Finally Something Good Quotes & Sayings

It doesn't matter for crap that you've got three years of sobriety or that you finally look good in a two-piece bathing suit or you've met that perfect someone and you've fallen deeply, wildly, passionately in love. Today, as you pick up your dry cleaning, fax those reports, fold your laundry, or wash the dinner dishes, something you'd never expect is already stalking you. — Chuck Palahniuk

I'd spent five hours that morning trying to write a song that was meaningful and good, and I finally gave up and lay down. Then, "Nowhere Man" came, words and music, the whole damn thing, as I lay down ... Song writing is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won't let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you're allowed sleep. — John Lennon

She was pleased her demure stature was finally good for something. It was an advantage at last. A boon. An asset. A virtue - She stopped herself from continuing her synonym spiral. There was work to do. — Cynthia Hand

I looked back just long enough to see Jeanie whisper something in Parker's ear and Parker turn to make a grotesque gesture with his pelvis and his fists. Then he gave me a thumbs-up and a salute.
I gave him the finger.
And I meant everything that gesture implies, but he only smiled like I'd waved good-bye. That's how these assholes communicated with each other, and I guess I was finally speaking their language. — Erin Jade Lange

You look new right now," he finally said.
"New?"
He nodded. "Like you just discovered yourself." Andie felt something jolt through her veins as he added, "It's hard to explain, but I wish you could see it. It looks good on you. — Priscilla Glenn

Chris, soap people are like
us-they seldom go outdoors. And when they do, we only hear about it,
never see it. They loll about in living rooms, bedrooms, sit in the
kitchens and sip coffee or stand up and drink martinis-but never, never
go outside before our eyes. And whenever something good happens,
whenever they think they're finally going to be happy, some catastrophe
comes along to dash their hopes. — V.C. Andrews

It's not that students don't "get" Kafka's humor but that we've taught them to see humor as something you get
the same way we've taught them that a self is something you just have. No wonder they cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke
that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home. It's hard to put into words up at the blackboard, believe me. You can tell them that maybe it's good they don't "get" Kafka. You can ask them to imagine his art as a kind of door. To envision us readers coming up and pounding on this door, pounding and pounding, not just wanting admission but needing it, we don't know what it is but we can feel it, this total desperation to enter, pounding and pushing and kicking, etc. That, finally, the door opens ... and it opens outward: we've been inside what we wanted all along. Das ist komisch. — David Foster Wallace

Seventeen years, no longer ... I've been waiting for you, for those girls. You're here, I'm letting go of my shit, finally, fucking moving on from all of that, moving on to something good in my life, something to wake up and get outta bed for. I'm not leaving it cause of some hang up you have. You and me, I haven't made it easy, I'll admit that, but that's done. You gotta get over it or you're never gonna move on. — Kristen Ashley

I had a really good time at MGM. And we had no quarrels much, except once in a while, I'd go up to the front office and say I thought I should be doing something big, like washing elephants ... All my life I wanted to have talent ... Finally I had to admit there was nothing there. — Marion Davies

But the writer who endures and keeps working will finally know that writing the book was something hard and glorious, for at the desk a writer must try to be free of prejudice, meanness of spirit, pettiness, and hatred; strive to be a better human being than the writer normally is, and to do this through concentration on a single word, and then another, and another. This is splendid work, as worthy and demanding as any, and the will and resilience to do it are good for the writer's soul. — Andre Dubus

If you've as many films as I have, and missed as many opportunities as I have to do good work and been pissed off about it, you say, "Well, now you've got to start getting it right". If you get a chance, you really want to cook. And the tragedy is, when you finally feel that way about yourself, about your work, nobody wants to give you a chance. And that happens to a lot of actors. But I'm feeling very wanted these days, so there must be something in the air. — Burt Reynolds

I let my head fall forward into his shoulder, breathing in his scent. "Now what do we do?"
He's quiet for a while and I finally lean back to look him in the eyes. He appears conflicted by something and then he sets me down on the ground, lacing his fingers through mine.
"Should we see where the wind takes us?" he asks.
I stare at my hand in his and then look up at him. "That sounds good to me. — Jessica Sorensen

