Top 100 Once Were Quotes
#1. Perhaps that same concept applied to people as well. Did we love them more when we knew their full story? How they came to be who and what they were? Or was the mystery what kept us coming back for more, slowly enticing us, knowing that once the truth was out, the appeal would be lost?
Amber Lynn Natusch
#2. I just don't get it. You've been in love with this bloke since you were a kid, and he's never once got his hair cut short enough that it doesn't poke him in the damn eye.
Kristina Adams
#3. But for all we've lost, hope is in fact one thing we Japanese have regained. The great earthquake and tsunami have robbed us of many lives and resources. But we who were so intoxicated with our own prosperity have once again planted the seed of hope. So I choose to believe.
Ryu Murakami
#4. I made so many jokes about poor Russell Crowe, he once knocked on my dressing room door, and told me he wanted to go out on this chat show we were on to laugh with me. Now he's ruined it. I can't make another joke about him.
Joan Rivers
#5. As they lay entwined together afterwards, they both were sure their future was blessed, and it would never have occurred to them that Henry and Eleanor had once believed that, too.
Sharon Kay Penman
#6. There are atoms of air in your lungs that were once in the lungs of everyone who has ever lived. In essence, we are breathing (inspiring) one another.
Sharon Gannon
#7. The convicts working the mines were almost all like him. Black, once slave, once free, now slave again.
Yaa Gyasi
#8. It's all right. Things as they once were will never be again, but it's all right.
Janet Morris
#9. Whose SUV is this?" I asked once we were out of Carnal.
"Mine." He answered.
I looked at him. "You drive a Harley."
"Not big on puttin' bad guys on the back of my bike when I hunt them down, Ace. Fucks with my street cred.
Kristen Ashley
#10. I once thought the three most important words in creation were 'whatever proved necessary,'" he said. "And now?" she gasped against his mouth. "Now I know I was wrong. The three most important words in creation are 'I love you
Gena Showalter
#11. Once upon a time, there was a generation of parents who were certain that Elvis Presley's unashamed hip-swivellingvwas most certainly the end of society.
Charlie Caruso
#12. It took a while to find a passion for another career that was as strong as the passion that I had for football. Once I found it in acting, it was simple. Use the tools you were given from playing football and apply it to your new passion. I have done that through acting, producing and writing.
Maurice Hall
#13. Neither one of us could be sure we'd get our money back on this investment, but we just wanted to have company of our own for once because we were best friends.
Steve Wozniak
#14. We were all Romans once, I guess.
Omar Epps
#15. In general, things that were endowed with life did not, like the Golden Temple, have the rigid quality of existing once and for all. Human beings were merely allotted one part of nature's various attributes and, by an effective method of substitution, they diffused that part and made it multiply.
Yukio Mishima
#16. To weep not for the way things had once been but for the way things had been supposed to go and did not. People believed that they were haunted by bad memories, but that wasn't the truth. The most sinister hauntings were from unrealized futures.
Michael Koryta
#18. I remember her telling me once that rabbits were the gnomes in attendance to the Fairy Queen and that the stars were God's daisy chain. Perfect rot, of course.
P.G. Wodehouse
#19. I reached out and touched his hands and they stilled at once. I had observed - although I did not often make use of the fact - that there were times when a touch could say things that words could not.
Alan Bradley
#20. Many of these omnibuses were driven, oddly enough, by male models who had retired from the business, which meant that Parisians of Manet's day were transported around the city by men who had once posed as valiant biblical heroes or the vindictive deities of classical mythology.
Ross King
#21. Poetry can take you places that were once only traveled by your imagination.
Delano Johnson
#22. Once upon a time there were two parents, two children, and a brick house with lilies in the yard. The parents died, the lilies wilted. One child disappeared. Then the other.
Lauren DeStefano
#23. Once upon a time we were innocent, and then we were not.
Laura Thalassa
#24. Most men die many times in their lives. The man we become invariably slaughters the child we once were. His knowledge of the world murders the babe's innocence.
from Time Untime by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#25. Once we were a stranger... just passing by....
...
in school... we never know each other... but one day came and we became friends.
Deyth Banger
#26. Once we played for the Princess of Monaco in Paris. We were the biggest ducks ever, wearing rented tuxedos. We trashed the party, took a bunch of girls and champagne in limos underneath the Eiffel Tower, and set up an acoustic show. It was like a Hilary Duff movie.
