Doing The Small Things With You Quotes & Sayings

In a small, dark room with no windows, a man hunched over his cluttered workstation. Papers were scattered all over the surface of the desk and he had to dig through them to find the keyboard. He sat down and turned on the monitor. As the display warmed up, a bright green typing arrow faded into view in the bottom corner of the screen. The man scraped his hand across his scraggly beard and typed into the screen on his computer. "How are you doing today?" The display beeped and words formed on the screen as someone responded. "When can I have someone to play with?" The man sighed and typed again. "I'm sorry, but you know why you must be alone right now." The computer beeped as the reply came across the screen. "I'm doing better." "I'm sure you are, but I have to be sure you can't hurt anyone." "I promise I won't." "I believe you. But there are some things I have to do to make sure. — Steve DeWinter

Solitude sharpens awareness of small pleasures otherwise lost. — Kevin Patterson

Writing of only one small part of the broader problem, namely the single-minded pursuit of individualistic 'rights,' [Don] Feder is not wrong to conclude:

Absent a delicate balance--rights and duties, freedom and order--the social fabric begins to unravel. The rights explosion of the past three decades has taken us on a rapid descent to a culture without civility, decency, or even that degree of discipline necessary to maintain an advanced industrial civilization. Our cities are cesspools, our urban schools terrorist training camps, our legislatures brothels where rights are sold to the highest electoral bidder. — D. A. Carson

When we cannot see, we don't judge. Small wonder when we kiss, cry, laugh, make love, are in pain, pray and listen to music, we close our eyes. — Sabine Shah

Miriva refused to believe that human decency should be a privilege given only to a small few, and when she complained to her mother that she did not want to be a broodmare for the sake of alliances between the villages, her mother slapped her and sent her to the fields to pick mehazi beans — Ash Gray

Still, he could feel a fine cord stretched between them, a thin luminous fiber that ran from his chest all the way across the continent and forked into theirs. Never before had he lived through a fever without his mother; when he'd been sick in Debrecen she'd taken the train to be with him. Never had he finished a year at school without knowing that soon he'd be home with his father, working beside him in the lumberyard and walking through the fields with him in the evening. Now there was another filament, one that linked him to Klara. And Paris was her home, this place thousands of kilometers from his own. He felt the stirring of a new ache, something like homesickness but located deeper in his mind; it was an ache for the tie when his heart had been a simple and satisfied thing, small as the green apples that grew in his father's orchard. — Julie Orringer

Dictionopolis is the place where all the words in the world come from. They're grown right here in our orchards."
"I didn't know that words grew on trees," said Milo timidly.
"Where did you think they grew?" shouted the earl irritably. A small crowd began to gather to see the little boy who didn't know that letters grew on trees.
"I didn't know they grew at all," admitted Milo even more timidly. Several people shook their heads sadly.
"Well, money doesn't grow on trees, does it?" demanded the count.
"I've heard not," said Milo.
"Then something must. Why not words?" exclaimed the undersecretary triumphantly. The crowd cheered his display of logic and continued about its business. — Norton Juster

The science of mathematics applies to the clouds; the radiance of starlight nourishes the rose; no thinker will dare say that the scent of hawthorn is valueless to the constellations ... The cheese-mite has its worth; the smallest is large and the largest is small ... Light does not carry the scents of earth into the upper air without knowing what it is doing with them; darkness confers the essence of the stars upon the sleeping flowers ... Where the telescope ends the microscope begins, and which has the wider vision? You may choose. A patch of mould is a galaxy of blossom; a nebula is an antheap of stars. There is the same affinity, if still more inconceivable, between the things of the mind and material things. — Victor Hugo

Thiel rejects the small-mindedness of most of the Valley's entrepreneurialism. The motto of Founders Fund is: "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters." But — Richard Byrne Reilly

I finished The Freebie, which was a small relationship "talky" movie, and I was like, "I just want to get out of the house! And I want there to be some action, and I want some tension in there!" — Katie Aselton

The earth will never be the same again
Rock, water, tree, iron, share this greif
As distant stars participate in the pain.
A candle snuffed, a falling star or leaf,
A dolphin death, O this particular loss
A Heaven-mourned; for if no angel cried
If this small one was tossed away as dross,
The very galaxies would have lied.
How shall we sing our love's song now
In this strange land where all are born to die?
Each tree and leaf and star show how
The universe is part of this one cry,
Every life is noted and is cherished,
and nothing loved is ever lost or perished. — Madeleine L'Engle

