Backfires Quotes & Sayings

I used to write things out beforehand. But sometimes it backfires. — Todd Barry

Jane was my wicked stepmother: she was generous, affectionate and resourceful; she salvaged my schooling and I owe her an unknowable debt for that. One flaw: sometimes, early on, she would tell me things designed to make me think less of my mother, and I would wave her away, saying, 'Jane, this just backfires and makes me think less of you.' — Martin Amis

The war does not end when you come home. It lives on in memories of your fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who gave their lives. It endures in the wound that is slow to heal, the disability that isn't going away, the dream that wakes you at night, or the stiffening in your spine when a car backfires down the street. — Barack Obama

I follow a simple formula when I compose. I ask myself, 'What would the audience want to hear?' and 'Why would they buy my CDs?' And the process of answering these questions through music follows. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, it backfires. — A.R. Rahman

More often than not, this backfires, and our attempts to be different result in uniformity, our attempts to be plain draw attention to ourselves, our attempts to temper sexuality inadvertently exploit it, and our attempts to avoid offense accidentally create it. — Rachel Held Evans

How about this John Kerry controversy? So he's out there in California, tells some kind of joke and it backfires. He's saying he botched the joke ... This guy can lose elections he's not even in. — David Letterman

Failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. — Jim Rohn

If there's one thing that a study of history has taught us, it is that things can always get worse. — Neil Gaiman

What if I told you I would walk away from everything that I have, everything that I love and the entire life I have built to this very moment if you told me I would have a chance of being with you? — M. Martin

To build yourself is to add value to your life — Sunday Adelaja

Fear kills. Protecting yourself backfires eventually. And living in fear of pain isn't really living at all. — Patricia Gaffney

Using guilt, fear or any other negative emotion to try to change someone's behavior backfires 100% of the time. If you want someone to do something for you or for themselves, the most important thing to remember is they have to want to do it. No positive outcome will ever be achieved by tearing another person apart or kicking them while they are down. If you truly want to help someone, conveying to them what a positive impact they've had in your life, is a great place to start. — D.S. Luca

My eyes close in a subconscious effort to block out the bad memories, but the effort backfires. Protests. Rallies. Screams for survival. I see women and children starving to death, homes destroyed and buried in rubble, the countryside a burnt landscape, its only fruit the rotting flesh of casualties. I see dead dead dead red and burgundy and maroon and the richest shade of your mother's favorite lipstick all smeared into the earth. So much everything all the things dead. — Tahereh Mafi

Trying to make something sound innocent always backfires - I know that just from being a kid — Catherine Gilbert Murdock

You have to explain the invention to customers - not once or twice but three or four times, with a different twist each time. — Anonymous

As the flattery of friends corrupts, so often do the taunts of enemies instruct. — Augustine Of Hippo

Love is ancient and mysterious and you can't mess with it. If you do it just backfires and you meet with disaster. — Alice Hoffman

My publishers are wonderful because they have let me write what I wanted to. They're wise enough to know that, with any author who's not simply writing formulas - who's trying to create something new - pressuring them to do something for market purposes almost always backfires. I can't imagine working under those circumstances, actually. — Elizabeth Kostova

I always hope people will like me, and I'm always afraid they will think I'm a fraud. I try harder than perhaps I should to make people like me, then it backfires. They think I'm a buffoon. — Jay McInerney

Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame.
Pain is an inextricable thread in the fabric of life, and to tear it out is not only impossible, but destructive: attempting to tear it out unravels everything else with it. To try to avoid pain is to give too many fucks about pain. In contrast, if you're able to not give a fuck about the pain, you become unstoppable." ~~~~ Mark Manson — Mark Manson

For the record, kid, Summoning a demon to kidnap her, not the best way to meet a woman. It usually backfires on you. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I liked a lot of alternative and I like punk stuff. — Martie Maguire

Sometimes you try to help people, and it backfires on you, and then they try to take advantage of you. — Bill Cosby

It's sort of the mixed blessing of being on television for so long in one thing; sometimes that backfires, in that you're not able to continue on. — Katey Sagal

Women don't want their men to bring them the moon and the stars,
they only want them to want to do it. — Manoj Vaz

Sometimes, I genuinely enjoy having conversations with journalists; enjoying the few moments of intimacy with a stranger is fascinating to me. But once in a while that backfires and you're suddenly reading something that has a bent on it that you didn't feel was in the least bit a part of the conversation that you thought you were having. Then you get overly protective and say very little and then you come out of the hole again. — Gillian Anderson

Once you feel like you're being dictated by other people's expectations, it usually backfires. — Rob Zombie

Stoicism's Emotional Robustification Success brings an asymmetry: you now have a lot more to lose than to gain. You are hence fragile. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I tried reading Hilbert. Only his papers published in mathematical periodicals were available at the time. Anybody who has tried those knows they are very hard reading. — Alonzo Church

Do you believe in other universes? Do you think there's another dimension where we're happy? — Jasmine Warga

The wicked conceive evil; they are pregnant with trouble and give birth to lies. 15 They dig a deep pit to trap others, then fall into it themselves. 16 The trouble they make for others backfires on them. The violence they plan falls on their own heads. 17 I will thank the LORD because he is just; I will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High. — Anonymous

Sometimes I stress too much and don't have fun. If you're trying to be perfect, sometimes it backfires on you. — Chad Pennington

I thought I could make a sarcastic joke about it. But it's based on my own struggle with how much to give, how much it's really helping or not, and how foolish or not I feel. Giving sometimes backfires ... — Nicole Holofcener

When I'm married I want to be single, and when I'm single I want to be married. — Cary Grant

Be proactive; and ready to run if proactive backfires. — Jesse Petersen

It takes a long time to write a book. I'm not going to spend that much time trying to deliver a message. The reason I do it is because I want to understand something myself. It's not a delivery device, it's an inquiry device. Didactic fiction to my mind never works. It backfires. — Ruth Ozeki

When love is at the base of something, it is a masterpiece. — Steve Maraboli