Quotes & Sayings About Being Put Down

She wanted to tell him that she understood him now, in a way she'd never understood anyone before. Because she was with him. It wasn't even like being in the web; it was much closer than that, much deeper. He'd torn down all the barriers and put his soul into her hands. — L.J.Smith

I think - I think it's a big deal. Bigger for him and Eve than for most people.' Shane kept his eyes down, fixed on the sidewalk and the steps they were taking. 'Look, ask him, okay? This is girl talk. I don't do girl talk.'
She punched him in the shoulder. 'Ass.'
'That's better. I was starting to feel like we should go shoe shopping or something.'
'Being a girl is not a bad thing!'
'No.' He took his hand out of his pocket and put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her close. 'If I could be half the girl you are, I'd be - wow, I have no idea where I was going with that, and it just turned out uncomfortable, all of a sudden.'
'Jackass.'
'You like being a girl - that's good. I like being a guy - that's also good.'
'Next you'll be all Me, Tarzan, you, Jane! — Rachel Caine

With me, it was my liver that was out of order. [ ... ] I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being "a general disinclination to work of any kind."
What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness. — Jerome K. Jerome

I had left my anger somewhere long ago. Put it down on a park bench and walked away. And yet. It had been so long, I didn't know any other way of being. One day I woke up and said to myself: It's not too late. The first days were strange. I had to practice smiling in front of the mirror. But it came back to me. It was as if a weight had been lifted. I let go, and something let go of me. — Nicole Krauss

She set a tankard of grog before him, the moment before he became aware of his own thirst. Gray reached for it, shaking his head. A long swallow of watered-down rum added fuel to his resentment. He'd allowed himself to become so transparent to her, while she remained an enigma to him. Her talents fit no logical pattern-sketching, painting, deceit, seduction, thievery...now the ability to pound biscuit and salted meat into a fair-tasting chowder? It was enough to make him abandon all hope of ever comprehending her.
Perhaps he never would. But it was another thought that had him hurrying through his food, desperate to put some distance between them. He might never understand her, Gray realized, but he could get dangerously accustomed to this other feeling.
Being understood. — Tessa Dare

We don't have the capability today to put a human being in space of any kind, shape or form, which is absolutely, totally unacceptable when we got the greatest flying machine in the world sitting down at Kennedy in a garage there with nothing to do. — Eugene Cernan

Don't get me wrong. For the most part, being strong got me through a lot. And I'm thankful that short of people dying on me, nothing can make me break down.
There are times, however, when being strong feels a bit of a curse.
You see, when you're a very strong person, people always expect you to take care of yourself. People always expect you to put on a calm and collected exterior. You're not given much room to freak out and be human. — Nessie Q.

Yes, and then it's these things that cause the whites to say we're not worthy of first-class citizenship." "Ah ... " He dropped his hands to his sides hard in frustration. "Isn't it so? They make it impossible for us to earn, to pay much in taxes because we haven't much in income, and then they say that because they pay most of the taxes, they have the right to have things like they want. It's a vicious circle, Mr. Griffin, and I don't know how we'll get out of it. They put us low, and then blame us for being down there and say that since we are low, we can't deserve our rights. — John Howard Griffin

When I was excited about life, I didn't want to write at all. I've never written when I was happy. I didn't want to. But I've never had a long period of being happy, Do you think anyone has? I think you can be peaceful for a long time, When I think about it, if I had to choose, I'd rather be happy than write. You see, there's very little invention in my books. What came first with most of them was the wish to get rid of this awful sadness that weighed me down . I found when I was a child that if I could put the hurt into words, it would go. It leaves a sort of melancholy behind and then it goes. — Jean Rhys

That's Delhi. When life gets too much for you all you need to do is to spend an hour at Nigambodh Ghat,watch the dead being put to flames and hear their kin wail for them. Then come home and down a couple of pegs of whisky. In Delhi, death and drink make life worth living, — Khushwant Singh

We Jews are accused of being destroyers: whatever you put up, we tear down. It is true only in a relative sense. We are not iconoclasts deliberately: we are not enemies of your institutions simply because of the dislike between us. We are a homeless mass seeking satisfaction for our constructive instincts. And in your institutions we cannot find satisfaction. — Maurice Samuel

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

We just need to put our foot down. This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of fairness, and girls need to know that being a feminist is a good thing. It doesn't mean that you hate men. It means equal rights. If you're doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way. — Charlize Theron

