Facing Things Quotes & Sayings

It's only by facing things that you ever put them behind you.
-Mrs. McConnell to Susan — Lois Duncan

The whole universe is contained within a single human being - you. Everything that you see around, including the things you might not be fond of and even the people you despise or abhor, is present within you in varying degrees. Therefore, do not look for Sheitan outside yourself either. The devil is not an extraordinary force that attacks from without. It is an ordinary voice within. If you get to know yourself fully, facing with honesty and hardness both your dark and bright sides, you will arrive at a
supreme form of consciousness. When a person knows himself or herself, he or she knows God. — Elif Shafak

In this era of non-judgmental mush, too many Americans have become incapable of facing the brutal reality of unprovoked hatred, based on envy, resentment and ultimately on a vicious urge to lash out against others for the pain of ones own insignificance. That has been a common thread in things as disparate as ghetto riots, two world wars, and now Islamic terrorism. — Thomas Sowell

There were worse things than death, as she'd discovered. Sometimes living took far more courage. Facing another day. Enduring. Those things took strength. Far more than dying. — Maya Banks

All thinking things fear. Sentience, perhaps, is facing that fear and conquering it rather than succumbing. A tiger will drown in a tar pit, but a man who can clear his thoughts may survive. — C.E. Murphy

Making a record is a lot like surgery without an anesthetic. You first have to cut yourself up the middle. Then you have to rip out every single organ, every single part and lay them on a table. You then need to examine the parts, and the reality of the situation hits you. You find yourself saying things like "I didn't know that part was so ugly." Or "I better get a professional opinion about that." You go to bed hollow and then back into the operating room the next day ... facing every fear, every disgusting thing you hate about yourself. Then you pop it all back in, sew yourself shut and perform ... you perform like your life depended on it
and in those perfect moments you find beauty you never knew existed. You find yourself and you friends all over again, you find something to fight for, something to love. Something to show the world. — Gerard Way

Regardless of what challenge you are facing right now, know that it has not come to stay. It has come to pass. During these times, do what you can with what you have, and ask for help if needed. Most importantly, never surrender. Put things in perspective. Take care of yourself. Find ways to replenish your energy, strengthen your faith and fortify yourself from the inside out. — Les Brown

SO NOW IT'S 1979. Year of the Goat. The Earth Goat. Here are some things you might remember. Margaret Thatcher had just been elected prime minister. Idi Amin had fled Uganda. Jimmy Carter would soon be facing the Iran hostage crisis. In the meantime, he was the first and last president ever to be attacked by a swamp rabbit. That man could not catch a break. — Karen Joy Fowler

There's this long tradition of ... even 'Where The Wild Things Are,' which many people consider the best kids' picture book of all time. It was considered revolutionary, and some libraries wouldn't carry it. But it's a classic because it taps into empowerment for kids, kids facing dangers and winning. — Henry Selick

For one thing, one of the wonderful things that we now have is instead of the huge budget surpluses that President Clinton left us with, we now have these huge deficits that we're going to be facing into the future. — Geraldine Ferraro

Antarctica, one of the things that was so remarkable about it was that the ice itself is a kind of pure geometry, so say, for example, if I was facing someone wearing I don't know, a Joy Division t-shirt with the mountains on it or something like that. — DJ Spooky

As I looked out at the water, I realized there was nowhere to go, nowhere left to run. And I just had to stay here, facing this terrible truth. I felt, as more tears fell, just how tired I was, a tiredness that had nothing to do with the hour. I was tired of running away from this, tired of not telling people, tired of not talking about it, tired of pretending things were okay when they had never, ever been less than okay. — Morgan Matson

If you think about the actual problems we are facing - all the crises - we have the means to solve these crises. The past has shown us we are able to do things we never imagined we would be able to do. — Neil Turok

