Preferably Not Quotes

#1. I haven't come to the theater to hear about other people's probelms. I've come to be taken out of myself, and, preferably, not put back again.

Michael Frayn

#2. Storms, woman," [Kaladin] said. "I don't know what to make of you."
"Preferably not a corpse."
"I'm surprised someone hasn't already done that.

Brandon Sanderson

#3. Kate had never met a person she didn't want to protect, preferably by hacking at the hostile parties with her sword.

Ilona Andrews

#4. My social status leaps after decades of disqualification on grounds of radiation. The doorbell rings and there stands Vanessa Redgrave. 'Marcie,' she begins, and then goes on about social injustice in Namibia, and how we must all build a raft by late afternoon - preferably out of coconut matting.

Morrissey

#5. Ruth Cole was a novelist; novelists are not at their best when they go off half-cocked. She believed that she would prepare what she was going to tell the police - preferably in writing.

John Irving

#6. As long ago as 1860 it was the proper thing to be born at home. At present, so I am told, the high gods of medicine have decreed that the first cries of the young shall be uttered upon the anesthetic air of a hospital, preferably a fashionable one.

F Scott Fitzgerald

#7. I personally enjoy theatre, but preferably I do films so that I can reach up to maximum audience. If you want to give a serious message, it will reach out to maximum people through films. But through theatre, you can hardly reach out to about 3,000 audience at a time.

Om Puri

#8. The true hero is flawed. The true test of a champion is not whether he can triumph, but whether he can overcome obstacles - preferably of his own making - in order to triumph.

Garth Stein

#9. I'm obsessed with vinyasa flow yoga and Pilates. And since I live in Sweden, and we have good seafood, I tend to cook a lot of fish, preferably with oven-roasted veggies and a cauliflower mash.

Frida Gustavsson

#10. I'll direct any movie starring a monkey or the Olsen Twins. Preferably both.

Eli Roth

#11. It wasn't enough violence for him. He wanted to do damage to something else. Preferably to something with an aquiline Roman profile that said ouch.

Thea Harrison

#12. Stigma's power lies in silence. The silence that persists when discussion and action should be taking place. The silence one imposes on another for speaking up on a taboo subject, branding them with a label until they are rendered mute or preferably unheard.

M.B. Dallocchio

#13. There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.

Arundhati Roy

#14. All good that you have done for the humanity, keep it like a secret; do your goodness in the shadow! Let one day others find this secret, preferably long after you have passed away!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

#15. There is no place i'd rather stay especially if it means more of your apple cinnamon pancakes for breakfast. Preferably served in bed by you completely naked, but i'm flexible.

Christina Tetreault

#16. Being in a foreign place, preferably for the first time, having seen many things and collected new impressions, and returning to an empty hotel room with an hour or so to blow. That mix often yields fine results.

Stefan Sagmeister

#17. Adonis watched her strut away, friend in tow, like a peacock with a stick wedged up its ass. Tessandra Scarlatti. He'd hoped in his absence, she'd fallen off the planet or died. Preferably both.

Em Wolf

#18. We have to laugh. Life is hard and the news is often grim - you should be able to turn on NPR's Weekend Edition every week and know that we are going to make you think, make you question - and make you laugh, preferably out loud.

Rachel Martin

#19. Find someone you care enough about to help you control your drinking. Preferably yourself.

Robert Black

#20. A short story can be packed with meaning and impact, with the concentrated density of a collapsed star, but should preferably also have a kind of elegant simplicity.

Jeffrey Thomas

#21. Happiness is having a cat for "fuzz therapy". Preferably one with trimmed claws.

Matthias Leue

#22. The ass of a man is the piston that drives the world, and you have a good one. In my prime, I would have corked it with my thumb and then eaten you alive. Preferably by the pool of Le Meridien in Monte Carlo, with an admiring audience to applaud my frontside and backside efforts.

Stephen King

#23. Live life as it was meant to be lived. Half asleep, preferably.

