Quotes about inch (263 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Oh, to be alive in such an age, when miracles are everywhere, and every inch of common air throbs a tremendous prophecy, of greater marvels yet to be.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Age

“When I was young, I used to have this thing where I wanted to see everything. I used to think, 'How can I die without seeing every inch of this world?”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm

World , Thinking

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir, and I wouldn’t trust me one little inch, sir. I knows a bad one when I sees them. I have a mirror.”

Terry Pratchett book Snuff

Source: Snuff

“Susie got your number
And Susie ain't your friend
Look who took you under
With seven inches in
Blood is on the dance floor
Blood is on the knife
Susie's got your number
And Susie says it's right.”

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

Blood on the Dance Floor (1997)

Dance

“But the Jews are so hardened that they listen to nothing; though overcome by testimonies they yield not an inch. It is a pernicious race, oppressing all men by their usury and rapine. If they give a prince or magistrate a thousand florins, they extort twenty thousand from the subjects in payment. We must ever keep on guard against them.”

Martin Luther book Table Talk

863
Table Talk (1569)

Men

“Gordon put his hand against the swing door. He even pushed it open a few inches. The warm fog of smoke and beer slipped through the crack. A familiar, reviving smell; nevertheless as he smelled it his nerve failed him. No! Impossible to go in. He turned away. He couldn't go shoving into that saloon bar with only fourpence halfpenny in his pocket. Never let other people buy your drinks for you! The first commandment of the moneyless. He made off down the dark pavement.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 4

People , Drink , Beer

“In this world it is said, "One inch gives the hand advantage", but these are the idle words of one who does not know strategy.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Wind Book
Context: Some other schools have a liking for extra-long swords. From the point of view of my strategy these must be seen as weak schools. This is because they do not appreciate the principle of cutting the enemy by any means. Their preference is for the extra-long sword and, relying on the virtue of its length, they think to defeat the enemy from a distance.
In this world it is said, "One inch gives the hand advantage", but these are the idle words of one who does not know strategy. It shows the inferior strategy of a weak spirit that men should be dependant on the length of their sword, fighting from a distance without the benefit of strategy.

World

“The scream of the twelve-inch shrapnel is more penetrating than the hiss from a thousand Jewish newspaper vipers. Therefore let them go on with their hissing.”

Adolf Hitler book Mein Kampf

Source: Mein Kampf

“No, she thought, one could say nothing to nobody. The urgency of the moment always missed its mark. Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low.”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

“Don't pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!”

Ansel Adams (1902–1984) American photographer and environmentalist

“What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Life , Death , Fear , Birth

“And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky's Red River Gorge

World , Home , Learning

“Life is hard by the yard, son. But you don't have to do it by the yard. By the inch it's a cinch. And money can't buy everything. For example: poverty.”

Nelson Algren book A Walk on the Wild Side

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

Life , Money

“Inch by inch I conquered the inner terrain I was born with. Bit by bit I reclaimed the swamp in which I'd languished. I gave birth to my infinite being, but I had to wrench myself out of me with forceps.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Birth

“I shall die here. Every last inch of me shall perish. Except one. An inch. It's small and it's fragile and it's the only thing in the world worth having. we must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

World

“Let me move over here. (Jay would then move barely a few inches to the left or right. He generally repeats this a few times per show)”

Jay London (1966) American comedian

Self-degradation

Time

“We must use every inch of our blood to take back every inch of our land, you ten thousand youths and soldiers.”

Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) Chinese politician and military leader

Youth

“We can't be The Beatles. I can't shine their shoes. I can't sing as well as Paul or John. I can't write those kind of songs. But they would die in my armour and my eight-inch platform heels, and Paul can't spit fire, so there you have it.”

Gene Simmons (1949) Israeli-born American rock bass guitarist, singer-songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and actor

Mojo magazine (December 2009), p. 40.

