Top 100 Could Not Quotes
#1. There are men who seem to have seized the trunk of life, and he was one of them. It might not be for everyone, the great, scarring thing you could not get your arms around, but it was there for him.
James Salter
#2. He had been able to repress every disrespectful word; but the flashing eye, the gloomy and troubled brow, were part of a natural language that could not be repressed,
indubitable signs, which showed too plainly that the man could not become a thing.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
#3. Broch is an inspiration to us, not only because of what he accomplished, but also because of all that he aimed at and could not attain.
Milan Kundera
#4. There is so much inherent drama in the matter of change. Disappointment in yourself and others, coping with the fact that life is essentially shipwreck, becoming a person you yourself could not imagine yourself to be, for good and for bad, and then ultimately there is the basic matter of loss.
Jane Hamilton
#5. I have always loved clothes, and the opportunity to design my own line could not be missed. It's a dream job.
Jasmine Guinness
#6. One as deformed and horrible as myself, could not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species, and have the same defects ... with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being ...
Mary Shelley
#7. I could not have written this book the way I wanted to without the insight of one such friend, Brent Dempsey. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being so generous with your time and for helping me get it right. I solemnly swear to never again use the words stakeout or perp.
Julie James
#8. I am from Brooklyn, NY, so we could not have many pets, but I always had at least two dogs.
Connie Stevens
#9. We are lucky to have Manmohan Singh as our Prime Minister. We could not have done without a person and leader of the choice as Manmohan Singh, who gets all international attention.
Salman Khurshid
#10. I could not for my soul distinguish ever the distinction between "religious anger" and "commonplace anger", "religious killing" and "commonplace killing", "religious slandering and irreligious", and so forth.
Swami Vivekananda
#11. She'd spent years trying to explain herself to me (and I to her), but in the end, it had all been for nothing. I could recite her memories, but I could not feel them. She was another country, and I would never travel there.
Pagan Kennedy
#12. There was something so infantile in the man's fright that Jahan could not help but chuckle. Children, only they, stared up with sparkling eyes, pointing at the white beast.
Elif Shafak
#13. You saved me because you could not bear the thought of leaving me behind." He touched my face, very gently. "Not from a sense of right and wrong, but because you are just that tenderhearted.
Laurell K. Hamilton
#14. Detective fiction could not have existed without Edgar Allan Poe.
Giles Foden
#16. If I did not love what is present, if I could not cling to this enormous, safe parachute, I would long since have fallen into the abyss.
Christian Morgenstern
#17. At the end of 2000, most investors were optimistic that a return to quick gains could not be far off.
Alex Berenson
#18. Her eyes showed that though she may have decided to regret him, as long as he was in her presence she could not.
Mark Helprin
#19. An awareness had come over him that he wasn't going to die. Loneliness in itself could not destroy him. Neglect was insufficient. And so he slept.
Anne Rice
#20. GUILT COULD NOT change the past. Worry could not change the future.
Gena Showalter
#21. If the circulation of blood theory could not have been discovered without vivisection, the human kind could well have done without it.
Mahatma Gandhi
#22. It was a house for those who could not take care of themselves, for those who heard voices, who had strange thoughts and did strange things. The house was meant to keep them in. Once they came, they never left.
Madeleine Roux
#23. The biblical math could not be simpler; if a person who professes to be a Christian lives like the devil, he is of the devil.
Todd Friel
#24. I'm a terribly irresponsible eater - I love soft-boiled eggs and chocolate. I never met a chocolate I could not eat.
Danielle Steel
#25. But the truth was she could not bear to be around thier undead,healthy children.More than envy she felt that each laughing redcheeked child of thiers was an accusation of failure,a mockery of her own.
Toni Morrison
#26. I thought that you could not make a commitment until you were truly in love. What I know now is that you cannot love truly until you have made a commitment.
Kate Kerrigan
#27. Using the passive voice is always very helpful. Mind you, a lot of that propaganda English emanates from here. The British establishment has always used the passive voice. It's been a weapon of discourse so those who committed terrible acts in the old empire could not be identified.
John Pilger
#28. A better ending could not have been scripted. Of course, if we had won, that would have been better.
Bobby Bowden
#29. Christ's crucifixion was on a hill, by a road, where everybody who passed by could not only see his pain, but also his shame. It was not done in a shadow, hidden away somewhere.
Francis Schaeffer
#30. Do today's duty, fight today's temptation; do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them.
Charles Kingsley
#31. I have you here, all around me. I sit in the Ice Garden to get a hint of this, this way that you make me feel. I felt it even before I knew who you were, and every time I think it could not possibly get any stronger, it does.
Erin Morgenstern
#32. Though she had not had the strength to shake off the spell that bound her to him she had lost all spontaneity of feeling, and seemed to herself to be passively awaiting a fate she could not avert.
