Elephant In The Room Quotes

By the time you get to your sixth record, some of the benefits of being in a band are grander than ever, but some of the obstacles are just massive. You deal with these lateral subjects, and all that is left is the elephant in the room. ~ Josh Homme

When there's an elephant in the room introduce him. ~ Randy Pausch

The elephant in the room. It can't be talked about. It can't be ignored. ~ Michael Robotham

There's an academic tradition called the 'Last Lecture.' Hypothetically, if you knew you were going to die and you had one last lecture, what would you say to your students? Well, for me, there's an elephant in the room. And the elephant in the room, for me, it wasn't hypothetical. ~ Randy Pausch

She nods and the elephant in the room throws back its head and trumpets so loud I think the roof might come off. ~ Sharon Bolton

The more you process any food, the more profitable it becomes. The healthcare industry makes more money treating chronic diseases (which account for three quarters of the $2 trillion plus we spend each year on health care in this country) than preventing them. So we ignore the elephant in the room and focus instead on good and evil nutrients, the identities of which seem to change with every new study. ~ Michael Pollan

When the clowns of British politics - arch-Brexiteer cartoon characters 'Boorish Johnson' and 'JackOff Grease-Smug' advocate ad infinitum that Britain should leave the EU in order to be free to sign her own trade deals; they seem to have overlooked the towering elephant in the room, namely the current occupant of the White House (another clown) - who appears hell-bent on destabilising world trade via crude protectionist policies. Both Tories, despite receiving the best British education money can buy, would do well to revisit their post war history books and be reminded of one of the key objectives of the European Project and in due course the European Union - specifically to promote peace and prosperity amongst previously warring neighbours by forming a unified trading bloc which in time, due to its effective size, also acted as a useful counterweight to US hegemony. Go find another circus for your buffoonery and leave the deadly serious business of politics to principled individuals with the true national interest at heart ! ~ Alex Morritt

Patriarchy is like the elephant in the room that we don't talk about, but how could it not affect the planet radically when it's the superstructure of human society. ~ Ani DiFranco

Patrick leaned forward in his chair, a serious expression washing over his face. "So are we not going to talk about the white elephant in the room?"

Emma cut her eyes over to him and grinned. "You mean the fact that one of the prizes is an enema bag?"

Crossing his arms over his chest, Patrick huffed, "That is not what I'm talking about, and you know it. ~ Katie Ashley

Mediocrity is the elephant in the room. ~ Kevin Spacey

The real problem here is a massive elephant in the room: our own culture. Our social values, our media - so influential on impressionable young girls - that have been allowed, for millenia, to send out this powerful, alienating message about girls and sport: that sport is unfeminine, that sport makes you sweaty and muscular, that sport is swearing and violence, that sport is ugliness in a world where women's sole priority, value and focus should be beauty and becoming an object of desire. ~ Anna Kessel

Race in this country is still the elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss. ~ Lenny Kravitz

Those who are unwilling to face the flinch are obvious, too. Their eyes are dead. Their voices sound defeated. They have defensive body language. They're all talk. They see obstacles as assailants instead of adversaries. Their flinch is the elephant in the room, and they don't want to hear about it. Any fight you want to win, a habit of pushing past the flinch can make it happen. Once you have adjusted to the pressure, once you learn to flinch forward, you have the resolve to pass through the impassible. In fact, it becomes certain that you will - it's only a matter of time. ~ Julien Smith

I don't know if you picked up on the elephant in the room ... but we're witches. Angela, Andrea, me, and Evelyn and Celia back home.
Aunt Maddy from The Ragtime Coven ~ Bruce Jenvey

Here's the rule: no one s expected to have all the answers. If you are asked a question, and do not know the answer, just say, "I don't know, but I'll find out." And when you do, never fail to pass along the correct information. You can never tell who the elephant in the room may be- because elephants just don't forget. ~ Martin Sklar

And there was another elephant in the room. There were so many elephants in the room that it was getting positively crowded. ~ Genevieve Cogman