Steerforth, laughing, took me by the arm and led me out. We went downstairs, one behind another. Near the bottom, somebody fell, and rolled down. Somebody else said it was Copperfield. I was angry at that false report, until, finding myself on my back in the passage, I began to think there might be some foundation for it. A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in the streets! There was an indistinct talk of its being wet. I considered it frosty. Steerforth dusted me under a lamp-post, and put my hat into shape, which somebody produced from somewhere in a most extraordinary manner, for I hadn't had it on before. Steerforth then said, 'You are all right, Copperfield, are you not?' and I told him, 'Neverberrer. — Charles Dickens

It all comes down to your intention. When you put all of your focus on a problem you just get more of the problem. But if you put your focus on being of help, then your energy is directed toward the help instead of the problem — Alyson Noel

I'm a human being, just like everybody else. I'm up some days and down others. Some days, I just refuse comment. If I'm feeling a little down, I won't say anything. But if I'm really up, I'll let it all hang out. I do have a slight propensity to put my foot in my mouth. — Ted Turner

Summers was simply a master explainer, able to deftly boil down the complexities of economic and financial, and to put them in terms the non-expert could understand. He was brilliant at cultivating a sense of control, even as events spun far beyond what could be managed with any certainty. He could will into being the confidence that eluded others, those less self-assured and, maybe sensibly, on humbler terms with the world. — Ron Suskind

When a painful emotion comes up, stop whatever you're doing and take care of it. Pay attention to what is happening. The practice is simple. Lie down, put your hand on your belly, and begin to breathe. Stop thinking, and focus all your attention on the rise and fall of the abdomen. Breathe deeply and focus your attention only on your in-breath and out-breath.

An emotion is only an emotion, and you are much more than one emotion. You are body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. The territory of your being is large. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Being fearless means busting down those walls of fear and being who you are, not who someone else thinks you are. People like to put others in a box and tell them what they can and cannot do or who they can and cannot be. No one can tell you who you are and what you are made of, only you yourself know what you are made of, and only you yourself can do the work to become who you want to be. — Mariska Hargitay

But I can't see how anyone could believe that you killed the bear with a pitchfork,' I said.
'I didn't. I only wounded it - badly, I think, but not enough to put it out of action. It came blundering towards me, I stepped aside and it crashed head-first into the river - I could hear it threshing about in the darkness. I picked up a big stone - poor brute, I hated to do it but I had to finish it off. It gave just one groan as the stone hit it and then went down. I held the lantern high; I could see the bubbles coming up. And then I saw the dark bulk of it under the water, being carried along by the current.'
'But you didn't have a lantern,' I said.
'He didn't have a bear,' said Topaz. — Dodie Smith

You can take a book to the beach without worrying about sand getting in its works. You can take it to bed without being nervous about it falling to the floor should you nod off. You can spill coffee on it. You can sit on it. You can put it down on a table, open to the page you're reading, and when you pick it up a few days later it will still be exactly as you left it. You never have to be concerned about plugging a book into an outlet or having its battery die. — Nicholas Carr

Exactly what she was doing - tears leaked from the corners of her eyes and wove crooked paths down her cheeks. How could she have been so insensitive to her own sister? Chapter 24 All week Cassie had worked feverishly to put Steve out of her mind, but it hadn't worked. She couldn't wait to see him, and a week had never dragged on for so long. Nothing felt the same without him at the construction site, running the project. Saturday morning, Cassie was up early. The Hoedown was being held in an airport hangar, and a lot of work had to be done in order to get the space ready. Several other volunteers arrived to work off their hours by putting up long folding tables and chairs, placing red-and-white checkered plastic tablecloths across the tables, and then setting the tables, lining each place setting up perfectly. To the front of the hangar was a mechanical bull quartered off with stacks of hay. In the middle of the room were tables displaying — Debbie Macomber

Put your manuscript down, I'd recommend at least two months. Six would be ideal. You really need to get away from it long enough to change your mindset. Unless you have a photographic memory, this technique will work. You'll transform into the one thing you crave feedback from: a reader. — A.J. Flowers

Extreme intelligence is accused of being as foolish as extreme lack of it; only moderation is good. The majority have laid this down and attack anyone who deviates from it towards any extreme whatever. I am not going to be awkward, I readily consent to being put in the middle and refuse to be at the bottom end, not because it is the bottom but because it is the end, for I should refuse just as much to be put at the top. It is deserting humanity to desert the middle way.
The greatness of the human soul lies in knowing how to keep this course; greatness does not mean going outside it, but rather keeping within it. — Blaise Pascal

I can see you have a great deal of water in your personality. Water never waits. It changes shape and flows around things, and finds the secret paths no one else has thought about
the tiny hole through the roof or the bottom of the box. There's no doubt it's the most versatile of the five elements. It can wash away earth; it can put out fire; it can wear a piece of metal down and sweep it away. Even wood, which is its natural complement, can't survive without being nurtured by water. And yet, you haven't drawn on those strengths in living your life, have you? — Arthur Golden

