Quotes about sign
page 4

“The funny thing about stop signs is that they're also start signs.”

Maureen Johnson The Key to the Golden Firebird

Source: The Key to the Golden Firebird

“You have me like a drawing, erased, coloured in, untitled, signed by your tongue.”

Carol Ann Duffy (1955) British writer and professor of contemporary poetry

Source: Selected Poems

Drawing

“A First Sign of the Beginning of Understanding is the Wish to Die.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Understanding

“Having regrets is the only sign that you’ve done anything interesting with your life.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Secrets of a Summer Night

Life

“The universe conspires to reveal the truth and to make your path easy if you have the courage to follow the signs.”

Lisa Unger (1970) American author

Truth, Courage, Universe

“Conclusion 2:
There's nothing more demonic than two bored twins.
~Signed Tamaki”

Bisco Hatori (1975) Japanese manga artist

Source: Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 2

“No sign, so far, of anything sinister—but I live in hope.”

Agatha Christie book Cat Among the Pigeons

Source: Cat Among the Pigeons

Hope

“It was a sign of growing up, when the dark made no more difference to you than the day.”

Roddy Doyle book Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

Source: Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

“I took Punk to be the detonation of some slow-fused projectile buried deep in society's flank a decade earlier, and I took it to be, somehow, a sign.”

William Gibson (1948) American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist and founder of the cyberpunk subgenre

"Since 1948" (6 November 2002) http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/source/source.asp Context: I took Punk to be the detonation of some slow-fused projectile buried deep in society's flank a decade earlier, and I took it to be, somehow, a sign. And I began, then, to write. And have been, ever since. Context: In 1977, facing first-time parenthood and an absolute lack of enthusiasm for anything like "career," I found myself dusting off my twelve-year-old's interest in science fiction. Simultaneously, weird noises were being heard from New York and London. I took Punk to be the detonation of some slow-fused projectile buried deep in society's flank a decade earlier, and I took it to be, somehow, a sign. And I began, then, to write. And have been, ever since.

“What I'm saying is that I'm trying to find rational reasons to explain irrational feelings, and that's neveer a good sign.”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

Feeling

“Evil is relative, Annalist. You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger.”

Glen Cook The Black Company

Source: The Black Company (1984), Chapter 6, “Lady” (pp. 192-193)

Evil, Dependency

“Maybe a friend is someone who wants your updates. Even if they're boring. Or sad. Or annoyingly cutesy. A friend says "Sign me up for your boring crap, yes indeed"--because he likes you anyways. He'll tolerate your junk”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Weren't Complicated, I Wouldn't Be Ruby Oliver

Sadness

“Also she signed away the right to self-destruct years ago. The fine print on the birth certificate, her friend calls it.”

Jenny Offill book Dept. of Speculation

Source: Dept. of Speculation

Birth

“How do you invent a religion?” Evie asked.

Will looked over the top of his spectacles. “You say, ‘God told me the following,’ and then wait for people to sign up.”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

God, People, Religion, Waiting

“I was going to put what birthday it was on the sign," he said, "but Jace said that after twenty, you're just old, so it doesn't matter anyway."
Jace stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth.
"I said that?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Birthday

“Perhaps sunlight had always been luminous, and doorways signs of greater passage than that of one room to another. But she’d not noticed it until now.”

Clive Barker book Imajica

Source: Imajica

“Being able to embrace contradictions is a sign of intelligence.
Or insanity.”

Richard Kadrey (1957) San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer

Source: Butcher Bird

Intelligence

“Right. Because there’s no bigger sign of commitment than a Halloween dance”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Dance

“One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Source: The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy

Sadness, Time

“The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn't talk about it. She does her work.”

Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine

Source: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

“Like your zodiac sign? Percy asked. 'I'm a Leo.
'No, stupid,' Leo said. I'm a Leo. You're a Percy.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Variant: Like the zodiac sign?' Percy asked. 'I'm a Leo.'
'No, stupid,' Leo said, 'I'm a Leo. You're a Percy.
Source: The Blood of Olympus

Stupidity

“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

“I will You, in all, Myself, with promise to never desert you,
To which I sign my name.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

“If anyone else asked that question, O He Who Is Terrible and Great, I would have said they were an ignorant fool; in you it is a sign of the disarming simplicity which is the fount of all virtue.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Amulet of Samarkand

Source: The Amulet of Samarkand

Fools, Question

“Misunderstanding women is a clear sign of scant virility.”

Italo Svevo book Zeno's Conscience

Source: Zeno's Conscience

Women

“To rush into explanations is always a sign of weakness.”

Agatha Christie book The Seven Dials Mystery

Source: The Seven Dials Mystery

“There is no shame in loving: it is the sign of a generous heart, and pain the price of an open soul.”

