Bowing Quotes

“There was a moment of hesitation in which Joe looked into her eyes, and she looked back without flinching. Many a time, he had been at the same game with her, and she had always crumbled, bowing to his will. Now, he must have realized he was looking into the eyes of a stranger. She was someone he could not recognize, a foreigner inhabiting the body of that old Clairey, the girl he had abused, intimidated, and broken. Clairey decided then and there she would no longer cower before him. It was almost as if she were daring him to strike her in their unspoken exchange.”

— Tracy Winegar

“Where are the coconut trees bowing allegiance to the wind, the wide open spaces, the verdant green fields?”

— Renita D'Silva

“It's Smith, actually.' Dr Smith smiled, bowing. 'I've remembered that my name is Smith. Almost definitely. Good old English name. Hopefully means 'noble valiant warriot' and not 'he who hits kittens with a hammer.' You'd be surprised the derivations of common surnames in the English countryside ...”

— James Goss

“There's a feeling of shame that is more painful than any other in life; it's the shame felt by the victim who is forced to look his killer in the eyes, as if he were the creature bowing before its creator.”

— Sandor Marai

“Under the seeming disorder of the old city, wherever the old city is working successfully, is a marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city. It is a complex order. Its essence is intricacy of sidewalk use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes. This order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to the dance - not to a simple-minded precision dance with everyone kicking up at the same time, twirling in unison and bowing off en masse, but to an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole. The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any once place is always replete with new improvisations.”

— Jane Jacobs

“To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

“The branches of the trees looked as if they were holding hands and bowing their heads in prayer.”

— Ishmael Beah

“Is it true?" Devlin asked me. "You're Prince Jaron?"
"KING Jaron, actually. News must travel slower amongst the illiterate." I glared at Gregor with every inch of disdain I felt. "Shouldn't you be groveling to me or bowing or something?"
Gregor smiled. "I think before I have the chance, you will already be dead."
"Ah. So much for all your toasts to my long life.”

— Jennifer A. Nielsen

“On the Gulf side of these islands you may observe that the trees-where there are any trees-all bend away from the sea; and, even of bright, hot days when the wind sleeps, there is something grotesquely pathetic in their look of agonized terror. A group of oaks ... I remember as especially suggestive: five stooping silhouettes in line against the horizon, like fleeing women with streaming garments and wind-blown hair,-bowing grievously and thrusting out arms desperately northward as to save themselves from falling. And they are being pursued indeed;-for the sea is devouring the land.”

— Lafcadio Hearn

“Then they would both dissolve in giggles, bowing in their mirth to the awful hopelessness of it all.”

— Armistead Maupin

“And from a quiet modesty that would have become a vestal, which seemed continually to impress upon him that he had no great claim on the world's room, Oak walked unassumingly and with a faintly perceptible bend, yet distinct from a bowing of the shoulders.”

— Thomas Hardy

“I see it as my duty to stimulate reflection on what is essentially human and eternal in each individual soul, and which all too often a person will pass by, even though his fate lies in his hands. He is too busy chasing after phantoms and bowing down to idols. In the end, everything can be reduced to the one simple element which is all a person can count upon in his existence: the capacity to love. That element can grow within the soul to become the supreme factor which determines the meaning of a person's life. My function is to make whoever sees my films aware of his need to love and to give his love, and aware that beauty is summoning him.”

— Andrei Tarkovsky

“Jamison appeared in the doorway with a cooler.
"Thank you, Alfred," Griffin said, taking the supplies. "There's a thousand dollars in the cookie jar. Go buy yourself something pretty."
"I will purchase a firearm and shoot you with it," Griffin's butler said, bowing elegantly. "Master Griffin."
He left the room ...”

— Tiffany Reisz

“I kept going deeper and deeper into this world of repetition ... The sad thing is, people don't want to believe that the person they're in love with is out of his mind, drinking and using, so if you give them even half an excuse, they're going to want to believe it. A girl with no prior exposure to the disease had to be blissfully unaware of the nefarious tricks of the dope fiend. That's how I was able to get high all summer and autumn and pretend like it wasn't happening. I was saying, 'I'm sick.' I was deteriorating physically and emotionally. Jaime was tolerant, and it did speak well of her character, because she was not the type to abandon ship during a crisis. She didn't consider backing off or bowing out, she was just there, which I can't say about everybody. I don't know if I could say it even about myself.”

— Anthony Kiedis

“She threw back her head, riding him hard, the sweat sliding down between her breasts. He lurched up, half sitting, his arm propping him up, and licked the sweat from her body.
She cried out, gasping, holding his head to her even as he sucked one nipple into his mouth. She felt the pull, felt the answering gush, and knew she was falling apart, spreading outward, a star exploding.
He gasped and let go of her breast, bowing his head to her chest, his hair wild and tangled against her as he groaned and shook.
She felt heat inside her and rose one last time, spreading wide her thighs, shoving him as deep inside her as she could.
Trying to keep him forever.”

