Doing Well Without You Quotes & Sayings

I took a few dragging steps toward the locker-room door. 'You're doing something to me that I wouldn't do to a dog,' I mumbled. 'What you're doing to me is worse than if you were to kill me. You're locking me up in shadows for the rest of my life. You're taking my mind away from me. You're condemning me slowly but surely to madness, to being without a mind. It won't happen right away, but sooner or later, in six months or in a year - Well, I guess that's that.'
I fumbled my way out of the locker room and down the passageway outside, guiding myself with one arm along the wall, and past the sergeant's desk and down the steps, and then I was out in the street.
("All At Once, No Alice") — Cornell Woolrich

My lady, would you care to inspect the menu for dinner? Cook is doing her best to accommodate on such short notice. I believe she plans to serve chicken this evening."
"Oh, actually, chicken will do very well for his lordship, but I shall require a dish without meat."
"Without meat?" the woman repeated, looking even more pinched. "Such as, may I inquire?"
"Vegetables, bread, noodles, soup made without meat stock, cheese, milk, fruit. Anything, really, so long as it is not made from killed meat. — Tracy Anne Warren

I'm myself - knowing I'm doing a documentary and speaking with the people, telling them I have a bed, that I can eat every day, but I would like to speak to you. And they really gave me wonderful answers. We got along very well without trying to make me look like I'm what I'm not. — Agnes Varda

We believe there should be a huge area between everything you should do and everything you can do without getting into legal trouble. I don't think you should come anywhere near that line. We don't deserve much credit for this. It helps us make more money. I'd like to believe that we'd behave well even if it didn't work. But more often, we've made extra money from doing the right thing. Ben Franklin said I'm not moral because of it's the right thing to do - but because it's the best policy. — Charlie Munger

The vast majority of you are going to close this tab without, even for a single moment, entertaining the thought of writing something.

Step outside your comfort zone and try something new. Learning the fine rationalist art of CoZE (comfort zone expansion) is a really important life skill, and putting your writing online is a low-risk way to do that. Don't try to cop out with "I don't have any stories." Baloney. Everyone has stories; write up a memory that's important to you. And don't even try to tell me, "Oh, but I don't know how to write!" Neither did I when I started; I learned by doing. So please, set the excuses aside, put something up on the web, and share it with the rest of us. When you do, drop me a PM; I'll leave you your first review, but you have to publish something first.

Well? What are you waiting for? Seriously. Go write one sentence of a new story, write now. — David K. Storrs

Live the lifestyle instead of paying lip service to the lifesytle. Live with commitment. With emotional content. Live whatever life you choose honestly. Give up this renaissance man, dilettante bullshit of doing a lot of different things (and none of them very well by real standards). Get to the guts of one thing; accept, without casuistry, the responsability of making a choice. — Mark Twight

Dancing makes people feel good whether they're doing it or watching it. It's something I think everybody can relate to whether it's just a simple two-step or a B-boy watching another B-boy go crazy in a circle. It makes you smile and without you even knowing it and it makes you rock to the beat as well. — Stephen Boss

Without a word or glance, Sin walked past her and climbed up to the stables loft. 'What's he doing?' she asked Braden as she rejoined him. 'I'm leaving the two of you alone,' Sin's muffled voice answered from above. Braden tilted his head up to stare at the wooden beams above their heads. 'Like it would matter, since we know you can hear everything we say?' 'Aye, well, I'm a pervert, not a voyeur.'
-Maggie, Sin, & Braden — Kinley MacGregor

God is the Self of the world, but you can't see God for the same reason that, without a mirror, you can't see your own eyes, and you certainly can't bite your own teeth or look inside your head. Your self is that cleverly hidden because it is God hiding. You may ask why God sometimes hides in the form of horrible people, or pretends to be people who suffer great disease and pain. Remember, first, that he isn't really doing this to anyone but himself. Remember, too, that in almost all the stories you enjoy there have to be bad people as well as good people, for the thrill of the tale is to find out how the good people will get the better of the bad. — Alan W. Watts