Edith Wharton
#33. I could not but wonder at the queen's unprecedented civility, until I realized with a flush of shame that it was my own improved behavior that motivated hers. So it is that we in life determine our own treatment.
Catherine Gilbert Murdock
#34. There were people who were like this, the ones who could not be ruffled or else didn't show it, who possessed great internal reservoirs of calm.
Justin Cronin
#35. Oh, he was the sun burning bright and brittle And she was the moon shining back his light a little He was a shooting star She was softer and more slowly He could not make things possible But, she could make them holy.
Harry Chapin
#36. It mattered not that no one else would bear that moment witness nor remember it, for if the future could not know them, neither could the past confine them, and the choice was always theirs to make, the tale their own to finish,
Susanna Kearsley
#37. I could not imagine that we should make much of an effort to preserve remainders of natural beauty in conquered Poland.
Fritz Todt
#38. He was not afraid, in fact he was content to go: So much that had been pleasurable in his life was now beyond his capacity, and that he could not bear.
Alison Weir
#39. He could not pass by children without his soul being shaken: such is the man.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#40. As to Miss Bennet, he could not conceive an angel more beautiful.
Jane Austen
#41. I spent 39 days in the Amazon, and I could not even find a fish to catch.
Jenna Morasca
#43. I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.
Temple Grandin
#44. That she could smile while I hurt in ways I could not understand - it broke something in me. I did not understand the heart of her, then. She is made of brightness, too much for sorrow. Such a glad spirit - I am humbled now that she shared it with me.
Ann Aguirre
#45. I had twelve years as a Tottenham player under Bill Nicholson and could not have wished to have played for a better manager. I can still hear his wise words in my head when I am out on the training ground as a manager myself.
Joe Kinnear
#46. My position was a common one; I wanted to do the right thing but could not help regretting the damnable expense.
Robertson Davies
#47. By nature we have no defect that could not become a strength, no strength that could not become a defect.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#48. People get bent out of shape about the fact that when I was a kid, you could not drink out of certain water fountains. Well, the water was the same.
Clarence Thomas
#49. Our prejudices, our antipathies, are our natural defenses against what we could not assimilate.
Natalie Clifford Barney
#50. She wanted to learn. Sometimes it seemed an unending thirst; however much she absorbed, she could not quench it. That
Robert Jordan
#51. She understood what it was like to stand right in front of people you loved, even though they could not see you.
Jodi Picoult
#52. There are two ways love can go. You can be good to each other or you could not play fair.
Taylor Swift
#53. He had supposed for years that he had no secrets from himself. Here was proof that he had a great big secret somewhere inside, and he could not imagine what it was.
Kurt Vonnegut
#54. During the say the traces of summer , reluctant to depart, still set the sand afire, and their bare feet could not stand it for more than five minutes at a time. But when the sun set, the crack-ridden walls of the room let in the cold night damp.
Kobo Abe
#55. at Pixar, Steve couldn't shape the culture. He wasn't the founder, and even as owner, he could not change the company to reflect his image and sensibilities. It already had a culture. It already had a leader. Its cohesive and collaborative team knew exactly what it wanted to do.
Brent Schlender
#56. Loved the show as a child and felt I could not do it justice. [on turning down the role of the new Doctor Who
Rowan Atkinson
#57. Crashing could not be more inconsiderate to a host. It is a negative act because hosts likely have a particular plan for the event, an intention to move guests' attitudes in a certain direction.
Letitia Baldrige
#59. Jagger knew who I was, and I could actually tell him things that I could not say to Kai - or anyone else, really.
Danielle Paige
#60. He could not afford to indulge misery, to live in the past and stumble through life facing backwards.
Jonathan Renshaw
#61. Elinor was always firmly convinced of other people's hypocrisy since she could not believe that they noticed less than she did.
Mary McCarthy
#62. After my spectacular failures, I could not be satisfied with an ordinary success.
Mason Cooley
#63. The manager could not even talk to us at the interval. He said we were bad.
John Terry
#64. He was a man built to yearn for what he could not have.
Anne Perry
#65. The lived experiences which could not find adequate scientific expression in the substance doctrine of rational psychology were now validated in light of new and better methods.
Wilhelm Dilthey
#66. She could not be complying, she dreaded being quarrelsome; her heroism reached only to silence.
Jane Austen
#67. If people would but provide for eternity with the same solicitude and real care as they do for this life, they could not fail of heaven.
John Tillotson
#68. The Americans expect great things of me ... If the small Czech nation can have such musicians, they say, why could not they, too, when their country and people is so immense.
Antonin Dvorak
#69. Trust, once lost, could not be easily found. Not in a year, perhaps not even in a lifetime.
J.E.B. Spredemann
#70. You could not bribe honest people, but bad people would accept bribery.