What is real? Is there more to reality than meets the eye? Yes! was Plato's answer over two millennia ago. In his famous cave analogy, he likened us to people who'd lived their entire lives shackled in a cave, facing a blank wall, watching the shadows cast by things passing behind them, and eventually coming to mistakenly believe that these shadows were the full reality. Plato argued that what we humans call our everyday reality is similarly just a limited and distorted representation of the true reality, and that we must free ourselves from our mental shackles to begin comprehending it. — Max Tegmark

We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them. — Julian Barnes

Patch wore black jeans and a matching T- shirt that hugged his form. He rested his hands on my shoulders, facing me. "Ready?"
Despite the grim mood, I smiled and cracked my knuckles. "Ready to wrestle my gorgeous boyfriend? Oh, I'd say I'm ready for that."
Amusement softened his eyes.
"I'll try to control where I put my hands, but in the heat of things, who knows what could happen?" I added.
Patch grinned. "Sounds promising. — Becca Fitzpatrick

Intentional living will eradicate the need of excuse as well as the constant submission to distraction. Allow yourself to "become wealthy in self-significance!" Allow yourself to become enriched in Spirit. Remember, there is no trouble. Trouble is "created" and established when we "see ourselves inferior" to what we are facing. When we lack power, we lack movement! When we lack hope, we lack momentum! Trouble will disappear "as soon as our Mindset becomes enriched!" When we can afford to see things clearly, without depression or self-doubt, we have awakened our new heart! — Undrai Fizer

I thought I was growing wings
it was a cocoon.
I thought, now is the time to step
into the fire
it was deep water.
Eschatology is a word I learned
as a child: the study of Last Things;
facing my mirror - no longer young,
the news - always of death,
the dogs - rising from sleep and clamoring
and howling, howling ...
("Seeing For a Moment") — Denise Levertov

As Christians, we can have peace even in the face of all the tragedy happening around us. Jesus made a promise to His disciples and to us as well. He was going back to the Father, but He was giving us a priceless gift. He gave us His peace. The world can never give us the peace that Jesus gives. It's a peace that we, the recipients, can't even understand. It's too wonderful for our minds to grasp, but we know it comes from Him. Whatever is happening in your world, Christ can give you peace. None of the problems you're facing are too big for Him, whether it's trouble in the city where you live or pain in your own home. He is saying to you, "don't let your heart be troubled about these things, and don't be afraid. — Various

I think that of all the principles for journalism, the most important is to complicate simple things and simplify complicated things. At first sight, you may think something is simple, but it may conceal a great deal. However, facing a very complex thing, you should find out its essence. -Jin Yongquan — Judy Polumbaum

Restoring order of my personal universe suddenly seemed imperative, as I refolded my T-shirts, stuffed the toes of my shoes with tissue paper, and arranged all the bills in my secret stash box facing the same way, instead of tossed in sloppy and wild, as if by my evil twin. All week, I kept making lists and crossing things off them, ending each day with a sense of great accomplishment eclipsed only by complete and total exhaustion. — Sarah Dessen

J. Robertson McQuilkin ... was once approached by an elderly lady facing the trials of old age. Her body was in decline, her beauty being replaced by thinning hair, wrinkles and skin discoloration. She could no longer do the things she once could, and she felt herself to be a burden on others. "Robertson, why does God let us get old and weak? Why must I hurt so?" she asked.
After a few moments' thought McQuilkin replied, "I think God has planned the strength and beauty of youth to be physical. But the strength and beauty of age is spiritual. We gradually lose the strength and beauty that is temporary so we'll be sure to concentrate on the strength and beauty which is forever. It makes us more eager to leave behind the temporary, deteriorating part of us and be truly homesick for our eternal home. If we stayed young and strong and beautiful, we might never want to leave! — Philip Yancey

Persistence is victory. Just . . . keep . . . going. It doesn't matter if things aren't going the way you thought they would or if you're facing a disappointment. The only defeat is in quitting. If you keep going, you're winning. — Mara Schiavocampo