Are we going to do this now, brother?" Kade asked, his voice deceptively smooth, though Blane could see a flicker of fear in his eyes. Kade's hold tightened on Kathleen, as though he was afraid that Blane would take her from him.
"You mean talk about the elephant in the room?" Blane said dryly, cocking an eyebrow.
"She'd get pretty pissed off if she heard you call her an elephant. ~ Tiffany Snow

Some of you from outside the South may be wondering why we're emphasizing this irrefutable historical fact that everyone should know so strongly already. Well, it's because there has been an unfortunate tendency down here to deflect as much attention as possible away from the atrocities that the South was responsible for before, during, and after the war, and to focus on the glory, the courage, and all that kind of shit instead. We name roads, schools, and parks after Confederate leaders. We erect statues in their honor. We revere them and honor them, all while ignoring the gigantic racist elephant in the room. 4 Look, it ain't nothin' wrong with glory and courage, and it's completely legitimate to acknowledge the military greatness of some of the Confederacy's leaders, but what's not okay is to do so without also acknowledging their complicity in and tacit acceptance of one of the single most reprehensible and inhumane practices in human history. 5 It's disingenuous. It's cheap. It's cowardly. We gotta cut that shit out.

So, yes, we fought a war for slavery, and because sometimes the universe gets some shit right (waterfalls, potatoes, Scarlett Johansson), we lost. Which is another thing we apparently need to remind some of our fellow Southerners of. Not only did we fight a war for slavery, but we got our asses whupped. Until we can all agree to accept this and act accordingly, we're never going to be able to move on. It's nothing to be proud of, y'all - it reall ~ Trae Crowder

And that is how the problems were always fixed. Fix them on the surface but don't go to the root, always ignoring the elephant in the room. I think that morning was when I realized I'd grown up with an elephant in every room. It was practically our family pet. ~ Cecelia Ahern

Money, you could say, was the elephant in The Room. ~ Greg Sestero

Let's point out the elephant in the room: Actor bands are not notoriously successful enterprises. I can't think of any. ~ Michael Shannon

And that is the real elephant in the room. The monkey in my wrench. The worm in my candy bar ... ~ J. Kenner

And that is how Goodwin problems were always fixed. Fix them on the surface but don't go to the root, always ignoring the elephant in the room. I think that morning was when I realized I'd grown up with an elephant in every room of my life. It was practically our family pet. ~ Cecelia Ahern

The elephant in the room has always been simulator sickness and disorientation. That's one of the biggest challenges. ~ Brendan Iribe

I think that the reason that people are so up in arms about movies that have historical inaccuracies is because now that we've trashed our education institutions beyond repair, people fear that the only people are getting their histories is through the movies, so the elephant in the room is that no one wants to talk about why we're so passionately obsessed with accuracy. ~ Nicholas Meyer

I am trying to call attention to the elephant in the room that everybody is too polite - or too devout - to notice: religion, and specifically the devaluing effect that religion has on human life. ~ Richard Dawkins

Never ignore the elephant in the room. That's rude; play with it and introduce it. ~ Donna Lynn Hope

A few seconds of silence lapse, and I knew Carter was waiting for me to mention the huge "I'm pregnant" elephant in the room. Fuck that elephant! he can just sit there in the corner eating peanuts and shitting on the tile while giving me looks of disgust. ~ Tara Sivec

People of conscience in our leadership in Washington have been scared off by the right and the fossil fuel lobbies. They won't even use the term "sustainability" or "climate change" in an energy bill, which is ludicrous on its face. It completely ignores the elephant in the room that we're all dealing with. The average American doesn't even believe climate change is real, they think it's all a hoax. ~ James Cameron

Daemon was the pissy pink elephant in the room with a bad attitude. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

When there's an elephant in the room, you can't pretend it isn't there and just discuss the ants. ~ Ellen Wittlinger

Activision was promoting an adventure game called Pitfall Harry and had built a little jungle scene in which passersby could swing on a makeshift vine. In another room, a company called Zombie had a metal sphere that shot blue electric bolts through the air. But the id installation had a bit more in store: an eight-foot-tall vagina. Gwar, the scatological rock band that id had hired to produce the display, had pushed their renowned prurient theatrics to the edge. The vagina was lined with dozens of dildos to look like teeth. A bust of O. J. Simpson's decapitated head hung from the top. As the visitors walked through the vaginal mouth, two members of Gwar cloaked in fur and raw steak came leaping out of the shadows and pretended to attack them with rubber penises. The Microsoft executives were frozen. Then, to everyone's relief, they burst out laughing. ~ David Kushner

