Quotes about first
page 20

“The trouble is people leave too much to luck. They get married and then trust to luck. They should be sure in the first place.”

John O'Hara (1905–1970) American journalist

People

“But maybe that isn't so bad. You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends. The first boy is ialways the hardest to get over, Haven. It's just the way the world works.”

Sarah Dessen book That Summer

Source: That Summer (1996)
Context: Maybe not, she said as we came to the car. But maybe that isn't so bad. You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends. The first boy is always the hardest to get over, Haven. It's just the way the world works.

Love, World, Way, Boy

“There's a place beyond words where experience first occurs to which I always want to return. I suspect that whenever I articulate my thoughts or translate my impulses into words, I am betraying the real thoughts and impulses which remain hidden.”

Jerzy Kosiński book The Painted Bird

Source: The Painted Bird

“At first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. What we should fear and dread, of course, is that we won't stop loving them, even after they're dead and gone.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Love, Fear, Dead

“She was my first cat ever, and I thought she was marvelous.”

Julia Child My Life in France

Source: My Life in France

Cats

“The first duty of a man is to think for himself”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Thinking

“Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged. Missing me one place, search another. I stop somewhere waiting for you.”

Walt Whitman Song of Myself

Source: Song of Myself

Search, Waiting

“All little creatures are beautiful… every living thing when it first sees life is born in beauty. What they grow to be is a different matter.”

Brian Jacques book Outcast of Redwall

Source: Outcast of Redwall

Life, Beauty

“Nobody can have the consolations of religion or philosophy unless he has first experienced their desolations.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Source: Themes And Variations

Religion

“Electricity for example was considered a very Satanic thing when it was first discovered and utilized.”

Zeena Schreck (1963) Tantric Buddhist/Sethian

“Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation – the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Crack-Up

Source: Quoted, The Crack-Up (1936)
Context: Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation – the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the "impossible," come true.

History, Intelligence, Idea, Time

“One cannot alter a condition with the same mind set that created it in the first place.”

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

Variant: Problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them.

“In order to be a teacher you've got to be a student first”

Gary L. Francione (1954) American legal scholar

Teachers

“I'd been blindsided with the most painful knowledge: the first man to ever say he loved me had never loved me at all.

His passion had been artificial.

His pursuit of me had been choreographed.”

Charlaine Harris book Definitely Dead

Source: Definitely Dead

Love, Pain, Knowledge, Passion

“The kiss originated when the first male reptile licked the first female reptile, implying in a subtle way that she was as succulent as the small reptile he had for dinner the night before.”

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

Way, Kiss, Night

“With the rise of chiefdoms around 7,500 years ago, people had to learn, for the first time in history, how to encounter strangers regularly without attempting to kill them.”

Jared Diamond book Guns, Germs, and Steel

Source: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

People, History, Learning, Time

“I wonder if everyone who faces death hurts like this. It's as though for the first time I realize how much just being alive makes my body ache. But I don't want that ache to stop.”

Shannon Hale book Book of a Thousand Days

Source: Book of a Thousand Days

Death, Time, Hurt

“Above my cradle loomed the bookcase where/ Latin ashes and the dust of Greece/ mingled with novels, history, and verse/ in one dark Babel. I was folio-high/ when I first heard the voices.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

History

“Knowledge exists in two forms - lifeless, stored in books, and alive, in the consciousness of men. The second form of existence is after all the essential one; the first, indispensable as it may be, occupies only an inferior position.”

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

Men, Books, Knowledge

“I cannot imagine a sorrier pursuit than struggling for years to write a book that attempts to appeal to people who do not read in the first place.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Source: The Writing Life

People, Books, Imagination, Reading

“The first step in the development of taste is to be willing to to credit your own opinion.”

Thomas Harris book Hannibal

Source: Hannibal

“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Law, Freedom, Time, Fight

“In order to be the master of your life, you must first recognize that you are the rightful master of your brain, its owner and operator.”

Ilchi Lee (1950) South Korean businessman

Source: Human Technology: A Toolkit for Authentic Living

Life

“If in any quest for magic, in any search for sorcery, witchery, legerdemain, first check the human spirit.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Source: The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories

“Oh, here’s a clever one. Do you remember this question from the first test? It reads, ‘What’s wrong with this statement?’ And do you know what Constance wrote in reply? She wrote, ‘What’s wrong with you?”

