Better That We Break Quotes & Sayings

Elizabeth Hamilton! What are you doing riding that horse? Nick's going to be so angry with you!" "Nick's not around," Elizabeth said tartly. "Well, you'd better not break your neck. We've enough problems as it is." "I won't. — Debra Holland

The standards for what is "normal" have become so formalized and yet so restrictive that people need a break from that horrible feeling of never being able to measure up to whatever it is they think will make them acceptable to other people and therefore to themselves. People get sick with this idea of change; I have been sick with it. We search for transformation in retreats, juice fasts, drugs and alcohol, obsessive exercise, extreme sports, sex. We are all trying to escape our existence, hoping that a better version of us is waiting just behind that promotion, that perfect relationship, that award or accolade, that musical performance, that dress size, that raucous night at a party, that hot night with a new lover. Everyone needs to be pursuing something, right? Otherwise, who are we? How about, quite simply, people? How about human? — Emily Rapp

The illusion of being superior engenders the need to prove it; and so oppression is born. A bishop in Africa told me that, even though there were few Christians in the area, he had built his cathedral bigger than the local mosque. All this to prove that Christianity was a better, more powerful religion than Islam. So we build walls around our group and cultivate our certitudes. Prejudice grows on such walls. How did we, the human race, get to this position where we judge it natural not just to band ourselves into groups, but to set ourselves group against group, neighbour against neighbour, in order to establish some ephemeral sense of superiority? One of the fundamental issues for people to examine is how to break down these walls that separate us one from another; how to open up one to another; how to create trust and places of dialogue. — Jean Vanier

Chronosophy does involve ethics. Because our sense of time involves our ability to separate cause and effect, means and end. The baby, again, the animal, they don't see the difference between what they do now and what will happen because of it. They can't make a pulley, or a promise. We can. Seeing the difference between now and not now, we can make the connection. And there morality enters in. Responsibility. To say that a good end will follow from a bad means is just like saying that if I pull a rope on this pulley it will lift the weight on that one. To break a promise is to deny the reality of the past; therefore it is to deny the hope of a real future.
If time and reason are functions of each other, if we are creatures of time, then we had better know it, and try to make the best of it. To act responsibly. — Ursula K. Le Guin

seasons and reasons are reasons for change,I just pray that you're here for every season for we can continue to change, change is good as long it's for the better, although always keep ur essence to survive the bad weather,never want to lose yourself through a stormy night, gotta keep ur head strong gotta keep it right, u never know where this road will take us as "life" can make us and break us and break us and make us all over again, to continue to stay through the seasons u have to have good reasons, and since we met there has to be a reason, I just pray that ur here through every season — C.L.

Ronan returned, leaning in the passenger window. Blue turned the phone to him. "Maybe we could walk to this place."
"The Deering General Store?" Ronan said, voice scathing. "Look at it. That's not a place to get a battery. That's a place to lose your wallet. Or your virginity."
"Do you have a better idea?" she demanded. "Maybe we can hurl some stuff into the underbrush! Or hit something! That solves everything! Maybe we can be really manly and break things! — Maggie Stiefvater

Carol would not be a bad one to [settle down] with. She's pretty and bright, and maybe this is what love is. She's good company: her interests broaden almost every day. She reads three books to my one, and I read a lot. We talk far into the night. She still doesn't understand the first edition game: Hemingway, she says, reads just as well in a two-bit paperback as he does in a $500 first printing. I can still hear myself lecturing her the first time she said that. Only a fool would read a first edition. Simply having such a book makes life in general and Hemingway in particular go better when you do break out the reading copies. I listened to myself and thought, This woman must think I'm a government-inspected horse's ass. Then I showed her my Faulkners, one with a signature, and I saw her shiver with an almost sexual pleasure as she touched the paper where he signed. Faulkner was her most recent god[.] — John Dunning

Sister, why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Cage the animals at night?"
"Well ... " She looked up and out through the barred window before answering me."We don't want to, Jennings, but we have to. You see, the animals that are given to us we have to take care of. If we didn't cage them up in one place, we might lose them, they might get hurt or damaged. It's not the best thing, but it's the only way we have to take care of them."
"But if somebody loved one them," I asked, "wouldn't it be a good idea to let them have one? To keep, I mean?"
"Yes, it would be. But not everyone would love them and take care of them as you would. I wish I could give them all away tomorrow." She looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. "But I can't. My heart would break if I saw just one of those animals lying by the wayside uncared for, unloved. No, Jennings. It's better if we keep them together. — Jennings Michael Burch

