Change My Way Quotes & Sayings

I laughed but before I could agree with the hairdressers that she was crazy, she said, 'What's the world for if you can't make it up the way you want it?'
" 'The way I want it?'
" 'Yeah. The way you want it. Don't you want it to be something more than what it is?'
" 'What'st eh point? I can't change it.'
" 'That's the point. If you don't, it will change you and it'll be your fault cause you let it. I let it. And messed up my life.'
" 'Mess it up how?'
" 'Forgot it.'
" 'Forgot?'
" 'Forgot it was mine. My life. I just ran up and down the streets wishing I was somebody else. — Toni Morrison

On my knees, I beg of you to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the path of peace. Those who resort to violence always claim that only violence brings about change. You must know there is a political, peaceful way to justice. — Pope John Paul II

I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall. And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a situation as mine. Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want; consequence I do not want. — Jane Austen

So I didn't actually change my name the way some people did. — Herbie Hancock

One Sunday evening when it was very hot and breathlessly still we sere sitting here in this room in the dusk. He switched on the record player. Liszt. We sat. As I say, here. In this very room. We listened to the piece. Neither of us said a word. That's when he took my hand and we went out into the garden. In a quiet voice he said that I wasn't like any other person in the world and that some people wouldn't understand that. They wouldn't want me to be the way I was. They'd want to change me. They'd try to order me about and make me into the kind of person they wanted me to be. Since I was still a child there would be little I could do except stay alone, stay out of trouble, and make myself very small in the world. — Laird Koenig

When I'm gone, time won't change. It will pass the way it always has. I've seen it happen. People always move on. You will find your mate. You will move on then I'll be nothing but a memory, but I will never forget you. I will always love you for you have drawn emotions in me no other has in two thousand years. I will live with the memory of you in my heart because nothing can erase you from within me. You have forever changed me. You've taught me what it's like to truly love. — J.L. Sheppard

In my first film, we always tried to have a script and work in a normal way, but I was constantly changing things during shooting. Because I worked as a scriptwriter for 10 years, I understood that directors always wanted to change what was originally written, to improve on it. — Wong Kar-Wai

I'm confident in who I am. I've come to a place in my life where I've accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That's just the way I've always tried to be. It didn't change when I became a star. — Lady Gaga

I love you," he says as he stares into my eyes; I fight not to look away. "You may not hear me say this much, and you might even question it because of the way I am, or the things I do, but when you do, think back to this moment and know that it will never change. — Anonymous

This room had long served as a retreat from the disharmony and sadness of the first floor, and it was here I had fallen in love with these books and authors in a way that only lifelong readers know and understand. A good movie had never once affected me in the same life-changing way a good book could. Books had the power to alter my view of the world forever. A good movie could change my perceptions for a day. — Pat Conroy

Ash went over to the closet, and Sloane maintained his stoic expression. There was no way Dex would be hiding in the closet. It was too obvious. Ash opened the door, looking unimpressed. "There's a fuckwit naked in your closet."
Dex looked up at Ash with wide eyes. "This isn't what it looks like. I dropped some change, it rolled under the closet door, and when I went to pick it up, my clothes fell off. True story. — Charlie Cochet

I was always creatively stubborn, adverse to editing by others, and wanted to use the kind of Ukrainian we spoke among ourselves rather than the more artificial prescribed literary Ukrainian. The problem was the greatest in prose, where editors would change my language because "it sounded better this way." My poetry they left alone probably out of deference to that hallowed genre. — Yuriy Tarnawsky

With all of the visual distraction constantly inundating us in the form of our devices and screens, I really derive a great deal of pleasure from watching the sun rise and set, admiring clouds as they change shape across the sky, watching tree leaves and blossoms undulate in the breeze ... these treats foment an ocular-cleansing refreshment to my way of thinking. — Nick Offerman

As readers, as people, we might not have the capacity to change the justice system. But as Dylan says in the book, we can change one person's perspective at a time. We can notice. We can speak up. We can teach this generation, my generation, that the way sexual assault is viewed and treated in this country is not okay, so that when it is our turn to step into the shoes of political office and criminal justice, we can continue changing the narrative from a place of power.
And more than anything, we can support. And we can empower. We can love.
We can be better. — Cora Carmack

I refused to worry about something I could not change, and I still refuse. Look, I'm like any other woman. All this evolved b.s. that I'm telling you is my mantra. It's not something I practice naturally. I had to surrender to not worrying about the way I looked, how much I weighed, because that's just part of the journey of having a baby. I am not a woman whose self-worth comes from her dress size. — Kristen Bell

