Distinctly Quotes

Everybody says: the Kremlin, the Kremlin. They all go on about it, but I've never seen it. The number of times (thousands) I've been drunk or hung over, traipsing round Moscow, north-south, east-west, end to end, straight through or any old way - and I've never once seen the Kremlin.

For instance, yesterday - yesterday I didn't see it again, though I was buzzing round that area the whole evening and it's not as if I was particularly drunk. I mean, as soon as I came out onto Savyelov Station, I had a glass of Zubrovka for starters, since I know from experience that as an early-morning tipple, nobody's so far dreamed up anything better.

Anyway, a glass of Zubrovka. Then after that - on Kalyaev Street - another glass, only not Zubrovka this time, but coriander vodka. A friend of mine used to say coriander had a dehumanizing effect on a person, i.e, it refreshes your parts but it weakens your spirit. For some reason or other it had the opposite effect on me, i.e., my spirit was refreshed, while my parts all went to hell. But I do agree it's dehumanizing, so that's why I topped it up with two glasses of Zhiguli beer, plus some egg-nog straight from the bottle, in the middle of Kalyaev Street.

Of course, you're saying: come on, Venya, get on with it - what did you have next? And I couldn't say for sure. I remember - I remember quite distinctly in fact - I had two glasses of Hunter's vodka, on Chekhov Street. But I couldn't have made it across th ~ Venedikt Erofeev

We have complaints that institutional dominance of the stock market has put 'the small investor at a disadvantage because he can't compete with the trust companies' huge resources, etc. The facts are quite the opposite. It may be that the institutions are better equipped than the individual to speculate in the market.But I am convinced that an individual investor with sound principles, and soundly advised, can do distinctly better over the long pull than large institutions. ~ Benjamin Graham

Detecting a note of inordinate concern for the young woman, Fred quizzed, "Could it be that our pretty little rabbit has caught the hunter's heart?"
Rider felt distinctly uncomfortable under Fred's all-too-knowing eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. This is a job, not a honeymoon!"
"Why,you're in love with her, aren't you?"
"Hell,no! What gave you that half-cocked idea?"
"You objected too fast." Fred smiled.
"How could I love a woman like her? For God's sake, Fred, she acts more like a man than a woman. It's just that..." Rider rubbed at the back of his neck. "Damn, the woman walks around naked under that shirt of hers, jiggling and bouncing. Naturally, I'm attracted. You would be, too! But believe me, Fred, lust is all I feel for her."
"You got it bad, my friend." Fred chuckled. "When we get done talking here, I suggest you take Annie over there"-he jerked his head toward a brunette-"upstairs for a good romp in the sack."
"Maybe I should.I've tried to avoid Willow but just thinking about her gets me randy."
Even as he mouthed the words, Rider knew he would not do as Fred suggested. There was only one woman who could cure his ache and, unfortunately for him, no other would do. ~ Charlotte McPherren

In speaking to you men of the greatest city of the West, men of the state which gave to the country Lincoln and Grant, men who preeminently and distinctly embody all that is most American in the American character, I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

But I feel separated now, as though a clear thin wall rises up distinctly between myself and those staring at me. We can see each other, but we can't cross over. ~ Ally Condie

There is something distinctly odd about the argument, however. Believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy. At least, it is not something I can decide to do as an act of will. I can decide to go to church and I can decide to recite the Nicene Creed, and I can decide to swear on a stack of bibles that I believe every word inside them. But none of that can make me actually believe it if I don't. Pascal's Wager could only ever be an argument for feigning belief in God. And the God that you claim to believe in had better not be of the omniscient kind or he'd see through the deception. ~ Richard Dawkins

To the great majority of white Americans, the Negro problem has distinctly negative connotations. It suggests something difficult to settle and equally difficult to leave alone. It is embarrassing. It makes for moral uneasiness. ~ Gunnar Myrdal

Agnes shut her eyes, clenched her fists, opened her mouth and screamed.

It started low. Plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling. The prisms on the chandelier chimed gently as they shook.
It rose, passing quickly through the mysterious pitch at fourteen cycles per second where the human spirit begins to feel distinctly uncomfortable about the universe and the place in it of the bowels. Small items around the Opera House vibrated off shelves and smashed on the floor.

The note climbed, rang like a bell, climbed again. In the Pit, all the violin strings snapped, one by one.
As the tone rose, the crystal prisms shook in the chandelier. In the bar, champagne corks fired a salvo. Ice jingled and shattered in its bucket. A line of wine-glasses joined in the chorus, blurred around the rims, and then exploded like hazardous thistledown with attitude.

