X Quotes

There is something about this process, and about the whole 8 x 10 [camera] business, that takes it out of the arena of the snapshot, even though, of course, I'm always desperate for that feeling. I wanted those family pictures to look effortless. I wanted them to look like snapshots. And some of them did. ~ Sally Mann

There are things that are happening way earlier than [the Oscars] when it comes to someone deciding whether they're going to spend x amount of millions of dollars on a movie.I want $100 million success. The moviegoer is the person I'm more interested in than the Academy. ~ Don Cheadle

The tower, which was not supposed to be there, plunges into the earth in a place just before the black pine forest begins to give way to swamp and then the reeds and wind-gnarled trees of the marsh flats. Beyond the marsh flats and the natural canals lies the ocean and, a little farther down the coast, a derelict lighthouse. All of this part of the country had been abandoned for decades, for reasons that are not easy to relate. Our expedition was the first to enter Area X for more than two years, and much of our predecessors' equipment had rusted, their tents and sheds little more than husks. Looking out over that untroubled landscape, I do not believe any of us could yet see the threat. ~ Jeff VanderMeer

Why we ask questions: Questions are the basis of human freedom. Our mind, as a part of our self experience, is curious and always challenging that part of us that can think about the essence of things. We interpret our lives all the time - with unconscious deep conceptualization - and these conceptualization raise questions.
Why did I feel the way I felt yesterday when I spoke with X? What is the meaning of my answer? Why I chose to spend time in X's company and not Y's? And how it changed my attitude toward Y?
(Interesting paragraph I translated from the Hebrew edition) ~ Christopher Bollas

Do Your Best Work ~ Malcolm X

The seeds for the Descendants were planted in Uncanny X-Force, but I always conceived them as being bigger than just that book. ~ Rick Remender

If you can take something as ultimately frivolous [as a comic book] in the cosmic scale of things in the universe and what's important - people being born and dying and everything else that's gonna happen today - if one gay kid in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, reads an X-Men comic and feels for a second like maybe they're not entirely alone in the world - that's amazing. I'll take it. Whatever size victory that is, I will take. ~ Matt Fraction

No, 'F/X 2' was a job. I enjoyed doing it but that was definitely a job. I wrote that, I didn't direct it but 'Candyman' and the earlier horror movies I made, I was completely into horror and suspense and always have been. It's informed everything I've done, even the way scenes are shot in 'Kinsey and 'Gods and Monsters.' ~ Bill Condon

Perhaps so many journals had piled up in the lighthouse because on some level most came, in time, to recognize the futility of language. Not just in Area X but against the rightness of the lived-in moment, the instant of touch, of connection for which words were such a sorrowful disappointment, so inadequate an expression of both the finite and the infinite. ~ Jeff VanderMeer

I have to say I am a 'Strictly' fan, which is why I am in it. I've always watched it for years. I am not an 'X Factor' fan, and I just think it is a different show. One is about learning something new and having a great time, and the other is rather desperate. ~ Felicity Kendal

When we fail to open the closed-minded consumers of racist ideas, we blame their closed-mindedness instead of our foolish decision to waste time reviving closed minds from the dead. When our vicious attacks on open-minded consumers of racist ideas fail to transform them, we blame their hate rather than our impatient and alienating hate of them. When people fail to consume our convoluted antiracist ideas, we blame their stupidity rather than our stupid lack of clarity. When we transform people and do not show them an avenue of support, we blame their lack of commitment rather than our lack of guidance. When the politician we supported does not change racist policy, we blame the intractability of racism rather than our support of the wrong politician. When we fail to gain support for a protest, we blame the fearful rather than our alienating presentation. When the protest fails, we blame racist power rather than our flawed protest. When our policy does not produce racial equity, we blame the people for not taking advantage of the new opportunity, not our flawed policy solution. The failure doctrine avoids the mirror of self-blame. The failure doctrine begets failure. The failure doctrine begets racism. ~ Ibram X. Kendi

You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it. ~ Malcolm X

He saw a tattoo on her throat and he read it with some amusement. Foxhole prayers in a stylized cursive. Strange girl. The 'X' crossed the artery pulsing under her velvet skin. Skin he knew would be warm butter beneath his fangs.

