Defied Quotes

#1. Kate had the shape of a pixie, all noodle arms and legs; and when she bent to the ground and kicked up her feet, it looked as delicate as a spider walking a wall. Me, I sort of defied gravity with a thud.

Jodi Picoult

#2. Republican Robert La Follette of Wisconsin had defied the machine to become governor by waging war on the railroads that ruled his state.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

#3. Fine," she hoisted her purse higher and her gaze snagged on the delicious bulge of his male butt hugged so lovingly in a pair of khaki cargo shorts. Wow. Talk about a glutenous maximus that defied gravity. Even though he was a complete jackass, she couldn't help but drool.

Julie Ann Walker

#4. Friendship, companionship: it so often defied logic, so often eluded the deserving, so often settled itself on the odd, the bad, the peculiar, the damaged.

Hanya Yanagihara

#5. Still glides the stream
and shall forever glide
its form remains its function never dies
while we the brave and the mighty and the wise
we men who in our youth defied the elements
must vanish-
be it so

William Wordsworth

#6. Here was a man who defied all odds, lived by himself, worked, created beautiful art. A complex mind stumped by some of the simplest tasks.
If he could, he would keep trying until there was only absolute failure or success.
How many people could say that?

Adrienne Wilder

#7. Jesus defied all of these rules. He taught in the outer courts of the Temple so women could join the audience.

Danny Silk

#8. Beads of blood defied gravity, hanging in the air like drops of dew caught in a web.

Stephen Lloyd Jones

#9. If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I defied not

William Shakespeare

#10. He had the sourdough smell of age. His chest sagged into shrivelled teats; his lovemaking was unreliable, yet she found it strangely wholesome in a way that defied sense.

Richard Flanagan

#11. Better the complexities one thought he knew than the complexities which defied understanding.

Frank Herbert

#12. Feris was taller than the average man and his looks were sinister in the form of long dark hair and deep-set eyes. He had an untouchable, magnetic quality that consumed any beholder whose gaze fell upon him as he spoke, and when he fell silent, his penetrating stare easily defied any predators.

Jettie Necole

#13. But wulf did what it does: Simply insisted. Simply burned through. Simply defied. The same shrugging, grinning continuance. The nature of life. The nature of the beast.

Glen Duncan

#14. When human law comes into conflict with what is moral, human law must be defied.

Chris Hedges

#15. You have defied not the pearl buyers, but the whole structure, the whole way of life, and I am afraid for you

John Steinbeck

#16. Those same fists had always defied everything expected of her.

Kiersten White

#17. This was how I defied him: I kept things from him. I refused to give him everything. He had taken my arm, my innocence, my world, but he couldn't take everything. He couldn't hear my thoughts.

Jack Jordan

#18. This was a fact so simple that it defied logic. It bypassed logic.

Stephen King

#19. Bush the Elder's stature as president grows with every passing year. He was the finest foreign policy president I've ever covered and a man who defied his party on tax increases while imposing budget restrictions on the Democrats.

Joe Klein

#20. The outline of the city became frantic in its effort to explain something that defied meaning. Power seemed to have outgrown its servitude and to have asserted its freedom. The cylinder had exploded, and thrown great masses of stone and steam against the sky.

Henry Adams

#21. Despite their poverty, their tragic pasts, their own sorrows, they stood before her in strength and spoke with a wisdom that defied their circumstances.

Janette Oke

#22. Harry Truman, who was a Bible-believing Christian Zionist, defied the secretary of state he so admired, George C. Marshall, and won a place in Israel's history by recognizing the new state 11 minutes after it declared its independence in 1948.

Elliott Abrams

#23. How do you define God? Like this. A God I could understand, at least potentially, was infinitely more interesting and relevant than one that defied comprehension.

Robert J. Sawyer

#24. My beloved dog defied treatment from the best and most expensive veterinarians, holistic practitioners, trainers, and animal communicators. He was simply beyond my ability to repair or control.

Jon Katz

#25. I wasn't ready to leave. Some masochistic shred of my being didn't want to walk away from him yet, even though staying defied logic and common sense.

Pepper Winters

#26. There have been too many events in my life, and in the lives of my friends, which have defied any kind of scientific explanation. Science does not have appropriate tools for the dissection of the spirit.

Jane Goodall

#27. I think that hip-hop has done what it was supposed to have done, which is it defied all the laws of what is statistically a music genre and what statistically is not a music genre. Because it wasn't supposed to be here.

Monie Love

#28. One dwells with God by being faithful to one's nature. One crosses God by trying to be something one is not. Reality-including one's own-is divine, to be not defied but honored.

Parker J. Palmer

#29. There have been, in recent years, many Asian American pioneers in the public eye who've defied the condescendingly complimentary 'model minority' stereotype: actors like Lucy Liu, artists like Maya Lin, moguls like Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. They are known, often admired.

