Didn't Change Quotes & Sayings

Without you, I'm lost, fumbling and falling
Missing so much of who you were
If I could change the past, I'd take it all back
I'd turn back time, I'd take away the pain
I'd make sure I didn't leave without you — Monica Alexander

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

Then he asked if I didn't like things changing. And I said I wouldn't mind things changing if I became an astronaut, for example, which is one of the biggest changes you can imagine, apart from becoming a girl or dying. — Mark Haddon

Obamacare would never have passed without decades of massive immigration from the Third World. Liberals didn't change any minds - they changed the voters. — Ann Coulter

You may think things didn't change much after the 60s 'revolution' - but they did. The levels of prescriptive disapproval for anyone who stepped outside the norm receded. — Vashti Bunyan

Cat watched Seth's face for any reaction but the guy was cool as a cucumber. Or a radish. The saying didn't make sense anyway; she might as well change the vegetable to something she liked to eat. "Jealous? — Lynn Cahoon

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

I didn't know his age or how he liked his tea, I was wearing a terrible coat and I was drunk as a stoat - but this moment felt like it. The one I'd been waiting patiently for since I was a little girl. I'd worked so hard, for so long, at being ok with being single, but all of the things I'd told myself about independence were disappearing rapidly into the cold night. Right now, he felt like the only person who mattered in the whole world. — Lucy Robinson

We stiffened the penalties for fraud, we extended nationwide efforts to make sure that payments are accurate and they closed a loophole in which people were gaming the system. We didn't change eligibility requirements or reduce the level of benefits. — Kevin Drum

Suddenly energized, she jumped to her feet and bounced up and down on the couch. Clean clothes went flying off the pile. Maybe she should feel bad because she'd just seen what a huge flaw she'd uncovered in herself. But she didn't.

She felt free and alive. Up to now, she hadn't really been living. Not fully and completely. That had to change. Immediately.

"What are you doing? I'm hearing weird sounds."

"I'm pulling a Tom Cruise. And I;m also waving a bra around. HUnter, this is amazing? YOu've changed everything. We should have talked like this long ago."

"You're freaking me out, sis. Do I need to call someone? — Jennifer Bernard

Steve [sports psychiatrist] had already taught me to try and stop worrying so much about pleasing everyone. We knew that this was one of my most draining flaws and he again used three groups to clarify my thinking. There would always be some people, Steve said, who would care about me and love me. In contrast there would also be a select group of people who would never warm to me - no matter what I did. And in the middle came the overwhelming mass who were largely indifferent to any of my failures or triumphs. I needed to understand that most people didn't really care what I did or said. All my anguish about how they might perceive me was redundant. Steve helped me realize that I spent too much time trying to please those oblivious people in the middle or, more problematically, the small group who would never change their critical opinion of me. I should concentrate on the people who really did show concern for me. — Victoria Pendleton

The only band that I can see that made changes over the years with success was The Beatles. They were able to change album to album and still be just as good or better. I didn't feel that we were able to do that. The Beatles were in a class by themselves. — Johnny Ramone

But sleep didn't come. She could hear Jace's soft piano playing through the walls, but that wasn't what was keeping her awake. She was thinking of Simon, leaving for a house that no longer felt like home to him, of the despair in Jace's voice as he said 'I want to hate you', and of Magnus, not telling Jace the truth: that Alec did not want Jace to know about his relationship because he was still in love with him. She thought of the satisfaction it would have brought Magnus to say the words out loud, to acknowledge what the truth was, and the fact that he hadn't said them - had let Alec go on lying and pretending - because that was what Alec wanted, and Magnus cared about Alec enough to give him that. Maybe it was true what the Seelie Queen had said, after all: Love made you a liar. — Cassandra Clare

A month ago, Gavin had given his employer four weeks' notice. "I'll get a job around here," he'd told her. "Something low-stress, part-time, maybe. We're not paying rent, and Dad's left us plenty. You should quit, too." A year earlier this news would have filled her with delicious, full fat, chocolate-coated joy. But now, after a grueling routine of shitty work, shitty- weird home life in a house where the shadow of a dead boy walked more solidly than the grownups, shitty headaches, shitty worry about a husband who couldn't keep his dick out of other women, the golden offer just weirded Laine out. She didn't trust it. — Stephen M. Irwin

We do and say useless and pointless stuff and words, if we think little deeper why we go and masturbate?? (No,... No don't change the page... don't close it or whatever do.... look me right in the face and listen it's not a shit... it's how the matrix is build)... well... let's start from here... we masturbate and after all in the other day or after few days we will do it again..., we eat food and after all we eat again and again until we die... we say useless words and after all who in the hell to know why, we do that???