My parents were told by the principal of West Barnstable Elementary School and my teacher that I was a bright boy whose spelling was in the retarded range and whose handwriting was the worst they'd ever seen. I find it embarrassing that I spell so badly. I will do almost anything to avoid being embarrassed, but no effort either on my part or on the part of any teacher has ever dented my utter bafflement when it comes to choosing which letters to put down, how many, and in what order. — Mark Vonnegut

They put us low, and then blame us for being down there and say that since we are low, we can't deserve our rights." Others — John Howard Griffin

Honey, you can't call dibs on a human being." Her tone rose high enough to shatter glass. "Like calling something mine makes it so, because if it did, I'd be driving around town in a Porsche instead of Granddaddy's broken down Ford. Ain't nothing here that was yours." Using the tray, she backed him against the office door. "Anything you left behind is at the DAV thrift store. They put a price tag on things, and let me tell you, yours wasn't worth much. — Cindy Skaggs

I've always been a fan of vinyl. There's something about the ritual of it. Something about it holds its gravity, for some reason. Sometimes you'll put on music and the music fades into the background. But when you take that vinyl out and put it down, the music becomes the conversation as opposed to being the soundtrack to it. — Frank Iero

All women should feel as Sex Subjects if they want and choose so without fear of repressions, condemnations and put down and without the need to pay them for that.

Being freely a sexy and seductive woman is allowed only for few privileged professions: actresses, dancers, models, singers, prostitutes. They all do it for work. You can pay for them being sexy.

If a sexy woman is openly adored by a man, the woman remains as a woman, she is not turning into a table, a cup or a bill of money. She is still the Subject who knows her power. — Mai Loog

I put on lipstick and high heels and walk down the street arm in arm with you, Jess. This is my life, and I'm damn brave to love who I love. Don't try to take who I am away from me."
My chin trembled, "Well, what do you think's being taken away from me? What the fuck am I going to do, Theresa? Tell me, what can I do?
...I don't want to die and I don't know how to live. I'm really afraid. — Leslie Feinberg

When I put the plate down, you don't hear a sound. When I pick up a glass, I want it to be just right. When someone says, "How come you're just a waitress?" I say, "Don't you think you deserve being served by me?" — Studs Terkel

If a writer's work lifts you, remain loyal to that experience, even after you've grown beyond it. The book did what it did at the time that you needed it. Don't put it down for not being able to grow with you. It did its job. — Bridgette Hayden

It's from being melancholy and having my human down experiences that I learn, that I overcome, that I transform - and these realizations I put into song. That's what I choose to put in my backpack and carry with me around the world. — Jason Mraz

To be put down in this world, and given only eighty years to get to know it in, is like being let loose in the United States of America for the first time with a high-powered car and unlimited gasoline - but with a visa that is valid for only a week. It's agonizing, that's what it is. — Jan Struther

Being about to land on the soil of North Carolina, the general commanding desires his soldiers to remember that they are here to support the Constitution and the laws, to put down rebellion, and to protect the persons and property of the loyal and peaceable citizens of the State. — Ambrose Burnside

Stop all delays, all seeking and all striving. Put down your concepts, ideas and beliefs. For one instant be still and directly encounter the silent unknown core of your being. In that instant Freedom will embrace you and reveal the Awakening that you are. — Adyashanti

I've learned that being a celebrity is like being a sacrificial lamb. At some point, no matter how high the pedestal that they put you on, they're going to tear you down. — Megan Fox

But I should caution that if you seek to plot out all your moves before you make them - if you put your faith in slow, deliberative planning in the hopes it will spare you failure down the line - well, you're deluding yourself. For one thing, it's easier to plan derivative work - things that copy or repeat something already out there. So if your primary goal is to have a fully worked out, set-in-stone plan, you are only upping your chances of being unoriginal. — Ed Catmull

Howie rose and smiled down at her. "I just eat what's put before me without being picky. I know everything you make will make my tastebuds bless the day you set foot in Morgan's Crossing" he drawled, waiting to see the adorable look of confusion that crossed her face when he flirted.
Bertha lowered her gaze and looked up at him through her eyelashes.
"Only your tastebuds? — Debra Holland

The whole world wants you to be miserable. It wants you to put your head down, sigh to yourself, and give up on being happy, and I know just as well as anyone that sometimes, giving up seems like the only option, but if you take one thing from this, I hope it's this: Don't give those mother-fuckers an inch. Stand your ground every chance you get because everybody deserves a chance to be happy. — Dan Campbell

