The Reluctant Eduardian Quotes

The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life & of the nineteenth century in general. (I am convinced that every thing is going wrong.) ~ Edgar Allan Poe

Most economists, like doctors, are reluctant to make predictions, and those who make them are seldom accurate. The economy, like the human body, is a highly complex system whose workings are not thoroughly understood. ~ Alice Rivlin

[A translation into English of a poem Elisabeth wrote two weeks after her wedding]

Oh, had I but never left the path
That would have led me to freedom.
Oh, that on the broad avenues
Of vanity I had never strayed!

I have awakened in a dungeon,
With chains on my hands.
And my longing ever stronger-
And freedom! You, turned from me!

I have awakened from a rapture,
Which held my spirit captive,
And vainly do I curse this exchange,
In which I gambled away you -freedom!- away.

The Reluctant Empress, Chapter 2 ~ Brigitte Hamann

One of the most memorable things I hear is when someone tells me that my books got a reluctant reader to read. ~ Suzanne Collins

What I felt that night, and what I did, I no more expected to feel and do, than to be lifted in a trance to the seventh heaven. Cold, reluctant, apprehensive, I had accepted a part to please another: ere long, warming, becoming interested, taking courage, I acted to please myself. ~ Charlotte Bronte

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

For some reason I was reluctant to ask anybody what had happened. I hate being the person who always doesn't know what's going on and has to ask somebody; it always seems like everybody else knows what's going on. This is a clear low-status marker, and I resisted it. ~ David Foster Wallace

(Via Malcolm) ... For the moment, I have this incredible gift ... It just happened. I bend, whisper, sing, shout - and a radiant light surrounds and then emanates from people. ~ Kathleen Maher

Reluctant doctors like to believe that they haven't much influence over their patients, but that is clearly not the case. Several studies have found that when doctors genuinely encouraged women to have VBACs, most of them did, and when they said nothing or acted neutral, most women didn't. Finally, when obstetricians discouraged VBAC in women who wanted to try it, none of them did. ~ Henci Goer

His day is done.

Is done.

The news came on the wings of a wind, reluctant to carry its burden.

Nelson Mandela's day is done.

The news, expected and still unwelcome, reached us in the United States, and suddenly our world became somber.

Our skies were leadened.

His day is done.

We see you, South African people standing speechless at the slamming of that final door through which no traveller returns.

Our spirits reach out to you Bantu, Zulu, Xhosa, Boer.

We think of you and your son of Africa, your father, your one more wonder of the world.

We send our souls to you as you reflect upon your David armed with a mere stone, facing down the mighty Goliath.

Your man of strength, Gideon, emerging triumphant.

Although born into the brutal embrace of Apartheid, scarred by the savage atmosphere of racism, unjustly imprisoned in the bloody maws of South African dungeons.

Would the man survive? Could the man survive?

His answer strengthened men and women around the world.

In the Alamo, in San Antonio, Texas, on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, in Chicago's Loop, in New Orleans Mardi Gras, in New York City's Times Square, we watched as the hope of Africa sprang through the prison's doors.

His stupendous heart intact, his gargantuan will hale and hearty.

He had not been crippled by brutes, nor ~ Maya Angelou

Heaven opened and the water hammered down, reviving the reluctant old well, greenmossing the pigless pigsty, carpet bombing still, tea-colored puddles the way memory bombs still, tea-colored minds. ~ Arundhati Roy

Hunted what?" Shea held her breath, afraid of what he might say.
"Beautiful women, little one, and I was the one who found you after all." His white teeth gleamed at her, a definite leer.
"Don't put me off like that." She had already taken advantage, sliding easily into his mind and picking out the pictures of danger and revulsion. Fear even. Not so much of their adversary, but of themselves turning into the very thing they sought to destroy.
Jacques, unprepared for her entrance into his mind, had been confident he could keep the grimmer side of their existence watered down for her. Shea had always been reluctant to enter his mind; it hadn't occurred to him that she would do so whenever she wanted.
His expression was so rueful that Shea burst out laughing. "Where I grew up, that's called being caught with your pants down."
He looked down at his body, glistening with the rain. His grin was self-mocking, his black eyes amused. "Literally. ~ Christine Feehan

