Quotes about bit

A collection of quotes on the topic of bit, likeness, doing, thinking.

Quotes about bit

“People are just as wonderful as sunsets if I can let them be… When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying, "Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner"… I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.”

Carl R. Rogers (1902–1987) American psychologist

Source: "Freedom to learn" (1969), p.236.
Source: A Way of Being

People

“When you feel the last bit of breath leaving their body, you're looking into their eyes. A person in that situation is God!”

Ted Bundy book The Stranger Beside Me

Quoted by Bill Hagmaier. Rule, Ann (2009). The Stranger Beside Me (Paperback; updated 2009 ed.). New York: Pocket Books pages 380–96.

God, Feeling, Personality

“I pity people who can't find laughter or at least some bit of amusement in the little doings of the day. I believe I could find something ridiculous even in the saddest moment, if necessary. It has nothing to do with being superficial. It's a matter of joy in life.”

Sophie Scholl (1921–1943) White Rose member

As quoted in Christian Jazz Artists Newsletter (February/March 2005) http://www.songsofdavid.com/CJAFebMarch2005.htm; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote. Disputed

Life, People, Laughter, Joy

“I use bits and pieces of others [sic] personalities to form my own.”

Kurt Cobain book Journals

Source: Journals (2002), p. 95

Personality

“Have you ever been hurt and the place tries to heal a bit, and you just pull the scar off of it over and over again.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Hurtful, Hurt

“You don't find love, it finds you. It's got a little bit to do with destiny, fate, and what's written in the stars.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Love, Fate, Star

“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Inspirational, Deep, Life, Life

“No one can pass through life, any more than he can pass through a bit of country, without leaving tracks behind, and those tracks may often be helpful to those coming after him in finding their way.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Life, Way, Help, Country

“I think it's quite an extreme statement - it might be my ultimate attempt to put the corset to bed. But I think I've still got a bit of a sado-masochistic streak in me, because if I'm not going to be restricted by corsets and covered in lace, then I still wind up wearing an ape-mask over my face. I do wonder how I get myself in these situations!”

Helena Bonham Carter (1966) British actress

Interview on Cinema.com, 2001 http://www.cinema.com/articles/547/planet-of-the-apes-interview-with-helena-bonham-carter.phtml

Thinking

“I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Other sources Source: Banksy In His Own Words- Interview At The Sun https://web.archive.org/web/20181102203920/http://graffart.eu/blog/2010/09/banksy-in-his-own-words-interview-at-the-sun/, Graffart.eu, Retrieved 2 November 2018

Time

“I'll have to calm down a bit. Or else I'll burst with happiness”

Tove Jansson book Moominsummer Madness

Source: Moominsummer Madness

Happiness

“We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark.”

Whoopi Goldberg (1955) American actress

People

“To Stay Focused in Life:

You can't know everyone
You can't do everything
You can't go everywhere

We have to pick and choose between good and a little bit better.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Life

“The Librarian was not familiar with love, which had always struck him as a bit ethereal and soppy, but kindness, on the other hand, was practical. You knew where you were with kindness, especially if you were holding a pie it had just given you.”

Terry Pratchett book Unseen Academicals

Source: Unseen Academicals

Love

“Well, in some ways we’re not successful at all. We’re destroying our home. That’s not a bit successful. Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans have been living for hundreds of thousands of years in their forest, living fantastic lives, never overpopulating, never destroying the forest. I would say that they have been in a way more successful than us as far as being in harmony with the environment.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

In response to: "If chimps are so much like us, why are they endangered while humans dominate the globe?" Discover Magazine interview with Virginia Morell (28 March 2007)

Way, Home, Success

“I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today … & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections, flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago—when young Conover, having established contact with Henneberger, the ex-owner of WT, obtained from the latter a long epistle which I wrote Edwin Baird on Feby. 3, 1924, in response to a request for biographical & personal data. Little Willis asked permission to publish the text in his combined SFC-Fantasy, & I began looking the thing over to see what it was like—for I had not the least recollection of ever having penned it. Well …. I managed to get through, after about 10 closely typed pages of egotistical reminiscences & showing-off & expressions of opinion about mankind & the universe. I did not faint—but I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades—was I that much of a dub at 33 … only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centred, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get around more in 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. Well—there was nothing to be done … except to rush a note back to Conover & tell him I'd dismember him & run the fragments through a sausage-grinder if he ever thought of printing such a thing! The only consolation lay in the reflection that I had matured a bit since '24. It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Catherine L. Moore (7 February 1937), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 407-408
Non-Fiction, Letters

God, Age, World, Education

“If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.”

