Quotes about call
page 19

“Give me a man with a little fight in him, a man who calls me on my bullshit. (But who also kind of likes my bullshit.)”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Fight

“You call that evening the odds? You demolished them."
Demolished. He liked that. "I left you one."
"I noticed."
"I promised to share," he told her. "Manners are very important in the Weird. Lying would be quite impolite.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Bayou Moon

Lying

“God alert!" Blackjack yelled. "It's the wine dude!
Mr. D sighed in exasperation. "The next person, or horse, who calls me the 'wine dude' will end up in a bottle of Merlot!”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

God, Wine, Horse, Personality

“He roared at me furiously for ten minutes after he finally managed to put out the sulky and determined fire, calling me a witless muttonheaded spawn of pig farmers-"My father's a wood-cutter," I said- "adOf axe-swinging lummocks!" he snarled.”

Naomi Novik book Uprooted

Source: Uprooted

“We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody threw the girl off the bridge.”

John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) writer from the United States

Source: Darker Than Amber

Girl, Night

“I argued that physical discomfort is important only when the mood is wrong. Then you fasten on to whatever thing is uncomfortable and call that the cause. But if the mood is right, then physical discomfort doesn't mean much.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Mood

“An image of thought called philosophy has been formed historically and it effectively stops people from thinking.”

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) French philosopher

Source: Dialogues II

People, Thinking

“It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn't matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Source: The Zahir

Life, Past

“Damn it, MacRieve, if you keep calling me kitten, then I'm going to start calling you something equivalent, like hound dog - and then we'll both be losers.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night

Dogs

“Have you called the alphas?"

"Yes."

"The rats, too?"

He bristled. "What about the rats?"

"They think you're hiding information from them"

"I hide information from everyone. Do they think they're special?”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

Thinking

“High calls low and low calls high. I tell you, if you were in such dire straits as I was, you too would elevate your thoughts. The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“… and so he tried to accept the ache in his heart as what Dr. Larch would call the common symptoms of normal life.”

John Irving book The Cider House Rules

Source: The Cider House Rules

Life, Heart

“We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Way, Imagination

“War." Gorgon spits the word. "That is what they call it to give the illusion of honor and law. It is chaos. Madness and blood and the hunger to win. It has always been thus and shall always be so.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Hunger, War, Law, Madness

“When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

This is attributed to Pirsig by Richard Dawkins in the Preface to The God Delusion (2006), p. 28, but cannot be found prior to that. It is obviously a paraphrase of the following from Pirsig's Lila - An Inquiry Into Morals (1991): „An insane delusion can't be held by a group at all. A person isn't considered insane if there are a number of people who believe the same way. Insanity isn't supposed to be a communicable disease. If one other person starts to believe him, or maybe two or three, then it's a religion." ( books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=51i6WkGn6qYC&q=%22An+insane+delusion%22; books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=WZtRAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA426) <br class="br">Disputed <br class="br">Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

People, Religion, Suffering, Personality

“This poem has been called obscure. I refuse to believe that it is obscurer than pity, violence, or suffering. But being a poem, not a lifetime, it is more compressed.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

Suffering

“The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen" -- which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“and will I like being called a jazz baby? --You will love it.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

Love, Baby

“The universe is not short on wake-up calls. We’re just quick to hit the snooze button.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Moving On, Universe

“Rafe didn't just flirt-he charmed girls right up to the point where they fell for him, then he changed his mind. I called him a player with attention deficit disorder.”

Kelley Armstrong The Gathering

Source: The Gathering

Girl, Change

“I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to.”

Helene Hanff book 84, Charing Cross Road

Source: 84, Charing Cross Road

Love, Sense, Reading

“Amy gritted her teeth. "King Louis XVI even put Franklin's picture on a chamber pot!"
Jonah looked at his dad. "Do we have souvenir chamber pots?"
"No." His dad whipped out his phone. "I'll make the call.”

