Semi Autobiography Quotes

In April war was declared with Germany. Wilson and his cabinet - a cabinet that in its lack of distinction was strangely reminiscent of the twelve apostles - let loose the carefully starved dogs of war, and the press began to whoop hysterically against the sinister morals, sinister philosophy, and sinister music produced by the Teutonic temperament. Those who fancied themselves particularly broad-minded made the exquisite distinction that it was only the German Government which aroused them to hysteria; the rest were worked up to a condition of retching indecency. Any song which contained the word "mother" and the word "kaiser" was assured of a tremendous success. At last every one had something to talk about - and almost every one fully enjoyed it, as though they had been cast for parts in a sombre and romantic play. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

From David Niven's autobiography, Bring on the Empty Horses. Director Mike Curtiz to David Niven & Errol Flynn: You lousy bums, you and your stinking language, you think I know fuck nothing, well let me tell you - I know FUCK ALL! ~ David Niven

The ubiquitous semi-sentient utility routine running in her macrocellular clusters responded immediately by unfolding a basic array of mental icons, slender lines of blue fairy light that superimposed themselves within her wobbly vision. She frowned. If she was reading their efficiency modes correctly, her biononics had ~ Peter F. Hamilton

These were my countrymen, these were the new Californians. With their bright polo shirts and sunglasses, they were in paradise, they belonged. But down on Main Street, down on Towne and San Pedro, and for a mile on lower Fifth Street were the tens of thousands of others; they couldn't afford sunglasses or a four-bit polo shirt and they hid in the alleys by day and slunk off to flop houses by night. A cop won't pick you up for vagrancy in Los Angeles if you wear a fancy polo shirt and a pair of sunglasses. But if there is dust on your shoes and that sweater you wear is thick like the sweaters they wear in the snow countries, he'll grab you. So get yourselves a polo shirt boys, and a pair of sunglasses, and white shoes, if you can. Be collegiate. It'll get you anyway. After a while, after big doses of the Times and the Examiner, you too will whoop it up for the sunny south. You'll eat hamburgers year after year and live in dusty, vermin-infested apartments and hotels, but every morning you'll see the mighty sun, the eternal blue of the sky, and the streets will be full of sleek women you never will possess, and the hot semi-tropical nights will reek of romance, you'll never have, but you'll still be in paradise, boys, in the land of sunshine.
As for the folks back home, you can lie to them, because they hate the truth anyway, they won't have it, because soon or late they want to come out to paradise, too. ~ John Fante

Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college. ~ E.B. White

That ought to do it.' He stood up and held out his hand to her, but she ignored it, rolling over so that she could sit on the grassy knoll. He stood there awkwardly until she patted the spot on the grass next to her. He hesitated, and Belle finally groaned and slapped her down on the ground with considerable force. 'Oh, please,' she said in a semi-irritated voice. 'I'm not going to bite.' John sat down. ~ Julia Quinn

I have a full grown, semi-nude man bound with duct tape in my truck and I was trying to get out to the desert to bury him. How do I get to 5 South? ~ Johnny Knoxville

Ng Security Industries Semi-Autonomous Guard Unit #A-367 lives in a pleasant black-and-white Metaverse where porterhouse steaks grow on trees, dangling at head level from low branches, and blood-drenched Frisbees fly through the crisp, cool air for no reason at all, until you catch them. ~ Neal Stephenson

One of the greatest gifts in this world is the ability to make others smile. - The Unauthorized Autobiography of Jonathan Fisher ~ J.E.B. Spredemann

When the Great War broke out, it came to me not as a superlative tragedy, but as an interruption of the most exasperating kind to my personal plans. ~ Vera Brittain

You can tell it any way you want, he said, you can be I or he or she or we or they or you and you won't be lying, though you might be telling two stories at once. ~ China Mieville

I am a total sucker for an actor's autobiography/biography. I have probably read most of them. ~ Kate Fleetwood

Danvers still stops by in the morning. He talks for a few minutes and then gets a coffee and leaves. We haven't moved past the stage of smiling, though Land is always mimicking his semi-flirtations. I pointed out that since he and the detective go back, he should broach the subject, but Land just snorts and goes back to cutting up the vegetables. ~ Chloe Kendrick

Too young for Korea, too old for Vietnam. ~ Don DeLillo

On the semi-frozen river below, a duck quacked insistently, sounding like a grumpy old man agruing with a cashier. ~ Chris Pavone

Once I read autobiography as what the writer thought about his or her life. Now I think, 'This is what they thought at that time'. An interim report - that is what an autobiography is. ~ Doris Lessing

When I was 15, I went on a cricket tour of Zimbabwe with my school. My defining memory of it was stroking a semi-tame lioness at a game reserve. I grew up on a farm, so I felt I had an affinity with animals, and when it put a paw out, I thought I'd connected with it. But its claws came out and nicked my leg. Then I did the most stupid thing: I ran. ~ Rupert Evans

