Allen Quotes

1. "I pound my fist into my palm, furrowing my brow.My dad chokes on his dessert. I am emboldened."I want to wear the maroon and gold-the same maroon and gold you two wore when you fell in love all those years ago. Without that maroon and gold, you never would have fallen in love at prom, and I never would have been born. I am maroon and gold."The drama builds."I have spirit! Yes I do! I've got spirit, how 'bout you?" At this, I wildly wave fierce spirit fingers and heartily attempt the splits.Key word: attempt."Ow!" I cry, my crotch a foot from the floor, pain burning my groin.At this, neither of my parents can hold it anymore and, along with their eye rolling and head shaking, there is gut-wrenching laughter. I fall over to one side-sweet relief."
Author: Alecia Whitaker

2. "Every picture shows a spot with which the artist has fallen in love."
Author: Alfred Sisley

3. "She recalled how Pauline had fallen off a bus one night, late, went skidding into Creedmoor. In a novel, it would have portended the fall they were all about to take"
Author: Alice McDermott

4. "We're at close grips at last," said Holmes as we walked together across the moor. "What a nerve the fellow has! How he pulled himself together in the face of what must have been a paralyzing shock when he found that the wrong man had fallen a victim to his plot. I told you in London, Watson, and I tell you now again, that we have never had a foeman more worthy of our steel."
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

5. "Satan, on the contrary, is thin, ascetic and a fanatical devotee of logic. He reads Machiavelli, Ignatius of Loyola, Marx and Hegel; he is cold and unmerciful to mankind, out of a kind of mathematical mercifulness. He is damned always to do that which is most repugnant to him: to become a slaughterer, in order to abolish slaughtering, to sacrifice lambs so that no more lambs may be slaughtered, to whip people with knouts so that they may learn not to let themselves be whipped, to strip himself of every scruple in the name of a higher scrupulousness, and to challenge the hatred of mankind because of his love for it--an abstract and geometric love."
Author: Arthur Koestler

6. "A circular plot structure, often seen in adventure novels and quest fantasies, is a narrative devise involving setting, character, and theme. Typically a protagonist ventures from home (or the starting place of the story), goes on a journey, often a dangerous one in which many challenges are overcome, and then returns home a changed person. The plot is usually chronological, with the events occurring in a setting that becomes a circle. By returning the character to the place where he started, the author can emphasize the character's growth or change while also highlighting the theme of the story."
Author: Carl M. Tomlinson

7. "Da giovani cerchiamo qualcosa che ci rallenti e ci tenga intrappolati in un posto abbastanza a lungo da poter spingere lo sguardo sotto la superficie delle cose. Questo primo disastro è una vaccinazione"
Author: Chuck Palahniuk

8. "I am against electronic books. they make real books obsolete, denying the poor and economically challenged freedom."
Author: Darnell Lamont Walker

9. "My Lord, I find thy face apelike and thy form misshapen. Thy beard, moreover, is an offense against decency, resembling more closely the scabrous fir which doth decorate the hinder portion of a mongrel dog than a proper adornement for a human face. Is it possible that thy mother, seized by some wild lechery, did dally at some time past with a randy goat? -Mandorallen"
Author: David Eddings

10. "Last night, Good Friday night, at the bottom of the escalator at King's X tube, a weasel-faced man in uniform was sweeping up rubbish with a wide broom, drink cartons, cigarette packets with all the dust and filthy scraps of the day which he pushed towards an elegant long black glove that was lying there. I expected him to pick it up as I would have – I thought of picking it up, but was too late. He smothered it in a wide sweep. It seemed to me extraordinary and shocking that he had no feeling for it. Several images went through my mind, a symbolic hand, a dead blackbird, an ornamental bookmark fallen from a lectern Bible – any once-precious relic being tumbled in the dirt. As I went up the escalator I remembered the Tatterdemallion whom I haven't seen for months and thought of his body, if he were to die in the tube, being tumbled about with the rest of the thrown-away rubbish." David Thomson, In Camden Town"
Author: David Thomson

11. "No matter what advantages you are born with-- money, intelligence, an appealing personality, a sunny outlook, or good social connections-- none of these provides a magic key to an easy existence. Somehow life manages to bring difficult problems, the causes of untold suffering and struggle. How you meet your challenges makes all the difference between the promise of success and the specter of failure."
Author: Deepak Chopra

12. "I always challenge myself. I get out in deep water and I always try to get back. But I get hung up. The audience never knows, but that's when I smile the most, when I show the most ivory."
Author: Earl Hines

13. "Only yesterday an express train tore up a whole flock of sheep not far from here, over forty dead animals, flung through the air like cotton-wool balls, the good shepherd fallen asleep drunk somewhere, the dog in the field alone, not a hope. Now the shepherd has to bear joint responsibility for the whole loss, or don't you think he bears a responsibility, dear television audience, write and let us know what you think, it's your views that count."
Author: Elfriede Jelinek