Shoe , Singing

“I think yet again of my father, who struggled to become a painter after he was forced into early and unwelcome retirement by the Great Depression. He has reason to be optimistic about his new career, since the early stages of his pictures, whether still or portraits or landscapes, were full of pow. Mother, meaning to be helpful, would say of each one: "That's really wonderful, Kurt. Now all you have to do is finish it." He would then ruin it. I remember a portrait he did of his only brother, Alex, who was an insurance salesman, which he called "Special Agent". When he roughed it in, his hand and eye conspired with a few bold strokes to capture several important truths about Alex, including a hint of disappointment. Uncle Alex was a proud graduate of Harvard, who would rather have been a scholar of literature than an insurance man.
When Father finished the portrait, made sure every square inch of masonite had its share of paint, Uncle Alex had disappeared entirely. We had a drunk and lustful Queen Victoria instead. This was terrible.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Fates Worse than Death (1991)

Truth , Disappointment , Literature , Thinking

“You have to keep your reflexes so that when you want it — it’s there. When you want to move — you are moving. And when you move, you are determined to move! Not accepting even one inch less than 100 percent of your honest feelings. Not anything less than that. So that is the type of thing you have to train yourself into. To become one with your feelings so that, when you think — it is.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Source: The Warrior Within : The Philosophies of Bruce Lee (1996), p. 126

Feeling , Thinking , Training

“We cannot, if we would, play the part of China, and be content to rot by inches in ignoble ease within our borders, taking no interest in what goes on beyond them, sunk in a scrambling commercialism; heedless of the higher life, the life of aspiration, of toil and risk, busying ourselves only with the wants of our bodies for the day, until suddenly we should find, beyond a shadow of question, what China has already found, that in this world the nation that has trained itself to a career of unwarlike and isolated ease is bound, in the end, to go down before other nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous qualities. If we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world.”

Theodore Roosevelt The Strenuous Life

1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), The Strenuous Life

Life , People , World , Faith

“To a young actor: How tall are you without your horse? Six foot, seven inches. Never mind the six feet. Let's talk about the seven inches!”

Mae West (1893–1980) American actress and sex symbol

Myra Breckinridge (1970)

Horse

“JG: Can I ask what your feelings are about God?
EV: Sure. I think it's like a movie that was way too popular. It's a story that's been told too many times and just doesn't mean anything. Man lived on the planet -- [placing his fingers an inch apart], this is 5000 years of semi-recorded history. And God and the Bible, that came in somewhere around the middle, maybe 2000. This is the last 2000, this is what we're about to celebrate [indicating about an 1/8th of an inch with his fingers]. Now, humans, in some shape or form, have been on the earth for three million years [pointing across the room to indicate the distance]. So, all this time, from there [gesturing toward the other side of the room], to here [indicating the 1/8th of an inch], there was no God, there was no story, there was no myth and people lived on this planet and they wandered and they gathered and they did all these things. The planet was never threatened. How did they survive for all this time without this belief in God? I'd like to ask this to someone who knows about Christianity and maybe you do. That just seems funny to me… (sic) Funny strange. Funny bad. Funny frown. Not good. That laws are made and wars occur because of this story that was written, again, in this small part of time.”

Eddie Vedder (1964) musician, songwriter, member of Pearl Jam

March 23, 1998, Janeane Garofalo interviewing Eddie Vedder for CMJ New Music Report at Brendan's, on the Lower East Side.

God , War , People , Law

“The sort of life which I had previous to this popular success was one that required endurance, a life of clawing and scratching along a sheer surface and holding on tight with raw fingers to every inch of rock higher than the one caught hold of before, but it was a good life because it was the sort of life for which the human organism is created. I was not aware of how much vital energy had gone into this struggle until the struggle was removed. I was out on a level plateau with my arm still thrashing and my lungs still grabbing at air that no longer resisted. This was security at last. I sat down and looked about me and was suddenly very depressed.”

Tennessee Williams book The Catastrophe of Success

page 15
The Catastrophe of Success (1945)

Life , Success

“If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven't even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound. They won't even admit the knife is there.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

TV interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cReCQE8B5nY after 90-day moratorium (March 1964)

Way

“We do not want a single foot of foreign territory; but of our territory we shall not surrender a single inch to anyone.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Russian: Чужой земли мы не хотим ни пяди, но и своей вершка ни отдадим.

