Top 100 Set Off Quotes
#1. The anxiety was like poison ivy. It took nothing to set off that mental itch-a chance remark, remembering an event from the day before-but once it started I found it impossible to stop the cycle. My thoughts twisted in a circle, my pulse hammered, I couldn't concentrate.
Tracy Thompson
#2. Master Salamon usually set off a little later as neither he nor other male members of their community were in the habit of walking on the road alongside their wives.
Swarnakanthi Rajapakse
#3. Leave everything. Leave Dada. Leave your wife. Leave your mistress. Leave your hopes and fears. Leave your children in the woods. Leave the substance for the shadow. Leave your easy life, leave what you are given for the future. Set off on the roads.
Andre Breton
#4. You can set off bells when you walk out of a drugstore or department store with a tagged item.
Frank Murkowski
#5. If you're from Dublin, for example, chances are you live with your family, if you're lucky enough to, right up to the mid-20s. And most of the people I know, when they finally sort of set off on their own, they don't stray all that far.
Roddy Doyle
#6. Like most markets, Da Jing is most alive just after dawn, when the elementary-school children in their uniforms and bright red kerchiefs set off through narrow streets, marking the start of another frenzied day of commerce.
Evan Osnos
#7. The moment we set off in search of love, it sets off in search of us. And saves us.
Paulo Coelho
#8. We talk about your drinking
But not about your thirst
You set off through the minefield
Like you were rounding first
Rosanne Cash
#9. Or future, experiencing the music with her, that unexpected prayer, and feeling grateful that I had set off in search of my kingdom. I lay down on the bed, and she continued to play. I fell asleep to the sound of her violin. I WOKE AT FIRST LIGHT, went to her room, and saw
Paulo Coelho
#10. When they set off for their first day at their new school, I will never forget that winter morning as I watched our girls, just 7 and 10 years old, pile into those black SUVs with all those big men with guns.
Michelle Obama
#11. The ceilings had set off a ghostly echo, giving all that desperate hilarity the quality of a memory even as I sat listening to it, memories of things I'd never known.
Donna Tartt
#12. We broke camp together and set off in our opposite directions: we of the XIIth and our allies marched east, towards the rising sun, combat and honour; the IVth went west, to the setting sun, to ignominy and a wealth of digging. We sang as we marched. They did not.
M.C. Scott
#13. You don't set off in life to be mediocre. At least, I don't.
Willie Robertson
#14. I can be surfing the exact same wave and then sometimes something will just set off, even if I'm riding the same board the whole time. Something will just set off and it just feels like you can push just that extra bit harder.
Mick Fanning
#15. I, along with our fourteen soldiers, set off into the urban wilderness of Baghdad. We had six humvees, lots of ammunition, over a million dollars worth of equipment, and no idea what the fuck we were going to do with it all.
Brandon Friedman
#16. The partnership is part of a flourishing industry that pairs plaintiffs' lawyers with state attorneys general to sue companies, a collaboration that has set off a furious competition between trial lawyers and corporate lobbyists to influence these officials.
Anonymous
#17. Tom said, "You should go. You could use a friend." It was not anything I had not thought myself. Still, hearing it aloud made me feel pitiable, and I had no wish to be, and so I...set off for a luncheon I did not much want to attend." p 233
Cathy Marie Buchanan
#18. I took to it very quickly. I'm very imaginative anyway, and it just set off that part of my brain. It made me focus in on the actors a lot more. I didn't have the distraction of looking at my surroundings.
Dennis Haysbert
#19. Anxiety was an irrational beast. You could go through hell and back, and yet the most seemingly innocuous thing could set off a flurry of panic.
Dannika Dark
#20. As you set off into the world, don't be afraid to question your leaders. But don't ask too many questions at one time or that are too hard because your leaders get tired and/or cranky.
Will Ferrell
#21. Sometimes we set off down a road thinkin' we're goin' one place and we end up another. But that's okay. The important thing is to start.
Ruta Sepetys
#22. Turning away, I stared at the long road winding off ahead of me.
I sighed. This trip might take awhile.
"Then start walking, Rose," I muttered to myself.
I set off, off to kill the man I loved.
Richelle Mead
#23. On the first day Coraline's family moved in, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible made a point of telling Coraline how dangerous the well was, and they warned her to be sure she kept away from it. So Coraline set off to explore for it, so that she knew where it was, to keep away from it properly.