Uh, Miss Carlson," I said, standing at her desk after everybody else had gone on to their next class, "somebody told me you went to that guy's funeral the one the highway patrol shot."
"Yes," SHe said. "I did."
She didn't look like she was mad at me about it. She had real long eyelashes. I bet she was good-looking when she was young.
"Was he a relative or something?" That was what I was afraid of.
"No. Not even a friend really." She paused, like she was hunting for the right words. Finally she said, "I read a book once that ended with the words 'the incommunicable past' You can only share the past with someone who's shared it with you. So I can't explain to you what Mark was to me, exactly. I knew him a long time ago. — S.E. Hinton

But when you're a kid, it's different. You lose something and then there's this hole inside of you and you want to fill that hole, but you don't have the experience or wisdom to do it. So you ask for answers. From the air, from the clouds, from the stars, from anyone who might listen. And when voices finally respond and promise that there's a place where you can get what you want, where your wishes can come true, then you go. You go to that magical place and you stay and you create and you try to heal. You fill that hole. Which can be brave. Which is important. But while you're there, you realize that what you want and what you need are two different things. And that's when you're done with the place, and you leave for good. But leaving for good means you forget the place even existed at all. — Aaron Starmer

I'd love to, she finally said,"on one condition."
I steadied myself, hoping it wasn't something too awful.
"Yes?"
"You have to promise that you won't fall in love with me."
I knew she was kidding me by the way she laughed, and I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
Sometimes, I had to admit, Jamie had a pretty good sense of humor.
I smiled and gave her my word. — Nicholas Sparks

I didn't know growing up what I wanted to do. I finally settled on broadcast journalism as a way to satisfy the urge to perform and also do something important, which is to give people in a democracy information to make good decisions. — Mort Crim

you leave home and you feel that you forgot something. You "refocus" sought to identify the problem: forgot open gas ? water running? iron into the outlet? In each case, you know that's not the right answer because it does not feel any relief. Finally, the correct answer is accompanied by a "change", a sense of understanding, relieving tension and even feeling good physically. It is, in other words, that "Aha!" Liberating. — Costei Andrew

Besides, there was something under the good girl facade. She hated me on sight because she'd been burned by someone like me before. No way was she a slut, though. Not even a reformed slut. I could spot them a mile away. My game face slowly melted away. I'd finally found a girl that was interesting enough to get to know, and a version of me had already hurt her. — Jamie McGuire

He was right in front of me. I hadn't even seen him move. I jerked, pressing my back against the wall of the library. My bag slid off my shoulder, landing next to my feet. "Holy crap, you can move."
"I can do a lot of things." Angling his body, he pressed one palm against the wall beside my head. Good God, he was tall. "Some of them fast. Some of them real slow."
My mouth opened. "Was that a s-sexual innuendo?"
His lips twitched. "Something along those lines."
The heat was back in my face and throat, despite the chill bleeding from the wall through my lightweight sweater. "Well, it was a crappy one."
"I can do better," he offered, and those golden eyes finally lightened — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I like to tell people that I finally found something I'm really good at, and that's retirement. — Hank Greenwald

My father has always felt that being fat was a choice. When I was in college I would sometimes meet him for lunch or coffee, and he would stare at my extra flesh like it was some weird piece of clothing I was wearing just to annoy him. Like my fat was an elaborate turban or Mel's zombie tiara or some anarchy flag that, in my impetuous youth, I was choosing to hold up and wave in his face. Not really part of me, just something I was doing to rebel, prove him wrong. I started seeing him even less. Now, I wouldn't say he's proud of me. As far as he is concerned, things have just become as they should be. I've finally put down the flag. Taken off the turban. Case closed. Good for me. — Mona Awad

It's a stupid question, really, as we've all got an expiration date. I guess the real question is not if, but when. As I was walking through the South Dakota Badlands - before I knew something was wrong with me - I had this thought: What if we all carried little timers that counted down the days of our lives? Maybe the timer's a bit dramatic. Just the date would do. It could be tattooed on our foreheads like the expiration date on a milk bottle. It might be a good thing. Maybe we'd stop wasting our lives worrying about things that never happen, or collecting things that we can't take with us. We'd probably treat people better. We certainly wouldn't be screaming at someone who had a day left. Maybe people would finally stop living like they're immortal. Maybe we would finally learn how to live. I've wondered — Richard Paul Evans

