Thinking You Know It All Quotes

1. "Daniel rested his hip on the counter, arms crossed, saying and offering nothing. "What? Are you thinking about sticking me with Luc permanently?" I laughed, the sound anxious. I waited for Daniel to laugh, too, at the sheer insanity of the idea. To reassure me he would never do something so cruel. But he stayed silent, something he was getting very good at. "You know something? Trying to have a discussion with you would work a lot better if you'd actually talk." It was like riding on a merry-go-round, only without the merry. "You promised to stop keeping secrets from me, remember?"
Author: Angela B. Wade

2. "But sleep didn't come. She could hear Jace's soft piano playing through the walls, but that wasn't what was keeping her awake. She was thinking of Simon, leaving for a house that no longer felt like home to him, of the despair in Jace's voice as he said 'I want to hate you', and of Magnus, not telling Jace the truth: that Alec did not want Jace to know about his relationship because he was still in love with him. She thought of the satisfaction it would have brought Magnus to say the words out loud, to acknowledge what the truth was, and the fact that he hadn't said them - had let Alec go on lying and pretending - because that was what Alec wanted, and Magnus cared about Alec enough to give him that. Maybe it was true what the Seelie Queen had said, after all: Love made you a liar."
Author: Cassandra Clare

3. "Years after I'd seen him for the last time I found myself thinking of him unexpectedly and often. You know how certain places grow powerful in the mind with passing time. In those early morning dreams when I come back to bed after a sleepy pee and fall quickly into the narrow end of the night, there is one set of streets I keep returning to, one dim mist of railroad rooms and certain figures reappear, borderline ghosts."
Author: Don DeLillo

4. "Maybe thinking you're supposed to 'have a life' is a stupid way of buying into an untenable 1950s narrative of what life *supposed* to be. How do we know that all of these people with 'no lives' aren't really on the new frontier of human sentience and preceptions?"
Author: Douglas Coupland

5. "That pissed me the hell off. I took in a deep breath and blurted out everything without thinking twice. "Fuck you! You want to know who I am, Marcus. Well here it goes! I am temperamental, over-sensitive, and outspoken. I'm honest! I cry at stupid love movies, and I'm a sucker for a romantic novel. I don't allow people to walk all over me, I have trust issues, and I have insecurities. I've slept with four men in my entire life! And the one thing I don't do is take shit from men who try to act like they're better than me as if they don't have any hidden skeletons! I'm not keeping shit hidden, how ‘bout you? You can fuck off. I'll find my own way home. Have a nice fucking life!" - Mia"
Author: E.L. Montes

6. "My stomach squirms like worms (in a good way) just thinking about him. And I reckon when love's in short supply, you know it all the more when it finds you."
Author: Emily Murdoch

7. "Letter to Bill Smith, 1921Wish to hell I was going North when you men do. Doubt if I get up this summer-Jo Eezus (Jesus), sometimes I get to thinking about the Sturgeon and Black during the nocturnal and damn near go cuckoo. May have to give it up for something I want more but that does not keep me from loving it with everything I have. Dats de way tings are. Guy loves a couple of or three steams all his life and loves 'em better than anything in the world--falls in love with a girl and the goddamn streams can dry up for all he cares. Only the hell of it is that all that country has as bad a hold on me as ever--there's as much pull this spring as there ever was--and you know how it's always been--just don't think about it all daytime, but at night it comes and ruins me--and I can't go."
Author: Ernest Hemingway

8. "Kevin", his father began, "I've been thinking about it – I guess I was kind of carried away. It's just that I've waited so long for my old school to make it to the Regionals... I suppose I was living it vicariously through you. Keith says you're not going to fail, after all. Is that right?""Looks like I'll make it. I know it's hard to believe...""Yes, it is. I was hoping you could get a football scholarship, you know. Something to waive the entrance requirements, because I don't know what college would take you-""Yeah. Thanks a lot Dad," Kevin said sarcastically. He already knew what his father thought of him and didn't need to be reminded yet again."Oh, come on. You know perfectly well that you're too stupid to-""That's not what my boyfriend says. Oh, by the way, Dad – I'm a faggot. Did I mention that?""... Kevin – get your stuff, and get out.""Gladly."
Author: Failte

