Botched Quotes & Sayings

There were a lot of botched kills throughout the eastern part of Kentucky when the work fell outside his control. Six or seven years ago, a man from Perry County was shot point blank in the head and left for dead in the middle of downtown. Problem was, the bullet had traveled between the man's scalp and his skull halfway across his head and exited the same way it had entered on the other side. The whole thing had left him with only fingernail-sized contusions on both sides of his head. He identified the guy who shot him and saw him arrested and convicted of attempted murder.
Now, it's true that a situation like that was a rare one, but part of doing a job right was minimizing the chance for something to go wrong. — Sheldon Lee Compton

I'm apologizing. For whatever I did. For whatever the guy who hurt you did. For the JFK assassination or the botched moon landing. Take your pick." ~Cain, Ghost of You — Kelly Moran

Succinctly put, a crime scene is like an archaeology site. If an excavation is botched or bulldozed away, there's no going back. — Patricia Cornwell

In their dreams they touch, they intertwine, it's more like a collision, and that is the end of flying. They fall to earth, fouled parachutists, botched and cindery angels, love streaming out behind them like torn silk. Enemy groundfire comes up to meet them. — Margaret Atwood

Religion professor Albert Wolters, in Creation Regained, writes, "[God] hangs on to his fallen original creation and salvages it. He refuses to abandon the work of his hands - in fact, he sacrifices his own Son to save his original project. Humankind, which has botched its original mandate and the whole creation along with it, is given another chance in Christ; we are reinstated as God's managers on earth. The original good creation is to be restored."74 — Randy Alcorn

I do not believe in God, because I believe in man. Whatever his mistakes, man has for thousands of years been working to undo the botched job your god has made. — Emma Goldman

This resentment you feel toward Father Henrique is another example," Holtzman said. "What did the man ever do to you? Nothing. So he botched that exorcism. It was his first one. He was young. Do you know what I did at my first exorcism?"
"Ran," Alaric said at the same time as his boss.
"Thats exactly right," Holtzman went on. "Its extremely frightening to look into the face of evil for the first time."
"Not," Alaric said, "as frightening as looking into the face of a man who has willing taken a vow of chastity. — Meg Cabot

What is too often forgotten is that nature obviously intends the botched to die, and that every interference with that benign process is full of dangers. — H.L. Mencken

How about this John Kerry controversy? So he's out there in California, tells some kind of joke and it backfires. He's saying he botched the joke ... This guy can lose elections he's not even in. — David Letterman

As animals go, even in so limited a space as our world, man is botched and ridiculous. Few other brutes are so stupid, so docile or so cowardly. — H.L. Mencken

A man who would kill himself rather than face capture was a man who had a cause. Or a man who was afraid of what his own masters would do to him for having botched the job. — Anne Leonard

I had my mouth done when I was 27. It was a botched job. Obviously, if I had liked my mouth I wouldn't have had it re-done. — Emmanuelle Beart

There is only one prospect worse than being chained to an intolerable existence: The nightmare of a botched attempt to end it. — Arthur Koestler

I never expected to feel this way about someone." She stared at me, eyes wide nad lips parted as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. I stood and ran over to the dresser, pulling the box from the drawer and carrying it over to her. When I opened the box and let her see my grandmother's antique diamond and sapphire ring, she clammed a hand over her mouth. "I want to be married," I said again. Her silence was unnerving, and fuck, I'd completely botched this with my rambling nonsense. "Married to you, I mean." Her eyes filled with tears and she held them, unblinking. "You.Are such.An ass. — Christina Lauren

How speak about an art which no one recognizes as an art? I know that a great deal has already been written about the "art of the cinema". One can read about it most every day in the newspapers & the magazines. But it is not the art of the cinema which you will find discussed therein
it is rather dire, botched embryo as it now stands revealed before our eyes, the still-birth which was mangled in the womb by the obstetricians of art. — Henry Miller

It is through the tender austerity of our troubles that the Son of Man comes knocking. In every event He seeks an entrance to my heart, yes, even in my most helpless, futile, fruitless moments. The very cracks and empty crannies of my life, my perplexities and hurts and botched-up jobs, He wants to fill with Himself, His joy, His life ... He urges me to learn of Him: 'I am gentle and humble in heart. — Elisabeth Elliot

Perhaps our supercilious disgust with existence is a cover for a secret disgust with ourselves: we have botched and bungled our lives, and we cast the blame upon the "environment," or the "world," which have no tongues to utter a defense. — Will Durant

My sex change operation got botched; my guardian angel fell asleep on the watch; now all I got is a Barbie doll crotch; I've got an angry inch! — John Cameron Mitchell

