Focals Smart Quotes

I was very young when we got married and I don't know why it worked out like it did or how I was smart enough to know that this was the right guy, but somehow I got lucky. ~ Kyra Sedgwick

The world never did help a smart girl. Why would it? We scare the shit out of the world. If the world goes after you, take it as a compliment. ~ The Magicians

I am of you," said Kip."I am Guile as much as you are. True, I have a scrap of decency, but only a scrap. How do you think you can treat a Guile with such disregard and get away with it? Because I am you. I'm as cold as you, I'm as smart as you, and when you push me, I'm as evil and cruel as you. I have a thin film of goodness floating on the top of my Guile, grandfather, but I don't know how senile you must be to miss just how thin it is. ~ Brent Weeks

This book is, in a way, a scrapbook of my writing life. From shopping the cathedral flea market in Barcelona with David Sedaris to having drinks at Cognac with Nora Ephron just months before she died. To the years of sporadic correspondence I had with Thom Jones and Ira Levin. I've stalked my share of mentors, asking for advice.
Therefore, if you came back another day and asked me to teach you, I'd tell you that becoming an author involves more than talent and skill. I've known fantastic writers who never finished a project. And writers who launched incredible ideas, then never fully executed them. And I've seen writers who sold a single book and became so disillusioned by the process that they never wrote another. I'd paraphrase the writer Joy Williams, who says that writers must be smart enough to hatch a brilliant idea - but dull enough to research it, keyboard it, edit and re-edit it, market the manuscript, revise it, revise it, re-revise it, review the copy edit, proofread the typeset galleys, slog through the interviews and write the essays to promote it, and finally to show up in a dozen cities and autograph copies for thousands or tens of thousands of people…
And then I'd tell you, "Now get off my porch."
But if you came back to me a third time, I'd say, "Kid…" I'd say, "Don't say I didn't warn you. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

If you're really successful at bullshitting, it means you're not hanging around enough people smarter than you. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Jeth had an unnatural talent for nuclear physics. Should that be a crime? He didn't like governments. Who did? How smart do you have to be before cynicism counts as villainy? And oh, God forbid you become independently wealthy enough to buy an island. Suddenly it's the Island of Dr. X, and the press can't refer to you without using the word "lair. ~ Tom Francis

Mr, B, what's wrong with me?"
[ ... ]
"Nothing. You're smart enough to know you don't have all the answers, that's all. ~ Jerry Spinelli

A dog has no use for fancy cars, big homes, or designer clothes. A water logged stick will do just fine. A dog doesn't care if you're rich or poor, clever or dull, smart or dumb. Give him your heart and he'll give you his. How many people can you say that about? How many people can make you feel rare and pure and special? How many people can make you feel extraordinary? ~ John Grogan

Why, aren't you just about as sweet as syrup on a sundae? I sure would appreciate that, ma'am." He winked. "How'd you like ta stroll the deck of this fine ship with me and watch the sunset? I need a purty girl to put her arm around me and steady this bow-legged cowboy as he finds his sea legs." I raised an eyebrow and affected a southern accent. "Why, I think you're a pullin' my leg there, Texas. You've had your sea legs a lot longer than I have." He rubbed the stubble on his face. "You might be right at that. Well then, how about you taggin' along to keep me warm?" "It's about eighty degrees." "Shoot, you're a smart one, you are. Then how 'bout I jes say that a feller can get pretty lonesome by hisself in a strange country and he'd like to keep compn'y with you fer a while longer. ~ Colleen Houck

When markets go down, opportunities go up for smart real estate investors. I would much rather play the downturn than the upturn. ~ Harry S. Dent

Suddenly I was tired of Lotterman; he was a phony and he didn't even know it. He was forever yapping about freedom of the press and keeping the paper going, but if he'd had a million dollars and all the freedom in the world he'd still put out a worthless newspaper because he wasn't smart enough to put out a good one. He was just another noisy little punk in the great legion of punks who marched between the banners of bigger and better men. Freedom, Truth, Honour - you could rattle off a hundred such words and behind every one of them would gather a thousand punks, pompous little farts, waving the banner with one hand and reaching under the table with the other.
I stood up. "Ed," I said using his name for the first time, "I believe I'll quit. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

The U.S. Congress can do a lot to support America's workplaces and the family. By working together in a bipartisan fashion, we can ensure our constituents get jobs they need while helping employers make smart decisions about their workforce. ~ Charles B. Rangel

Mental aerobics must be done prior to the exam. Work your mental muscle. If smart nurses fail this exam it is usually from mental fatigue. ~ Laura Gasparis Vonfrolio

You are so special and important and elegant and smart and kind and worthwhile, and you are so much better than me and everyone else I've ever known in every single way, and you are the only truth I have ever found in this lying world, and I love you to the floor of me, and it breaks me to imagine a future without you in it, and I just want you to know all that, just because. ~ Seth King

