Quotes about chair

A collection of quotes on the topic of chair, likeness, doing, use.

Quotes about chair

“When I'm 80 years old and sitting on my rocking chair, I'll be reading Harry Potter. And my family will ask me: «After all this time?» and I'll say: «Always».”

Alan Rickman (1946–2016) English film, television and stage actor

Family, Time, Reading

“I cannot say whether I will still be doing geometry ten years from now. It also seems to me that the mine has maybe already become too deep and unless one finds new veins it might have to be abandoned. Physics and chemistry now offer a much more glowing richness and much easier exploitation. Also, the general taste has turned entirely in this direction, and it is not impossible that the place of Geometry in the Academies will someday become what the role of the Chairs of Arabic at the universities is now.”

Joseph Louis Lagrange (1736–1813) Italian mathematician and mathematical physicist

Letter to d'Alembert (1781) cited in R. Laubenbacher, D. Pengelly: Mathematical Expeditions: Chronicles by the Explorers (1999) Springer, pp. 233–234.

Universe

“Not only were we practicing, we were nervous rehearsing, because he would sit in a chair with a belt in his hand, and if you didn't do it the right way, he would tear you up. Really get you…We were terrified of him. So terrified, I can't tell you. I don't think he realized how scared…scared…I mean SCARED. So scared that I would regurgitate. (with emphasis) Mmm-hmm. (reporter asks Michael what caused the reaction) His presence, just seeing him…And I was so fast, he wouldn't catch me half the time, but when he did, oh my God, it was bad.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On his father & the whippings he & his brothers would receive from him
Living with Michael Jackson (2002)

God, Way, Thinking, Tear

“Worry is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere”

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…

Graduation

“One wanted, she thought, dipping her brush deliberately, to be on a level with ordinary experience, to feel simply that's a chair, that's a table, and yet at the same time, It's a miracle, it's an ecstasy.”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

Feeling, Time

“I kill a sofa for you and you go and sit in a chair?” Skulduggery asked. “I don’t think you appreciate the sacrifice that has been made for you.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Death Bringer

Thinking

“This is a lovely party," said the Bursar to a chair, "I wish I was here.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

Love

“You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Laughter

“They may have been ugly. They may have been evil. But when it came to poetry in motion, the Things had all the grace and coordination of a deck-chair.”

Terry Pratchett book Equal Rites

Source: Equal Rites

Evil

“Happiness is in the quiet, ordinary things. A table, a chair, a book with a paper-knife stuck between the pages. And the petal falling from the rose, and the light flickering as we sit silent.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

Books, Light, Happiness

“A house that does not have one worn, comfy chair in it is soulless.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Housing

“I have no intention of spending the night in a chair and leaving you the bed.”

Kathleen E. Woodiwiss book The Flame and the Flower

Source: The Flame and the Flower

Night

“No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don't read is often as important as what you do read. For instance, if you are walking in the mountains, and you don't read the sign that says "Beware of Cliff" because you were busy reading a joke book instead, you may suddenly find yourself walking on air rather than on a sturdy bed of rocks. If you are baking a pie for your friends, and you read an article entitled "How to Build a Chair" instead of a cookbook, your pie will probably end up tasting like wood and nails instead of like crust and fruity filling. And if you insist on reading this book instead of something more cheerful, you will most certainly find yourself moaning in despair instead of wriggling with delight, so if you have any sense at all you will put this book down and pick up another one. I know of a book, for instance, called The Littlest Elf, which tells the story of a teensy-weensy little man who scurries around fairyland having all sorts of adorable adventures, and you can see at once that you should probably read The Littlest Elf and wriggle over the lovely things that happened to this imaginary creature in a made-up place, instead of reading this book and moaning over the terrible things that have happened to the three Baudelaire orphans.”

Daniel Handler book The Vile Village

Lemony Snicket
The Vile Village (2001)

Love, People, Books, Mountain

“Of course, Alexander the Great was a hero, but why smash the chairs?”