Nobody had to say it; everyone could see it with their eyes and know it in their hearts. In a way all those afternoons down on the sandbar at Thompson Creek, late evenings of margaritas at Que Pasa, nights of pool parties and barn dances and Ronnie Morgan's campfires followed by pancakes and kitchen camaraderie, and church on Sunday morning--these things were like a levee the people of Starhill had spent a lifetime building together. Now, facing a catastrophe that felt like it had the power to wash them away, the levee was holding. — Rod Dreher

Anne's awfully sensitive,' said Rhoda. 'And she's bad about - well, facing things. If anything's upset her, she'd just rather not talk about it, — Agatha Christie

Ty laughed, a carefree, boyish sound, and glanced to his side, distracted by what he saw. "You moved the rug."
"I kitty-cornered it."
"Why would you do that?" Ty asked, aghast.
"To see you lose your shit when you got home." Zane leaned closer, grinning evilly. "There are other things out of order too. Books not alphabetized. Coffee mug handles facing different directions." He lowered his voice to a whisper as Ty's eyes widened in horror. "The closet isn't color coded."
"You're just watching the world burn, huh?"
Zane laughed.
"God I missed you." Ty said in a rush of breath. — Abigail Roux

Life is a spiral.
As long as we lived, we would keep moving forward. But on a spiral path, getting closer to your destination meant periodically passing the same things - emotions, issues, character flaws - over and over again, the way a person walking up a spiral staircase would continually find himself facing north every ten steps or so. — Sierra Simone

Various kinds of self-forgetting, usually accompanied by illusions and myths, make it possible to live without the intransigent facing of death-in the sense of always thinking about it and what it means for life and the things dear in life-which is characteristic of a serious life. — Allan Bloom

If she'd ever had any doubts that she loved him, really loved him, she knew now. It was easy to love somebody when love was happy, but when it was hard, when it meant facing things you feared ... that was different. He'd done it for her, many times. And now she had to do it for him. — Rachel Caine

God, the three of you.
When I wake up on Saturday mornings
late you always let me sleep in
I come looking for you, and you're in the backyard with dirt on your knees and two little girls spinning around you in perfect orbit. And you put their hair in pigtails, and you let them wear whatever madness they want, and Alice planted a fruit cocktail tree, and Noomi ate a butterfly, and they look like me because they're round and golden, but the glow for you.
And you built us a picnic table.
And you learned to bake bread.
And you've painted a mural on ever west-facing wall.
And it isn't all bad, I promise. I swear to you.
You might not be actively, thoughtfully happy 70 to 80 percent of the time, but maybe you wouldn't be anyway. And even when you're sad, Neal
even when you're falling asleep at the other side of the bed
I think you're happy, too. About some things. About a few things. — Rainbow Rowell

Other big questions tackled by ancient cultures are at least as radical. What is real? Is there more to reality than meets the eye? Yes! was Plato's answer over two millennia ago. In his famous cave analogy, he likened us to people who'd lived their entire lives shacked ina a cave, facing a blank wall, watching the shadows cast by things passing behind them, and eventually coming to mistakenly believe that these shadows were the full reality. Plato argued that what we humans call our everyday reality is similarly just a limited and distorted representation of the true reality, and that we must free ourselves from our mental shackles to comprehending it. — Max Tegmark

Standing in the heat and noise, facing the rows of bent heads, Ethan Figman willed himself to leave that long sleep in which you dream that the inhuman things that people do to one another on a distant continent have nothing to do with the likes of you. — Meg Wolitzer

if your children see you mess up every now and then, they learn that you are only human and thus they will be more likely to practice compassion and patience for others. On top of that, when they see you pick yourself back up afterwards, they then learn how to be confident and determined in spite of the hardships facing them. Being real with our kids is one of the best things we can do; and although it will showcase our imperfections as a person and as a parent from time to time, it helps our kids to understand the facts of the real world. When all is said and done, this is what will turn our kids into well-rounded people. — Sean P.I. Stewart

