Quotes about rock
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“Because', she said, 'your problems are not real problems. You're dating two beautiful girls at once. Think about it. That's like… having rock-star problems.'
'Having rock-star problems may be the closest I ever get to being an actual rock star.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Beauty, Girl, Star, Problem

“You know when most girls say they want a big rock, they dont mean, you know, literally a."
-Clary to Jace, pg.313-”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Girl

“Some say it's too country, some say it's too rock n' roll. But it's just good music if you can feel it in your soul.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Music, Feeling, Soul, Country

“I would hit you on the head with a rock and drag you away from this. But it would only shatter the rock.”

Jim Butcher Captain's Fury

Source: Captain's Fury

“People say they "find" love, as if it were an object hidden by a rock. But love takes many forms and it is never the same for any man and woman. What people find then is a CERTAIN love.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Love, People

“My lovely shining fragile broken house is filled with flowers and founded on a rock.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Love, Flowers, Housing

“i remembered the myth about Andromeda and how she had been chained to a rock by her own parents as a sacrifice to a sea monster. Maybe she'd gotten too many F's on her report card or something.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

Parent, Sea

“A small rock holds back a great wave.”

Homér Ancient Greek epic poet, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Context: I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

Men, God, Hate, People

“Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Motivational, Back To Work, Men, Heart

“We have a saying that time has no single measure, that time can be like frost or lightning or a tear or siege or storm or sunset, or even like a rock.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun

Tear, Time

“Answers to Frequently Asked Questions:
Yes.
Yes.
No.
One time in high school.
Three times in my twenties.
Rocks no salt.
Yes.
Four.
Never. And how dare you!
I will take no further questions.”

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

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

School, Question, Time

“It wasn't an excuse. It was a fact. He'd had to make his way alone, and no one—not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses — ever makes it alone.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

Way, Star

“Men," Thom murmured. "Men who shook the pillars of heaven and rocked the world on its
foundations." He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Forget about them. They are dust now.”

Robert Jordan book The Eye of the World

Source: The Eye of the World

Men, World, Forgetting

“I feel myself shriveling along with my world, getting smaller and harder. I'm turning into a rock, and in some ways that's good, because rocks last forever.
But if this is how I'm going to last forever, then I don't want to.”

Susan Beth Pfeffer book Life As We Knew It

Source: Life As We Knew It

World, Way, Feeling

“Was his body made out of orange rocks and did he at any point yell 'It's clobbering time'?"
"I find your attempt at levity inappropriate."
"Consider me properly chastised.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Time

“We were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors," she told him once. "I was paper and she was rock so I lived and she died.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“Love is bullshit. Emotion is bullshit. I am a rock. A jerk. I'm an uncaring asshole and proud of it.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Love, Jerk

“Wait."
"So what am I supposed to do now?"

"You know, Jin, I would have saved myself from five hundred years' imprisonment beneath a mountain of rock had I only realized how good it is to be a monkey."

(222-223)”

Gene Luen Yang American Born Chinese

Source: American Born Chinese

Mountain, Waiting

“Man, you weigh a freaking ton," he told me. "What've you been eating, rocks?"
"Why, is your head missing some?" I croaked. His mouth almost quirked in a smile, and that's when I knew how upset he'd been”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Smile

“There's no half-singing in the shower, you're either a rock star or an opera diva”

Josh Groban (1981) American musician and actor

VH1.com, 11/23/03
Context: "The shower is my time to open up my operatic chops, because of the enormous echo. You sound five times as big in the shower, so I break into some "Nessun Dorma" [from Puccini's Turandot] or Pearl Jam. You've got to go big when you're in the shower. There's no half-singing in the shower, you're either a rock star or an opera diva."

