Traction Quotes

The only question that got any traction was when he asked Martin what he did. Martin tersely replied that he was a wizard and was met with a blank stare. "You know, a wizard," Martin said. "I do magic." Martin had expected that this would at least impress Ampyx. Martin was wrong. "Why?" Ampyx asked. "Why what? Why do I do magic?" "Yes, why do you do magic?" Ampyx asked, as if it were the most obvious question in the world. Martin looked at Phillip, who shrugged. Finally, Martin answered, "Why wouldn't I do magic? Wouldn't you do magic if you could?" "Never," Ampyx said. "Well, why not?" Ampyx scrunched his face and said, "Magic . . . it is . . . woman's work." Martin ~ Scott Meyer

There's people that say "It's not fair You have all that stuff." I wasn't born with it. It was a horrible process to get to this. It took me my whole life. If you're new at this- and by "new at it." I mean 15 years in, or even 20- you're just starting to grow traction. Young musicians believe they should be able to throw a band together and be famous, and anything that's in their way is unfair and evil. What are you, in your 20s, you picked up a guitar? Give it a minute. ~ Louis C.K.

Action is traction. ~ Rob Liano

Newton supposed that the case of the planet was similar to that of [a ball spun around on the end of an elastic string]; that it was always pulled in the direction of the sun, and that this attraction or pulling of the sun produced the revolution of the planet, in the same way that the traction or pulling of the elastic string produces the revolution of the ball. What there is between the sun and the planet that makes each of them pull the other, Newton did not know; nobody knows to this day; and all we are now able to assert positively is that the known motion of the planet is precisely what would be produced if it were fastened to the sun by an elastic string, having a certain law of elasticity. Now observe the nature of this discovery, the greatest in its consequences that has ever yet been made in physical science: -

I. It begins with an hypothesis, by supposing that there is an analogy between the motion of a planet and the motion of a ball at the end of a string.

II. Science becomes independent of the hypothesis, for we merely use it to investigate the properties of the motion, and do not trouble ourselves further about the cause of it. ~ William Kingdon Clifford

I feel comfortable in saying that the traction for TotalGuide and Rovi Cloud Services is strong, and I expect it to continue to strengthen. ~ Alfred Amoroso

If you want to have traction in China, you have to be in China. ~ Rebecca MacKinnon

If they aren't asking for information, what are they asking for? They are saying they are stuck and can't gather enough traction to get unstuck. They are saying that they are not able to choose because they lack the wherewithal to take action. They need a charge, a spark, an incentive, and they need it from within themselves. A well-placed why provides this spark. Not ~ G. Scott Graham

She was shaking. Her hands, her knees and everywhere in between. And kisses did not make her shake.And she didn't kiss men she didn't like. She didn't kiss men in uniforms who had a fetish for order and cleanliness.
She didn't yell at people, either, but right now the yelling was lower on her list of sins than the kissing.
"What did you ... I don't even ... I'm going to go."
She turned, her shoulders stiff, her heart hammering in her ears.
"If I'd known a kiss would have gotten rid of you, I would have kissed you the moment I saw your car sitting on the side of the road."
Oh. That. Did it.
She whirled back around, anger gaining traction in her again. "Well, sure, your kiss got rid of me. Congratulations. Now who's going to help you get rid of the hard-on it gave you? Your right hand? ~ Maisey Yates

If the interest of a scientific expositor ought to be measured by the importance of the subject, I shall be applauded for my choice. In fact, there are few questions which touch more closely the very existence of man than that of animated motors - those docile helps whose power or speed he uses at his pleasure, which enjoy to some extent his intimacy, and accompany him in his labors and his pleasures. The species of animal whose coöperation we borrow are numerous, and vary according to latitude and climate. But whether we employ the horse, the ass, the camel, or the reindeer, the same problem is always presented: to get from the animal as much work as possible, sparing him, as far as we can, fatigue and suffering. This identity of standpoint will much simplify my task, as it will enable me to confine the study of animated motors to a single species: I have chosen the horse as the most interesting type. Even with this restriction the subject is still very vast, as all know who are occupied with the different questions connected therewith. In studying the force of traction of the horse, and the best methods of utilizing it, we encounter all the problems connected with teams and the construction of vehicles. But, on a subject which has engaged the attention of humanity for thousands of years, it seems difficult to find anything new to say.