Some good news. Finally, President Bush is going to do something about global warming. He became alarmed when another chunk of ice fell off his mother. — David Letterman

How come when mortals want things, their only option is to make a deal with Hell and sell their soul? Why can't they make deals with God in exchange for good behavior?"
It was another of those rare moments when I'd surprised Carter. I waited for the glib answer I'd mentioned to Seth, something along the lines of goodness being its own reward. The angel considered for several seconds. "Humans make those deals all the time," he said finally. "They just don't make them with God."
"Then who are they making them with?" I exclaimed.
"Themselves. — Richelle Mead

Of course, you can't literally think like this all the time, or you'd drive yourself crazy. And so for most lawyers, a house is, finally, just a house, something to fill and fix and repaint and empty. But there's a period in which every law student - every good law student - finds that their vision shifts, somehow, and realizes that the law is inescapable, that no interaction, no aspect of daily life, escapes its long, graspy fingers. A street becomes a shocking disaster, a riot of violations and potential civil lawsuits. A marriage looks like a divorce. The world becomes temporarily unbearable. He — Hanya Yanagihara

A sense that finally, finally something good was about to happen to me. I felt the proximity of change, and I had wanted more than anything for something in my life to change. Is it still possible to feel like that, I wonder? Or does it only happen to us once? — David Nicholls

I didn't try to be everything but finally found something I am good at. — Auliq Ice

To The Critics

Suicide has made more than one mediocre author glorious before he's able to achieve that sobering "second edition" making his a suicide that waits until it's justified. But I've taken more precautions against to Suicide which is to survive in the face of failure. Success is mostly editing, that's what makes things nice. To edit is the other great Power; thus this novel started at age 30, continued at 50 and its 73, has finally achieve supremacy: a person of Good Taste as the third author and as a result the editor of all three. In the end I'll be the author of a letter to the critics a sort of "open letter" but for the living: suicide is not something you can edit out. — Macedonio Fernandez

I'm proud of my body. My body weight will always be something I'll struggle with for the rest of my life, but I'm finally in a good place and learning to love me for me, and not somebody else's standards. — Khloe Kardashian

What Louisa wants for Christmas,
Get kissed
Find some good books
make peace between prior best friends
convince the polite world of her charm
and finally, get kissed some more;

"You're blushing, my girl," Lady Irving said, "Not thinking of something you shouldn't, are you?"
"I'm so pure-minded that I can't imagine what you're talking about." Louisa lied. — Theresa Romain

It's not that kind of love. It's the real kind. The unconditional kind. The nonjudgemental kind. Not the physical kind. I love you as a fellow soul who inhabits this earth. I love you as a fellow immortal. I love you because I finally understand what made you the way you are. And if I could change it, I would. But I can't - so I choose to love you instead. And my hope is that my acceptance of you will spur you to do something good too, but if not - " I shrug. "At least I can say I tried. — Alyson Noel

Something like that. But you know, there's an upside here. Because when you spend so much time just intensely wanting something, and then you actually get the thing? It's magic." All of a sudden, I feel like crying. In a good way. In the best way. Because I know exactly what she means. It's butterflies and haziness and heart eyes, but underneath all that, there's this bass line of I can't believe this. I can't believe this is me. I can't quite articulate the sweetness of that feeling. It's finding out the door you were banging on is finally unlocked. Maybe it was unlocked the whole time. — Becky Albertalli

Against all odds, we made it to the top of the fence. Getting over to the other side was much more difficult, and I had to do a fair amount of acrobatics to help Adrian make the transition while keeping myself steady. Finally, I wrangled him into the correct position to climb down.
"Good," I said. "Now just reverse what you did before, one hand down in front of the-"
Something slipped, either his hand or foot, and Adrian plummeted to the ground. It wasn't that long of a drop, and his height helped a little- not that he was in any shape to actually use his legs and land on his feet. I winced.
"Or you can just take the short way down," I said. — Richelle Mead

