Clear Things Out Quotes & Sayings

Adoption was something that was always under my skin, that I knew would be a part of my life, and, when I decided to start filing, it was very clear. It was like I knew that this was exactly what it needed to be. So then you go through the process, and it's tough. It's not the easiest process - and then again, I've never liked things too easy in life. But it emotionally knocks you out. — Kristen Stewart

Way to tell what for."
"Maybe I shouldn't have told you - about it being electrical." She put her hand out, touched his arm; she felt guilty, seeing the effect it had on him, the change.
"No," Rick said. "I'm glad to know. Or rather - " He became silent. "I'd prefer to know."
"Do you want to use the mood organ? To feel better? You always have gotten a lot out of it, more than I ever have."
"I'll be okay." He shook his head, as if trying to clear it, still bewildered. "The spider Mercer gave the chickenhead, Isidore; it probably was artificial, too. But it doesn't matter. The electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are. — Philip K. Dick

Yes, genuine pain and loss coexisted with the deliverance, but it did not have the last word. Its power to hurt him was weakened because he could see the bigger things God was doing in, for, and through him. You can probably find similar events in your life. Hard things persisted, there was no apparent deliverance, but, with closer inspection, you notice a deliverance that went much deeper. And these are eleventh-hour deliverances on this side of death and eternity. Imagine if you gradually developed the spiritual skill to see beyond the immediate moment and catch a glimpse of the glories to come. The basic outline is clear: if you have thrown your lot in with Jesus, everything he has is yours, even the kingdom itself. It would be impossible to ask for more. Those who imitate Abraham's faith are always pushing the last minute farther out until it comes even after physical death. Such a person is fearless. A — Edward T. Welch

Anything made out of destructible matter Infinite time would have devoured before. But if the atoms that make and replenish the world Have endured through the immense span of the past Their natures are immortal-that is clear. Never can things revert to nothingness! — Lucretius

I'm all about having one day during the week when I have an at-home spa day. That's when I like to do my nails and moisturize, or do a coconut oil hair masque and clear out my blackheads with pore strips. That's one of my favorite things. — Shay Mitchell

Nobody goes "AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" when they sing it. Maybe because it puts the life adventure in such clear and simple terms. The small creature is alive and looks for adventure. Here's the drainpipe
a long tunnel going up toward some light. The spider doesn't even think about it
just goes. Disaster befalls it
rain, flood, powerful foces. And the spider is knocked down and out beyond where it started. Does the spider say, "To hell with that"? No. Sun comes out
clears things up
dries off the spider. And the small creature goes over to the drainpipe and looks up and thinks it really wants to know what is up there. — Robert Fulghum

The status of celebrity offers the promise of being showered with 'all good things' that capitalism has to offer. The grotesque display of celebrity lives (and deaths) is the contemporary form of the cult of personality; those 'famous for being famous' hold out the spectacular promise of the complete erosion of a autonomously lived life in return for an apotheosis as an image. The ideological function of celebrity (and lottery systems) is clear - like a modern 'wheel of fortune' the message is 'all is luck; some are rich, some are poor, that is the way the world is...it could be you! — Guy Debord

God can of course look in someone's mind to discover what he is thinking, or look into the future to discover what she will do, but here and elsewhere the Old Testament implies that God does not always do that. God waits to see what will happen. Perhaps it implies a kind of respect for human beings, a desire to let them make their decisions and not mess with their minds, and a desire for a realtime relationship. If God always worked out ahead of time whatwe would do, and knew it before we did, it would introduce an element of phoniness into the relationship. But that's just my guess; the Bible makes clear only the fact of God's not knowing things ahead of time, not the rationale. — John E. Goldingay

These are things that only dogs and women understand because we tap into the pain directly, we connect to pain directly from its source, and so it is at once brilliant and brutal and clear, like white-hot metal spraying out of a fire hose, we can appreciate the aesthetic while taking the worst of it straight in the face. Men, on the other hand, are all filters and deflectors and timed release. — Garth Stein

It would be a mistake, however, to think that Connectors are the only people who matter in a social epidemic. Roger Horchow sent out a dozen faxes promoting his daughter's friend's new restaurant. But he didn't discover that restaurant. Someone else did and told him about it. At some point in the rise of Hush Puppies, the shoes were discovered by Connectors, who broadcast the return of Hush Puppies far and wide. but who told the Connectors about Hush Puppies? It's possible that Connectors learn about new information by an entirely random process, that because they know so many people they get access to new things wherever they pop up. If you look closely at social epidemics, however, it becomes clear that just as there are people we rely upon to connect us to other people, there are also people we rely upon to connect us with new information. There are people specialists, and there are information specialists. — Malcolm Gladwell

To have a flexible, open, clean mind, you have to do three things: exercise it, accept new ideas, clear out the clutter. Be willing to change your mind when it needs changing. — Toni Sorenson

THE OPENING OF EYES After R. S. Thomas That day I saw beneath dark clouds, the passing light over the water and I heard the voice of the world speak out, I knew then, as I had before, life is no passing memory of what has been nor the remaining pages in a great book waiting to be read. It is the opening of eyes long closed. It is the vision of far off things seen for the silence they hold. It is the heart after years of secret conversing, speaking out loud in the clear air. It is Moses in the desert fallen to his knees before the lit bush. It is the man throwing away his shoes as if to enter heaven and finding himself astonished, opened at last, fallen in love with solid ground. — David Whyte