There were harmonics and echoes that caused strange effects. In the dressing-rooms the No. 3 greasepaint melted. Mirrors cracked, filling the ballet school with a million fractured images.
Dust rose, insects fell. In the stones of the Opera House tiny particles of quartz danced briefly...

Then there was silence, broken by the occasional thud and tinkle.
Nanny grinned.
'Ah,' she said, 'now the opera's over. ~ Terry Pratchett

The charms of money are distinctly under-represented in literature. There are no songs or poems extolling its virtues. This seems on the face of it strange. The claims of money to be celebrated in verse might well seem to be no less than those of faithful dogs, beautiful women, or jugs of wine. ~ Celia Green

For those who reject it, the Victorian experience is something to feel embarrassed about, to apologise for, to escape from, and never to repeat. But to those who remain enthralled, it is a fabulous story of oustanding success and splendid achievement, by comparison with which Britain's 20th century records seems at best unimpressive, and often distinctly lacklustre. ~ David Cannadine

Troublous times, departures from the faith, evil men waxing worse and worse, love waxing cold, are things distinctly predicted. ~ J.C. Ryle

Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows Where noun, and verb, and participle grows. ~ John Dryden

Some eyes want spectacles to see things clearly and distinctly: but let not those that use them therefore say nobody can see clearly without them. ~ John Locke

Insurance and funding traditionally drive capital investment. But in a world based on access, not ownership, the duration, value, cost and extent of financial services is distinctly different. ~ Lisa Gansky

Saying is one thing, doing another. We must consider the sermon and the preacher distinctly and apart. ~ Michel De Montaigne

When you think about it, the end of the world is a little bit like death: We all know it's going to come eventually, and as we get older, we feel we see the signs more and more distinctly. ~ John Hodgman

The final measure of the greatness of all peoples is the amount and standard of the literature and art they have produced. The world does not know that a people is great until that people produces great literature and art. No people that has produced great literature and art has ever been looked upon by the world as distinctly inferior. ~ James Weldon Johnson

Suffering ... is not just lots of pain but pain amplified by distinctly human emotions such as regret, self-pity, shame, humiliation, and dread. ~ Michael Pollan

Is it true you were born i the eighteen-hundreds?" Sophia yelled through the window.
"What of it?" Grandmother answered, very distinctly.
"What do you know about the eighteen-hundreds?"
"Nothing, and i'm not interested, either," Sophia shouted and ran away. ~ Tove Jansson

Art is man's distinctly human way of fighting death. ~ Leonard Baskin

Every woman is distinctly beautiful because every woman has a motherly instinct. ~ Debasish Mridha

Some minds are made of blotting-paper: you can write nothing on them distinctly. They swallow the ink, and you find a large spot. ~ Augustus William Hare

The words are very distinctly formed; but by the bodily ear they are not heard. They are, however, much more clearly understood than they would be if they were heard by the ear. It is impossible not to understand them, whatever resistance we may offer ... there is no escape, for in spite of ourselves we must listen ... ~ Teresa Of Avila

The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt. ~ Rene Descartes

It is singular to look round upon a country where the dreams of sages, smiled at as utopian, seem distinctly realized, a people voluntarily submitting to laws of their own imposing, with arms in their hands respecting the voice of a government which their breath created and which their breath could in a moment destroy! ~ Frances Wright

And despite the insignificance of the instant we have so far occupied in cosmic time, it is clear that what happens on and near Earth at the beginning of the second cosmic year will depend very much on the scientific wisdom and the distinctly human sensitivity of mankind. ~ Carl Sagan

He and I went up to London. He had the advice of an eminent oculist; and he eventually recovered the sight of that one eye. He cannot now see very distinctly: he cannot read or write much; but he can find his way without being led by the hand: the sky is no longer a blank to him - the earth no longer a void. When his first-born was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they once were - large, brilliant, and black. On that occasion, he again, with a full heart, acknowledged that God had tempered judgment with mercy. ~ Charlotte Bronte

But if the Negro is so distinctly inferior, it is a strange thing to me that it takes such tremendous effort on the part of the white man to make him realize it, and to keep him in the same place into which inferior men naturally fall. ~ James Weldon Johnson

The musical theater is a glorious and distinctly American innovation in the history of theater. ~ Diane Paulus

Isn't that the secret sauce of seduction? First the snare of mystery, then the distinctly female instinct to rehabilitate. ~ Jessica Knoll

