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Unspoken Quotes

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Unspoken Quotes

“I call this our Thursday special. We have it regularly." This was a lie. In all the years not one single dish resembled another. Was this one from the deep green sea? Had that one been shot from blue summer air? Was it a swimming food or a flying food, had it pumped blood or chlorophyll, had it walked or leaned after the sun? No one knew. No one asked. No one cared. The most people did was stand in the kitchen door and peer at the baking-powder explosions, enjoy the clangs and rattles and bangs like a factory gone wild where Grandma stared half blindly about, letting her fingers find their way among canisters and bowls. Was she conscious of her talent? Hardly. If asked about her cooking, Grandma would look down at her hands which some glorious instinct sent on journeys to be gloved in flour, or to plumb disencumbered turkeys, wrist-deep in search of their animal souls. Her gray eyes blinked from spectacles warped by forty years of oven blasts and blinded with strewings of pepper and sage, so she sometimes flung cornstarch over steaks, amazingly tender, succulent steaks! And sometimes dropped apricots into meat loaves, cross-pollinated meats, herbs, fruits, vegetables with no prejudice, no tolerance for recipe or formula, save that at the final moment of delivery, mouths watered, blood thundered in response. Her hands then, like the hands of Great-grandma before her, were Grandma's mystery, delight, and life. She looked at them in astonishment, but let them live their life the way they must absolutely lead it.”

TalentCookingGrandmaUnspokenSupperMystery Meat
Book:Dandelion Wine
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“Neither of us was quite sure what the other meant, but, as in dreams, our words could be taken in so many ways, which was fine too, because we liked thinking they had more than one meaning, one obvious, one not so obvious, one hinted at but so muddled that neither of us knew which to grasp, because each was so laced into the others that all three ultimately meant one and the same thing.”

MeaningUnspokenAndre AcimanSubtextEnigma VariationsMultiple Meanings
Book:Enigma Variations
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“I had a dream about you. It's been a while since I could remember any of my dreams, and still, this one has left me with such strong impression. Even now, when I am fully awake, your face flashes before my eyes. It's a face I can totally relate to, as if it wasn't any more yours than it is mine. Terrifying thing, you know? I can't say I've felt that sort of intimacy with anyone. For a moment you knew all my secrets, without me even having to tell them. For a moment I even knew them myself… While I was looking into your eyes, I suddenly started to realize things about myself that were unspoken for years, like fragments of my inner life that were deeply repressed. It’s hard to distinguish if they were buried inside because dealing with them was such a dirty work, or if leaving them unnamed meant that it was not possible to define them precisely enough, so they would keep their true meaning. Perhaps, all this life that I've known so far was in fact no more but a dream about living. The only thing that has kept me in touch with reality was you… I know it comes as a surprise, and you may be wondering why it took me so long to come clean. You also may be wondering how come you've never noticed before. I've tricked you on purpose, yes, and you must realize it really has nothing to do with you. It’s always been me. This is why, seeing you in my dream like that, came out as a shock. You also must forgive me. You must forgive me because I know how it looks like, that everything we ever shared was a lie, and it wasn't… I am more of an illusionist that a deceiver, but it all comes from being in fact, a very private person. Even if it was true that you knew me better than anyone, I’d never admit it. I’d rather dig my own heart out, with a rotten spoon, than admitting it. I may let people in my own little world occasionally, but I would never let them be aware of it. I don’t throw my intimacy in front of others, especially when I care. The more I care, the less I give away, and this is something for you to understand, and grant me your forgiveness. I didn't play my tricks on you in order to deceive you, but rather to save myself, and maybe even deceive myself as well. I’ve had hidden my feelings for you so deeply that I've learned to live with them, as if any other casualty. I have done wrong to myself as much as I did to you, and I don’t know if I can forgive myself. So now I wonder, could you forgive me without feeling sorry for me? I certainly don’t deserve your pity. Especially not now that I am awake.”

FeelingsStrongVisionDreamsMemoryImpressionIntimacyAwakeIntimateSecretsEyesDreamingRevealingFaceUnspokenHiddenFlashes
Book:Dreaming is for lovers
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“When I saw you after my dream, it was impossible to go through with anything I'd resolved. You were chilly again, as though you'd intercepted my dream and were so horrified that you thought it best to put distance between us. I wonder if in the universe of sleep, dreams don't fly out and rat on one another's dreamers and hold cloak-and-dagger meetings in the side alleys of our nights where they slip coded messages, which is perhaps exactly what we want them to do for us when we lack the courage to speak for ourselves. Dreams inflect our face, our smile, and on our voice lingers the timbre of desire we weren't willing to hide while dreaming. I wished you'd taken a second look at me and said, You dreamt of me last night, didn't you?”

HumorSleepDreamsUnspokenAndre AcimanEnigma VariationsFacial Expressions
Book:Enigma Variations
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“Give me one more night to taste the dark When wolves imitate a lone dog's bark Let those secrets remain unspoken Fallen angel's heart now lover's token Light grows dim burying riddle’s death Just breathe to free your one last breath”

LightDeathPoetryNightDarkSecretDarknessLoversPoemTasteBreatheBreathingPoetry QuotesFallenSecretsFreeImitationDogsRiddleUnspokenNight SkyWolfWolvesFallen AngelsBuryingPoetry QuoteBuryImitateLast BreathWolfen
Author:Munia Khan
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“The discussions of every age are filled with the issues on which its leading schools of thought differ. But the general intellectual atmosphere of the time is always determined by the views on which the opposing schools agree. They become the unspoken presuppositions of all thought, and common and unquestioningly accepted foundations on which all discussion proceeds.”

