Games Of Life Quotes & Sayings

I got beat real hard and heavy in the Olympic Games in 1968 by a guy who swam an incredible race one time in his whole life, but he did it right at the right time. I'd like to be that guy now. Maybe that's what I'm going to have to pull out of my hat to make the Olympic team. — Mark Spitz

There are a lot of pitchers in baseball who should celebrate his life and what he did for the game of baseball. — Tommy John

You wander through this city, and wonder if anything you do will make up for the horror that keeps the world turning. To live, you rip your own heart from your chest and hide it in a box somewhere, along with everything you ever learned about justice, compassion, mercy. You throw yourself into games to mark the time. And if you yearn for something different: what would you change? Would you bring back the blood, the dying cries, the sucking chest wounds? The constant war? So we're caught between two poles of hypocrisy. We sacrifice our right to think of ourselves as good people, our right to think our life is good, our city is just. And so we and our city both survive. — Max Gladstone

Football is the love of my life. I would never say I don't want to play. Somebody could say that this game is meaningless. Who is it meaningless to? I guess people who are watching the game? Or the people who are playing it? It's definitely not meaningless to us. — Shawne Merriman

Be a bit of a challenge; not because you're playing games but because you realize you're worth the extra effort. — Mandy Hale

As in a game of cards, so in the game of life, we must play what is dealt to us, and the glory consists, not so much in winning as in playing a poor hand well. — Josh Billings

No matter how skillfully a man play the game of life, there is but one test of his ability
did he win? — Charles Lever

Football is one of those games that definitely relates to life in a lot of ways. Everything can be going good, and just like that, you have a turnover. Things are going south, you're going the opposite direction. How are you going to recover from it? That's the beauty in this game. — Torrey Smith

Baseball is the most perfect of games, solid, true, pure and precious as diamonds. If only life were so simple. Within the baselines anything can happen. Tides can reverse; oceans can open. That's why they say, "the game is never over until the last man is out." Colors can change, lives can alter, anything is possible in this gentle, flawless, loving game. — W.P. Kinsella

Life is a God-damned, stinking, treacherous game and nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand are bastards. — Theodore Dreiser

It turned out to be just his sort of life in Melbourne [Florida]
a little three-room mini apartment to himself, and down on the strip, five different bars where you had women going around in bathing suits. In the backyard, his mother's new husband had grown a miraculous tree, a lemon trunk grafted with orange, tangerine, satsuma, kumquat, and grapefruit limbs, each bearing its own vivid fruit. Every morning, Jeff would go out and fill his arms, and squeeze himself a pitcher of juice, thick and sun-hot. That house was good for his mother, too. The swimming pool trimmed fifteen pounds off of her. She didn't seem to have moods anymore, and she didn't fly off the handle when Jeff beat her in the cribbage games they played most afternoons. — Wells Tower

When you deal with a man, deal with his most valuable possession, his life. There's play and there's the deep flow. I like to take things to the deep flow of play, because everything is a game, serious and nonserious at the same time. So play life like it's a game. — Huey Newton

The more he asked about her childhood at Cloonhill the more Ellie loved her interrogator. No matter how strange he still sometimes seemed, she felt as if all her life she had known him. The past he talked about himself became another part of her: The games he had played alone, the untidy rooms of the house he described, the parties given, the pictures painted. Being with him in the woods at Lyre, where the air was cold and the trees imposed a gloomy darkness, or walking among the monks' graves, or being with him anywhere, telling or listening, was for Ellie more than friendship, or living, had ever been before. — William Trevor

I win not because of my own efforts or my own goodness, but rather through the grace, love, and mercy of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He died so that I might win this game of life and live with Him forever. — Zig Ziglar

