#refine

It is not just a question of blowing up a building or shooting a prime minister. Such bourgeois horseplay is not contemplated. Our operation must be delicate, refined and aimed at the heart of the Intelligence apparat of the West. ↗

— Ian Fleming

#death #horseplay #james-bond #refinement #death

I will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up, but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary new conditions of this life, and it will all refine itself into poetry later on. ↗

— Isaac Rosenberg

#consciousness #corner #covered #extraordinary #i

I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling. ↗

— Frances Burney

#behaviour #cannot #characters #history #i

The more refined one is, the more unhappy. ↗

— Anton Chekhov

#refined #unhappy

It seems unpleasantly refined to put things off till someone knows. ↗

— William Empson

#off #put #refined #seems #someone

...this refinement and delicacy were what Cale adored; but Cale had been beaten into shape, hammered in dreadful fires of fear and pain. How could she be with him for long? A secret part of Arbell had been searching for some time for a way to leave her lover—although she was unaware of this, it is only fair to record. And so as Cale waited for her to save him while he worked out a way of saving her, she had already chosen the bitter but reasonable path of the good, of the many over the one... ↗

— Paul Hoffman

#arbell #bad #beat #bitter #cale

Courtesy is a silver lining around the dark clouds of civilization; it is the best part of refinement and in many ways, an art of heroic beauty in the vast gallery of man's cruelty and baseness. ↗

— Bryant H. McGill

#art #baseness #beauty #best #best part

Scientists do stand on the shoulders of giants, just as do writers. Conversely, in the arts we do make discoveries. We do refine our tools. So I am arguing with, or at least playing with, the idea that art never improves. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#arguing #art #arts #conversely #discoveries

Certainly I was relatively a refined person. No way a tramp. ↗

— Beatrice Wood

#i #person #refined #relatively #tramp

You see, I was born in the slums, that was before the ghetto. The ghetto was kind of refined; the slums was right there on the ground. ↗

— Della Reese

#born #ghetto #ground #i #i was born