14. "The experience taught him [Salvador Allende] too late that a system cannot be changed from the government but from the power."
Author: Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

15. "I try never to focus on the radio, just find great songs, find emotion and just write the best songs you can. I think when you get fixated on trying to do something too accurate, it becomes more washed out and less what you intended it to be. So I think each time the challenge for me is to try and reinvent a little bit."
Author: Gary Allan

16. "All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship."
Author: George Bernard Shaw

17. "The Deep Flight Challenger technology is a game-changer for ocean exploration."
Author: Graham Hawkes

18. "I kind of like the challenge of jumping into totally different spaces and styles and figuring out how to fit in."
Author: Hugo Weaving

19. "Arizona faces many challenges ahead. None is more important or more pressing than passing a new state budget."
Author: Jane D. Hull

20. "Genre-spanning is the effort to make the live show interesting. It's also a great way to challenge yourself as a writer."
Author: Jason Mraz

21. "I accept any challenge."
Author: Jennifer Hudson

22. "He was remembering the nights he'd sat upstairs with one or both of his boys or with his girl in the crook of his arm, their damp bath-smelling heads hard against his ribs as he read aloud to them from "Black Beauty" or "The Chronicles of Narnia". How his voice alone, its palpable resonance, had made them drowsy. These were evenings, and there were hundreds of them, maybe thousands, when nothing traumatic enough to leave a scar had befallen the nuclear unit. Evenings of plain vanilla closeness in his black leather chair; sweet evenings of doubt between the nights of bleak certainty. They came to him now, these forgotten counterexamples, because in the end, when you were falling into water, there was no solid thing to reach for but your children."
Author: Jonathan Franzen

23. "Maggots in corpses. He'd seen. Whitely churning, in the mouths of dead soldiers, where their noses had been, their ears and blasted-away jaws. Most of the soldiers had been men as young as he himself had been. Italians fallen after the Austrian offensive of 1918. You do not forget such sights. You do not un-see such sights. He himself had been wounded, but he had not died. The distinction was profound. Between what lived and what died the distinction was profound. Yet it remained mysterious, elusive. You did not wish to speak of it. Especially you did not wish to pray about it, to beg God to spare you. For it disgusted him to think of God. It disgusted him to think of prayers to such a god. Fumbling his big, bare toe against the trigger of the shotgun he was damned if he would think, in his last quivering moment of his life, of God."
Author: Joyce Carol Oates

24. "We need myths that will help us to identify with all our fellow-beings, not simply with those who belong to our ethnic, national or ideological tribe. We need myths that help us to realize the importance of compassion, which is not always regarded as sufficiently productive or efficient in our pragmatic, rational world. We need myths that help us to create a spiritual attitude, to see beyond our immediate requirements, and enable us to experience a transcendent value that challenges our solipsistic selfishness. We need myths that help us to venerate the earth as sacred once again, instead of merely using it as a 'resource.' This is crucial, because unless there is some kind of spiritual revolution that is able to keep abreast of our technological genius, we will not save our planet."
Author: Karen Armstrong

25. "Stop flirting. With you, every sentence is an offer.""And with you, every sentence is a challenge."
Author: Karen Hawkins

26. "Fallen man is both terrified of vulnerability and committed to maintaining independence."
Author: Kay Warren

27. "This has been my greatest challenge: because the current reality now seems so unreal, it's hard to make nonfiction seem believable. But you, my friend [Michael Moore], are able to do that."
Author: Kurt Vonnegut

28. "Dare: a challenge to do something dangerous or foolhardy.I dare you. Three stupid words."
Author: Lisa Schroeder

29. "... because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man."
Author: Louisa May Alcott

30. "If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go; but it's not easy being quiet and good, it's like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you've already fallen over; you don't seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength."
Author: Margaret Atwood

31. "I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
Author: Mark Twain

32. "The Harrises, on the other hand, have always been constant talkers, not so much for the sake of entertainment or information but because if a silence caught and held for too long they might have fallen into a bottomless sullen discord, a frozen mutual quietude that could never be broken because there never had been and never would be a shared topic of sufficient reviving urgency (not at least one either of his parents could bear to broach), and so they needed to hydroplane forward together on an ever-replenished slick of remark and opinion, of ritualized disinclination (You know, I've never trusted that man) and long-familiar enthusiasms (I know Chinese food is filthy, but I just don't care)."
Author: Michael Cunningham

33. "In Britain you're more used to challenging drama. In America, TV is just boring, and numbing, and bloody terrible."
Author: Michael Imperioli

34. "How many Catholic schools do you think teach the students to question the authority of the Pope? Do you believe Christian schools teach students to question or challenge the authority of Jesus Christ? Do military schools teach the cadets to challenge the authority."
Author: Neal Boortz