Jane Fonda, who divided her life into three acts, decided after her sixtieth birthday that she was now facing the final act, and came to the following conclusion: "I thought to myself, well if that's the case and if what I'm scared of isn't death, but getting to the end with regrets, then I've got to figure out what would be the things that I would regret when I got to the last act if I hadn't done them or achieved them by then. And they were: having an intimate relationship and having made a difference." — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

How then do we recover from depression and despair? It is only by crying out to God and accepting His helping hands that are we able to overcome our greatest sorrows. When we finally choose to lay down our wills and surrender our complaints, trusting in His goodness, we permit Him to mold and work into us the very image of His son, Jesus Christ. Through our yielding to His sovereignty and by declaring His right to have His way in all things, without the slightest need for an explanation, we enter into an even deeper and more intimate walk. — Cheryl Zelenka

My husband once said he'd never met anybody who walked so fast and ran so slowly. As I said, it's a little hard for me to try new things, and this was me facing a fear that I'd had my whole life. Since I had no experience running, I felt like a failure before I'd even begun. — Jamie Lee Curtis

You realize that life is short and fragile; and when you are facing walls of water, you understand your own mortality can change and how quickly things could change. — Larry Ellison

Synthetic biology can help address key challenges facing the planet and its population. Research in synthetic biology may lead to new things such as programmed cells that self-assemble at the sites of disease to repair damage. — Craig Venter

God, thank you for waking me up this morning. I want to embrace every day, however limited my day may be, as a gift from God. I want to live this day to its fullest. I know there are things I can no longer do. I know I am facing daily limitations. But I want to focus on what I can do, not on what I cannot do. So help me God. I know this day will never be repeated. I know I cannot live it over again. Help me to live it to its fullest. — Ed Dobson

Some people have a difficult time facing truth and reality. They prefer to live in a make-believe world, pretending that certain things aren't happening. — Joyce Meyer

Difficulties, opposition, criticism-these things are meant to be overcome, and there is a special joy in facing them and in coming out on top. It is only when there is nothing but praise that life loses its charm and I begin to wonder what I should do about it. — Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

The American revolution, the terms are these: not that I drive you out or that you drive me out, but that we come together and embrace and learn to live together. That is the only way that we can have achieved the American revolution.
Now, if we can face this, it involves facing a great many things. It demands that white people face the fact that I, for example, or any black person they will ever meet or have ever met - I am not an exotic rarity. I am not a stranger. I am none of those things. On the contrary, for all you know, for all you know, I might be your uncle, your brother, your cousin, among other things. One of the things that has happened here - and the pathology of the Deep South proves it; so does the pathology of the North, which dictates to them that they move out and I move in - among other things which have to be excavated here is the fact that this long history is also the history of a love affair. — James Baldwin

Depending on each other and facing the difficulties that go with it takes a lot more effort than living on your own, separated from the rest of the world. Loving each other, hurting each other, over and over, until our death. All those things that seem so normal are actually incredibly difficult. To accomplish a normal life might be an achievement as great as writing a book that goes down in history! — Naoyuki Ochiai

The only way to survive is to intently focus on how the art world operates. Once you understand how things work, you can find a solution to the problems you are facing. — Mark Edward

Instead of insisting that human beings attain perfection, Lutheran spirituality begins by facing up to imperfection. We cannot perfect our conduct, try as we might. We cannot understand God through our own intellects. We cannot become one with God. Instead of human beings having to do these things, Lutheran spirituality teaches that God does them for us - He becomes one with us in Jesus Christ; He reveals Himself to our feeble understandings by His Word; He forgives our conduct and, in Christ, lives the perfect life for us. — Gene Edward Veith Jr.

