Did It Really Happen Quotes & Sayings

I've been really, lucky and sometimes you think, 'Why? How did this happen to me - what did I do to deserve this?' And you realize how much it's just luck. And then you see that there's a lot of people who are not as lucky as you are, and I want to like share that luck, you know? — Natalie Portman

What can I do for you, Arbitrator?" I asked.
"George, please. There is no hot water in my bathroom."
"Oh really?" You don't say.
"Yes. In fact, it's ice-cold." He raised a half-filled glass. Thin slivers of ice floated on its surface. "I drew this from the tap in my sink."
"How unfortunate. When did this happen?"
"About two minutes ago."
"While you were in the shower?"
"Yes."
"My apologies. I'll get right on that."
George squinted at me, his face thoughtful, and waved the call off.
Sophie leaned back and laughed. "You really love those trees. — Ilona Andrews

Not all that is presented to us as history has really happened; and what really happened did not actually happen the way it is presented to us; moreover, what really happened is only a small part of all that happened. Everything in history remains uncertain, the largest events as well as the smallest occurrence. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I thought for a moment. "Have you ever seen a nuclear bomb go off?" "Levi ... " "The people in the center, they don't feel anything. One minute they're alive, the next, they're just ash. It's the people who are far away that really suffer." "Levi, I don't understand." "A bomb went off today, and it was my fault. I saw the Do Not Touch sign, and I knew that if I did, that something bad would happen, but I just wanted to know what that something was, and then the bomb went off. I never expected it to be as bad as it was ... — J.J. McAvoy

I was just thoughts, just air. There was nothingness all around me. Was this what it was like to be dead? When you died, did you still sense everything going on around you, only it was happening so far away that you didn't care about it? You were floating through space and time, and nothing that happened to you mattered because nothing really could happen to you because you didn't exist? — Melissa Kantor

If something good happens to you, and no one knows it, did it really happen? Moreover, if you don't publicize your accomplishments and good fortune, are you essentially saying you don't care about them? — Meghan Daum

Is this his first year teaching?" She nodded toward the window.
"How did you guess?" Holiday sighed. "He was recommended by a friend of a friend. He's not so bad when it's one on one. I hope you guys don't chew him up and spit him out."
Kylie grinned. "Perry might consider it."
Holiday frowned. "Promise me you'll not let that happen. He really seems like a nice guy and I think he'll make an excellent teacher. I'd appreciate it if you'd sort of take him under your wing."
Kylie chuckled. "Again, Perry might do that. — C.C. Hunter

The idea of living there, of not having to go back ever again to asphalt and shopping malls and modular furniture; of living there with Charles and Camilla and Henry and Francis and maybe even Bunny; of no one marrying or going home or getting a job in a town a thousand miles away or doing any of the traitorous things friends do after college; of everything remaining exactly as it was, that instant - the idea was so truly heavenly that I'm not sure I thought, even then, it could ever really happen, but I like to believe I did. — Donna Tartt

I think that Eleanor Roosevelt really learned about the limits of power and influence from Arthurdale. She could not make some things happen. And she particularly learned that she could not, just because she was nominally in charge, she could not change people's hearts and minds; that a very long process of education would result before race was on the national agenda. And it really did move her into the racial justice arena with both feet. She came out fighting. — Blanche Wiesen Cook

Both Hegel and Marx believed that the evolution of human societies was not open-ended, but would end when mankind had achieved a form of society that satisfied its deepest and most fundamental longings. Both thinkers thus posited an "end of history": for Hegel this was the liberal state, while for Marx it was a communist society. This did not mean that the natural cycle of birth, life, and death would end, that important events would no longer happen, or that newspapers reporting them would cease to be published. It meant, rather, that there would be no further progress in the development of underlying principles and institutions, because all of the really big questions had been settled. — Francis Fukuyama

I make up as little as possible. I spend a great deal of time on research, on finding all the available accounts of a scene or incident, finding out all the background details and the biographies of the people involved there, and I try to run up all the accounts side by side to see where the contradictions are and to look where things have gone missing. And it's really in the gap - it's in the erasures - that I think the novelist can best go to work because inevitably in history in any period, we know a lot about what happened, but we may be far hazier on why it happened. And there's always the question, why did it happen the way it did? Where was the turning point? — Hilary Mantel

