Top 100 If I Were Quotes
#2. If I were a Chinese dissident, I'd be grateful that Cisco had helped bring the Internet to China, but I'd also be outraged that Cisco may have helped the cops keep me under surveillance and catch me trying to organize protest activities.
Rebecca MacKinnon
#3. Everything I did is because I wanted to do it. If I weren't playing this arena, if I were playing a club, I'd still be doing it because that's what I want to do. I love playing the guitar.
Eddie Van Halen
#4. If I were to say, "Yes, I am a fascinating, erudite person," what would that say about me? I don't know.
Daniel Handler
#5. I do not perceive myself to be mad. But if I were truly mad, would I be able to tell?
Jim Butcher
#6. An ugliness unfurled in the moonlight and soft shadow and suffused the whole world. If I were an amoeba, he thought, with an infinitesimal body, I could defeat ugliness. A man isn't tiny or giant enough to defeat anything.
Yukio Mishima
#7. If I were a carpenter, I would build you a window to my soul. But I would leave that window shut and locked, so that every time you tried to look through it all you would see is your own reflection. You would see that my soul is a reflection of you.
Colleen Hoover
#8. I don't think I'd be happy if I were satisfied. I enjoy challenge, and I wouldn't say that I'm an ambitious person career-wise or financially, really. I would like to travel more comfortably, but that's really about all I need.
Jason Isbell
#9. Don't tell me you're reading it,' she said, as if I were doing something to the book, whereas in fact the book was doing something to me.
Sara Levine
#10. If I were dead, then nobody in England would have to fuss about the cost of my security and whether or not I merited such special treatment for so long.
Salman Rushdie
#11. I think that feminists have definitely underestimated the role that women have had historically. I think I would be insecure if I were to be a man; there's so much pressure on you.
Vivienne Westwood
#12. If I were to think of and dwell on disastrous possibilities, I could do nothing. I throw myself headlong into my work, and come up again with my studies.
Vincent Van Gogh
#13. I think I am less self-assured when I write English than I would be if I were writing in my first language. I have to test each sentence over and over to be sure that it's right, that I haven't introduced some element that isn't English.
Louis Begley
#14. I wouldn't even consider it if I were you. But then if I were you, I would not be me, and if I were not me, I would not be able to advise you, and if I were unable to advise you, you'd do as you like, so you might as well do as you like and have done with it.
Catherynne M Valente
#15. If I were to have any sort of solid idea about which moments were God's manifestations, they would be those moments where one has practically nothing to do with what's going on. It's one of the best feelings in the world.
Anjelica Huston
#16. I want, I think, to be omniscient. I think I would like to call myself "the girl who wanted to be God." Yet if I were not in this body where would I be-perhaps I am destined to be classified and qualified. But, oh, I cry out against it.
Sylvia Plath
#17. On my last ride on the RR train I looked almost as lovingly at the faces and expressions of my fellow passengers as if I were staring a a photograph of times long past. They did not know that they made a photograph. They did not understand the vanishing background of their lives ...
Mark Helprin
#18. If I were to be totally sincere, I would say that I do not know why I live and why I do not stop living. The answer probably lies in the irrational character of life which maintains itself without reason.
Emil Cioran
#19. Instead, he let his gaze move slowly over Daniel's body. "I've got no reason to be jealous. But I would be if I were him." "Why?" "Because there isn't anything I don't want to do to you, Danny." Trey swung into the car and shut the door.
K.A. Mitchell
#20. If i were to backbite against anyone, it would be about my parents for they have more right to my good deeds
Abdullah Ibn Mubarak
#21. If I were stepping down from the bus at the rich end of town instead of the trailer park, I wouldn't have to watch every word I said to make sure it wasn't slang for an orgasm.
Jennifer Echols
#22. My soul cried out for Ash, for his courage and determination; for the way his eyes thawed when he looked at me, as if I were the only person in the world; for that beautiful, wounded spirit I saw beneath the cold exterior he showed the world.