Conrad Sewell
#27. Mamie told me living rooms were once known as death rooms, back when funerals were a home matter. After mortuaries came into fashion, there was no need for keeping bodies on ice at home, and the death room was rechristened the living room.
Sarah Jude
#28. This all came of a conversation I had with [John] Steinbeck once when we were standing in a men's room somewhere. Steinbeck asked me why I didn't play the banjo any more and I told him that went out with the high-button shoes.
Eddie Condon
#29. The author O. Henry taught me about the value of the unexpected. He once wrote about the noise of flowers and the smell of birds - the birds were chickens and the flowers dried sunflowers rattling against a wall.
Chuck Jones
#30. The silence of a place where there were once horses
is a mountain
and I have seen by lightning that ever mountain
once fell from the air
ringing
like the chime of an iron shoe ...
W.S. Merwin
#31. We were girls once. As hard as that is to believe. //Oh you can't see it now--our bodies have stretched and sagged, faces and necks drooping. That's what happens when you get old. Every part of you drops, as if the body is moving closer to where it's from and where it'll return.
Brit Bennett
#32. That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that sorrow, which I then did feel, Needs must I under my transgression bow, Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel ...
William Shakespeare
#33. In Europe it was once commonly believed that beasts could be possessed by demons and controlled by the evil of Satan. So animals, even birds and insects, were tried by ecclesiastical courts, just like witches and heretics. They were excommunicated, tortured and condemned to death.
Chet Williamson
#35. Time and again the people still in the camp, realizing they were now trapped, called to God in a hundred different dialects. He laughed and cried at once. He had so many names, yet could not answer to any of them.
Ron Currie Jr.
#36. And in an instant I was pinned beneath him, which was not an entirely unpleasant experience once I realized it was Ranger. We were groin to groin, chest to chest, with his hands locked around my wrists. A moment passed while we did nothing but breathe.
Janet Evanovich
#37. I am the least intimidating person. I think I would have done better in my career if I were a little more intimidating. Even the maid who comes to work for me once a week has found out that she can just trample over me ... I'm a Cancer! We are not ferocious people.
Karen Black
#38. Once
God wrote a story
that shook the heaven to the very core.
Love was the only language used;
You and I
were the only characters.
Subhan Zein
#39. Once we got closer to the origins of these Eastern practices, we found that the monks and swamis were just as dogmatic and paternalistic, just as literal and conservative in their approach to spirituality as the Christian priests and ministers we were trying to get away from.
Gudjon Bergmann
#40. She felt a sense that things were in order, the way they were meant to be, and that even if they tumbled down once in a while, in the end they would come back together again.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
#41. God cares a lot more about who we are and who we are becoming than about who we once were.
Dale G. Renlund
#42. He was definitely a father figure for all of us. Once you were a Giant, you were always a Giant.
George Martin
#43. Enthusiasts for empire argued that Rome had a civilizing mission; that because her values and institutions were self-evidently superior to those of barbarians, she had a duty to propagate them; that only once the whole globe had been subjected to her rule could there be a universal peace.
Tom Holland
#44. What you once were isn't what you want to be anymore.
Jeff Tweedy
#45. Said once, that the only real duties of government were to prevent crime and preserve contracts, to which I will add one thing since I find myself reluctantly in the twentieth century: and to provide for the common defense.
Harper Lee
#46. If one were to ask ... "What is slavery?" and I should answer in one word, "murder," my meaning would be understood at once. Why, then, to this other question: "What is property?" may I not likewise answer, "theft" ... ?
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
#47. Gulls, aeroplaning above the chimney pots, were calling that he must talk to Laura about his plans. He needed no telling, for once in tune to their outlandish cries.
Alan Sillitoe
#48. By any accepted standard, I have had more than nine lives. I counted them up once, and there were 13 times I almost and maybe should have died.
Hunter S. Thompson
#49. Trump tried to book Penn & Teller once in Vegas at one of his casinos, but we were priced out of his budget.
Penn Jillette
#50. And once again, only the Small Things were said. The Big Things lurked unsaid inside.
Arundhati Roy
#51. I am content with nothing, restless and ambitious ... and I despise myself for the vanity, which formed half the stimulus to my exertions. Oh would that I were one of those plodding wise fools who having once set their hand to the plough go on nothing doubting.
Thomas Huxley
#52. Fairytales cleanse and sanitise what were once true stories. In fairytales, knights are chivalrous, clean-shaven and wear shining armour - when in truth they were swarthy, filthy rapists and thugs. Castles are bright and gay when in truth they were grim fortresses.
Matthew Reilly
#53. The atoms that make up your body were once forged inside stars, and the causes of even the smallest event are virtually infinite and connected with the whole in incomprehensible ways.
Eckhart Tolle
#54. I think back to my banter with Cash about sexual harassment. I don't doubt he pushes the boundaries, but never once did I get the impression he might force himself on me or make unwanted advances. I just hope to God he doesn't know that his advances aren't unwanted. I just wish they were.
M. Leighton
#55. Now I knew why I had been hollowed out, why my insides were chipped away with a chisel and mallet. It was to make room for this new feeling, this love that was so vast, so expansive it could not have fit into the vessel I once was.
Lang Leav
#56. Small child once you were a hope, a dream. Now you are a reality. Changing all that is to come. A love to hold our hearts forever.
Charlotte Gray
#57. My father brought me a box of books once when I was about three and a half or four. I remember the carton they were in and the covers with illustrations by Newell C. Wyeth.
Paula Fox
#58. Sinatra invited me once to his birthday party in L.A. I was young, and I felt great about it. But when I got there, the Rat Pack were all in the kitchen laughing their heads off.
Tony Bennett
#59. Inej's mother had told her that gifted wire walkers were descended from the People of the Air, that they'd once had wings, and that in the right light, those wings could still be glimpsed on the humans to whom they showed favor.
Leigh Bardugo
#60. I played a lawyer once, and I had about three or four weeks before we shot, so I was able to go to court and watch lawyers at work. Some were good lawyers and some were bad lawyers, but it was essential. The more time you have to prepare, the better. Always.
Ben Bass
#61. I'm sorry. Once again, those were the words. And now, anytime someone says I'm sorry, I'm going to think of her.
Jay Asher
#62. Lincoln's significance lies in his not hesitating before the most severe means, once they were found to be necessary, in achieving a great historic aim posed by the development of a young nation.
Leon Trotsky
#63. Black men, you were once great; you shall be great again. Lose not courage or faith, go forward.
Marcus Garvey
#64. I grew up accepting the inevitability that once you became a woman, you were always on a diet. Being a woman equaled loss.
Cathy Alter
#65. It doesn't matter how many times you leave, it will always hurt to come back and remember what you once had and who you once were. Then it will hurt just as much to leave again, and so it goes over and over again.
Once you've started to leave, you will run your whole life.
Charlotte Eriksson
#67. When she sees him, Holly says, it's like the sunsets at the beach
once the sun drops, the sand chills quickly. Then it's like a lot of times that were good ten minutes ago and don't count now.
Amy Hempel
#68. It's interesting to see how acoustic guitars are emerging as a primary instrument once again ... reminds me very much of what Jim Messina and I were doing back then. You can't get too far away from an acoustic guitar
Kenny Loggins
#69. Pescatore marveled at the seascape. It gave him vertigo. The wind deployed cloud formations. The sun seared the Moroccan coastline. He had read a line once about "the lion-colored hills of Africa." Were they lion-colored? What color was a lion exactly?
Sebastian Rotella
#70. Once in the shower, I let the water run over my face, keeping my eyes closed. The delicate outlines of Abby's features were burned behind my eyelids. It wasn't the first time; I saw her every time my eyes closed. Now that she was gone, it was like being stuck in a nightmare.
Jamie McGuire
#71. Why?"
"Because I said so," and I never once said you were freed from your vow to obey me. So obey me."
"Can you please order me to punch your face? I'll obey that order."
"Later, perhaps. I have nothing but respect for your sadistic side.
Tiffany Reisz
#72. I remember calling the council's cemetery department to ask about body decomposition in different soil types. Once they had verified that I was a novelist and not a sicko, they were extremely helpful.
Sara Sheridan
#73. This is all you have to do. Sit down once a day to the novel and start working without internal criticism, without debilitating expectations, without the need to look at your words as if they were already printed and bound. The beginning is only a draft. Drafts are imperfect by definition.
Walter Mosley
#74. I think Donald Trump's history has shown that this was a very problematic thing. There were so many ways Iraq could have gone awry once we started, and I don't think most of us spend enough time considering the dangers.
Jeff Sessions
#75. But at night, once I had taken off my makeup and my defenses were down and my mind started to wander, it seemed rather than new love sitting down at the table of my life to join me, old love managed to find its way back in ...
