Being A Mess Quotes & Sayings

It's hard to imagine yourself in the future. It's why people do so many dumb things, because they're mired in the moment. Smoking, drinking, making disastrous marriages, putting off medical tests. The reason we've made a mess of the planet is that being its stewards required us to imagine not our own futures but those four or five generations removed. — Anna Quindlen

I didn't think about being king," he said, his voice hoarse.
Eddis stared. "Your capacity to land yourself in a mess because you didn't think first, Eugenides, will never cease to amaze me. What do you mean you didn't think about being king? Is Attolia going to marry you and move into my library? — Megan Whalen Turner

There are etiquette things that actors, new actors, need to know about. Because it only takes one mess-up on a set to get fired. Not being where you're supposed to be or saying something to the wrong person that you're not supposed to say, and those are like basic things that the actors need to know. — Loretta Devine

Taylor Swift on why girls look up to her:
It's the message. I try to have a normal life and look at things in a normal way, under very abnormal circumstances. That's always going to be my main goal, that's always what I'm going to strive for, to be a normal human being. It's interesting because you're put in really abnormal situations. You have an abnormal-size microscope covering your life and everything you do. You look at the idea of being 22, that's when you're supposed to be out there living and being selfish and making mistakes and messing up. If I mess up once, it's a headline everywhere. — Taylor Swift

Pritkin gave me a little shake and I eyed him without favor. The only other occasions when I had been dragged back in time, the trip had been triggered by proximity to a person whose past was being threatened.
I have to tell you," I said frankly, "if someone is trying to mess with your conception or something, I'm not feeling a pressing need to intervene. — Karen Chance

Wanted to love you. I've wanted to take all the hurt away, to hold you and protect you and make you laugh, and smile, and show you what love is. I've wanted to show you for so long that you are worthy of being loved, for exactly who you are. And I tried to deny that, I tried to convince myself ... that I wasn't good enough, that I would do nothing but hurt you. And I have. And I'm sorry. I was afraid. I was afraid of loving someone as delicate and beautiful and unique as you. I knew I only had one chance, and I was terrified I would make a mess of it and you'd only become sadder, and more convinced you were unlovable. I was afraid of my own shortcomings, and because of that I hurt you. — Sara Wolf

I was a real mess at school. I got a bit of a reputation for being the weird girl: the girl who'd go silent randomly and just kind of write down replies to people's questions in a book. — Helen Oyeyemi

Dealing with Dillan being a jerk can mess up any saint on a good day. And you know I'm no saint. — Kate Evangelista

When a movie is being made out of a book, there is a mixed reaction on the part of fans because they are both extremely excited and they are also terrified. 'They are going to take my story, and they are going to mess it up; they are going to ruin it; they're going to do this; they're going to do that.' — Cassandra Clare

It's not easy to diagnose because depending where the endometrial deposits are, the symptoms can be quite different. It's an unrecognized problem among teenage girls, and it's something that every young woman who has painful menstruation should be aware of ... it's a condition that is curable if it's caught early. If not, if it's allowed to run on, it can cause infertility, and it can really mess up your life.
[Author Hilary Mantel on being asked about being a writer with endometriosis, Nov 2012 NPR interview] — Hilary Mantel

My desire to live a meaningful life was getting forestalled by the petty, day-to-day demands of all my stuff.
As I stood in my garage, I realized that it was not just that all the stuff created a mess, requiring valuable time to clean up. That was true, but that wasn't the worst of it. I realized it was not the clutter, the over accumulation of things, but rather the things themselves that were taking my attention away from what mattered in my life. Camping gear was getting my attention, not being outside. Tools were taking up my time, not using them to be creative. Toys were distracting me from the fun of playing. My things were not doing what they were meant to do: serve a greater purpose than possession alone. — Dave Bruno

I think in terms of being a New Yorker, as my friends would say, I don't take a lot of mess. I have no tolerance for people who are not thinking deeply about things. I have no tolerance for the kind of small talk that people need to fill silence. And I have no tolerance for people just not being a part of the world and being in it and trying to change it. — Jacqueline Woodson

Knowledge of my atrocious selfishness, settled on me. All those bitter home truths she had flung at me, right from the beginning ... and still loved me; was so blind that she still loved me. One day she had said: When you love me (and she had not meant "make love to me") it's as if God forgave me for being the mess I am; and I took it as chicanery, another emotional blackmail, to make me feel essential and so give me a sense of responsibility towards her. — John Fowles

