Laurence Anyways Quotes

I'm looking for a person who understands my language and speaks it. A person who, without being a pariah, will question not only the rights and the values of the marginalized, but also those of the people who claim to be normal. ~ Xavier Dolan

In 'Laurence Anyways,' Nathalie Baye is Laurence's mother, and she is quite an awful mother. Still, she is the only one in the end who truly accepts her daughter. ~ Xavier Dolan

I came up around people who took acting seriously, who cared about acting, cared about the theater and, in the '70s, made movies that said something that mattered. I came up with those people, and I was a kid. Their ethos and credo became mine. ~ Laurence Fishburne

In any event, it is one thing to assert, then or now, that the Iraq war was ill-advised. It is quite another to make the horrendous charge that President Bush lied to or deceived the American people about the threat from Saddam. ~ Laurence Silberman

You could probably go three or four months without the word 'God' coming from my dad's mouth; Mum would pray for a parking space. ~ Laurence Fox

Where I'm going, anything may happen. Nothing may happen. Maybe I will marry a middle-aged widower, or a longshoreman, or a cattle-hoof-trimmer, or a barrister or a thief. And have my children in time. Or maybe not. Most of the chances are against it. But not, I think, quite all. What will happen? What will happen. It may be that my children will always be temporary, never to be held. But so are everyone's.
I may become, in time, slightly more eccentric all the time. I may begin to wear outlandish hats, feathered and sequinned and rosetted, and dangling necklaces made from coy and tiny seashells which I've gathered myself along the beach and painted coral-pink with nail polish. And all the kids will laugh, and I'll laugh, too, in time. I will be light and straight as any feather. The wind will bear me, and I will drift and settle, and drift and settle. Anything may happen, where I'm going. ~ Margaret Laurence

I write and play music. I'd like to be a musician at some point. ~ Laurence Fox

I am happy that I am a unique individual, endowed with unique talents and abilities. I never spend my precious time and energy comparing my talents with those of others. ~ Laurence Boldt

The histories of the lives and fortunes of men are full of instances of this nature,
where favorable times and lucky accidents have done for them, what wisdom or skill could not. ~ Laurence Sterne

All science is concerned with the relationship of cause and effect. Each scientific discovery increases man's ability to predict the consequences of his actions and thus his ability to control future events. ~ Laurence J. Peter

Tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so. ~ Laurence Sterne

Be present, be concentrated, and be strong. ~ Laurence Boldt

Alas, poor YORICK! ~ Laurence Sterne

I guess after you've writhed around naked on the floor in front of a man, the least you can do is let him take you to dinner. ~ Andrea Laurence

Getting to work on the thing that you're always thinking about anyways is like the biggest--that's the goal. ~ Spike Jonze

- for though he never after went to the house, yet he never met Bridget in the village, but he would either nod or wink, or smile, or look kindly at her, - or (as circumstances directed), he would shake her by the hand, - or ask her lovingly how she did, - or would give her a ribban, - and now and then, though never but when it could be done with decorum, would give Bridget a - ~ Laurence Sterne

At 18, my first short story was published - I was paid a penny a word by a science fiction magazine. I continued to write, and five years later I published my first novel, 'Sweetwater.' ~ Laurence Yep

Of course I don't use my A-material, it doesn't matter if they think I'm funny or not because they won't be thinking anything pretty soon anyways, if you caych my drift. ~ Zach Braff

But it has also enabled me to find my feet as a lecturer and a reader of my own plays to audiences who like to hear them; and that experience of immediate appreciation gives greater pleasure and more stimulus towards further activity than even the most laudatory of reviews. ~ Laurence Housman

In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself. ~ Laurence Sterne

With the illusion that we have dominion over the earth we conclude we have nothing to fear. ~ Laurence Gonzales

A lot of my humor does come from anger. It's like, you're not gonna pull one over on me - which is pretty much my motto anyways. ~ Courteney Cox

Love is the great truth we all know in our hearts and must eventually recognize. ~ Laurence Overmire

A man doesn't know what he knows until he knows what he doesn't know. ~ Laurence J. Peter

Do you know how hard and expensive architecture school is? People drop out to go to med school because it's easier. ~ Andrea Laurence

You have just confirmed to me that one of the most fortunate purposes of literature is to bring like-minded people together and get them talking. ~ Laurence Cosse

The improbability of a malicious story serves but to help forward the currency of it, because it increases the scandal. So that, in such instances, the world is like the pious St. Austin, who said he believed some things because they were absurd and impossible. ~ Laurence Sterne

Granted it is easy at least comparatively to find pleasure in error when there's nothing at stake. But that can't be the whole story since all of us have been known to throw tantrums over totally trivial mistakes. What makes illusions different is that for the most part we enter in them by consent. We might not know exactly how we are going to err but we know that the error is coming and we say yes to the experience anyways.


