c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Is it possible that that's all maturity is? Speaking better? Is it possible that everybody in the world, is just a dumb, stupid kid acting like a grown-up because they can sound like one and look like one? It almost seems easy.
— Bob Flaherty, Puff
So what did it matter where she came from? Who-or what-her parents were? Everyone's family was messed up in some way including my own. And she was still the same Ariane.
— Stacey Kade, The Rules
Everyone's always scared for someone else's generation
— Holly Bourne, Am I Normal Yet?
There was a dazzling intellect beneath the girl's sadness, she was sure - and it bothered Mallory to no end that it might go wasted on the world if Dawn could not be coaxed out of her melancholy.
— Coco Mingolelli, Peccatum in Carne: Sins of the Flesh
I’ve lived for nothing and might soon die for less. My Life, Part One will be cancelled midway through the first season
— R.S. Gompertz, Life's Big Zoo
All of the crazy, risky, wild, dangerous, irrational things I'd been doing, like rushing through my firsts. I'd been wrong, desperate. Just waiting for the end." - Edie
— Kylie Scott, Trust
My memories from this period are often nebulous. They bend and warp like clouds caught between two fronts. A lot of terrible things happened to me that I try not to remember, but I was a child, I was innocent, and I used to be happy sometimes. ”Excerpt From: Life of a Bastard Vol. 1 By Damien Black
— Damien     Black, Life of a Bastard
It sounded bizarre and I was afraid of what awaited me. We entered a town called Dobbs Ferry in Westchester County. We drove up a long hill past some houses and past a sign that read “Welcome to Children’s Village.” ”Excerpts From: Life of a Bastard Vol. 1 By Damien Black
— Damien     Black, Life of a Bastard
Mel eventually gave up trying to talk to him and just sat there looking at him. There was not likely to be much to look at, apart from the red, puffy eyes, runny nose and the rest of the mess that was Kyle French. Certainly not the once good-looking young student that Mel had developed a crush on.
— Pamela Harju, The Truth about Tomorrow
Men cannot make good decisions about their lifelong mate when driven by the passions of youth. If Pakal is continuing to see this woman, I will immediately put this to an end." -- Sak K'uk, Queen Mother of Janaab Pakal, Ruler of Palenque.
— Leonide Martin, The Mayan Red Queen: Tz'aakb'u Ahau of Palenque
This is the fairytale of my life, the mythology of my existence, and, as I only have one story to tell, there is only one way to tell it. You may find it a little melodramatic at moments and you may not like who I was at times. But, princes frequently start out as frogs and, perhaps, by the time I reach my end, you will understand why. And so, as we all must have a beginning, a middle and an end, I will start at the beginning. Once upon a time...
— James Campion Conway, The Vagabond King: A coming of age story
The morning after my mother’s death, I was surprised to see the sunrise. From behind the curtain of my bedroom window I was surprised to see the people leave their homes and begin the day. Downstairs, the hands of the grandfather clock continued to tick, marking each passing hour with a chime that echoed over the black and white chessboard tiles of the front hall. I was surprised to see the mail come at the same time as the day before and, later that evening, the sun set once more as it did since the beginning of time. My mother’s death did not disturb the planets in their courses. And, though everything kept moving like she never existed at all, my world erupted into chaos until the universe swirled around me like a whirlpool of scattering stars.
— James Campion Conway, The Vagabond King: A coming of age story
As we walked home, I knew from far away the trees would've looked nice, the grass would've looked green, and we would've looked like just a couple of boys walking home, armed with Midwest love and Bible Belt morals.But up close, the trees were scorched, the grass was dead, and the boys were on the verge of tears with the belts of those morals tightening around their necks, threatening to hang them if they dared step off the stool of masculinity.
— Tiffany McDaniel, The Summer that Melted Everything
Or maybe they weren’t changing. Maybe they were just now becoming what they had always wanted to be.
— Eilis O'Neal, The False Princess
Fifteen and on the brink, that’s what Mum says about me. On the brink. Like it’s the continental shelf or something. On the brink of what? I want to yell. A rich and meaningful life? Disaster?
— Kathryn Lomer, What Now, Tilda B?
My darlings! You can hardly expect an aged crone like me to mar such a lovely event. No, I shall remain here and knit shadows. Now go forth and shine bravely, and think of nothing but love.
— Paul Russell, The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov
And i still don't know how to make sense of the world. but maybe it's okay that it's bigger than what we can hold on to.
— Ava Dellaira, Love Letters to the Dead
Oh yes, he's seen the black pupils of time's eyes. Two dark drains in a pair of dirty gas station bathroom sinks. The faucet's open and he's gurgling down the pipes, gushing toward whatever tank he's bound to swirl around in for the rest of his life. There's no telling from here if that's a realm of purification or of shit. There's only one way to find out, and that's to ride it all the way down.
— Patrick Bryant, Hum A Radiant Sickness
The terrible price of living, ain’t it? To live through others dying?
— J.D.  Jordan, Calamity: Being an Account of Calamity Jane and Her Gunslinging Green Man
Why are you making no more songs?' I said to him in a tone like that. 'Why are you making no more songs?' 'I have grown to be a man. Only children make songs -- children and idiots.' [William the road-mender about Merlin]
— John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold: A Life of Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer, with Occasional Reference to History
Neither of us fit in, so instead we fit together.