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. ~ Mark Twain

Mr Kingsley begins then by exclaiming- 'O the chicanery, the wholesale fraud, the vile hypocrisy, the conscience-killing tyranny of Rome! We have not far to seek for an evidence of it. There's Father Newman to wit: one living specimen is worth a hundred dead ones. He, a Priest writing of Priests, tells us that lying is never any harm.'
I interpose: 'You are taking a most extraordinary liberty with my name. If I have said this, tell me when and where.'
Mr Kingsley replies: 'You said it, Reverend Sir, in a Sermon which you preached, when a Protestant, as Vicar of St Mary's, and published in 1844; and I could read you a very salutary lecture on the effects which that Sermon had at the time on my own opinion of you.'
I make answer: 'Oh...NOT, it seems, as a Priest speaking of Priests-but let us have the passage.'
Mr Kingsley relaxes: 'Do you know, I like your TONE. From your TONE I rejoice, greatly rejoice, to be able to believe that you did not mean what you said.'
I rejoin: 'MEAN it! I maintain I never SAID it, whether as a Protestant or as a Catholic.'
Mr Kingsley replies: 'I waive that point.'
I object: 'Is it possible! What? waive the main question! I either said it or I didn't. You have made a monstrous charge against me; direct, distinct, public. You are bound to prove it as directly, as distinctly, as publicly-or to own you can't.'
'Well,' says Mr Kingsley, 'if you are quite sure you did not say it, I'll take your word for it; I rea ~ John Henry Newman

The general ideas which are expressed in sketches, correspond very well to the art often used in poetry ... every reader making out the detail according to his own particular imagination ... but a painter, when he represents Eve on canvas, is obliged to give a determined form, and his own idea of beauty distinctly expressed. ~ Joshua Reynolds

The future - what should I do with the future? I felt like one who has climbed the brow of a great hill, and finds only a sea of mist beyond. Go forward I must; but to what goal? With what aim? With what hopes? My father had already distinctly forbidden me to adopt art as a profession. My sister, by ignoring all the purport of my last letter, as distinctly signified her own contempt for that which was to me as the life of my life. Neither loved me; both had wounded me bitterly; and I now, almost for the first time, distinctly saw how difficult a struggle lay before me.
"If I become a painter," I thought, "I become so in defiance of my family; and, defying them, am alone in the wide world evermore. If, on the contrary, I yield and obey, what manner of life lies before me? The hollow life of fashionable society, into which I shall be carried as a marriageable commodity, and where I shall be expected to fulfil my duty as a daughter by securing a wealthy husband as speedily as possible.
Alas! alas! what an alternative! Was it for this that I had studied and striven? Was it for this that I had built such fairy castles, and dreamt such dreams? ~ Amelia B. Edwards

By the time it was over, I'd learned all the right words for all the dinosaurs (pretty much the same as they were in English), and multiple variations of "Help, for the love of God!," which might come in handy should I ever take up any of the activities that scared me most. It was also past five o'clock.Time to go. I extricated myself from the chair, leaving a distinctly Ella-shaped imprint, and retrieved my jacket. ~ Melissa Jensen

You," he said distinctly, "are, I am quite certain, going to be more trouble than you are worth. ~ Lynn Kurland

None of us mentioned An Evening of Long Goodbyes, whose race had been so catastrophic that, by the end, neither Frank nor I could summon the will to gloat. He had begun badly, getting his head stuck in the gate and having to be extricated by the stewards, and continued with a series of humiliating and distinctly uncanine trips and stumbles, disgracing himself beyond redemption in the third lap, when his muzzle came off and, to the boos of the crowd, he abandoned the race to leap over the hoardings and snatch a hot dog from the hand of a small boy. ~ Paul Murray

Variety is very, very good. Going from medium to medium, if you get the chance to do it, from theater to television to film, which are all distinctly different, keeps me sharp. What works in one doesn't work in the other, and you have to be looking for the truth of the performance, whatever way that medium might demand. ~ Kenneth Branagh

At times I can certainly see a subject clearly and distinctly, think my way through it, great sweeping thoughts that I can scarcely grasp but which all at once give me an intense feeling of importance. Yet when I try to write them down they shrivel into nothing, and that's why I lack the courage to commit them to paper - in case I become too disillusioned with the fatuous little as they that emerges. But let me impress just one thing upon you, sister. Wash your hands of all attempts to embody those great, sweeping thoughts. The smallest, most fatuous little essay is worth more than the flood of grandiose ideas in which you like to wallow. Of course you must hold on to your forebodings and your intuitions. They are the sources upon which you draw, but be careful not to drown in them. Just organise things a little, exercise some mental hygiene. Your imagination and your emotions are like a vast ocean from which you wrest small pieces of land that may well be flooded again. The ocean is wide and elemental, but what matter are the small pieces of land you reclaim from it. The subject right before you is more important than those prodigious thoughts of Tolstoy and Napoleon that occurred to you in the middle of last night, and the lesson you gave that keen young girl and Friday night is more important than all your vague philosophizing. Never forget that. Don't overestimate your own intensity; it may give you the impression that you were cut out for greater things than the so-calle ~ Etty Hillesum

