Quotes About Odd Things

“How many black holes have we been up close and personal with?" Kosta countered. "All sorts of odd things happen near the event horizon, from huge tidal forces to variations in time. Personally, I'm voting on it having to do with gravity, either a polarization of the fields themselves or else something related to the time differential."
I didn't know physics had become a democracy," Hanan murmered.”

— Timothy Zahn

“One of the odd things about living in an apartment was that you could walk out of someone's life but still have to wait for the elevator. (p.220)”

— James Collins

“One of the odd things about middle age, he concluded, was the strange decisions a man discovers he's made by not really making them, like allowing friends to drift away through simple neglect.”

— Richard Russo

“For one of the odd things about death, Trudy has discovered, is that in its wake one must go about business as usual; it seems heartless and wrong, but now that the rituals of mourning have been attended to, the sole task left to Trudy is to try and comprehend the enormity of thes sudden change.”

— Jenna Blum

“So I've come to the conclusion that it is thus my own fault when these people I have been talking about finally stop saying "Ah" and tell me it's a pity I always do such odd things.”

— Barbara Wright

“Americans have all these classes that mean they just know odd things, so engineers know about William Blake and poets know about analytical geometry. She probably took one on Aristotle and the politics of gender.”

— Deborah Meyler

“One of the odd things about Stendhal is that though he was always on the watch lest anyone made a fool of him, he was constantly making a fool of himself.”

— W. Somerset Maugham

“I do not like odd things until I can understand them.”

— Robert Jordan

“There were many odd things about human beings. They thought insects were disgusting but felt lucky when a ladybird landed on their fingers. They detested rats but loved squirrels. While they found vultures repulsive, they thought eagles impressive. They despised mosquitoes and flies, but were fond of fire-flies. Even though copper and iron were medicinally important, it was gold that they worshipped instead. They took no notice of the stones under their feet but went mad for polished gems.”

— Elif Shafak

“Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But don't go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don't try to get there at all. It'll happen when you're not looking for it. And don't talk too much about it even among yourselves. And don't mention it to anyone else unless you find that they've had adventures of the same sort themselves. What's that? How will you know? Oh, you'll know all right. Odd things, they say-even their looks-will let the secret out. Keep your eyes open. Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools.
-The Professor”

— C.S. Lewis

“We want you to write it down
to camouflage it. Only for the present, of course. Once the thing gets going we shan't have to bother about the great heart of the British public. We'll make the great heart what we want it to be. But in the meantime, it does make a difference how things are put. For instance, if it were even whispered that the N.I.C.E. wanted powers to experiment on criminals, you'd have all the old women of both sexes up in arms and yapping about humanity. Call it re-education of the mal-adjusted, and you have them all slobbering with delight that the brutal era of retributive punishment has at last come to and end. Odd thing it is
the word 'experiment' is unpopular, but not the word 'experimental.' You must'nt experiment on children; but offer the dear little kiddies free education in an experimental school attached to the N.I.C.E. and it's all correct!”

— C.S. Lewis

“And don't mention it to anyone else unless you find that they've had adventures of the same sort themselves. What's that? How will you know? Oh, you'll know all right. Odd things they say
even their looks
will let the secret out.”

— C.S. Lewis

“I added to my mental list of the odd things I'd done that day. I'd entertained the police, sunbathed, visited at a mall with some fairies, weeded and killed someone. Now it was powdered-corpse removal time. And the day wasn't over yet.”

— Charlaine Harris

“The real Harry thought that this might just be the most bizarre thing he had ever seen, and he had seen some extremely odd things. He watched as his six doppelgangers rummaged in the sacks, pulling out sets of clothes, putting on glasses, stuffing their own things away. He felt like asking them to show a little more respect for his privacy as they all began stripping off with impunity, clearly much more at ease with displaying his body than they would have been with their own. "I knew Ginny was lying about that tattoo," said Ron, looking down at his bare chest. "Harry, your eyesight really is awful," said Hermione, as she put on glasses.”

— J.K. Rowling

“Yes, as Rhett had prophesied, marriage could be a lot of fun. Not only was it fun but she was learning many things. That was odd in itself, because Scarlett had thought life could teach her no more. Now she felt like a child, every day on the brink of a new discovery.”