— Julia  Day, The Possibility of Somewhere
To live in this world, I realized, is to leave pieces of your heart in various places; and to move toward any place is to move away from another.
— Frederic S. Durbin, A Green and Ancient Light
Do you know what dead skin looks like when they take off a cast?That was my life, all that dead skin. It was strange to feel like the Ari I used to be. Except that wasn’t totally true. The Ari I used to be didn’t exist anymore. And the Ari I was becoming? He didn’t exist yet.
— Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
You go and do what you need to do, June," she says to me. "You go and find what you need. Your supper will be here, when you need it. Your supper will be warm. No matter where I am, that will be your home," she says.And I can't believe it, watching her. That look on her face. It is all the love that I didn't have growing up, making a face.
— Domingo Martinez, Boy Kings of Texas: A Memoir
Learning to think for yourself is how you separate yourself from your parents and make the transition from being a child to being an adult, though part of maturity is being able to take opposing viewpoints into consideration.
— Belle Blackburn, The Doctor's Daughter: Journey to Justice
My experience showed me an ugly side of our human nature. That if we are told it’s alright to step on someone, we will do so, in joy that we are not the one being stepped on. If we are told we can treat someone as lesser, we will do it, since it means we are more than they are.” -Norrie, Seeing Through Sampson's Eyes
— Pamela Schloesser Canepa, Seeing Through Sampson's Eyes
When are you going to get a fella?" Lily asks Rose after a year or two of dancing. "I have one who wants to take me kissing, but I think I should wait for you to have one."Rose flushes. "I don't think I'll ever have a fella.""Why not?" Lily bristles. "We're plenty pretty.""I don't like the look of them," Rose says.Lily purses her lips at the dance floor, appraising.After a moment long, Rose says, "Any of them."Lily looks at her a long time, as Rose tries not to hyperventilate.Then Lily shrugs and says, "Well, then it's you who should have learned to lead, isn't it?" and when Rose clasps Lily's hand, she clasps it back.It's the closest they've ever been.
— Genevieve Valentine, The Girls at the Kingfisher Club
I was an American girl
—  I possessed what our culture valued most-independance and blind courage.
not knowing what I needed to do or where I needed to go, I knew all the same that I was going in the right direction.
— J.D.  Jordan, Calamity: Being an Account of Calamity Jane and Her Gunslinging Green Man
Don’t matter none how bad it gets sometimes. You can always turn this shit around.
— J.D.  Jordan, Calamity: Being an Account of Calamity Jane and Her Gunslinging Green Man
Sometimes we called one another by our future doctor names. We did it partly to be funny, but mostly because we liked it when people did it back to us.
— David Z. Hirsch, Didn't Get Frazzled
It is very often the ordinary things that go unnoticed that end up making a difference. As you embark upon your high school careers, be unnoticed, but be remarkable.
— Michele Weber Hurwitz, The Summer I Saved the World . . . in 65 Days
Logan must survive. That is the only truth. The only goal. My sole mission.
— Siobhan Davis, Saven Denial
We love each other. You love me, you do.” His eyes beseech me to believe it, to remember it, to feel it.
— Siobhan Davis, Saven Denial
She had been waiting for someone to notice her, like, really notice her. She felt that that was the key, that she would go from the duck to the swan the minute someone recognized her potential. And they would look into her like they were trying to pierce her eyes with theirs, like they were trying to make her heart stop, and the whole world would become background noise and she would take her first breath after all of these years of nothing but existing. It would be like a coronation, or a star exploding, and then she would be born. She would be alive, and she would be loved.
— Rose Fall, Heart: A Romantic Short Story Collection
The gods lie. They lie because it's the best they can do. We reach out for their lies and we keep on living.
— Kaori Ozaki, The Gods Lie
All I can think about is how I wanted to share those firsts with Logan and how I never knew it was an impossibility because it had already been taken away from me.
— Siobhan Davis, Saven Denial
It's not about becoming a movie star. It's about the down-in-the-dirt art of inhabiting the person you aspire to be while carrying on your shoulders the uncertain and hungry man you know you are.
— Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
Answer me one thing,” she says in a rigidly controlled voice. “Do you love Logan?”Perhaps I should lie, but in that moment, after what I’ve just witnessed, I’m incapable of expressing anything but the truth of what’s in my heart. “With all my heart,” I sob.
— Siobhan Davis, Saven Denial
It feels like I’m trapped in quicksand. The more I struggle, the more I sink. So I stop struggling. I stop trying to free myself; because the more I struggle the scarier it becomes. Then—and only then did panic yield long enough for a numbness to spread and stick to me like a second skin.
— Jannet Casas, Perspective Change
She wasn't trying to overcome life, only to get along with it, to blend with the processes she could scarcely understand in a world that had permitted her no solid ground.
— Jim Harrison
Veins raised themselves along the backs of my hands that summer. My handwriting changed several times. I began reading Time magazine. Soon after that it was time to go.
— Lorene Cary, Black Ice
That amazing time in our lives is gone, and will never return. All the beautiful possibilities we had then have been swallowed up in the flow of time.