She's upset."
"Screaming upset? or crying upset?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes. There's a difference between being mad at a guy and being a teary mess over him. For example: Deanna is mad and can plot your destruction; I was a teary mess and could barely crawl out of bed every day. — Sylvia Day

In my mind, a first date really boils down to selling what you have, what you almost have and what you wish you had. First, what you have: wit, humor, intelligence, beauty, confidence. Second, you want to convey that you have ambition and a desire to grow as a person but not talk yourself up too much - - basically what I almost have. And third, you have to reveal that you're human but not a high-maintenance hot mess. This requires being slightly exposed by showing that you don't have it all together, and there are things that you still want and need, or things you wish you had. Of course, all of this must be accomplished while not being too serious or too silly, and while looking particularly cute. Not to mention being mysterious enough to leave them wanting more. Dang, this dating thing is hard! — Megan Carson

The worst part about being a prosecutor, in Matt Houlihan's opinion, 2as that even when you won, you didnt. The world was too black and white for that ... It was like securing the bull after he'd careened through the china shop - yes, you could pen him for a whole, but you still incurred the cost of the mess he'd left in his wake. — Jodi Picoult

My father is the most genial Midwestern guy imaginable, but for him, disaster lurks around every corner - financial ruin, squandered health, pyramid schemes, airbags failing to deploy - so he tends to use fear as a parenting tool to try to goad his daughters into being more prepared.When he retired, he reached new levels of preparedness, so his car contained bottled water, hand wipes, a roadside emergency kit with flares, books on tape, a coin dispenser, and two hand towels to use as makeshift bibs so he and my mother could drive and eat without making a mess. — Jancee Dunn

Kelso's proposals do promise to free us from our morbid dependency on economic health through armament manufacture; they promise a way out of the welfare mess, out of foodstamps and ship subsidies, out of perpetual inflation, and they suggest a means of doing these things without being too disruptive of the wealth of five percent of the population who own the rest of us. — Nicholas Von Hoffman

But I remember seeing a mess of leaves suddenly go skittering in the wind and into the creek, then floating rapidly down the creek towards the sea, making me feel a nameless horror even then of 'Oh my God, we're all being swept away to sea no matter what we know or say or do — Jack Kerouac

This is one of the many odd and unexpected little situations where you kinda find out who you are as a mother. Will you collapse onto the parking lot in the fetal position and cry for the days when you had perky boobs, bladder control, and alone time? Or will you laugh because you see the funny in being a spaced out, overwhelmed, mess? — Stacey Hatton

I am convinced that being fully committed to the moment, without any worries about the past or projections into the future, is the best attribute a closer can have. You wonder why the shelf life of so many short relievers is, well, so short? Why guys can be unhittable for a year or two and then disappear? It's because it takes a ton of concentration, and self-belief, to stay in the moment in this way and not let the highs and lows mess with your psyche. — Mariano Rivera

She figured out that she was such a mess not because she was trans, but because being trans is so stigmatized. If you could leave civilization for a year, like live in an abandoned shopping mall out in the desert giving yourself injections of estrogen, working on your voice, figuring out how to dress yourself all over again and meditating eight hours a day on gendered socialization, and then get bottom surgery as a reward, it would be pretty easy to transition. — Imogen Binnie

One of the nice things about being me is you show up in a town, you meet somebody interesting and entertaining, and for 48 hours, what a wonderful person to be around. You mess around, and all of that is super, super fun, and you don't have to deal with the long-term consequences of it. — Guy Branum

Look, nothing personal, guys, but you look like the top half of an S and M wedding cake. Cops don't like people who look sort of . . ." I wasn't sure how to say it without being insulting. Cops were meat-and-potatoes people. They weren't impressed by the exotic. They'd seen it all and cleaned up the mess. Most of the exotic that they saw were bad guys. After a while, policemen seem to think anything exotic is a bad guy; just saves time. If I walked into the police station with Tweedle-punk and Tweedle-slut, it was going to raise the cop's antennae. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Sentences aren't. They go on and on, all full of syntax and qualifying clauses and confusing references and getting old. And that brings up the real proof of what a mess I have made of being a man: I am not even young. Just about the time they finally started inventing women, I started getting old. And I went right on doing it. Shamelessly. I have allowed myself to get old and haven't done one single thing about it, with a gun or anything. What — Ursula K. Le Guin

