Great Context Quotes

The Tyr had tried. It had really tried. It must have gone over every element of human psychology, tried desperately to understand the nature of human aesthetic sense ... and then failed, miserably, in every regard. ~ C.S. Friedman

We share need, not-human. Yours is straightforward." ... "Mine is less so, but you will serve it. Come. ~ C.S. Friedman

Headlines are so great in a sense that they can take a little bit from an article completely out of context and blow it into something it's not. Some people really only read headlines. ~ Kristin Cavallari

My identity is without root. ~ C.S. Friedman

In a British accent, he tells me his name is Dr.Nawaz, and suddenly I want to be away from this man, because I don't think I can bear what he has come to tell me. He says the boy had cut himself deeply and had lost a great deal of blood and my mouth begins to mutter that prayer again:
La illaha ila Allah, Muhammad u rasul ullah.
They had to transfuse several units of red cells-
How will I tell Soraya?
Twice, they had to revive him-
I will do namaz, I will do zakat.
They would have lost him if his heart hadn't been young and strong-
I will fast.
He is alive. ~ Khaled Hosseini

I believe that the internet as an open platform for distribution could be a great chance for the diversity of film production. ~ Agnieszka Holland

What prompts alarm in me is how you and your government want to ruin not only the potential of this of this country, but also the path of those who are going to transition into more advanced beings in search of immortality and omnipotence, and maybe even participate in a great singularity. These advances are going to pass, one way or another. And your current second-rate moral system - your weak, pretend-God-will-take-care-of-us bullshit - is a waste for our species' possibilities. You people want to pretend that democracy, religious inspiration, and unbridled consumerism are going to last forever and carry us all to bliss; that the American Dream is right around the next corner for everyone. you spend hundreds of billions of dollars on lazy welfare recipients, on mentally challenged people, on uneducated repeat criminals, on obese second-rate citizens bankrupting our medical system, on murderous war machines fighting for oil and your oligarchy's pet projects in far off places. All so you maintain your puny forms of power and sleep better at night. ~ Zoltan Istvan

By a certain fate, great acts, and great eloquence have most commonly gone hand in hand, equalling and honoring each other in the same ages. ~ John Milton

In New York, he tried in vain to forget her. The first few days were tinged with melancholy and regret and JT thought he would never recover. Anyway: recover why? And yet, with the passage of time, in his heart he understood that he'd gained much more than he'd lost. At least, he said to himself, I've met the woman of my dreams. Other people, most people, glimpse something in films, the shadow of great actresses, the gaze of true love. But I saw her in the flesh, heard her voice, saw her silhouetted against the endless pampa. I talked to her and she talked back. What do I have to complain about? ~ Roberto Bolano

A great book does not have to be a literary masterpiece with complicated sentences and words no one has heard of. It has to touch it's readers souls and make them feel. Simple words with a story and characters that drizzle over and through you like warm honey and keep you turning the pages can be just as good. ~ Amanda Mackey

Certainly there are dozens of over-50 actresses who look great: Sophia Loren, Susan Sarandon, Ursula Andress, Stefanie Powers, Raquel Welch, Barbara Eden, Joanna Lumley, Linda Gray - the list is endless, and these are just the actresses! I have many friends in their 60s, 70s and 80s, not in the limelight, but who all look absolutely stunning. ~ Joan Collins

granted equal knowledge, are there great generals as there are great surgeons, who, when the symptoms exhibited by two cases of illness are identical to the outward eye, nevertheless feel, for some infinitesimal reason, founded perhaps on their experience, but interpreted afresh, that in one case they ought to do this, in another case that; that in one case it is better to operate, in another to wait? ~ Marcel Proust

During those days, both the bed and my little rickety table were swimming in notes and scribbled-over manuscripts that I took turns working on, adding new ideas that occurred to me in the course of the day, crossing out material or freshening up the dead passages with a lively word here or there, and pushing on from sentence to sentence with great labor. ~ Knut Hamsun