And I remember when I met him.
It was so clear that he was the only one for me.
We both knew right away.
And as the years went on things got more difficult,
We were faced with more challenges.
I begged him to stay,
Tried to remember what we had in the beginning.
He was charismatic, magnetic, electric, and everybody knew him
When he walked in every woman's head turned.
Everyone stood up to talk to him.
He was like this hybrid, this mix of a man who couldn't contain himself.
I always got the sense that he became torn between being a good person and missing out on all of the opportunities that life could offer a man as magnificent as him.
And in that way, I understood him.
And I loved him, I loved him, I loved him, I loved him.
And I still love him, I love him. — Lana Del Rey

It is astonishing, how many difficulties clear up without any effort when the inner life gets straightened out. If half the time we spend trying to fix up outward things were spent in getting our hearts right, we would be delighted with the result. Strange as it may seem, harmony within our hearts depends mostly upon our getting into harmony with God. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

That, my dear detective, was the other San Francisco. You've probably seen it before, just out of the corner of your eye. You've probably dismissed it all your life. Maybe you always told yourself you'd just had too much to drink." She paused, her gaze heavy on his face. MacMillian squirmed. "But I'm guessing you always knew better."
His head was throbbing. He shook it once, twice, but it didn't clear. "I don't get it, Miss ... "
"Alan," she supplied.
He nodded. "Ms. Alan. Why are you here?"
Her eyes darkened. "Because there are things that go bump in the night, Mr. MacMillian. It's my job to bump back. — Laura Oliva

Some things should never be said. Not out loud in clear, simple words. You talk around them. You leave gaps and blanks. You use other words and talk in curves and arcs for the worst things because you need to keep them like mist. Words are dangerous. Like a spell, if you name the mist, call out all of the words that describe it sharp and clear, you turn it solid, into something that no one should ever hold in their hands. Better that it stays like water, slipping between your fingers. — Alexia Casale

Lebedev: France has a clear and defined policy ... The French know what they want. They just want to wipe out the Krauts, finish, but Germany, my friend, is playing a very different tune. Germany has many more birds in her sights than just France ...
Shabelsky: Nonsense! ... In my view the German are cowards and the French are cowards ... They're just thumbing their noses at each other. Believe me, things will stop there. They won't fight.
Borkin: And as I see it, why fight? What's the point of these
armaments, congresses, expenditures? You know what I'd do? I'd gather together dogs from all over the country, give them a good dose of rabies and let them loose in enemy country. In a month all my enemies would be running rabid. — Anton Chekhov

The war had been a daily thought, a continual consciousness in her life for two years, but never a real presence. Battles were things that were fought somewhere else, won somehow, by someone, and lost by someone else. Now as she stood by her own door and listened to the cannons, it was with a chilling, dreadfully full and clear realization that men were out on the field beneath that gray cloud taking each other's lives. — Elisabeth Grace Foley

We've spent our time together talking about everything but what matters. We've never brought to each other the heavy things we were meant to help each other carry. We've only introduced each other to our representatives, while our real selves tried to live life alone. We thought that was safer. We thought that this way our real selves wouldn't get hurt. But as I read these messages, it becomes clear that we are all hurting anyway. And we think we are alone. At our cores, we are our tender selves peeking out at a world of shiny representatives, so shame has been layered on top of our pain. We're suffocating underneath all the layers. * — Glennon Doyle Melton

I was talking about time. It's so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it's just my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. [...] What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don't think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. [...] Someday you be walking down the road and you hear something or see something going on. So clear. And you think it's you thinking it up. A thought picture. But no. It's when you bump into a rememory that belongs to somebody else. — Toni Morrison

Memory in these incomparable streets, in mosaics of pain and sweetness, was clear to me now, a unity at last. I remembered small and unimportant things from the past: the whispers of roommates during thunderstorms, the smell of brass polish on my fingertips, the first swim at Folly Beach in April, lightning over the Atlantic, shelling oysters at Bowen's Island during a rare Carolina snowstorm, pigeons strutting across the graveyard at St. Philip's, lawyers moving out of their offices to lunch on Broad Street, the darkness of reveille on cold winter mornings, regattas, the flash of bagpipers' tartans passing in review, blue herons on the marshes, the pressure of the chinstrap on my shako, brotherhood, shad roe at Henry's, camellias floating above water in a porcelain bowl, the scowl of Mark Santoro, and brotherhood again. — Pat Conroy

You can discard most of the junk that clutters your mind - things that exist only there - and clear out space for yourself: ... by comprehending the scale of the world ... by contemplating infinite time ... by thinking of the speed with which things change - each part of every thing; the narrow space between our birth and death; the infinite time before; the equally unbounded time that follows. — Marcus Aurelius

The pain is stronger than ever. I've seen bit of lost Paradises and I know I'll be hopelessly tryng tu return even if it hurts. The deeper I swing into the regions of nothingness the further I'm thrown back into myself, each time more and more frightening depths below me, until my very being becomes dizzy. There are brief glimpses of clear sky, like falling out of a tree, so I have some idea where I'm going, but there is still too much clarity and straight order of things, I am getting always the same number somehow. So I vomit out broken bits of words and sintaxes of the countries I've passed through, broken limbs, slaughtered houses, geographies. My heart is poisoned, my brain left in shreds of horror and sadness. I've never let you down, world, but you did lousy things to me.
(from "As I was moving ahead occasionally I saw brief glimpses of beauty", 2000) — Jonas Mekas

