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Subtle Quotes

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Subtle Quotes

“What? she said once to herself, and then once aloud, What? She felt a total displacement, like a spinning globe brought to a sudden halt by the light touch of a finger. How did she end up here, like this? How could there have been so much - so many moments, so many people and things, so many razors and pillows, timepieces and subtle coffins - without her being aware? How did her life live itself without her?”

PeopleHas BeensSaidEndsMomentsLightFeltFingersSubtleGlobesSpinningPillowHaltCoffinsRazorsDisplacementTimepieces
Book:Everything Is Illuminated
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“The one test of the really weird (story) is simply this--whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost rim.”

IfsStoriesUniverseBlackAttitudeKnownListeningReaderShapesTestsWingsProfoundExcitedContactSubtleSpheresDreadEntityReally WeirdRims
Book:Mythos: The Myths and Tales of H.P. Lovecraft & Robert E. Howard
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“All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.”

IfsMenFeelsHeartTurnsSidesRealizingBornLinesFireSilentRoundsCaughtPhilosopherTerrorBoatEveningMortalsNecksSubtlePerilWhalesYour Side
Book:Moby-Dick: World Classics
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“I feel strangely free at such times. To behave properly is to be always courteous, always clever, and subtle and elegant. But now, when I am so alone, I do not have to be any of these things. For this moment, I am wholly myself, unshaped by the needs of others, by their dreams or expectations or sensibilities. But I am also lonely. With no one to shape me, who stands here, watching the moon, or the stars, or the clouds?”

NeedsFeelsMomentsDreamStarsShapesMoonExpectationsLonelyCloudsCleverBehaveSubtleSensibilityElegantCourteousNeeds Of Others
Book:The Fox Woman
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“...the Female Once-Over - a process by which one woman creates a detailed profile of another woman based upon about a million subtle details of clothing, jewelry, makeup, and body type, and then decides how much of a social threat she might be. Men have a parallel process, but it's binary: Does he have beer? If yes, will he share with me?”

IfsMenDoeBodyMightSocialProcessMillionsShareTypeFemaleThreatDetailsBeerSubtleMakeupClothingsParallelsBe A ManJewelryProfileOne WomanDresdenAnother WomanBinaryBody TypesDresden Files
Author:Jim Butcher
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“Never an illness, nor the absence of grandeur, no, nothing is able to kill the best in us, that kindness, dear sir, we are afflicted with: beautiful is the flower of man, his conduct, and every door opens on the beautiful truth and never hides treacherous whispers. I always gained something from making myself better, better than I am, better than I was, that most subtle citation: to recover some lost petal of the sadness I inherited: to search once more for the light that sings inside of me, the unwavering light.”

MenLightAbleBeautifulLostKindnessDoorsSadnessFlowerDearIllnessAbsenceSubtleGrandeurPetalsTreacherousUnwaveringCitations
Book:The sea and the bells
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“Re'lar Kvothe," he said seriously. "I am trying to wake your sleeping mind to the subtle language the world is whispering. I am trying to seduce you into understanding. I am trying to teach you." He leaned forward until his face was almost touching mine. "Quit grabbing at my tits.”

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Book:The Wise Man's Fear: The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day Two
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“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. . . I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death — if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

IfsMindBelieveHumansLittlesArtI CanBigsTeachMagicFameGloryFoolishSensesBunchSubtleBottlesDelicateVeinsCreepsLiquidWandsSnapeCauldrons
Author:J. K. Rowling
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“Switters was actually quite fond of Seattle's weather, and not merely because of it's ambivalence. He liked it's subtle, muted qualities and the landscape that those qualities encouraged if not engendered: vistas that seemed to have been sketched with a sumi brush dipped in quicksilver and green tea. It was fresh, it was clean, it was gently primal, and mystically suggestive.”

IfsHas BeensQualityGreenCleanWeatherTeaLandscapeSubtleBrushesPrimalSeattleVistasAmbivalenceGreen Tea
Book:Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates
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“Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement. ... The conventional big-bosomed blonde is not mysterious. And what could be more obvious than the old black velvet and pearls type? The perfect ‘woman of mystery’ is one who is blonde, subtle and Nordic. ... Although I do not profess to be an authority on women, I fear that the perfect title [for a movie], like the perfect woman is difficult to find.”