Nature - how, we don't know - has technology that works in every living cell and that depends on every atom being precisely in the right spot. Enzymes are precise down to the last atom. They're molecules. You put the last atom in, and it's done. Nature does things with molecular perfection. — Richard Smalley

Others felt that their question had already been answered in the minds of other group members, and if they asked the question, it would be considered a dumb question, and they would be put down as being stupid or not going along with the group. Because people did not ask questions, people lost lives when the Titanic sank, when the Challenger crashed, when President Kennedy authorized a covert attack on the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. — Michael J. Marquardt

What was missing, I've come to believe, were the two postures that are most characteristically biblical -- the two postures that have been least explored by Christians in the last century. They are found at the very beginning of the human story, according to Genesis: like our first parents, we are to be creators and cultivators. Or to put it more poetically, we are artists and gardeners. ... after the contemplation, the artist and the gardener both adopt a posture of purposeful work. They bring their creativity and effort to their calling. ... They are acting in the image of One who spoke a world into being and stooped down to form creatures from the dust. They are creaturely creators, tending and shaping the world that original Creator made. — Andy Crouch

But then you remember how hard it was, that moment between wakefulness and sleep. How the moment of settling down was almost physically painful, your mind pulling away from your body like a balloon being sucked into the atmosphere. He settles that. He tells you that your day was rich enough and now it is time to wind down. He helps you sleep. People need sleep. You've learned a new rule and it's simple: don't put yourself in situations you'd like to run away from. But when you run, run back to yourself, like that bunny in Runaway Bunny runs to its mother, but you are the mother, and you'll see that later and be very, very proud. — Lena Dunham

Derek stopped short. I smacked into his back - not for the first time, since he insisted on walking in front of me. I'd been tripping on his heels and mumbling apologies the whole way. When I'd slow down to let him get farther ahead, he'd snap at me to keep up.
"We're almost there," Simon said.
He was behind me - sticking to the curbside, walking as close as Derek. While normally I wouldn't complain about Simon being so close, I had the weird sensation of being blocked in.
As we started forward again, I tried dropping back with Tori, who lagged behind, but Simon put his finger on my elbow and steered me back into place.
"Okay," I said. "Something's up. What's with the walking blockade?"
"They're protecting you," Tori said. "Shielding you from the big bad world." — Kelley Armstrong

Now, there's no way with servants, but to put them down, and keep them down. It was always natural to me, from a child. Eva is enough to spoil a whole house-full. What will she do when she comes to keep house herself, I'm sure I don't know. I hold to being kind to servants - I always am; but you must make 'em know their place. Eva never does; there's no getting into the child's head the first beginning of an idea what a servant's place is! You heard her offering to take care of me nights, to let Mammy sleep! That's just a specimen of the way the child would be doing all the time, if she was left to herself. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

I'm sure those are not the right words," said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, "I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh, ever so many lessons to learn! No, I've made up my mind about it: if I'm Mabel, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying 'Come up again, dear!' I shall only look up and say 'Who Am I, then? Tell me that first, and then if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else' - but oh dear!" Cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, " I do wish they would put their heads down! I am so very tired of being all alone here! — Lewis Carroll

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

At that moment, when I had the TV sound off, I was in a 382 mood; I had just dialed it. So although I heard the emptiness intellectually, I didn't feel it. My first reaction consisted of being grateful that we could afford a Penfield mood organ. But then I realized how unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life, not just in this building but everywhere, and not reacting - do you see? I guess you don't. But that used to be considered a sign of mental illness; they called it 'absence of appropriate affect.' So I left the TV sound off and I sat down at my mood organ and I experimented. And I finally found a setting for despair. So I put it on my schedule for twice a month; I think that's a reasonable amount of time to feel hopeless about everything, about staying here on Earth after everybody who's smart has emigrated, don't you think? — Philip K. Dick

Resistance put up by the old capitalist paternalism prevents this equality from being concretely achieved: it will be achieved the day this resistance is broken down. — Simone De Beauvoir

Water never waits. It changes shape and floes around things, and finds the secret paths no one else thought about the tiny hole through the roof or the bottom of a box. There's no doubt it's the most versatile of the five elements. It can wash away earth, it can put out fire; it can wear a piece of metal down and can sweep it away. Even wood, which is its natural complement, can'survive without being nurtured by water. — Arthur Golden

