Quotes about nod (220 quotes, page 2) | Quotes of famous people

“Crows," Maximus breathed. "Was that who I think it was?"
"Phrygiar Navaris," Tavi said, nodding.
"What was she doing here?" Max asked.
"Getting humiliated, mostly. Especially there at the end.”

Jim Butcher Captain's Fury

Source: Captain's Fury

Thinking

“A nod is as good as a wink to a blind badger.”

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer

Source: Away Laughing on a Fast Camel

“Now, see," Wes said, nodding at my plate, "this is going to blow your mind."
I looked at him. "It's a waffle, not the second coming.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“You have a memory chip that small implanted in you,” he verified.
I nodded, guessing this was somewhat worse than having cooties.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Memory

“Karrin, eh?" Thomas asked.

I nodded. "She's real serious about order. A man dying, she can understand. A man coming back. That's different."

"Isn't she Catholic?" Thomas asked. "Don't they have a guy?”

Jim Butcher Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

Guy , Understanding

“Butch nodded as if he knew exactly what was doing. "Like I said, my man, it's whatever. You and me? Same as always, no matter who you screw. Although… if you're into sheep, that would be tough. Don't know if I could handle that.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Unbound

Source: Lover Unbound

“Turtle on its back in the desert sea / and you look like a cool drink / just slightly out of reach / Draw myself into the shell / waiting on a sign from God / or a nod from hell”

Blake Schwarzenbach (1967) American singer

"Sea Anemone"
Orange Rhyming Dictionary (1998)

God , Hell , Drink , Waiting

“Never talk when you can nod and never nod when you can wink and never write an e-mail, because it's death. You're giving prosecutors all the evidence we need.”

Eliot Spitzer (1959) 54th Governor of New York

Warning to criminals.
Pressure Mounts on Spitzer to Resign Over Sex Scandal, PBS NewsHour, March 11, 2008, 2012-10-15 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june08/spitzer_03-11.html,

Death

“Why not go live on the beach?"
"These things are a way of keeping score. I'm sure you have your own way of keeping score."
I nodded. "I compare the numbers of answers I get to the number of questions I ask."
"And how are you doing with that?”

Lee Child book Gone Tomorrow

"Lifetime average is close to a hundred per cent."

Ch. 65.
Gone Tomorrow (2009)

Way , Question

“Even a nod from a person who is esteemed is of more force than a thousand arguments or studied sentences from others.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Life of Phocion
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Study , Personality

“Behold me, Lucius; moved by thy prayers, I appear to thee; I, who am Nature, the parent of all things, the mistress of all the elements, the primordial offspring of time, the supreme among Divinities, the queen of departed spirits, the first of the celestials, and the uniform manifestation of the Gods and Goddesses; who govern by my nod the luminous heights of heaven, the salubrious breezes of the ocean, and the anguished silent realms of the shades below: whose one sole divinity the whole orb of the earth venerates under a manifold form, with different rites, and under a variety of appellations.”
En adsum tuis commota, Luci, precibus, rerum naturae parens, elementorum omnium domina, saeculorum progenies initialis, summa numinum, regina manium, prima caelitum, deorum dearumque facies uniformis, quae caeli luminosa culmina, maris salubria flamina, inferum deplorata silentia nutibus meis dispenso: cuius numen unicum multiformi specie, ritu vario, nomine multiiugo totus veneratus orbis.

Apuleius book The Golden Ass

Bk. 11, ch. 5; p. 226.
Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)

God , Nature , Parent , Appearance

“Jason listened to Mr. Hobart going on about violence and the uselessness of revenge and he nodded, but all the time, he was happy. He had done something. He had taken action. He had socked Bobo Kelton. Given him a bloody nose. He didn't think he'd ever hit anybody again but he had proved himself capable of doing it. And at the same moment, in Mr. Hobart's office, letting the principal's words fil the air but not his ears, he had vowed never to cry again.”

Robert Cormier book The Rag and Bone Shop

Source: The Rag and Bone Shop (2000), p. 26

Revenge , Thinking , Time , Cry

“Authors have established it as a kind of rule, that a man ought to be dull sometimes; as the most severe reader makes allowances for many rests and nodding places in a voluminous writer.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 124 (23 July 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“I simply nod, for I have already noticed the short distance between his right and left eyes. It is my secret way of detecting fags. I know he will speak. And the first thing the idiot says is, “Are you by any chance Samoan?” All my life strangers have been interested in my ancestry. There is something about my bearing that cries out for history. I’ve been mistaken for American Indian, Spanish, Filipino, Hawaiian, Samoan and Arabian. No one has ever asked me if I’m a spic or a greaser. Am I Samoan? “Aren’t we all?””

Oscar Zeta Acosta book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo

I groan.
Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 68.

Life , Secret , Way , History

“We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course." Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic.”

Lee Iacocca book Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Where Have All the Leaders Gone? (2007), Scribner,

Cars , Madness

“I was officially advised that during the long vacation it might be profitable to attain at least a nodding acquaintance with the curriculum, and thus stave off the already likely possibility that I would receive a degree classified so low it would be tantamount to a certificate of mental disability.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Source: Memoirs, May Week Was in June (1990), p. 45

“Her left hand reminded her of its existence, and she looked round to see what was scratching the heel of her hand. It was a tiny thistle, crouched in a crack in the sandstone, barely lifting its colorless spikes into the light and wind. It nodded stiffly as the wind blew, resisting the wind, rooted in rock. She gazed at it for a long time.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, Tehanu (1990), Chapter 4, "Kalessin"

Light , Time

“Janza grinned, amazed at the accuracy of Archie's predictions. You'll have a great year, Achie had said. Which Janza echoed now: "We're going to have a great year, Bunting." Bunting nodded. Continued to stare into space. Not wanting to look at Janza nor or anybody or anything. Staring into the future, next year, beyond. Him, Bunting, in command of the entire school. Stooges at his beck and call. An army at his disposal. No rules except those he made up. The boss. More than that. Like a dictator, for crissake. Beautiful.”

