Quotes about first
page 25

“… the first sign of civilization is always trash.”

Source: Unwind

“The grandiose person is never really free; first because he is excessively dependent on admiration from others, and second, because his self-respect is dependent on qualities, functions, and achievements that can suddenly fail.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Source: The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

Dependency, Personality

“You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lose your way in the first place.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Someone Like You (1998)

Way

“But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first.”

Cheryl Strayed book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Feeling, Reality, Selfishness

“Maybe that is the best lesson I learned in my first semester at Yale, because if I had gone to a less-demanding school and continued to sail along on the top, I am sure I would never have attained the subsequent achievements in my life.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Life, School, Learning

“I think the biggest innovations of the twenty-first century will be the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning, just like the digital one was when I was his age.”

Walter Isaacson book Steve Jobs

Source: Steve Jobs

Age, Thinking

“None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

“Do you remember what I told you that first time at Taki's? About faerie food?"
"I remember you said you ran down Madison Avenue naked with antlers on your head", said Clary, blinking silver drops off her lashes.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Food, Time

“We can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Princess Irulan in The Humanity of Muad'Dib
Dune (1965)
Context: Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.

Learning, Training

“I guess we're even, Sadie. First, Walt and I rushed off to save you in London. Then, you and Walt rushed off to save me. The only one who got shafted on both deals was Walt. Poor guy gets hauled all over the world pulling us out of trouble”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

World, Guy

“I'd much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they are the first to be rescued off of sinking ships.”

Gilda Radner (1946–1989) American comedian

Women, Cry, Clothes, Cute

“May your first day in hell last ten thousand years, and may it be the shortest.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: Wolves of the Calla

Hell

“I must confess. Of all of the brotherhood, he was the one I loved first and he remains the one I love the most. For me, he is just the… one.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Love

“Hassan couldn't read a first-grade textbook but he'd read me plenty. That was a little unsettling but also sort of comfortable to have someone who always knew what you needed.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Reading

“The war which is coming
Is not the first one. There were
Other wars before it.
When the last one came to an end
There were conquerors and conquered.
Among the conquered the common people
Starved. Among the conquerors
The common people starved too.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

Source: Poems 1913-1956

War, People

“Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

“In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves… self-discipline with all of them came first.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Men, Reading, Victory

“Remember, most of us got something for nothing the first time just by showing up here at birth. Now we have to qualify.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Birth, Time

“When I first met you, I felt a kind of contradiction in you. You’re seeking something, but at the same time, you are running away for all you’re worth.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Time

“If you asked me to marry you all over again today I'd say yes, said Valentine.

And if I had only met you for the first time today, I'd ask.”

Orson Scott Card book Xenocide

Source: Xenocide

Time

“The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Understanding, Country

“The human capacity for burden is like bamboo- far more flexible than you'd ever believe at first glance.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

“For sudden Joys, like Griefs, confound at first.”

Daniel Defoe La vie et les aventures de Robinson Crusoe

Source: Robinson Crusoe

Joy

“"Your voice will come. We all go through the same thing. You cannot talk when you first arrive." He smiled. "It helps you listen."”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

Smile, Help

“The expectations of life depend upon diligence the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.”

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

Source: The Analects of Confucius:

Life, Dependency, Perfection

“She is probably by this time as tired of me, as I am of her; but as she is too Polite and I am too civil to say so, our letters are still as frequent and affectionate as ever, and our Attachment as firm and sincere as when it first commenced.”

Jane Austen book Love and Freindship

Source: Love and Friendship

Time, Sincerity

“That's why I love spiders. 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

Love

“The first time I see a jogger smiling, I'll consider it.”

Joan Rivers (1933–2014) American comedian, actress, and television host

Smile, Time

“The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown.”

Angela Carter book Nights at the Circus

Source: Nights at the Circus

Laughter

“You cannot be remade unless you are first broken.”

Steven Erikson book Deadhouse Gates

Deadhouse Gates

“The first mistake of art is to assume that it's serious.”

Lester Bangs (1948–1982) American music critic and journalist

Art

“The Very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.”

Jane Austen book Love and Freindship

Source: Love and Friendship

Heart, Relationship, Romantic, For Her

“Sitting beside Abe was Adrian Ivashkov--my more-or-less boyfriend. Adrian was a royal Moroi--and another spirit user like Lissa. He'd been crazy about me (and often just crazy) ever since we first met”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

“When people tell a lie about something, they have to make up a bunch of lies to go with the first one. ‘Mythomania’ is the word for it.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

People, Lie

“Funny how the nature of a normal day is the first memory to fade.”

Lionel Shriver book We Need to Talk About Kevin

Source: We Need to Talk About Kevin

Nature, Memory

“Act first, explain later.”

Dan Brown book Digital Fortress

Source: Digital Fortress

“you should first follow the plow if you want to dance the harvest jig.”