— Haruki Murakami
It's funny, the roles we play, the way we have to give up the old ones before we have room for the new ones. The first-first love stuff never goes away in here" she said, pointing to her head. "It makes you who you are. But in here," putting her hand on her chest, "time lets that grow and change. You'll see
— Kristen-Paige Madonia, Fingerprints of You
You were just a young girl not wanting to let on that death could happen to one who hadn't even lived yet.
— Katherine Sloan, "Because you Were Under 30" Songs of my Selfie
Flora went to the cinema every day that week. She saw the same movie each day, and wore the same dress.
— Angela Sloan, "The Lovesick Picture Show" Songs of my Selfie
I just want to always be here. In this place. Right here, right now.
— Xingyue Sarah He, "Minnows" Songs of my Selfie
What had those vile creatures unleashed in me? What beast had they awakened? I think I vowed to kill the beast and bury it so deep in the abyss it would never again rear its ugly head. Part of me did make this promise. The other part embraced an unfolding of life’s inextinguishable flames and the mind’s unspoken bondage.As far as reinforcing the strength of my mind’s resolve, I supposed my body was a useless entity. Rather, it was this fancy thing I lived in—a mausoleum that beckoned the living, promising gratification, refuge, solace, peace, even immortality. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t mine. I realized then, it had never belonged to me. I could control what happened to it only if people were merciful. Watching Valentin was not merciful. It was a torturous joy.
— Kyrian Lyndon, Deadly Veils Book One Provenance of Bondage
Ryan had read half his book, listened to all his music, eaten two packets of biscuits and an apple, played seventy-two games of Donkey Kong, completing all the levels, and counted every Italian sports car they’d passed in the last hundred miles. Twenty-four hours of groggy sticky travel, twenty-four hours stuck in this overheated tin can on wheels, and he finally knew what it was like to be utterly and unendingly bored. He propped an elbow on the car window frame and stuck his arm out of the opening. Combing his hand through the slipstream, he let the cool air tickle his fingers as he watched the countryside stream past.
— Peter Bunzl, Tales from the Blue Room: An Anthology of New Short Fiction
Well, most of us think the “Merchant of Venice” is a porno script. On a more personal note, I’ve decided on pizza for dinner.
— Jaye Frances, The Possibilities of Amy
Sometimes I get the feeling [my parents have] asked me to hold this big invisible secret for them, like a backpack full of rocks--all these things they don't want to know about themselves. I'm supposed to wear it as I hike up this trail toward my adulthood. They're already at the summit of Full Grown Mountain. They're waiting for me to get there and cheering me on, telling me I can do it, and sometimes scolding and asking why I'm not hiking any faster or why I'm not having more fun along the way. I know I'm not supposed to talk about this backpack full of their crazy, but sometimes I really wish we could all stop for a second. Maybe they could walk down the trail from the top and meet me. We could unzip that backpack, pull out all of those rocks, and leave the ones we no longer need by the side of the trail. It'd make the walk a lot easier. Maybe then my shoulders wouldn't get so tense when Dad lectures me about money or Mom starts a new diet she saw on the cover of a magazine at the grocery store.
— Aaron Hartzler, What We Saw
It really is the best feeling in the world when everything that used to make you dizzy with desire becomes so wedged in your life that it changes from something you craved to something you belong in
— Alexis Bass, Love and Other Theories
The music is happy; the laughter is happy. Everything feels ecstatic and desperate. Blurrily, I think of sex, and I think of death. I realize: Every moment of joyous celebration contains the seed of death.
— Laura Rose Wagner, Hold Tight, Don't Let Go
Hush now, ‘tis time to sleep and dream secrets of long ago.
— Jan  Reid, Deep Water Tears
But like all moments trapped in time, that moment would end and Joey Boldt, as all the greats before him did, would begin to understand that clinging too tightly to anything results in Time and Fate shaking you until you can't hold on any longer. And then, when you are knocked for a six and lose your grip, they allow you to spiral into a freefall where men are broken and legends are made.
— Melodie Ramone, Burning Down Rome
It was not about the sea or the sand, but burying her feet there had seemed to cure what had worried her...
— Alice McDermott
Mom let go of us and leaned back so she could look us both in the eye. “No more spending the night in the tree fort, you two.
— Danielle Lee Zwissler, The Boy Next Door: Best friends to lovers romance
- ...before I was going to college, my secret plan was to one day not tell anybody and just get on some bus to some random city and just move there and become this totally different person. - Then what? - ...and not come back until I had totally become this person... I used to think about it all the time... - I don't get it... - That's because you don't uterlly loathe yourself
— Daniel Clowes
It's bewildering to me how you can just start chatting with a complete stranger on Facebook, and - next thing you know - it seems as if there's some intense connection with the person - or at least you feel that closeness and hope it's mutual
— Zack Love, The Syrian Virgin
Paradoxically, the more Michael kept me at a distance, the more I trusted him - perhaps because he was always willing to help me with tips and introductions even though he wanted absolutely nothing from me (and never reciprocated my nosiness with personal questions of his own with me).
— Zack Love, The Syrian Virgin
And scars will lighten, they'll pale unless you keep rubbing at them...wait long enough, they'll fade.