To answer your question as honestly as I can, I've wanted since I was very little to not have to worry about money. I've never been poverty-level poor (I mean, there's been years where I've been officially beneath the poverty line, but that wasn't poverty: that was being a student and living the Student Lifestyle), but I've been in a place where you know you can't afford a better-quality food, where you can't do certain things because of money, and I'd prefer not to have those problems if I can. I sort of have troubles with money in general, with how it determines so much of our lives but with how we all try to ignore it, but I would like to be (and stay) in a place where I can pick up some new comics and games and not worry about how much they cost.
This is terrible; you're asking me where I want to be in the future, what I want my life to be like, and the only thing I can tell you is Man, all I know is I don't want to be POOR. — Ryan North

I need a lot of support ... Life is really hard, and I don't see some active benevolent force out there. I see it as basically a really cool survival game. You get on the right side of the tracks, and you now are actually working with what some people would call magic. — Robert Downey Jr.

The amusements of broadcast consist mainly of songs, stories, and games, just as in tribal life. The songs and stories are mostly about courtship, the games mostly played by men, just as in tribal life. — Stewart Brand

Could we chose to amend the rules of the game to create a society that values people over profits, life over pollution, mutual care over guns and prisons, vision over dysfunction? — Vicki Robin

Softball isn't just a game it's away of life. — Kevin Kelly

The people we invite on the train are those with whom we are prepared to be vulnerable and real, with whom there is no room for masks and games. They strengthen us when we falter and remind us of the journey's purpose when we become distracted by the scenery. And we do the same for them. Never let life's Iagos - flatterers, dissemblers - onto your train. We always get warnings from our heart and our intuition when they appear, but we are often too busy to notice. When you realize they've made it on board, make sure you usher them off the train; and as soon as you can, forgive them and forget them. There is nothing more draining than holding grudges. — Arianna Huffington

... in Altruria every one works with his hands, so that the hard work shall not all fall to any one class; and this manual labor of each is sufficient to keep the body in health, as well as to earn a living. After the three, hours' work, which constitutes a day's work with us, is done, the young people have all sorts of games and sports, and they carry them as late into life as the temperament of each demands. — William Dean Howells

(J)ust as we tend to underestimate the role of luck in life in general, we tend to overestimate it in games of chance. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The game of life is good, though all of life may be hurt, and though all lives lose the game in the end. — Jack London

I love to play the game of life. — Lailah Gifty Akita

What really happened in Vietnam was- all these things are away games for the American military. We're not on our home turf, which means to succeed there has to be a partner. And the definition of partnership is someone willing to risk their lives in their home area to prevail because they think it's necessary to build a decent life and a better life for their people. — William J. Clinton

If you cheat yourself in practice, you'll cheat yourself in a game; and if you cheat in a game, you'll cheat yourself for the rest of your life. — Vince Lombardi

There's an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I've been thinking about a lot while writing this essay. In it, Buffy sacrifices her own life to save her sister, and right before she does, she tells her sister that the hardest thing to do in the world is to live - ironic words coming from someone about to kill herself for the greater good. As I'm writing this, I just keep thinking that Katniss never gets to sacrifice herself. She doesn't get the heroic death. She survives - and that leaves her doing the hardest thing in the world: living in it once so many of the ones she loves are gone. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The immortal remains of Brother Watchtower watched the dragon flap away into the fog, and then looked down at the congealing puddle of stone, metal and miscellaneous trace elements that was all that remained of the secret headquarters. And of its occupants, he realized in the dispassionate way that is part of being dead. You go through your whole life and end up a smear swirling around like cream in a coffee cup. Whatever the gods' games were, they played them in a damn mysterious way. He looked up at the hooded figure beside him. "We never intended this," he said weakly. "Honestly. No offense. We just wanted what was due to us." A skeletal hand patted him on the shoulder, not unkindly. And Death said, CONGRATULATIONS. — Terry Pratchett

Mistakes don't scare me or bother me. If I feel like I made the same mistake twice, then I feel like I've really screwed up. But if I make one mistake and learn from it, hey, to me in the game of life it's just as important to know what doesn't work as what does. So I think mistakes are a good thing. — Garth Brooks