Think of someone you want to touch whom you cannot touch, someone forbidden. Think of a room where there is nothing except the two of you: still, you cannot touch them. Think of the heat between two hands about to touch, the language that exists in that silence."

from "A Simple Woman ~ Chelsea Hodson

If I'm uncomfortable on stage, everybody can see it. I'm not very good at hiding it. I like long, loose jacket dresses - anything that I can literally have room to move in - not that I'm a very big dancer, but because sometimes I'm sitting down at the keyboard, and then sometimes I'm standing. It just has to feel good. ~ Laura Mvula

Edgar was named as one of the players involved, but he was in my room, discussing religious subjects with me. ~ George Boateng

I think that, you know, women succeed in the cutting room or they're allowed into the cutting room because it's not a very on-display job. I mean, we're behind the scenes. We kind of whisper in your ear. ~ Maryann Brandon

I love you." The words were a curse, harsh and punishing. "I can't change it and I don't want to. You're it for me." Angelo's body shook between Gabe's legs. "I gave you my heart in that fucking interrogation room, cop, yet you've been holding yours hostage from me."
He pulled his head back, eyes over-bright, lips red and swollen. "I want those words. I deserve those words." His voice wobbled and broke. "I demand those words. I need them. ~ Avril Ashton

So…" Nolan smirked. "Are you going to tell me why you had a trunk load of pleasure devices delivered to your door, or are we going to just keep ignoring the giant box of sex toys in the room? ~ Joya Ryan

If I'm in a room with nunchuks you might as well forget it. It's like putting down a plate of peanut butter cookies, I cannot resist picking them up. I will invariably grab those nunchuks and start flipping them around, whirling them through the air and within seconds my whole face is bruised and bleeding. I can't work 'em. I just can't. Don't even let me hold them. ~ Ron Burgundy

When you venture at life with curiosity, you can learn from anything. You learn from things that you could never maybe thought you could learn from. And when you actually step into the room with a lot of people who have an education in a classroom, that is very similar to other people's educations, you'll actually come with a unique perspective that could be a valuable perspective that creates an innovation that could change the world. ~ Ashton Kutcher

If you put down a good, solid foundation and build one room after another, pretty soon you have a house. You build in your speedwork, your pace and increase your ability to run races and think races out. Then it's possible to run the way we do. ~ Rod Dixon

Michael [Hutchence] is hands down one of the greatest frontmen in music. The style, the voice - all of it. Any way that I was ever influenced by him really comes down to small, pale imitations compared to the real thing. There is a fearlessness about him. Watching him at Wembley Stadium with 70,000 people, he looks as comfortable as if he were in his own living room. ~ Lori Majewski

I would sooner geld myself. Drunk. With a dull knife." Sin spoke with a slow, deadly emphasis on each word. King Henry II stood a few feet away from him without the protection of a bodyguard or other courtier. They were alone in the throne room, and no doubt any other man would be cowering before his monarch. But Sin had never cowed in his life, and Henry knew better than to expect such behavior from him now.
Henry's face hardened. "I could command it of you."
Sin cocked one arrogant brow and asked, "Then why don't you?"
Henry smiled at that, and the tension left his body as he closed the distance between them. Their friendship had been forged years ago, in the dark of night, and at the end of a blade pressed deep against Henry's throat. Sin had spared the king's life and since that day, Henry had treasured the only man who had never been awed by his power or authority. Sin answered to no man, be he king, pope, sultan or begger.
But then, there was nothing in life that awed Sin. Nothing in life that commanded him, or touched him. He was completely alone. And he preferred it that way.
"I didn't get this throne by being a fool, Sin. Should I command you to it, I know precisely what you'd do. You'd turn your back on me and head straight for yon door." Henry looked sincere. "God's truth, you are the only man alive I never wish to make my enemy. 'Tis why I ask this as a friend."
"Damn you."