Nikolai Gogol book The Government Inspector

Epigraph; said of a history teacher who smashed a chair in his excitement when discussing the conqueror
The Inspector General (1836)

“The following week, when he Toulmouche passed in front of me, he sat down and squarely positioned on my chair, looked at my piece. I could then see him turn around, inclining his serious face with a satisfied air and I heard him say to me while smiling: "Not bad, not at all bad this, but it is too much like the real model. You have a stocky man and you depict him as stocky… Nature, my friend, serves well as a means to study but offers no real interest. Style is the only thing that matters." I was flabbergasted. The truth, life, nature - all that provoked emotions in me - all that constituted for me the real essence and the unique "raison d'être" of art, did not exist for this man!”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote from Claude Monet par lui-meme – an interview by Thiébault-Sisson / translated by Louise McGlone Jacot-Descombes; published in 'Le Temps newspaper', 26 November 1900.
About Toulmouche, Monet first painting-teacher in Paris c. 1857
1900 - 1920

Life, Truth, Smile, Art

“These big Texas interns kept saying, "Mrs. Kennedy, you come with us", they wanted to take me away from him… But I said "I'm not leaving"… Dave Powers came running to me at the hospital, crying when he saw me, my legs, my hands were covered with his brains… When Dave saw this he burst out weeping… I said "I'm not going to leave him, I'm not going to leave him"… I was standing outside in this narrow corridor… ten minutes later this big policeman brought me a chair.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

The "Camelot" interview (29 November 1963)

Cry

“I wanted to see how I would react. I didn’t think I would actually get through my fear as fast as I did. But was I scared of meeting Robert in makeup? No… well, yes, I’m lying. I don’t want to admit it because I’m 22 years old, and that’s ridiculous. But I was scared for about a year after I saw one of Freddy’s films when I was 7. I wasn’t supposed to be up, but I snuck behind my brother’s chair. And right as I got to the chair, Freddy’s face popped up. I had to go sleep with my mom. And when I say sleep with her, I was probably on top of her.”

Kelly Rowland (1981) singer, songwriter, actress

It's Kelly Rowland vs. Freddy and Jason! http://ew.com/article/2003/08/14/its-kelly-rowland-vs-freddy-and-jason/ (August 14, 2003)

Fear, Lying, Moms, Thinking

“As for your artificial conception of "splendid & traditional ways of life"—I feel quite confident that you are very largely constructing a mythological idealisation of something which never truly existed; a conventional picture based on the perusal of books which followed certain hackneyed lines in the matter of incidents, sentiments, & situations, & which never had a close relationship to the actual societies they professed to depict... In some ways the life of certain earlier periods had marked advantages over life today, but there were compensating disadvantages which would make many hesitate about a choice. Some of the most literarily attractive ages had a coarseness, stridency, & squalor which we would find insupportable... Modern neurotics, lolling in stuffed easy chairs, merely make a myth of these old periods & use them as the nuclei of escapist daydreams whose substance resembles but little the stern actualities of yesterday. That is undoubtedly the case with me—only I'm fully aware of it. Except in certain selected circles, I would undoubtedly find my own 18th century insufferably coarse, orthodox, arrogant, narrow, & artificial. What I look back upon nostalgically is a dream-world which I invented at the age of four from picture books & the Georgian hill streets of Old Providence.... There is something artificial & hollow & unconvincing about self-conscious intellectual traditionalism—this being, of course, the only valid objection against it. The best sort of traditionalism is that easy-going eclectic sort which indulges in no frenzied pulmotor stunts, but courses naturally down from generation to generation; bequeathing such elements as really are sound, losing such as have lost value, & adding any which new conditions may make necessary.... In short, young man, I have no quarrel with the principle of traditionalism as such, but I have a decided quarrel with everything that is insincere, inappropriate, & disproportionate; for these qualities mean ugliness & weakness in the most offensive degree. I object to the feigning of artificial moods on the part of literary moderns who cannot even begin to enter into the life & feelings of the past which they claim to represent... If there were any reality or depth of feeling involved, the case would be different; but almost invariably the neotraditionalists are sequestered persons remote from any real contacts or experience with life... For any person today to fancy he can truly enter into the life & feeling of another period is really nothing but a confession of ignorance of the depth & nature of life in its full sense. This is the case with myself. I feel I am living in the 18th century, though my objective judgment knows better, & realises the vast difference from the real thing. The one redeeming thing about my ignorance of life & remoteness from reality is that I am fully conscious of it, hence (in the last few years) make allowances for it, & do not pretend to an impossible ability to enter into the actual feelings of this or any other age. The emotions of the past were derived from experiences, beliefs, customs, living conditions, historic backgrounds, horizons, &c. &c. so different from our own, that it is simply silly to fancy we can duplicate them, or enter warmly & subjectively into all phases of their aesthetic expression.”