X marks the spot, my dear. ~ Vanessa Gravenstein

36. Argument from Incomplete Devastation: A plane crashed killing 143 passengers and crew. But one child survived with only third-degree burns. Therefore God exists. 37. Argument from Possible Worlds: If things had been different, then things would be different. That would be bad. Therefore God exists. 38. Argument from Sheer Will: I do believe in God! I do believe in God! I do I do I do. I do believe in God! Therefore God exists. 39. Argument from Non-belief: The majority of the world's population are non-believers in Christianity. This is just what Satan intended. Therefore God exists. 40. Argument from Post-Death Experience: Person X died an atheist. He now realizes his mistake. Therefore God exists. 41. Argument from Emotional Blackmail: God loves you. How could you be so heartless as not to believe in him? Therefore God exists. THE ~ Richard Dawkins

You can't legislate good will - that comes through education. ~ Malcolm X

You will not be my X, but you will always be my full story from ( A to Z ) ~ Fouadid

Is it a bad sign when the thought of your x-girlfriend makes you say things like, Satan is a myth ... I guess. ~ Dov Davidoff

This place is just too frickin precious," the cop said, eyeing a guy dressed in a hot pink leisure suit with makeup to match. "Give me rednecks and home-grown beer any day of the week over this X-culture bullshit. ~ J.R. Ward

If you replace the letter "s" with the letter "x," you can make a lot of plural words naughty. For example, "fences" would become "fencex," and I'd say good fencex makes good neighbors. ~ Jarod Kintz

This morning, when she got on the bus, it kind of felt like he was waiting for her. He was holding a comic called Watchmen, and it looked so ugly that Eleanor decided not to bother eavesdropping. Or eavesreading. Whatever. (She liked it best when he read the X-Men, even though she didn't get everything that was going on there; the X-Men were worse than General Hospital. It took Eleanor a couple weeks to figure out that Scott Summers and Cyclops were the same guy, and she still wasn't sure what was up with Phoenix.) ~ Rainbow Rowell

Karma runs backwards. You suffer so that the violation becomes unavoidable. Your money is no good here. ~ Carl-John X. Veraja

Only a genius can overlook the chaos ~ Philosopher 'X'

MATTHEW 18. t At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" 2And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3and said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you u turn and v become like children, you w will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 x Whoever humbles himself like this child is the w greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 y "Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, 6but z whoever causes one of these a little ones who believe in me to sin, [1] it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Temptations to Sin 7"Woe to the world for b temptations to sin! [2] c For it is necessary that temptations come, d but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! ~ Anonymous

Tony:...but you need something to do about Noah.

Paul: I know, I know. The only problem being that (a) he thinks I'm getting back with my ex-boyfriend, (b) he thinks I'll only hurt him, because (c) I've already hurt him and (d) someone else has already hurt him, which means that I'm hurting him even more. So (e) he doesn't trust me, and in all fairness, (g) every time I see him, I (h) want everything to be right again and I (i) want to kiss him madly. This means that (j) my feelings aren't going away anytime soon, but (k) his feelings don't look likely to budge, either. So either (l) I'm out of luck, (m) I'm out of hope, or (n) there's a way to make it up to him that I'm not thinking of. I could (o) beg, (p) plead, (q) grovel, or (r) give up. But, in order to do that, I would have to sacrifice my (s) pride, (t) reputation, and (u) self-respect, even though (v) I have very little of them left and (w) it probably wouldn't work anyway. As a result, I am (x) lost, (y) clue-free, and (z) wondering if you have any idea whatsoever what I should do. ~ David Levithan

They asked if I knew what 'conscientious objector' meant. I told them that when the white man asked me to go off somewhere and fight and maybe die to preserve the way the white man treated the black man in America, then my conscience made me object. ~ Malcolm X