Anne Holm
#71. For a moment he thought the chair was aligned, but then he decided it was not. He moved it another turn to the right. He tried sitting in the chair now but it still felt peculiar. He turned it again. Eventually he made a complete circle and still he could not find the proper alignment for the chair.
E.L. Doctorow
#72. Enoch could respond with nothing more than a simple gesture in the orbs' direction. His brain was frozen. He could not think or speak, but the voiceless answer roused Fallon instantly. When he followed Enoch's gaze, a silent curse passed over his lips and then, We're in big trouble.
S.R. Ford
#73. Even one's yesterdays could not continue to stir and move in a man's mind unless there were a future for those yesterdays to make.
Mary Ellen Chase
#74. Hermione, will you please - "
"Don't you tell me what to do, Harry Potter!" she screeched. "Don't you dare! Give it back now! And YOU!"
She was pointing at Ron in dire accusation: It was like a malediction, and Harry could not blame Ron for retreating several steps.
J.K. Rowling
#75. I know, to the deepest marrow of my bones that I love you, that I want you, that I could not do, not a'tall, without making you mine one day. So call me weak, I don't bleeding care. Call me greedy, for I am that. I want you now, forever and always.
Eden Butler
#76. It was better to be in a jail where you could bang the walls than in a jail you could not see.
Carson McCullers
#77. There are questions we could not get past if we were not set free from them by our very nature.
Franz Kafka
#78. She asked me when I had started feeling a need to grant people's wishes, and whether I felt a desperate need to please. She asked about my mother, and I told her that she could not judge me as she would judge mortals, for I was a djinn, powerful and wise, magical and mysterious.
Neil Gaiman
#79. There are sad truths in our world, and one is that slaves who read are a threat. They would be abreast of news that would incite them in ways we could not control. Yes, it's unfair to deprive them, but there's a greater good here that must be protected.
Sue Monk Kidd
#80. ...but in any case, he could not understand how people arrived at the extreme of waging war over things that could not be touched by hand.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
#81. The colonel looks eager, but Cal could not seem more reluctant. He keeps still, knowing that any twitch might betray his true feelings. The lack of movement is just as damning. "I'll see what I can come up with," he finally forces out.
Victoria Aveyard
#82. I believed that if I was to call myself a writer, I should live on writing. If I could not live on it, even simply, I should destroy every scrap, every trace, every notebook and live some other way.
Mavis Gallant
#83. the law clearly stated that a man with a physical defect could not be king.
Devdutt Pattanaik
#84. After that he turned to the question of invading England. Hitler said that during the previous year he could not afford to risk a possible failure; apart from that, he had not wished to provoke the British, as he hoped to arrange peace talks.
Kurt Student
#85. The lands granted were in the occupancy of savages and situated in a wilderness, of which the government had never taken possession, and of which it could not with its own citizens ever have taken possession.
William H. Wharton
#86. Neither the state guards nor the municipal police stopped me. What they saw going by was no longer a man but the curious product of misfortune, something to which laws could not be applied. I had exceeded the bounds of indecency.
Jean Genet
#87. Joanna wondered if so elegant a man could, in truth, be a pirate.
Still, she could not deny the air of mystery about him or the intense fire in his dark eyes.
'Twas as if Lucifer himself had paid them a visit.
Regan Walker
#88. When a thin person announces, "Here's a great taco place," I kind of shut down a little. How do they know it's so great? From smelling the tacos? If they only ate one taco, the taco could not have been that great.
Jim Gaffigan
#89. One day, she promised herself as she lay abed, one day she would allow herself to be less than strong. But not today. It could not be today.
George R R Martin
#90. When the evening was over, Anne could not be amused ... nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.
Jane Austen
#91. He was coming to understand he could not come to rectify anything in his life, only forget.
Mikhail Bulgakov
#92. Oh these foolish men! They could not create so much as a worm, but they create gods by the dozens.
Michel De Montaigne
#93. We paw at nostalgia even before we hit twenty, wanting a holiday that never happened, a wholesomeness that could not survive in the wild.
Thomm Quackenbush
#94. Without love we could not survive. Human beings are social creatures,
and a concern for each other is the very basis of our life together.
Dalai Lama
#95. He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure.
John Steinbeck
#96. Nowadays, I could not care less about making other people like me. I'm a good person, I don't need to do that anymore.
Beverley Mitchell
#97. When I awaken in the morning, I Thank God, not for my life, but for yours, because without you, I could not exsist
Rick Ferreira
#98. I literally could not feel more cozy right now if I were actually inside a marshmallow
Alice Clayton
#99. I need to live like that crooked tree
...
that knelt down in the hardest winds
but could not be blasted away.
Edward Hirsch
#100. Romania and Bulgaria were particularly irresponsible. If they wanted to diminish their chances of joining Europe they could not have found a better way.
Jacques Chirac
