Best Thing I Never Had Quotes & Sayings

The best way to make a sort of peace, a fragile armistice to be sure, but precious all the same, with men, officers or not, is to let them bask and wallow in childish self-glorification. There's no such thing as intelligent vanity. It's an instinct. And you'll never find a man who is not first and formenost vain. The role of admiring doormat is about the only one that one man is glad to tolerate in another. With these soldiers I had no need to tax my imagination. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I used to want you so bad, I'm so through with that because honestly you turned out to be the best thing I never had! — Beyonce Knowles

I never had come up with a really profound and strong gesture - nothing like Julia Butterfly's. So I figured the best thing I could do was live by my beliefs. That's probably the most profound thing that anybody can do. — Daryl Hannah

Being alone was the best thing I ever did for myself. I've always gone from one relationship to another, hoping the other person would help me figure out who I was or complete me and make me feel whole. But it never worked out that way. When the other person didn't make me feel whole, I was left with an even bigger emptiness inside. It took the pain of the last year to realize that I needed to stop being a half trying to find my other half, but to be a whole on my own. I had to learn how to love myself. I had to learn to value myself. And I had to learn that I mattered. I'm not sure if I'm whole yet, but I'm more complete. And — Neil Strauss

Shawn, I love you." His mouth fell open a little bit. He said,"I will never leave you unless you send me away."
"Why would I want to do that? The best part of my life has been when I'm with you. I love you and I want you with me, always."
"I love you too, Dawn. I just want you to know what I have always known: I will never leave you unless you send me away. We've both had so many losses in our lives, I want to be there to be one thing that you know you can count on, and that's me. — Dawn Inmon

I tell you, 'Firefly'? Best job I ever had. Heartbroken when it was canceled, but had it not been canceled, I never would have gotten 'Serenity'. I think 'Serenity' is the most incredible thing I've ever been able to actually get my hands on and do. I can't even tell you how much love I have for that project. — Nathan Fillion

Or even knows they need attendin to. But I never done it to benefit myself. Shot that thing. Like I kept peace for seven year sake of a man I never knowed nor seen his face and like I seen them fellers never had no business there and if I couldn't run em off I could anyway let em know they was one man would let on that he knowed what they was up to. But I knowed if they could build it they could build it back and I done it anyway. Ever man loves peace and a old man best of all. — Cormac McCarthy

It had been a damned nice thing - the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. (Waterloo 18 June 1815)

'I hope to God,' he said one day,'that I have fought my last battle.It is a bad thing to be always fighting.While in the thick of it,I am much too occupied to feel anything;but it is wretched just after.It is quite impossible to think of glory.Both mind and feeling are exhausted.I am wretched even at the moment of victory,and I always say that next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.Not only do you lose those dear friends with whom you have been living,but you are forced to leave the wounded behind you.To be sure one tries to do the best for them,but how little that is!At such moments every feeling in your breast is deadened.I am now just beginning to retain my natural spirits,but I never wish for any more fighting. — Arthur Wellesley

Even if I was pretty, it wasn't going to be enough to bring me the life I wanted: one where I was free to make choices that mattered, one where people listened to what I had to say. Aphrodite had the beauty; Zeus had the thunderbolts. Everyone loved Aphrodite, but everyone listened to Zeus. I'd never get my hands on a thunderbolt, so if I wanted to be free, I'd better find a way to get my hands on the next best thing: a sword. — Esther M. Friesner

Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it
tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest
if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself
you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say Here at last is the thing I was made for. — C.S. Lewis

I always wanted to be a player, but I never had the talent to make the big leagues. So I did the next best thing: I bought a team. — Charlie Finley