Do nothing unto anyone that you would not like to have done unto yourself. Seek peace, and never be the aggressor - but if anyone attacks you, we do not teach you to turn the other cheek. ~ Malcolm X

I don't understand what people are talking about in different rhymes glorifying jail. If you like going to bed early, getting yelled at, seeing a fight, seeing somebody getting their head split open, or fighting over the TV then that's the place for you. ~ Sadat X

We attend a postmodern meeting, and everyone leaves happy because everyone at the meeting was able to express himself or herself, even if no decisions were made. We give equal awards to our kids so nobody feels left out. Our news media is more concerned with the question, "How did that make you feel?" than any other. ~ Gudjon Bergmann

Here is my mother, with wings instead of hands, and feathers instead of hair. Here is my mother, the reddest of brilliant reds, the color of my love and my fear, all of my fiercest feelings trailing after her in the sky like the tail of a comet. ~ Emily X.R. Pan

But today--today I will just be. ~ Francisco X Stork

ultra-professional, a fair but firm ~ Samantha X

Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad. ~ Malcolm X

I would almost consider myself a canonical child of Generation X ... because I think there is an ethic and aesthetic that goes along with that generation, it may have something to do with the fact that "Never Mind the Bollocks" was released when we were 16-years-old and that was really the album that crystalized a generation. ~ Mark Pesce

True Islam taught me that it takes all of the religious, political, economic, psychological, and racial ingredients, or characteristics, to make the Human Family and the Human Society complete. ~ Malcolm X

Bad sign when the thought of your x-girlfriend sends you reeling in a search for new adjectives to describe stupidity and thoughtlessness? ~ Dov Davidoff

She threatened a Negro man who worked for her father that if he didn't take (have sex with) her she would swear he tried rape.
He had no choice, except that he quit working for them. And from then until she finished high school,
she managed it several times with other Negroes ~ Malcolm X

And just because you have colleges and universities doesn't mean you have education. ~ Malcolm X

I cry at anything remotely touching - smile at me warmly and I'm off ... television also does it, everything from 'X-Factor' to cereal commercials. I cry when I am tired. I also cry when I laugh. ~ Natalie Massenet

Why X?" Libby asked.
"Because X is the most mysterious letter," May told her. "And things with X's in them are pretty cool. ~ Cherie Priest

As an actor, if you're just sitting and staring and you don't know who you are in your own mind, it's vacant. And sometimes the camera is an X-ray machine, it can pick it up. ~ Albert Brooks

she uncurls danny's small fists and clasps his hand to hers and notices the way even in his sleep his fingers seem to know their way around hers; their hands together form their own organ, or an x, like on a map that insists you are here. ~ Emily Franklin

I want us to cool down for a while before we end up on horses' said Scully.
'What?' Hank asked.
'A definition of confusion.' Mulder explained, hands clasped behind his head. 'He jumped up on his horse and rode off in all directions.' He winked. 'Scully likes wise sayings like that. She hoardes fortune cookies you know. ~ Charles Grant

If a man's life could be capitalized as X, the risk at Y, and the estimated damage from explosion at V, then a logician might contend that if V is less than X over Y, the bomb should be blown up; but if V over Y is greater than X, an attempt should be made to avoid explosion in situ. ~ Michael Ondaatje

I've never really understood the desire people have to quantify a baby. "He's X big and Y long," As if the baby is a fish you're not sure you're going to keep. Or some prize potato you're hoping will win a prize at the county fair. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

It showed me how any country's moral strength, or its moral weakness, is quickly measurable by the street attire and attitude of its women - especially its young women. ~ Malcolm X

If he looked in my eyes straight on, he would know how he'd pierced me with an arrow, how its shaft was still sticking out of my chest, twitching each time my heart contracted. And maybe he'd see how my mother had sliced up everything else. ~ Emily X.R. Pan

If coincidences are coincidences, why do they feel so contrived?
Words by Fox Mulder on the X-Files ~ Kathy Goodhew

