Quotes & Sayings About Going Big In Life

All through my life I've had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was."
"No," said the old man, "that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that. — Douglas Adams

I have to pause the video while I corral the dogs in the other room. They howl in protest, and I tell them they are harshing my mellow and Yogi Beef Jerky's going to be pissed.
Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest To Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, Or Why Pie is Not The Answer — Jen Lancaster

At this stage of my life I would rather try and have some small impact within a company and suffer through those things than make such a big stink that nobody can trust to work with you. It's very important in an environment of a big institution that people don't feel threatened that you're going to expose them in any way. — Gelsey Kirkland

A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world. — Jack Kerouac

Either we're a team or we aren't. Either you trust me or you don't." Hale took a step toward her. "What's it going to be, Kat?"
It is an occupational hazard that anyone who has spent her life learning how to lie eventually becomes bad at telling the truth; in that moment Kat didn't have a clue what to say. I carn't do this with out you sounded trite. What they were doing was to big for a simple please.
Hale I-"
You know what? Never mind. Either way, I'm in Kat." He seemed utterly resloved as he slipped on his sunglasses. "I'm all in — Ally Carter

I'd like to have a kid, and I'd like to be driving around. I know a kid is going to be a big part of my life. I can trust my kid. I know my kid would be in the backseat of my car, and when I say You wanna get some ice-cream? he's going to be happy. My brother has kids. I see that trick work, the ice cream trick. — Adam Sandler

McMansions in sprawling suburbs, without mountains of unnecessary packaging, without giant mechanized monofarms, without energy-hogging big-box stores, without electronic billboards, without endless piles of throwaway junk, without the overconsumption of consumer goods no one really needs is not an impoverished world. I disagree with those environmentalists who say we are going to have to make do with less. In fact, we are going to make do with more: more beauty, more community, more fulfillment, more art, more music, and material objects that are fewer in number but superior in utility and aesthetics. The cheap stuff that fills our lives today, however great its quantity, can only cheapen life. — Charles Eisenstein

People do it all the time
assume that they "know" what's going on in someone else's head. That's impossible. And to think it's possible is a mistake. A really big mistake. A life-ruining one if you're not careful. — Jennifer Brown

I suddenly look at the fish and feel horrible all over again, that old death scheme is now back only now I'm gonna put my big healthy Anglosaxon teeth into it and wrench away at the mournful flesh of a little living being that only an hour ago was swimming happily in the sea, in fact even Dave thinking this and saying: 'Ah yes that little muzzling mouth was blindly sucking away in the glad waters of life and now look at it, here's where the fittin head's chopped off, you don't have to look, us big drunken sinners are now going to use it for our sacrificial supper[ ... ] — Jack Kerouac

I go out on the porch and gaze up at the stars twinkling above, the random scattering of millions of stars. Even in a planetarium you wouldn't find as many. Some of them really look big and distinct, like if you reached your hand out intently you could touch them. The whole thing is breathtaking. Not just beautiful though
the stars like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they're watching me. What I've done up till now, what I'm going to do
they know it all. Nothing gets past their watchful eyes. As I sit there under the shining night sky, again a violent fear takes hold of me. My heart's pounding a mile a minute, and I can barely breathe. All these millions of stars looking down on me, and I've never given them more than a passing thought before. Bot just stars
how many other things haven't I noticed in the world, things I know nothing about? I suddenly feel helpless, completely powerless. And I know I'll never outrun that awful feeling. (135) — Haruki Murakami

I'm not a real musician. If you give me a bass guitar and you ask me to improvise something, or even be with some musicians and follow them, I wouldn't be able to do it. And I want to change that. I want to be able to be in a group and take my guitar and play with them, without someone showing me, "Okay, you're going to do this and that," because music has always been a big part of my life. — Marion Cotillard

Seasons of life can make a big difference. Sometimes people are great believers while in college, but when they're young parents with their second baby and they're working sixty or eighty hours a week and their wife's sick all the time and the boss is on their back-they simply don't have time to reflect. And I don't think faith can develop without some contemplative time. If they don't make room for that, their faith is not going to grow and doubts will creep in. — Lynn Anderson

Otherwise, there were no long goodbyes or emotional scenes. That isn't part of foster care. You just leave and you just die a little bit. Just a little bit because a little bit more of you understands that this is the way it's going to be. And you grow hard around the edges, just a little bit. Not in some big way, but just a little bit because you have to, because if you don't it only hurts worse the next time and a little bit more of you will die. And you don't want that because you know that if enough little bits of you die enough times, a part of you leaves. Do you know what I mean? You're still there, but a part of you leaves until you stand on the sidelines of life, simply watching, like a ghost that everyone can see and no one is bothered by. You become the saddest thing there is: a child of God who has given up. — John William Tuohy

The big turn in the late '90s was that I realized I was going to be doing this for a long time. I was fairly sure I was going to be an actor for the rest of my life, which I think calmed me down. — Michael Weatherly