Ken Follett book World Without End

Source: World Without End

Dance

“According to Dickens, the first rule of human nature is self-preservation and when I forgive him for writing a character as pathetic as Oliver Twist, I'll thank him for the advice.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Forgiveness, Nature

“It's all well and good to look back after the fact and see what we should have done, but we rarely know what path is best when we take that first step.”

Christine Feehan American writer

Source: Oceans of Fire

“If you chase him in a black nightie, first he’ll have sex with you…
and then he’ll run.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

Sex

“Women always put men first. That's how everything got so screwed up.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Women, Men

“I opened my mouth and kissed you then, the first time all night, attacked you and surrendered completely, and let’s get out of here. I’m ready, I’m finished, let’s not break up, no, no. Take me home, my boyfriend, my love.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

Love, Home, Kiss, Time

“Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock? A thousand lives, Jon, ten thousand!”

Richard Bach book Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Source: Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Life, Idea, Fight

“We prefer to go deformed and distorted all our lives rather than not resemble the portrait of ourselves which we ourselves have first drawn. It’s absurd. We run the risk of warping what’s best in us”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Source: Strait is the Gate and The Vatican Cellars

“But you’re human, aren’t you? (Kat)
I’m human, except when I first wake up in the morning. Even I don’t want to be around myself then. (Kish)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Devil May Cry

“Your memory is your first and best weapon, ladies. Learn to use it.”

Ally Carter Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Source: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Learning, Memory

“Elinor could sit still no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease.”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

Tear, Joy

“Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. Like the first monkey shot into space.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Pain

“The first priest I find, I'm goan to marry you. I'm all in, peekon.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Endless Knight

“Are you sure you want me to go after Christina? Lately I've kind of thought I might just give up on that. Plus, didn't you and I need to gaze into each other's eyes first? How will I know how to gaze at Christina? And my pebble kicking? Disaster.”

Jaclyn Moriarty (1968) Australian writer

Source: The Year of Secret Assignments

“Sucks to be left out of adolescence, sort of like getting locked in the closet on Venus when the sun appears for the first time in a hundred years.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Appearance, Time, Sun

“Poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response.”

J.M. Coetzee book Disgrace

Source: Disgrace

“The first step… shall be to lose the way.”

Galway Kinnell (1927–2014) Poet

Way

“To be brave, by definition, one has first to be afraid.”

Robert Harris Pompeii

Source: Pompeii

“The ocean makes its music; the wind does its dance. We hold on. At first we hold on to one another, but then it starts to feel like we are holding on to something even bigger than that. Greater.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Music, Feeling, Dance

“The first thing that distinguishes a writer is that he is most alive when alone.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

“Fortunate are those who take the first steps.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

“Hmm…” Jason snapped his fingers. “I can call a friend for a ride.”
Percy raised his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah? Me too. Let's see whose friend gets here first.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

“I want to keep sleeping, but the sun outside my window has other ideas: First blind her. Then jab her eyeballs with scorching-hot daggers.”

Natasha Friend (1972) American writer

Source: Lush

Idea, Sleep, Sun

“Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.”

Herman Melville book Billy Budd, Sailor

Source: Billy Budd, the Sailor (1891), Ch. 21
Source: Billy Budd, Sailor
Context: Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity. In pronounced cases there is no question about them. But in some supposed cases, in various degrees supposedly less pronounced, to draw the exact line of demarcation few will undertake tho' for a fee some professional experts will. There is nothing nameable but that some men will undertake to do it for pay.

Color, Drawing

“You awful hard to kill, Anita.'

'There's a first time, Luther, and that's all it takes.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Guilty Pleasures

Source: Guilty Pleasures

Time

“Everyone is a little bitter. We're born bitter. The personality itself is really just a very complex defense mechanism. A reaction to the first time someone said, "No you can't.”

Marc Maron (1963) Comedian

Source: Attempting Normal

Time, Personality

“And as he held his first true lover against him, feeling that familiar difference in their heights and smelling that wonderful cologne, part of him wanted to debate this break up until they both gave in and kept trying.
But that wasn’t fair.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover at Last

Feeling, Lovers, Parting

“Dustfinger still clearly remembered the feeling of being in love for the first time. How vulnerable his heart had suddenly been! Such a trembling, quivering thing, happy and miserably unhappy at once.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

Love, Happiness, Feeling, Time

“But if you want to find peace, you must first be able to hope it is possible.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Peace, Hope

“The first principle of freedom is the right to go to hell in your own handbasket.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Hell, Freedom

“To make an omelet you must first break some eggs.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Unleash the Night

“I would have made a terrible parent. The first time my child didn't do what I wanted, I'd kill him.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Parent, Time

“We must never expect discretion in first love: it is accompanied by such excessive joy that unless the joy is allowed to overflow, it will choke you.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Three Musketeers

Source: The Three Musketeers

Love, Joy

“She came over and looked at the picture. Then she took my hand.
You know what that feels like?
Like what the astronauts will feel when they step onto the moon for the very first time.”