No longer can America afford to have its citizenry sit on the sidelines of the community watching while "activists" and others take over the nation, reshaping it into a distinctly destructive environment. ~ Daniel Rundquist

She was not a white woman. She was not a Greek ... Until the emergence of the doctrine of white superiority, Cleopatra was generally pictured as a distinctly African woman, dark in color. ~ John Henrik Clarke

Brisbane continued. "I have led a selfish life, and I have enjoyed it. I cannot imagine a life without my work, and I cannot imagine a life without you, and yet I cannot reconcile the two." My heart, which had given a joyous leap in the middle of his speech, faltered now as I realised what he was trying to say. "I never thought to ask you to give up your work," I began. "But how can I ask you to sit idly by and wait for me to return when every time I kiss you goodbye might be the last?" "Oh, don't!" I told him, fully enraged. "How dare you blame your cowardice upon me?" His lips went white, as did the tiny crescent moon scar high upon his cheekbone. "I beg your pardon?" "Cowardice," I said distinctly. "You hide behind this pretence of fine feeling because you will not declare yourself directly and this gives you a perfect excuse, does it not? Spare poor Julia the horror of being widowed a second time. Put her up on the shelf and keep her out of harm's way whilst you amuse yourself with your dashing adventures." He opened his mouth to speak, but I stepped forward, tipping my head up to rail at him. "I am quite disappointed that you have revealed yourself to be so thoroughly conventional in your philosophy. Have I not proven myself a capable partner?" I demanded. "Have I not stood, side by side, with you, facing peril with equal courage? If you thought for a moment that I would be the meek, quiet, obedient sort of woman who would sit quietly at home mending your socks while you ~ Deanna Raybourn

The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of the profound gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, on account of a thick mist in which everything there was enveloped, and over which there hung a magnificent rainbow, like that narrow and tottering bridge which Musselmen say is the only pathway between Time and Eternity. This mist, or spray, was no doubt occasioned by the clashing of the great walls of the funnel, as they all met together at the bottom-but the yell that went up to the Heavens from out of that mist, I dare not attempt to describe. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

He paused in the hallway, sniffing the air. He scowled, sniffed some more. He pressed an intercom button on the wall.
"Betty, I distinctly smell sewage. Could you get a plumber out here ASAP?"
Several curly hairs fluttered in the air after he was gone.
I clutched at the arm of the dentist chair.
"This isn't a joke, Tub! I'm in trouble. We're all in trouble, the whole town, the whole world! You have no clue. You have no idea what kind of things we're dealing with here. There's a whole land of
~ Guillermo Del Toro

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression. ~ Samuel Johnson

Quite recently the human descent theory has been stigmatized as the 'gorilla theory of human ancestry.' All this despite the fact that Darwin himself, in the days when not a single bit of evidence regarding the fossil ancestors of man was recognized, distinctly stated that none of the known anthropoid apes, much less any of the known monkeys, should be considered in any way as ancestral to the human stock. ~ Henry Fairfield Osborn

He who travels far will often see things Far removed from what he believed was Truth. When he talks about it in the fields at home, He is often accused of lying, For the obdurate people will not believe What they do not see and distinctly feel. Inexperience, I believe, Will give little credence to my song. ~ Hermann Hesse

In my opinion and to the best of my understanding, free-will and pre-determination are two distinctly different economies that are 'operationally co-existent'. ~ R. Alan Woods

I want to contrast this ceramic image of the world with the distinctly different dramatic image that is the presiding image of the Hindus. Their idea is that God did not make the world, but acted it. That is to say, every person and every thing is a role or part that the Godhead is playing. ~ Alan W. Watts

He did not in the least wish the future Mrs. Newland Archer to be a simpleton. He meant her (thanks to his enlightening companionship) to develop a social tact and readiness of wit enabling her to hold her own with the most popular married women of the 'younger set,' in which it was the recognized custom to attract masculine homage while playfully discouraging it. If he had probed to the bottom of his vanity (as he sometimes nearly did) he would have found there the wish that his wife should be as worldly-wise and eager to please as the married lady whose charms had held his fancy through two mildly agitated years; without, of course, any hint of the frailty which had so nearly marred that unhappy being's life, and had disarranged his own plans for a whole winter.

