Against The Grain Quotes

1. "On Stripping Bark from Myself(for Jane, who said trees die from it)Because women are expected to keep silent abouttheir close escapes I will not keep silentand if I am destroyed (naked tree!) someone willpleasemark the spotwhere I fall and know I could not livesilent in my own lieshearing their 'how nice she is!'whose adoration of the retouched imageI so despise.No. I am finished with livingfor what my mother believesfor what my brother and father defendfor what my lover elevatesfor what my sister, blushing, denies or rushesto embrace.I find my ownsmall persona standing selfagainst the worldan equality of willsI finally understand.Besides:My struggle was always againstan inner darkness: I carry within myselfthe only known keysto my death – to unlock life, or close it shutforever. A woman who loves wood grains, the coloryellowand the sun, I am happy to fightall outside murderersas I see I must."
Author: Alice Walker

2. "Holmes took up the stone and held it against the light. "It's a bonny thing," said he. "Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil's pet baits. In the larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed. This stone is not yet twenty years old. It was found in the banks of the Amoy River in soutern China and is remarkable in having every characteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is blue in shade instead of ruby red. In spite of its youth, it has already a sinister history. There have been two murders, a vitriol-throwing, a suicide, and several robberies brought about for the sake of this forty-grain weight of crystallised charcoal. Who would think that so pretty a toy would be a purveyor to the gallows and the prison?"
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

3. "And human instinct is ancient and reliable, utterly mysterious and possibly capable of great genius. I believe that refined, fluent instincts are a person's most valuable asset. My own instincts have repeatedly guided me against the grain of logic and probability. When I have trusted and followed their direction, they have never been wrong. I don't know how or why. But I know that every significant experience-positive or negative-sharpens them and makes them more accurate."
Author: Augusten Burroughs

4. "We do not read in order to turn great works of fiction into simplistic replicas of our own realities, we read for the pure, sensual, and unadulterated pleasure of reading. And if we do so, our reward is the discovery of the many hidden layers within these works that do not merely reflect reality but reveal a spectrum of truths, thus intrinsically going against the grain of totalitarian mindsets."
Author: Azar Nafisi

5. "When we go against the grain and put ourselves and our work out in the world, some people will feel threatened and they will go after what hurts the most—our appearance, our lovability, and even our parenting."
Author: Brené Brown

6. "Working against my faith, there was in me a deeply ingrained pessimism… I had very definitely formed the opinion that the universe was, in the main, a rather regrettable institution…I am now inclined to think that the seeds of pessimism were sown before my mother's death. Ridiculous as it may sound, I believe that clumsiness of my hands was at the root of the matter... What they really bred in me was a deep (and, of course, inarticulate) sense of resistance or opposition on the part of inanimate things... Whatever you wanted to remain straight, would bend; whatever you tried to bend would fly back to the straight; all knots which you wished to be firm would come untied; all knots you wanted to untie would remain firm."
Author: C.S. Lewis

7. "One of the two owners, the man who had been sitting in the front room, was stretched out in there asleep, stockinged-toes pointed at the ceiling, one hand backed defensively against his eyes to ward off the light. He'd taken off his vest and shoes, and that strap that wasn't straight enough to be a suspender-strap was dangling now around one of the knobs at the foot of the bed. It ended in a holster, with a black, cross-grained slab of metal protruding from it. Turner couldn't take his eyes off it, while the long seconds that to him were minutes toiled by.That meant out, that black slab, more surely than any door. He had to have it. More than that, it meant a continuance of out, for so long as he had it. And he wanted out with all the desperate longing of all trapped things, blindly scratching, clawing their way through a maze to the open. To the open where the equal chance is."
Author: Cornell Woolrich

8. "To go against the grain is the secret of bravery."
Author: Dejan Stojanovic

9. "Let me, however, although no verbal critic, protest against the profanation of the word friend. In this my history I must be honest, make a distinction between the oriental diamond and its worthless imitation of paste, and separate the grain from the chaff — gossamer words, that weigh nothing, from substantial realities heavier than gold."
Author: Edward John Trelawny

10. "But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me Thy wring-earth right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones? and fan, O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear."
Author: Gerard Manley Hopkins