35. "London town is a great and stinking warren. The smokes of many fires creep around our ankles and our cart, and a stench rises from the open sewers in the lanes: a reek that rivals anything from our cart. The streets twist unevenly between leaning houses made of wood: only one cart may fit between the walls, with people rushing all around. Like all the world we live in, this is a fallen place."
Author: Ned Hayes

36. "As for what it's against - the story is against those who pervert and misuse religion, or any other kind of doctrine with a holy book and a priesthood and an apparatus of power that wields unchallengeable authority, in order to dominate and suppress human freedoms."
Author: Philip Pullman

37. "What I'm sorry about is not being a tipsy idiot when you found me. I'm sorry about that, obviously, but more sorry that my stupidity caused us to lose a great opportunity. I don't imagine you would have met me and fallen crazy in love with me, but I would like to thinkthat if you'd had a chance to meet me under different circumstances, something just as nice could have happened.We could have become friends."
Author: Rachel Cohn

38. "Today You Soar"Like the grand eagle, you spread your wingsAnd put forth the effort to do great things.Looking skyward you dared to challenge the wind,Harnessing power to help you ascend.With an eye on the goal, fixed in flight,You climbed to an impressive height.Undaunted by gusts and unkind gails,You never gave up and would not fail.So now you've reached where few even tryAs the eagle high in a glorious sky.Not superior, but grand.Not proud, but sure.Not a cub, wolf, or bear but an eagle pure.Today you soar."
Author: Richelle E. Goodrich

39. "I only steal because my dear old family needs the money to live!"Locke Lamora made this proclamation with his wine glass held high; he and the other Gentleman Bastards were seated at the old witchwood table. . . . The others began to jeer."Liar!" they chorused"I only steal because this wicked world won't let me work an honest trade!" Calo cried, hoisting his own glass."LIAR!""I only steal," said Jean, "because I've temporarily fallen in with bad company.""LIAR!"At last the ritual came to Bug; the boy raised his glass a bit shakily and yelled, "I only steal because it's heaps of fucking fun!""BASTARD!"
Author: Scott Lynch

40. "Satan will always provide a witness to where you have been, in order to challenge your fate."
Author: Shannon L. Alder

41. "So do I wish I was to be king? That is not a question I ask myself. I ask myself, Would I be a good king? Would I be quick witted and generous of spirit and full of that boundless energy? Or would I be clumsy and stupid and dulled by my own prejudices? I try to be a good man, since I am alive at all, and hope that that teaches me what I would need to know if I was ever faced with a higher challenge."
Author: Sharon Shinn

42. "I really hate Squires. (Syra)(She pulled another flat bolt out and loaded it, then shot it at Otto. Moving so fast he could hardly be seen, the Squire turned around and caught it without flinching. He held the bolt up to his nose and inhaled it lovingly.)Mmm. Rose. My favorite. (Otto)Perhaps we should leave you two alone. (Jess)Yeah, this does remind me a bit of the mating rites of the mean and the surly. (Allen)"
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

43. "Anytime you play a finalist it's going to be a challenge."
Author: Steve Nash

44. "Awakening self-compassion is often the greatest challenge people face on the spiritual path."
Author: Tara Brach

45. "Sam Vimes could parallel process. Most husbands can. They learn to follow their own line of thought while at the same time listening to what their wives say. And the listening is important, because at any time they could be challenged and must be ready to quote the last sentence in full. A vital additional skill is being able to scan the dialogue for telltale phrases such as "and they can deliver it tomorrow" or "so I've invited them for dinner?" or "they can do it in blue, really quite cheaply."
Author: Terry Pratchett

46. "When we do cross paths with people whose beliefs and attitudes conflict with our own, we are rarely challenged."
Author: Thomas Gilovich

47. "You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope."
Author: Thomas Merton

48. "Maintaining our standard; that's our challenge day-in and day-out."
Author: Tim Rice

49. "Everyone doesn't have to do everything," she told me. "People forget you can also express yourself by what you choose to admire and support. I've had so much pleasure from beautiful and challenging things created by other people, things I could never make or do. I wouldn't trade that for anything."
Author: Will Schwalbe

50. "When one man has been under very remarkable obligations to another, with whom he subsequently quarrels, a common sense of decency, as it were, makes of the former a much severer enemy than a mere stranger would be. To account for your own hard-heartedness and ingratitude in such a case, you are bound to prove the other party's crime. It is not that you are selfish, brutal, and angry at the failure of a speculation--no, no--it is that your partner has led you into it by the basest treachery and with the most sinister motives. From a mere sense of consistency, a persecutor is bound to show that the fallen man is a villain--otherwise he, the persecutor, is a wretch himself."
Author: William Makepeace Thackeray

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