I imagine that one of the biggest troubles with colleges is there are too many distractions, too much panty-raiding, fraternities, and boola-boola and all of that. ~ Malcolm X

The X files are here to explain to you the weird and odd and strange stuff of the world. ~ Deyth Banger

In the name of a god who was always a ghost ~ Carl-John X. Veraja

I've always had a sort of intuition that for every hour you spend with other human beings you need x number of hours alone. Now, what that x represents I don't really know, whether it be two and seven-eights or seven and two-eights, but it's a substantial ratio. ~ Glenn Gould

Filled with great advice, practical support, and steamy, imaginative suggestions for how to have an exciting, challenging, satisfying sex life. ~ Karen X. Tulchinsky

When the doctors showed me an X-ray of my brain, they pointed to a black hole on the upper left side and told me that all memory from that spot was dead. I thought to myself that I hoped that's where I kept 'The Orange Blossom Special.' ~ Johnny Gimble

There is pain in the body or the heart or the soul or the mind or all of the above. Body pain is obvious. Heart pain is the pain that comes from others, when they love you too much or not enough or the wrong way. Soul pain comes from feel your life is one big waste. Mind pain is what I can't figure out. It's like when you throw body, heart, and soul pain into a blender, then you add a cup of disgust at all that you are, at all that you've become, at all that you will ever be. ~ Francisco X Stork

They know that as long as they keep us undereducated, or with an inferior education, it's impossible for us to compete with them for job openings. And as long as we can't compete with them and get a decent job, we're trapped. We are low-wage earners. We have to live in a run-down neighborhood, which means our children go to inferior schools. They get inferior education. And when they grow up, they fall right into the same cycle again. This is the American way. This is the American democracy that she tries to sell to the whole world as being that which will solve the problems of other people too. ~ Malcolm X

When the thing is finally sparked, the white man is not there - he's gone. The merchant is not there, the landlord is not there, the one they consider to be the enemy isn't there. So, they knock at his property. This is what makes them knock down the store windows and set fire to things, and things of that sort. ~ Malcolm X

Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven. There are others: innocence, but that is for little children; penance, but we are afraid of it; generous endurance of trials of life, but when they come we weep and ask to be. The surest, easiest, shortest way is the Eucharist. ~ Pope Pius X

Death by a blow or just by the fall?" asked Detective Zach, who was standing beside me at the accident site. "Do you have maybe an X-ray machine with you?" I replied angrily. "After all, I would be grateful if I could have your finding today," said Zach. ~ Scott Andrew Selby

Allah always gives you signs, when you are with Him, that He is with you. ~ Malcolm X

We have long become overgrown with calluses; we no longer hear people being killed. ("X") ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

He's got his cigarette going. He offers her one; this time she takes it. Brief match-flare insider their cupped hands. Red finger-ends.
She thinks, Any more flame and we'd see the bones. It's like X-rays. We're just a kind of haze, just coloured water. Water does what it likes. It always goes downhill. ~ Margaret Atwood

21I do not nullify the grace of God, for x if righteousness [3] were through the law, y then Christ died for no purpose. ~ Anonymous

After 'X Factor,' I got loads of gigs. Then I went on holiday just after the tour and bought my Rolex in Tenerife. I needed to go through that phase - splurge and see that it's worthless - to get it out of my system. ~ Rebecca Ferguson

Programming graphics in X is like finding the square root of PI using Roman numerals. ~ Henry Spencer

a collection that included, among other items, an Allen wrench set, some pliers, a power drill, several clamps, some hacksaws, an impact-wrench set, a brace of cold-tolerant bungie cords, assorted files and rasps and planes, a crescent-wrench set, a crimper, five hammers, some hemostats, three hydraulic jacks, a bellows, several sets of screwdrivers, drills and bits, a portable compressed gas cylinder, a box of plastic explosives and shape charges, a tape measure, a giant Swiss Army knife, tin snips, tongs, tweezers, three vises, a wire stripper, X-acto knives, a pick, a bunch of mallets, a nut driver set, hose clamps, a set of end mills, a set of jeweler's screwdrivers, a magnifying glass, all kinds of tape, a plumber's bob and ream, a sewing kit, scissors, sieves, a lathe, levels of all sizes, long-nosed pliers, vise-grip pliers, a tap-and-die set, three shovels, a compressor, a generator, a welding-and-cutting set, a wheelbarrow - and so on. And ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