9. "As members of my cabinet," Alyss calmly explained, "you share in the responsibilty of ensuring a safe furture for Wonderland. I'm sure the four of you will agree that we're in a crisis and that trying times bring out the best in you. What queen wouldn't want such helpful cabinet members by her side in an hour of need? Forgive me for calling you here. I was thinking only of myself and others when I did it. But for the love of your rank if nothing else, advise me. How do you think we should conter this invasion?"Uh," said the Lady of Clubes.I know exactly how we should counter it! said her husband. "First and foremost, a decree must be at once...decreed! All ranking families are to remain indoors and well-protected until it can be guaranteed that every threat is violence is past! It's imperative that nothing inconvenient happen to us, for the population would then have no one to look up to!"
Author: Frank Beddor

10. "Stop thinking," he said.I have to think," said val. "You said I was supposed to concentrate."Thinking makes you slow. You need to move as I move. Right now, you're merely following my lead."How can I know where you're going to go before you've gone there? That's stupid."It's no different from knowing where an opponent might move. How do you know where a ball is likely to go on the lacrosse field?"The only things you know about lacrosse are the things I told you," Val said.I might say the same about you and sword fighting." He stopped. "There. You did it. You were so busy snapping at me that you didn't notice you were doing it."Val frowned, too annoyed to be pleased, but too pleased to say anything more."
Author: Holly Black

11. "Love is different and more difficult. It has nothing to do with sex.This is what I tried to make my voices understand. QUietly does lovehappen. You're not even thinking about romance, then she smiles andyou notice for the first time that she's not all that plain, her face isreally quite sweet. You watch for her smile and notice that it pushes hercheeks up into two mango shapes, why should this shape be sopleaSing, I don't know. Then one evening she puts kajal round her eyesand brushes her hair, looks quite transformed, and suddenly SonaliBendre is not so desirable as this one who's been under your nose forso long, who's all dolled up to go somewhere you're not going, cannever go."
Author: Indra Sinha

12. "I was thinking the first thing we should do is Expelliarmus, you know, the Disarming Charm. I know it's pretty basic but I've found it really useful -""Oh please," said Zacharias Smith, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. "I don't think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?""I've used it against him," said Harry quietly. "It saved my life last June."Smith opened his mouth stupidly. The rest of the room was very quiet."But if you think it's beneath you, you can leave."
Author: J.K. Rowling

13. "Through many a long day you'll be taught That what you once did without thinking, As easy as if it were eating or drinking, Must be done in order: one! two! three! But truly, this though factory of ours Is like some weaver's masterpiece: One treadle stirs a thousand threads, This way and that the shuttles whistle, Threads flow invisibly, one ... Read morestroke Ties a thousand knots .... The philosopher steps in And proves to you it had to be so; The first was so, the second was so, And therefore the third and fourth were so. If the first and second hadn't existed, The third and fourth would never have existed. And this is praised by every scholar, But never a one becomes a weaver. To know and describe a living thing You first get rid of all its spirit: Then the parts are all in the palm of your hand, And all that you lack is the spirit that binds them! Encheiresis naturae, chemists call it, And fool themselves and never know it"
Author: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

14. "It [writing] has enormous meta-cognitive implications. The power is this: That you cannot only think in ways that you could not possibly think if you did not have the written word, but you can now think about the thinking that you do with the written word. There is danger in this, and the danger is that the enormous expressive and self-referential capacities of the written word, that is, the capacities to keep referring to referring to referring, will reach a point where you lose contact with the real world. And this, believe me, is very common in universities. There's a technical name for it, I don't know if we can use it on television, it's called "bullshit." But this is very common in academic life, where people just get a form of self-referentiality of the language, where the language is talking about the language, which is talking about the language, and in the end, it's hot air. That's another name for the same phenomenon."
Author: John Rogers Searle

15. "Aryans?" I asked, thinking I must have heard the word incorrectly.Christian and Allie nodded."Aryans as in white supremacist, those sorts of Aryans?""Yes," Christian said."Neo-Nazis?" My mind was having a hard time grasping the idea of a power-hungry vampire leading an army of Hitler's Youth. "Skinheads and their ilk?""Hasi, what is it you find so unbelievable?" Adrian asked, a smile in his voice."Oh, I don't know. I guess I just expected that any army Saer raised would be… you know… the evil undead." Everyone just looked at me. "Oh, yeah, I guess you're right. Neo-Nazis are more or less the evil undead. Right. So we have Saer about to attack at any moment with a bunch of goose-stepping Nazis. Great. Anyone here do a really good Winston Churchill impression?"
Author: Katie MacAlister