But after all from this useless words comes the one useful story if the useless words didn't exist... it won't also exist the advange called itself "story". — Deyth Banger

All he'd ever wanted was for nothing to change. Or for things to change only in the right ways, improving little by little, day by day, forever. It sounded crazy when you said it like that, but that was what baseball had promised him, what Westish College had promised him, what Schwartzy had promised him. The dream of every day the same. Every day was like the day before but a little bit better. You ran the stadium a little faster. You bench-pressed a little more. You hit the ball a little harder in the cage; you watched the tape with Schwartzy afterward and gained a little insight into your swing. Your swing grew a little simpler. Everything grew simpler, little by little. You ate the same food, work up at the same time, wore the same clothes. Hitches, bad habits, useless thoughts
whatever you didn't need slowly fell away. Whatever was simple and useful remained. You improved little by little til the day it all became perfect and stayed that way. Forever. — Chad Harbach

Most of the institutions that come in to offer help after disaster don't have the resources to provide concrete help. . . . Donor communities invest billions funding peace talks and disarmament. Then they stop. The most important part of postwar help is missing: providing basic social services to people. Not having those resources might have been a reason men went to war in the first place; they crossed a border and joined an armed group because they didn't have jobs. In Liberia right now, there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed young people, and they're ready-made mercenaries for wars in West Africa. You'd think the international community would be sensible enough to know they should work to change this. But they aren't. — Leymah Gbowee

Besides she liked being lonesome for a change. This freedom feeling was fine. These men didn't represent a thing she wanted to know about. — Zora Neale Hurston

Savannah, darlin'?" "Yes, Mama. Come in." Her mother opened the door a crack, then slipped into the room, carrying the largest, most extravagant bouquet of wildflowers Savannah had ever seen. Wildflowers that smelled of lilac and honeysuckle and the outdoors. She breathed deeply and sighed, looking at her mother in question. "Asher Lee," she said, "is downstairs." Savannah felt her mouth tilt up into an involuntary smile and her eyes flood with tears. Her mother set the bouquet on her vanity and put her arm around Savannah. "Whatever he did, he's awful sorry, button." "He yelled at me and made me cry." "Guessing he didn't mean whatever it is he said." "He thinks I want him to change." "Well, of course you do," said her mother matter-of-factly, swiping at Savannah's tears with the corner of her sunflower apron. "We all want to change the men we love. Leave our mark on them." "Oh, I don't lov - " "Of course you don't. I was just makin' conversation. — Katy Regnery

Petulia's expression didn't change for a while. Then she said: 'So it WAS a fairy, then?'
'Well, yes. Technically.'
The round pink face smiled.
'Good, I did wonder, because it was, um, you know ... having a wee up against one of Miss Level's garden gnomes?'
'DEFINITELY a Feegle,' said Tiffany. — Terry Pratchett

To be honest, when you're younger and cooler, you say those sort of things don't mean anything, but then on the day when they pat you on the back and they say, Look, mate, we're noticing what you're doing-thanks very much;' you think of the people who spent a life in the cinema and didn't receive that kind of accolade, and it's sort of a humbling experience. And it's very nice and all that. But it doesn't change the way I do things. — Russell Crowe

I think what breaks people is not adversity; what breaks people is thinking that tomorrow is going to be just like yesterday. That's what's numbing - if you think you can't change, you can't be better. And I didn't like that. — William J. Clinton

It didn't matter if Aria was hundreds of miles away, or whether she'd hurt him, or said goodbye, or anything else. Nothing would change the way he felt. The moment Aria had taken his hand on the roof at Marron's, she'd changed everything. No matter what happened, she'd always be the one. — Veronica Rossi

