Quotes & Sayings About Being Picked On

When I left her office, I felt like she'd gut-punched me, brushed me off, slapped me back and forth, gave me a cool compress to put on my cheeks, cold-cocked me with a stiff uppercut to the jaw, picked me up, brushed me off again, then kicked me in the seat of my pants as she handed me a piece of cake and showed me the door.
Being a reporter isn't as easy as it looks. — Christopher Paul Curtis

People see me going around constantly flipping off lights and think I'm OCD. No, I'm just turned off by lights that are turned on unnecessarily. It's not about wasted money, it's just about waste. Whenever I see someone throwing out food, I just picture all the energy that went into making that food being lost - the diesel in the farm equipment that picked it, the energy in the fertilizer and the whole fertilizer plant, the truck that brought it to the restaurant, the BTUs used to cook it, and the electricity for the heat lamp at the shitty restaurant. All gone because you couldn't finish your taco salad. — Adam Carolla

I was actually picked on as a kid. I guess in high school it started to change for me. I guess being picked on made a lasting impression on me so I never - whenever somebody calls me handsome or anything like that, I never take it for granted. I appreciate it every time I hear it, so it's never something that gets old. — Lance Gross

My fingers, which a second before had been taste buds savouring the food a little ahead of my mouth, became dirty under his gaze. They froze like criminals caught in the act. I didn't dare lick them. I wiped them guiltily on my napkin. He had no idea how deeply those words wounded me. They were like nails being driven into my flesh. I picked up the knife and fork. I had hardly ever used such instruments. My hands trembled. My sambar lost its taste. — Yann Martel

I stand up for other people, I'm very protective of people around me. If I feel like somebody is getting a bad rap or being unfairly picked on, I will stand up for them, absolutely. — Christina Ricci

I know why you picked her," Frank says, still sitting on the grass. "She's like you, sort of. A writer. Unhappy. Wishing she had someone who understood her. That's what killed her- being lonely. — Albert Borris

Evelyn?" one asked.
"Yeah," I said, waving a hand dismissively and moving to walk past them. Lend always hung his keys on a ring near the door. I'd get those, and - "
"You're under arrest for violating statute one point one of the International Paranormal Control Charter."
I stopped. "Wait, seriously? Seriously? You guys are here to arrest me?" I started laughing. Wow, you so picked the wrong day. Come back next week, okay?"
Before I could move one of them shoved a shiny silver Taser at me; the last thought that went through my head before I collapsed, shaking on the ground, was that, bleep, being tased really sucked. — Kiersten White

Childhood memories were like airplane luggage; no matter how far you were traveling or how long you needed them to last, you were only ever allowed two bags. And while those bags might hold a few hazy recollections - a diner with a jukebox at the table, being pushed on a swing set, the way it felt to be picked up and spun around - it didn't seem enough to last a whole lifetime. — Jennifer E. Smith

One by one they are being picked off around him: in his small circle of colleagues the ratio slowly grows top-heavy, more ghosts, more each winter, and fewer living ... and with each one, he thinks he feels patterns on his cortex going dark, settling to sleep forever, parts of whoever he's been losing all definition, reverting to dumb chemistry ... — Thomas Pynchon

Dreams rise in the darkness and catch fire from the mirage of moving light. What happens on the screen isn't quite real; it leaves open a vague cloudy space for the poor, for dreams and the dead. Hurry hurry, cream yourself full of dreams to carry you through the life that's waiting for you outside, when you leave here, to help you last a few days more in that nightmare of things and people. Among the dreams, choose the ones most likely to warm your soul. I have to confess that I picked the sexy ones. No point in being proud; when it comes to miracles, take the ones that will stay with you. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I have only known two men's souls in my life, one the devil, the other the the bird's wings which picked me up and carried me back to the freedom of being. — Wendy Gibbins

There will always be someone being picked on at school, and it's not going to go away. — Alexa Vega