In the early years of America's skyjacking epidemic, the airlines were reluctant to let the FBI attempt to end hijackings by force; they feared that innocents would get caught in the crossfire, thereby sparking a wave of negative publicity. ~ Brendan I. Koerner

I am poetry,
surrounding the dreamer,
Ever present,
I capture the spirit,
enslave
the reluctant pen,
and become
the breath
on the writer's only road. ~ Pam Munoz Ryan

She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. And, each day, takes less and less nourishment, as if grudging the least moment of wakefulness, for, from the movement under her eyelids, and the somnolent gestures of her hands and feet, it seems as if her dreams grow more urgent and intense, as if the life she lives in the closed world of dreams is now about to possess her utterly, as if her small, increasingly reluctant wakenings were an interpretation of some more vital existence, so she is loath to spend even those necessary moments of wakefulness with us, wakings strange as her sleepings. Her marvellous fate - a sleep more lifelike than the living, a dream which consumes the world. ~ Angela Carter

( ... ) being right all the time acquires a huge importance in education, and there is this terror of being wrong. The ego is so tied to being right that later on in life you are reluctant to accept that you are ever wrong, because you are defending not the idea but your self-esteem. ( ... ) this terror of being wrong means that people have enormous difficulties in changing ideas. ~ Edward De Bono

I am always grateful when I am in the company of a beautiful beach and the summertime is as reluctant to leave as me... ~ Jason R. Hemmings

Surveys show that many talented and committed young people are reluctant to enter teaching for the long haul because they think the profession is low-paying and not prestigious enough. ~ Arne Duncan

If it be good to come under the love of God once, surely it is good to keep ourselves there. And yet how reluctant we are! ~ Andrew Bonar

Transformation is the result of big shifts in perceptions and responses. The process can be uncomfortable, since the mind is reluctant to notice itself, to take responsibility for its stories, and to change. When the mind is in acute resistance, the emotional body pays a price. ~ Miguel Ruiz

I have one priority in life and it's not making millions as it once was.

I have all the money I could ever want, too much, India claims. I'm business driven but it's my girl who is the most important part of my life.

My whole life.

It's that very reason I'm reluctant to bring any shift in our happy bubble.

We both work hard. We play hard together.

That woman is my equal in every aspect of life.

She thrills me, and intrigues me.

I've loved peeling back India's layers.

She's vulnerable is my mean girl and I love the place we've gotten to where she trusts me with all her sad, unsure moments.

She will grieve for her brother for the rest of her life.

She'll always worry about her mom becoming manic depressive again.

She'll forever be a woman who puts everyone else before her own needs.

But what's different in India's life is she now has me who makes sure she's first. In everything.

It's going to kill me to see the happiness drop from her eyes.

She'll go into fix it mode and when she can't, she'll get angry and stressed. ~ V. Theia

She would love to think he was reluctant to leave her, but she realized he was waiting to make sure she got safely into the house before he drove away. Zane might be the most frustrating man on earth, a paradox she couldn't figure out, but he was the type of guy to make sure a woman was safe before he left her in the dark. Just as he was the type of man who'd chosen the best knife for her to carry to Nigeria. He was also the type to kiss a woman breathless and leave her alone and confused. With a sigh, she turned and made her way to the front door, digging for her key as she went. One sleepless night pondering Zane and this odd day definitely wouldn't be enough to figure out the mystery of the man. But, it would be a start ... ~ Cat Johnson

Were you ever going to tell me?"

"About the Grail?" He returned to the couch and handed her a glass. "I wasn't planning on it."

She knocked back the rum and swallowed, setting the empty glass on the table. Impressive.

She met his eyes. "So even if we had slept together last night, you were going to keep telling me you were descended from a pirate, not an actual pirate."

He took a swig, his gaze locked on hers. "Would you have believed me?"

"No." She shrugged. "Just wondering how long you would have lied to me."

"I could ask you the same thing."

