Act Did Quotes & Sayings

I must have wondered if the police were right, if the entire story was a figment of my imagination. This is the worst impact of severe trauma: the victim loses faith in the evidence of her own senses. And this is the great gift Paul Macone gave to me. He believed what I told the police back then. He believed me enough to try to solve the case, and he did.
Perhaps because I've sought out evil in this world, attempting to understand and tame it, I am particularly moved by goodness. There is a light that animates an act of generosity, when a person is kind - not to call attention to his own goodness, or to make a pact with God, but just because he feels it's right. I see this light in Paul Macone. Still, his kindness is almost too much to bear. I feel shy around him, despite this conversation. I even feel shy writing this down. (184) — Jessica Stern

Butch : Two words for you. CYNDI.LAUPER
Vishous : Clearly, the paste you ate has gone to your head. Did Marissa like all that lace you glued on ? Oh ... and I'm talking to your body, not that ridiculous card you made her.
Butch : How does that song go ?
*sings song about true colors*
Vishous : I have no idea what you are talking about.
Butch : Oh.Really. So you deny that shit was playing in the weight room yesterday ?
Vishous : Please. Like I listen to crap like that ?
Butch : So you deny that song was also playing in the Escalade last night ?
Vishous : Don't act the fool.
Butch : So you deny that song was ALSO coming out of your shower early this morning. — J.R. Ward

Wilberforce and the band of abolitionists knew that a private faith that did not act in the face of oppression was no faith at all. — Charles Colson

I didn't have any concept of Trainspotting being published. It was a selfish act. I did it for myself. — Irvine Welsh

To believe in God is to yearn for His existence, and furthermore, it is to act as if He did exist. — Miguel De Unamuno

The woods that I loved as a child are entirely gone. The woods that I loved as a young adult are gone. The woods that most recently I walked in are not gone, but they're full of bicycle trails. And this is happening to the world, and I think it is very very dangerous for our future generations, those of us who believe that the world is not only necessary to us in its pristine state, but it is in itself an act of some kind of spiritual thing. I said once, and I think this is true, the world did not have to be beautiful to work. But it is. What does that mean?
[from 'A Thousand Mornings' With Poet Mary Oliver for NPR Books] — Mary Oliver

We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; were always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn't act as we should have. — Paulo Coelho

I suppose this is your way of telling me that you are outrageously happy?'
Quill nodded. 'Of course.'
'Living with you is an act of interpretation, do you know that?'
'Living with you is ... bliss. Did you know that? — Eloisa James

A bulimic person's shame may lead her to try to hide not only her eating-disorder behaviors but also her basic needs and yearnings. She may wish that her needs and desires did not exist and may try to act as if she does not need or want anything or anyone. When that attempt inevitably fails, she may wish that others could magically read her mind and respond to her needs and wants without her having to ask for anything. To avoid the shame of expressing her needs and desires, she turns to food, rather than relationships, for comfort. — Sheila M. Reindl

By Rice's own standards, the war was well underway by the time he took office. He was a war president the moment he took the oath. But did he act like one? — Howard Fineman

Reaction is just that - an action you have taken before. When you "re-act," what you do is assess the incoming data, search your memory bank for the same or nearly the same experience, and act the way you did before. This is all the work of the mind, not of your soul. — Neale Donald Walsch

Anna and I did not make love. I don't remember why. Maybe we didn't need to. She might have been afraid, although I doubt she was afraid of much. She'd been a midwife before she opened a studio; she'd held life in her hands, like a wire from a galvanic cell. Maybe death was too strong in me for an act so inspirited with life. Although I sometimes think that death is what gives lovemaking its desperate and terrible joy. — Norman Lock

If I did not believe, if I did not make what is called an act of faith (and each act of faith increases our faith, and our capacity for faith), if I did not have faith that the works of mercy do lighten the sum total of suffering in the world, so that those who are suffering on both sides of this ghastly struggle somehow mysteriously find their pain lifted and some balm of consolation poured on their wounds, if I did not believe these things, the problem of evil would indeed be overwhelming. — Dorothy Day

The Clintons opposed gay marriage. They did don't ask, don't tell. They did the Defense of Marriage Act. — Bill O'Reilly