He stabs his fingers through his drying hair and resumes his pacing. "You think I don't know this went really fast? I didn't plan for this to happen. Hell, I didn't even know if you'd let me talk to you, much less be with you. But then you did and we did and ... " He stops in the center of the room and stares at me, his shoulders sagging. "I figured out pretty quick that this is a forever thing for me. I think it has been from the very beginning. — Kate Avelynn

I think when two people really love each other ... way down deep ... like where the souls sleep and dreams happen, where pain can't live 'cause there's nothing for it to feed on ... then a wedding is a bleeding together of those two souls. Like two rivers running together. All that water becoming the same water. Mine did that. — Charles Martin

We lost track of which was which, but we were fairly sure that some of the creatures had been borne away still in the darkness of paganism, and that worried us a good deal. So finally I asked my father in the most offhand way imaginable what exactly would happen to a cat if one were to, say, baptize it. He replied that the Sacraments must always be treated and regarded with the greatest respect. That wasn't really an answer to my question. We did respect the Sacraments, but we thought the whole world of those cats. I got his meaning though, and I did no more baptizing until I was ordained ... — Marilynne Robinson

How could this happen? some of our parents asked us near the end. We knew what they were really asking, and some of us found the grace to say, It was nothing you did. — David Levithan

That fist he was raising at me would wham into the cupboard door, hurting only himself. I saw it all happening, then it really did happen. But I didn't understand the whore thing. Why was he confusing the drinking with the other? Then I got it. Obvious. It was all mixed up for him, all the same thing: the drinking, the other, anything that could make a woman free. — David Gates

Did he really just poop a rainbow? Seriously, did that just happen? Because I saw it happen. — Sarah Beth Durst

Jesus modelled that we don't need to talk about everything we've done. It's like He's saying, what if we were just to do awesome, incredible stuff together while we're here on earth and the fact that only He knew would be enough? If we did, we wouldn't get confused about who was really making things happen. Not surprisingly, we'd get a lot more done too, because we wouldn't care who's looking or taking credit. All that energy would be funnelled into awesomeness. — Bob Goff

Holding my pendant, I lay on my side without moving, noiseless tears streaming down my face until the pillow grew damp beneath my cheek. I didn't want to die. I wanted to live, to be with Alex, to experience so much more than I had so far. But just then, it was Alex I was crying for. All that he'd gone through, all those deaths of people he loved
and now he was having to experience it again, with me. Thinking of what he was going through was like being beaten up inside; it was even worse than imagining whatever might happen the next day. Part of me hoped that he really did hate me now
maybe it would help; maybe it would make it not hurt so much.
And more than that, I guess I was crying for both of us ... that it hadn't turned out to be always, after all. — L.A. Weatherly

Many today operate with two quite different types of "truth." If we asked, "Is it true that Jesus died on a cross?" we normally would mean, "Did it really happen?" But if we asked, "Is the parable of the Prodigal Son true?" we would quickly dismiss the idea that "it really happened"; that is simply not the sort of thing parables are. We would insist that, in quite another sense, the parable is indeed "true" in that we discover within the narrative a picture of — N. T. Wright

the world." Jeffrey just shakes his head. "You don't know what it was like. You weren't there when things got really bad. That Haslett asshole kept on calling, and then Iowa, and whenever I went out, there'd be someone just staring at me. It was like I could see my words there in their heads. Crawling there on the undersides of their foreheads. It was like they thought I knew something. And they always ask me, Is it true? Is it true? Did it really happen? And then . . . What's next? What are you working on now? All of these . . . these . . . these - "" (from "The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards: A Novel (Ala Notable Books for Adults)" by Kristopher Jansma) — Kristopher Jansma

Something did happen, and I really don't feel proud of it. — Deyth Banger

But Dad! It really did happen! I was transported to a Laboratory in an old stone castle and there was a wizard in blue robes with a floppy hat and ... — L.R.W. Lee