Neil Gaiman
#25. The mare set off for home with the speed of a swallow, and going as smoothly and silently. I never had dreamed of such a motion, fluent and graceful, and ambient, soft as the breeze flitting over the flowers, but swift as the summer lightening.
Richard Blackmore
#26. Elephants in all the worlds zoos
in old age yearn
until one morning
they say
we will set off on a journey
carrying hidden the pain that will never return
to the places where we were happy
Mario Payeras
#27. It doesn't set off any alarm bells. As is typical with T. Rowe, no transition comes about abruptly; they tend to be planned pretty well.
Bill Vaughan
#28. Our whole wedding cost 180 bucks. Afterward, we re-heated lasagna for everyone and set off fireworks.
Larry The Cable Guy
#29. Early morning: set off at dawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a day's march on him. Keep it up for ever never grow a day older technically.
James Joyce
#30. Something mysterious happens to a curious, fully engaged mind - and it happens as often as not, subconsciously. Strange little sparks are set off, connections made, insights triggered
Tom Peters
#31. In the beginning, Orion was not considered to be a hunter but as the heretic cult grew, its adherent dared to war the upper heavens and were set off on a quest for hunting the lion (i.e., Sphinx) in its own dwelling. This is literally what 'Orion' the word means, the 'dwelling of the lion'.
Ibrahim Ibrahim
#32. When the novice photographer starts taking pictures, he carries his camera about and shoots everything that interests him. There comes a time when he must crystallize his ideas and set off in an particular direction. He must learn that shooting for the sake of shooting is dull and unprofitable.
Alexey Brodovitch
#33. What draws me in is that a trip is a leap in the dark. It's like a metaphor for life. You set off from home, and in the classic travel book, you go to an unknown place. You discover a different world, and you discover yourself.
Paul Theroux
#34. It is of course dangerous to set off an explosive device on a spacecraft.
Andy Weir
#35. They set off on the perfectly straight ley line, Ronan's gaze still directed up to his plane and to Chainsaw, a white bird and a black bird against the azure ceiling of the world.
Maggie Stiefvater
#36. The more powerful the obstacle, the more glory we have in overcoming it; and the difficulties with which we are met are the maids of honor which set off virtue.
Moliere
#37. Whether it is an attempt to bomb the New York City subway system, an attempt to bring down an airplane over Detroit, an attempt to set off a bomb in Times Square ... I think that gives us a sense of the breadth of the challenges that we face, and the kinds of things that our enemy is trying to do.
Eric Holder
#38. In 1945, there were more people killed, more buildings destroyed, more high explosives set off, more fires burning than before or since.
Stephen Ambrose
#39. Ordering and taking delivery on the supplies and other things they needed took ingenuity and finesse, but both were Win's specialty. Contraband that would set off an alarm if ordered from unauthorized sources would simply be "misdelivered" to the SD where he would pick it up after-hours.
Marcha A. Fox
#40. They set off. Marianne had at first the advantage, but a false step brought her suddenly to the ground; and Margaret, unable to stop herself to assist her, was involuntarily hurried along, and reached the bottom in safety.
Jane Austen
#41. If he waits for the ideal moment, he will never set off; he requires a touch of madness to take the next step. The warrior uses that touch of madness. For - in both love and war - it is impossible to foresee everything.
Paulo Coelho
#42. Things that are different, things that don't fit into our own typical surroundings, do tend to set off some sort of subliminal trigger in most people. Your pulse beats faster, you become more aware of your environment, more in touch with your fight-or-flight response.
Rysa Walker
#43. I was always the kid at school who thought it was a good idea to set off the fire alarm. And much as I'm aware that that's a trait which also propels other things which are good, I wish I could just pause and go, 'Is this really what you want to do?'
James Corden
#44. Heath Ledger was on the little glowing screen in front of me in his nurse's uniform, smoky eyes, and smeared lipstick, smirking as he set off bombs and burned the hospital down.
Cat Marnell
#45. Kugel set off, the wind in what would have been, some years ago, his hair.
Shalom Auslander
#46. Jury verdicts, basketball games, and even music are enough to set off black rage, it seems,
Ron Paul
#47. I studied the short story as part of my creative writing course at university but then set off as a novelist. Generally, there is a sense that even if you want to write short stories, you need to do a novel first.