Julie Kagawa
#23. There are two ways to write a werewolf novel - you can examine the genre conventions, or you can say, 'What would it be like if I were a werewolf?'
Glen Duncan
#24. I write what I want to read. If I were to write what I know, I'd be staring at a blank page forever.
R.J. Dennis
#25. When I was younger I always thought, 'If I were ever a comedian I'd make it like a rock concert.' I wanted to generate that type of enthusiasm and excitement.
Carrot Top
#26. If I were sufficiently romantic I suppose I'd have killed myself long ago just to make people talk about me. I haven't even got the conviction to make a successful drunkard.
John Dos Passos
#27. ... I'm always ready to talk, shouldn't be a woman if I were not,' laughed Mrs. Jo ...
Louisa May Alcott
#28. If I were a blind man and were told by you that you possess a faculty called sight, I should be unreasonable if I railed at you as a conceited enthusiast.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
#29. And for all my rampant technological optimism, sometimes I think I'd be more comfortable if I were regarding these transcendental events from one thousand years remove ... instead of twenty.
Vernor Vinge
#30. If I were to give you a list of names of the people, world political figures, who have been assisted by the CIA, and even assisted to office around the world, you'd be astonished and probably wouldn't believe it. But it's very long, and the names are very distinguished.
Charles McCarry
#31. Basically what you want in any profession - I would say the same thing if I were a lawyer or a doctor - is you want bright undergraduates to look at your profession as something they would be interested in getting into.
Louis Menand
#32. He looked like a prince, but if I were going to cast him in a fairy tale now, I'd cast him as The Dragon! A beastly, judgmental, fire-breathing dragon.
Mia Sheridan
#33. I wish to paint in such a manner as if I were photographing dreams.
Zdzislaw Beksinski
#34. And why is an orange the only fruit that has to share its name with its color? A banana isn't called yellow. It's not fair. If I were an orange, I would complain.
Wendy Mass
#35. What are you - Secret Service?'
'If I were, I wouldn't admit it.'
'And you're not admitting it, I notice.
Robert Goddard
#36. Sometimes, in a tight game with runners on, digging in at short, ready to break with the ball, a peace I'd never felt before would paralyze the diamond. For a moment of eternal stillness I felt as if I were cocked at the very heart of the Midwest.
Stuart Dybek
#37. If I were asked to name, in one word, the pole star round which the mathematical firmament revolves, the central idea which pervades the whole corpus of mathematical doctrine, I should point to Continuity as contained in our notions of space, and say, it is this, it is this!
James Joseph Sylvester
#38. That's very cool. Well, that's great. If I were to cater to Kanye, he would know that I'm catering to him. The fact that I make what I make-he gets it. He gets the quality and he respects it. And I think that's the key, why I work all the time is to do that. That's the fun.
Kanye West
#39. You do not know the dishonest purposes of these men as well as I do," Douglas told Lincoln of the secessionists. "If I were president, I'd convert or hang them all within forty-eight hours.
Scott Farris
#40. If I were taking notes, they would read: I see something. A shape? I have no idea. It's not exactly the stuff that literary archives are made of.
Ann Patchett
#41. I suppose if I were younger, I would be investing in Africa.
Julian Robertson
#42. I like to think that if I were gay I would be out. Rupert Everett-style.
Ben Affleck
#43. I suppose I'd get in trouble if I were to melt them down.
Prince Philip
#44. If I were asked to think up a new name for temptation, I should recommend the word 'doorknob', because what are these protuberances put on doors for if not to tempt us ...
Gunter Grass
#45. Would they call me a diva if I were a guy?
Zaha Hadid
#46. If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.
Prince Philip
#47. Be aware that you can truly help people only by aiding them to become what they are, not what you are. I have heard you say 'If I were you, I would do this, or that.' 'I' am never 'you'
and my solutions may not be yours.
Anne Perry
#48. If I were to arrive at a foreign country like Czech Republic, I don't have to speak Czech to understand the feeling of the local sensations through architecture. That is a kind of communication that no language can perform.