Facing the press is not easy, but because you have to go, you have to try to take a lot of positive things for yourself from these face-to-face meetings. — Jose Mourinho

For me, and I suspect for lots of other people too, bad things actually sometimes make you think more about faith and the fact that you're not facing these things on your own. — David Cameron

I think that when you're kind of just shoved out there and you have to be tough and you're facing tough people and people are saying bad things about you, that all of a sudden, you have to become a little less sweet. — Farrah Fawcett

I'm used to really struggling and facing a hard time to get things going, until I'm comfortable at all with them. — Seth Rogen

We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do."
And facing death changes that?
"Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. — Mitch Albom

Then again, when you were facing the right person? None of the things they talked about on television, no Vera Wang dress, no champagne waterfall, no DJ or place setting or party favor mattered. "'I, — J.R. Ward

Funding for sports (and the arts) are often the first things facing the chop in difficult times. — Lucy Powell

What is easy to miss in saying all this is that embracing complexity can actually makes things easier, simpler, and more straightforward! How much time gets spent by organizations making cases, forming detailed plans, completing analyses, and demonstrating outcomes? How much of this really gets to the heart of the situation and really determines either what to do or what has been done? Perhaps less planning but more experimentation would be not only more effective but also simpler? Perhaps more focus on the initial selecting of good professionals, allowing them more autonomy to respond more effectively to the situations they are facing, would be less time consuming than the considerable efforts put in by managers to direct, measure, and control their performance. If the world is complex, then acting congruently with that complexity can be simpler than trying to control a machine that does not exist. — Jean G. Boulton

The result of our thinginess is our blindness to all reality that fails to identify itself as a thing, as a matter of fact. This is obvious in our understanding of time, which, being thingless and insubstantial, appears to us as if it had no reality.2 Indeed, we know what to do with space but do not know what to do about time, except to make it subservient to space. Most of us seem to labor for the sake of things of space. As a result we suffer from a deeply rooted dread of time and stand aghast when compelled to look into its face.3 Time to us is sarcasm, a slick treacherous monster with a jaw like a furnace incinerating every moment of our lives. Shrinking, therefore, from facing time, we escape for shelter to things of space. The intentions we are unable to carry out we deposit in space; possessions become the symbols of our repressions, jubilees of frustrations. But things of space are not fireproof; they only add fuel to the flames. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

They say you see stars, when you hit the back of your head like that, but Billy was facing upwards, and he could not tell whether the stars in his eyes were from the pulsing whites of country stars. There is nothing like the night sky in the country, the spongy purple of it, the stars with their own heartbeats, the things out there that you cannot see. — Julia Lawrinson

Facing sexism and racism and classism and transphobia, there are ways to choose to act in those situations, and there shouldn't be a prescriptive list of things that you have to say. — Kathleen Hanna

Courage is a requirement for facing your fears, doing things differently, and applying any new habits that align with and support your goals. — John Manning

Why is it so hard to think about dying? "Because," Morrie continued, "most of us all walk around as if we're sleepwalking. We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do." And facing death changes all that? "Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently. — Mitch Albom

Our leaders were assassinated, one of the things I was reading today was - 28 Panthers were killed by the police but 300 Black Panthers were killed by other Panthers just within - internecine warfare. It just began to seem like we were in an impossible task given what we were facing. — Angela Davis

The woman dying of cancer in The Barracks facing the raw fear of everything in her life disintegrating. The abused adolescent boy in The Dark whose life is torn open for us. They are such raw books of individuals facing the terrors of life. But then these individuals began to merge more into group portraits. That's not to say he's not still searching for a balance and equilibrium in the face of those horrors - the horrors are always there in McGahern. But the celebration of wonder and of love in the face of fear and terror, the beauty in simple things, become his central preoccupation. He starts to celebrate communal bonds in a way he didn't do at all in the beginning. — John McGahern

