Begin And Began Quotes & Sayings

I remember wanting to write a book with someone, the someone being Kate [DiCamillo], and we decided to write about two friends. We had no idea how to begin this project - neither of us had ever collaborated with another writer - and I'm pretty sure that we began by giving our two friends a sock, just to see what they'd do with it. And it went from there. — Kate DiCamillo

Can it be, thought I, that my sole mission on earth is to destroy the hopes of others? Ever since I began to live and act, fate has somehow associated me with the last act of other people's tragedies, as if without me no one could either die or give way to despair! I have been the inevitable character who comes in at the final act, involuntarily playing the detestable role of the hangman or the traitor. What has been fate's object in all this? Has it destined me to be the author of middle-class tragedies and family romances
or a purveyor of tales for, say, the Reader's Library? Who knows? Are there not many who begin life by aspiring to end it like Alexander the Great, or Lord Byron, and yet remain petty civil servants all their lives? — Mikhail Lermontov

My mother died of breast cancer that metastasized throughout her body, including her brain. Toward the end, as her mind became increasingly effected, I began to feel as though I were on a Tilt-a-Whirl - that now-old-fashioned amusement park ride in which each rider stands upright in a little niche on a large disk, the whole of which rotates until someone throws up. It seemed as though I shared the ride with a great many people from my mother's life, while she stood in the center and spoke to whomever was opposite her when the ride stopped. Sometimes she would begin a sentence addressing me, and end it addressing her prom date, or someone else I couldn't see. — Scott Robinson

What war did for him (hasten disillusionment with communism), childbirth did for me. I began to notice what neglected, neurotic waifs the children of Communists were and to question the genuineness of the love of mankind that didn't begin at home. — Joy Davidman

Then the question began to live under my blankets: How did lesbianism begin? What were the symptoms? The public library gave information on the finished lesbian
and that woefully sketchy
but on the growth of a lesbian, there was nothing. I did discover that the difference between hermaphrodites and lesbians was that hermaphrodites were "born that way." It was impossible to determine whether lesbians budded gradually, or burst into being with a suddenness that dismayed them as much as it repelled society. — Maya Angelou

To exhaustion and beyond they prayed, to that glittering place where the flesh dies and is born again, where all is agony, and finally, just as La Inca was feeling her spirit begin to loose itself from its earthly pinions, just as the circle began to dissolve
— Junot Diaz

Growth theory did not begin with my articles of 1956 and 1957, and it certainly did not end there. Maybe it began with 'The Wealth of Nations'; and probably even Adam Smith had predecessors. — Robert Solow

I would begin by collecting lithographs and etchings. It's a way of coming in and benefiting from real quality art. Even younger artists make wonderful prints. Prints can become very valuable. That's how I began collecting. — Arne Glimcher

Rand had changed a number of laws in Tear, especially those that weighed heavily on the poor, but he had been unable to change everything. He had not even known how to begin. Lews Therin began to maunder on about taxes and money creating jobs, but he might as well have been spilling out words at random for all the sense he made. — Robert Jordan

The twin concepts of nihilism and the antihero have had it. What began with The Wild One and James "nobody understands me" Dean, ran with increasing vehement negativism up through the Stones and Velvets and Iggy ... [I]t may be time, in spite of all indications to the contrary from the exterior society, to begin thinking in terms of heroes again, of love instead of hate, of energy instead of violence, of strength instead of cruelty, of action instead of reaction. — Lester Bangs

What's wrong?" she began quietly, her large, liquid eyes illuminated with hysteria. She laughed like a loon and said, "Where shall we begin? I'm tired. I'm sore." Her voice began lilting and rising, getting louder with every sentence. Grabbing at her chest, she shouted, "I've got a corset wrapped so tightly over my breasts that I can hardly breathe! I lost both my socks and my shoes! My hands are a pulp of lacerations!" She lifted them up before her, fingers spread, and laughed again. "I've a gash -- a throbbing, bleeding gash on the back of my scalp! And let's not forget to mention that I'm surrounded by men of the most vile, disreputable character imaginable, stuck on board a ship, in the middle of the bloody Atlantic! — Gabriela Lawson