Herodotus book Histories

Book 2, Ch. 173.
The Histories

Madness

“I'll probably cool down a little bit and just focus on what I need to do especially because we're coming to the end. I want to just do the best I can and end it off good.”

Sunisa Lee (2003) American artistic gymnast; first Hmong American Olympic gold medalist

Source: "Sunisa Lee Says She's 'Going to Delete Twitter' So She Can Focus on Preparing for Beam Final" in People (1 August 2021) https://people.com/sports/tokyo-olympics-sunisa-lee-going-to-delete-twitter-focus-preparing-beam-final/

“If people can just love each other a little bit, they can be so happy.”

Emile Zola book Germinal

Source: Germinal

Love, People, Happiness

“We'll stop it, even if my body crumbles to bits I'll stop it with my soul!”

Hiro Mashima (1977) Japanese manga artist

Soul

“If you can eat with mates or friends or family, I mean, it's such a brilliant thing isn't it? If you feel really rubbish and you have a nice bit of food it makes you feel good, you know?”

Jamie Oliver (1975) British chef and media personality

Family, Food, Feeling

“Something stopped me in school a little bit. Anything that I'm not interested in, I can't even feign interest.”

Quentin Tarantino (1963) American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor

School

“If you have no money, men won't care for you, women won't love you; won't, that is, care for you or love you the last little bit that matters.”

George Orwell Why I Write

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 1
Source: Why I Write
Context: Money, once again; all is money. All human relationships must be purchased with money. If you have no money, men won't care for you, women won't love you; won't, that is, care for you or love you the last little bit that matters. And how right they are, after all! For, moneyless, you are unlovable. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. But then, if I haven't money, I DON'T speak with the tongues of men and of angels.

Love, Women, Men, Money

“Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

Life, Dogs, Birthday, Wedding

“Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it.”

Jacques Prevért (1900–1977) French poet, screenwriter

Forgetting, Happiness

“Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits.”

Katherine Paterson book Bridge to Terabithia

Source: Bridge to Terabithia

Life

“A little bit goes a long way — it's true. And I sure am glad I went such a long, long way to find that out for myself.”

AnnaSophia Robb (1993) American actress, singer, and model

How I Spent My Summer Vacation (2008)

Way

“I care not what religion, club, area or class you come from, nor what bit of colored cloth you wave as a flag. WE are ALL under deadly attack by colored hordes which outnumber us more than seven to one, led by a filthy Jewish, Communist conspiracy!”

George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967) American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party

White Self-Hate: Master-Stroke Of The Enemy
1962, White Self-Hate: Master-Stroke Of The Enemy

Religion, Color, Clothes

“True he was a vocal miracle
But that's only secondary
It's the soul of the monarch butterfly
That I find a little bit scary”

Joan Baez (1941) American singer

Caruso
Gulf Winds (1976)

Soul

“Billie and I got chased through the traffic once in a car. You expect paparazzi to do that, but when it's normal people you start to think the world's gone a bit mad.”

David Tennant (1971) Scottish actor

Radio Times interview (April 2007) http://www.radiotimes.com/content/show-features/doctor-who/david-tennant-interview-2007/

People, World, Cars, Thinking

“(Whilst demonstrating how to ladder a chimney) "As you get a bit higher up, the holes have a tendency to get a bit deeper; I think it's called fear"”

Fred Dibnah (1938–2004) English steeplejack and television personality, with a keen interest in mechanical engineering

Unsourced

Fear, Thinking

“It was pretty disheartening to be objectified like that. I wanted to stop acting for a little bit. But it changed my life in a lot of ways, but at the same time, I can't say that it didn't give me opportunities. It made me, for the first time, in control of my career.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

On Titanic (1997) http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm

Life, Way, Change, Time

“I was obsessed with fairytales, and I was a very, very inquisitive kid, and I would ask my mom all kinds of questions. It all kind of formed a story in my head, and I really wanted to be a published author when I was 10, but I had a hard time writing a novel when I was 10, so I decided to wait until I was little bit older and then get it done.”

Chris Colfer (1990) actor, singer, book author

-Chris Colfer on how he came up with the idea of TLOS
Interview Quotes, Random Quotes

Moms, Idea, Question, Fairytale

“On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, 'Okay, this is the limit.' As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.”

