Dealt Cards Quotes & Sayings

You have got to play the game with the cards that have been dealt to you, and it is of no use for you to bewail your fate because you don't hold different ones. Look them over, arrange them, and play. You certainly must play them before you will get any others, and you need never expect to have other people's cards. — Anna Brackett

we play the cards we've been dealt - as Isabel in Secrets of a Charmed Life says - based on finite knowledge, and while being largely unaware that everyone around us is playing their own cards. — Susan Meissner

I didn't plan on being a single mom, but you have to deal with the cards you are dealt the best way you can. — Tichina Arnold

Life will deal me many different hands, some good, some bad (maybe they've already been dealt), but from here on in, I'll be turning my own cards.
- Alton Richard — Louis Sachar

As in a game of cards, so in the game of life, we must play what is dealt to us, and the glory consists, not so much in winning as in playing a poor hand well. — Josh Billings

Life is like a game of bridge ... we did not invent the game or design the cards;
we did not frame the rules and we cannot control the dealing. The cards are dealt out to us whether they be good or bad... But we can play the game well or play it badly. A skillful player may have poor hand and win the game. A bad player may have a good hand and yet make a mess of it. Our life is a mixture of necessity and freedom, chance and choice... we may not change events but we can change our approach to events. — Dr. S Radhakrishnan

They had parted as boys, and now life presented one of them with a fugitive and the other with a dying man. Both wondered whether this was due to the cards they'd been dealt or to the way they had played them. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

For as much as Hillary Clinton might hate admitting this about Monica Lewinisky, Eleanor Roosevelt about Missy Le Hand, Queen Alexandra about Lillie Langtry, Lady Nelson about Emma Hamilton, or Jackie about Marilyn, the reality is that despite their intrinsic animosity toward each other, on a a deep level, the wife and the mistress generally have far more in common than they might care to admit and could, had fate dealt them different cards, even been true friends. — Wendy Leigh

Has fortune dealt you some bad cards. Then let wisdom make you a good gamester. — Francis Quarles

As far as I can see, in this world, you're a fool for not using whatever gifts
you're given. It's not as though you lied or cheated or stole to get Howard Marlowe as your father. That's
who he is; that's who you are. You got dealt a bad card when you were bitten - so use one of the better
cards you have in your hand to make up for it. — Claudia Gray

Nature deals the cards without thought or care, and there is no point in blaming the dealer. All we can do is make the best of the hands we have been dealt. — Julian Baggini

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. — Randy Pausch

I've been dealt a fuller set of cards than the ones passed to Lily and Daisy. They're just as strong, if not stronger. I've always been here as extra reinforcement, and however old we become, however gray we are, that won't ever change. — Krista Ritchie

You can't effect the cards that you are dealt, but you can determine how you play them. — Milton H. Erickson

This time I watch him carefully, calculating everyone of his movements. Everything seems flawless, until I go to pick up my dealt cards. I noticed some shift his weight forward and scratch his leg. I swear to God it looks if you take something out from underneath his ass.
"Wait a minute." I raise a finger, setting my cards down as I lean forward. "Did you just take the card out from under your ass?"
"No why would I do that?" He lifts the two cards he has as he presses his hands innocently to his chest. "Besides, where would I put the other cards I dealt?"
"How the hell should I know," I say. "Maybe if your ass. — Jessica Sorensen

The Neimoidian gave a long, gurgling sigh. You're right, Des. The decision is made. Grim fate and ill fortune have conspired against you. It's not like sabacc; you can't fold a bad hand. In life you just play the cards you're dealt. — Drew Karpyshyn

He did not believe in luck at all, good or bad. Gamblers believed in luck, and he was not a gambler. Never had been, never would be. John Henry Holliday believed in mathematics, in statistics, in the computation of odds. Fifty-two cards in a deck. Make it easy. Say it's fifty. Any card has a 2 percent chance of being dealt from a full deck. Keep track of what's out. Adjust the probabilities as the hand progresses. — Mary Doria Russell

I trust that you'll find your way, and whether you succeed or not isn't significantly important. What damns a man lies in the choices he makes, not in the cards he's been dealt. — Yvonne Von Innes

Life is like a game of cards.
The hand you are dealt is determinism;
The way you play it is free will. — Jawaharlal Nehru

You can't control the cards you're dealt, just how you play the hand. — Randy Pausch

Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting. Chromosomes too are shuffled into oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are dealt. But the cards themselves survive the shuffling. The cards are the genes. The genes are not destroyed by crossing-over, they merely change partners and march on. Of course they march on. That is their business. They are the replicators and we are their survival machines. When we have served our purpose we are cast aside. But genes are denizens of geological time: genes are forever. — Richard Dawkins

Given how well the cards have been dealt to someone like myself, I think there's an inherent obligation to try to reach out and make a difference. — Max Walker

In life, as in whist, hope nothing from the way cards may be dealt to you. Play the cards, whatever they be, to the best of your skill. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

The fatal day rarely announces itself, but comes disguised as midsummer. Our private lives are like a colony of worlds expanding, contracting, breathing universal air into separate knowledges. Or like several packs of cards shuffled together by an expert anonymous hand, and dealt out in a random, amused or even hostile way. — Gregory Maguire

Everybody is dealt a hand of cards. It was my choice to play them the way I played them. — Jamie Lynn Spears

Well, kid," Aahz said, sweeping me with an appraising stare, "it looks like we're stuck with each other. The setup isn't ideal, but it's what we've got. Time to bite the bullet and play with the cards we're dealt. You do know what cards are, don't you?"
"Of course," I said, slightly wounded.
"Good."
"What's a bullet? — Robert Asprin

Life isn't about getting what we want. It's about turning the crappy cards we're dealt into a winning hand, — R.K. Ryals

You just deal with the cards that are dealt you and you just go on and push forward. — Ann Romney

The good news is that in every deck of fifty-two cards there are 2,598,960 possible hands. The bad news is that you are only going to be dealt one of them. — Anthony Holden

The warmth of your heart is tauntingly near, but you reserve it as you shut me out in the lizard of your doubt. Is it because you don't understand the freakish assembly of my soul, a soul that was once broken? In some ways I guess I don't blame you. if I had the opportunity to avoid the vague horizon of my future, I would. But these are the cards I've been dealt and I still don't know all the rules of the game. My burden is heavy and becomes harder to bear each day. I know I have the ability to endure it alone if I really persevere, but I prefer a steady hand to help guide me along the way and maybe even hold me in times of uncertainty. — Shykia Bell

Energy is felt once the cards are dealt With the impact of roundhouse kicks from black belts that attack the microphone like cyclones or typhoons I represent from midnight to high noon. — GZA

It's not so much about the cards you're dealt; it's a whole lot more about whether you play them well, or play them at all. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

I think we're here to make the world a better place than we found it. I think we don't always deserve the cards that we're dealt, good or bad. But we are judged by how we play the cards we're dealt. Those of us with a bum deal that makes it harder to do good - we just have to work a little more is all. There's no destiny. There's just muddling through without doing too much damage. — Carrie Vaughn

You can't live your life blaming your failures on your parents and what they did or didn't do for you. You're dealt the cards that you're dealt. I realised it was a waste of time to be angry at my parents and feel sorry for myself. — Drew Barrymore

People ask whether I put the politics first, journalism first or the comedy first; it doesn't really matter. I'm just playing with the cards that I have been dealt because I really love doing what I do. — Mark Thomas

You can't change the cards you were dealt, but you can always choose how you play your hand. — Derek Hough

We can't change the cards we're dealt, just how we play the hand. — Randy Pausch

There is no why. You don't have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you're holding. — Cheryl Strayed

No," Joan vowed. She grabbed Bash's shirt. "I don't want this. Didn't want this to happen."
Screams resonated.
Bash continued quietly, "None of us do. That's not up to us. We have to decide what we're going to do with what we're given. Play the cards dealt to us. — Cate Campbell Beatty

When the cards are dealt, I just want to destroy people. — Stu Ungar

The heroes pop out at you, impossibly vivid, colorful as playing cards but all from different decks, a jumble of incompatible suits and denominations dealt out for an Alice in Wonderland game. — Austin Grossman

Have you had much luck tonight?" she asked.
His gaze slipped to the neat stacks of coins in front of her. "No' as much as ye, my lady."
She let her own stare trail across her piles of winnings. Shame sizzled against her cheeks.,,,
"Perhaps I'm lucky tonight myself," he said.
The silky undertone in his voice crept up her back like the skilled swipe of a musician's fingers strumming a harp.
"What do you mean?" Of course she knew what he meant, but the glint of flirtation in his eye begged her to prompt him for the compliment.
A golden dollop of honey dribbled to lure the bee.
And she buzzed ever closer.
He pulled his freshly dealt cards toward him. "Perhaps I'm lucky tonight because I've met ye. — Madeline Martin