— C.F. Joyce, Persephone in Hell
How stupid that all I have to dois grow two squishy lumps and suddenlyI'm man's best friend
— Christine Heppermann, Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty
Goodbye. Goodbye. I can't feel you anymore. The night is almost too beautifully pure for my soul to contain. I walk with my arms spread open under the big fat moon. Heroic weeds rise up from the cracks in the sidewalk, and the colored lights of the Hawaiian Breeze ignite the broken glass in the gutter. Goodbye, I say, goodbye, as I disappear little by little into the middle of the middle of my own spectacular now.
— Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now
A hothouse flower trained to bloom out of season and in the wrong climate. I do not belong.
— Karen Levy, My Father's Gardens
That could also be because at one point during the film, our hands found each other. And when I felt Michael's middle finger caress the inside of my palm, it sent a tickle up my spine, and the fingers of my right hand were soon exploring his left hand, and we each took turns tracing the contours of the other's hands.
— Zack Love, The Syrian Virgin
This is a test. This is only a test. If this was my actual life I'd be famous, rich, and thin.
— Becky   Adams, Rock U Baby
That's what it means to be a man. You do what you think is right, regardless of who it hurts, and whether it works out, because in the end you have to live with yourself.
— Mark Goldblatt
Bittersweet: it's what life tastes like. And if you can handle the bitter, the sweet will come later. ~ Klyde, in Piranhas Like S'mores.
— J.Z. Bingham, Piranhas Like S'mores
On evenings, I spent the entire study period reading....From that time on, the world began to broaden around me, beyond any tangible limits. The world, as portrayed in those works destined for young people, was divided in two: an ordinary, everyday world, brutal and unresponding to desires, and a spacious, logical world, about all kind, interesting and desirable. Wasn't the very act of reading a pleasure more substantial than that of playing or eating, for instance, even when one was starved?
— Joseph Zobel
As with all young ones, a deeper perception comes clearer with time... Roe'vaash recieved the grace to release the anger and pain he had carried and suffered for so long...
— K. Farrell St. Germain, Then'diel's SONG: An Elven Grove Dark Fantasy
Perhaps friendship doesn't divert sound judgment.
— J.D. Tew, The Ghost of Sephera
It’s good if you can accept your life—you’ll noticeYour face has become deranged trying to adjustTo it. Your face thought your life would lookLike your bedroom mirror when you were ten.That was a clear river touched by mountain wind.Even your parents can’t believe how much you’vechanged.
— Robert Bly, Morning Poems
I couldn't believe it.Something wasn't right.I thought, "Batman smokes cigarettes."I couldn't believe it. "Batman smokes fucking cigarettes."I walked away and saw that Batman was just this stupid guy dressed up in a rubber suit, just as afraid as I was, and that I lived in a lost place inside my own heart, where even Batman couldn't help me.
— Scott McClanahan, Hill William
The dark realization came to him that a difficult and miserable age had begun for him, and he couldn't imagine when it would end. [Puberty]
— Alberto Moravia, Agostino
That night I dreamed about flying turtles and forest fires and fucking the earth...The next morning I awoke and I listened to the tree company tearing away the woods and the timber. I heard the chainsaws ripping outside my open window and I heard the dynamite exploding all the mountain tops away for the black rock below. And instead of feeling sad like I did most mornings, I felt something else now. I found myself saying, 'Explode. Explode you mountains. Rip them down you fuckers. Take this stinking dirt and leave this land with hatred and death.
— Scott McClanahan, Hill William
Why couldn't she have given him a sultry laugh as she'd seen women do in movies instead of giggling like some enchanted, mindless school girl?
— Dawn M. Turner, Truth
Somewhere, a rattlesnake strike makes the dance begin. Three hawks float in the light blue sky overhead. Crows caw and the sweet seduction of lavender fills my head. And she waltzes through my thoughts.
— Hunter S. Jones, September Again
The worst of anything she could do to me would be to make me like her. That's why I ran away.
— Jo Walton, Among Others
It’s a neighborhood where every dad has at least one job and where parents often end conversations with the words: no guts, no glory.
— Michael Jay, Dog Water Free, A Memoir: A coming-of-age story about an improbable journey to find emotional truth
In the end, every person's life is a tough act to follow.
— James Michael Rice, A Tough ACT to Follow
It’s sad really, trying to appreciate all of the great events in our lives and all the amazingly good days. Sometimes it seems like we take them for granted, until something bad comes along to put us back into perspective. Are these bad events catalysts for change, which bring out the resiliency and best in us? A cosmic wakeup call that reminds us to enjoy the good times, because they can be taken away so easily. How messed up and ironic would that be?Is it even possible for us to remember what goodness we’re truly capable of on a daily basis, not just when things cause us to react out of necessity. A base line of beautiful acts and thoughts that are not brought out only by holiday music or someone else’s misfortune, but remain at the surface of who we really are. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Wouldn’t that be something to strive for?
— Matthew Alan, What We Leave Behind
Boys always make things more complicated.
— Katrina Abbott, Taking The Reins
The next thing Jordana says makes me realize that it's too late to save her. "I've noticed that when you light a match, the flame is the same shape as a falling tear." She's been sensitized, turned gooey in the middle. I saw it happening and I didn't do anything to stop it. From now on, she'll be writing diaries and sometimes including little poems and she'll buy gifts for her favourite teachers and she'll admire the scenery and she'll watch the news and she'll buy soup for homeless people and she'll never burn my leg hair again.
