Top 100 The Fly Quotes
#1. If you acknowledge that filming is an occasion where people express things they might not otherwise express, that offers a much more insightful analysis of why documentaries - even of the fly-on-the-wall variety - are powerful.
Joshua Oppenheimer
#2. I'd studied English since the first grade but considered it a murky language, one whose grammar seemed to have been made up on the fly
Sara Novic
#4. 30. Insects
The fly should have been included in my list of hateful things; for such an odious creature does not belong with ordinary insects ...
Sei Shonagon
#5. I always believed 'The Fly' to be a classic opera story. It's a tale of love and death, true love surviving in the face of physical decay and ultimate sacrifice.
Howard Shore
#6. All us Youngs could throw. I used to kill squirrels with a stone when I was a kid, and my granddad once killed a turkey buzzard on the fly with a rock.
Cy Young
#7. Some of our jokes we made up on the fly. I love Lecrae; we have been friends for a while and he is just one of my favorite people.
Bart Millard
#8. The Baby said, 'Wanty go walky'; and the fly stopped with a last rattle and jolt.
E. Nesbit
#9. Gifts are like fish-hooks; for who is not aware that the greedy char is deceived by the fly which he swallows?
Martial
#10. Nothing is made in vain, but the fly came near it.
Mark Twain
#11. For me, fishing and journalism touched the same places in my head. In comparison with that of poets, the fly fishers' and the journalists' experiences are probably pale flavors, but they carry nonetheless a hint of ambrosia.
Howell Raines
#12. I've learned a lot on the fly, and I think, actually, my academic and management consulting background has enabled me to quickly pick up on a lot of disciplines.
Jorgen Vig Knudstorp
#13. If the book is second-hand, I leave all its markings intact, the spoor of previous readers, fellow-travellers who have recorded their passage by means of scribbled comments, a name on the fly-leaf, a bus ticket to mark a certain page.
Alberto Manguel
#14. I don't know about you, but I find it exhilarating to see how vague psychological notions evaporate and give rise to a physical, mechanistic understanding of the mind, even if it's the mind of the fly.
Gero Miesenbock
#15. When I give a lot of speeches, they're always on the fly. I mean, I know what I'm going to say roughly, but I do not - will not read.
Vince Flynn
#16. The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of a zipper on the fly of God Almighty.
Kurt Vonnegut
#17. Rachel knew what she was doing. And when she didn't, she could improvise on the fly, coming up with options that left a lot of collateral damage but usually only hurt herself, not the people around her. It was one of the things he would never admit that he admired about her.
Kim Harrison
#19. Wealth is an engine that can be used for power, if you are an engineer; but to be tied to the fly wheel of an engine is rather a misfortune.
Elbert Hubbard
#20. Will you walk into my parlour? said the Spider to the Fly
Mary Howitt
#21. So to every man, soon or late, comes envy of the fly, with all the long joys of summer before it.
Samuel Beckett
#22. Defense is on the fly, it's reactive; you have to react to the offense. I have to prevent someone from doing something when they want to do it.
Charles Tillman
#23. The key to hitting for high average is to relax, concentrate, and don't hit the fly ball to center field.
Stan Musial
#24. I'll not hurt thee, says Uncle Toby, rising with the fly in his hand. Go, he says, opening the window to let it escape. Why should I hurt thee? This world is surely wide enough to hold both thee and me.
Laurence Sterne
#26. And where the deepest current crawls/ Like thistledown the dainty fly falls./ Then from the depths a silver gleam/ Quick flashes, like a jewel bright./ Up through the waters of the stream/ An instant visible to sight/ As lightning cleaves to sombre sky/ A rainbow rises to the fly.
John Buchan
#27. The fly that touches honey cannot use it's wings; so too the soul that clings to spiritual sweetness ruins it's freedom and hinders contemplation.
Sri Aurobindo
#28. It is assumed that the woman must wait, motionless, until she is wooed. That is how the spider waits for the fly.
George Bernard Shaw
#29. The fly lands on the swatter.
The movie runs backwards
and catches fire in the projector.
This species apes us well
by talking only about itself
Billy Collins
#30. He (Bill Terry) once hit a ball between my legs so hard that my center-fielder caught it on the fly backing up against the wall.
Dizzy Dean
#31. I love working on the fly when the writers come up with new jokes on show nights. It's exciting. I love it so much.
Allison Janney
#32. The immune system constantly creates genes on the fly that are specific to the things that show up in the body. It's amazing.
Erez Lieberman Aiden
#33. For those that love the world serve it in action, Grow rich, popular, and full of influence; And should they paint or write still is it action, The struggle of the fly in marmalade.
William Butler Yeats
#34. I found being able to change things on the fly and react to the changes in the artwork makes it stronger. And I feel like I'm not doing the job twice.
David Finch
#35. Sure, you're an intelligent and highly capable individual, and you are learning a lot on the fly as you build your company. But you also need to come to terms with the fact that there are things you have chosen not to be an expert in.
Kathryn Minshew
#36. The cows shorten the grass, and the chickens eat the fly larvae and sanitize the pastures. This is a symbiotic relation.