Ayrton Senna (1960–1994) Brazilian racing driver

Interview for Racing is in My Blood, 1991 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzjx9z_vUg

Thinking, Flying

“Everything makes sense a bit at a time. But when you try to think of it all at once, it comes out wrong.”

Terry Pratchett book Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind (1992)

Thinking, Sense, Time

“While the others had got married and moved out to suburbia, I had stayed in London and got into the arts scene through friends like Robert Fraser and Barry Miles and papers like The International Times. We opened the Indica gallery with John Dunbar, Peter Asher and people like that. I heard about people like John Cage, and that he’d just performed a piece of music called 4’33” (which is completely silent) during which if someone in the audience coughed he would say, ‘See?’ Or someone would boo and he’d say, ‘See? It’s not silence—it’s music.’ I was intrigued by all of that. So these things started to be part of my life. I was listening to Stockhausen; one piece was all little plink-plonks and interesting ideas. Perhaps our audience wouldn’t mind a bit of change, we thought, and anyway, tough if they do! We only ever followed our own noses—most of the time, anyway. ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was one example of developing an idea.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 212

Life, People, Art, Music

“There is a bit of Hans Christian Andersen in every Dane.”

Victor Borge (1909–2000) Danish and US-American comedian and musician

From the obit in The Independent.
Off-stage quotations

“I'm strictly for [Adlai] Stevenson. I don't dig the intellectual bit, but I'm telling you man, he knows the most.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Elvis Presley Was Always Too Busy to Vote for President http://elvis-history-blog.com/elvis-voting.html

“There are three things that I know a bit about in my life and that's QPR, my guitar and drugs. I know QPR are the best football team in the world, my guitar is the most beautiful thing I own and that I don't take enough drugs to kill me. It isnt drugs that I need to get rid of; it's the demons that fill my head. Once I have come to terms with my demons, maybe I'll be able to get clean.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

Definitions and objects

Life, World, Beauty, Football

“I don’t know what it is, truthfully, I think part of it is being still and all that. I don’t know. I like to kind of come in at the side door. I like to act like a submarine; just don’t do much and just let it evolve. It’s resisting the urge to push the envelope. It’s very difficult for an actor to avoid, you want to show a bit. But I think the less one shows the better”

Anthony Hopkins (1937) Welsh stage and television actor

Anthony Hopkins on the secret of his spooky success: ‘I like to act like a submarine’ https://herocomplex.latimes.com/uncategorized/anthony-hopkins-on-the-secret-of-his-spooky-success-i-like-to-act-like-a-submarine/ (February 11, 2010)

Thinking, Parting

“My idea in "My Sweet Lord," because it sounded like a "pop song," was to sneak up on them a bit.”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

Interview with Mukunda Goswami (4 September 1982)
Context: My idea in "My Sweet Lord," because it sounded like a "pop song," was to sneak up on them a bit. The point was to have the people not offended by "Hallelujah," and by the time it gets to "Hare Krishna," they're already hooked, and their foot's tapping, and they're already singing along "Hallelujah," to kind of lull them into a sense of false security. And then suddenly it turns into "Hare Krishna," and they will all be singing that before they know what's happened, and they will think, "Hey, I thought I wasn't supposed to like Hare Krishna!"

Idea

“What is a throne? — a bit of wood gilded and covered in velvet. I am the state”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

I alone am here the representative of the people. Even if I had done wrong you should not have reproached me in public — people wash their dirty linen at home. France has more need of me than I of France.
Statement to the Senate (1814) He echoes here the remark attributed to Louis XIV L'état c'est moi ( "The State is I" or more commonly: "I am the State.")
Variant translation: A throne is only a bench covered with velvet...

“I tried out that Buckethead guy. I met with him and asked him to work with me but only if he got rid of the fucking bucket. So I came back a bit later and he's wearing this green fucking Martian's-hat thing. I said, 'Look, just be yourself!' He told me his name was Brian, so I said that's what I'd call him. He says, 'No one calls me Brian except my mother.' So I said, 'Pretend I'm your mum then!' I haven't even got out of the room and I'm already playing fucking mind games with the guy. What happens if one day he's gone and there's a note saying, 'I've been beamed up?”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

[Laughs] Don't get me wrong, he's a great player. He plays like a motherfucker! Revolver interview; as quoted in "Ozzy Osbourne "Says Ex-GUNS N' ROSES Guitarist Buckethead Auditioned For His Solo Band" http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/ozzy-osbourne-says-ex-guns-n-roses-guitarist-buckethead-auditioned-for-his-solo-band/, Blabbermouth.net, January 5, 2005

Game, Guy

“I score so many goals, this means a lot. I know I will always be a little bit behind and I have to maybe work harder than those players for my country if we want to achieve something. It’s not an easy job for me, but I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. It’s a big chance.”