What a sad thing men are. Can't do nothing good without being so weak we have to mess it up. Can't build something up without tearing it
down. — Patrick Ness

He'd use this opportunity to impress Rick and show him that he did, in fact, have more to offer than just being a sexy skanktart. To show that he wasn't just a brainless bimfoon, that's when a bimbo breeds with a buffoon, resulting in a true, hot mess. — Kyle Adams

Damn," Crystal sputtered, looking up from the dictionary in disbelief. "Oenophlygia: the state of being dunk. It really is a word".
Johnny gloated unabashedly. "Just wouldn't listen, would you? Just couldn't stand that I might be way ahead of the game. Word to the wise," he added with a superior smirk. "Don't mess with a man of my experience in that arena. — Cindy Gerard

I remember a huge tiredness coming over me, a kind of lethargy in the face of the tangled mess before me. It was like being given a maths problem when your brain's exhausted, and you know there's some far-off solution, but you can't work up the energy even to give it a go. — Kazuo Ishiguro

Being turned into a lizard can really mess up your day. — Rick Riordan

The idea is that inside every human being, however unprepossessing, there is a glorious, talented, and overwhelmingly attractive personality. Nonsense. Inside each of us is a mess of unruly, primitive impulses, and these can sometimes, under the strenuous self-discipline and dedication of art, result in notable creativity. — Margaret Halsey

He squinted up at the straining muscular backs of the stone men supporing the dome. "You'll have to take me to some museums," he said. He was being the young man on the road, following the sun because gray weather made him suicidal, writing his poetry in his mind in diners and gas station men's rooms across the country. "But I did see a show of Hopper once. And I like his light. It was kind of lonely or something.
Or, "The world's a mess, it's in my kiss,' like John and Exene say," he mumbled. We were in a leather store on Market Street being punks on acid with skunk-striped hair and steel-toed boots. — Francesca Lia Block

What a mess are we in now! We! I only wish it was we: it is horrible being all alone. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I found Mr. Carter's actions toward the Republic of China so incredible that they defy description by socially acceptable expletives. If December 7, 1941 was a "day of infamy" then December 15, 1978 ranks right up there in international betrayal ... The pathetic thing about this whole mess, however, is that it is typical of this administration's conduct of foreign affairs, which could be kindly described as being riddled by ineptitude and hypocrisy. — Barry Goldwater

As an artist, you've got to see the mess. That's what we do. We get a human being, and it's like putting together a puzzle. And the puzzle has got to be a mixture, a multifaceted mixture of human emotions, and not all of it is going to be pretty. — Viola Davis

Every show is a mess at its first preview. No one's had enough time to rehearse in costumes, traffic patterns backstage haven't been worked out, machinery weighing thousands of pounds is being operated for the first time. And, also, it's the first time all the material you've written is before the public. — Maury Yeston

The security of computers and the Internet is a horrible and dangerous mess. Every week we hear about breaches of databases of Social Security numbers and financial information and health records, and about critical infrastructure being insecure. — Matt Blaze

She opens her mouth to answer, yet doesn't say a word. And I realize, I don't want to hear the answer. I don't want to hear that she needs anybody else but me. So with my fingers knotted in her matted mess of hair, I kiss her despite my fears. I kiss her so she can taste just how much I want her, how much I need her. Although it's more than my heart can stand, I kiss that angel as I feel every vital part of me being crumpled into dust. — S.L. Jennings

From being a little girl in the projects, going through all of the mess that I was going through, to ending up at the Inauguration for the first African-American president, I'm speechless right now because I never thought I'd - I never ever - I couldn't even see that far. Even when I ended up in the music business, I couldn't see that. — Mary J. Blige

Could I really mean so much to this man? Could this mess of a human being in his arms be his everything? — Lydia Kelly