— Joe Dunthorne, Submarine
You only go through High School once, but if you go through the way we did, that's enough.
— Steven C.  Smith, Off the Rails: Excerpts from My Life
There exists an oasis where inspiration bursts forth like black gold from the fertile loam and every odd bellbird chirps a melody worth remembering. There’s no bloody map or nautical chart that can deliver you there, but you know the instant you’ve arrived because you never ever want to depart.
— Adam G. Tarsitano, Broken Birdie Chirpin
I left Hairball to his manic mantric singing. I walked toward the house and stopped to rub some white pine needles on my fingers. The evergreen smelled fresh and alive. The needles were long and soft to the touch. I looked back at Hairball. The moon had risen higher and Little Meadow was even brighter. The windpicked up Hairball’s singing and blew it away. By the time I got up to the house he had become a silvery ghost dancing in the moonlight, a nowhere man longing to live on the moon.
— Scott Lax
Fuck Kerouac
—  he would write his own story.
But sometimes the scars go too deep and the stories are too personal to share.
— John Northcutt Young, A FINE YOUNG MAN
I’ll be like Esther. Your daughter.”“You ain’t that strong.
— John Northcutt Young, IN MEMORY OF
I just want to this about that.
— Steven C.  Smith, Off the Rails: Excerpts from My Life
What in the world could this family have done to deserve a fate such as this?
— Michael Jay, Dog Water Free, A Memoir: A coming-of-age story about an improbable journey to find emotional truth
But clearly life took people and shook them around until finally they were unrecognizable even to those who had once known them well. Still, there was power in once having known someone.
— Meg Wolitzer, The Interestings
We aren’t encouraged to think for ourselves and ask questions. We are expected to accept what they teach us as infallible truths.
— Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina
You are meant to be, despite how you got here; you’ll see someday.
— Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina
It's okay to be happy.
— Megan Duke, Small Circles
The butterflies have flown away, like my ignorance and youth.
— Eileen Granfors, The Pinata-Maker's Daughter
Hip-hop, this thing we love that loves us back, is our lingua franca.
— Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina
It was a sacrifice worthy of her and dreams are made to be killed.
— David Louden, Bone Idol [bohn ahydl]
You people who have survived childhood don't remeber any longer what it was like. You think children are whole, uncomplicated creatures, and if you split them in two with a handy axe there would be all one substance inside, hard candy. But it isn't hard candy so much as a hopeless seething lava of all kinds of things, a turmoil, a mess. And once the child starts thinking about this mess he begins to disintegrate as a child and turns into something else--an adult, an animal.
— Joyce Carol Oates
If I'm going to fail, I want to fail trying.
— Tiffany Hawk, Love Me Anyway
He looked along the line of children, exhibits A to C of his existence and heirs to the twisted throne of his corrupt genetics.
— David Louden, Bone Idol [bohn ahydl]
I was a late bloomer. I was still naïve about what 16 year olds today have known for years. I remember sitting up and taking notice—of the world, my body, others—in a way never before experienced. I noticed boys, or rather they noticed me, at 16.
— Chila Woychik, On Being a Rat and Other Observations
So you’re the little smart ass from Poleglass.”I wanted to point out he sounded like Dr. Seuss but bit my lip and remembered the warning the old lady gave me.
— David Louden, Bone Idol [bohn ahydl]
Mama and I sat on a burping bus full of chickens in cages, and round-eyed babies on round mothers' laps. (The Pinata-Maker's Daughter)
— Eileen Granfors
He was a shadow of the man that once intimidated us out of our home, a shell of a human being, a fragment of a father.
— David Louden, Bone Idol [bohn ahydl]
It's in a can. It's good forever.
— Renata Suerth, New School & Other Stuff
I love you when you’re happy. I love you when you’re sad. I love you if you’re angry,And I love you if you’re bad. No matter how you feel, I love you all the time.Oh my sweet, dear baby, I love you all the time.
— Carla J. Hanna, Starlet's Run
He begins to sing to her, very softly, almost not singing at all, just a whisper of a tune. He spins out the tune like it is a tale he is telling her, until he feels her body relax, until he feels her falling into sleep. He sings to let her know he’s there, to stay anchored to the earth, to keep from laughing or crying in amazement that he is lying with Alice in his arms, he sings as if music could keep her alive, as if music could feed her soul, as if music could weave a protective spell around her to survive these days and these weeks and these months and these years, he sings as if he could give her a piece of himself, which will ring inside of her like a bell, like a promise, like hope whenever she needs him; and in his singing, he promises her every single thing he can think of, and more.
— Laura Harrington, Alice Bliss
When left unsatisfied, lust becomes violence.