Political Report of the C.C. to XVI Party Congress (29 June 1930) http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/SC30.html
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

“A stroke with the edges, though made with ever so much force, seldom kills, as the vital parts of the body are defended both by the bones and armor; on the contrary a stab, though it penetrates but two inches, is generally fatal.”
Caesa enim, quouis impetu ueniat, non frequenter interficit, cum et armis uitalia defendantur et ossibus; at contra puncta duas uncias adacta mortalis est.

Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus book De re militari

Book 1
De Re Militari (also Epitoma Rei Militaris), Book I, "The Selection and Training of New Levies"

Parting

“We need to focus every inch of our being on climate change, because if we fail to do so than all our achievements and progress have been for nothing and all that will remain of our political leaders’ legacy will be the greatest failure of human history. And they will be remembered as the greatest villains of all time, because they have chosen not to listen and not to act.”

Greta Thunberg (2003) Swedish climate change activist

2019, European Economic and Social Committee (February 2019)

Time , Failure , History , Change

“If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said I am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No other marks or brands recollected.”

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

Source: 1850s, Autobiographical Sketch Written for Jesse W. Fell (1859)

Personality

“Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”

Bong Joon-ho (1969) South Korean film director and screenwriter

Source: As quoted from his Oscar acceptance speech, cited in many media even year later, e.g. in "Lost in translation? The one-inch truth about Netflix’s subtitle problem" in The Guardian (14 October 2021) https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/oct/14/squid-game-netflix-translations-subtitle-problem

“Listen, street punk. You're a guy, and you're a couple inches taller, and maybe forty pounds heavier, and ooh, you're in a gang. But I've survived ten years of Catholic school, and I will cut you off at your knees without a blink. Do you understand?”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Angel

School , Guy , Understanding

“The hatred I feel for him, for the phantom girl, for everything, is so real and immediate it chokes me. Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else is unthinkable. Why did it take him being whipped within an inch of his life to see it?”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Life , Feeling , Girl

“Even enemies were an inch away from friendship.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Friendship

“And if my heart was a canvas, every square inch of it would be painted over with you.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Variant: These pictures are my heart. And if my heart was a canvas, every square inch of it would be painted over with you.
Source: Lady Midnight

For Him , For Boyfriend , Heart , Painting

“All the hundreds of millions of people who, in their time, believed the Earth was flat never succeeded in unrounding it by an inch.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

People , Time

“And after awhile of this my brain and my body and every single inch of me that was alive was flooded with the feeling that I was starving, starving for Edmond.

And what a coincidence, that was the feeling I loved best in the world.”

Meg Rosoff book How I Live Now

Source: How I Live Now

Love , World , Feeling

“Five trolls in a dra-a-a-a-ag,' the four-inch man sang from my shoulder. 'Four purple condoms, three French ticklers, two horny vamps and a succubus in the snow.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: White Witch, Black Curse

Age

“Why all these paintings of you? Because I'm an artist, Emma. These pictures are my heart. And if my heart was a canvas, every square inch of it would be painted over with you.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Heart , Painting

“Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

“A giraffe has a black tongue twenty-seven inches long and no vocal cords. A giraffe has nothing to say. He just goes on giraffing.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things

“Maybe they know what I know, that the true way to a man's heart is six inches of metal between his ribs. Sometimes four inches will do the job, but to be really sure, I like to have six.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Narcissus in Chains

Source: Narcissus in Chains

Way , Heart

“I will compensate all your one-inch, two-inch losses because I know how important every inch is to you aged, decrepit men.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Ever After

Men , Age , Loss

“… And so Charlie Asher… led an army of fourteen-inch-tall bundles of animal bits, armed with everything from knitting needles to a spork, into the storm sewers of San Fransciso.”