Robert Lewandowski (1988) Polish association football player

Chance, Country

“I have lost a bit of my sight, much of my hearing. At conferences, I can't see the presentations and can't hear well. But I think more now than when I when I was twenty. The body can do whatever it likes. I am not the body: I am the mind.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012) Italian neurologist

Source: In an interview with Paolo Giordano, 100 anni di futuro, Wired, n. 1, marzo 2009. Source: Cited by Elisabetta Intini, Addio alla signora della scienza, le sue frasi più belle http://www.focus.it/scienza/addio-alla-signora-della-scienza-le-sue-frasi-piu-belle, Focus.it, 31 dicembre 2012. Source: Cited in Addio Rita Levi Montalcini, le frasi più belle di un genio gentile http://www.vanityfair.it/news/italia/12/12/30/rita-levi-montalcini-morta-frasi, VanityFair.it, 30 dicembre 2012.

Thinking

“He who speaks a bit of a foreign language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well; pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Source: Human, All Too Human

Pleasure, Knowledge

“It’s never simple.” Avery slid an arm around Hope’s waist. “It shouldn’t be. Because being with someone should matter enough to be at least a little bit complicated.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: The Perfect Hope

Hope

“I told her that saying goodbye didn't matter, not a bit. What mattered were all the days you were together before that, all the things you remembered.”

Patricia Reilly Giff book Lily's Crossing

Source: Lily's Crossing

“You haven't been bit till a dragon does it.”

Tamora Pierce book Emperor Mage

Source: Emperor Mage

“Fear is how you lose your life… a little bit at a time… What we give to fear, we take away from… faith.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The First Phone Call from Heaven

Life, Fear, Faith, Time

“Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.”

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

Education, Disease

“We all have to die a bit every now and then and usually it's so gradual that we end up more alive than ever. Infinitely old and infinitely alive.”

Roberto Bolaño book The Skating Rink

Source: The Skating Rink

“I've always thought that anyone who needs to join a herd so badly must be a bit of a sheep himself.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Prisoner of Heaven

Source: The Prisoner of Heaven

“Witches were a bit like cats. They didn’t much like one another’s company, but they did like to know where all the other witches were, just in case they needed them.”

Terry Pratchett book A Hat Full of Sky

Source: A Hat Full of Sky

Cats

“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Source: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Way, Boy, Hell, Fish

“Most truth's are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit.”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

People, Truth, Feeling

“Everything exists, everything is true and the earth is just a bit of dust beneath our feet.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

“Sometimes a wild horse needs to feel that his rider is just a little bit wilder.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Source: Ruby

Feeling, Horse

“It is late now, I am a bit tired; the sky is irritated by stars. And I love you, I love you, I love you – and perhaps this is how the whole enormous world, shining all over, can be created – out of five vowels and three consonants.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

Source: Letters to Vera

Love, World, Star

“One morning you wake up and are afraid you are going to live. In my case, I was not frightened in the least bit at the thought that I might live because I was certain, quite certain, that I was already dead.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

Depressing, Dead

“To those who have given up on love: I say, "Trust life a little bit.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Love, Life

“To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Widely attributed to Emerson on the internet, this actually originates with "What is Success?” http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/emerson/Ephemera/Success.html by Bessie Anderson Stanley in Heart Throbs Volume Two (1911) edited by Joseph Mitchell Chapple. Misattributed

Life, Children, People, World

“Some things are so frightful that a bit of madness is the only sane response. You know that, don’t you?”

Sarah Waters book The Paying Guests

Source: The Paying Guests

Madness

“So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days.”