Rick Riordan The Maze of Bones

Source: The Maze of Bones

“I am nothing. I’m like someone who’s been thrown into the ocean at night, floating all alone. I reach out, but no one is there. I call out, but no one answers. I have no connection to anything.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84 (2009-2010)

Night

“Plus her mom was so awesome. She was strict about some things—don’t leave your socks lying around—but so not strict about other things, like calling the cops about my bullet wound.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Lying, Moms

“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Variant: It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.
Source: The Secret History

Beauty

“She had wailed loudly enough to wake the dead and make them call the cops.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

Dead

“And that is just the point… how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

World, Beauty, Question

“nothing she did
or said

was quite
what she meant

but still her life
could be called a monument

shaped in a slant
of available light

and set to the movement
of possible music”

Carol Shields (1935–2003) American author

Life, Music, Light

“I was just a screw or cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else.”

Edith Wharton book The House of Mirth

Source: The House of Mirth

Life

“But words are vain; reject them all—
They utter but a feeble part:
Hear thou the depths from which they call,
The voiceless longing of my heart.”

George MacDonald book Phantastes

Source: Phantastes

Heart, Parting

“I dance for no reason, for reasons you can't dance,
Call me an activist of intellectualized circumstance
You can't learn my steps until you unlearn your thoughts Spirit, soul, can't be store-bought.”

Saul Williams (1972) American singer, musician, poet, writer, and actor

Soul, Learning, Dance

“Just like that, with one phone call, she was a daughter again.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Someone Like You

Daughters

“My wife."
"By what name is she called, Kincaid?"
"Mine.”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

Source: The Bride

“Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.”

Nelson Algren book A Walk on the Wild Side

In jail, Cross-Country Kline to Dove Linkhorn.
Source: A Walk on the Wild Side (1956)
Context: But blow wise to this, buddy, blow wise to this: Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own. Never let nobody talk you into shaking another man's jolt. And never you cop another man's plea. I've tried 'em all and I know. They don't work. / Life is hard by the yard, son. But you don't have to do it by the yard. By the inch it's a cinch. And money can't buy everything. For example: poverty.

Moms, Sleep

“We have to keep company with supposedly bad characters if we are to survive and not succumb to mental atrophy. People of good character, so called, are the ones who end up boring us to death.”

Thomas Bernhard book Extinction

Source: Extinction

Death, People

“One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

Books

“Fortunate is the one who knows the name of their heart. They are the ones whose hearts are never truly lost. They can always call their heart back home.
Do you remember the name of your heart, Simon Lewis?”
“I think so,” Simon whispered.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Bitter of Tongue

Home, Thinking, Heart

“God seldom calls us for an easier life, but always calls us to know more of him and drink more deeply of His sustaining grace.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

Source: Don't Waste Your Life

Life, God, Drink

“This ability to exist in pieces is what some adults call resilience. And I suppose in some way it is a kind of resilience, a horrible resilience that makes adults believe children forget trauma.”

Lynda Barry (1956) Cartoonist

Source: One Hundred Demons

Children, Way, Forgetting

“Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: How Proust Can Change Your Life

Dead

“Whoever thought a tiny candy bar should be called fun size was a moron.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

“Give me a few minutes.”
“You have time.” He sat in the grass.
“Are you just going to sit there and watch me?”
“Yes. Watching pretty peasant girls is what we poor little rich boys do best.”
“Peasant?”
He shrugged. “You started the name calling.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: On the Edge

Girl, Boy, Grass, Time

“I am just a tiny person in Africa, but there is a place for me, and for everybody, to sit down on this earth and touch it and call it their own.”

Alexander McCall Smith The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Source: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Personality

“The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be "out there" and the person that appears to be "in here" are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 26
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Appearance, Personality

“You said i could call you when i wanted but that you wouldn’t call me. you have to decide where and when, you said. if you leave it up to me i’ll want to see you every day.

At least you were honest, which is more than i can say for me.”