I can't help but smile as I swipe a lone tear trailing down my cheek. How can I not be crazy in love with this guy? Time away from him didn't change anything. I can't deny him another chance. That would be denying myself. — Simone Elkeles

I wanted to deny him, but that's the terrible power of a diary: it not only calls forth the person you used to be but rubs your nose in him, reminding you that not all change is evolutionary. More often than not, you didn't learn from your mistakes. You didn't get wiser, but simply older, growing from the twenty-five-year-old who got stoned and accidentally peed on his friend Katherine's kitten to the thirty-five-year-old who got drunk and peed in the sandbox at his old elementary school. "The sandbox!" my sister Amy said at the time. "Don't you realize that children have to pee in there? — David Sedaris

Everything changed ... even the things we didn't want to. — Ashley Jeffery

You will ask me, after this, why, I didn't tell you this before. It is because I know how powerful a story can be. It can change the course of history. It can save a life. But it can also be a sinkhole, a quicksand in which you become stuck, unable to write yourself free. — Jodi Picoult

Toby, if I say challenging him is futile, that you'll change nothing and only grant the omen you saw this morning power over you ... if I say you can save your life and your heart by walking away from this, will it matter?" Part of me
most of me
wanted to say, "Yes, it would matter; please tell me to stay here. If you tell me, I'll stay." I didn't want to go. I'm not a hero; I never have been. I just do what has to be done. But when you get right down to it, isn't that the definition of hero? — Seanan McGuire

I was always anti-marriage. I didn't understand monogamy. I couldn't figure out how that could last. And then I met Bryn and I started to understand the beauty of constancy and history and change and going on the roller coaster with someone - of having a partner in life. — Maria Bello

I was always furious because you couldn't take out more than three books in one day. You would go home with your three books and read them and it would still be only five o'clock. The library didn't shut till half past, but you couldn't change the books till the next day. — Fay Weldon

I've actually got a new sorta-boyfriend and I suppose maybe I'll have shake-the-rafters, rattle-the-windows sex with him since I'll finally be legal and all."
"Eponine," Phil hissed. Maube I'd only said it for the reaction, because there was absolutely no way that would be happening withing the month. I could count the numbers of boys I'd merely kissed on one hand. I didn't even need a hand at all to number the guys I'd slept with. I figured the integer wasn't about to change any time soon, either.
"Obviously I'm kidding, Phil." His posture relaxed, only slightly. "We'll be quiet. — Megan Squires

I saw a man swerve his car and try to hit a stray dog, but the quick mutt dodged between two parked cars and made his escape. God, I thought, did I just see what I think I saw? At the next red light, I pulled up beside the man and stared hard at him. He knew that'd I seen his murder attempt, but he didn't care. He smiled and yelled loud enough for me to hear him through our closed windows: 'Don't give me that face unless you're going to do something about it. Come on, tough guy, what are you going to do?' I didn't do anything. I turned right on the green. He turned left against traffic. I don't know what happened to that man or the dog, but I drove home and wrote this poem. Why do poets think they can change the world? The only life I can save is my own. — Sherman Alexie

I mean, if you didn't get it or if you didn't feel like you enjoyed it, sometimes that experience can change. — Keanu Reeves

I create other worlds, magical never-never lands where the camera is my weapon and the battles I fight are with the elements. i stretch the laws of the mind and displace people from their realities to capture a side of them they didn't even know they had. Photography has the ability to freeze people in this time and space - no matter what happens after that moment, it cannot change - they are exactly how i want them to be. — Tyler Shields

The world didn't like to look at the dark underside very often. But that didn't change the ugliness; it only ensured that those who perpetuated the ugliness were left alone to kill and maim and rape. — Ted Dekker

Your lot in life? A lot is something you draw, like straws. It's chance. You didn't get this life by chance. You chose it on purpose. If you're dissatisfied from it, you can change it. — Jennifer Echols

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

He headed for the door but stopped halfway. "I love you, Sophie. I love you with my soul."
Her bare arms held up the duvet. "Don't ruin this, Banallt, please."
"I'm not a villain from one of your novels, Sophie." She stared at him, wide-eyed. "Unlike them, I can change. I have changed."
Unfortunately, she didn't believe him. — Carolyn Jewel

