Bel Ami Quotes

He did not know how to make her understand that he would be happy, most happy, to become her husband in his turn. He certainly could not tell her that, now, at this moment, in this place, in the presence of this corpse; nevertheless he could, he believed, find one of those ambiguous, acceptable, complicated statements whose words have hidden significance, and which can, by their calculated reservations, express everything you intend. ~ Guy De Maupassant

They had moved closer to one another to watch the dying moments of the day, this beautiful bright May day. ~ Guy De Maupassant

This notary was a little man, completely round, round in every part. His head looked like a ball nailed onto another ball, supported by two legs that were so tiny and so short that they also closely resembled balls. ~ Guy De Maupassant

In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king. ~ Guy De Maupassant

Breathing, sleeping, drinking, eating, working, dreaming, everything we do is dying. to live, in fact, is to die. ~ Guy De Maupassant

Now listen carefully: Marriage, to me, is not a chain but an association. I must be free, entirely unfettered, in all my actions
my coming and my going; I can tolerate neither control, jealousy, nor criticism as to my conduct. I pledge my word, however, never to compromise the name of the man I marry, nor to render him ridiculous in the eyes of the world. But that man must promise to look upon me as an equal, an ally, and not as an inferior, or as an obedient, submissive wife. My ideas, I know, are not like those of other people, but I shall never change them. ~ Guy De Maupassant

When I was younger, I was always being told I had a period face, but 'Bel Ami' was my first shot at it. ~ Holliday Grainger

The Poetry that Searches

Poetry that paints a portrait in words,
Poetry that spills the bottled emotions,
Gives life to the feelings deep inside,
Breaks through all the times wept,
To sweep you in a whirling ecstatic delight.

The chiseled marble of language,
The paint spattered canvas,
Where colors flow through words,
Where emotions roll on a canvas,
And it all begins with you.

The canvas that portrays the trembling you,
Through the feelings that splash,
Through the words that spatter,
All over the awaiting canvas.
Such is the painting sketched with passion,
Colored with the heart's unleashed emotions.

The poetry that reads your trembling heart,
The poetry that feeds the seed of your dreams,
That poetry that reveals light within rain,
Takes you to a place where beauty lies in stain.
The poetry that whispers-
"May you find the stars, in a night so dark,
May you find the moon, so rich with silver,
May you sip the madness and delight
In a night berserk with a wailing agony".
Such words that arise from spilling emotions,
So recklessly you fall, in love with life again.

So, you rise shedding your fears,
To chase after your dreams,
As you hear thunder in the rain,
That carries your pain,
Through the painting of words, colored with courage,
Splashed with ferocity, ami ~ Jayita Bhattacharjee

And that's it; that's why I want to teach; that's the one and only compensation: to make a permanent difference in the life of a child. ~ Bel Kaufman

There is a premium on conformity, and on silence. Enthusiasm is frowned upon, since it is likely to be noisy. The Admiral had caught a few kids who came to school before class, eager to practice on the typewriters. He issued a manifesto forbidding any students in the building before 8:20 or after 3:00 - outside of school hours, students are "unauthorized." They are not allowed to remain in a classroom unsupervised by a teacher. They are not allowed to linger in the corridors. They are not allowed to speak without raising a hand. They are not allowed to feel too strongly or to laugh too loudly.
Yesterday, for example, we were discussing "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars/ But in ourselves that we are underlings." I had been trying to relate Julius Caesar to their own experiences. Is this true? I asked. Are we really masters of our fate? Is there such a thing as luck? A small boy in the first row, waving his hand frantically: "Oh, call on me, please, please call on me!" was propelled by the momentum of his exuberant arm smack out of his seat and fell on the floor. Wild laughter. Enter McHabe. That afternoon, in my letter-box, it had come to his attention that my "control of the class lacked control. ~ Bel Kaufman

Tunnel vision can kill creativity. ~ Ami Vitale

Nothing is so dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is worth more.
[Fr., Rien n'est si dangereux qu'un ignorant ami;
Mieux vaudrait un sage ennemi.] ~ Jean De La Fontaine

You dreamed about falling asleep?" Daniel asked him.
"Falling asleep together." Bel smile. "And it was weird. You know what I said to you?"
"What'd you say?"
"I said, 'Don't go too far without me.' ~ Lisa Henry

I so enjoy being old because for the first time I don't have to do anything-work, teach, study. I feel very good about myself-and at my age I can say no to anything now if I don't want to do it. What a liberating word. ~ Bel Kaufman

I was lucky enough to first meet Elvis at his house in Bel Air and he used to invite different artists, singers and musicians, to come and jam with him at his house. ~ Jackie DeShannon

I want to point the way to something that should forever lure them, when the TV set is broken and the movie is over and the school bell has rung for the last time. ~ Bel Kaufman

Laughter keeps you healthy. You can survive by seeing the humor in everything. Thumb your nose at sadness; turn the tables on tragedy. You can't laugh and be angry, you can't laugh and feel sad, you can't laugh and feel envious. ~ Bel Kaufman

The building itself is hostile: cracked plaster, broken windows, splintered doors and carved up desks, gloomy corridors, metal stairways, dingy cafeteria (they can eat sitting down only in 20 minute shifts) and an auditorium which has no windows. It does have murals, however, depicting mute, muscular harvesters, faded and immobilized under a mustard sun.
That's where we had assembly this morning. ~ Bel Kaufman

A girl should command attention, not suffer it. ~ Ami McKay

When do I get to do that, Maman?", she´d asked. "When do I get to say whatever I wish?"

