Great Nonchalant Quotes

For our own part, we learned a great deal about the techniques of love, and because we didn't know the words to denote what we saw, we had to make up our own. That was why we spoke of "yodeling in the canyon" and "tying the tube," of "groaning in the pit," "slipping the turtle's head," and "chewing the stinkweed." Years later, when we lost our own virginities, we resorted in our panic to pantomiming Lux's gyrations on the roof so long ago; and even now, if we were to be honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that it is always that pale wraith we make love to, always her feet snagged in the gutter, always her single blooming hand steadying itself against the chimney, no matter what our present lovers' feet and hands are doing. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

But even among the great traditional peoples, the situation is not different: from China to Greece, from Rome to the primordial Nordic groups, then up to Aztecs and the Incas, nobility was not characterised by the simple fact of having ancestors, but by the fact that the ancestors of the nobility were divine, unlike those of plebeians and to which it can remain faithful, also through the integrity of blood. The nobles originated from 'demigods', that is to say, from beings who had actually followed a transcendent form of life, forming the origin of tradition in the higher sense, transmitting to their lineage a blood made divine, and, along with it, rites, that is, determinate operations, whose secret every noble family preserved, which allowed their descendants to continue the spiritual conquest from where it had previously reached, and to lead it from the virtual to the actual. ~ Julius Evola

To give and to lose is nothing; but to lose and to give still is the part of a great mind. ~ Seneca The Younger

He only is great at heart who floods the world with a great affection. He only is great of mind who stirs the world with great thoughts. He only is great of will who does something to shape the world to a great career. And he is greatest who does the most of all these things and does them best. ~ Roswell Dwight Hitchcock

[Raphael's] great superiority is due to the instinctive sense which, in him, seems to desire to shatter form. Form is, in his figures, what it is in ourselves, an interpreter for the communication of ideas and sensations, an exhaustless source of poetic inspiration. Every figure is a world in itself, a portrait of which the original appeared in a sublime vision, in a flood of light, pointed to by an inward voice, laid bare by a divine finger which showed what the sources of expression had been in the whole past life of the subject. ~ Honore De Balzac

Theo," Aunt Blythe said. "According to Father, he was a no-good rascal, but just look at that angelic little face. He couldn't have been all bad."
"I guess Great-grandfather didn't like him either."
"No, indeed." Aunt Blythe laughed. "If anything, Father disliked Theo even more than Hannah. The feeling was mutual, I'm afraid. I haven't seen either one of them since their mother died. Lord, that was more than fifty years ago."
I looked closely at the swing in the picture. "Was this taken on your porch?"
Aunt Blythe nodded. "Hannah used to live here. Father bought the house after her mother died." She pointed to the sweet-faced woman and the stern man beside her. "Great-aunt Mildred and Great-uncle Henry."
I leaned against my aunt's shoulder. "Let me guess," I said. "Great-grandfather didn't like them either."
"What a perceptive boy you are. ~ Mary Downing Hahn

It is easier to sacrifice great than little things. ~ Michel De Montaigne

I'm not always the favourite to win, but I still enjoy it. The main thing is that I've planned for it and even if the result isn't great, I know I've done the best I can do. It's being true to, and believing in, yourself. ~ Jenny Meadows

I have been an elated reader of all the great Russian novelists and short-story writers since my early twenties and I have often written about them, though I know no Russian and have never been to Russia. The lure for me (I realize now) lay in John Bayley's wonderful phrase - I believe in his learned introduction to Pushkin's Letters - that the "doors of the Russian house are wide open": we see people who speak out in the lost hours of the day as it passes through them. ~ V.S. Pritchett

Great web design without functionality is like a sports car with no engine. ~ Paul Cookson

I never want to work. Even when you're presented with these great opportunities, I think, 'I really love being in my pajamas with the kids.' ~ Cate Blanchett

Kato's expression shifts into something I could almost call a smile for the first time since I found him. He plucks the chordsagain in the beginnings of a tune I recognize, a ballad popular in southern Sinta. His fingers move with skill and subtlety over the strings. I had no idea he was musical.

"Maybe we're not meant to kill it." He keeps playing. "Doesn't music soothe the beast? I'll play, you sing."

"I sound like a strangled Satyr when I sing."

He smiles. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me."

"There's no need for mudslinging," I say with a huff.

He chuckles softly. "I can carry a tune."

"Great!" I pat his arm. "That'll be your job. I'll stand back - waaaaay back - while you calm the beast. I'm confident you'll sound as good as you look."

His chest puffs out. "How do I look?"

"Terrible." I grin. "You needed a bath, a shave, and a comb before we even set foot on the Ice Plains. Now, I can just barely make out your eyes and your nose. The rest is all" - I flap my hands around - "hair."

His chest deflates. He eyes me wryly. "I could say the same about you."

I gasp. "I grew a beard? Do you think Griffin will like it? I've been trying to keep it neat, but I may have picked up an eel."