She's contemplative; I can feel the air around her thick with her thoughts. "No," she says at last, "I want to believe you're being sincere but I know you're not. So I say no, because even if I allow myself to fantasize a little about our lives in a cabin on the beach, I still find myself being left by you. There's almost no scenario I can think of where we live happily ever after."
"There could be," I tell her and mean it at the moment. Maybe mean it for longer. Her fingers stop moving and she sighs. I open my eyes and she's staring down at me. The lights have come on around the parking lot and one of them shines directly into her face. She angelic, a neon seraphim under the brilliant skies of the spring. I can see us on our boat, eating our hand picked clams on the fire behind our place. I can see it so vividly I'm almost sure it's happened. — Jaden Wilkes

There were six men in Birmingham
In Guildford there's four
That were picked up and tortured
And framed by the law
And the filth got promotion
But they're still doing time
For being Irish in the wrong place
And at the wrong time

In Ireland they'll put you away in the Maze
In England they'll keep you for seven long days
God help you if ever you're caught on these shores
The coppers need someone
When they walk through that door

You'll be counting years
First five, then ten
Growing old in a lonely hell
Round the yard and a stinking cell
From wall to wall, and back again

A curse on the judges, the coppers and screws
Who tortured the innocent, wrongly accused
For the price of promotion
And justice to sell
May the judged be their judges when they rot down in hell — Shane MacGowan

There were people dying everywhere getting massacred in every town and village, there were people being picked up and thrown into dark jails in unknown parts, there were dungeons in the city where hundreds of young men were kept in heavy chains and from where many never emerged alive, there were thousands who had disappeared leaving behind women with photographs and perennial waiting ,there were multitudes of dead bodies on the roads, in hospital beds, in fresh martyrs' graveyards and scattered casually on the snow of mindless borders. — Mirza Waheed

'Pasadena' erred on the side being too dark. That was probably the one thing about it, in retrospect, why it didn't get picked up. — Mark Valley

You don't feel sorry for yourself, you get on with life.
(after not being picked starting goalie) — Jens Lehmann

You see that girl over there? The one being picked on? Do you know whose fault it is that she's being picked on? Society. Just because she doesn't look and dress a certain way makes her different. Like how dare she be different?! No, how dare you pick on someone just because they aren't afraid to be different, just because they don't follow society's rules of what makes you 'perfect' and 'popular' It's pathetic because if she turned up to school tomorrow looking like a freaking super model straight from a magazine those people picking on her would be tripping over their f-ing feet to be her friend. Because that's just how society works. — Anonymous

Dad phoned to wish us happy anniversary, and I picked up the phone and I was going to play it cool, but then I started crying when I started talking - I was doing the awful chick talk-cry: mwaha-waah-gwwahh-and-waaa-wa - so I had to tell him what happened, and he told me I should open a bottle of wine and wallow in it for a bit. Dad is always a proponent of a good indulgent sulk. Still, Nick will be angry that I told Rand, and of course Rand will do his fatherly thing, pat Nick on the shoulder and say, "Heard you had some emergency drinking to do on your anniversary, Nicky." And chuckle. So Nick will know, and he will be angry with me because he wants my parents to believe he's perfect - he beams when I tell them stories about what a flawless son-in-law he is. Except for tonight. I know, I know, I'm being a girl. — Gillian Flynn

I hate being looked at. Can't stand it. I know, I know - I picked the wrong career. I should have been a doctor. If you play certain parts you have this nice face painted on you, and then you have feel as if you have a responsibility to this idea of being beautiful. I hate that about our business. — Lena Headey

With gloomy face he picked it up And took it to his Mother, Though even he could not suppose That she could make another; For those who perished on the line He did not seem to care, His engine being more to him Than all the people there. And now you see the reason why Our Peter has been ill: He soothes his soul with pigeon-pie His gnawing grief to kill. He wraps himself in blankets warm And sleeps in bed till late, Determined thus to overcome His miserable fate. And if his eyes are rather red, His cold must just excuse it: Offer him pie; you may be sure He never will refuse it. — E. Nesbit

The eldest who had the misfortune of being too beautiful and had a far off look in her eyes. Madame Cohen had seen what could happen to girls like that, they were picked off like fruit on a tree, devoured by blackbirds. — Alice Hoffman