Star, Singing

“… it has been well said that it is precisely these moments when we are feeling that ours is the world and everything that's in it that Fate selects for sneaking up on us with the rock in the stocking.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Fate, World, Feeling

“It's as if I'm Finnick, watching images of my life flash by. The mast of a boat, a silver parachute, Mags laughing, a pink sky, Beetee's trident, Annie in her wedding dress, waves breaking over rocks. Then its over.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Life, Wedding

“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins, not through strength but by perseverance.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Perseverance

“What kind of love would drive a man for miles through solid rock?”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Crimson Crown

Love

“We passed hieroglyphic scrolls, gold jewelry, sarcophagi, statues of pharaohs, and huge chunks of limestone. Why would someone display a rock? Aren't there enough of those in the world?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

World

“Sand is overrated. It's just tiny little rocks.”

Charlie Kaufman (1958) American screenwriter

Source: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: The Shooting Script

“I wanted to learn more of love- that is built not on the shifting sands of violent passion but on the steady rock of deep and abiding affection.”

Eleanor Hibbert (1906–1993) English novelist

Source: The Shadow of the Lynx

Love, Learning, Passion

“Life is a storm. One minute you will bathe under the sun and the next you will be shattered upon the rocks. That's when you shout, "Do your worst, for I will do mine!" and you will be remembered forever.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Life, Sun

“my hands dead
my heart dead
silence
adagio of rocks
the world ablaze
that's the best
for me.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

World, Silence, Heart, Dead

“Pray to God, but row away from the rocks.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Variant: Call on God, but row away from the rocks.

God

“She kept swimming out into life because she hadn't yet found a rock to stand on.”

Barbara Kingsolver Animal Dreams

Source: Animal Dreams

Life

“A woman who will be like a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint, her grace not sullied butby the turbulence that washes over her.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Cary rocked back on his heels and twirled one index finger around another in a sign meaning, wrapped around your finger., I thought, since he was wrapped around my heart.”

Sylvia Day book Bared to You

Source: Bared to You

Heart

“Just when you think you've hit rock bottom, you realize you're standing on another trapdoor.”

Marisha Pessl (1977) American writer

Source: Night Film

Thinking

“She seems to have had the ability to stand firmly on the rock of her past while living completely and unregretfully in the present.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Past

“There," she said. She rocked him back and forth. "There, you foolish, beautiful boy who wants to change the world. There, there. And who could keep from loving you? Who could keep from loving a boy so brave and true?”

Kate DiCamillo The Magician's Elephant

Source: The Magician's Elephant

Love, World, Beauty, Boy

“My eyes flew open, and I pushed back against rock-hard shoulders. I let out a little squeak of horror.

"It's me," said a familiar voice.

…"Eric, what are you doing here?"

"Snuggling.”

Charlaine Harris book Club Dead

Source: Club Dead

“Pop music often tells you everything is OK, while rock music tells you that it's not OK, but you can change it.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

Source: On the Move

Music, Change

“It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Sense

“If you live in rock and roll, as I do, you see the reality of sex, of male lust and women being aroused by male lust. It attracts women. It doesn't repel them.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Women, Sex, Reality

“Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, someone’ll throw you a shovel.” – Chloe Traeger”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Variant: Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, someone will hand you a shovel.
Source: Head Over Heels

Thinking

“It's me. I chose this. I chose all of this — this rock has been waiting for me my entire life. I’ve been moving towards it my whole life.”

Aron Ralston Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Source: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Life, Waiting

“You aren't angry "
"You must be joking " she said dryly. "I'm alive Nicholas. And I'm immortal like you. This rocks”

Lynsay Sands Canadian writer

Source: The Renegade Hunter

“Experience had quickly taught her that she could not survive the storms without the anchor of the constraining love of Christ and what she called the "Rock-counsciousness" of the promise given her, "He goeth before.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael

Love, Christ

“At New Year's he had given Anne a present of silver forks with handles of rock crystal. He hopes she will use them to eat with, not to stick in people.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

People, Hope

“I'm still going to love you, always. And in the rock-paper-scissors of life, love is rock. fear, anger, everthing else… no contest.”