— Margaret Mitchell

“The first things I remember drawing were battles - big sheets of paper covered in terrible scenes of carnage - though when you looked closely, there were little jokes and speech bubbles and odd things going on in the background.”

— Anthony Browne

“I think one of the odd things about public life, coming from the outside, is that people seem to be paranoid. Maybe they were quite frank initially, but then they did one thing which went wrong.”

— Rory Stewart

“Thinking is like a fountain. Once it gets going at a certain pressure, well, it almost impossible to turn it off. And, my hat! what odd things come up with the water!
("Out Of The Deep")”

— Walter De La Mare

“It seemed so natural, to talk to him about the odd things. She had never done that before. The trust, so sudden and yet so complete, and the intimacy, frightened her.”

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“They were all fitting into place, the jig-saw pieces. The odd strained shapes that I had tried to piece together with my fumbling fingers and they had never fitted. Frank's odd manner when I spoke about Rebecca. Beatrice and her rather diffident negative attitude. The silence that I had always taken for sympathy and regret was a silence born of shame and embarrassment. It seemed incredible to me now that I had never understood. I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great wall in front of them that hid the truth. This was what I had done. I had built up false pictures in my mind and sat before them. I had never had the courage to demand the truth. Had I made one step forward out of my own shyness Maxim would have told these things four months, five months ago.”

— Daphne Du Maurier

“Yeah, it's odd when you look back at your own work. Some filmmakers don't look back at their work at all. I look at my work a lot, actually. I feel like I learned something while looking at stuff I've done in terms of what I'm going to do in the future, mistakes I've made and things at work or what have you.”

— Christopher Nolan

“The fact was, however, that she was always dreaming and thinking odd things and could not herself remember any time when she had not been thinking things about grown up people and the world they belonged to. She felt as if she had lived a long, long time.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

“There're a lot of odd things going on
but I feel like I'm slowly getting
closer to the truth."
-"Actually getting closer to a metaphorical truth? Or metaphorically getting
closer to an actual truth? Or maybe they supplement each other?”

— Haruki Murakami

“Modern novels. So difficult-all about such unpleasant people, doing such very odd things and not, apparently, even enjoying them. "Sex" as a word had not been mentioned in Miss Marple's young days; but there had been plenty of it-not talked about so much-but enjoyed far more than nowadays, or so it seemed to her. Though usually labelled Sin, she couldn't help feeling that that was preferable to what it seemed to be nowadays-a kind of Duty.”

— Agatha Christie

“One of the odd things about being a writer is that you never reach a point of certainty, a point of mastery where you can say, 'Right. Now I understand how this is done.'”

— Jenny Offill

“I would wish this book could take the form of a plea for everlasting peace, a plea from one who knows ... Or it would be fine to confirm the odd beliefs about war: it's horrible, but it's a crucible of men and events and, in the end, it makes more of a man out of you.
But, still, none of these notions seems right. Men are killed, dead human beings are heavy and awkward to carry, things smell different in Vietnam, soldiers are afraid and often brave, drill sergeants are boors, some men think the war is proper and just and others don't and most don't care. Is that the stuff for a morality lesson, even for a theme?
Do dreams offer lessons? Do nightmares have themes, do we awaken and analyze them and live our lives and advise others as a result? Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.”

— Tim O'Brien

“People are worn away with striving, they hide in common habits. their concerns are herd concerns. few have the ability to stare at an old shoe for ten minutes or to think of odd things like who invented the doorknob? they become unalive because they are unable to pause undo themselves unkink unsee unlearn roll clear. listen to their untrue laughter, then walk away.”

— Charles Bukowski

“Mothers are odd things. We're quick to think of their nurturing aspects, but there is also some sort of strange darkness there. It tends to be much stronger in connection with sons than with daughters. It's easy for a mother to cross an invisible line and enslave a son with kindness. There's nothing more revolting than a man incapable of slipping his mother's apron strings. He will always revert back to a boy in her presence. I see boys with unnatural attachments to their mothers all the time. It's a sign of the times in which no one ever grows up. We live in soft times.”

— Damien Echols

“Some odd things were found; among other things the skeleton of an ourang-outang which disappeared from the Jardin des Plantes in 1800, a disappearance probably connected with the famous and incontestable appearance of the devil in the Rue des Bernardins in the last year of the eighteenth century. The poor devil finally drowned himself in the sewer.”