Barret thinks- he thinks, briefly- of turning around and leaving the park; of being, this time, the vanisher, the man who leaves you wondering, who offers no explanation, not even the sour satisfaction of a real fight; who simply drifts away, because (it seems) there's affection and there's sex but there's no urgency, no little hooks clasping little eyes; no binding, no dogged devotions, no prayers for mercy, not when mercy can be so easily self-administered. What would it be like, Barrett wonders, to be the other, the man who's had the modest portion he thinks of as enough, who slips away before the mess sets in, before he's available to accusation and recrimination, before the authorities start demanding of him When, and Why, and With Whom — Michael Cunningham

But don't you remember being a child?" he said. "How much simpler and clearer everything was? Sometimes I think they're smarter than any of us when it comes to love. They don't doubt it. Not for a second. And they don't doubt that they're loved in return. Something happens to us when we grow up. Misfortune tramples us. We forget how it feels to simply love without throwing the whole mess of life into the stew. We trade love for fear. I'm not willing to do that anymore. — Martha Brockenbrough

I think that sometimes when you get used to a bad thing
like being in prison or getting kidnapped by fairies
it's better to live with that bad thing than trying to change it. Because what if you get to chance to change it and you mess up? What if it's your last chance? — Carol Goodman

The world is a very, very fine place. It wasn't a mess. It didn't need to be conquered and ruled by man. In other words, the world doesn't belong to man - but it does need man to belong to it. Some creature had to be the first to go through this ... Some creature had to find the way, and if that happened, then ... there was no limit to what could happen here. In other words, man does have a place in the world, but it's not his place to rule ... Man's place is to be the first. Man's place is to be the first without being the last. Man's place is to figure out how it's possible to do that - and then to make room for all the rest who are capable of becoming what he's become. And maybe, when the time comes, it's man's place to be the teacher of all the rest who are capable of becoming what he's become. Not the only teacher, not the ultimate teacher. Maybe only the first teacher, the kindergarten teacher - but even that wouldn't be too shabby. — Daniel Quinn

Well, I'll take these pages and move on. Things are happening elsewhere. Things are always happening. It seems wherever I go there is drama. People are like lice - they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can't get permanently deloused. Everywhere I go people are making a mess of their lives. Everyone has his private tragedy. It's in the blood now - misfortune, ennui, grief, suicide. The atmosphere is saturated with disaster, frustration, futility. Scratch and scratch, until there's no skin left. However, the effect upon me is exhilarating. Instead of being discouraged or depressed, I enjoy it. I am crying for more and more disasters, for bigger calamities, grander failures. I want the whole world to be out of whack, I want every one to scratch himself to death. — Henry Miller

Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived ... Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation ... Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist's true friend. What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here. — Anne Lamott

Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground - you can still discover new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip. Tidiness suggests that something is as good as it's going to get. Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation, while writing needs to breathe and move. — Anne Lamott

Now there's a girl I don't want to mess with' - or at least, that's what I would think if I had a chronic fear of freakishly nice people. — Nenia Campbell

I hoped with every ounce of my being that he would have the pleasure of knowing love and heartache in the way that I did. It might sound strange me wanting my five-year-old son to experience heartache, but without it I wouldn't have met his mother - a wonderful woman who taught me just how uncomplicated falling in love can be when it is with the right person, as well as highlighting the notion that timing is everything. If I had met her earlier in life I've no doubt that I'd have made a complete mess of the whole thing. I wouldn't have been ready to receive her love or to give the love I'd spent year accumulating. — Giovanna Fletcher

At the beginning of this album I discovered the computer and had great fun playing with the thing. And I realized that, not being a good keyboard player, I could write things in very small sections, give them a certain feel and mess about with bends on the keyboard. — Midge Ure

Put simply, our inner ecology is a mess. Somehow we think that fixing outer conditions will make everything okay on the inside. But these past 150 years are proof that technology will only bring comfort and convenience to us, not well-being. We need to understand that unless we do the right things, the right things will not happen to us: this is true not just of the outside world, but also the inside. — Sadhguru

I'm not crazy about being out of control, and I get emotional when things are unclean. When things are out of order. When things are messy. Because I lived in a mess as a child. — Bryan Cranston

The confusion is not my invention. We cannot listen to a conversation for five minutes without being aware of the confusion. It is all around us and our only chance now is to let it in. The only chance of renovation is to open our eyes and see the mess. It is not a mess you can make sense of. — Samuel Beckett

You spent so much time being a hostess you forgot to be a woman. And now the time is right for making love, but your vagina is a mess. I've been there... and it's not a good thing. You have got to remember Party Rule #1: There is no party as important as the party you're about to throw in your vagina. "

