Usual's Quotes

#1. The problem with cap-and-trade and programs such as carbon capture and storage is that they all assume that business as usual can continue. The financial meltdown and peak oil has pretty much demonstrated that business as usual's not going to work.

Andrew Nikiforuk

#2. Violet stayed still as a statue. She hadn't been listening to the last speech of Count Olaf's, knowing it would be full of the usual self-congratulatory nonsense and despicable insults.

Lemony Snicket

#3. Africa was always waiting, a substrate for the white man's will, a backdrop for his activities...I was primed to see a white man, a nobody in his own country, who thought, as usual, that the salvation of Africa was up to him.

Teju Cole

#4. Amnesty International, which was opening its yearlong campaign to protect human rights defenders in Colombia in response to the country's horrifying record of attacks against human rights and labor activists and mostly the usual victims of state terror: the poor and defenseless.

Noam Chomsky

#5. The depth and strength of our character is defined by our moral code. People only reveal themselves when they're thrown out of the usual conditions of their lives. That's when the truth of who they are is revealed ...

Sherrilyn Kenyon

#6. As we at all times criticise the Premier for his management of home affairs, call Mr Butler a fool for his Budget, find fault with Beecham's conducting, or Gielgud's performance, can we not, sometimes, say that our cricketers are not quite so brilliant as usual?

Margaret Hughes

#7. The world was horrible. But life continued. What is more, life's usual proportions stayed the same. The ratio of good and evil, grief and happiness, remained unchanged.

Sergei Dovlatov

#8. Edge will contact you mind- to- mind and let you know what's going on."
"So I should be prepared to hear voices in my head ... other than the usual ones." Vance added the last part with a grin.
Cory gave him a droll stare and said, "Exactly.

Lanie Malone

#9. When people come up to me and say 'I hate you' or 'I love to hate you,' it's not the usual response that I thought I would've gotten halfway into my career. And then they say, 'I love your work.'

Robert Knepper

#10. He had on a funny T-shirt, as usual. Today's featured acartoon figure running from a giant T. rex, and it read EXERCISE: SOME MOTIVATIONREQUIRED.

Rachel Caine

#11. I went to college. Got a master's degree. Went to Quantico for training. Been chasing down bad guys."
She gave her grandmother a wry look. "You know, the usual girly stuff.

Kerrelyn Sparks

#12. The train stops at the signal as usual. I can see Jess standing on the patio in front of the French doors. She's wearing a bright print dress, her feet are bare.

Paula Hawkins

#13. It's what I've trained for, from the first sketch to the fabric. Making dresses that are different from the usual style, and a lot of fun to wear.

Venus Williams

#14. Did you see the picture of Roy Rogers's horse attending a church service in Pasadena? I forgot whether his name was Tex or Trigger but he was dressed fit to kill and looked like he was having a good time. He doubled the usual attendance.

Flannery O'Connor

#15. He'd more than achieved his goal; as usual Boyd had the ability to completely blow his mind. If insanity had a temporary cure, its name would be Boyd's Blowjob. He could open his own store full of home remedies; it'd give the term 'Head Shop' a whole new meaning.

Santino Hassell

#16. As usual, the fickle, unreasoning world took Muff Potter to its bosom and fondled him as lavishly as it had abused him before. But that sort of conduct is to the world's credit; therefore it is not well to find fault with it.

Mark Twain

#17. I want to reveal in a simple way the usual - and unusual - life of the city; the corporation workman, the busmen, policemen, the civil servants, the theatres, Moore Street and also, what occupies so large a place in Dublin's life, the literary and artistic.

Patrick Kavanagh

#18. A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith's usual result.

William James

#19. The connection between my mouth and brain are faulty, as usual, and I shout, "Exit only! It's exit only!

Helena Hunting

#20. I don't think this one's business as usual. Me evil cunt sense is tinglin'.

Garth Ennis

#21. King Drowden has given his men instructions to infiltrate the town, bribe townspeople for the secrets of their neighbors, steal the neighbors' hidden treasures. Much more subtle than Drowden's usual smash and burn technique. We do hope Drowden isn't growing a brain.

Kristin Cashore

#22. The Q I loathe and despise, the Q every single writer I know loathes and despises, is this one: 'Where,' the reader asks, 'do you get your ideas?' It's a simple question, and my usual response is a kind of helpless, 'I don't know.'

Ayelet Waldman

#23. Weddings and funerals have so much in common (except that in Ireland funerals are more fun - better food, better drink): at both, our senses are sharpened and we register much more than usual - a striking face or hair-do, the wind's behaviour, a bird singing.