I often find myself worrying about celebrities. It's an entirely caring thing; it's not like the people who commission those photographs with cruel arrows to go on the covers of the celebrity magazines. The photographs show botched plastic surgery, raging eczema, weight gain and horrible clothes for maximum schadenfreude. — Peter York

When I was young, Monsieur," he said, "I used to think a lot about God. But He seems to have grown thinner with the years. He is still in that cornfield you painted, and in the sunset by Montmajour, but when I think about men ... and the world they have made ... " "I know, Roulin, but I feel more and more that we must not judge God by this world. It's just a study that didn't come off. What can you do in a study that has gone wrong, if you are fond of the artist? You do not find much to criticize; you hold your tongue. But you have a right to ask for something better." "Yes, that's it," exclaimed Roulin, "something just a tiny bit better." "We should have to see some other work by the same hand before we judge him. This world was evidently botched up in a hurry on one of his bad days, when the artist did not have his wits about him. — Irving Stone

As a professional, it pains me to watch a movie that is botched and amateurish. I prefer directors who have control of both their craft and their ideas. — George Cukor

John Kerry now getting slammed by the Republicans because of a botched joke he did about President Bush and Iraq in a recent speech. Kerry was stunned about this. He said, 'What? People are listening to my speeches?' — Jay Leno

The rain had abated. The sails were hoisted, and the barrels we had placed everywhere filled with that precious gift from the sky. Calm reigned during a botched dawn in which pitch black shaded off into dark grey. Isolated sunrays pierced the clouds to shed light on a terribly flat sea like a lake of tar. Far, very far away, cracked muted peals of thunder. The storm approached quickly, lightning streaking the leaden ceiling while the sea shivered and quivered under a fresh wind. — Jeff VanderMeer

Christianity, as a product of the resentment of the botched and the weak, has put in ban all that is beautiful, strong, proud, and powerful, in fact all the qualities resulting from strength, and that, in consequence, all forces which tend to promote or elevate life have been seriously undermined. — Friedrich Nietzsche

His military triumphs had been neither frequent nor epic in scale. He had lost more battles than he had won, had botched several through strategic blunders, and had won at Yorktown only with the indispensable aid of the French Army and fleet. But he was a different kind of general fighting a different kind of war, and his military prowess cannot be judged by the usual scorecard of battles won and lost. His fortitude in keeping the impoverished Continental Army intact was a major historic accomplishment. It always stood on the brink of dissolution, and Washington was the one figure who kept it together, the spiritual and managerial genius of the whole enterprise: he had been resilient in the face of every setback, courageous in the face of every danger. He was that rare general who was great between battles and not just during them. — Ron Chernow

An infinitesimal lapse that has just succeeded in ruining the possibility of perfection forever? I spent at least half an hour in a foul mood. And then suddenly I wondered: but why did I want so desperately for her to catch up? Why does it feel so rotten when the movement is not in synch? It's not very hard to come up with an answer: all those things that pass before us, which we miss by a hair and which are botched for eternity ... All the words we should have said, gestures we should have made, the fleeting moments of kairos that were there one day and that we did not know how to grasp and that were buried forever in the void ... Failure, by a hair's breadth — Muriel Barbery

Bill Clinton became president, and he [Bill Clinton] kept cheating - and she kept destroying the women. She was supposed to be paid off in 2008. They gave her health care; she botched that. Hillarycare, it was called in 1993, '94, whatever. That was her first payoff. Co-presidency was the next payoff. — Rush Limbaugh

And while we're on the subject, Frank, I know who you are. Essex County investigator Frank Tremont, who botched up that high-profile murder case a few years back. Washed-up has-been ridden out by his boss Loren Muse because of his lazy-ass incompetence, right? And here you are, on your last case, and what happens? Rather than redeem yourself and your pitiful career, you never bother to even look at a well-known pedophile who crossed paths with the victim in a fairly obvious way. How the hell did you miss that, Frank?" Now it was Frank Tremont who was losing color in his face. "And — Harlan Coben

While technically I did not commit a crime, an impeachable offense ... these are legalisms, as far as the handling of this matter is concerned; it was so botched up, I made so many bad judgments. The worst ones, mistakes of the heart, rather than the head. But let me say, a man in that top job - he's got to have a heart, but his head must always rule his heart. — Richard M. Nixon

I watched a couple of really bad directors work, and I saw how they completely botched it up and missed the visual opportunities of the scene when we had put things in front of them as opportunities. Set pieces, props and so on. — James Cameron

It was botched. A traffic police officer intervened and the whole plan fell apart. But that was from low-level external sources and had nothing to do with us. Our strike will be quick and clean. And it will succeed." "And you have your team in place? — David Baldacci