Gary D. Schmidt book Okay for Now

Source: Okay for Now

Feeling, Time

“[T]he race is long - to finish first, first you must finish.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

“But common sense has no place in first love and never has.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Time Keeper

Love, Sense

“I knew her well enough to understand that when Delia pushed you away, it was her way of making sure she didn't get shoved first.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Way, Understanding

“First, you know, a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lecture VI, Pragmatism's Conception of Truth
1900s, Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907)

“Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: Der blinde Mörder

Truth

“We must nurture and love, if life is to have any real meaning. But First we must find a way to survive against the things that prevent us from doing so.”

Terry Brooks (1944) American writer

Love, Life, Way

“Accounts are not quite settled between us," said she, with a passion that equaled my own. "I can love, and I can hate. You had your choice. You chose to spurn the first; now you must test the other.”

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

Love, Hate, Passion

“All I know is this: nobody's very big in the first place, and it looks to me like everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Life, Tear

“Love rules, but no one knows where it has its throne; in order to know that secret place, you must first submit to Love.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Our fate

Love, Secret

“No young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman's love is declared, it must be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentleman before the gentleman is first known to have dreamt of her.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Love, Dreams

“Recovery unfolds in three stages. The central task of the first stage is the establishment of safety. The central task of the second stage is remembrance and mourning. The central focus of the third stage is reconnection with ordinary life.”

Judith Lewis Herman (1942) American psychiatrist

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Life

“When a man starts out to build a world,
He starts first with himself”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

World

“I convinced her that her first loyalty isn't to other people, but to her own feelings.”

Mario Vargas Llosa book The Bad Girl

Source: Travesuras de la niña mala

People, Feeling, Loyalty

“First rule of bodyguard detail: know where your 'body' is at all times.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Time

“I’d never seen anything like it. First a trial, then a few murders, then dancing. Life goes on. Or, in this case, death continues.”

Charlaine Harris (1951) American writer

Life, Death, Dance

“There's some illogical part of me that still believes if you want Superman to show up, first there's got to be someone worth saving.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Parting

“A long white ribbon shot out of the crack in the wall. The ribbon just kept coming, weaving itself into some kind of shape next to Anubis, and my first thought was, My god, he’s got a magic roll of toilet paper.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

God

“Mirabelle is attractive; it's just that she is never the first or second girl chosen.”

Steve Martin book Shopgirl

Source: Shopgirl

Girl

“The inspector ate only two of my tiny sandwiches: the first because he hadn't expected it to taste so awful; the second, I think, because he'd thought surely the first must have been a mistake.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Faefever

Thinking

“There must be must be a first mover existing above all – and this we call God.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

God

“Because it gives him and excuse to be around her--without making it look like he gave in first. That way, he can still seem manly."

"That's ridiculous." Especially the part about Christian being manly.

"Guys do ridiculous things for love.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Love, Way, Guy, Parting

“The first horror is there's horror. The second is you accommodate it.”

Glen Duncan (1965) British writer

Source: The Last Werewolf

“I sometimes think it is because they are so bad at expressing themselves verbally that writers take to pen and paper in the first place”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Thinking

“An empty shell. Those were the first words that sprang to mind….. Something incredibly important -.. - had disappeared from Miu for good. Leaving behind not life, but its absence”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Life

“My first kiss and I'm comatose. Great.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Secret Vampire

Kiss

“My reaction to porno films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic

Home

“It's a shame you know," he called over his shoulder.
"What's a shame?" Duncan asked.
"That I didn't capture her first."
Duncan smiled. "Nay, Edmond, it was a blessing. God's truth, I would have taken her from you.”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

Source: Honor's Splendour

God, Truth, Smile

“We are married. We are infinite. Me and Conrad. The first boy I ever slow danced with, ever cried over. Ever loved”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

Love, Boy, Dance

“Geometry has two great treasures: one is the Theorem of Phythagoras, the other the division of a line in extreme and mean ratio. The first we can compare to a mass of gold; the other we may call a precious jewel.”

Johannes Kepler book Mysterium Cosmographicum

As quoted by Karl Fink, Geschichte der Elementar-Mathematik (1890) translated as A Brief History of Mathematics https://books.google.com/books?id=3hkPAAAAIAAJ (1900, 1903) by Wooster Woodruff Beman, David Eugene Smith. Also see Carl Benjamin Boyer, A History of Mathematics (1968). <br class="br">Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596)

“Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.”

Jane Smiley (1949) American novelist

Perfection

Quotes about first page 25

Quotes about first
page 25