I saw all those great '70s films when I was 9, and no one in my Brooklyn neighborhood cared if a kid watched an R movie. ~ Michael De Luca

It's shocking," he says, as though he's giving me some great compliment. "I know humans can lie, but to watch you do it is incredible. Do it again. ~ Holly Black

My wife and I work out together almost every day. It's just a great way to spend time together. We're going to run a marathon together later this year, and that's one more goal that we'll accomplish as husband and wife. ~ Bill Rancic

You have a great passion for great works. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

When hiring key employees, there are only two qualities to look for: judgement and taste. Almost everything else can be bought by the yard. ~ John W. Gardner

It would be of great use to us to form our deliberate judgments of persons and things in the calmest and serenest hours of life, when the passions of nature are all silent, and the mind enjoys its most perfect composure. ~ Isaac Watts

I'm not lying, I was a killer Helen Burns. I stepped out on to that stage like I was the Great Esquimaux Curlew. When Jane Eyre came to look at my book
which happened to be Our Town
I handed it to her just right. When Miss Scatchard told me I never cleaned my nails, I was about as quiet and innocent as a Large-Billed Puffin. When she hit me a dozen times with a bunch of twigs, I was the Brown Pelican: I didn't bat an eye
and you try getting hit a dozen times with a bunch of twigs. And when I had to die, people were crying. Really. And you know why? Because I was the Black-Backed Gull, and so people cried like Helen Burns was their best friend. ~ Gary D. Schmidt

What did she say?" asked Matthias.
Nina coughed and took his arm, leading him away. "She said you're a very nice fellow, and a credit to the Fjerdan race. Ooh, look, blini! I haven't had proper blini in forever."
"That word she used: babink," he said. "You've called me that before. What does it mean?"
Nina directed her attention to a stack of paper-thin buttered pancakes. "It means sweetie pie."
"Nina - "
"Barbarian."
"I was just asking, there's no need to name-call."
"No, babink means barbarian." Matthias' gaze snapped back to the old woman, his glower returning to full force. Nina grabbed his arm. It was like trying to hold on to a boulder. "She wasn't insulting you! I swear!"
"Barbarian isn't an insult?" he asked, voice rising.
"No. Well, yes. But not in this context. She wanted to know if you'd like to play Princess and Barbarian."
"It's a game?"
"Not exactly."
"Then what is it?"
Nina couldn't believe she was actually going to attempt to explain this. As they continued up the street, she said, "In Ravka, there's a popular series of stories about, um, a brave Fjerdan warrior - "
"Really?" Matthias asked. "He's the hero?"
"In a manner of speaking. He kidnaps a Ravkan princess - "
"That would never happen."
"In the story it does, and" - she cleared her throat - "they spend a long time getting to know each other. In his cave."
"He lives in a cave?"
"It's a very nice cave. Furs. Jewe ~ Leigh Bardugo

With no matter what human being, taken individually, I always find reasons for concluding that sorrow and misfortune do not suit him; either because he seems too mediocre for anything so great, or, on the contrary, too precious to be destroyed. ~ Simone Weil

Remember that history always repeats itself. Every great bubble in history has broken. There are no exceptions. ~ Jeremy Grantham

Roman civilization had achieved, within the bounds of its technology, relatively as great a mastery of time and space as we have achieved today. ~ Arthur Erickson

As the chapters took shape, a change came over her. It was the double-sided recognition that this book, the last that she would write, might achieve esteem and success equal to her great novel, but that its emotional heart would lie in her own unhappiness for having failed to find the one thing she wanted. For the first time she was a character in her own writing, and her frailties and mistakes were trapped on the page by the beauty and unsparing focus of her prose. Towards the end it was a battle to finish a page. The story was the story she had told herself for decades, deep within her own mind, and now as it grew, line by line, on the paper before her, she wrestled with each turn in the path all over again, as if it were still possible to change its course with the power of her words. ~ Frederick Weisel

Don't discount your angst. Don't discount the tough times, being broke, being unhappy or even disappointed. This are the things great stories are made of. ~ Lakeshia Poole