Sarah Hall
#48. We're a dying race," said Kwartz sadly, as the party set off under the stars. "Young Jasper's the only pebble in our tribe. We suffer from philosophy, you know.
Terry Pratchett
#49. We set off walking backwards, thumbs out, trying to hitchhike to the postoperative breast augmentation appointment, perhaps a first in the state of Iowa.
Ann Patchett
#50. His appreciative gaze set off an internal chain reaction--erratic heartbeat, rush of heat--like all her cells collectively blushed, sighed, and propped their chins in their hands to stare. Well, if cells had chins and hands.
Angela Quarles
#51. Bryson says that "we tend to regard other people's languages as we regard their cultures - with ill-hidden disdain." Too true. Unfortunately, Bryson proves himself right with a series of stories that should have set off his own too-bizarre-to-be-true detector.
Robert Lane Greene
#52. Alone also with the horizon. The waves come from the invisible East, patiently, one by one; they reach us, and then, patiently, set off again for the unknown West, one by one. A long voyage, with no beginning and no end ...
Albert Camus
#53. I was twelve years of age when I chopped off my hair, dressed as a boy, and set off to save my family from impending ruin.
I made it almost to the end of my front garden.
Stephanie Burgis
#54. It is not proven that Elizabeth's person equilibrium was set off balance by the slant of the office floor, nor could it be proven that it was Elizabeth who pushed the building off its foundations, but it is undeniable that they began to slip at about the same time.
Shirley Jackson
#55. A lot of people don't have fond memories of high school. It's often a war of politics and personalities, set off by the cannon fire of hormones.
Nora Roberts
#56. I hope I'm still alive to see an expedition set off for Mars.
James Gunn
#57. By the care she lavishes on her toilet, by the concern she has for her beauty set off by her adornment, a woman regards herself as an object always trying to attract men's attention.
Georges Bataille
#58. I drove to Oxford with my van full of petrol and tin cans, as I didn't know there were service stations on the motorway. I pulled up on the hard shoulder and got my cans out. Then I filled up and set off again. That's how naive I was - so much not a cosmopolitan girl.
Jeanette Winterson
#59. Vimes struggled to his feet, shook his head and set off after it. No thought was involved. It is the ancient instinct of terriers and policemen to chase anything that runs away.
Terry Pratchett
#60. In the days when I set off on month-long bicycle trips across France, my greatest pleasure was to stop in country cemeteries, to stretch out between two graves, and to smoke for hours on end. I think of those days as the most active period of my life.
Emil Cioran
#61. He hurried to car and set off home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination.
J.K. Rowling
#62. The afternoon our story begins, the quiet parts of being alive were the busiest: wind unlocking Windows; rainlight nudging curtains apart; fresh-cut grass tickling unsocked feet. Days like this made Alice want to set off on a great adventure.
Tahereh Mafi
#63. Green trees against the sky in the spring rain while the sky set off the spring trees in the obscuration. Red flowers dot the land in the breeze's chase while the land colored up in red after the kiss.
Gayle Forman
#64. Stability and a prosperous life cannot be set off against a set of political rights and freedoms.
Dmitry Medvedev
#65. But the apples must have set off enough mines, causing debris to activate the others.
Suzanne Collins
#66. The Anarchists set off World War I with a gunshot in Sarajevo - but they faded away. It wasn't that the police drove them out of business. The ideology had nowhere to go except into permanent negativity.
Pete Hamill
#67. An agreeable manner may set off handsome features, but can never alter plain ones.
Jane Austen
#68. Young people are inept at love; it is like being given a flying machine, and you leap inside, ready to set off as you've always dreamed, yet you don't have the first notion of how to make it start, much less how to make it move.
Andrew Sean Greer
#69. It seems to me now that what I wanted when I set off for Europe was not so much adventure as deliverance.
Jan Ellison
#70. Was at a good point, even though I hadn't even started it. Then I set off
Elena Ferrante
#71. Your brothers have set off a stink bomb in the second-floor boys' lavatory,
James Patterson
#72. No one knows the fear in a front runner's mind more than me. When you set off at a cracking pace for four or five laps and find that your main rivals are still breathing down your neck, that's when you start to panic.
Ron Clarke
#73. Snow Patrol blaring in my ears, I set off into the opal and aquamarine dusk.
