“What I thought was an end
turned out to be a middle.
What I thought was a brick wall
turned out to be a tunnel.
What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky.”

—  Tony Hoagland

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle. What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel. What I …" by Tony Hoagland?
Tony Hoagland photo
Tony Hoagland 3
American writer 1953–2018

Related quotes

Sylvia Day photo

“I thought we’d turned a corner. Maybe we did, but we hit a brick wall anyway.”

Sylvia Day book Bared to You

Source: Bared to You

Derek Landy photo

“Found something?”
“No, sorry. I thought I had, but, no, it turned out to be, uh… more floor.”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

Steve Martin photo

“I thought yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life but it turns out today is.”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer
Fannie Flagg photo

“… nobody was ever really ready to turn off their mother's machine, no matter what they thought; to turn off the light of their childhood and walk away, just as if they were turning out a light and leaving a room.”

Fannie Flagg book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Source: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

John Updike photo

“Freedom, that he always thought was outward motion, turns out to be this inward dwindling.”

John Updike book Rabbit Redux

Rabbit Redux (1969)

Oliver Wendell Holmes photo

“I talk half the time to find out my own thoughts, as a school-boy turns his pockets inside out to see what is in them. One brings to light all sorts of personal property he had forgotten in his inventory.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

Source: The Poet at the Breakfast Table (1872), Ch. 1, p. 1 The Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. 3 https://books.google.com/books?id=Rx9EAAAAYAAJ (1892)

Gloria Estefan photo

“It is always so, I guess, validating when you meet somebody that you esteem -- and then they turn out to be everything [you thought] and more.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

comments by singer Naomi Judd, Hallmark Channel (January 29, 2006)
2007, 2008

Cassandra Clare photo

“You know," Gabriel said, "there was a time I thought we could be friends, Will."

"There was a time I thought I was a ferret," Will said, "but that turned out to be the opium haze. Did you know it had that effect? Because I didn't.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Jocelyn Bell Burnell photo

“Sometimes you discover the picture you thought you had, that everybody thought we had, actually turns out to be wrong.”

Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943) British scientist

Beautiful Minds (2010)
Context: Science doesn't always go forwards. It's a bit like doing a Rubik's cube. You sometimes have to make more of a mess with a Rubik's cube before you can get it to go right. You build up this picture of what there is and you believe it to be true and you work with this picture and you refine it but sometimes you have to abandon the picture. Sometimes you discover the picture you thought you had, that everybody thought we had, actually turns out to be wrong.

Hannah Arendt photo

“The cultural treasures of the past, believed to be dead, are being made to speak, in the course of which it turns out that they propose things altogether different than what had been thought.”

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist

"Martin Heidegger at Eighty," in Heidegger and Modern Philosophy: Critical Essays (1978) by Michael Murray, p. 294.

Related topics