Quickness Quotes

The light was crude. It made Artaud's eyes shrink into darkness, as they are deep-set. This brought into relief the intensity of his gestures. He looked tormented. His hair, rather long, fell at times over his forehead. He has the actor's nimbleness and quickness of gestures. His face is lean, as if ravaged by fevers. His eyes do not seem to see the people. They are the eyes of a visionary. His hands are long, long-fingered.
Beside him Allendy looks earthy, heavy, gray. He sits at the desk, massive, brooding. Artaud steps out on the platform, and begins to talk about " The Theatre and the Plague."
He asked me to sit in the front row. It seems to me that all he is asking for is intensity, a more heightened form of feeling and living. Is he trying to remind us that it was during the Plague that so many marvelous works of art and theater came to be, because, whipped by the fear of death, man seeks immortality, or to escape, or to surpass himself? But then, imperceptibly almost, he let go of the thread we were following and began to act out dying by plague. No one quite knew when it began. To illustrate his conference, he was acting out an agony. "La Peste" in French is so much more terrible than "The Plague" in English. But no word could describe what Artaud acted out on the platform of the Sorbonne. He forgot about his conference, the theatre, his ideas, Dr. Allendy sitting there, the public, the young students, his wife, professors, and directors.
His face was ~ Anais Nin

The animadversions of critics are commonly such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply. ~ Samuel Johnson

To be forward to praise others implies either great eminence, that can afford to, part with applause; or great quickness of discernment, with confidence in our own judgments; or great sincerity and love of truth, getting the better of our self-love. ~ William Hazlitt

They are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters. ~ Jane Austen

He had been violently confused by her real presence in the opposite inaccessible corner. For months he had been possessed by the imagination of her. She had been distant and closed away, a princess in a tower, and his imagination's work had been all to make her present, all of her, to his mind and senses, the quickness of her and the mystery, the whiteness of her, which was part of her extreme magnetism, and the green look of those piercing or occluded eyes. Her presence had been unimaginable, or more strictly, only to be imagined. Yet here she was, and he was engaged in observing the ways in which she resembled, or differed from, the woman he dreamed, or reached for in sleep, or would fight for. ~ A.S. Byatt

'You claim to be the man, you want me for a lover,
So you can do my girlfriends and my sister and my mother?'
I said, 'You're very blunt,' with quickness to the cue,
'So whassup with your mother, does she look as good as you?' ~ Dres

There is nothing staid, nothing settled, in this universe. All is ripling,
all is dancing; all is quickness and triumph. ~ Virginia Woolf

I like you, Evie." His hand lifted with startling quickness and he picked up a piece of my hair. "Lots. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

There's nothing like a debate to teach one quickness. I often wish I had gone in for them when I was a youngster. It would have helped me no end. ~ E. M. Forster

* Intelligence is quickness to learn. Ability is the skill to apply what is learned. Competence is the ability and the desire to apply what is learned. Desire is the attitude that makes a skillful person competent. Many skillful people are incompetent. Ability without the right attitude is wasted. ~ Shiv Khera

The quickness and flexibility of a well mind, a belief or hope that things will eventually sort themselves out-these are the resources lost to a person when the brain is ill. ~ Kay Redfield Jamison

The same is true of patience or mental quickness. A brain like a sponge and an even
temper are all very well in one who minds the proper use of such things; to anyone else,
they may bring harm. ~ Plato

All that is worth seeing in good boxing can best be witnessed in a contest with soft gloves. Every value is called out: quickness, force, precision, foresight, readiness, pluck, and endurance. With these, the rowdy and 'rough' are not satisfied. ~ John Boyle O'Reilly

The power of doing anything with quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. ~ Jane Austen

In seventh grade I gradually became aware that that quickness of feeling was something I was supposed to have outgrown. I was rather guileless, I think, or at least I was when it came to the people I cared about. ~ Kevin Brockmeier

Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit, and the only means of making concrete the purpose of its varied quickness and stillness. ~ Mark Rothko

At first it seemed to be no more than a chance ray of light beamed into the vestibule by the shifting of a tree-bough between house and street lamp, but as we kept our eyes glued to it we saw that it was a form - a tall, attenuated, skeletally-thin form moving stealthily in the shadow.

