Bartletts Familiar Quotes

There ought to be something about computers and artificial intelligence [in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations]. Surely somebody somewhere said something memorable. ~ Justin Kaplan

I got that familiar mania - there is information somewhere here, and I can find it, I have to. A good librarian is not so different from a prospector, her whole brain a divining rod. She walks to books and stands and wonders: here? Is the answer here? The same blind faith in finding, even when hopeless. If someone caught me when I was in the throes of tracking something elusive, I would have told them: but it's out there. I can feel it. ~ Elizabeth McCracken

'The Sisters Brothers' has endeared so many prize juries because the Western format has more of a broad appeal and is familiar to readers. ~ Patrick DeWitt

And I knew, too, that to live a life like Walter Cole's - a life almost mundane in the pleasure it derived from small happinesses and the beauty of the familiar, but uncommon in the value it attached to them - was something to be envied. ~ John Connolly

You'll never stumble upon the unexpected if you stick only to the familiar. ~ Ed Catmull

But if the beginnings of love and amorous politics are equally rosy, then the ends are often equally bloody. We're familiar with political love that ends in tyranny, where a ruler's firm conviction that he has the true interests of his nation at heart ends up lending him the confidence to murder without qualms (and 'for their own good') all who disagree with him. Romantic lovers are similarly inclined to vent their frustration on dissenters and heretics. ~ Alain De Botton

You never discover the unexpected if you always stick with the familiar ~ Jeff Dixon-Terror In The Kingdom

The way I see it, you have two choices: what's new and what you know. It's a bit like when you're looking for software for your PC or Mac. There will always be the latest program or app or gadget that promises all manner of new and shiny things for you. You don't know it because you haven't worked with it before - but that's exciting because you don't know what to expect. Compared to this, anything familiar seems dull. But sometimes what you know is the best option: Sure, it might not be as shiny or fancy as the new thing, but you've taken the time to get to know it, you know what to expect from it and you can trust it to do what you need it to. You're frowning. Is this making any sense to you at all? ~ Miranda Dickinson

--From "A Familiar Preface", 1912(PR,pp,19-20）：
"At a time when nothing which is not revolutionary in some way or other can expect to attract much attention I have not been revolutionary in my writings. The revolutionary spirit is mighty convenient in this, that it frees one from all scruples as regards ideas. Its hard, absolute optimism is repulsive to my mind by the menace of fanaticism and intolerance it contains. No doubt one should smile at these things;but, imperfect Esthete, I am no better Philosopher. ~ Joseph Conrad

One added benefit of making the opponent come to you, as the Japanese discovered with the Russians, is that it forces him to operate in your territory. Being on hostile ground will make him nervous and often he will rush his actions and make mistakes.

For negotiations or meetings, it is always wise to lure others into your territory, or the territory of your choice. You have your bearings, while they see nothing familiar and are subtly placed on the defensive. ~ Robert Greene

At watershed moments of upheaval and transformation, we anticipate with terror the absence of the familiar parts of life and of ourselves that are being washed away by the current of change. But we fail to envision the unfamiliar gladness and gratifications the new tide would bring, the unfathomed presences, for our imaginations are bounded by our experience. The unknown awakens in us a reptilian dread that plays out with the same ferocity on scales personal, societal, and civilizational, whether triggered by a new life-chapter or a new political regime or a new world order. ~ Maria Popova

Be Reserved, but not Sour; Grave, but not Formal; Bold, but not Rash; Humble, but not Servile; Patient, not Insensible; Constant, not Obstinate; Chearful, not Light; Rather Sweet than Familiar; Familiar, than Intimate; and Intimate with very few, and upon very good Grounds. ~ Various

When jumbled up, the letters contained in the name Taarak Vakil now spelt out a name that every theologian in India would be familiar with. Kalki avatar - the tenth incarnation of Vishnu. ~ Ashwin Sanghi

A paradisiacal lagoon lay below them. The water was an unbelievable, unreal turquoise, its surface so still that every feature of the bottom could be admired in magnified detail: colorful pebbles, bright red kelp, fish as pretty and colorful as the jungle birds. A waterfall on the far side fell softly from a height of at least twenty feet. A triple rainbow graced its frothy bottom. Large boulders stuck out of the water at seemingly random intervals, black and sun-warmed and extremely inviting, like they had been placed there on purpose by some ancient giant.
And on these were the mermaids.
Wendy gasped at their beauty.
Their tails were all colors of the rainbow, somehow managing not to look tawdry or clownish. Deep royal blue, glittery emerald green, coral red, anemone purple. Slick and wet and as beautifully real as the salmon Wendy's father had once caught on holiday in Scotland. Shining and voluptuously alive.
The mermaids were rather scandalously naked except for a few who wore carefully placed shells and starfish, although their hair did afford some measure of decorum as it trailed down their torsos. Their locks were long and thick and sinuous and mostly the same shades as their tails. Some had very tightly coiled curls, some had braids. Some had decorated their tresses with limpets and bright hibiscus flowers.
Their "human" skins were familiar tones: dark brown to pale white, pink and beige and golden and everything in between. Their eyes were a ~ Liz Braswell

