Quotes about bite

A collection of quotes on the topic of bite, likeness, doing, going.

Rudyard Kipling quote: “Bite on the bullet, old man, and don't let them think you're afraid.”

Quotes about bite

“I speak my mind, because it hurts to bite my tongue”

Cornelius Keagon (1996) Liberian humanitarian aid worker

Hurt

“Dogs never bite me. Just humans.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

As quoted in "A Beautiful Child" in Music for Chameleons (1980) by Truman Capote

Dogs

“Everyone thinks I'm showing off when I talk, ridiculous when I'm silent, insolent when I answer, cunning when I have a good idea, lazy when I'm tired, selfish when I eat one bite more than I should.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Variant: If I talk, everyone thinks I'm showing off; when I'm silent they think I'm ridiculous, rude if I answer, sly if I get a good idea, lazy if I'm tired, selfish if I eat a mouthful more than I should, stupid, cowardly, crafty, etc., etc.
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Idea, Thinking, Selfishness

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Variant: If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

Dogs

“Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

“Cut off a wolf's head and it still has the power to bite.”

Hayao Miyazaki (1941) Japanese animator, film director, and mangaka

Source: もののけ姫 [Mononoke hime]

Wolf

“He was one of a lean body and visage, as if his eager soul, biting for anger at the clog of his body, desired to fret a passage through it.”

Thomas Fuller (1608–1661) English churchman and historian

Life of the Duke of Alva (1642). Compare: "A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy-body to decay, And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay", John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, part i. line 156.

Soul, Anger

“A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell — mouths mercy, and invented hell — mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!”

Mark Twain book The Mysterious Stranger

The Mysterious Stranger (1916)

Life, God, Children, People

“You look at me, you look at me closely, each time closer and then we play cyclops, we look at each other closer each time and our eyes grow, they grow closer, they overlap and the cyclops look at each other, breathing confusion, their mouths find each other and fight warmly, biting with their lips, resting their tongues lightly on their teeth, playing in their caverns where the heavy air comes and goes with the scent of an old perfume and silence. Then my hands want to hide in your hair, slowly stroke the depth of your hair while we kiss with mouths full of flowers or fish, of living movements, of dark fragrance. And if we bite each other, the pain is sweet, and if we drown in a short and terrible surge of breath, that instant death is beauty. And there is a single saliva and a single flavour of ripe fruit, and I can feel you shiver against me like a moon on the water.”

Julio Cortázar (1914–1984) Argentinian writer

Death, Pain, Beauty, Feeling

“A few fly bites cannot stop a spirited horse.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Horse, Flying

“Go slowly, so that you do not bite your tail by accident.”

Christopher Paolini book Inheritance

Source: Inheritance

“Don't be distracted by criticism. Remember ~ the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

People, Success

“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

“I've married a friggin horse. And he bites.”

P. C. Cast book Divine By Mistake

Source: Divine By Mistake

Horse

“Grover murmured, "Well, Percy, what have we learned today?"
That three-headed dogs prefer red rubber balls over sticks?"
No," Grover told me. "We've learned that your plans really, really bite!”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Dogs, Learning

“Love isn’t soft, like those poets say. Love has teeth which bite and the wounds never close.”

Stephen King book The Body

Source: The Body

Love

“I hope you will grow up gentle and good, and never learn bad ways; do your work with a good will, lift your feet up well when you trot, and never bite or kick even in play.”

Anna Sewell book Black Beauty

Source: Black Beauty

Hope, Way, Learning

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

Lewis Carroll book Through the Looking-Glass

Source: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

Bird

“[T]here's no difference between a white snake and a black snake. They'll both bite.”

Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

Lewis
Neil A.
June 29, 1991
Marshall Urges Bush to Pick 'the Best'
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/29/us/marshall-urges-bush-to-pick-the-best.html
2017-04-08
MIsquote: White snake, black snake: They both bite.

“I've probably saved thousands of people's lives with my educational message on snake bites, how to get in around venomous anything. Yeah, I'm a thrill seeker, but crikey, education's the most important thing.”

