Home > Topic > an awful lot
1 " For a lot of people, their first love is what they'll always remember. For me it's always been the first hate, and I think that hatred, though it provides often rather junky energy, is a terrific way of getting you out of bed in the morning and keeping you going. If you don't let it get out of hand, it can be canalized into writing. In this country where people love to be nonjudgmental when they can be, which translates as, on the whole, lenient, there are an awful lot of bubble reputations floating around that one wouldn't be doing one's job if one didn't itch to prick. "
― Christopher Hitchens
2 " The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case. "
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3 " It struck her all at once that dealing with other human beings was an awful lot of work. "
― Anne Tyler , Back When We Were Grownups
4 " The problem with our society is that our values aren’t in the right place. There’s an awful lot of bleeding and naked bodies on prime-time networks, but not nearly enough cable television on public programming. "
― Bauvard , Some Inspiration for the Overenthusiastic
5 " Ladies and gentleman," he said over the speakers, " welcome aboard this recently liberated Gulfstream V. If I could have your attention for just a few moments, I'd like to go over the safety features of this aircraft. It has an engine, to make us go, and wings, to keep us in the air. There are seatbelts, which won't do you an awful lot of good if we fly into the side of a mountain. "
6 " ... even one centimetre can make an awful lot of difference when you don't have many to spare. "
7 " We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort. "
― Jesse Owens , Jesse: The Man Who Outran Hitler
8 " We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort. Jesse Owens "
9 " The possibility of somebody emerging as a nuclear power or events happening that surprise us on the nuclear age is still a possibility. It always will be because there's an awful lot going on behind the scenes. Our intelligence just has to get better on that score. Peter Goss "
― Joel C. Rosenberg , Inside the Revolution: How the Followers of Jihad, Jefferson & Jesus Are Battling to Dominate the Middle East and Transform the World
10 " The Possibility of somebody emerging as a nuclear power or events happening that surprise us on the nuclear stage is still a possibility. It always will be because there's an awful lot going behind the scenes. Our intelligence just has to get better on the score. -Peter Goss. "
11 " I do an awful lot of thinking and dreaming about things in the past and the future - the timelessness of the rocks and the hills - all the people who have existed there. I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show. "
12 " Llarimar had told him to do his best. That sounded like an awful lot of work. Unfortunately, doing nothing was beginning to seem like even MORE work. "
― Brandon Sanderson , Warbreaker (Warbreaker, #1)
13 " I would need an awful lot of willpower to fight my way through the ups and downs of the road to recovery, and there might be times when I may feel a bit down and depressed, but there would be counsellors that I could talk to about how I was feeling. "
― , Remember Remember 2nd Edition
14 " His face searching the bus windows looked expectant, impatient, and a little anxious. It was a husband's face. Familiar, known, increasing beloved. Mary Ann, I reflected, had an awful lot to learn. And actually, I reflected, I wouldn't be in her shoes right now for all the flowers in Bermuda...having it all to learn again. "
15 " And so life went on, as it always will.It had taken an awful lot to get there, for no victory comes without hardship and sacrifice.But then, those whom we hold so dear, that we fight so hard to protect, and suffer so greatly for, are always worth it in the end. "
16 " I think people should take mythology much more seriously, because it tells us an awful lot about the history of the human race. We tend to dismiss it as 'fairy tales,' when it isn't. Fairy tales in themselves are about fundamentals of human nature. And they keep being reinvented in different ways. Fantasy acknowledges that, whereas a lot of modern literature is trying to distance itself from 'story,' never mind anything else. Which is why a lot of books are read by the critics, then people buy them, put them on their shelves, and don't really read them much, because they're not very interesting! "
― Jan Siegel
17 " She started to speak, but then stopped. Anything she could think of to say seemed a mistake. In fact, speech in general seemed a mistake. It struck her all at once that dealing with other human beings was an awful lot of work. from Back When We Were Grownups. "
18 " Your problem is that you’re more like an empty book and you’re waiting on someone else to write your pages for you. For someone who doesn’t believe in fate, destiny and all that shit, you seem to spend an awful lot of time waiting for something to happen to you. "
― Garry Crystal , Leaving London
19 " We're each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion trying to emerge into something solid, something real. We've got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there's an awful lot of gray to work with. No one can live in the light all the time. "
― Libba Bray , A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, #1)
20 " Forgiveness. The frail beauty of the world takes root in me as I make my way back through the woods, past the caves and the ravine, where the earth has accepted the flesh of the deer, leaving nothing but a bone or two, peeking above Kartik's makeshift grave, to prove that any of this ever happened. Soon, they'll be gone too.But forgiveness...I'll hold on to that fragile slice of hope and keep it close remembering that in each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret. cruelty and sacrifice. We're each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We've got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there's an awful lot of gray to work with. No one can live in the light all the time. "