Junot Díaz book This Is How You Lose Her

Source: This Is How You Lose Her

“Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Children, People, Age

“Once you call something a story, it's set in stone. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end that can't be transformed, because by definition, if you do that, it's not the same story anymore”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Between the Lines

“Sit down, Will. There’s a good fellow,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” replied Will, and Halt’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“He’s never called me sir,” he said.
“Probably trying to get on my good side,” Crowley replied.
Halt nodded savagely. “Probably.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: Erak's Ransom

“We can buy you one of those books they have for little kids 'Timmy Has Two Dads'. Except I don't think they have one called 'Timmy Has Two Dads and One of Them Was Evil'. That part you're just going to have to work through on your own.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Books, Thinking, Evil, Parting

“The hamster called. He wants his home back.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Final Warning

Home

“The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood--
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Food, Drink, Thinking

“I don't know. I do think, half of what we call madness is just some poor slob dealing with pain by a strategy that annoys the people around him.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Mirror Dance

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Mirror Dance (1994)

Pain, People, Thinking, Madness

“this song is for the guy who keeps yelling from the balcony, and it's called 'we hate you, please die.”

Bryan Lee O'Malley (1979) Artist

Source: Scott Pilgrim, Volume 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life

Hate, Guy

“Conrad calling me again—that was enough to make me forget how to breathe.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Forgetting

“For me a house or an apartment becomes a home when you add one set of four legs, a happy tail, and that indescribable measure of love that we call a dog.”

Roger A. Caras (1928–2001) American photographer

Love, Dogs, Home, Housing

“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so?
There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.”

Drew Carey (1958) American actor, comedian, game show host, libertarian and photographer

Hate, Support

“The whole world is a series of miracles, but we're so used to them we call them ordinary things.”

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet

World

“Straightaway, she'd called to the guard, "Oh, boys?" She'd sauntered to the glass in only her black lace bra and panties. "I need some assistance," When they slowed, agog, she'd purred, "Can one of you help me find my orgasm?”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

Boy, Help

“There's a name for people with an interest in the moon," Alex said. "They're called lunatics.”

Anthony Horowitz book Crocodile Tears

Source: Crocodile Tears

People

“Shall I call the others back in?"
He nodded. "Why ask me? It's all of you who are making the decisions.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: Erak's Ransom

Decision

“If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make who would you call and what would you say?
And why are you waiting?”

Stephen Levine (1937–2016) American poet and author

Waiting

“No man can call himself liberal, or radical, or even a conservative advocate of fair play, if his work depends in any way on the unpaid or underpaid labor of women at home, or in the office.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Women, Way, Home, Dependency

“It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

Deep

“We're late," she said, "The show is supposed to start in ten minutes. If some people hadn't decided that 'semiformal' meant 'seminaked'-"

"Why are you calling me 'some people'?" Mark inquired. "I am only one person.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

People, Personality

“The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)

World

“There's an opposite to déjà vu. They call it jamais vu. It's when you meet the same people or visit places, again and again, but each time is the first. Everybody is always a stranger. Nothing is ever familiar.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

People, Time

“Who ya gonna call?"
"Ghostbusters!"
"That phrase is ruined forever.”

James Patterson book Maximum Ride

Source: Max

“Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves; when that right is pre-empted it is called brain-washing.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

The Times, London (1986-02-01)

“My friends call me by my name."
"You don't have any friends."
"I don't want you to be my friend, Selia, or my servant, not now. I thought you were both. You have let me know I was wrong. So are you to treat me so. You are wrong.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

“After all this kind of fanfare, and even more, I came to a point where I needed solitude and to just stop the machine of 'thinking' and 'enjoying' what they call 'living,' I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds…”

Jack Kerouac book Lonesome Traveler

Variant: I came to a point where I needed solitude and just stop the machine of ‘thinking’ and ‘enjoying’ what they call ‘living’, I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds.
Source: Lonesome Traveler

Lie, Thinking, Solitude, Grass

“A man is called a traitor, or liberator. A rich man is a theif or philanthropist. Is one a crusader or ruthless invader? It's all in which label is able to persist.”