Joel Salatin
#37. Through shallow intellect, the mind becomes shallow, and one eats the fly, along with the sweets.
Guru Nanak
#38. The fly ought to be used as the symbol of impertinence and audacity; for whilst all other animals shun man more than anything else, and run away even before he comes near them, the fly lights upon his very nose.
Arthur Schopenhauer
#39. To frame the little animal, provide All the gay hues that wait on female pride: Let Nature guide thee; sometimes golden wire The shining bellies of the fly require; The peacock's plumes thy tackle must not fail, Nor the dear purchase of the sable's tail.
John Gay
#40. I studied to be an architect. And I find tremendous similarities between building a company and the design process. Businesses have to do their planning on the fly in a fashion similar to an architect sketching.
John Katzman
#41. I learned what I could do with my voice on stages and because of the people that I was around. It wasn't me sitting in a room by myself. I didn't know what I was doing. I was figuring it out on the fly.
Mike Patton
#42. The fly was on my desk, his hose in the candy dust. I cupped my hand and covered him, then brushed him past the edge to see where he'd go. He returned to the dust, as if I hadn't just demonstrated that I could kill him, as if I hadn't just shown him right there in the dust.
Adam Levin
#43. The fly angler who says they have never, ever fallen while wading , is either a pathogenic liar, or has never been fly-fishing.
Jimmy Moore
#44. The fly in her argument is that when she says, 'they' will feel like lemons, we don't know who 'they' are. And 'they' might BE lemons.
Louise Rennison
#45. What distinguishes a great mnemonist, I learned, is the ability to create lavish images on the fly, to paint in the mind a scene so unlike any other it cannot be forgotten. And to do it quickly. Many competitive mnemonists argue that their skills are less a feat of memory than of creativity.
Joshua Foer
#46. systematically looking at each of the fly-covered tattoos on one of the walls.
Bobby Adair
#47. His memory is perfectly clear
and serves no good, no purpose
at all. He has seen things before
(the fly in the bottle,
the indeterminate will).
Santa Muerte, Saint Death,
we pray to you to swallow our breath.
Michael Palmer
#48. Whole batteries of genes are turned on and off during fly development, and this
pattern of gene activity serves to demarcate the different regions of the fly.
Neil Shubin
#49. But his very best questions always popped out of his mind, unprepared, never having been written down in advance because they were the angle he picked up on the fly, as he heard an answer to a lesser question. Those creative questions were the art. It is what, in my mind, made his querying great.
Philip A. Fisher
#50. With the evolution of online retail, however, has come the revelation that being able to recategorize and rearrange products on the fly unlocks their real value.
Chris Anderson
#51. The fly runs toward the fire or lamp, thinking that it is a flower, and gets burnt up. Even so, the passionate man runs towards a false beautiful form, thinking that he can obtain real happiness, and gets burnt up in the fire of lust.
Bill Vaughan
#52. The fly sat upon the axel-tree of the chariot-wheel and said, What a dust do I raise!
Aesop
#53. The fly that prefers sweetness to a long life may drown in honey.
George Santayana
#54. Yeah. I'm the fly in the soup. I don't like it any better than you do. Flies don't like being swamped in soup, especially when it's hot.
Rex Stout
#55. I remember the good evenings I have fished, even the ones that realised material hopes not by the fish that came to the fly, but by the colour and movement of the water and sky, by the sounds and scents and gentle stirrings that were all about me.
Roderick Haig-Brown
#56. Nothing great or new can be done without enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the fly-wheel which carries your saw through the knots in the log.
Harvey Cushing
#57. The difficult art I was attempting had, indeed a powerful fascination, before which the past faded, the future receded, and the whole of experience narrowed down to this stretch of glancing, glimmering water, and the fly I was trying to cast across it.
Mary Stewart
#58. I did a whole concert in Atlanta with my fly open, and I had a black suit on and a white shirt. My white shirt was protruding from the fly.
Al Green
#59. Writers like to write, and writing in different forms - short, long, bite-sized, done on the fly, done with painstaking attention - all interest me.
Susan Orlean
#60. Fraa Jad took the garment from me and discovered how the fly worked. "Topology is destiny," he said, and put the drawers on.
Neal Stephenson
#61. I felt it was my duty to praise all of God's works with fervent enthusiasm. At the same time I killed flies in my house in a spirit of hatred, exasperation and contempt. My praise to God for all his works was dishonest, the act of killing the fly was honest.
Mark Twain
#62. Man may escape from rope and gun; Nay, some have outlived the doctor's pill: Who takes a woman must be undone, That basilisk is sure to kill. The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets, So he that tastes woman, woman, woman, He that tastes woman, ruin meets.
John Gay
#63. Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.
Charles Addams
#64. For this form of fishing (with a wet fly), the rod is no longer a shooting machine but a receiving post, with super-sensitive antennae, capable of registering immediately the slightest reaction of the fish to the fly.
Charles Ritz
#65. Actors come in, and they have their own take on things, and you have to adjust on the fly to make sure everything still works structurally and dramatically.
John Requa
#66. The fly-by-nights don't want to spend any time with you.
