Quotes about set
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“Once you call something a story, it's set in stone. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end that can't be transformed, because by definition, if you do that, it's not the same story anymore”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Between the Lines

“The most sublime act is to set another before you.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

“If you love something set it free, but don't be surprised if it comes back with herpes.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Love, Funny

“Sometimes something catastrophic can occur in a split second that changes a person's life forever; other times one minor incident can lead to another and then another and another, eventually setting off just as big a change in a body's life.”

Jeannette Walls book Half Broke Horses

Source: Half Broke Horses

Life, Change, Time, Personality

“Many young men started down a false path to their true destiny. Time and fortune usually set them aright.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

Men, Time, Falseness

“For me a house or an apartment becomes a home when you add one set of four legs, a happy tail, and that indescribable measure of love that we call a dog.”

Roger A. Caras (1928–2001) American photographer

Love, Happiness, Dogs, Home

“I've come to believe that in everyone's life, there's one undeniable moment of change, a set of circumstances that suddenly alters everything.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

Life, Change

“Doctor."" Gideon set one ankle on the opposite knee and settled back, creating a picture of unyielding decisiveness.
""The only way I'm keeping my hands off her is if I'm dead. Find another way to fix us.""”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Chapter 3 pg 50
Source: Reflected in You

Way, Decision, Dead

“The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Alloy of Law

Leadership, For Men

“You put the Set animal in your locker? Do you know how much strength that requires?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was there.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Animals

“You know, if you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything, wouldn't you, at any time? And you would achieve nothing!”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Interview for Press Association (3 May 1989) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107427 <br class="br">Third term as Prime Minister

Time

“Good Lord, woman. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that men have a specified word count set aside each day and if I don’t stop talking, my tongue will explode? (Syn)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Fire

Men

“He wasn't just masculine and sexual, he was carnal in a set-your-teeth-on-edge kind of way; he was almost frightning.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

Way

“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

“I was in the air around him. I was in the cold mornings he had now. I was in the quiet time he spent alone. I was the girl he had chosen to kiss. He wanted, somehow to set me free. -Susie Salmon”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Girl, Kiss, Time

“Setting out around midnight, I couldn't help shaking my head, "We're the goddamned hottest vampire hunters ever." I muttered.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Help

“Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates invention. It shocks us out of sheep-like passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving…conflict is a sine qua non of reflection and ingenuity.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Memory

“I need some kind of… like… last minute, poorly-set-up deus ex machina!!”

Bryan Lee O'Malley (1979) Artist

Source: Scott Pilgrim, Volume 3: Scott Pilgrim & The Infinite Sadness

“It’s easy to want peace and love in hypothetical situations—then reality sets in, and sometimes we have to do what’s ugly.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Thorn Queen

Love, Peace, Reality

“Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate,
Whose table once a Guest, but not
The second time, is set.
Whose crumbs the crows inspect,
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the Farmer’s corn;
Men eat of it and die.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

The Single Hound, p. 257
Collected Poems (1993)

Men, Food, Time, Past

“He was my father. I own half his genes, and all of his history. Believe this: the mistakes are part of the story. I am born of a man who believed he could tell nothing but the truth, while he set down for all time the Poisonwood Bible.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Truth, History, Time, Parting

“We shall take a star out of the skies and shall set thousands of worlds on fire…”

Cordwainer Smith book The Rediscovery of Man

Source: The Rediscovery of Man

World, Star

“Normal' is a dryer setting.”

Elizabeth Moon book The Speed of Dark

Source: The Speed of Dark

“Why have you chosen to spare me?”
“I want us to be…what is your word? Friends.”
“Psychotic rapists don’t have friends.”
“I was unaware you were a psychotic rapist or I would not have offered.”
“Ha.” I’d set myself up for that one.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Variant: I want us to be... what is your word? Friends."
"Psychotic rapists don't have friends."
"I was unaware you were a psychotic rapists or I would not have offered."
(Mac & V'lane)
Source: Bloodfever

“Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.
I loved light ever, light in eye and brain —
No tapers mirrored in long palace floors,
Nor dedicated depths of silent aisles,
But just the common dusty wind-blown day
That roofs earth's millions.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

"Vesalius in Zante (1564)" http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/wharton/whartpoe2.htm#Vesalius%20in%20Zante.%20(1564), in North American Review (November 1902), p. 625 <br class="br">Source: Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verses

Drink

“For we are like tree trunks in the snow. In appearance they lie smoothly and a little push should be enough to set them rolling. No, it can't be done, for they are firmly wedded to the ground. But see, even that is only appearance.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Lie, Tree, Wedding, Appearance

“Set your mind on a definite goal and observe how quickly the world stands aside to let you pass.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

World

“Life's like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending. We've done just what we set out to do. Thanks to the lovers, the dreamers and you.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Life, Lovers

“For it is often the way we look at other people that imprisons them within their own narrowest allegiances. And it is also the way we look at them that may set them free.”