-- Jon Stewart, "Martha Stewart's Vagina — Jon Stewart

Well, it kind of hurts when the kind of words you write
And kind of turn themselves into knives
And don't mind my nerve you can call it fiction
'Cause I like being submerged in your contradictions, dear
'Cause here we are, here we are
Although you were biased, I love your advice
Your comebacks they're quick and probably
Have to do with your insecurities
There's no shame in being crazy depending on how you take these
Words they're paraphrasing this relationship we're staging
And it's a beautiful mess, yes, it is
It's like we're picking up trash in dresses — Jason Mraz

My friend Wicker once said to be careful what and how you say what you're really thinking to a woman. After much screwing up in that department with Emma, I've learned it's not what you should hide, but what you say that makes her react the way she does. If I am unable to make myself clear, as I so often do, it's more likely going to go to pot if I try to explain how I really feel. Instead, I rework in my brain what she needs to hear. I don't always nail it, but I'm getting better at it. And it's always the truth even if it isn't how I see it.
Is it deceiving? No. It's being considerate and aware that she is an emotional creature, and that for some crazy reason, craves my attention. I love to make her happy. My jumbled up mess of a mind isn't important in the long run if it just confuses her. So I chose words carefully. When something goes right, I use it over and over again. -Ames — Cyndi Goodgame

Manto's take on Ismat:
Ismat's pen and tongue both run fast. When she starts writing, her ideas race ahead and the words cannot catch up with them. When she speaks, her words seem to tumble over one another. If sheenters the kitchen to show her culinary skill, everything will be in a mess. Being hasty by nature, she would conjure up the cooked roti in her mind even before she had finished kneading the dough. The potatoes would note yet be peeled although she would have already finished making the curry in her imagination. I feel sometimes she may just go into the kitchen andcome out again afer being satiated by her imagination. — Saadat Hasan Manto

The universe was a disorderly mess, the only interesting bits being the organised anomalies. Hackworth had once taken his family out rowing on the pond in the park, and the ends of the yellow oars spun off compact vortices, and Fiona, who had taught herself the physics of liquids through numerous experimental beverage spills and in the bathtub, demanded an explanation for these holes in water. She leaned over the gunwale, Gwendolyn holding the sash of her dress, and felt those vortices with her hands, wanting to understand them. The rest of the pond, simply water in no particular order, was uninteresting. — Neal Stephenson

She is a mess, her dress once pulled together long and fresh, now drooping and awkwardly weighted to one side of her head. "What happened? Are you okay?" The women clamor around her.
Nick walks out in perfect order and perfect swagger, passing her with a downward glance. "You forgot your panties". He said tossing her underwear onto the table in front of her. After being embarrassingly ignored by the group of debutants, the nearby college boys feel justified by the turn of events and break into hysterics. Slinking out the side door, the mortified women exit without another word. — Jennifer Loren

Bringing a novel to light - revealing the form and cadence, shadows and demeanor of a protagonist constructed from thin air - linking scenes and synchronicity across translucent time - holding up a glass brimming with chilled, never-tasted liquid, then sipping from it with intoxicated focus - allowing lovers to make a perilous mess of things, fall apart and nakedly come back together again - looking through conjured windows deep into someone else's snow-bound solitude, feeling utterly alone yet being all-connected: this is not writing. It's world-creating.

It's raw, exposed dreaming. It's humbling. At first too personal and intimate to share, it evolves like a child into a life of its own until I have no say in what comes next.

It's what I wake at 4am to say Yes to, the spinning possibility of a new story relentlessly commanding me to write it down so it can whirl in your experience. — Laurie Perez

There were upsides to the whole mess. While Douglas was holding me hostage, I'd met a girl - I mean, screw dating websites and house parties; apparently all the really eligible ladies are being held in cages these days. I would have liked to see Brid fill out a dating questionnaire, though. What would she put? "Hi, my name is Bridin Blackthorn. I'm next in line to rule the local werewolf pack. I like long walks on the beach and destroying my enemies. I have four older brothers, so watch your step. We'll be forming a queue to the left for potential suitors."
And, trust me, there would be a queue. — Lish McBride