Robert Cormier book Beyond the Chocolate War

Source: Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), p. 278

School , Beauty , Future

“(About Pop Idols) Obviously, it's designed by record company executives who want a cheap success, and they don't want to give money to anybody and they don't want to give contracts, so they've created this world of very bubbly teenagers who want to be "idols" and they think all they have to do is mime quite well and they've made it. … But it's not the problem of the kids, it's the problem of the record companies, because it's just an inexpensive way for them to have so-called, I won't say "artists", but erm…You're nodding, you know what I mean.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From a radio interview with Janice Long (2002)
In interviews etc., About pop culture

Money , World , Way , Problem

“Past the flannel plains and the blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the a. m. heat: shattercane, lamb’s-quarter, cutgrass, sawbrier, nutgrass, jimsonweed, wild mint, dandelion, foxtail, muscatine, spinecabbage, goldenrod, creeping charlie, butter-print, nightshade, ragweed, wild oat, vetch, butcher grass, invaginate volunteer beans, all heads gently nodding in a morning breeze like a mother’s soft hand on your cheek.”

David Foster Wallace book The Pale King

The Pale King (2011)

Tree , Grass , Water , Past

“Secondly, the student is trained to accept historical mis-statements on the authority of the book. If education is a pre- paration for adult life, he learns first to accept without question, and later to make his own contribution to the creation of historical fallacies, and still later to perpetuate what he has learnt. In this way, ignorant authors are leading innocent students to hysterical conclusions. The process of the writers' mind provides excellent material for a manual on logical fallacies. Thirdly, the student is told nothing about the relationship between evidence and truth. The truth is what the book ordains and the teacher repeats. No source is cited. No proof is offered. No argument is presented. The authors play a dangerous game of winks and nods and faints and gestures with evidence. The art is taught well through precept and example. The student grows into a young man eager to deal in assumptions but inapt in handling inquiries. Those who become historians produce narratives patterned on the textbooks on which they were brought up. Fourthly, the student is compelled to face a galling situation in his later years when he comes to realize that what he had learnt at school and college was not the truth. Imagine a graduate of one of our best colleges at the start of his studies in history in a university in Europe. Every lecture he attends and every book he reads drive him mad with exasperation, anger and frustration. He makes several grim discoveries. Most of the "facts", interpretations and theories on which he had been fostered in Pakistan now turn out to have been a fata morgana, an extravaganza of fantasies and reveries, myths and visions, whims and utopias, chimeras and fantasies.”

Khursheed Kamal Aziz (1927–2009) historian

The Murder of History, critique of history textbooks used in Pakistan, 1993

Life , Truth , Books , Education

“My life is ticking away one subway token at a time - a never ending pirouette of arriving and departing, pushing through turnstiles, nodding goodbye and hello. In eight hours I'll be allowed to turn around and go home.”

Rob Payne (1973) Canadian writer

Source: Working Class Zero (2003), Chapter 1, p. 1 (opening line...)

Life , Home , Time

“The old man nodded, as if his neck was afraid of the weight of his head.”

Raymond Chandler book The Big Sleep

Source: The Big Sleep (1939), chapter 2

“A Spring o'erhung with many a flow'r,
The grey sand dancing in its bed,
Embank'd beneath a Hawthorn bower,
Sent forth its waters near my head:
A rosy Lass approach'd my view;
I caught her blue eye's modest beam:
The stranger nodded 'How d'ye do!”

Robert Bloomfield (1766–1823) British writer

And leap'd across the infant stream.
Rosy Hannah, stanza 1, from Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs (1802)

Spring , Water , Dance

“The pat on the back, the arm around the shoulder, the praise for what was done right and the sympathetic nod for what wasn't are as much a part of golf as life itself.”

Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)

Dedication speech at the World Golf Hall of Fame, Pinehurst North Carolina, as quoted in The New York Times (12 September 1974)
1970s

Life , Parting

““You like music, Mr. Gurgeh?” Hamin asked, leaning over to the man.
Gurgeh nodded. “Well, a little does no harm.””

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, The Player of Games (1988), Chapter 2 (p. 277).

Music

“Jake jerked a thumb at the door. "Al right. Get the hell out of here, and take all your pictures of naked women with you." "Yes, sir." Chuckling, Potter scooped up the folder of reconnaissance photos and started out. He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "Good luck," he said. "You've done everything you could to get us ready, but we'll still need it." "I'll put in a fresh requisition with the Quartermaster Corps," Jake said. Potter nodded and left. Jake shook his head in bemusement. He might have made stupid jokes like that with Ferd Koenig and a couple of other old-time Party buddies, but not with anybody else. So why make them with Potter? But he didn't need long to find the answer. He'd known Potter longer than he'd known Koenig or any of the other Party men. They'd both hung tough when the Army of Northern Virginia was falling to pieces all around them. If the president of the greatest country in North America- no, in the world!”