Slowly the thing emerged from the gloom of the doorway, and despite the warning I had had, I felt a prickling sensation at the back of my neck just above my collar, and a feeling as of sudden chill ran through my forearms. It was tall, as we had been told, fully six feet from its bare-boned feet to hairless, parchment-covered skull; and the articulation of its skeleton could be seen plainly through the leathery skin that clung to the gaunt, staring bones. The nose was large, high-bridged and haughty, like the beak of a falcon or eagle, and the chin was prominent beneath the brownish sheath of skin that stretched drum-tight across it. The eyes were closed and showed only as twin depressions in the skull-like countenance, but the mummified lips had retracted to show a double line of teeth in a mirthless grin. Its movements were irregular and stiff, like the movements of some monstrous mechanical doll or, as Edina Laurace had expressed it, like a marionette worked by unseen wires. But once it had emerged from the doorway it moved with shocking quickness. Jerkily, and with exaggeratedly high knee-action, it crossed the lawn, came to the sidewalk, turned on its parchment-soled feet as if ~ Seabury Quinn

I was captain and should have set the example. I would lift a minimum of weights. Mine was natural physical strength. I always thought quickness and agility were much more important. ~ Merlin Olsen

The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. ~ Ray Bradbury

The same quickness which makes a mind buoyant in gladness often makes it gentlest and most sympathetic in sorrow. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

A sluggish, dawdling, and dilatory man may have spasms of activity, but he never acts continuously and consecutively with energetic quickness. ~ George Stillman Hillard

Active Hope is not wishful thinking.
Active Hope is not waiting to be rescued . . . .
by some savior.
Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life
on whose behalf we can act.
We belong to this world.
The web of life is calling us forth at this time.
We've come a long way and are here to play our part.
With Active Hope we realize that there are adventures in store,
strengths to discover, and comrades to link arms with.
Active Hope is a readiness to discover the strengths
in ourselves and in others;
a readiness to discover the reasons for hope
and the occasions for love.
A readiness to discover the size and strength of our hearts,
our quickness of mind, our steadiness of purpose,
our own authority, our love for life,
the liveliness of our curiosity,
the unsuspected deep well of patience and diligence,
the keenness of our senses, and our capacity to lead.
None of these can be discovered in an armchair or without risk. ~ Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone

267. - A quickness in believing evil without having sufficiently examined it, is the effect of pride and laziness. We wish to find the guilty, and we do not wish to trouble ourselves in examining the crime. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Legendary innovators like Franklin, Snow, and Darwin all possess some common intellectual qualities - a certain quickness of mind, unbounded curiosity - but they also share one other defining attribute. They have a lot of hobbies. ~ Steven Johnson

In quickness is truth. The more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping. ~ Ray Bradbury

The angel energises in different places by the quickness of his nature and the promptness and speed by which he can change his place: but the Deity, Who is everywhere and above all, energises at the same time in diverse ways with one simple energy. ~ John Damascene

Tennis takes care of everything. It requires agility and quickness to get to the ball, core strength to get power into your shorts and stamina to last for an entire match. In addition to toning your arms and shoulders, it's a total body workout for your legs and abs, and works your heart and core unlike any other sport. ~ Samantha Stosur

Doug Christie, what skill, what strenght, what power, what quickness. The visionof Magic Johnson, the athletisicm of Michael Jordan, the toughness of larry Bird. Dough Christie has it all ~ Bill Walton

Speed is a great asset; but it's greater when it's combined with quickness - and there's a big difference. ~ Ty Cobb

I have to use my strengths, which [are] my speed, my quickness and my movements. If I do that, I really believe that I will come out on top. ~ Manny Pacquiao