Jimenez Lai
#49. Are you okay?"
"Fan-fricking-tastic. Only way today could get better is if I were scheduled for an appendectomy. Without drugs. In a third-world country.
Jill Shalvis
#50. I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children. If I were a painter, I would have painted for them. If I were a musician, I would have composed music. But I am a lecturer. So I lectured.
Randy Pausch
#51. If I were married to you, I'd put poison in your coffee," Lady Astor once famously remarked to Winston Churchill. "If I were married to you," he replied, "I'd drink it.
Anonymous
#52. I literally could not feel more cozy right now if I were actually inside a marshmallow
Alice Clayton
#53. My moral and spiritual formation does not allow me to be a dictator ... If I were a dictator, You can be sure that many things have happened.
Augusto Pinochet
#54. I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world.
Charlotte Bronte
#55. If I were to disclose all their rituals, I think that it would be easy to prove that witches are not diabolists; but the oaths are solemn and the witches are my friends. I would not want to hurt their feelings. They have secrets which to them are sacred. They have good reason for their secrecy.
Gerald Gardner
#56. I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in 2012.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
#57. If I were gay, you know. I think Woody Allen is one of a long list of men I might go gay for
David Duchovny
#58. Does six strike you as a good number?" I didn't know what he was getting at. "Six isn't exactly a lucky number," I hedged. "If I were looking for a good number I'd have to go up to seven." I shrugged. "Or down to three.
Patrick Rothfuss
#59. My flesh began to singe as if I were a scrap of meat newly thrown onto the barbecue, and then i could hear the bubbling of my skin as the flames kissed it.
Andrew Davidson
#60. That is why I fought against abortion and that is why if I were still in the Senate I would be doing everything I could to defend the sanctity of marriage.
Jesse Helms
#61. If I were a better version of me, I would not react faster than I think, would not be wounded when no harm was intended, would understand before too much time had passed to forgive ...
Arthur Phillips
#62. If I were as rich as Mr. Darcy," cried a young Lucas, who came with his sisters, "I should not care how proud I was. I would keep a pack of foxhounds, and drink a bottle of wine a day.
Jane Austen
#63. If I were a better artist, I'd be a painter, and if I were a better writer, I'd write books.. but I'm not, so I draw cartoons!
Charles M. Schulz
#64. Ah, if I were not king, I should lose my temper.
Louis XIV
#65. There is an aspect of my character that tends to latch on to one difficult but potentially solvable problem, rather than grapple with the vast and unsolvable problem that would be all I could see, if I were to look up, figuratively speaking, from my small blue notebooks.
Ben H. Winters
#66. And to you, my dear visitors, I wish to speak of this youth, my brother, for there has been no appearance in my life more precious than this one, more prophetic and moving. My heart feels tender, and at this moment I am contemplating my whole life as if I were living it all anew ...
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#67. I have no large desire to sacrifice much of my personal habits, intellectual pleasures, and personal standards in order to become a billionaire like Warren Buffett, and I certainly do not see point of becoming one if I were to adopt Spartan (even miserly) habits and live in my starter house.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
#68. Movies are as old as psychoanalysis. So if I were to put you or anyone else on a couch and say, 'Tell me your favorite movies,' it would be a way of psychoanalyzing you.
Andrew Sarris
#69. I wondered if I were glad or sorry to see it - if I were more pleased with his loyalty to his absent employer, or disappointed that my presence had not made everybody else forgotten.
Anna Katharine Green
#70. I'm overwhelmed by the thought of all the women who would pour out of me if I were cracked open: swarming like insects, bubbling up out of my mouth. The women who have collected inside me over the years, filling up my insides until there's no room left for me.
Sara Flannery Murphy
#71. I am not invested with dictatorial powers. If I were, I should be quite ready to dictate.
Winston Churchill
#72. Look, if I were straight, you'd be grandparents before your time. You should be relieved that I'm gay. Aren't you grateful?