If in the employment of the horse we consider its speed and the means of increasing it, the subject does not appear less exhausted ~ Etienne-Jules Marey

If you destroy the credibility of those people or institutions that could undermine your own, you create an opportunity for your voice, however irresponsible or misleading it may be, to gain traction. ~ John Yarmuth

Gay marriage within mainline denominations is gaining traction. Skewed pastors and even the government can't trump the Bible on this issue. Pastors: stand! ~ Steve Camp

Traction equals satisfaction ~ Dave Ramsey

I have things I say over and over again, for sure, but I've never wanted to make an album or really go on the road. I don't want any traction. I just want to be able to express myself and to feel love. ~ Jenny Slate

The Americans lecture the world on democracy and then won't let me turn the traction control off! ~ Jeremy Clarkson

Quality ... you know what it is, yet you don't know what it is. But that's self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There's nothing to talk about. But if you can't say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn't exist at all. But for all practical purposes it really does exist. What else are the grades based on? Why else would people pay fortunes for some things and throw others in the trash pile? Obviously some things are better than others ... but what's the betterness? ... So round and round you go, spinning mental wheels and nowhere finding anyplace to get traction. What the hell is Quality? What is it? ~ Robert M. Pirsig

If the iPhone gained traction, RIM's senior executives believed, it would be with consumers who cared more about YouTube and other Internet escapes than efficiency and security. RIM's core business customers valued BlackBerry's secure and efficient communication systems. Offering mobile access to broader Internet content, says Mr. Conlee, "was not a space where we parked our business. ~ Sean Silcoff

To save wildlife and wild places the traction has to come not from the regurgitation of bad-news data but from the poets, prophets, preachers, professors, and presidents who have always dared to inspire. ~ J. Drew Lanham

Sometimes perfecting the one thing can be the enemy of getting any traction on anything else. ~ Jay Roach

With a larger wheel, you have more contact with the ground, so you have better traction whether you're braking or cornering or any of that stuff. Also, with bigger wheels, once you get them up to speed, they roll faster. ~ Aaron Gwin

When God says hold up, wait, pray, it's not your time yet, our entire bodies rebel, legs kicking and flailing like some overturned dung beetle certain that if we try hard enough we might be able to gain a little traction on our own ~ Heather Choate Davis

As he stood in the darkness, his eyes glistened and that's when I knew my light found its traction. ~ Dominic Riccitello

The most liberating feeling in the world is to not give the negative opinions of others any traction. ~ Carlos Wallace

see that her help is needed. Advocating means fighting for not fighting with. As I've said before in many different ways, you have to make your case in a manner that makes other people listen, and that usually means considering their needs as well as your own. You may feel as if your parents' needs take precedence over your sibling's - and they do - but this more communicative approach is likely to get more traction than making people defensive ever does. One great way to keep all of your family ~ Kimberly Guilfoyle

If the expansion of a global legal regime for communication technologies gains traction, the effects to the global economy as well as our individual liberties will be severe. ~ Marsha Blackburn

On many occasions animals are not so much trying to hurt us as giving us a mere rebuke or warning. The trouble is, a mere rebuke or warning from a bear can put a human in traction. ~ Lee H. Whittlesey

Three-Step Method for Making Stronger Connections: Take the Triangle Talk approach to connecting and reaching agreement with others: You, Me, Us. First refer to their interest, then yours - and then note how your interests coincide. This approach enables diverse people to gain traction sooner toward a common goal. ~ Kare Anderson

The worst thing for an actor is to be stuck in one kind of thing. But if you're not in people's faces all the time, you can lose traction. And that affects the choice of things you get offered. ~ Joanne Whalley

If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I'll probably abandon it immediately. ~ Markus Persson

Several pallets had been pulled to the middle of the open space and stacked two high with a large blanket over them. The implication stunned her – it was so unexpected, so unlike what she believed about him – her mind only registered denial.
She heard Ash bolt the door and remove his leather jacket, felt his hands on her shoulders as he turned her around to face him. He stroked her cheek with one hand while the other reached for his belt. "My sweet, innocent Sage," he whispered, and still her thoughts could gain no traction.
There was the snap of a release from his belt, and though she continued to meet his eyes, she saw a sheathed dagger in the hand he raised between them.
"Tonight I must teach you how to kill a man. ~ Erin Beaty