11. "Time plays no role in the life of one man—the subtle consciousness of it floating past me is more than enough. Years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds—what does it matter? Floating by, it rubs against my skin, face, and hair—wearing me down, yet polishing me all the while. Time is like fine grains of sand in a desert storm. At first, you don't pay any attention to it, but the more it hits you in the face, the more aware of it you become, the more annoying it gets until, one day, you find yourself suffocating. The weight of it eventually bends your spine, until you are crawling on your hands and knees, unable to stand straight. Then comes the time to crawl back into the womb, crawl inside and wait for rebirth."
Author: Henry Martin

12. "Perhaps it's one of those cases of a microcosm giving you the whole world. Like a spode dinner plate. Or a single cell. Or, as daisy says, like a Jane Austen novel. When player and listener together know the route so well, the pleasure is in the deviation, the unexpected turn against the grain. To see a world in a grain of sand. So it is, Perowne tries to convince himself, with clipping an aneurysm: absorbing variation on an unchanging theme."
Author: Ian McEwan

13. "I'm secure in who I am. I don't need the validation of those that would say, you have to be a certain thing in order to be accepted. I'm comfortable going against the grain if I need to."
Author: J. C. Watts

14. "I've never had any real big blow-ups. I go against the grain. Hey, it's life, I'm happy."
Author: Jermaine Jackson

15. "To me, punk is about being an individual and going against the grain and standing up and saying 'This is who I am'."
Author: Joey Ramone

16. "Well, acting itself is a form of rebellion, always. Getting up there in front of people, telling stories - you're kind of going against the grain to begin with, wanting to do that, don't you think? Why else would you do it? Except maybe as kind of a way to affirm your very existence."
Author: John Cusack

17. "You'll learn, as you get older, that rules are made to be broken. Be bold enough to live life on your terms, and never, ever apologize for it. Go against the grain, refuse to conform, take the road less traveled instead of the well-beaten path. Laugh in the face of adversity, and leap before you look. Dance as though EVERYBODY is watching. March to the beat of your own drummer. And stubbornly refuse to fit in."
Author: Mandy Hale

18. "All the writers and producers around us that gave us the environment where we could play. They were able to provide us with a place where we could take chances to play with things, go against the grain and do things that people don't always do."
Author: Matthew Ashford

19. " In meditation we discover our inherent restlessness. Sometimes we get up and leave. Sometimes we sit there but our bodies wiggle and squirm and our minds go far away. This can be so uncomfortable that we feel's it's impossible to stay. Yet this feeling can teach us not just about ourselves but what it is to be human…we really don't want to stay with the nakedness of our present experience. It goes against the grain to stay present. These are the times when only gentleness and a sense of humor can give us the strength to settle down…so whenever we wander off, we gently encourage ourselves to "stay" and settle down. Are we experiencing restlessness? Stay! Are fear and loathing out of control? Stay! Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay! What's for lunch? Stay! I can't stand this another minute! Stay!""
Author: Pema Chödrön

20. "Fun is at the core of the way I like to do business and it has been key to everything I've done from the outset. More than any other element, fun is the secret of Virgin's success. I am aware that the ideas of business as being fun and creative goes right against the grain of convention, and it's certainly not how the they teach it at some of those business schools, where business means hard grind and lots of 'discounted cash flows' and net' present values'."
Author: Richard Branson

21. "We all remain who we are. But on the way to healing or liberation we have to do what the Romans called agere contra: we have to act against the grain of our natural compulsions. This requires clear decisions. Because it does not happen by itself, it is in a way "unnatural" or "supernatural" . . . (we) simply have to cut loose now and then, and in the process . . . make mistakes."
Author: Richard Rohr

22. "Creativity is at the heart of every stupid idea . . . creativity and stupid are interchangeable . . . because everything inherent to that kind of creativity requires breaking away from the norm, going against the grain, and leaning into risk and fear."
Author: Richie Norton

23. "But we didn't have the financial structure, like the right attorneys, the right managers, the right accountants, and we were going against the grain of what black entertainers is supposed to do."
Author: Solomon Burke

24. "I always seem to be singing against the grain."
Author: Steven Patrick Morrissey

25. "God fills us with all sorts of yearnings that go against the grain of the world—but the fact those yearnings often come to nothing, well, I doubt that's God's doing." She cut her eyes at me and smiled. "I think we know that's men's doing."
Author: Sue Monk Kidd

26. "When I first read 'On the Road,' it helped me figure out how to live against the grain. Now I wonder how to be subversive when the subversive has become mainstream."
Author: Tony D'Souza

27. "I like to go against the grain, against what's out there. Every day is like a challenge."
Author: Wyclef Jean

Against The Grain Quotes Pictures