The simplest way to say it is that I think we're all dealt these cards in life, but the cards in and of themselves don't read one way or the other. It's up to you to home in and cultivate whatever you've got in your hand. — Pharrell Williams

Ah yes," Gabe said, "Pinter is ever the gallant when it comes to the ladies. He wouldn't risk leaving us alone with poor Miss Lake, for the fear one of us might spirit her off to our lair."
"Why?" Miss Lake asked, with a lift of her brow. "Do you three make a habit of spiriting women off?"
"Only on Tuesdays and Fridays," Masters said. "Seeing as how it's Wednesday, your safe."
"Unless you're wearing a blue garter, madam," Gabe quipped. "On Wednesdays, Masters and I have a great fondness for blue garters. Are your gaters blue, Miss Lake?"
"Only on Mondays and Thursdays." She dealt thirteen cards apiece to the two of them, then put the rest aside as the stock, turning the top card faceup. "Sorry gentlemen. I guess you'll have to spirit off some other woman. — Sabrina Jeffries

Essentially, he taught that it doesn't make sense to upset ourselves about what is beyond our control. We don't get a choice about what hand we are dealt in this life. The only choice we have is our attitude about the cards we hold and the finesse with which we play our hand. — Sylvia Boorstein

Life's too short not to laugh about yourself and the cards you're dealt. — Mark Zupan

Yeah, it's true we're all dealt a set of cards. But it's also true that it's up to us to figure out how to play the hand. — Francis S. Collins

You don't have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt with. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you're holding and my dear one, you and I have been granted a mighty generous one. — Cheryl Strayed

Life may deal you a bad hand or take away a good hand you were already dealt. The way you play the hand is how your life is defined. Just like in poker you can end up winning no matter how bad the cards are you have. — Benjamin Bayani

Get dealt a set of cards in life, and just deal with them ... no problem. — Charles Kendall Adams

You got dealt some crappy cards. But you're the one who has to decide how to play them. — Diane Chamberlain

You're not responsible for the hand of cards you were dealt. You're responsible for maxing out what you were given. — Timothy Ferriss

While we can't always engineer our own happy endings, we can learn how to be more happy than not with the cards we've been dealt. — Adam Silvera

each week, before they dealt the cards, my father presented his typed report on himself and my mother to Marika, who copied it in her hand, then burned the original. — Kati Marton

When I reached for my girl and showed her how much I did indeed need her, and told her with words too, I knew then that the best gamble of my life had not been the cards I'd played, but that one night on a London street, when a beautiful American girl tried to walk out in the dark, and I played the most important hand I'd ever been dealt, and went ... .all in. — Raine Miller

I've been thrown into a turbulent triangle, but even though I have deep feelings for Shiray doesn't mean my feelings will disappear for Melanie immediately. Fate has really dealt me a cruel hand of cards. — B. Truly

It's not about the cards you're dealt, but how you play the hand. — Randy Pausch

Of how it could have been. And reflecting on the fact that he had stopped thinking about how it could be. Perhaps this was what it was like getting old. He had lifted the cards he had been dealt, he had seen them. You didn't get new ones. So all that was left was to play the ones you had as well as you could. And dream about the cards you might have been given. — Jo Nesbo

Mother, who has an absolute belief that it is not the cards that one is dealt in life, it is how one plays them, is, by far, the highest card I was dealt. — Kay Redfield Jamison

What you've got to do is recognize that you don't control everything for a start, you've got to play the cards you're dealt, the hand of cards you're dealt, as best you can, and that's what I always seek to do. — Malcolm Turnbull

All right. I'll bite. Here's what I think, with the caveat that I may be wrong. I think we're here to make the world a better place than we found it. I think we don't always deserve the cards we're dealt, good or bad. But we are judged by how we play the cards we're dealt. Those of us with a bum deal that makes it harder to do good
we just have to work a little more is all. There's no destiny. There's just muddling through without doing to much damage. — Carrie Vaughn

Enlightenment writer and philosopher Voltaire likened life to a game of cards. Players must accept the cards dealt to them. However, once they have those cards in hand, they alone choose how they will play them. They decide what risks and actions to take. — John C. Maxwell

Reflecting on my Autism - The processing and communication issues that I have I look at it like this I have had set cards dealt to me and I'm going play them to the best of my abilities. — Paul Isaacs

It's not the hand you're dealt that matters. It's how you play the cards. — Karen Marie Moning

He can't bear it. I've sat there with him and there is nothing I can say to the guy, nothing that is going to make it any better. He's been dealt the shittiest hand of cards you can imagine. — Jojo Moyes

Life's tough," Mia said with a shrug. "You play the cards you're dealt or you fold. — Nora Roberts

It's like the Negro in America seeing the white man win all the time.
He's a professional gambler; he has all the cards and the odds stacked on his side, and he has always dealt to our people from the bottom of the deck. — Malcolm X

You can't change the cards you are dealt unless you stack the deck. — Terry Blakeman

NEW YEAR


All endings have beginnings.
All beginnings have their end.
Sometimes our cards bring us winnings,
Sometimes the dealer's not our friend.