Harry Turtledove book American Empire: The Victorious Opposition

couldn't joke around with the one man who'd known him when he was just a sergeant, with whom could he joke? Nobody. Nobody at all.
Source: American Empire: The Victorious Opposition (2003), p. 533

Women , Men , Stupidity , World

“Worpswede, I cannot get you out of my mind. There was such atmosphere there – right down to the tips of your toes. Your magnificent pine trees! I call them my men – thick, gnarled, powerful, and tall – and yet with the most delicate nerves and fibers in them. That is my image of the ideal artist. And your birch trees – delicate, slender young virgins who delight the eyes. With that relaxed and dreamy face, as if life had not really begun for them… But then there are some already masculine and bold, with strong and straight trunks. Those are my 'Modern women'. And you willows, with your knotty trunks… You are my old men with silver beards. I have company enough, indeed I do, and it's my own private company. We understand each other well and nod friendly answers back and forth. Life, life, life!”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

a quote of her Journal, Worpswede 1897; as cited in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 192
1897

Life , Women , Men , Understanding

““How is your new woman? Your new-est one, I sh’d say.”
Jack shrugged. “Good enough. They all got the same thing.”
“Yeh-es,” Jeff nodded, judiciously. “But some of ’m’s got more of it than others.””

Avram Davidson book Masters of the Maze

Source: Masters of the Maze (1965), Chapter 1 (p. 16)

“"Well", said Miss Marple. "Are you going to let her get away with it?" There was a pause, then Father brought down his fist with a crash on the table. "No", he roared — "No, by God I'm not!" Miss Marple nodded her head slowly and gravely. "May God have mercy on her soul," she said.”

Agatha Christie book At Bertram's Hotel

At Bertram's Hotel (1965)

God , Soul

“This is the stupidest place I have ever visited,' she said. 'I shall never come here again.' The tall man looked at her in silence and nodded. 'Yes, you will,' he said. 'You won't be able to stay away now that you have come.”

Margaret Hughes (1645–1719) British actress

All On A Summer's Day (1953).

Silence

“I for my part still conceive it to be the paramount duty of a British member of parliament to consider what is good for Great Britain…I do not envy that man's feelings, who can behold the sufferings of Switzerland, and who derives from that sight no idea of what is meant by the deliverance of Europe. I do not envy the feelings of that man, who can look without emotion at Italy – plundered, insulted, trampled upon, exhausted, covered with ridicule, and horror, and devastation – who can look at all this, and be at a loss to guess what is meant by the deliverance of Europe? As little do I envy the feelings of that man, who can view the peoples of the Netherlands driven into insurrection, and struggling for their freedom against the heavy hand of a merciless tyranny, without entertaining any suspicion of what may be the sense of the word deliverance. Does such a man contemplate Holland groaning under arbitrary oppressions and exactions? Does he turn his eyes to Spain trembling at the nod of a foreign master? And does the word deliverance still sound unintelligibly in his ear? Has he heard of the rescue and salvation of Naples, by the appearance and the triumphs of the British fleet? Does he know that the monarchy of Naples maintains its existence at the sword's point? And is his understanding, and his heart, still impenetrable to the sense and meaning of the deliverance of Europe?”

George Canning (1770–1827) British statesman and politician

Speech in 1798, quoted in Wendy Hinde, George Canning (London: Purnell Books Services, 1973), p. 66.

People , Feeling , Idea , Understanding

“With ravished ears
The monarch hears;
Assumes the god,
Affects the nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Source: Alexander’s Feast http://www.bartleby.com/40/265.html (1697), l. 37–41.

God

“Like so many other office workers of the world, I will obey my master, the clock, and will obediently nod to my co-workers and make small talk about sports, kids and weather - all things I'm not genuinely interested in.”

Rob Payne (1973) Canadian writer

Source: Working Class Zero (2003), Chapter 1, p. 1

World , Sport , Weather

“Florrie nodded and indicated the sink:"P'rhaps you'd care to wash your hands?" "arrh no thank you M'am; I already done that against a tree before I came in here" said the Wrinkled Retainer”

Vivian Stanshall (1943–1995) English musician, artist and author

Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1978)

Tree

“I look at Hank and he nods and I nod and for a brief second I feel strong. Not strong enough to face myself, but strong enough to keep going.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

page 43
A Million Little Pieces (2003)

Feeling , Strong

“I hail the seasons as they go,
I woo the sunshine, brave the wind,
I scan the lily and the rose,
I nod to every nodding tree,
I follow every stream that flows,
And wait beside the steadfast sea.”

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard (1823–1902) United States poet and novelist

From The Poet's Secret 1895 edition in Poems kindle ebook ASIN B0084BS0QSASIN

Tree , Waiting , Sea , Season

“Pat looked up at the cornice. "I’m on a gap year," she said, and added, because truth required it after all: "It’s my second gap year, actually." Bruce stared at her, and then burst out laughing. "Your second gap year?" Pat nodded. She felt miserable. Everybody said that. Everybody said that because they had no idea of what had happened. "My first one was a disaster," she said. "So I started again."”

Alexander McCall Smith book 44 Scotland Street

44 Scotland Street, chapter 1.
The 44 Scotland Street series

Truth , Idea

“All things are hush'd, as Nature's self lay dead,
The Mountains seem to nod their drowsy head;
The little Birds in dreams their Songs repeat,
And sleeping Flowers, beneath the night-dew sweat;
Even Lust and Envy sleep.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

The Indian Emperor (1667), Act III, scene ii.