I know that sentence is long and has too many joining words in it but sometimes, when I'm angry, words burst out of me like a shout, or, if I'm sad, they spill out of me like tears, and if I'm happy my words are like a song. If that happens it's one of my rules not to change them because they're coming out of my heart and not my head, and that's the way they're meant to be. — Glenda Millard

When I was young I believed people should be told everything and that, as a pastor, I had a duty to share all my knowledge. Over the years I came to see that was a mistake. A person may know only what they are capable of assimilating. I have been thinking about this for half my life, and especially since I have been in Israel, but there are few people I can confide in. Really only you. You see, it is a terrible thing to disturb someone's equilibrium. If a person has become accustomed to thinking in a particular way, even a slight digression from that can prove painful. Not everybody is open to new ideas, to making their understanding more precise and supplementing it, to change. I have to admit that I am changing. Today my views on many matters have diverged from those generally accepted in the Catholic world, and I am not the only person in that situation. "You see, the birth of the One whom — Lyudmila Ulitskaya

I never would have guessed that I would get a job for the way I sound. I would get notes about how I should lose my accent, and part of me thinks, 'How dare you! This is who I am! Millions of people want to sound like me!' But it's sensitive, and I have tried to change it, with little to no success. — Jack McBrayer

Of all my novels, this book will stand out for me because of the sea change it inspired in the way I think about myself, and because it made me aware of the distance I have yet to go when it comes to racial awareness. — Jodi Picoult

Curiously I was unmoved by my work. Unaffected by the act of murder, I had become entirely numb. I couldn't understand how such detachment was possible-- but I did some digging.

What I discovered would have horrified me... if I was capable of being horrified. My augmentation had included the binding of my DNA to some of history's most notorious assassins.

Are you not getting this? I'll say it in plain English--- I am the perfect killer in every sense of the word--- ---because--- ---I--- ---am--- ---every--- killer.

I'm the act of change possessed in a revolver. I am revolution packed into a suitcase bomb.

I am ever Mark David Chapman and every Charlotte Corday. I am Luigi Lucheni slow-dancing with Balthasar to the tune of semi-automatics, while Gavrilo Princip masturbates in the corner with bath-tub napalm. I am all of them and so much more... because I am going to live forever." Number Five — Gerard Way

I like B. Wooster the way he is. Lay off him, I say. Don't try to change him, or you may lose the flavour. Even when we were merely affianced, I recalled, this woman had dashed the mystery thriller from my hand, instructing me to read instead a perfectly frightful thing by a bird called Tolstoy. At the thought of what horrors might ensue after the clergyman had done his stuff and she had a legal right to bring my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave, the imagination boggled. It was a subdued and apprehensive Bertram Wooster who some moments later reached for the hat and light overcoat and went off to the Savoy to shove food into the Trotters. The — P.G. Wodehouse

I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know. — Billie Holiday

Frankly, I am quite tired of those who tout Christianity as a way to stop smoking or drinking or break wild habits of the world. Is that all Christianity is, to keep us from some bad habit? Of course, regeneration will clean us up, and the new birth will make a man right. If that is what Christianity is all about, what about the person whose life is not that bad? The purpose of God in redemption is to restore us again to the divine imperative of worship. We were created to worship, but sin destroyed that ability. Jesus Christ, on the cross, redeemed us and brought us back to the place where we now can worship and have fellowship with God Almighty. My clean life is a by-product of my conversion. My life may have pointed out to me that I needed a drastic change, but that is not the purpose for which I was converted. The essence of conversion is to bring me into a right relationship with God and have fellowship with Him. — A.W. Tozer

I have a way of filming things and staging them and designing sets. There were times when I thought I should change my approach, but in fact, this is what I like to do. It's sort of like my handwriting as a movie director. And somewhere along the way, I think I've made the decision: I'm going to write in my own handwriting. — Wes Anderson

On the TV screen right now, it's 1975, and Jimmy Page is playing like a man who answers to nobody. A man existing in that seductive state of extended adolescence that rock legends bask in, a man connected to something in the universe larger than even the sum total of the legendary Led Zeppelin, playing guitar because that is so clearly what he was put here to do. And it's wrong to expect that kind of divine moment to last forever, and to expect an artist to stay in 1975. Fact is, ten minutes ago I saw the guy onscreen right downstairs, coming off the trading floor of the stock exchange with a banker carrying his guitar cases for him. I sit cross-legged on the floor on a workday staring into my cereal bowl, thinking about how we all change. We all grow up. We all move on, one way or another, whether we want to or not. — Dan Kennedy

I've never lived my life by the expectations society puts on you. When something doesn't feel right or isn't going the way it should, I listen to my instincts and change it. — Fatima Robinson