I have never lived on principles. When I have had to act, I never first asked myself on what principles I was going to act, but I went at it and did what I thought fit. I have often reproached myself for my want of principle. — Otto Von Bismarck

I'm just saying that I think I chose to act the way I did in part because of you. Since I've met you, everything I've done has been in part because of you. I can't untie myself from you, Clary - not my heart or my blood or my mind or any other part of me. And I don't want to. — Cassandra Clare

We all agree that we've got to bring these terrorists to justice and to make sure that they're never allowed to perpetrate such an evil act as they did. And so all of us are dealing with that. We know that the President has the authority to go to war under the War Powers Act. — Barbara Lee

Thus it is that four strangers sit in the red chairs, strip off their socks, plunge their feet into the ink-baths, and hold hands under an amphibian stare. This is the first act of anyone entering Palimpsest: Orlande will take your coats, sit you down, and make you family. She will fold you four together like Quartos. She will draw you each a card - look, for you it is the Broken Ship reversed, which signifies Perversion, a Long Journey without Enlightenment, Gout - and tie your hands together with red yarn. Wherever you go in Palimpsest, you are bound to these strangers who happened onto Orlande's salon just when you did, and you will go nowhere, eat no capon or dormouse, drink no oversweet port that they do not also taste, and they will visit no whore that you do not also feel beneath you, and until that ink washes from your feet - which, given that Orlande is a creature of the marsh and no stranger to mud, will be some time - you cannot breathe but that they breathe also. — Catherynne M Valente

Nevertheless, in a passage that is very often commented upon because it summarizes the entire salvific economy of faith, the Apostle calls Christ the 'pioneer and perfecter of our faith' (Heb. 12:2), because he has to accomplish the same act as the Christian, only in the opposite direction, as it were. Whereas by venturing to let go of everything the Christian takes a stand beyond finitude and comes into the limitlessness of God, Christ, in order to make this act possible and to be its source, has dared to emerge from the infinitude of the 'form of God' and 'did not think equality with God a thing to be grasped,' has dared to set out into the limitation and emptiness of time. This involved a transcendence and a boundary crossing no less fundamental than that of the Christian, and Christ undertook it so as to entrust himself henceforth within time, with no guarantee or mitigation from eternity, to the Father's will, which is always given to him in the present moment. — Hans Urs Von Balthasar

I always wanted to have a family - that was one of my big wishes. And in school, I'd taken drama, and I'd always wanted to act. I did go to drama school in New York, Los Angeles and London, and I did small parts here and there, but I never really had the time. Modeling was always paying more. — Jerry Hall

Curiously I was unmoved by my work. Unaffected by the act of murder, I had become entirely numb. I couldn't understand how such detachment was possible-- but I did some digging.

What I discovered would have horrified me... if I was capable of being horrified. My augmentation had included the binding of my DNA to some of history's most notorious assassins.

Are you not getting this? I'll say it in plain English--- I am the perfect killer in every sense of the word--- ---because--- ---I--- ---am--- ---every--- killer.

I'm the act of change possessed in a revolver. I am revolution packed into a suitcase bomb.

I am ever Mark David Chapman and every Charlotte Corday. I am Luigi Lucheni slow-dancing with Balthasar to the tune of semi-automatics, while Gavrilo Princip masturbates in the corner with bath-tub napalm. I am all of them and so much more... because I am going to live forever." Number Five — Gerard Way

Jesus never met a disease he could not cure, a birth defect he could not reverse, a demon he could not exorcise. But he did meet skeptics he could not convince and sinners he could not convert. Forgiveness of sins requires an act of will on the receiver's part, and some who heard Jesus' strongest words about grace and forgiveness turned away unrepentant. — Philip Yancey

Rarely did events play out as imagined, in any case. The order of future events was transient. In the same way that the past was reconfigured by selective memory, future events, too, were moving targets. One could only act on instinct, grab hold of an intuited perfect moment, and spring into action. — James Luceno

I remember my first standup act when I was seventeen; I did a really lame song about being flat chested. I was doing it in New York, and I remember Kevin Brennan, the guy I lost my virginity to, was like "That song doesn't make sense, you have tits." — Sarah Silverman

When you love someone, that love has no limit, no measure, because you know in your deepest being that when that love demands sacrifice, you will give it without question. You will not look for reasons, for justification - the act of giving, of sacrificing, is a natural compulsion, like breathing, and it will, in the end, surprise you because you did it without second thoughts. — F. Sionil Jose

When you left the house today, you had the intention of putting clothes on and you did. You didn't try to put your pants on today. You simply put them on. The same has to hold for all of our intentions. We don't try to be more loving partners. We make the intention, and we act on it. — Patch Adams

Feste. Are you ready, sir?