No. What he did out there, that wasn't okay with you. Jesus. I could see it in your eyes, your body, the way your fucking hands shook." He heaved a deep breath, like he was attempting to calm himself. "And if it wasn't okay with you, it's sure as hell not okay with me." Closer, yet. So close his chest brushed hers. "In point of fact, I have a major fucking problem with a male forcing a woman to do anything," he said, his eyes burning with molten silver. "But let me be clear, Crystal. Seeing him all over you like that would do bad things to me even if you wanted his attention. So my intentions here"
he pursed his lips and shook his head
"they're not all honorable. Because I want you. I want you so bad I can hardly breathe. — Laura Kaye

Moonlight does things to a street scene that no other natural or man-made phenomenon can effect. People walk slower, their smiles lingering on contended faces. Horses that usually move along fast enough to stir up the dust off the street plod lazily in the clear, cool night. And in dark corners where people forget to look, the goons come out. — Bailey Bristol

There is a way of looking at things when you are alone in the woods at night. You see more clearly the things at the corner of the eye, and hear all the little crackling noises, the saw of your own breath, even the thumping of your heart. All so clear. It is as though on stepping out of the city an older part of the brain starts to work again. The part that remembers flint and bone and ice. — Paul Kearney

For many people, life is full of pain, suffering. It doesn't consist of clear blue skies or fresh green grass that's always greener on the other side. It's filled with hardships, grief, betrayal, and death.
These things define the human condition.
They define the sort of person an individual grows up to be, once those tribulations have, for the most part, ended.
But what truly defines you isn't the fact that you have seen death, known the feeling of betrayal by someone you trust, or watched as something you loved was ripped out of your hands.
What truly defines you is the way you reacted. — Tiana Dalichov

If you will count, count the stars, dear one. How many stars in the sky, looking down on us as we lie in each other's arms and taste joy? How many gleaming fish in the lake where I splash our son in the water and hear his streaks of glee ring out in the clear air? A fine little salmon you made, that night in the rain. How many times does the heart beat, how fast does the blood run when at last we touch, and touch again, and breathe the same desperate, longing breath? Count those things, for they are the stuff of life and hope. — Juliet Marillier

Out of an intuitive experience of the world comes a continuous flow of novel distinctions. Purely rational understanding, on the other hand, serves to confirm old mindsets, rigid categories. Artists, who live in the same world as the rest of us, steer clear of these mindsets to make us see things anew. — Ellen Langer

Sometimes I can't tell the difference between living and dead. Sometimes I look at a pretty little girlie and I think to myself, Is she a living, breathing thing? Or is she just a doll? Are those actualy tears she's crying? Are those real creams coming out of her mouth? And it's like a fog in my mind, like I get all confused and frustrated and mixed up, so I start doing things. Start small at first, like maybe with the ears or the lips or the toes. And then move on to the bigger things, and there's blood, so I keeping going and my hands are wet and my mouth is warm and I keep going and then something magical happens, Jasper. It's real magical and special and beautiful. See, they stop moving. They stop struggiling. All the fight just goes away and that's when it's all clear to me: She's dead. And if she's dead, then that means that she used to be alive. So then I know: This was a living one, a real one. And I feel good after that 'cause I figured it out. — Barry Lyga

Pres,
I know you're going to say this is dumb, and I know you won't understand. Which is why I asked Bee and Ryan for help. Don't get me wrong, I like fighting with you, but there are some things you just can't argue. This is one, and I hope you'll come to accept that.
I have to leave Pine Grove. I have to leave Alabama, and I have to leave you. After tonight, that's all completely clear to me. This whole situation is effed up ... and it's clear to me now that the only way to un-eff it up ... is to take myself out of the equation. Without me, you, Bee, and Ryan can just be you, Bee, and Ryan. Not Paladins or Mages. People. With your own lives.
It's like you said at that time at Cotillion practice, you want to be a good woman who chooses the right thing for everybody. Well, so do I. (Minus the woman part, obviously.)
Have a good life, Pres. I love you. Always.
D — Rachel Hawkins

1 Somewhere, out at the edges, the night Is turning and the waves of darkness Begin to brighten the shore of dawn The heavy dark falls back to earth And the freed air goes wild with light, The heart fills with fresh, bright breath And thoughts stir to give birth to color. 2 I arise today In the name of Silence Womb of the Word, In the name of Stillness Home of Belonging, In the name of the Solitude Of the Soul and the Earth. I arise today Blessed by all things, Wings of breath, Delight of eyes, Wonder of whisper, Intimacy of touch, Eternity of soul, Urgency of thought, Miracle of health, Embrace of God. May I live this day Compassionate of heart, Clear in word, Gracious in awareness, Courageous in thought, Generous in love. — John O'Donohue

Knowing you don't have much time left changes things. You get kind of philosophical. And you figure things out - more like, they figure themselves out - and everything gets real clear. Your first kiss isn't as important as your last. The math test really didn't matter. The pie really did. The stuff you're good at and the stuff you're bad at are just different parts of the same thing. Same goes for the people you love and the people you don't - and the people who love you and the people who don't. The only thing that mattered was that you cared about a few people. Life is really, really short. — Kami Garcia