This surprised him, her turning down his invitation to dine with him, and his face showed it. "Katie."
She rose. Their gazes locked for an extended moment. "Good luck, Shaw."
She hesitated for another second, long enough for him to say something to keep her there. Yet he remained quiet.
She turned and left.
Shaw sat there for several beats, a massive struggle going on inside his mind. Finally, he threw some euros on the table, hustled from the restaurant, and looked up and down the crowded street.
But Katie was already gone. — David Baldacci

Oh, is my baby's little pussy finally getting wet?" He put his hand on her knee.
She tried to cross her legs. "Yes, and it's a lot. It feels very messy."
He could smell her now. Bending over and presenting her ass had done something for her. So had dirty talk. Yeah, he could talk dirty. "Messy is good. I want that pussy dirty and ripe when I start to eat it. — Lexi Blake

In the long run, our most deeply held desires will govern our choices, one by one and day by day, until our lives finally add up to what we have really wanted most
for good or otherwise. We can indeed have eternal life, if we really want it, so long as we don't want something else more. — Bruce C. Hafen

It was true: hope could be unkind. You opened yourself up to the worst of wounds because you wanted to believe that something good could finally happen. But if you didn't? You missed this. This intense and prefect moment in which, while the world was almost literally going to hells all around you, hope and reality blended in a single, perfect note. — Michelle Sagara

But any book that is any good must be, to some extent, autobiographical, because one cannot and should not fabricate emotions; and although style and narrative are crucial, the bulwark, emotion, is what finally matters. With luck, talent, and studiousness, one manages to make a little pearl, or egg, or something ... — Edna O'Brien

My mom taught me how to sew when I was super young; I used to make clothes for my dolls. When I finally went to [fashion design] school [in 1999], I really took to pattern making. Everyone in class was good at something; I was the person, if you need help with your patterns, you come to me and I would help you out. — Serena Williams

Finally," I say, brushing past him as I make my way inside. The heavenly scent of something delicious lights up my senses.
"Come in," he says with a note of sarcasm.
Marshall strides over and takes me in with my hair all frizzed out, my sweater torn in two places and I look like I've just indulged in a mud bath. A dirty smile slides up the side of his face and I can practically see the pornographic implications playing out in his mind.
"You're absolutely filthy - and I most definitely approve." His smile blooms into an all-out sexual leer as he comes in close. "I might be moved to bathe you." He caresses his hand over the side of my cheek. I'm so damn tired I close my eyes and lean into his good vibrations. "Oh, how I'll scrub," he whispers. — Addison Moore

Principle four: There are consequences we experience, we could not anticipate, but they are necessary. I don't know where you find yourself today, but I would be willing to wager that most of you reading this book are going through something that is unfair. Chances are good that you simply don't deserve what's happening. The consequences may have started to get to you. You didn't anticipate any of this. You didn't think it would come to this, but it has. Trust me here. What has happened is a necessary part of your spiritual growth. Yes, necessary. I've finally begun to accept that reality after all these years of my life. — Charles R. Swindoll

I try to shape a tight laugh, and it dies in my throat. "This is new to me, Wes. Sharing. Having someone I can share with. And I really appreciate your help
That sounds lame. I've never had someone like ... This is a mess. There's finally something good in my life and I'm already making a mess of it." My cheeks go hot, and I have to clench my teeth to stop the rambling.
"Hey," he says, knocking his shoe playfully against mine. "It's the same for me, you know?" This is all new to me. And I'm not going anywhere. It takes at least three assassination attempts to scare me off. And even then, if there are baked goods involved, I might come back." He hoists himself up from the bench. "But on that note, I retreat to tend my wounded pride." He says it with a smile, and somehow I'm smiling, too. How does he do that, untangle things so easily? — Victoria Schwab

We jumped for joy. After the awful events of yesterday, finally something good happens and brings us ... hope! Hope for an end to the war, hope for peace. — Anne Frank

I wanted to know if the 'Iliad' in the original was as relevant and contemporary as it was in translation. I then started Latin. I had finally found something I enjoyed and was good at: dead languages! — Caroline Lawrence

It was wonderful to walk down the long flights of stairs knowing that I'd had good luck working. I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day. But sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that you knew or had seen or had heard someone say. — Ernest Hemingway,