Dreams , Mountain , Flowers , Nature

“Blunt nodded slowly, like an old man. It was not clear whether he had understood and was agreeing, or whether he had given up the attempt to understand and was merely being agreeable.”

Gordon R. Dickson book Necromancer

Source: Necromancer (1962), Chapter 22 (p. 145)

Understanding

“And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze,
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.”

William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) American romantic poet and journalist

November. A Sonnet http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16341/16341-h/16341-h.htm#page74 (1824)

Flowers

“For what cause, youthful Sleep, kindest of gods, or what error have I deserved, alas to lack your boon? All cattle are mute and birds and beasts, and the nodding tree-tops feign weary slumbers, and the raging rivers abate their roar; the ruffling of the waves subsides, the sea is still, leaning against the shore.”
Crimine quo merui, juvenis placidissime divum, quove errore miser, donis ut solus egerem, Somne, tuis? tacet omne pecus volucresque feraeque et simulant fessos curvata cacumina somnos, nec trucibus fluviis idem sonus; occidit horror aequoris, et terris maria adclinata quiescunt.

Statius Silvae

iv, line 1
Silvae, Book V

God , Youth , Error , Bird

“De Soya blinks. “Suicide is a mortal sin,” he says.
On the screen the girl nods seriously. “Yes,” she says, “but I am not a Christian. Also, I'd rather go to hell than go with you.””

Dan Simmons book Endymion

Source: Endymion (1996), Chapter 24 (p. 184)

Girl , Hell , Suicide

“Where will you go from here?' he asked.Chellin shrugged. 'Who knows? North again. Maybe not. I'm tired of this life, Kiall. I may head south, to Drenai land. Buy a farm, raise a family.'
'And have raiders descend on you to steal your daughters?'
Chellin nodded and sighed. 'Yes. Like all dreams, it doesn't bear close examination […]”

David Gemmell book Quest for Lost Heroes

Source: Drenai series, Quest for Lost Heroes, Ch. 10

Life , Family , Dreams , Daughters

“If Germany is going again to be a great armed camp, filled with a population about twice as great as that of any State in Europe; and if she is going again to pursue a policy of world domination, it will no doubt tax all the statesmanship of the rest of the world to prevent a repetition of the calamities from which we have been suffering. But the only radical cure for this is a change in the international system of the world—a change which French statesmen are doing nothing to promote, and the very possibility of which many of them regard with ill-concealed derision. They may be right; but if they are, it is quite certain that no manipulation of the Rhine frontier is going to make France anything more than a second-rate Power, trembling at the nod of its great neighbours in the East, and depending from day to day on the changes and chances of a shifting diplomacy and uncertain alliances.”

Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) British Conservative politician and statesman

Memorandum, 'France's Fear of German Aggression' (28 March 1919), quoted in Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, First Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., Etc. 1906–1930 (London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1936), pp. 204–205.

World , Suffering , Change , Chance

“Samuel smiled at me. "Freedom and fairness are very important to you, aren't they?"
I nodded, and frowned. "They're important to everybody."
He laughed. "Oh, no, Anita, you would be amazed at the number of people who try to give away their freedom at every opportunity. They much prefer that someone else make their decisions."”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Source: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, Danse Macabre (2006), Chapter 17, p. 151

People , Smile , Decision , Freedom

“Before the phantom of False morning died,
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,
"When all the Temple is prepared within,
Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?"”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."
FitzGerald's first edition (1859).
The Rubaiyat (1120)

Falseness

““But what’s the good of this sort of ‘understanding,’” Dearri said, “if it doesn’t result in practical, technological applications? Just word juggling, isn’t it?”
“You ask questions like a true profiteer,” Shevek said, and not a soul there knew he had insulted Dearri with the most contemptuous word in his vocabulary; indeed Dearri nodded a bit, accepting the compliment with satisfaction.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 7 (p. 224)

Soul , Understanding , Question

“Chorus: O suitably attired in leather boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb
And do not understand a word I say,
Nod with your hand to signify as much.
Alcmaeon: I journeyed hither a Boeotian road.
Chorus: Sailing on horseback or with feet for oars?
Alcmaeon: Plying by turns my partnership of legs.
Chorus: Beneath a shining or a rainy Zeus?
Alcmaeon: Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my shoes.
Chorus: To learn your name would not displease me much.
Alcmaeon: Not all that men desire do they attain.”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

"Fragment of a Greek Tragedy". This parody was first written in 1883, but quoted here from a revised version of 1927.

Men , Art , Shoe , Way

“How the hell do I know what I find incredible? Credibility is an expanding field… Sheer disbelief hardly registers on the face before the head is nodding with all the wisdom of instant hindsight.”