As I watched all the problems you were struggling with, I realized how much you meant to me. It changed everything. I was worried about you - so, so worried. You have no idea. And it became useless to try to act like I could ever put any Moroi life above yours. It's not going to happen, no matter how wrong others say it is. And so I decided that's something I have to deal with. Once I made that decision ... there was nothing to hold us back." He hesitated, seeming to replay his words as he brushed my hair from my face. "Well, to hold me back. I'm speaking for myself. I don't mean to act like I know exactly why you did it."
"I did it because I love you," I said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And really, it was. — Richelle Mead

Everybody was hoping for something, talking about our new life to come and all that they hoped from it. Fresh air, whatever that's supposed to mean. Real gravity, instead of the fake kind that broke every now and then (even though no one over fifteen would admit that it was actually really fun when it did). All the wide open spaces we'd have, all the new people we'd meet when we woke them up, ignoring completely what happened to the original settlers, super- confident that we were so much better equipped that nothing bad could possibly happen to us.
All this hope, and here I was, right at the very edge of it, looking out into the darkness, the first to see it coming, the first to greet it when we found out what it really looked like. — Patrick Ness

So finally I asked my father in the most offhand way imaginable what exactly would happen to a cat if one were to say to, say, baptize it. He replied that the Sacraments must always be treated and regarded with the greatest respect. That wasn't really an answer to my question, We did respect the Sacraments, but we thought the whole world of those cats. I got his meaning, though and I did no more baptising until I was ordained. — Marilynne Robinson

Honey, I appreciate that so much, I really do, but it's not just transferring that I'm worrying about. I'm worried about his mind-set. When he gets to UVA, he needs to be focused. He's going there to be a student athlete. He can't be driving down to North Carolina every weekend. It just isn't practical. You're both so young. Peter's already making big life decisions based on you, and who even knows what's going to happen with you two in the future. You're teenagers. Life doesn't always work out the way you think it's going to work out. . . . I don't know if Peter ever told you this, but Peter's dad and I got married very young. And I'd - I'd just hate to see you two make the same mistakes we did." She hesitates. "Lara Jean, I know my son, and he's not going to let you go unless you let him go first." I — Jenny Han

Honestly, my splurges happen at Target. I'll go and spend, like, $600, and I don't know why! And then I'm really happy about it, but then I'll be like, 'Why did I do that?!' — Brooke Elliott

Sometimes you're overwhelmed when a thing comes, and you do not realize the magnitude of the affair at that moment. When you get away from it, you wonder, did it really happen to you. — Marian Anderson

Why do you like jellyfish so much?" I asked.
"I don't know. I guess I think they're cute," she said. "But one thing did occur to me when I was really focused on them. What we see before us is just one tiny part of the world. We get into the habit of thinking, This is the world, but that's not true at all. The real world is in a much darker and deeper place than this, and most of it is occupied by jellyfish and things. We just happen to forget all that. Don't you agree? Two thirds of the earth's surface is ocean, and all we can see of it with the naked eye is the surface: the skin. We hardly know anything about what's beneath the skin. — Haruki Murakami

What I did was I completed the half-hour film, but before really showing it, I wrote two more sections for a potential feature film which I didn't think would really happen, but at least I had it in case. — Jim Jarmusch

It did not often happen; for Mr. John Knightley had really a great regard for his father-in-law, and generally a strong sense of what was due to him; but it was too often for Emma's charity, especially as there was all the pain of apprehension frequently to be endured, though the offense came not. — Jane Austen

The sickest part of this whole story is that I tried really hard to make up for what I thought I did to her, after she started talking to me again. I loaned her money whenever she needed it, I gave her rides whenever she called and needed to get somewhere, I did my best to pretend like David wasn't in the room with us when I was at her house, I did whatever I could that I thought might show her that I loved her and cared about her, and I never meant to hurt her. It took a while before I realized that would never happen. She'd never love me like a mom is supposed to. She would never be there for me like I tried to be for her. She would never apologize for anything or admit that she was wrong. — Ashly Lorenzana