— Jake Vander-Ark, The Accidental Siren
But I don't know, in the end, what deserts, chasms, achievements, virtues, and beauties have to do with love. We can love for so many different, and paradoxical, qualities in the object of our love--for strength or for weakness, for beauty or for ugliness, for gaiety or for sadness, for sweetness or for bitterness, for goodness or for wickedness, for need or for impervious independence. Then, if we wonder from what secret springs in ourselves gushes our love, our poor brain goes giddy from speculation, and we wonder what is all meaning and worth. Is it our own need that makes us lean toward and wish to succor need, or is it our strength? What way would our strength, if we had it, incline our heart? Do we give love in order to receive love, and even in the transport or endearment carry the usurer's tight-lipped and secret calculation, unacknowledged even by ourselves? Or do we give with an arrogance after all, a passion for self-definition? Or do we simply want a hand, any hand, a human object, to clutch in the dark on the blanket, and fear lies behind everything? Do we want happiness, or is it pain, pain as the index of reality, that we, in the chamber of our heart, want?Oh, if I knew the answer, perhaps then I could feel free.
— Robert Penn Warren, Band of Angels
Who is old enough to ask, is old enough to know.
— Sharon Lee, Necessity's Child
The river moves, but it follows a path. When it tires of one journey, it rubs through some rock to forge a new way. Hard work, but that's its nature.
— Kekla Magoon, The Rock and the River
I was not much used to women except for mothers. Everything I did, they did different.
— Daniel Woodrell, Woe to Live on
I was the ref. I was the ref they didn’t know about. Deaf and dumb. Invisible as a wall. I wanted no one to win
— Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
She smoothes the front of the dress, looking down at her hands, at her bitten fingernails, at her big feet in the pointy-toes shoes. This is a woman's dress, she thinks, a young woman's dress. It is not a girl's dress. It is solidly on the other side of the line outside of girlhood. It is a dress that says something big in a very quiet way; it is a dress that is talking to Alice right now, a dress that is making her feel possibilities never before considered, the possibility of perfume and pretty and dancing and boys. This dress is who she might be, only more so.
— Laura Harrington, Alice Bliss
They drove back to her house in silence. Terrance pulled the car into the driveway and turned off the engine. Turning toward her, he said, “Khadejah, I really like you a lot and I don’t want to hurt you. But I’m not a virgin and I like to have sex. If we’re going to keep seeing each other, you’ve got to make a decision, because if I can’t get it from you I’ll get it from someone else.” He looked her straight in her tear-filled eyes. “I need to know whether to get a room for after the concert. Let me know tomorrow.” He reached over and opened her door. Khadejah didn’t say a word. She got out of the car and went into the house.Terrance sat there for a few minutes wondering if he was being fair. She had to know that he was having sex. Damn, I should feel honored that she’s still a virgin, he thought. Shit, I’ll just have my cake and eat it, too.Ten minutes later, Terrance was knocking on Adrienne’s door. “Hey, can I come in?
— Tracy L. Darity, He Loves Me He Loves Me Not
Unfortunately, I am only myself. I am scared and alone and unsure, but I am practicing. I am scared and alone and unsure, but that doesn't mean I always will be.Like AJ repeating words, I can repeat being me, until I start to believe it.
— Lisa Burstein, Pretty Amy
Arrogance is in everything I do. It is in my gestures, the harshness of my voice, in the glow of my gaze, in my sinewy, tormented face.
— Coco Chanel
Arrogance is a creature. It does not have senses.It has only a sharp tongue and the pointing finger.
— Toba Beta
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the 
— Edmund Burke, On Empire, Liberty, and Reform: Speeches and Letters
Problem with an old friend who is too busy: he always perceives you as if never changed.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates.
— William Hazlitt, Selected Essays, 1778-1830
I'm not a snob. Ask anybody. Well, anybody who matters.
— Simon Le Bon
You'll need to do a better job, Annabelle. No more dates like the first one tonight.""Agreed. And no more making me sit through your Power Matches introductions, either. As you so wisely pointed out, helping Portia Powers isn't in my best interests.""Then why are you still trying to talk me into seeing Melanie again?""Hunger makes me weird.""You got rid of the last one in fourteen minutes. Well done. I'm rewarding you by letting you sit in on all the introductions from now on."She nearly choked on an ice cube. "What are you talking about?""Exactly what I said.
— Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Match Me If You Can
A little arrogance (or even a lot) isn't such a bad thing, although your mother undoubtedly told you different. Mine did. "Pride goeth before a fall, Stephen", she said... and then I found out - right around the age that is 19 x 2 - that eventually you fall down, anyway.
— Stephen King
Arrogant people beat each other.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
Modesty is only arrogance by stealth.
— Terry Pratchett, The Long Earth
If you feel deserve to judge the arrogant,it's a sign that you're so far of humbleness.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
I can be an arrogant people If I have to, or when the situation demands me to act so.It is one way for me to make arrogance useful.So if I know not people well, I don't judge them.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
Just because you're sober, don't think you're a good driver, Cookie.
— John Irving, Last Night in Twisted River
Arrogance is blind to the stumbling block.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
I could smell an arrogance, it was my cheap fragrance.
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
Don't you dare call me arrogant!If ever I had any at all-which I deny!- how much could I possibly have left after having been ridden over rough-shod by you and Thomas, do you imagine?
— Georgette Heyer, Sylvester
How can one absolve intelligent men for engaging in arrogant and demented folly?
— C.R. Strahan
Oh, Gods."His eyes shone with want and predatory satisfaction. "The name's William. It's a common mistake.
