Quotes & Sayings About Expecting Something For Nothing

And no man gave you a fur coat without expecting to receive something inreturn. Except for one's husband, of course, who expected nothing beyond modest gratitude. — Kate Atkinson

You have to find some way to not become a cynical or negative person, a person who keeps walking around and opening your eyes in the outside world but inside you close down, a person who stops expecting tomorrow to be better than today. — Richard Rohr

Love's a gift, and can certainly be refused. Refusing doesn't destroy the gift, it simply puts it aside. You're free to do that. I'm not expecting a gift in return. Take what's offered, especially when it's offered so generously and without expectations. — Nora Roberts

Moving on was always the end plan.
New York,he remembered, was a fair distance away.It should be far enough. As for tonight, he was going to have a shot of whiskey in his tea to help smooth out the edges. Then by God, he was going to sleep if he had to bash himself over the head to accpmplish it.
And he wasn't going to give Keeley another thought.
The knock on the door had him cursing under his breath.Though she'd been doing well,his first worry was that the mare with bronchitis had taken a bad turn.He was already reaching for the boots he'd shed when he called out.
"Come in,it's open.Is it Lucy then?"
"No,it's Keeley." One brow lifted, she stood framed in the door. "But if you're expecting Lucy,I can go."
The boots dangled from his fingertips, and those fingertips had gone numb. "Lucy's a horse," he managed to say. "She doesn't often come knocking on my door. — Nora Roberts

Sage!" he called. "You have got to see this."
Eddie and I reached the next green and stared in astonishment. Then I burst out laughing.
We had reached Dracula's Castle. ( ... )
I couldn't stop laughing. Adrian and Eddie looked at me as though they'd never seen me before.
"I don't think I've ever heard her laugh," Eddie told him.
"Certainly not the reaction I was expecting," mused Adrian. "I'd been counting on abject terror, judging from past Alchemist behaviour. I didn't think you liked vampires. — Richelle Mead

Like so many plain cups on the shelves. You can reach for them, use them without thinking. Most of them don't matter. Sometimes you lose your grip on one of them and it falls and smashes to piece, and you shrug and say to yourself, what a pity. Then you reach for the cup that you use every day, one that you love and use so often that as you stretch out your hand it is already making the shape that fits its curve. You are certain that yesterday it was in its proper place, but now there is nothing. Just air. You have lost something that was so familiar, so much a part of your life that you were not even looking for it. Just expecting it to be there, as always. — Rosie Thomas

I, Master John Hus, in chains and in prison, now standing on the shore of this present life and expecting on the morrow a dreadful death, which will, I hope, purge away my sins, find no heresy in myself, and accept with all my heart any truth whatsoever that is worthy of belief. — Jan Hus

Decker lifted his eyes skyward, expecting something to happen. He didn't know what, perhaps for the stars overhead to explode into shimmery fireworks, or for the sky to crack open and pour down rain and thunder to mark the moment. But nothing happened. The most important moment of his life arrived not with a bang as he'd always expected, but with the quiet rustle of wind through the trees and a serene breeze brushing his cheeks. — Lynsay Sands

I never trusted any man not to find someone else; to stay with me if he had another option. to not find something in me that would have him heading for the hills. that was the other reason for not thinking long-term- when someone walked out, as they invairiably did, it wasn't too big a shock. a disappointment but nothing, I hadn't been expecting. — Dorothy Koomson

Maybe we can't barter our feelings away, trading good deeds for bad ones and expecting to become whole. — Monica Hesse

It is as if, oddly, you were waiting for someone but you didn't know who they were until they arrived. Whether or not you were aware that there was something missing in your life, you will be when you meet the person you want. What psychoanalysis will add to this love story is that the person you fall in love with really is the man or woman of your dreams; that you have dreamed them up before you met them; not out of nothing - nothing comes of nothing - but out of prior experience, both real and wished for. You recognize them with such certainty because you already, in a certain sense, know them; and because you have quite literally been expecting them, you feel as though you have known them for ever, and yet, at the same time, they are quite foreign to you. They are familiar foreign bodies. — Adam Phillips

I hate having to pose for photos. It's just so embarrassing. Everyone is expecting you to know what to do because you're an actor, but I haven't a clue. — Claire Foy