Persistence trumps talent.
What's the most powerful force in the universe? Compound interest. It builds on itself. Over time, a small amount of money becomes a large amount of money. Persistence is similar. A little bit improves performance, which encourages greater persistence which improves persistence even more. And on and on it goes.
Lack of persistence works the same way
only in the opposite direction.
Of course talent is important, but the world is lit erred with talented people who didn't persist, who didn't put in the hours, who gave up too early, who thought they could ride on talent alone. Meanwhile, people who might have less talent pass them by.
That's why intrinsic motivation is so important. Doing things not the get an external reward like money or a promotion, but because you simple like doing it. The more intrinsic motivation you have , the more likely you are to persist. The more you persist, the more likely you are to succeed. — Daniel H. Pink

(This place) presumed to be a town then, but was hardly more than a word under a tin roof. — Beryl Markham

Biting the hand that feeds you, that's what you're doing Mary Logan, biting the hand that feeds you.'
Again Mama laughed, 'If that's the case, Daisy, I don't think I need that little bit of food.'
With the second book finished, she stared at a small pile of second grade books on her desk.
'Well, I just think you're spoiling those children, Mary. They've got to learn how things are sometime.'
'Maybe so,' said Mama. 'But that doesn't mean they have to accept them. And maybe we don't either. — Mildred D. Taylor

If I do anything, I have to start over, but all I have is fragments of ideas. Just pieces. Like a germ of an idea for this, and a germ of an idea for that. Nothing whole or concrete" - Violet

" 'Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.' Pearl S. Buck. Maybe a germ is enough. Maybe it's all you need. We can start small. Open up a new document or pull out a black piece of paper. We'll make it our canvas. Remember what Michelangelo said about the sculpture being in the stone - it was there from the beginning, and his job was to bring it out. Your words are in there too" -Finch — Jennifer Niven

He covered her hands with his. "Why the hurry?"
"Seriously?" She stared at him, her jaw dropping. "I'm on fire! If we wait one more minute, I'm certain the sheets will spontaneously combust. I won't be held responsible if your house burns down because you wanted to waste time on foreplay. — Elle James

One isn't born with courage. One develops it by doing small courageous things-in the way that if one sets out to pick up a 100-pound bag of rice, one would be advised to start with a five-pound bag, then 10 pounds, then 20 pounds, and so forth, until one builds up enough muscle to lift the 100-pound bag. It's the same way with courage. You do small courageous things that require some mental and spiritual exertion. — Maya Angelou

This commissary was a man of very repulsive mien, with a pointed nose, with yellow and salient cheek bones, with eyes small but keen and penetrating, and an expression of countenance resembling at one the polecat and the fox. His head, supported by a long and flexible neck, issued from his large black robe, balancing itself with a motion very much like that of the tortoise thrusting his head out of his shell. — Alexandre Dumas

All of us remember the home of our childhood. Interestingly, our thoughts do not dwell on whether the house was large or small, the neighborhood fashionable or downtrodden. Rather, we delight in the experiences we shared as a family. The home is the laboratory of our lives, and what we learn there largely determines what we do when we leave there. — Thomas S. Monson

Know when your space is too small for you ... and you have to birthed to the next level! — T.D. Jakes

Do you know of the uncertainty principle, Marjorie?" "I am educated," she snorted, very much annoyed with him. "Then you know that with very small things, we cannot both know where they are and what they are doing. The act of observing them always changes what they are doing. Perhaps God does not look at us individually because to do so would interrupt our work, interfere with our free will ... . — Sheri S. Tepper

When a marriage works, it is in no small part because a woman and a man have come to recognize in precise measure when enough has been said. — Laurence Shames

It is the custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtinesses and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on. — J.M. Barrie

you knew how small you are and how short a time you have to do what you can, you wouldn't waste time watching five fucking hours of TV a day. You wouldn't waste time doing a job you hate. You wouldn't waste the little time you have dealing with assholes, feeling sorry for yourself, or being timid about the things you'd really like to do. — Johnny B. Truant

Well, Nero," Genghis said, "I just wanted to give you this rose-a small gift of congratulations for the wonderful concert you gave us last night!"
"Oh, thank you," Nero said, taking the rose out of Genghis's hand and giving it a good smell. "I was wonderful, wasn't I?"
"You were perfection!" Genghis said. "The first time you played your sonata, I was deeply moved. The second time, I had tears in my eyes. The third time, I was sobbing. The fourth time, I had an uncontrollable emotional attack. The fifth time-" The Baudelaires did not hear about the fifth time because Nero's door swung shut behind them. — Lemony Snicket