Amin Maalouf book In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong

Source: In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong

People, Way

“Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Source: The Two Paths

Life, Sun

“How can we expect people to put value on our work when we don't value ourselves enough to set and hold uncomfortable boundaries?”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Rising Strong

People

“Wizard Howl," said Wizard Suliman. "I must apologize for trying to bite you so often. In the normal way, I wouldn't dream of setting teeth in a fellow countryman.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

Dreams, Way

“Love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
A Brave and Startling Truth.”

Maya Angelou book A Brave and Startling Truth

A Brave and Startling Truth (1995)

Love, Truth

“Much of what we called "depression" was really dissatisfaction, a result of setting a bar impossibly high or expecting treasures we weren't willing to work for.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: Have a Little Faith: a True Story

“There is nothing more mysterious than a TV set left on in an empty room. It is even stranger than a man talking to himself or a woman standing dreaming at her stove. It is as if another planet is communicating with you.”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

Source: America

Dreams, Communication

“True, you're the weakest of us all, but you're still one of the five, and there is power in collecting the complete set."
He paused, then grinned. "The complete Set! That's funny! Now let's consume your energy and entomb your soul, shall we?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Soul

“If you believe in love, you're setting yourself up to be disappointed.”

Candace Bushnell book Sex and the City

Source: Sex and the City

Love, Disappointment

“If he waits for the ideal moment, he will never set off; he requires a touch of madness to take the next step. The warrior uses that touch of madness. For - in both love and war - it is impossible to foresee everything.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Warrior of the Light

Love, War, Waiting, Madness

“What sets lion chasers apart isn’t the outcome. It’s the courage to chase God-sized dreams.”

Mark Batterson (1969) American pastor and writer

Source: In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day: How To Survive And Thrive When Opportunity Roars

God, Dreams, Courage

“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

“The truth doesn't always set you free; people prefer to believe prettier, neatley wrapped lies”

Jodi Picoult book Keeping Faith

Source: Keeping Faith

People, Truth

“There’s always a choice. That’s God’s way, always will be. Your will is still free. Do as you will. There’s no set of leg-irons on you. But… this is what God wants of you.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

God, Way

“Only yesterday a young woman came to me wanting a trap set for a man with a sweet smile and lithe arms. She was a fool, not for wanting him, but for wanting more of him than that.”

Patricia A. McKillip (1948) American fantasy writer

Smile, Fools

“Our actions are like ships which we may watch set out to sea, and not know when or with what cargo they will return to port.”

Iris Murdoch book The Bell

Source: The Bell

Sea

“Remember always what you set out to get, and please don’t settle for less.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys

“Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window, and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22 (1961)
Context: Yossarian was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollably.... It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all.

Secret

“One should never marry a man who doesn’t own a decent set of scissors. That would be my advice. It leads to bad things.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

“He supposed that even in Hell, people got an occasional sip of water, if only so they could appreciate the full horror of unrequited thirst when it set in again.”

Stephen King book Full Dark, No Stars

Source: Full Dark, No Stars

People, Hell, Water

“Thirstily he set it to his lips, and as its cool refreshment began to soothe his throat, he thanked Heaven that in a world of much evil there was still so good a thing as ale.”

Rafael Sabatini (1875–1950) Italian writer

Source: Fortune's Fool

World, Evil

“When a person sets a thing in motion, there's a feeling of unease, almost regret, until you learn the truth.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Truth, Feeling, Learning, Personality

“When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

“Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free.”

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

Princess

“Trust. It is like placing a blade in someone's hand and setting the very point to your heart.”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Source: The Bane Chronicles

Heart

“When we are set free from the bondage of pleasing others, when we are free from currying others'approval-then no one will be able to make us miserable or dissatisfied. And then, if we know we have pleased God, contentment will be our consolation.”

Kay Arthur (1933) International Bible teacher/four-time ECPA Christian Book Award winning author

God

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Men, Hope, Thinking

“Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free and realising you were the prisoner!”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Forgiveness

“Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

Success

“The Duchess set about studying Annette and shortly found her adversary's tragic flaw.
Chocolate.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Study

“Wherever we go we do harm, forgiving
ourselves as wheels do cement for wearing
each other out. We set this house
on fire, forgetting that we live within.