Orsino. Ay; prithee, sing.
[Music] 945
SONG.

Feste. Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid. 950
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O, prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet 955
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O, where 960
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there!
Orsino. There's for thy pains.
Feste. No pains, sir: I take pleasure in singing, sir.

Orsino. I'll pay thy pleasure then. 965

Feste. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another.

From Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene 4. — William Shakespeare

Homo sapiens! The name itself was an irony. They had not been wise at all, but incredibly stupid. Lords of the Earth with their great gray brains, their thinking minds had placed them above all other forms of life. Yet it had not been thought that compelled them to act, but emotion. From the dawn of their evolution they had killed, and conquered, and subdued. They had committed atrocities on others of their kind, ravaged the land, polluted and destroyed, left millions to starve in Third World countries, and finished it all with a nuclear holocaust. The mutants were right. Intelligent creatures did not commit genocide, or murder the environment on which they were dependent. — Louise Lawrence

My dad always said he couldn't remember a time when I did not want to act. — Gwyneth Paltrow

Dorothy Day, of blessed memory, did not like to be called (as she often was, for good reason) a saint, because it usually meant that she was not being taken seriously. She heard it as an accusation - a device ostensibly distinguishing her from ordinary people so as to simultaneously discount her words and deeds while exempting others from moral responsibility to speak and act. — William Stringfellow

If someone had told Allie that she would commit a premeditated act of murder, she would not have believed it. She would have spouted off all the reasons how she could never be capable of such a thing - that no matter how dire the circumstances, she would find a better way. She was so naive, so arrogant to think that the laws of necessity and unthinkable circumstance could not apply to her. She could tell herself that this was an act of mercy, but that would be a lie. This was an act of war. An act of terrorism. It was nothing less than an assassination.
If I do this, Allie told herself, I am no better than Mary. I will have sunk to the worst possible place a person can go. After this moment, I will be a cold-blooded killer and it can never be taken back.
So the question was, did Allie Johnson have the strength to sacrifice all that was left of her innocence if it meant she might save the world? — Neal Shusterman

We are graduating members from the class of we made it, not the faded echoes of voices crying out names will never hurt me. Of course they did. But our lives will ever always continue to be a balancing act that has less to do with pain and more to do with beauty. — Shane Koyczan

Viv closed her eyes, sick with regret. "Why do you act like no one ever loved you? I loved you."
For a second Regina's fingers were softer, almost caressing, at the nape of Viv's neck. "Hmm. Maybe you did. But it's funny ... how we want love from certain people, and if we don't get it from them, it'll never be enough coming from someone else. — Sarah Cross

When Sarsine saw Kestrel, her eyes narrowed to mere cracks and Kestrel became very conscious that Sarsine was a tall woman. "For someone with a reputation for being so smart," Sarsine said, "you act like you haven't a thought in your head. Did it never occur to you that I'd worry when you disappeared from the city with no word?"
"I didn't exactly mean to leave."
"Oh, so it just happened."
"Yes."
"The gods made you do it."
Kestrel laughed. "Maybe they did." Then, earnestly, she said, "I'm sorry, Sarsine."
Sarsine folded her arms. "Then make it up to me."
"How?"
Sarsine's expression softened. Now there was an inquisitive gleam in her eye. "Start with the night you left. End with this very moment. And tell me everything."
So Kestrel did. — Marie Rutkoski

A great deal of what I say just leaves me open, I suppose, to a vast amount of misunderstanding. A great deal of what I say is based on an assumption which I hold and don't always state. You know my fury about people is based precisely on the fact that I consider them to be responsible, moral creatures who so often do not act that way. But I am not surprised when they do. I am not that wretched a pessimist, and I wouldn't sound the way I sound if I did not expect what I expect from human beings, if I didn't have some ultimate faith and love, faith in them and love for them. You see, I am a human being too, and I have no right to stand in judgment of the world as though I am not a part of it. What I am demanding of other people is what I am demanding of myself. — James Baldwin