In a sense much the same thing could be said of life in general. We can't know where your next error lurks or what form it will take but we can be very sure that it is waiting for us. With illusions we look forward to this encounter since whatever minor price we paid in pride is handily outweighed by curiosity at first and by pleasure afterward. The same will not always true when we venture past these simple perceptual failures to more complex and consequential mistakes But nor is willing the embrace of error always beyond us. In fact this might be the most important thing that illusions can teach us: that is is possible at least some of the time to find in being wrong a deeper satisfaction then we would have found being right. ~ Kathryn Schulz

She took several slow deep breaths, then, "Okay, what happened to my car?"
"This is your car."
"I may not know much lately," she gritted, "but I do know what I drive. I drive a falling-apart Toyota. A disgustingly powdery-blue one. With lots of rust and no antenna. That is not my car."
"Correction. You used to drive a falling apart Toyota, B.A."
Had his lips just brushed her hair? She shivered, and though she knew better than to ask, she did it anyways. "Okay, you got me, what's 'B.A.'"
"Before Adam. After Adam, you drive a BMW. ~ Karen Marie Moning

A free press is one that prints a dictator's speech but doesn't have to. ~ Laurence J. Peter

There is no such thing as real happiness in life. The justest definition that was ever given of it was "a tranquil acquiescence under an agreeable delusion"
I forget where. ~ Laurence Sterne

Let's just stand still. Maybe whoever it is won't notice us. It's dark out anyway." Both boys knew it could just be someone from the local village but their hearts were starting to beat faster anyways. Who wound be out at this time of night? Suddenly, out from the darkness came a voice. "I'll get you you mangy little ... " There was the sound of something flying through the air and then a plunk as it landed somewhere nearby. Lionel winced. The voice was female. ~ Sadie Gray

This is the debt I pay
Just for one riotous day,
Years of regret and grief,
Sorrow without relief.
Pay it I will to the end
Until the grave, my friend,
Gives me a true release
Gives me the clasp of peace.
Slight was the thing I bought,
Small was the debt I thought,
Poor was the loan at best
God! but the interest! ~ Paul Laurence Dunbar

"They order," said I, "this matter better in France." ~ Laurence Sterne

What were his views in this, and in every other action of his life, - or rather what were the opinions which floated in the brains of other people concerning it, was a thought which too much floated in his own, and too often broke in upon his rest, when he should have been sound asleep. ~ Laurence Sterne

I have undertaken, you see, to write not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and expecting that your knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the one, would give you a better relish for the other: As you proceed further with me, the slight acquaintance which is now beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and that, unless one of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship. ~ Laurence Sterne

The cave-dweller's wife complained that he hadn't dragged her anywhere in months. ~ Laurence J. Peter

Middle age is when you stop criticizing the older generation and start criticizing the younger one. ~ Laurence J. Peter

I said, Quiet!"
Tiffany was so much startled by this peremptory reminder that she gasped, and stood staring up at the Nonesuch as though she could not believe that he was speaking not to his cousin, but actually to her. She drew in her breath audibly, and clenched her hands. Miss Trent cast a look of entreaty at sir Waldo, but he ignored it. He strolled up to the infuriated beauty, and pushed up her chin.
"Now, you may listen to me, my child!" he said sternly. "You are becoming a dead bore, and I don't tolerate bores. Neither do I tolerate noisy tantrums. Unless you want to be soundly smacked, enact me no ill-bred scenes!"
There was a moment's astonished silence. Laurence broke it, seizing his cousin's hand, and fervently shaking it.
"I knew you was a right one!" he declared. "A great gun, Waldo! Damme, a Trojan! ~ Georgette Heyer

And yet, for a writer of fiction, part of the heart remains that of a stranger, for what we are trying to do is to understand those others who are our fictional characters, somehow to gain entrance to their minds and feelings, to respect them for themselves as human individuals, and to portray them as truly as we can. The whole process of fiction is a mysterious one, and a writer, however experienced, remains in some ways a perpetual amateur, or perhaps a perpetual traveller, an explorer of those inner territories, those strange lands of the heart and spirit. ~ Margaret Laurence

It was then, I think, that I discovered that the best way of bringing a medieval subject home to my generation was not to be medieval in its treatment. ~ Laurence Housman

Everyone rises to their level of incompetence. ~ Laurence J. Peter

It's strange that men should take up crime when there are so many legal ways to be dishonest. ~ Laurence J. Peter

The uncertainty, the void, is the perfect place from which to create. It is the place where you can re-invent yourself. ~ Laurence Galian

Seed biscuits and milk! I hated Mrs. Mullet's seed biscuits the way Saint Paul hated sin. Perhaps even more so. I wanted to clamber up onto the table, and with a sausage on the end of a fork as my scepter, shout in my best Laurence Olivier voice, 'Will no one rid us of this turbulent pastry cook? ~ Alan Bradley

Whom does the Grail serve? It serves those who quest despite the odds - for they are the champions of enlightenment. ~ Laurence Gardner

If God spent 180 million years making dinosaurs, what makes us think Man is so special, a tick of the clock before midnight? ~ Laurence Overmire

She wants me to take what magic I have left and blot every memory of this evening from their minds. To make them forget so that they can carry on as before. There will always be Cecilys, Marthas, and Elizabeths of the world - those who cannot bear the burden of truth. They will drink their tea. Weigh their words. Wear hats against the sun. Squeeze their minds into corsets, lest some errant thought should escape and ruin the smooth illusion they hold of themselves and the world as they like it.
It is a luxury, this forgetting. No one will come to take away the things I wish I had not seen, the things I wish I did not know. I shall have to live with them.
I wrench away from her grip. "Why should I?"
I do it anyways. Once I am certain the girls are asleep, I creep into their rooms, one by one, and lay my hands across their furrowed brows, which wear the trouble of all they've witnessed. I watch while those brows ease into smooth, blank canvases beneath my fingers. It is a form of healing, and I am surprised by how much it heals me to do it. When the girls awake, they will remember as strange dream of magic and blood and curious creatures and perhaps a teacher they knew whose name will not spring to their lips. They might strain to remember it for a moment, but then they will tell themselves it was only a dream best forgotten.
I have done what Mrs. Nightwing said I should do. But I do not take all their memories from them. I leave them with one small token of ~ Libba Bray