Sometimes I get the feeling that everything that happened to me was some kind of illusion. It's as though something happened to make me think that things happened that never really happened at all. But I know for sure that they did happen. — Haruki Murakami

Yes it did really. It was very exciting to find that my energy could be directed into something more useful and positive. I was starting to get panicked. I was thinking 'what am I going to do with my life?' I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Then I became crazily obsessed with acting. I suddenly had a work ethic and then everything changed completely for the better because I knew what I wanted to do with my life. — John Leguizamo

Brooke said, "Mom, did you know that the movie Frozen is really about pooping?" Mrs. Estabrook said, "What?" "Yeah," Brooke continued. "See, Elsa makes ice. It just comes from her body naturally. She can't help it. Sometimes it happens by accident. And her parents tell her to never let anyone see it happen. — Scott Meyer

It can't really happen today the way it did back then and part of that is because I think there's a bit of a competitive scare over at Marvel and DC so they lock guys up with exclusive contracts. — Todd McFarlane

What did I know of life, I who had lived so carefully? Who had neither won nor lost, but just let life happen to him? Who had the usual ambitions and settled all too quickly for them not being realised? Who avoided being hurt and called it a capacity for survival? Who paid his bills, stayed on good terms with everyone as far as possible, for whom ecstasy and despair soon became just words once read in novels? One whose self-rebukes never really inflicted pain? Well, there was all this to reflect upon, while I endured a special kind of remorse: a hurt inflicted at long last on one who always thought he knew how to avoid being hurt - and inflicted for precisely that reason. — Julian Barnes

There's a huge difference between I screwed up (guilt) and I am a screwup (shame). The former is acceptance of our imperfect humanity. The latter is basically an indictment of our very existence. It's always helpful to remember that when perfectionism is driving, shame is riding shotgun. Perfectionism is not healthy striving. It is not asking, How can I be my best self? Instead, it's asking, What will people think? When looking at our own stories, we can benefit from wondering: Did something happen in this story that left me feeling like my cover was blown, revealing that I'm really not what I want people to think I am? Did my pretend/please/perfect/perform/prove house of cards come tumbling down? For those of us who struggle with perfectionism, it's not difficult to find ourselves in a situation similar to Andrew's, one where we look back and think, I got sucked into proving I could, rather than stepping back and asking if I should - or if I really even wanted to. — Brene Brown

I don't know why one person gets sick, and another does not, but I can only assume that some natural laws which we don't understand are at work. I cannot believe that God "sends" illness to a specific person for a specific reason. I don't believe in a God who has a weekly quota of malignant tumors to distribute, and consults His computer to find out who deserves one most or who could handle it best. "What did I do to deserve this?" is an understandable outcry from a sick and suffering person, but it is really the wrong question. Being sick or being healthy is not a matter of what God decides that we deserve. The better question is "If this has happened to me, what do I do now, and who is there to help me do it?" As we saw in the previous chapter, it becomes much easier to take God seriously as the source of moral values if we don't hold Him responsible for all the unfair things that happen in the world. — Harold S. Kushner

Early on I was just a kid in a cowboy hat with a bunch of other guys in a room that were putting out some records. Now thank God, in the past 3 or 4 years, when.. it's really hard to burn an image of a face with a song these days. I think that the songs like 'Don't Happen Twice' and 'Young' were songs that helped me do that and I think that 'I Go Back'(did) that even more. — Kenny Chesney

I was raised Catholic,I took from that was a sense of theater and drama, and also the idea that there were truths that couldn't actually be uttered directly but really had to be reached through ritual. You come out of those Masses so moved, and you're like, "Why did that happen?" And the truth of it is that it happened through an hour of highly enacted ritual. — George Saunders