Gregory Maguire (1954) Novelist

“Every age has its massive moral blind spots. We might not see them, but our children will. Slavery was one of them and the people who best served that age were the ones who called it as it was — which was ungodly and inhuman. Ben Franklin called it what it was when he became president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

PENN Address (2004)
Source: U2 By U2

Children, People, Age

“but then she did. she died. no more visits, no more phone calls. And without even realizing it, I began to drift, as if my roots had been pulled, as if I were floating down some side branch of a river.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

“Despereaux," she whispered.
And then she shouted it, "Despereaux!"
Reader, nothing is sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name.
Nothing.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

Source: The Tale of Despereaux

Love, World, Sadness

“It was a pleasure, Enna, Finn, tree rat."
"Did she just call you tree rat?”

Shannon Hale River Secrets

Source: River Secrets

Pleasure, Tree

“Odd, isn't it? He really was the right man for her in a sort of way; but then as you know, it is a law of love that the so-called 'right' person always comes to soon or too late.”

Lawrence Durrell book Balthazar

Source: Balthazar

Love, Law, Way, Personality

“In medieval times, if someone displayed the symptoms we now identify as boredom, that person was thought to be committing something called, a 'dangerous form of spiritual alienation' -- a devaluing of the world and its creator.”

Richard Louv (1949) American journalist

World, Time, Personality

“I g-g-guess… I'm dead?" she heard her own voice call out, strangely high-pitched and thin.
For a long time, she heard nothing else. And then:
"Hi, Dead. I'm Dan.”

Peter Lerangis book The Sword Thief

Source: The Sword Thief

Time, Dead

“Wake up, Caitlin, Mr. Lensing had said. But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away. I understood those mermaids. I didn't care if they sang to me. All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again, pulling me upward into light, to drown.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

Life, Sleep, Light

“Well," I said finally, knowing he was waiting, "you make me laugh."
He nodded. "And?"
"You're pretty good-looking."
"Pretty good-looking? I called you beautiful."
"You want to be beautiful?" I asked him.
"Are you saying I'm not?”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Beauty, Waiting

“Well, I make that one murder victim, one police interrogation and one conversation with a ghost,” George said. “Now that’s what I call a busy evening.”
Lockwood nodded. “To think some people just watch television.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Whispering Skull

Source: The Whispering Skull

People, Business, Thinking

“Your old home town's so far away, but inside your head there's a record that's playing, a song called 'Hold On”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

Home

“Any leader has to have a certain amount of steel in them, so I am not that put out being called the Iron Lady.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

“She forces me to endure this ridiculous therapy, when the so-called counselors are little better than misguided do-gooders with degrees.

-Artemis Fowl”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

“It is the possibility that keeps me going, and though you may call me a dreamer or a fool or any other thing, I believe that anything is possible.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Fools

“The battle, if you could call it that, lasted no more than a few seconds.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Icebound Land

“No, you don’t need to help me. But if you don’t, there’s nothing stopping me from calling you up again and again, now that I know you can’t kill me. Think of it as me leaning against your Heavenly doorbell… forever.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Thinking, Help

“The moment love is born: the woman cannot resist the voice calling forth her terrified soul; the man cannot resist the woman whose soul thus responds to his voice.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

pg 160
Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Four: Soul and Body

Love, Soul

“There are periods of history when the visions of madmen and dope fiends are a better guide to reality than the common-sense interpretation of data available to the so-called normal mind. This is one such period, if you haven't noticed already.”

Robert Anton Wilson book The Illuminatus! Trilogy

Part I : The Eye in the Pyramid, p. 32
The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975)

History, Reality, Sense

“The human mind has a primitive ego defince mechanism that negates all realities that produce too much stress for the brain to handle. It's called denial.”

Dan Brown book Inferno

Variant: The human mind has a primitive ego defense mechanism that negates all realities that produce too much stress for the brain to handle. It’s called Denial.
Source: Inferno

Reality