Top 100 First To Quotes
#1. Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?
Erma Bombeck
#2. I always find the first thing that really bothers me when I start a screenplay is, I have to find a different form. You can't follow the form of the novel. It's a different thing completely. It's impossible. You just somehow have to find a structure for the whole thing. You have to crack that.
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
#3. I'll tell you something that's completely true - you can, as a man, obtain everything you want with the truth. If you lie, first of all you've got to be a very good lying actor, which is tres difficile. And it's going to give you poison inside the body.
Jean Reno
#4. The planetary emergency unfolding around us is, first and foremost ... a crisis of thought, values, perceptions, ideas and judgments. In other words, it is a crisis of mind, which makes it a crisis of those institutions which purport to improve minds.
David W. Orr
#5. The biggest issue of the twenty-first century is not necessarily the "decline" of neighborhood. It may be that we have all moved to a new neighborhood and have not learned how to get along with the new neighbors.
Diana Butler Bass
#6. Not for the first time Spooner was reminded that marriage was not the straighforward assembly the instruction book led you to believe.
Pete Dexter
#7. About six months ago, I listened to Siamese Dream. That was the first time I'd ever really heard my own album, because I had separated from the experience of making the record. And it really moved me. It made me cry, it's so beautiful.
Billy Corgan
#8. I had hoped to be a poet, and for a long time I tried to write poetry. My first published pieces were poems.
Norman Lock
#9. I was kicked off a record label and didn't get picked up again. It was devastating at first because I thought, 'Oh my God. My career is over. What's gonna happen? What am I going to do?' Once I got that I could have a career, a very good career, without having a hit record, then I changed.
Thelma Houston
#10. Andy [Warhol] was on the scene, but he wasn't an artist at first; he was more an illustrator. He was always surrounded by about ten people who worshipped him. He'd go to a party and they would all come along. But he was drawing shoes and that sort of thing.
Claes Oldenburg
#11. It is well to be attentive to successive ambitions that flood the growing boy's and girl's imagination. They leave profound traces behind them. During those years when the first sap is rising the future tree is foreshadowing its contour. We are shaped by the promises of imagination.
Thornton Wilder
#12. I really love diving in, head first, with directing and not having to worry about hair, makeup or lines.
Chris Lowell
#13. In my view, the greatest threat to America's future isn't hiding in a cave in Pakistan or Afghanistan; it's right here at home. Baby boomers like myself are on course to become the first generation of Americans who leave things in worse shape than they found them.
David Walker
#14. Yes," said Jalem as he returned to his brushing. "You've obviously done a superb job so far. Tell me, do I need to make an appointment to try and kill Drothe, or is it simply on a first-come, first-served basis? I can never keep kin etiquette straight.
Douglas Hulick
#15. Fairy tales had been her first experience of the magical universe, and more than once she had wondered why people ended up distancing themselves from that world, knowing the immense joy that childhood had brought to their lives.
Paulo Coelho
#16. One trait stands out in nearly all meteorites: metal; they've got it. So, the best way to find a meteorite is to hear it first.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
#17. When we approached the project, the very first thing we did was take each character and say, "Okay, where would this character be?" We didn't want them to be caricatures of themselves. We wanted them to live and breathe, and grow with the audience and with us.
Jon Hurwitz
#18. I've been trying for two years to read this book, and I never get past these first few pages.
Paulo Coelho
#19. I would say courage first; then wisdom, which is a sense of knowledge and confidence; and also the wish and desire to uplift. The underlying notion is "How do I help?" That attitude really is a spiritual journey and a path.
Sakyong Mipham
#20. Whitley Bay was my first experience of the seaside. I'd buy my bucket and spade, and beach ball, and all the shops were teeming with toys. I used to spend hours on the shuggy boats.
Cherie Lunghi
#21. You have got to be good in that town if you want to beat the crowd.' So says young John on his first sight of New York City. THE CROWD (1928)
Steven Jay Schneider
#22. For me, movies and television are interesting because they are the dominant storytelling form of our time. My first love will always be fiction, and especially novels, but I'm a writer ... I write poetry and essays and criticism and I'd love to write a whole play, and sometimes I even write scripts.
