Lucille Clifton Quotes

In the bigger scheme of things the universe is not asking us to do something, the universe is asking us to be something. And that's a whole different thing.

Lucille Clifton

• Different
• Universe
• Bigger
• Asking

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Quotes to Explore

• I remember when I was growing up. My great wish was to understand who I was and how I fit in the world.

  

  Yo-Yo Ma
  • Up
  • World
  • Great

• Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us.

  

  Daniel Burnham
  • Remember
  • Things
  • Going

• I now can be sure that, once I start writing a book, I'll be able to finish it. I've also become more assured about my 'voice' as a writer and being able to keep the characters true to themselves.

  

  J. A. Jance
  • Writing
  • Book
  • True

• There is a triangular relationship between poverty, child labour and illiteracy who have a cause and consequence relationship. We will have to break this vicious circle.

  

  Kailash Satyarthi
  • Relationship
  • Child
  • Poverty

• The single most important thing that I feel responsible for is that the company cherishes the work.

  

  Jack O'Brien
  • Work
  • Important
  • Single

• Part of my motivation for writing mysteries for young people is that I loved mysteries when I was growing up, and now that I'm on the creative end of things, I'm discovering that they're even more fun to write!

  

  Wendelin Van Draanen
  • People
  • Up
  • Writing

• We must get to the point in our lives. What is the point? To become a new kind of man or woman, having inner command and outer excellence.

  

  Vernon Howard
  • Man
  • Woman
  • Excellence

• I'm not a rock singer and I don't want to be a rock singer. I'm not interested. It doesn't seem to get across.

  

  Van Morrison
  • Want
  • Rock
  • Seem

• When I saw Wonder Woman being constantly put in positions where she'd get tied up with her own rope, or held hostage, even as a kid, my reaction was 'C'mon, she's too smart for that.'

  

  J. Michael Straczynski
  • Woman
  • Wonder
  • Smart

• In Denmark, we're making 20 films a year. If I'm showing up in even two of those, people will get tired of me really fast.

  

  Mads Mikkelsen
  • People
  • Up
  • Tired

• The last paragraph, in which you tell what the story is about, is almost always best left out.

  

  Irwin Shaw
  • You
  • Best
  • Story

• I want to be the Letterman of metal. I want five nights a week, Monday to Friday, 11 to 12, live. I always shoot for the moon.

  

  Eddie Trunk
  • Live
  • Moon
  • Week

• Power and speed be hands and feet.

  

  Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Power
  • Hands
  • Feet

• If 'Deadwood' had gone on another two years, I wouldn't have got as many movies made.

  

  Ian McShane
  • Years
  • Movies
  • Two

• My senior year of high school, I got into UCLA, but my family couldn't afford it.

  

  Adam DeVine
  • School
  • Family
  • High

• So I just got on the phone and the engineer just patched me in and I did reports. I'd get a community leader and bring him to the phone, call up the station and do an interview over the phone with the guy.

  

  Ed Bradley
  • Guy
  • Community
  • Leader

• There are still some terrible cliches in the presentation of Indian fiction. The lotus flower. The hennaed hands. In mainland Europe, people still slap these images on my books and I go bananas.

  

  Hari Kunzru
  • People
  • Flower
  • Presentation

• That's the funniest thing about portraying certain things on screen, sitting next to your parents and they get to see this glimpse of me kissing another guy.

  

  Kate Bosworth
  • Parents
  • See
  • Kissing

• In motorsports we work in the grey areas a lot. You're trying to find where the holes are in the rule book.

  

  Danica Patrick
  • Work
  • Trying
  • Book

• In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to drop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at discotheques.

  

  Art Linkletter
  • World
  • Light
  • Teen

• My dad's a pastor; I grew up in the church, and it's really easy to just have a healthy respect for what some people might be sensitive to.

  

  Brett Young
  • People
  • Up
  • Respect

• You cannot kickstart a dead horse

  

  Thomas Edward Yorke Atoms for Peace
  • Horse

• I don't think she ever had a single initiative at the United Nations that was not previously [vetted] by the people at the State Department, approved of, and authorized. She did manage to get around the world an awful lot, and find other parts of her vast slum project that needed repair. But I don't think that that was the main point. The main point was that she, after all, connoted Franklin Roosevelt, who by then was long dead, and had a certain prestige and power on that account.

  

  William A. Rusher
  • People
  • Thinking
  • Manage

• In the bigger scheme of things the universe is not asking us to do something, the universe is asking us to be something. And that's a whole different thing.

  

  Lucille Clifton
  • Different
  • Universe
  • Bigger