It was her smile that took me captive the day we met, and never once let me go. There was an authentic quality to her smile that made people stop and look; a basic human truth that seemed to emanate from deep within her and naturally find its way upward and out. Like the magma flow from Vesuvius, there was simply no stopping Cathy's smile. It could freeze people where they stood and hold them there, sometimes forever.
That's what happened to me anyway. ~ Michael Spehn

Sure, I'm dramatic and sloppily semi-cynical and semi-sentimental. But, in leisure years I could grow and choose my way. Now I am living on the edge. We all are on the brink, and it takes a lot of nerve, a lot of energy, to teeter on the edge, looking over, looking down into the windy blackness and not being quite able to make out, through the yellow, stinking mist, just what lies below in the slime, in the oozing, vomit-streaked slime; and so I could go on, my thoughts, writing much, trying to find the core, the meaning for myself. ~ Sylvia Plath

Her eyes flashed, hot and angry, like lightening cutting through a red sunset. ~ Tyffani Clark Kemp

Horsemanship is the one art for which it seems one needs only practice. However, practice without true principles is nothing other than routine, the fruit of which is a strained and unsure execution, a false diamond which dazzles semi-connoisseurs often more impressed by the accomplishments of the horse than the merit of the horseman. ~ Francois Robichon De La Gueriniere

I never want to make screw-you money like the rest of the financial services industry. ~ Dan Price

I got out of autobiography because my story is, I was famous, it was hard for me, I got into therapy. I had trouble with food, I got a nutritionist. There's no story there. ~ Courtney Thorne-Smith

All criticism is a form of autobiography ~ Oscar Wilde

I have people around me. I have a semi-permanent crew. If I make a film, they just turn up. They don't even invite themselves. They don't ask if they can come - they just turn up! ~ Stephen Frears

Nevertheless, hateful as saying 'No' always is to an imaginative person, and certain as the offence may be that it will cause to individuals whose own work does not require isolated effort, the writer who is engaged on a book must learn to say it. He must say it consistently to all interrupters; to the numerous callers and correspondents who want him to speak, open bazaars, see them for 'only' ten minutes, attend literary parties, put people up, or read, correct and find publishers for semi-literate manuscripts by his personal friends. ~ Vera Brittain

Discovering a note in the mending basket, Phoebe plucked it out and unfolded it. She instantly recognized West's handwriting.

Unemployed Feline Seeking Household Position


To Whom It May Concern,
I hereby offer my services as an experienced mouser and personal companion. References from a reputable family to be provided upon request. Willing to accept room and board in lieu of pay. Indoor lodgings preferred.

Your servant,
Galoshes the Cat

Glancing up from the note, Phoebe found her parents' questioning gazes on her. "Job application," she explained sourly. "From the cat."
"How charming," Seraphina exclaimed, reading over her shoulder.
"'Personal companion,' my foot," Phoebe muttered. "This is a semi-feral animal who has lived in outbuildings and fed on vermin."
"I wonder," Seraphina said thoughtfully. "If she were truly feral, she wouldn't want any contact with humans. With time and patience, she might become domesticated."
Phoebe rolled her eyes. "It seems we'll find out."
The boys returned from the dining car with a bowl of water and a tray of refreshments. Galoshes descended to the floor long enough to devour a boiled egg, an anchovy canapé, and a spoonful of black caviar from a silver dish on ice. Licking her lips and purring, the cat jumped back into Phoebe's lap and curled up with a sigh.
"I'd say she's adjusting quite well," Seraphina commented with a grin, and elbowed Phoebe ge ~ Lisa Kleypas

When I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the Rule of Three ... The little advanceI now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity. ~ Abraham Lincoln

It means that no matter what you write, be it a biography, an autobiography, a detective novel, or a conversation on the street, it all becomes fiction as soon as you write it down. ~ Guillermo Cabrera Infante

At its best fashion is a game. But for women it's a compulsory game, like net ball, and you can't get out of it by faking your period. I know I have tried. And so for a woman every outfit is a hopeful spell, cast to influence the outcome of the day. An act of trying to predict your fate, like looking at your horoscope. No wonder there are so many fashion magazines. No wonder the fashion industry is worth an estimated 900 billion dollars a year. No wonder every woman's first thought is, for nearly every event in her life, be it work, snow or birth. The semi-despairing cry of "but what will I wear?" Because when a woman says I have nothing to wear, what she really means is there is nothing here for who I am supposed to be today. ~ Caitlin Moran

Autobiography, if there really is such a thing, is like asking a rabbit to tell us what he looks like hopping through the grasses of the field. How would he know? If we want to hear about the field on the other hand, no one is in a better circumstance to tell us-so long as we keep in mind that we are missing all those things the rabbit was in no position to observe. ~ Arthur Golden

You should be semi-embarrasse d about certain people seeing your movie. ~ Quentin Tarantino

The peoples of Yugoslavia do not want Fascism. They do not want a totalitarian regime, they do not want to become slaves of the German and Italian financial oligarchy as they never wanted to become reconciled to the semi-colonial dependence imposed on them by the so-called Western democracies after the first imperialist war. ~ Josip Broz Tito

I am constantly telling my own story to myself, and these days that's about all the narrative flow I can handle. ~ Andrew Clements