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

Letter to Frank Belknap Long (27 February 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 307
Non-Fiction, Letters, to Frank Belknap Long

Life, Books, Age, World

“We went to the Opera to hear music of the vanguard, Maximilian by Darius Milhaud. We clutched our chair. But we were hurled out of it by such a hurricane of wrong notes that we found ourselves, half dead, on the stairway, without knowing how we could fall down quite so far. The composer knows the grammar, the spelling and the language; but he can speak only Esperanto and Volapuk. It is a work of a Communist traveling salesman.”

Darius Milhaud (1892–1974) French composer and teacher

Anonymous reviewer, as quoted in Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time (1965) by Nicolas Slonimsky, p. 126
About

Music, Travel, Dead

“At about midnight he arrived, accompanied by six armed SS officers, and was received by my aide-de-camp, Walter Luedde-Neurath. I offered Himmler a chair and sat down at my desk, on which lay, hidden by some papers, a pistol with the safety catch off. I had never done anything of this sort in my life before, but I did not know what the outcome of this meeting might be. I handed Himmler the telegram containing my appointment. "Please read this," I said. I watched him closely. As he read, an expression of astonishment, indeed of consternation, spread over his face. All hope seemed to collapse within him. He went very pale. Finally he stood up and bowed. "Allow me," he said, "to become the second man in your state." I replied that was out of the question and that there was no way I could make any use of his services. Thus advised, he left me at about one o'clock in the morning. The showdown had taken place without force, and I felt relieved.”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

As quoted in The Decline and Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan (1997) by Hans Dollinger, p. 242

Life, Hope, Way, Question

“Sometimes I say that writing a novel is the same as constructing a chair: a person must be able to sit in it, to be balanced on it. If I can produce a great chair, even better. But above all I have to make sure that it has four stable feet.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Interview with Katherine Vaz, José Saramago http://bombsite.com/issues/999/articles/3565, BOMB Magazine, June 2001.

Personality

“Leonid Brezhnev needed a haircut, so he went down to the ground floor of the Kremlin and plopped into the chair. It was understood that at such times the barber was to say not a word, just cut hair. But this morning, after a few snips he said: "Comrade Brezhnev what are you going to do about Poland?" No reply. Some minutes later: "Comrade Brezhnev, what about Poland?" Again no reply. Then, pretty soon: "Comrade Brezhnev, you've got to do something about Poland." At this Brezhnev jumps out of the chair and tears away the cloth: "What's all this about Poland?" and the barber says: "It makes my job so much easier," and Brezhnev screams: "What do you mean?" and the barber says: "Every time I mention Poland your hair stands straight up on end."”

James A. Michener book Poland

page 567
Poland (1983)

Tear, Time, Clothes

“I ordered my coffee and sat down on one of their chairs to relax. A few moments later, when I looked up from my drink, I saw a young couple standing in line. The two of them were kissing passionately. The boy looked like an obnoxious punk; he was tall and wore baggy pants. The girl was a pretty blonde! They looked like they were in the throes of passionate sexual attraction to each other, rubbing their bodies together and tongue kissing in front of everyone. I was absolutely livid with envious hatred. When they left the store I followed them to their car and splashed my coffee all over them.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Building to Violence

Cars, Girl, Boy, Coffee

“For myself the delay may be compared with a reprieve; for in confidence I assure you, with the world it would obtain little credit that my movements to the chair of Government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution: so unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an Ocean of difficulties, without that competency of political skill, abilities and inclination which is necessary to manage the helm.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Comment to General Henry Knox on the delay in assuming office (March 1789)
1780s

Life, World, Peace, Feeling

“I wonder what chairs think about all day: "Oh, here comes another asshole."”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

Reality...What a Concept (1979)

Thinking

“The next thing I know, I'm on the set of the movie Magic Mike. The movie is directed by a director named Steven Soderbergh, who's an amazing, amazing director, he's done a lot of great films. And, of course, Channing Tatum's in the movie. In addition, there's an actor by the name of Matthew McConaughey, who's attached to the movie. [Several audience members cheer] I'm a huge fan of Matthew McConaughey, okay? When I found out that I was gonna work with him, I was so excited, you know? People ask me, "Really, you get star-struck?" Hell yeah! I'm a comedian, not an actor. So, I show up, and, immediately, they send me to the makeup trailer that's outside. So, I go into the makeup trailer, I sit down, they start working on my hair, they start putting makeup on me, and in comes Matthew McConaughey, and he sits down on the chair right next to me. And I start freaking out, "Oh, my God, that's Matthew McConaughey!" [Stutters excitedly] And, now, I decide to introduce myself before I did or said something stupid, right? So, I look over to him, and I say, "Excuse me, Mr. McConaughey? How are you doing? My name's Gabriel Iglesias, I'm going to be playing the role of Tobias, the club DJ, and I just wanted to say Hello, and that it's an honor to work with you." And, in my head, I'm thinking, "I hope he's the same guy. I hope he's the same person in the movies, I hope his voice is the same, I hope his accent's the same." And he turns to me, and he says, [Imitating Matthew McConaughey] "All riiight." [Audience cheers] "How you doin' there, big man? You doin' good?" "I'm doing good." "All riiight."”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