The day you were born
Heaven wept at its great loss,
Earth joyed at its gain. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The man who doesn't relax and hoot a few hoots voluntarily, now and then, is in great danger of hooting hoots and standing on his head for the edification of the pathologist and trained nurse, a little later on. ~ Elbert Hubbard

I can only reply that the secret to success in every human endeavor is total concentration. Ask any great athlete. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I have great friends. That's key for me for: surrounding myself with people who are supportive and kind. ~ Robert Piper

I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it - not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization. ~ Harry S. Truman

In this context, fear of toxicity strikes me as an old anxiety with a new name. Where the word filth once suggested, with its moralist air, the evils of the flesh, the word toxic now condemns the chemical evils of our industrial world. This is not to say that concerns over environmental pollution are not justified - like filth theory, toxicity theory is anchored in legitimate dangers - but that the way we think about toxicity bears some resemblance to the way we once thought about filth. Both theories allow their subscribers to maintain a sense of control over their own health by pursuing personal purity. For the filth theorist, this meant a retreat into the home, where heavy curtains and shutters might seal out the smell of the poor and their problems. Our version of this shuttering is now achieved through the purchase of purified water, air purifiers, and food produced with the promise of purity. ~ Eula Biss

You have only to rest in inaction and things will transform themselves. Smash your form and body, spit out hearing and eyesight, forget you are a thing among other things, and you may join in great unity with the deep and boundless. ~ Zhuangzi

People will insist on building high and wide barriers directly in your path, often with the intent of closing you in. If you treat these obstacles like fencing walls, they will prove mightily so. I choose to see them as grand towers meant to be scaled and conquered, providing an added victory as well as a great view of the journey ahead. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

in the pages of the history of the great. Her entire life ~ Napoleon Hill

Without context, we'd all be monsters. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

You may look back on your life and accept it as good or evil. But it is far, far harder to admit that you have been completely unimportant; that in the great sum of things all a man's endless grapplings are no more significant than the scuttlings of a cockroach. The universe is neither friendly nor hostile. It is merely indifferent. This makes me ecstatic. I have reached a nirvana of negativity. I can look futility in the face and still see promise in the stars. ~ Sebastian Horsley

I thank heaven that the 4th. of July is over. It is always a day of great fatigue to me, and of some embarrassments from improper intrusions and some from unintended exclusions. ~ Thomas Jefferson

It is not possible to become a great player without having learned how to analyse deeply and accurately. ~ Mark Dvoretsky

And then I went back into my room, locked into a sequence as perfect as a pattern, and I sat down on my great rock throne, invisible to the outside world but palpable beneath me, and from how my face felt I thought maybe I was crying, either because I didn't want to do this or because I did, it was hard to tell and anyway I never would, who would believe me in either case and who would be there to believe me in all cases, it was a puzzle, I had yet to learn the way of the jigsaw, and so I positioned the rifle beneath my chin, it feels cold, like an actual thing in the actual present physical world, OK, there it is, I am here now, and then I lay down on my belly and listened to the rising squall beyond the door. ~ John Darnielle

It's great to know that our old stuff still sounds good to our fans, just as it's wonderful to think that we've turned a few people on to jazz over the years. ~ Donald Fagen

It is often better to have a great deal of harm happen to one than a little; a great deal may rouse you to remove what a little will only accustom you to endure. ~ Grenville Kleiser

Perhaps if we saw what was ahead of us, and glimpsed the follies, and misfortunes that would befall us later on, we would all stay in our mother's wombs, and then there would be nobody in the world but a great number of very fat, very irritated women. ~ Lemony Snicket

Time [is] flowing in the middle of the night. ~ Alfred The Great

A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed. ~ Ansel Adams

One of the great things about young entrepreneurs is that they don't know that something can't be done. So they try something that's so audacious and usually end up pulling it off. ~ Fred Wilson

A great sentiment can be rendered immediately. Dream on it and look for the simplest form in which you can express it. ~ Paul Gauguin