Jess Walter
#23. I'm a huge fan of Canadian rock-and-roll. When I was growing up, Rush came out with a record called Hemispheres, and I must have listened to that record for two years straight. Even when I was asleep I had it on. So, yeah, whenever I hear a Rush tune, the first thing I think of is Toronto.
Kiefer Sutherland
#24. I only worked theater jobs, but they were all really silly when I first graduated. I was a line monitor at 'Spamalot,' which means I got there at 8 A.M. and told people how much the tickets were for standing room. I was an NYU Medical School fake patient, to teach doctors how to talk to patients.
Lauren Worsham
#25. I was 26 when I went to my first acting class. I'm naturally quite shy. I'm a quite private person. There's this really strange acting class in New York called Black Nexxus. For someone who's slightly shy or self-conscious, it's the most frightening thing you can do.
Hannah Ware
#26. I did a play I think my first six months on the show, called Bullpen. Then I got involved with Theater Forty and did this play called Plastic which is about two male models coming to a casting call.
Austin Peck
#27. Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism
which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place.
Hunter S. Thompson
#28. Maybe love is a risk, but it's a risk I'm willing to take and as you said, it's not a choice. I never thought I would, never thought I could love someone like that but I fell in love with you. I fought it. It's the first battle I didn't mind losing.
Cora Reilly
#29. I never expected anyone in my family to change, and especially not my father, who changed first and most profoundly: He died.
Melissa Bank
#30. No Executive can value the worth of others unless he first learns to value himself
John M. Capozzi
#31. The first step in becoming a truly happy person is to make peace with your life. The second step will be to spread that peace into your environment.
Gracia Hunter
#32. When you first read a script is the purest moment. That's when you can understand how an audience will ultimately receive it. The first reading of the script is so important because you're experiencing it all for the first time, and it's then that you really know if it's going to work or not.
David Tennant
#33. He destroys that he might build; for when He is about to rear His sacred temple in us, He first totally razes that vain and pompous edifice, which human art and power had erected, and from its horrible ruins a new structure is formed, by His power only.
Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon
#34. You want to be loved? Love yourself first and passionately. Forgive yourself readily. Care for every part of you. Only when you love yourself do you have love to give to others.
Toni Sorenson
#35. When Lafayette met him in 1775, the first volume of Raynal's 1770 History of the Two Indies had already been banned, which is to say it was a popular success, the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books being the unofficial bestseller list of the day.
Sarah Vowell
#36. Would it not be well this Christmas to give first to the Lord, directly through obedience, sacrifice, and love, and then to give to him indirectly through gifts to friends and those in need as well as to our own? Should we do this, perhaps many of us would discover a new Christmas joy.
John Andreas Widtsoe
#37. It was the desire to do the complete thing. I only took taking acting lessons because my whole thing, really, was to direct. But my first jobs were acting jobs.
James Coburn
#38. My first restoration was on 'Napoleon,' trying to put the French version in with the English version, and it was most unsatisfactory.
Kevin Brownlow
#39. I wanted to do London Boulevard because I saw the potential of a story about two people who need each other desperately, who love at first sight, as one does, and above all a story in which no one is what they appear to be.
William Monahan
#40. To truly be of service to others, we must first serve the server. The ability to bring an enlightened presence to those in need is the ability to light a candle without burning ourselves out.
Bill Crawford
#41. Your image is your brand and you have only one opportunity to make that first impression. Choose to make a positive first impression.
Cindy Ann Peterson
#42. We live a life that is often spent in crowds - parties, festivals and first nights - so it's nice to avoid them.
Julian Fellowes
#43. Jefferson found in the religion phrases of the First Amendment no vague or fuzzy language to be bent or shaped or twisted as suited any Supreme Court Justice or White House incumbent. That amendment had built a wall, with the ecclesiastical estate on one side and the civil estate on the other.
Edwin Gaustad
#44. Along those lines, to get personal for a moment, I think the best way to die would be swallowed by a giant snake. Going feet first and whole into a slimy maw would give your life perfect symmetry.
Joseph Fink
#45. We call those poets who are first to mark, Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn, Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark, While others only note that day is gone.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
#46. Performing on stage is my first love - it's why I wanted to be an actor in the first place - and 'Arcadia' is the highlight of my career so far. I love the intimacy of a live theatre audience - you can really squeeze every last drop out of each scene.
Tom Riley
#47. If you're going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow.
