Billy Ansel Quotes

But I understood Bear Otto's desire to become a noble man, a man like Billy Ansel, and I respected that, naturally. I just wished the boy had more ways of imagining the thing than by becoming a good soldier. But that's boys, I guess. ~ Russell Banks

From then on, we were simply different people. Not new people; different. ~ Russell Banks

I can't help it, and I'm not sorry for it; I'm even a little proud. People think I'm cold and unfeeling, but that's a price I've always been willing to pay. The truth is that I'm beyond help; most people are; and it only angers me to see my sisters or my friends here in town wasting their time. To forestall or cover my anger, I jump in front of them, and suddenly I myself have turned into the person come to provide comfort, reassurance, help, whatever it is they originally desired to provide me with. I take their occasion and make it my own. ~ Russell Banks

[ ... ] I could no longer believe even in life. Which meant that I had come to be the reverse, the opposite of a Christian. For me, now, the only reality is death. ~ Russell Banks

The way we deal with death depends on how it's imagined for us beforehand, by our parents and the people who surround them, and what happens to us early on.[ ... ] Instead, we believe the lie, that death, unlike taxes, can be postponed indefinitely, and we spend our lives defending that belief. Some people are very good at it, and they become our nation's heroes. Some, like me, see the lie early for what it is, fake it for a while and grow bitter, and then go beyond bitterness to ... to what? To this, I suppose. Cowardice. Adulthood. ~ Russell Banks

For instance, a man generally doesn't even know how small a woman is until he holds an article of her clothing up in front of him, one of her nightgowns, say, and sees how small and flimsy it is and how like a child's and unlike his own, and how thick and heavy his hands seem. ~ Russell Banks

Before you lose your children, you can talk about it-as a possibility, I mean [ ... ] But when the thing that you only imagined actually happens, you quickly discover that you can barely speak of it. Your story is jumbled and mumbled, out of sync and unfocused. At least that's how it has been for me. ~ Russell Banks

Biology doesn't matter, the Christians argued, because this body we live in is not ultimately real; history doesn't matter, they said, because God's time is different and superior to man's anyhow; and forget cause and effect, forget what you've been told about the physical world, because there is heaven and there is hell and there is this green earth in between, and you are always alive in one of the three places. ~ Russell Banks

But twins are like that. They behave in ways, especially regarding each other, that can seem very strange to someone who is not a twin himself. They have a morality that is different from ours-at least when they are young they do-because, unlike other children, they are not inclined to imitate adults until much later. To children who are twins, even when they are not identical, the other twin is both more or less real than everyone else in the family, and they deal with each other the way that we deal with ourselves alone. Which means that it's like twins are permanently stoned. I don't think that's an exaggeration. ~ Russell Banks

I kept driving straight on toward what we called home and could not say aloud the words that were thrashing me, as if somehow by remaining silent I could keep the terrible thing from having occurred. ~ Russell Banks

In the last essay he wrote before he died, great Christian apologist C. S. Lewis said, "We have no right to happiness; only an obligation to do our duty." Of course it is in our duty that happiness comes. Try it. ~ Billy Graham

God is more concerned about the attitude of our hearts than the way we express it. Worship isn't supposed to be entertainment. ~ Billy Graham

You will never see the four original Pumpkins on stage ever again, unless it's a Hall of Fame thing. But you would never see a tour. There's so much damage, there's no way. ~ Billy Corgan

If I had to do it over, I wouldn't change a thing. ~ Billy Sheehan

And I have come to understand the truth of what Ansel Adams said that you don't make a photograph just with a camera but that you bring to the act all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard and the people you have loved. ~ David Park

We must be constantly aware that Satan can take any human effort and twist it to serve his own purposes. ~ Billy Graham

You might as well try and dam Niagara Falls with toothpicks as to stop the reform wave sweeping our land. ~ Billy Sunday

Hail Mary, full of grace," Papaw
said, "please tell Billy to shut his
face."
"I intend to speak my mind," Bill
said.
"Oh, Christians," Papaw said
with a heavy sigh. "Always got to
speak their fucking minds like we
haven't heard it all a million times
already. They think the sun rises just to
hear them crow. What a bunch of
Christless bastards. ~ Nick Wilgus

The world doesn't really have much respect for Christians who adopt its fashions and ideas. It is inclined to regard them with contempt - to write them off either as cowards who are ashamed of their faith or as frauds whose profession is not sincere. ~ Billy Graham

When I was growing up, when I was 11 years old I was listening to The Mothers of Invention. You know, I mean I was a Frank Zappa fan in Arkansas. ~ Billy Bob Thornton

Discouragement is the opposite of faith. It is Satan's device to thwart the work of God in your life. ~ Billy Graham

As a citizen of the great city of Chicago, I find it impossible to root against the White Sox. The White Sox organization has been much more consistent, in my lifetime at least, at putting a winning ballclub on the field. ~ Billy Corgan