I did not know what breath meant until she died. It was everything that gave me quickness and life: it was thought, feeling, animation. Without it there was nothing. ~ Helen Dunmore

The most part of men, though they have the use of reasoning a little way, as in numbering to some degree; yet it serves them to little use in common life; in which they govern themselves, some better, some worse, according to their differences of experience, quickness of memory, and inclinations to several ends; but specially according to good or evil fortune, and the errors of one another. ~ Thomas Hobbes

Fain would I wed a fair young man that night and day could please me, When my mind or body grieved that had the power to ease me. Maids are full of longing thoughtsthat breed a bloodless sickness, And that, oft I hear men say, is only cured by quickness. ~ Thomas Campion

I couldn't have been a great goalkeeper without power, agility and quickness. ~ Hope Solo

Hutch called into the semidarkness of The Shed. 'Somebody's coming, Heck!'
Then he, with the rest, faded from sight with that uncanny quickness known only to creatures of the wild and young children who are, after all, also creatures of the wild.
("The Shed") ~ E. Everett Evans

Quickness more than anything else should determine your amount of pressure on the ball. ~ Don Meyer

What was exchanged in the language of their eyes, more perfect than their lips, the language afforded the soul so that no sound disturbs an ecstasy of feeling? In those moments, when the thought of the two happy beings meld through their pupils, words move slowly, coarsely, like the raspy, awkward noise of thunder from dazzling light that appears after the quickness of the flash. It expresses feelings previously known, ideas yet understood, and in the end, if one must use words, it is because the heart's ambitions - which dominates one's whole being and overflows with happiness - wishes with the whole human organism, with all its physical and psychical faculties, to embody the poem of joy that the spirit has intoned. Language has no answer to the questions of love that either shimmer or hide within a glance. The smile must respond; the kiss, the sigh. ~ Jose Rizal

I'm high off the indo creepin' with the quickness to the cut, bust one to his head while he munches on that donut. ~ Dr. Dre

So ... " he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back onto his heels. "You come here often?"
Picking up on his mood with the lightning quickness that had won them a space in the finals, Jules flirted right back."Pretty often. But you must be new. I'm sure I'd remember if I'd seen you here before, hot stuff."
That made him grin and saunter closer, close enough to reach out and smooth a lock of dark gold hair behind her ear. "What do you say we low this joint? ... ~ Louisa Edwards

You should not only have attention to everything, but a quickness of attention, so as to observe at once all the people in the room
their motions, their looks and their words
and yet without staring at them and seeming to be an observer. ~ Lord Chesterfield

I think this'll definitely tide me over while we're apart,"Bones laughed, dragging me into his arms with far more strength and quickness than was fair, considering I still had trouble making my limbs operate.
"Oh, Kitten," he murmured as his lips dragged down my throat. "You didn't really think we were done, did you? ~ Jeaniene Frost

Bob Dylan's one of the greatest blues singers of the western world; ancient art, on-the-spot improvisation, mind quickness, endless variation, classical formulae, prophetic vision, mighty wind-horse. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Poetry is the perpetual endeavor to express the spirit of the thing, to pass the brute body and search the life and reason which causes it to exist; - to see that the object is always flowing away, whilst the spirit or necessity which causes it subsists. Its essential mark is that it betrays in every word instant activity of mind, shown in new uses of every fact and image, in preternatural quickness or perception of relations. All its words are poems. It is a presence of mind that gives a miraculous command of all means of uttering the thought and feeling of the moment. The poet squanders on the hour an amount of life that would more than furnish the seventy years of the man that stands next him. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are all short sighted, and very often see but one side of a matter; our views are not extended to all that has a connection with it. From this defect I think no man is free. We see but in part, and we know but in part, and therefore it is no wonder we conclude not right from our partial views. This might instruct the proudest esteemer of his own parts, how useful it is to talk and consult with others, even such as come short of him in capacity, quickness and penetration: for since no one sees all, and we generally have different prospects of the same thing, according to our different, as I may say, positions to it, it is not incongruous to think nor beneath any man to try, whether another may not have notions of things which have escaped him, and which his reason would make use of if they came into his mind. ~ John Locke

Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are. ~ George Santayana

So much of what we do is ephemeral and quickly forgotten, even by ourselves, so it's gratifying to have something you have done linger in people's memories. ~ John Williams

Positioning, anticipation and technique create quickness. Therefore, you can always get quicker ~ Don Meyer

I've never had a sustained period of medication for mental illness when I've not been on other drugs as well. It's just not something that I particularly feel I need. I know that I have dramatically changing moods, and I know sometimes I feel really depressed, but I think that's just life. I don't think of it as, "Ah, this is mental illness," more as, "Today, life makes me feel very sad." I know I also get unnaturally high levels of energy and quickness of thought, but I'm able to utilize that. ~ Russell Brand

Digital for storage and quickness. Analog for fatness and warmth. ~ Adrian Belew

You must hasten to oppose pernicious pride of mind, before it penetrates into the marrow of your bones. Resist it, curb the quickness of your mind and humbly subject your opinion to the opinions of others. Be a fool for the love of God, if you wish to be wiser than Solomon: 'If any man among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise' (I Cor. 3:18). ~ Lorenzo Scupoli

Audrey kept moving with practiced quickness, stepping over roots protruding over the trail and pushing ferns and branches out of her way. She kept a brisk pace, but Kaldar didn't mind. From his vantage point, he had an excellent view of her shapely butt. It was a butt that deserved some scrutiny.
"If you're waiting for my behind to do a trick, you're out of luck," Audrey called over her shoulder.
"How the hell did you even know?" Did she have eyes on the back of her head?
"Woman's intuition," she told him.
"Aha, so it wouldn't be the fact that I stumbled twice in the last minute?"
"Not at all. ~ Ilona Andrews

Among those dazzled by the Administration team was Vice-President Lyndon Johnson. After attending his first Cabinet meeting he went back to his mentor Sam Rayburn and told him with great enthusiasm how extraordinary they were, each brighter than the next, and that the smartest of them all was that fellow with the Stacomb on his hair from the Ford Motor Company, McNamara. "Well, Lyndon," Mister Sam answered, "you may be right and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say, but I'd feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once." It is my favorite story in the book, for it underlines the weakness of the Kennedy team, the difference between intelligence and wisdom, between the abstract quickness and verbal fluency which the team exuded, and the true wisdom, which is the product of hard-won, often bitter experience. Wisdom for a few of them came after Vietnam. ~ David Halberstam

As someone said to me
I can't remember now who it was
it is really remarkable that when you wake up in the morning you nearly always find everything in exactly the same place as the evening before. For when asleep and dreaming you are, apparently at least, in an essentially different state from that of wakefulness; and therefore, as that man truly said, it requires enormous presence of mind or rather quickness of wit, when opening your eyes to seize hold as it were of everything in the room at exactly the same place where you had let it go on the previous evening. That was why, he said, the moment of waking up was the riskiest moment of the day. Once that was well over without deflecting you from your orbit, you could take heart of grace for the rest of the day. ~ Franz Kafka

One of the chief characteristics of a mob is its quickness. It is sudden. It pounces. ~ Teju Cole

Old men tend to forget what thought was like in their youth; they forget the quickness of the mental jump, the daring of the youthful intuition, the agility of the fresh insight. They become accustomed to the more plodding varieties of reason, and because this is more than made up by the accumulation of experience, old men think themselves wiser than the young. ~ Isaac Asimov