Just help him know it's okay to be different. That's what I wish my mom and dad did for me. They didn't have to change, but I wanted to know it was okay for me to change. Women like your mom never had anyone in their corners, but Felix has you..... — Bijou Hunter

Most change in America doesn't come from, politicians. It comes from people inventing things and creating. The telephone, the telegraph, the computer, all those things didn't come from government. Our world is going to get better and better, as long as we keep the politicians from screwing it up. — David Boaz

Rescuers tended to be decisive, fast-thinking, risk-taking, independent, adventurous, openhearted, rebellious, and unusually flexible - able to switch plans, abandon habits, or change ingrained routines at a moment's notice. They tended to be nonconformists, and though many rescuers held solemn principles worth dying for, they didn't regard themselves as heroic. — Diane Ackerman

I fear depression - intensely. It is by far the most painful ailment I have ever faced. It is the thing that slammed into me, ran me over repeatedly, and then kicked me in the head when I was down. I struggled for change, for understanding, to figure out what was "wrong" with me - no one knew. Or at least, they didn't guess correctly. — Jeannie Davide-Rivera

You don't have to be young. You don't have to be thin. You don't have to be "hot" in a way that some dumbfuckedly narrow mindset has construed that word. You don't have to have taut flesh or a tight ass or an eternally upright set of tits. You have to find a way to inhabit your body while enacting your deepest desires. You have to be brave enough to build the intimacy you deserve. You have to take off all of your clothes and say, "I'm right here." There are so many tiny revolutions in a life, a million ways we have to circle around ourselves to grow and change and be okay. And perhaps the body is our final frontier. It's the one place we can't leave. We're there till it goes. Most women and some men spend their lives trying to alter it, hide it, prettify it, make it what it isn't, or conceal it for what it is. But what if we didn't do that? That's the question you need to answer, — Cheryl Strayed

I wasn't afraid of you, Alina. I was afraid of losing you. That girl you were becoming didn't need me anymore, but she's who you were always meant to be."
"Power hungry? Ruthless?"
"Strong." He looked away. "Luminous. And maybe a little ruthless too. That's what it takes to rule. Ravka is broken, Alina. I think it always has been. The girl I saw in the chapel could change that. — Leigh Bardugo

It was easy to understand why Sala didn't mind sharing; neither of us ever went there except to change clothes or sleep. Night after night I would sit uselessly at Al's, drinking myself into a stupor because I couldn't stand the idea of going back to the apartment. — Hunter S. Thompson

I laugh at it now, but one time I had an agent tell me I would never work in TV if I didn't get a nose job. People tell you to change yourself to fit into the L.A. scene, but the advice usually doesn't make any sense. The next agent told me my nose was great! — Amanda Righetti

I don't think Estonians ever really hated Russians. It was more, 'Leave us alone.' We can't change what is past. We can't blame them for what their parents have done. We never hated them. They didn't destroy us that bad. — Carmen Kass

Now, now," my father said. "Let's just get the bags."
This was typical. My father, the lone male in our estrogen-heavy household, had always dealt with any kind of emotional situation or conflict by doing something concrete and specific. Discussion of cramps and heavy flow at the breakfast table? He was up and out the door to change oil on one of our cars. Coming home in tears for reasons you just didn't want to discuss? He'd go make you a grilled cheese, which he'd probably end up eating. Family crisis brewing in a public place? Bags. Get the bags. — Sarah Dessen

Sooner I'd try to change history than turn political, than try convincing others to write letters or to vote or to march or to do something they didn't already feel like doing. — Richard Bach

You couldn't change where you were from. But still, you didn't have to stay there. You didn't have to stay stuck in the past. — Kami Garcia

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

I didn't want to hear the usual answers about what's wrong because I believe these are symptoms: global warming, genocide, hunger, poverty, war, environmental crisis. If we can identify the root cause, we can change our ways. — Tom Shadyac