— Ilona Andrews, Bayou Moon
The Duke has decreed that the Castle is not cold." The gentleman's lips are almost blue from this lack of cold. "And the Duke is right and correct in this as in all things."...some very beautiful tapestries line the walls, but many of them are also full of holes. Perhaps the Duke has decreed that there are no moths, either.
— Christopher Peter Grey, Leonardo's Shadow: Or, My Astonishing Life as Leonardo Da Vinci's Servant
a grin that wasn't natural, and that combined in a strange way affection and arrogance, the arrogance of the idealist who doesn't realize how easily he can be fooled.
— Frank O'Connor, Collected Stories
Snooty knew measly talked muchly.
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
When I saw snooty guy, I missed my childhood.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
You are arrogant," says the cat, "and you are in love. Either one of these things alone might be overcome, but together, they make for a stubborn combination.
— Elora Bishop, Braided: A Lesbian Rapunzel
There is a wicked and pervading arrogance loose on the earth, like a rabid beast, an overdog. Does it run, does it slouch, does its name have a number? The beast preaches contempt, for that's what arrogance says: that nothing is real but itself, and the bone and blood of another's being are insubstantial as breath.
— Kelly Cherry, The Exiled Heart: A Meditative Autobiography
I wonder why the normies get so touchy-feely.
— Wataru Watari, やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている 2
I love it when you stare at me but my arrogance is entirely your fault.
— Brent M. Jones
Insecurity takes on various disguises. Cockiness and arrogance are among the most common.
— Luigina Sgarro
The attitude that psychologists call inflation and the traditional lore of Cabalistic magic, borrowing a term from religion, calls spiritual pride is one of the most serious dangers of this work.Those who enter the path of magic with too great an appetite for flattery or too strong a need for ego reinforcement will very likely find these things, but they are also rather too likely to find fanaticism, megalomania and mental breakdown along the same route. The thing has happened far too often in the history of magic in the West.
— John Michael Greer, Paths of Wisdom: Cabala in the Golden Dawn Tradition
O Indra, destroy all those lustful peoplebehaving like birds....angry onesbehaving like wolves....greedy onesbehaving like vultures....enticed ones behaving like owls..... arrogant ones behaivng like eagles and the jealous ones behaving like dogs.
— Veda
Arrogance is believing only you're Right, Ignorance is believing only you're Wrong. Be Neither!
— Ramana Pemmaraju
If the worst thing a physicist could say about a statement is that it was “false,” the best thing he could say is that it was “interesting.
— Dexter Palmer, Version Control
She's not tsundere. She's just an unpleasant woman.
— Wataru Watari, やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている 1
A lingering grain of inefficacy capitulates to the arrogance of authority.
— Margo Kelly, Unlocked
I never make up anything. I get everything from my books. They're all true!" --Ann Newton/Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
— rebecca hitchcock
At his request--a Custer request was a command impossible to refuse--I produced a series of prints for the Centennial Expedition at Philadelphia: the general with Bloody Knife, his favorite Indian scout; with the Custers' pack of eighty dogs; with his junior officers, planning the destruction of the Lakota Sioux; with Libbie in the parlor of their quarters at the fort; and the general striking a pose that would become as recognizable as Napoléon's; arms folded across his chest, looking forward and slightly upward at his magnificent destiny.
— Norman Lock, American Meteor
One writer may speak of something more lasting than Horace Greeley when he writes of that editor that his secular philanthropy drifted into autocratic ambition.
— Harold Holzer, Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion
One who has passed the thirtieth yearalready is as good as dead--it would be best to kill you off by then.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To those who think them selves strong, force always seems the easiest solution.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Dominance can be a tempration to division. "There are so many of us, we can afford to fight amongst ourselves.
— Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln
The most crucial truths are always rejected before they're accepted. " he says gazing out of space."It's one of our greatest human flaws: arrogance. We look up and dare to assume we know, when the universe is unknowable.
— Romina Russell, Zodiac
He seemed like the type that kept people at arm's length, maybe out of arrogance or maybe from personal choice- either way, I wanted to know him so that those eyes were narrowed and focused solely on me.
— R.S. Grey, Scoring Wilder
If I lost all, at least I would have played for it. It had always been my philosophy that one must play, or be a loser two-fold.
— Anna Freeman, The Fair Fight
A crushing defeat is the most humbling inoculation for arrogance.
— Lennox D. Lampkin
Arrogance is the last thing to die
— Bangambiki Habyarimana
For without a measure of arrogance, how can one attempt the impossible?
— Renee Ahdieh, The Wrath and the Dawn
The only sin is pride.
— Robert F. Kennedy
Ineptitude and arrogance never mix or match
— Vanessa Chilumo
There's one thing worse than a failed old religion: a naïve and arrogant new one.
— Brian D. McLaren, Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World
Intelligence people are no different from anybody else. They have preconceptions, and when they see them in real life, it reinforces how brilliant they think they are.
— Tom Clancy, Debt of Honor
When you feel over confident, check if it is your arrogance speaking to you?
— Vishwas Chavan
I was assigned to the office of a recently deceased faculty member; the office hadn't been cleaned out yet, and a few days before the fall term began, I unlocked the door to find a dirty room whose bookshelves were crammed with empty bourbon bottles and crucifixes, mute testimony to the limits of literature as a sustaining comfort in life.