Colette book The Vagabond

Source: The Vagabond

Despair

“Shattered people are best represented by bits and pieces.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

People

“He raised his hand in a peaceful gesture. "You need to relax a bit, dove. Like Mouse over there. You trust me, don't you, Mouse?"
"Nope!"
"Ahhh, I'm hurt. Nobody likes me.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Peace, Hurt

“You're simple, straightforward and honest, a little bit on the primitive side, I should think. To interest you a woman would have to…
-To lay her cards out on the table.”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Thinking

“We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“My 'morals' were sound, even a bit puritanic, but when a hidebound old deacon inveighed against dancing I rebelled. By the time of graduation I was still a 'believer' in orthodox religion, but had strong questions which were encouraged at Harvard. In Germany I became a freethinker and when I came to teach at an orthodox Methodist Negro school I was soon regarded with suspicion, especially when I refused to lead the students in public prayer. When I became head of a department at Atlanta, the engagement was held up because again I balked at leading in prayer. I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war..”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

Source: The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century

War, School, Religion, Color

“History knew the truth. History was the most inhuman product of humanity. It scooped up the whole of human will and, like the goddess Kali in Calcutta, dripped blood from its mouth as it bit and crunched.”

Yukio Mishima book The Decay of the Angel

Source: The Decay of the Angel

Truth, History

“Evvy: "Is she going to eat Jooba-hooba? She looks like she's going to bite him, at least."
Briar: "No — if she bit him, he'd die.”

Tamora Pierce book Street Magic

Source: Street Magic

“Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

From a speech entitled Come September http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/politics/comeSeptember.pdf, given at the Lensic Performing Arts Center, Santa Fe, NM, 29 Sep 2002. Speeches Source: War Talk

People, Color, Clothes, Dead

“I didn't expect to recover from my second operation but since I did, I consider that I'm living on borrowed time. Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way. I accept it gratefully without looking beyond it. I completely forget my physical suffering and all the unpleasantness of my present condition and I think only of the joy of seeing the sun rise once more and of being able to work a little bit, even under difficult conditions.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

Way, Thinking, Suffering, Time

“I get it,' said the prisoner. 'Good Cop, Bad Cop, eh?'
If you like.' said Vimes. 'But we're a bit short staffed here, so if I give you a cigarette would you mind kicking yourself in the teeth?”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

“Whoever you are, go out into the evening,
leaving your room, of which you know every bit;
your house is the last before the infinite,
whoever you are.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Housing

“He learned to communicate with birds and discovered their conversation was fantastically boring. It was all to do with windspeed, wingspans, power-to-weight ratios and a fair bit about berries.”

Douglas Adams book So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Source: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Communication, Bird, Learning

“He had the kind of real deep tan that rich people spent ages trying to achieve with expensive holidays and bits of tinfoil, when really all you need to do to obtain one is work your arse off in the open air everyday.”

Terry Pratchett book Equal Rites

Source: Equal Rites

People, Age, Holiday

“And here I was thinking you were a bit slow, what with so much asking and not knowing anything.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Thinking

“If you're black, you got to look at America a little bit different. You got to look at America like the uncle who paid for you to go to college, but who molested you.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

“I'm a bit retarded, like most Americans.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer

“There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart -
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge,
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition

Heart, Clothes

“Life is serious. (Valerius)
No, life is an adventure. It's thrilling and scary. Sometimes it's even a bit boring, but it should never be serious. (Tabitha)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Seize the Night

Life

“As your girlfriend, you've just pissed me off. As your High Priestess, you've just insulted me. And as someone with a working brain, you've made me wonder if you've lost every bit of your sense. (Zoey Redbird)”

P. C. Cast book Hunted

Source: Hunted

Sense

“Inch by inch I conquered the inner terrain I was born with. Bit by bit I reclaimed the swamp in which I'd languished. I gave birth to my infinite being, but I had to wrench myself out of me with forceps.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Birth

“Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to someone who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Feeling, Soul, Flowers, Summer

“Even on my weakest days
I get a little bit stronger”

Sara Evans (1971) American country singer and songwriter

Moving On

“Kayla Robinson, if you don't shut up I'll fly down there and suck every last bit of blood from your stupid cheating cow body!”

P. C. Cast book Marked

Source: Marked

Stupidity, Cheating, Flying

“And I'm suppose to sit by while you date boys and fall in love with someone else, get married…?" His voice tightened. "And meanwhile, I'll die a little bit more every day, watching.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Romantic, Love, Boy

“Anyone can write. Some people can write a bit better than others; they're called authors. Then there are some who can write better than authors; they're called artists.”