Cultures tend to invite the dominance of one over the other, as a means by which an individual succeeds and advances or, conversely, fails and falls. A culture dominated by attackers - and one in which the qualities of attacking are admired, often overtly encouraged - tends to breed people with a thick skin, which nonetheless still serves to protect a most brittle self. Thus the wounds bleed but stay well hidden beneath the surface. Cultures favouring the defender promote thin skin and quickness to take offence - its own kind of aggression, I am sure you see. The culture of attackers seeks submission and demands evidence of that submission as proof of superiority over the subdued. The culture of defenders seeks compliance through conformity, punishing dissenters and so gaining the smug superiority of enforcing silence, and from silence, complicity. ~ Steven Erikson

It is true there is nothing displays a genius, I mean a quickness of genius, more than a dispute; as two diamonds, encountering, contribute to each other's luster. But perhaps the odds is much against the man of taste in this particular. ~ William Shenstone

Reading is a pleasure of the mind, which means that it is a little like a sport: your eagerness and knowledge and quickness count for something. The fun of reading is not that something is told to you, but that you stretch your mind. Your own imagination works along with the authors, or even goes beyond his, yields the same or different conclusions, and your ideas develop as you understand his. ~ Bennett Cerf

Domestic work is the most elementary form of labor. It is suitable for those with the intelligence of rabbits. All it requires is cleanlines, tidiness and quickness - not moral or intellectual qualities at all, but merely the outward and visible signs of health. ~ Rebecca West

Tomorrow you may look up and see me as a lawyer, a doctor, business executive,teacher - or WHATEVER I BELIEVE I CAN BE !My story isn't about nice handles or quickness on the court ,but about HARD WORK, PERSEVERANCE, and FAITH! I know God's blessings ,I can accomplish anything and i mean ANYTHING!!! ~ Jon-Robert Holden

I am a man of the old world, a seed that was transplanted by the wind, a seed which failed to blossom in the mushroom oasis of America. I belong on the heavy tree of the past. My allegiance, physical and spiritual, it is with the men of Europe, those who were once Franks, Gauls, Vikings, Huns, Tatars, what not. The climate for my body and soul is here where there is quickness and corruption. I am proud not to belong in this century. ~ Henry Miller

The success of Prozac says that today's high-tech capitalism values a very different temperament. Confidence, flexibility, quickness, and energy - the positive aspects of hyperthymia - are at a premium. ~ Peter D. Kramer

Quickness is the essence of the war. ~ Sun Tzu

When Alex leaves a little later, Carlos steps forward. "Need help?"
I shake my head.
"Are you ever gonna talk to me again? Dammit, Kiara, enough with the silent treatment. I'd rather have you say your little two-word sentences than stop talkin' altogether. Hell, just flip
me off again."
I toss my backpack in the backseat and start the engine.
"Where are you goin'?" Carlos asks, stepping in front of my car.
I beep.
"I'm not movin'," he says.
My response is another beep. It's not an intimidating, deep beep like most cars, but it's the best my car can give.
He places both hands on the hood.
"Move," I say.
He moves all right. With pantherlike quickness, Carlos jumps through the open passenger window, feet first.
"You should get the door fixed," he says. ~ Simone Elkeles

No," I said finally.
"Slowness in Answering," she said into the handheld. "When's the last time you slept?"
"1940" I said promptly, which is the problem with Quickness in Answering. ~ Connie Willis

You think this is some sort of comedy going on here?" Collins gave him his tough stare.
A little red spark flared in Barabas's eyes. "Excuse me." He struck with preternatural quickness and yanked a five-foot snake from the counter, an inch away from Tsoi's elbow. Tsoi jumped, clearing half the room in a single bound. The snake body flailed in my lawyer's fist. Barabas jerked the snake to his mouth and bit its neck.
"Jesus Christ!" Collins took a step back. Tsoi clamped her hand over her mouth.
Barabas spat the head onto the counter. "Pit viper - my favorite. Where were we? Ah, yes. You were trying to intimidate me. I apologize for the interruption. Please, resume your staring. ~ Ilona Andrews

There is no real light but just small sparks of happiness we should photograph to contain. But if we stop to photograph, we can't enjoy them, the flash overexposes them and they disappear. ~ Cristiane Serruya