He could see tiny particles of dust drifting in the air between her ankles, each fleck tumbling individually in and out of the sunlight, and there was something intensely familiar in their arrangement. ~ Anthony Doerr

He considered for a moment, then started to play a piece that was very familiar to Ruth, although she had no idea what it was. It was lilting and wistful, and she could have sung the melody if she had wished.
"Alright?" He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
"Yes. Exactly."
It was effortless and perfect, and he played it through to the end, closing with the softest and most delicate chords, which hung and faded in the quiet hall like the grains of dust raining through the evening light. Ruth was touched. It was all she had wanted. He did not move until there was complete silence again, then he closed the lid without saying anything, and stood up, shoving back the chair. ... "What was that piece?"
"A Brahms waltz."
"Hasn't it got a name?" she wanted it to remember.
"Number fifteen. Opus thirty-nine."
It hadn't sounded like numbers to Ruth. ~ K.M. Peyton

But we have not used our waters well. Our major rivers are defiled by noxious debris. Pollutants from cities and industries kill the fish in our streams. Many waterways are covered with oil slicks and contain growths of algae that destroy productive life and make the water unfit for recreation. "Polluted Water-No Swimming" has become a familiar sign on too many beaches and rivers. A lake that has served many generations of men now can be destroyed by man in less than one generation. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

Bethesda … Would I be wrong in guessing you work for Uncle Sam?"

"Why, yes. You must be very familiar with Washington, Mr. Fenton. Does your work bring you there often?"

Anywhere but on our sandbar the little ploy would have worked. My hunter's gene twitches.

"Which agency are you with?"

She gives up gracefully. "Oh, just GSA records. I'm a librarian."

Of course. I know her now, all the Mrs. Parsonses in records divisions, accounting sections, research branches, personnel and administration offices. Tell Mrs. Parsons we need a recap on the external service contracts for fiscal '73.

- 'The Women Men Don't See ~ James Tiptree Jr.

Like seeing a photograph of yourself as a child, encountering handwriting that you know was once yours but that now seems only dimly familiar can inspire a confrontation with the mystery of time. ~ Francine Prose

There is reinforcement in such familiar back-formations as Chinee from Chinese, Portugee from Portuguese. ~ H.L. Mencken

This place of stuck - "I have to" and "I can't" - feels familiar from my spiritual work. We're told to simply "let go" - but when we try to do this, we often seem to get more deeply tangled in the willful web of resistance. In spite of injunctions to the contrary, "letting go" doesn't appear to be something we have conscious control over. Why can't we just let go into the loving arms of the universe? What is this holding back that seems so essential - so imperative? ~ David Rynick

There's something about love that resembles faith. It's kind of blind trust, isn't it? The sweetest euphoria. The magic of connecting with a being beyond our limited, familiar selves. But if we get carried away by love- or by faith- it turns into a dogma, a fixation. The sweetness becomes sour. We suffer in the hands of the gods that we ourselves created. ~ Elif Shafak

Now and again we would happen to step out of the familiar universe into a sudden sharp shock of sweetly scented air, sudden as spilled perfume, piercing as crystal, dark and sweet as the sound of oboes. ~ Steven Millhauser

The look of good sense and prudence, even of the best kind, differs from that of genius, in that the former bears the stamp of subjection to the will, while the latter is free from it. And therefore one can well believe the anecdote [...] how once at the court of the Visconti, when Petrarch and other noblemen and gentlemen were present, Galeazzo Visconti told his son, who was then a mere boy (he was afterwards first Duke of Milan), to pick out the wisest of the company; how the boy looked at them all for a little, and then took Petrarch by the hand and led him up to his father, to the great admiration of all present. For so clearly does nature set the mark of her dignity on the privileged among mankind that even a child can discern it.