You get greatness out of people by expecting it. — John Stahl-Wert

Our relationship felt like a Christmas gift that you hadn't asked for and weren't expecting to receive, but the minute you saw it, you knew it was perfect for you. — Erin McCarthy

Well, clearly someone you trust isn't really someone you should be trusting, she said without thinking, and regretted it when Terrible glanced at her. He did it fast, just a quick cut of his eyes in her direction and then away again, but she saw it. She felt it. It was starting already. She wished she could say she was surprised, wished she hadn't been waiting for it, expecting it the way she expected rain from black clouds overhead. Nothing in the world was permanent, especially not happiness. She'd always known that. She just wished life would stop proving her right. — Stacia Kane

Benedict sets up a community, a family. And families, the honest among us will admit, are risky places to be if perfection is what y ou are expecting in life. — Joan D. Chittister

If I looked into your face / expecting a word or a laugh on the old conditions, / it would not be a friend who met my eye — Philip Larkin

People are always expecting to get peace in heaven: but you know whatever peace they get there will be ready-made. Whatever making of peace they can be blest for, must be on the earth here. — John Ruskin

In hindsight, though, I might have overdone it by adding that flour, which means before I depart for Abigail's cottage I need to tidy up this room." "If you're moving out, I'm moving with you," Thaddeus said, slipping up beside Millie and taking hold of her hand. Elizabeth was the next to move. She reached out and put her arm around Millie's middle, leaning in to rest her head against Millie's side. "I'm coming too," she said as she snuggled closer right as Millie smiled and placed a quick kiss on top of Elizabeth's paste-covered head. Everett's heart immediately took to the unusual act of lurching, no doubt due to the sight of Millie's understated affection. Ladies of society always made a big production out of kissing their children when company was present, but Millie . . . Her kiss had been the real thing, a show of regard for a child who'd caused her no small amount of trouble. Expecting — Jen Turano

Nobody is expecting us to do anything. We can't let that perception become our reality, because with the ability on this team, if everybody can pick it up a notch, we'll be fine. It's not going to be Brooks coming in saving the day, or myself. It's got to be everybody as a unit playing consistent. If it happens, it's going to be great. It will be something like I've never experienced. — Vinny Testaverde

Trace," she prompted. "Would you like to tell our friends our exciting news?" Her expression indicated that she'd barely been able to not call him a dumbass for gaping at her like an idiot. "Of course I would." He turned and flashed his panty-dropping grin at the audience. "Our exciting news is that Kylie and I are expecting." The response was almost deafening. A hand smacked him hard in the chest. "We're expecting y'all to come see us on the road. Because tonight we're kicking off our The Other Side of Me tour," she clarified, practically shouting into the mic over the bedlam. He winked when she glared at him. — Caisey Quinn

In the end it's up to you - it's about what you see, it's about what you are looking for. If you're expecting Chaos, then you will see chaos, if you're expecting to make money then you will find ways to make money. But you need to be clear about your thoughts. — Osayi Emokpae Lasisi

In M
, an important town in northern Italy, the widowed Marquise of O
, a lady of unblemished reputation and the mother of several well-brought-up children, inserted the following announcement in the newspapers: that she had, without knowledge of the cause, come to find herself in a certain situation; that she would like the father of the child she was expecting to disclose his identity to her; that she was resolved, out of consideration to her family, to marry him. — Heinrich Von Kleist

I don't do drugs. If I want a rush I just stand up when I'm not expecting it. — Dylan Moran

God has ordered our existence to operate like a farmer planting seed in a field. If you pray and ask God for an oak tree, the Almighty might send you an acorn, because big things can come from small beginnings. God's answer may not look like your request. So when you get an acorn but were expecting a tree, don't throw the acorn away. Your tree is in the seed. God works through the agricultural principle of planting a seed and reaping a harvest. Your something small can become something mighty if you are a good steward of the seed. — T.D. Jakes

Saying goodbye to something or someone after that long of a time, even if it brought you pain and misery, is hard. It's like living with a gangrene foot. You know you need to just whack it off and you'll be healthier for it. But damn if you don't feel some sort of emptiness when your decaying foot is gone. You look at the end of your leg expecting to see it there in all black and rotting but there's just nothing but air now. — Karina Halle