So tell us," says Connor, "in The World According to Hayden, when do we start to live?"
A long silence from Hayden, and then he says quietly, uneasily, "I don't know."
Emby razzes him. "That's not an answer."
But Connor reaches out and grabs Emby's arm, to shut him up- because Emby's wrong. Even though Connor can't see Hayden's face, he can hear the truth of it in his voice. There was no hint of evasion in Hayden's words. This was raw honesty, void of Hayden's usual flip attitude. It was perhaps the first truly honest thing Connor had ever heard him say. "Yes, it is an answer," Connor says. "Maybe it's the best answer of all. If more people could admit they really don't know, maybe there never would have been a Heartland War. — Neal Shusterman

Jiu Jitsu opened up doors in my mind that public education had bolted shut. In hindsight, I see just how superficial my thoughts had been prior to this art. It is no coincidence that my efforts in reading and writing have run parallel with this craft. I began training Jiu Jitsu at twenty-two, and at the time of this writing I am about to turn thirty. I have learned more in the past eight years than the previous twenty-two, and have no doubts that Jiu Jitsu opened up my mind in a way traditional organized education never could. Jiu Jitsu gave me a life when I didn't know how to live. It is the best thing I have ever done, and is the foundation upon which all I will do. — Chris Matakas

I feel more beautiful than I've ever felt because I've given birth. I have never felt so connected, never felt like I had such a purpose on this earth. The best thing about having a daughter is having a true legacy. The word love means something completely different now. — Beyonce Knowles

Well - I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between 'good' and 'bad' as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can't exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you - wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking 'what if,' 'what if.' 'Life is cruel.' 'I wish I had died instead of.' Well - think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No no - hang on - this is a question worth struggling with. What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can't get there any other way? — Donna Tartt

You know the great thing about Truman," he told Goodwin, "is that once he makes up his mind about something - anything, including the A bomb - he never looks back and asks 'should I have done it? Oh! Should I have done it?' No, he just knows he made up his mind as best he could and that's that. There's no going back. I wish I had some of that quality. — Nancy Gibbs

You never know which thing you do is going to turn out to be important. I'm sure we've all done very small things that had very great impact and very big things that didn't make any difference. So, create the means that best reflect the ends we want. Try to make each moment authentic, and you'll get to an authentic end. — Gloria Steinem

(After Nicholas tells Dahlia that he loves her)
" ... Just don't break my heart my heart, Dahlia. I've never handed it over to anyone before."
She placed both hands over his. "I've never had anyone's heart. I don't know the first thing about keeping hearts. You're taking a terrible risk."
"That's what I do best." ... "Are you feeling relaxed now?" ...
"I was until you started throwing around the L-word. That's enough to scare anyone. — Christine Feehan

The Bible talks about how God uses difficult situations to develop our character and get us stronger. The death of my father is probably the biggest thing that I ever faced. Daddy and I were best friends. But out of that darkness, out of that disappointment in my life, that's what God used to push me into another level of victory or another level of ministry that I never knew I had. — Joel Osteen

I think there is a devil in women: all these years passed, never a sight of the man, little enough kindness to remember (by all accounts) even while she had him, his heartless rapacity laid bare to her; that all should not do, and she must still keep the best place in her heart for this accursed fellow, is a thing to make a plain man rage. — Robert Louis Stevenson

You and this family are the best thing that's ever happened to me. Every day when I wake up and when I lie down to go to sleep at night and about a billion times in between, I thank God for giving me y'all. Mostly, I thank God for your stubborn nature and for the fact that you didn't give up on me."
"You'll never be rid of me. You give me everything, Adrian, everything I've never had. — Lynetta Halat

If it so happened that I had once written a best-seller, this was a pure accident, due to inattention and naivete, and I would take very good care never to do the same again. If I had a message for my contemporaries, I said, it was surely this: Be anything you like, be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form, but at all costs avoid one thing: success. — Thomas Merton

They took us to the best club in Bishkek, with a big black and white sign out front that said "Face Control" in English. Which meant that only the rich, pretty and famous were allowed in. This sort of thing is being done in clubs all over the world on a daily basis, but I had never before seen it done so explicitly - or so honestly. — Gunnar Garfors