How this miracle of fire and ice was to be created, and to sustain itself in a harsh world, he had never taken the time to think out; but he was content to hold his view without analyzing it, since he knew it was that of all the carefully-brushed, white-waistcoated, buttonhole-flowered gentlemen who succeeded each other in the club box, exchanged friendly greetings with him, and turned their opera-glasses critically on the circle of ladies who were the product of the system. In matters intellectual and artistic Newland Archer felt himself distinctly the superior of these chosen specimens of old New York gentility; he had probably read more, thought more, and even seen a good deal more of the world, than a ~ Edith Wharton

Practically all great artists accept the influence of others. But ... the artist with vision sees his material, chooses, changes, and by integrating what he has learned with his own experiences, finally molds something distinctly personnel. ~ Romare Bearden

Buffett was a billionaire who drove his own car, did his own taxes, and still lived in a home he had bought in 1958 for $31,500. He seemed to answer to a deeply rooted, distinctly American mythology, in which decency and common sense triumphed over cosmopolitan guile, and in which an idealized past held firm against a rootless and too hurriedly changing present. ~ Roger Lowenstein

The French fairy tale writers were so popular and prolific that when their stories were eventually collected in the 18th century, they filled forty–one volumes of a massive publication called the Cabinet des Fées. Charles Perrault is the French fairy tale writer whom history has singled out for attention, but the majority of tales in the Cabinet des Fées were penned by women writers who ran and attended the leading salons: Marie–Catherine d'Aulnoy, Henriette Julie de Murat, Marie–Jeanne L'Héritier, and numerous others. These were educated women with an unusual degree of social and artistic independence, and within their use of the fairy tale form one can find distinctly subversive, even feminist subtext. ~ Terri Windling

But you see how man is also machine, and it suffices to turn one wheel on the surface and other wheels then turn inside: the brother and the enmity are merely the reflection of the fear that each man has of himself, of the recesses of his own soul, where unconfessed desires lurk, or, as they are saying in Paris, unconscious concepts. For it has been demonstrated that imperceptible thoughts exist, affecting the soul without the soul's being aware of them, clandestine thoughts whose existence is demonstrated by the fact that, however little each of us examines himself, he will not fail to remark that in his heart he bears love or hatred, joy or sorrow, while remaining unable to remember distinctly the thoughts that generated it. ~ Umberto Eco

In a symbol there is concealment and yet revelation: here therefore, by silence and by speech acting together, comes a double significance. In the symbol proper, what we can call a symbol, there is ever, more or less distinctly and directly, some embodiment and revelation of the Infinite; the Infinite is made to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, and as it were, attainable there. By symbols, accordingly, is man guided and commanded, made happy, made wretched. ~ Thomas Carlyle

Christmas, so long looming over everyone's head, finally surged up, buried everyone alive and ebbed away, leaving its victims distinctly cross. ~ Angela Thirkell

You see it's like this: the Book tells us most distinctly that 'God is love.' Now it was love that sent Laddie to bind himself for a long, tedious job, to give Leon his horse, wasn't it? ~ Gene Stratton-Porter

NOVEL, n. A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain; and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace to its ashes - some of which have a large sale. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Does the Convocation make the laws?" Erskyll asked.
Hozhet was perplexed. "Make laws, Lord Proconsul? Oh, no. We have laws."
There were planets, here and there through the Empire, where an attitude like that would have been distinctly beneficial; planets with elective parliaments, every member of which felt himself obligated to get as many laws enacted during his term of office as possible. ~ H. Beam Piper

I remember distinctly telling my father-in-law, barring a miracle, we're going to have to terminate the pregnancy. Her health has to come first ~ Chris Higgins

Yet, the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet, the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

To the Red Drum for sets, to hear Bird, whom I saw distinctly digging Mardou several times also myself directly into my eye looking to search if really I was that great writer I thought myself to be as if he knew my thoughts and ambitions or remembered me from other night clubs and other coasts, other Chicagos - not a challenging look but the king and founder of the bop generation at least the sound of it in digging his audience digging the eyes, the secret eyes him-watching, as he just pursed his lips and let great lungs and immortal fingers work, ~ Jack Kerouac

Loden loves guns, loves to talk about them. Right now he's trying to talk about them with me, a distinctly trying experience for I keep shepherding the conversation back to dead bodies which Loden clearly doesn't enjoy very much. You would think that a man who felt comfortable extolling the virtues of hollow point bullets ("Expands to twice its size and just thumps that person.") would be okay talking about dead bodies, but apparently not. "You just cringe," he said when I mentioned the prospect of shooting into human cadaver tissue. Then he made a noise that I transcribed in my notes as olllggg. ~ Mary Roach

The reason our country looks the way it does is through social engineering that distinctly benefits suburban communities, exurban communities, and often white residents. And we are socially engineered in such a way as to, often unconsciously and unintentionally, but sometimes intentionally, perpetuate this divisive inequality. ~ Richard Benjamin