When I am dead
I say it that way because from the things I know, I do not expect to live long enough to read this book in its finished form
I want you to just watch and see if I'm not right in what I say: that the white man, in his press, is going to identify me with "hate". He will make use of me dead, as he has made use of me alive, as a convenient symbol, of "hatred"
and that will help him escape facing the truth that all I have been doing is holding up a mirror to reflect, to show, the history of unspeakable crimes that his race has committed against my race. — Malcolm X

There's something about sober living and sober thinking, about facing long afternoons without the numbing distraction of anesthesia that disabuses you of the belief in the externals, shows you that strength and hope come not from circumstances or the acquisition of things, but from the simple accumulation of active experience, from gritting the teeth and checking the items off the list, one by one, even if it's painful and you're afraid. — Caroline Knapp

Honestly facing your lack of sovereignty over your own life produces either anxiety or relief. Anxiety is God-forgetting. It is the result of thinking that is life is on your shoulders, that it is your job to figure it all out and keep things in order. — Paul David Tripp

As an actor, I relish and delight in doing things that I'm not necessarily the demographic for. This is a demographic that is touching the psyche of a certain age group, facing the real internal questions of people who are going through rites of passage into adulthood. It's earth-shaking stuff. — Ray Stevenson

Confidence comes from hard work. It comes from facing different situations and making putts. It comes from knowing you've worked on the right things, so when you get under the gun, you can execute what you've practiced. — David Duval

Nothing surprises me anymore. We'll keep doing what we're doing. I'm going to keep going forward with solutions that I want to see applied to this great country, the challenges that we're facing. And things like that [e-mails as governor published] are going to be perhaps a distraction for others. They won't distract me. — Sarah Palin

Facing my addiction was one of the hardest things I've had to do in my life. — Lynda Carter

Realtechnik is skeptical about linear progress. It encourages humility, a state of mind in which we are most open to facing problems and reconsidering decisions. It helps us acknowledge costs and recognize the things we hold inviolate. — Sherry Turkle

He yelled at the kid: "Stay here, don't go anywhere." He came out, said everything was okay, called over the squad commander from the checkpoint, stood facing the kid and told the squad commander, "That's how you deal with them." Then he gave the kid another two slaps and let him go. It's a crazy story, I remember sitting in the vehicle, looking on, and telling myself: I've been waiting for a situation like this for three years. From the minute I enlisted, I wanted to stop things like this, and here I am doing nothing, choosing to do nothing, is that okay? I remember answering myself: Yes, it's okay. He's hitting an Arab, and I'm doing nothing. I was really aware of doing nothing because I was scared of the company commander, and what could I do? Jump off the jeep and tell him to stop, because it's stupid, what he's doing? — Breaking The Silence

We're facing headwinds from Europe. Europe doing the right things here to stabilize their situation is important to our small businesses, our workers, the middle class here, and overall economy. — David Plouffe

There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and an ancient force that gives. A man finds little difficulty facing that place within himself where the taking force dwells, but it's almost impossible for him to see into the giving force without changing into something other than man. For a woman, the situation is reversed ... These things are so ancient within us ... that they're ground into each separate cell of our bodies ... It's as easy to be overwhelmed by giving as by taking. — Frank Herbert

Now, he thought, since all these most easily perishing things have slipped from me again, now I'm standing here under the sun again just as I have been standing here a little child, nothing is mine, I have no abilities, there is nothing I could bring about, I have learned nothing. How wondrous is this! Now, that I'm no longer young, that my hair is already half gray, that my strength is fading, now I'm starting again at the beginning and as a child! Again, he had to smile. Yes, his fate had been strange! Things were going downhill with him, and now he was again facing the world void and naked and stupid. But he could not feel sad about this, no, he even felt a great urge to laugh, to laugh about himself, to laugh about this strange, foolish world. — Hermann Hesse