After dinner or lunch or whatever it was
with my crazy 12-hour night I was no longer sure what was what
I said, Look, baby, I'm sorry, but don't you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, let's give it up. Let's just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Let's go to the zoo. Let's look at animals. Let's drive down and look at the ocean. It's only 45 minutes. Let's play games in the arcades. Let's go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Let's have friends. Let's laugh. This kind of life like everybody else's kind of life: it's killing us. — Charles Bukowski

When I was a teenager, I didn't get to do a lot of the things that other kids my age were doing because my dad was very controlling and he wouldn't allow me to go to school activities, like games and dances. So I didn't have positive expectations for my future or really dream about what I could do with my life. I was just trying to survive until I could get out on my own. — Joyce Meyer

Life is a daring game. The more we dare to play more games, the higher the chance of winning. — Lailah Gifty Akita

My personal life is the same. At the end of the day, this is just a job. I love what I do, and it's a great job. But it's like my alter ego. There's Chris Brown the singer. And there's Christopher Brown, the down-home Tappahannock boy that plays video games and basketball and hangs out. — Chris Brown

I understand how much everyone wanted to see a British winner at Wimbledon and I hope everyone enjoyed it. I worked so hard in that last game. It's the hardest few points I've had to play in my life. I don't know how I came through the final three points ... that last game ... my head was kind of everywhere. That last game will be the toughest game I'll play in my career, ever. — Andy Murray

There are children who will leave a game to go and be bored in a corner of the garret. How often have I wished for the attic of my boredom when the complications of life made me lose the very germ of freedom! — Gaston Bachelard

You? Really now, Mr. McGee. You are spectacularly huge, and a tan that deep is almost vulgar, and you have a kind of leathery fading boyish charm, but this is not and never was a game for dilettantes, for jolly boys, for the favor-for-an-old-buddy routine. No gray-eyed wonder with a big white grin can solve anything or retrieve anything by blundering around in my life. Thanks for the gesture. But this isn't television. I don't need a big brother. So why don't you just go on back to your fun and games? — John D. MacDonald

Enlightenment writer and philosopher Voltaire likened life to a game of cards. Players must accept the cards dealt to them. However, once they have those cards in hand, they alone choose how they will play them. They decide what risks and actions to take. — John C. Maxwell

If you don't educate yourself, this is an area of your life that it is a game. — Tony Robbins

I normally don't initiate conversations with guys unless they want to talk about certain things - when I'm at the facility, I'm there to play football. If you want to talk about the meaning of life, games, whatever, I'm more than happy to, but when I'm in that building, I'm being paid to play football. Conversely, when I'm not at the facility, that's my life to live. — Chris Kluwe

The game of life requires the edge that chiropractic care provides, — Jerry Rice

A lot of people just thought I'd be a .260 hitter all my life. I was kind of like, 'Let me make some adjustments and let me learn the game a little bit.' — Jeff Francoeur

In all the history of the boxing game, you'll find no human interest story to compare with the life narrative of James J. Braddock. — Damon Runyon

Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of each of us would some day depend upon our winning or losing a game of chess. Do you not think that we should all consider it to be our primary duty to learn at least the names of the pieces and how to position them on the chessboard? — Aldous Huxley

Everyone who loves pro basketball assumes it's a little fixed. We all think the annual draft lottery is probably rigged, we all accept that the league aggressively wants big market teams to advance deep into the playoffs, and we all concede that certain marquee players are going to get preferential treatment for no valid reason. The outcomes of games aren't predeteremined or scripted but there are definitely dark forces who play with our reality. There are faceless puppet masters who pull strings and manipulate the purity of justice. It's not necessarily a full-on conspiracy, but it's certainly not fair. And that's why the NBA remains the only game that matters: Pro basketball is exactly like life. — Chuck Klosterman

The game gives us a satisfaction that Life denies us. And for the Chess player, the success which crowns his work, the great dispeller of sorrows, is named 'combination'. — Emanuel Lasker

It is not a matter of life and death. It is not that important. But it is a reflection of life, and so the game is an enigma wrapped in a mystery impaled on a conundrum. — Peter Alliss