Eric Liu

#30. For himself, he grew desperate; his sorrow was of the king that will not lament, he neither wept nor prayed - he cursed and defied - execrated God and man, and gave himself up to reckless dissipation.

Emily Bronte

#31. Tea was good. Tea was possibly the safest drink in the entire Empire. It defied anything untoward.

Kate Harper

#32. On issue after issue, the Obama Administration has openly ignored, defied, and unilaterally tried to change the law.

Ted Cruz

#33. What an honor it was to step into the shoes of Nelson Mandela and portray a man who defied odds, broke down barriers, and championed human rights before the eyes of the world.

Idris Elba

#34. Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths that have no basis in logic or style, that have been defied by great writers for centuries, and that have been disavowed by every thoughtful usage manual.

Steven Pinker

#35. People choose the paths that grant them the greatest rewards for the least amount of effort. That's the law of nature, and you defied it.

Hugh Laurie

#36. My father's mother, my Grandmother Young, was said by the family to have talked herself to death. Convalescing from a fever, she had defied the doctors and gone right on talking.

Stark Young

#37. And basically, the sense of the 'Pledge to America' is this: Republicans understand when we were in charge, we got fired in '06. We spent too much money. We defied the trust that the people had put in us. And we know that there is a better way.

Eric Cantor

#38. The Major only glanced at the newspaper these days, tired of trying to comprehend a situation which defied comprehension, a war without battles or trenches.

J.G. Farrell

#39. The arithmetic of love defied intuition: only when given away did it multiply.

Barbara Wright

#40. He defied her notions of how she imagined most supernaturals dressed; she would have expected him to be clad in black leather and chains. Instead, he struck her as classic, masterly, sensual.

Kym Grosso

#41. So, in the morning light, where they flapped in the drying wind, the bear and the star defied the Saxons.

Bernard Cornwell

#42. But there was something else. A feeling of understanding, a comfort that defied reason. It was as though kissing her, a near stranger, would have made all the sense in the world.

Kristina McMorris

#43. The geologist, six years ago now, hadn't defied anything to climb the hill. He'd had his own powerful magic
the ordinary magic that extraordinarily interested people always have.

Elizabeth Knox

#44. [Act 5, Scene 4, ROSALIND] If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.

William Shakespeare

#45. Their respect for the mystery
the half-grasped but never spoken idea that maybe, when you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there is no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union, that each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery.

Stephen King

#46. Mother came over and gave Luke's shoulder a reassuring squeeze before turning back to the stove. They had defied the Government once, with Luke. That had taken all the defiance they had in them. Maybe more.

Margaret Peterson Haddix

#47. I defied nothing at all. I ignored the law because I didn't know it existed. It didn't occur to me that anyone would want to curb my inspiration.

Margaret Anderson

#48. I don't think I have the face - may have the voice but not the demeanor for an anchor. And I defied it.

Mike Wallace

#49. Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.

Francis Bacon

#50. Love that defied trite words or even description, that carried with it tenderness and passion and laughter and friendship. Love that made her eyes sparkle and her breath stop when she saw him and imbued life with more meaning and more purpose.

Karen Ranney

#51. Rafael possessed unfathomable strength. His speed defied the laws of nature...and his bite, good God, his bite. How could something so macabre feel so pleasurable?

Brooklyn Ann

#52. Her black brows, her reddish-tawny hair and the pure red and white of her complexion defied the searching decomposing radiance: she might have been some fabled creature whose home was in a beam of light.

Edith Wharton

#53. Power, safely defied, touches its downfall.

Thomas B. Macaulay

#54. These days I have to ask myself: What made me angrier? That Oscar, the fat loser, quit, or that Oscar, the fat loser, defied me? And I wonder: What hurt him more? That I was never really his friend, or that I pretended to be?

Junot Diaz

#55. I think that standing onstage on January 19th, and my father had just defied all expectations and won Iowa, was by far the most surreal moment.

Vanessa Kerry

#56. Australians have defied global economic gravity.

Wayne Swan

#57. Once built, the Montauk was so novel, so tall, it defied description by conventional means. No one knows who coined the term, but it fit, and the Montauk became the first building to be called a skyscraper.

Erik Larson

#58. Axe was a quiet man, six foot four, with piercing blue eyes and curly hair. He was smart and the best Trivial Pursuit player I ever saw. I loved talking to him because of how much he knew. He would come out with answers that would have defied the learning of a Harvard professor.

Marcus Luttrell

#59. I defied the machinery to make me its slave. Its incessant discords could not drown the music of my thoughts if I would let them fly high enough.

Lucy Larcom

#60. I've jumped out of an airplane 34 times. I've dove 212 feet under water. I've done a lot of things that defied death.