Hayden Thorne
#73. I believe that I've been asked all possible questions. I, myself, if I were a journalist, would not know what to ask me.
Jose Saramago
#74. If I were at any time to set out on a career of deceit, it would be of Miss Marple that I should be afraid.
Agatha Christie
#75. For me, if I were to be at home in any kind of style, it is more comedy than anything else.
Rufus Sewell
#76. Sorry, I happen to be into women, so Thanatos doesn't do it for me. But it's probably fair to say that if I were gay, I'd do him.
Larissa Ione
#77. I would be disappointed if I were remembered as a runner because I feelthat my contribution to the youth of America has far exceeded the woman who was the Olympic champion.
Wilma Rudolph
#79. If I were surrounded by angels who were purely rational and had no inclinations at all, I couldn't do anything for them. I couldn't make them happy; I couldn't make them sad, I would be entirely useless as a moral agent.
Thomas Pogge
#80. If I were to try to identify a turning point I'd say that was it - getting clean.
James Taylor
#81. When I first started doing sketch comedy, I promised myself that if I were ever to have any success in this business, I wouldn't hold back. Why get there and play it safe?
Will Ferrell
#82. If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible what was the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men had forgotten God; that is why all this has happened.'
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#83. I had sent [the magazine] a batch of poems which they turned down flat. I was furious. Floss [my wife] said, 'If I were the editor of that magazine *I* would turn down what *you* sent.' So *she* picked a batch and they accepted them *all*.
William Carlos Williams
#84. If I were lucky enough to sit by you, I would have talked to you.
Stephenie Meyer
#86. When Darius offered him ten thousand talents, and to divide Asia equally with him, "I would accept it," said Parmenio, "were I Alexander." "And so truly would I," said Alexander, "if I were Parmenio." But he answered Darius that the earth could not bear two suns, nor Asia two kings.
Plutarch
#87. For me a true poem is on the way when I begin to be haunted, when it seems as if I were being asked an inescapable question by an angel with whom I must wrestle to get at the answer.
May Sarton
#88. If I were to say, "God, why me?" about the bad things, then I should have said, "God, why me?" about the good things that happened in my life.
Arthur Ashe
#89. If I were a black liberal, I would be hailed, I guess. But I'm not. I mean, I think for myself. I want to make my own decisions.
Clarence Thomas
#90. The two women looked at me as if I were the Messiah returning with their personal salvations sealed in separate envelopes.
George Alec Effinger
#91. No true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. If I were a magistrate and the law carried the death penalty against atheists, I would begin by sending to the stake whoever denounced another.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
#92. If I were to search for logic, I would not look for it among the English upper class.
Lady Violet
#93. I wouldn't want to play LSU right now even if I were the Indianapolis Colts.
Lee Corso
#94. It's really been a better situation for me being with the Crush than it would if I were with the Broncos because this has given me a lot more broad range.
John Elway
#95. I really wanted to be a mom. I didn't want my kids to be raised by a nanny, which would have been the case if I were working two movies in a year, you know? And I would have been hospitalized with fatigue.
Robin Wright
#96. At least twice a week, I pause in the rush of work and have a meeting with myself. (If I were part of a team, I'd call a team meeting.) I ask myself, again, of the project: "What is this damn thing about?" Keep refining your understanding of the theme; keep narrowing it down.
Steven Pressfield
#97. I decided if I were ever to get into booze and woman, my line would be Excuse me, madam, but I would really love to bed and muss you ... Are you perchance free this evening?
David Levithan
#98. If I were a pattern, I would be the pattern of paint that a bird would make if you dipped a bird's wings in watercolour and then set the bird loose inside a paper lantern. I'm pretty sure that's it!
C. JoyBell C.
#99. Even if I were certain that the world would end tomorrow, I would plant a tree this very day
Martin Luther King Jr.
#100. If I were to put on Barbra Streisand and Duke Ellington, one might say the combination isn't good.
Norman Granz
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