Quotes about turn
page 12

“The mere suggestion of fame and fortune casts a glamour all its own. It is rather alarming how quickly people will turn someone else's fiction into fact in order to support their own fictions of themselves.”

Libba Bray book Rebel Angels

Source: Rebel Angels

People, Support

“Turn off the light," she says as she walks away, creating a smallthat smells sweet and chemical. It makes me sad because it's the smell she makes when she's leaving.”

Augusten Burroughs book Running with Scissors

Source: Running with Scissors

Sadness, Light

“I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese

Source: Sonnets from the Portuguese

Life, Sadness, Tear

“I can't turn your soul on. Leave me those feelings; and you can take away the voice and the face. They are not you.”

George Bernard Shaw Pygmalion

Source: Pygmalion

Feeling, Soul

“Everything comes in circles. […] The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Valley of Fear

Source: The Valley of Fear

“Will: Have you ever seen what happens to someone with demon pox? First it lies dormant. One begins to turn yellow and green. Then the swelling sets in -
Jem: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS DEMON POX.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“We were quiet on the car ride home. I turned on the radio and found a station playing "Hey Jude." It was true, I didn't want to make it bad. I wanted to take the sad song and make it better. It's just that I didn't know how.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Sadness, Cars, Home

“Later she remembered all the hours of the afternoon as happy -- one of those uneventful times that seem at the moment only a link between past and future pleasure, but turn out to have been the pleasure itself.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: Tender is the Night

Happiness, Pleasure, Time, Past

“There is something splendid about innocence; but what is bad about it, in turn, is that it cannot protect itself very well and is easily seduced.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

“Immigration policy should be
generous; it should be fair; it should
be flexible. With such a policy we
can turn to the world, and to our own
past, with clean hands and a clear
conscience.”

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

Source: A Nation of Immigrants

World, Past

“Miracles do occur, and it's never too late to turn your life around and reach for something better.”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Source: Everlasting

Life

“After a moment, he turned sharply to me. 'Are you quite all right?'

'Yes, perfectly. Why do you ask?'

'Because I have just called you contrary and you did not bother to contradict me. I thought you might be ill.”

Deanna Raybourn (1968) American writer

Source: Silent on the Moor

“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Life, Time, Sun

“In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

“It turns out that one can perpetrate all manner of heinous villainy under a cloak of courtesy and good cheer… a man will forfeit all sensible self-interest if he finds you affable enough to share your company over a flagon of ale.”

Christopher Moore book Fool

Source: Fool

“Were-Hunters are different from humans. (Ravyn)
You mean other than the fact that you live for several hundred years, can turn into animals, time travel, and wave your hand to make freaky stuff happen? (Susan)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dark Side of the Moon

Travel, Time, Animals

“Have your dream… What you need now more than anything is discipline. Cast off mere words. Words turn into stone. (from Thailand)”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: After the Quake

Dreams

“Life doesn't often turn out the way we think it will, does it?”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

Life, Way, Thinking

“Governments will rise, and governments will fall, and man will do evil to man, and all we can do is turn our hearts to good.”

Margaret Peterson Haddix book Among the Enemy

Source: Among the Enemy

Evil, Heart

“He used to tell me, 'Do what you like to do. It'll probably turn out to be what you do best.”

Wallace Stegner book Crossing to Safety

Source: Crossing to Safety

“Why the hell would I bring?" she exclaimed. All her anger turned at his presumption. It was a sign of her agitation that she'd sworn.
"Because," he said, face calm, "I can teach you how to stake a Strigoi."
"THE HELL YOU CAN," I said aloud to no one.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Hell, Anger

“Don't they always go from bad to worse? There's no turning back--your
old self rejects you, and shuts you out. ~Lilly Bart”

Edith Wharton book The House of Mirth

Source: The House of Mirth

“In fairy tales, the princesses kiss the frogs, and the frogs become princes. In real life, the pricesses kiss princes, and the princes turn into frogs.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994)
Variant: There's nothing deeper than love. In fairy tales, the princesses kiss the frogs, and the frogs become princes. In real life, the princesses kiss princes, and the princes turn into frogs.
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Life, Kiss, Princess

“The goldenrod is yellow,
The corn is turning brown…
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.”