Larson had been putting up a front like he wasn't listening, but hearing that last statement from Owen made him speak up. "It's not about that," he asserted.
"It has to be," Owen disagreed. "How else am I supposed to define myself?"
"Why do you have to have a definition? A label isn't gonna make you feel any better about yourself or this situation. Stop trying to put yourself in one group or the other. It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me!" Owen challenged. "My whole world has been flipped upside down thanks to you! Am I just supposed to sit back and accept that?"
Larson was beginning to boil over with repugnance. "Yes! Because that's what happens!" He was trying as hard a he could not to scream. "Things change and sometimes there's nothing we can do about it. Life sucks. Deal with it! That's what I'm doing. I'm not doing it in the best way, but I'm doing it. I'm dealing with that fact that you left me. — Megan Duke

Our planning consisted of starting up our project by generating some income through t-shirts and small products. Then we worked our way up with art shows and art projects that I'm creating under our collective. Only then did we announce the comic book, because if we don't do these things before, no one is going to care what you're doing for the bigger project that you've got coming next. We worked it up in steps, and once we announced the comic project it all came together. — K. Guillory

If everyone has the same number of hours in the day, why do some people seem to get so much more done than others? How do they do more, achieve more, earn more, have more? If time is the currency of achievement, then why are some able to cash in their allotment for more chips than others?
The answer is they make getting to the heart of things the heart of their approach. They go small. Going small is ignoring all the things you could do and doing what you should do. It's recognizing that not all things matter equally and finding the things that matter most. It's a tighter way to connect what you do with what you want. It's realizing that extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus. — Gary Keller

Each small kindness given or received is evidence that life is worthwhile. — Donald Altman

India went through a dramatic revolution after the '90s when our economy started opening up for the first time and Indians were now experiencing the Western life, if you will. Drugs and sex and a lot of those influences came in as the economy stabilized, and we were growing up and experiencing that. The Indian writing market was very small at that time. Our literature was very attuned to what Western audiences were interested in, so everybody was writing about the slums in India and magic realism or stories about Hindus and Muslims and partition. — Karan Bajaj

I've been busy with a long memorandum about the whole of our central Arabian relations, which I've just finished. It will now go to all the High and Mighty in every part. One can't do much more than sit and record if one is of my sex, devil take it; one can get the things recorded in the right way and that means, I hope, that unconsciously people will judge events as you think they ought to be judged. But it's small change for doing things, very small change I feel at times. — Gertrude Bell

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

Beer commercials usually show big men, manly men, doing manly things: 'You've just killed a small animal. It's time for a light beer.' Why not have a realistic beer commercial, with a realistic thing about beer, where someone goes, 'It's five o'clock in the morning. You've just pissed on a dumpster. It's Miller time.' — Robin Williams

If we were honest about it, our lives are all fiascoes. There really isn't anything of importance except maybe who gets handed your heart and what they do with it. And just so you don't spend a lot of time fretting over it, even that may be pretty meager." A few seconds passed. "We're just small, Judy. All of us, even though we do stuff every day of the week to distract ourselves from the fact, it's still true. We're just little and small and maybe if we have some backbone we do a few things worth doing and then we're gone. — Tom McNeal

You get a kind of surreal feeling and also it allows you to focus on the things we want you to focus on in a new way - the stuff that's very small and mundane that happens in a person's life when they're in a hotel room. There's more interest because you're seeing a puppet do things that you're very familiar with that you might not notice if it was a human doing it. — Charlie Kaufman

In the aftermath of loss, we do what we've always done, although we are changed, maybe more afraid. We do what we can, as well as we can. My pastor, Veronica, one Sunday told the story of a sparrow lying in the street with its legs straight up in the air, sweating a little under its feathery arms. A warhorse walks up to the bird and asks, "What on earth are you doing?" The sparrow replies, "I heard the sky was falling, and I wanted to help." The horse laughs a big, loud, sneering horse laugh, and says, "Do you really think you're going to hold back the sky, with those scrawny little legs?" And the sparrow says, "One does what one can." So what can I do? Not much. Mother Teresa said that none of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love. This reminder has saved me many times. — Anne Lamott