Trenton Lee Stewart The Mysterious Benedict Society

Source: The Mysterious Benedict Society

Question, Reading

“I lifted onto my toes, put my hands aroung his neck, and pulled him down. When our lips met, that first jolt… It was everything I hadn't felt with Simon, everything I wanted to feel.
His hands went around my waist, pulling me closer”

Kelley Armstrong The Reckoning

Source: The Reckoning

Feeling

“When you open a book it's like going to the theater first you see the curtain then it is pulled aside and the show begins.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

Books

“We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

“Often admitting our weakness and fear is the first step to finding rest in God. Our trust in Him isn't conveyed though superhuman confidence as much as it comes in the way of childlike reliance on Him.”

Tracie Peterson (1959) American writer

Source: Morning's Refrain

God, Fear, Way, Confidence

“Nature is God's first missionary. Where there is no Bible there are sparkling stars. Where there are not preachers there are spring times…
If a person has nothing but nature, then nature is enough to reveal something about God.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

God, Star, Spring, Nature

“I know family comes first, but shouldn't that mean after breakfast?”

Jeff Lindsay book Dearly Devoted Dexter

Source: Dearly Devoted Dexter

Family

“A First Sign of the Beginning of Understanding is the Wish to Die.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Understanding

“But the first lie in the series is the one you make with the greatest trepidation and the heaviest heart.”

Michael Chabon book The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

Source: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

Lie, Heart

“Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.”

Roger von Oech (1948) Creativity theorist and inventor

Failure, Learning

“No place worth knowing yields itself at sight, and those the least
inviting on first view may leave the most haunting pictures upon the
walls of memory.”

Algernon Blackwood (1869–1951) English short story writer and novelist

Source: A Prisoner in Fairyland

Memory

“To give a person an opinion one must first judge well whether that person is of the disposition to receive it or not.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Variant translation:
It is very important to give advice to a man to help him mend his ways. It is a compassionate and important duty. However, it is extremely difficult to comprehend how this advice should be given. It is easy to recognise the good and bad points in others. Generally it is considered a kindness in helping people with things they hate or find difficult to say. However, one impracticality is that if people do not take in this advice they will think that there is nothing they should change. The same applies when we try to create shame in others by speaking badly of them. It seems outwardly that we are just complaining about them. One must get to know the person in question. Keep after him and get him to put his trust in you. Find out what interests he has. When you write to him or before you part company, you should express concrete examples of your own faults and get him to recall to mind whether or not he has the same problems. Also positively praise his qualities. It is important that he takes in your comments like a man thirsting for water. It is difficult to give such advice. We cannot easily correct our defects and weak points as they are dyed deeply within us. I have had bitter experience of this.
Hagakure (c. 1716)
Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
Context: To give a person an opinion one must first judge well whether that person is of the disposition to receive it or not. One must become close with him and make sure that he continually trusts one's word. Approaching subjects that are dear to him, seek the best way to speak and to be well understood.
Context: To give a person one's opinion and correct his faults is an important thing. It is compassionate and comes first in matters of service. But the way of doing this is extremely difficult. To discover the good and bad points of a person is an easy thing, and to give an opinion concerning them is easy, too. For the most part, people think that they are being kind by saying the things that others find distasteful or difficult to say. But if it is not received well, they think that there is nothing more to be done. This is completely worthless. It is the same as bringing shame to a person by slandering him. It is nothing more than getting it off one's chest.
To give a person an opinion one must first judge well whether that person is of the disposition to receive it or not. One must become close with him and make sure that he continually trusts one's word. Approaching subjects that are dear to him, seek the best way to speak and to be well understood. Judge the occasion, and determine whether it is better by letter or at the time of leave-taking. Praise his good points and use every device to encourage him, perhaps by talking about one's own faults without touching on his, but so that they will occur to him. Have him receive this in the way that a man would drink water when his throat is dry, and it will be an opinion that will correct faults.
This is extremely difficult. If a person's fault is a habit of some years prior, by and large it won't be remedied. I have had this experience myself. To be intimate with all one's comrades, correcting each other's faults, and being of one mind to be of use to the master is the great compassion of a retainer. By bringing shame to a person, how could one expect to make him a better man?

Personality

“I did not marry the first girl that I fell in love with, because there was a tremendous religious conflict, at the time.
She was an atheist, and I was an agnostic.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Love, Girl, Time

“I am a hundred and forty six years old and this is not my first unwinnable war.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

War

“squats are a form of torture designed by people who don’t need to do squats in the first place”

Nora Roberts book Bed of Roses

Source: Bed of Roses

People

“It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Learning

“love be damned now
as love was damned when it
first arrived.”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Love

“Every artist was first an amateur.”