There is no guarantee that life will be easy for anyone. We grow and learn more rapidly by facing and overcoming challenges. You are here to prove yourself, to develop, and to overcome. There will be constant challenges that cause you to think, to make proper judgments, and to act righteously. You will grow from them. However, there are some challenges you never need to encounter. They are those associated with serious transgression. As you continue to avoid such tragedy, your life will be simpler and happier. You will see others around you who don't make that choice, who do things that are wrong and evil and bring sadness. Thank your Father in Heaven that your pattern of life is different and that you have been helped to make choices guided by the Holy Ghost. That prompting will keep you on the right path. — Richard G. Scott

It's okay to have fear - we're all human; it happens - but in facing your fears, you can really open yourself up to things you never thought possible. — Katherine McNamara

Falling hard for somebody makes you do things you never thought you'd do before. Like pulling off an A in History or finally facing the truth about yourself — Steve Kluger

Life requires us to do things anyway, despite what sort of fear or monster or tragedy or suffering lurks behind that anyway. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Poor Old Ones! Scientists to the last
what had they done that we would not have done in their place? God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn
whatever they had been, they were men! — H.P. Lovecraft

I hate crowds and making speeches. I hate facing cameras and having to answer to a crossfire of questions. Why popular fancy should seize upon me, a scientist, dealing in abstract things and happy if left alone, is a manifestation of mass psychology that is beyond me. — Albert Einstein

The Art of Facing Things What people have forgotten is what every salmon knows. - ROBERT CLARK — Mark Nepo

I can't help but smile. This is so like you: to turn towards making things better, always facing the light instead of the darkness. — A.J. Waines

No one owns you - no matter what the relationship. You are not here on this earth to fulfill the dreams, wants or wishes of a parent, a mate or a child. You are also not responsible to protect any other person from facing their own consequences or realities. You are here to exist, to develop and to grow and be responsible to and for yourself. In the bigger picture of things, it would be well if you also contributed to making this world a better place to be because you passed through it. — Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse

Eva seemed to be on some sort of mission to work her evil/cute baby magic on me. Ever since she'd started toddling around on those chubby little legs, she'd been targeting me, the least enthusiastic baby person in the room. I think she enjoyed the challenge, which proved that we were related.
Eva would tug on my pants leg until I picked her up. And then she'd basically stare me down with those big blue-grey eyes of hers, daring me not to snuggle her. It was like facing down a tiny, diapered mastermind.
And of course, I caved. I snuggled her. I babbled. I read her Where the Wild Things Are until I was hoarse. I actually found myself watching my language. Shudder. — Molly Harper

Out of all the things you would expect when facing a dragon, silence was not on the list.

Roaring? Certainly!

Snarling? Why, yes - of course!

Fire-breathing? Couldn't possibly do without it. Wouldn't feel right if it wasn't there.

But silence?

No. Definitely not.

It was as out of place as a potter at a blacksmith's. — Ness Kingsley

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future ... but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don't let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself. — Virat Kohli

I think one of the things that we are facing right now is that we've stopped listening to each other in our politics. — Michael Bennett

She hadn't been Rachel that night. She was evidence, a body of things to be picked and probed at, pictured and asked about, recorded and quoted. I want my life back. The voice was faint inside her own mind. She could hear the plaintive, almost despairing note to that voice. Like the wail of a scared child, this wasn't just about facing her fears. This was about everything. Her injuries, the loss of the life and world she'd once taken for granted, her long recovery. — Anais Torres

With all these occurrences of death facing me, I thought about issues of freedom. If government projects the idea that we, as people inhabiting this particular land mass, have freedom, then for the rest of our lives we will go out and find what appear to be the boundaries and smack against them like a heart against the rib cage. If we reveal boundaries in the course of our movements, then we will expose the inherent lie in the use of the word freedom. I want to keep breathing and moving until I arrive at a place where motion and strength and relief intersect. I don't know what's ahead of me in the course of my life and this civilization. I just don't feel I have reached the necessary things inside my history that would ease the pressure in my skull and in my future and in my present. It is exhausting, living in a population where people don't speak up if what they witness doesn't directly threaten them. — David Wojnarowicz

