Barbara Quick Quotes

I gauge the closeness of my friends even now by how helplessly they can make me laugh. ~ Barbara Quick

I never thought that history would become one of my life's passions. I never even liked history when I was at school, apart from the context of literature, music, and art. But history has lately been revealed to me as the place where I live, where we all live, side by invisible side with others who - if we get quiet enough and listen carefully enough - will touch us and tell us their stories. ~ Barbara Quick

The legends on the tombstones are eventually worn away as the stone is eroded by rain and wind and centuries. Better to slip away quietly after having lived as fully as one can, doing the very best one can with the gifts one has been given. ~ Barbara Quick

You've done her a service to teach her that romantic love is largely made of illusion." [said Mina.]
"Is it?" Alessandra asked, unable to suppress a worried sigh.
Mina looked at her as if she knew exactly what Alessandra was thinking. "I said 'romantic love,' my dear
not true love."
"But how can one know," asked Alessandra, "one from the other?"
"True love," said Mina, "is something that reveals itself only with the passage of time. ~ Barbara Quick

I've got a hold of something that won't move. It's a willingness to keep walking into the next day, open to whatever may turn out to be true that day. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

The bloody red head emerged.
The white sheet turned crimson.
The infant sat up.
Unfurling soft, white feathered wings, the newborn demigoddess regarded the world around her with large, beguiling blue eyes. As if satisfied with what she saw, she seized her own umbilical cord between her small, sharp teeth and severed her tie with her mother with one, quick bite. ~ Georgina Anne Taylor

Quick! To the Bat-Fax! ~ Bill Watterson

Motherhood is so sentimentalised and romanticised in our culture. It's practically against the law to say there are moments in the day when you hate your children. Everyone actually has those moments. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

I looked up--for he was half a head taller than I--into his gold-colored eyes, and though their expression was merely contemplative, and his manner mild, I felt my neck go hot. Turning away from that direct, steady gaze, I just couldn't find the words to ask him about his mother's political plans. So I said, "I came to ask a favor of you."
"Speak, then," he said, his voice just a shade deeper than usual.
I looked over my shoulder and realized then that he was laughing. Not out loud, but internally. All the signs were there; the shadows at the corners of his mouth, the sudden brightness of his gaze. He was laughing at me--at my reaction.
I sighed. "It concerns the party I must give for my brother's coming marriage," I said shortly, and stole another quick look.
His amusement was gone--superficially, anyway.
"You must forgive my obtuseness," he murmured. "But you could have requested your assistance by letter."
"I did. Oh." I realized what he meant, and then remembered belatedly one of Nee's more delicate hints about pursuit--and pursuers. "Oh!" So he hadn't guessed why I'd come; he thought I'd come courting. And, well, here we were alone.
My first reaction was alarm. I did find him attractive--I realized it just as I was standing there--but in the way I'd admire a beautifully cut diamond or a sunset above sheer cliffs. Another person, finding herself in my place, could probably embark happily into dalliance and thus speed along her true purpo ~ Sherwood Smith

Ronaldo could play for Millwall, QPR, Doncaster Rovers or anyone and he'd score a hat-trick. I'm not sure Messi could do it. Ronaldo's got two feet, he's quick, he's good in the air and he's brave, though Messi's brave too of course. I just think Messi is a Barcelona player. ~ Alex Ferguson

What did I say? Don't forget to ride Captain?" "You said you were sorry there was no perfect ending but that I was perfect to you." "Autocorrect fucking up again." "Right. ~ Barbara Elsborg

Until that morning when we all went to the riverbank, I still believed Mother would take Leah, not me. Leah who, even in her malarial stupor, rushed forward to crouch with the battery in the canoe and counter its odd tilt. I was outshone was usual by her heroism. But as we watched that pirogue drift away across the Kwenge, Mother gripped my hand so tightly I understood that I had been chosen. She would drag me out of Africa if it was her last living act as a mother. I think probably it was. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Morality, as far as I could see, originates in atheism and the realization that no higher power is coming along to feed the hungry or lift the fallen. Mercy is left entirely to us. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

Perhaps long spaghetti is the kind of thing that ought to be eaten quite alone with nobody to watch one's struggles. Surely ~ Barbara Pym

In the dewy wood tinselled with bewildering moonlight, the bumbling, tumbling babies of the fairy creche trip over the hem of her dress, which is no more nor less than the margin of the wood itself; they stumble in the tangled grass as they play with the coneys, the quick brown fox-cubs, the russet fieldmice and the wee scraps of grey voles, blind velvet Mole and striped Brock with his questing snout - all the denizens of the woodland are her embroiderings, and the birds flutter round her head, settle on her shoulders and make their nests in her great abundance of disordered hair, in which are plaited poppies and ears of wheat. ~ Angela Carter

A minister's (cabinet member's) function was not to DO the work but to see that it got done. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

Anytime I fall for a dame like you I hope that somebody will take me outside an' cut my head off quick because I would rather be tied up to a coupla wild alligators than get myself hitched on to you. ~ Peter Cheyney

And so it went. Smiling, Annie might have liked to freeze the moment in time. These three, so precious to her, were in synch with each other. There was a feeling of excitement and hope. ~ Barbara Delinsky