My ethics, my sense of morality, my work ethic, my sense of compassion for suffering humanity, all of that comes directly out of the practice of poetry, as does my Buddhist practice. Poetry is a very important element in the history of Buddhism in general and in Zen in particular. It was really Zen that motivated me to change the way I perceive the world. — Sam Hamill

Every time I change wives I should burn the last one. That way I'd be rid of them. They wouldn't be around to complicate my existence. Maybe, that would bring back my youth, too. You kill the woman and you wipe out the past she represents. — Pablo Picasso

A few years ago, a friend said to me: "You do realize, Ian, when X-Men and Lord of the Rings come out, your life will totally change?" I didn't know what he was talking about, but he was right. My life has totally changed - but in a good way. Unbeknownst to me, it's given me a lot more confidence. — Ian McKellen

I don't want my life to not be the way I expected.
I may not be scared of crowds. Or the dark. Or small spaces. But I am afraid.
I am afraid of responsibility; I am afraid of not living up to expectations, of the changing future, of growing up, not knowing, sex, relationships, hardship, secrets, grades, judgement, falling short, loneliness, change, confusion, arguments, curiosity, love, hate, losing, pressure, differences, honesty, lies.
I am afraid of me.
Yet, despite this, I know I am brave. I know I am brave because I've accepted my invisible fears and haven't let them overcome me.
I want you to know that you're brave because you know your fears. You're brave because you introduced yourself. You're brave because you said 'No, I don't understand.' You're brave because you are here. — Emily Trunko

Slowly, but steadily, my feelings did start to change- feelings about myself as a woman and feelings about what sexuality really is and what it really isn't. I -like most everyone who identified as gay or lesbian -felt very comfortable, very at home in mu body in my lesbianism. One doesn't repent for a sin of identity in one session. Sins of identity have multiple dimensions, and throughout this journey, I have come to my pastor and his wife, friends in the Lord, and always to the Lord himself with different facets of my sin. I don't mean different incidents or examples of the same sin, but different facets of sin -how pride, for example, informed my decision-making, or how my unwillingness to forgive others had landlocked my heart in bitterness. I have walked this journey with help. There is no other way to do it I still walk this journey with help. — Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

My sense is that you can never teach anybody anything, or change anybody in ways that they don't already have in mind. — Rachel Naomi Remen

Liverpool is a fundamental part of my life. They don't remember me that way, but time will change that. I could not have chosen a better place to go when I left Atletico. — Fernando Torres

Am touched that you are trying to comprehend me. A friend could not be more loving. I am more touched, still, that you are trying to understand - through rational thought - that which cannot be understood at all. There is no exact principle to be found here. The divine, as Boehme said, is unground - unfathomable, something outside the world as we experience it. But this is a difference of our minds, dearest one. I wish to arrive at revelation on wings, while you advance steadily on foot, magnifying glass in hand. I am a smattering wanderer, seeking God within the outer contours, searching for a new way of knowing. You stand upon the ground, and consider the evidence inch by inch. Your way is more rational and more methodical, but I cannot change my way." "I do have a dreadful love for understanding," Alma admitted. "Indeed you do love it, though it is not dreadful, — Elizabeth Gilbert

You've got my love the same way the ocean has the shore. It's always there - the tide can change, the sea can be rough, but somewhere the water always meets the sand. That never changes — Danielle Stewart

Delilah, I care about Leah already and I hope she's wonderful, but no matter what, you and Dominique will always be my babies. You're telling me to calm down, but here you are scared for the same reason. Now I get how silly the way I was feeling is. No matter what Delilah, nothing will ever change between us. It won't be any different than when Aunt Sandra, Sabrina, Brooke or Tally became part of the family. We'll just be a bigger unit. — Ella Fox

And without taking along a Cadet who will change the way I breathe for the rest of my life — Melina Marchetta

It changed the way I had looked at the world for most of my life and started me on a journey that would change who I was. — Amanda Meredith

Can it then be doubted, but that God, who is infinitely fine Spirit, and withal intelligent, can make and change all species and kind of body as he pleaseth? But I dare not say, that this is the way by which God Almighty worketh, because it is past my apprehension: yet it serves very well to demonstrate, that the omnipotence of God implieth no contradiction. — Thomas Hobbes

The ALGOL compiler was probably one of the nicest pieces of code to come out at that time. I spent hours trying to fix and change the compiler. Working with it so closely affected the way I think about programming and had a profound influence on my style. — Gary Kildall

It is more likely that the paths others have chosen influence the paths I choose. This suggests that the simplest way to help others make different choices is to make them myself, and to do it openly. As I shift the patterns of my own participation in the systemps of privilege, I make it easier for others to do so as well, and harder for them not to. Simply by setting an example - rather than trying to change them - I crate the possibility of their participating in change in their own time and in their own way. In this way I widen the circle of change without provoking the kind of defensiveness that perpetuates paths of least resistance and the oppressive systems they serve. — Allan G. Johnson

It is so irresponsible for people in the 'I want to change the course of my society' community to not do the damn research into figuring out the latest science of how people change their minds, and under what conditions people change their minds, and what exactly in their minds is being changed.