[...]

She preferred [...] to go to sleep at once, sleep now being one of the very few aspects of existence for which she felt any degree of enthusiasm [...]

Jonathan Coe

#24. You need interesting content that entertains or informs - preferably both. You want people to look forward to your posts and come back for more. People want to follow you. They want to hear your words and see your vision.

Michelle Phan

#25. My father used to say that it's not enough to just beat an attacker off. You have to hurt them enough that they'll know not to tangle with you anymore. Or preferably kill them. (Wren)

Sherrilyn Kenyon

#26. It's not that I succeed, it's that everyone else has to fail, horribly, preferably in front of their parents.

Attila The Hun

#27. The Roman form of serenade is to race a motorcycle motor under the girl's window, but mufflers are not common in any situation; the only things as dearly loved as a good noise are breakneck speed and eye-splitting lights, preferably neon - all expressions of well-being, like a huge belly-laugh.

Eleanor Clark

#28. Short naps are good. Given modern workplace demands, this is not possible for many people - but if you have the option, try napping for ten to twenty minutes in the afternoon, preferably lying down in a darkened room.

Andrew Weil

#29. Oh, my daughter,
at times you have to fight,
but preferably
not with your fists.

Thanhha Lai

#30. If we are serious about change, we have to dig - preferably with plenty of company and with a full appreciation of the fact that although we did not start the fire, it belongs to us now.

Allan G. Johnson

#31. Beer does not taste like itself unless it is chasing a dram of neat whisky down the gullet - preferably two drams

Compton Mackenzie

#32. Readily people do not accept any ordinary to behave like an extraordinary unless and until some extraordinary but preferably wealthy approves him to be not ordinary.

Anuj

#33. We do not belong to those who have ideas only among books, when stimulated by books. It is our habit to think outdoors - walking, leaping, climbing, dancing, preferably on lonely mountains or near the sea where even the trails become thoughtful.

Friedrich Nietzsche

#34. The reality is, it takes daily cultivation of a spiritual path, preferably with spiritual kin in proximity, to sustain not the feeling of elation, but the focused, mindful path of steady growth.

S. Kelley Harrell

#35. You may hold as many (literature) degrees as your hands (and pockets) may take, but if you have NOT read the book 'Le Grand Voyage' by Jorge Semprun, preferably in French (Yes we can! and I can't speak that language) then you ain't seen nothing yet...

Itzik Sivosh

#36. The central focus of what we are doing at the Fed is to keep inflation from accelerating - and preferably decelerating.

Alan Greenspan

#37. I'm interested in producing truncated shapes in proportion to the frame and composition, shapes that are preferably luminous. I'm not interested in the full-figure. I want to abstract forms.

Ralph Gibson

#38. What I mean by that is that the point of life, as I see it, is not to write books or scale mountains or sail oceans, but to achieve happiness, and preferably an unselfish happiness.

Bernard Cornwell

#39. The right-to-life movement and the Roman Catholic Church are saying that it is better to destroy these embryos, or preferably have them adopted - which is not going to happen - than to use them for research.

Mort Kondracke

#40. A children's writer should, ideally, be a dedicated semi-lunatic, a kind of poet with a marvelous idea, who, preferably, when not committing the marvellous idea to paper, does something else of a quite different kind, so as to acquire new and rich experience.

Joan Aiken

#41. I need to fuck you again. Preferably the second we land in London, but I'm not opposed to doing it after you get finished serving either.

Whitney G.

#42. All I wanted then was for everything to go on as before, so that I could stay deeply asleep, and be no more than a hole in space, not here or anywhere at all, for as long as possible, preferably forever.

Anna Kavan

#43. She reminded Juliet of the parrot the shopkeeper owned. Both the woman and bird belonged in cages, preferably the same cage, so the bird could poop on all that velvet and lace.

Jordan Elizabeth Mierek

#44. I've got different ideas of complete happiness. But one is being by myself out in a forest, completely happy. Another is walking with a dog in some nice place. And three is sitting around preferably a fire, but not necessarily, and drinking red wine with friends and telling stories.

Jane Goodall

#45. Bear hunting? Come on up and we'll fix you up, you betcha. Just be sure you bring some hunting buddies with you, preferably fat ones who can't run as fast as you.

Sarah Palin

#46. I stopped rowing for a moment to glug down some water, but it was warm, tasted of plastic, and failed to refresh. I yearned for an ice-cold drink - preferably one with bubbles and alcohol in it.

Roz Savage

#47. For a slim, sexy body, it's important to eat protein every day - preferably at every meal. Be sure to ask about the origins of your meat, poultry and seafood. If you can't afford organic, free-range meats, opt for natural poultry, pork, and beef that's raised without antibiotics or hormones.

Suzanne Somers

#48. He could think in italics. Such people need watching.
Preferably from a safe distance.

Terry Pratchett

#49. Law Number XLIV: Aircraft flight in the 21st century will always be in a westerly direction, preferably supersonic, crossing time zones to provide the additional hours needed to fix the broken electronics.

Norman Ralph Augustine

#50. I believe there's something very salutary in, say, beating up a gay-bashing policeman. Preferably one fights through the courts, through the laws, through education, but if at a neighborhood level violence is necessary, I'm all for violence. It's the only thing Americans understand.

Gore Vidal

#51. Life must be understood before getting old, most preferably, in youth!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

#52. Privatisation is presented as being the only alternative to an inefficient, corrupt state. In fact, it is not a choice at all ... it is a mutually profitable business contract between the private company (preferably foreign) and the ruling elite of the Third World

Arundhati Roy

#53. Take a human desire, preferably one that has been around for a really long time Identify that desire and use modern technology to take out steps.

Evan Williams

#54. Has a sense of humor. (Preferably warped.) We know who we are

Susan Scott

#55. The only real meaning in life can be found in a good man. And maybe Paris. Preferably the two together.

Marilyn Vos Savant

#56. Why the rifle? Everybody knows you can't shoot.
Who were these everybodies and would they like to stand in front of me, preferably within ten feet, so I could discuss this issue in greater detail.

Ilona Andrews

#57. Just as every girl should have a husband, preferably her own, so every culture must have its state, preferably its own.

Ernest Gellner

#58. Science is not just about seeing, it's about measuring, preferably with something that's not your own eyes, which are inextricably conjoined with the baggage of your brain. That baggage is more often than not a satchel of preconceived ideas, post-conceived notions, and outright bias.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

#59. There are three possible scenarios when it comes to your stilettos and sex: (1) You could wear your stilettos without having sex. (2) You could have sex without your stilettos on. And (3) you could have sex with your stilettos on, preferably at my house, and bring a camera.

Michael Makai

#60. He'd told her how orphaned birds would sometimes accept the most pathetic substitutes for their mothers - a pullover, a hot-water bottle, an armpit, or even a paper airplane - anything rather than nothing, but preferably something that moved.

Julia Gregson

#61. Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks.

Ed Koch

#62. Every book should begin with attractive endpapers. Preferably in a dark colour: dark red or dark blue, depending on the binding. When you open the book it's like going to the theatre. First you see the curtain. Then it's pulled aside and the show begins.

Cornelia Funke

#63. Preferably, the window should be north facing, as this will give you the most light and the most even light at any given time of day.

James Carren

#64. Knowledge is what we get when an observer, preferably a scientifically trained observer, provides us with a copy of reality that we can all recognize.

Christopher Lasch

#65. Writing a story I am just trying to find some little interesting thing to start out with: something small, even trivial. Preferably something that doesn't have a lot of thematic or political baggage - a little crumb that is interesting.

George Saunders

#66. Spying is a like a game of chess: Sometimes you have to withdraw, sometimes you have to sacrifice one of your pieces to win - preferably a knight rather than a king or queen.