I have a question," said Jack.
"Questions later."
"You keep sayin' sneak in and sneak out stuff. My question is-"
"No questions."
"-once this Starke bloke realises he's been robbed-"
"I'm pretty sure I said no questions."
"-the owners of the other weapons are gonna heighten security, so won't that mess up our mission?"
"First of all," Tanith said, "we have a no question rule. I literally just established it, like right there. I know you were here for that because it was two minutes ago. Now, I understand that you're used to being my enemy so your natural inclination is to do the opposite of whatever I say, but you're just going to have to get over it. Agreed? — Derek Landy

R wrote Delahaye about all that had happened to him and about what he, R, wanted:
My friend,
You're eating white flour and mud in your pigsty. I don't miss Charleville. I don't miss being a bored pig where the sun dries up all brains but sloth. Your brains or feelings're being dried up: dead pig Delahaye.
Emotions are the movers of this world.
Me: I'm thirsty. What I'm thirsty for - whom I'm thirsty for - I can't get so I drink poisons. I've got to free myself. From what? Pain? Oh - for more poisons. Maybe more poisons'll come and I'll go so far, I'll emerge. Something is trying to emerge from this mess.
I don't know how. — Kathy Acker

Unscripted, unedited, and wholly authentic people are almost universally admired, especially if they have flaws, are not afraid to make live, red-blooded mistakes, and rather than trying are busy simply being. Which is something you should consider hiring a tattoo artist to script across the palm of your hand: Be, Don't Try. "Oh my God, I can't do that. I would totally mess up." You better pray to the corn god that you do. Messing up is how you tell other people, "It's okay to like me, because I'm just like you." Everybody feels a bit like a dented can inside. Even the slickest, most polished person you can think of is more aware of their shortcomings and flaws than their talents and gifts. — Augusten Burroughs

Days and months of holding back. Being diplomatic. Trying to figure out which way was up, and how to right a series of mistakes that weren't meant to hurt anyone. At work and in my personal life. It was all a mess, and every time I tried to make things right, I made them worse. So maybe the answer was to stop trying so hard. — Allyson Lindt

I was in trouble, my life was a moderate-going-on-severe mess, and not being able to write was only part of it. I wasn't raping kids or running around Times Square preaching conspiracy theories through a bullhorn, but I was in trouble just the same. I had lost my place in things and couldn't find it again. No surprise there; after all, life's not a book. — Stephen King

I remembered the taste of good Italian coffee in my London flat, brewed at the expense of time and a good deal of mess, compared to the sort that came out of machines in the office at the press of a button. I remembered walking to art school, through the windy winter, over hills and heaths: how much gladder I was to reach the rich warmth and to toast my hands on a radiator, than if I had gone by car. I remembered the nickels my father gave me as a child for being good: how much more I valued them than I would a dollar bill given all at once for no reason. Of course God as the ultimate parent could give happiness for the asking, just as my father could have given a handful of dollar bills, but at the age of five would I have known its value, or would it have looked to me just like a wad of grubby green paper? — Sumangali Morhall

Just being a human being, I've realized that before every big problem you create for yourself, before every huge mess you have to clean up, there was a crucial moment where you could've just said no. — Taylor Swift

Just being a mother is making me a big, weepy mess. — Jessica Alba

I love being natural. I never feel more beautiful then after I've been to the beach and my hair's just a crazy mess of salt curls, or when I've just been outside all day hiking. — Troian Bellisario

But it's not always as set as that. Some things, though, feel like they're right. You and me? It's one of those things. I don't know why they see or why things are such a mess, but in the middle of it all, I do know that being around you is one of tue best things that happened to me in, well, ever. — Melissa Marr

I know, I say, after he says, This is hard, for the third time. This is what happens when you have a TRM, I tell him. You make a mess. It's okay. You just have to try harder next time.
I am trying hard, Dad says.
I know. You get a sticker.
Thank you.
Okay. You get another sticker for being polite. — Kathryn Erskine

Being a working person who works for the studios. It's a minefield and there's tons of stuff you need to know. And people mess it up all the time. — Thomas Lennon

The hardest thing about being a parent is watching your kids make mistakes. Our instinct is to protect you. But you're right, Deenie. Sometimes we have to step aside and let you make them anyway. The best we can do is be there when you mess up. — Lisi Harrison