The belief systems people hold are absolutely, in no way, shape, or form the result of any objective evaluation of information. The prejudices are inherited, they're socially inflicted, they're propagandized in school, in church, in communities, in families. They are reinforced by endless bouts of patriotic media and all of this nonsense. People are an emotional Gordian knot kaleidoscopic clusterfrack of prior prejudices stuffed into their heads and held aloft by the spears of social approval and ostracism. — Stefan Molyneux

My mother folded each pair of trousers over her arm, pulling the legs out so that the creases lay perfectly. She handles clothes meticulously. S did Nai-nai. But there was a difference in attitude. To my grandmother, clothes held a kind of magic--they could change your destiny one way or the other. To my mother, they were servile, like farm animals in China. Treat them well and they'll perform their function. — Patricia Chao

He looked as pained as I felt at that moment, and I figured we were dancing around something way more dangerous than the roof of my apartment building. If I didn't change the focus, one of us was bound to do something stupid, and soon.
Probably me. — T. Torrest

I'm grateful to you, Jonas, because without you I would never have figured out a way to bring about the change. But your role now is to escape. And my role is to stay. — Lois Lowry

The photograph is the most perfect picture. It does not change; it is absolute, and therefore autonomous, unconditional, devoid of style. Both in its way of informing, and in what it informs of, it is my source. — Gerhard Richter

People compare me to Isiah Thomas because of my quickness and change-of-direction, the way I change speeds and run the team. — Baron Davis

Let my office know when you change your mind," he said, then headed for the door, jerking to a stop when Ivy didn't get out of his way.
"Let us know when cherry lollypops come out your ass," Jenks said, — Kim Harrison

The truth is that all civic and social change is friction. Politics is friction. The only way you can bend the arc of history is to create that kind of friction, which is something that makes most people incredibly uncomfortable but which, for whatever reason, because of my upbringing or because of my genetics, is something that doesn't bug me. — Nick Hanauer

I look forward, not to what lies ahead of me in this life and will surely pass away, but to my eternal goal. I am intent upon this one purpose, not distracted by other aims, and with this goal in view I press on, eager for the prize, God's heavenly summons. Then I shall listen to the sound of Your praises and gaze at Your beauty ever present, never future, never past. But now my years are but sighs. You, O Lord, are my only solace. You, my Father, are eternal. But I am divided between time gone by and time to come, and its course is a mystery to me. My thoughts, the intimate life of my soul, are torn this way and that in the havoc of change. And so it will be until I am purified and melted by the fire of Your love and fused into one with You. — Augustine Of Hippo

We excel in cut-and-paste solutions. We make promises and provide quick fixes to tide over the crisis at hand, thereby abandoning long-term objectives. We also seem to keep widening the threshold of our tolerance. We see enormous wrong, abysmally high levels of corruption, but accept these as necessary evils and refuse to raise a voice against them. We need to ask ourselves not only why we choose to live with mediocrity, but also when we plan to stand up and say, enough is enough. I daresay - and I am relieved to see this in my lifetime - such change is on its way; we see welcome signs, particularly from GenNext. — Vinod Rai

The baby was warm against my chest. I knew I was broken too. I wasn't like other people. I was scared and weird and anxious and sad lots of the time, and I didn't know why. My parents thought I was abnormal, I was pretty sure. They said I wasn't, but you don't get sent to a therapist if you're normal.
Sometimes we really aren't supposed to be the way we are. It's not good for us. And people don't like it. You've got to change. You've got to try harder and do deep breathing and maybe one day take pills and learn tricks so you can pretend to be more like other people. Normal people. But maybe Vanessa was right, and all those other people were broken too in their own ways. Maybe we all spent too much time pretending we weren't. — Kenneth Oppel

I brought my hand to the back of his neck and leaned into him, sliding my fingers into the curls at his nape. His arms clasped tighter around me. I sighed just a little against his mouth, feeling that it was almost too much, all this newness, this feeling that there was space and light inside me I'd never noticed before. Every part of me down to my fingertips felt like reworked glass, melting into some new shape, my edges beginning to glow. I wanted to do nothing but change this way, pressed against his body, his warmth and goodness, forever. — Betsy Cornwell

Listening is hard, as my friend once said, because you run the risk of having to change the way you see the world. — Zia Haider Rahman