And, I'm spazzing out. [Gives excited gibberish]
Aloha, Fluffy (2013)

God, People, Stupidity, Hope

“Should a person on returning from the city discover his house to be in flames, let him examine well the change which he has received from the chair-carrier before it is too late; for evil never travels alone.”

Ernest Bramah book The Wallet of Kai Lung

The Career of the Charitable Quen-Ki-Tong
The Wallet of Kai Lung (1900)

Travel, Evil, Change, Housing

“The point is that one sees things at different moments with different eyes. Differently in the morning then in the evening. The way in which one sees also depends on one's mood…. coming in from a dark bedroom in the morning into the sitting room one will, for example, see everything in a bluish light. Even the deepest shadows are topped with bright light. After a while one will accustom oneself to the light and the shadows will be deeper and everything will be seen more sharply. If an atmosphere of this kind is being painted it won't do merely to sit and gaze at everything 'just as one sees'. One must paint precisely the fleeting moment of significance – one must capture the exact experience separating that significant moment from the next – the exact moment when the motif struck one… In some circumstances a chair may seem to be just as interesting as a human being. In some way or another it must have caught the interest in which case the onlooker's interest must somehow be engaged in the same way. It's not the chair that should be painted, but what the person has felt at the sight of it [written in Saint Cloud, 1890 - probably related to the chair of Vincent van Gogh”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

Quote of Munch from: T 2770, (1890); as cited in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, pp. 83-84
1880 - 1895

Way, Mood, Light, Painting

“I started contemplating or doing my Yoga from the age of 4. There was a small chair for me on which I used to sit still, engrossed in my meditation. A very brilliant light would then descend over my head and produce some turmoil inside my brain. Of course I understood nothing, it was not the age for understanding. But gradually I began to feel, "I shall have to do some tremendously great work that nobody yet knows."”

The Mother (1878–1973) spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo

In Birth and Girlhood http://www.searchforlight.org/TheMother_lifeSketch1.htm, during her childhood days in when she was aware of her special purpose of life, her mission on earth, and also in On the Mother Divine by Pasupati Bhattacharya (1968) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=1loqAAAAYAAJ, p. 10

Age, Feeling, Understanding, Light

“In the courtroom, watch the balance of the scales
If the price is right, there's time for more appeals
The strings are pulled, the switch is stayed
The finest lawyers fees are paid
And a rich man never died upon the chair”

Phil Ochs (1940–1976) American protest singer and songwriter

Iron Lady" http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/iron-lady.html"The from I Ain't Marching Anymore (1965) Lyrics

“Number the priests in the very chair of Peter,
And see in that order of fathers who succeeded the other”
Venite fratres, si vultis ut inseramini in vite; Dolor est cum vos videmus praecisos ita jacere. Numerate sacerdotes vel ab ipsa Petri sede; Et in ordine illo Patrum quis cm successit videte. Ipsa est petra, quam non vincunt superbae inferorum portae. (PL 43:30 [http://books.google.com/books?id=SXPYAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PT3]).

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Publications of the Catholic Truth Society (1895), Catholic Truth Society, London, vol. 24, p. 42. http://books.google.com/books?id=uIYQAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA42 Alternate translation: Come brethren, if you have a mind to be ingrafted in the vine, It is a pity to see you lopped off in this manner From the stock. Reckon up the prelates in the very see of Peter; And in that order of fathers see which has succeeded which. This is the rock over which the proud gates of hell prevail not. (A reference to Matthew 16:18 http://biblehub.com/matthew/16-18.htm.) Our Church, Her Children and Institutions (1908), Henry Coyle, et al, Angel Guardian Press, Boston, Mass. P. 98. http://books.google.com/books?id=WaposfecSRUC&pg=PA94 Psalmus Contra Partem Donati - Psalm Against the Donatists (c. 393) Context: Come, brethren, if you wish to be engrafted in the vine. It grieves us to see you thus lie cut off. Number the priests in the very chair of Peter, And see in that order of fathers who succeeded the other. This is the rock which the proud gates of hell overcome not.