"Stand still" - keep the posture of an upright man, ready for action, expecting further orders, cheerfully and patiently awaiting the directing voice; and it will not be long ere God shall say to you, as distinctly as Moses said it to the people of Israel, "Go forward." ~ Charles Spurgeon

Of course, it is well to go abroad and see the works of the old masters, but Americans ... must strike out for themselves, and only by doing this will we create a great and distinctly American art. ~ Thomas Eakins

In every Court, ample and commodious provision is made for the accommodation of the citizens. This is the case all through America. In every Public Institution, the right of the people to attend, and to have an interest in the proceedings, is most fully and distinctly recognised. There are no grim door-keepers to dole out their tardy civility by the sixpenny-worth; nor is there, I sincerely believe, any insolence of office of any kind. Nothing national is exhibited for money; and no public officer is a showman. We have begun of late years to imitate this good example. I hope we shall continue to do so; and that in the fulness of time, even deans and chapters may be converted. ~ Charles Dickens

Registration Day' by Gavin Gunhold (1899 - )
Toronto Review of Poetry, 1947

On registration day at taxidermy school
I distinctly saw the eyes of the stuffed moose
Move. ~ Gordon Korman

Deciding that at the moment it behooved her to, as Wiry had put it, behave, Heather inclined her head, first to the woman alongside her, "Martha," then to the barrel-chested man, shorter than Wiry but of heavier build, who'd remained quietly seated in the far corner of the coach. "Cobbins."
She turned her gaze on Wiry. "And you are?"
He smiled. "You may call me Fletcher, Miss Wallace."
Heather thought of a few other epithets she might call him, but she merely inclined her head. Settling on the seat, she leaned her head back against the squabs and ventured nothing more. She sensed that Fletcher expected her to protest, perhaps beg for mercy, or try to subvert him and the others from their goal, but she saw no point in lowering herself to that.
No point at all.
The more she thought of all Fletcher had let fall, the more she felt certain of that. This had to be the strangest abduction she'd ever heard of...well, she hadn't heard the details of any abduction attempts, but it seemed distinctly odd that they were treating her so considerately, so...sensibly. So terribly calmly and confidently. ~ Stephanie Laurens

I think [James] Joyce sometimes enjoyed misleading his readers. He said to me that history was like that parlor game where someone whispers something to the person next to him, who repeats it not very distinctly to the next person, and so on until, by the time the last person hears it, it comes out completely transformed. Of course, as he explained to me, the meaning in Finnegans Wake is obscure because it is a 'nightpiece.' I think, too, that, like the author's sight, the work is often blurred. ~ Sylvia Beach

Let me tell you a story," I say instead. "Once upon a time, there was a girl whose life was saved by the faery king - "

"This story sounds distinctly familiar. I think I might have heard it somewhere before."

I shush him and say not to interrupt. "If anyone asked her how she felt about the king, she would have said she loathed him. He ruthlessly trained her to fight his own kind. He taught her to kill. She learned from his lessons how to quiet the rage that burned inside her. But she had already decided that one day, when she had grown strong enough and learned everything she could about battle, she was going to murder him."

Kiaran goes still, his eyes glittering in the darkness. He says nothing.

"Her opportunity came one night when he decided she was ready to hunt her first faery. It was a skriker that had been terrorizing a nearby village, slaughtering children in the night. The king handed the girl his sword and ordered her to kill the goblin-like creature.

"She barely won. But in the end, as she thrust the sword deep into the monster's gut, she felt something so profoundly that she thought it would consume her. So she told the king. She whispered the words and meant them with every part of her rage-filled soul: 'I hate you. I hate all of you.' When she lifted the sword again, she intended to pierce it right through his heart.

"That was the first time the girl had ever seen the faery king smile."

~ Elizabeth May

I was a young person once, shortly after the polar ice caps retreated, and I distinctly recall believing that virtually all adults were clueless goobers. ~ Dave Barry

Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, distinctly heard the voice of Jesus telling him to kill women, and he was locked up for life. George W. Bush says that God told him to invade Iraq (a pity God didn't vouchsafe him a revelation that there were no weapons of mass destruction). ~ Richard Dawkins

But most distinctly, I remember always saying to myself that when I get big, I'm not going to go to bed hungry, I'm not going to wear hand-me-down clothes. ~ Buck Owens