Alison Croggon (1962) contemporary Australian poet, playwright and fantasy novelist

Source: The Naming

Love, Pain, Soul, Heart

“Taureans are stubborn as hell. Theywant to tell you what sign they are…. But underneath that tough Taurus hide beats the heart of a hopeless romantic.”

Armistead Maupin (1944) American writer

Hell, Heart

“God doesn't bribe, child. He just makes a sign and lets people take it as they will.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

God, People

“Consistency is the sign of a narrow mind.”

Glen Cook (1944) American fiction writer

“He regarded himself as an accomplished writer — a clear sign of madness in anyone.”

Paul Theroux (1941) American travel writer and novelist

Madness

“It is a sign of great inner insecurity to be hostile to the unfamiliar.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Hostility

“Being polite to a person is not a sign of respect for them. It is merely a sign of a good upbringing and a balanced nature.”

Brandon Sanderson The Wheel of Time

Source: A Memory of Light

Nature, Personality

“Ellen had long ago stopped being embarrassed by temper tantrums. She flipped it and wore it like a badge of honor. A temper tantrum was a sign that a mom said no when it counted.”

Lisa Scottoline (1955) American writer

Moms

“If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?”

Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) Canadian eductor

p. 333 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7725710M/Peter's_Quotations Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977)

“Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge. The bridge was being repaired: she went right through the Danger sign. The car fell a hundred feet into the ravine, smashing through the treetops feathery with new leaves, then burst into flames and rolled down into the shallow creek at the bottom. Chunks of the bridge fell on top of it. Nothing much was left but charred smithereens.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin (2000) first lines

War, Cars, Sister

“I am a fugitive and a vagabond, a sojourner seeking signs.”

Annie Dillard book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Source: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

“I parked in front of the Field Museum under a NO PARKING sign. There were a couple of actual spots I could have used, but the drive was even closer. Besides, I found it aesthetically satisfying to defy municipal code.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

“And love is always complicated. But still humans most try to love each other, darling. We must get out hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Love, Heart

“Morfran thrust his axe straight up. He pretty much seemed to have one sign for everything: poke a hole in the sky.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

“Logos and branding are so important. In a big part of the world, people cannot read French or English--but are great in remembering signs”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

People, World, Reading, Parting

“I was in a grocery store. I saw a sign that said 'pet supplies.' So I did. Then I went outside and saw a sign that said, 'Compact cars.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Cars

“Art begins when a man, with a purpose of communicating to other people a feeling he once experienced, calls it up again within himself and expresses it by certain external signs.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

People, Art, Feeling, Communication

“My heart is broken.
It really is. All the signs are there. I can't sleep- not even burgers. Every time the phone rings, my pulse leaps… But it's never for me, it's never him.”

Meg Cabot book All American Girl

Source: All-American Girl

Sleep, Time, Heart

“I have spent weeks in the desert, forgetting to look at the moon, he says, as a married man may spend days never looking into the face of his wife. These are not sins of omission but signs of pre-occuopation.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Forgetting

“Aside from myself, there was no sign of me.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love

“yesterday someone sent a message that was signed GOD! bernard said.
really? dap said. i didn't know he was signed onto the system”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

God

“You grew up, became a man, had to adjust to taking less than you hoped for; you discovered the dream-machine had a big OUT OF ORDER sign on it.”

Stephen King Dreamcatcher

Source: Dreamcatcher

Dreams, Hope

“Of course, a sign doesn't mean anything unless you know how to interpret it.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“I’m not sure I could trust a man who would bypass an Oreo in favor of vanilla wafers. It’s a fundamental character flaw, possibly a sign of true evil.”

Jonathan Maberry (1958) writer

Source: Patient Zero

Evil

“Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.”

Alain de Botton book Status Anxiety

Source: Status Anxiety

Understanding

“I went down to the 24-hour grocery. When I got there, the guy was locking the front door. I said, 'Hey, the sign says you’re open 24 hours. He said, 'Yes, but not in a row.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Guy

“Doubt is not always a sign that a man is wrong; it may be a sign that he is thinking.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

Thinking

“Amy Cahill didn't believe in omens. But black snow was falling, the earth was rumbling beneath her feet, her brother was meowing, and her uncle Alistair was prancing on the beach in pink pajamas.
She had to admit, the signs were not promising.”

Peter Lerangis book The Viper's Nest

Source: The Viper's Nest

“Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity.”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

“The Great Depression in the United States, far from being a sign of the inherent instability of the private enterprise system, is a testament to how much harm can be done by mistakes on the part of a few men when they wield vast power over the monetary system of a country.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Source: (1962), Ch. 3 The Control of Money, p. 50

Men, Parting, Country

“Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine;
Love was born at Christmas;
Star and angels gave the sign.”