There are times in relationships, when we blow it. In spite of our best intentions, we wrong others. Our jealousy makes us feel inferior. Our own wounds cause us to act irrationally. Our insecurities lead us to say hurtful things.
And so, we find ourselves acting out. In short, we cloud our lives with muddy water. We trash around the pond of our emotions until things are just too messed up to figure out how to fix them.
It is in the times of muddy water that we learn how to wait it out. We have to wait until the mud settles. We must wait until we can clearly see where the water of our lives ends and the mud of misplaced emotions begin.
Have the patience to wait until the mud settles. Be still until the water is clear. In clear water, words come. Right actions reveal them selves and healing appears.
From the Devotional A Word in Season — Stella Payton

I think and speak clearer since I cut the dairy out. I can breathe better and perform at a better rate, and my voice is clearer. I can explore different things with my voice that I couldn't do because of my meat and dairy ingestion. I am proud and blessed to be a vegetarian, everything became clear. — Common

The haughty nephew ... and an even haughtier wife, both convinced that Germany was appointed by God to govern the world. Aunt July would come the next day, convinced that Great Britain had been appointed to the same post by the same authority.

Were both these loud-voiced parties right? On one occasion they had met, and Margaret ... had implored them to argue the subject out in her presence. Whereat they blushed and began to talk about the weather.

... Margaret then remarked: "To me one of two things is very clear; either God does not know his own mind about England and Germany, or else these do not know the mind of God."

A hateful little girl, but at thirteen she had grasped a dilemma that most people travel through life without perceiving. — E. M. Forster

That meadow scene is the first thing that comes back to me. The smell of grass, the faint chill of the wind, the line of the hills, the barking of a dog: these are the first things, and they come with absolute clarity. I feel as if I can reach out and trace them with a fingertip. And yet, as clear as the scene may be, no one is in it. — Haruki Murakami

You can't look outside of yourself. You must look within yourself, and address all of the things that are going on within you, and clear out the things that are not useful. Whether it's fear or anger or shame or guilt or whatever it is - clean that stuff up. — Iyanla Vanzant

I didn't really know the answer to this myself, but saying that wasn't going to get me off the hook. I started talking without any clear idea of what was going to come out.
'Because sex causes more unhappiness than it gives pleasure,' I said. 'Because men and women want different things, and one of them always ends up being disappointed. Because I don't get asked much, and I hate asking. Because I'm not very good at it. Because I'm used to being on my own. Because I can't think of anymore reason.' I paused for breath.
'All right,' said Ronnie. She turned and started walking backwards so she could get a good view of my face. 'Which of those is the real one?'
'B,' I said, after a bit of thought. — Hugh Laurie

If you have received a letter inviting you to speak at the dedication of a new cat hospital, and you hate cats, your reply, declining the invitation, does not necessarily have to cover the full range of your emotions. You must make it clear that you will not attend, but you do not have to let fly at the cats. The writer of the letter asked a civil question; attack cats, then, only if you can do so with good humor, good taste, and in such a way that your answer will be courteous as well as responsive. Since you are out of sympathy with cats, you may quite properly give this as a reason for not appearing at the dedicatory ceremonies of a cat hospital. But bear in mind that your opinion of cats was not sought, only your services as a speaker. Try to keep things straight. — William Strunk Jr.

You can go to these chat-lines. It's not hard it's really easy. Another thing the show makes clear is not talking about these issues is what leads kids to go on the Internet and find out the information themselves. And then they come across people like Mr. Healy wanting to meet them in the park. That's what leads to these kind of more-dangerous things. — Sarah Steele

I was a keen observer and listener. I picked up on clues. I figured things out logically, and I enjoyed puzzles. I loved the clear, focused feeling that came when I concentrated on solving a problem and everything else faded out. — Sonia Sotomayor

I learned that working out gives me a space to get clear. It's not just about the body. It gives me space to process things and get clear in my mind about decisions and things I want to do. — Estelle

Some of the fragments bore clear scratches, reminding him that those things had indeed taken place. The details were vivid, but the feelings had vanished without a trace. The past was like a handful of sand you thought you were squeezing tightly, but which had already run out through the cracks between your fingers. Memory was a river that had run dry long ago, leaving only scattered gravel in a lifeless riverbed. He had lived life always looking out for the next thing, and whenever he had gained, he had also lost, leaving him with little in the end. He — Liu Cixin

I want to make it clear before we begin that I think your purpose is to learn and mine is to help you to learn, or to make you learn, though I doubt either of you has to be made. I have very little interest in writing out progress reports on you, or sticking to form charts, or anything else that interferes with our basic purposes. If there is anything you want to learn and have the necessary background to handle, I'll be ready to help you whether or not it is something that formally falls among the things I'm supposed to teach you. If you don't have the background, I'll help you get it. In return, I want you to do something for me. It's been many years since I was last a tutor, so I expect you to point out to me when I fail to observe some ritual that Mr. Quince holds essential. Fair enough? — Alexei Panshin

It is winter proper; the cold weather, such as it is, has come to stay. I bloom indoors in the winter like a forced forsythia; I come in to come out. At night I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear; I reap the harvest of the rest of the year's planting.
The woods are acres of sticks: I could walk to the Gulf of Mexico in a straight line. When the leaves fall, the striptease is over; things stand mute and revealed. Everywhere skies extend, vistas deepen, walls become windows, doors open. — Annie Dillard

I think often there is no good way out of something. No nice, easy ending or neat resolution, no clear way to set things right. That works in stories, in children's fairy tales, but not in real life. Nothing everything can be fixed. And perhaps not everything should be. — Elana K. Arnold

Cleaning is my favorite way to relax. I clear things out and get rid of the stuff I don't need. When the food pantry and the refrigerator are organized, I feel less stressed. — Jennifer Morrison