Christopher Moore book A Dirty Job

Source: A Dirty Job

Animals

“Things on the essential list: vodka, Nine Inch Nails, a steady supply of mortal men, and an all-purpose bitchy attitude.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Men

“I stopped the blade two inches before it touched Andrea’s neck. Because she was my best friend, and sticking knives into your best friend’s windpipe was generally considered to be a social faux pas.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

“I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

Love

“The universe is a million billion light-years wide, and every inch of it would kill you if you went there. This is the position of the universe with regards to human life.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

Life , Light , Universe

“You think you can say a few words and end us? There is no end, Eva." he flattened me into the side of the car. I was pinned by six feet, two inches of violently aroused male.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

Cars , Thinking

“I'll kiss you until we can't breathe. I'll strip you naked and taste every inch of you. Then I'll shag you until neither of us can see straight.”

Meljean Brook (1977)

Source: The Iron Duke

Kiss

“My mother said I broke her heart… but it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us… but within that inch we are free.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

Heart , Selfishness

“I do not understand how you humans can walk in shoes that are that tall.”
“Its my motto,” said Isabelle, with a sultry smile. “Nothing less than seven inches.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Smile , Shoe , Understanding

“Jenks squinted at me, and when Trent nodded, the pixy gestured sourly to Bis to get on with it. A four inch man ruled us all.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Ever After

“I might look like a honey-eyed schoolgirl on the outside, in my skirt with its regulation four-inches-above-the-knee hem. But I'll rip those tassels off your shoes, old man. Just try Googling me.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Shoe

“Cat got your tongue? And what a lovely tongue it is. I know. It licked every inch of me. Repeatedly. For months," He purred but with steel in the velvet”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

Love , Cats

“down with hell and heaven and all the religious fuss
infinity pleased our parents
one inch looks good to us”

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

Hell , Parent

“A study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon? There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.”

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

Source: Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I

Life , Art , Study

“When every inch of the world is known, sleep may be the only wilderness that we have left.”

Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States

Source: The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year

World , Sleep

“to know a piece of grass, you’ve got to see the ground that grew it. Maybe that’s why I remember every detail of that night, every inch of ground we covered, as I followed Zach to the place that had made him, seeing them both with fresh eyes.”

Ally Carter book Only the Good Spy Young

Source: Only the Good Spy Young

Grass , Night

“My grandfather always says that's what books are for," Ashoke said, using the opportunity to open the volume in his hands. “To travel without moving an inch.”

Jhumpa Lahiri book The Namesake

Source: The Namesake, (2003) p. 16.

Books , Travel

“The memory of oppressed people is one thing that cannot be taken away, and for such people, with such memories, revolt is always an inch below the surface.”

Howard Zinn book A People's History of the United States

Source: A People's History of the United States

People , Memory

“I found myself pinned to the hallway wall by six feet, two inches of hard, hot male.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

“Inching one's way along a steep cliff in the dark: on reaching the highway, one breathes a sigh of relief. Just when one can't take any more, one sees the moonlight. Beauty that seems to infuse itself into the heart: I know about that”

Banana Yoshimoto book Kitchen

Source: Kitchen

Beauty , Way , Heart

“I can see what you’re up to.”
“Five foot six inches,” Shallan said. “I suspect that’s all I will ever be up to, unfortunately.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

“A six-inch blade. I smiled. Did he buy it? It was actually just shy of four—but very nicely weighted—and as Aunt Bernice noted, a little exaggeration was always expected when describing weapons, victories, and body parts.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Kiss of Deception

Source: The Kiss of Deception

Smile , Victory , Parting

“Does the giraffe know what he's for? Or care? Or even think about his place in things? A giraffe has a black tongue twenty-seven inches long and no vocal cords. A giraffe has nothing to say. He just goes on giraffing.”

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

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

Thinking

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.”

William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) American journalist

"To the Public", No. 1 (1 January 1831) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2928t.html
The Liberator (1831 - 1866)
Context: I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.