As the conversation continued it was clear that these were divided people. As artists as well as queers, these people wanted to be able to think in radical ways, to have insights, to realize, to make work that was outside of social assumptions, to be radical people who could-like the weary ACT UPers-achieve justice in some fashion. They admired their predecessors who had created change through confrontation, alienation, and truth telling. But their professional instincts led them in different directions: accommodation, social positioning, even unconscious maneuvering of the queer content they did have so that it was depoliticized, personalized, and not about power. — Sarah Schulman

It's not our disadvantages or shortcomings that are ridiculous, but rather the studious way we try to hide them, and our desire to act as if they did not exist. — Giacomo Leopardi

It was human nature. You didn't give everything away; if you did, you would have nothing left.
There were those who took the view that there was a liberation in the act of confession, but mostly they tended to be the ones who were listening, and not the ones confessing. The only full confessions occur on deathbeds; all others are partial, modified. — John Connolly

In bed that night, in the darkness, with the illuminated dial of her alarm clock glowing from the bedside table, she asked herself whether one could force oneself to like somebody, or whether one could merely create conditions for affection to come into existence and hope that it did, spontaneously. Open then our hearts - these words came into her mind, dredged from somewhere in her memory, from some unknown context. If one opened one's heart, then friendship, and love, too, might alight and make their presence known. It was the act of opening that came first; that was the important thing, the first thing. But who was it who said, Open then our hearts? Where did that come from? — Alexander McCall Smith

All our language is composed of brief little dreams; and the wonderful thing is that we sometimes make of them strangely accurate and marvelously reasonable thoughts. What should we be without the help of that which does not exist? Very little. And our unoccupied minds would languish if fables, mistaken notions, abstractions, beliefs, and monsters, hypotheses, and the so-called problems of metaphysics did not people with beings and objectless images our natural depths and darkness. Myths are the souls of our actions and our loves. We cannot act without moving towards a phantom. We can love only what we create. — Paul Valery

I felt a warm hand touch my forehead. And then my cheek. I held my act steady though Akinli's touch made me feel more than awake.
"Where in the world did you come from, you beautiful, silent girl?" he whispered. — Kiera Cass

You heard him say it? 'Pain's the only evil I know about.' You heard that?"
The monk nodded solemnly.
"And that society is the only thing that determines whether an act is wrong or not? That too?"
"Yes."
"Dearest God, how did those two heresies get back into the world after all this time? Hell has limited imaginations down there. 'The serpent deceived me, and I did eat. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

How did you act when all was not good? Did you rise to the challenge? Did you display grit, resilience, and integrity in your response? Character isn't about being perfect or always doing the right thing. Character is how you respond to your own failures. It's when you screw up and life hits you in the mouth that you have an opportunity to reveal your inner strength. — Bill Courtney

Flagrant disregard for the complexities of human motivation has led us to credit our ancestors with godlike omniscience. This, in turn, has forced us to invent devious plots or to question the moral fiber of these people in order to explain why they did not act on their all-encompassing knowledge and behave as we think they should have. — Christopher L. Miller

An icon didn't do anything of its own volition. A symbol didn't act of its own accord. Both cities projected what they wanted onto me, and wanted me to stay still as they did it. — Sarah Rees Brennan

[T]hat little voice shut up the instant I did something. And not just something: the exact thing I knew to be right. Because if the system was broken, if Carrie Johnstone wasn't going to ever pay consequences for her action, it wasn't because "the system" failed to get her. It was because people like me chose not to act when we could. The system was people, and I was part of it, part of its problems, and I was going to be part of the solution from now on. — Cory Doctorow

Here the further question of the relation of spiritual life to public life and politics comes in. It must mean, for all who take it seriously, judging public issues from the angle of eternity, never from that of national self-interest or expediency; backing our conviction, as against party of prejudice, rejecting compromise, and voting only for those who adopt this disinterested point of view. Did we act thus, slowly but surely a body of opinion - a spiritual party, if you like - might be formed; and in the long run make its influence felt in the State. But such a programme demands much faith, hope, and charity; and courage too. — Evelyn Underhill