16. "Great. He was a hottie, a good kisser, and a literature buff. God really must have had a sense of humor, because if I had to name my biggest turn-on, it was literature. And he had just recommended a book that I didn't know, that wasn't taught in school. If I were single, there would be no better pick-up line. Suddenly, I found myself thinking back to Atonement—you know, the scene in the book where the two main characters have sex in the library? Even though Chloe said doing it against bookshelves would be really uncomfortable (and she'd probably know), it was still a fantasy of mine. Like, what's more romantic than a quiet place full of books? But I shouldn't have been thinking about my library fantasies. Especially while I was staring at Cash. In the middle of a library."
Author: Kody Keplinger

17. "If they hadn't both been pretending, but had had what is called a heart-to-heart talk, that is, simply told each other just what they were thinking and feeling, then they would just have looked into each other's eyes, and Constantine would only have said: ‘You're dying, dying, dying!' – while Nicholas would simply have replied: ‘I know I'm dying, but I'm afraid, afraid, afraid!' That's all they would have said if they'd been talking straight from the heart. But it was impossible to live that way, so Levin tried to do what he'd been trying to do all his life without being able to, what a great many people could do so well, as he observed, and without which life was impossible: he tried to say something different from what he thought, and he always felt it came out false, that his brother caught him out and was irritated by it."
Author: Leo Tolstoy

18. "I used to think I knew everything. I was a "smart person" who "got things done," and because of that, the higher I climbed, the more I could look down and scoff at what seemed silly or simple, even religion.But I realized something as I drove home that night: that I am neither better nor smarter, only luckier. And I should be ashamed of thinking I knew everything, because you can know the whole world and still feel lost in it. So many people are in pain-no matter how smart or accomplished-they cry, they yearn, they hurt.But instead of looking down on things, they look up, which is where I should have been looking, too. Because when the world quiets to the sound of your own breathing, we all want the same things:comfort, love, and a peaceful heart."
Author: Mitch Albom

19. "Travis nursed his beer silently, looking out over the water. "What are you thinking about?" Laird asked. "It's not important.""What is it?"Travis turned toward him. "Did you ever notice how some colours are used for people's names but others aren't?""What are you talking about?""White and Black. Like Mr. White, the guy who owns the tire store. And Mr. Black, our third-grade teacher. Or even Mr. Green from the game Clue. But you never hear of someone named Mr. Orange or Mr. Yellow. It's like some colours make good names, but other colours just sound stupid. You know what I mean?""I can't say I've ever thought about it.""Me neither. Not until just a minute ago, I mean. But it's kind of strange, isn't it?""Sure," Laird finally agreed. Both men were quiet for a moment. "I told you it wasn't important.""Yes, you did.""Was I right?""Yep."
Author: Nicholas Sparks

20. "But it isn't easy to find the right person. It would have to be someone good with kids and horses, and ho'd be able to pitch in with the administrating to some extent and wouldn't quibble about shoving manure.Plus I'd have to be able to depend on them, and get along with them. And they'd have to be diplomatic with parents, which is often the trickiest part."Travis picked up his soft drink again. "I might be able to point you in the right direction there.""Oh? Listen, Dad, I appreciate it, but you know, a friend of a friend or the son or daughter of an aquaintance. That kind of thing gets very sticky if it doesn't work out.""Actually, I was thinking of someone a little closer to home.Your mother.""Ma?" With a half laugh, Keeley sat again. "Ma doesn't want this headache, even if she had time for it.""Shows what you know." Smug now, he drank. "Just mention it to her, casually. I won't say a word about it."
Author: Nora Roberts