— Elizabeth Hoyt

“This person has hoped and dreamed and now it is really happening and this person can hardly believe it. But believing is not an issue here, the time for faith and fantasy is over, it is really really happening. It involves stepping forward and bowing. Possibly there is some kneeling, such as when one is knighted. One is almost never knighted. But this person may kneel and receive a tap on each shoulder with a sword. Or, more likely, this person will be in a car or a store or under a vinyl canopy when it happens. Or online or on the phone. It could be an e-mail re: your knighthood. Or a long, laughing, rambling phone message in which every person this person has ever known is talking on a speakerphone and they are all saying, You have passed the test, it was all just a test, we were only kidding, real life is so much better than that.”

— Miranda July

“Blessing is bowing down to receive the expressions of divine favor that in the inner recesses of the human heart and mind make life worth the bother.”

— Beth Moore

“Royalty pollutes people's minds, boy. honest men start bowing and bobbing just because someone's granddad was a bigger murdering bastard than theirs was.”

— Terry Pratchett

“Harry!" said Fred, elbowing Percy out of the way and bowing deeply. "Simply splendid to see you, old boy-"
"Marvelous," said George, pushing Fred aside and seizing Harry's hand in turn. "Absolutely spiffing."
Percy scowled.
"That's enough, now," said Mrs. Weasley.
"Mum!" said Fred as though he'd only just spotted her and seizing her hand too. "How really corking to see you-”

— J.K. Rowling

“It wasn't you I was bowing to, but the whole of human suffering.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Worship is an inward reverence, the bowing down of the soul in the presence of God.”

— Elizabeth George

“Mama had greeted him the traditional way that women were supposed to, bending low and offering him her back so that he would pat it with his fan made of the soft, straw-colored tail of an animal. Back home that night, Papa told Mama that it was sinful. You did not bow to another human being. It was an ungodly tradition, bowing to an Igwe. So, a few days later, when we went to see the bishop at Awka, I did not kneel to kiss his ring. I wanted to make Papa proud. But Papa yanked my ear in the car and said I did not have the spirit of discernment: the bishop was a man of God; the Igwe was merely a traditional ruler.”

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“All money is imaginary," answered the Calcatrix simply. "Money is magic everyone agrees to pretend is not magic. Observe! You treat it like magic, wield it like magic, fear it like magic! Why should a body with more small circles of copper or silver or gold than anyone else have an easy life full of treats every day and sleeping in and other people bowing down? The little circles can't get up and fight a battle or make a supper so splendid you get full just by looking at it or build a house of a thousand gables. They can do those things because everyone agrees to give them power. If everyone agreed to stop giving power to pretty metals and started giving it to thumbnails or mushroom caps or roof shingles or first kisses or tears or hours or puffin feathers, those little circles would just lay there tarnishing in the rain and not making anyone bow their noses down to the ground or stick them up in the air.”

— Catherynne M. Valente

“And then Micah Bayar swept back his cloak and dropped to his knees, bowing his head, his amulet swinging forward. Fiona glared down at him like she wanted to stomp on him.
Ho, Han thought. Micah breaks with his family? That's interesting.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

“Dan Lynch was chuckling, his hand around his small glass. 'I remember Billy saying that AA was a Protestant thing when you came right down to it. Started by a bunch of Protestants. He said he didn't like the chummy way some of them were always calling Our Lord by his first name. I drove him to the first meeting and waited to take him home, 'cause Maeve didn't want him driving, and when he came out he said you could tell who the Catholics were because they'd all been bowing their heads every ten seconds while the Protestants bantered on about Jesus, Jesus Jesus.'
(And sure enough, up and down our stretch of table, heads bobbed at the name.)”

— Alice McDermott

“When you put an individual on the cover of a big picture magazine, like 'Life of Look', their career skyrocketed. As a photographer, you were very empowered; people came to you, bowing to you and what you represented.”

— Douglas Kirkland

“At first I was like, No way am I saying that, but when you hang out with people who are always being supergrateful and appreciating things and saying thank you, in the end it kind of rubs off, and one day after I'd flushed, I turned to the toilet and said, "Thanks, toilet," and it felt pretty natural. I mean, it's the kind of thing that's okay to do if you're in a temple on the side of a mountain, but you'd better not try it in your junior high school washroom, because if your classmates catch you bowing and thanking the toilet they'll try to drown you in it. I explained this to Jiko, and she agreed it wasn't such a good idea, but that it was okay just to feel grateful sometimes, even if you don't say anything. Feeling is the important part. You don't have to make a big deal about it.”

— Ruth Ozeki

“Of course it is, thought Tyrion. The game of thrones. "As you say, Captain," he murmured, bowing once again.”