Therefore, I should advise my sagacious countrymen, if ever again they wish to trumpet about for thirty years a very commonplace person as a great genius, not to choose for the purpose such a beer-house-keeper physiognomy as was possessed by that philosopher [Hegel], upon whose face nature had written, in her clearest characters, the familiar inscription, "commonplace person. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Almost no one under 60 remembers what fundraising was like before Watergate. Until the 1970s, campaign money was collected by "bagmen," familiar characters from the world of organized crime. As fans of Boardwalk Empire know, a bagman is a political fixer who walked around with stacks of $100 and $1,000 bills. At lower levels, he used brown paper bags. In presidential campaigns, the cash was more likely to be in briefcases. Classier that way. ~ Jonathan Alter

Abba is not Hebrew, the language of liturgy, but Aramaic, the language of home and everyday life … We need to be wary of the suggestion … that the correct translation of Abba is 'Daddy.' Abba is the intimate word of a family circle where that obedient reverence was at the heart of the relationship, whereas Daddy is the familiar word of a family circle from which all thoughts of reverence and obedience have largely disappeared … The best English translation of Abba is simply 'Dear Father. ~ Thomas Allan Smail

Another British study discovered that average eight-year-olds were better able to identify characters from the Japanese card trading game Pokemon than native species in the community where they lived: Pikachu, Metapod, and Wigglytuff were names more familiar to them than otter, beetle, and oak tree. ~ Richard Louv

I think that a lot of things are hard to read if you're not in the vocabulary flow of that particular discourse. I sometimes forget that even though the words I'm using are fairly ordinary words, the concepts around which they cluster, which are the long concepts of literary tradition, may not be familiar to an audience. ~ Helen Vendler

Putting her mind to it, Love would become familiar with his body. She would know him from top to bottom, from beginning to end. Touching this boy would be the death, and life, of her. She ~ Natalia Jaster

He was trying to find his footing in a world both familiar and foreign ~ H.W. Brands

If you're brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments, and set out on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

She was so tired of the old way of telling stories, all those too-worn narrative paths, the familiar plot thickets, the fat social novels. She needed something messier, something sharper, something like a bomb going off. ~ Lauren Groff

Depression isn't the almighty ruler of your destiny. Even its familiar traits - grief, anger, despair - you find that you can use in other ways. I can create with them in my writing and my life, mix them up with excitement and pleasure. I can name that terrible, numbing paralysis and know it will pass. ~ Margo Jefferson

His heart ached in such a familiar way, and the very familiarity of it pained him. ~ Iris Murdoch

Because sometimes you need to run away. You need to believe in something without looking for proof. You need to enjoy a thing, without finding a need to measure its value. You need to run away from a familiar life, into something quite unfamiliar. Even if you are so old, the only running away you will ever do again is in your mind. ~ Joanna Cannon

It's only by becoming familiar with poisons that you can make the best antidotes. ~ Aprilynne Pike

If the weight of mortality does not grow lighter, does it at least get more familiar? ~ Paul Kalanithi

The question is not, could Utah compete week in and week out in the ACC, SEC, Big Ten, whatever, .. The question is, in a one- game setting, can Utah compete, can Utah get the market share, sell the tickets of one of those more familiar institutions. Nobody knows that answer. ~ Craig Thompson

I sensed a familiar presence behind me. A hand brushed my hair back, and Ranger leaned in to me and kissed me on the nape of my neck. ~ Janet Evanovich

Grief allows you to let go of something you have lost only when you begin to accept what you now have in its place. As our mind clings to the familiar, to our established expectations, we can become trapped in feelings of disappointment, confusion, anger, that create our own internal worlds of suffering. ~ Daniel J. Siegel

I simply love classic design when it's reinterpreted. These collections reflect the spirit of this design philosophy; clean pared down lines and forms rooted in tradition yet made to feel new and modern with unexpected or stylized scale, finishes and detailing. This contemporary take on tradition creates a look that's at once current yet timeless, fresh yet familiar ... the essence of both beautiful design and a beautifully designed home. ~ Candice Olson

This part concerns the unshakable feeling one gets, one thinks, after the unthinkable and unexplainable happens
the feeling that, if this person can die, and that person can die, and this can happen and that can happen ... well, then what exactly is preventing everything from happening to this person, he around whom everything else happened?
Just as some police
particularly those they dramatize on television
might be familiar with death, and might expect it an any instant
so does the author, possessing a naturally paranoid disposition, compounded by environmental factors that make it seem not only possible but probable that whatever there might be out there that snuffs out life is probably sniffing around for him, that his number is perennially, eternally up, that his draft number is low, that his bingo card is hot, that he has a bull's-eye on his chest and target on his back. It's fun. You'll see. ~ Dave Eggers

The genuflection toward 'fairness' is a familiar newsroom piety, in practice the excuse for a good deal of autopilot reporting and lazy thinking but in theory a benign ideal. In Washington, however, a community in which the management of news has become the single overriding preoccupation of the core industry, what 'fairness' has often come to mean is a scrupulous passivity, an agreement to cover the story not as it is occurring but as it is presented, which is to say as it is manufactured. ~ Joan Didion

The assumption behind any theology that I've ever been familiar with is that there is a profound beauty in being, simply in itself. Poetry, at least traditionally, has been an educing of the beauty of language, the beauty of experience, the beauty of the working of the mind, and so on. The pastor does, indeed, appreciate it. ~ Marilynne Robinson