“Speaking of which, about assuming you had a condom—I just meant that you, with your experience, would be prepared for responsible sex, even if it were on the fly. An intelligent man is prepared for spontaneity.”
― Roberta Pearce, quote from A Bird Without Wings
“. . . I suppose one starts out, as a child, being romantic and dreaming of adventure. Poetic. Then reality comes along, and with it, a whole lot of prose.”
― Roberta Pearce, quote from A Bird Without Wings
“Didn’t being out in the storm scare you?”
“Try a couple of high-summer prairie storms in a trailer,” she mused. “That either makes you terrified of them or indifferent to them.”
― Roberta Pearce, quote from A Bird Without Wings
“My fantasy was that I was the long-lost switched-at-birth child of wealthy eccentrics. One day, they would find me and take me away from the gypsy caravan that was my life, and give me hot meals, a decent dress, and a pony.”
― Roberta Pearce, quote from A Bird Without Wings
“Yes, he scorned his family’s decadent ways, but perhaps that wasn’t so much about the money per se, but rather the wastefulness of it; the lack of energy and drive it represented, as if the Ransomes were—like that postmodern throng of the famous-for-being-famous set—some odd collection of spoiled Emperor-brats walking a red carpet without any discernible talent to clothe them. The things the Ransomes—and their once-large fortune—could have accomplished . . . they could have changed the world, or at least impacted it in positive ways.”
― Roberta Pearce, quote from A Bird Without Wings
“The frizzy and dowdy was because I had let little things in my life slide. The stuttering was because I was nervous around you.”
“Why aren't you now?”
“I don't have a crush on you anymore,” she retorted.
Silence.”
― Roberta Pearce, quote from A Bird Without Wings
“She deserved some real breaks in her life. And he intended on giving her every one he could.
Even if she stole his lunch again.
With a grin, he sat down to work.”
― Roberta Pearce, quote from A Bird Without Wings
“Some centuries ago they had Raphael and Michael Angelo; now we have Mr. Paul Delaroche, and all because we are progressing.
You brag of your Opera houses; ten Opera houses the size of yours could dance a saraband in a Roman amphitheatre. Even Mr. Martin, with his lame tiger and his poor gouty lion, as drowsy as a subscriber to the Gazette, cuts a pretty small figure by the side of a gladiator from antiquity. What are your benefit performances, lasting till two in the morning, compared with those games which lasted a hundred days, with those performances in which real ships fought real battles on a real sea; when thousands of men earnestly carved each other -- turn pale, O heroic Franconi! -- when, the sea having withdrawn, the desert appeared, with its raging tigers and lions, fearful supernumeraries that played but once; when the leading part was played by some robust Dacian or Pannonian athlete, whom it would often have been might difficult to recall at the close of the performance, whose leading lady was some splendid and hungry lioness of Numidia starved for three days? Do you not consider the clown elephant superior to Mlle. Georges? Do you believe Taglioni dances better than did Arbuscula, and Perrot better than Bathyllus? Admirable as is Bocage, I am convinced Roscius could have given him points. Galeria Coppiola played young girls' parts, when over one hundred years old; it is true that the oldest of our leading ladies is scarcely more than sixty, and that Mlle. Mars has not even progressed in that direction. The ancients had three or four thousand gods in whom they believed, and we have but one, in whom we scarcely believe. That is a strange sort of progress. Is not Jupiter worth a good deal more than Don Juan, and is he not a much greater seducer? By my faith, I know not what we have invented, or even wherein we have improved.”
― Théophile Gautier, quote from Mademoiselle de Maupin
“So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--
Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . ."
Yes, that is so," said the fox.
But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.
Yes, that is so," said the fox.
Then it has done you no good at all!"
It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, quote from Der kleine Prinz
“Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself. Bad design, on the other hand, screams out its inadequacies, making itself very noticeable.”
― Donald A. Norman, quote from Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition (Revised)
“Looking back on it, could there possible have been a more confusing acronym for trying to keep kids from experimenting with drugs than DARE?
"Kids, we’re here today to DARE you not to do drugs! We DARE you to accept our DARE!"
"Office, does that mean you want us not to do drugs, or to do drugs?"
“We DARE you not to do drugs!”
"But I thought we weren’t supposed to do things We’re dared to do. If you dared me to jump out of a tree, I should do that, right?"
"It’s just an acronym, son."
"What is an acronym?”
― quote from Sleepwalk With Me and Other Painfully True Stories
“Farid had brought an invisible guest with him.
Fear.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from Sangre de tinta
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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