It was at that point that I started probing them about what they wanted from America. Here's what they told me: "We want our kids to go out and play. We want them to go out and play and not feel like they're going to get hurt. I want my kid to not be on the computer all day long. I want him to go outside and play. I want him to not be on computer games. I want my kids to go to school. I want my wife to be happy. I want..."
"That's what we cant back home," I said.
"Why would it be so different?" he said. Why would you think that what I want in my quality of life is so vastly different from yours? — David Chrisinger

In the games of queens and kings, we leave our dreams at the door and we make do with what we have. Sometimes if we're fortunate, we still manage to have a good life. — Melina Marchetta

Life is a game of piquet played in a bramble bush in very bad weather ... — Katherine Anne Porter

Like life, basketball is messy and unpredictable. It has its way with you, no matter how hard you try to control it. The trick is to experience each moment with a clear mind and open heart. When you do that, the game - and life - will take care of itself. — Phil Jackson

Human life very much resembles a game of chess: for, as in the latter, while a gamester is too attentive to secure himself very strongly on one side of the board, he is apt to leave an unguarded opening on the other, so doth it often happen in life. — Henry Fielding

What was your greatest challenge? Staying alive as a business, staying ahead of the game, and melding my business life with my personal life. — Lillian Vernon

Today, I look forward and I see a future in which games once again are explicitly designed to improve quality of life, to prevent suffering, and to create real, widespread happiness. — Jane McGonigal

Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility BY JAMES P. CARSE — Daniel H. Pink

I'm not defined by baseball. I'd love for the Hall of Fame to happen, but if it doesn't, my life won't change. I'll still be coaching my boy's games. — Tom Glavine

Books took, in her young life, the place of companions and childish games. She read a great deal without guidance or discrimination, and gained all her ideas on life, all her faith, all her ideals and aims and aspirations from books. Books stood between her and reality, and hid from her those deep truths that can never be learnt from even the greatest literary production, but can only be understood after long years of untiring observation and experience. It was in books also that Irene found her ideal of the man she could love. Her hero was an exceedingly complicated character. — Aimee Dostoyevsky

We expect him to take up a lot of space in his gangly experiments with life, and we teach him, through task, work, game, activity, and experience how to use that space. Above all, we give him mentoring and supervision that respects and teaches his gifts, his visions, even his shadowy inner demons — Michael Gurian

We who are here to-night are here as the servants of the guests of a great University, a University of knowledge, scholarship, and intellect. You do well to be proud of it. But I have wondered whether there may not be colleges and faculties of other experiences than yours, and whether even now in the far corners of the continents powers not yours are being brought to fruition. I have myself been something of a traveller, and every time I return to England I wonder whether the games of those children do not hold more intense life than the talk of your learned men
a more intense passion for discovery, a greater power of exploration, new raptures, unknown paths of glorious knowledge; whether you may not yet sit at the feet of the natives of the Amazon or the Zambesi: whether the fakirs and the herdsmen, the witch-doctors may not enter the kingdom of man before you — Charles Williams

..."extreme capitalism": the obsessive, uncritical penetration of the concept of the market into every aspect of American life, and the attempt to drive out every other institution, including law, art, culture, public education, Social Security, unions, community, you name it. It is the conflation of markets with populism, with democracy, with diversity, with liberty, and with choice---and so the denial of any form of choice that imposes limits on the market. More than that, it is the elimination of these separate concepts from our political discourse, so that we find ourselves looking to the stock market to fund retirement, college education, health care, and having forgotten that in other wealthy and developed societies these are rights, not the contingent outcomes of speculative games.

James K. Galbraith, Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations and Professor of Government, University of Texas. — James K. Galbraith

After seeing the various fantastic sights, a visitor to Panorama Island would have had to gasp in amazement at this unsurpassable view. He would have had the impression that the entire island was a rose floating on the vast ocean and that the giant scarlet flower of an opium dream was conversing on an equal footing with the sun in the sky, just the two of them. What kind of strange beauty had that incomparable simplicity and grandeur created? Some travelers might have recalled the world of myth that their distant ancestors had seen. . . .