The Resistance needs you. I need you. What do you say?" Jacob suddenly stood. He did not answer but rather cleared their dishes and washed them in the sink. "Your father doesn't see what we see," Avi said after a long silence, as if he knew exactly what Jacob was thinking. "You know that. You've heard us arguing. You've heard what he's said. He doesn't see it. That breaks my heart. But there's nothing more I can do about it. If he won't save himself, we're going to have to take matters into our own hands." "But if I join you, what will happen to them?" "I can't give you answers, Jacob," Avi replied. "I can't promise you they'll be safe. I hope they will be. But I don't really know. All I can do is tell you the truth, which is this: the moment of reckoning is at hand. I've made my choice. Now you must make yours. — Joel C. Rosenberg

The idea of you is a part of my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of times when I don't realize it. You really are a part of me. In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen again. — Willa Cather

Did that ever happen to you? You think someone is really important and different, but then you get to know them and it ruins everything? Do you know what I'm talking about? — Matthew Quick

where
do all the
memories go,
the ones we
hide away
with
lock
key yet
continue
to shape
us all the
s a m e?

"- did it really happen if i can't remember it? — Amanda Lovelace

She whispered, 'C'etait la Verite?' Was that Verity? Or perhaps she just meant, Was that the truth? Was it true? Did any of it really happen? Were the last three hours real? 'Yes,' I whispered back. 'Oui. C'etait la verite. — Elizabeth Wein

I just didn't lock into being in the right role in the right big movie and it going huge. I did never really make the leap to hyperspace. Who's to say that it can't still happen. I just enjoy working, and feel fortunate to be doing the things that I am doing. — Jake Busey

She was a great wife ... and a wonderful mother, a good daughter, a devoted sister and a truly nice person, which doesn't sound like much but it was one of her ambitions, to be a nice person, and she really got there, I think. She was always there. Or close, anyway.
Of course, she did spend her first thrity-nine years worrying too much and waiting for rotten things to happen to her. Then when they did, and some of the things were obviously, really, truly rotten, she realised she could have a lot more fun not waiting for them.
So you know what she did then? She just stopped seeing the rot. — Sarah-Kate Lynch

We have just had the most amazing time. Every now and then, we'll come across a review where the person didn't like it and we're like, "What? Really? How could you not like it?" All of us like it so much, and we have such a great time at work. We've just been really blessed, and we're all standing here going, "Wait a minute, how did this happen?" It's been awesome. — Angie Harmon

I enjoyed learning something and, uh, so I think like with anything in life, in the schoolroom in an artistic endeavor, if you have just a really good teacher, it's inspiring. I certainly use, in my work, I mean, I used to rely heavily on imagery. I was obsessed with this photograph that was in the NY Times of a fish engulfing a smaller fish and this smaller fish had this look in its eyes; it knew what was about to happen and, I don't know how they ever captured such an image, but I've used that for a play I (did). It's called "Saved." — Amy Ryan

Sophie, you saw Alice's transformation."
I nodded. "And the murder of my great-grandfather. Weird it showed me that when I've had so many other awful things happen directly to me," I said, beginning to tick them off on my fingers. "Elodie getting killed, having to kill Alice, escaping a burning building with the help of a ghost ... " And then, because both my parents looked so deflated, I added, "Oh, and this really heinous pageboy haircut in sixth grade."
A few wan smiles appeared, but I think it was just to humor me.
"Yes, but that was the act that was directly responsible for all of those other horrible events," Dad said. "Well, except for the haircut. I suspect that can be laid at your mother's door."
"James!" Mom protested, but I swear I heard affection behind it. I think Dad did, too, because his lips quirked upward briefly. — Rachel Hawkins

I found solitary confinement the most forbidding aspect of prison life. There is no end and no beginning; there is only one's mind, which can begin to play tricks. Was that a dream or did it really happen? One begins to question everything. — Nelson Mandela

You may be right. I think it was round about Christmas when I got my Welsh dragon tattoo."
At that, Tessa had to try very hard not to blush. "How did that happen?"
Will made an airy gesture with his hand. "I was drunk ... "
"Nonsense. You were never really drunk."
"On the contrary - in order to learn how to pretend to be inebriated, once must become inebriated at least once, as a reference point. Six-Fingered Nigel had been at the mulled cider - "
"You can't mean there's truly a Six-Fingered Nigel? — Cassandra Clare