E.L. James
#74. Speaking of jeans, good Lord, the man's ass was a bona fide work of art. As he strode toward the nearby counter to place his order, his work boots not making a single sound, those tight buns set off a choir of rejoicing angels in her head.
Tessa Bailey
#75. We finally figured out that when you set off a nuke in space, that's when the EMP effect really kicks in, as the energy burst hits the upper atmosphere. It becomes like a pebble triggering an avalanche, the electrical disturbances magnifying. It's in the report. It's called the 'Compton Effect.
William R. Forstchen
#76. It was still only nine o'clock when I set off on the last leg of my journey, feeling old and dirty and incapable. You probably know the feeling if you are over eighteen.
Kyril Bonfiglioli
#77. Sighing heavily, for he disliked violence generally and murder in particular, Cabal set off to commit violent murder.
Jonathan L. Howard
#78. Of course, violence will not end with our combat mission. Extremists will continue to set off bombs, attack Iraqi civilians and try to spark sectarian strife. But ultimately, these terrorists will fail to achieve their goals.
Barack Obama
#79. The Republicans finally got some good news over the weekend. The North Koreans set off a nuclear bomb. Thank God. It was so powerful it knocked the Mark Foley story right off the front page. And knocked him off the page he was on, too.
Jay Leno
#80. I can never look now at the Milky Way without wondering from which of those banked clouds of stars the emissaries are coming. If you will pardon so commonplace a simile, we have set off the fire alarm and have nothing to do but to wait. I do not think we will have to wait for long.
Arthur C. Clarke
#81. I have a love for astronomy; Aruna, my wife, and I love travelling, so whenever we get an opportunity, we set off to explore places that have tickled our interest. We are also wildlife enthusiasts.
Viswanathan Anand
#82. Once he'd been set off inside, it mattered so much that he was somehow afraid to show how much it mattered.
David Foster Wallace
#83. A creative train of thought is set off by: the unexpected, the unknown, the accidental, the disorderly, the absurd, the impossible.
Asger Jorn
#84. I preferred to set off and perish in search of my own kind than to live a lonely half-life of physical comfort and spiritual death on this murderous island.
Yann Martel
#85. There is rap music in all my films. In 'La Vie des Morts,' there is rap music too. It's because I'm French, and when it appeared in 1978, it was so new, it set off my musical imagination.
Arnaud Desplechin
#86. Just what does a virgin wife have to do to get debauched? Teena really wanted to know. Offering herself hadn't worked. Telling her husband he would be her one and only seemed to set off a state of panic. Would she have to tie Dmitri down and have her way with him?
Eve Langlais
#87. I write in praise of the solitary act: of not feeling a trespassing tongue forced into one's mouth, one's breath smothered, nipples crushed against the ribcage, and that metallic tingling in the chin set off by a certain odd nerve: unpleasure.
Fleur Adcock
#88. The track's all yours. We won't get in your way: by then we will have set off chasing ourselves rather than you.
Wislawa Szymborska
#89. The Selfish Gene - he set off decades of debate by declaring: We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.
James Gleick
#90. 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
#91. Socrates worked towards making people question themselves. He like to provoke self-interrogation but wasn't particularly interested in the answers that emerged; he just like to set off the thought process.
Eric Cantona
#93. Mary could never spare time; but the remaining five set off together.
Jane Austen
#94. Caleb scowled into the darkness.
"Hate sneaking around," he complained. "Wish I could just blow the place up."
Then, with nothing else to declare, he set off again and Franz and Jimmy had to scramble to keep up.
Jack Lewis Baillot
#95. Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman came to see our show, We all had a drink before they set off on their travels, and we kept in touch.
Kelly Jones
#96. I have crazy eyebrows, so it's crucial to tame them. Just like your hair, they set off your features.
Natalie Morales
#97. Attentive reading of God's Word will set you up for frequent Holy Spirit warnings as He uses Scripture to set off alarms of danger in your life. As you grow spiritually, you may discover direct "prompts" God's Spirit gives, but they will always be in harmony with what God says in His Word.
James MacDonald
#98. You can never predict what little things in the way somebody looks or talks or acts will set off peculiar emotional reactions in other people.
Andy Warhol
#99. In computers, every 'new explosion' was set off by a software product that allowed users to program differently.
Alan Kay
#100. We set off towards the square, where a knot of old folks hovered around the local pigeon community, their lives reduced to a ritual of spreading crumbs and waiting.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon
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