Time can bring us sadness.
Time can bring us joy.
But let it not bring madness.
Never be Time's toy.

Now the year has gone.
It cannot be redone.
At least we carried on.
Regrets? Let us have none.

A glorious New Year beckons,
Seducing with its hope.
Its day, its hours, its seconds,
All have happiness within their scope.

Be glad for what Life dealt,
Cards of joy, or cards of pain.
You were alive and felt.
You may not pass this way again — Carl Martin Johnson

Their journey wasn't complete. If their
relationship had been a poker tournament, unquestionably, they'd not been dealt the best cards. When faced with the same odds, as Tony and Claire, many players would have folded and walked away. They hadn't - they'd continued to play. In the process they'd grown and changed. At one time, they were opponents, strategizing against one another, now they were teammates, yet their tournament wasn't over. It was too early to declare the winner. They both knew there were more cards to be revealed. — Aleatha Romig

Sitting at the table, watching the cards being dealt, I heard a man say that the difference between an amateur and a pro is that the pro doesn't have an emotional reaction to losing anymore. It's just the other side of winning. I guess I'm a farmer now, because I'm used to loss like this, to death of all kinds, and to rot. It's just the other side of life. It is your first big horse and all he meant to you, and it is also his bones and skin breaking down in the compost pile, almost ready to be spread on the fields. — Kristin Kimball

Life isn't fair, so you have to play the best game you can with the cards you're dealt. — Marta Acosta

I just feel that no matter what comes in a career - and mine has been all over the map - you must stay at the table, pick up the cards you're dealt and play them. — Frank Langella

Before the cards that one is dealt by life are the cards that fate has dealt: one's family. — Gore Vidal

Life is a game of whist. From unseen sources The cards are shuffled, and the hands are dealt. I do not like the way the cards are shuffled, But yet I like the game and want to play. — Eugene Fitch Ware

I'm Kan, the Louis Vouitton don / Bought my mom purse, now she Louis Vuitton mom / I didn't play the hand I was dealt I changed my cards / I prayed to the skies and I changed my stars / I went to the malls and I balled too hard / Oh My God is that a Black card / I turned around and replied why yes, but I prefer the term African American Express — Kanye West

The way he saw it, poker and life had a lot in common. You played the cards you were dealt, figured the odds, took the gamble or not. And when your cards were shit, you bluffed if the pot was worth it, and if you had balls. — Nora Roberts

You take the cards you're dealt. I'm now ferociously healthy in body and mind. You couldn't pay me to go near a psychiatrist again. Stopping seeing them was my first step to getting well. — Margot Kidder

It's been so long since I've really truly felt what it's like to live life without substances to help. Massive struggle that's natural to one's health, but with addiction in my blood I play the cards I was dealt. — Macklemore

There are two things in life you cannot choose. The first is your enemies; the second your family. Sometimes the difference between them is hard to see, but in the end time will show you that the cards you have been dealt could always have been worse. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Birth deals us out a hand of cards, but as important as their value is the place we are dealt them in. — David Mitchell

You have to play the cards you are dealt and if it has made it harder, it doesn't matter, you still have to get the deal done. — Mitchell Reiss

Things that need to be dealt with right away. This might include correspondence from his office or business associates, bills, legal documents, and the like. He subsequently performed a fine sort of things to be dealt with today versus in the next few days. Things that are important but can wait. We called this the abeyance pile. This might include investment reports that needed to be reviewed, articles he might want to read, reminders for periodic service on an automobile, invitations to parties or functions that were some time off in the future, and so on. Things that are not important and can wait, but should still be kept. This was mostly product catalogues, holiday cards, and magazines. Things to be thrown out. — Daniel J. Levitin