— Victor Hugo

“Stephen Jones' hats are what we used to call 'creations'; extravagant, odd things for extravagant, odd people like Madonna or Lady Gaga. They're worn in a parallel universe.”

— Peter York

“All I can really tell you about my father is that he did odd things like put tin foil on a bottle of beer after having a few sips, then put it in the refrigerator to perhaps have on another night.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“What the hell are you doing?"
I smiled, thinking how odd it was that he was the only person in the world I could say this to. "I'm scared."
He was staring at me. "No way. I've never known anyone with more guts than you."
"We're just not afraid of the same things.”

— Josh Lanyon

“I'd love to have written a film and it to be regarded as good. I'd just like to be doing things that are good, really. I think that's all you can aim for. I find it odd when actors say they just want to do films or plays or television. A lot of films aren't very good; a lot of television isn't very good; a lot of plays aren't very good.”

— James Corden

“This is odd, but there are certain things that are really embarrassing to talk about - one is my job and the success that I've had in it, and the other is money.”

— Rick Moody

“It took my breath away, that evening. If you've ever dreamed that you walked into your best-loved book or film or TV program, then maybe you've got some idea how it felt: things coming alive around you, strange and new and utterly familiar at the same time; the catch in your heartbeat as you move through the rooms that had such a vivid untouchable life in your mind, as your feet actually touch the carpet, as you breathe the air; the odd, secret glow of warmth as these people you've been watching for so long, from so far away, open their circle and sweep you into it.”

— Tana French

“Odd things made him love her.”

— Jhumpa Lahiri

“Perhaps you laugh too, dear reader; but you know humanity comes out in a variety of strange forms now-a-days, and there is no end to the odd things that humane people will say and do.”

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Between you and me, odd things happen always on set.”

— Max Von Sydow

“Waxillium had seen some odd things in his life. He'd visited koloss camps in the Roughs, even been invited to join their numbers. He'd met and spoken with God himself and had received a personal gift from Death. That did not prepare him for the sight of a pretty young woman's chest turning nearly transparent, one of the breasts splitting and offering up the hilt of a small handgun.”

— Brandon Sanderson

“I know someone who works in a record shop where I live and I'll go in there and he'll play me "Have you heard this single?". Singles by, er the group called The Tights, so an obscure thing ... and a group called, I think, er Bauhaus, a London group. That's one single. There's no one I completely like that I can say "Well I've got all this person's records. I think he's great" or "This group's records" it's just, again, odd things.”

— Ian Curtis

“Odd things happen in New York, which is why it's such a great source of stories.”

— Sophie Blackall

“One does odd things. You see, when one's young one doesn't feel part of it yet, the human condition; one does things because they are not "for good"; one thinks everything is a rehearsal - to be repeated ad lib, to be put right when the curtain goes up in earnest. One day you know that the curtain was up all the time. That was the performance.”

— Sybille Bedford

“People will do odd things if you give them money ...”

— David Byrne

“Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our noticing for a time that they have happened.”

— James M. Barrie

“The Mars rover Curiosity has sent back images of some odd things on the surface of Mars, and some people think they could be UFOs. Here's my question. If we're on the surface of Mars, aren't we the UFO?”

— Jay Leno

“The-one of the odd things that's going on with smoking these days is that in the '90s, smoking at movies in the '90s, there were more movies showing smoking than there were in the '60s.”

— Joe Eszterhas

“To pick out the wildest and most fantastical odd man alive, and to place your kindness there, is an act so brave and daring as will show the greatness of your spirit and distinguish you in love, as you are in all things else, from womankind.”

— John Wilmot

“It is a funny thing what the brain will do with memories and how it will treasure them and finally bring them into odd juxtapositions with other things, as though it wanted to make a design, or get some meaning out of them, whether you want it or not, or even see it.”

— Loren Eiseley

“[on the future of hand-drawn animation] I'm actually not that worried. I wouldn't give up on it completely. Once in a while there are strange, rich people who like to invest in odd things. You're going to have people in the corners of garages making cartoons to please themselves. And I'm more interested in those people than I am in big business.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

“I like big escapist films. It's odd because the type of comedian I am and the things I do when I'm writing and directing myself usually deal with the darker side of the human psyche and excruciating social faux pas. I often deal in taboos and the subjects I do as a stand-up are quite challenging. But my film roles have been much more fun and escapist.”

— Ricky Gervais