Morality is not a large, constructed *thing* you have or have not, but simply a capacity. Something you carry with you in your brain and in your hands. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

If you're writing, you're a writer. If you're talking about it or thinking about it, I'm not so sure. Writing is ninety-eight percent work and two percent magic. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Always take a compliment, Caroline. Always take it for the way it was intended. You girls are always so quick to twist what others say. Simply say thank you and move on. ~ Alice Clayton

You get quick money, it's beautiful, there's sunshine, but at the end of the day, you find out it's all a masquerade, baby. It's not what it seems. ~ Wyclef Jean

Although I feel directing is a lot more challenging, fulfilling and satisfying, it is also far more stressful & consuming. This is why I don't see myself directing one film after another in quick succession. ~ Nandita Das

Superstition has its practical uses. ~ Barbara Mertz

The hungry nations of the world cry out to the peoples blessed with abundance. And the Church, cut to the quick by this cry, asks each and every man to hear his brother's plea and answer it lovingly. ~ Pope Paul VI

Some deaths were long, the decay so gradual the rotted end was nothing more than a sigh disappearing in the wind.
Others were quick, the abrupt cut of a life in mid-phrase leaving unanswered questions lingering like an unresolved harmony. ~ Emma Raveling

I lived in Paris for four years, so I am obsessed with pastries. Croissants, pain au chocolat, cakes, macarons, all of that! ~ Barbara Fialho

Got on! Got on! It's not a question of getting on. That's the wrong view altogether. The Classics aren't a ladder leading to quick success. ~ Agatha Christie

Then, with lots of people doing that without ever looking over their shoulders to see how they were affecting anybody else, it couldn't work, and it didn't work, and it just came to a standstill. ~ Barbara Castle

I tried to leave you alone but I don't think I can do it."
I blew out a quick breath. "What are you saying?"
"You own me, Amanda. All of me. ~ Jay McLean

In short, when it comes to an instant fix for everyday happiness, certain types of writing have a surprisingly quick and large impact. Expressing gratitude, thinking about a perfect future, and affectionate writing have been scientifically proven to work - and all they require is a pen, a piece of paper, and a few moments of your time. ~ Richard Wiseman

Making Money Online is Easy once you know how to do it. It's like riding a bike. It's easy once you know how to do it. ~ Mick Moore

Piper's advantages: she was small, she was quick, and she was absolutely insane. ~ Rick Riordan

I don't know how you go on, but I really hope you'll keep doing it. That you won't give up esperanza. I thought of that last night. Esperanza is all you get, no second chances. What you have to do is try and think of reasons to stick it out. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Simple remedies for dire situations, that's the lesson. In a falling elevator, try to climb up on the person nearby so their body will cushion your landing. Or in a crowded theater when everybody's hightailing it for the fire exit, stick your elbows hard into the ribs of your neighbors to wedge yourself in, then pick up your feet so you won't get trampled. That is how people frequently lose their lives in a riot: somebody steps on your heel, then walks right up till you're flat and they're standing on you. That's what you get for trying to stand on your own two feet - you end up getting crushed!

So that's my advice. Let others do the pushing and shoving, and you just ride along. In the end, the neck you save will be your own. Perhaps I sound un-Christian, but let's face it, when I step outside

my own little world at night and listen to the sounds out there in the dark, what I feel down in my bones is that this is not a Christian kind of place. This is darkest Africa, where life roars by you like a flood and you grab whatever looks like it will hold you up.

If you ask me, that's how it is and ever shall be. You stick out your elbows, and hold yourself up. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Between the happening of a historical process and its recognition by rulers, a lag stretches, full of pitfalls. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

We, the women of the Senate, with President Obama by our side, will keep fighting - our shoulders square, our lipstick on - because you deserve equal pay for your hard work. ~ Barbara Mikulski

There's people I love. But there's so many other kinds of love, too. And people act so hateful to every kind but their own. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

That's maturity-when you realize that you've finally arrived at a state of ignorance as profound as your parents. ~ Barbara Mertz

Why are dumb brutes so damned smart, anyway?'

'Why are us smart folk so often stupidly brutal, Quick Ben?' Trull asked.

'Stop trying to confuse me in my state of animal terror, Edur. ~ Steven Erikson

The attitude of kindness is everyday stuff like a great pair of sneakers. Not frilly. Not fancy. Just plain and comfortable. ~ Barbara Johnson

The world will break your heart ten times till Sunday,that's guaranteed ~ Matthew Quick

There is the fear, common to all English-only speakers, that the chief purpose of foreign languages is to make fun of us. Otherwise, you know, why not just come out and say it? ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

It is futile to judge the viability of a new movement by the truth of its doctrine and the feasibility of its promises. What has to be judged is its corporate organization for quick and total absorption of the frustrated. Where new creeds vie with each other for the allegiance of the populace, the one which comes with the most perfected collective framework wins. ~ Eric Hoffer

The question was whether James would love me if I was someone else. ~ Barbara Delinsky

I became so attentive to the souls of other people that I was not as attentive as I might have been to my own. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor