Reluctant Quotes

#1. Although [in 1937] we might still hope to prevent the divisions of Europe into Fascist and anti-Fascist camps, our real affinities and interests, strategic as well as political, lay with France, a fact which some of my colleagues were most reluctant to realise.

Anthony Eden

#2. I am daily learning
To be the reluctant guardian of your memories
There was light in those eyes; I miss that

Richard L. Ratliff

#3. Some Kennedy aides have always insisted that Johnson misread J.F.K.'s plans for Vietnam. They say that Kennedy had begun to rethink the U.S. presence in Indochina and was reluctant to increase it.

Robert Dallek

#4. Technique to me is a kind of a ... I'm reluctant to talk about it because it seems so obvious to me what good technique is. I mean, you sit down, you shut up, and you pay attention is basically the good technique. And then the footnotes add; on an empty stomach, in a dark room, feeling comfortable.

Terence McKenna

#5. I had hoped, as a broadcaster, to be merely ludicrous, but this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate. So many people wanted to believe me! Say

Kurt Vonnegut

#6. She was reluctant at first, but when I screamed that she was ruining my life, she relented. I'd have to use that tactic more often.

J. Sterling

#7. Old men feel a slightly reluctant affection for one another.

Mason Cooley

#8. People associate feminism with hate - with man hate - and that's really negative. I don't think that's what feminism is about at all - it's really positive. I think that's why women became reluctant to use the word.

Emma Watson

#9. I'm so reluctant to do newspaper interviews because it's so misleading how they interpret what you say.

Davy Jones

#10. It's difficult to get started-when it comes to dealing with an unknown quantity, people are reluctant to trust their own opinion. It helps if two or three people give you a boost.

Lyle Lovett

#11. When I was really young, I was reluctant to be perceived as bossy, and I thought that working with an ensemble was about generating a consensus all the time. Later on, I realized that it's actually generous to know what you want and to tell people what you want - actors, crew, everyone.

Liza Johnson

#12. Strange how reluctant I was to acknowledge that control of my fate lay beyond my own conscious will. Habit of a lifetime, I suppose.

Patrick McGrath

#13. For example, Americans seem reluctant to take on Shakespeare because you don't think you're very good at it - which is rubbish. You're missing out here.

Alan Cumming

#14. Men are often reluctant to give up their wants and their agendas, when necessary, for their wives.

Tony Evans

#15. Life does not favor the fearful nor does it reward the reluctant; it embraces and elevates those willing to climb in spite of their fear and willing to try in the mocking face of failure. It gives bonus points to those who fall flat, get up and climb again.

Toni Sorenson

#16. If you know what you got and like it, be reluctant to leave it.

Johnny Hunt

#17. I have been a bit of a reluctant actress since the get-go, since the beginning of 'Lost.'

Evangeline Lilly

#18. While newborn babies don't have "habits," they don't stay newborns for long. Before you know it, your newborn becomes a baby who is accustomed to a specific routine. Babies get used to a certain pattern that becomes a very strong sleep cue, and then they are reluctant to accept change.

Elizabeth Pantley

#19. I remembered the last thing my mom ever told me. I'd been reluctant to use the fire escape, reluctant to leave her, but she'd gripped my arms and made me look at her. Magnus, run. Hide. Don't trust anyone. I'll find you. Whatever you do, don't go to Randolph for help.

Rick Riordan

#20. Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.

Plato

#21. But it's a very universal story and the thing is I was reluctant to answer that question because I don't want people latching on to a particular stereotype.

Parminder Nagra

#22. Now that it was finally here, she wasn't surprised to find herself still reluctant to start it. Reluctant to end the part of her life when this conversation hadn't happened yet. Reluctant to find out what her life would look like after it.

Chris Pavone

#23. I don't think there is a thing like overconfidence in chess. It's always better to be too confident than too reluctant.

Magnus Carlsen

#24. It's no secret that I've been reluctant to use my name for things.

Sally Ride

#25. Sometimes I felt as if we were all wading around in grief, reluctant to admit to others how far we were waving or drowning.

Jojo Moyes

#26. If you imagine that I have the smallest desire to receive your hand as a reward for having performed a difficult task to your satisfaction you're beside the bridge, my child! I've no fancy for a reluctant wife. I want your love, not your gratitude.

Georgette Heyer

#27. Everything here is a lie," Rose said. "Just because you saw it doesn't mean it really happened." Tom nodded. He was curiously reluctant to take up this hope she offered. If he reached out, it might bite his hand.

Peter Straub

#28. We are citizens who love to fake life than dig deep into our reality to discover the truth and make amends and correct our own wrongdoings, because we are reluctant to learn from our past.

Nilantha Ilangamuwa

#29. It takes years for me to trust; I know that about myself. A lot of it is because I am so private, and so reluctant to make myself vulnerable.

Michelle Pfeiffer

#30. I had made the suggestion to her more than once before; but it was an odd fact that the most difficult and hostile clients were often the most reluctant to leave, as though they wanted to stay and plague you out of spite.

C.J. Sansom

#31. What I felt that night, and what I did, I no more expected to feel and do, than to be lifted in a trance to the seventh heaven. Cold, reluctant, apprehensive, I had accepted a part to please another: ere long, warming, becoming interested, taking courage, I acted to please myself.

Charlotte Bronte

#32. I'm almost reluctant to say it because it sounds superficial, but when you lose your hair, it just affects the way that you look at yourself in the mirror. You feel less feminine, pretty or desirable, and it's not an easy thing to go through.

Joan Lunden

#33. Women have taken on traditionally masculine roles and professions, and there is no real equivalent for men. Men are still extremely reluctant, as we all are reluctant to see them, take on traditionally feminine roles or professions. That is just not something that they do easily.

Hanna Rosin

#34. One of our anxieties is de-focusing the relatively small number of engineers we have. Within our own core development, I am reluctant to fund projects that are way afield of where we are.

Howard Hughes

#35. Since the enactment of the War Powers Act in 1973, which I supported then and support now, Congress has been reluctant to assert its authority when presidents decide to send American soldiers into harm's way.

Charles B. Rangel

#36. I characterize myself a little bit as a reluctant filmmaker. I learned from watching my friend in college stay up late at night, at 2 A.M., just to get the lighting right, and I thought, 'You know what, if that's what it's going to be like, I think I'm just going to write,' and I did that.

Tananarive Due

#37. Lawyers have been known to wrest from reluctant juries triumphant verdicts of acquittal for their clients, even when those clients, as often happens, were clearly and unmistakably innocent.

Oscar Wilde

#38. One of the most memorable things I hear is when someone tells me that my books got a reluctant reader to read.

Suzanne Collins

#39. We have in past been forced into reluctant change by weather, calamity, and plague. Now the pressure comes from our biologic success as a species. We have overcome all enemies but ourselves.

John Steinbeck

#40. Though he found himself reluctant to be the direct cause of any actual killing. This wasn't Tolkien - these weren't orcs and trolls and giant spiders and whatever else, evil creatures that you were free to commit genocide on without any complicated moral ramifications.

Lev Grossman

#41. I need you to find me a recipe for poison," he snapped. "Something that can kill the varmints that riddle this town."
"Animal varmints, or the human variety?" She was so prim when she said it, earning a reluctant twist of his lips as he tried not to smile.

Elizabeth Camden

#42. I was into writing and directing. I was a bit of a reluctant actor. I would always ask friends to shoot or direct their movies, but then they'd want me to be in them.

Bill Hader

#43. Someone who is reluctant to say what he needs to say, often ends up doing so with an insolence whose crassness is proportionate tohis fear, once he gathers the necessary courage.

Franz Grillparzer

#44. There are no reluctant leaders. A real leader must really want the job ... If you find the need for a leader and have to coax or urge your selection, you'll be well advised to pass him over. He's not the man you need.

Ira C. Eaker

#45. I believe that these extra-terrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets. Most astronauts were reluctant to discuss UFOs.

Gordon Cooper

#46. He who is reluctant to recognize me opposes me.

Frantz Fanon

#47. This is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate.

Kurt Vonnegut

#48. When people follow a leader because they have to, they will do only what they have to. People don't give their best to leaders they like least. They give reluctant compliance, not commitment. They may give their hands but certainly not their heads or hearts.

John C. Maxwell

#49. They were also deeply desired, and no woman without a chaperone was safe from male advances. They were prudish and reluctant to discuss sex, but they had a lot of it and reported great satisfaction.

Lily King

#50. I was a tremendous fan of the original Kenneth Grahame short story, 'The Reluctant Dragon.'

Tony DiTerlizzi

#51. I'm definitely a bit of Peter Pan, reluctant to grow up ... part of me would prefer not to have any responsibility whatsoever.

Helena Bonham Carter

#52. What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

Don DeLillo

#53. My dear People, began Bilbo, rising in his place. 'Hear! Hear! Hear!' they shouted, and kept on repeating it in chorus, seeming reluctant to follow their own advice.

J.R.R. Tolkien

#54. Why should the sons and daughters of God be reluctant to pray, when prayer is the key in the hand of faith to unlock heaven's storehouse, where are treasured the boundless resources of Omnipotence.

Ellen G. White

#55. Without sulfites, wine may smell and taste funky or re-ferment in the bottle. Many distributors and shop owners are consequently reluctant to stock wines made without sulfites.

Roger Morris

#56. I think humanitarian organizations should acknowledge the progress more than they do. I think that one reason people are reluctant to provide more help to Africa, for example, is this sense that it's just hopeless, in a way that I think is untrue.

Nicholas Kristof

#57. If employees feel you don't trust them to do their jobs correctly and well, they'll be reluctant to do much without your approval. On the other hand, when they feel trusted, that you believe they'll do the right things well, they'll naturally want to do things well and be deserving of your trust.

Mac Anderson

#58. I think I write for reluctant readers. Of course I want everyone to enjoy my books, but if the kids in the back row who normally don't pick up a book are engaged with what I'm writing, along with the kids who are big readers anyway, then I really feel like I've done my job.

Rick Riordan

#59. You have no idea how many doors closed on me and how many adults were either initially reluctant to take a chance working with me or who outright laughed at me behind my back.

Kendall Jenner

#60. And Lydia herself - the reluctant center of their universe - every day, she held the world together. She absorbed her parents' dreams, quieting the reluctance that bubbled up within.

Celeste Ng

#61. Soon we will be strangers. No, we can never be that. Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy. We will be dangerous acquaintances with a history.

Hanif Kureishi

#62. My reluctant charity shames both me and the recipient.

Mason Cooley

#63. Ever met a sympathetic doctor? No ways. They're always impatient, glancing at the watch, calculating the price of your sickness against the price of another pair of shoes for the bitch wife with the reluctant cunt.

Ian Martin

#64. I really hate it when you're right," she said with a reluctant smile.
He touched the side of her face. "You were a match for me. I was always right about that.

Elizabeth Camden

#65. The best criticism is the sort that tells you what you already know but had been reluctant to accuse yourself of.

J. D. McClatchy

#66. Palestinians don't really believe in a state of Israel. They, unlike a majority of Israelis, who have come to the conclusion that they can live with a two-state solution to be determined by the parties, the majority of Palestinians are still very reluctant, and they need to be pushed to get there.

Chuck Schumer

#67. Ever since, Kovai had been a trusted companion in her life who brought frolic, magic and romance to her formative years; a silent witness to her tales of joy and sorrow who was never reluctant to offer a shoulder to cry.

Neetha Joseph

#68. Christmas is forced upon a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press; on its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred.

George Bernard Shaw

#69. Hunger was shred into atomics in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil.

Charles Dickens

#70. Everybody looked at Sully suspiciously. A rumor that he had burned up in the blaze had been circulating, and people had quickly adjusted to the idea of profound human tragedy. They were reluctant to give it up, Sully could tell. He smiled apologetically at the crowd.

Richard Russo

#71. I didn't really want to die; I just wasn't ready to live. I was merely surviving ... one reluctant heartbeat at a time.

Wendi Cassel

#72. As a writer, you should care about reluctant readers. You want these kids to feel like books are amazing and cool and that they're an escape.

Paolo Bacigalupi

#73. If you are terrified of making mistakes, you will be reluctant to acknowledge them when you do make them-and therefore you will not correct them.

Nathaniel Branden

#74. The turnip is a capricious vegetable, which seems reluctant to show itself at its best.

Waverley Root

#75. As far as innovation goes, I can tell you that Korean students are reluctant to step out of line. If I ask questions, nobody raises their hands - not because they don't know the answers, but because they don't want to step out of line.

Dan Shechtman

#76. Don't be reluctant to give of yourself generously, it's the mark of caring and compassion and personal greatness.

Brian Tracy

#77. The reason why the medical community is reluctant to talk about it is because there's such a huge business in pharmaceuticals.

Jenny McCarthy

#78. Beginning a new habit, or ending an old one can feel like letting go of a rope that swings a mile above the ground. So we feel reluctant to let go, after all, we've survived so far doing what we've done, why risk it.

Philippa Perry

#79. I was afraid of the pain of dying and terribly reluctant to leave the world behind because I liked life a lot, even if it had been pretty tough sometimes.

Alexander Dolgun

#80. Inertia is comforting, and Americans will be extremely reluctant to make any change that might affect their high standard of living.

Deepak Chopra

#81. Everyone in daily life carries such a heavy mixed burden on his own conscience that he is reluctant to penalize those who have been caught.

Brooks Atkinson

#82. So you're reluctant, I said to myself. Many, many people are reluctant. It's like having feet. It's nothing to brag about.

Lemony Snicket

#83. Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant.

Seneca.

#84. The greatest leaders are reluctant ones who lead because they realize that no one else seems willing to step up.

Orrin Woodward

#85. When your boss assigns you a project, take good notes and ask questions regarding anything you're not sure about. Over the years, I've noticed that junior staffers are often reluctant to ask too many questions about a project - perhaps

Kate White

#86. There is something in the quality of the French mind to which I have always felt a reluctant kinship. They are the only people I know who can leap into an enormous vocabulary of words and beat them up with the wings of their spirit into a fine hysterical eloquence.

Corra May Harris

#87. Except for two or three older writers, all modern literature seems to me not literature but some sort of handicraft, which exists only so as to be encouraged, though one is reluctant to use its products.

Anton Chekhov

#88. I am not a reluctant peer but a persistent commoner

Tony Benn

#89. If you want to be a leader whom people follow with absolute conviction, you have to be a likable leader. Tyrants and curmudgeons with brilliant vision can command a reluctant following for a time, but it never lasts. They burn people out before they ever get to see what anyone is truly capable of.

Travis Bradberry

#90. The staircase was deserted - the higher up the building the more reluctant were the residents to use the stairs, as if this in some way demeaned them.

J.G. Ballard

#91. During the say the traces of summer , reluctant to depart, still set the sand afire, and their bare feet could not stand it for more than five minutes at a time. But when the sun set, the crack-ridden walls of the room let in the cold night damp.

Kobo Abe

#92. O mortals, how long will you be heavy-hearted? Life has come down to you, and are you reluctant to ascend and live? But what room is there for you to ascend, you with your high-flown ways and lofty talk? Come down, that you may ascend, ascend even to God ...

Augustine Of Hippo

#93. I'm a very reluctant frontman. I've seen reviews where they talk about my strong presence on stage, but it's nothing I do. It's like the person in a long grocery line who stands out because he's so agitated. He'll have presence, too.

Al Jourgensen

#94. I was always a bit reluctant with anything like fame and the limelight and it didn't sit very well with me, although I love singing and writing.

Alex Parks

#95. One cannot at least withhold a reluctant admiration for the wit that had conceived so bold a scheme, and the fell genius with which it was carried out.

J.M. Barrie

#96. Advertising ... is a parasitic activity; it forces goods for which there is no real need or demand on a foolish or even a reluctant public, always by appealing to their lower instincts.

Ann Bridge

#97. Well, you know, I'm quite a reluctant writer. I'm not someone who set out to be a writer or really wanted to be.

Jennifer Westfeldt

#98. My parents were extremely reluctant. When my father was clearly dying, my mother refused to acknowledge it.

Roz Chast

#99. The winter seemed reluctant to let go its bite. It hung on cold and wet and windy long after its time. And people repeated, It's those damned big guns they're shooting off in France
spoiling the weather in the whole world.

John Steinbeck

#100. The wizard stirs, opens his eyes, and looks at the reluctant boy. "Oh, you'll get your heart broken," he says. "Is that what you're waiting to hear? It'll be broken, all right. But you'll never get anything done if you walk around with an unchipped heart. That's the way of it, boy.

Peter Straub