Written in ink, in German, in a small, hopelessly sincere handwriting, were the words, "Dear God, life is hell." Nothing led up to or away from it. Alone on the page, and in the sickly stillness of the room, the words appeared to have the statue of an uncontestable, even classic indictment. X stared at the page for several minutes, trying, against heavy odds, not to be taken in. Then, with far more zeal than he had done anything in weeks, he picked up a pencil stub and wrote down under the inscription, in English, "Fathers and teachers, I ponder, 'What is hell?' I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love." He started to write Dostoevski's name under the inscription, but saw - with fright that ran through his whole body - that what he had written was almost entirely illegible. He shut the book. — J.D. Salinger

If I've picked up on anything over the last few months of wearing a costume, it's that humans are stronger than you'd expect," I said. It was as much to myself as to Sundancer. "We can endure a hell of a lot of punishment before we break, and even after we're broken, we tend to keep on going. Could be physical punishment: getting stabbed, getting scarred, broken bones. Could be mental: losing a loved one, being tortured, even the way I feel like breaking down and crying over the fact that just about every other member of my team is probably fucked, but I'm holding myself together? Humans can put up with a hell of a lot. — Wildbow

My parents taught me the way to deal with being picked on was to be compassionate. I had to defend myself physically, but I had to be compassionate and understand the position of those abusing me. I had to figure it out and then rise above it. — Saul Rubinek

I was bullied and picked on because I was so different to everyone else, and I definitely didn't believe or even know I was fabulous back then. But those hard times made me everything I am today. It's all water under the bridge now, but being bullied and going through adversity definitely made me stronger. — Kimora Lee Simmons

It's not so much the amount of tax we pay - it's the sense that our pocket's being picked without our knowing what's going on. — Andrew Bacevich

What should we do? We have no wish to interrupt the destroyer's work of saving lives ... But war is war and the people being picked up out of the water are soldiers bound for the front; soldiers who are to shoot at our German brothers ... The question whether we are to perish in despair or defiance, or survive all trails with a live conscience, depends wholly and solely on whether we believe in the forgiveness of sins. This 25th January was the turning point in my life, because it opened my eyes to the utter impossibility of a moral universe. — Martin Niemoller

The Joy of Victimhood There are some clear rules about happiness. One is that you cannot be happy if your primary identity is that of a victim, even if you really are one. There are a number of reasons: People who regard themselves as victims do not see themselves as in control of their lives. Whatever happens in their lives happens to them, not by them. People who primarily regard themselves as victims see the world as unfair to them in particular. Just as the young student who always sees himself as "being picked on" is an unhappy soul, so is the person who carries that attitude into adulthood. People who regard themselves primarily as victims are angry people, and an angry disposition renders happiness impossible. People who have chosen to regard themselves as victims cannot allow themselves to enjoy life, because enjoying life would challenge their perception of themselves as victims. — Dennis Prager

Fun. I'm not the kind of guy kids picked on in school, but I've seen it happen. I've never really given much thought to being cool. I don't really think about it one way or the other. — Logan Lerman

I've been actually really very pleased to see how much awareness was raised around bullying, and how deeply it affects everyone. You know, you don't have to be the loser kid in high school to be bullied. Bullying and being picked on comes in so many different forms. — Lady Gaga

Every engineer, doctor, and farmer on this ship has relatives on the waiting list, too, and those relatives won't be drug addicts.
Mom's right: no one would pick her from a waiting list.
No one would've picked me, either.
Usefulness or death can't be her only options. If being picked from the waiting list isn't feasible, then the one choice left is to smuggle her in. The back of my mind keeps whispering about the risk, about She'd only be a drain, but I shut it up. There's a difference between leaving Mom and leaving Mom to die.
"I'm glad you agree," Iris says. "I know it's not easy."
That's what I hate. She's right. It's not. I still don't want to break the rules, even if it's to help Mom. But people on TV never abandon their family; they risk their own lives. That's what you're supposed to do.
On TV, people just never feel this twisted about it.
"Four this afternoon," I say. "Let's talk. — Corinne Duyvis