Potter! Weasley! What are you doing?" It was Professor McGonagall, and her mouth was the thinnest of thin lines. "We were - we were - " Ron stammered. "We were going to - to go and see - " "Hermione," said Harry. Ron and Professor McGonagall both looked at him. "We haven't seen her for ages, Professor," Harry went on hurriedly, treading on Ron's foot, "and we thought we'd sneak into the hospital wing, you know, and tell her the Mandrakes are nearly ready and, er, not to worry - " Professor McGonagall was still staring at him, and for a moment, Harry thought she was going to explode, but when she spoke, it was in a strangely croaky voice. "Of course," she said, and Harry, amazed, saw a tear glistening in her beady eye. "Of course, I realize this has all been hardest on the friends of those who have been … I quite understand. Yes, Potter, of course you may visit Miss Granger. I will inform Professor Binns where you've gone. Tell Madam Pomfrey I have given my permission." Harry and Ron walked away, hardly daring to believe that they'd avoided detention. As they turned the corner, they distinctly heard Professor McGonagall blow her nose. "That," said Ron fervently, "was the best story you've ever come up with. ~ J.K. Rowling

The mind leans on [innate] principles every moment, but it does not come so easily to distinguish them and to represent them distinctly and separately, because that demands great attention to its acts, and the majority of people, little accustomed to think, has little of it. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Nick and I would be alone with the smoldering embers of a fire. And then we would-
"-get out?" he was asking me.
i blinked at him across the dark SUV. "I beg your pardon?" I hoped to God I hadn't been discussing any of this out loud.
"Are. You. Going. To. Get. Out.?" he asked more distinctly. ~ Jennifer Echols

[The doctrine of air] I was led into in consequence of inhabiting a house adjoining to a public brewery, where I at first amused myself with making experiments on the fixed air [carbon dioxide] which I found ready made in the process of fermentation . When I removed from that house I was under the necessity of making the fixed air for myself; and one experiment leading to another, as I have distinctly and faithfully noted in my various publications on the subject, I by degrees contrived a convenient apparatus for the purpose, but of the cheapest kind. ~ Joseph Priestley

If then, Moses so distinctly announces that there is in us not only a faculty, but also a facility for keeping all commandments, why are we sweating so much? ... What need is there now of Christ or of Spirit? We have found a passage that asserts freedom of choice, but also distinctly teaches that the keeping of the commandments is easy. ~ Martin Luther

Few artists have influenced the sound and trajectory of popular music more distinctly, or touched quite so many people with their talent. A strong spirit transcends rules,' Prince once said - and nobody's spirit was stronger, bolder, or more creative. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, his band, and all who loved him. ~ Barack Obama

Perhaps anxious politicians may prove that only seventeen white men and five negroes were concerned in the late enterprise; but their very anxiety to prove this might suggest to themselves that all is not told. Why do they still dodge the truth? They are so anxious because of a dim consciousness of the fact, which they do not distinctly face, that at least a million of the free inhabitants of the United States would have rejoiced if it had succeeded. They at most only criticise the tactics. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Men in the vehement pursuit of happiness grasp at the first object which offers to them any prospect of satisfaction, but immediately they turn an introspective eye and ask, 'Am I happy?' and at once from their innermost being a voice answers distinctly, 'No, you are as poor and as miserable as before.' Then they think it was the object that deceived them and turn precipitately to another. But the second holds as little satisfaction as the first…Wandering then through life restless and tormented, at each successive station they think that happiness dwells at the next, but when they reach it happiness is no longer there. In whatever position they may find themselves there is always another one which they discern from afar, and which but to touch, they think, is to find the wished delight, but when the goal is reached discontent has followed on the way stands in haunting constancy before them. ~ Johann Gottlieb Fichte

The Chelsea has changed. It's not like it was." It had been gentrified, they said, domesticated, tamed like the whole neighborhood, which, since the mid-90s, had turned distinctly upscale. The greasy diners were gone, replaced by uniform Starbucks. The boarded-up storefronts were now upscale spas. The neighborhood dives were now exclusive nightclubs replete with guest lists and doormen who turned the "wrong" people away. Everyone was saying the hotel, the neighborhood, all of Manhattan, had sold out. ~ James Lough

I am illegitimate," she said distinctly, as if he were a foreigner trying to learn English. "You are a viscount. You can't marry a bastard."
"What about the Duke of Clarence? He had ten bastard children by that actress ... what was her name ... "
"Mrs. Jordan."
"Yes, that one, Their children were all illegitimate, but some of them married peers."
"You're not the Duke of Clarence."
"That's right. I'm not a blueblood any more than you are. I inherited the title purely by happenstance"
"That doesn't matter. If your married me, it would be scandalous and inappropriate, and doors would be closed to you."
"Good God, woman, I let two of my sisters marry Gypsies. Those doors have already been closed, bolted, and nailed shut. ~ Lisa Kleypas

By giving the public a rich and full melody, distinctly arranged and well played, all the time creating new tone colors and patterns, I feel we have a better chance of being successful. I want a kick to my band, but I don't want the rhythm to hog the spotlight. ~ Glenn Miller