But Teia had a superpower that no one had counted on: she was completely paranoid. She had thought she was being followed a hundred times since she'd started working for the Order, so she'd figured out a thing or two. One, she was a paranoid mess. Two, she was pretty good at it. — Brent Weeks

The Magenpies, obviously suspecting Larry of being a dope smuggler, had fought valiantly with the time of bicarbonate of soda, and had scattered its contents along a line of books, so that they looked like a snow-covered mountain range. — Gerald Durrell

And for the people who promote drones as the answer to everything, there is a danger from being distanced from the reality of the ugly mess of war. — Gavin Hood

I mean, when a man reaches ... a certain age," he tried again, "he knows the world is never going to be perfect. He's got used to it being a bit, a bit ... " "Manky?" Nobby suggested. Tucked behind his ear, in the place usually reserved for his cigarette, was another wilting lilac flower. "Exactly," said Colon. "Like, it's never going to be perfect, so you just do the best you can, right? But when there's a kid on the way, well, suddenly a man sees it different. He thinks: my kid's going to have to grow up in this mess. Time to clean it up. Time to make it a Better World. He gets a bit ... keen. Full of ginger. — Terry Pratchett

Better not to do than to do, better to meditate than to act, better his astrophysics, the threshold of the Unkowable, than my chemistry, a mess compounded of stenches, explosions and small futile mysteries. I thought of another moral, more down to earth and concrete, and I believe that every militant chemist can confirm it: that one must distrust the almost-the-same (sodium is almost he same as potassium, but with sodium nothing would have happened_, the practically identica, the approximate, the or-even, all surrogates, and all patchwork. the difference can be small, but they can lead to radically different consequences, like a railroad's switch points; the chemist's trade consists in good part in being aware of these differences, knowing them close up, and foreseeing their effects. And not only the chemist's trade. — Primo Levi

I made an awful mess of my first marriage. It was hard to live with me being me. I was so abnormal. I mean, most writers struggle. I hadn't struggled. I couldn't suddenly go down to the PEN Club and behave like a normal human being, because most of those guys were struggling to make a couple of thousand pounds a year. — John Le Carre

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that. — E.B. White

Being management means having to hold your hands behind your back while your inexperienced junior staff crap all over a job you could have done in five seconds - and then taking their mess right on the chin. — Charles Stross

News flash: The whole thing is a huge mess and a giant nightmare and it's all about to explode in your face and you have no idea what
you've gotten yourself into. Love is no game. People cut their ears off over this stuff. People jump off the Eiffel Tower and sell all their
possessions and move to Alaska to live with the grizzly bears, and then they get eaten and nobody hears them when they scream for help.
That's right. Falling in love is pretty much the same thing as being eaten alive by a grizzly bear.
Believe me, I should know. — Jess Rothenberg

Surely the Prince of Greed and the Mother of Destruction can kick some demon-ass back to the netherworld. It might mess up your street-cred, but I'm sure an ego the size of yours can take it. Once we've averted disaster, you can go back to being the slippery, back-stabbing son-of-a-bitch I know so well. — Pippa DaCosta

Life is a mess, Rose said. You can fix the mess human beings make, Rose said, But you can't fix the mess being human is. — Tom Spanbauer

I grinned, revealing the gap where my left incisor had been prior to a nasty encounter with a man who thought that running a zombie dog fighting ring would be a great way to spend his twilight years. Ben alwasy says I'd be more photogenic and pull better ratings if I got it fixed, but Ben can stuff it. I don't have the time or patience to mess around with dentures and bridges, and given the odds and how I tend to do my job, I'll probably be a zombie someday. Being a zombie with unbreakable titanium implants in my mouth seems like an asshole thing to do. — Mira Grant

if your children see you mess up every now and then, they learn that you are only human and thus they will be more likely to practice compassion and patience for others. On top of that, when they see you pick yourself back up afterwards, they then learn how to be confident and determined in spite of the hardships facing them. Being real with our kids is one of the best things we can do; and although it will showcase our imperfections as a person and as a parent from time to time, it helps our kids to understand the facts of the real world. When all is said and done, this is what will turn our kids into well-rounded people. — Sean P.I. Stewart

No matter who I couldn't save before, no matter if I'm stuck being a random mess of a girl, I'm still going to save something. — Sarah Porter

