Insistence Quotes (page 14)
If you ask where a relationship is going too often the question has a habit of turning into where the relationship went. Unfortunately, however, God has given women an inbuilt irresistible urge to insist on knowing where their relationships are going, and to force their partners to discuss the matter at length whenever they are late for something.
Helen Fielding
Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity. It hugs the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of righteousness
Richard Wright
It is a kind of pride to insist that none of our prayers should ever be petitions for our own needs: for this is only another subtle way of trying to put ourselves on the same plane as God? acting as if we had no needs, as if we were not creatures, not dependent on Him and dependent, by His will, on material things, too.
Thomas Merton
Modern Romans insisted that there was only one god, a notion that struck Alobar as comically simplistic. Worse, this Semitic deity was reputed to be jealous (what was there to be jealous of if there were no other gods?), vindictive, and altogether foul-tempered. If you didn't serve the nasty fellow, the Romans would burn your house down. If you did serve him, you were called a Christian and got to burn other people's houses down.
Tom Robbins
Still less, despite appearances, will it have been a collection of three “essays” whose itinerary it would be time, after the fact, to recognize; whose continuity and underlying laws could now be pointed out; indeed, whose overall concept or meaning could at last, with all the insistence required on such occasions, be squarely set forth. I will not feign, according to the code, either premeditation or improvisation. These texts are assembled otherwise; it is not my intention here to...
Jacques Derrida
I could insist that somebody take me to her so I can obey her orders."I think you might choke on that one, Zakath," Silk said lightly. "Obey is a difficult concept for someone in your position."He's an irritating little fellow, isn't he?" Zakath said to Garion."I've noticed."Why, your Majesties," Velvet said, all wide-eyed innocence, "what a thing to suggest."Well, isn't he?" Zakath said pointedly."Of course, but it's not nice to talk about it."Silk looked slightly offended. "Would you people...
David Eddings
A warrior of light respects the main teaching of the I Ching: 'To persevere is favourable.'He knows that perseverance is not the same thing as insistence. There aretimes when battles go on longer than necessary, draining him of strength andenthusiasm. At such moments, the warrior thinks: 'A prolonged war finally destroys thevictors too.'Then he withdraws his forces from the battlefield and allows himself arespite. He perseveres in his desire, but knows he must wait for the best moment to...
Paulo Coelho
His connection to his life was that of a sculptor to his statue or a novelist to his novel. It is an inviolable right of a novelist to rework his novel. If the opening does not please him, he can rewrite or delete it. But Zdena's existence denied Mirek that author's prerogative. Zdena insisted on remaining on the opening pages of the novel and did not let herself be crossed out.
Milan Kundera
No, Mr Crawford!’ cried Philippa forbiddingly, and ducking under the snatching arms that tried to prevent her, she ran forward. ‘No! What harm can Sir Graham do now? What might the little boy become?’ And sinking on her knees, she shook, in her vehemence, Lymond’s bloodstained arm. ‘You castigate the Kerrs and the Scotts and the others, but what is this but useless vengeance? He can do us no harm; he can do Scotland no harm; he can do Malta no harm. There is a baby!’ said Philippa, very...
Dorothy Dunnett
Belief…is the insistence that the truth is what one would ‘lief’ or (will or) wish to be…Faith is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith let’s go…faith is the essential virtue of science, and likewise of any religion that is not self-deceptio
Alan Watts