I didn't feel like reading that night, so I went downstairs and watched a half-hour long commercial that advertised an exercise machine. They kept flashing a 1-800 number, so I called it. The woman who picked up the other end of the phone was named Michelle. And I told Michelle that I was a kid and did not need an exercise machine, but I hoped she was having a good night.
That's when Michelle hung up on me. And I didn't mind a bit. — Stephen Chbosky

I was waiting at table tonight, on account of it being such a big party, and just as I was coming round with the savoury, one of the ladies went and broke her necklace by fidgeting with it at the ta ble. She thought she picked 'em all up but this one rolled under my foot and I stood on it tight until all the ladies went upstairs. I wanted to give it to you. You're a black pearl, Bertha, that's what you are and it's only right that you should have it. — Daisy Goodwin

I didn't plan on going into show business. Show business picked me. And it's been fun. One of the best things about being in show business is people think they know me, and they feel like they grew up with me. — Vicki Lawrence

My mom had bought this camera to take classes herself and I remember working with her on it, understanding how the stop-motion [worked], having a high shutter speed and things like that. Long before I picked it up myself, I remember being on a slide at a country club going into the water and wanting my mother to put in on a high shutter speed so she could catch me on the slide without it being blurred. I remember having fun with her: "Let me go on the slide and you'll catch me in motion!" Those are some of the little moments in my artistic making. — Jeff Vespa

It is worth reminding that being president is a tough job for anybody, and particularly so in the information age. There's such a glut of information. Anything a president says or does is picked up on the Internet or the 24/7 news media and criticized almost instantly. Leaders persuade through their words and as such their words need to be measured and well chosen. It is a tough job. — Donald Rumsfeld

I used humor to avoid being picked on as a kid. Or I would try and make my parents laugh, so I wouldn't get in trouble. But as a kid, I would watch Flip Wilson and I would memorize his whole routine, listen to Bill Cosby's records constantly, Steve Martin, Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball. I just drank that stuff up and loved it. — Wendi McLendon-Covey

Sometimes when we're suffering we feel as if we have been singled out. We wonder why God has picked on us. But my life as the rabbi of a small synagogue taught me that if that's what we think, we are mistaken. We are never alone in our suffering. Scratch the surface of any family, any social gathering, any congregation, and you will find loss and pain there. We may not always be privy to the pain, but it is there just the same. If we had the power to peer inside the heart of any human being, we would uncover there a silent anguish. — Naomi Levy

I actually really don't want to know," I admitted. "Up until a few seconds ago I had a lot of illusions about you being this incredible, sane guy and I'd like to keep them, but I'm not going to be satisfied until I do."
"Fine then, I won't tell you."
I planted my face in my palm and sighed. "It doesn't matter how crazy this is, I'm going to be thinking about it all night."
He gave me a purely demonic grin. "Then I definitely won't tell you. "
My eyes narrowed. "That's nothing to be proud of."
"And why wouldn't I be proud of keeping a pretty girl up all night?" He chuckled and chewed on a French fry.
My face and the back of my neck burned. He had to be joking. No one could say something so horrifying and then eat a French fry. Supernatural beings didn't like fast food, I was sure of it. This was all an elaborate hoax and I just hasn't picked up on it yet. It had to be, and even if it wasn't I would pretend it was. Pretend until it became true. — Katherine Pine

While I wouldn't wish being teased on anyone, I think it eventually leads to a kind of solidarity in adult life. The few people I know who weren't picked on in school are people I find I can't relate to on much more than a surface level. There's a sensitivity that comes with feeling like an outsider at some point in your life. — Anna Kendrick

*on saying I Love You* When you hear those words, it's like being picked out from the crowd. — Philip Siegel

I tried to imagine myself part of a pack of guys who picked up local public school girls on weekends. It was hard to envision, but I was definitely willing to try. Not the pickup part. Just the being in a posse part. — Bill Konigsberg

I always wanted to be an actor. It's something I always secretly wanted. You know, I had the experience of being picked on as a child, and I would tell people, 'You're gonna be sorry when I'm famous!' And then I learned after they kicked the stuffing out me that you don't say that out loud. — DJ Qualls