The essence of the evening was captured by a question from the audience. Someone asked: "What would it take to change your worldview?" My answer was simple: Any single piece of evidence. If we found a fossilized animal trying to swim between the layers of rock in the Grand Canyon, if we found a process by which a new huge fraction of a radioactive material's neutrons could become protons in some heretofore fantastically short period of time, if we found a way to create eleven species a day, if there were some way for starlight to get here without going the speed of light, that would force me and every other scientist to look at the world in a new way. However, no such contradictory evidence has ever been found - not any, not ever. — Bill Nye

You are angry at the God you were taught to believe in as a child. The God who is supposed to watch over you and protect you, who answers your prayers and forgives your sins. This God is just a story. Religions try to capture God, but God is beyond religion. The true God lies beyond our comprehension. We can't understand His will; He can't be explained in a book. He didn't abandon us and He will not save us. He has nothing to do with our being here. God does not change. He simply is. I don't pray to God for forgiveness or favors, I only pray to be closer to Him, and when I pray, I fill my heart with love. When I pray this way, I know that God is love. When I feel that love, I remember that we don't need angels or a heaven, because we are a part of God already. — Nando Parrado

You didn't like him, did you, Dad?"
"It wasn't that I didn't like him," my dad says slowly. "It was just that he lives in a completely different world, and I worried that he didn't really approve of you the way you are, that he was trying to change you into something else."
God, I never realized my dad was that perceptive..
"You see, the thing is," he says after we've both sat for a while in the sunshine, "the thing is that love is really the most important thing. I know it's hard for you to see it now" - he chuckles quietly- "but when I first laid eyes on your mother I thought she was fantastic, and I've never stopped loving her, not for a second. Oh yes, we've had our rough patches, and she can be a bit of an old battle-ax at times, but I still love her. That in-love feeling at the beginning settles down into a different, familiar sort of love, but it has to be there right from the start, otherwise it just won't work. — Jane Green

If I had to wish for something, just one thing, it would be that Hannah would never see Tate the way I did. Never see Tate's beautiful, lush hair turn brittle, her skin sallow, her teeth ruined by anything she could get her hands on that would make her forget. That Hannah would never count how many men there were, or how vile humans can be to one another. That she would never see the moments in my life that were full of neglect, and fear, and revulsion, moments I can never go back to because I know they will slow me down for the rest of my life if I let myself remember them for one moment. Tate, who had kept Hannah alive that night, reading her the story of Jem Finch and Mrs. Dubose. And suddenly I know I have to go. But this time without being chased by the Brigadier, without experiencing the kindness of a postman from Yass, and without taking along a Cadet who will change the way I breath for the rest of my life. — Melina Marchetta

Watching 40 mile chunks of ice break off of Antarctica will change your life forever, but realizing that driving a car, or flying a plane, or having a nice steak, or drinking from a plastic bottle all contributed to the destruction of the environment - it's a bit complex, but music needs to pave the way for getting people to think about this kind of complexity. I'm just doing my share. — DJ Spooky

Tobias took the photograph. At least, that's what I saw. Most likely I still had the photograph in my hand, but I couldn't feel it there, now I perceived Tobias holding it. It's strange, the way the mind can change perception. — Brandon Sanderson

The future was also the place where the bad stuff waited in ambush. My children were embarking on their futures in fragile vessels, and I trembled. I wanted to remove obstacles, smooth their way, I wanted to change their childhoods. I needed to be right all the time, I wanted them to listen to me, learn from my mistakes, and save themselves a lot of grief. Well, now I know I can control my tongue, my temper, and my appetites, but that's it. I have no effect on weather, traffic, or luck. I can't make good things happen. I can't keep anybody safe. I can't influence the future and I can't fix up the past.
What a relief. — Abigail Thomas

I am more touched, still, that you are trying to understand - through rational thought - that which cannot be understood at all. The divine, as Boehme said, is unground, unfathomable, something outside the world as we experience it. But this is a difference of our minds, dearest one. I wish to arrive on wings, while you advance steadily on foot, magnifying glass in hand. I am a smattering wanderer, seeking God within the outer contours, searching for a new way of knowing. You stand upon the ground, and consider the evidence inch by inch. Your way is more rational and more methodical, but I cannot change my way. — Elizabeth Gilbert

A lot of my idealism was frustrated by the end of the '60s because of the way things went with the assassinations and the sense that the political establishment was so fixed in its ways you couldn't change anything. — David Talbot

To paraphrase something the anthropologist Ashley Montagu once said, the way I change my life is to act as if I'm the person I want to be. This is, to me, the simplest, wisest advice you can give anyone. When you wake up and act like a loving person, you realize not only that you are altered, but that the people around you are also transformed, because everybody is changed by the reception of this love ... — Bernie Siegel