If you're not smart enough to know what Fidel meant during the Cuban revolution, that - when they were on the Granma - Fidel was already a rock star in Cuba, and how important that was to the indigenous population, then you're not paying attention. ~ Steven Soderbergh

Some of these kids just don't plain know how good they are: how smart and how much they have to say. You can tell them. You can shine that light on them, one human interaction at a time. ~ Dave Eggers

After I slid down the wall for the third time, breaking every single fingernail in the process, I finally figured out that Thor was hollering at me. I turned to see him standing in the bed of the truck. Which, of course, made much more sense, than pretending to be Spiderman.
It's a humbling moment when you realize your dog is smarter than you. ~ Barbra Annino

I hate the idea that you have to give up anything. I think you can be powerful and still be provocative, you can be smart and have a softness, you can have all of it. ~ Michael Kors

And the best sort of villain is smart and subtle and so very tricky that you don't even know he's the villain, because he thinks himself the hero in his own story. ~ Roseanna M. White

Government usually doesn't work. It doesn't work because it is political. People who are wise, good, smart, skillful, or hardworking don't need politics, they have jobs. The difference between the political process and an honest life is the difference between parading around waving picket signs while hollering catcalls in front of the White House and getting up in the morning to go make a living. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

For a woman to get half as much credit as a man, she has to work twice as hard, and be twice as smart. Fortunately, that isn't difficult. ~ Charlotte Whitton

I love characters who are clever and smart, and you have to run to catch up with. I think there's something very appealing and rather heroic in that. ~ David Tennant

Perhaps," Mg. Katter cut in, "she's finally gotten smart. In and out, job done."
Mg. Hughes said, "No. Not her." He paused. "She knows Emery is critical to the syndicate, they all do. He's personally invested in it. That, and she's always kept a . . . keen . . . interest in him. ~ Charlie N. Holmberg

Princess Amara , Euci , and even the Nox King - they were my friends when everyone in the real world passed around rumors behind my back , called me weird , shoved me into lockers , and baited me into thinking I was beautiful only to push me away just before we kissed . They never abandoned me . They were loyal , honorable , caring , and smart . ~ Ashley Poston

There's always something when you're at fault, too, and that fault you must discover and learn to recognize and take the consequences of it. ~ Anne Holm

Once upon a time there was a girl."
"Not a princess?!"
"No, definitely not! She was too smart to be a princess. Tough too ... Stronger than anyone realized."
"Does she live happily ever after?"
"Shouldn't there be something in the middle?"
"I like to read the ending first." (Wicked Lovely) ~ Melissa Marr

Smart to avoid being with anyone she might actually really feel something for, who might actually really feel something for her. Smart to avoid getting involved with people she knew she could - ~ Stacia Kane

WHEN I WAS 25 I THOUGHT MY DAD WAS A FOOL NOW THAT IM 30 ITS AMAZING HOW SMART HE HAS GOTTON OVER THE LAST FIVE YEARS.MY SECOND FAVORITE IS A MAN PREACHING TO ANOTHER ABOUT HOW HE BELIEVES THAT FAMILY COMES FIRST AND HOW HIS FRIEND SHOULD REMEMBER WHAT HIS PARENTS DID FOR HIM BEFORE HE DISRESPECTS THEM. WELL LETS JUST SAY I UNDERSTAND. ~ Peter Fryer

I believe whatever smart, ambitious people are working on will be the trend of the future. I do think that it's worth thinking critically about what the future will be. ~ Sam Altman

Congress is always willing to appropriate money for more and bigger paved roads, anywhere
particularly if they form loops. ~ Edward Abbey

People look at me, and they go, 'You're white, you're smart, you must have went to college. You must have grown up with money.' ~ Adam Carolla

We can choose to allow our experiences to hold us back, and to not allow us to become great or achieve greatness in this life. Or we can allow our experiences to push us forward, to make us grateful for every day we have and to be all the more thankful for those who are around us. ~ Elizabeth Smart

If you put enough smart people together in one space, good things happen. ~ Erik Hersman

Hugh consoled me, saying, "Don't let it get to you. There are plenty of things you're good at."
When asked for some examples, he listed vacuuming and naming stuffed animals. He says he can probably come up with a few more, but he'll need some time to think. ~ David Sedaris

Some people might say it's not smart to be so insecure about what you wear. But that's not how I see it. The stupid woman is the one who thinks she doesn't need any help. What does a man know about things like that? a stupid woman thinks, and proceeds to make the wrong choice. ~ Herman Koch

Hollywood always had a streak of the totalitarian in just about everything it did. The old moguls were essentially hard-fisted authoritarians who had created a system of linked dictatorships to control the creative people. We were supposed to be the children; mad, tempestuous, brilliant, talented, not terribly smart children. ~ Shirley Maclaine