Jesse Ventura

#61. Children whose curiosity survives parental discipline and who manage to grow up before they blow up are invited to join the Yale faculty. Within the university they go on asking their questions and trying to find the answers ... it is a place where the world's hostility to curiosity can be defied.

Edmund Morgan

#62. Reflections of the battlements shimmered in the deep green moat, casting an image of enduring strength, an image that defied the very siege of time.

Karen Azinger

#63. President Bush will go down in history as the torture president. He has now defied a majority of Congress to allow the use of interrogation techniques that any reasonable observer would call torture.

Jennifer Daskal

#64. Begum Hazrat Mahal of Oudh was the last of the breed of able queens and generals. The queen led her kingdom's army into battle during the revolt of 1857. Even after she was defeated she defied Queen Victoria's famous Proclamation and issued a counter Proclamation ...

Qurratulain Hyder

#65. First, we could have defied both of them and could have gone to war against both of these nations for this violation of international law and interference with our neutral rights.

George William Norris

#66. Now the world seemed to her to have become so complex that its problems defied solution. There was only a chaos of conflicts of interest; the whole thing filled her with a sense of futility.

Sarah Waters

#67. (He was) a fragile hero to whom we had an emotional attachment so strong and lasting that it defied logic.

Bob Costas

#68. He defied Heaven to keep her, he defeated evil to save her, but if her soul wants another ... will he be able to let her go?

Abbi Glines

#69. I will not disappoint you, I promise. My name is Gleam. Take me with you. I held you in the dark. I defied straw sandals to bring you sunfruit. I am worth something. One hundred and twelve years is worth something.

Catherynne M Valente

#70. An ugly woman, married to King Henry VIII, would have defied the axe and daunted her husband's infidelities.

Honore De Balzac

#71. We have defied the day as it was set out for us.

David Levithan

#72. It was a heavy piece, about thirty inches in height, carved of stone. And so ugly that it defied description. Surely only a blind person could have carved it.
Maybe carving it was what made the person blind.

Sherrilyn Kenyon

#73. the only law that applied to her was gravity, and some days she defied that, too. The

Leigh Bardugo

#74. Just two weeks ago, millions of Iraqis defied the threats of terrorists and went to the polls to determine their own future. I congratulate the Iraqi people for the courage they've shown in making these elections so successful.

Bill Frist

#75. The Germans could not get over the perfidy of it. It was unbelievable that the English, having degenerated to the stage where suffragettes heckled the Prime Minister and defied the police, were going to fight.

Barbara Tuchman

#76. "Take my own father! You know what he said in his last moments? On his deathbed, he defied me to name a man who had enjoyed a better life. In spite of the dreadful pain, his face radiated happiness," said Mother, nodding her head comfortably. "Happiness drives out pain, as fire burns out fire."

Mary Lavin

#77. One of my inspirations, Harry Houdini, remains an icon of the art because he defied our primal fears. His demonstrations in the early 20th century, especially his escape from the Chinese water torture cell, represented triumph over suffocation, drowning, disorientation and helplessness.

Criss Angel

#78. Parliament itself would not exist in its present form had people not defied the law.

Arthur Scargill

#79. In every single culture I encountered, there were always women who defied cultural norms to do what they believed was right for them. This phenomenon has never been related to how rich, poor, successful or not successful the woman may be.

Zainab Salbi

#80. My religious beliefs also defied convention, leaning towards agnosticism and pandeism.

Alfred Tennyson

#81. Few things are more laughably pitiable than authority once it has been successfully defied.

L. Neil Smith

#82. Overcrowding and poverty, that "defied description", as

Frances Hodgson Burnett

#83. No more will. No more freedom. Nothing new but agonizing death and never good shall come of it. We are the last of those who gave you breath and form, millions of years ago. We are the last of those your kind defied and ruthlessly destroyed. We are the last Precursors. And now we are legion.

Greg Bear

#84. Lying in a foxhole sweating out an enemy artillery or mortar barrage or waiting to dash across open ground under machine-gun or artillery fire defied any concept of time.

Eugene B. Sledge

#85. The reverence for the deeds of our ancestors is a treacherous sentiment. Their merit was not to reverence the old, but to honor the present moment; and we falsely make them excuses of the very habit which they hated and defied.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#86. When I was about 10, I saw Timothy Bottoms in a tele-movie called 'A Shining Season,' and it really moved me. I was maybe 8 or 9. Timothy played a runner who had cancer, and he defied the odds by coaching a girls' team to victory.

Reggie Lee

#87. In the 1980s, the U.S. Army invaded two Caribbean countries, Grenada and Panama, to depose leaders who had defied Washington.

Stephen Kinzer

#88. He was so tenacious he defied the distraction of women by refusing to have them in his presence, just as later in life he denied his blindness by calling for more and more candles.

Kit Williams

#89. And she felt like they, the two of them, right here, right now, could make something that defied tragedy.

Charlie Jane Anders