Walter Moers (1957) German comic creator and author

People

“Sometimes the key to happiness is just expecting a little bit less”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Between the Lines

Happiness

“The thing about witchcraft," said Mistress Weatherwax, "is that it's not like school at all. First you get the test, and then afterward you spend years findin' out how you passed it. It's a bit like life in that respect”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

Life, School

“You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Life

“My hope still is to leave the world a bit better than when I got here.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Hope, World, Hope

“When the Statue of Liberty emerged from the mists I gazed at it with an awe close to the sublime. It seemed to me to be the embodiment of all the beauty and magnificence with which I had invested America in my dreams. I had been a little bit afraid that America wouldn't be what I had dreamed--and here was a dream come triumphantly true.”

Antonio Moreno (1887–1967) Spanish-American film actor and director

Beauty, Dreams

“[on becoming an artist] It is my profession, yes [ to be an artist] but a calling.. that a little bit pathetic, a little bit bombastic. I think it was much more natural... I Thought – when I was a child – the only method to be not in the world but outside of the world is to be an artist. I feel me outside, yes..”

Anselm Kiefer (1945) German painter and sculptor

n.p.
Tim Marlow joins Anselm Kiefer to discuss his work' - 2005

World, Feeling, Nature, Thinking

“There comes a point when the confused or abused person hears a voice saying in his head, Oh well, might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and, depending on the particular situation in which he finds him he either spends his last bit of money on a lottery ticket, or places on the gaming table the watch he inherited from his father and silver cigarette case that was a gift from his mother, or bets everything he has on red even though he knows that red has come up five times in a row”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 14 (Vintage 2003)

Money, Game, Time, Dependency

“[…] despite how hard sometimes the world seems to be, and all you see on television is war and conflict and poverty and violence, the truth is that if you had to choose when to be born, not knowing where or who you would be, in all of human history, now would be the time. Because the world is less violent, it is healthier, it is wealthier, it is more tolerant and it offers more opportunity than any time in human history for more people than any time in human history. Now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still terrible things happening around the world or in this region. We still have things like human trafficking. And we still have terrible abuse of children. And there are conflicts. And so these are things that we’re going to have to tackle and deal with. But you should know that with each successive generation things have improved just a little bit. And over time, that little bit adds to a lot. And it’s now up to you, the next generation, to make sure that 20 years from now, or 30 years from now, people look back and say, wow, things are a lot better now than they were back then. And there will still be problems 20 or 30 years from now also. But they will be different problems, because you will have solved many of the problems that exist today.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall (April 2014)

War, Children, People, Truth

“I have been described as a very mysterious human being and that hurts a little bit, because it's not like that at all.”

Agnetha Fältskog (1950) Swedish recording artist and entertainer

On the media's 'wrong impression' of her private life
BBC interview (March 2013)

Hurt

“The man who dares to live his life with death before his eyes, the man who receives life back bit by bit and lives as though it did not belong to him by right but has been bestowed on him as a gift, the man who has such freedom and peace of mind that he has overcome death in his thoughts — such man believes in eternal life because it is already his, it is a present experience, and he already benefits from its peace and joy. He cannot describe this experience in words. He may not be able to conform his view with the traditional picture of it. But one thing he knows for certain: Something within us does not pass away, something goes on living and working wherever the kingdom of the spirit is present. It is already working and living within us, because in our hearts we have been able to reach life by overcoming death.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Reverence for Life (1969)

Life, Death, Peace, Freedom

“Some more in this convention came from Kentucky to Illinois (instead of going to Missouri), not only to better their conditions, but also to get away from slavery. They have said so to me, and it is understood among us Kentuckians that we don't like it one bit. Now, can we, mindful of the blessings of liberty which the early men of Illinois left to us, refuse a like privilege to the free men who seek to plant Freedom's banner on our Western outposts? Should we not stand by our neighbors who seek to better their conditions in Kansas and Nebraska? Can we as Christian men, and strong and free ourselves, wield the sledge or hold the iron which is to manacle anew an already oppressed race? "Woe unto them," it is written, "that decree unrighteous decrees and that write grievousness which they have prescribed."”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Can we afford to sin any more deeply against human liberty? From the Speech Delivered Before the First Republican State Convention of Illinois, Held at Bloomington (1856); found in Speeches & Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865 (1894), J. M. Dent & Company, p. 56. Also quoted by Ida Minerva Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln: Drawn from Original Sources and Containing Many Speeches, Letters, and Telegrams Hitherto Unpublished, and Illustrated with Many Reproductions from Original Paintings, Photographs, etc, Volume 4 (1902), Lincoln History Society http://lincolnhistoricalsociety.org/; and by William C. Whitney; in The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, v. 2' . (1905) Lapsley, Arthur Brooks, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1850s

Men, Freedom, Strong