Tom Stoppard Jumpers

George, Act I
Jumpers (1972)

Wisdom , Hell

“Franz Kafka is dead.He died in a tree from which he wouldn't come down. "Come down!" they cried to him. "Come down! Come down!" Silence filled the night, and the night filled the silence, while they waited for Kafka to speak. "I can't," he finally said, with a note of wistfulness. "Why?" they cried. Stars spilled across the black sky. "Because then you'll stop asking for me." The people whispered and nodded among themselves. […] They turned and started for home under the canopy of leaves. Children were carried on their fathers' shoulders, sleepy from having been taken to see who wrote his books on pieces of bark he tore off the tree from which he refused to come down. In his delicate, beautiful, illegible handwriting. And they admired those books, and they admired his will and stamina. After all: who doesn't wish to make a spectacle of his loneliness? One by one families broke off with a good night and a squeeze of the hands, suddenly grateful for the company of neighbors. Doors closed to warm houses. Candles were lit in windows. Far off, in his perch in the trees, Kafka listened to it all: the rustle of the clothes being dropped to the floor, or lips fluttering along naked shoulders, beds creaking along the weight of tenderness. That night a freezing wind blew in. When the children woke up, they went to the window and found the world encased in ice.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love (2005), P. 187

Children , People , Books , World

“You were compelled to?' he repeated. 'You mean you weren't sufficiently powerful to resist?'
'In order to seize power,' replied the dictator, 'I had to take it from those that had it, and in order to keep it I had to employ it against those that sought to deprive me of it.'
The chef's hat gave a nod. 'An old, old story. It has been repeated a thousand times, but no one believes it. That's why it will be repeated a thousand times more.'
The dictator felt suddenly exhausted. He would gladly have sat down to rest, but the old man and the children walked on and he followed them.
'What about you?' he blurted out, when he had caught the old man up. 'What do you know of power? Do you seriously believe that anything great can be achieved on earth without it?'
'I?' said the old man. 'I cannot tell great from small.'
'I wanted power so that I could give the world justice,' bellowed the dictator, and blood began to trickle afresh from the wound in his forehead, 'but to get it I had to commit injustice, like anyone who seeks power. I wanted to end oppression, but to do so I had to imprison and execute those who opposed me - I became an oppressor despite myself. To abolish violence we must use it, to eliminate human misery we must inflict it, to render war impossible we must wage it, to save the world we must destroy it. Such is the true nature of power.'
Chest heaving, he had once more barred the old man's path with his pistol ready.'
'Yet you love it still,' the old man said softly.
'Power is the supreme virture!' The dictator's voice quavered and broke. 'But its sole shortcoming is sufficient to spoil the whole: it can never be absolute - that's what makes it so insatiable. The only true form of power is omnipotence, which can never be attained, hence my disenchantment with it. Power has cheated me.'
'And so,' said the old man, 'you have become the very person you set out to fight. It happens again and again. That is why you cannot die.'
The dictator slowly lowered his gun. 'Yes,' he said, 'you're right. What's to be done?'
'Do you know the legend of the Happy Monarch?' asked the old man.
…
'When the Happy Monarch came to build the huge, mysterious palace whose planning alone had occupied ten whole years of his life, and to which marvelling crowds made pilgrimage long before its completion, he did something strange. No one will ever know for sure what made him do it, whether wisdom or self-hatred, but the night after the foundation stone had been laid, when the site was dark and deserted, he went there in secret and buried a termites' nest in a pit beneath the foundation stone itself. Many decades later - almost a life time had elapsed, and the many vicissitudes of his turbulent reign had long since banished all thought of the termites from his mind - when the unique building was finished at last and he, its architect and author, first set foot on the battlements of the topmost tower, the termites, too, completed their unseen work. We have no record of any last words that might shed light on his motives, because he and all his courtiers were buried in the dust and rubble of the fallen palace, but long-enduring legend has it that, when his almost unmarked body was finally unearthed, his face wore a happy smile.”

Michael Ende (1929–1995) German author

"Mirror in the Mirror", page 193

Love , Life , Wisdom , War

“Then silence is sawn in half by a dragonfly
as eels sign their names along the bottom-sand
when the sunrise brightens the river's memory and waves of huge ferns are nodding to the sea's sound.
Although the smoke forgets the earth from which is ascends
and the nettles guard the holes where the laurels were killed an iguana hears the axes, clouding each lens
over its lost name, when the hunched island was called
'Iounalao' 'Where it iguana is from' But, taking its own time, the iguana will scale
the rigging of vines in a year, its dewlap fanned,
its elbows akimbo, its deliberate tail moving with the island. The slit pods of its eyes
ripened in a pause that lasted for centuries,
that rose with the Aruacs' smoke till a new race unknown to the lizard stood measuring the trees.
These were their pillars that fell, leaving a blue space
for a single God where the old gods stood before, The first god was a gommier. The generator
began with a whine, and a shark, with sidewise jaw,
sent the chips flying like mackrel over water into trembling weeds”

Derek Walcott book Omeros

"A Far Cry from Africa" (1962), Omeros

God , Tree , Silence , Water

““A splendidly inept thing,” Sylveste said, nodding despite himself.
“What?”
“The human capacity for grief. It just isn’t capable of providing an adequate emotional response once the dead exceed a few dozen in number. And it doesn’t just level off—it just gives up, resets itself to zero. Admit it. None of us feel a damn about these people.””

Alastair Reynolds book Revelation Space

Source: Revelation Space (2000), Chapter 15 (p. 323).

People , Feeling , Dead

““Can you read?”
I nodded.
“Rules are posted over there. You got two choices. Obey them. Or be dead.””

Glen Cook book The White Rose

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 28, “To the Barrowland” (p. 576)

Reading , Dead

“You nodded off in my arms watching tv
I won’t move you an inch
Even though my arm’s asleep.”