Until competency management platforms gain widespread acceptance, "badges" or "stackable credentials" are unlikely to gain much traction. The notion that educated adults, like the boy and girl scouts they once were, will prefer to flaunt a collection of badges testifying to skills they have demonstrated is flawed for one reason. While degrees are validated by a single institution with a recognizable form (i.e., colleges and universities), who is validating a collection of badges? Who vouches that a student has demonstrated a given skill? Although many visionary organizations are seeking to enter this market, outside of IT none currently has the ability or credibility to authenticate such credentials in a way that would be acceptable to a critical mass of employers and students. ~ Ryan Craig

I grew up in a working-class Catholic family in south Louisiana. I went to a state university. I taught literature, wrote a novel that was the novel I wanted to write, and got a couple of good reviews but no real traction. I had no idea how to get a job in TV. ~ Nic Pizzolatto

Take heart now in one true thing: You will gain traction. You will grow upwards even when you think you've been slammed back down into that same dark hole. It will start looking like a different hole, one that might still have you
curled up and crying, but that crying will be more transformative than only desperate screams of despair. Your pain can be turned to good account. You're not alone. You've got
this handbook. Keep us with you. ~ Deborah Pardes

I bought a new book, '100 new ways to make love'. I ended up in traction - it was a misprint. ~ Rodney Dangerfield

She regretted volunteering, as getting off the ship required wading in chest-deep water. It was very cold and took her breath away. Her robe billowed around her as she struggled to find traction in the ground below.

A strong wave struck her from behind and she started to fall face forward. Hadrian caught her by the elbow and held her up.

"Thank you. I thought I was going for a swim there," she told him.

"Bad form on the wave's part, sneaking up and attacking you from the back like that."

"Not very chivalrous, was it?"

"Not at all - I'd complain. ~ Michael J. Sullivan

What I've started to realize is that social media is not just technology - it's become its own entity, full of energy waves. These energy waves could be a Tweet about something you are furious about, like the Keystone Pipeline, or a piece of legislation. Instantly, energy surrounds and adds traction, influence, making it come alive ~ Ian Somerhalder

I actually think in some ways that it might be more challenging to be bipolar because it's so mercurial - it's so ever-changing. You can't get any traction. You can't build on a system. Whereas, somebody who has Asperger's, which is certainly a much more forgiving expression of autism, can create models for coping and build on them over time. ~ Claire Danes

There is no point in retaining a brand equity if it has no traction with consumers, or has no likelihood of doing so. ~ Nick Cooper

I am a wordy writer, and often churn out pages on end without advancing the plot a jot. Hence I try to take my cue from a childhood impatience with any device that doesn't get somewhere. Even in his sprightly youth, Clippity had a problem with running in place - just like my first drafts - when the surface was too slick. As a kid, I was ingenious enough to smear green Plasticine on his rear hooves. Thus I discovered the importance of traction, as handy a concept in literature as for wind-up toys. ~ Lionel Shriver

While lying in traction in the hospital the next day, I informed Jerry that he could promptly take his cake, hideous football photo and smelly socks and fuck off out of my apartment. ~ Kate Langdon

I did have a nice career in print, but traditional publishers don't always have the resources to create individualized marketing for their authors. Mine never figured out how to package books as hot as mine so that they found their full audience. Finally, I got frustrated enough over my lack of traction to walk away. ~ Emma Holly

It was a horrible process to get to this. It took me my whole life. If you're new at this - and by 'new at it,' I mean 15 years in, or even 20 - you're just starting to get traction ... Give it a minute. ~ Louis C.K.

In the 1990s I began to study the prospects that life could spread from Mars to Earth or maybe Earth to Mars and that maybe life began on Mars and came to Earth, and that idea seemed to have a lot of traction and is now accepted as very plausible. ~ Paul Davies

Once in a while I found myself actually slipping in cum, skidding around the tiny space praying to find traction before I landed in a puddle of some stranger's gooey discharge. ~ Drew Nellins Smith

The conservative revolution that Reagan helped usher in gained traction because Reagan's central insight - that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed with slicing the economic pie than with growing the pie - contained a good deal of truth. ~ Barack Obama

To tell the truth, in Pacific 231 I was on the trail of a very abstract and quite ideal concept, by giving the impression of a mathematical acceleration of rhythm, while the movement itself slowed . I first called this piece Mouvement symphonique. On reflection I found that a bit colorless. Suddenly, a rather romantic image crossed my mind, and when the work was finished, I wrote the title Pacific 231, which indicates a locomotive for heavy loads and high speeds (a type unfortunately disappeared, alas, and sacrificed to electric traction). ~ Arthur Honegger