Look, you know, you can't please everybody. I'm a stand-up comic. I know that. It doesn't matter how funny you are and how well you do, there's two people that are going to walk out of there hating you. ~ Billy Gardell

There are those who say that all roads lead to God. But Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" [John 14:6 KJV]. ~ Billy Graham

I grew up in Arkansas and that's the law. My dad was a high school basketball coach, so I was raised as a coach's son and I was a baseball player back in Arkansas, and I lived in Texas, too, so I was just surrounded by sports. So that's what I was going to do: Pitch for the St Louis Cardinals. I had no idea I was going to be an actor. So I got my collar bone broken in the Kansas City Royals training camp. And once I got hurt I started doing other things for a while. ~ Billy Bob Thornton

J. I. Packer says, "Knowing God is more than knowing about Him; it is a matter of dealing with Him as He opens up to you, and being dealt with by Him as He takes knowledge of you."1 ~ Billy Humphrey

Because God is love, He could not completely cast man aside. ~ Billy Graham

Faithfulness is produced by the Holy Spirit in a yielded Christian life. ~ Billy Graham

One of the great joys of my life has been to travel around the world and meet thousands of Christians in every country. ~ Billy Graham

The only other consistent thing in Billy's life was his father. Billy didn't call him that though. He'd always called him Pop. Billy's Pop would have laughed at all that career day stuff. Pop didn't have crazy hair but Billy was pretty sure he was a genius. Pop told him stuff they didn't let you in on at school, like how there was supposed to be future stuff already, like moving sidewalks and monorails and jetpacks. Pop told him that the government had lied and screwed people out of all that stuff and the only reason we ever went to the moon was to bury Jimmy Hoffa up there. ~ Jesse James Freeman

Nothing will drive us to our knees quicker than trouble. ~ Billy Graham

I often have deer on my property and there's a fox and owls. You're not going to see that in the city. ~ Billy Corgan

It is not necessary to be in a big place to do big things. ~ Billy Sunday

I did 13-something years of talking to wrestlers and promoters about why they did certain things and why they booked matches a certain way and what they were thinking and whether they were satisfied with the draw. And I got a lot of insight in the business. ~ Billy Corgan

The disappointing second novel is measured against the brilliant first novel - often no novel lives up to the first. Literary improvement seems like an unfair expectation. ~ Billy Collins

Robin Williams understands sonic performances. He understands what it's like to change your voice up. ~ Billy West

As the people came to a desert place to hear John the Baptist proclaim, "Thus saith the Lord," so [man] in his confusions, frustrations, and bewilderment will come to hear the minister who preaches with authority. ~ Billy Graham

I set out to be a cross between Lenny Bruce and Robert the Bruce - my main thrust was the body and its functions and malfunctions - the absurdity of the thing. ~ Billy Connolly

Hobbits are a lot like Scots. It's all about nature and enjoying their land, which is a very Scottish thing. ~ Billy Boyd

I expect to retire to a fine-grained heaven where the temperatures are always consistent, where the images slide before one's eyes in a continual cascade of form and meaning. ~ Ansel Adams

For if the question is absurd in itself and demands unnecessary answers, then, besides the embarrassment of the one who proposes it, it also has the disadvantage of misleading the incautious listener into absurd answers, and presenting the ridiculous sight (as the ancients said) of one person milking a billy-goat while the other holds a sieve underneath. (A58/B82) ~ Immanuel Kant

Until recently, I thought 'occasional poetry' meant that you wrote only occasionally. ~ Billy Collins

I don't think anyone has a right to possess anything he doesn't love - art or anything else. ~ Billy Baldwin

Gasping for breath, he turned on the lights and saw bits and pieces of his Mom and Dad strewn about the blood-spattered room. He recognized his mother's gold earring on an ear lying next to the bedpost and saw his father's anchor tattoo on a severed forearm. Everywhere he looked, he saw more ghastly evidence that some inhuman monster had sliced and diced his parents almost beyond recognition. ~ Billy Wells

We are living in a time when American popular music is finally being recognized as one of our most successful exports. The demand is huge. ~ Billy Joel

Gish was the best representation of where we were at the time. ~ Billy Corgan

I am not a big reader to begin with. ~ Billy Burke

I was able to read poets that were - allowed me to be humorous without being silly. ~ Billy Collins

Grace is given each day we wake. Yet, thoughts are a mere desire that is released, but words said could be pain if not given grace prior ~ Billy G. Batman

Knowing constitutional law helps one at the opera. The trial in 'Billy Budd,' as example, invokes the fugitive slave clause of the U.S. Constitution. ~ Karen DeCrow

We hurt people by being too busy. Too busy to notice their needs. Too busy to drop that note of comfort or encouragement or assurance of love. Too busy to listen when someone needs to talk. Too busy to care. ~ Billy Graham

I don't write for an auditorium full of people. I don't write for the microphone; I write for the page. ~ Billy Collins

I've come to realize that life is not a musical comedy, it's a Greek tragedy. ~ Billy Joel