Not many years ago, nearly 100 percent of people who thought they were being constantly watched were certifiable paranoids. But recently it was revealed that, in the name of public safety, Homeland Security and more than a hundred other local, state, and federal agencies are operating aerial surveillance drones of the kind previously used only on foreign battlefields - at low altitudes outside the authority of air-traffic control. Soon, the bigger worry will not be that, as you walk your dog, you are secretly being watched but that the rapidly proliferating drones will begin colliding with one another and with passenger aircraft, and that you'll be killed by the plummeting drone that was monitoring you to be sure that you picked up Fido's poop in a federally approved pet-waste bag. — Dean Koontz

I did get bullied and I did get picked on and I did have that feeling in my gut of being incredibly self-conscious. I naturally gravitated towards my elders because I didn't know how to speak or be present with my peers. — Heather Matarazzo

Play Quidditch at all?"
"No," Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be.
"I do - Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my House, and I must say, I agree. Know what House you'll be in yet?"
"No," said Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute.
"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been - imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you? — J.K. Rowling

Every job has its downside. For example, being in a band; the travel part of it - getting picked up from your house in a car, going to the airport, getting on a plane, going from the airplane to a van, then going from the van to a hotel. — Dave Lombardo

You're a worse punishment than even he deserves, lady," she bit off as she turned away from the phone. "I wouldn't wish you on my worst enemy!"
The phone rang again and she picked it up, ready to give Audrey a fierce piece of her mind. But it was a journalist wanting to know if the story in the tabloids was true, about Tate and Cecily being lovers when she was still in school.
"It most certainly is not," she said curtly. "But I'll tell you what is. Tate Winthrop is marrying Washington socialite Miss Audrey Gannon at Christmas. You can print that, with my blessing!" And she hung up again. — Diana Palmer

He liked to start sentences with okay, so. It was a habit he had picked up from the engineers. He thought it made him sound smarter, thought it made him sound like them, those code jockeys, standing by the coffee machine, talking faster than he could think, talking not so much in sentences as in data structures, dense clumps of logic with the occasional inside joke. He liked to stand near them, pretending to stir sugar into his coffee, listening in on them as if they were speaking a different language. A language of knowing something, a language of being an expert at something. A language of being something more than an hourly unit. — Charles Yu

Bullying is an attack upon the runts of the litter - the weak of the species, and it is predicated on a lack of bond with the parents. If a child has a secure bond with the parents, that forms a force-field around the child in terms of bullying. If the child does not have a strong bond with the parents, then it's like being separated from the herd - those
are the ones who get picked off by the human predators in childhood and adulthood. So keep your contacts as close as you can, they provide an amazing shield against bullies and users. — Stefan Molyneux

don't pick on people who were already being picked on. — Eddie Huang

I'll never forget the first day in Auschwitz, the first time in Mauthausen. At that second place, as time wore on, I also picked them up from the bottom of the great cliff, when their escapes fell awfully awry. There were broken bodies and dead m sweet hearts. Still, it was better than the gas. Some of them I caught when they were only halfway down, Saved you, I'd think, holding their souls in midair as the rest of their being-their physical shells-plummeted to the earth. All of them were like, like the cases of empty walnuts. Smoky sky in those places. The smell like a stove, but still so cold. — Markus Zusak

Growing up, I was picked on a bit; I was pretty heavy-set, and then I was a theater kid. I just felt unpopular and uncool, so I think in my mind I had this idea of fame and being popular and how nice that would be. The reality of it is sometimes it's not nice. — Jack Falahee

Not until you finally try to put down the stuff do you realize, with stinging clarity, precisely why you picked it up in the first place. All life, in this freshly nerve-flayed state, boils down to a choice of hells. The hell of being fucked-up on drugs or the hell of being fucked-up without them. — Jerry Stahl

There is something in such laws that takes the breath away. They are not discoveries or inventions of the human mind, but exist independently of us. In a moment of clarity, one can at most discover that they are there and take them into account. Long before there were people on the earth, crystals were already growing in the earth's crust. On one day or another, a human being first came across such a sparkling morsel of regularity lying on the ground or hit one with his stone tool and it broke off and fell at his feet, and he picked it up and regarded it in his open hand, and he was amazed. — M.C. Escher