Ben Folds (1966) American musician

"Gracie", Songs for Silverman (2005).
Song lyrics, Solo

“This said, he reached to take his son; who, of his arms afraid,
And then the horse-hair plume, with which he was so overlaid,
Nodded so horribly, he clinged back to his nurse, and cried.
Laughter affected his great sire, who doffed and laid aside
His fearful helm, that on the earth cast round about it light;
Then took and kissed his loving son, and (balancing his weight
In dancing him) these loving vows to living Jove he used,
And all the other bench of Gods: "O you that have infused
Soul to this infant, now set down this blessing on his star:
Let his renown be clear as mine; equal his strength in war."”

George Chapman (1559–1634) English dramatist, poet, and translator

Book VI, line 506, p. 94
The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets (1611)

Love , God , War , Fear

““There is nothing like the ocean to remind you of what is important,” she said quietly, and smiled. Cadrach’s returned smile was weak.
“Ah, by the Good Lord, that’s true,” he groaned. “I am reminded that life is sweet, that the sea is treacherous, and that I am a fool.”
Miriamele nodded solemnly, staring up at the bellying sails. “Those are good things to remember,” she said.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 41, “Cold Fire and Grudging Stone” (p. 713).

Life , Smile , Fools , Sea

“And now the high crest sinks, now the head is nodding overpowered and the huge neck has slipped from around the fleece it guarded, like refluent Po or Nile that sprawls in seven streams or Alpheus when his waters enter the Hesperian world.”
Iamque altae cecidere iubae nutatque coactum iam caput atque ingens extra sua vellera cervix ceu refluens Padus aut septem proiectus in amnes Nilus et Hesperium veniens Alpheos in orbem.

Gaius Valerius Flaccus book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica, Book VIII, Lines 88–91

World , Water

“And now, as so often happened, my brain in a fever took over the datum of the dream and enriched and expanded it. Norman Douglas spoke pedantically on behalf of the buggers. `We have this right, you see, to shove it up. On a road to Capri I found a postman who had fallen off his bicycle, you see, unconscious, somewhat concussed. He lay in exactly the right position. I buggered him with athletic swiftness: he would come to and feel none the worse.’ The Home Secretary nodded sympathetically while the rain wept on to him in Old Palace Yard. `I mean, minors. I mean, there’d be little in it for us if you restricted the act to consenting males over, say, eighteen. Boys are so pliable, so exquisitely sodomizable. You do see that, don’t you, old man?’ The Home Secretary nodded as if to say: Of course, old public-school man myself, old boy. I saw a lot of known faces, Pearson, Tyrwit, Lewis, Charlton, James, all most reasonable, claiming the legal right to maul and suck and bugger. I put myself in the gathering and said, also most reasonable, that it was nothing to do with the law: you were still left with the ethics and theology of the thing. What we had a right to desire was love, and nothing hindered that right. Oh nonsense, he’s such a bore. As for theology, isn’t there that apocryphal book of the Bible in which heterosexuality is represented as the primal curse?”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Earthly Powers (1980)

Love , Books , School , Law

“Nietzsche … did not settle for a demure civic conversation in the style of Richard Rorty's ironist, or saunter off with the smug nod that registers a deconstructive job neatly done. He was aware that his own criticisms and exposures owed both their motivation and their effect to the spirit of truthfulness. His aim was to see how far the values of truth could be revalued, how they might be understood in a perspective quite different from the Platonic and Christian metaphysics which had provided their principal source in the West up to now.”

Bernard Williams (1929–2003) English moral philosopher

Source: Truth and Truthfulness (2002), p. 18

Truth , Motivation

“Due to the nature of my profession, I’ve been around death quite a lot, and while I’m not exactly on a first-name basis with the Reaper, we’ve exchanged business cards enough times to give each other a friendly nod when we pass by on the job.”

Eric Garcia (1972) An amazing author who has written several wonderful books!

Source: The Repossession Mambo (2009), Chapter 5 (p. 80)

Death , Business , Nature , Time

“Softly along the road of evening,
In a twilight dim with rose,
Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew
Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.”

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) English poet and fiction writer

Nod.

Age

“There is not a flower that opens, not a seed that falls into the ground, and not an ear of wheat that nods on the end of its stalk in the wind that does not preach and proclaim the greatness and the mercy of God to the whole world. There is not an act of kindness or generosity, not an act of sacrifice done, or a word of peace and gentleness spoken, not a child's prayer uttered, that does not sing hymns to God before his throne, and in the eyes of men, and before their faces.”

Thomas Merton book The Seven Storey Mountain

The Seven Storey Mountain (1948)

Men , God , World , Peace

““I have not slept well since I first entered my brother’s dungeons. While my comfort has improved since then, worry has taken the place of hanging in chains as a denier of rest.”
“There are many kinds of imprisonment,” Jarnauga nodded.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 43, “The Harrowing” (p. 739).

“No problem, kaja" Lara nodded with exaggerated obeisance. "You may lead, so long as we may follow.”

David Weber (1952) author

"Great kaja! Kill them all!"
"Honorverse", Crown of Slaves (2004)

Problem

“Truth is Thy primal word; at thy behest
The generations pass - O aid our quest
For Thee, and set my host of songs on high,
And let my psalmody come very nigh.
My praises as a coronal account,
And let my prayers as Thine incense mount.
Deem precious unto Thee the poor man's song,
As those that to thine altar did belong.
Rise, O my blessing, to the lord of birth,
The breeding, quickening, righteous force of earth.
Do Thou receive it with acceptant nod,
My choicest incense offered to my God.
And let my meditation grateful be,
For all my being is athirst for Thee.

from Millgram, A. E., Anthology of Medieval Hebrew Literature, Abelard, 1961.”