Jace set what he was holding down on the windowsill and reached out to her. She came to lean against him, and his hand slid up under her t-shirt and rested caressingly, possessively, on the small of her back. He bent to kiss her, gently at first, but the gentleness went quickly and soon she was pressed up against the glass of the window, his hands at the hem of her shirt - his shirt
"Jace." She moved a little bit away. "I'm pretty sure people down there in the street can see us."
"We could ... " He gestured toward the bed. "Move ... over there."
She grinned. "You said that like it took you a while to come up with the idea."
When he spoke, his voice was muffled against her neck. "What can I say, you make my thought processes slow down. Now I know what it's like to be a normal person."
"How ... is it?" The things he was doing with his hands under the t-shirt were distracting.
"Terrible. I'm already way behind on my quota of witty comments for the day. — Cassandra Clare

Thought creates things by slicing up reality into small bits that it can easily grasp. Thus when you are think-ing you are thing-ing. Thought does not report things, it distorts reality to create things, and as Bergson noted, "In so doing it allows what is the very essence of the real to escape." Thus to the extent we actually imagine a world of discrete and separate things, conceptions have become perceptions, and we have in this manner populated our universe with nothing but ghosts. — D.T. Suzuki

Listen to your being. It is continuously giving you hints; it is a still, small voice. It does not shout at you, that is true. And if you are a little silent you will start feeling your way. Be the person you are. Never try to be another, and you will become mature. Maturity is accepting the responsibility of being oneself, whatsoever the cost. Risking all to be oneself, that's what maturity is all about. — Osho

A lot of times, writers are told write as big as you can, and that's not untrue. But at times I think it's better to write as small as you can, to start scenes with little personal details or people who are doing average every day human things. That, to me, lets the average reader into that person's life. "Yeah I eat breakfast. I take a shower." — Don Winslow

Why must we be left, the survivors picking among the flotsam, among the small, unnoticed, unvalued clutter that was all that remained when they vanished, that only catastrophe made notable? — Marilynne Robinson

Start with a small product in lab environment and grow it! — Colin Humphreys

By acknowledging a petty problem you give it existence and credibility. The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him; and a small mistake is often made worse and more visible when you try to fix it. It is sometimes best to leave things alone. If there is something you want but cannot have, show contempt for it. The less interest you reveal, the more superior you seem. — Robert Greene

Timing. We give it many names: Destiny, Fate, Kismet, the will of God. Whatever we call it, lives are changed and molded by it, in small or drastic ways beyond our control. The precise, exquisite influence of timing moves people into new positions as surely as a spring flood rearranges the landscape. It is as unavoidable as life. — Helen Van Slyke

This two-bit bar, this worn-out town, just a speck in the middle of a lonely grassy prairie with the stony hills beyond, the small fix-it-yourself house I'd bought for us - that was all ours, our world, our high life. It wasn't name-brand, shiny, or white picket fences, but none of that mattered. As long as we were together, it was good, it was clean, it was ours. — Cat Porter

Global climate change is real and we have a limited time to change our behavior or live with the consequences. We can all help by making small changes in our lives to letting our voice be heard by our governing bodies. As has always been the case in this country, if the people demand change, it will come. — Kyra Sedgwick

JOSS-STICKS- Small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion. — Ambrose Bierce

So Captain Jack's come a-courtin'." Her hands stilled on the basket. "Who?" "The tall Shawnee who come by your cabin." The tall one. Lael felt a small surge of triumph at learning his name. Captain Jack. Oddly, she felt no embarrassment. Lifting her shoulders in a slight shrug, she continued pulling the vines into a tight circle. "He come by, but I don't know why." "Best take a long look in the mirror, then." Lael's eyes roamed the dark walls. Ma Horn didn't own one. "Beads and a blanket, was it?" She nodded and looked back down. "I still can't figure out why some Shawnee would pay any mind to a white girl like me." Ma Horn chuckled, her face alight in the dimness. "Why, Captain Jack's as white as you are." "What?" she blurted, eyes wide as a child's. Ma Horn's smile turned sober. "He's no Indian, Shawnee or otherwise, so your pa says. He was took as a child from some-wheres in North Carolina. All he can remember of his past life is his white name - Jack. — Laura Frantz

Say what you want without saying it yourself: quote. Very useful, this, sometimes lovely, and versatile, too: big thoughts in small pieces, neatly wrapped and bundled in bulk, in different flavors for different tastes. — Willis Regier

I think of my father born in this very small, limited situation and then coming out of that. Many people have this story. — Anne Waldman

Charlie watched with Dondee, as the green ball grew very small, slowly disappearing from view. Then it was gone in the blackness of the space sea--almost invisible now. Turning his gaze out, into the far-flung bastions of eternal night, Charlie looked through the Timeless Sea, unmarred by dimming atmosphere. — Atlantis Hallam