We dole out lip-service to the importance of education - lip-service and, just occasionally, a little grant of money; we postpone the school-leaving age, and plan to build bigger and better schools; the teachers slave conscientiously in and out of school hours; and yet, as I believe, all this devoted effort is largely frustrated, because we have lost the tools of learning, and in their absence can only make a botched and piecemeal job of it. — Dorothy L. Sayers

All Europe was watching Spain. The left-wing government elected last February had suffered an attempted military coup backed by Fascists and conservatives. The rebel general Franco had won support from the Catholic Church. The news had struck the rest of the continent like an earthquake. After Germany and Italy would Spain, too, fall under the curse of Fascism? "The revolt was botched, as you probably know, and it almost failed," Billy went on. "But Hitler and Mussolini came to the rescue, and saved the insurrection by airlifting thousands of rebel troops from North Africa as reinforcements." Lenny put in: "And the unions saved the government!" "That's true," Billy said. "The government was slow to react, but the trade unions led the way in organizing workers and arming them with weapons they seized from military arsenals, ships, gun shops, and anywhere else they could find them. — Ken Follett

People have gotten used to living a botched-up life - to be anxious, insecure, hateful, jealous, and in various states of unpleasantness through the day - slowly humanity has begun to see it as normal. None of these things are normal. These are abnormalities. Once you accept them as part of life they become normal because the majority has joined the gang of unpleasantness. They are all saying, "Unpleasantness is normal. Being nasty to each other is normal. Being nasty to myself is normal." Someone trusted that you would be doing good things at least to yourself and said, "Do unto others what you do unto yourself." I am telling you, never do unto others what you are doing to yourself! By being with people, I know what they are doing to themselves is the worst thing. Fortunately, they are not doing such horrible things to others. Only once in a while they are giving a dose to others, but to themselves they are giving it throughout the day. — Jaggi Vasudev

The government is always looking for something that appears more dangerous than itself, and these criminals seem to fit the bill. Never mind that it was the government that promised but failed to protect us. It was the government that prevented the airlines from protecting themselves. It was the government that so badly botched the rescue operations. It was the government that had stirred up the hate that led to the terrorism. — Llewellyn Rockwell

Berta Caceres was a Lenca Indian activist well-known in her country, shot in her home. She was not only known in Honduras, she was one of the world's best-known environmentalists and had recently opposed plans for a dam on a river considered sacred by the Lenca. Honduran police have said they are investigating the murder as a botched robbery, but many of her colleagues believe Caceres was targeted. — Renee Montagne

The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. — Friedrich Nietzsche

She was tired of being told how it was by this generation, who'd botched things so badly. They'd sold their children a pack of lies: God and country. Love your parents. All is fair. And then they'd sent those boys, her brother, off to fight a great monster of a war that maimed and killed and destroyed whatever was inside them. Still they lied, expecting her to mouth the words and play along. Well, she wouldn't. She knew now that the world was a long way from fair. She knew the monsters were real. — Libba Bray

I didn't know what I wanted to Be ... A sense that I had permanently botched things already, embarked on the trip without the map. and it scared me too, that I might end up as a mother of 3 working in a psychiatrist's office, or renting surfboards ... I guess I saw their lives as failed somehow, absent of the Big Win ... What is fate was an inherited trait? What if luck came through the genetic line, and the ability to "succeed" at your chosen "direction" was handed down, just like the family china? Maybe I was destined to be a weed too. — Deb Caletti

Socialism, Puritanism, Philistinism, Christianity - he saw them all as allotropic forms of democracy, as variations upon the endless struggle of quantity against quality, of the weak and timorous against the strong and enterprising, of the botched against the fit. — H.L. Mencken

I think one of the prophets stuttered when he dictated your specs," Jal said, snickering. "Or the gene-splicer was daydreaming about his high-status trueborn love and he botched your programming. — Karen Sandler

World War I was not inevitable, as many historians say. It could have been avoided, and it was a diplomatically botched negotiation. — Richard Holbrooke

Through the loveliness and power of her dream world she was now, in her old frock and botched shoes, very likely the loveliest, mightiest and most dangerous person on earth — Karen Blixen

Confession: Having kids did not fix me. I was not somehow more whole, less botched-up, or more certain just because I had a kid ... I was still me, with all my holes and problems and questions - only now I was also exhuasted and had a lot more laundry to do. — Jerusalem Jackson Greer

John Kerry made a joke about Bush being a moron, and now Bush wants morons to think it was a joke was about the troops ... Now, John Kerry has apologized. He said he made a botched joke and admitted that he has a joking problem. He has checked into an improv group and revealed that as a child, he was molested by a clown. — Bill Maher

He reminded me of pain and darkness and a double-gauzed finger. I must have reminded him of botched-up vengeance and the monster within, — Leylah Attar