Michael Longley

#24. Chicago is not a bad place to live. But the usual story of immigration is the happy fulfillment of human potential in America that is not available anywhere else - it's propaganda, really. It's more complicated than that.

Aleksandar Hemon

#25. It's the usual Socialist fiscal math of 1 + 1 = You're paying, so who cares.

Rachel Marsden

#26. New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

Mark Twain

#27. Insincerity from the heart. It's just another component of politics as usual.

Congressman X

#28. I went from an unemployed actor's life to doing stand-up comedy, and that was fortuitous. It's not the usual way the crow flies, going from being in a TV sketch show to playing one of Shakespeare's finest characters, but, hey, that's the way it has happened.

Catherine Tate

#29. Chemo days make me tired, though it's hard to say that's because of the chemo when you have kids who have inherited their dad's usual energy level.

Randy Pausch

#30. As usual no one's ever around when you need them.

Tiffanie DeBartolo

#31. I worry about Bieber, man. That kid's wildly talented. I hope he doesn't fall down into the usual ways of young kids because it's so hard for someone to be responsible when they're not asked to be.

Channing Tatum

#32. Harry's hands were warm as sunshine, as usual.

Lindsay Mattick

#33. I felt more doubtful than usual with 'Goon Squad,' because I knew that the book's genre wasn't easily named - Novel? Stories? Novel-in-stories? - and I worried that its lack of a clear category would count against it. My hopes for it were pretty modest.

Jennifer Egan

#34. April 25: Billy Wilder sends a telegram to Marilyn expressing his delight that she will appear in Some Like It Hot. She is to receive her usual $100,000 fee, plus 10 percent of the profits. She is photographed signing a contract with the film's producer, Walter Mirisch.

Carl Rollyson

#35. Cleverness, as usual, takes all the credit it possibly can. But it's not the clever mind that's responsible when things work out. It's the mind that sees what's in front of it, and follows the nature of things.

Benjamin Hoff

#36. But what is Wisdom really? A steady handling of any means to bring about any end necessary to happiness. Yet whether one's end be the usual end - a wealthy position in life - or no, the name of wisdom is seldom applied but to the means to that usual end.

Thomas Hardy

#37. He was your usual man when it came to romance, which is to say he couldn't recite Baa Baa Black Sheep when sober, whereas when drunk, sixteen cantos of Byron's Don Juan was par for the course.

Tyne O'Connell

#38. As per usual, trouble comes in several directions at once.

Garth Nix

#39. Good luck to progressive candidates in U.S. Senate elections against the usual rich, white, racist, women-hating pricks they run against.

Irvine Welsh

#40. Mogget's voice. Sam whirled around. "Mogget? Is that you? Where are you?" "Here, and regretting it as per usual," replied Mogget, and a small white cat sauntered out from behind a fern tree.

Garth Nix

#41. It's so easy to get caught up in the demands of life. And we all take refuge at times in routines and recliners and 'usual' anything!

Bruce Wilkinson

#42. And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief. Except at my job
where the machine seems to run on much as usual
I loath the slightest effort. Not only writing but even reading a letter is too much.

C.S. Lewis

#43. If I had Aladdin's lamp and the usual three wishes, the first would always be, 'Give me the first day of June.

Gladys Taber

#44. Oh, he'll try, I'm sure ... The usual empty words, the usual slithering out of action ... oh, on the Dark Lord's orders, of course!

J.K. Rowling

#45. I have way too much going on, as usual, but fortunately it's all good stuff. I'm not complaining.

Brad Listi

#46. Can you make her out at all?'
Benjamin shrugged. As usual, in Cicely's presence, he was afraid of appearing inarticulate, and as usual, this fear robbed him of his power of speech.

Jonathan Coe

#47. It's not only joy as an act of defiance; it's business as usual as an act of defiance. This is just: Do your thing.

Bono

#48. You ask me, and I'll tell you the truth - anything out of people's usual expectations throws them off track.

J.A. Redmerski

#49. The usual tenor of a man's life, the dwelling of his soul, is the true test of his state.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

#50. The climate is doing its usual tricks. There's nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now.

James Lovelock

#51. When we sit in meditation, we are closer than usual to the world as it is. By simply bringing body, breath, and mind together in the present moment, we touch Buddha; we touch reality, and we are in the world as it is. Most people's experience in this state is peaceful and rejuvenating.

Andrew Furst

#52. It was a crazy idea. But, as usual, that's all Percy had.

Rick Riordan

#53. The author describes the attitude of some on the frontier at Rome's twilight as exhibiting a kind of London-in-the-blitz determination to carry on being more Roman than usual.