We've made a beautiful mess of things lately, haven't we?" He flashed that sexy crooked smile at me, which made my heart flutter.
"But it's our crazy story," "It's been ours, only ours. There's been a lot of romance, sometimes way too much drama ... " "very memorable comedy, a few pulse-racing action scenes ... "
"We've also had our fair share of suspense and raw terror, and unfortunately gut-wrenching heartache too."
"I think we've covered it all, everything except fo being captured by aliens!"
"But through it all you've loved me unconditionally, and I know how fortunate I am to have your love. I don't want to live without you, not for one more minute, not for one more second. I want to spend the rest of my days living my story with you ... only you."
"It is here that I fell in love with you"
"And as fate would have it, it is here that I humbly kneel before you and ask you to be my wife. — Tina Reber

It would be an exaggeration to say that the war turned people into highbrows, but it did turn them into nihilists for the time being. People who in a normal way would have gone through life with about as much tendency to think for themselves as a suet pudding were turned into Bolshies just by the war. What should I be now if it hadn't been for the war? I don't know, but something different from what I am. If the war didn't happen to kill you it was bound to start you thinking. After that unspeakable idiotic mess you couldn't go on regarding society as something eternal and unquestionable, like a pyramid. You knew it was just a balls-up. — George Orwell

A lot of people would say "well that's not a bad reputation. you sound like a pussy" and I would say yea. but I am passionate about music and being taken seriously about my music, so if you're going to mess with that, we have a problem. — Joan Jett

TV was entertainment of the last resort. There was nothing on during the day in the summer other than game shows and soap operas. Besides, a TV-watching child was considered available for chores: take out the trash, clean your room, pick up that mess, fold those towels, mow the lawn ... the list was endless. We all became adept at chore-avoidance. Staying out of sight was a reliable strategy. Drawing or painting was another: to my mother, making art trumped making beds. A third choir-avoidance technique was to read. A kid with his or her nose in a book is a kid who is not fighting, yelling, throwing, breaking things, bleeding, whining, or otherwise creating a Mom-size headache. Reading a book was almost like being invisible - a good thing for all concerned. — Pete Hautman

Overnight, punk had become as stupid as everything else. This wonderful vital force that was articulated by the music was really about corrupting every form-it was about advocating kids to not wait to be told what to do, but make life up for themselves, it was about trying to get people to use their imaginations again, it was about not being perfect, it was about saying it was ok to be amateurish and funny, that real creativity came out of making a mess, it was about working with what you got in front of you and turning everything embarrassing, awful, and stupid in your life to your advantage. — Legs McNeil

She thought, He's afraid I'll make a mess of it. She was sure she had been careful to think that on the safe, private side of the silent border, but Ebon turned on her and said, Don't ever think that. About anything. You're my heart's sister, even if you are a funny shape and walk on your hind legs all the time and rattle away out loud like a donkey or a bird. I'm frightened because you're frightened, and because it's hard-it can be hard-the first time going into the Caves, and you're old for it-you can't do ssshuuwuushuu and the ssshasssha will be like ... being thrown in a cold dark lake when you can't swim and you've never seen water before. — Robin McKinley

Being a good girl is more about what you believe on the inside that how you behave on the outside. That means whether you've messed up big or you've messed up little, we all mess up. — Emily P. Freeman

If we are nothing, there is nothing at all to serve as a barrier to our boundless expression of love. Being nothing in this way, we are also, inevitably, everything. 'Everything' does not mean self-aggrandizement, but a decisive recognition of interconnection; we are not separate. Both the clear, open space of 'nothing' and the interconnected mess of 'everything' awakens us to our true nature. — Sharon Salzberg

Some are afraid of being a mess, feared by the unknown and are horrified by an unplanned future; than, there is some of us who thrive through discovery , excited by unknown territories and intrigued by a future of mystery. How you tell these people apart; one is a thinker, thy other a feeler. — Nikki Rowe

Yes, being gay is just one of a thousand traits that make up my character, no more remarkable than my love of M&M's or my ability to mess up a room in fifteen seconds flat or my failure to understand the appeal of Luke and Owen Wilson.
But I believe that the desire to love and be loved is the strongest force on earth. And in that way, being gay affects every interaction in which straight people take part. Every human motive is in the end a yearning for companionship, and every act of every person on this planet is an effort not to be alone. — Joel Derfner