Steve Irwin (1962–2006) Australian environmentalist and television personality

Online interview at Scientific American online (sciam.com) (26 March 2001)

People, Education

“It's time that we move from good words to good works, from sound bites to sound solutions.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Sound bite reported in Time, February 20, 2008. http://www.time.com/time/quotes/0,26174,1715169,00.html Presidential campaign (January 20, 2007 – 2008)

Time

“I never thought of him as a vampire, ever. I mean, the blood is the life. That's one thing you have to bear in mind. And it is for all of us, isn't it? Here's a man who is immortal. Here is a man who, through being immortal, is a lost soul. Here is a man who experiences the loneliness of evil, something he can't control, who wants to die but there is a force in him, a malefic force, which drives him to do these terrible things. I said earlier the character is heroic, based on the real man - a war leader and a national hero, I may say, in Romania to this day - Vlad the Impaler. Certainly a bloodthirsty character, without a doubt. I also told you that the character is romantic - so he is, as far as women are concerned, and erotic. And there's, of course, the obvious association with the bite in a sexual sense, if you like. So I tried to put all those particular characteristics into the character. It appears that I succeeded.”

Christopher Lee (1922–2015) British actor and singer

Listen Back To A 1990 Interview With Actor Christopher Lee http://www.npr.org/2015/06/12/413936419/listen-back-to-a-1990-interview-with-actor-christopher-lee (1990)

Life, Women, War, Soul

“Biting poverty and cruel Cupid are my foes. Hunger I can endure; love I cannot.”
Paupertas me saeva domat dirusque Cupido: sed toleranda fames, non tolerandus amor.

Claudian (370–404) Roman Latin poet

Paupertas me saeva domat dirusque Cupido: sed toleranda fames, non tolerandus amor. Epigram XV http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Claudian/Carmina_Minora*/omnia.html#XV

Love, Hunger

“Once you begin to take yourself seriously as a leader or as a follower, as a modern or as a conservative, then you become a self-conscious, biting, and scratching little animal whose work is not of the slightest value or importance to anybody.”

Virginia Woolf A Letter to a Young Poet

"A Letter to a Young Poet"
The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (1942)

Animals

“I can tell you that — and this is something I have told him — that this is a job of such magnitude that you can’t do it by yourself. You are enormously reliant on a team. Your Cabinet, your senior White House staff, all the way to fairly junior folks in their 20s and 30s but who are executing on significant responsibilities. And so, how you put a team together to make sure that they’re getting you the best information and they are teeing up the options from which you will ultimately make decisions. That’s probably the most useful constructive advice and the most constructive advice that I’ve been able to give him, that if you find yourself isolated because the process breaks down or if you’re only hearing from people who agree with you on everything or if you haven’t created a process that is fact-checking and probing and asking hard questions about policies or promises that you’ve made, that’s when you start making mistakes. And as I indicated in some of my previous remarks, reality has a way of biting back if you’re not paying attention to it.”

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

On the job of the U.S. President and the need of good advisers and staff
2017, Final News Conference as President (January 2017)

People, Way, Question, Reality

“… the other day, I went to a chiropractor. He's just a regular chiropractor. Whenever I meet someone who doesn't know me, they say, 'Oh you're the guy who bites the heads off everything.' I get kind of cheesed off with it, but at least they remember. The thing that pisses me off is that that's not what I'm about. If that's what you think Ozzy Osbourne's about, then you're way off.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