By his own assessment, he was no genius. He had "no great quickness of apprehension or wit" or "power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought." On the many occasions when I share those feelings, I find it encouraging to review those words because that Englishman did okay for himself - his name was Charles Darwin. ~ Leonard Mlodinow

The main thing about Bruce Lee is that, he was a little guy. And you know, his quickness, his aggressiveness, his explosive power, you have to be a great athlete to have all these, his body, his look, you know, all these things have to do with discipline and structure. He was able to go against the biggest guy, regardless of who he was. ~ Evander Holyfield

Here is a moment of extravagant beauty: I drink it liquid from the shells of my hands and almost all of it runs sparkling through my fingers: but beauty is like that, it is a fraction of a second, quickness of a flash and then immediately it escapes. ~ Clarice Lispector

Some people are polite, and some are quick. Each one's a good quality to have, but most of the time quickness trumps politeness. ~ Haruki Murakami

Earn as much money as you possibly can and as quickly as you can. The sooner you get money out of the way, the sooner you will be able to get to the rest of your problems in style. ~ Jim Rohn

Nobody would commit suicide if the pain of being inside herself, the agony of the sleepless, tortured hours spent watching the world get smaller and uglier, were bearable or could be relieved by other people telling her how they wanted her to feel. A depressed person is selfish because her self, the very core of who she is, will not leave her alone, and she can no more stop thinking about this self and how to escape it than a prisoner held captive by a sadistic serial killer can forget about the person who comes in to torture her everyday. Her body is brutalized by her mind. It hurts to breathe, eat, walk, think. The gross maneuverings of her limbs are so overwhelming, so wearying, that the fine muscle movements or quickness of wit necessary to write, to actually say something, are completely out of the question. ~ Stacy Pershall

Forget perfect. Be quick. Quickness kills. ~ Ehab Atalla

Mifune had a kind of talent I had never encountered before in the Japanese film world. It was, above all, the speed with which he expressed himself that was astounding. The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three feet. The speed of his movements was such that he said in a single action what took ordinary actors three separate movements to express. He put forth everything directly and boldly, and his sense of timing was the keenest I had ever seen in a Japanese actor. And yet with all his quickness he also had surprisingly fine sensibilities. ~ Akira Kurosawa

As I watched, another pizza went out, the car lurching into the street and speeding away with the quickness that told of a large engine. Pizza drivers have made good money since they successfully lobbied for hazard pay. ~ Kim Harrison

The poems in Helena Mesa's virtuosic first book, Horse Dance Underwater, run with such speed, verve, and alacrity they leave you breathless, exhilarated, and transformed as if the purest kind of song had lifted you into the air. By this quickness of language finding lyric speech, Mesa's poems remind us of art's joyous and ecstatic effects. ~ Michael Collier

God, I love you," he said, and laid his head on her belly, his arms locked around her hips.
Madelyn slid her fingers into his hair.
"It took you long enough," she said gently.
"What I lack in quickness, I make up in staying power."
"Meaning?"
"That I'll still be telling you that fifty years from now." He paused and turned his head to
kiss her stomach. ~ Linda Howard

There is a quickness of perception in some, a nicety in the discernment of character, a natural penetration, in short, which no experience in others can equal ... ~ Jane Austen

I used to be able to think. My brain's circuits were all connected, and I had spark, a quickness of mind that let me function well in the world. ~ Floyd Skloot

Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended. ~ Alfred North Whitehead

Cigarettes and Whiskey and Wild, Wild Women"

Perhaps I was born kneeling,
born coughing on the long winter,
born expecting the kiss of mercy,
born with a passion for quickness
and yet, as things progressed,
I learned early about the stockade
or taken out, the fume of the enema.
By two or three I learned not to kneel,
not to expect, to plant my fires underground
where none but the dolls, perfect and awful,
could be whispered to or laid down to die.