And if I may pursue this subject farther I would suggest that the whole matter of imaginative literature depends upon this faculty of seeing the universe, from the aeonian pebble of the wayside to the raw suburban street as something new, unheard of, marvellous, finally, miraculous. The good people
amongst whom I naturally class myself
feel that everything is miraculous; they are continually amazed at the strangeness of the proportion of all things. The bad people, or scientists as they are sometimes called, maintain that nothing is properly an object of awe or wonder since everything can be explained. They are duly punished. — Arthur Machen

The sky grows dark over the city as Janey tells me her story. Teh beast was supposed to help their community. Something that would look good in a brochure, I suppose. But instead, it cut loose, took out in to the Williamsburg night. Janey and the kids went after it , and when they finally caught up what does it do? The thing ate a hipster. — Daniel Jose Older

I had worked and waited for this day. In solving this mystery I had also proved something, at least to myself, and I finally knew what real research would feel like. But as satisfying as it was, it still stands out as one of the loneliest moments of my life. On some deep level, the realization that I could do good science was accompanied by the knowledge that I had formally and terminally missed my chance to become like any of the women that I had ever known. In — Hope Jahren

At the age of five or six I just used to kick the ball with both feet. I wasn't very good to start with but I practised and practised. Once I finally got it, it was an unbelievable sensation. It was then that I realised that if you work at something, it pays off. — Filo Tiatia

What people do isn't determined by where they live. It happens to be their damned fault. They decided to watch TV instead of thinking when they were in high school. They decided to blow-off courses and drink beer instead of reading and trying to learn something. They decided to chicken out and be intolerant bastards instead of being openminded, and finally they decided to go along with their buddies and do things that were terribly wrong when there was no reason they had to. Anyone who hurts someone else decides to hurt them, goes out of their way to do it ... The fact that it's hard to be a good person doesn't excuse going along and being an asshole. If they can't overcome their own fear of being unusual, it's not my fault, because any idiot ought to be able to see that if he just acts reasonably and makes a point of not hurting others, he'll be happier. — Neal Stephenson

I know how bad a thing it is to be a slave and I know how terrible it was but I don't believe that there's a free person in the whole world that knows how good a cup full of water can taste. Because you have to be a deprived slave, to be kept waiting for your water like we were to really appreciate how good just one swallow can be. When we finally got a drop on our tongues it was like something straight from the hands of the Almighty. — Walter Mosley

Oh, sorry. I'm actually still married," I said, glad that my marriage had finally been good for something. — Karen Yankosky

Fuck 'em. Call it whatever you want. Maybe it's just two people clinging to each other to stay alive. Maybe sometimes that's all love gets to be. And, maybe, if they hold onto each other long enough ... maybe something good finally happens. — Rick Remender

There's something about outward appearances that has always been important to me. I always thought I was so ugly. I mean, I really did. I remember being in L.A. at my mom's house as a little kid and just staring into the mirror for hours. It was like, if I looked long enough, maybe I'd finally be handsome. It never worked. I just got uglier and uglier. Nothing about me ever seemed good enough. And there was this sadness inside me - this hopelessness. Focusing on my physical appearance was at least easier than trying to address the internal shit. — Nic Sheff

It is not a good feeling being right about something you have suspected when you finally gain undeniable confirmation that it's true. It is not the satisfying sensation of everything slipping into place for which you have yearned. It's more like, 'Oh, right.' The man who has been staying over your whole life long is your mother's lover. The reason Lucy seems off sometimes is that she's still drinking. You have always known this. The only thing that's mysterious is how you managed to think it mysterious. — Ariel Levy

The two states - envious and grateful - have little to do with what a person actually receives. They have more to do with the character of the person. If you give something to entitled, envious people, it profits them or you nothing. They just feel that you have finally paid your debt to them. If you give to grateful people, they feel overwhelmed with how fortunate they are and how good you are. Parents need to help children work through their feelings of entitlement and envy and move to a position of gratitude. — Henry Cloud

But the most terrible thing was that the shame didn't simply sear my heart, it also mingled into a single whole with the pleasure I was getting from what was going on.
It was something quite unimaginable - truly beyond good and evil. It was then that I finally understood the fatal abysses trodden by De Sade and Sacher-Masoch, who I had always thought absurdly pompous. No, they weren't absurd at all - they simply hadn't been able to find the right words to convey the true nature of their nightmares. And I knew why - there were no such words in any human language.
'Stop,' I whispered through my tears.
But in heart I didn't know what I wanted - for him to stop or to carry on.
I couldn't hold back any longer and I started crying. But they were tears of pleasure, a monstrous, shameful pleasure that was too enthralling to be abandoned voluntarily. — Victor Pelevin