But I was living my life sideway. I did not act on what I wanted, I did not say the things I thought, and being so stifled and clamped all the time left me exhausted; no matter what I was doing, I was always imagining something else. — Curtis Sittenfeld

I once tried to give him a friendly little "drugs chat". He politely corrected me on every single fact, then said he'd noticed I drank above the recommended guidelines of Red Bull and did I think I might have an addiction? That was the last time I tried to act like the older sister. — Sophie Kinsella

Unable to maintain their government-granted monopoly, the powerful railroad
interests turned to government to do the regulating and price-fixing which they
were unable to do themselves. In fact, the pressure that induced Congress to
enact the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 did not come from reformers bemoaning
abuses by the powerful railroad interests; it came from the railroad interests
themselves, asking Congress to shield them against the harsh winds of
competition. — Dan Smoot

On Work and Charity
Likewise (Maria) watched (Martin's) toils and knew the measure of the midnight oil he burned. Work! She knew that he outdid her, though his work was of a different order. And she was surprised to behold that the less food he had, the harder he worked. On occasion, in a casual sort of way, when she thought hunger pinched hardest, she would send him in a loaf of new baking, awkwardly covering the act with banter to the effect that it was better than he could bake. And again, she would send one of her toddlers in to him with a great pitcher of hot soup, debating inwardly the while whether she was justified in taking it from the mouths of her own flesh and blood. Nor was Martin ungrateful, knowing as he did the lives of the poor, and that it ever in the world there was charity, this was it. — Jack London

The act of song writing and recording became one and the same to me; because I essentially recorded everything I did from the day I began trying to write songs. I've always had a lot to say. I'd always written poems. — Adam Goldberg

Mr Pickwick awoke the next morning, there was not a symptom of rheumatism about him; which proves, as Mr Bob Sawyer very justly observed, that there is nothing like hot punch in such cases; and that if ever hot punch did fail to act as a preventive, it was merely because the patient fell in to the vulgar error of not taking enough of it. — Charles Dickens

"Did God have a mother?" Children, when told that God made the heavens and the earth, innocently ask whether God had a mother. This deceptively simple question has stumped the elders of the church and embarrassed the finest theologians, precipitating some of the thorniest theological debates over the centuries. All the great religions have elaborate mythologies surrounding the divine act of Creation, but none of them adequately confronts the logical paradoxes inherent in the question that even children ask. — Michio Kaku

People who love horror films are people with boring lives ... when a really scary movie is over, you're reassured to see that you're still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That's the real reason we have horror films - they act as shock absorbers - and if they disappeared altogether, I bet you'd see a big leap in the number of serial killers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news. — Ryu Murakami

What do you mean? Why do you think you like them? That's all you and I did together when you were little. Don't you remember? I. Don't. Remember. I remember, It's a sink-or-swim world, Noah. I remember, Act tough and you are tough. I remember every heart-stomping look of disappointment, of embarrassment, of bewilderment from him. I remember: If your twin sister wasn't my spitting image I'd swear you came about from parthenogenesis. I remember the 49ers, the Miami Heat, the Giants, the World Cup. I do not remember Animal Planet. — Jandy Nelson

I started to study, because I knew I had to learn a lot about myself as an actor; you can't act the same as you did as a child. — Roddy McDowall

We have to stand up for these issues when it's tough, and that's what I've done. I did it when I was in the state legislature, sponsoring the Illinois version of the DREAM Act, so that children who were brought here through no fault of their own are able to go to college, because we actually want well-educated kids in our country who are able to succeed and become part of this economy and part of the American dream. — Barack Obama

CAIR is still trying to promote its strange claim that criticism of its ideology is racist....The ridiculous claims that criticism of Islam is an act of bigotry fail to take into account the fact that former Muslims like Bosch, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Firoozeh Bazrafkan have been some of the sharpest critics of the ideology. Did they also change races? — Daniel Greenfield

Time will solve all the problems Chinese school graduates face. In our bilingual society, there are no more Chinese school graduates, only English school graduates who can speak Mandarin. These English school graduates probably can also read and write Chinese, but they did not go to a Chinese school, and they act and think differently from us. Drawing a line between us, they would never say they graduated from a Chinese school, because former Chinese school graduates, that is, the vanishing group of people that includes us, are second-class citizens. They, on the other hand, belong to the first class, the Chinese elite, English school graduates who are fluent in Chinese. — Yeng Pway Ngon