The polls undoubtedly help to decide what people think, but their most important long-term influence may be on how people think. The interrogative process is very distinctly weighted against the asking of an intelligent question or the recording of a thoughtful answer. ~ Christopher Hitchens

So far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art was, is, and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality. ~ E. E. Cummings

The social codes are different, distinctly preppy, fraternity-sorority, hip, flip, fast-and-cute, nauseating, and artificial. I have no doubt that the majority of these people are interesting, likeable, intelligent people. Unfortunately, they've been taught not to show it. The problem lies in socializing. When these people socialize, they don a common "mask." They talk a certain way (hip, flip) act a certain way, do certain things, all of which have been defined as socially acceptable. By acting in such a way, one makes "friends." With time, friends use their masks less and less, and a true, deep friendship results. ~ Juan F. Thompson

You don't have to be so chaste, you know. It's not like I'm naked." Pausing in front of her closet, she looked back at me, her expression canny. "You haven't seen me naked, have you?"
"No!" My answer came out distinctly rushed.
She grinned at my lie and pulled some jeans from the closet floor. "Well, unless you want to see me now, you'd better turn around. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

A voice on the other end squealed and said distinctly, "Kee-kee!"
"Yeah, it's Kee-kee," Keller said, startled. "Um, I'm glad you're okay, kid. And, see, I didn't go bye-bye after all. So you may think you're pretty smart, but you still have something to learn about precognition, hotshot. Right?" Keller added, "You know I thought for a minute once that you might be the Wild Power. But I guess you're just a good old-fashioned witch baby."
Iliana, who was passing by, gave her a very strange look. "Keller, are you having a conversation with my baby brother? ~ L.J.Smith

When you have learned, through discipline, to simplify your life, and so practiced the mindfulness of meditation, and through it loosened the hold of aggression, clinging, and negativity on your whole being, the wisdom of insight can slowly dawn. And in the all-revealing clarity of its sunlight, this insight can show you, distinctly and directly, both the subtlest workings of your own mind and the nature of reality. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche

There was something deranged and distinctly midwestern about a station that programmed "The Exorcist" three days prior to Christmas. ~ Scott Heim

Lavater told Goethe that on a certain occasion when he held the velvet bag in the church as collector of the offerings, he tried to observe only the hands; and he satisfied himself that in every individual the shape of the hand and of the fingers, the action and sentiment in dropping the gift into the bag, were distinctly different and individually characteristic. ~ Anna Brownell Jameson

The classic metaphor for the necessity of uniting calm abiding and superior insight is a candle flame. When this flame is bright and there is no wind, it is
clearly visible and will also illuminate its surroundings. However, if the flame is bright but flickers in the wind, it will neither be seen distinctly itself nor clearly light up anything else. Likewise, if our mind is endowed with both the superior insight that sees true reality and the quality of calm abiding, through which we can one-pointedly direct this insight wherever we please, this mind will see both its own nature and the nature of all phenomena. ~ Karl Brunnholzl

For, in fine, whether awake or asleep, we ought never to allow ourselves to be persuaded of the truth of anything unless on the evidence of our reason. And it must be noted that I say of our reason, and not of our imagination or of our senses: thus, for example, although we very clearly see the sun, we ought not therefore to determine that it is only of the size which our sense of sight presents; and we may very distinctly imagine the head of a lion joined to the body of a goat, without being therefore shut up to the conclusion that a chimaera exists; ~ Rene Descartes

By the late nineteenth century, as British cities teemed with new inhabitants, crime rates rose and more established residents came to be afflicted with a new, urban, and distinctly modern anxiety. For the middle and upper classes, it centered acutely on the protection of property, coalescing in particular around city dwellers who were not members of the bourgeoisie. These included the working class, the poor, new immigrants, and Jews, all of whom were viewed increasingly as agents of social contagion - a threat in urgent need of containment. ~ Margalit Fox

He'd made a name for himself out there in the world beyond not just in spite of the distinctly unfashionable persona he presented, but, perhaps, BECAUSE of it. ~ Chris Matthews

A Word that Breathes Distinctly
Has not the Power to Die ~ Emily Dickinson

In these remote corners, I have discovered a center point, where East met West, and although there has been a collision of cultures, there is now a new Christian identity that is distinctly Chinese.
The circuitous mountain path in Yunnan province is red because over many years it has been soaked with blood. ~ Liao Yiwu

His subject that day was an African approach to management called ubuntu, which was all about creating a sense of community and shared responsibility in the workplace. Reuben and other prominent South African business thinkers were excited about ubuntu, a distinctly African take on a subject that seemed so very un-African: management. Francine even had the word ubuntu carved into a piece of teak hanging behind her desk. "The West really has so much to learn from Africa," she frequently reminded me. ~ Jillian Reilly