Eventually, a governess realized I needed spectacles. When I first put them on my face, I can't even tell you ... it was like a miracle." "Finally seeing properly?""Knowing I wasn't hopeless." A knot formed in her throat. "I'd believed there was something incurably wrong with me, you see. But suddenly, I could see the world clear. And not only the parts in the distance, but the bits within my own reach. I could focus on a page. I could explore the things around me, discover whole worlds beneath my fingertips. I could be good at something, for once. — Tessa Dare

maybe an hour in the morning or at night and just dedicate it to that skill you have. Read books about it. Take courses to excel at it. Promise. In the next five or six months, you will be better at it than most people. Your confidence will go up and you will no longer compare yourself to others or try to be good at something just for the sake of proving to others that you are confident. You will have finally discovered what your life will be about. — Steve Robinson

I should warn you," she finally said. " I'm immune to charm."
"You got a shot or something?" he asked. She amused him. He couldn't help it.
"You're right. More likely it's an allergy," she said thoughtfully.
He felt his mouth quirk. "An allergy? To charm?"
"Yeah, my stomach feels a little funny."
He gave her a slow grin. "Oh, those are butterflies, Princess. And that's a good symptom. — Erin Nicholas

What a hypocrite I am; I spend my whole life reading books that allude to happiness, when I refuse to experience it. Sadness is an emotion you can trust. It is stronger than all of the other emotions. It makes happiness look fickle and untrustworthy. It pervades, lasts longer, and replaces the good feelings with such an eloquent ease you don't even feel the shift until you are suddenly wrapped in its chains. How hard we strive for happiness, and once we finally have the elusive feeling in our grasp, we hold it briefly, like water as it trickles through our fingers. I don't want to hold water. I want to hold something heavy and solid. Something I can understand. I understand sadness, and so I trust it. We are meant to feel sadness, if only to protect us from the brief spiels of happiness. Darkness is all I'll ever know; maybe the key is to make poetry out of it. — Tarryn Fisher

Too much faith is the worst ally. When you believe in something literally, through your faith you'll turn it into something absurd. One who is a genuine adherent, if you like, of some political outlook, never takes its sophistries seriously, but only its practical aims, which are concealed beneath these sophistries. Political rhetoric and sophistries do not exist, after all, in order that they be believed; rather, they have to serve as a common and agreed upon alibi. Foolish people who take them in earnest sooner or later discover inconsistencies in them, begin to protest, and finish finally and infamously as heretics and apostates. No, too much faith never brings anything good ... — Milan Kundera

Death finally comes, usually in the evening, when something in the raconteur fades out for good and in the midst of his story his eyes fix on the horizon and he trails off into silence, thinking of nothing. For this reason the Phaeacians consider silence an act of kindness, as sacred as guest friendship, a grant of repose to a distant stranger. — Zachary Mason

Think about what it is you're after."
"Understanding," she said slowly.
"Good," Bill said. "What else?"
A nervous energy was coursing through her, as if she was on the brink of something important. "I want to find out why Daniel and I were cursed. And I want to break that curse.I want to stop love from killing me so that we can finally be together-for real."
"Whoa,whoa,whoa." Bill started waving his hands like a man stranded on the side of a dark road. "Let's not get crazy. This is a very long-standing damnation you're up againat here. You and Daniel,it's like ... I don't know, you can't just snap your pretty little fingers and break out of that. You gotta start out small. — Lauren Kate

It's very hard sometimes when you can't crack something or can't solve something and you keep trying and trying and you know it's falling a little bit short. That's very hard, but then when you finally do it, it's very rewarding and the process is good too, I like working with people this way. — Steve Martin

Alice insisted the accelerator had got stuck. She thought of herself as a good driver and hated the idea that anyone would think that the problem was her age. The body's decline creeps like a vine. Day to day, the changes can be imperceptible. You adapt. Then something happens that finally makes it clear that things are no longer the same. The falls didn't do it. The car accident didn't do it. Instead, it was a scam that did. Not long after the car accident, Alice — Atul Gawande

