Billy Collins Quotes

The obituaries shot up to the top of my list when I discovered Robert McG. Thomas, the 'Times' obit writer who redesigned its traditional form and added a measure of stylistic elegance.

Billy Collins

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Quotes to Explore

• It's extraordinary what children put up with. I happened to see two of my uncles put my father up against the wall of my grandmother's house and knock his teeth out, because he'd been unpleasant to my mother. The next day I went upstairs and found my father making a rather half-hearted attempt to gas himself.

  

  Jack Straw
  • Up
  • Children
  • Mother

• Khomeini was not a puppet like Arafat or Qaddafi or the many other dictators I met in the Islamic world. He was a sort of Pope, a sort of king - a real leader.

  

  Oriana Fallaci
  • World
  • Real
  • King

• When we were younger, we sang at the dinner table. We started doing two part harmony, then three part, and then we added back up tapes and instruments.

  

  Isaac Hanson Hanson
  • Up
  • Doing
  • Harmony

• I grew up as a country boy.

  

  Ian Somerhalder
  • Up
  • Country
  • Boy

• A sack is way better than any nightclub. A touchdown is way better than any bar experience I've ever had.

  

  J. J. Watt
  • Experience
  • Way
  • Better

• As far as religion goes, I feel like everyone should have their own one-on-one with God.

  

  Ja Rule
  • God
  • Religion
  • Feel

• Love should be an inspiration, not an obligation.

  

  Zsa Zsa Gabor
  • Love
  • Inspiration
  • Obligation

• I don't care tuppence whether I'm forced into a leadership position or not. I'd much sooner not.

  

  E. P. Thompson
  • Care
  • Leadership
  • Forced

• The first decent building I did with my own practice was a chapel in Taiwan.

  

  I. M. Pei
  • Practice
  • First
  • Building

• The actual, original 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,' I have vague memories of because I was pretty small, but I loved, loved, loved it. I have only those weird, visceral little-kid memories: I remember the extreme flat, two dimensional green that was their skin or the weird pizza with no sauce - it was just like yellow, drippy cheese.

  

  Mae Whitman
  • Remember
  • Pretty
  • Small

• I'm the eldest at 51, and if the Stones can drag themselves around once more, then there's a few more albums in us.

  

  Barry Gibb Bee Gees
  • More
  • U.S.
  • Stones

• I don't care about how much other actors get.

  

  Daniel Craig
  • Care
  • Other
  • How

• I would like for people to hear my music and hear/realize that people and experiences are deeper than what's at face value. Hopefully, with the span of my career, I can try to convey that in more ways than one.

  

  La'Porsha Renae
  • People
  • Music
  • Career

• I don't like baseball movies. I like movies about moral courage and people who are indomitable and courageous and right.

  

  Harrison Ford
  • People
  • Moral
  • Courage

• All of my life I have stayed away from violence and the instruments of violence, and have seen a legal, democratic struggle as the only means to achieve change.

  

  Osman Baydemir
  • Life
  • Change
  • Violence

• I get paid the same money if I'm fighting on pay-per-view or on Fight Pass, and Fight Pass is just getting started. It's the future. The Internet, many people watch it.

  

  Rafael dos Anjos
  • People
  • Money
  • Future

• People don't want to be understood - I mean not completely. It's too destructive. Then they haven't anything left.

  

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  • People

• I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet.

  

  John Keats
  • Sweet

• I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.

  

  Orson Welles
  • Look
  • Say
  • Misbehave

• If you disagree with me, fine! Because that's the great thing about America, we can disagree!

  

  Michael Stipe R.E.M.
  • Great
  • America

• My best friend growing up really put the bug in my ear about acting. We created this one hour-and-a-half improv play when we were 10 or 11 and performed it at the library. We just played off each other so well and had the best time doing it and the funniest part was, we wound up having packed houses, other people loved it too.

  

  Katherine Moennig
  • People
  • Up
  • Time

• The obituaries shot up to the top of my list when I discovered Robert McG. Thomas, the 'Times' obit writer who redesigned its traditional form and added a measure of stylistic elegance.

  

  Billy Collins
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