Peter Heather

#54. As your older brother, it's my sacred duty to save you from yourself."
She brings her fists down on the table, making all the dinner plates jump. "The ONLY reason you're fifteen minutes older than me is because you cut in front of the line, as usual!

Neal Shusterman

#55. But as usual there's no answer to this. As usual, that's just how it is.

Audrey Niffenegger

#56. It is contrary to the usual practice of professional men to give their opinions upon each other's work unless regularly called upon in the way of their profession.

John Smeaton

#57. They will tell you Shiloh was no cavalry battle; the field was too cut-up with ravines and choked with timber for the usual mounted work. However, none of Forrest's men realized this at the time and we had our moments

Shelby Foote

#58. David O. Russell's best films are thrilling high wire acts that run the moment to moment risk of tumbling to the ground. In his latest, "Joy," Russell has more trouble than usual keeping his balance on the wire.

David O. Russell

#59. What's going on?" he demanded.
"The usual, old man," I replied cheerily. "Danger, insane plans ... you know, the stuff that runs in our family.

Richelle Mead

#60. Museums collect what's important in their respective countries. In Berlin's National Gallery, however, this isn't the case. They're interested neither in me nor the other usual suspects. It's simply a German reality.

Georg Baselitz

#61. My usual confessional is a straight Macallan but not before 5 o'clock. Perhaps that's why I try and have my crises in the evening.

Jeanette Winterson

#62. The usual derivation of the word Metaphysics is not to be sustainedthe science is supposed to take its name from its superiority to physics. The truth is, that Aristotle's treatise on Morals is next in succession to his Book of Physics.

Edgar Allan Poe

#63. The world of the everyday suddenly seemed nothing but an inverted magic act, lulling its audience into believing in the usual, familiar conceptions of space and time, while the astonishing truth of quantum reality lay carefully guarded by nature's sleights of hand.

Brian Greene

#64. I study his face closely. The smudges under his eyes are darker than usual; his lips are dry and ashen, similar to the rest of his face. It's been a while between haircuts. Two days' worth of stubble. He's beautiful.

Laura Buzo

#65. In Nina Kimbereley's garden the scabiosa flowers were dark as garnet brooches; the nicotiana a veil of tossing crimson stars. Nothing was usual, or a dull color. All was exceptional, designed to be exceptional since it had been planned as the background for a beauty by the beauty.

Elizabeth Enright

#66. I didn't want to hear the usual answers about what's wrong because I believe these are symptoms: global warming, genocide, hunger, poverty, war, environmental crisis. If we can identify the root cause, we can change our ways.

Tom Shadyac

#67. And then he sank back and tried, as usual, not to think. He must succeed. That's what the world was made for. That's what he was made for. That was what he would have to do.

Theodore Dreiser

#68. You need to wait until you are worthy of having a child of your own.' She pats her hair down, which is rock hard. Her action is pointless, but she's worried about appearances as usual. 'And someone like you who's responsible for killing my babies - your own siblings - is not worthy.

Rebecca Berto

#69. As early as 1975 she had come up with a wonderful line about the Labour Party: They've got the usual Socialist disease - they've run out of other people's money.

Niall Ferguson

#70. I get why no one bothers with the usual rules," ... "I was in the war, too, you know. Nothing looks or feels the same anymore, so what's the point?" ... "Still, I miss good old-fashioned honorable people just trying to make something of life. Simply, without hurting anyone else.

Paula McLain

#71. I - though forced through lack of space to assume the form of a stoic guinea pig crouched between the girl's shoe and the glove compartment - was my usual dignified self.

Jonathan Stroud

#72. As usual in such matters, God's sense of humor trumped all imagination.

Diana Gabaldon

#73. It's important to avoid mirrors if one is unprepared to accept their daily news, and I think, in something as insignificantly devastating as appearance, denial is more socially constructive than despondency. Not that there's anything especially wrong with me
just the usual.

Rivka Galchen

#74. Vanity and prejudice have as usual played havoc with the truth, and Mr. Topper's reputation has been tossed into a furnace of frantically wagging tongues. The

Thorne Smith

#75. I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected murders in one year won't do, Lestrade. But you handled the Molesey Mystery with less than your usual - that's to say, you handled it fairly well.

Arthur Conan Doyle

#76. This revolution - will it be a living?'
'We must hope so. Look, I have to go, I'm visiting a client. He's going to be hanged tomorrow.'
'Is that usual?'
'Oh, they always hang my clients. Even in property and matrimonial cases.