You actually do confront your dark side, your impulses, or your feelings of sibling rivalry in Cinderella or whatever. You admit that they exist and then you work through them and conquer them and come out living happily ever after having learned something. That's one reason why the fairy tales keep having traction and meaning. ~ Catherine Hardwicke

I feel like we're stuck in the former mode of reacting because that's what gains traction in Washington. But I really believe we need a robust public good argument. Net neutrality is not just about creating the next Instagram or Farmville or whatever. ~ Astra Taylor

Rumors sound of galleries asking artists for upsized art and more of it. I've heard of photographers asked to print larger to increase the wall power and salability of their work. Everything winds up set to maximum in order to feed the beast. ~ Jerry Saltz

We broke something, I think it was traction… ~ Carl Edwards

one path toward unlocking our latent abilities is returning to a simple practice that came so naturally to us as children: We need to rekindle our ability to emulate the positive attributes of those we admire in others, and apply those same attributes to our life and work. When we are conscious of the qualities we want to emulate, they become points of traction to help us coordinate our daily activities around a set of principles rather than reacting spontaneously to circumstances throughout the day. They comprise the operating system that guides how we engage our work, how we interact with others, and how we make decisions with our focus, time, and energy. ~ Todd Henry

That race was so hard and I am very happy with the result in the end. Michelin did a great job with the tyres ? the grip on the edge was unbelievable! When I opened the throttle there was so much traction it was incredible. My team has done a great job and even if we didn't win we improved again in the World Championship. It is good to be the best Michelin finisher and the first Honda home as well. I'm confident in Malaysia that we can take revenge on Bridgestone! They did a great job and Loris rode very hard ? congratulations to them. A good battle to watch for the fans I think. ~ Max Biaggi

Jennifer and Mark were a reminder that they weren't all a lost cause. It was just a shame they were in such a minority group. Maybe they could start a movement: Decent People's Lives Matter. It could be all inclusive, even accept cops in their charter. Probably wouldn't get any traction with the PC crowd, though. Not the "right" kind of people, or the "right" kind of cause. ~ Bobby Underwood

Thanks to this availability of suitable wild mammals and plants, early peoples of the Fertile Crescent could quickly assemble a potent and balanced biological package for intensive food production. That package comprised three cereals, as the main carbohydrate sources; four pulses, with 20 - 25 percent protein, and four domestic animals, as the main protein sources, supplemented by the generous protein content of wheat; and flax as a source of fiber and oil (termed linseed oil: flax seeds are about 40 percent oil). Eventually, thousands of years after the beginnings of animal domestication and food production, the animals also began to be used for milk, wool, plowing, and transport. Thus, the crops and animals of the Fertile Crescent's first farmers came to meet humanity's basic economic needs: carbohydrate, protein, fat, clothing, traction, and transport. ~ Jared Diamond

It's surprisingly difficult to build fake overhead bins, especially ones that, you know, you can open really easily - because when you're floating around, you don't have any traction, obviously. ~ Trish Sie

Firstly the cars aren't too complicated. They have no traction control, for example, which means you can spin if you try too hard and damage your tires if you're not careful with your driving style. ~ Nigel Mansell

How often things must have been seen and dismissed as unimportant, before the speculative eye and the moment of vision came! It was Gilbert, Queen Elizabeth's court physician, who first puzzled his brains with rubbed amber and bits of glass and silk and shellac, and so began the quickening of the human mind to the existence of this universal presence. And even then the science of electricity remained a mere little group of curious facts for nearly two hundred years, connected perhaps with magnetism - a mere guess that - perhaps with the lightning. Frogs' legs must have hung by copper hooks from iron railings and twitched upon countless occasions before Galvani saw them. Except for the lightning conductor, it was 250 years after Gilbert before electricity stepped out of the cabinet of scientific curiosities into the life of the common man… . Then suddenly, in the half-century between 1880 and 1930, it ousted the steam-engine and took over traction, it ousted every other form of household heating, abolished distance with the perfected wireless telephone and the telephotograph… . ~ H.G. Wells