I'm so sorry," she says, and she's wringing her hands, looking away from me. "I'm so, so sorry."
I notice what she's wearing.
It's a dark-green dress with fitted sleeves; a simple cut made of stretch cotton that clings to the soft curves of her figure. It complements the flecks of green in her eyes in a way I couldn't have anticipated. It's one of the many dresses I chose for her. I thought she might enjoy having something nice after being caged as an animal for so long. And I can't quite explain it, but it gives me a strange sense of pride to see her wearing something I picked out myself.
"I'm sorry," she says for the third time.
I'm again struck by how impossible it is that she's here. In my bedroom. Staring at me without my shirt on. Her hair is so long it falls to the middle of her back; I have to clench my fists against this unbidden need to run my hands through it. She's so beautiful. — Tahereh Mafi

In junior high, I was picked on for being the small skinny kid who enjoyed being in drama. All the drama kids, we were looked at like we were aliens, and people would call us names and say, you know, 'It's stupid to be in drama.' They would say a lot worse things, to be honest. — Blake Jenner

In our studies we keep seeing how difficult it is for traumatized people to feel completely relaxed and physically safe in their bodies. We measure our subjects' HRV by placing tiny monitors on their arms during shavasana, the pose at the end of most classes during which practitioners lie face up, palms up, arms and legs relaxed. Instead of relaxation we picked up too much muscle activity to get a clear signal. Rather than going into a state of quiet repose, our students' muscles often continue to prepare them to fight unseen enemies. A major challenge in recovering from trauma remains being able to achieve a state of total relaxation and safe surrender. — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

He turned, picked up a bundle he'd left propped against the steps, and, grinning, held it out. It was a beautiful bunch of red roses, tied with an expensive silk ribbon. "Here, I got you a present. It's to celebrate." "Gareth - " she shook her head and looked at him in mock exasperation - "if you're going to start being frugal, you can't be wasting money on buying me flowers. Money should be spent on necessities!" He grinned. "Do you like them?" "Of course I do, but that's not the point - " "I said, do you like them?" "Well, yes, but - " "Then they are a necessity. Now, go fetch Charlotte and let's get out of London before the neighborhood awakes, shall we?" He gazed down at his humble clothes with a mixture of amusement and ruefulness. "I don't want to give those miserable old gits anything more to talk about than they already have." ~~~~ — Danelle Harmon

It sometimes seems to me like we're not supposed to notice that Shug's colored, or that saying anything about it would be bad manners. That puzzles me because Shug's being colored strikes me as real obvious. And usually anybody's difference gets pounced on and picked at. This silence is a lie peculiar to a man's skin color, which makes it extra serious and extra puzzling. Daddy — Mary Karr

How are you, Rory?' [the Doctor] asked.
I [Rory] ... answered him. 'It's been odd being you.'
'Isn't it?' The Doctor's smile didn't quite reach his eyes.
'How do you cope?'
'Ah ... ' The Doctor picked away at a scrap of loose paint on the door. 'Well, I just get as close as I can to a happy ending, then I shut the door behind me and move on.'
I nodded.
We shut the door behind us and moved on. — James Goss

On the nights I stuffed myself full of myths, I dreamed of college, of being pumped full of all the old knowledge until I knew everything there was to know, all the past cultures picked clean like delicious roasted chicken. — Lauren Groff

If Admiral Tourville's invasion-fleet makes it across the Channel without being sunk by the Royal Navy, and if the Papist legion establishes a beachhead on English soil without being destroyed by the Army or torn to bits by an enraged Mobb of English rurals, then I shall personally carry every single one of your coins from the Tower of London to the front in my arse-hole, and Deposit them in some Place where they may be easily Picked Up. — Neal Stephenson

Being on a successful show is kind of like being a sea turtle. Every year, sea turtles lay hundreds and hundreds of eggs, but only a few manage to survive and mature. It's the same with TV pilots. There are so many great ideas, but for whatever reason only the lucky ones get picked up. — Keiko Agena