John Rhys-Davies

#67. Sturmhond had a way of talking that made me want to shoot someone. Preferably him.

Leigh Bardugo

#68. The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but to exceed them - preferably in unexpected and helpful ways.

Richard Branson

#69. It is important for everyone to keep in close contact and preferably be in physical proximity with their loved ones.

Deepak Chopra

#70. Revolution is about the need to re-evolve political, economic and social justice and power back into the hands of the people, preferably through legislation and policies that make human sense. That's what revolution is about. Revolution is not about shootouts.

Bobby Seale

#71. I see God as a song-and-dance man. If I had my way, he'd be able to carry a tune, too. Preferably, one of mine.

Kevin Kline

#72. Is important that we get still to wait on God. And it is best that we get alone, preferably with our Bible outspread before us. Then if we will we may draw near to God and begin to hear Him speak to us in our hearts.

A.W. Tozer

#73. They mention that it's a nonstop flight. Well, I must say I don't care for that sort of thing. Call me old fashioned, but I insist that my flight stop. Preferably at an airport.

George Carlin

#74. She wanted to read and talk and laugh and watch television and listen to the radio. She wanted to watch the world around her go by, and make up stories in her head about everything she saw...Like a princess in a carriage, surveying her kingdom, preferably one with a magical forest.

Jami Attenberg

#75. During the meeting in Delhi with Dirac on 12 January 1955, Nehru asked him if he had any recommendations for the future of the new republic of India. After his usual reflective pause, Dirac replied: 'A common language, preferably English. Peace with Pakistan. The metric system.

Graham Farmelo

#76. Verily, I do not like them, the merciful who feel blessed in their pity: they are lacking too much in shame. If I must pity, at least I do not want it known; and if I do pity, it is preferably from a distance.

Friedrich Nietzsche

#77. Why couldn't I just meet a normal guy for a change? Preferably one that didn't love his car more than me, or one that didn't need his five-a-day in the form of blood infusions. Was that too much to ask?

Jayde Scott

#78. Lie on your back and pinch off your nose. Preferably with a diver's nose clip, but your fingers will do. Just make a point to arrange your arm in a way that minimizes its fatigue. Stick a drinking straw in your mouth and breathe. That's it.

Andy Bolton

#79. Honestly, I'm living my fantasy. It's being with my family, preferably on a snowy afternoon with a fire going, cuddled up in blankets, playing a game.

Meredith Vieira

#80. Angie: "How do I pitch these ideas to her?"
Mira: "From a distance, preferably wearing body armor.

Kristin Hannah

#81. Every American child should grow up knowing a second language, preferably English.

Mignon McLaughlin

#82. I see little hope for a peaceful world until men are excluded from the realm of foreign policy altogether and all decisions concerning international relations are reserved for women, preferably married ones.

W. H. Auden

#83. I'm never sure how to rank these things, but I will say that it has been a dream of mine ever since I was a kid to play for the Queen of England. Preferably in the throne room.

Joshua Roman

#84. Make a promise: now that you have discovered a force that you were not even aware of, tell yourself that from now on you will use this force for the rest of your days. Preferably, also promise to discover another mountain, and set off on another adventure.

Paulo Coelho

#85. The priesthood is not dying, but the clerical state is dead. It needs to be buried, preferably with a Viking funeral in Boston Harbor so nobody can miss the spectacle of its passing.

Eugene Kennedy

#86. I wanted to be a secret agent and an astronaut, preferably at the same time.

David Byrne

#87. I love you, Taylor Carmichael Corretti. I love you for better and for worse - preferably worse, by the way." His eyes glittered into hers. "I love a bad girl. Think about it - if I marry you we can spend the rest of our lives shocking people.

Sarah Morgan

#88. They looked like linebackers on a prison football team, whose idea of commincation was to smash into something at full speed, preferably another person.

John Verdon