Some readers may have noticed an icy little missive from Noam Chomsky ["Letters," December 3], repudiating the very idea that he and I had disagreed on the "roots" of September 11. I rush to agree. Here is what he told his audience at MIT on October 11:
I'll talk about the situation in Afghanistan ... Looks like what's happening is some sort of silent genocide ... It indicates that whatever, what will happen we don't know, but plans are being made and programs implemented on the assumption that they may lead to the death of several million people in the next - in the next couple of weeks ... very casually with no comment ... we are in the midst of apparently trying to murder three or four million people.
Clever of him to have spotted that (his favorite put-down is the preface 'Turning to the facts ... ') and brave of him to have taken such a lonely position. As he rightly insists, our disagreements are not really political. — Christopher Hitchens

It's not enough to be aware of the domain you're working in, you need to understand it. Noticing things and being curious about how they work is the single most common trait I see in creative people. Once you can break the components down, you can put them back together into something brand new. — Seth

Something might be true while being harmful and dangerous in the highest degree. Indeed, it might be a basic characteristic of existence that those who know it completely would perish, in which case the strength of a spirit should be measured according to how much of the 'truth' one could still barely endure- or to put it more clearly, to what degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded, sweetened, blunted, falsified. — Friedrich Nietzsche

She unwrapped the lamb chops from their white butcher paper and peeled a few potatoes and opened a can of peas. Her father came in with the newspaper under his arm and then swatted her on the hip with it as he went to the table to sit down. And then Jimmy came in still wearing his overcoat to say, "What's this? What's this?" And then told their father with his hands on his hips that George was taking "our miss here" out to dinner. And her father lowered the paper and smiled at her - his round, florid face and his sparse white hair which he no longer bothered to slick down with water or tonic, being mostly housebound and hardly out of his slippers all week long - and only began to pout a little, Jimmy too, when she set the plate of lamb chops and the mint jelly and the mashed potatoes and peas in their bowls on the table and then pulled off her apron and said, "I'm just going to take a shower." "Be sure to put it back," Jimmy said — Alice McDermott

None of the things I have mentioned can make a foolish man wise or a bad book good. But when they are properly used they remind us that the act of reading is an act of confidence, and almost of conspiracy, between one human being and another. That conspiracy can get nowhere, and that confidence can be betrayed. But if all goes well the reader may put down the book at the end and say what the author - and this author is no exception - most wants to hear:'I learned a lot from your book, but what is more to the point is I had a very good time. — John Russell

You hear about our conservative background and know that we're Christian guys, but we're not timid at all. I will take anyone on when it comes to outworking them or putting on a better show or standing up for people who are being put down. — Tyler Joseph

One of the curious things about our educational system, I would note, is that the better trained you are in a discipline, the less used to dialectical method you're likely to be. In fact, young children are very dialectical; they see everything in motion, in contradictions and transformations. We have to put an immense effort into training kids out of being good dialecticians. Marx wants to recover the intuitive power of the dialectical method and put it to work in understanding how everything is in process, everything is in motion. He doesn't simply talk about labor; he talks about the labor process. Capital is not a thing, but rather a process that exists only in motion. When circulation stops, value disappears and the whole system comes tumbling down. — David Harvey

As you climbed, leaving the little village paths down below, the noise of the earth, the crickets, the quails and other birds began their morning song, their chant, their rich worship of the day. And as the sun arose you were part of that light and had left behind everything that thought had put together. You completely forgot yourself. The psyche was empty of its struggles and its pains. And as you walked, climbed, there was no sense of separateness, no sense of being even a human being. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

She knew better than to waste that time. There isn't always someone who wants you singing to him or nibbling his ear or brushing his cheek with a dandelion blossom. Somebody who knows when you're being silly, and laughs and laughs. So long as he was little enough to carry, she could hardly bring herself to put him down. — Marilynne Robinson

Once I began a book, I couldn't put it down. It was like an addiction; I read while I ate, on the train, in bed until late at night, in school, where I'd keep the book hidden so I could read during class. But I had almost no desire to talk with anyone about the experience I gained through books and music. I felt happy just being me and no one else. — Haruki Murakami

Something like panic struck at Hurlow. Moffat's calm confession of fear withdrew the prop upon which he had leaned. Down there, among the motionless shadows, lurked invisible things, things that were nameless, shapeless and malignant; things which could see without being seen. One of the long lost terrors of childhood returned to him, and like a child he put his hand into Moffat's. — A.M. Burrage

I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught. — Georgia O'Keeffe

Another way to put an end to self-rejection is ask yourself whether what you're telling yourself is what a friend would say, or what an enemy would. Friends are supportive. Enemies put us down and undermine our confidence. So if you say something that an enemy would say, stop. Answer back, 'I'm going to be supportive of myself. As a friend, what I have to say to myself is ... ' Then say something supportive. — Mira Kirshenbaum