Those who sought her never found her, yet she was known to come to the aid of those in greatest need. And, then again, sometimes she didn't. She was like that. She didn't like the clicking of rosaries, but was attracted to the sound of dice. No man knew what She looked like, although there were many times when a man who was gambling his life on the turn of the cards would pick up the hand he had been dealt and stare Her full in the face. Of course, sometimes he didn't. Among all the gods she was at one and the same time the most courted and the most cursed. — Terry Pratchett

A stable, loving family is something that should absolutely, fundamentally never be taken for granted! I am lucky that I got dealt some cards that showed me what it's like to not have family, and I am much luckier to now have the chance to create my own deck! — Drew Barrymore

Destiny plays its cards in a way that no one can comprehend. — Anurag Shourie

No easy way out. No escape. From yourself. You had to LEARN to DEAL with the cards you were dealt. Had to learn the hard way that the world doesn't OWE you a fucking thing. Not a reason, nor excuse. No apologies. Had to learn that some forms of insanity run in the family, pure genetics, polluted lifelines, full of disease. Profanity. Addiction. Co-addiction. Inability to deal with reality, what the fuck ever that's suppose to mean when you're born into an emotional ghetto of endless abuse. Where the only way out is in...deep, deep inside, so you poke holes in your skin, thinking that if you could just concentrate the pain it wouldn't remain an all-consuming surround which suffocates you from the first breath of day to your last dying day. Day in. Day out. Day in. Day out. I knew all about it. — Lydia Lunch

Wait," Dion said. "You just defeated an assassin with a hostile takeover?" "I use the cards dealt to me. — Brandon Sanderson

It was then that I began to understand that everything in the room had stopped, like the watch and the clock, a long time ago. I noticed that Miss Havisham put down the jewel exactly on the spot from which she had taken it up. As Estella dealt the cards, I glanced at the dressing-table again, and saw that the shoe upon it, once white, now yellow, had never been worn. I glanced down at the foot from which the shoe was absent, and saw that the silk stocking on it, once white, now yellow, had been trodden ragged. Without this arrest if everything, this standing still of all the pale decayed objects, not even the withered bridal dress on the collapsed form could not have looked so like grave-clothes, or the long veil so like a shroud. — Charles Dickens

After my shower, I found him shuffling cards he bought at the convenience store we stopped at before the hotel. Grinning, I sat across from him.
"You told me that you're good at cards," Judd said, recalling my reaction to passing a casino on the drive.
"I said I liked cards. I never claimed to be good."
"The only people who like cards are gambling addicts and those who are good at it. You're not an addict."
"Do you like cards?" I asked while he dealt.
"Sure."
"Do you like me?" I asked softly, looking over my cards.
Judd never looked up from his hand. "I'm playing cards, ain't I? — Bijou Hunter

Once the cards are dealt we turn them up in turn, and make two piles each, one red, one black; the winner has the biggest pile of red ones. So once the cards are dealt the game is determined, and from any position in it you can derive all others back to the deal and forward to win or draw ... in relation to the solar system ... , the laws are like the rules of an infantile card game ... But in relation to what happens on and inside a planet the laws are, rather, like the rules of chess; the play is seldom determined, though nobody breaks the rules. — G. E. M. Anscombe

That is what it is. We can't change it. We just have to decide how we'll respond. We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." In — Randy Pausch

It doesn't matter what has happened to you, it matters what you do with what has happened to you. Life is like a poker game. You don't get to choose the cards you are dealt, but it's entirely up to you how to play the hand. — Regina Brett

She knew scotch from whiskey, had no trouble counting markers, and almost certainly dealt her cards from the bottom of the deck. She was absolutely shameless. He hadn't had this much fun in years. — Erica Ridley

A manager has his cards dealt to him and he must play them. — Miller Huggins

I could tell Marco was a woman-hater, because in spite of all the models and TV starlets in the room that night he paid attention to nobody but me. Not out of kindness or even curiosity, but because I'd happened to be dealt to him, like a playing card in a pack of identical cards. — Sylvia Plath

Sometimes it didn't matter how much gumption you had. What mattered were the cards you'd been dealt. — Jeannette Walls

In life you can be dealt a winning hand of cards and you can find a way to lose, and you can be dealt a losing hand and find a way to win. True in art and true in life: you pretty much make your own destiny. If you are by nature an optimistic person, which I am, that puts you in a better position to be lucky in life. — Chuck Close

It is said that in life we must play with the cards we are dealt, but too often I have kept those cards too close to my chest. — Lawrence Fagg

Life may not have dealt you a great set of cards... but who says the one with better cards will win? — Manoj Vaz