The interests behind fracking are very powerful and they've managed to control the dialogue for a while, because they have forced people to sign disclosure agreements; people who have had negative experiences who are not able to speak out because they've signed disclosure agreements with the gas companies. Things like this. They've managed to strangle the opposing viewpoint, but it does seem like the people who are against fracking have started to gain some traction and the realities of what an environmental nightmare it is are starting to become known. ~ Joan Osborne

When someone's got your rear tires off the ground, you don't have much traction. ~ Kyle Petty

Technologies simmer along before they are feasible. That simmer can be short or long, but then they get traction. And from there to being huge is a couple of decades. ~ Klaus Lackner

Art was there to scratch at people's brains, to help ideas find traction in metaphor that they could not when made explicit. ~ Rebecca Scherm

Sometimes it's easier to gain traction once you slow the spinning wheels. ~ Curtis Tyrone Jones

Twenty unsettling minutes later she dropped the
pen on her stack of papers, and then leaned back in her chair. The time seemed to be dragging like a immobile car without tires hooked to a tow-truck with square wheels traveling cautiously down a road of fresh gravel. Tess struggled to maintain focus, similar to how an alternator belt would struggle if it had to try to keep traction on a turn spindle that had been lubricated after an antifreeze leak. And similar to the - would be - alternator on the sidelines of that metaphor, Tess's enthusiasm for her after hours work was having difficulty in keeping charged up also. ~ Calvin W. Allison

Coconut," I say. "You always smell coconut-y." Then, because it's dark in the van, and because I'm wiped out from all the panic and my guard is down, I add, "You always smell good."

"Sex Wax."

"What?" I sit up a little straighter.

He reaches down to the floorboard and tosses me what looks like a plastic-wrapped bar of soap. I hold it up to the window to see the label in the streetlight. "Mr. Zog's Sex Wax," I read.

"You rub it on the deck of your board," he explains. "For traction. You know, so you don't slip off while you're surfing." I sniff it. That's the stuff, all right.

"I bet your feet smell heavenly."

"You don't have a foot fetish thing, do you?" he asks, voice playful.

"I didn't before, but now? Who knows."

The tires of the van veer off the road onto the gravelly shoulder, and he cuts the wheel sharply to steer back onto the pavement. "Oops."

We chuckle, both embarrassed.

I toss the wax onto the floorboard. "Well, another mystery solved ~ Jenn Bennett

In the Garden story, good and evil are found on the same tree, not in separate orchards. Good and evil give meaning and definition to each other. If God, like us, is susceptible to immense pain, He is, like us, the greater in His capacity for happiness. The presence of such pain serves the larger purpose of God's master plan, which is to maximize the capacity for joy, or in other words, "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." He can no more foster those ends in the absence of suffering and evil than one could find the traction to run or the breath to sing in the vacuum of space. God does not instigate pain or suffering, but He can weave it into His purposes. "God's power rests not on totalizing omnipotence, but on His ability to alchemize suffering, tragedy, and loss into wisdom, understanding, and joy. ~ Terryl L. Givens

Companies with significant revenue (more than $100 million) have, by definition, significant traction. They have proven out their thesis and can scale up or down as investment capital becomes available. ~ Jay Samit

My concern is the really great concepts that are features, not companies. There isn't enough advertising to support all those features, and in compression times, advertisers tend to flock to safe names and sites that have real traction. ~ Ross Levinsohn

being attached to any one philosophy or religion
dwelling on moot differences and wanting to fit in
despite the path all are led Home in time
following an alternative pathway is certainly no crime
Krishna, Buddha, Allah or Zohar Kabbalah
devoted nonviolently, one is led to Nirvana
Hindu Sages, Zen Masters or Christian Mystics
many tongues, but identical truth spoken from their lips
mentioning Self or no-self or God is Father or Mother
according to their culture emphasizing one method or another
allness vs. nothingness, meditation vs. prayer
devotion in practice is all you should care
when Truth reveals itself you're beyond all conception
then not a single man-made word will hold any traction ~ Jarett Sabirsh

There's a reasonable amount of traction in college education, particularly engineering, because quite a lot of that is privatized, so there is an incentive to set up new colleges of reasonably high quality. ~ Azim Premji

It's so exciting when a book catches traction you didn't even expect (or completely did expect!), and so frustrating when a book never quite catches the traction you know it deserves. But either way it doesn't change the book, it doesn't change how much I love that book, or how thrilled I am to be publishing it. ~ Danielle Dutton