Launch.com, October 10, 1998

Way, Guy, Thinking

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, that we've enjoyed some good times this evening, and enjoyed some laughter together, I feel it is my obligation to remind you of some of the negative, depressing, dangerous, life-threatening things that life is really all about; things you have not been thinking about tonight, but which will be waiting for you as soon as you leave the theater or as soon as you turn off your television sets. Anal rape, quicksand, body lice, evil spirits, gridlock, acid rain, continental drift, labor violence, flash floods, rabies, torture, bad luck, calcium deficiency, falling rocks, cattle stampedes, bank failure, evil neighbors, killer bees, organ rejection, lynching, toxic waste, unstable dynamite, religious fanatics, prickly heat, price fixing, moral decay, hotel fires, loss of face, stink bombs, bubonic plague, neo-Nazis, friction, cereal weevils, failure of will, chain reaction, soil erosion, mail fraud, dry rot, voodoo curse, broken glass, snake bite, parasites, white slavery, public ridicule, faithless friends, random violence, breach of contract, family scandals, charlatans, transverse myelitis, structural defects, race riots, sunspots, rogue elephants, wax buildup, killer frost, jealous coworkers, root canals, metal fatigue, corporal punishment, sneak attacks, peer pressure, vigilantes, birth defects, false advertising, ungrateful children, financial ruin, mildew, loss of privileges, bad drugs, ill-fitting shoes, widespread chaos, Lou Gehrig's disease, stray bullets, runaway trains, chemical spills, locusts, airline food, shipwrecks, prowlers, bathtub accidents, faulty merchandise, terrorism, discrimination, wrongful cremation, carbon deposits, beef tapeworm, taxation without representation, escaped maniacs, sunburn, abandonment, threatening letters, entropy, nine-mile fever, poor workmanship, absentee landlords, solitary confinement, depletion of the ozone layer, unworthiness, intestinal bleeding, defrocked priests, loss of equilibrium, disgruntled employees, global warming, card sharks, poisoned meat, nuclear accidents, broken promises, contamination of the water supply, obscene phone calls, nuclear winter, wayward girls, mutual assured destruction, rampaging moose, the greenhouse effect, cluster headaches, social isolation, Dutch elm disease, the contraction of the universe, paper cuts, eternal damnation, the wrath of God, and PARANOIAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Playing With Your Head (1986)

Life, God, Bad luck, Children

“China is an attractive piece of meat coveted by all … but very tough, and for years no one has been able to bite into it.”

Zhou Enlai (1898–1976) 1st Premier of the People's Republic of China

To the Chinese Communist Party Congress, as quoted in The New York Times (1 September 1973).

“When the loud day for men who sow and reap
Grows still, and on the silence of the town
The insubstantial veils of night and sleep,
The meed of the day's labour, settle down,
Then for me in the stillness of the night
The wasting, watchful hours drag on their course,
And in the idle darkness comes the bite
Of all the burning serpents of remorse;
Dreams seethe; and fretful infelicities
Are swarming in my over-burdened soul,
And Memory before my wakeful eyes
With noiseless hand unwinds her lengthy scroll.
Then, as with loathing I peruse the years,
I tremble, and I curse my natal day,
Wail bitterly, and bitterly shed tears,
But cannot wash the woeful script away.”

Aleksandr Pushkin (1799–1837) Russian poet

Remembrance.

Men, Dreams, Soul, Tear

“Thoughts, like fleas, jump from man to man, but they don't bite everybody.”

Stanisław Jerzy Lec book Unkempt Thoughts

p, 125
Unkempt Thoughts (1957)

“It may be quite true that some negroes are better than some white men; but no rational man, cognisant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the average white man. And, if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried on by thoughts and not by bites. The highest places in the hierarchy of civilisation will assuredly not be within the reach of our dusky cousins, though it is by no means necessary that they should be restricted to the lowest.
But whatever the position of stable equilibrium into which the laws of social gravitation may bring the negro, all responsibility for the result will henceforward lie between nature and him. The white man may wash his hands of it, and the Caucasian conscience be void of reproach for evermore. And this, if we look to the bottom of the matter, is the real justification for the abolition policy.
The doctrine of equal natural rights may be an illogical delusion; emancipation may convert the slave from a well-fed animal into a pauperised man; mankind may even have to do without cotton-shirts; but all these evils must be faced if the moral law, that no human being can arbitrarily dominate over another without grievous damage to his own nature, be, as many think, as readily demonstrable by experiment as any physical truth. If this be true, no slavery can be abolished without a double emancipation, and the master will benefit by freedom more than the freed-man.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

"Emancipation — Black and White" (1865) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE3/B&W.html, later published in Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews (1871) Comments accepting many racist and sexist assumptions made in the context of rejecting oppressions based on racist and sexist arguments. More information is available at the Talk Origins Archive http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA005_3.html 1860s

Men, Truth, Lie, Law

“The face of "evil" is always the face of total need. A dope fiend is a man in total need of dope. Beyond a certain frequency need knows absolutely no limit or control. In the words of total need: "Wouldn't you?" Yes you would. You would lie, cheat, inform on your friends, steal, do anything to satisfy total need. Because you would be in a state of total sickness, total possession, and not in a position to act in any other way. Dope fiends are sick people who cannot act other than they do. A rabid dog cannot choose but bite.”

