Before I wrote my first novel, 'The Expats,' I spent nearly two decades at various arms of publishing houses such as Random House, Workman, and HarperCollins, mostly as an acquisitions editor. But a more accurate title for that job might be rejection editor: while I acquired maybe a dozen projects per year, I'd reject hundreds upon hundreds.

Chris Pavone

Wisdom comes from within. Knowledge is acquired and can sometimes put a screen on your wisdom.

A. R. Rahman

I acquired a hunger for fairy tales in the dark days of blackout and blitz in the Second World War.

A. S. Byatt

I had no political background. That's why PM Bhutto gave me the responsibility of the nuclear programme, and we acquired nuclear capability in a span of mere six years, which was a great milestone.

Abdul Qadeer Khan

After we got our first family car with a tape deck, my dad acquired exactly three cassette tapes: A 'Best of ABBA,' 'Private Heaven' by Sheena Easton, and the soundtrack to 'Xanadu.' I also unironically love 'Xanadu.'

Adam Rex

When I spoke, I was listened to; and I was at a loss to know how I had so easily acquired the art of commanding attention, and giving the tone to the conversation.

Adelbert von Chamisso

We find it much better not to try and take the Godrej brand across, but use very strong brands we have acquired in different geographies and push them.

Adi Godrej

Man loves everything that satisfies his comfort. He hates everything that wants to draw him out of his acquired and secured position and that disturbs him. Thus he loves the house and hates art.

Adolf Loos

What Microsoft is really good at is endlessly iterating and revving - incrementally improving things that already exist - and those things that already exist are generally acquired from the outside.

Alan Cooper

Whether it's an innate ability or an acquired way of regarding the world around us, being labeled as funny can only be accepted as a compliment.

Alan Zweibel

We have entered the cell, the Mansion of our birth, and started the inventory of our acquired wealth.

Albert Claude

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

Albert Einstein

My knowledge of electrical subjects was not acquired in a methodical manner but was picked up from such books as I could get hold of and from such experiments as I could make with my own hands.

Alexander Graham Bell

Dumbness comes from the fact that a child is born deaf and that it consequently never learns how to articulate, for it is by the medium of hearing that such instruction is acquired.

Alexander Graham Bell

I grew up in South Africa without a television; there was no television, and the year after I left, television arrived in South Africa, so I have never really acquired a taste for watching television.

Alice Krige

War and preparations for war have acquired a kind of legitimacy.

Alva Myrdal

I was born into a Turkish family that had acquired Italian citizenship. Many members of the family subsequently became British, French, Brazilian, and German, so there was a bit of everything. It was not uncommon for people in the family to speak seven languages: English, French, Ladino, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, and even Greek.

Andre Aciman

Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.

Andrew Carnegie

We must aim for a zero-tolerance approach to hospital-acquired infections; we have to be clear about who's in charge at ward level, so there's proper accountability, and we need to reduce the reliance on agency nursing staff.

Andrew Lansley

I haven't acquired a taste for green tea, and I don't intend to. I like my coffee black with a little sugar, and it keeps my metabolism up! I don't mind the occasional Gatorade while I'm gymming.

Arjun Rampal

Two conditions of self-sustaining growth are that a country has acquired a cadre of domestic entrepreneurs and administrators and, secondly, that it has attained to adequate savings and taxable capacity.

Arthur Lewis