Beth had never been one of those girls who'd imagined her wedding. Acted it out with some barbies. Bought Bride magazine as soon as she hit her twenties.
She was pretty sure that if she had been, though, none of the hypotheticals would have resembled this in the slightest: surrounded by vampires, possibly pregnant, with a fallen angel in an Elvis costume mangling the ceremony from the Book of Common Prayer.
And yet as she stared up at her soon-to-be husband, she couldn't have pictured anything she would have liked more. Then again, when you were facing the right person? None of the things they talked about on television, no Vera Wang dress, no champagne waterfall, no DJ or place setting or party favor mattered. ~Beth Ch.51 — J.R. Ward

Patience means accepting that which cannot be changed and facing it with courage, grace, and faith. It means being "willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us], even as a child doth submit to his father." Ultimately, patience means being "firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord" every hour of every day, even when it is hard to do so. In the words of John the Revelator, "Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and ... faith [in] Jesus. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

This may sound trite, but bad things happen to good people, and when you're facing terrorism, natural disaster, you can have every wonderful plan in place, but I am a realist. — Warren Rudman

Craig can't bear it. He opens his eyes, looks over to Tariq, who has tears in his own eyes. He mimes writing. Tariq scrambles for a marker and some paper. He runs over to Craig. All the things Craig has to say boil down to the essential ...
I'M GAY, MOM. I'M GAY.
Craig rotates his and Harry's bodies so he's facing his mother. Then he holds up his shaky sign. He sees her eyes as she understands it. — David Levithan

There's an idea I came across a few years ago that I love: My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance and in inverse proportion to my expectations. That's the key for me. If I can accept the truth of 'This is what I'm facing - not what can I expect but what I am experiencing now' - then I have all this freedom to do other things. — Michael J. Fox

Biographical data, even those recorded in the public registers, are the most private things one has, and to declare them openly is rather like facing a psychoanalyst. — Italo Calvino

Sometimes life will be awesome. Sometimes, life will look blurry. Along the way in the journey of life, sometimes, life will be colder than warmer and sometimes warmer than colder but in all things we must remember that it is never over for a purposeful journey of life until the journey of life is over. Be it rough or smooth, good or bad, we must accomplish the task. It shall always not be good and it shall always not be bad; we only have to work hard. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Hope is favorable and confident expectation; it's an expectant attitude that something good is going to happen and things will work out, no matter what situation we're facing. — Joyce Meyer

Renunciation is not about pushing something away, it is about letting go. It's facing the fact that certain things cause us pain, and they cause other people pain. Renunciation is a commitment to let go of things that create suffering. It is the intention to stop hurting ourselves and others. — Noah Levine

Death is a vast mystery, but there are two things we can say about it: It is absolutely certain that we will die, and it is uncertain when or how we will die. The only surety we have, then, is this uncertainty about the hour of our death, which we seize on as the excuse to postpone facing death directly. We are like children who cover their eyes in a game of hide and seek and think that no one can see them. — Sogyal Rinpoche

For me, white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one's life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own. — Peggy McIntosh

I'm not a complete idiot, you know," I tell him. "I do think about alternatives if things were to change in Westfall."
Bishop swings his legs off the sofa and sits forward, facing me. "I have never, not for a single second, thought you were an idiot, Ivy."
"You listen to your father, too, don't you?" I ask him.
Bishop looks down at his clasped hands, then back up at me. "Sometimes I just think that because of who we are... the president's son and the founder's daughter..." He rolls his eyes, making me smile. "It's doubly important that we think for ourselves. We're not our parents. We don't have to agree with everything they stand for. — Amy Engel

Perfection may be an impossible goal, but habits help us to do better. Making headway toward a good habit, doing better than before, saves us from facing the end of another year with the mournful wish, once again, that we'd done things differently. — Gretchen Rubin