Yehuda he-Hasid (1140–1217) German philosopher

Shir Hakovod, trans. from the Hebrew by Israel Zangwill

God , Truth , Literature , Birth

“A thousand ardent oilers swung the long spout 'twixt their nods,
And tried to glimpse a meaning in the challenge of the gods.

And then one night there landed on a Mineola swale
A plane that looked like pewter, with a carrier of mail.

Its wings were tinged like tea-box skins, each truss of shadow gray,
Its cabin but an alcove slung beneath a metal ray.

The Spirit of St. Louis was inscribed upon the lee;
It came from out a province that had never seen the sea.”

Nathalia Crane (1913–1998) American writer

Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928), The Wings of Lead

God , Tea , Sea , Night

“Stalin is one of the most extraordinary figures in world history. He began as a small clerk, and he has never stopped being a clerk. Stalin owes nothing to rhetoric. He governs from his office, thanks to a bureaucracy that obeys his every nod and gesture. It's striking that Russian propaganda, in the criticisms it makes of us, always holds itself within certain limits. Stalin, that cunning Caucasian, is apparently quite ready to abandon European Russia, if he thinks that a failure to solve her problems would cause him to lose everything. Let nobody think Stalin might reconquer Europe from the Urals! It is as if I were installed in Slovakia, and could set out from there to reconquer the Reich. This is the catastrophe that will cause the loss of the Soviet Empire.”

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

night of 18-19 July 1941.
Disputed, (1941-1944) (published 1953)

World , History , Failure , Problem

““Evil flourishes best in disguise,” said Otto grimly. His companions nodded in assent.
“And the best disguise is simple” said the youth, Federit Shaus. “Honest patriotism. Joyful idealism.”
“You’re a cynic, lad,” von Bek smiled at him. “But sadly my own experience would support your view. Show me a man who cries ‘my country right or wrong’, and I’ll show you one who’d cheerfully murder half his own nation in the name of patriotism.””

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 2, Chapter 3 (p. 550)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

Youth , Smile , Support , Evil

“Keepe pursed his lips, nodded. “We’re already in a very strong position in this country, of course. We’ve taken over all of the antigovernment militias, most of the religious groups who think of themselves as conservative, plus what’s left of the KKK and the American Nazi party, but they’re only pocket change. We now own the Republican party. Any moderates still hiding in there have been flushed out. We’ve been managing the press for over twenty years now, and the public is accustomed to our view of the world.”
Jagger paid attention. “I didn’t realize…”
“Oh, yes. People don’t want to absorb new information. They like predictability. So as long as we don’t surprise the public with the truth, we’re free to move as we like. Very shortly we won’t even have to be covert about it. And then, of course, people are sick of issues. Civil rights, human rights, women’s rights—people are tired of all that. You understand?””

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 2 (p. 52; spoken by one of the leaders of a secretive neo-fascist organization)

Women , People , Truth , World

“I nodded. This was something that I really liked a lot about my mother and father. They were always thinking ahead so we didn’t make the same mistake twice.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Thinking

“The second requirement of a virus-friendly environment – that it should obey a program of coded instructions – is again only quantitatively less true for brains than for cells or computers. We sometimes obey orders from one another, but also we sometimes don't. Nevertheless, it is a telling fact that, the world over, the vast majority of children follow the religion of their parents rather than any of the other available religions. Instructions to genuflect, to bow towards Mecca, to nod one's head rhythmically towards the wall, to shake like a maniac, to "speak in tongues" – the list of such arbitrary and pointless motor patterns offered by religion alone is extensive – are obeyed, if not slavishly, at least with some reasonably high statistical probability.”

Richard Dawkins book Viruses of the Mind

Viruses of the Mind (1993)

Children , World , Religion , Parent

““I see what Gene is driving at. To dream of changing the whole universe in accordance with a set of local preconceptions!… Oh, it’s ridiculous!”
“A missionary,” Gene repeated with a solemn nod. “By definition: a person who does without intending it more harm than good.””

John Brunner book The Tides of Time

Source: The Tides of Time (1984), Chapter 12 (p. 220)

Dreams , Universe , Change , Personality

““Never?” he said, dismayed.
“Never,” she reiterated firmly.
He nodded, pretending to be resigned, but secretly he thought that there were always ways to get around “never.””

Karen Lord (1968) Barbadian novelist and sociologist of religion

Source: Redemption in Indigo (2010), Chapter 17 “The Sisters in Charge, and the Trickster in Trouble” (p. 134)

Way

“I am displeased when sometimes even the worthy Homer nods;”
Indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus;

Horace Ars Poetica

Whence the familiar expression, Even Homer nods (i.e. No one is perfect: even the wisest make mistakes).
Source: Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (c. 18 BC), Line 359

“Jane nodded, and she mentally thanked the several-greats-grandmother who had decided she’d rather risk royal displeasure than give up a book.”

Tina Connolly American writer

Source: Ironskin (2012), Chapter 9, “The Misses Ingel” (p. 149)

Books

“Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful jollity,
Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathèd smiles.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Source: L'Allegro (1631), Line 25

Youth , Smile

“In war-time on the field or in the fleet, a mortal punishment decreed by a drum-head court — on the field sometimes decreed by but a nod from the General — follows without delay on the heel of conviction without appeal.”