I don't remember ever being see-saw, when I'd made my mind up that a thing was wrong. It takes the taste out o' my mouth for things, when I know I should have a heavy conscience after 'em. I've seen pretty clear, ever since I could cast up a sum, as you can never do what's wrong without breeding sin and trouble more than you can ever see. It's like a bit o' bad workmanship
you never see th' end o' the mischief it'll do. And it's a poor look-out to come into the world to make your fellow creatures worse off instead o' better. — George Eliot

To the Technocrats: Have mercy on us. Relax a bit, take time out for simple pleasures. For example, the luxuries of electricity, indoor plumbing, central heating, instant electronic communication and such, have taught me to relearn and enjoy the basic human satisfactions of dipping water from a cold clear mountain stream; of building a wood fire in a cast-iron stove; of using long winter nights for making music, making things, making love; of writing long letters, in longhand with a fountain pen, to the few people on this earth I truly care about. — Edward Abbey

He nodded at the sketchpad, still held in Dummy's claw, and it hurt, he didn't even want to think about how much that hurt, like a hole through his chest, another one, because yeah. "I was just going to smooth the pages out, I promise. Not going to, you know, toss it or anything." But he didn't reach for the pad again, message received, loud and clear.
Some things, he still wasn't allowed to touch. — Scifigrl47

Then there came a faraway, booming voice like a low, clear bell. It came from the center of the bowl and down the great sides to the ground and then bounced toward her eagerly. 'You see I am fate,' it shouted, 'and stronger than your puny plans; and I am how-things-turn-out and I am different from your little dreams, and I am the flight of time and the end of beauty and unfulfilled desire; all the accidents and imperceptions and the little minutes that shape the crucial hours are mine. I am the exception that proves no rules, the limits of your control, the condiment in the dish of life. — F Scott Fitzgerald

The sniper puts the cellist in his sights. Arrow is about to send a bullet into him, but stops. His finger isn't on the trigger ... His hand isn't even in the vicinity of the trigger ... His head leans back slightly, and she sees that his eyes are closed, that he is no longer looking through his scope. She knows what he's doing. It's very clear to her, unmistakable. He's listening to the music. And then Arrow knows why he didn't fire yesterday ... She is at once, sure of two things. The first is that she does not want to kill this man, and the second is that she must. Time is running out. There's no reason not to kill him. A sniper of his ability has wihtout doubt killed dozens, if not hundreds. Not just soldiers. Women crossing streets. Children in playgrounds. Old men in water lines. She knows this to a certainity. Yet she doesn't want to pull her trigger. All because she can see that he doesn't want to pull his ... The final notes of the cellist's melody reach him, and he smiles. — Steven Galloway

One joy of life in the north comes after a winter storm, when the sky, freed of its burden, has paled, and the glow of the unseen sun is everywhere reflected by the snow, so that all things stand out sharp and clear. — Karl Ove Knausgard

How deluded we sometimes are by the clear notions we get out of books. They make us think that we really understand things of which we have no practical knowledge at all. — Thomas Merton

Mostly we're motivated to control ourselves in public. Mostly. At home the motivation is much less clear. At home there's a bit of a lab for bad behavior. You can test things out without terrible consequences. Or maybe the consequences are there, but they are deferred, buried, much harder to detect. — Ben Marcus

Basically, the Buddhist attitude is that you should not accept certain things through sheer faith. And for that you need a skeptical attitude. Buddha himself made this clear to his followers. He said you should not accept those things I taught out of respect for me, but rather through investigation by yourself. — Dalai Lama

The clear stars before him took to shuddering and he knew why; they shuddered at sight of what was behind him. He had never divined before that strange Things hid themselves from men, under pretence of being snow-clad mounds of swaying trees; but now they came slipping out from their harmless covers to follow him, and mock at his impotence to make a kindred Thing resolve to truer form. He knew the air behind him was thronged; he heard the hum of innumerable murmurings together; but his eyes could never catch them - they were too swift and nimble; but he knew they were there, because, on a backward glance, he saw the snow mounds surge as they grovelled flatlings out of sight; he saw the trees reel as they screwed themselves rigid past recognition among the boughs. — Clemence Housman

I had a good raincoat then, a Burberry I got in London in 1959. Elizabeth thought I looked like a spider in it. That was probably why she wouldn't go to Greece with me. It hung more heroically when I took out the lining, and achieved glory when the frayed sleeves were repaired with a little leather. Things were clear. I knew how to dress in those days. It was stolen from Marianne's loft in New York sometime during the early seventies. I wasn't wearing it very much toward the end. — Leonard Cohen

Welcome back, Ben," Erica said. I started in surprise before realizing the voice was coming from inside my head. Alexander had slipped a two-way radio into my ear. There were lots of people out and about. The enemy had taken my cell phone, but I put my hand to my ear and pretended to be talking on one anyhow. No one gave me a second glance. Virtually everyone else was on a cell phone themselves. "Can you hear me?" I asked. "Loud and clear," Erica replied. "Where are you?" "Still on campus, looking into things. But I need you to tail someone for me." "Chip?" "No. I think he's clean." "What? But - " "I'll explain later. Right now I need you to go after Tina. She's the mole . . . and she's on the move. — Stuart Gibbs