She was never likely to say out loud, "I wish that I could marry a handsome prince," but knowing that if you did you'd probably open the door to find a stunned prince, a tied-up priest, and a Nac Mac Feegle grinning cheerfully and ready to act as best man definitely made you watch what you said. — Terry Pratchett

NO. No no no. I don't want to screw you. I just love you. When did who you want to screw become the whole game? Since when is the person you want to screw the only person you get to love? It's so stupid, Tiny! I mean, Jesus, who even gives a fuck about sex?! People act like it's the most important thing humans do, but come on. How can our sentient fucking lives revolve around something slugs can do. I mean, who you want to screw and whether you screw them? Those are important questions, I guess. But they're not that important. You know what's important? Who would you die for? Who do you wake up at five forty-five in the morning for even though you don't even know why he needs you? Whose drunken nose would you pick?! — John Green

The only way to wrest yourself from Bad Luck's grip is to act. Not randomly, but with logical purpose. And if you were wrong, you backed up and re- A person can't sit on their ass and wait for Good Luck to walk by.reasoned. Chance still overrode your efforts, but what other way did you have to combat chaos? — Lily Gardner

An agent saw one of the plays I did at ACT, but my mom was like, No, she's too young. I became so annoying that a year and a half later she just couldn't stand hearing me any more! — Marla Sokoloff

But Hannah's friend didn't understand the volatile balancing act between art and sanity, that the act of creation was like walking a tightrope during an earthquake. She didn't understand Hannah's stupid need for validation, or that the size of the audience increased the stakes and multiplied the fear. She didn't understand that creativity was dangerous, that, yes, there were some people who could stand before a canvas, paint a sunset that would bring the world to its knees, and return to their loved ones as a complete person who didn't hurt, didn't cry, didn't spill blood to appease the host of fickle muses. But Hannah did. Hannah's best ideas - sometimes her only ideas - were buried beneath the skin. — Jake Vander Ark

They stood silently before each other for a moment, and she thought that the most beautiful words were those which were not needed. When he moved, she said: "Don't say anything about the trial. Afterward." When he took her in his arms, she turned her body to meet his straight on, to feel the width of his chest with the width of hers, the length of his legs with the length of hers, as if she were lying against him, and her feet felt no weight, and she was held upright by the pressure of his body. They lay in bed together that night, and they did not know when they slept, the intervals of exhausted unconsciousness as intense an act of union as the convulsed meetings of their bodies. — Ayn Rand

As I watched all the problems you were struggling with, I realized how much you meant to me. It changed everything. I was worried about you - so, so worried. You have no idea. And it became useless to try to act like I could ever put any Moroi life above yours. It's not going to happen, no matter how wrong others say it is. And so I decided that's something I have to deal with. Once I made that decision ... there was nothing to hold us back." He hesitated, seeming to replay his words as he brushed my hair from my face. "Well, to hold me back. I'm speaking for myself. I don't mean to act like I know exactly why you did it."
"I did it because I love you," I said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And really, it was. — Richelle Mead

And that was how the Selection did its first act in my favor: if I had her here, at least I had the chance to try. — Kiera Cass

When I first started doing my stand-up act, I played the banjo, did comedy, magic tricks, juggled, read poetry. I stuck it all in. I didn't know you were supposed to just stand up and tell jokes. Essentially, that's what my act became: those five elements - except I dropped the poetry. — Steve Martin

Pella felt relieved to sit across from someone who was willing to act so unreservedly glum in her presence, as if she weren't there. David never did that
David's eyes were always right on her, probing, admiring, assessing, enjoying. That was what he called love. — Chad Harbach

The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit. We acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light - through the prism of our experience on 9/11. — Donald Rumsfeld

Shakespeare's enduring tragedy did its part to further the goals of the Mercenaries - glamorizing death, making dying for love seem the most noble act of all, though nothing could be further from the truth. Taking an innocent life - in a misguided attempt to prove love or for any other reason - is a useless waste. — Stacey Jay

Contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty. — Ron Paul

Did she say anything before she died?" he asked.
"Yes," the surgeon said. "She said, 'Forgive him'"
"Forgive him?" my father asked.
"I think she was referring to the drunk driver who killed her."
Wow.
My grandmother's last act on earth was a call for forgiveness, love and tolerance.
She wanted us to forgive Gerald, the dumb-ass Spokane Indian alcoholic who ran her over and killed her.
I think My Dad wanted to go find Gerald and beat him to death.
I think my mother would have helped him.
I think I would have helped him, too.
But my grandmother wanted us to forgive her murderer.
Even dead, she was a better person than us. — Sherman Alexie

That's when I realized that sex was not necessarily a shared thing. Sex was something you do with someone else, yet you can experience it separately from each other. It didn't necessarily bring you closer. In fact, it could highlight the parts of you that feel most separate. Sex could reveal to you your own isolation. Sam had told me that this act added up to love, but I did not feel loved by Carlos then, nor, in that moment, could I feel my love for him. — Liz Murray

Did Jane tell you all she knows about bears?"
"Yes," the king replied. "Don't act like food, inexplicably double your height and weight, and play dead unless it doesn't work."
"She didn't, perhaps, mention how me might kill the beast?"
"No," Edward said. "Her information was more the useless type. — Cynthia Hand

The first show that my dad and my mom did together was for, was a comedy series, a short form that went in the middle of late-night news, and then through all of their career, it was always the "Ed Sullivan Show," it was a variety act, my dad was on the "Jimmy Dean Show" for a few years. — Brian Henson

My view is that the time has come for the international community to act on Zimbabwe in the way that it did in Bosnia - I do not think that we are going to get free and fair elections in Zimbabwe — Raila Odinga

The inner hatreds of men are now projected outside. There are fights in the streets. Revolutions in France, they say. Men did not seek to resolve their own personal revolutions, so now they act them out collectively. — Anais Nin

In my head, Carlisle's kind eyes did not judge me. I knew that he would forgive me for this horrible act that I would do. Because he loved me. Because he thought I was better than I was. And he would still love me, even as I now proved him wrong. — Stephenie Meyer

The usual pronouncement that Truman Capote is a 'birdbrain.' Gore [Vidal] has finished a novel called Two Sisters in which he admits that he and Jack Kerouac went to bed together - or was that in an article? (Gore told me about so many articles he's written and talks he has given that my memory spins.) Anyhow, Gore now regrets that he didn't describe the act itself; how they got very drunk and Kerouac said, 'Why don't we take a shower?' and then tried to go down on him but did it very badly, and then they belly rubbed. Next day, Kerouac claimed he remembered nothing; but later, in a bar, yelled out, 'I've blown Gore Vidal! — Christopher Isherwood

The Creator did not speak man into existence as He did all else which He made, but He began with previously made material. So in the restoration process He did not speak the restoration into reality by fiat. Rather He began the process through a series of connected acts and events. And certainly no act of the Eternal Creator would ever be without purpose or reason. — Dr. J. Otis Yoder

She did not try to explain aging or love and how much harder it was to keep trusting beauty the later it got. How, though she was only twenty-eight years old, she seemed to have passed into the long slide during which time a woman became less and less valuable, and to keep her around became an act of charity rather than pleasure. — Ramona Ausubel

Washington read": the act of telling someone, "I didn't read your book but did praise it on TV.") — Mark Leibovich

Even in the pages of the New York Times and The New Yorker, it seems the epithet 'virtuous,' when applied to an act of personal environmental responsibility, may be used only ironically. Tell me: How did it come to pass that virtue - a quality that for most of history has generally been deemed, well, a virtue - become a mark of liberal softheadedness? How peculiar, that doing the right thing by the environment - buying the hybrid, eating like a locavore - should now set you up for the Ed Begley Jr. treatment. — Michael Pollan

The revolution had come too late for him. He was in his midforties when the Civil Rights Act was signed and close to fifty when its effects were truly felt.
He did not begrudge the younger generation their opportunities. He only wished that more of them, his own children, in particular, recognized their good fortune, the price that had been paid for it, and made the most of it. He was proud to have lived to see the change take place.
He wasn't judging anyone and accepted the fact that history had come too late for him to make much use of all the things that were now opening up. But he couldn't understand why some of the young people couldn't see it. Maybe you had to live through the worst of times to recognize the best of times when they came to you. Maybe that was just the way it was with people. — Isabel Wilkerson