You are always dragging me down,' said I to my Body. 'Dragging _you_ down!' replied my Body. 'Well I like that! Who taught me to like tobacco and alcohol? You, of course, with your idiotic adolescent idea of being "grown up". My palate loathed both at first: but you would have your way. Who put an end to all those angry and revengeful thoughts last night? Me, of course, by insisting on going to sleep. Who does his best to keep you from talking too much and eating too much by giving you dry throats and headaches and indigestion? Eh?' 'And what about sex?' said I. 'Yes, what about it?' retorted the Body. 'If you and your wretched imagination would leave me alone I'd give you no trouble. That's Soul all over; you give me orders and then blame me for carrying them out. — C.S. Lewis

If you want to "get in touch with your feelings," fine, talk to yourself. We all do. But if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order, give them a purpose, use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down, and then cut out the confusing parts. — William Safire

They say that at Thomas More's trial, Master Secretary here followed the jury to their deliberations, and when they were seated he closed the door behind him and he laid down the law. "Let me put you out of doubt," he said to the jurymen. "Your task is to find Sir Thomas guilty, and you will have no dinner till you have done it." Then out he went and shut the door again and stood outside it with a hatchet in his hand, in case they broke out in search of a boiled pudding; and being Londoners, they care about their bellies above all things, and as soon as they felt them rumbling they cried, "Guilty! He is as guilty as guilty can be! — Hilary Mantel

We feel confident that there won't be an outbreak. The people who were around the patient are now being identified and traced by the CDC and by the state health authorities ... you get people, you identify them, and you observe and monitor them daily to determine if they develop symptoms If they do, then you put them under isolation to determine if, in fact, they are infected. And if you do that properly, you can shut down any outbreak. — Anthony S. Fauci

It's luck. All is luck when skill's played out. It was luck left me with a face that didn't fit in Contact, it's luck that's made you a great game-player, it's luck that's put you here tonight. Neither of us were fully planned, Jernau Gurgeh; your genes determined you and your mother's genofixing made certain you would not be a cripple or mentally subnormal. The rest is chance. I was brought into being with the freedom to be myself; if what that general plan and that particular luck produced is something a majority - a majority, mark you; not all - of one SC admissions board decides is not what they just happen to want, is it my fault? Is it?"

"No," Gurgeh sighed, looking down.

"Oh, it's all so wonderful in the Culture, isn't it, Gurgeh; nobody starves and nobody dies of disease or natural disasters and nobody and nothing's exploited, but there's still luck and heartache and joy, there's still chance and advantage and disadvantage. — Iain M. Banks

Middling monsters died at the point of pitchforks, burned with torches, or at the butt of silver-capped canes wielded by angry, geriatric Poles. Middling people were dime-a-dozen, emptied souls, shorn sheeple, human husks. A good monster didn't worry about what it was doing; it just did it. A true predator didn't worry about guilt, or being popular, or anything. It just cruised along, living for the kill, surviving. A good person, well, she'd put a bullet in her head or weigh her feet down and throw herself into the Chicago River, holding her breath until she went to the sludgy, filthy bottom, and had to open wide and breathe water until she died. — D.T. Neal

I'm not having much of a life. It's not awful, just ordinary. I am trying to accommodate the memories of the life I had with the life I am now living, and I just can't do it. After being behind the wheel of a Lamborghini going 140 down Sunset Drive at four a.m., it's hard to get up and put on a polyester shirt and sell books at Barnes and Noble. But I'm not ashamed of it. — Robert Goolrick

When I was tiny, the county fair came through town. Our parents took us, and got tickets for the rides, even though I was scared to death of all of them. Edward was the one who convinced me to go on the merry-go-round. He put me up on one of the wooden horses and he told me the horse was magic, and might turn real right underneath me, but only if I didn't look down. So I didn't. I stared out at the pinwheeling crowd and searched for him. Even when I started to get dizzy or thought I might throw up, the circle would come around again and there he was. After a while, I stopped thinking about the horse being magic, or even how terrified I was, and instead, I made a game out of finding Edward.
I think that's what family feels like. A ride that takes you back to the same place over and over. — Jodi Picoult

Instead I just stand there, tears running down my cheeks in nameless emotion that tastes of joy and of grief. Joy for the being of the shimmering world and grief for what we have lost. The grasses remember the nights they were consumed by fire, lighting the way back with a conflagration of love between species. Who today even knows what that means? I drop to my knees in the grass and I can hear the sadness, as if the land itself was crying for its people: Come home. Come home.
There are often other walkers here. I suppose that's what it means when they put down the camera and stand on the headland, straining to hear above the wind with that wistful look, the gaze out to sea. They look like they're trying to remember what it would be like to love the world. — Robin Wall Kimmerer