One might be tempted to think that the many slights and rejections we scientists must suffer are somehow a necessary part of our education. But I don't think that way anymore. My experience with the music business has taught me to cherish every bit of feedback I can get, and not to think of the hundreds of unreturned phone calls or ignored pitches I must face as signs of personal failings. It was this change of perspective,
and the pressure it removed from my life, that first made me want to try systematically applying what I learned in the music business to the world of science. — Marc J. Kuchner

So I really did stop and change what I saw I was about, and really try to put that principle into play as the center of everything - my friendships, my marriage, my career, my family, my way of being in the world. And that changed everything for me. — Kathy Mattea

Once the man vacates the room, Genova motions toward the table between us. "Gun."
I hold up my hands. "I don't have one."
His brow furrows. "You came unarmed?"
"I never carry a gun," I say, "but that doesn't mean I'm unarmed."
Everything's a weapon if you look at it the right way.
"Knives, then."
"None of those, either."
"Then what do you got?"
"Not much." I consider it for a moment. "Some spare change, a peppermint, my wallet ... oh, and I've got a pen in my pocket."
He looks at me with disbelief. "A pen."
Reaching into my pocket, I pull out a simple black ballpoint ink pen.
Probably cost a dollar.
"You gonna kill somebody with that?" he asks.
I shrug, setting it on the table. "You never know. — J.M. Darhower

What did the others give to each other?
Nothingness.
Granger stood looking back with Montag. Everyone must leave something behind
when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a
wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand
touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when
people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The
difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the
touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the
gardener will be there a lifetime. — Ray Bradbury

I got an abortion and learned how to make dehydrated tuna flakes and turkey jerky and took a refresher course on basic first aid and practiced using my water purifier in my kitchen sink. I had to change. I had to change was the thought that drove me in those months of planning. Not into a different person, but back to the person I used to be
strong and responsible, clear-eyed and driven, ethical and good. And the PCT would make me that way. There, I'd walk and think about my entire life. I'd find my strength again, far from everything that had made my life ridiculous. — Cheryl Strayed

I'm just saying: I have never really felt like a girl is not the same as I have always felt like a boy. I mention this because when I have these tortuous inner conversations about how I may yet need to change my body and whether (and in what way) I am prepared to invest myself in the destination model of transition, I have to keep reminding myself of this important thing. — S. Bear Bergman

Throughout all of the changes that have happened in my life, one of the priorities I've had is to never change the way I write songs and the reasons I write songs. I write songs to help me understand life a little more. I write songs to get past things that cause me pain. And I write songs because sometimes life makes more sense to me when it's being sung in a chorus, and when I can write it in a verse. — Taylor Swift

Well, here we are. Let's change. Let's change the world. Together." "You sound like my father." "Your father wants the gods back on their pedestals. I want us working as one: humans with Craft, gods with divine power, priests with Applied Theology. But we need space to build that society. We need the time and the power to change, and we'll never have that time or power with Craftsmen crushing us. We need freedom, and I can win that freedom. Not in a decade or three. Today. In one stroke." "You want a moderate revolution. You just need to kill a few people first." "A few people. Yes. To free a city. To save a planet. Dresediel Lex will be a model for the world." "I kind of like it the way it is. — Max Gladstone

I've been the lowest low on the planet, I've been a sinner all my days. And I was living with my hands on the trigger, I had no sense to change my ways. — Sting

If I put myself on the side of those who see the world as warming up in a bad way, who see the general march of industrial culture as something undesirable, the one thing I must be beware of doing and which my colleagues on that side don't beware of doing, we must beware of saying we've got to stop changing the environment. There is no 'the' environment which we can change, the world is changing all the time. — Richard Lewontin

It took almost fifteen minutes to explain the situation. By the time I finished, my throat was dry and Demi's eyes were so wide that it seemed like they might fall out of her head. I glanced at Jeff, afraid of finding judgment or disapproval in his eyes. Not because it would change the way I felt about my brother, but because I liked Jeff, and it would be a shame to have to find a place to hide his body. — Seanan McGuire

Many people say, "Well, I'd love to make a decision like that, but I'm not sure how I could change my life." They're paralyzed by the fear that they don't know exactly how to turn their dreams
into reality. And as a result, they never make the decisions that could make their lives into the masterpieces they deserve to be. I'm here to tell you that it's not important initially to know how
you're going to create a result. What's important is to decide you will find a way, no matter what. — Anthony Robbins

I'm a really good driver. I've been driving since I was very small, and I do like driving fast. I remember the first time my dad taught me that when you go into a corner you change down then put your foot right down on the way out. I'm very competitive about driving. — Jennifer Saunders