We bend. I bend to sweep crumbs and I bend to wipe vomit and I bend to pick up little ones and wipe away tears ... And at the end of these days I bend next to the bed and I ask only that I could bend more, bend lower. Because I serve a Savior who came to be a servant. He lived bent low. And bent down here is where I see His face. He lived, only to die. Could I? Die to self and just break open for love. This Savior, His one purpose to spend Himself on behalf of messy us. Will I spend myself on behalf of those in front of me? And people say, "Don't you get tired?" and yes, I do. But I'm face to face with Jesus in the dirt, and the more I bend the harder and better and fuller this life gets. And sure, we are tired, but oh we are happy. Because bent down low is where we find fullness of Joy. — Katie J. Davis

Sometimes we know the best thing to do, but fail to do it. New year's resolutions are often like that. We make resolutions because we know it would be better for us to lose weight, or get fit, or spend more time with our children. The problem is that a resolution is generally easier to break than it is to keep. — Peter Singer

Placing the burden on the individual to break down doors in finding better education for a child is attractive to conservatives because it reaffirms their faith in individual ambition and autonomy. But to ask an individual to break down doors that we have chained and bolted in advance of his arrival is unfair. — Jonathan Kozol

Humanity as it stands, are ironically identical to children. Even though we are older and wiser, we continue to rate our status on how much of the world we wield. We are afraid to help, to give, to nurture humanity as a whole. Until we break free from such selfishness, humanity will eventually crumble. Perhaps then, those that remain, will work towards a better way? — Michael S

If there is a God who made us and we did wrong before His eyes - as George says - at least we did wrong only because we were as God made us, and I do not think that He should set traps. Oh, you should know better than George! Let us not bring all that back into the world again - the angry God, the mean God - the one who does not tell us the rules of the game, and then strikes us when we break them. Let us not bring Him back. — George R. Stewart

Josh and I started out so easy, so fun, and now we're like strangers. I'll never have that person back, who I knew better than anyone and who knew me so well. — Jenny Han

There are rules to the game but I don't believe that we need to be bound by them. If it feels appropriate to follow the rules, then by all means, follow them. If it feels better to break the rules, be creative and do it. — Anne-Rae Vasquez

The second thing you have to do to be a writer is to keep on writing. Don't listen to people who tell you that very few people get published and you won't be one of them. Don't listen to your friend who says you are better that Tolkien and don't have to try any more. Keep writing, keep faith in the idea that you have unique stories to tell, and tell them. I meet far too many people who are going to be writers 'someday.' When they are out of high school, when they've finished college, after the wedding, when the kids are older, after I retire ... That is such a trap You will never have any more free time than you do right now. So, whether you are 12 or 70, you should sit down today and start being a writer if that is what you want to do. You might have to write on a notebook while your kids are playing on the swings or write in your car on your coffee break. That's okay. I think we've all 'been there, done that.' It all starts with the writing. — Robin Hobb

We often pity the poor, because they have no leisure to mourn their departed relatives, and necessity obliges them to labor through their severest afflictions: but is not active employment the best remedy for overwhelming sorrow
the surest antidote for despair? It may be a rough comforter: it may seem hard to be harassed with the cares of life when we have no relish for its enjoyments; to be goaded to labor when the heart is ready to break, and the vexed spirit implores for rest only to weep in silence: but is not labor better than the rest we covet? and are not those petty, tormenting cares less hurtful than a continual brooding over the great affliction that oppresses us? Besides, we cannot have cares, and anxieties, and toil, without hope
if it be but the hope of fulfilling our joyless task, accomplishing some needful project, or escaping some further annoyance. — Anne Bronte

Seems like nothing's getting safer or better," I said. "Seems like everything's getting worse."
"Maybe that's what's gotta happen," Willa Mae said.
"Maybe everything's gotta break lose and fall apart before we can put it back together again right. — Margaret McMullan

Hope you didn't bring any spiders into the van with you,' Simon put in. 'Hey, I'm thinking we could take you back outside and hose you down, just to make sure. You'd definitely smell better if we did, which, I mean, bonus.'
Jeremy scraped both hands through his hair again, then beat them clean against his thighs. 'Believe me, Simon, if we had access to a garden hose, I'd be the first to turn it on myself. I feel foul.'
'Hate to break it to you, Archer, but that feeling is not lying to you,' Simon said with mild relish. — M. Chandler