— George R.R. Martin

“On the short walk to the front past the others, either bowing or kneeling or whirling or howling, I feel glad that my life is this way; so full of jarring experience. Sometimes you feel that life is full and beautiful, all these worlds, all these people, all these experiences, all this wonder. You never know when you will encounter magic. Some solitary moment in a park can suddenly burst open with a spray of preschool children in high-vis vests, hand in hand; maybe the teacher will ask you for directions, and the children will look at you, curious and open, and you'll see that they are perfect.”

— Russell Brand

“But to reject, marginalize, trivialize, or be suspicious of the sacraments (and quasi-sacramental acts such as lighting a candle, bowing, washing feet, raising hands in the air, crossing oneself and so forth) on the grounds that such things CAN be superstitious or idolatrous or that some people might suppose they are putting God in their debt, is like rejecting sexual relations in marriage on the grounds that it's the same act that in other circumstances constitutes immorality.”

— N.T. Wright

“Thank you," Emerson said, bowing his head and accepting the box with the tender hands of a parent holding a child. "I am indebted-"
"Don't be.This doesn't mean I like you or your politics any better," Heath said gruffly.”

— Lisa Kleypas

“I find myself lacing my fingers together and bowing my head. Sometimes my father did this in the morning before sitting down at the breakfast table, but I never asked him what he was doing. Still, I would like to feel like I belong to my father again before I . . . well, before it's over.”

— Veronica Roth

“That night, I waited until Baba fell asleep, and then folded a blanket. I used it as a prayer rug. Bowing my head to the ground, I recited half-forgotten verses from the Koran-verses the mullah had made us commit to memory in Kabul-and asked for kindness from a god I wasn't sure existed. I envied the mullah now, envied his faith and certainty.”

— Khaled Hosseini

“Says to ordinary people like me and you that instead of closing our eyes and bowing our heads, sometimes God wants us to keep our eyes open for people in need, do something about it, and bow our whole lives to Him instead.”

— Bob Goff

“Atal felt a spectral change in the air, as if the laws of earth were bowing to greater laws.”

— H.P. Lovecraft

“The god of wine looked around at the assembled crowd. "Miss me?"
The satyrs fell over themselves nodding and bowing. "Oh, yes, very much, sire!"
"Well, I did not miss this place!" Dionysus snapped. "I bear bad news, my friends. Evil news. The minor gods are changing sides. Morpheus has gone over to the enemy. Hecate, Janus, and Nemesis, as well. Zeus knows how many more."
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
"Strike that," Dionysus said. "Even Zeus doesn't know.”

— Rick Riordan

“The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

“Well, John Doherty's playing was very unique. He bowed a lot and used staccato, while I slur a bit. I bow a lot as well, but I do a bit of playing a few notes with the one bow. As you go south there's more slurring with the bow. As you go north there's more bowing every note. But sometimes you get the combination of the two in Donegal.”

— Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh

“The supreme thing is worship. The attitude of worship is the attitude of a subject bent before the King ... The fundamental thought is that of prostration, of bowing down.”

— G. Campbell Morgan

“Voting is merely a labor-saving device for ascertaining on which side force lies and bowing to the inevitable ... It is neither more nor less than a paper representative of the bayonet, the bully, and the bullet.”

— Benjamin Tucker

“Teaching creativity to your child isn't like teaching good manners. No one can paint a masterpiece by bowing to another person's precepts about elbows on the table.”

— Gurney Williams

“I think the Titanic disaster has parallels today. The closest think I can think of is the silicon chip.. We're all kind of bowing to this computer god, thinking it's going to fix everything and we're geniuses for inventing this. And, you know, I just think we should pay attention to disasters of the past.”

— Billy Zane

“Why is acquiescence to the numerous viewed as better servitude than bowing to might?”

— William J. Murray

“It is not the bowing, the dancing, the clapping and the singing that produce the worship, for at best they can only express that worship, but it is the worship that produces the jubilant responses.”

— Judson Cornwall

“Before and after practicing Judo or engaging in a match, opponents bow to each other. Bowing is an expression of gratitude and respect. In effect, you are thanking your opponent for giving you the opportunity to improve your technique.”

— Kano Jigoro

“Baptism is bowing before the Father and letting him do his work.”

— Max Lucado

“Bowing is a very serious practice. You should be prepared to bow, even in your last moment. even though it is impossible to get rid of our self-centered desires, we have to do it. Our true nature wants us to.”

— Shunryu Suzuki

“A Clock stopped
Not the Mantel's
Geneva's farthest skill
Can't put the puppet bowing
That just now dangled still”

— Emily Dickinson

“Scarcely anything that I observed in the United States caused me so much sorrow as the contemptuous estimate of the people entertained by those who were bowing the knee to be permitted to serve them.”

— Harriet Martineau

“The superior man has nothing to compete for. But if he must compete, he does it in an archery match, wherein he ascends to his position, bowing in deference. Descending, he drinks the ritual cup.”

— Confucius