Elron: These were happy woods. The entire place was happy from the house to the gardens to the woods. But this one little garden had something extra. It was excited. Something odd for plants and trees. They were prone to joy, happiness, sorrow and tranquility but not something as active as excitement. Someone had spent a lot of time here and a bit of their personality had seeped into the place. That someone was excited about life and probably young. Strange. Few youth of any race knew enough to transmit their feelings. The trees whispered about a person, moving and bending with change. The plants gossiped about tenderness shown them but the air breathed words of rage and despair in my ear. The plants didn't know gender but I got the impression of a woman, a young woman. The altar indicated she was a witch. A good witch. — N.E. Conneely

Gestures and actions, were the foundation of any great love. And that's what he was to her. He'd shown her that she didn't have to change for any man, that the right man would love her for who she was. — Lauren Blakely

Just recieved my manuscript from the editor and he didn't change a word. The word he didn't change was the. — Roy A. Higgins

When we show people that something is possible that they didn't think was possible it does more than just change things. It changes the way people think about the possibility of things changing. It helps them see that life is not the same day-after day, unsurprising, unending drudgery that so much of life teaches them that it is. And that is a huge contribution to their humanity. — Dan Pallotta

The gunslinger's stomach seemed to rise painfully against his heart, but his face didn't change. — Stephen King

What sucks even more is getting hung up on the "what is he thinking and feeling?" shit. Does he miss me as much as I miss him? No. If he did, you'd know it by his actions. Is he seeing someone else? Maybe. Probably. Or at least he's planning on it. Again-it sucks, but if you get real about it you'll realize that knowing the answers to these questions still doesn't change the fact that your relationship didn't make the cut. — Greg Behrendt

Of course, it made no sense. The goat couldn't object or agree. The goat couldn't forgive. The goat didn't even know what was happening. Only humans could accept responsibility, and only humans could take on a debt. Only humans could stand in for one another...A goat would always be a goat, but humans can change how they define one another and how they define themselves. That was civilization. — Alex London

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

But, she knew, you didn't have to marry your soulmate, and you didn't even have to marry an Interesting. You didn't always need to be the dazzler, the firecracker, the one who cracked everyone up, or made everyone want to sleep with you, or be the one who wrote and starred in the play that got the standing ovation. You could cease to be obsessed with the idea of being interesting. — Meg Wolitzer

Some of their best songs don't have bridges and choruses. So that made me think I should trust my instincts. My songs were okay, I figured. I didn't need to change anything. — Lucinda Williams

Remember, Steve Jobs didn't promise that Apple's next product would change the world. Jobs said that he would change the world. It didn't matter if the vehicle was the Lisa, The Mac, or even Pixar Studios. Any individual endeavor might fail, but he was 100% certain he would eventually achieve his goals. — Charlie Houpert

The Room I wrote in 1957, and I was really gratified to find that it stood up. I didn't have to change a word. — Harold Pinter

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

I didn't have enough voice left to scream. And it wasn't like anything was going to change. No matter how much I cried, even if I let myself yell, things were never going to get better. — Morgan Matson

I didn't have time to change."
"Then you'll make it now. I'm not working on you with that
much death on your skin. — Karen Marie Moning

they didn't want people talking.
Thinking was fine; they would bury you with your thoughts.
But no collaboration, no groups coordinating together, no change of ideas. — Hugh Howey

The real excitement of being a girl - of being, that is, a woman in embryo - was that life was such a wonderful gamble. You didn't know what was going to happen to you. That was what made being a woman so exciting. No worry about what you should be or do - Biology would decide. You were waiting for The Man, and when the man came, he would change your entire life, you can say what you like, that is an exciting point of view to hold at the threshold of life. — Agatha Christie

They understood that the innate emotions of humans were mutable. Anger didn't have to lead to violence, hate to cruelty, fear to oppression. There was a space for change between what words were said and what deeds were done. — Ronlyn Domingue

Daisy didn't just change our lives, she changed our destiny. — Maryam Faresh

Sula was wrong. Hell ain't things lasting forever. Hell is change. Not only did men leave and children grow up and die, but even the misery didn't last. One day she wouldn't even have that. This very grief that had twisted her into a curve on the floor and flayed her would be gone. She would lose that too.
Why, even in hate here I am thinking of what Sula said. — Toni Morrison

