A Quote by Logan Pearsall Smith

When we say we are certain so-and-so can't possibly have done it, what we mean is that we think he very likely did.

Logan Pearsall Smith

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Certain Did Done Likely Mean Possibly Say Think Very

Quote Author

Logan Pearsall Smith
American - Writer
October 18, 1865 - March 2, 1946

It's very easy to say, 'I could have done that,' after someone's done it. But I did it. You didn't. It didn't exist until I did it.

Damien Hirst

There's not usually one reason why we do anything and, in fact, often we don't know why we've done what we've done, especially what we have said or why, for instance, in conversation, which can be very tricky. Finally, we say something and think, "Why did we say that?" In retrospect we might know.

Lynne Tillman

In the final exam in the Chaucer course we were asked why he used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote, 'I don't think Chaucer had any idea why he did any of these things. That isn't the way people write.' I believe this as strongly now as I did then. Most of what is best in writing isn't done deliberately.

Madeleine L'Engle

Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, foolish, a dope. Disagree with someone on the left, and he is more likely to think you selfish, a sell-out, insensitive, possibly evil.

J.R. Miller

When you say what is the difference between me and my stage name the idea is that as a musician you always think of yourself as inhabiting a certain cultural space in the kind of a cultural landscape, so when I say cultural space what I mean to imply there is that you exist within certain parameters of how people think of culture.

DJ Spooky

I mean, I didn't feel, as part of Girls Aloud, that my opinion wasn't heard, or they went and did certain things and I had no say, or we had no say.

Nadine Coyle

[I think there are a lot of Americans who are very scared ] that Donald Trump and his campaign, or his future administration, is just in denial. They just want to say, no, no, no, [Vladimir] Putin couldn't possibly have done this.

E. J. Dionne

A third volume of Memoirs is really a bold undertaking ... I cannot, like a certain female writer, say, I hope if I have done nothing to please, I have done nothing to offend; for truly I mean to give both pleasure and offense.

Laetitia Pilkington

Craziest thing I've done for love is getting married. I think it's crazy. I think it's crazy, crazy, crazy. I'm never going to say I wouldn't do it again but I have to make sure it's love and not settling for the 'I have to do this by a certain age,' which is kind of what I did.

Jenny McCarthy

And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us. The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down. All U.S. irony is based on an implicit "I don’t really mean what I’m saying." So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it’s impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it’s too bad it’s impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, today’s irony ends up saying: "How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean.

David Foster Wallace

In fact, the very nature of an X-event is that it is both rare and surprising. So I would not say that any specific X-event is likely. What I would say, though, is that some X-event is not only plausible, but very likely in a time scale of a few years.

John L. Casti

I think action movies bring more excitement than tears, but I always want to take it to another level. I mean, I think if one appreciates anything in life to a certain degree, it could possibly bring tears to your eyes.

Donnie Yen

I think action movies bring more excitement than tears, but I always want to take it to another level. I mean I think if one appreciates anything in life to a certain degree, it could possibly bring tears to your eyes.

Donnie Yen

The simplest way out of the puzzle of time travel is to say that it can't be done. That's very likely the right answer. However, we don't know for sure.