— Maureen Corrigan, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books
I think if a woman describes herself as a brilliant cook, she’s a bit full of herself.
— Graeme Simsion
Arrogance combined with stubbornness is a ticking bomb.
— Unarine Ramaru
I was accused of always acting superior. Always means being, not acting.
— Brian Spellman, Cartoonist's Book Camp
You already beat yourself up for enough things that aren't your fault. People who care don't want to add to that." He paused, and then added gently, "But you assumed it was about you." I finished the beer and sighed. "Arrogance," I said."I feel stupid." "Good," Michael said. "It's good for everyone to feel that way sometimes. It helps remind you how much you still have to learn.
— Jim Butcher, Skin Game
In contrast to your usual minions, I imagine, I’m a bit more awed by your conceit and arrogance than I am by your supposed magnificence.
— Caitlin Crews, The Replacement Wife
But how can anyone put a bridle on man's vanity and arrogance? But how can Purity walk the earth without covering her feet with mud?
— Nikos Kazantzakis, Saint Francis
To be full of yourself is to make a fool of yourself.
— Ashly Lorenzana
Don't mind her. She keeps her nose so high in the air, she's liable to drown in a good rainstorm.
— Sandra Dallas, Prayers for Sale
Better not perceive yourselves too high, O humans.We only value mankind as our experimentation object.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
There are many instances in history of people who allow their skepticism to cut the nerve of moral effort, and there are numerous people, on the other hand, who are fierce crusaders at the price of fanaticism. In his political commitments the fanatic makes claims for his particular case which cannot be validated by either a transcendent Providence or a neutral posterity.
— Elton Trueblood, Abraham Lincoln: Lessons in Spiritual Leadership
There are none so superstitious as the educated, for often they see in their own time - as an article of faith unsubstantiated by experience - the final end of human progress.
— Charles A. Coulombe, Vicars of Christ: A History of the Popes
The kind of love bounded by the sympathy will break down by arrogance.
— M.F. Moonzajer, LOVE, HATRED AND MADNESS
I' a word that's let you Die
— Samar Sudha
The contest of world's tallest skyscraper is a childish thing. Whereas with similar budget, they could construct flying building.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
The maker of the stars would rather die for you than live without you. And that is a fact. So if you need to brag, brag about that.
— Max Lucado, Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended to Bear
There's nothing more narcissistic than being sure that you are built in the image of an all-powerful Creator-God, and that same God answers your prayers, knows your name, and has a personal relationship with you.
— David G. McAfee
There are two sides to every question: my side and the wrong side.
— Oscar Levant
Science is a form of arrogance control.
— Carol Tavris, Elliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
Most humans turn away from God simply for the privilege of deluding themselves into thinking they are the masters of their own destiny.
— Dennis Garvin, Case Files of an Angel
One guy yelled at me, 'You stupid bitch, how do you live like that with nothing in your brain?' Well, that did it. I wasn't going to put up with that. Ok, I'm not so smart. I'm working class. But it's the working class that keeps the world running, and it's the working classes that get exploited. What kind of revolution is it that just throws out big words that working-class people can't understand? What kind of crap social revolution is that? I mean, I'd like to make the world a better place, too. If somebody's really being exploited, we've got to put a stop to it. That's what I believe, and that's why I ask questions. Am I right, or what?
— Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
There are times that insistence of demands becomes the stumbling obstacle, that instead of paving way to something smooth for the realisation of some matters which end up in a ditch of rejection.
— Angelica Hopes
Arthur Schlesinger admits that JFK "succumbed to the fake omniscience of insiders". Prolonged immersion in the self-contained, self-justifying world of clandestinity and deception erodes the reality principle.
— Garry Wills, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State
The scientists have given [modern man] the impression that there is nothing he cannot know, and false propagandists have told him that there is nothing he cannot have.
— Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences
Reading leads to knowing more. Knowing more leads to arrogance. Reading further leads to humbleness.
— Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Being uneducated is no guarantee against being obnoxious.
— Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book
Younger colleagues tended to draw untested self-confidence from their bonuses and prestigious degrees.
— Ron Suskind, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President
Those who claim the right to that arrogance without accomplishments to back it up deserve to be exposed.
— Jeff Ashton, Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony
Saying that someone is full of themselves is silly. Who else can one be full of … except self?
— Mokokoma Mokhonoana
You're so arrogant, you're almost macho.
— Peggy Webb, Hallie's Destiny
All the roads of the haughty man lead to arrogance!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
Knowing God without knowing our wretchedness leads to pride. Knowing our wretchedness without knowing God leads to despair. Knowing Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness.
— Blaise Pascal, Pensées
All my life I have placed great store in civility and good manners, practices I find scarce among the often hard-edged, badly socialized scientists with whom I associate. Tone of voice means a great deal to me in the course of debate. I despise the arrogance and doting self-regard so frequently found among the very bright.
— Edward O. Wilson, Naturalist
Put that in your self-righteous pipe and smoke it!!!.
— R. Alan Woods, The Journey Is the Destination: A Book of Quotes With Commentaries
With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of everybody's feelings
—  with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange everybody's destiny. She was proved to have been universally mistaken