Hilary Mantel

#77. My brother's always hungry late at night, if he comes home that is. He always eats cheesy chips while he's half asleep on the couch. I look around, but he's not here, and I don't find any crumbs tucked into the couch bedding. The usual stain from his boots is missing from the carpet, and I

Clarissa Wild

#78. Actually, you said Love, for you,
is larger than the usual romantic love. It's like a religion. It's
terrifying. No one
will ever want to sleep with you.

Richard Siken

#79. The Enemy, who wears her mother's usual face and confidential tone, has access; doubtless stares into her writing case and listens on the phone.

Phyllis McGinley

#80. The usual bad poem in somebody's Collected Works is a learned, mannered, valued habit, a habit a little more careful than, and little emptier than, brushing one's teeth.

Randall Jarrell

#81. This is a truth so brutally self-evident that he can't fathom why it's not more widely perceived, hence his contempt for the usual public shock and outrage when a particular situation goes to hell

Ben Fountain

#82. As usual, nature's imagination far surpasses our own, as we have seen from the other theories which are subtle and deep.

Richard P. Feynman

#83. Today you are more inclined to put your ideas and visions into action than usual were you have the ability to express yourself and solve problems alone.

Auliq Ice

#84. Yesterday I went home with him and we did the usual things. I haven't the nerve to put them down, but I'd like to, because now when I'm writing it's already tomorrow and I'm afraid of getting to the end of yesterday. As long as I go on writing, yesterday is today and we are still together

Graham Greene

#85. There were the usual types of things that happen, in a production, like logistical bullshit, and this and that and the other. That's the sort of stuff that happened. But I never felt, in a creative sense, that we were ever veering into a place that I hadn't signed on for.

Ben Mendelsohn

#86. My phone rings, and I groan in relief. "Oh thank Jesus. Hopefully whoever this is will save me before you break my dick." Turns out my savior is Beau, and I pick up with my usual, "What's shaking, Maxwell?

Elle Kennedy

#87. No," Scott's voice cracked, "Carrie look at me."
Carrie bit down on her lip and tried to focus on the healing process. The usual sensation of the energy flowing through her finger tips was a weak haze and it completely disappeared when Scott whispered, defeated, "Carrie, please.

Julia Barkey

#88. Too much negotiating and not enough work on the court - that's what happened to me during the lockout. Too much talking and not enough training. I couldn't put in my usual offseason work routine. I think that all caught up to me, with my Achilles problems.

Patrick Ewing

#89. He's alright. He's fine, Dad says, his usual line whenever Oliver gets hurt. It means: Go away. Don't baby him. Don't show too much compassion. The other dads do this too. It's some kind of group hysteria, based on some fatherly fear that says compassion equals homosexuality.

Deb Caletti

#90. To science." Ben chuckled and closed the distance between them, brushing his lips across Maddox's for the first time. As per his usual, Maddox was several days past needing a shave, and his cheek was bristly against Ben's hand and his upper lip tickled Ben's. Maddox

Annabeth Albert

#91. It was down in Jake's old barroom Behind the Patsies' park; Jake was settin' 'em up as usual And the night was agittin' dark. At the bar stood ole Verne Mackenzie, And his eyes was bloodshot red

Robert Coover

#92. I have an intense need to be alone. Father has noticed I'm not my usual self, but I can't tell him what's bothering me. All I want to do is scream 'let me be, leave me alone!

Anne Frank

#93. What's your usual gig?"

"Physical fitness coach. I find it rather humdrum. Your assignment will be a welcome break in the quotidian ennui.

Julian May

#94. There's so much more to tell about Africa than the usual stories about war, famine and disease.

Komla Dumor

#95. Doc, I'm feeling different from my usual whorish self. I think I might be ill." It's a perfectly legitimate concern.

Sabrina Paige

#96. I came here as a son seeking his father's approval, hoping you could recognize what she and I have. But, it appears you're business as usual.

Nicole Gulla

#97. One of the tragedies of the Bush administration is that we went back to business as usual, make a deal with the Democrats, let's all be friends in Washington philosophy.

Pete Du Pont

#98. Last of all came the cat, who looked round, as usual, for the warmest place, and finally squeezed herself in between Boxer and Clover; there she purred contentedly throughout Major's speech without listening to a word of what he was saying.

George Orwell

#99. Sometimes it's interesting to see something that you're not used to seeing, which is the main ingredient of life, and it's removed from the usual entertainment. I think it's important to give the opportunity to people to witness the life of somebody who was not public.

Michel Gondry

#100. Daughters can spend ten percent more than a man can make in any usual occupation. That's a law of nature, to be known henceforth as 'Harshaw's Law.

Robert A. Heinlein