There isn't an hour of my life without you in it. I mend the boats, test them and all the while the memories come in like the tide.
I was thinking today of when we were young, and you left our world for a bigger world. I was a lot more scarred then I would admit. I fought my fear by telling myself you'd come back someday, and trying to think of the first thing I'd say to you when I saw you again. I must have tried out a hundred possibilities. What did I finally say? Not much, my mouth wouldn't work except to kiss you, and when you said I'm here to stay that said it all. Well, I'm doing it again. I keep imagining what I'd say to you if somehow you came back. — Nicholas Sparks

Are you going to say anything?"
Brisbane crossed one leg lazily over the other flicking an imaginary piece of lint from his trousers. "I think he is doing quite well without me."
"I did not mean for you to help him I meant for you to defend me," I said huffing slightly in my indignation. — Deanna Raybourn

You democratize heroism. Everybody is a hero, and simply for doing (and often not well at that) the ordinary tasks of living as a half-decent person. Does your mother fix you breakfast? She is a hero. Does your father visit you every weekend without fail? A hero. Does your teacher mark your papers faithfully when you make a mistake? Unexampled heroism, that. If everyone is a hero, then no one is a hero; and genuine heroes will go unnoticed in all the mindless self-congratulation. — Anthony Esolen

The worst possible thing you can do when you're down in the dumps, tweaking, vaporous with victimized self-righteousness, or bored, is to take a walk with dying friends. They will ruin everything for you. First of all, friends like this may not even think of themselves as dying, although they clearly are, according to recent scans and gentle doctors' reports. But no, they see themselves as fully alive. They are living and doing as much as they can, as well as they can, for as long as they can. They ruin your multitasking high, the bath of agitation, rumination, and judgment you wallow in, without the decency to come out and just say anything. They bust you by being grateful for the day, while you are obsessed with how thin your lashes have become and how wide your bottom. — Anne Lamott

We can't lose you," she said after a few moments of awkward as hell silence. "You have to understand that we aren't doing this because we don't care about Kat. We're doing this because we love you."
"But I love her," I said without hesitation.
Dee's eyes widened, probably since it was the first time she'd herd me say it out loud, well, about anyone other than my family. I wished I had said it more often, especially to Kat. Funny how that kind of shit always turns out in the end. While you're deep in something, you never say or do what you need to. It's always after the fact, when it's too late that you realize what you've should've said or done/
It couldn't be too late. I knew that. The fact that I was still alive was testament to that. Like Dee said, though, there were worse things than death. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

What you think you know don't mean nothin.

There is a difference between thinking and knowing. You might think you know something; you might even think you know it pretty well. But there are some things that you can't ever know without having lived them.

Without doing, thinking does not become knowing. — Travis Burns

You have come alone into the world. You have been here yesterday too, without this person, and you were doing perfectly well, without any knots in the stomach. Tomorrow, if this person goes... what is the need of the knots? You already know how to be without the person, and you will be able to be alone again. — Osho

The golden thread of a highly successful and meaningful life is self-discipline. Discipline allows you to do all those things you know in your heart you should do but never feel like doing. Without self-discipline, you will not set clear goals, manage your time effectively, treat people well, persist through the tough times, care for your health or think positive thoughts. — Robin S. Sharma

I did a bad thing tonight, one of the most terrible things ever: I waited for her to fall asleep, then stole the sheet from under her head. I am missing you or maybe just the idea of you. I have begun seriously thinking about other men. I am afraid I am not strong enough or tough enough for this. I am afraid all the time. I have not slept well in months. When are you coming back, you jerk? We are all trying to be brave without you and doing a real crummy job of it. I do not want to have to be brave anymore without you. — Joe Meno

Thank you," he said. Luce felt her lips quiver and her eyes burn.
Before she knew what she was doing, she fell into Cam's
arms, felt his hands wrap around her back.
When his chin rested on the top of her head, she began to weep. He let her cry. Held her close. He whispered,
"You're so brave." Then Cam's arms shifted and his chest pulled lightly away. For a second, she felt cold and exposed, but then another chest, another pair of arms replaced Cam's. And she knew without opening her eyes
that it was Daniel. No other body in the universe fit hers so well.
"Mind if I cut in?" he asked softly.
"Daniel - " She clenched her fists and squeezed her arms around him, wanting to squeeze away the pain.
"Shhh." He held her like that for what might have been hours, rocking her slightly, cradling her in his wings until her tears had tapered off and the
weight in her heart had eased enough that she could breathe without sniffling. — Lauren Kate

The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I saw her tonight. I didn't mean to and I wasn't prepared for it.