China's economy became more complex. By now there is a large number of small- and medium-sized companies that work quite differently from big, state-owned enterprises. They don't follow any long-term business plan and don't rent office space for years to come. They start out and need an office right away, for a week, a month or half a year, and they want to be among other entrepreneurs like themselves. — Zhang Xin

If we just worry about the big picture, we are powerless. So my secret is to start right away doing whatever little work I can do. I try to give joy to one person in the morning, and remove the suffering of one person in the afternoon. If you and your friends do not despise the small work, a million people will remove a lot of suffering. That is the secret. Start right now. — Chan Khong

It seems like he's keeping my foot within his grasp for longer than necessary when I see his eyes wander up my legs again. I tingle in every spot his gaze touches.
His voice sends shivers up my spine when he asks, "Have you ever been fucked, Eve?"
My eyelids flutter and I let out a small surprised gasp at his question, breath gushing from my lips. I'm not exactly a virgin, not too far off though, and I can safely say that I have never been fucked in the way that Phoenix is insinuating. Most of the sex I've had has been the fantasy kind. Our eyes lock and he moves his hand from the heel of my foot up along the back of my leg, massaging my shin.
I actually moan when his fingers press in, releasing the tension from a knotted muscle. His mouth opens as he watches me.
"I don't think that's a very appropriate question to ask of a friend," I finally manage to croak out.
He smiles darkly. "I told you I was bad news. — Raine Anthony

It is therefore not of small moment whether we are trained from adulthood in one set of habits or another; on the contrary it is of very great, or rather supreme importance. — Aristotle.

The rich were getting richer, the poor were getting poorer, small farmers were being squeezed out, workingmen were working twelve hours a day for a bare living; profits were for the rich, the law was for the rich, the cops were for the rich; — John Dos Passos

If you ever try to change my memories again, I will slap you into next spring." I took a breath, knees shaking as I felt small beside him, my white dress brushing against his black trousers. Some women get flowers or poems from their suitors. I get insults and threats. — Dawn Cook

Anything can be an instrument, Chugurh said. Small things. Things you wouldn't even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. It's just a coin. For instance. Nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. to separate the act from the the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, it's just a coin. Yes. That's true. Is it? — Cormac McCarthy

I remember when I was five playing tag with Cara and her brother. I accidentally got pushed into the side of her trampoline, and I bit the inside of my mouth. Blood gushed everywhere. Cara's mom held me until my parents came back. I didn't need stitches, but it was nasty. I roll my tongue over a small bump on the side of my mouth. Yep. It's still there. Real friendships have battle scars. — Jacquelyn Nicole Davis

It is a very small minority point of view and I think, through continuing to set the tone of tolerance, acceptance, and diversity, you just have to further marginalize such people. Hopefully one day nobody will think that way. — Helen Clark

I'm persuaded today that the only way you can get into another country with a different culture from your own is to find a local partner who knows the market. Discovering this felt like small children discovering that if you put a bobby pin into an electric plug you get a shock! — Roberto Civita

I grew up around books - my grandmother's house, where I lived as a small child, was full of books. My father was a history teacher, and he loved the Russian novels. There were always books around. — John Irving

We often see ourselves as small, insignificant citizens, but God sees in us as His messengers — Sunday Adelaja

All of that will be gone by morning. Instead, they will dissect this last evening for years to come. What had they missed that they should have seen? What small gesture, forgotten, might have changed everything? They will pick it down to the bones, wondering how this had all gone so wrong, and they will never be sure. — Celeste Ng

And as he reached for William's leg, the way a small child will reach for its mother's, there welled up through a small hole in the bottom of Mercer's soul a relief surpassing any he'd ever known in waking life. — Garth Risk Hallberg

Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures - the creatures of this chronicle among the rest - along the roads that lay before them. — Charles Dickens

I think what we need is better understanding of how to do risk analysis of a CDO, but that they still can perform a very valuable function because they can aggregate these risks and pass them around so that mortgages or other kinds of loans can be packaged and sold to investors all over the world, who in most times, would justify a small amount of each one. — Robert F. Engle

A typical weeknight when he was home like this:
1. Sit down and try to do homework.
2. Get interrupted by Jeffrey: "Please play with me!"
3. Ignore brother, try to do homework.
4. Get interrupted by Jeffrey: "Come ON, Steven! I'm BORED!"
5. Beg Jeffrey for five minutes of peace.
6. Get begged for five minutes of play: "Steven, you never, ever play with me - ever!"
7. Move entire homework operations center to different room.
8. Repeat steps #1-7 as directed by small drugged maniac. — Jordan Sonnenblick