For with my intuition I knew that this man was repeating a pattern over and over again: courting a woman with his intelligence and sympathy, claiming her emotionally; then, when she began to claim in return, running away. And the better a woman was, the sooner he would begin to run. I knew this with my intuition, and yet I sat there in my dark room, looking at the hazed wet brilliance of the purple London night sky, longing with my whole being. — Doris Lessing

I will not be spoken to in that tone," she said to her mother.
Enid's mouth gaped open. For only a moment, however, until she began to protest.
"You've gotten snippy since your marriage, haven't you? I'll not take that behavior from you, child. Your sister would never have disrespected me in such a fashion."
"Enough!" Ellice held up her hand, her gaze never once leaving her mother.
"When have you ever respected me, Mother? I'm only a poor substitute for Eudora." She took a deep breath. "I'm not Eudora," she said. "I'm not your beloved daughter who died. I'm the one who lived. I'm tired of hearing about what my sister did or would have done. I suspect that Eudora would have silenced you long before now."
She grabbed her skirts and walked around her mother, heading for the kitchen. At the door, she stopped and turned.
"Must I die before you begin to value me as well? — Karen Ranney

Are you often struck, when you become sufficiently intimate with other people to know something of their development, how late their lives begin so to speak? I mean these men you meet who seem to have read everything, done everything, and yet they were pure barbarians until they left school, and had turned twenty perhaps before they began to be interested in the things that interest them now? — C.S. Lewis

There's nothing really difficult if you only begin - some people contemplate a task until it looms so big, it seems impossible, but I just begin and it gets done somehow. There would be no coral islands if the first bug sat down and began to wonder how the job was to be done. — John Shaw Billings

Over the past decade, the anti-smoking movement has railed against the tobacco companies for making smoking cool and has spent untold millions of dollars of public money trying to convince teenagers that smoking isn't cool. But that's not the point. Smoking was never cool. Smokers are cool. Smoking epidemics begin in precisely the same way that the suicide epidemic in Micronesia began or word-of-mouth epidemics begin or the AIDS epidemic began, because of the extraordinary influence of Pam P. and Billy G. and Maggie and their equivalents-the smoking versions of R. and Tom Gau and Gaetan Dugas. In this epidemic, as in all others, a very small group-a select few-are responsible for driving the epidemic forward. — Malcolm Gladwell

My travels inevitably begin with copious research and planning. I began this kind of planning long ago when I was very young and anxious to hit the road. Hours were spent pouring over junior encyclopedias memorizing the names of exotic-sounding cities
Addis, Ababa, Samarkand, Damascus. Lengthy lists were written detailing the most minute necessities: three pairs of socks, two pencils. spare batteries, rope. — Barbara Hodgson

Only as the written text began to speak would the voices of the forest, and of the river, begin to fade. And only then would language loosen its ancient association with the invisible breath, the spirit sever itself from the wind, the psyche dissociate itself from the environing air. — David Abram

It began as most thing begin. Not on a dark and stormy night. Not foreshadowed by ominous here comes the villain music, dire warning at the bottom of a teacup, or dread portents in the sky.
It began small and innocuously, as most catastrophes do. A butterfly flaps its wings somewhere and the wind changes, and a warm front hits a cold front off the coast of western Africa and before you know it you've got an hurricane closing in. By the time anyone figured out the storm was coming, it was too late to do anything but batten down the hatches and exercise damage control. — Karen Marie Moning

I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft. — Dorothy Allison

My mother was filled with apprehension to begin with; we pored over the atlas, and, bit by bit as we pored, the comic possibilities began to unfold in absurd imaginary scenes until we were falling about with laughter; and by the time I caught the train to London next morning, she was infected with my excitement. — Patrick Leigh Fermor

When I began to listen to poetry, it's when I began to listen to the stones, and I began to listen to what the clouds had to say, and I began to listen to others. And I think, most importantly for all of us, then you begin to learn to listen to the soul, the soul of yourself in here, which is also the soul of everyone else. — Joy Harjo