(from "To a Meadowlark," for M. L. Smoker)”

Jim Harrison (1937–2016) American novelist, poet, essayist

Forgiveness, Housing, Forgetting

“When you stick a song on a tape, you set it free.”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

“Some things are only real because they represent what we think. When we learn the truth and think it, the old reality is no longer real to us and loses its hold on us. The truth sets us free.”

C. Terry Warner American writer

Source: Bonds That Make Us Free: Healing Our Relationships, Coming to Ourselves

Truth, Thinking, Reality, Learning

“All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears - of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, of speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words "Some Assembly Required".”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Fear

“What could it be like to find out, in a matter of minutes, that the person you believed the sun rose and set on was not the person you'd thought?”

Jodi Picoult book The Pact

Source: The Pact

Sun, Personality

“Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

“If you love something/Set it free/If it loves you/It will come back to you/ If it doesn't--hunt it down and kill it.”

Harry Crews (1935–2012) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

Source: Body

Love

“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in the minds of men.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Misattributed to Samuel Adams as early as 1990. Also misattributed to John Adams. Actually originates with Diane Ackerman, who, in an article on Samuel Adams, "The Man Who Made a Revolution", published in the September 6, 1987 issue of the widely circulated Sunday newspaper supplement Parade, wrote: "Early on, he realized that revolutions don't require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brushfires in people's minds." (page numbers vary, article on pp. 20–23 in most editions with the preceding quote on p. 22 https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=qfQaAAAAIBAJ&pg=4292%2C1111900) Source: Mansour Khalid, The Government They Deserve: The Role of the Elite in Sudan's Political Evolution, London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1990, p. 17 https://books.google.com/books?id=jZ9yAAAAMAAJ&q=brushfires. Source: Will Bunch, The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, Hi-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama, New York: Harper, 2010, p. 49. Source: https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/it_does_not_require_a_majority_to_prevail_but_rather_an_irate_tireless_mino, https://lists.h-net.org/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=lx&sort=3&list=H-OIEAHC&month=1310, http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2013-October/ <br class="br">Misattributed

Men

“If you set out to be liked, you will accomplish nothing.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

“What in the name of Hitler's panties and matching bra set was she talking about?”

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer

Source: Away Laughing on a Fast Camel

“That's the past for you. Not only does it come back at the most unexpected, and inconvenient, times but it's set in stone.”

Jeffery Deaver book Edge

Source: Edge

Time, Past

“You are my butterfly and refuse to set you free.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

“I knew that I shouldn't have, but I did it all the same; and there you have my epitaph, or one of them, because my grave is going to require a monument inscribed on all four sides with rueful mottoes, in small characters, set close together.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Source: Wonder Boys (1995)

“To set a forest on fire, you light a match. To set a character on fire, you put him in conflict.”

James N. Frey (1943) American writer

Source: How to Write a Damn Good Novel: A Step-by-Step No Nonsense Guide to Dramatic Storytelling

Light

“…women were brought up to have only one set of manners. A woman was either a lady or she wasn't, and we all know what the latter meant. Not even momentary lapses were allowed; there is no female equivalent of the boys-will-be-boys concept.”

Judith Martin (1938) American etiquette expert

Source: Common Courtesy: In Which Miss Manners Solves the Problem That Baffled Mr. Jefferson

Women, Boy

“A succubus on the set. Strike that, the health-conscious kid sister made it two… succubuses. Succubusees? Succubi? Stupid Latin correspondence course.”

Jim Butcher book Blood Rites

Source: Blood Rites

Health, Stupidity, Sister

“Wait!" Conrad said. "Did someone… one of my enemies set this fire?"
Nix turned back with a grin. "Unless you'd pissed off some wirring-hungry nutrias, then I'm going with no.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dark Needs at Night's Edge

Waiting

“Not forever does the bulbul sing
In balmy shades of bowers,
Not forever lasts the spring
Nor ever blossom the flowers.
Not forever reigneth joy,
Sets the sun on days of bliss,
Friendships not forever last,
They know not life, who know not this.”

Khushwant Singh Train to Pakistan

Source: Train to Pakistan

Life, Friendship, Spring, Flowers

“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Life, Soul, Star, Birth

“If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Speech at Amherst College
Context: If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.
Context: If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. And as Mr. MacLeish once remarked of poets, there is nothing worse for our trade than to be in style. In free society art is not a weapon and it does not belong to the spheres of polemic and ideology. Artists are not engineers of the soul. It may be different elsewhere. But democratic society — in it, the highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may. In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation. And the nation which disdains the mission of art invites the fate of Robert Frost's hired man, the fate of having "nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope."

Art