“Nothing less than 7 inches.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“Somehow I think Trophy Wives wear more makeup and less cutlery. But hey, I haven't ever met a Trophy Wife, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they know what I know, that the true way to a man's heart is six inches of metal between his ribs.”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Anita's musings on knives; unidentified edition, pp. 304-305
Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, Narcissus In Chains (2001)
Context: I stepped out of the car on the rat king's arm, like a trophy wife--except for the wrist sheaths and the two folding knives hidden in my clothing. Somehow I think trophy wives wear more makeup and less cutlery. But, Hey, I haven't met a trophy wife, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they know what I know, that the true way to a man's heart is six inches of metal between his ribs. Sometimes four inches will do the job, but to be really sure, I like to have six. Funny how phallic objects are always more useful the bigger they are. Anyone who tells you size doesn't matter has been seeing too many small knives.

Way , Thinking , Heart

“Sometimes your whole life could hinge on a fraction of an inch. Or the beat of nanosecond. Or the knock on a door.
Kind of made a male believe in the divine. It really did.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Awakened

Life

“Excuse me? You're a lady?"
"I bought a title on the Internet. I own one square inch of Scotland. And you're changing the subject.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Ghost Town

Change

“A dominant wolf's desire to protect was a strong instinct--Samuel was very dominant. Give him an inch, and he'd take over the world--my life, if I let him." ~Mercy”

Patricia Briggs book Blood Bound

Source: Blood Bound

Life , World , Strong , Wolf

“Some people are so much sunlight to the square inch. I am still bathing in the cheer he radiated.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Conversation with Whitman (16 May 1888) as quoted in With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906) http://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/disciples/traubel/WWWiC/1/med.00001.49.html by Horace Traubel, Vol. I 
Context: There was a kind of labor agitator here today—a socialist, or something like that: young, a rather beautiful boy — full of enthusiasms: the finest type of the man in earnest about himself and about life. I was sorry to see him come: I am somehow afraid of agitators, though I believe in agitation: but I was more sorry to see him go than come. Some people are so much sunlight to the square inch. I am still bathing in the cheer he radiated. … Cheer! cheer! Is there anything better in this world anywhere than cheer — just cheer? Any religion better? — any art? Just cheer!

People

“Mrs. Ewing was a short woman who accepted the obligation borne by so many short women to make up in vivacity what they lack in number of inches from the ground.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: Men, Women And Dogs

Women

“Only then does he realize what he has done to Mirabelle, how wanting a square inch of her and not all of her has damaged them both, and how he cannot justify his actions except that, well, it was life.”

Steve Martin book Shopgirl

Source: Shopgirl

Life

“His wedding gift, clasped round my throat. A choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat.”

Angela Carter (1940–1992) English novelist

Source: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

Wedding

“The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.”

Raymond Chandler book The Long Goodbye

Source: The Long Goodbye

Girl

“Sometimes your whole life could hinge on a fraction of an inch. Or the beat of a nanosecond. Or the knock on a door.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Awakened

Life

“there is only one thing on my body that's ten inches long, and if you'll recall, the scar is no' it.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: If You Deceive

“I had always turned to books, to knowledge, to help me get through everything in my life—and,
sometimes, to escape it. But grief was a journey through a forest of razor blades. I walked through every
painful inch of it—no shortcuts and no anesthesia.”

Michele Bardsley (1970) American writer

Source: Don't Talk Back To Your Vampire

Life , Pain , Books , Knowledge

“Our faces were no more than ten inches apart but she was lightyears away from me.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“Victory is won not in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later, win a little more.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Victory

“The real power of a wolf isn't in its fearsome jaws, which can clench with fifteen hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. The real power of a wolf is having that strength, and knowing when not to use it.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

Wolf

“I think there was a layer of several inches of crystal clear ice, probably in the form of metallic hydrogen, about 10-20 miles up. It could have been held up by the earth’s magnetic field or the internal air pressure like a giant inflatable building or even helped by the centrifugal force of the spinning earth. It could also have had its own spin to help suspend it. Maybe a combination of effects.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 44

Thinking , Help

“He turned his head, reacted in a microsecond, and hit the deck just before a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball zipped past his ear and clanged into the wire backstop. Had the pitch been another inch lower or a few miles an hour faster, he would have been beaned and, at that speed, possibly killed.”