"When it pains you not to," her mother had replied.

"What if I´m too scared?"

"All the more reason to speak your mind. ~ Ami McKay

I started doing theatre, and that's when I really fell in love with the profession; I learned a lot. It felt a bit weird to go from living in New York on Broadway to university, so I kept putting it off. Then, eventually, I had to give up the place. ~ Bel Powley

It is hard to face the truth, Bel," Lux says. "Only the courageous ever do. ~ Zoey Hunter

Friendship is when you answer that friend request on Skype and text twenty random letters, that is true friendship. ~ Ami Riechman-Bennett

When I took the Hippocratic oath and was effectively 'sworn in' as a doctor, I took the same vow that doctors have taken for generations. Patient autonomy is core to this oath. ~ Ami Bera

For the vast majority of Americans who work hard and play by the rules, paying the bills may be hard some months, but it's something we always do. ~ Ami Bera

There remains a degree of anti-black intellectualism in entertainment. Middle and upper-middle class blacks have often been portrayed as buffoons in popular culture; witness the characters of Carlton Banks on 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' and Braxton P. Hartnabrig on 'The Jamie Foxx Show.' ~ John Ridley

To learn that happiness is what brings success, and not the other ~ Ami Vitale

We don't realize that we face a frustrating situation in which we win every battle, but we lose the war. ~ Ami Ayalon

White and black. Light and dark. And me, in the middle of it all. Gray. ~ Ami Polonsky

One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have windows with trees in them. ~ Bel Kaufman

Cher Marcel,
Allô. I am Oskar's mom. I have thought about it a ton, and I have decided that it isn't obvious why Oskar should go to French lessons, so he will no longer be going to go see you on Sundays like he used to. I want to thank you very much for everything you have taught Oskar, particularly the conditional tense, which is weird. Obviously, there's no need to call me when Oskar doesn't come to his lessons, because I already know, because this was my decision. Also, I will keep sending you checks, because you are a nice guy.
Votre ami dévouée,
Mademoiselle Schell. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Touche, mon ami. Too fugging shay. ~ John Green

Bidden or not, God is here. ~ Ami McKay

A compelling and important story of First Word War Scotland, a time when women redefined the word hope as the world was losing its innocence. Andrea MacPherson writes beautifully, balancing the lives of her characters between history and the poetry of gesture, secrets and love. ~ Ami McKay

American girls never whimper. ~ Ami McKay

Empathy is the key to great stories. ~ Ami Vitale

Luck is not on her side today. It wasn't on her side this morning when she woke up to hear a door slamming downstairs and her husband bel- lowing her name, and it isn't on her side now. ~ Jane Green

'70s music is the kind of music I listen to. '70s clothes, I adore. ~ Bel Powley

Don't think of it as the end of the world when your milk spills, think of the beginning of love when you look up into the eyes of the man cleaning it up. ~ Ami Riechman-Bennett

But if there is such a thing as social commitment in literature, I think it must manifest itself in a reader's awareness of the human condition, in the writer's touching some common nerve ending. I think this kind of social commitment, like a lady's slip, should be there but it must not show. ~ Bel Kaufman

Rowan sighed. "Yes." She folded her hands before her on the table, sat gazing at them a moment. "But." She looked up at the Outskirter. "Bel, no matter how clever we are, no matter how much we can discover, I believe that the common folk will, at the end of this, need magic. Even if we defeat Slado, or kill him, Routine Bioform Clearance will have to be reestablished according to its proper use, and maintained, and intelligently so. ~ Rosemary Kirstein

I was really quite geeky at school. At one point, I wanted to be prime minister or a mathematician. ~ Bel Powley

It has been a week since Ami died and this morning I woke suddenly hours before dawn, indeed the same hour as when my mother died. It was not a dream that woke me, but a thought. And with that thought I could swear I heard Ami's voice.
But I am not frightened. I am joyous. Joyous with realization. For I cannot help but think what a lucky person I am. Imagine that in all the eons of time, in all the possible universes of which Dara speaks, of all the stars in the heavens, Ami and I came together for one brief and shining sliver of time.
I stop. I think.
Supposing in the grand infinity of this universe two particles of life, Ami and me, swirl endlessly like grains of sand in the oceans of the world
how much of a chance is there for these two particles, these two grains of sand, to collide, to rest briefly together ... at the same moment in time?
That is what happened with Ami and me ... this miracle of chance. ~ Kathryn Lasky