William S. Burroughs book Naked Lunch

Introduction
Naked Lunch (1959)

People, Lie, Dogs, Way

“I have a saying. 'Never judge a book by its cover'. I say that because I don't even know who Ozzy is. I wake up a new person every day. But if you've got a fantasy of Ozzy, who am I to say? I mean, if you think I sleep upside-down in the rafters and fly around at night and bite people's throats out, then that's your thing. But I can tell you now, all I ever wanted was for people to come to my concerts and have a good time. I don't want anyone to harm themselves in any way, shape or form-and my intentions are good whether people want to believe it or not. I'm not going to suddenly become a Jesus freak or anything. But I do have my beliefs and my beliefs are certainly not satanic.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

Rolling Stone Online, May 1997.

People, Books, Way, Thinking

“If the Republicans, who think slavery is wrong, get possession of the general government, we may not root out the evil at once, but may at least prevent its extension. If I find a venomous snake lying on the open praire, I seize the first stick and kill him at once. But if that snake is in bed with my children, I must be more cautious. I shall, in striking the snake, also strike the children, or arouse the reptile to bite the children. Slavery is the venomous snake in bed with the children. But if the question is whether to kill it on the prairie or put it in bed with other children, I think we'd kill it!”

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

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I might seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide!
Context: If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I might seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide! That is just the case! The new Territories are the newly made bed to which our children are to go, and it lies with the nation to say whether they shall have snakes mixed up with them or not. It does not seem as if there could be much hesitation what our policy should be!

Children, Lying, Question, Thinking

“If a dog starts biting you, you can't kick it up the throat like it deserves. People always say "Oh dear, poor little dog, he was only trying to be friendly. That's the way he tries to be friendly, sniffing at your ankles and biting you, you cruel, wicked man."”

Peter Cook (1937–1995) British architect

"Man's Best Friend" (1964)
E. L. Wisty

People, Dogs, Way

“The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.”

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

2010, State Of The Union (January 2010)

“You know what a poor correspondent I am. Ever since I received your very agreeable letter of the 22nd. of May I have been intending to write you in answer to it. You suggest that in political action now, you and I would differ. I suppose we would; not quite as much, however, as you may think. You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause of difference. But you say that sooner than yield your legal right to the slave — especially at the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any one is bidding you to yield that right; very certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations, under the constitution, in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes, and unrewarded toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continued torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union.”

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

1850s, Letter to Joshua F. Speed (1855)

Hate, People, Feeling, Exercises

“The science fiction and manga readers had the same… Most fiction writers then had had some experience in the comic and some of it had even been absorbed completely… I can not understand why those who love science fiction also loves the manga and vice versa. There are two kinds characterized by a biting satire and at worst are called "extravagant"…. Both are aimed toward the future, and therefore contain romantic adventures for young people.”

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

Since I cartoonist ; quoted in AA.VV., Osamu Tezuka: A Manga Biography , vol. 3, translated by Marta Fogato, Coconino Press, Bologna, 2001, p. 73.

Love, People, Understanding, Science

“If a dog is biting a black man, the black man should kill the dog, whether the dog is a police dog or a hound dog or any kind of dog. If a dog is fixed on a black man when that black man is doing nothing but trying to take advantage of what the government says is supposed to be his, then that black man should kill that dog or any two-legged dog who sets the dog on him.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

" Malcolm X: Make It Plain http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/malcolmx/filmmore/pt.html," from The American Experience, season 6, episode 6, PBS (first aired 26 January 1994) Attributed

Dogs

“Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

As quoted in Life magazine (21 April 1961)

“The wild elephant is the most important animal of the district. Without his assistance, when domesticated, it would be difficult indeed to work the forests. Wherever you go in the forests you find numberless pitfalls excavated for his capture; but, as a rule, they are mostly old ones, half filled in. Numbers of. elephants are captured by Nayars and Mappillas, and broken in for timber dragging, winch is done entirely by the teeth; the elephant seizing a thick cable made of grewia fibre in his trunk, and biting the end between his molars, drags the log, to which the other end of the cable has been made fast.”