Herman Melville book Billy Budd, Sailor

Source: Billy Budd, the Sailor (1891), Ch. 21

War , Time

“Of all the things a man may do, sleep probably contributes most to keeping him sane. It puts brackets about each day. If you do something foolish or painful today, you get irritated if somebody mentions it, today. If it happened yesterday, though, you can nod or chuckle, as the case may be. You’ve crossed through nothingness or dream to another island in Time.”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 5 (p. 101)

Pain , Dreams , Sleep , Time

““Time devours our feeble mortality, leaving us with but the sour residue of memory.”
Marvin nodded. “Yet this ineffable and ungraspable quantity,” he replied, “this time which no man may possess, is in truth our only possession.””

Robert Sheckley book Mindswap

Source: Mindswap (1966), Chapter 24 (p. 110)

Truth , Memory , Time

“You think I have the responsibilty… I have the responsibility to give the fans a good time! (nods at camera, then pauses)… that just sounds… kinky.”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

Thinking , Time

“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, "I hear you spoke here tonight." "Oh, it was nothing," I replied modestly. "Yes," the little old lady nodded, "that's what I heard."”

Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)

Humor and the Presidency (1987).
1980s

“God nodded his approval of as good.
So much those heroes knew and understood,
I mean the great four, Washington,
John Adams, Jefferson, and Madison
So much they saw as consecrated seers
They must have seen ahead what not appears,
They would bring empires down about our ears
And by the example of our Declaration
Make everybody want to be a nation.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

1960s, Dedication (1960)

God , Appearance

“"You are certain you can keep the truth from her?"
"Sure," Ed said confidently. "I know I can."
"All right." The Old Man nodded slowly. "I will send you back. But you must tell no one." He swelled visibly. "Remember: you will eventually come back to me — everyone does, in the end — and your fate will not be enviable."”

Philip K. Dick book Adjustment Team

Adjustment Team (1954)

Fate , Truth , Confidence

““They say wine will kill you slowly.” He nodded his head solemnly. “But that’s all right, we’re in no hurry.””

Sean Russell (1952) author

Source: World Without End (1995), Chapter 12 (p. 173)

Wine

“There, where the cross in hoary ruin nods,
And weeping yews o'ershade the lettered stones,
While midnight silence wraps these dark abodes,
And soothes me wand'ring o'er my kindred bones,
Let kindled fancy view the glorious morn,
When from the bursting graves the dust shall rise,
All nature smiling, and, by angels borne,
Messiah's cross, far blazing o'er the skies.”

William Julius Mickle (1734–1788) British writer

Pollio: an Elegy (written 1762; published 1765)

Smile , Angels , Nature , Silence

“In the morning when we began straggling out in small parties on our way to the trial, several of us went down in the elevator with three entirely correct old gentlemen looking much alike in their sleekness, pinkness, baldness, glossiness of grooming, such stereotypes as no proletarian novelist of the time would have dared to use as the example of a capitalist monster in his novel. We were pale and tightfaced; our eyelids were swollen; no doubt in spite of hot coffee and cold baths, we looked rumpled, unkempt, disreputable, discredited, vaguely guilty, pretty well frayed out by then. The gentlemen regarded us glossily, then turned to each other. As we descended the many floors in silence, one of them said to the others in a cream-cheese voice, "It is very pleasant to know we may expect things to settle down properly again," and the others nodded with wise, smug, complacent faces.
To this day, I can feel again my violent desire just to slap his whole slick face all over at once, hard, with the flat of my hand, or better, some kind of washing bat or any useful domestic appliance being applied where it would really make an impression — a butter paddle — something he would feel through that smug layer of too-well-fed fat.”

Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist

The Never-Ending Wrong (1977)

Way , Feeling , Coffee , Silence

“Mr Liversedge…saw the whole ridiculous Oriental susah in true proportion. Here men would murder for five dollars, here men would seek divorce because their wives sighed at the handsomeness of the film star P. Ramlee…. nodding at the lucid exposition of Mr Lim from Penang, though contemning inwardly the Pommie accent…”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Beds in the East (1959)

Men , Star

““So what is this Final Secret? Any Ideas?” Spider asked, trying to sound reasonable.
“We don’t know. We just don’t know. All we know is what the Vores have communicated to us so far.”
“Right,” Spider said, nodding, hating every moment of this nonsense. “And when you say ‘we’ and ‘us’, what you really mean is ‘you’, yes?”
“They communicate through a living channel, yes, and that is, of course, me.””

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 18 (p. 219)

Hate , Secret , Communication , Idea

“"This warrior says you must fight him for the leadership," said Bran, and Kull, eyes glittering with growing battle-joy, nodded: "I guessed as much. Give us space."
"A shield and a helmet!" shouted Bran, but Kull shook his head.
"I need none," he growled. "Back and give us room to swing our steel!"”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"Kings of the Night" (1930)

Joy , Fight

“Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe—
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.”

Eugene Field (1850–1895) American writer

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod http://www.amherst.edu/~rjyanco94/literature/eugenefield/poems/poemsofchildhood/wynkenblynkenandnod.html, st. 1
Love Songs of Childhood (1894)

Shoe , Light , Sea , Night

“Don't write when you can talk; don't talk when you can nod your head.”

Martin Lomasney (1859–1933) American politician

Van Nostrand, Albert D. (December 1948). "The Lomasney Legend". The New England Quarterly. 21 (4): 437. JSTOR 361565 https://www.jstor.org/stable/361565