The story seems to begin with catastrophe but in fact began earlier and is not a tragedy but rather a love story. Perhaps tragedies are only tragedies in the presence of love, which confers meaning to loss. Loss is not felt in the absence of love. — Elizabeth Alexander

Christianity did not begin with a confession. It began with an invitation into friendship, into creating a new community, into forming relationships based on love and service. — Diana Butler Bass

Then in the darkness and purity of the meadows he began to feel that the world had many secrets, that they were shattering even to glimpse or sense, and that they were not necessarily unpleasant. In certain states of light he could see, he could begin to sense, things most miraculous indeed. Although it seemed self-serving, he concluded nonetheless, after a lifetime of adhering to the diffuse principles of a science he did not know, that there was life after death, that the dead rose into a mischievous world of pure light, that something most mysterious lay beyond the the enfolding darkness, something wonderful. — Mark Helprin

I began to firmly change my mind when I saw how young Egyptians used Facebook, for example, to begin to coalesce their social justice movement in their country. And a good Iranian friend of mine showed me how also in Iran, till the government shut it down, much was communicated via social media. So I'm not against. I use the internet regularly to do research. It's great but you have to use your discernment, especially if researching content. — Micheline Aharonian Marcom

Something happens to you when you begin to think about this planet as a single living organism. And when you begin to live in that awareness, nothing is ever again quite the same. Nothing can be the same after that. Nations began to look like people to me, like familiar friends. The distinctions between religion, biology, and politics began to blur. I began to wonder why I had always assumed that human thought was the only kind of thought - as if nature would be content with a single species of flower, or just one kind of tree. — Ken Carey

Her years in Gibson started a healing process. It began with faith, and forgiving. But healing didn't mean forgetting.

But maybe forgetting wasn't necessary. The memories of her childhood provided a backdrop, a place to begin the changes that would make life better. She knew who she didn't want to be. — Brenda Minton

If we would be sanctified, our course is clear and plain-we must begin with Christ. We must go to Him as sinners, with no plea but that of utter need, and cast our souls on Him by faith ... If we would grow in holiness and become more sanctified, we must continually go on as we began, and be ever making fresh applications to Christ. — J.C. Ryle

[E]ducation is a thing you get past and forget about as quickly as possible. This is particularly true of elementary and secondary education, of course ... . I began to remember what it had been like: the tremendous excitement of the first couple of years, when kids imagine that great secrets are going to be unfolding before them, then the disappointment that gradually sets in when you begin to realize the truth: There's plenty of learning to do, but it's not the learning you wanted. It's learning to keep your mouth shut, learning how to avoid attracting the teacher's attention when you don't want it, learning not to ask questions, learning how to pretend to understand, learning how to tell teachers what they want to hear, learning to keep your own ideas and opinions to yourself, learning how to look as if you're paying attention, learning how to endure the endless boredom. — Daniel Quinn

Jeepie said that was why I was always a little bugs the first few days after they let me out of solitary confinement. He said solitary itself was nothing but a room and a cot and you; and the room was a blank to begin with and a blank was comfortable as being asleep or dead. But that if you began filling the room with crazy thoughts you came out of it crazy. Jeepie said perhaps my biggest trouble was I could never forget I'd been to school: "They've taught you that to think is to be smart but my friend there's times when it's smart to be stupid."

But no one's immune to thinking. Try drawing a blank for any length of time, emptying your head of everything and still you land on a color, a shape, a personality, a grievance. I can sit here on this cot in my cell and stare at the plaster wall, go absolutely limp in my head, and the story, the story of Virginia and me is there in the plaster. — Elliot Chaze

Any honest examination of the national life proves how far we are from the standard of human freedom with which we began. The recovery of this standard demands of everyone who loves this country a hard look at himself, for the greatest achievements must begin somewhere, and they always begin with the person. — James A. Baldwin

The story of Zenia ought to begin when Zenia began. It must have been someplace long ago and distant in space, thinks Tony; someplace bruised, and very tangled. A European print, hand-tinted, ochre-coloured, with dusty sunlight and a lot of bushes in it- bushes with thick leaves and ancient twisted roots, behind which, out of sight in the undergrowth and hinted at only by a boot protruding, or a slack hand, something ordinary but horrifying is taking place. — Margaret Atwood

For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize. — Aristotle.