I was increasingly both horrified and sceptical about these memories - I had no recall of these things at all, though I couldn't imagine why I'd want to make it all up either. It felt as though it had all happened to somebody else, I was not there - it wasn't me - when those people did nasty things.
But then, of course, it didn't feel like me, that's the whole point of dissociation - to create distance between the victim and her experience of the abuse. The alters were created for just that purpose: so that I'd not be aware that it happened to me, but rather to "others". The trouble is, in reality it was my body that took the abuse. It was only my mind that was divided, and sooner or later the amnesic barriers were bound to come down.
And that's exactly what had begun to happen as I heard their stories. They triggered a vague and growing sense in me that this really is my story. — Carolyn Bramhall

I never really expected any of the music business to happen, but I'm glad it did. It was a very cool thing to happen. It was a hobby for me. I used to do it to meet girls. If you had long hair and could play a guitar then you got girls. That's how I started. Then I fell in love with the music and got carried away. — John Martyn

You will say that it is vulgar and contemptible to drag all this into public after all the tears and transports which I have myself confessed. But why is it contemptible? Can you imagine that I am ashamed of it all, and that it was stupider than anything in your life, gentlemen? And I can assure you that some of these fancies were by no means badly composed . . . . It did not all happen on the shores of Lake Como. And yet you are right - it really is vulgar and contemptible. And most contemptible of all it is that now I am attempting to justify myself to you. And even more contemptible than that is my making this remark now. But that's enough, or there will be no end to it; each step will be more contemptible than the last . . . — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

singing has to come from the inside, and i don't have anything left inside.'
'really? How did that happen?'
'it all just drained out. — Francine Rivers

Cassandra's grandmother smiled then, only it wasn't a happy smile. Cassandra thought she knew how it felt to smile like that. She often did so herself when her mother promised her something she really wanted but knew might not happen. — Kate Morton

He did, however, invite Jobs to visit him at his hotel before the concert. Jobs recalled: We sat on the patio outside his room and talked for two hours. I was really nervous, because he was one of my heroes. And I was also afraid that he wouldn't be really smart anymore, that he'd be a caricature of himself, like happens to a lot of people. But I was delighted. He was as sharp as a tack. He was everything I'd hoped. He was really open and honest. He was just telling me about his life and about writing his songs. He said, "They just came through me, it wasn't like I was having to compose them. That doesn't happen anymore, I just can't write them that way anymore." Then he paused and said to me with his raspy voice and little smile, "But I still can sing them. — Walter Isaacson

I remember a scared, young girl hiding in the guise of arrogance and rebellion. I remember feeling lost in a world where everyone else seemed to have it all figured out. I remember the tears of pain, the rants of anger and the hell that seemed to have swallowed me whole. Although I remember these things, it is now, over a decade later, more like a story that I find hard to believe. Did it all really happen? Even as I write this, my eyes begin to swell. It really did happen. I was that girl. And I'm sorry she had to suffer so. But, that is over now... — Karen Michelle Miller

Well, Hilda and I were married, and right from the start it was a flop. Why did you marry her? you say. Why did you marry yours? These things happen to us. I wonder whether you'll believe that during the first two or three years I had serious thoughts of killing Hilda. Of course in practice one never does these things, they're only a kind of fantasy one enjoys thinking about. Besides, chaps who murder their wives always get copped. However cleverly you've faked the alibi, they know perfectly well that it's you who did it, and they'll pin it onto you somehow.
When a woman's bumped off, her husband is always the first suspect -which gives you a little side glimpse of what people really think about marriage. — George Orwell

If a poor family falls on hard times in the woods, and no one is around to care, did it really happen? — Stephen Colbert

So," the woman asks, digging through her purse and emerging with a pair of foam earplugs, "how did you two meet?"
They exchange a quick glance.
"Believe it or not," Oliver says, "it was in an airport."
"Oh how wonderful!" she exclaims, looking positively delighted. "And how did it happen?"
"Well" he begins, sitting up a bit taller, "I was being quite gallant, actually, and offered to help her with her suitcase. And then we started talking and one thing lead to another ... "
Hadley grins "And he's been carrying my suitcase ever since."
"It's what an true gentlemen would do," Oliver says with an exaggerated modesty.
"Especially the really gallant ones. — Jennifer E. Smith

