Quotes About Defiance

I could hear people around us whispering about the crazy drunk man and his dirty little urchin children, but who cared what they thought?

I've always liked Abraham, a preacher from Hopewell Road whose name often appears in "Among the Colored People," a column in the Claiborne Gazette, but some folk complain that Abraham is a little too quick to speak his mind, not properly deferential, thinks the rules don't apply to him, doesn't know his place—he won't let his wife clean the houses of white folks

My daddy is nothing like your daddy! I shouted. When my daddy passes out, he never pisses himself!

I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. It always made me want to do just the opposite.

Once freedom lights its beacon in man's heart, the gods are powerless against him.

Let it crumble! Let the rocks revile me and flowers wilt at my coming. Your whole universe is not enough to prove me wrong. You are the king of gods, king of stones and stars, king of the waves of the sea. But you are not the king of man.

Never were we freer than under the German Occupation.

I scraped my heel against this black claw: I wanted to peel off some of the bark. For no reason at all, out of defiance, to make the bare pink appear absurd on the tanned leather: to play with the absurdity of the world. But, when I drew my heel back, I saw that the bark was still black.

Take this job and shove it, I ain't working here no more.

My anti-authoritarian instincts let me directly to criminal defense work.

A hero is someone who rebels, or seems to rebel, against the facts of existence and seems to conquer them, but obviously that can work at moments.

Big boss man, can't you hear me when I call? You ain't so big, you're just tall.

Mind control won't work on those who are really hardheaded. You know… Creatures like you.

Grantland Rice can go to hell as far as I'm concerned.

They tried stoning me, my dear. It did not work.

Mo Yan is a writer who, defiantly in the face of those who wish his work were less cartoonish and more straightforward in its political meanings, continues to sing his own peculiar and alluring song.

After I got out of the studio system, I was completely [broke] for the 30th time; they said I'd never work again. So I'm going to go and produce those movies that they wouldn't let me do.

There's a bunch of rules that I want to break. I have a rule-breaking streak.

Street art, of course, is political, because it's illegal, so the very act of doing it is an act of defiance.

Defiance in itself is a sign of strength, and strength is a light side of human nature - when at all present, that is.

One of the strengths I derive from my class background is that I am accustomed to contempt.

I know that when I was on my hunger strike, I reacted very negatively to people telling me what I should and shouldn't do.

You have stripped from me the rank and privileges of the professorship and the doctoral degree which I earned, and you have set me at the level of the lowest criminal.

If you look back at old Captain America comic strips, he used to fight Nazis, you know? The American ideal is standing up and saying, 'No, that is not the status quo, and we will not accept that.'