I was no better at reading people than I had been ten seconds ago, but in that moment, I suddenly gained a flash of understanding into the mystery that was Adrian Ivashkov. People didn't believe in him very often. They had low expectations of him, so he did as well. Even Eddie had sort of written him off: 'He's Adrian'. As though there was nothing to be done for it.
I also suddenly realized that, as unlikely as it seemed, Adrian and I had a lot in common. Both of us were constantly boxed in by others' expectations. It didn't matter that people expected everything of me and nothing of him. We were still the same, both of us constantly trying to break out of the lines that others had defined for us and be our own person. Adrian Ivashkov - flippant, vampire party boy - was more like me than anyone else knew. — Richelle Mead

I'm a firm believer that in-depth subjects can be better handled in a fantasy setting ... Let's face it, traveling to some far off land is a terrific way to break the mold, to do something different. Isn't that why we go on vacations? — Jim Starlin

Instead of exhausting ourselves trying to reshape the world to fit our dreams, we are better off using our strength to comfort one another in a world that is almost certain to mock our dreams and break our hearts. — Harold S. Kushner

Why will you take by force what you may have quietly by love? Why will you destroy us who supply you with food? What can you get by war? We can hide our provisions and run into the woods; then you will starve for wronging your friends. Why are you jealous of us? We are unarmed, and willing to give you what you ask, if you come in a friendly manner, and not so simple as not to know that it is much better to eat good meat, sleep comfortably, live quietly with my wives and children, laugh and be merry with the English, and trade for their copper and hatchets, than to run away from them, and to lie cold in the woods, feed on acorns, roots and such trash, and be so hunted that I can neither eat nor sleep. In these wars, my men must sit up watching, and if a twig break, they all cry out "Here comes Captain Smith!" So I must end my miserable life. Take away your guns and swords, the cause of all our jealousy, or you may all die in the same manner. — Howard Zinn

Look we didn't break in, we conned our way in.' - Ruby
'Oh that makes it so much better.' - Hitch — Lauren Child

Today, we're taking a break from the concerns and the bustle of the work-a-day world. But we're also making a new beginning ... Let us renew our faith that as free men and women we still have the power to better our lives, and let us resolve to face the challenges of the new year holding that conviction firmly in our hearts. That, after all, is our greatest strength and our greatest gift as Americans. — Ronald Reagan

I love you." For a start, we'd better put these words on a high shelf; in a square box behind glass which we have to break with our elbow; in a bank. We shouldn't leave them lying around the house like a tube of vitamin C. If the words come too easily to hand, we'll use them without thought; we won't be able to resist. Oh, we say we won't, but we will. We'll get drunk, or lonely, or - likeliest of all - plain damn hopeful, and there are the words gone, used up, grubbied. We think we might be in love and we're trying out the words to see if they're appropriate? How can we know what we think till we hear what we say? Come off it; that won't wash. These are grand words; we must make sure we deserve them. Listen to them again: "I love you. — Julian Barnes

Love We Must Part
Love, we must part now: do not let it be
Calamitous and bitter. In the past
There has been too much moonlight and self-pity:
Let us have done with it: for now at last
Never has sun more boldly paced the sky,
Never were hearts more eager to be free,
To kick down worlds, lash forests; you and I
No longer hold them; we are husks, that see
The grain going forward to a different use.
There is regret. Always, there is regret.
But it is better that our lives unloose,
As two tall ships, wind-mastered, wet with light,
Break from an estuary with their courses set,
And waving part, and waving drop from sight. — Philip Larkin

And keep in mind that the you that makes life worthy of living today won't be the same you that makes life worth living this time next year. Identities aren't meant to be permanent. They're like cars: they take us from one place to another. We work, travel, and seek adventure in them until they break down beyond repair. At that point, living well means finding a new model that better suits us for a new moment. — Kate Bornstein