I came across her sweet smiling face and I had no choice but to be confronted with all the emotions and memories I associated with her.

It brought me back to this past summer when she passed from this world into the next and how I watched the minutes in the day pass and felt the sorrow of the approaching sunset knowing that darkness would soon follow.

There is something profound about the first night after someone you love dies.

Seeing her again and mourning the loss of her anew reminded me that we keep too much to ourselves and we let people go without them ever knowing how much they touched us, intrigued us, taught us, or moved us.

I'm a firm believer in actions doing the telling, but people need to hear it as well. — Donna Lynn Hope

You have to have a certain realism that government is a pretty blunt instrument, and without the constant attention of highly qualified people with the right metrics, it will fall into not doing things very well. — Bill Gates

Well - I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between 'good' and 'bad' as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can't exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you - wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking 'what if,' 'what if.' 'Life is cruel.' 'I wish I had died instead of.' Well - think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No no - hang on - this is a question worth struggling with. What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can't get there any other way? — Donna Tartt

If you weren't there, how do you know someone pushed her?" Sergeant Kenn asked.
"Well ... ," said Jared.
"And what were you doing, running through a strange town at night?"
"I was jogging?" Jared offered.
"Without your shirt or your shoes?"
"Uh," said Jared. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Without realizing what she was doing and more on an impulse than anything else, she leaned forward and kissed him. It was a simple, yet firm kiss and she pulled back after only a moment. But it sent a thrill through her.
He leaned down for another. But she put her finger on his lips to stop him.
"That was my reward to you," she said as they danced. "Don't squander it."
"Reward? he asked still seeming both surprised and delighted at this unexpected attention. "What for?"
"Why for living, Vaelros. And for doing so much else to help me. I will have you rewarded in state as well. But that was just from me."
She saw Vaelros flush and she gave him a brilliant smile. "You don't like my reward?" she asked.
"I do!" he replied. "I want only to learn how to earn more."
The music was fading. The song was ending. Luthiel stepped back and let her hands drop.
"A mysterious thing, my heart," she said. — Robert Fanney

This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained - well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Well, maybe you should tell me before you get angry at me for doing something I didn't know you didn't want me to do. And maybe when you get angry you'll find a way to let me know you are without being a total jerk. — Kristen Ashley

I don't want anyone else but sometimes, surprisingly, there's someone, not the prettiest or the most available, but you know that in another life it would be her. Or him, don't you find? A small quickening. The room responds slightly to being entered. Like a raised blind. Nothing intended, and a long way from doing anything, but you catch the glint of being someone else's possibility, and it's a sort of politeness to show you haven't missed it, so you push it a little, well within safety, but there's that sense of a promise almost being made in the touching and kissing without which no one can seem to say good morning in this poney business and one more push would do it.

-The Real Thing (London 1982), p.73

Today, I bought a copy of the play at the co-op, I thought I should send it to you- out of a sort of politeness. — Susan Rieger

Supposing I said there was a planet without schools or teachers, where study was unknown, and yet the inhabitants
doing nothing but live and walk about
came to know all things, to carry in their minds the whole of learning; would you not think I was romancing? Well, just this, which seems so fanciful as to be nothing but the invention of a fertile imagination, is a reality. It is the child's way of learning. — Maria Montessori

Nobody is made anything by hearing of rules, or laying them up in his memory; practice must settle the habit of doing, without reflecting on the rule; and you may as well hope to make a good painter, or musician, extempore, by a lecture and instruction in the arts of music and painting, as a coherent thinker, or a strict reasoner, by a set of rules, showing him wherein right reasoning consists. — John Locke

Reader, what are you doing? Aren't you going to resist? Aren't you going to escape? Ah, you are participating ... Ah, you fling yourself into it, too ... You're the absolute protagonist of this book, very well; but do you believe that gives you the right to have carnal relations with all the female characters? Like this, without any preparation..? — Italo Calvino

All too often we say of a man doing a good job that he is indispensable. A flattering canard, as so many disillusioned and retired and fired have discovered when the world seems to keep on turning without them. In business, a man can come nearest to indispensability by being dispensable in his current job. How can a man move up to new responsibilities if he is the only one able to handle his present tasks? It matters not how small or large the job you now have, if you have trained no one to do it as well, you're not available; you've made your promotion difficult if not impossible. — Malcolm Forbes