Jesus Christ left us an example for our daily conduct. He felt no bitter resentment and He held no grudge against anyone! Even those who crucified Him were forgiven while they were in the act. Not a word did He utter against them nor against the ones who stirred them up to destroy Him. How evil they all were. He knew better than any other man, but He maintained a charitable attitude toward them. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

When I rely on my faith, I know God wants to reward and bless me but not because of some great act that I did but because of who He is. — Torii Hunter

Inspiration comes from your writing. Thoughts meander subliminally through our subconscious, at night when we sleep the brain is working. In the act of writing, phrases come out and you think: wow, did I write this? Did I have that insight? Sometimes you know something is good, good within your own limits, and those parts make life worth living. — Chloe Thurlow

I had loved magic tricks from the time I was six or seven. I bought books on magic. I did magic acts for my parents and their friends. I was aiming for show business from early days, and magic was the poor man's way of getting in: you buy a trick for $2, and you've got an act. — Steve Martin

If I am asked to explain why I learned the bicycle I should say I did it as an act of grace, if not of actual religion. — Frances E. Willard

The touchstone of a free act - from the decision to get out of bed in the morning or take a walk in the afternoon to the highest resolutions by which we bind ourselves for the future - is always that we know that we could also have left undone what we actually did. — Hannah Arendt

Someone once said that the best technology is indistinguishable from magic. Clark now had the best magic act in Silicon Valley. The best magic act attracted many of the best engineers. In the Valley it often did. The Valley had given engineers a place where they could make their living outside the enormous gray corporations that expected them to conform. It — Michael Lewis

EDGAR
A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled
my hair; wore gloves in my cap; served the lust of
my mistress' heart, and did the act of darkness with
her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and
broke them in the sweet face of heaven: one that
slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it:
wine loved I deeply, dice dearly: and in woman
out-paramoured the Turk: false of heart, light of
ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth,
wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey.
Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of
silks betray thy poor heart to woman: keep thy foot
out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen
from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend.
Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind:
Says suum, mun, ha, no, nonny.
Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let him trot by.
Storm still. — William Shakespeare

I never did, or countenanced, in public life, a single act inconsistent with the strictest good faith; having never believed there was one code of morality for a public, and another for a private man. — Thomas Jefferson

How, when she showed no desire to understand, could I explain to her what the act of worship meant to me; or how many unseen presences thronged the pews around me, who down the centuries had all shared my belief and prayed as I did; or how those sixty minutes of service constituted the one hour when I could be sure of communing with my late father and mother? — Magda Szabo

My mother taught me that reading is a kind of work, and that every paragraph merits exertion, and in this way, I learned how to absorb difficult books. Soon after I went to kindergarten, however, I learned that reading difficult books also brings trouble. I was punished for reading ahead of the class, for being unwilling to speak and act "nicely." I didn't know why I simultaneously feared and adored my female teachers, but I did know that I needed their attention — Hope Jahren

I did a thing called 24 Hour Plays, a thing they do every year on Broadway. A bunch of playwrights and actors get together, you write a play and you act it out in 24 hours, literally. People pay and the money goes to charity. So I did one - I was horrible. I was bad. I was terrified. And I was like, "Oh, I gotta do this again." Because I know I can do it. — Scott Raab

What they did not know was that she chafed at the never-endingness of it. No sooner had she cleaned one surface than it was dirty again. Clothes, even those barely worn, found themselves in crumpled heaps in linen baskets so that she yelled at Kitty and Thierry, hating her shrewish voice. Once, bored to within an inch of her sanity by the act of hanging out yet another lineful, she had simply turned, dropped the basket and walked straight into the lake, pausing only to remove her shoes. The water had been so shockingly cold that it had knocked the breath from her chest, and left her laughing for the sheer joy of feeling something. — Jojo Moyes

Obedience had never been deemed a pure virtue among the Tiste Andii. To follow must be an act born of deliberation, of clear-eyed, cogent recognition that the one to be followed has earned the privilege. So often, after all, formal structures of hierarchy stood in place of such personal traits and judgements. A title or rank did not automatically confer upon the one wearing it any true virtue, or even worthiness to the claim. Nimander — Steven Erikson