She rolled her eyes. "I played you. There's a difference." She shrugged. "Besides that, was before our no lies between us deal."

"I see this as more of an omission." He finished off his drink and placed the glass beside hers. "In my defense, I've never told anyone who I really am. You're the first."

She raised a brow. "Are you saying I should feel…special?"

"Aye." He cleared his throat. "I've never taken a bullet for anyone either, not even my crew."

"Thanks for that." A reluctant smile curved her lips as she met his eyes. "Pretty heroic for a pirate."

He chuckled. "It's less heroic when you're certain you won't die."

"But you knew it would hurt."

He nodded slowly. "True."

She pinched her fingertips close together in the air. "It might've been a tiny bit heroic."

Lisa Kessler

Sometimes a savage beauty lured me into the sun and I would start to love the danger a little. On these occasions I felt the reluctant love drained painfully from me as blood drains from a deep wound. The tigers lapped my love's blood and remained enemies. The inhabitants of the day laughed at the gift I wanted to bring them, and I shut myself in my inner room to escape the betrayal of their arrogant mouths. ~ Anna Kavan

I'm reluctant to use the word class so much. ~ Timothy West

Addiction is a term that's used a lot these days. People claim to be addicted to everything from romance novels to cars. They feel guilty when they enjoy something just a little too much. When it comes to food addiction, the misunderstanding is epidemic...

Until now, scientists and clinicians alike have been reluctant to acknowledge that food addiction even exists. Yes, abnormal eating behaviours have been identified throughout history, but there has long been a resistance to labelling it an addiction. ~ Vera Tarman

You came out kicking and screaming, reluctant as hell to leave, and you spent the rest of your life trying to get back in. ~ Donald O'Donovan

Sex in the twenties is like a helicopter raring to take off vertically, but twenty years later, it is like a vintage plane roaring and racing to a reluctant take off! ~ Rajuda

Major international interventions are doomed unless the US is directly or indirectly involved. But if American politicians, officials and servicemen are to be put at risk of arrest and prosecution, the United States will be most reluctant to act in order to curb aggression or prevent genocide. So the effect of the court may well be to diminish, not increase, the numbers of (in the words of the UN Secretary General) 'innocents of distant wars and conflicts'. ~ Margaret Thatcher

We have in past been forced into reluctant change by weather, calamity, and plague. Now the pressure comes from our biologic success as a species. We have overcome all enemies but ourselves. ~ John Steinbeck

Nor do the females of our closest primate cousins offer much reason to believe the human female should be sexually reluctant due to purely biological concerns. Instead, primatologist Meredith Small has noted that female primates are highly attracted to novelty in mating. Unfamiliar males appear to attract females more than known males with any other characteristic a male might offer (high status, large size, coloration, frequent grooming, hairy chest, gold chains, pinky ring, whatever). Small writes, "The only consistent interest seen among the general primate population is an interest in novelty and variety ... In fact," she reports, "the search for the unfamiliar is documented as a female preference more often than is any other characteristic our human eyes can perceive. ~ Christopher Ryan

He found his voice first, though it was a ragged whisper, "Thank you." If I'd had enough breath I'd have laughed. My throat was so dry, that my voice sounded stiff. "Trust me on this, Frost, it was my pleasure." He bent over and laid a kiss on my cheek. "I will try to do better next time." He moved his hands away from me, letting me move, but stayed sheathed inside me as if he were reluctant to let that go. I looked at him, thinking he was joking, but his face was utterly serious. "It gets better than this?" I asked. He nodded solemnly. "Oh, yes." "The queen was a fool," I said softly. He smiled then. "I always thought so. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

The colonel looks eager, but Cal could not seem more reluctant. He keeps still, knowing that any twitch might betray his true feelings. The lack of movement is just as damning. "I'll see what I can come up with," he finally forces out. ~ Victoria Aveyard

...in the middle of the field, Harry suddenly stopped and looked back. Mr. Chad was all alone in the creepy woods. He could take care of himself...couldn't he? Of course he could, he was a teacher. ~ Connie Kingrey Anderson