William Logan (author) book Malabar Manual

Malabar Manual, Page 58 https://archive.org/details/MalabarLogan/page/n70 Malabar Manual (1887)

Animals

“…the other day, I went to a chiropractor. He's just a regular chiropractor. Whenever I meet someone who doesn't know me, they say, 'Oh you're the guy who bites the heads off everything.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

I get kind of cheesed off with it, but at least they remember. The thing that pisses me off is that that's not what I'm about. If that's what you think Ozzy Osbourne's about, then you're way off.
Launch.com, October 10, 1998

Guy

“The downside of being outrageous is that you have to go around explaining your fucking self to people. If you're too cocky, somebody might just pull out a fucking gun and cock it and blow your fucking face off. You gotta be really careful what you bite off. Don't bite off more than you can chew. It's a dangerous world.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

Rolling Stone Online, May 1997.

World, Self-confidence, People

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

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Lying, Question, Thinking, Children

“The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

“But allow Riley to boss him around? Multiply "hell, no" by "dream on" and divide by "suck it," and the answer was "the wolf could bite the big one.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Unraveled

Dreams, Hell, Wolf

“The things we worry about the most are never the things that bite us. The sharpest teeth always take their nip of us when we are looking the other way.”

Dean Koontz book Forever Odd

Source: Forever Odd

Way

“Then forget Gabriel. Is there a particular reason you keep biting vampires?"

Will touched the dried blood on his wrists, and smiled. "They don't expect it.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Smile, Forgetting

“Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life”

Michael Palin (1943) British comedian, actor, writer and television presenter

Life, Travel

“Still anyone who trusts a serpent deserves its bite. The wise see a creature for what it is, not what it says it may be.”

Alice Hoffman book The Dovekeepers

Source: The Dovekeepers

“No wolf falters before the bite
So strike
No hawk wavers before the dive
Just strike”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Wolf

“No name-calling truly bites deep unless, in some dark part of us, we believe it. If we are confident enough then it is just noise.”

Laurell K. Hamilton A Stroke of Midnight

Source: A Stroke of Midnight

Confidence, Parting

“Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Night

“if they put an iron circle around your neck I will bite it away”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved

“Have you tried to talk to her?"
"What would you like me to say Bastian? OH, I'M SORRY, INEZ. I DIDN'T MEAN TO BITE YOU, MY FANGS SLIPPED.”

Lynsay Sands Canadian writer

Source: Vampires are Forever

“If I were asked for a one-sentence sound
bite on religion, I would say I was against it.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Religion

“The proverb warns that, 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

“He felt like a man who, chasing rainbows, has had one of them suddenly turn and bite him in the leg.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Eggs, Beans and Crumpets (1940)

“People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

People

“Shane dragged Eve's suitcase into the room and dumped it on the floor beside her bed. “Hey, Dark Princess? Here’s your crap. Also, bite me.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Kiss of Death

Princess

“Phineas gave Abigail an encouraging smile. “Chillax, dudette. He didn’t want to bite you.”
She wondered if she’d overreacted. “He didn’t?”
“Naw.” Phineas smirked. “He just wanted to jump your bones.”

Kerrelyn Sparks (1955) American writer

Source: Sexiest Vampire Alive

Smile

“Myrnin to Claire: "If anyone comes to bite you while I'm gone - well, try not to attract attention. Die quietly.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Daylighters

“The saddest kind of sad is the sad that tries not to be sad. You know, when Sad tries to bite its lip and not cry and smile and go, "No, I'm happy for you?"”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

That's when it's really sad.
Rolling Stone magazine/iTunes podcast (December 2005)
On the "chin-up sad" tone of one of his new songs on his upcoming album "Continuum"

Sadness, Smile, Cry, Happiness

“You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.”

Marian Wright Edelman (1939) American children's rights activist

Dogs

“But I couldn't help myself, couldn't help the way I felt as I recalled the bliss and rush of a vampire's bite.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Source: Vampire Academy

Way, Help

“When you walk a dog on a short leash, she's close enough to bite you.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Dogs

“Mom raised us to believe that every lie puts something out there in the world that's inevitably going to come back and bite you in the petunia.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

Lie, World, Moms

“If you place your head in a lion's mouth, then you cannot complain one day if he happens to bite it off.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

“There are few phrases that annoy me more than I won't bite. The only line that pisses me off faster is when some drunk, ham-faced dude in a bar sees me trying to get past him and barks: Smile, it can't be that bad! Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad.”