21. "I do not see how we can help thinking about God when He is so good to us all the time. Let me tell you how it seems to me that we come to know about our heavenly Father. It is from the power of love which is in our own hearts. Love is at the soul of everything. Whatever has not the power of loving must have a very dreary life indeed. We like to think that the sunshine and the winds and the trees are able to love in some way of their own, for it would make us know that they were happy if we knew that they could love. And so God who is the greatest and happiest of all beings is the most loving too. All the love that is in our hearts comes from him, as all the light which is in the flowers comes from the sun. And the more we love, the more near we are to God and His Love."
Author: Phillips Brooks

22. "Um, what's cooking in that sadistic brain of yours?" Jen asked nervously.Sally's eyes snapped open. "I was just thinking that maybe if you met someone else then you could get past your furry problem.""My furry problem? Really? You make it sound like I have abnormal leg hair growth or something." Jen rolled her eyes."Look." Sally stopped Jen before she could walk out of the room. "Let's just give it a go. You, me, and Jacque – tonight. We'll get Sorin to take us somewhere where there are going to be guys. Then you can do your thing.""My thing?" Jen asked, raising her eyebrows."Yeah. You know, your thing. The hottie hunting thing."Jen laughed. "Man, it sounded like such a good idea at the time."Sally groaned. "Oh, come on, Jen."Jen interrupted her before Sally could continue. "Don't. Don't do that whiny voice.""Then say you will go tonight," Sally challenged. "Or are you chicken?""You really like living on the edge, don't you, Thelma?""Hey, I'm just calling it how I see it."
Author: Quinn Loftis

23. "I mean, I don't know how the world broke. And I don't know if there's a God who can help us fix it. But the fact that the world is broken - I absolutely believe that. Just look around us. Every minute - every single second - there are a million things you could be thinking about. A million things you could be worrying about. Our world - don't you just feel we're becoming more fragmented? I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is. Harder. You'd think we'd be getting better at it. But there's just more and more chaos. The pieces - they're everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it's right, but because it would mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe that."
Author: Rachel Cohn

24. "My Name"I guess you are kind of curious as to who I am, but I am one of those who do not have a regular name. My name depends on you. Just call me whatever is in your mind.If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago: Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.That is my name.Perhaps it was raining very hard.That is my name.Or somebody wanted you to do something. You did it. Then they told you what you did was wrong—"Sorry for the mistake,"—and you had to do something else.That is my name.Perhaps it was a game you played when you were a child or something that came idly into your mind when you were old and sitting in a chair near the window.That is my name.Or you walked someplace. There were flowers all around.That is my name.Perhaps you stared into a river. There as something near you who loved you. They were about to touch you. You could feel this before it happened. Then it happened.That is my name."
Author: Richard Brautigan

25. "So I've been thinking. Do you believe there's a hell?""Sure. Doesn't everybody?""Well, what if this is hell, but we just don't know it?""That's crazy. Hell is like lakes of fire, and there are devils with horns and pitchforks. here's none of those around here.""But what if hell's not really like that?" Grace asked. "Everyone says it's that way," I said. "I don't think Jesus every talked about fire and brimstone.""Then why do they teach us that at church?""To scare us.""Why would they want to scare us?""I don't know. I just don't think God wants us to do good things because we're scared. I think he wants us to do good things because we're good."
Author: Richard Paul Evans

26. "Don't you ever feel like, what if the world really IS messed up? What if we COULD Do it all over again from scratch? No more war. Nobody homeless. No more summer reading homework.'m listening. Annabeth: I mean, the West represents a lot of the best things mankind ever did--that's why the fire is still burning. That's why OlympusIs still around. But sometimes you just see the bad stuff, you know? And you start thinking the way Luke does: 'If I could tear this all down, i would do it better.'. Don't you ever feel that way? Like YOU could do a better job I'd you ran the world?Percy:Um...no. Me running the world would be kind of a nightmare. Annabeth: then you're lucky. Hubris isn't your fatal flaw.Percy: what is?Annabeth: I don't know, Percy, but every hero has one. If you don't find it and learn to control it...well, they don't call it 'fatal' for nothing. Percy(thinking to himself): I thought about that. It didn't exactly cheer me up."
Author: Rick Riordan

27. "It gets you thinking about all the parts in a story we never see" --he cleared his throat-- "the parts around the edges. You bring someone like that boy so alive before us and there he is set loose in our world so that we can't stop thinking of him. But then the report is over, the boy disappears. He was just a boy in a story and we never know the ending, we never get to close the book. It makes you wonder what happens to the people in them after the story stops--all the stories you've reported for instance. Where are they all now?"
Author: Sarah Blake