No doubt other writers have often put a thing more brilliantly, more subtly than even a very cunning artist in words can hope to emulate, a supreme phrase being a bit of luck that only happens now and then. And inasmuch as the condiments and secret travail of human nature are always the same, and that certain psychological moments must ever and ever recur, what more tempting than to pin down such a moment with the blow of a borrowed hammer? — Ethel Smyth

Author and screenwriter Neil Gaiman, in a 2012 commencement address at the University of the Arts, said that excellence in business can be boiled down to three simple things: 1. Be Efficient: Turn in work on time. 2. Be Effective: Do great work. 3. Be Congenial: Be a pleasure to work with.1 Gaiman added that even mastering two of the three will take you far. If you do great work and are a pleasure to work with, most people will forgive you for missing a deadline. If you're always on time and a pleasure to work with, most people put up with less than perfect work. If you turn in great work on time, most people will put up with you being unpleasant. — Brad Lomenick

Don't think that when you come with the injection they won't already know what's going to happen. But you needn't feel sorry for a single one. Being put down is more merciful than being cast out and going stray, with all its perils. Feed them full of meat before you finish them off. None of them are used to meat, and if you add a little sedative, you won't even have to chase them. — Magda Szabo

On board ship there are many sources of joy of which the land knows nothing. You may flirt and dance at sixty; and if you are awkward in the turn of a valse, you may put it down to the motion of the ship. You need wear no gloves, and may drink your soda-and-brandy without being ashamed of it. — Anthony Trollope

Ed Koch will never 'rest in peace.' That was not his way. He was always nervously squirming, while making others squirm as well. Comfort was not his goal. He understood that to be a proud and assertive Jew meant never being able to leave a sigh of relief and say, 'It's over, we are at peace, we can now put down our guard and relax.' — Alan Dershowitz

What does it do?" said Loeser.
"You feel as if you're being sucked down this fathomless, gloomy tunnel. Or to put it another way, it's as if all the different weights and cares of the world have been lifted from your shoulders to he replaced by a single, much larger sort of consolidated weight. Your limbs stop working and you can't really talk. If you take enough then it can last for hours and hours, but it seems like even longer because time slows down." Hildkraut smiled wistfully. "It's fantastic." At their feet, somebody groaned softly as if in enthusiastic assent. "And it makes Wagner sound really good. — Ned Beauman

First of all, you don't want me to get too hungry. Ever. I'm an ever worse bastard than normal and having starved for centuries, I'm not about to deprive myself again when I don't have to. Second, let me tell you something about your 'friends.' Deimos held me down while I was branded and then took me to the human realm where I was left with nothing. No clothes, no money. Not a damn thing to call my own. Hence the aforementioned starvation. A hundred years later, M'Ordant dumped my inside a Spartan prison camp and told the commander I was a traitor to their people. You don't really want to know what the Spartans did to people they thought betrayed them. D'Alerian had me put inside a Turkish prison in the fifteenth century where I was impaled after being tortured for three weeks. So you'll have to excuse me if I have a hard time feeling too sorry for them right now. At least no one's shoving a sharp spike up their asses. (Jericho) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Being a writer is an amazing job, but we're all writers, most of us just forget to put our stories down on paper. — Colette Freedman

Irwin Silber, the editor of the folk magazine Sing Out! was there, too. In a few years' time he would castigate me publicly in his magazine for turning my back on the folk community. It was an angry letter. I liked Irwin, but I couldn't relate to it. Miles Davis would be accused of something similar when he made the album Bitches Brew, a piece of music that didn't follow the rules of modern jazz, which had been on the verge of breaking into the popular marketplace, until Miles's record came along and killed its chances. Miles was put down by the jazz community. I couldn't imagine Miles being too upset. — Bob Dylan

Negotiating small differences is part of being a grownup; no one can tell you in advance where to put your foot down. — Susan Neiman

I ran through the manuscript in the space of a day, much as one might pick compulsively at a box of chocolates. It was simply too provocative to put down. Has the potential of being highly influential inside the field and among an informed public. — Baruch Halpern

When you're at a lunch, enjoy being - I'm always on my phone when I'm at lunch or with things here or there. I've learned to put the phone down and be present. — Khloe Kardashian

She couldn't help but grin at him. "It is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me. Even more exciting than being abducted by you.
"Galen and Rose got married that summer," she went on. "It was terribly romantic." She shrugged again. "Honestly? I'm having a hard time believing that it won't happen like that again. Galen will work some magic. We'll seal the gate and go home. Poppy and Daisy will have a beautiful wedding."
Oliver got up from his chair and came over to the bed. He sank down beside her and put his arm around her waist. She leaned her head on his shoulder.
"It will be alright," he told her "You shouldn't be afraid. — Jessica Day George