The thing about real life is, when you do something stupid, it normally costs you. In books the heroes can make as many mistakes as they like. It doesn't matter what they do, because everything works out in the end. They'll beat the bad guys and put things right and everything ends up cool.
In real life, vacuum cleaners kill spiders. If you cross a busy road without looking, you get whacked by a car. If you fall from a tree, you break some bones.
Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins.
I just wanted to make that clear before I begun. — Darren Shan

Long Distance II

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call. — Tony Harrison

In any case, a leader who believes that he can make a positive difference through continual personal interventions is usually deluding himself. He thereby takes over things other people are supposed to be doing, effectively dispensing with their efforts, and multiplies his own tasks to such an extent that he can no longer carry them all out. The demands made on a senior commander are severe enough as it is. It is far more important that the person at the top retains a clear picture of the overall situation than whether some particular thing is done this way or that. — Stephen Bungay

So the big question is, "Well, do I just dump all those unwanted things and try to start fresh?" And we say, no. You just set the Tone, where you are, by looking for things to appreciate. And by setting your Tone in a very clear deliberate way, anything that doesn't match it gravitates out of your experience, and anything that does match it gravitates into your experience. It is so much simpler than most of you are allowing yourself to believe. — Esther Hicks

In the wildlife sanctuaries of literature, we study the species of speech, the flight patterns of individual words, the herd behavior of words together, and we learn what language does and why it matters. this is excellent training for going out into the world and looking at all the unhallowed speech of political statements and news headlines and CDC instructions and seeing how it makes the word or in this case, makes a mess of it. It is the truest, highest purpose of language to make things clear and help us see; when words are used to do the opposite you know you're in trouble and maybe that there's a cover-up. — Rebecca Solnit

But that peek into his uncensored brain made it clear he too realized there was a good chance things weren't going to work out for us, that the idea of it not working out was already in his mind, and in some corner of his heart he was already preparing for it. And since I was already preparing to prepare for it too, I'm not sure why it made me so sad. But it did. It was like someone cut my lifeline. — Josh Lanyon

I'm sorry, I heard him say again. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sudden blur of movement as he slid out of his seat, left some bills for the breakfast he wouldn't eat, and walked away. And as he did, I thought again of those mornings in the hallway at school, way back in ninth grade. Everything had started in such sharp detail, each aspect pronounced and clear. Obviously, endings were different. Harder to see, full of shapes that could be one thing or another, with all the things that you were once so sure of suddenly not familiar, if they were even recognizable at all. — Sarah Dessen

The important things in life always happened by accident. At fifteen she didn't know much, in fact, with each passing year she was a lot less clear about most things. But this much she did know. You could worry yourself sick trying to be a better person, spend a thousand sleepless nights figuring out how to live clean and decent and honest, you could make a plan and bolt it in place, kneel by your bed every night and swear to God you'd stick to it, hell, you could go to church and promise properly. You could cross your heart seven times with your eyes tight shut, cut your thumb and squeeze it and pen solemn vows on a rock with your own blood then throw it in the river at the stroke of midnight. And then, out of the black beyond, like a hawk on a rat, some nameless catastrophe would swoop into your life and turn everything upside down and inside out forever. — Nicholas Evans

All my life, I ain't understand shit about what was going on. A thing just happen, then something else happen, then something else, an so on, and half the time nothing making any sense. But Dan say it is all part of a scheme of some sort, and the best way we can get along is figure out how we fit into the scheme, and then try to stick to our place. Somehow knowing this, things get a good bit clearer for me. — Winston Groom

Everything happens for a reason? I don't see it that way at all. To me, only the first part is clear: Everything happens. Then other things happen, and other things, still. Out of each of these moments, we make something. Any number of somethings, in fact.

What comes of our own actions becomes the "reason." It is no predestined thing. We may arrive where we are by way of a specific path - we can take just one at a time - but it's never the only one that could have led us to our destination. Nor does a single event, even a string of them, point decisively to a single landing spot. There are infinite possible versions of our lives. Meaning is not what happens, but what we do with what happens when it does. — Jessica Fechtor

Everyone knows what attention is. It is taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seems several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration of consciousness are of its essence. It implies a withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others. — William James

Things done in the dark hours of night, behind closed doors, or in the heat of the moment looked a lot different in the morning, out in the open, and with a clear head. — Penelope Douglas

It is simply a confession that with all that I've seen in the last few years, all the events I've been invited to, and all the people whom I've met, I am less and less impressed by "impressive" things or people who are presented as having things figured out. I am impressed by people who are honest and kind. I am inspired by moments of vulnerability, moments of confession and compassion, moments where someone makes it clear that they are a person in need of other people and someone else makes it clear that the first person is not alone. — Jamie Tworkowski

I am not of the opinion that one can ever lack the power to express perfectly what one wants to write or say. Observations on the weakness of language, and comparisons between the limitations of words and the infinity of feelings, are quite fallacious. The infinite feeling continues to be as infinite in words as it was in the heart. What is clear within is bound to become so in words as well. This is why one need never worry about language, but at sight of words may often worry about oneself. After all, who knows within himself how things really are with him? This tempestuous or floundering or morasslike inner self is what we really are, but by the secret process by which words are forced out of us, our self-knowledge is brought to light, and though it may still be veiled, yet it is there before us, wonderful or terrible to behold. — Franz Kafka