Sara Zarr (1970) American children's writer

Source: How to Save a Life

Love, Life, Fear, Anger

“There are rocks deep enough in this earth that no matter what the rupture, they will never see the surface.

There is, I think, a fear of love.

There is a fear of love.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Source: Let the Great World Spin

Love, Fear, Thinking

“It was so quiet, a reservation kind of quiet, where you can hear somebody drinking whiskey on the rocks three miles away.”

Sherman Alexie book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Source: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Drink

“I want to see the thirst
inside the syllables
I want to touch the fire
in the sound:
I want to feel the darkness
of the cry. I want
words as rough
as virgin rocks.” - Verb.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Feeling, Cry

“Maybe she thought the garbage and rocks in your head were interesting. But finally, garbage is garbage and rocks are rocks.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Christmas garland and a rock?" he said, a smile in his voice. "Why not an ornament?"

"Wolves aren't fragile," I told him. "And they're… stubbon and hard to move.”

Patricia Briggs book Silver Borne

Source: Silver Borne

Smile, Christmas

“Glory falls around us
as we sob
a dirge of
desolation on the Cross
and hatred is the ballast of
the rock
which lies upon our necks
and underfoot.”

Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter

"Glory Falls"
I Shall Not Be Moved (1990)
Source: Letter to My Daughter

“We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

God, Star, Learning

“A jewel's just a rock put under enourmous heat and pressure. Extraordinary things are always hiding in places people never think to look.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

People, Thinking

“Rocks are space, and space is illusion.”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

“You used your power to toss one rock at me?" he exclaimed, an almost comic note of incredulity in his voice.
"On the contrary," I heard Dorian say pleasantly. "I didn't use magic for that. I just threw it.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Storm Born

“That ones yours, huh?"he asked, pointing to 3A."How come it just says 'Kyle'? Doesnt he have a last name?"
"Kyle wants to be a rock star,"Simon said, heading down the stairs."I think his working the one-name thing. Like Rihanna.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Star, Thinking

“Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock 'n' roll, or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It's a way of living your life.”

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

Life, Music, Way

“Words are your business, boy. Not just the word. Words are everything. The key to the rock, the answer to the question.”

Ralph Ellison (1914–1994) American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer

Boy, Question, Business

“You'd think he'd ran out off rocks," I muttered”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

Thinking

“Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains?”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Variant: What are men to rocks and mountains?
Source: Pride and Prejudice

Men, Disappointment, Mountain

“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste. And so that never again can we have the chance to see ourselves single, separate, vertical and individual in the world, part of the environment of trees and rocks and soil, brother to the other animals, part of the natural world and competent to belong in it. … We need wilderness preserved — as much of it as is still left, and as many kinds — because it was the challenge against which our character as a people was formed. The reminder and the reassurance that it is still there is good for our spiritual health even if we never once in ten years set foot in it.”

Wallace Stegner (1909–1993) American historian, writer, and environmentalist

Wilderness Letter http://wilderness.org/bios/former-council-members/wallace-stegner (1960) <br class="br">Source: The Sound of Mountain Water

People, Health, Books, World

“she is no longer
the beautiful woman
she was. she sends
photos of herself
sitting upon a rock
by the ocean
alone and damned.
I could have had
her once. I wonder
if she thinks I
could have
saved her?”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

Beauty, Photo, Thinking

“« He squeezed his hands into fists. I picked up a grapefruit-sized rock and handed it to him. It went flying. Home run, Beast Lord style.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Rises

Home, Flying

“Why are Americans so fascinated by Ireland?” Keith asked… “you all think you’re Irish. What’s the appeal? Do you like the accent more? Is it all the magical rocks? Oh, look, a leprechaun…”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: The Last Little Blue Envelope

Thinking

“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, (1963)

God, Children, Justice, Democracy

“I've always been spiritual but I've never had a proper context, and it took me a while to find the proper context. It's hard to realize you can have any kind of relationship with God you want… and so I now have a punk rock relationship with God”

Billy Corgan (1967) American musician, songwriter, producer, and author

God

“I think of rivers, of tides. Forests and water gushing out. Rain and lightning. Rocks and shadows. All of these are in me.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Thinking, Water

“As I grow older, much older, I will experience many things, and I will hit rock bottom again and again. Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won't let my spirit be destroyed.”