Gillian Flynn book Dark Places

Source: Dark Places

Smile, Past

“Answer me this, did you hesitate at all or did you see the giant, go ‘Wheee!’ and run toward it?”
“She ran toward it,” Juke quipped.
“He was biting people in half.”
“I rest my case,” Curran said. “A note wouldn’t have made any difference.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Shifts

People

“And thrice do I say to thee… bite me.”

Jim Butcher (1971) American author

“Bite me, Rhys.'

'Where?”

Michelle Rowen (1971) Canadian writer

Source: Reign Fall

“Eve didn't choose to eat the apple. She was tempted by the serpent."
"Yes," I argue, thoughts coming out half-formed. "But… she didn't have to take a bite. She chose to.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

“He balled up my discarded
sweatshirt and put it against his shoulder.
“Go on,” he said. “I don’t bite.”
“And from what I hear, that’s a good thing.”
He gave a rumbling chuckle. “Yeah, it is.”
I leaned against his shoulder.”

Kelley Armstrong The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

“In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Dreams, Reality, Hurt

“The way I see it, life is a jelly doughnut. You don't really know what it's about until you bite into it. And then, just when you decided it's good, you drop a big glob of jelly on your best T-shirt.”

Janet Evanovich Hard Eight

Source: Hard Eight

Life, Way

“Don't bite till you know if it's bread or stone.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: Complete Poems

“what if a dawn of a doom of a dream
bites this universe in two,
peels forever out of it's grave
and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Source: 1 x 1 (1944), XX
Source: 100 Selected Poems

Dreams, Universe

“I guess this means that our conflict is finally over. Perhaps we should celebrate." – Saint Dane
Perhaps you should bite me." Bobby”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

“Love is the grand prize and the garbage heap. Love is a spiritual root canal and the only thing that makes life worth living. Love is a little taste of always and a big bite of nothing. And love is everything in between these extremes.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Source: True Love

Love, Life

“But Iget afraid. It's just that fear makes me sort of… angry and resentful, and I bite back at it. It's hard to describe."

It isn't hard to describe, you idiot," Aud said. "It's called courage.”

Jonathan Stroud book Heroes of the Valley

Source: Heroes of the Valley

Fear, Courage

“I know life is hard, I think everyone knows that in their hearts, but why dos it have to be cruel, as well? Why does it have to bite?”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

Life, Thinking, Heart

“GO FOR HIS EYES! OR BITE HIM ON THE NOSE! DRAGON NOSES ARE VERY SENSITIVE!"
Oh, very helpful, Camicazi, very helpful… thought Hiccup. What if he doesn't obligingly hold me up to his nose? What if the only part I get close to is the TEETH?”

Cressida Cowell book How to Break a Dragon's Heart

Source: How to Break a Dragon's Heart

Help, Parting

“The world has teeth and it can bite you with them any time it wants.”

Stephen King book The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

Source: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999)

World

“Dear me," said Will, and he took another bite of his apple. "Is it because I'm better-looking than you?”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“Looks like a bite mark. What have you been doing all day, anyway?"
"Nothing. I went walking in the park. Tried to clear my head."
"And ran into a vampire?"
"What? No! I fell."
"On your neck?”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Jace and Alec, pg. 73-74
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

“Biologically speaking, if something bites you, it is more likely to be female.”

Desmond Morris (1928) English zoologist, ethologist and surrealist painter

Funny

“Go to faeries for gossip about vampires, to werewolves for gossip about faeries, and do not gossip about werewolves, because they try to bite your face off: that was Magnus's motto.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Saving Raphael Santiago

“Here is a list of fearful things:
The jaws of sharks, a vulture's wings,
The rabid bite of the dog's of war,
The voice of one who went before.
But most of all the mirror's gaze,
which counts us out our numbered days.”

Clive Barker Days of Magic, Nights of War

Abarat, Book One
Source: Days of Magic, Nights of War

War, Fear, Dogs

“You bit de Quincey," he said. "You fool. He's a vampire. You know what it means to bite a vampire."
"I had no choice," said Will. "He was choking me."
"I know," Jem said. "But really, Will. Again?”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Variant: Jem shook his head. "You bit de Quincey" he said. "You fool. He's a VAMPIRE"

"I had no choice" said Will " He was choking me"

"I know" Jem said. " But really Will, AGAIN?
Source: Clockwork Angel

Fools