Kato laughs outright, and he really is unbearably handsome. Some of the grimness evaporates from his eyes. "I was talking about this." He gives one of my tousled waves a light tug ~ Amanda Bouchet

One night I was sitting on the bed in my hotel room on Buker Hill, down in the middle of Los Angeles. It was an important night in my life, because I had to make a decision about the hotel. Either I paid up or I got out: that was what the note said, the note the landlady had put under my door. A great problem, deserving acute attention. I solved it by turning out the lights and going to bed. ~ John Fante

A lot of people like wife swapping. I've got such a great wife I would only swap with a Mormon. It'd have to be a two-for-one deal. ~ Jarod Kintz

When we gaze at the magnificence of an ancient monument and ascribe its achievement to one man, we are guilty of spiritual embezzlement. We forget the army of craftsmen, unknown and unsung, who preceded him in the darkness of the ages, who toiled humbly - all heroism is humble - each contributing his small share to the common treasure of his time. A great building is not the private invention of some genius or other. It is merely a condensation of the spirit of a people. ~ Ayn Rand

Funny to watch these Senators switching back and forth on Prohibition. Politics is a great character builder. You have to take a referendum to see what your convictions are for that day. ~ Will Rogers

Being a great philanthropist, Aman Mehndiratta has inspired many of us. His passion and love for serving the human race are inevitable by common public. Aman Mehndiratta is a true inspiration for all of us. Every work he has done taking philanthropy in concern can be a milestone for others who are in the same profession or who want to be the one. ~ Aman Mehndiratta

The first songs I learned was 'Crazy' by Patsy Cline and 'At Last' by Etta James. I had been growing up with the Beatles, Pink Floyd, great bands. ~ Sabrina Carpenter

My record was so bad that I was first rejected by the Peace Corps as a poor risk and possible troublemaker and was accepted as a volunteer only after a great deal of explaining and arguing. ~ Paul Theroux

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a down-going. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The Invisible mom:
"As mothers, we are BUILDING great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will MARVEL, not only at what we have built, but at the BEAUTY that has been added to the world by the SACRIFICES of invisible women. ~ Nicole Johnson

They were all fitting into place, the jig-saw pieces. The odd strained shapes that I had tried to piece together with my fumbling fingers and they had never fitted. Frank's odd manner when I spoke about Rebecca. Beatrice and her rather diffident negative attitude. The silence that I had always taken for sympathy and regret was a silence born of shame and embarrassment. It seemed incredible to me now that I had never understood. I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great wall in front of them that hid the truth. This was what I had done. I had built up false pictures in my mind and sat before them. I had never had the courage to demand the truth. Had I made one step forward out of my own shyness Maxim would have told these things four months, five months ago. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

He stood up. "Let's go." The sun spilling through the window hit his chest, making his bare skin look even more golden.
"That's okay," she sputtered. "You don't have to ... tag along."
"Yes, I do. I'm your shadow until after breakfast."
Oh great. Her gaze slipped down to his open shirt again. Was she going to have to look, or try not to look, at his chest all morning? "Then at least button your shirt." The words were out before she realised how that sounded.
The disappointment in his eyes vanished and a sexy twinkle took its place. The twinkle brought out the gold flecks in his irises, which she used to admire so much.
"Why?" he asked. "Does it bother you?"
She glared at him. "Don't go there. ~ C.C. Hunter

I try not to laugh. "Sarcasm isn't good for you, you know."
"Lies. Sarcasm is great. You can say anything and pretend you're joking. People think I'm hilarious when in reality I'm just an asshole. ~ Eden Finley

When there is great pain, there are only three rules: not to push the pain away, not to try to understand it, and not to indulge in it...Make yourself as open as a young tree caught in a storm. Let the storm bend you at its will, do not resist it, do not argue with it either- how could one argue with the wind and the rain?- and never ever feel sorry for yourself. ~ Muriel Maufroy

It says quite clearly that processes within the brain that trigger a hormone release can cause enormous effects on the body." It says, that is, that what we think can change our bodies, that there is a quantifiable chemical link between mind and matter, spirit and body, imagination and reality. Spiritual leaders, great thinkers, artists have been saying this very thing for ages, but the fact that hardheaded, hard-research oriented neuroscientists are not just saying it but actually identifying and measuring the very neurochemicals that link idea with matter adds a new legitimacy and urgency to the idea. ~ Michael Hutchison

You have given me a great responsibility: to stay close to you, to be worthy of you and to exemplify what you are. ~ Jimmy Carter

In a great romance, each person plays a part the other really likes. ~ Elizabeth Ashley

The great Creator to revere
Must sure become the creature;
But still the preaching cant forbear,
And ev'n the rigid feature:
Yet ne'er with wits profane to range
Be complaisance extended;An atheist laugh's a poor exchange
For deity offended. ~ Robert Burns

We had the kind of conversations that only great friends can ever share. They were touched with magic. ~ Tahir Shah

Hundreds of hopeless waves rushed constantly shorewards, falling exhausted upon a beach of great loose stones, that seemed to stretch miles and miles in both directions. There was nothing for the eye but mingling shades of gray; nothing for the ear but the rush of the coming, the roar of the breaking, and the moan of the retreating wave. ~ George MacDonald

Art is not predictable. Art is not golf, as great as that may be. There are 360 degrees of choice to make. ~ Tina Weymouth

It is one of the talents of great stylists to make obsolete words cease from appearing obsolete through the way in which they introduce them in their writing. Obsolete words which under the pens of others would seem stilted or out of place, occur most naturally under theirs. This is owing to the tact & judgment of the writers who know when
& when only - the disused term can be introduced, when it is artistically agreeable or linguistically necessary; & of course then the obsolete word becomes obsolete only in name. It is recalled into existence by the natural requirements of a powerful or subtle style. It is not a corpse disinterred (as with less skillful writers) but a beautiful body awaked from a long & refreshing sleep. ~ Constantine P. Cavafy

Asceticism is the trifling of an enthusiast with his power, a puerile coquetting with his selfishness or his vanity, in the absence of any sufficiently great object to employ the first or overcome the last. ~ Florence Nightingale