It took a long time for me to accept that I was never going to find that something I'm really good at. I spent a lot of time wandering in college for that reason. When I finally did find my passion, it was for other people's writing, not my own. — Maggi Myers

I haven't lost my faith, but I've lost my religion. I still believe in something so deeply ... I've never really gotten past that quote from Anne Frank in her diary, where she says that people are really good at heart. But I feel like the Catholic Church - no - the Catholic hierarchy has been disinviting people like me, and especially women like me, for so many years that I finally took the hint. — Anna Quindlen

Finally, Grom shakes his head. "She's a Half-Breed, Galen."
Mom's head snaps toward him. "She's my daughter," she says slowly. She pulls herself from his lap and stands over him, hands on hips. Oh, he's in serious shiznit now. And I can't help but feel elated about it."Are you saying my daughter's not good enough for your brother?"
Yeah, Grom, are you? Huh, huh are you?
Grom sighs, the triviality in his expression softening into something else. "Nalia, love-"
"Don't you 'Nalia, love' me." Mom crosses her arms — Anna Banks

There was no sense to life, to the structure of things. D.H. Lawrence had known that. You needed love, but not the kind of love most people used and were used up by. Old D.H. had known something. His buddy Huxley was just an intellectual fidget, but what a marvelous one. Better than G.B. Shaw with that hard keel of a mind always scraping bottom, his labored wit finally only a task, a burden on himself, preventing him from really feeling anything, his brilliant speech finally a bore, scraping the mind and the sensibilities. It was good to read them all though. It made you realize that thoughts and words could be fascinating, if finally useless. — Charles Bukowski

I once believed in faith - that if I patiently waited, something good will happen. But at the end of the chapter, I found myself devastated. Years have gone by and I'm back at chapter one again. I've tried several times already and ended up in the same ending. It was always a different title, same story; different choices made but ending up with the same plot and finale. I grew tired of this never ending maze, wandering endlessly and finally giving up faith. — Raphael Paolo Augustine Camanag

I remember just how bizarre my friendship with Tiffani has been - but then I remember that no one else but Tiffani could really even come close to understanding how I feel after losing Nikki forever. I remember that apart time is finally over, and while Nikki is gone for good, I still have a woman in my arms who has suffered greatly and desperately needs to believe once again that she is beautiful. In my arms is a woman who has given me a Skywatcher's Cloud Chart, a woman who knows all my secrets, a woman who knows just how messed up my mind is, how many pills I'm on and yet she allows me to hold her anyway. There's something honest about all of this, and I cannot imagine any other woman lying in the middle of a frozen soccer filed with me-in the middle of a snowstorm even - impossibly hoping to see a single cloud break free of a nimbostratus. Nikki would not have done this for me, not even on her best day. — Matthew Quick

You're not a good one, mind you. Your technique needs work. You're overeager." Ryan smirked a little. "I get it - who wouldn't be overeager to kiss me?"

Finally, he got the reaction he wanted: Jamie rolled his eyes, though his face was still red from embarrassment. "Fuck off."

Still smirking lazily, Ryan leaned back against the couch, stretching his arm along the back. "Is that how you talk to your best mate who's about to offer you to practice on him?"

Jamie blinked a few times, looking adorably bewildered. "You're joking."

Ryan met his gaze steadily. "Nope. I promise not to laugh at you and just tell you if you're doing something wrong."

Jamie just stared at him.

"Hurry up before I change my mind," Ryan said. — Alessandra Hazard

I just managed to convince my grandmother that it was a worth while that was something to do, you know, and when I did finally get the guitar, it didn't seem that difficult to me, to be able to make a good noise out of it. — Eric Clapton

I advocate giving full attention to the pain that arises with the breakdown of an addiction and the story that embeds it. (The "addiction" can be something subtle, a self-image, for example, or thoughts about how ethical or successful one is.) Just as it feels good to meet a need, an unmet need hurts. Pain is its call for attention. When all the substitutes for meeting that need are exhausted, when all the palliatives stop working, finally the pain that had been diffuse and latent leads us to the need. — Charles Eisenstein