My friendship with Jack remains strained. I want to believe that he was duped, but he has always been far too clever to fall for another man's ruse. So we have added yet one more thing to our relationship about which we never speak. Sometimes I think we will break beneath the weight of it, but on those occasions I have but to look at my wife in order to find the strength to carry on. I am determined to be worthy of her and that requires that I be a far stronger and better man than I had ever planned to be.
We see Frannie from time to time, not as often as we'd like unfortunately. She did eventually marry, but that is her story to tell.
Dear Frannie, darling Frannie.
She shall always remain the love of my youth, the one for whom I sold my soul to the devil. But Catherine, my beloved Catherine, shall always be the center of my heart, the one who, in the final hour, would not let the devil have me. — Lorraine Heath

When we used to play, we thought no one can break Sunil Gavaskar's record. No one could think about 50 Test centuries at that time. This is certainly a big knock under the circumstances, better than the 200s and 300s. — Kapil Dev

I knew," he murmurs. I can hear him over the music only because he says it right in my ear. "Right after we talked in the mall, I knew."
"Knew what?"
"That you were going to be the first girl to break my heart."
My breath catches. I force the smile now. "I haven't broken anything yet, right?"
"You will. Someday. But everybody breaks everything. For now we're fantastic. It's just, the better we get, the harder I realize the fall will be. — Michelle Painchaud

So that's one of the reasons why we took time between the last one and this one, was to make sure that we could do something that we believe could be equal if not better than the last one. In this case we already have ideas of things we're talking about, and I think in a perfect world it will not be a four year break and it will come out significantly sooner than the last. — Bryan Burk

We were to write a short essay on one of the works we read in the course and relate it to our lives. I chose the "Allegory of the Cave" in Plato's Republic. I compared my childhood of growing up in a family of migrant workers with the prisoners who were in a dark cave chained to the floor and facing a blank wall. I wrote that, like the captives, my family and other migrant workers were shackled to the fields day after day, seven days a week, week after week, being paid very little and living in tents or old garages that had dirt floors, no indoor plumbing, no electricity. I described how the daily struggle to simply put food on our tables kept us from breaking the shackles, from turning our lives around. I explained that faith and hope for a better life kept us going. I identified with the prisoner who managed to escape and with his sense of obligation to return to the cave and help others break free. — Francisco Jimenez

I think people need a break. It's not like they're out there selling bacon and booze. They want to pretend for a few hours a day that we don't live in this awful hole getting squeezed by State on one side and pious airheads on the other, all while smiling our shit-eating grins so that the oil companies keep shoveling money into our pockets. Surely God wouldn't mind people pretending life is better, even if it involves fictional pork. — G. Willow Wilson

Reasons for Joy Happy are the people whose God is the LORD. Psalm 144:15 "How's life?" someone asks. And we who've been resurrected from the dead say, "Well, things could be better." Or "Couldn't get a parking place." Or "My parents won't let me move to Hawaii." Or "People won't leave me alone so I can finish my sermon on selfishness." ... Are you so focused on what you don't have that you are blind to what you do? You have a ticket to heaven no thief can take, an eternal home no divorce can break. Every sin of your life has been cast to the sea. Every mistake you've made is nailed to the tree. You're blood-bought and heaven-made. A child of God - forever saved. So be grateful, joyful - for isn't it true? What you don't have is much less than what you do. — Max Lucado

The perfect adventure shouldn't be that much more hazardous in a real sense than ordinary life, for that invisible rope that holds us here can always break. We can live a life of bored caution and die of cancer. Better to take the adventure, minimize the risks, get the information, and then go forward in the knowledge that we've done everything we can. No, — Laurence Gonzales

Once we break out of the framework of national states as unified entities with no internal divisions within them, we can see that there is a global shift of power, but it's from the global workforce to the owners of the world: transnational capital, global financial institutions. So, for example, the earnings of working people as a percentage of national income has by and large declined in the last couple of decades, but apparently it's declined in China more than in most places. There is certainly economic growth in China and India. Hundreds of millions of people live a lot better than they did before, but then there are hundreds of millions more who don't. In fact, it's getting worse for them in many ways. — Noam Chomsky

After a break-up people always claim that things will get better, and in fact they do. ( but not because we in fact ARE better but that the pain, has beaten every last ounce of feeling from us. after we are wasted away, because food and drink seems to be like sand being choked down, and sleep is no comfort because you know you'll dream of them, and have to wake with knowing they'll not be there. after all this is accepted, we are what people claim is 'better'. — Gabriel Macht

Badly drawn, badly written and badly printed - a strain on young eyes and young nervous systems - the effect of these pulp-paper nightmares is that of a violent stimulant. Their crude blacks and reds spoil the child's natural sense of color; their hypodermic injection of sex and murder makes the child impatient with better, though quieter, stories. Unless we want a coming generation even more ferocious than the present one, parents and teachers throughout America must band together to break the 'comic' magazines.