I think it's degrading of you, Flora,' cried Mrs Smiling at breakfast. 'Do you truly mean that you don't ever want to work at anything?'
Her friend replied after some thought: 'Well, when I am fifty-three or so I would like to write a novel as good as "Persuasion", but with a modern setting, of course. For the next thirty years or so I shall be collecting material for it. If anyone asks me what I work at, I shall say "Collecting material." No one can object to that. Besides, I shall be.'
Mrs Smiling drank some coffee in silent disapproval.
'If you ask me,' continued Flora, 'I think I have much in common with Miss Austen. She liked everything to be tidy and pleasant and comfortable around her, and so do I. You see Mary,' - and here Flora began to grow earnest and to wave one finger about - 'unless everything is tidy and pleasant and comfortable all about one, people cannot even begin to enjoy life. I cannot endure messes. — Stella Gibbons

It all began when ... they're funny, those words. Everyone uses them, without thinking what they mean. When does anything begin? With everyone it begins when you're born. Or before that, when your parents got married. Or before that, when your parents were born. Or when your ancestors colonised the place. Or when humans came squishing out of the mud and slime, dropped off their flippers and fins, and started to walk. But all the same, all that aside, for what's happened to us there was quite a definite beginning — John Marsden

Joshua couldn't help but wonder why he went on this journey to begin with. Doubts rose in his mind - doubts of the justification of all this. Was it all worth it? He began to think that whatever it was that had pushed or pulled him to go and leave his world, his place of belonging, was probably just a dream, no more than the senseless musings of a bored existence. — Stefan Bolz

It is in that inner peace and stillness that things begin to happen, and it was in that peace and stillness that I began to hear God's voice. — Eileen Caddy

I began to watch places with an interest so exact it might have been memory. There was that street corner, with the small newsagent which sold copies of the Irish Independent and honeycomb toffee in summer. I could imagine myself there, a child of nine, buying peppermints and walking back down by the canal, the lock brown and splintered as ever, and boys diving from it.
It became a powerful impulse, a slow intense reconstruction of a childhood which had never happened. A fragrance or a trick of light was enough. Or a house I entered which I wanted not just to appreciate but to remember, and then I would begin. — Eavan Boland

Soon after Harris's HeLa-chicken study, a pair of researchers at New York University discovered that human-mouse hybrids lost their human chromosomes over time, leaving only the mouse chromosomes. This allowed scientists to begin mapping human genes to specific chromosomes by tracking the order in which genetic traits vanished. If a chromosome disappeared and production of a certain enzyme stopped, researchers knew the gene for that enzyme must be on the most recently vanished chromosome. Scientists in laboratories throughout North America and Europe began fusing cells and using them to map genetic traits to specific chromosomes, creating a precursor to the human genome map we have today. — Rebecca Skloot

Suddenly Arthur began to feel his apparently nonexistent scalp begin to crawl as he found himself moving slowly but inexorably forward toward the console, but it was only a dramatic zoom on the part of whoever had made the recording, he assumed. "I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me," intoned Deep Thought, his voice regaining its accustomed declamatory tones. "A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate - and yet I will design it for you. A computer that can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program! Yes! I shall design this computer for you. And I shall name it also unto you. And it shall be called ... the Earth. — Douglas Adams

It wasn't until I began to work on my inner life and know myself that my life changed. Success really does begin within. The size and quality of your outer life is only limited by the size and quality of your inner life. — Robin Sharma

This was the lure of violence, and violence did not begin at the moment of physical assault; it began earlier, in all the thoughts that led up to it, in that storm of vehemence and venom. Rage beckoned violence, — Steven Erikson