Robert Manning
#67. And now dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly flattering words, I pray you ne'er give heed:
Unto an evil counsellor, close heart and ear and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale, of the Spider and the Fly.
Mary Howitt
#68. 'Scalped' No. 1 was only the third comic script I'd ever written. I really learned a lot about writing on the fly with that series.
Jason Aaron
#69. Speaking of which, about assuming you had a condom - I just meant that you, with your experience, would be prepared for responsible sex, even if it were on the fly. An intelligent man is prepared for spontaneity.
Roberta Pearce
#70. The good Lord didn't create anything without a purpose, but the fly comes close.
Mark Twain
#71. Man steps on an ant when he can't catch the fly.
Bill Gaede
#72. Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears all the rappers, they're doing my dances and they're making billions doing my dances. When they do that little thing they do with their hands that's The Fly and The Pony.
Chubby Checker
#73. You ended up hurting as well. That's pretty obvious." She leaned over and ruffled his hair. "Sucks when the spider falls for the fly.
Belinda McBride
#74. For me, growing up in hip-hop culture, it's all about having the next style, the new fashion, the new way to express yourself, the fly new beat. I can't sit still; I have no nostalgia. I don't have to have nostalgia.
El-P
#75. I had a dream about you. You were an escalator, and I was a flight of stairs. You thought I was a Luddite, and I thought I was as ostrich, because I hadn't figured out how to put the fly in flight. One day you broke down, and then you saw that you and I weren't so different after all.
Dora J. Arod
#76. New applications will have to deal with big data. We have to analyze it on the fly, so we have to have a system that is transactional and analytical at the same time. We cannot have a multi-stage system. This is too slow for modern applications.
Hasso Plattner
#77. Woe to the deer who is courted by the charismatic wolf, or to the fly who is not immune to the sweet, sultry songs of the spider.
Nenia Campbell
#78. Don't kill! ...
The fly is asking you
To save his life
By rubbing his hands together
Kobayashi Issa
#79. Being a fan of comedy, it's so unique, in their own voice. I was really stoked to be able to participate. They're so great at just coming up with stuff on the fly and making stuff funny.
Justin Theroux
#80. Our flesh shrinks from what it dreads and responds to the stimulus of what it desires by a purely reflex action of the nervous system. Our eyelid closes before we are aware that the fly is about to enter our eye.
James Joyce
#81. Exasperated, Dee began, "Molly-" "I'm not hearing you. I can't hear you. Can you hear anything, Del?" "Only some whining. I thought it was a mozzie. If it keeps going, I'm getting the fly swat and smack it a good one.
Angela Verdenius
#82. I'm the Iblis. There's a sword, and it's magical, and I can locate demons. It was total bullshit, but I'm not good at making stuff up on the fly.
Debra Dunbar
#83. Slow travel now rivals the fly-to-Barcelona-for-lunch culture. Advocates savour the journey, travelling by train or boat or bicycle, or even on foot, rather than crammed into an airplane. They take time to plug into the local culture instead of racing through a list of tourist traps.
Carl Honore
#85. It was prettily devised of Aesop, The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said, what dust do I raise!
Francis Bacon
#86. Well, until man is redeemed he will always take a fly rod too far back, just as natural man always overswings with an ax or golf club and loses all his power somewhere in the air; only with a rod it's worse, because the fly often comes so far back it gets caught behind in a bush or rock.
Norman Maclean
#87. The fly that no one to advise it follows the corpse into the grave.
Chinua Achebe
#88. Obstetrics went about improving the same way Toyota and General Electric went about improving: on the fly, but always paying attention to the results and trying to better them. And
Atul Gawande
#90. One night in Pittsburgh, thirty-thousand fans gave me a standing ovation when I caught a hot dog wrapper on the fly.
Dick Stuart
#91. The hand is quicker than the eye is,
but somewhat slower than the fly is.
Richard Armour
#92. As the fly bangs against the window attempting freedom while the door stands open, so we bang against death ignoring heaven.
Douglas Horton
#93. A fly and a flea in a flue (3 beats)
Were imprisoned, so what could they do? (3 beats)
Said the fly, "Let us flee!" (2 beats)
"Let us fly!" said the flea, (2 beats)
So they fled through a flaw in the flue. (3 beats)
Trudi Hammel Garland
#94. What a tourist terms a plague of insects, the fly fisher calls a great hatch.
Patrick F. McManus
#95. This is the fly in the ointment of free-market capitalism. It cannot ensure that profits are gained in a fair way, or distributed in a fair manner.
Yuval Noah Harari
#96. I think music piracy is forcing many people to look at the live aspect of the record industry as an income and in many ways that's what sets apart good music and musicians from the fly by night pop sensations.
Ben Howard
#97. The fly that doesn't want to be swatted is most secure when it lights on the fly-swatter.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
#99. I do disguises for different reasons. I like to study people - be like the fly on the wall. Even if it's two old ladies sitting on a bench or some kids on a swing. Because I don't know what it's like to fit in an everyday life situation.
Michael Jackson
#100. A celibate, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity.
Jeremy Taylor