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Waking Hours: Book 1 in East Salem Trilogy with Pete Nelson (Thomas Nelson), p. 140

Past , Speed

“[I] Pray do you remember carrying me to a picture-dealer's somewhere by Hanover Square, [London], and my being struck with the leaving and touch of a little bit of tree[? ]; the whole picture was not above 8 or 10 inches high and about a foot long. I wish if you had time that you'd inquire what it might be purchased for..”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote from Gainsborough's letter to his friend William Jackson of Exeter, from Bath, 11 May 1768; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 383 (Appendix A - Letter VI)
1755 - 1769

Tree , Time

“There was the noise of a bolt shot back, and the door opened a few inches, enough to show a long snout and a pair of sleepy blinking eyes.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 4, "Mr. Badger"

“With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,
For every inch that is not fool is rogue :
A monstrous mass of fuul corrupted matter,
As all the devils had spew'd to make the baiter.
When wine has given him courage to blaspheme,
He curses God, but God before curst him;
And, if man could have reason, none has more.
That made his paunch so rich, and him so poor.”

John Dryden Absalom and Achitophel

Pt. II, lines 462–469.
Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

God , Fools , Courage , Wine

“Brethren, is not this the Saviour that you need? one who can save you from the utmost depths of depravity, in the utmost corner of the earth, on the utmost inch of time? One who can save you amidst the utmost urgency of fierce temptations, and who in the uttermost extreme of exhausted nature, when heart and flesh do faint and fail, completes the work, and seals the salvation for evermore?”

James Hamilton (1814–1867) Scottish minister and a prolific author of religious tracts

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 83.

Nature , Time , Heart

“How dull, how impossible life would be without dreams — waking dreams, I mean — the dreams that we call "castles in the air," built by the kindly hands of Hope! Were it not for the mirage of the oasis, drawing his footsteps ever onward, the weary traveler would lie down in the desert sand and die. It is the mirage of distant success, of happiness that, like the bunch of carrots fastened an inch beyond the donkey's nose, seems always just within our reach, if only we will gallop fast enough, that makes us run so eagerly along the road of Life.”

Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) English humorist

Dreams http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/jjdrm10.txt

Life , Lie , Dreams , Hope

“The ground which a colored man occupies in this country is, every inch of it, sternly disputed.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Speech at the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society annual meeting, New York City (May 1853)
1850s

Color , Country

“That original intelligence, say the MAGIANS, who is the first principle of all things, discovers himself immediately to the mind and understanding alone; but has placed the sun as his image in the visible universe; and when that bright luminary diffuses its beams over the earth and the firmament, it is a faint copy of the glory which resides in the higher heavens. If you would escape the displeasure of this divine being, you must be careful never to set your bare foot upon the ground, nor spit into a fire, nor throw any water upon it, even though it were consuming a whole city. Who can express the perfections of the Almighty? say the Mahometans. Even the noblest of his works, if compared to him, are but dust and rubbish. How much more must human conception fall short of his infinite perfections? His smile and favour renders men for ever happy; and to obtain it for your children, the best method is to cut off from them, while infants, a little bit of skin, about half the breadth of a farthing. Take two bits of cloth, say the Roman catholics, about an inch or an inch and a half square, join them by the corners with two strings or pieces of tape about sixteen inches long, throw this over your head, and make one of the bits of cloth lie upon your breast, and the other upon your back, keeping them next your skin: There is not a better secret for recommending yourself to that infinite Being, who exists from eternity to eternity.”

David Hume The Natural History of Religion

Part VII - Confirmation of this doctrine
The Natural History of Religion (1757)

Men , Children , Lie , Secret

“If you are going to build the Empire State Building, the first thing you need to do is dig a deep hole and pour a strong foundation. If you are going to build a home in the suburbs, all you need to do is pour a 6-inch slab of concrete. Most people, in their drive to get rich, are trying to build an Empire State Building on a 6-inch slab.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

People , Home , Strong

“Envy the kangaroo. That pouch setup is extraordinary; the baby crawls out of the womb when it is about two inches long, gets into the pouch, and proceeds to mature. I'd have a baby if it would develop in my handbag.”