When did it all begin? he thought. When did I go under? A dark, vaguely familiar Aztec lake. The nightmare. How do I get away? How do I take control? And the questions kept coming: Was getting away what he really wanted? Did he really want to leave it all behind? And he also thought: the pain doesn't matter anymore. And also: maybe it all began with my mother's death. And also: the pain doesn't matter, as long as it doesn't get any worse, as long as it isn't unbearable. And also: fuck, it hurts, fuck, it hurts. Pay it no mind, pay it no mind. And all around him, ghosts. — Roberto Bolano

We got through all of Genesis and part of Exodus before I left. One of the main things I was taught from this was not to begin a sentence with And. I pointed out that most sentences in the Bible began with And, but I was told that English had changed since the time of King James. In that case, I argued, why make us read the Bible? But it was in vain. Robert Graves was very keen on the symbolism and mysticism in the Bible at that time. — Stephen Hawking

All things began in Order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again, according to the Ordainer of Order, and the mystical mathematicks of the City of Heaven. — Thomas Browne

I had gone into my wife Akemi over and over and in so many ways that the thought alone made my heart begin to race and my entire body began to sweat like summer but in the spring season. — Sister Souljah

Begin as you mean to go on, and go on as you began, and let the Lord be all in all to you. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The automobile, which began as a transportation convenience, has become a bloody tyrant (50,000 lives a year), and it is the responsibility of the park service, as well as that of everyone else concerned with preserving both wilderness and civilization, to begin a campaign of resistance. — Edward Abbey

Once my loved one accepted the diagnosis, healing began for the entire family, but it took too long. It took years. Can't we, as a nation, begin to speed up that process? We need a national campaign to destigmatize mental illness, especially one targeted toward African Americans. The message must go on billboards and in radio and TV public service announcements. It must be preached from pulpits and discussed in community forums. It's not shameful to have a mental illness. Get treatment. Recovery is possible. — Bebe Moore Campbell

But this was not all, for she soon found that the thread, after going straight down for a little way, turned first sideways in one direction, then sideways in another, and then shot, at various angles, hither and thither inside the heap, so that she began to be afraid that to clear the thread she must remove the whole huge gathering. She was dismayed at the very idea, but, losing no time, set to work with a will; and with aching back, and bleeding fingers and hands, she worked on, sustained by the pleasure of seeing the heap slowly diminish and begin to show itself on the opposite side of the fire. Another thing which helped to keep up her courage was that, as often as she uncovered a turn of the thread, instead of lying loose upon the stone, it tightened up; this made her sure that her grandmother was at the end of it somewhere. — George MacDonald

The moment we begin to feel satisfied that we are making some progress along the road of sanctification, it is all the more necessary to repent and confess that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Yet the Christian life is not one of gloom, but of ever increasing joy in the Lord. God alone knows our good works, all we know is his good work. We can do no more than hearken to his commandment, carry on and rely on his grace, walk in his commandments and - sin. All the time our new righteousness, our sanctification, the light which is meant to shine, are veiled from our eyes. The left hand knows not what the right hand does. But we believe and are well assured, "that he which began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1.6). — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

This, too, was like seeing double. This was where my heartaches began.

In combat zones there is no structure, the form of things changes all the time. Safety, danger, control, panic, these and other labels constantly attach and detach themselves from places and people. When you emerge from such a space it stays with you, its otherness randomly imposes itself on the apparent stability of your peaceful home-town streets. What-if becomes the truth, you imagine buildings exploding in Gramercy Park, you see craters appear in the middle of Washington Square, and women carrying shopping bags drop dead on Delancey Street, bee-stung by sniper fire. You take pictures of your small patch of Manhattan and ghost images begin to appear in them, negative phantoms of the distant dead. Double exposure: like Kirlian photography, it becomes a new kind of truth. — Salman Rushdie