Mandy Hale
#76. Serendipity ... You will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called 'The Three Princes of Serendip': as their Highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.
Horace Walpole
#77. The chickens don't remember that their wings were clipped...They just can't fly anymore, and they don't remember why or even that they once could."
-a bit of conversation between Ginny and her grandmother in The Memory of Flight
Debra Bowling
#78. Once we were on the high Plynlimon pass, we stopped to stretch our legs, change drivers, and make a short devotion to the shrine dedicated to the once-popular but now little-known Saint Aosbczkcs, the Patron Saint of Fading Relevance.
Jasper Fforde
#79. People still make New Year's resolutions? Wow. I figured those were pointless once I perfected myself by directing, writing, and acting in Garden State. I guess it makes sense, though. It gives people a chance to hope that they can become as great as me someday.
Zach Braff
#80. Once the tears started she didn't know how to stop them. Words and tears - they were the twin gauges of her mental health that took over when she lost control, one drying up, the other oozing from her without consent. She
Sonali Dev
#81. We got up and smiled at each other. His eyes were lovely, and I was reminded of a line in a book I read once, that God exists in the spaces between people.
Susan Juby
#82. Daughter of Bast, she replied, with a little bow. Cats liked to be reminded that they had once been worshiped. They pretended that they didn't, that they were above flattery, but of course, that only meant that they were all the more susceptible to it.
Anonymous
#83. Do not take advantage of foreigners who live among you in your land. 34 Treat them like native-born Israelites, and love them as you love yourself. Remember that you were once foreigners living in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.
Anonymous
#84. I remember rehearsing it, and it was the one that we were really excited about and thought would sound the best, and once it was down on tape, it was like, This doesn't actually sound that good.
Meg White
#85. Sit down and hold your tongue as I bid you for if I once begin to lay my hands about you, though all heaven were on your side it would profit you nothing.
Homer
#86. There isn't anything noble about being superior to another person. True nobility is in being superior to the person you once were.
Ziad K. Abdelnour
#87. In the vast reaches of the dry, cold night, thousands of stars were constantly appearing, and their sparkling icicles, loosened at once, began to slip gradually toward the horizon.
Albert Camus
#88. Once upon a time there was a huge family of children; and they were terribly, terribly naughty.
Christianna Brand
#89. The networks at their worst (were) at once greedy and timid.
David Halberstam
#90. I replaced someone on 'Days of our Lives' once, and the fans hated me. She was a redhead, I was a brunette: they went nuts. Even at fan events, they were rude to me.
Shelley Hennig
#91. I'm actually a hippy in real life. I had three dreadlocks on the back of my head once. They were spawning.
Jack O'Connell
#92. I could see now that a literary education did not fit one for the popular novelist's trade.Once you had started using words like flavicomous or acroamatic, because you liked the sound of them, you were lost.
Woodrow Wilson
#93. Well, I'd say fuck too, if I were me. I'd say it backward and forward and around the block, fuck this and fuck that and fuck it all at once, twice, three times.
Colum McCann
#94. Noble and wise men once believed in the music of the spheres: noble and wise men still continue to believe in the "moral significance of existence." But one day even this sphere-music will no longer be audible to them! They will wake up and take note that their ears were dreaming.
Friedrich Nietzsche
#95. Once you believe in who you are and who you were born to be, it can be very powerful.
Dwayne Johnson
#96. Once, when the days were ages, And the old Earth was young, The high gods and the sages From Nature's golden pages Her open secrets wrung.
Richard Henry Stoddard
#97. He smiled. "I bet the paper ran something about you once your hiring was confirmed. A new cop is big news in a small town. People were probably admonished to make you feel at home."
She shook her head with some amusement. "I would have felt more at home if they shot at me,.
Dana Marton
#98. To make HP a great company once again, we need more than competitive costs and operational efficiency. We're in the process of assessing and refining our growth strategy, and the same concepts that were behind our operational changes will be at work here: simplicity, focus, alignment, and execution.
Bill Vaughan
#99. You know, when people who were once religious no longer believe in God, they never really change; they just go on, hunting for the ecstatic food, trying to satisfy that hunger.
Andrew Holleran
#100. A writing teacher once told me that the most successful movies and books were simple plots about complex characters. You should be able to articulate your concept in a couple of lines.
James Scott Bell