His existence had always been comfortable, he had always held a clear picture of himself, his duties, and his place in a world. He saw that world as a place so full of turning gears he had no hope of comprehending how things fit together, so why even try?
Now things were different, however. Now he wasn't just looking out from inside of the clockwork. Instead, he was actually seeing the final motion of the escapement - the ticking hands of the clock itself.
And it was a doomsday clock.
Both his feline and human instincts told him to let it be. It was not his problem, or his place to interfere. If the living world was destined to fall, let it happen, let it pass into history once and for all. Who was he to try to save it?
But on the other hand, if the living world were lost, then there would never again be great cats to furjack ... and couldn't it be that hearing the actual ticking of the clock gave one the responsibility to stop it? — Neal Shusterman

So I have absolutely no privacy anymore? None? Because the four of you had to check scores with each other?" His frustration was clear.
"You know, for someone concerned with honesty, you ought to be grateful."
He stopped and stared. "I beg your pardon?"
"Everything is out in the open now. We all have a pretty good idea of where we stand, and I, for one, am thankful."
He rolled his eyes. "Thankful?" "If you had told me that Celeste and I were at about the same point with you physically, I would never have tried to come on to you like I did last night. Do you know how humiliated I was?" He scoffed and started pacing again. "Please, America, you've said and done so many foolish things, I'm surprised you can even be embarrassed anymore. — Kiera Cass

Clear Your Mind Clearing your mind is the same as clearing your environment. Seeing a lot of stuff cluttered on the floor or disorganized in your cabinets can make you crazy. Your mind becomes confused with a lot of things that you see and this might cause you headaches. Try to organize your things in boxes, clean your room, fix your bed, sweep your floor, open your curtains to let the sunshine in and arrange things according to size or color. If you work on your desk, this is the best time to organize documents into folders, arrange them properly in drawers and throw out those that are not needed anymore. Making a habit of cleaning your environment can clear your mind and can make your life easier. — Kerry Elise

The problem with the word "vagina" is that vaginas seem to be just straight-out bad luck. Only a masochist would want one, because only awful things happen to them. Vaginas get torn. Vaginas get "examined.".. No. Let's clear this up right now - I don't actually have a vagina. I never have. I, personally, have a cunt. Cunt is a proper, old, historic, strong word, and it doubles up as the most potent swear word in the English language. Yeah. That's how powerful it is, guys. If I tell you what I've got down there, old ladies and clerics might faint. I like how shocked people are when you say "cunt." Compared to this, the most powerful swear word men have got out of their privates is "dick," which is frankly vanilla. In a culture where nearly everything female is still seen as squeam-inducing and/or weak - menstruation, menopause, just the sheer, simple act of calling someone "a girl" - I love that "cunt" stands on its own, as the supreme, unvanquishable word. — Caitlin Moran

The truth on top of me right like a marshmallowy sackful of soft sweet simple things, the feeling was colourful and clear and gentle and full of certainly and it pummelled me gently inside and out, and I understood. I understood these battles I'd been having with my parents and why an adventure away from Oscar felt like such a terrible thing.
I didn't want to leave him. I didn't want to sit by a new window in a strange house in a foreign country and not be able to talk to him. Oscar was the reason. He was the reason I wanted to stay. — Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

I look out again at the sun-my first full gaze. It is blood-red and men are walking about on rooftops. Everything above the horizon is clear to me. It is like Easter Sunday. Death is behind me and birth too. I am going to live now among the life maladies. I am going to live the spiritual life of the pygmy, the secret life of the little man in the wilderness of the bush. Inner and outer have changed places. Equilibrium is no longer the goal-the scales must be destroyed. Let me hear you promise again all those sunny things you carry inside you. Let me try to believe for one day, while I rest in the open, that the sun brings good tidings. Let me rot in splendor while the sun bursts in your womb. I believe all your lies implicitly. I take you as the personification of evil, as the destroyer of the soul, as the maharanee of the night. Tack your womb up on my wall, so that I may remember you. We must get going. Tomorrow, tomorrow ... — Henry Miller

There will always be reservations, things one must leave out, events one can't explain without handing over a full map of one's life, unfolding it, making clear that all the lines and contours stand for long days and nights when things were bad or good, or when things were too small to be described at all: when things just were. This is a life. — Colm Toibin

I realize he does not know that a man cannot talk of such things; I would do it willingly, but it is too dangerous for me to put these things into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic and I be no longer able to master them. What would become of us if everything that happens out there were quite clear to us? — Erich Maria Remarque

Sometimes, you just have to clear your head and get out to see other things. It is very important to be nourished. I love to go to museums and galleries, I like to see theatre, film, dance - anything creative. It doesn't promise you inspiration, but it nourishes your creative soul, and that's good. — Marc Jacobs

I like having some things very clear while other things are obscured ... so that it kind of keeps coming into and out of focus. — Jonathan Meiburg

Funny thing about having choices taken away from you - it tended to make things all kinds of crystal clear. You either felt relief all the way into your bones because it was the right decision even if you hadn't made it, or every cell inside you cried out in rebellion and loss and regret because you learned - too late - what it was you really wanted. — Laura Kaye

I neither oblige the belief of other person, nor overhastily subscribe mine own. Nor have I stood with others computing or collating years and chronologies, lest I should be vainly curious about the time and circumstance of things, whereof the substance is so much in doubt. By this time, like one who had set out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth or idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines, where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at a far distance, true colours and shapes. — John Milton

It's going to become clear that the impact of our policies rather than our way of life is what's attracting animosity and warfare on us. And I think there is going to be a surge from the bottom up that will begin to straighten things out. Because Americans, in the long run, are not going to want their daughters and their sons to die overseas so the al Saud family can continue raping Saudi Arabia's revenue. — Michael Scheuer