Maybe I don't feel what others feel. I have no way of knowing. But I do feel. It's just that what I feel does not elicit tears. What I feel when others cry is more like a dry, empty aloneness, like I'm the only person left in the world. ~ Francisco X Stork

The "real stuff" is what he calls the music that is piped in through the speaker in the machine. The music that comes from inside my head is not considered real. ~ Francisco X Stork

I believe in human rights for everyone, and none of us is qualified to judge each other and that none of us should therefore have that authority. ~ Malcolm X

In 1991, the latest year figures are available, most Americans, across all age groups, disapproved when asked the question: 'Everything considered, would you say that you approve or disapprove of wiretapping?' Some 67% of all 18-20 year olds gave the thumbs down, as did 68% of the Gen-X crowd ... Boomers disapproved of wiretapping almost 3-to-1 while 67% of those 50 and over disapproved. ~ Brock N. Meeks

I think teaching a man to hate himself is much more criminal than teaching a man to hate someone else. ~ Malcolm X

Only a fool would let his enemy teach his children. ~ Malcolm X

I think any List of Best X creates arguments and people saying 'You listed that rubbish?' That's what lists like this are for. ~ Scott Westerfeld

To be the most successful male from 'The X Factor' is a big achievement, and I'm chuffed with that. ~ Olly Murs

A HOW-TO ON DISAPPEARING

No one understands the way we break.
Not jagged. Not knife sliding between ribs.
Not the spine, cracking.

That would be too easy.

That would be being able to know that
you're broken. That would be X-rays
showing the gaps, the fissures.
Clean breaks are easier to heal.
We do not break cleanly.

We break without breaking.
Not a crack, but a fog.
We dissipate.
Body here one moment and
not here the next.

Hands working one moment and
a dead weight the next.

We watch ourselves turn
colourless. Watch ourselves
become invisible / invincible.

This way, at least the pain is our own.
That's what I wanted all along, I guess. ~ Darshana Suresh

They came up with a civil rights bill in 1964, supposedly to solve our problem, and after the bill was signed, three civil rights workers were murdered in cold blood. And the FBI head, Hoover, admits that they know who did it, they've known ever since it happened, and they've done nothing about it. Civil rights bill down the drain. ~ Malcolm X

Memories tell a story, if you look hard enough. Because the purpose of memory, I would argue, it to remind us how to live" -Leigh ~ Emily X.R. Pan

The words I use too often are X-rated, something an old man like me shouldn't be talking about anyway. ~ George Clinton

A thousand ways every day, the white man is telling you "You can't live here, you can't enter here, you can't eat here, drink here, walk here, work here, you can't ride here, you can't play here, you can't study here." Haven't we seen enough to see that he has no plan to *unite* with you? ~ Malcolm X

What are you? Agents of the FBI's X-Files Bureau?" "I didn't know they let the furry into the Bureau these days," snorts Owen. ~ S.J. Harper

I look to the skies
and expect artificial passenger pigeons,
blackening the light,
people taking potshots for kicks
imagining one day they will be extinct. ~ Carl-John X. Veraja

All four gospel writers were no doubt enthusiastic members of their local churches. They went there every Sunday; sometimes they preached themselves; sometimes they listened to the sermon and nodded when the tradition was repeated accurately. And eventually they were prevailed on to write down their own or their sources' recollections of the facts that had generated the tradition. This is why it is silly for X to say: "Mark wasn't written until the 50s at the earliest. That's a good twenty years after Jesus died. Mark couldn't be expected to remember things clearly after all that time." Mark didn't hibernate between the death of Jesus and the time he wrote his gospel, then take out his pen, scratch his head, and say: "It was a long time ago, and I'm trying to remember this for the first time, but so far as I remember it went something like this."31 ~ Charles Foster

Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they're both just aspirin. ~ Gore Vidal

You know,' he said as they made their way down the hall, 'I appreciate the support, Scully, but I don't need defending. Not really.'
She looked up at him and sighed. 'Oh yes you do, Mulder.'
He looked back blankly.
'Trust me,' she said, patting his arm. 'On this one you'll have to trust me. ~ Charles Grant

Scientists estimate the universe unfolded from its state of infinite destiny* - a moment commonly referred to as "the big bang" - approximately 1.3-2 x 10^10 years ago.

*Typo: "destiny" should read "density. ~ Mark Z. Danielewski

I'm supposed to hire two more team members out of whatever law enforcement branch I can entice them from, but I haven't really bothered. Seeing as how every case I have is like a bad episode of The X-Files, but without the actual monsters, aliens and government conspiracies, I just don't see the need to deal with more personalities. ~ Jeremy Robinson

Anytime you find someone more successful than you are, especially when you're both engaged in the same business - you know they're doing something that you aren't. ~ Malcolm X

I did large drawings of couples having sex! Men and woman enjoying intercourse and oral sex in a Madison Avenue Gallery? That was the first time I broke a barrier that made me think, some idiot is going to blow my brains out for sure. ~ Betty Dodson

That's why, as I was leaving for work, I sent him a text that said something I had never said to a guy before.
I'm sorry x
You have no idea how fast my pulse was racing after I added the kiss. One little kiss and my hands were shaking. ~ Samantha Young

Sex x Technology = the Future. ~ J.G. Ballard

You want society to accept you; but you can't even accept yourself. ~ Michael Fassbender

The good folks mostly win, courage usually triumphs over fear, the family dog hardly ever contracts rabies: these are things I knew at twenty-five, and things I still know now, at the age of 25 x 2. But I know something else as well: there's a place in most of us where the rain is pretty much constant, the shadows are always long, and the woods are full of monsters. It is good to have a voice in which the terrors of such a place can be articulated and its geography partially described, without denying the sunshine and clarity that fill so much of our ordinary lives. (viii) ~ Stephen King

Breaking away from old psychological memes requires a Herculean effort in many cases. In essence, we are outgrowing a worldview while maintaining a relation-ship of sorts. Transcending an ideology can feel like going through a divorce and having to stay friends because of the kids. ~ Gudjon Bergmann

5And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love x to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. y Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. ~ Anonymous

[My half-sister] Ella and I always were much closer as basic types; we're dominant people, and [my other half-sister] Mary has always been mild and quiet, almost shy. ~ Malcolm X

You will know recycling has been picked up because your recycling bags will be gone and there will be a large, reddish brown smear across your front door roughly in the shape of an X. Or maybe it's a cross. It's not clear in the brochure I've been handed, which has no words, only dark black-and-white photographs of angled shadows along brick walls. I mean, municipal one-sheets are kind of useless, but this one is at least haunting. ~ Joseph Fink

It's got to be the ballot or the bullet. The ballot or the bullet. If you're afraid to use an expression like that, you should get back in the cotton patch, you should get back in the alley. ~ Malcolm X

America is subsidizing what is left of the prestige and strength of the once mighty Britain. The sun has set forever on that monocled, pith-helmeted resident colonialist, sipping tea with his delicate lady in the non-white colonies being systematically robbed of every valuable resource. Britain's superfluous royalty and nobility now exist by charging tourists to inspect the once baronial castles, and by selling memoirs, perfumes, autographs, titles, and even themselves. ~ Malcolm X

I am a Muslim and ... my religion makes me be against all forms of racism. It keeps me from judging any man by the color of his skin. It teaches me to judge him by his deeds . ~ Malcolm X

It was William Penn who said, "Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it." Brent knew that there was nothing right about this place and the way the prisoners were treated, and he was determined to do whatever he could to change that. ~ Kenneth Eade

Log log log x goes to infinity with great dignity. ~ Daniel Shanks