It's more about balance for me. I used to be an all or nothing person. And now I would rather have a lifestyle change - rather than use the word 'diet' - where 90 percent of the time spend my life that way and 10 percent of the time have fun and do what my body feels like it needs or craves. — Julianne Hough

I know you miss me terribly. I miss you, too. But we still have each other, for I am - and always have been - part of you. You carry me in your heart, just as I carried you in mine, and nothing can ever change that. I love you, my darling, and you love me. Hold on to that feeling. Hold on to us. And little by little, you will find a way to heal. — Nicholas Sparks

I think that life is incredibly violent and that individual people are incredibly violent on one level or another. I don't try to change life to suit my writing; in a certain way I'm a naturalist of the nineteenth century school. — Richard Grossman

He was talking. I tried not to think of how he looked and instead of what he was telling me. Once I accomplished that, my brain couldn't get past the 'running' part.
"I don't run." I walked the mile run at school. True story.
I abhorred any kind of physical exercise. I wasn't good at it. I was skinny, but I was soft; had absolutely no muscle mass at all. That's the way I liked it. Who was he to try to change that, change me? I wouldn't let him. No way, no how.
One half of his mouth lifted. He seemed to be enjoying this a little too much. "You do now. You have to be fit, you have to be strong, Taryn, if you're to stand any chance of surviving this. Come on, we'll start with stretching."
He forced me to twist my body into unimaginable positions. I even had to touch my toes. The agony. Luke took pleasure from my pain; even laughing as I moaned and groaned through it all.
Then, the worst came about. He. Made. Me. Run. — Lindy Zart

For sure we live in a youth-obsessed culture that is constantly trying to tell us that if we're not young and glowing and "hot," we don't matter. But I refuse to buy into such a distorted view of reality. And I would never lie about or deny my age. To do so is to contribute to a sickness pervading our society - the sickness of wanting to be what you're not. I know for sure that only by owning who and what you are can you step into the fullness of life. I feel sorry for anyone who buys into the myth that you can be what you once were. The way to your best life isn't denial. It's owning every moment and staking a claim to the here and now. You're not the same woman you were a decade ago; if you're lucky, you're not the same woman you were last year. The whole point of aging, as I see it, is change. If we let them, our experiences can keep teaching us about ourselves. I celebrate that. Honor it. Hold it in reverence. And I'm grateful for every age I'm blessed to become. — Oprah Winfrey

My mom was sitting at the kitchen table. She'd set her coffee down, making a noise that made me look her way. I'd begun to notice her less and less often, like her colors were fading and blending in with walls. She was shrinking. Or maybe her sphere of influence in the family was shrinking. My dad glanced at her, too, and then wrote something on a napkin.
He slid it across the counter to me - Don't worry. Come home in one piece. Have fun and act like a sixteen-year-old for a change. — Laura Anderson Kurk

Every time I set my face to seeking God in a fresh way, God begins to change my heart, my mind, my preaching, and my leadership skills. When any believer commits his or her heart to seeking the Lord, everything is going to change. — Daniel Henderson

The biggest thing that will define my legacy is how I've done it, and what I've done, and who I am. I'm a weird big guy. Doing rapping, doing movies. Do a lot of stuff. But always do things the right way. Went to the police academy to become a police officer. Get his master's in criminal justice, stayed out of trouble. Played for three different teams. Changed three different franchises around. This is a guy who they would have secret meetings about to change the rules. So, that's going to be my legacy: the most dominant player ever. — Shaquille O'Neal

The chair and desk and stuff, they change in the darkness. Like people change. And I lay in my bed and I think, you know, this is the way the chair really is. The way it looks in the daytime, that's just a foolie. It looks that way to make me think it's all right. But it's an ugly thing, a chair at night is. And I know even in the day that it's ugly underneath. It will be ugly again, when I'm alone with it. When it's dark...I'm scared of chairs... I try not to be scared of things. I try to fight it. But I'm not good at it. It's everywhere at once. It's like fighting the night. — Torey L. Hayden

I was stuck in Port Ticonderoga, proud bastion of the common-and-garden variety button and of lower-priced long johns for the budget-minded shoppers. I would stagnate here, nothing would ever happen to me, I would end up an old-maid like Miss Violence, pitied and derided. This at the bottom was my fear. I wanted to be elsewhere, but I saw no way to get there. Once in a while, I found myself hoping that I would be abducted by white slavers, even though I didn't believe in them. At least it would be a change... — Margaret Atwood

Boredom or discontent is useful to me when I acknowledge it and see clearly my assumption that there's something else I would rather be doing. In this way boredom can act as an invitation to freedom by opening me to new options and thoughts. For example, if I can't change the activity, can I look at it more honestly? — Hugh Prather