Banana Yoshimoto book Kitchen

Source: Kitchen (1988)

Suffering

“How about a cheer
For all those bad girls
And all the boys
That play that rock and roll?
They love it
Like you love Jesus.
It does the same thing
To their souls.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Have Love Will Travel
Lyrics, The Last DJ (2002)

Love, Soul, Girl, Boy

“There are beautiful sounds in rock. Very lazy, dreamlike noises. You can forget about the lyrics in most songs. Just dig the noise, and you've got your sound… We're musical primitives.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Beauty, Music, Forgetting

“My ma says a rock lasts forever, but people don’t, and that’s what makes them more precious.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Source: Palace of Stone

People

“I cry to you, my Lord, my rock! Do not be deaf to me, for if you are silent, I shall go down to the pit like the rest. Hear my voice raised in petition as I cry to you for help, as I raise my hands, my Lord, toward your holy of holies.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Help, Cry

“You know, when most girls say they want a big rock, they don't mean, you know, literally a big rock."
"Very amusing, my sarcastic friend. It's not a rock, precisely. All Shadowhunters have a witchlight rune-stone.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Girl

“Most of Set’s forces were running towards our boat, screaming and throwing rocks (which tended to fall down and hit them, but no one says demons are bright).”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Source: Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits

Books

“In matters of style, swim with the current: in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

As quoted in Careertracking: 26 success Shortcuts to the Top (1988) by James Calano and Jeff Salzman; though used in an address by Bill Clinton (31 March 1997), and sometimes cited to Notes on the State of Virginia (1787) no earlier occurence of this has yet been located.
Disputed

Motivational, Leadership, Back To Work

“Strong relationships are not rocked by a truth that is grounded by resolute monogamy.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Truth, Strong

“The only way I can describe the extent of my anxiety is to say that I felt as if I were pregnant with a rock.”

Katharine Graham (1917–2001) American publisher

Way

“I said he kissed me. Really kissed me. It rocked me to my soul. It was brutal. It was brilliant. It was horrible. I thought I was going to die.”

Margaret Way (1900) Australian romance fiction writer

Source: Genni's Dilemma

Soul, Kiss

“I paused with the pen in my hand. "He burst into flames?"
"He became engulfed in fire."
"Was his buddy made out of orange rocks and at any point yell, 'It's clobbering time'?”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Time

“Men make angry music and it's called rock-and-roll; women include anger in their vocabulary and suddenly they're angry and militant.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Women, Men, Music, Anger

“Don't turn over the rocks if you don't want to see the pale creatures who live under them.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

“They're fanatics. It's like expecting humanity from a falling rock. It's not going to have a fit of compassion and not crack your skull open.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

“What I want is for both of us to feel safe. What you and I have together shouldn't be draining us like this. It should be the one rock-solid thing we both count on.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

Feeling

“I am a rock.
I am an island.
And a rock feels no pain.
And an island never cries.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

I Am a Rock
Song lyrics, Sounds of Silence (1966)
Source: Lyrics 1964-2008
Context: I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock.
I am an island.
And a rock feels no pain.
And an island never cries.

Pain, Feeling

“We were each other's rock. But did it make us each other's destiny?”

Rachel Hawthorne (1950) American author

Source: Full Moon

“My hair had grown out long and shaggy—not in that sexy-young-rock-star kind of way but in that time-to-take-Rover-to-the-groomer kind of way.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: White Night

Way, Star, Time