“Something is happening to America, not something dangerous but something all too safe. I see it in my lifelong friends. I am a child of the "baby boom," a generation not known for its sane or cautious approach to things. Yet suddenly my peers are giving up drinking, giving up smoking, cutting down on coffee, sugar, and salt. They will not eat red meat and go now to restaurants whose menus have caused me to stand on a chair yelling, "Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, dinner is served!" This from the generation of LSD, Weather Underground, and Altamont Rock Festival! And all in the name of safety! Our nation has withstood many divisions—North and South, black and white, labor and management—but I do not know if the country can survive division into smoking and non-smoking sections.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Republican Party Reptile

Republican Party Reptile (1987)

Coffee, Drink, Baby, Weather

“Dear Sir: Yours of the tenth received. I am well acquainted with Mr. __, and know his characteristics. First of all, he has a wife and baby; together they ought to be worth $50,000 to any man. Then he has an office, in which there will be a table worth $1.50, and three chairs worth, say, $1. Last of all, there is in one corner a rat-hole which will bear looking into.”

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

Attributed at an unspecified date when Lincoln was a young lawyer, apparently first reported in the Prairie Farmer (March 13, 1886), Volume 58, p. 176. The quote, taken as a whole, has been explained to mean that Lincoln was giving a negative character reference, implying that the subject of that reference was not financially stable, and prone to let details slip.
Posthumous attributions

Baby

“I have been discriminated against by white people for being black, by black people for being gay, by gay people for peing too fem. Did I let them stop me from getting to this chair?”

RuPaul (1960) Actriz de Televisa, dueña y señora de los ejidos cacaoahuateros

RuPaul's Drag Race - S10E13 (2018)

People

“Listen to the Chair Leg of Truth! It does not lie!”

Warren Ellis (1968) English comics and fiction writer

Source: Transmetropolitan, Vol. 9: The Cure

Truth, Lie

“July 24, 6:03 A. M.
The laundry was warm and the rafters were firm, and Michael Holzapfel jumped from the chair as if it were a cliff…
Michael Holzapfel knew what he was doing.
He killed himself for wanting to live.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“I dread no more the first white in my hair,
Or even age itself, the easy shoe,
The cane, the wrinkled hands, the special chair:
Time, doing this to me, may alter too
My anguish, into something I can bear”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Age, Shoe, Time

“Draw your chair up close to the edge of the precipice and I’ll tell you a story.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Drawing

“She longed to throw something at him. A chair. Herself.”

Loretta Chase (1949) American writer

Source: Silk Is for Seduction

“Looking at the past is like lolling in a rocking chair. It is so relaxing and you can rock back and forth on the porch, and never go forward.”

Martha Graham (1894–1991) American dancer and choreographer

Source: Blood Memory

Past

“Oh, dear me." Nathalie sank back down in the chair and examined her Uggs. "The sarcasm could've started dripping off her and stained the floor. "Is it conspiracy, treachery, murder, or open warfare? I'll have to choose my lipstick accordingly.”

Lilith Saintcrow (1976) American writer

Source: Defiance

“Now she and I sit together in her room and eat chocolate, and I tell her that in a very long time when we both to go heaven, we should try to get chairs next to each other, close to the dessert table.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Time

“I loved you!" he yelled. He jumped up out of his chair so quickly I never saw it coming. "I loved you, and you destroyed me. You took my heart and ripped it up.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Love, Heart

“When I glanced at the chair, it started to shake. I’d like to think it was scared of me, but I rarely invoked that response in living things, let alone inanimate objects.”

Kelley Armstrong book Stolen

Source: Stolen

Thinking

“His Grace was at her side, and lifted her down from the chair.
"My enfant," he said, "duchesses do not dance on chairs, nor do they call their brothers 'imbécile'."
Léonie's twinkled irrepressibly.
"I do," she said firmly.”

Georgette Heyer book These Old Shades

Source: These Old Shades

Dance

“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

Friendship, Solitude, Housing

“Baby?"
She perched beside him in the chair. "You're kidding me right?"
"I was trying it out, no?"
"no," she said firmly
Simon & Clary”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Baby

“Farewell, Father," she said. He fell back upon his chair, choking. She laughed, not with mirth or even mockery, but something that was closer to a sob. "You crafted me so sharp, I cut even myself.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: The Poison Eaters and Other Stories

“Don’t kiss me,” she said warningly.
“I don’t intend to,” he replied, smiling a little. “I don’t have my whip and chair with me.”