Men grow up expecting to be the hero of their own story. Women grow up expecting to be the supporting actress in somebody else's. As a kid growing up with books and films and stories instead of friends, that was always the narrative injustice that upset me more than anything else. I felt it sometimes like a sharp pain under the ribcage, the kind of chest pain that lasts for minutes and hours and might be nothing at all or might mean you're slowly dying of something mundane and awful. It's a feeling that hit when I understood how few girls got to go on adventures. I started reading science fiction and fantasy long before Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, before mainstream female leads very occasionally got more at the end of the story than together with the protagonist. Sure, there were tomboys and bad girls, but they were freaks and were usually killed off or married off quickly. Lady hobbits didn't bring the ring to Mordor. They stayed at home in the shire. — Laurie Penny

Teachers were not allowed to beat children as they did in the past, although, Mma Ramotswe reflected, there were some boys-and indeed some young men-who might have been greatly improved by moderate physical correction. The apprentices, for example: would it help if Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni resorted to physical chastisement-nothing severe, of course-but just an occasional kick in the seat of the pants while they were bending over to change a tyre or something like that? The thought made her smile. She would even offer to administer the kick herself, which she imagined might be oddly satisfying, as one of the apprentices, the one who still kept on about girls, had a largeish bottom which she thought would be quite comfortable to kick. How enjoyable it would be to creep up behind him and kick him when he was least expecting it, and then to say: Let that be a lesson! That was all one would have to say, but it would be a blow for women everywhere. — Alexander McCall Smith

Religious / Spiritual leaders and motivational speakers tell us to give more of ourselves to get back much more in return but the fact that we start expecting something back in return is in itself a rotten deal for us to push ourselves into.
"Who am I?" is a good question to ask myself when there is nothing else to do with my time. — Suraj Dahal

As you entered the room the thing drew your eyes: you turned sharply as to a sound, expecting movement. But it was marble, it could not move. And when you tore your eyes away and turned your back on it at last, you got again untarnished and high and clean that sense of swiftness, of space encompassed; but on looking again it was as before: motionless and passionately eternal - the virginal breastless torso of a girl, headless, armless, legless, in marble temporarily caught and hushed yet passionate still for escape, passionate and simple and eternal in the equivocal derisive darkness of the world. Nothing to trouble your youth or lack of it: rather something to trouble the very fibrous integrity of your being. — William Faulkner

For a lot of people, becoming an author is a change in occupation ... they are coming from something that totally has nothing to do with this. If they are expecting to come into a room full of people praising them, then they are in the wrong place. — Eric Jerome Dickey

I remember two cases of would-be suicide, which bore a striking similarity to each other. Both men had talked of their intentions to commit suicide. Both used the typical argument - they had nothing more to expect from life. In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them. We found, in fact, that for the one it was his child whom he adored and who was waiting for him in a foreign country. For the other it was a thing, not a person. This man was a scientist and had written a series of books which still needed to be finished. His work could not be done by anyone else, any more than another person could ever take the place of the father in his child's affections. This — Viktor E. Frankl

Generosity is doing something for someone else expecting nothing in return. — Simon Sinek

Before I saw you, I hadn't cared for anyone for ... well, for the good part of a century, and it felt like my heart had been permanently disconnected. I wasn't even looking anymore. And without expecting anything ... without any hope at all, suddenly you were here. — Amy Plum

Expecting something for nothing is the most popular form of hope. — Arnold H. Glasow

Maybe that was the secret of happiness
not expecting any one thing to last forever. — Barbara Samuel

Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes. — Lucius Annaeus Seneca

When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. — Donald Miller

He saw that Jesper was staring at his hands. "What were you expecting?" Kaz growled.
"Claws, at least,"Jesper said, shifting his gaze to his own bony feet. "Possibly a spiny thumb. — Leigh Bardugo

All one's life as a young woman one is on show, a focus of attention, people notice you. You set yourself up to being noticed and admired. And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous. — Doris Lessing

She realized he wasn't listening to music and gave him a curious look of amusement as she picked up the cover to an audio book. 'What To Expect When You're Expecting.'
God forgive me, I love this man.
"Thought I should be informed, you know?" Alessandro explained sheepishly.
Bree tried to tear her gaze away from his gleaming chest.
"Plus all the lactating and dilating and placenta talk does wonders to crush any man's libido. — E. Jamie