How can the author describe the madness and debauchery, the pleasures of revelry and drunkenness, the numberless games of life and death that were played day and night on that magnificent stage? You readers might find something that resembled it, in part, in your most fantastic, bloodiest, and most beautiful nightmares. — Rampo Edogawa

I happen to have a certain fondness for existing
soda wouldn't have that lovely fizzy feeling if you were dead. Think of all the things you would miss: Cartoons, music, movies, video games, music, art, fingernail growth, sex ... well, perhaps not sex, depending on how weird your mortician is. — Jhonen Vasquez

No one gets out of the game of life alive. You either die in the bleachers, or on the field. So, you might as well play out on the field, and go for it. — Les Brown

People that have been consistently hurt by others in life will only see the one time you hurt them and be blinded to all the good your heart has to offer. They look no further than what they want to see. Unfortunately, most of them remain a victim throughout their life. — Shannon L. Alder

I am proud of my achievements, my work ethic, and the way I live my life. The PGA Tour not only treated me unfairly, but displayed a lack of professionalism that should concern every professional golfer and fan of the game. — Vijay Singh

Reduction is the least observed of the three R's of environmentalism ('reduce, reuse, recycle') but it's probably the most important. Reuse and recycling are sensible measures in an over-productive society, but why not neutralise the problem of overproduction at the source? Instead of choosing to act efficiently at the end of a product's life cycle by reusing or recycling it, we should stop said product from being made in the first place by eliminating consumer demand for it. If the rainforests must be burned and the oceans poisoned to cater for the essentials of human life, then so be it and we'll call it an inevitable pity; but for that to happen in the name of games consoles, cell phones and chocolate fountains is a wanton and avoidable shame. — Robert Wringham

Hunting is now to most of us a game, whose relish seems based upon some mystic remembrance, in the blood, of ancient days when to hunter as well as hunted it was a matter of life and death. — Will Durant

Welcome your problems with open arms! Like any other game, the game of life is played as per your aptitude; the more expert you are, the more difficult it gets. Embrace the problems and hardships that come your way, for you are the ones chosen to handle them. — Zeina

In real life, you don't get a reset, and you don't get extra lives, and I got the crap pounded out of me. — Rachel Caine

There's pressure every night to be the best on the court. I put a lot of pressure on myself. Pressure is part of the game. It is also part of life. I want to prove I can do the work and be a success off the court as well as on it. — Lamar Odom

A sportswriter's life means never sitting with your wife or family at the games. Still working after everyone has gone to the party ... Digging beneath a coach's lies, not to forget those of athletic directors and general managers and owners of pro teams. Keeping a confidence. Risking it. — Dan Jenkins

We have made drugs an Olympic event. It receives most of the coverage at the Games and even the suspicion of guilt can ruin a reputation for life. — Bill Toomey

A true believer may worship Jehovah, Allah, or Brahma, the supernatural beings who allegedly created all life; a true believer may slavishly adhere to a dogma designed theoretically to improve life; yet for life itself - its pleasures, wonders, and delights - he or she holds minimal regard. Music, chess, wine, card games, attractive clothing, dancing, meditation, kites, perfume, marijuana, flirting, soccer, cheeseburgers, any expression of beauty, and any recognition of genius or individual excellence: each of those things has been severely condemned and even outlawed by one cadre of true believers or another in modern times. — Tom Robbins

The sentiment of virtue is a reverence and delight in the presence of certain divine laws. It perceives that this homely game of life we play, covers, under what seem foolish details, principles that astonish. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Much of life is a game. If played skillfully, with an intelligent and fascinating opponent, it can become almost a dance. One challenges and moves, the other teases and skips away, only to dart forward later and strike a telling blow. — Elizabeth Hoyt

Nos are just as valuable as yeses in the game of life. In fact, they're essential. — Madonna Ciccone