THE WHISTLER
All of a sudden she began to whistle. By all of a sudden
I mean that for more than thirty years she had not
whistled. It was thrilling. At first I wondered, who was
in the house, what stranger? I was upstairs reading, and
she was downstairs. As from the throat of a wild and
cheerful bird, not caught but visiting, the sounds war-
bled and slid and doubled back and larked and soared.
Finally I said, Is that you? Is that you whistling? Yes, she
said. I used to whistle, a long time ago. Now I see I can
still whistle. And cadence after cadence she strolled
through the house, whistling.
I know her so well, I think. I thought. Elbow and an-
kle. Mood and desire. Anguish and frolic. Anger too.
And the devotions. And for all that, do we even begin
to know each other? Who is this I've been living with
for thirty years?
This clear, dark, lovely whistler? — Mary Oliver

After meditating for some years, I began to see the patterns of my own behavior. As you quiet your mind, you begin to see the nature of your own resistance more clearly, struggles, inner dialogues, the way in which you procrastinate and develop passive resistance against life. As you cultivate the witness, things change. You don't have to change them. Things just change. — Ram Dass

Imagine, what could you really accomplish if your speech was filled with more statements that began with "I can" than with "I can't"? How far could your dreams soar if you said, "Why not me?" instead of "Why me?" more often? And just like when you are learning a new language, you're still going to slip up and say, "I could have done . . ." instead of "I will do . . ." Surround yourself with native successful speakers, and before you know it, you'll begin to speak the life of your dreams into existence. — Steve Harvey

Prisoners of war from many lands came together that morning at such and such a place in Dresden. It had been decreed that here was where the digging for bodies was to begin. So the digging began. — Kurt Vonnegut

A sharp ringing of a bell suddenly split the air, signaling that the quadrille was soon to begin. Realizing that the ladies shielding her from view were going to have to take their seats, Wilhelmina began backing as quickly as she could underneath the chair behind her, her only thought being to make an escape as quietly as possible. She'd gotten halfway underneath the chair before her bustle, dratted contraption that it was, snagged on the underside of the chair. Before she could get herself free, a loud clearing of a throat sent a sense of dread flowing through her veins. Lifting her head, she refused a sigh when her gaze was caught and held by none other than the gentleman she'd been hoping to avoid. Mr. Edgar Wanamaker. — Jen Turano

I realized you might make money at writing, and you might even make a living at it. So after that I didn't write stories just for the class but wrote them for the purpose of submitting them somewhere, and at some point in the process, I began writing them just to please myself and that's where you begin to see the real value of a life of writing. — Dean Koontz

Why had I failed to realize the depth of Mary's faith despite all those
letters? She'd certainly done her best to share it. The answer came to me in
the midst of my own faith journey, one that seemed to begin the night my
mother died and was jump-started when I lost David seventeen months later.
Why hadn't I seen it?
Simple. I wasn't looking.
According to Jeremiah 29:13 in the Bible, "You will seek me and find
me when you seek me with all your heart" (NIV). It wasn't about Mary at all. It was about me. It wasn't until my mother's death that I began actively
seeking God. I didn't see Mary's Christian example because I hadn't yet
developed spiritually. I wasn't "there" yet. I didn't recognize true faith
because I didn't have my own. — Mary Potter Kenyon

We're in an a bit of an awkward situation.
When the institution of marriage first came about, people commonly got married at around the same age that they began to develop feelings for the opposite sex.
This is no longer the case.
13, 14 - these are no longer appropriate ages to be getting married. Now, you do not get married until you're out of college, at least. If you get married any earlier, you're looked down upon.
So, what we have is a gap.
A gap between when we begin to be attracted to the opposite sex, and when we're allowed to give into that attraction. A gap between now and then. A fairly large gap, I might add. About a 10 or 12 year gap.
I believe that dating was designed to bridge that gap. — Cole Ryan

we are dealing with a new kind of army altogether, no longer held together in the solidarity of a common citizenship. As that tie fails, the legions discover another in esprit de corps, in their common difference from and their common interest against the general community. They begin to develop a warmer interest in their personal leaders, who secure them pay and plunder. Before the Punic Wars it was the tendency of ambitious men in Rome to court the plebeians; after that time they began to court the legions. Comparison — H.G.Wells