But the antidote to the 'comic' magazine poison can be found in any library or good bookstore. The parent who does not acquire that antidote for his child is guilty of criminal negligence. — Sterling North

I was so afraid that we would just keep colliding over and over again if we stayed together, and that eventually the impact would break me. But now I know I am like the blade and he is like the whetstone
I am too strong to break so easily, and I become better, sharper, every time I touch him. — Veronica Roth

There was a movement to my right, and I snuck a quick glance to see Zee and Gabriel coming out the garage door. They must have gone back around. Zee had a crowbar in one hand and held it like another man might hold a sword. Gabriel had
"Zee," I squeaked. "Tell him to put the torque wrench back and grab something that won't cost me five hundred dollars if he hits someone with it."
"Won't cost five hundred," said Zee, but as I glanced over again, he nodded at the white-faced Gabriel, who looked at what he held as if he'd never seen it before. The boy slipped back into the garage as Zee said, "It wouldn't break it - you'd just have to get it recalibrated."
"We have a whole garage worth of tools - pry bars, tire irons, and even a hammer or two. There's got to be something better than my torque wrench he could have grabbed. — Patricia Briggs

Eventually, after you have planned the whole thing, you will have many, many steps, but they will be organized into a hierarchy of sorts, as shown in Figure5-1. In this drawing, the three dots represent places where other steps go, but we chose to leave them off so that the diagram can fit on the page. This type of design is a top-down design. The idea is that you start at the uppermost step of your design (in this case, "Build flying saucer") and continue to break the steps into more and more detailed steps until you have something manageable. For many years, this was how computer programming was taught. Although this process works, people have found a slightly better way. First, before breaking the steps (which are the verbs), you divide the thing you're building into parts (the nouns). In this case, you kind of do that already, in the first two steps. But instead of calling them steps, you can call them objects — Anonymous

When I didn't say anything, he came closer, dropping slowly to his haunches so we were at eye level. My eyes searched his gorgeous face and for once, I wished I could break my own damn rules. I had a feeling Braden would be able to make me forget everything for a while.
We gazed at one another for what seemed like forever, not saying a word. I was expecting a lot of questions since it must have been clear to everyone, or at least the adults at the table, that I had had a panic attack. Surely, they were all wondering why, and I really didn't want to go back out there.
"Better?" Braden finally asked softly.
Wait. Was that it? No probing questions?
"Yeah." No, not really.
He must have read my reaction to his question in my face because he cocked his head to the side, his gaze thoughtful. "You don't need to tell me."
I cracked a humorless smile. "I'll just let you think I'm bat-shit crazy."
Braden smiled back at me. "I already know that. — Samantha Young

Nothing happens without effort. You have to have faith. And for that, you have to break down the barriers of prejudice, which requires courage. To have courage, you must conquer your fears. And so on and so forth. Let's make peace with our days. We can't forget that life is on our side. It also wants to get better. Let's help it out! — Paulo Coelho

May you listen to the voice within the beat even when you are tired. When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding, and leads you to freedom. If you are weary, may you be aroused by passion and purpose. If you are blameful and bitter, may you be sweetened by hope and humor. If you are frightened, may you be emboldened by a big consciousness far wiser than your fear. If you are lonely, may you find love, may you find friendship. If you are lost, may you understand that we are all lost, and still we are guided - by Strange Angels and Sleeping Giants, by our better and kinder natures, by the vibrant voice within the beat. May you follow that voice, for This is the way - the hero's journey, the life worth living, the reason we are here. — Elizabeth Lesser

To understand the universe in the state that it began in, the so-called Big Bang, we need laws of physics that work better than our current set of rules and procedures, which break down when we try to push them back to the beginning. — David Gross

Oscar Charleston was the Willie Mays of his day. Nobody ever played center field better than Willie Mays. Suppose they had never given Willie a chance, and we said that, would anybody believe there was a kid in Alabama who was that good? Or there was a black guy in Atlanta who might break Babe Ruth's home run record? No. — Monte Irvin