Surface Quotes

Influence is to be measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its kind.
William Ellery Channing

Influence, Measured, Covers

After about 20 years of marriage, I'm finally starting to scratch the surface of what women want. And I think the answer lies somewhere between conversation and chocolate.
Mel Gibson

Marriage, Women, After

I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface.
Stephen Sondheim

Hear, Neurotic, Beneath

Just under the surface I shall be, all together at first, then separate and drift, through all the earth and perhaps in the end through a cliff into the sea, something of me. A ton of worms in an acre, that is a wonderful thought, a ton of worms, I believe it.
Samuel Beckett

End, Together, Through

You know how fighting fish do it? They blow bubbles and in each one of those bubbles is an egg and they float the egg up to the surface. They keep this whole heavy nest of eggs floating, and they're constantly repairing it. It's as if they live in both elements.
Audre Lorde

Live, Fighting, Keep

The artist one day falls through a hole in the brambles, and from that moment he is following the dark rapids of an underground river which may sometimes flow so near to the surface that the laughing picnic parties are heard above.
Cyril Connolly

May, Through, Dark

I'm just starting to scratch the surface of what really makes me happy and it's taken me a while to admit that acting like a little child and being a jerk and a punk is fun.
Leonardo DiCaprio

Happy, Fun, Acting

There was a time when I kept track of it all; when my mind worked like a giant lint brush being swept over the fuzzy surface of popular culture. But these days, pop culture seems to have gotten fuzzier and fuzzier; notoriety comes and goes in the snap of a finger.
Susan Orlean

Time, Mind, Days

Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed, the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed.
Indra Devi

Mind, True, Long

If you're actually allowing your creative part to control your writing rather than a more commercial instinct or motive, then you'll find that all sorts of interesting things will bubble up to the surface.
Emma Thompson

Writing, Control, Find

Sometimes I enjoy just photographing the surface because I think it can be as revealing as going to the heart of the matter.
Annie Leibovitz

Heart, Enjoy, Sometimes

Beyond the beauty, the sex, the titillation, the surface, there is a human being. And that has to emerge.
Jeanne Moreau

Beauty, Sex, Human

What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things... it is impossible for anyone to express anything essentially real by imitating its exterior surface.
Constantin Brancusi

Real, Impossible, Anyone

If a theme or idea is too near the surface, the novel becomes simply a tract illustrating an idea.
Elizabeth Bowen

Idea, Simply, Novel

Over the last half century the television interview has given us some of TV's most heart-stopping and memorable moments. On the surface it is a simple format - two people sitting across from one another having a conversation. But underneath it is often a power struggle - a battle for the psychological advantage.
David Frost

Power, Simple, Struggle

Something pretty... that's just the surface. People worry so much about aging, but you look younger if you don't worry about it.
Jeanne Moreau

Pretty, Worry, Aging

For me music is a vehicle to bring our pain to the surface, getting it back to that humble and tender spot where, with luck, it can lose its anger and become compassion again.
Paula Cole

Music, Anger, Pain

I did not know how to paint a mural. I did not know how to prepare the surface. There was nobody from the Renaissance around who could advise me, and I did the best I could.
Maurice Sendak

Best, Around, Nobody

A man may lack everything but tact and conviction and still be a forcible speaker; but without these nothing will avail... Fluency, grace, logical order, and the like, are merely the decorative surface of oratory.
Charles Horton Cooley

Nothing, Everything, May

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation.
Chinua Achebe

Yourself, Far, Once

Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience.
Randolph Bourne

Experience, Few, Less

After 1980, you never heard reference to space again. Surface, the most convincing evidence of the descent into materialism, became the focus of design. Space disappeared.
Arthur Erickson

Design, Focus, After

I sometimes find the surface interesting. To say that the mark of a good portrait is whether you get them or get the soul - I don't think this is possible all of the time.
Annie Leibovitz

Time, Good, Find

Everybody loves the underdog, and then they take an underdog and make him a hero and they hate him. But as long as they can knock you back down, it seems like if you're an underdog again, and things do surface, and they think this is real, 'these guys' intentions are genuine and sincere,' it seems like they will embrace you again.
Fred Durst

Hate, Long, Real

A novelist is, like all mortals, more fully at home on the surface of the present than in the ooze of the past.
Vladimir Nabokov

Home, Past, Present

I understand that computers, which I once believed to be but a hermaphrodite typewriter-cum-filing cabinet, offer the cyber literate increased ability to communicate. I do not think this is altogether a bad thing, however it may appear on the surface.
David Mamet

Computers, Bad, May

I love the sea's sounds and the way it reflects the sky. The colours that shimmer across its surface are unbelievable. This, combined with the colour of the water over white sand, surprises me every time.
John Dyer

Love, Time, Sea

There are two sorts of curiosity - the momentary and the permanent. The momentary is concerned with the odd appearance on the surface of things. The permanent is attracted by the amazing and consecutive life that flows on beneath the surface of things.
Robert Wilson Lynd

Life, Amazing, Two

If you actually dissect the lyrics in 'Motley Crue', you'll notice that there's a lot going on beneath the surface.
Nikki Sixx

Actually, Notice, Lyrics

Do not hover always on the surface of things, nor take up suddenly with mere appearances; but penetrate into the depth of matters, as far as your time and circumstances allow, especially in those things which relate to your profession.
Isaac Watts

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