-Sin & Henry ~ Kinley MacGregor

But - " she said, her voice swallowed by the hot air in the hushed room. "But I burnded it. ~ Tui T. Sutherland

Just as Emme neared the main staircase, as she could see the intricate carving of the banisters, a noise from behind her made her thundering heart skip. She froze mid stride and peered over her shoulder at the growing triangle of light emerging from the doorway of the billiard room. Tension coiled in her stomach, and her breath seized in her lungs. Someone was coming, and her wits fled her entirely. ~ Chasity Bowlin

During a party, Luis Buñuel, seduced by Carrington's beauty and emboldened by the notion that she had transcended all bourgeois morality, proposed (with his characteristic bluntness) that she become his mistress. Without even waiting for her answer, he gave her the key to the secret studio that he used as a love nest and told her to meet him at three o'clock the next afternoon. Early the next morning, Leonora went to visit the place alone. She found it tasteless: It looked exactly like a motel room. Taking advantage of the fact that she was in her menstrual period, she covered her hands with blood and used them to make bloody handprints all over the walls in order to provide a bit of decoration for that anonymous, impersonal room. Buñuel never spoke to her again. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

As Ian looked at her, he felt something in his chest slip and shift. The pressure came with a blood-tingling rush of triumph and satisfaction, pride and a deeply burning sense of possessiveness. His inner caveman warrior had been awakened and wanted to rush around the room, peeing into the corners, marking it - and her - as his own, while shouting Mine! and randomly smashing things for emphasis.
But he knew that was he was feeling was the equivalent of emotional and hormonal indigestion. He hadn't done this in a long time. And he particularly hadn't done it with a woman he liked as much as this one. In fact, he'd never had sex with anyone that he genuinely liked as much as he liked Phoebe. ~ Suzanne Brockmann

For a moment, perhaps an hour, they would wait, wait for something, and when that waiting was over, it was simply dismissed, goodbyes stated, reading materials closed, a momentary pause in the day that did not hold up to whatever came next.
Waiting was often a resented gift, imparted to those who accepted it grudgingly in the hopes that something better would come along when the gift was tossed aside, boxed away for the next recipient. ~ Gina Marinello-Sweeney

It's a proper hideout, as long as one of us stays in here, they can't get at us, the door won't open. It's all down to Neville. He really gets this room. You've got to ask it for exactly what you need--like, 'I don't want any Carrow supporters to be able to get in'--and it'll do it for you! You've just got to make sure you close the loopholes! Neville's the man!"
"It's quite straightforward, really," said Neville modestly. "I'd been in here about a day and a half, and getting really hungry, and wishing I could get something to eat, and that's when the passage to the Hog's Head opened up. I went through it and met Aberforth. He's been providing us with food, because for some reason, that's the one thing the room doesn't really do."
"Yeah, well, food's one of the five exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration," said Ron to general astonishment. ~ J.K. Rowling

The room was much as he had left it, festeringly untidy, though the effect was muted a little by a thick layer of dust. Half-read books and magazines nestled among piles of half-used towels. Half-pairs of socks reclined in half-drunk cups of coffee. What once had been a half-eaten sandwich had now half-turned into something that Arthur didn't entirely want to know about. Bung a fork of lightning through this lot, he thought to himself, and you'd start the evolution of life off all over again. ~ Douglas Adams

I remember being 18, and my first boyfriend said to me, "Unless you're in the room, you don't know if it's true." We were talking about gossip. ~ Winona Ryder

When I'm curled up in his arms like this, I can never tell how my body looks to him. I worry that I seem completely ridiculous, but I have the ability to squeeze into any little space he leaves for me. I fold my legs until they take up almost no room at all, and curl in my shoulders until they're practically dislocated. Like a mummy in a tomb. And when I get like this, I don't care if I never get out; or maybe that's exactly what I hope will happen. ~ Yoko Ogawa