Clinton saw himself much more as the steward of alliances and of consensus that moved in the right direction. He didn't see himself as someone who could change the overall thrust, I think, of global policy. — Barton Gellman

The world had ended and begun anew, and yet nothing had changed, either. The sun would still rise and fall, the seasons would still change, heedless of whether he was free or enslaved, prince or king, heedless of who was alive and who was gone. The world would keep moving on. In didn't seem right, somehow. — Sarah J. Maas

Almost any book was better than life, Audrey thought. Or rather, life as she was living it. Of course, life would soon change, open out, become quite different. You couldn't go on if you didn't hope that, could you? But for the time being there was no doubt that it was pleasant to get away from it. And books could take her away. — Jean Rhys

You never explained the change of heart."
"Maybe I got tired of seeing Kevin bend. Or maybe it was the zombies. A few weeks back you and Renee argued contingency plans for a zombie apocalypse. She said she'd focus on survivors. You said you'd go back for some of us. Five of us. You weren't counting Abby or Coach. Since you trust Renee to handle the rest of the team, I'm guessing the last spot is for Dobson. I didn't say anything then because I knew I'd look out for only me when the world went to hell. I don't want to be that person anymore. I want to go back for you. — Nora Sakavic

A realization that even if you had discovered the future, it really didn't change how you lived in the present. — Maggie Stiefvater

Hey, Eriele?" he said. "You know what's funny?... You're so busy yelling at Ian," Dan said, "you didn't notice our altitude. Time to change the gas mixture. — C. Alexander London

I sank into the chair and checked to see if the charge nurse could see me - not if I didn't lean out too far. The night was looking up! Two patients who ought to sleep all night long, and an Internet connection. How lucky was I? Pretty damn lucky, at least until someone needed a diaper change. — Cassie Alexander

You're right. What Drew and I had was genuine. He loved me. That doesn't mean he didn't change his mind. — Mary J. Williams

He didn't operate on the same frequency as everyone else. On one hand, he was more dangerous than anyone I'd ever met.
He could slip into a room, kill you with a spatula, and be out of town before anyone knew about it. On the other, he was the most pure, untarnished soul I'd ever come across. It was an odd mix so uniquely Kale, and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. — Jus Accardo

Poor old G.K.C.! It's too bad he didn't live to see the change. What paradoxes he would have dreamed up! — Poul Anderson

Melissa. Where are you planning to go?" His voice was nasally, shit, he knew I had no idea where to go.
"Well if you didn't change the apartment I was staying in I would. I was going to stay in a hotel"
"How will you do that without your purse, sweetcheeks?" he sounded so damn cocky. I wanted to hit him, somehow through the phone.
"Look, wait there, ill come down. We should talk anyway"
"I have nothing to say" I grumbled
"I have plenty" and he hung up. — Mercy Cortez

Mrs. Dale was a good woman, Hollis will grant her that. A busybody and a pain in the neck, but she never judged what she didn't understand and that Hollis knows, is rare. Unlike Alan and the boys in the village, she treated him fairly, but that doesn't mean he has to moan and bellyache down at the funeral parlor. Ashes to ashes, that's all there is. If you can't change a fact of life, then be smart enough to walk away from it. — Alice Hoffman

Was happiness (which was perhaps achieved not by getting what you wanted, but rather, by obtaining what you didn't know you wished for until it was in hand) a hologram that would continually change appearance with the slightest shift of perspective? Or maybe happiness by definition was a temporary state of being recognizable only in hindsight. It was impossible to catch what always managed to be overrun and end up in the rear view mirror. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

If your coping mechanism to date has been to ignore your weight, don't feel badly. You're in good company. I've done my share of standing on the doctor's scale backwards, cringing as the nurse scribbled on the clipboard, anxious when the doctor came in glancing over my record. I scrutinized his face for any semblance of judgment. Whether or not I faced the scale or the doctor skipped a pep talk, it didn't change the truth and it still pervaded every hour of my waking thoughts. I knew what I needed to do and just agonizingly prolonged it. What about you?