Those of us of a certain age grew up expecting that by now we would have Rosie the Robot from 'The Jetsons' in our house. And all we've got is a Roomba. — Juan Enriquez

I'm pleased to say my knee feels a lot better. It's still not back to normal, and I don't know if it ever will be, but I'm learning to deal with it instead of expecting it to be like it was before. — Shawn Johnson

I thought the other ones were so obviously - what are we going to do if she burns down the house? The DEA, which I think was maybe the best one because she's wearing the jacket when she goes through the mirror and I think that was kind of amazing because you really weren't expecting that. There's something almost slapstick about this in a way that worried me. It was a little pratfalley with the golf club and the - but I think it probably cut together okay. — Mary-Louise Parker

I don't think any of us grew up into the world we were hoping for or expecting. — Alan Moore

What he'd never understood about men in his position, in all the books he'd read and movies he'd seen about them, was clearer to him now: you couldn't keep expecting wholehearted love without, at some point, requiting it. There was no credit to be earned for simply being good. — Jonathan Franzen

Who knows what will happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning. — Mary Oliver

Can you honestly say the environment(s) you are in will yield the kind of harvest you are expecting? — Eric Thomas

He began to read at haphazard. He entered upon each system with a little thrill of excitement, expecting to find in each some guide by which he could rule his conduct; he felt himself like a traveller in unknown countries and as he pushed forward the enterprise fascinated him; he read emotionally, as other men read pure literature, and his heart leaped as he discovered in noble words what himself had obscurely felt. — W. Somerset Maugham

Genius is, to be sure, not a matter of arbitrariness, but rather of freedom, just as wit, love, and faith, which once shall become arts and disciplines. We should demand genius from everybody, without, however, expecting it. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

So many people are expecting a miracle instead of BEING a miracle. — Wayne Dyer

She had always suffered from a curious fear of what was going to happen round the next corner. Even when life went smoothly and nothing occurred to justify her vague apprehensions, they did not altogether disperse. She had tried to face these fears and conquer them, but she could never do so entirely, she could only strain forward into the darkness of the future, expecting and fearing the unknown. She was brave in the face of dangers she could see, but she could not arm herself against shadows. These fears were her weakness. — D.E. Stevenson

There's a reason for the word heartbeat not be called beat of heart. The perfect woman only needs a good beat. The heart will follow. Emotions, when put in equilibrium with reason, create more miracles than any emotion, no matter how strong, deprived from reason. This is why it's much easier to love a woman that can play the drums or any other instrument with rhythm, than one that believes in unreasonable magic, simply because there's more magic in reason than in the lack of it. You see, loving someone that you truly want to love, someone you admire, someone you want to spend your time with, helping, sharing and growing together, makes much more sense than expecting someone to love you for no reason than your will, needs and desires. And when humans understand this, they will understand love, find it easily and never lose it again. — Robin Sacredfire

Colt, you're a cop. I'm fairly certain you realize what you are proposing is illegal. As in bigamy."
He laughed. "You don't legally marry us both. Just one of us. Then the three of us make our own private vows."
"Fine," she leaned back and gave him a smug look as if expecting her next question to jar some sense into them. "Who am I going to legally marry?"
He grinned at her transparency. Obviously, she thought this was going to be a sticking point. "We'll arm wrestle to decide that. — Mari Carr

Management creates an empowered state of mind in the organization by treating employees as part-owners of the business and expecting them to act like owners. — Leonard L. Berry

We are still on our journey, still suffering and still laughing together. But I feel like the tide has turned, and I think we will have our happy ending yet. Even if it doesn't look like what we were expecting. — Meg Keene

I wasn't sure what would happen with us. I knew that there were no guarantees. Terrible things happened when you were least expecting them, on sunny Saturday mornings, and the consequences just had to be lived with, every day. But it seemed that wonderful things could happen too. You could be forced to take a trip, not knowing who you would meet. Not knowing that it would change your life. — Morgan Matson

Love is impatient; love is cruel. It gets your hopes up then tears them down expecting you to be ok; able to cope without that second part of you that belongs to one unique person. — Alexandria Rhodes