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–1885) Novelist, poet, writer, activist

Tree

“Later he saw Jesus move from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark where he might be walking on the water and not know it and then suddenly know it and drown.”

Flannery O’Connor book Wise Blood

Source: Wise Blood

Tree, Water

“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

“people who matter in our lives stay with us, haunting our most ordinary moments. They’re with us in the grocery store, as we turn a corner, chat with a friend. They rise up through the pavement; we absorb them through our soles.”

Christina Baker Kline (1964) American writer

Source: Orphan Train

People

“When you turn an election into a three-ring circus, there’s always a chance that the dancing bear will win.”

Nancy Isenberg (1958) American historian

Source: White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

Chance, Dance

“All these years I'd thought being a spy was challenging. Turns out, being a girl is the tricky part.”

Ally Carter I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Source: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Girl, Parting

“You are right in speaking of the moral foundations of science, but you cannot turn around and speak of the scientific foundations of morality.”

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

"Physics and Reality" in the Journal of the Franklin Institute Vol. 221, Issue 3 (March 1936), Pages 349-382
1930s
Context: It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher. Why then should it not be the right thing for the physicist to let the philosopher do the philosophizing? Such might indeed be the right thing to do at a time when the physicist believes he has at his disposal a rigid system of fundamental laws which are so well established that waves of doubt can't reach them; but it cannot be right at a time when the very foundations of physics itself have become problematic as they are now. At a time like the present, when experience forces us to seek a newer and more solid foundation, the physicist cannot simply surrender to the philosopher the critical contemplation of theoretical foundations; for he himself knows best and feels more surely where the shoe pinches. In looking for an new foundation, he must try to make clear in his own mind just how far the concepts which he uses are justified, and are necessities.

Science

“The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Literature

“The thing about love was that it caught you unawares, turned up in the most unexpected places, even when you weren't looking for it.”

Sarra Manning (1950) British writer

Source: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

Love

“thats why you cant be worried about the world. theyll just do you in anyway. you can't depend on them because sooner or later theyll turn on you or just disapear and leave you there alone.”

Hubert Selby Jr. Requiem for a Dream

Source: Requiem for a Dream

World, Dependency

“It’s all right,” the boy murmured as he felt her trembling. “My grandmother always told me ‘Never try to turn back on a new road—you don’t know what adventures await you.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Devil in Winter

Boy

“I can't believe you just did that! Are you crazy?"
I gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Why do people keep asking me that?"
He turned to stare at me, his eyes worried. "Who else keeps asking you that? Are any of them doctors?”

Janette Rallison (1966) American writer

Source: Just One Wish

People

“Turn the page, continue reading, and let the next story begin…”

Suzanne Weyn book Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Source: Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Reading

“Dullard: Someone who looks up a thing in the encyclopedia, turns directly to the entry, reads it, and then closes the book.”

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

Books, Reading

“There comes a turning point in intense physical struggle where one abandons oneself to a profligate usage of strength and bodily resource, ignoring the costs until the struggle is over. Women find this point in childbirth; men in battle.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Women, Men

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

LOVE (1972)
Variant: Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest accomplishment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Life, Smile, Wise, Relationship

“I don't know what I expected from my first meeting with Peeta after the announcement. A few hugs and kisses. A little comfort maybe. Not this. I turn to Haymitch. "Don't worry, I'll get you more liquor.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Kiss

“Stranger, pause and look;
From the dust of ages
Lift this little book,
Turn the tattered pages,
Read me, do not let me die!
Search the fading letters finding
Steadfast in the broken binding
All that once was I!”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Source: Collected Poems

Books, Age, Search, Reading

“I'll have that someday, thought Peter. Someone who'll kiss me good-bye at the door. Or maybe just someone to put a blindfold over my head before they shoot me. Depending on how things turn out.”