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

Progress of Culture (see also: Art) <br class="br">1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Books, Letters and Social Aims http://www.rwe.org/comm/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=5&id=74&Itemid=149 (1876)

“Look on the bright side," said Simon. "If they need a human sacrifice, you can always offer me. I'm not sure the rest of you qualify anyway."
Jace brightened. "It's always nice when someone volunteers to be the first up against the wall.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“I just wish I could have all this and stand up to her a little. Rose would."
"Rose would have gotten herself arrested for treason the first time Tatiana asked her to do something.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Time

“Things have their root and their branches. Affairs have their end and their beginning. To know what is first and what is last will lead near to what is taught in the Great Learning.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Great Learning

Learning

“… you spend a much larger part of your life being old, not young. Rules change along the way. The first things to go are those things you thought were eternal.”

Douglas Coupland (1961) Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and graphic designer

Life, Way, Change, Parting

“And I hope you will not think me foolish when I also extend my thanks.

Thank you, Michael, for letting my son love her first.

—from Janet Stirling, dowager Countess of Kilmartin, to Michael Stirling, Earl of Kilmartin”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: When He Was Wicked

Love, Hope, Thinking

“Well chaps first I'd like to say a few vile things more or less at random, not only because it is expected of me but also because I enjoy it.”

Donald Barthelme book Snow White

Source: Snow White

“Choosing to be honest is the first step in the process of love. There is no practitioner of love who deceives. Once the choice has been made to be honest, then the next step on love's path is communication.”

Bell Hooks book All About Love: New Visions

Source: All About Love: New Visions

Love, Communication

“Buttercup's mother hesitated, then put her stew spoon down. (This was after stew, but so is everything. When the first man first clambered from the slime and made his first home on land, what he had for supper that first night was stew.)”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Home, Night

“No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.”

John Stuart Mill book On Liberty

Source: On Liberty

“Just each of us being me, me, me first. The murderer, the victim, the witness each of us thinks our role is the lead.
Probably that goes for anybody in the world.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

World, Thinking

“God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

God, Books

“How horrifying that morning when you wake up and your first thought is not of the person who has left. That’s when you know, I will never die of a broken heart.”

Kamila Shamsie (1973) Pakistani writer

Source: Salt and Saffron

Heart, Personality

“Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That's their natural and first weapon. She will need her sisterhood.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

"Sisterhood" in New York Magazine (20 December 1971), p. 49

Nature

“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.”

William Gibson (1948) American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist and founder of the cyberpunk subgenre

Misattributed <br class="br">Source: thought to be Gibson's words as a result of Twitter attribution decay, despite repeated disavowals. https://twitter.com/#!/GreatDismal/status/144940064990961664 https://twitter.com/#!/GreatDismal/status/144941061578559488 https://twitter.com/#!/GreatDismal/status/144941447936884736 https://twitter.com/#!/GreatDismal/status/171091202161131520. The source, according to Gibson, is Steven Winterburn https://twitter.com/greatdismal/status/119133581598666752 https://twitter.com/5tevenw/status/73091190475595776. However, Steven Winterburn is NOT the original creator of that quote. The original quote is the creation of Twitter account holder "@debihope" https://twitter.com/debihope?lang=en. See research by quoteinvestigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/10/25/diagnose/.

Powerful

“And the seventh rule is if this is your first night at fight club, you have to fight.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Fight, Night

“This is my story; I promise to leave nothing out.
First you will smile, and then you will cry - don't say you haven't been warned.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Variant: First you will smile, and then you will cry -- don't say you haven't been warned.
Source: A Walk to Remember

Smile, Cry

“I have never learned to hate. Don't let my first lesson come from you.”

Susan Carroll (1952) American writer

Hate, Learning

“Hey, you’re lucky. My cabin is closest to the stables. I can hear her yelling all night: FIRST PLACE OR DEATH! AN A MINUS IS A FAILING GRADE! Leo really needs to design a gag that’s better than my old sock.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Death, Night

“She looked at her own past, and, for the first time, she forgave herself: it hadn't been
her fault, but the fault
of that insecure little boy, who had given up after the first attempt.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

Boy, Time, Past

“First thought: It was a dream
Second thought: No it wasn't
Third thought: Crap”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Source: Twisted

Dreams

“To find out your real opinion of someone, judge the impression you have when you first see a letter from them.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

“right' i said. 'but first, we need the car. and after that, the cocaine. and then the tape recorder, for special music, and some acapulco shirts.”