Linda Howard (1950) American writer

Source: Mr. Perfect

Smile, Kiss

“Leaning forward in your chair when someone is trying to squeeze behind you isn't enough. You also have to move the chair.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

“When you sit right down in the middle of yourself you're gonna wanna have a comfortable chair.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

“I say that home is where there is a chair and a glass.”

Graham Greene book The Power and the Glory

Source: The Power and the Glory

Home

“I decided to dub the room with the good chairs my lutery. Or perhaps my performatory. I would need a while to come up with something suitably pretentious.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

“I didn't set out to discover a truth. I was actually sent to the Outer Fringes to conduct a chair census and learn some humility. But the truth inevitably found me, as important truths often do, like a lost thought in need of a mind.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Source: Shades of Grey

Truth, Learning

“In time you shall see Fate approach you
In the shape of your own image in the mirror;
Or you shall sit alone by your own hearth,
And suddenly the chair by you shall hold a guest,
And you shall know that guest,
And read the authentic message of his eyes.”

Edgar Lee Masters book Spoon River Anthology

Lyman King
Source: Spoon River Anthology

Fate, Time, Reading

“Sometime years before, I had dragged an old bean bag chair to that place. I watched Zach sink onto it, and then he pulled me down to lean against him. I felt his arms go around me, holding me tight.
I was safe.
I was warm.
I was home.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: United We Spy

Home

“Otis," I said.

"Shhh," he said. "I'm incognito. Call me… Otis."

"I'm not sure that's how incognito works, but okay."

Otis, aka Otis climbed into the chair I'd reserved for Sam.”

Rick Riordan book The Hammer of Thor

Source: The Hammer of Thor

“I'm going to open another vottle. not a vottle, but a bottle. you open it and I'll drink it. and you try to write as much as I did without falling off of your chair.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Drink

“Bring out… The Comfy Chair!!!!”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

“Mr. Shepherd, ye cannot stop a bad thought from coming into your head. But ye need not pull up a chair and bide it sit down." - Mrs. Brown”

Barbara Kingsolver book The Lacuna

Source: The Lacuna

“No," he said, voice thick and husky. His fingers dug into the chair's arms. "You'd better not get too close."
I stopped, laughing softly. "You don't strike me as the assaulting type, Mortensen."
"Yeah, well, there's a first time for everything.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus on Top

Time

“(As she entered the main room, Syn turned around in his chair and almost fell out of it as he scanned her body. He cleared his throat and cut an appreciative look to Nykyrian.)
Dayum…woman be hot. (Syn)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

“She looked into the staring glass eyes and complacent face, and suddenly a sort of heartbroken rage seized her. She lifted her little savage hand and knocked Emily off the chair, bursting into a passion of sobbing- Sara who never cried.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess

Source: A Little Princess

Rage, Passion

“What would a chair look like if your knees bent the other way?”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Way

“Back at his chair he cannot remember what he was reading. He feels the books beside him to find the one that is warm.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

Books, Feeling, Reading

“Certainly, Doctor. Let's talk about your chair. Victorian?”

Eoin Colfer Artemis Fowl

Source: Artemis Fowl

“I am living at the Villa Borghese. There is not a crumb of dirt anywhere, nor a chair misplaced. We are all alone here and we are dead.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer

Dead

“Books everywhere. On the shelves and on the small space above the rows of books and all along the floor and under chairs, books that I have read, books that I have not read.”

Edna O'Brien book Country Girl

Source: Country Girl

Books, Reading

“Let’s talk.” I pinned Red to his chair with my stare. I did deranged quite well, when the occasion required.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

“I just said, 'Well, the real people performing miracles every day are librarians,' and we all laughed ourselves off our chairs.”

Nancy Pearl (1945) American librarian and writer

People

“Betsy returned to her chair, took off her coat and hat, opened her book and forgot the world again.”

Maud Hart Lovelace book Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

Source: Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

Books, World

“A great book is a homing device
For navigating paradise.

A good book somehow makes you care
About the comfort of a chair.

A bad book owes to many trees
A forest of apologies.”

J. Patrick Lewis (1942) American children's writer and poet

Books, Home, Tree

“You told me once that we shall be judged by our intentions, not by our accomplishments. I thought it a grand remark. But we must intend to accomplish - not sit intending on a chair.”

E.M. Forster book Where Angels Fear to Tread

Source: Where Angels Fear to Tread

“When you sit in a chair, you are not actually sitting there, but levitating above it at a height of one angstrom (a hundred millionth of a centimetre), your electrons and its electrons implacably opposed to any closer intimacy.”