But my point, Mattie - if I have a point, Mattie - is this: kind of try to live up to the best that's in you. If you give your word to people, let them know that they're getting the word of the best. If you room with some dopey girl at college, try to make her less dopey. If you're standing outside a theater and some old gal comes up selling gum, give her a buck if you've got a buck - but only if you can do it without patronizing her. That's the trick, baby.' -Last Day of the Last Furlough ~ J.D. Salinger

I'm beginning to know myself. I don't exist. I'm the space between what I'd like to be and what others made of me. Just let me be at ease and all by myself in my room. ~ Fernando Pessoa

One of the tricks to writing great plays is to get people in a room together and not let them leave. You want the tension to escalate. Keeping them there is the hardest part, so you have to take away any excuse for them to leave. ~ Adam Rapp

Zia," I said, "that's a goddess. She defeated Bast. What chance do you have?"
Zia held up her staff and the carved lion's head burst into flames - a small red fireball so bright, it lit the entire room. "I am a scribe in the House of LIfe, Sadie Kane. I am trained to fight gods. ~ Rick Riordan

It doesn't matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn't matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years - we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on. ~ Sharon Salzberg

You have to come in and be that character when you walk into the room. That's what one of my first acting teachers taught me. You know, don't go in there being Jennifer and then expect to flip and change, because they're not going to have that imagination. ~ Jennifer Lopez

She remembers the last perfect evening before everything happened, perfect even though she didn't know everything was about to change. Karaoke night. A bunch of kids from choir cheering each other on. When it was her turn, Hallelujah belted out "Total Eclipse of the Heart." She went for every melodramatic note, closing her eyes and beating her chest. She got the whole group to sing along.
She remembers Jonah taking the stage next. When he sang the opening lines to Garth Brooks's "Friends in Low Places," the room went nuts. He put on a cowboy drawl and sent the low notes reverberating through the wooden floorboards. She remembers him tipping an imaginary Stetson at her when he was done.
In a week, Hallelujah would get caught making out with Luke Willis. He would humiliate her and start spreading lies about her. She would become someone quiet and sad and resentful. But right then, performance-flushed and surrounded by friends, she couldn't stop smiling. ~ Kathryn Holmes

In that distant beginning season, Sun Man's warm magic flowed over all the land. Whenever he raised his arms, it was day. whenever he lowered them, it was night. The Bee People and the Elephant People and the Tic People loved the rhythm of Sun Man's light. Their faces crinkled with pleasure in his heat.

But inside the dreamtime, Sun Man grew old. His back grew stiff and his knee joints ached. He rose later and later each morning. He napped soon after breakfast and went to bed in the afternoon.

"What's going on here?" complained Grandfather Mantis. "I'm not getting heat anymore." Grandfather Mantis sent the Bird People to find out. The Bird People returned, rumpled and solemn. Darkness was everywhere, even though it was supposed to be daytime. "Sun Man is getting old," they explained. "This shining all the time is getting too much for him."

"Well, I'm old," snapped Grandfather Mantis. "Doesn't stop me."

His wife raised her eyebrows but said nothing. ~ Carolyn McVickar Edwards

Hamilton found it difficult to concentrate on what Eliza was saying. Her lips were moving rapidly, but he couldn't actually decipher what the words coming out of her mouth were. It was such a lovely mouth, and he found it quite quirky, given the fact that it could assume different positions with alarming frequency. Like now, it was pursed in a most attractive manner, and now ... it was moving again as if the lady could not get the words out fast enough. His gaze traveled upward, past the eyes that were flashing and settled on her hair. He couldn't help but appreciate the efforts of Mabel. The curls she'd been able to produce on Eliza's head, well, they were tantalizing. He had the strangest urge to reach out and touch them, to feel with his own hand if they were as soft as they appeared, something he'd been contemplating ever since he got a good look at her in the dining room. He pulled abruptly back to reality when Eliza poked him in the chest. ~ Jen Turano

My palms began sweating as I took in the enormous, opulent study. Tomes lined each wall like the soldiers of a silent army, and couches, desks, and rich rugs were scattered throughout the room. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Instantly Vikram froze in pain, shook like a break-dancer and then dropped to the floor, dazed. Jaitendra got up, dragged him to the centre of the room and shut the door. ~ Stanley Moss

I turned toward her with red, puffy eyes. Her own eyes widened with concern, and she froze as she watched me walk into the kitchen, like she was waiting for me to crumple onto the floor and shatter into pieces.