Hunter S. Thompson book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Music, Cars

“If you want to keep your memories, you first have to live them.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Memory

“Roza." his voice had that same wonderful lowness, the same accent… it was all just colder. "You forgot my first lesson: Don't hesitate."
I just barely saw his fist striking out toward my head… and then I saw nothing at all.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

“If you don't want them to find you, changing your last name seems a fairly elementary first step. Trust me, I'm an expert. I've watched a lot of spy movies.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Last Stand of the New York Institute

Change

“You are back, Cam. Which means for the first time since you left, it's okay for us to be mad at you for leaving.

- Macey”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

Time, Madness

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 218

Universe

“Haymich finally drops the good-natured act. "you know who else, Katniss. You know who stepped up first."
Of course I do.
Gale.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Nature

“Léonie, you will do well to consider. You are not the first woman in my life."

She smiled through her tears. "Monseigneur, I would so much rather be the last woman than the first,” she said.”

Georgette Heyer book These Old Shades

Source: These Old Shades

Life, Smile, Tear

“I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of a work of fiction should be to tell a story; and I have never believed that the novelist who properly performed this first condition of his art, was in danger, on that account, of neglecting the delineation of character — for this plain reason, that the effect produced, by any narrative of events is essentially dependent, not on the events themselves, but on the human interest which is directly connected with them. It may be possible in novel-writing to present characters successfully without telling a story; but it is not possible to tell a story successfully without presenting characters: their existence, as recognizable realities, being the sole condition on which the story can be effectively told. The only narrative which can hope to lay a strong hold on the attention of readers is a narrative which interests them about men and women — for the perfectly obvious reasons that they are men and women themselves.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: Collins explaining what he calls the literary principal guiding him, in the preface of the second edition of The Woman in White. Also in Reality's Dark Light: The Sensational Wilkie Collins by Maria K. Bachman & Don Richard Cox [University of Tennessee Press, 2003, ISBN 1-572-33274-3] ( p. xiv https://books.google.com/books?id=_X8AlmIp0dwC&pg=PR14)

Women, Men, Hope, Art

“2 November. This morning, for the first time in a long time, the joy again of imagining a knife twisted in my heart.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Source: Diaries of Franz Kafka

Imagination, Time, Heart, Joy

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend… if you have one.""Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one."”

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

Night

“You're not so bad. You'll get there. You should have seen Alec do flips at first. I think he kicked himself in the head once.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Thinking

“Sometimes it's a good idea to think about what youfrom a situation, and try to get it, rather than just blurt out the first thing that comes into your head.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver

Idea, Thinking

“Reading was my first solitary vice (and led to all others). I read while I ate, I read in the loo, I read in the bath. When I was supposed to be sleeping, I was reading.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

Sleep, Reading

“O, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!”

Walter Scott Marmion

Canto VI, st. 17.
Variant: Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive
Source: Marmion (1808)

“You have to give 100 percent in the first half of the game. If that isn't enough, in the second half, you have to give what's left.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

Game

“My daddy said, that the first time you fall in love, it changes you forever and no matter how hard you try, that feeling just never goes away.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Love, Feeling, Change, Time

“Are you ever going to kiss me without swearing first?”

Christine Feehan American writer

Source: A Christine Feehan Holiday Treasury

Kiss

“A young wolfhound must meet his first wolf someday, but if the wolf sees him as a puppy, if he acts the puppy, the wolf will surely kill him. The wolfhound must be a wolfhound in the wolf's eyes even more than in his own, if he is to survive.”

Robert Jordan The Great Hunt

Source: The Great Hunt

Wolf

“To conquer a nation, first disarm its citizens.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

“Family is everything. Family comes first. It's not what I expected it to be, but nothing ever is.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

http://www.familyquotes4u.com/2009/03/family-quotes-page-8.html <br class="br">(In Brilla Mare Ariake ads).

Family

“Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight. I wish not to cry.”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

Star, Light, Cry

“Settle down, Princess. It’s not my first time.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

Time, Princess

“Happiness, remarked Maury Noble one day, is only the first hour after the alleviation of some especially intense misery.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

Happiness

“My first words, as I was being born… I looked up at my mother and said, "that's the last time I'm coming out one of those."”

Stephen Fry book Moab Is My Washpot

On being gay
Stephen Fry actually admitted this was a quote from a friend, not himself. (Moab Is My Washpot)
1990s, Moab is My Washpot (autobiography, 1997)

Time