Bill Bryson book A Short History of Nearly Everything

Source: A Short History of Nearly Everything

“If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”

Lenny Bruce (1925–1966) comedian and social critic

Children, School

“It's possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things—a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring—with immense, even startling power.”

Raymond Carver (1938–1988) American short story author and poet

“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Happy, Cute, Happiness

“His books were the closest thing he had to furniture and he lived in them the way other men live in easy chairs.”

Laura Hillenbrand book Seabiscuit: An American Legend

Source: Seabiscuit: An American Legend

Men, Books, Way

“Forget the noose. Forget the Iron Maiden. Forget the electric chair or the guillotine. The mind was mankind's most painful torture chamber, the blessed liberty to cogitate offering either doom or salvation, depending on one's disposition.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Pain, Dependency, Forgetting

“The kitchen was just as empty, even the refrigerator gone, the chairs, the table--the kitchen cabinets stood open, their bare shelves reminder her of a nursery rhyme. She cleared her throat. "What would demons," she said, "want with our microwave?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“I wanted to tell her not to entertain despair like this. Despaire wasn't a guest, you didn't play its favorite music, find it a comfortable chair. Despair was the enemy."
-white oleander”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Music, Despair

“The oversized chairs are white; the walls, covered with occasional landscape paintings, are white; and the plush carpet is the whitest of all. I'm insanely glad I didn't bring a cup of grape juice with me.”

Wendy Mass (1967) American children's writer

Painting

“If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”

Shirley Chisholm (1924–2005) American politician

“Fine." Magnus stood up. "But," he added, pausing by Alec's chair and leaning in close to him, "you are not trivial."
Alec flushed. "If you say so," he said.
"I say so," said Magnus, and he turned to follow Isabelle out of the room.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“a woman's place is in the kitchen… sitting in a comfortable chair, with her feet up, drinking a glass of wine and watching her husband cook dinner.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Drink, Wine, Cooking

“I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were walking the streets of London unchallenged.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

“Anxiety's like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you very far.”

Jodi Picoult book Sing You Home

Source: Sing You Home

“You know when you're sitting on a chair and you lean back so you're just on two legs and you lean too far so you almost fall over but at the last second you catch yourself? I feel like that all the time…”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Feeling, Time

“I'm coming to believe that there are two kinds of people… those who choose to be masters of their own fate and those who wait in chairs while other dance. I would rather be one of the former than the latter.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Secrets of a Summer Night

Fate, People, Waiting, Dance

“He lunged for the maps. I grabbed the chair and hit him with it. He went down. I hit him again to make sure he stayed that way, stepped over him, and picked up the maps.
"I win.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Way

“A woman with an education may be able to spend more time sitting in a chair instead of lying on her back. A sound advantage, I should think.”

Anne Bishop (1955) American fiction writer

Source: Daughter of the Blood

Education, Lying, Thinking, Time

“Get the Titanic sailing correctly before you worry about the deck chairs.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

"105 Years of Illustrated Text" in the Zoetrope All-Story, Vol. 5 No. 1.
105 Years of Illustrated Text

“How many spectral warriors does it take to change a light-bulb?
One, and a stepladder. At a pinch, of course, he could stand on a chair.”

Tom Holt book Here Comes the Sun

Here Comes the Sun (1993)

Light, Change

“This stable is a prince's court,
The crib his chair of state;
The beasts are parcel of his pomp,
The wooden dish his plate.”

Robert Southwell (1561–1595) English Jesuit

"New Prince, New Pomp", line 17; p. 96.

“We lived in a large wooden house, with one room succeeding another [Zadkine, recalling in this quote his childhood's days in Smolensk, Russia]. The house was at the end of a blind alley. On one side were a beautiful garden and an orchard. In the summer there was an atmosphere of fragrance and peace. A large room with three windows looked out into the courtyard. Bookshelves along the walls with books and more books; a black table and six ugly Viennese chairs, also black, and in the center of the bare, inhospitable table, a sort of vase in coloured plaster representing a hand holding a goblet. It was the only piece of sculpture in the house!”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

As quoted in: 'The artist, his life and his epoch' (excerpt), Ionel Jianou, 1964; for the Zadkine Research Center https://www.zadkine.com/writing 1960 - 1968