Looking back on a 30-year teaching career full of rewards and prizes, somehow I can't completely believe that I spent my time on earth institutionalized; I can't believe that centralized schooling is allowed to exist at all as a gigantic indoctrination and sorting machine, robbing people of their children. Did it really happen? Was this my life? God help me. — John Taylor Gatto

I was disappointed not to be able to sign [for Barcelona] last season. When the best club in the world calls you, then it is something that you want to happen. I have signed for the only club who really wanted me. In no moment did I ever think that Inter was a possibility. Rafa valued me and perhaps that is why people started saying that I could go there but this is the only club that pushed to sign me, — Javier Mascherano

How sorry she felt for white people, who couldn't do any of this (sit talking with friends and growing melons) and who were always dashing around and worrying themselves over things that were going to happen anyway. What use was it having all the money if you could never sit still or just watch your cattle, and yet they did not know it. Every so often you met a white person who understood, who realized how things really were; but these people were few and far between and the other white people often treated them with suspicion. — Alexander McCall Smith

- How did there get to be 'sides'? You said the guards were on our 'side'. How did that happen? How did I end up on a 'side'? - I can't really explain. Things just happen. Over time, they accumulate. Bad attracts bad. Good attracts good. Eventually there are sides. The members flux, sometimes the boundaries are gray. Good and bad are sometimes not the point. It happens. — Patrick Ness

I was still a little amazed that this was happening. That this, the thing that had seemed so impossible, so terrifying, so utterly beyond me, was happening. I was having fun. And that I was the one who made it happen. "I did it," I said out loud, sendind my voice up to the stars above me, not really caring if the others heard me. — Morgan Matson

My writing is called exotic or avant-garde because I write about rural places. Has it really come to this, that if you write about the country you are avant-garde? How did this happen? Modern agriculture and spaces are still so relevant. — Sarah Hall

People are often asking me if the things in my short stories really happened to me. I always think this is the same question to ask of a life - did this really happen to me? The body doesn't lie. But when we bring language to the body, isn't it always already an act of fiction? With its delightfully designed composition and color saturations and graphic patterns? Its style and vantage point? Its insistence on the mind's powerful force of recollection in the face of the raw and brutal fact that the only witness was the body? — Lidia Yuknavitch

Do SMART Boards and iPads really change pedagogy for the millions of students institutionally ostracized based on their race, religion, or gender? Or are they merely Band-Aids that can be used to say, "Oh look, we did something and we never had to get our hands dirty to make it happen"? — Jose Vilson

Did you know that in space it's very, very cold? And there's no oxygen? And if an astronaut fell out of a shuttle without his suit he'd die right away?"
I'm a fast learner. "But that would never happen. Because astronauts are really, really careful."
George gives me a smile, the same dazzling sweet smile as his big brother, although at this point, with green teeth. "I might marry you," he allows. "Do you want a big family? — Huntley Fitzpatrick

Nothing. Just - I really don't consider myself a Christian. If there is a God, and if He really loves me, then why did all that stuff have to happen? None of it makes sense." "Trust me." Austin lets out a sigh. "I know what you mean." I shiver. Are these sudden chills brought on by the sincerity in Austin's voice, or by the light breeze coming off the lake? "But you know," he continues, "without the dark, we'd never see the stars. There also would be no use for the moon if there was never a night." I — Tessa Emily Hall

You mean like, if a hybrid drinks from a shifter in the middle of the woods, did it really happen?"
He moved closer until he was peering down at her. "What happens in the woods, stays in the woods. — Marie Johnston

I couldn't kill myself. I would be afraid the minute I did it; something really good would happen and I'd miss it. — Oprah Winfrey

It was a tough situation. A fight that nobody expected to end so abruptly for him because he was really a great fighter. I felt sorry for him and I knew it could happen to anybody. And it could happen to any of us at any time. So when I was in a position to help him, I did what I could to help him. — Roy Jones Jr.