Orson Scott Card book Shadow of the Hegemon

Source: Shadow of the Hegemon

Kiss, Dependency

“You turned your back on me when I needed you.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: The Awakening / The Struggle

“Life turns on a dime. Sometimes towards us, but more often it spins away, flirting and flashing as it goes: so long, honey, it was good while it lasted, wasn’t it?”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

Life

“Helloooo." Miss Ohio rolled her eyes. "I'm from the Buckeye State. We are serious about our tailgating parties. I can turn anything into a grill.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

“Yeah, that's exactly what I want. To help my girlfriend get her old boyfriend back." He turned away again, and I heard him mutter, "I needdrinks.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Help

“… what will we someday do, I always wonder, without the pleasures of turning through books and stumbling on things we never meant to find?”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Swan Thieves

Source: The Swan Thieves

Pleasure, Books

“A good way to rid one's self of a sense of discomfort is to do something. That uneasy, dissatisfied feeling is actual force vibrating out of order; it may be turned to practical account by giving proper expression to its creative character.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

Way, Feeling, Sense

“It is part of the human nature always to judge others very severely and, when the wind turns against us, always to find an excuse for our own misdeeds, or to blame someone else for our mistakes.”

Paulo Coelho book Like the Flowing River

Source: Like the Flowing River

Nature, Parting

“Now it's the dark's turn to be afraid.”

Joseph Delaney (1945) British writer

Source: Curse of the Bane

“All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.”

Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet

Letter to J. G. Lockhart (c. 16 June 1830), in H. J. C. Grierson (ed.), Letters of Sir Walter Scott, Vol. II (1936), as reported in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999), p. 652

Men, Education, Leadership, For Men

“As hard as it was, as terrible and unfair as the way things turned out, i wouldn't have traded the few days i spent with him for anything”

Nicholas Sparks book Nights in Rodanthe

Source: Nights in Rodanthe

Way

“This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Life, Fear, Literature

“Even if I thought he as perfect for her." She turned to face him. "What were we thinking?"

"We weren't," he said. "We were in love.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Best of Me

Source: The Best of Me

Love, Thinking, Perfection

“Clary wondered how many boyfriends she'd turned into rats by accident.
-Clary to Isabelle, pg.245”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“I shan't be lonely now. I was lonely; I was afraid. But the emptiness and the darkness are gone; when I turn back into myself now I'm like a child going at night into a room where there's always a light.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence

Light, Night

“She turned me into a newt.
… But I got better…”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

Source: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Book): Mønti Pythøn Ik Den Hølie Gräilen

“The pair of them were staring at the computer screen like two dogs watching animal planet: very focused, but incapable of turning up the volume or changing the channel.
-Manny and Butch”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Unleashed

Dogs, Change, Animals

“Everything government touches turns to crap.”

Ringo Starr (1940) British musician, former member of the Beatles

“What happens to me if this slipper fits?"
"I turn you into a handsome frog.”

Judith McNaught (1944) American writer

Source: Double Standards

“She’d tried to program it when they’d gotten into the Toyota, but it had refused to turn on. Once, the GPS had only spoken in a heavy German accent for weeks. Julian had decided it was possessed.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

“FABLEHAVEN: None who enter will leave unchanged. Trespassers will be turned to stone.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

“You can fool yourself, you know. You'd think it's impossible, but it turns out it's the easiest thing of all.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Vanishing Acts

Fools, Thinking, Motivational

“I finally got around to reading the dictionary. Turns out the Zebra did it.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Reading

“Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.”

Neal Stephenson book Cryptonomicon

Source: Cryptonomicon

Game, Time

“He was the average mortal. It troubled him to get used to the world one way and then suddenly have it turn different.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

World, Way

“Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

As quoted in Marilyn Monroe : In Her Own Words (1983), edited by Roger Taylor
Variant: Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.

Soul, Kiss

“We cannot live without the Earth or apart from it, and something is shrivelled in a man's heart when he turns away from it and concerns himself only with the affairs of men”

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896–1953) American novelist

Source: Cross Creek

Men, Heart

“As it is she will probably turn out to be one of these acid-faced virgins that sit behind little desks in public libraries and stamp dates in books.”

Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) Novelist, screenwriter

Books

“It often turns out on closer inspection that acts of apparent altruism are really selfishness in disguise.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Selfishness

“I turn and I slowly walk away and I don't look back. It has always been a fault of mine, but it is the way I am. I never look back. Never.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

Way

“Two cannibals were eating a comedian, and one of them turns to the other and asks, 'Does this taste funny to you?”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

“Certainly there are times in all of our lives when bad things happen, or things don’t turn out as we had hoped. But that’s when we we must a decision that we’re going to be happy inspite of our circumstances.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Happiness, Hope, Decision, Time

“These problems are real, and you can't turn off real life. So I won't try. Instead, I'll give you a set of tools to help you deal with real life.”

Sean Covey (1964) author; business executive

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens: The Ultimate Teenage Success Guide

Life, Problem, Help

“(As she entered the main room, Syn turned around in his chair and almost fell out of it as he scanned her body. He cleared his throat and cut an appreciative look to Nykyrian.)
Dayum…woman be hot. (Syn)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

“.. he continues to cling to the forlorn hope that I will turn into one of those swooning females… and fling myself squeeling at him whenever anything happens. Like all men, he clings to his illusions.”

Elizabeth Peters The Last Camel Died at Noon

Source: The Last Camel Died at Noon

Men, Hope

“But I guessed that no matter how strong it was, love alone couldn't turn a speck of dust into a galaxy of stars.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: God-Shaped Hole

Love, Star, Strong

“He looked like those paintings of baby angels - what do you call them, hubbubs? No cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Age, Angels, Baby, Painting

“It's strange, I think, the way our lives turn out. Moments of circumstance, when later combined with conscious decisions and actions and a boatload of hope, can eventually forge a future that seems predestined.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Source: The Longest Ride

Hope, Way, Thinking, Decision

“If I start giving people what they like I'll turn into one of them and I don't want to be one of them I want to be one of me.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

People

“What do you know?”
“Almost everything. That almost part can be a real kick in the teeth sometimes.”
“What do you want, then?”
“What I can’t have.” Wit turned to him, eyes solemn. “Same as everyone else, Kaladin Stormblessed.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Parting

“A year here and he still dreamed of cyberspace, hope fading nightly. All the speed he took, all the turns he'd taken and the corners he'd cut in Night City, and he'd still see the matrix in his sleep, bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colorless void…”

William Gibson book Neuromancer

Source: Neuromancer (1984)
Context: A year here and he still dreamed of cyberspace, hope fading nightly. All the speed he took, all the turns he'd taken and the corners he'd cut in Night City, and he'd still see the matrix in his sleep, bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colorless void… The Sprawl was a long strange way home over the Pacific now, and he was no console man, no cyberspace cowboy. Just another hustler, trying to make it through. But the dreams came on in the Japanese night like livewire voodoo, and he'd cry for it, cry in his sleep, and wake alone in the dark, curled in his capsule in some coffin hotel, his hands clawed into the bedslab, temperfoam bunched between his fingers, trying to reach the console that wasn't there.

Dreams, Hope, Sleep, Speed

“Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book Middlesex

Source: Middlesex

Life

“The day is ending. It's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, Let go.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Beauty, Time

“They shot me. (Talon)
No, bud. They turned you into Swiss cheese. (Nick)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

“Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.”

James C. Collins (1958) American business consultant and writer

Source: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“The thing with your heart's desire is that your heart doesn't even know what it desires until it turns up.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

Heart

“For pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch

Life, Pain, Memory

“What kind of beast would turn its life into words?”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

Source: Twenty One Love Poems

Life

“To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. [laughter] The lady's not for turning.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Reacting to doubt over her economic policies http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/10/newsid_2541000/2541071.stm at a Conservative Party Conference (10 October 1980) <br class="br">A play on The Lady's Not for Burning, a 1948 play by Christopher Fry about a witchcraft trial. <br class="br">First term as Prime Minister

Laughter, Waiting

“God turned out to be a bunch of bad little kids playing interstellar Xbox. Isn't that funny?”

Stephen King book Under the Dome

Source: Under the Dome

God