28. "Mrs. Hamilton told me teenagers are resilient, that we'll bounce back," he scoffs. "And I'm thinking, Okay. When?"I don't remember Mrs. Hamilton saying that, but I've heard the theory before. That the younger you are, the quicker you can normalize an event and move on, because you don't know any other way of life. It just becomes a small part of your narrative as the years go by. But it seems to me the younger you are when something bad happens to you, the longer you have to carry it with you."
Author: Sarah Skilton

29. "Connecting in sips may work for gathering discreet bits of information, they may work for saying, "I'm thinking about you," or even for saying, "I love you," but they don't really work for learning about each other, for really coming to know and understand each other. And we use conversations with each other to learn how to have conversations with ourselves. So a flight from conversation can really matter because it can compromise our capacity for self-reflection. For kids growing up, that skill is the bedrock of development."
Author: Sherry Turkle

30. "You are a lot uglier than you think, plenty more selfish than you are ever likely to admit. So, you ignore what's inside of you. Thinking if you don't acknowledge it, it's not really there. Until someone unlikely comes along and cracks you. They see every dark corner, and they get it. And they tell you it's okay to have dark corners, instead of making you feel ashamed of them."
Author: Tarryn Fisher

31. "Oh, good grief," said Vimes. "Look, it's quite simple, man. I was expected to go "At last, alcohol!", and chugalug the lot without thinking. Then some respectable pillars of the community" - he removed the cigar from his mouth and spat - "were going to find me, in your presence, too - which was a nice touch - with the evidence of my crime neatly hidden but not so well hidden that they couldn't find it." He shook his head sadly. "The trouble is, you know, that once the taste's got you it never lets go.""But you've been very good, sir," said Carrot. "I've not seen you touch a drop for -""Oh, that," said Vimes. "I was talking about policing, not alcohol. There's lots of people will help you with the alcohol business, but there's no one out there arranging little meetings where you can stand up and say, "My name is Sam and I'm a really suspicious bastard."
Author: Terry Pratchett

32. "Today you are encouraged to take action. Thinking and doing are two very different things. Success never comes to look for you while you wait around thinking about it. You are what you do, not what you say you'll do. Knowledge is basically useless without action. Good things don't come to those who wait; they come to those who work on meaningful goals. Ask yourself what's really important and then have the courage to build your life around your answer. Prune nonessential commitments. Eliminate as much as you possibly can of everything else. No wasted time, no fluff, no regrets. And remember, if you wait until you feel 100% ready to begin, you'll likely be waiting the rest of your life.So challenge yourself to be who you know you are capable of being. Challenge yourself to follow through – to live what you preach, to walk your talk!"
Author: The Angel Affect

33. "[My grandfather] returned to what he called ‘studying.' He sat looking down at his lap, his left hand idle on the chair arm, his right scratching his head, his white hair gleaming in the lamplight. I knew that when he was studying he was thinking, but I did not know what about. Now I have aged into knowledge of what he thought about. He thought of his strength and endurance when he was young, his merriment and joy, and how his life's burdens had then grown upon him. He thought of that arc of country that centered upon Port William as he first had known it in the years just after the Civil War, and as it had changed, and as it had become; and how all that time, which would have seemed almost forever when he was a boy, now seemed hardly anytime at all. He thought of the people he remembered, now dead, and of those who had come and gone before his knowledge, and of those who would come after, and of his own place in that long procession."
Author: Wendell Berry

34. "It was the sea that made me begin thinking secretly about love more than anything else; you know, a love worth dying for, or a love that consumes you. To a man locked up in a steel ship all the time, the sea is too much like a woman. Things like her lulls and storms, or her caprice, or the beauty of her breast reflecting the setting sun, are all obvious. More than that, you're in a ship that mounts the sea and rides her and yet is constantly denied her. It's the old saw about miles and miles of lovely water and you can't quench your thirst. Nature surrounds a sailor with all these elements so like a woman and yet he is kept as far as a man can be from her warm, living body. That's where the problem begins, right there—I'm sure of it."
Author: Yukio Mishima

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