I decided to make spaghetti for lunch again. Not that I was the least bit hungry. But I couldn't just go on sitting on the sofa, waiting for the phone to ring. I had to move my body, to begin working toward some goal. I put water in a pot, turned on the gas, and until it boiled I would make tomato sauce while listening to an FM broadcast. The radio was playing an unaccompanied violin sonata by Bach. The performance itself was excellent, but there was something annoying about it. I didn't know whether this was the fault of the violinist or of my own present state of mind, but I turned off the music and went on cooking in silence. I heated the olive oil, put garlic in the pan, and added minced onions. When these began to brown, I added the tomatoes that I had chopped and strained. It was good to be cutting things and frying things like this. It gave me a sense of accomplishment that I could feel in my hands. I liked the sounds and the smells. — Haruki Murakami

The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o'clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 2th. but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o'clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner. — Shirley Jackson

I began to be involved (with exercise). It was a little bit like sex sometimes - you know how sometimes you're kind of disinterested, kind of uninvolved, and slowly you begin to become interested? — Diane Von Furstenberg

The philosophy of Atheism has its root in the earth, in this life; its aim is the emancipation of the human race from all God-heads, be they Judaic, Christian, Mohammedan, Buddhistic, Brahmanistic, or what not. Mankind has been punished long and heavily for having created its gods, nothing but pain and persecution, have been man's lot since gods began. There is but one way out of this blunder. Man must break his fetters which have chained him to the gates of heaven and hell, so that he can begin to fashion out of his reawakened and illumined consciousness a new world upon the earth. — Emma Goldman

I began to see that creating a healthy family, in which members develop the ability for mutual respect and caring, is a prerequisite for a more peaceful world. For, it is the family that creates the social fabric of our culture, as Mahatma Gandhi so poignantly illustrated, when he said:
If we are to teach real peace on this world ... we shall have to begin with children; and if they will grow up in their own innocence, we won't have to struggle; we won't have to pass fruitless, idle resolutions, but we shall go from love to love and peace to peace, until at last all the corners of the world are covered with that peace and love for which, consciously or unconsciously, the whole world is hungering
Sweeping floors, wiping noses, singing children to sleep ... such is the work of peacemakers. Blessed be the peacemakers. — Shea Darian

It seemed that a woman should remember the night a new life began inside her. Such a miracle should not be the result of routine or an ordinary coming together. Life should begin in a cataclysm of heat and fury bathed in the sweat of passion and urgency. — Maggie Osborne

Paul did not begin by attacking the false teachers and their doctrines. He began by exalting Jesus Christ and showing His preeminence in five areas: the gospel message, redemption, creation, the church, and Paul's own ministry. — Warren W. Wiersbe

It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophize; wondering in the first place at obvious perplexities, and then by gradual progression raising questions about the greater matters too. — Aristotle.

THOSE WHO WOULD MAKE ART might well begin by reflecting on the fate of those who preceded them: most who began, quit. It's a genuine tragedy. Worse yet, it's an unnecessary tragedy. After all, artists who continue and artists who quit share an immense field of common emotional — David Bayles

If you want to serve the universe, the obvious place to begin is right where you are. That's where I began. I looked at every situation I came into and wondered, 'What can I do to be of service in this situation?' Sometimes there was nothing I could do, but often there was - a helping hand, a word of cheer, a pleasant smile. Then, after I had given a lot, a most wonderful spiritual receiving began - giving me more to give. — Peace Pilgrim

The Strongman continued his mental review. "And the petty little saints in the town were . . . obscure, don't you see, far from help, far from the mainstream, alone amid the rolling farmlands . . . unknown. It was a perfect place to begin the process." His beastly face grew tight and bitter. "Until they started praying. Until they ceased being so comfortable and started weeping before God! Until they began to reclaim the power of the . . ." The Strongman sealed his lips. "The Cross?" the aide volunteered. — Frank E. Peretti