Such are the visions which ceaselessly float up, pace beside, put their faces in front of, the actual thing; often overpowering the solitary traveller and taking away from him the sense of the earth, the wish to return, and giving him for substitute a general peace, as if (so he thinks as he advances down the forest ride) all this fever of living were simplicity itself; and myriads of things merged in one thing; and this figure, made of sky and branches as it is, had risen from the troubled sea (he is elderly, past fifty now) as a shape might be sucked up out of the waves to shower down from her magnificent hands, compassion, comprehension, absolution. So, he thinks, may I never go back to the lamplight; to the sitting-room; never finish my book; never knock out my pipe; never ring for Mrs. Turner to clear away; rather let me walk on to this great figure, who will, with a toss of her head, mount me on her streamers and let me blow to nothingness with the rest. — Virginia Woolf

How vain, I say, it is to expect demonstration and certainty in things not capable of it; and refuse assent to very rational propositions, and act contrary to very plain and clear truths, because they cannot be made out so evident as to surmount every the least (I will not say reason, but) pretence of doubting. — John Locke

When I began to dare to be clear, because I think clarity is the real risk in poetry because you are exposed. You're out in the open field. You're actually saying things that are comprehensible, and it's easy to criticize something you can understand. — Billy Collins

She was looking at Alec instead, watching him as he talked to Jace. There was a kinetic, almost feverish energy to him that hadn't been there before. Something about Jace sharpened him, brought him into focus. If she were going to draw them together, she thought, she would make Jace a little blurry, while Alec stood out, all sharp, clear planes and angles. Jace was looking down as Alec spoke, smiling a little and tapping his water glass with a fingernail. She sensed he was thinking of other things. She felt a sudden flash of sympathy for Alec.
Jace couldn't be an easy person to care about.
I was laughing at you because declarations of love amuse me, especially when unrequited. Jace looked up as the waitress passed. "Are we ever going to get any coffee?" he said aloud, interrupting Alec midsentence. Alec subsided, his energy fading. — Cassandra Clare

I've always loved journaling as a way to clear my mind. Whether I'm traveling or at home, the first thing I do when I wake up is pull out my notebook and record positive things that have happened to me as well as uplifting thoughts. — Gloria Reuben

{T}here are millions of books published every year exposing the world's corruption, and the corruption of the world only increases. Each book, in its own way, has teeth but nothing to bite into. No clear way to attack. There are also millions of books pushing for things to remain the same, or teaching you how to make money at the expense of others. Everything balances out, but the balance is so deeply imperfect, always tilting further and further towards the worst. — Jacob Wren

Sometimes things aren't very clear, that's all. Things look like they're going against us, and though it always turns out fine at the end, and we can always look back and say oh of course it had to happen that way, otherwise so-and-so wouldn't have happened - still, while it's happening, in my heart I keep getting this terrible fear, this empty place, and it's very hard at such times to really believe in a Plan with a shape bigger than I can see ... — Thomas Pynchon

Organizations like the ACLU fought and won the good fight back in the 1960's, but it's clear that nowadays they've run out of useful things to do since they now spend most of their time defending the scum of the Earth from getting what they rightly deserve. — Craig Bruce

It is a magic book. Words mean things. When you put them together they speak. Yes, sometimes they flatten out and nothing they say is real, and that is one kind of magic. But sometimes a vision will rip up from them and shriek and clank wings clear as the sweat smudge on the paper under your thumb. And that is another kind. — Samuel R. Delany

And we can't discharge that moral responsibility by passing out contraceptives. Contraceptives have been circulating all over Uganda, and it is not clear how many people are using the things. The best contraceptive in this case is abstinence. — Eugene Rivers

One vital aspect in the Path toward Clear Awareness is the beginning of differentiation between belief-induced appearance and Reality. In many ways I can illustrate illusions and point out artificial concepts that are commonly accepted as real, but the onus of recognition is for you to come to see these things as what they are. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

the most clear evidence and assurance of the truth and goodness in these holy things of Christ and the new creature arises out of themselves, as light follows from the body of the Sun, without the contusion or compulsion of an harsh arguments. And by a holy sympathy a regenerate heart entertains with infinite delight these precious and holy truths. Arguments and syllogisms make a great noise in the world. I think they are like that appearance in Horeb to the prophet Elijah when the great and strong wind broke the mountains and broke in pieces all the rocks. But it is said, the Lord was not found in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but He was in the still, small voice. Lux spiritus santi est lenis luxs, persundens sementibus, the Holy Spirit does gently hover over the soul and brood upon it. Heavenly doctrine falls down upon the spirits of men, not like a mighty violent rain, but like a shower of oil, like a sweet honey-dew. — William Tyndale

They might be talking in perfect latin tongue and without warning begin to talk in perfect anglo tongue and keep it up like that, alternating between a thing that believes itself to be perfect and a thing that believes itself to be perfect, morphing back and forth between two beasts until out of carelessness or clear intent they suddenly stop switching tongues and start speaking that other one. In it brims nostalgia for the land they left or never knew when they use the words with which they name objects; while actions are alluded to with an anglo verb conjugated latin-style, pinning on a sonorous tail from back there. Using in one tongue the word for a thing in the other makes the attributes of both resound: if you say Give me fire when they say Give me a light, what is not to be learned about fire, light and the act of giving? It's not another way of saying things: these are new things — Yuri Herrera