You want to know what I'm afraid of? I'm afraid of every morning when I wake up that this will be the day when I can no longer move for myself. I know it's coming. It's just a matter of time until I have no choice, except to have someone else clothe me, feed me. Change my diaper. And I can't stand it. (Adron)
Then why don't you kill yourself? Why are you still here? (Livia)
Because every time I think of doing that, I can hear my family praying over me while I was in the hospital. I hear my mother weeping, my father begging me not to die on them. I could never intentionally hurt them that way. It would devastate them both, and while I'm a pathetic asshole, I'm not that selfish. (Adron) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I knew my mother was right, but that didn't change the way I felt about things. People always think that if they can prove they're right, you'll change your mind. — Peter Cameron

There are good books, indifferent books, and bad books. Amongst the good books some are honest, inspiring, moving, prophetic and improving. But in my language there is another category: there are Ah! Books. This is one of them. Ah! Books are those which induce a fundamental change in the reader's consciousness. They widen his sensibility in such a way that he is able to look upon familiar things as though he is seeing and understanding them for the first time. Ah! Books are galvanic. They touch the nerve centre of the whole being so that the reader receives an almost palpable physical shock. A tremor of excited perception ripples through the person. — Vernon Sproxton

I began to write in the first place because I expected everything to change, and I wanted to have things in writing the way they had been. Just a little things, of course. A little of my little. — William, Saroyan

The believers who say they are praying for me are victims of a lie and think they are doing something good; I let them know they are not. I tell them to imagine I had a newfangled gun that forcibly turned religious people into atheists. I tell them the gun didn't really work, but I thought it did. Let's say I decided to force them to be atheists, so I pointed the atheist gun at them and pulled the trigger. Would they think that was a nice thing to do? Would they appreciate my effort, or would they feel assaulted? When you pray for me, you are asking your god to change me. You are asking your god to forcibly enter my life and my brain and change my way of thinking (using euphemisms such as asking God to "open my heart to Jesus" is evidence of the intent of the assault). — David Silverman

I love my country. I love my guns. I love my family. I love the way it is now, and anybody that tries to change it has to come through me. That should be all of our attitudes. Cause this is America, and a country boy is good enough for me, son. — Charlie Daniels

You see, my Lord Archbishop, what is "dubious" about my theology is not that it contradicts particular doctrinal teachings, things are much worse or better: what I want, is no more and no less than a fundamental change in the whole way that theology is done today; but I want this out of faith, not out of faithlessness. — Eugen Drewermann

Carol and I have found that unless God baptizes us with fresh outpourings of love, we would leave New York City yesterday! We don't live in this crowded, ill-mannered, violent city because we like it. Whenever I meet or read about a guy who has sexually abused a little girl, I'm tempted in my flesh to throw him out a fifth-story window. This isn't an easy place for love to flourish. But Christ died for that man. What could ever change him? What could ever replace the lust and violence in his heart? He isn't likely to read the theological commentaries on my bookshelves. He desperately needs to be surprised by the power of a loving, almighty God. If the Spirit is not keeping my heart in line with my doctrine, something crucial is missing. I can affirm the existence of Jesus Christ all I want, but in order to be effective, he must come alive in my life in a way that even the pedophile, the prostitute, and the pusher can see. — Jim Cymbala

Based on eating everyday foods in specific combinations, Somersizing is a lifestyle that will change your way of thinking about how to lose weight and how to increase your energy. Eating the Somersize way is a pleasure. It is a program for life, a program I will happily live on for the rest of my life. — Suzanne Somers

I cannot change you. I cannot change other people. So I have decided to put all of my energy where I have the most leverage , where I know I can make a difference. Instead of being upset that this world is not populated the way I want it to be populated, I have decided to become the citizen that I want the world to be populated with. That's how I create the vision. — Gary Zukav

I was (an am) unsure about how I am related to my old self, or to myself from year to year. The hormonal profile of an individual determines much of the manifest personality. If you skew the endocrine system,you loose the pathways to the self. When endocrine patterns change it alters the way you think and feel. One shift in the pattern tends to trip another. — Hilary Mantel

It seems as if we can't go right, or do right, or be righted,' said Toby. 'I hadn't much schooling, myself, when I was young; and I can't make out whether we have any business on the face of the earth, or not. Sometimes I think we must have a little; and sometimes I think we must be intruding. I get so puzzled sometimes that I am not even able to make up my mind whether there is any good at all in us, or whether we are born bad. We seem to do dreadful things; we seem to give a deal of trouble; we are always being complained of and guarded against. One way or another, we fill the papers. Talk of a New Year!' said Toby, mournfully. — Charles Dickens