BigsLeftDifficultBlackImaginationPerfectMysteryTypeAuthorityObviousMysteriousSuspenseTitlesExcitementSubtleConventionalPearlsBlondeVelvetPerfect WomanNordic
Author:Alfred Hitchcock
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“What a subtle, treacherous thing it was to let yourself go that way! Because once you've started it was terribly difficult to stop; soon you were saying "I'm sorry, of course you're right", and "Whatever you think is best", and "you're the most wonderful and valuable thing int he world", and the next thing you knew all honesty, all truth, was as far away and glimmering, as hopelessly unattainable as the world of the golden people.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWayCoursesNextDifficultWonderfulHonestySorryValuableGoldenSubtleFar AwayI'm SorryUnattainableTreacherousValuable ThingsSaying I'm Sorry
Author:Richard Yates
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“The sea can bind us to her many moods, whispering to us by the subtle token of a shadow or a gleam upon the waves, and hinting in these ways of her mournfulness or rejoicing. Always she is remembering old things, and these memories, though we may not grasp them, are imparted to us, so that we share her gaiety or remorse.”

WayMayRememberMemoriesSeaShareShadowWaveMoodSubtleRejoiceRemorseWhisperingTokensGleamOld ThingsGaiety
Book:The Complete Fiction Collection vol III
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“The most often repeated commandment in the Bible is 'Do not fear.' It's in there over two hundred times. That means a couple of things, if you think about it. It means we are going to be afraid, and it means we shouldn't let fear boss us around. Before I realized we were supposed to fight fear, I thought of fear as a subtle suggestion in our subconscious designed to keep us safe, or more important, keep us from getting humiliated. And I guess it serves that purpose. But fear isn't only a guide to keep us safe; it's also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life.”

IfsThinkingMeanTwoImportantPurposeFightingEmotionCoupleSafeHundredBoringGuidesI RealizedTricksSubtleBossCommandmentsSubconsciousSuggestionsMondayHumiliatedDo Not FearManipulativeBoring Life
Book:A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
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“Don't do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again; don't do it; and the little girl glanced at her, and smiled a little subtle, dimpling, wholly comprehending smile, and shook her head stubbornly at the glass. Brave girl, Eleanor thought; wise, brave girl.”

LittlesGirlStarsWiseBraveGlassesCupsSubtleTrappedEleanorComprehending
Book:The Haunting of Hill House
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“I looked from one to the other, and realized that Barrons and my dad were having one of those wordless conversations he and I have from time to time. Though the language was, by nature, foreign to me, I grew up in the Deep South where a man’s ego is roughly the size of his pickup truck, and women get an early and interesting education in the not-so-subtle roar of testosterone.”

MenLanguageInterestingGrewDadConversationEgoGrew UpSouthMy DadSizeSubtleTruckTestosteronePickupsPickup Trucks
Book:Bloodfever
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“The trouble with deep belief is that it costs something. And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them. It is so, so cumbersome to believe anything. And it isn't cool.”

IfsBelieveBeliefResponsibilityTroubleCostSelfishBeastSubtleCarrieDiscipleship
Book:Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
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“The kitten was six weeks old. It was enchanting, a delicate fairy-tale cat, whose Siamese genes showed in the shape of the face, ears, tail, and the subtle lines of its body. [...] She sat, a tiny thing, in the middle of a yellow carpet, surrounded by five worshipppers, not at all afraid of us. Then she stalked around that floor of the house, inspecting every inch of it, climbed up on to my bed, crept under the fold of a sheet, and was at home.”

HomeBodyFacesHouseLinesFiveWeekMiddleShapesBedSixCatEarsTinyTalesSatFairySubtleYellowDelicateGenesFairy TaleInchesTailsSheetsCarpetFoldsKittenEnchantingTiny Things
Author:Doris Lessing
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“The only indication of the passage of time lies in the heavens, the subtle shift of the moon. So Peeta begins pointing it out to me, insisting I acknowledge its progress and sometimes, for just a moment I feel a flicker of hope before the agony of the night engulfs me again.”

FeelsSometimesMomentsLyingNightHeavenProgressMoonAcknowledgeSubtlePassagesAgonyPointingIndicationPeetaPassage Of TimeInsistingFlicker
Book:The Hunger Games Trilogy
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“I suppose there is no place in the world where snobbery is quite so ever-present or where it is cultivated in such refined and subtle forms as in an English public school. Here at least one cannot say that English ‘education’ fails to do its job. You forget your Latin and Greek within a few months of leaving school — I studied Greek for eight or ten years, and now, at thirty-three, I cannot even repeat the Greek alphabet — but your snobbishness, unless you persistently root it out like the bindweed it is, sticks by you till your grave.”

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Book:The Complete Works of George Orwell: The road to Wigan Pier
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