Now that I have written many words,
and let out so many loves, for so many,
and been altogether what I always was -
a woman of excess, of zeal and greed,
I find the effort useless.
Do I not look in the mirror,
these days,
and see a drunken rat avert her eyes?
Do I not feel the hunger so acutely
that I would rather die than look
into its face?
I kneel once more,
in case mercy should come
in the nick of time. ~ Anne Sexton

It's not just straight-line speed. He's got the agility and the quickness to go with it. His vision on the field is phenomenal. It just opens the playbook so much as a coach that I'm really looking forward to it. ~ LeBron James

The forces of Hannibal, Drake and Napoleon moved at best with the horses' gallop or the speed of wind on sail. Now, aviation brings a new concept of time and distance to the affairs of men. It demands adaptability to change, places a premium on quickness of thought and speed of action. ~ Charles Lindbergh

By the time they had called at the baker's and climbed to the top of Cap Diamant, the sun, dropping with incredible quickness, had already disappeared. They sat down in the blue twilight to eat their bread and await the turbid afterglow which is peculiar to Quebec in autumn; the slow, rich, prolonged flowing-back of crimson across the sky, after the sun has sunk behind the dark ridges of the west. Because of the haze in the air the colour seems thick, like a heavy liquid, welling up wave after wave, a substance that throbs, rather than a light. ~ Willa Cather

The tag that I was too small and too slow just made me work that much harder. Besides, quickness is more important than flat-out speed. How often does a receiver run 40 yards straight down the field? Not very often. Lateral speed is what counts. How quickly can you get in and out of a cut? I can do that as well as anyone. ~ Steve Largent

People compare me to Isiah Thomas because of my quickness and change-of-direction, the way I change speeds and run the team. ~ Baron Davis

If the quickness of the mind and the fluency of the tongue are too punctilious and sharp, moderate them in your activity and rest. ~ Xun Zi

His daughters watched in the rain. The prettiest, shyest one hid far back in the field to watch and she had good reason because she was absolutely the most beautiful girl Dean and I ever saw in all our lives. She was about sixteen, and had Plains complexion like wild roses, and the bluest eyes, the most lovely hair, and the modesty and quickness of a wild antelope. At every look from us she flinched. She stood there with the immense winds that blew clear down from Saskatchewan knocking her hair about her lovely head like shrouds, living curls of them. She blushed and blushed ... 'Oh a girl like that scares me,' I said. 'I'd give up everything and throw myself on her mercy and if she didn't want me I'd just as simply go and throw myself off the edge of the world'. ~ Jack Kerouac

Hesse, like so many gifted children, was so difficult for his parents to bear not despite but because of his inner riches. Often a child's very gifts (his great intensity of feeling, depth of experience, curiosity, intelligence, quickness - and his ability to be critical) will confront his parents with conflicts that they have long sought to keep at bay by means of rules and regulations. ~ Alice Miller

They have none of them much to recommend them", replied he: "they are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters." "Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves." "You mistake me my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least. ~ Jane Austen

We are all built differently. Some guys are more powerful. Some guys are very tall. I'm not very tall, so I rely on quickness. ~ Henrik Lundqvist

Shock and surprise, my little beauties, and quickness to strike, and lack of pity. These are the things that make a killer. ~ Joe Abercrombie

I still have my quickness, but I turn it on and off. I don't want to fail in anything I do and that's why I'm hard on myself. ~ Kenny Anderson

I submit that tennis is the most beautiful sport there is and also the most demanding. It requires body control, hand-eye coordination, quickness, flat-out speed, endurance, and that weird mix of caution and abandon we call courage. It also requires smarts. Just one single shot in one exchange in one point of a high-level match is a nightmare of mechanical variables. ~ David Foster Wallace

If the going is tough and the pressure is on, If the reserves of strength have been drained and the summit is still not in sight, then the quality to seek in the person is neither great strength nor quickness of hand, but rather a resolute mind firmly set on its purpose that refuses to let its body slack or rest. ~ Edmund Hillary