Rita Rudner (1953) American comedian

On pregnancy and childbirth
Essay 2, p. 7-8
Naked Beneath My Clothes (1992)

Envy , Baby

“I am a Southern man and a slaveholder. A kind and merciful one, I trust, and none the worse for being a slaveholder. I say, for one, I would rather meet any extremity upon earth than give up one inch of our equality, one inch of what belongs to us as members of this republic! What! Acknowledged inferiority! The surrender of life is nothing to sinking down into acknowledged inferiority!”

John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) 7th Vice President of the United States

Speech in the U.S. Senate https://web.archive.org/web/20070123074414/http://www.claremont.org/publications/pubid.667/pub_detail.asp (19 February 1847)
1840s

Life

“Sex also concentrates the mind wonderfully, and that is why civilised man is so obsessed by it. It enables him to "savour every fraction of an inch," not merely of the act of sexual intercourse, but of living itself. But that, of course, only underlines the basic problem: after coitus, "man becomes sad," because he quickly returns to his unconcentrated and defocused state. In sexual excitement, it is the spirit itself that becomes erect, and becomes capable of penetrating the meaning of life. Normal consciousness is limp and flaccid; its attitude towards reality is defensive. This is what Sartre called contingency, that feeling of being at the mercy of chance.”

Colin Wilson book The Misfits: A Study of Sexual Outsiders

Source: The Misfits: A Study of Sexual Outsiders (1988), pp. 45-46

Life , Sadness , Sex , Feeling

“Let me tell you about the English War Bow, Joscelyn. It is a simple thing, med of yew, a peasant's tool, really. My huntsman can use one, but he is the only man in Berat who has ever mastered the weapon. Why do you think that is? I'll tell you anyway. It takes years, Joscelyn, many years to master the yew bow. Ten years? Probably that long, and after ten years a man can send an arrow clean through armor at two hundred paces. Splat! A thousand ecus of man, armor, and weaponry fallen to a peasant's bow. And it isn't luck, Joscelyn. My huntsman can put an arrow through a bracelet at a hundred paces. He can pierce mail coat at two hundred. I've seen him put an arrow through an oak door at a hundred and fifty, and the door was three inches thick!”

Bernard Cornwell The Grail Quest

The Count of Berat, p. 111
The Grail Quest, Heretic (2003)

War , Thinking

“Unless disputants understand the meaning attached by each other to the terms of a controversy, they may worry along indefinitely without making an inch of progress. The contending parties may think they agree on the proposition, when, as a matter of fact, their apparent agreement is due to ambiguity in the use of the terms. On the other hand, the contending parties may work themselves into a quarrel over imaginary disagreements concerning ideas, when in fact they are merely confused as to the meaning of words. Disputes which seem interminable are sometimes ended abruptly and happily upon the accidental discovery that the parties in dispute agreed all the time as to the real questions at issue, while neither side understood what the other side meant.”

William Trufant Foster (1879–1950) American economist

Source: Argumentation and debating, 1908, p. 24 ; as cited in: Branham (2013, p. 38)

Idea , Understanding , Question , Thinking

“If you can’t reduce a difficult engineering problem to just one 8-1/2 x 11-inch sheet of paper, you will probably never understand it.”

Ralph Brazelton Peck (1912–2008) American civil engineer

as quoted by [John Dunnicliff and Nancy Peck Young, Ralph B. Peck, Educator and Engineer - The Essence of the Man, BiTech Publishers Ltd, Vancouver, 2007, 0-921095-63-5, 114]

Understanding , Problem

“When one exchanged the rowing-seat for a place in the bottom of the boat, he suffered a bodily depression that caused him to be careless of everything save an obligation to wiggle one finger. There was cold sea-water swashing to and fro in the boat, and he lay in it. His head, pillowed on a thwart, was within an inch of the swirl of a wave crest, and sometimes a particularly obstreperous sea came in-board and drenched him once more. But these matters did not annoy him. It is almost certain that if the boat had capsized he would have tumbled comfortably out upon the ocean as if he felt sure it was a great soft mattress.”

Stephen Crane book The Open Boat

Pt. IV
The Open Boat (1894)

Suffering , Water , Sea