Books, Peace, Beauty, Quotes

“The signs on Bell’s door read “J. Bell” and “M. Bell.” I knocked and was invited in by Bell. He looked about the same as he had the last time I saw him, a couple of years ago. He has long, neatly combed red hair and a pointed beard, which give him a somewhat Shavian figura. On one wall of the office is a photograph of Bell with something that looks like a halo behind his head, and his expression in the photograph is mischievous. Theoretical physicists’ offices run the gamut from chaotic clutter to obsessive neatness; the Bells’ is somewhere in between. Bell invited me to sit down after warning me that the “visitor’s chair” tilted backward at unexpected angles. When I had mastered it, and had a chance to look around, the first thing that struck me was the absence of Mary. “Mary,” said Bell, with a note of some disbelief in his voice, “has retired.” This, it turned out, had occurred not long before my visit. “She will not look at any mathematics now. I hope she comes back,” he went on almost plaintively; “I need her. We are doing several problems together.” In recent years, the Bells have been studying new quantum mechanical effects that will become relevant for the generation of particle accelerators that will perhaps succeed the LEP. Bell began his career as a professional physicist by designing accelerators, and Mary has spent her entire career in accelerator design. A couple of years ago Bell, like the rest of the members of CERN theory division, was asked to list his physics speciality. Among the more “conventional” entries in the division such as “super strings,” “weak interactions,” “cosmology,” and the like, Bell’s read “quantum engineering.””

Jeremy Bernstein (1929) American physicist

Quantum Profiles (1991), John Stewart Bell: Quantum Engineer

Hope, Mathematics, Problem, Study

“The world is rather shot to pieces [end of World War II - 1945], but the spectators climb out of their caves and pretend to have again become normal and customary humans who ask each other's pardon instead of eating one another or sucking each other's blood. The entertaining folly of war evaporates, distinguished boredom sits down again on the dignified old overstuffed chairs... May I report about myself that I have had a truly grotesque time, brim-full with work, Nazi persecutions, bombs, hunger, and again and again work – in spite of everything”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

a. o. using his bed sheets as canvas for the new paintings
letter to de:Stephan Lackner, Amsterdam, 27 August 1945, as quoted in Max Beckmann, Stephan Lackner, Bonfini Press Corporation, Naefels, Switzerland, 1983, pp. 80 + 86
1940s

Hunger, War, World, Time

“One of the reasons I was asked to do the portrait [of president J. F. Kennedy, winter of 1962–63, destined for the Truman Library, Independence, Mo] is that, with luck, I can start and finish a life-size portrait in one sitting (after a couple of preliminary sessions of sketches to determine the pose and familiarize myself with my impression of the sitter). After years of working on my portraits (mostly of friends) for months at a time, I found myself getting bogged down in overly conscientious effort and discovered that by working swiftly I could enter into an almost passive relationship to the canvas and get closer to the essential gesture of the sitter. However, working at top speed this way, I require the absolute immobility of the sitter. This was impossible with President Kennedy because of his extreme restlessness: he read papers, talked on the phone, jotted down notes, crossed and uncrossed his legs, shifted from one arm of the chair to another, always in action at rest. So I had to find a new approach.”

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) American painter

n.p.
1950 - 1971, Painting a Portrait of the President', Elaine de Kooning (1964)

Life, Way, Effort, Winter

“Chicken-neck weakness is like a god now. And being totally passive, and being a huge jellyfish slacker who looks like a fried egg in a chair. That is the culture of this, okay? The worship of being destroyed. Literally, I've now discovered the secrets of it. … And everyone's wearing like pink and little green non-threatening, you know, colors, and this is what we face. This is what men look like now, on average. In fact, I used to bash men who were all into being big and muscular with tattoos and black on and going "raagh", now I get it! You don't wanna be like these people! Okay? I used to get mad at guys trying to act tough—no, no! That's good! Do that! In fact, I think I'm gonna just go all out with cut-off sleeves and drive a big fast car and be like "graagh", 'cause I mean I'm starting to get it! Men are running to that, because they see the armies… literally men in pastels… Now there's men everywhere wearing dresses, I'm telling you! It's like, they're just like "New World Order, slaughter me, please!"”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

And the New World Order is like "Act like a jellyfish coward and giggle at all reality", and they're like "Yes, yes!" "Alex Jones: I'm So Trendy Rant!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBA-sa97UYg March 2012. 2012

Men, God, People, Secret

“Another group at MIT and Harvard University developed the notion of “organizational learning.” Chris Argyris and Donald Schön were the key figures in this group. Argyris was a student of Kurt Lewin, who was a participant in the Macy Foundation meetings that were chaired by Warren McCulloch.”

Stuart A. Umpleby (1944) American scientist

Source: "The origins and purposes of several traditions in systems theory and cybernetics," 1999, p. 87; About Organizational Learning

Learning, Universe