Louis L'Amour
#48. I do not eat breakfast. i never eat breakfast. I haven't eaten breakfast since I was able to walk out the back door without eating breakfast first.
David Levithan
#49. When I first read 'The River,' I had theories on what it was about, but once we got into rehearsal, I realized it's much simpler: It's about how human beings try to connect. The play holds a mirror up to the audience, and they take from it what's relevant to their lives.
Laura Donnelly
#50. It reminded me of innocence. And I wanted my first kiss to be just that. Innocent.
Jay Asher
#51. This is a bigger deal than I thought. I'll get him out. Actually, I'll get him out first and then we'll go to Baghdad. I'll deal with the judge.
Justin Conboy
#53. I began to write in the first place because I expected everything to change, and I wanted to have things in writing the way they had been. Just a little things, of course. A little of my little.
William, Saroyan
#54. A lot of progressives really believe that if we can turn out one more white paper with bullet points about how to fix Problem X, we can fix it. But that's not primarily the way you reach people or move them. You reach the heart first.
Robert Greenwald
#55. The Kon-Tiki expedition opened my eyes to what the ocean really is. It is a conveyor and not an isolator. The ocean has been man's highway from the days he built the first buoyant ships, long before he tamed the horse, invented wheels, and cut roads through the virgin jungles.
Thor Heyerdahl
#56. I hope to be judged as good a man as my father. Before I hear those words "well done" from my Heavenly Father, I hope to first hear them from my mortal father.
Boyd K. Packer
#57. In the knockout tournaments, it's futile to prepare for a grand finale. You may have worked out many strategies for the final. But you may lose in the first round itself.
Viswanathan Anand
#58. Reagan was extreme. Beginning of his administration, one of the first things was to call in scabs - hadn't been done for a long time, and it's illegal in most countries - in the air controller strike.
Noam Chomsky
#59. I used to build my own PCs ... and actually had one of the first water-cooled, overclocked PCs around. I ran it at over 4Ghz, and this was back in 2001 ... but alas, I do not have the time for that fun anymore.
Brian Krzanich
#60. This is a learning in the business life that first of all you need to have commitment, dedication and passion for what you are doing.
Lakshmi Mittal
#62. If critics of 'readable fiction' want literature to change the ways people dream, they need first to come down from the mountain and speak to the people.
Graham Joyce
#63. My very first news director said to me that it's better to be hated than to have viewers be neutral.
Julie Chen
#64. At first everyone predicted that it would be impossible to hold these divergent people together, but aside from the skilled men, some of whom belonged to craft unions, comparatively few went back to the mills. And as a whole, the strike was conducted with little violence.
Ray Stannard Baker
#65. To be honest, I think we should find first the possibility to make it. Research is first - if you're not interested, you never can find something. Many things happen from forgotten machines - ones that are no longer used.
Issey Miyake
#67. The Washington Times wrote a story questioning the authenticity of some of the suggestions made about me in Silent Coup. But as a believer in the First Amendment, I believe they have more than a right to air their views.
Bob Woodward
#68. From the moment I start a new novel, life's just one endless torture. The first few chapters may go fairly well and I may feel there's still a chance to prove my worth, but that feeling soon disappears and every day I feel less and less satisfied.
Emile Zola
#69. If we each get on a treadmill right now, one of two things is going to happen ... either you're going to get off first or I am going to die. Period.
Will Smith
#70. We struck up a conversation, but took pains to keep to small talk at first. We touched on the most trivial of topics: I asked if he thought the fate of man was unalterable. He thought it was.
Gunter Grass
#71. Whoever is first to dominate the most important segment of a market with viral potential will be the last mover in the whole market.
Peter Thiel
#72. The university president who cashiered every professor unwilling to support Woodrow Wilson for the first vacancy in the
Trinity ...
H.L. Mencken
#73. To be well in your mind you have first to be free.
Chris Cleave
#74. I am less disposed to think of a West Point education as requisite for this business than I was at first. Good sense and energy are the qualities required.
Rutherford B. Hayes
#75. Often we withhold our affections, waiting first for love to be extended to us. The irony is that we are loved for loving.
Richelle E. Goodrich
#76. Fuel conservation is a necessity, and I have to be the first person to set the example.
Veerappa Moily
#77. Give it to 'em!" Take 'em down!" First Aleran!" Kick their furry
" Assault formation!