You begin to notice what it is that makes this person a teacher, beyond the limits of his individuality and personality. Thus the principle of the "universality of the guru" comes into the picture as well. Every problem you face in life is a part of your marriage. Whenever you experience difficulties, you hear the words of the guru. This is the point at which one begins to gain one's independence from the guru as lover, because every situation becomes an expression of the teachings. First you surrendered to your spiritual friend. Then you communicated and played games with him. And now you have come to the state of complete openness. As a result of this openness you begin to see the guru-quality in every life-situation, that all situations in life offer you the opportunity to be as open as you are with the guru, and so all things can become the guru. — Chogyam Trungpa

The competitiveness, playing in front of 18-19,000 people every single night, people asking for my autograph, getting recognized, being able to do something like this with Sega and being on the front of a box, and being involved in video games, and listening to movies where they reference my name like in Swingers. All these things they make life so exciting, you don't know what to expect next. — Jeremy Roenick

I was never happy that my injuries cut my career short and ultimately forced my decision to step away from tennis. I have enjoyed my time away from the court, a period that has allowed me to experience a different side of life. However, I miss the game and the challenge of competing at the highest level of tennis, and I want to gauge whether I can stay healthy and compete against today's top players. — Martina Hingis

Child psychologists have demonstrated that our minds are actually constructed by these thousands of tiny interactions during the first few years of life. We aren't just what we're taught. It's what we experience during those early years - a smile here, a jarring sound there - that creates the pathways and connections of the brain. We put our kids to fifteen years of quick-cut advertising, passive television watching, and sadistic video games, and we expect to see emerge a new generation of calm, compassionate, and engaged human beings? — Sidney Poitier

The changes that happened in my life from doing these movies are so permanent that I don't think I'll ever really say goodbye, it'll always be a part of me, the Hunger Games. — Jennifer Lawrence

If we are sowing lots of thoughts about shoes, cars, clothes, computer games, shopping, guns, and very few thoughts about things of the Lord, we will not reap spiritual maturity, spiritual priorities, greater desire for the Lord, or a closer relationship with the Lord. We will reap vanity, shallowness, and even greater spiritual disinterest and distance from the Lord. If we struggle with being uninterested in the things of the Lord, we need to consider that this is something we have actually done to ourselves. If we sow a desire to charm, amuse, or impress our friends, we will not reap relationships based on a selfless, sacrificial, Christ-like interest in our friend's spiritual welfare. We will reap self-serving, exploitive relationships that can actually drag our friends down. This is a life and death matter: what you are sowing in every little conversation that you have. Are you building up, edifying your friends? — Botkin

There has to be a womp on the side of the head that defeats and undercuts this game of performance. It has to fall apart. Now unfortunately, that very often does not happen until what I call the second half of life, when there's been enough death in the family and you start experiencing your own physical deterioration. — Richard Rohr

He was through playing games. When it came to Soteria, he had no sense of humor whatsoever. Anyone who threatened her, ended their life.
It was that simple. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The games made me the guy who I'm here now, the articles and the videos which I have watched and I continue to watch make the person today who I am. The life build me as such type of person! — Deyth Banger

Life is a game of whist. From unseen sources The cards are shuffled, and the hands are dealt. I do not like the way the cards are shuffled, But yet I like the game and want to play. — Eugene Fitch Ware

Individuals score points, but teams win games. This is true in athletic events and in life. If you make it in life, your "team" of parents, teachers, ministers, etc., will have played a major role in your success. — Zig Ziglar

You look up and down the bench and you have to say to yourself, 'Can't anybody here play this game?' There comes a time in every man's life and I've had plenty of them. — Casey Stengel

What then is to be the lot of Rossetti's fame and influence? 'An amateur who failed in two arts', it is true; yet it hardly harms Rossetti or touches his standing. On the contrary, it defines both very brilliantly. The small word 'failed' is a small word and little more to artists who are forever going on until they give up over a game that must be lost. Every artist, when confronted by the immensities of art, which is life, must confess to failure. A failure is a thing very relative. — Ford Madox Ford