We want our lies to be true--desperately. We think it means less work, less pain. But aren't we experiencing work and pain every day when we are obese? We don't escape it, we just reallocate it, attach it to different problems.

The sooner we face the numbers and start to deal with them, the sooner we can resolve them. — Shannon Sorrels

I didn't want to wait two more weeks. I didn't want to think about this every day. I didn't want to feel my body change. I didn't want to carry and feed this artifact of my inherent unlovability - this physical proof that any permanent connection to me must be an accident. Men made wanted babies with beautiful women. Men made mistakes with fat chicks. — Lindy West

You didn't date someone to change him. You dated him because you wanted him for the way he was. Flaws and fears and all. — Jean Oram

I mean course you want a change, we want a change, but if a change ain't godsdamn coming, then the next thing I wish is that I didn't care. — China Mieville

And this letter threatened change, didn't it? It was a threat, and he might have to do something about the threat. That meant doing something about the man behind it. It had happened before. It could happen again, he decided. Andropov would not live long enough to learn that in considering this action, he would set in motion the demise of his own country. — Tom Clancy

Serving [Hamilton's] legacy didn't just mean commemorating him, though: It also meant continuing his work. [Eliza] crusaded against slavery, as Hamilton had. And this widow of an orphan helped to found the first private orphanage in New York. That's the real power of a legacy: We tell stories of people who are gone because like any powerful stories, they have the potential to inspire, and to change the world. — Jeremy McCarter

To me, summer has always been about potential. This was especially true when I was in high school. Those 3 or so months between 1 school year and the next always meant change. People got taller or wider or smaller. They broke up or came together, lost friends or gained them, had life experiences that you could tell had transformed them even if you didn't know what they were. In the summer, the days were long, stretching into each other. Out of school, everything was on pause and yet happening at the same time, this collection of weeks when anything was possible. As a teenager, I was always hoping to change, to become someone other than who I was. Each summer, I felt I had the chance to do that. All I had to do was wait and see what happened. — Sarah Dessen

Change could surprise you only if you didn't expect it and weren't looking for it — Spencer Johnson

At that time a psychologist appeared in Oslo, and wrote interesting articles in the paper about how to cure homosexuality. ... This man is a pervert. He wants to change nature. He wants to change the natural growth of love between a woman and a woman, or between a man and a man. If society itself wasn't hostile to love, he would never have been allowed to do that. Can't you see? Why can't you ever get it out of your head that love is against nature? Because that's what you're saying when you say homosexuality is against nature. Didn't nature make me? Or was I the result of some mysterious embryonic experiment, conceived on another planet, and planted in my mother's womb? Because I can assure you: I was born a lesbian. I was a lesbian the moment I came out and said, Boooooo. — Gerd Brantenberg

I didn't want to change the name on the towels. — Lee Trevino

How is it we could have a system where schools could remain lousy for 50 years and yet you do exactly the same thing this year that they did 50 years ago when it didn't work then, and no one feels any pressure to change? — Geoffrey Canada

I'm a role model now. I didn't know I was gonna have 13-year-old fans, so I've tried to change a few things here and there. But I also know that the girls don't want me to be Miley Cyrus, either. — Nicki Minaj

The captain called for her in her suite as she was finishing her morning cup of spiced milk. He declined to sit while she drank. When he blinked at her dress and hid a brief smirk, Kestrel knew that she wouldn't like wherever they were going. When he didn't suggest that she change into something that wouldn't be so easily sullied, she knew that she didn't like him. — Marie Rutkoski

But she didn't want to know - didn't want to think about the Sun Goddess and her agenda as she flung herself on Rowan, breathing in his scent, memorizing the feel of him. The first member of her court - the court that would change the world. The court that would rebuild it. Together. — Sarah J. Maas

The image in the glass seemed only vaguely familiar. I didn't like my new tie, so I took off my coat and tried another. I didn't like the change either. All at once everything began to irritate me. The stiff collar was strangling me. The shoes pinched my feet. The pants smelled like a clothing store basement and were too tight in the crotch. Sweat broke out at my temples where the hat band squeezed my skull. Suddenly I began to itch, and when I moved everything crackled like a paper sack. — John Fante