Jim Butcher
#78. I don't mean to take the bow off the end of your rain, but you gotta be smart about your first boyfriend.
C. Kennedy
#79. The Catholics of Maryland were the first people on the new continent to declare universal religious toleration. Let this be remembered to their eternal honor.
Robert Green Ingersoll
#80. Jessie Wallace was the first time I erupted. She was late, she was young. She's not like that any more. I lost my temper. It was silly and I burst into tears and ran up to the producer. I said I had been terrible and amateur.
Barbara Windsor
#81. As the only woman, I was able to sit with the officers in front, with a glass of vodka in one hand and a cucumber in the other. That's how I went to my first war.
Asne Seierstad
#82. Love was not in it for me at first. I dated guys because of the way they looked. And then I began to learn that it's what's inside that counts. Love to me now is understanding. It's giving.
Crystal Waters
#83. The way, and the only way, to stop this evil is for all the red men to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was at first, and should be yet; for it was never divided, but belongs to all for the use of each.
Tecumseh
#84. If you took me to Coachella for our first date, it would probably be a done deal. It would be a sure thing.
Eva Mendes
#85. The first thing that has to be broken down is your relationship to authority. Your insecurity could possibly be the wedge that opens up your perspective on what you think is possible for you to do.
Ross Bleckner
#86. I came to Houston for a job, the reason most people move halfway across the country with a first grader and a five-week-old. I came here to teach at Rice.
Justin Cronin
#87. My first novel, 'The Lions of Lucerne,' just poured out of me. It was an amazing feeling of accomplishment. My biggest fear and therefore my biggest obstacle to becoming an author had been, 'What if I spend all that time and the book is no good?'
Brad Thor
#88. Risk is important to me as a writer, reader, and editor. I love stories that take a premise or style that seems unlikely to succeed, whose first paragraphs risk a raised eyebrow or groan, and whose last paragraphs are then all that much sweeter a triumph. Basically, I love being proved wrong.
Caitlin Horrocks
#89. Christian literature makes reference to many episodes that parallel the experiences of those going a yogic way. Saint Anthony, one of the first desert mystics, frequently encountered strange and sometimes terrifying psychophysical forces while at prayer.
Willigis Jager
#90. Since I first picked up the violin, I've been very interested in tone and texture: I would have very visceral reactions to the texture of a snare drum or a pedal steel guitar or a violin.
Andrew Bird
#91. Habits begin to form at the very first repetition. After that there is a tropism toward repetition, for the patterns involved are defenses , bulwarks against time and despair.
Kim Stanley
#92. Producers like to record all the drums first, then they do the bass, then all the guitars, so you're constantly moving from one song to another.
Noel Gallagher
#93. Microsoft has gotten so big that it can put out a Preview that will install itself without checking first to see if it has expired. The message here is that Microsoft's time is worth more than yours ... no start-up company could get away with being that arrogant.
Jerry Pournelle
#94. It's nice to establish yourself as an actor first and a singer second. Proof is such a tremendous piece of work, and I'm incredibly lucky to be a part of it. I'm sure that the musicals will happen in the future, though.
Neil Patrick Harris
#95. The first step to finding a God-written love story is handing the pen to the true Author of romance.
Leslie Ludy
#96. At first Ifemelu thought Kimberly's apologizing sweet, even if unnecessary, but she had begun to feel a flash of impatience, because Kimberly's repeated apologies were tinged with self-indulgence, as though she believed that she could, with apologies, smooth all the scalloped surfaces of the world.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
#97. To fully relate to another, one must first relate to oneself. If we cannot embrace our own aloneness, we will simply use the other as a shield against isolation.
Irvin D. Yalom
#98. The first time I went to see a Second City show, I was in awe of everything. I just wanted to touch the same stage that Gilda Radner had walked on. It was sacred ground.
Tina Fey
#99. Book collecting! First editions and best editions; old books and new books - the ones you like and want to have around you. Thousands of 'em. I've had more honest satisfaction and happiness collecting books than anything else I've ever done in life.
Peter Ruber
#100. I am no fan of books. And chances are, if you're reading this, you and I share a healthy skepticism about the printed word. Well, I want you to know that this is the first book I've ever written, and I hope it's the first book you've ever read. Don't make a habit of it.
Stephen Colbert