I did not deceive you, mon ami. At most, I permitted you to deceive yourself. ~ Agatha Christie

Il bel far niente means 'the beauty of doing nothing' ... [it] has always been a cherished Italian ideal. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement. You don't necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

The mirror follows us, but it's not a friend. (Le miroir nous suit, - Mais n'est un ami.) ~ Charles De Leusse

BEL-IMPERIA: Oh let me go; for in my troubled eyes
Now may'st thou read that life in passion dies.
HORATIO: Oh stay a while, and I will die with thee;
So shalt thou yield, and yet have conquered me. ~ Thomas Kyd

I'll never retire as long as I live - that's like retiring from life! I'll never stop writing, teaching, lecturing. If you're in good health, living is exciting on its own. ~ Bel Kaufman

Back in L.A., I'd remained friends with my freshman-year boyfriend, Collin, and we'd become even closer after he confided in me one dark and emotional night that he'd finally come to terms with his homosexuality. Around that time, his mother was visiting from Dallas, and Collin invited me to meet them at Hotel Bel Air for brunch. I wore the quintessential early-1990s brunch outfit: a copper-brown silk tank with white, dime-size polka dots and a below-the-knee, swinging skirt to match. A flawless Pretty Woman--Julia Roberts polo match replica. I loved that outfit.
It was silk, though, and clingy, and the second I sat down at the table I knew I was in trouble. My armpits began to feel cool and wet, and slowly I noticed the fabric around my arms getting damper and damper. By the time our mimosas arrived, the ring of sweat had spread to the level of my third rib; by mealtime, it had reached the waistline of my skirt, and the more I tried to will it away, the worse it got. I wound up eating my Eggs Florentine with my elbows stuck to my hip bones so Collin and his mother wouldn't see. But copper-brown silk, when wet, is the most unforgiving fabric on the planet. Collin had recently come out to his parents, so I'd later determined I'd experienced some kind of sympathetic nervousness on Collin's behalf. I never wore that outfit again. Never got the stains out.
Nor would I ever wear this suit again. ~ Ree Drummond

So you walk along Bunker Hill, and you shake your fist at the sky, and I know what you're thinking, Bandini. The thoughts of your father before you, lash across your back, hot ire in your skull, that you are not to blame: this is your thought, that you were born poor, fled from your Colorado town because you are poor, hoping to write a book to get rich, because those who hated you back there in Colorado will not hate you if you write a book. You are a coward, Bandini, a traitor to your soul, a feeble liar before your weeping Christ. This is why you write, this is why it would be better if you died.
Yes, it's true: but I have seen houses in Bel-Air with cool lawns and green swimming pools. I have wanted women whose very shoes are worth all I have ever possessed. I have seen golf clubs on Sixth Street in the Spalding window that make me hungry just to grip them. I have grieved for a necktie like a holy man for indulgences. I have admired hats in Robinson's the way critics gasp at Michelangelo. ~ John Fante

Singing bel canto is like walking on a tightrope - especially with a larger voice like mine. ~ Sondra Radvanovsky

The Labor Party is a party with no ideals, regulations or laws, and it is a party I will not be a part of. ~ Ami Ayalon

Sometimes, it is not about the skillset or talent alone but behavior and attitude is part of the ladder moing to the next steps ~ Bel

the bell is never wrung the bell wrungs the bell is wrung the community bell wrung twice before he died - the community bell wrung warning her to stop with her aborminable crimes but both husband and wife wouldnt listen so it wrung for them for the last time. he she girl boy children old young animals crawling things no one is excempt. i would love for the bell to ring for me so my bell would ring and then it will wrung twice or as many times it wants to ring. i love the sound of the bell ring wrung. thank you bell, i feel safe whenever i hear your ringing.
the bell is never wrung the bell wrungs the bell is wrung the community bell wrung twice before he died - the community bell wrung warning her to stop with her aborminable crimes but both husband and wife wouldnt listen so it wrung for them for the last time. he she girl boy children old young animals crawling things no one is excempt. i would love for the bell to ring for me so my bell would ring and then it will wrung twice or as many times it wants to ring. i love the sound of the bell ring wrung. thank you bell, i feel safe whenever i hear your ringing.
the bell is never wrung the bell wrungs the bell is wrung the community bell wrung twice before he died - the community bell wrung warning her to stop with her aborminable crimes but both husband and wife wouldnt listen so it wrung for them for the last time. he she girl boy children old young animals crawling things no one is excempt. i would love for the bel ~ Thebellwrung

Hanged, Ami. Your father was not tapestry. ~ George R.R. Martin