I couldn't comprehend the magnetic pull
that could be felt. I never understood the way love
overpowers common sense and passion overtakes
logic, or how unnerving it is that no one else really knows how you feel - no one can judge me for being weak or stupid, no one can put me down for
the way I feel. — Anna Todd

I think being raised by a single mother put me on the outside, and I would watch my mother's married friends and think, 'Why does she put him down in public?' or, 'Why is he so rude to her?' It seemed to me that there were very few marriages where the couple were genuinely in a supportive, loving partnership. — Cherie Lunghi

Lock looked down at the green wooden floor between his black boots. "I can't blame you for what you feel, my lady. But I can't help what I feel, either." "I'm so sorry." Kat put a hand on his knee to comfort him. Then she pulled it away quickly. "Oh, I didn't think. Did that hurt you just now? Me touching you without Deep being here?" "A little." Lock gave her a sad smile and put her hand back on his knee. "But it's worth it." "That's sweet." He looked so dejected and his feelings of sadness and loss were so overwhelming, Kat felt like she was going to cry if they sat that way much longer. — Evangeline Anderson

In many other cultures, and certainly in the Eastern world, there's great value put on being, contemplating, and even withdrawing from the world at certain times or for certain periods of time. But we don't really have that in our culture, so it's difficult for many Westerners to learn how to sit down or lie down and just be quiet without going to sleep. We're just not trained to do it. — Shakti Gawain

We insult her everyday on TV
And wonder why she has no guts or confidence
When she's young we kill her will to be free
While telling her not to be so smart we put her down for being so dumb — John Lennon

Stocks always go down much faster than they go up. That's why it's called a crash. People who put their money into the stocks will find, all of a sudden, that stock prices are no longer being supported by the debt leveraging that's been holding them up. — Michael Hudson

You don't like people very much. We both know that. You put up with them, and some of them you care about, but for the most part, you'd be happy if you were that dude on The Twilight Zone who lived through the bomb being dropped and then had all the books in the world and no one to tell him to put them down. — Anonymous

You know, I don't believe they noticed I had murdered them. I really don't. They just seemed faintly put out, as if it were a bit of bad luck, an act of God. 'Oh, my carotid artery has been severed with an open razor. I knew I should have cut down on greasy foods.' 'Botheration, I'm being belaboured with a fourteenth-century battleaxe. What are the odds, eh? — Jonathan L. Howard

[The Republican plan will] make sure we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans and that ensures affordable access for all Americans and is pro-life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government. — Virginia Foxx

He didn't scream hysterically or stand up and kick the headstone or any of that. He put his face on his knees and listened as the wind from the mountains mercilessly leveled everything in its path. He remembered the person who had helped him fly with the wind instead of being beaten down by it, and he cried quietly into his knees, finally knowing how the big of the sky could make a person feel as alone as a heartbeat in space. — Amy Lane

Are you going to continue to scold me?" "Is that what I'm doing?" "I think so." "You're lucky I'm just scolding you." "What do you mean?" "Well, if you were mine, you wouldn't be able to sit down for a week after the stunt you pulled yesterday. You didn't eat, you got drunk, you put yourself at risk." He closes his eyes, dread etched briefly on his face, and he shudders. When he opens his eyes, he glares at me. "I hate to think what could have happened to you." I scowl back at him. What is his problem? What's it to him? If I was his ... Well, I'm not. Though maybe part of me would like to be. The thought pierces through the irritation I feel at his high-handed words. I flush at the waywardness of my subconscious - she's doing her happy dance in a bright red hula skirt at the thought of being his. — E.L. James

Put down your cell phones, put everything away, and feel your blood pulsing in you, feel your creative impulse, feel your own spirit, your heart, your mind. Feel the joy of being alive and free. — Patti Smith

Under the trees several pheasants lay about, their rich plumage dabbled with blood; some were dead, some feebly twitching a wing, some staring up at the sky, some pulsating quickly, some contorted, some stretched out - all of them writhing in agony except the fortunate ones whose tortures had ended during the night by the inability of nature to bear more. With the impulse of a soul who could feel for kindred sufferers as much as for herself, Tess's first thought was to put the still living birds out of their torture, and to this end with her own hands she broke the necks of as many as she could find, leaving them to lie where she had found them till the gamekeepers should come, as they probably would come, to look for them a second time. "Poor darlings - to suppose myself the most miserable being on earth in the sight o' such misery as yours!" she exclaimed, her tears running down as she killed the birds tenderly. — Thomas Hardy