I wrote to Mr. McEnroe, Senior. I said: "Here is the sentence once written by the immortal Bobby Jones. I thought you might like to have it done in needlepoint and mounted in a suitable frame to hang over Little John's bed. It says, The rewards of golf - and of life, too, I expect - are worth very little if you don't play the game by the etiquette as well as by the rules." I never heard from Mr. McEnroe, Senior. I can only conclude that the letter went astray. — Alistair Cooke

Despite the amount of suffering, pain, misery, sorrow and travail which can exist in life, the reason for existence is the same reason as one has to play a game-interest, contest, activity and possession. The truth of this assertion is established by an observation of the elements of games and then applying these elements to life itself. — L. Ron Hubbard

a world of known risk, in short, risk (Figure 2-3, center). I use this term for a world where all alternatives, consequences, and probabilities are known. Lotteries and games of chance are examples. Most of the time, however, we live in a changing world where some of these are unknown: where we face unknown risks, or uncertainty (Figure 2-3, right). The world of uncertainty is huge compared to that of risk. Whom to marry? Whom to trust? What to do with the rest of one's life? In an uncertain world, it is impossible to determine the optimal course of action by calculating the exact risks. We have to deal with "unknown unknowns." Surprises happen. Even when calculation does not provide a clear answer, however, we have to make decisions. — Gerd Gigerenzer

In the game of life, we all receive a set of variables and limitations in the field of play. We can either focus on the lack thereof or empower ourselves to create better realities with the pieces we play the game with. — T.F. Hodge

Everybody here is so caught up in the game of life they don't see death. They don't see beyond their deaths. They are on the wheel of birth and death. — Frederick Lenz

As life speeds by, nostalgia has a shorter pregnancy. Games still in progress are given the straight-to-sepia status of "Instant Classics" no matter how oxymoronic that phrase appears. — Steve Rushin

Toward the end of Carmel's life, the perception of super talls shifted dramatically, thanks largely to televised NBA games, By 1975, pretty much everyone had seen super tall people on TV, in the context of being celebrated in front of sold-out basketball arenas. This new frame of reference could not have been more positive. By 1995 Shaquille O'Neal was known as The Man of Steel, not the Traveling Human Giant. The idea of super tall people as freaks was replaced by the idea of super tall people as amazing athletes. — Arianne Cohen

And when attacked by a Capitol-aligned soldier in District 2, she tells him that fighting in the Capitol's wars makes them all slaves: "It just goes around and around and who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the Capitol. But I'm tired of being a piece in their Games." Game theory is not about games. It's about politics and psychology, war and strategy. For Katniss Everdeen, it is life and death, and in the end, everyone in Panem comes to learn that the only way to truly win the game is not to play at all. — Leah Wilson

There's an energy to these autumn nights that touches something primal inside of me. Something from long ago. From my childhood in Western Iowa. I think of high school football games and the stadium lights blazing down on the players. I smell ripening apples, and the sour reek of beer from keg parties in the cornfields. I feel the wind in my face as I ride in the bed of an old pickup truck down a country road at night, dust swirling red in the taillights and the entire span of my life yawning out ahead of me.

It's the beautiful thing about youth.

There's a weightlessness that permeates everything because no damning choices have been made, no paths committed to, and the road forking out ahead is pure, unlimited potential. — Blake Crouch

Duty were our games. — William Wordsworth

Throwing out the first pitch at the Cubs game and having 40,000 people give me a standing ovation was probably one of the highlights of my life. You could see what a great sports town Chicago is. — Patrick Kane

But I couldn't block out the sound of his voice. "Hayden wasn't the son I expected to have," he said. "I'd imagined playing catch in the yard, watching football on the weekends, going fishing. The things I'd done with my dad; the things I do with Ryan. It was the only kind of relationship I knew how to have with a son." His voice cracked. "But my second son didn't enjoy any of those things. He loved music and video games and computers. I didn't know how to talk to him. And now I'll spend the rest of my life wishing I'd learned how." He lowered his head, as if he were trying to hide the fact that he was crying. — Michelle Falkoff