry. "When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor - you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a booger-flavored one once." Ron picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully, and bit into a corner. "Bleaaargh - see? Sprouts.”

KnowsWantMeanBitsOrdinaryGreenCarefulCornersBagsChocolateBe CarefulFlavorCandyBeansLiverSproutsSpinachPeppermintBoogersMarmaladeGreen BeansTripe
Author:J. K. Rowling
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“What I bring to the interview is respect. The person recognizes that you respect them because you're listening. Because you're listening, they feel good about talking to you. When someone tells me a thing that happened, what do I feel inside? I want to get the story out. It's for the person who reads it to have the feeling . . . In most cases the person I encounter is not a celebrity; rather the ordinary person. "Ordinary" is a word I loathe. It has a patronizing air. I have come across ordinary people who have done extraordinary things. (p. 176)”

PeopleWantFeelsPersonsDoneStoriesFeelingsTalkingCasesHappenedAirListeningOrdinaryExtraordinaryFeel GoodInterviewsEncountersOrdinary PeopleLoatheExtraordinary ThingsOrdinary PersonPatronizing
Author:Studs Terkel
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“I’m not at peace anymore. I just want him like I used to in the old days. I want to be eating sandwiches with him. I want to be drinking with him in a bar. I’m tired and I don’t want anymore pain. I want Maurice. I want ordinary corrupt human love. Dear God, you know I want to want Your pain, but I don’t want it now. Take it away for a while and give it me another time.”

KnowsWantGivingHumansPainUsedEatingOrdinaryTiredDrinkingDearBarsSandwichesOld DaysI'm TiredWant HimDear GodAnother TimeHuman Love
Author:Graham Greene
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“Solitude, I reflected, is the one deep necessity of the human spirit to which adequate recognition is never given in our codes. It is looked upon as a discipline or penance, but hardly ever as the indispensable, pleasant ingredient it is to ordinary life, and from this want of recognition come half our domestic troubles.”

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Author:Freya Stark
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“We want to see a struggle. We want to see people falling over but getting themselves back up on their feet, and that's what's extraordinary- ordinary people and their struggle. There's nothing as interesting as real life out your window. You walk down the street for half an hour, I'll give you half an hour of drama.”

PeopleWantGivingRealFallHoursWalksInterestingHalfStruggleFeetStreetsDramaOrdinaryWindowExtraordinaryReal LifeOrdinary People
Author:Ricky Gervais
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“What did you put in the fire?" Kaladin said. "To make that special smoke?" "Nothing. It was just and ordinary fire." "But, I saw-" "What you saw belongs to you. A story doesn't live until it is imagined in someone's mind." "What does the story mean, then?" "It means what you want it to mean," Hoid said. "The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think , but to give you questions to think upon. Too often, we forget that.”

ThinkingWantGivingMindMeanDoeSaidStoriesPurposeForgetFireSawsSpecialOrdinaryWhat You WantSmokeStoryteller
Book:Brandon Sanderson's Fantasy Firsts: (The Way of Kings, Mistborn: The Final Empire, Rithmatist, Alcatraz vs. The Evil Librarians)
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“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.”

KnowsWantShouldFeelingsHateGirlSoundVoiceDogCryOrdinarySurfaceGladIceNecksSugarThickCharmingScratchesMaidensSwansLashesPlumsStray Dogs
Book:Chime
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“The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. We forget about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we had to give up in order to get this far.”

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Book:The Alchemist - 10th Anniversary Edition
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“Marriage: If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently. You shield it and protect it. You never abuse it. You don't expose it to the elements. You don't make it common or ordinary. If it ever becomes tarnished, you lovingly polish it until it gleams like new. It becomes special because you have made it so, and it grows more beautiful and precious as time goes by.”

IfsWantLoveMadeLastsBeautifulGrowsCommonFamilyMarriageForeverGrowingSpecialProtectElementsOrdinaryTreatsAbuseMade ItWant SomethingPolishShieldsHusband And WifeMarriage AdviceGleamLove And MarriagePositive MarriageMormonismInspirational MarriageTime Goes ByEternal Marriage
Author:F. Burton Howard
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“Is it not possible to look beyond the canes, the wheelchairs, the braces, and the crutches into the hearts of the people who have need of these aids? They are human beings and want only to be treated as ordinary people. They may appear different, move awkwardly, and speak haltingly, but they have the same feelings. ... They want to be loved for what they are inside, without any prejudice for their impairment. Can there not be more tolerance for differences-differences in capacity, differences in body and in mind?”

PeopleWantNeedsMindHumansLooksHeartMayDifferentFeelingsBodyInspirationMovingSpeakSocialDifferencesHuman BeingsOrdinaryCapacityPrejudiceAidsToleranceTreatedOrdinary PeopleCrutchesWheelchairsBraces
Author:James E. Faust
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“Now most people do not want an ordinary life in which they do a job well, earn the respect of their collaborators and competitors, bring up a family and have friends. That's not enough any more, and I think that is absolutely tragic - and I'm not exaggerating - that people feel like a decent, ordinary, fun life is no longer enough.”

PeopleThinkingWantFeelsWellsEnoughJobsLife IsFunOrdinaryDecentTragicCompetitorsOrdinary LifeCollaboratorsExaggeratingFun Life
Author:John Cleese
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“But the World being once fram'd, and the course of Nature establish'd, the Naturalist, (except in some few cases, where God, or Incorporeal Agents interpose), has recourse to the first Cause but for its general and ordinary Support and Influence, whereby it preserves Matter and Motion from Annihilation or Desition; and in explicating particular phenomena, considers onely the Size, Shape, Motion, (or want of it) Texture, and the resulting Qualities and Attributes of the small particles of Matter.”

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Book:Boyle on Atheism
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“The ordinary patient goes to his doctor because he is in pain or some other discomfort and wants to be comfortable again; he is not in pursuit of the ideal of health in any direct sense. The doctor on the other hand wants to discover the pathological condition and control it if he can. The two are thus to some degree at cross purposes from the first, and unless the affair is brought to an early and happy conclusion this diversion of aims is likely to become more and more serious as the case goes on.”

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Author:Wilfred Trotter
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“All I try to do is portray Indians as we are, in creative ways. With imagination and poetry. I think a lot of Native American literature is stuck in one idea: sort of spiritual, environmentalist Indians. And I want to portray everyday lives. I think by doing that, by portraying the ordinary lives of Indians, perhaps people learn something new.”

PeopleThinkingWayWantTryingIdeasSpiritualLiteratureImaginationCreativeOrdinaryEverydayStuckIndianNativeSomething NewNative AmericanEveryday LifeOrdinary LifeAmerican IndianEnvironmentalistAmerican LiteraturePortrayingSpiritual Indian
Author:Sherman Alexie
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