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) English poet

Christmas, Love, Angels, Star

“I think the discomfort that some people feel in going to the monkey cages at the zoo is a warning sign.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

People, Feeling, Thinking

“That seemed to handle it. That was it. Send a girl off with one man. Introduce her to another to go off with him. Now go and bring her back. And sign the wire with love. That was it all right. I went in to lunch.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Source: The Sun Also Rises

Love, Girl

“A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

“He laughs. And in his laugh I hear bliss. I hear feet dancing, the rush of skirts twirling. The sound of children.
Is that the first sign of love?
You hear in the person you're destined to love the sound of those yet to be born.”

Alyson Richman (1972) American writer

Source: The Lost Wife

Love, Children, Dance, Personality

“But you must give him some sign, some sign that you love him… or he'll never be a man. All his life he'll feel guilty and alone unless you release him.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Love, Life, Feeling

“No, I don't think you understand just how stupid goblins are. Let me give you an example. One of the B'wa Kell generals, and this is their top fairy, was caught caught trying to pass off forged credit slips by signing his own name.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Arctic Incident

Stupidity, Understanding, Thinking

“Beyond the edge of the world there’s a space where emptiness and substance neatly overlap, where past and future form a continuous, endless loop. And, hovering about, there are signs no one has ever read, chords no one has ever heard.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

World, Reading, Past, Future

“you grab at any sign of hope. You grab it with both hands and breathe life into it, day after day. You do anything to keep it alive.”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

Life, Hope

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Imagination, Intelligence, Knowledge

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

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

“The peace sign is with two fingers not one.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Sanctuary

Peace

“I love book signings: kids waiting in line for you to scribble on their new books, haha!”

Brian Jacques (1939–2011) British fiction writer known for Redwall animal fantasy novels

Love, Books, Waiting

“Love is not a condition of the spirit but a sign of the zodiac.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Source: Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Love

“When you're on your own, you look for signs. Sometimes you make them up, sometimes they're actually there, but most of the time you can't tell the difference from the two.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Time

“I can't get over this. Dad isn't Sam's dad? Dad is a friend? How was I supposed to know that? People shouldn't be allowed to sign themselves as Dad unless they are your dad. It should be the law.”

Sophie Kinsella book I've Got Your Number

Source: I've Got Your Number

People, Law

“I remind myself that not everything is a sign, that some things simply are what they appear to be and should not be analyzed, deconstructed, or forced to bear the burden of metaphor, symbol, omen, or portent.”

Diane Schoemperlen (1954) Canadian writer

Source: Our Lady of the Lost and Found: A Novel of Mary, Faith, and Friendship

Appearance

“The Heart is a lonely hunter with only one desire! To find some lasting comfort in the arms of anothers fire… driven by a desperate hunger to the arms of a neon light, the heart is a lonely hunter when there's no sign of love in sight!”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Love, Hunger, Light, Heart

“I lost the plot for a while then. And I lost the subplot, the script, the soundtrack, the intermission, my popcorn, the credits, and the exit sign.”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

“Often a sign of expertise is noticing what doesn't happen.”

Malcolm Gladwell book Blink

Source: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“(24/7) once you sign on to be a mother, that's the only shift they offer.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

For Parents

“It's often a bad sign when people defend themselves against charges which haven't been made.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left

People

“Physics depends on a universe infinitely centred on an equals sign.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

Universe, Dependency

“A whizzpopper!" cried the BFG, beaming at her. "Us giants is making whizzpoppers all the time! Whizzpopping is a sign of happiness. It is music in our ears! You surely is not telling me that a little whizzpopping if forbidden among human beans?”

Roald Dahl The BFG

Source: The BFG

Music, Time, Happiness

“Great. She shook her head. Not only am I having conversations with myself, but now I'm refusing to talk to me. This has got to be the first sign of madness.”

Trudi Canavan book The High Lord

Source: The High Lord

Madness

“All that was missing was a neon sign that read EVIL AND CONFLICTED ABOUT IT with a flashing arrow pointing at his head.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

Evil, Reading

“The concept of conservation is a far truer sign of civilization than that spoilation of a continent which we once confused with progress.”

Peter Matthiessen (1927–2014) American novelist

Source: Wildlife in America

“If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank.”

Woody Allen Without Feathers

"Selections from the Allen Notebooks".
Without Feathers (1975)

God

“Proper punctuation is both the sign and the cause of clear thinking.”

Lynne Truss (1955) British writer

Source: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

Thinking

“Most of the bad guys in the real world don't know that they are bad guys. You don't get a flashing warning sign that you're about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when you aren't looking.”