AgeSchoolViewsCommonIssuesIntellectualAgreeFoundationFilledDeterminedAcceptedAtmosphereDiscussionOpposingUnspoken
Author:Friedrich August von Hayek
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“The hardest thing to remember is that what we each really want is the truth of our lives, good or bad. Not rocking the boat is an illusion that can only be maintained by the unspoken agreement not to feel and in the long run it never really works. Let go of saving the boat and save the passengers instead.”

WantFeelsLongRunningRememberOur LivesLetting GoIllusionHardestBoatSavingAgreementGood LifeLong RunsHardest ThingPassengersUnspokenRocking The Boat
Author:Kenny Loggins
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“None but those who have loved can be supposed to understand the oratory of the eye, the mute eloquence of a look, or the conversational powers of the face. Love's sweetest meanings are unspoken; the full heart knows no rhetoric of words, and resorts to the pantomime of sighs and glances.”

KnowsLoveLooksHeartEyeFacesRhetoricGlancesSighResortsSweetestEloquenceUnspokenMuteOratoryPantomimeFull Hearts
Book:Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
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“Society mediates between the extremes of, on the one hand, intolerably strict morality and, on the other, dangerously anarchic permissiveness through an unspoken agreement whereby we are given leave to bend the rules of the strictest morality, provided we do so quietly and discreetly. Hypocrisy is the grease that keeps society functioning in an agreeable way, by allowing for human fallibility and reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable human needs for order and pleasure.”

WayNeedsHumansHandsOrderGivenPleasureMoralityExtremesHypocrisyAgreementAllowingStrictUnspokenHuman NeedsGreaseFallibility
Author:Janet Malcolm
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“For the true angler, fishing produces a deep,unspoken joy, born of longing for that which is quiet and peaceful, and fostered by an inbred love of communing with nature”

JoyBornSeaProduceQuietRiversLongingFishesBoatPeacefulLakesFishingUnspokenAnglersInbreds
Book:The American Angler's Book: Embracing the Natural History of Sporting Fish, and the Art of Taking Them. With Instructions in Fly-fishing, Fly-making, and Rod-making; and Directions for Fish-breeding. To which is Appended, Dies Piscatoriæ: Describing Noted Fishing-places, and the Pleasure of Solitary Fly-fishing
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“The impulse to confession almost always requires the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in our moments of spiritual need, the man to whom we have no tie but our common nature, seems nearer to us than mother, brother, or friend. Our daily familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from each other behind a screen of trivial words and deeds, and those who sit with us at the same hearth, are often the farthest off from the deep human soul within us, full of unspoken evil and unacted good.”

MenNeedsHumansHeartSoulMomentsSeemsSpiritualLife IsMotherEvilCommonBehindsHe ManBrotherEarsDeedsScreensFamiliarImpulseTiesHidingConfessionHuman SoulUnspoken
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
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“The problem lay buried, unspoken for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban housewife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night, she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question - "Is this all?"”

YearsMindMadeStatesProblemAsksHouseUnitedUnited StatesWifeMiddleCenturyStrangeBedLongingLaysSilentBuriedYearning20th CenturyGroceriesDissatisfactionStirringUnspokenAmerican WomanMystiqueBrowniesFeminine Mystique
Author:Betty Friedan
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“I think one of the things about being a good coach is to recognise when you have given all that you can. In fact there should be some sort of unspoken law that says that a coach cannot have anyone for three or four years - if you have not passed on most of the stuff you know in that time, then you are not doing a good job.”

IfsThinkingKnowsShouldYearsFactsJobsLawThreeGivenStuffFourCoachesFour YearsGood JobRecogniseUnspokenGood Coaches
Author:Daley Thompson
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“A psychologically engrossing novel about the homes we make-in our houses, in our neighborhoods, and in the hearts of our loved ones. Laken takes on that great unspoken American subject-class-and does so with frankness, acuity and surpassing feeling. DREAM HOUSE is a memorable debut novel from a fully mature talent.”

HeartDoeFeelingsHomeDreamHouseClassNovelSubjectsTalentMemorableNeighborhoodMatureLoved OnesUnspokenDebutSurpassingFranknessDream House
Author:Peter Ho Davies
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“A married guy is responsible for everything, no matter what. Women, thanks to their having been oppressed all these years, are blameless, free as birds, and all the dirt they do is the result of premenstrual syndrome or postmenstrual stress or menopause or emotional disempowerment by their fathers or low expectations by their teachers or latent unspoken sexual harassment in the workplace, or some other airy excuse. The guy alone is responsible for every day of marriage that is less than marvelous and meaningful.”

YearsMatterGuyFatherResultsTeacherEmotionalMarriedLowsBirdExpectationsStressResponsibleNo Matter WhatExcuseMeaningfulThanksDirtOppressedMarvelousWorkplaceUnspokenHarassmentSyndromesLatentAiryMenopauseBlamelessLow ExpectationsDisempowerment
Book:The Book of Guys: Stories
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“That is supposed to be the rallying cry of women in the age of AIDS: no condom, no sex. But the dirty little secret is that the rallying cry is a whisper.... The great unspoken on the heterosexual AIDS front has been how behavior is still determined by the old psychosexual minuet of the sexes, the lack of responsibility in young men and of assertiveness in young women.”

MenLittlesHas BeensStillsAgeYoungSexSecretResponsibilityFrontsCryBehaviorMen And WomenDeterminedAidsSupposed To BeDirtyYoung ManYoung WomenUnspokenCondomAssertivenessRallyingLack Of ResponsibilityRallying Cry
Author:Anna Quindlen
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