He who has perceived the material out of which the Promethean tragic writers prior to Euripides formed their heroes, and how remote from their purpose it was to bring the faithful mask of reality onto the stage, will also be aware of the utterly opposite tendency of Euripides. Through him the everyday man forced his way from the spectators' seats onto the stage; the mirror in which formerly only grand and bold traits were represented now showed the painful fidelity that conscientiously reproduces even the botched outlines of nature. — Friedrich Nietzsche

If the Palestinian people really wish to decide that they will battle to the very end to prevent partition or annexation of even an inch of their ancestral soil, then I have to concede that that is their right. I even think that a sixty-year rather botched experiment in marginal quasi-statehood is something that the Jewish people could consider abandoning. It represents barely an instant in our drawn-out and arduous history, and it's already been agreed even by the heirs of Ze'ev Jabotinsky that the whole scheme is unrealizable in 'Judaea and Samaria,' let alone in Gaza or Sinai. But it's flat-out intolerable to be solicited to endorse a side-by-side Palestinian homeland and then to discover that there are sinuous two-faced apologists explaining away the suicide-murder of Jewish civilians in Tel Aviv, a city which would be part of a Jewish state or community under any conceivable 'solution.' There's that word again ... — Christopher Hitchens

59% of all suicides are actually botched murder-suicides performed by dyslexics. — Dana Gould

One can be one's own ghost and roam about in various places, sometimes many places simultaneously. Perhaps I didn't approach it quite correctly. A ghost is always the result of botched work; a ghost means unsuccessful resurrection, a shadow of an image that has perhaps once been alive, a kind of abortion in the universe. — Halldor Laxness

What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey? — Ayn Rand

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. — Marge Piercy

He had too much to think about. In the course of his long, useless marches he had sunk deeper and deeper into the tangle of his botched life as into a clump of brambles, and still he had found no meaning or consolation. — Hermann Hesse

Special Assistant Agent in Charge
Lang."
He nearly smiled at the title she knew she'd botched again.
"Just 'Mr Lang' is fine. — Roxanne St. Claire

Oh, Gray. You did this to yourself?"
He blew out a sigh. "Never underestimate the power of liquor and maudlin sentiment on an adolescent boy. I was so stupid. Botched the whole business. It had to be my chest, since I couldn't very well reach my own shoulder. Didn't heat the iron long enough, and of course my hand shook like a palm frond in a hurricane." He pushed her hand aside and traced the blurred, irregular pattern with his own fingertips. "God, did it hurt. Hurt all the way to England. — Tessa Dare

"I've ... " he began.
He could have completed that any number of ways: " ... botched everything." " ... loved you since I laid eyes on you." " ... been a complete idiot for you." " ... never deserved you." " ... been so wrong about everything that matters in life."
"I love you." He hadn't planned to say it.
She went still.
She kissed her fingers, and laid them on his lips, stopping him from saying anything more.
"Thank you," she said. "Don't follow me. — Julie Anne Long

Christianity has taken the part of all the weak, the low, the botched; it has made an ideal out of antagonism to all the self preservative instincts of sound life; it has corrupted even the faculties of those natures that are intellectually most vigorous, by representing the highest intellectual values as sinful, as misleading, as full of temptation. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Your limits. You are small and alone. You need friends to protect you. Without them, you are unable to withstand me. I vowed not to possess you again, but I can still kill you." The armored dudes stepped forward. The points of their swords hovered a few inches from Leo's face. Leo's fear suddenly made way for a whole lot of anger. This eidolon in the wolf helmet had shamed him, controlled him, and made him attack New Rome. It had endangered his friends and botched their quest. Leo glanced at the dormant spheres on the worktables. He considered his tool belt. He thought about the loft behind him - the area that looked like a sound booth. Presto: Operation Junk Pile was born. "First: you don't know me," he told Wolf Head. "And second: Bye." He lunged for the stairs and bounded to — Rick Riordan

The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,
With this prophetic blessing - Be thou dull; 60
Drink, swear, and roar, forbear no lewd delight
Fit for thy bulk, do anything but write.
Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men,
A strong nativity - but for the pen;
Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink, 65
Still thou mayest live, avoiding pen and ink.
I see, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain,
For treason, botched in rhyme, will be thy bane;
Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck,
'Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck. — John Dryden

These people in the establishment have been telling us they're the ones to fix everything and everything they've tried to fix, they've botched - TARP, the recession fix such as the stimulus bill. Look at the college - college education is an impediment because of how much it costs. A college education is no longer a step up. — Rush Limbaugh

He does see Himself as the Divine Artist. Of course, He is also a blunderer - so many of His creations are botched. A good many are disasters which He then proceeds to plow back into the food chain. That is His only means of keeping His multitudinous, mediocre, and often meaningless spawnings from choking the existence of the rest. Yet, I will admit, He is dogged. He is still looking to improve His previous creations. — Norman Mailer