"I'm fine," I said. "It's an emotional book. I'm just getting a glass of water." I reached for the tequila.

She got up and followed me into the kitchen. "That's not water."

"And?"

"It's ten a.m."

"And?"

"You look like you've been crying for an hour straight . . . and you're hitting the hard stuff at - and I repeat - ten a.m."

"Cara, you have the most amazing powers of perception." I looked at the bottle in one hand and the glass in the other, shrugged, set the glass down, and headed back to my room with the bottle only.

"I'm worried about you," Cara called out as I walked away.

"I'm fine. Just gonna sit in here, read, and have myself a little mental health day." I turned and smiled and then locked myself in my room.

"Mental health days don't usually involve tequila at ten a.m.!" she yelled through the door.

"I'm fine! ~ Renee Carlino

Now the Fox Moth 83 was by no means an aeroplane designed for passenger comfort. It only had enough room for two seats, a stretcher and the doctor. What's more, it was held together with little more than wood, cloth, string and wire. So they set off at top speed, which was about 80 miles an hour, in the old money; about a four-hour trip it was. ~ Bill Marsh

[Solitary confinement] is terrible. That is terrible. You're in a grave. You can't do anything. Everything's brought to you and you're in a room all day, except to come out of the showers. So when I would come out, I would entertain myself by singing, doing little mock concerts. And then when I was in the room, I would develop a routine. Like I have a lot of hair under here, so I would take my hair down and take all day to braid it on purpose. Stretch the hours out. Then I might write. And I would clean the floor. And I would look out the window. And then I'd devote a whole day to just reading. I was Christian then, trying to be. So I would read the whole Bible. I would break it down into sections. You're in a grave and you're trying to live. That's how to best describe it: trying to live in a grave. You're trying to live 'cause you're not dead yet, but nobody hears you when you call out, 'Hey, I'm alive! ~ Megan Sweeney

SOMETIMES I like feeling lonely sometimes isolated solitude reaching inward wondering around questioning I like my answers if there are any to be found answers to the smells and swells in the room the sultry, the chill keeps me going strong into the depths listening to the room heaving hearing what it has to say about today I like feeling lonely sometimes or tomorrow lingering in the sunshine's shadow "Know thyself" they say and all shall be well. ~ Michele Ward

In the other room Rateau was looking at the canvas, completely blank, in the center of which Jonas had merely written in very small letters a word that could be made out, but without any certainty as to whether it should be read solitary or solidary. ~ Albert Camus

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I never leave the house without [my Santa hat]. In fact, I pretty much never leave my room without it. I honestly don't know how this habit started and believe me, I'd break myself of it if I could, but I'm a little bit OCD about the Santa hat. Whenever I try to put it away, I get this horrible, overwhelming feeling that somehow Christmas will be destroyed if I do. ~ Kieran Scott

We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit
on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close
to one another, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lights and shadows of our
feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he know of me or I of him? formerly we should not have
had a single thought in common--now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, are so
intimate that we do not even speak. ~ Erich Maria Remarque

Mary Hepburn was meanwhile murdering herself up in her room, lying on her bed with the polyethylene sheath of her "Jackie dress" swapped around her head. The sheath was now all steamed up inside, and she hallucinated that she was a great land tortoise lying on its back in the hot and humid hold of a sailing ship of long ago. She pawed the air in perfect futility, just as a land tortoise on its back would have done.

As she had often told her students, sailing ships bound out across the Pacific used to stop off in the Galàpagos Islands to capture defenseless tortoises, who could live on their backs without food or water for months. They were so slow and tame and huge and plentiful. The sailors would capsize them without fear of being bitten or clawed. then they would drag them down to waiting longboats on the shore, using the animals' own useless suits of armor for sleds.

They would store them on their backs in the dark paying no further attention to them until it was time for them to be eaten. the beauty of the tortoises to the sailors was that they were fresh meat which did not have to be refrigerated or eaten right away. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.