Jim Butcher (1971) American author

World, Guy

“One of them had a large wooden sign nailed to its door proclaiming, NO SYMPATHY! I wondered what non-arcane visitors might think of the warning.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Thinking

“If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

“Even divorce, she thought, cannot erase all the bonds forged by years of marriage. Long after the papers are signed, decrees notarized, the ties still remain. And the most powerful tie of all is written in a child's flesh and blood.”

Tess Gerritsen book Body Double

Source: Body Double

Marriage

“Hearth signed, 'is it talking? I don't read sword lips.'"
'what is he saying?' Jack asked. 'I don't read elf hands”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

Reading

“I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totallylife. It's more important to confirm the least sincere. The clouds get enough attention as it is…”

Frank O'Hara (1926–1966) American poet, art critic and writer

People, Grass, Sincerity

“Teasing is very often a sign of inner misery.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Arguably: Selected Essays

“O Beautiful, for smoggy skies, insecticided grain

for strip-mined mountains' majesty, above the asphalt plain

America, America, man sheds his waste on thee

and hides the pines, with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Class Clown (1972)

Beauty, Mountain, Sea

“Look at a band like the Bravery. They're signed because we're a band," Flowers said. "I've heard rumors about [members of] that band being in a different kind of band, and how do you defend that? If you say, 'My heart really belongs to what I'm doing now,' but you used to be in a ska band. I can see the Strokes play or Franz Ferdinand play and it's real, and I haven't gotten that from the Bravery. I think people will see through them.”

Brandon Flowers (1981) American indie rock singer

"Killers' To-Do List: Lawsuit, Long-Form Video, Beef With The Bravery" (03/28/2005) from MTV.com http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1499151/20050328/killers_the.jhtml

People, Flowers, Thinking, Heart

“The money men make from their willingness to work the least desirable hours is not a sign of discrimination against women, but a sign of the willingness of mostly married men to lose sleep to support the family as their wife loses sleep to feed the child. A willingness to do the uncomfortable shifts is one reason married men earn more than twice what never-married men earn. Men's contribution, made at night, need not be lost in the dark.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 69.

Women, Men, Money, Family

“If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Attributed to Dr. Laurence J. Peter. Earliest source is "Peter's Quotations," page 333. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7725710M/Peter's_Quotations Misattributed Variant: If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind then what are we to think of an empty desk? Variant: If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?

“It's never been for love of money. I thank God for it because it makes me a living. But I sing because I love it, not because of the dollar signs.”

George Jones (1931–2013) American musician, singer and songwriter

Billboard - 28 Oct 2006 - Page 48 https://books.google.com/books?id=KQ8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=It%27s+never+been+for+love+of+money.+I+thank+God+for+it+because+it+makes+me+a+living.+But+I+sing+because+I+love+it,+not+because+of+the+dollar+signs.&source=bl&ots=98m-74BYnT&sig=4S5wWfO72ZmDRBRCgUscFVFDd1Q&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6Ts3VfGnNIqfygOv4YGYDA&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=It's%20never%20been%20for%20love%20of%20money.%20I%20thank%20God%20for%20it%20because%20it%20makes%20me%20a%20living.%20But%20I%20sing%20because%20I%20love%20it%2C%20not%20because%20of%20the%20dollar%20signs.&f=false.

Love, Money, God, Singing

“The first sign of senility is that a man forgets his theorems, the second sign is that he forgets to zip up, the third sign is that he forgets to zip down.”

Paul Erdős (1913–1996) Hungarian mathematician and freelancer

Though Erdős used this remark, it is said to have originated with his friend Stanisław Ulam, as reported in The Man Who Loved Only Numbers : The Story of Paul Erdős and the Search for Mathematical Truth (1998) by Paul Hoffman
Variants:
The first sign of senility is when a man forgets his theorems. The second sign is when he forgets to zip up. The third sign is when he forgets to zip down.
As quoted in Wonders of Numbers : Adventures in Mathematics, Mind, and Meaning (2002) by Clifford A. Pickover, p. 64
There are three signs of senility. The first sign is that a man forgets his theorems. The second sign is that he forgets to zip up. The third sign is that he forgets to zip down.
Misattributed

Forgetting

“Gratitude is a sign of maturity. It is an indication of sincere humility. It is a hallmark of civility. And most of all it is a divine principle. … Indeed, gratitude is the beginning of civility, of decency and goodness, of a recognition that we cannot afford to be arrogant. We should walk with the knowledge that we will need help every step of the way.”

Gordon B. Hinckley book Standing for Something

Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes.

Way, Knowledge, Help, Sincerity

“these days you might feel a shaft of light
make its way across your face
and when you do
you'll know how it was meant to be
see the signs and know their meaning”

Natalie Merchant (1963) American singer-songwriter

Song lyrics, Our Time In Eden (1992), These Are Days

Way, Feeling, Light

Quotes about sign page 4

Quotes about sign
page 4