It seems to me like this. It's not a terrible thing - I mean, it may be terrible, but it's not damaging, it's not poisoning, to do something one wants. It's not bad to say: My work is not what I really want, I'm capable of doing something bigger. Or I'm a person who needs love, and I'm doing without it. What's terrible is to pretend that the second rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better, It would be very bad i I said, out of guilt or something: I loved Janet's father, when i know quite well I didn't. Or for your mother to say: I loved Richard. Or I'm doing work I love ... — Doris Lessing

Every time you observe that more of a good thing is not always better; or you remember that improbable things happen a lot, given enough chances, and resist the lure of the Baltimore stockbroker; or you make a decision based not just on the most likely future, but on the cloud of all possible futures, with attention to which ones are likely and which ones are not; or you let go of the idea that the beliefs of groups should be subject to the same rules as beliefs of individuals; or, simply, you find that cognitive sweet spot where you can let your intuition run wild on the network of tracks formal reasoning makes for it; without writing down an equation or drawing a graph, you are doing mathematics, the extension of common sense by other means. When are you going to use it? You've been using mathematics since you were born and you'll probably never stop. Use it well. — Jordan Ellenberg

Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for one the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflexion, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come
— Samuel Beckett

He actually knows what has to be done and how to do it, and he's going right ahead and doing it, without holding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions and giving everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him. You know as well as I do that that's undemocratic. — H. Beam Piper

But walking down the stairs feeling each stair carefully and holding to the banister he thought, I must get her away and get her away as soon as I can without hurting her. Because I am not doing too well at this. That I can promise you. But what else can you do? Nothing, he thought. There's nothing you can do. But maybe, as you go along, you will get good at it. — Ernest Hemingway,

So what did Jes say?' I asked again, when my brain felt a bit less scrambled.
'He said I should take good care of you.'
'That's all?'
Mal cleared his throat. 'And ... he said he would pray to the God of Work to heal your affliction.'
'My what?'
'I many have told him that you have a goiter.'
I stumbled. 'I beg your pardon?'
'Well, I had to explain why you were always clinging to that scarf.'
I dropped my hand. I'd been doing it again without even realizing.
'So you told him I had a goiter?' I whispered incredulously.
'I had to say something. And it makes you quite a tragic figure. Pretty girl, giant growth, you know.'
I punched him hard in the arm.
'Ow! Hey, in some countries, goiters are considered very fashionable.'
'Do they like eunuchs, too? Because I can arrange that.'
'So bloodthirsty!'
'My goiter makes me cranky. — Leigh Bardugo

Ardour in well-doing is a misleading and a treacherous thing. It cries out loudly for employment; you can't satisfy it at first; it wants more and more; it is eager to move mountains and divert the course of rivers. It isn't content till it perspires. And then, too often, when it feels the perspiration on its brow, it wearies all of a sudden and dies, without even putting itself to the trouble of saying, I've had enough of this. — Arnold Bennett

Hunter's dead," Taylor said without preamble. "It was these . . . these things. They came crawling up out of him and were eating him, oh God, I mean, it was like . . . I mean he was crying and Dekka prayed with him and he tried to fry his own brain just like he did with Harry only I guess it didn't work, I guess he couldn't do it, so Sam . . ." She swallowed. "Anyone have some water?"
"What about Sam?" Astrid demanded.
"He did it for him. Sam. I mean, he . . . Hunter was, you know . . . so Sam." She pantomimed raising her hands, like Sam, like he would do when using his power.
Astrid closed her eyes and crossed herself.
"Rest in peace," Edilio said and crossed himself as well.
"Sam burned the boy?" Howard asked. Then, bitterly sarcastic said, "Yeah, you all pray to Jesus. Because Jesus is really providing a lot of help here. Sounds to me like Sam was the one doing what had to be done. — Michael Grant

And remember the old dogs
who fought so well:
Hemingway, Celine, Dostoevsky, Hamsun.
If you think they didn't go crazy
in tiny rooms
just like you're doing now
without women
without food
without hope
then you're not ready.
drink more beer.
there's time.
and if there's not
that's all right
too. — Charles Bukowski