Some people might laugh or roll their eyes and accuse me of tired cliches. But there it was-hot food in an empty stomach, water on a parched throat, that first glimpse of home just around the bend, or that first bite of something you thought you'd never have the courage to try, only to realize it was the best thing you'd ever tasted. That was what Finn's kiss was like. And in that moment, I realized I was starving and had been for a long time. I was starving. Hungry for companionship, affection, connection. And strangest of all, hungry for Finn Clyde. — Amy Harmon

I never go to the Grammys. I just never go. I don't know if I care enough, and I went because my son wanted to go, and they asked us to present Best Hip Hop Group of the Year. You know, we had two records from Compton in there, and it was just like a cool thing to do, and to do with your son, and it was just cool. But we was the first award up, so after I did my thing I just jumped in the car and came on back home. — Ice Cube

I'm not here to solve your problems. I'm here to support you in your own decisions. I'm not going to walk away, Amy. Not now, not when the going gets tough, not ever. I'm right here at your back."
"For how long?"
"For as long as you'll have me. I love you, Amy."
Staggered, she stared at him. "But you don't do love."
"I never said that. I said love hasn't worked out for me. But all it takes is the right one. You're the right one."
No one had ever said such a thing to her before, and it made her heart swell hard against her ribcage. "I love you, Matt. So much."
He smiled like she'd just given him the best gift he'd ever had. She settled against his good side, and they stared up at the star-laden sky. "I knew I'd find something on this journey," she said. "I wasn't sure what, but I knew it'd be something special. — Jill Shalvis

I never had working papers. I never had a job. I sold crack until I got in the music, so this is the best thing that happened to me and I do it excessively. — Curtis Jackson

I never made the movies for the critics; I've done the best I could with the material and the directors and the actors I had. But the thing that's really exciting is that once I do that one project that's different, that stands out, everyone's gonna be watching. — Pauly Shore

Nick lowered his head, licking his lips. "I never thanked you for what you did."
"What?"
"Ty is my best friend," Nick said. "He's been the most constant thing I've had in my life. I know if you had forced him to choose between us, he would have chosen you. And he should have," Nick added quickly with a glance at Zane. "Thank you for not making him choose. — Abigail Roux

I didn't exactly want to get divorced. I didn't exactly not want to. I believed in almost equal measure both that divorcing Paul was the right thing to do and that by doing so I was destroying the best thing I had. By then my marriage had become like the trail in that moment when I realized there was a bull in both directions. I simply made a leap of faith and pushed on in the direction where I'd never been. — Cheryl Strayed

I never felt brave. I never had a moment of extreme courage or belief that this was going to be the best decision I had ever made. I just did the next thing. — Annie F. Downs

My skills weren't that I knew how to design a floppy disk, I knew how to design a printer interface, I knew how to design a modem interface; it was that, when the time came and I had to get one done, I would design my own, fresh, without knowing how other people do it. That was another thing that made me very good. All the best things that I did at Apple came from (a) not having money, and (b) not having done it before, ever. Every single thing that we came out with that was really great, I'd never once done that thing in my life. — Jessica Livingston

You are infinitely my superior in merit; all that I know - You have qualities which I had not supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you, beyond what - not merely beyond what one sees, because one never sees any thing like it - but beyond what one fancies might be. But still I am not frightened. It is not by equality of merit that you can be won. That is out of the question. It is he who sees and worships your merit the strongest, who loves you most devotedly, that has the best right to a return. (326) — Jane Austen

I live completely without regret. Sure there are plenty of things that someone could second guess, but I see the path of life like driving down the road without a map. The thing is, some dark alleys open up in majestic places, and some bright and shiny highways to the top end in cliffs to the bottom. You never know until you get there. What I know for sure is that if many years ago I actually had a map to the path of life, the destination that I would have chosen is right here, with this family, in this place, and with these smiles. That makes anything that could have been regretful, the best decision in the world. — Michael A. Wood Jr.

These women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by loving parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by 'their happiness' is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That's not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, leaning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life - my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing. — Banana Yoshimoto