When young, we're anxious - understandably - to find out if we've got what it takes. Can we succeed? Can we build a viable life for ourselves? But you - in particular you, of this generation - may have noticed a certain cyclical quality to ambition. You do well in high-school, in hopes of getting into a good college, so you can do well in the good college, in the hopes of getting a good job, so you can do well in the good job so you can ...
And this is actually O.K. If we're going to become kinder, that process has to include taking ourselves seriously - as doers, as accomplishers, as dreamers. We have to do that, to be our best selves.
Still, accomplishment is unreliable. "Succeeding," whatever that might mean to you, is hard, and the need to do so constantly renews itself (success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it), and there's the very real danger that "succeeding" will take up your whole life, while the big questions go untended. — George Saunders

If we had fooled her last night, I would have considered my life at a satisfactory end, with all debts paid. I would have wound up on skid row, or maybe I would have been a suicide." He shrugged and smiled sadly. "Now," he said, "if I'm ever going to square things with her, I've got to believe in a Heaven, I've got to believe she can look down and see me, and I've got to be a big success for her to see — Kurt Vonnegut

I've realized as well after five years of being on the road that if I'm going to four or five months of my life to something even if I'm overpaid, it's four or five months of my life away from home, away from my son, away from family and friends. I better believe in it on some level even if it's a big movie. — Colin Farrell

So, what's the big emergency, princess? You and ice-boy look fine to me, and the Nevernever isn't crumbling around us. What's going on?"
"I'm pregnant, Puck," I said quietly, and watched his eyebrows shoot into his hair. Briefly,I explained what had happened at Elysium, the oracle's mysterious appearance and invitation, and Grimalkin's instruction to meet him at the Wishing Tree. By the time I was done, Puck was still staring at me openmouthed, struck mute for maybe the second time in his life, and I would've laughed if the situation wasn't so serious.
"Oh," he finally managed. "That's, uh ... Wow. That's not something you hear every day. Not exactly what I was expecting, though the entire prophecy thing does get old after a while." He shook himself, seeming to regain his composure, and glanced at Ash. "So, it's the ever so popular Firstborn Child of Doom prophecy, huh, ice-boy? How very cliche. Why can't it be the third nephew twice removed who's fated to destroy the world? — Julie Kagawa

My father left me with the feeling that I had to live for two people, and that if I did it well enough, somehow I could make up for the life he should have had. And his memory infused me, at a younger age than most, with a sense of my own mortality. The knowledge that I, too, could die young drove me both to try to drain the most out of every moment of life and to get on with the next big challenge. Even when I wasn't sure where I was going, I was always in a hurry. — William J. Clinton

You know the irony of life is that you have like this big dream to get where you wanna be. But once you get there you start to dream about where you came from. I guess that's the part of the circle of our lives, like the hands of a clock going round. If only we could wind them back and return to a time where the dream began. It's all too soon that's all we'll be is a dream in someone's mind. — Insane Clown Posse

I wouldn't want to be 20 now. I know so much more, and I'm much more comfortable in my skin, saggy as it is When I hear young girls complaining about superficial things You're at the peak of your physical beauty right now! Just enjoy it and stop worrying about your thighs being too big If you're upset with how you look at 25, life's going to be tough — Susan Sarandon

Skyler, you are the love of my life, I hope you know that. Walter junior, you're my big man. There are ... there are going to be some things, things that you'll come to learn about me in the next few days. I just want you to know that, no matter how it may look, I only had you in my heart. Goodbye. — Walter White

All true competitors in any field and walk of life take adversity and are strengthened from it. They develop a reputation of determination and toughness that wins more decisive moments in life than winning shots.
Bobby Blair was one tough player. Playing him was like going into a phone booth with an angry bobcat. His massive talent was only surpassed by his courage to hit the big shots under the most pressure. No one ever looked forward to playing him. It was going to be pain and suffering if you wanted to go the distance it took to beat him. — Luke Jensen

Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: it teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it to one degree or another.
(Harry Dresden's internal monologue in White Knight) — Jim Butcher

I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, 'OK, I'm looking back on my life. I want to minimise the number of regrets I have.' And I knew that when I was 80, I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed, I wouldn't regret that. But I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day. — Jeff Bezos

I've never been so scared in my life. I thought that shark was going to eat you."
TJ hugged me, resting his chin on the top of my head. "It didn't though."
"We're going to eat him now, aren't we?" I asked.
"Oh, hell yes," he said, a big grin on his face. — Tracey Garvis-Graves

Last time I said something perhaps I shouldn't have, something that's been taken the wrong way: "The poor are always with you." At that moment, back then, I wanted my friends' attention. I meant I was going to die soon, but they would have the rest of their lives to care for the poor. But the rich have twisted my words to mean something quite different: that there's nothing you can do about the poor. That the poor are part of life, like disease or accidents or hurricanes or getting old. Poverty is natural. You'll never get rid of it, so forget about trying. Don't worry that the poor have so much less than you do. Go eat your big meal, go drive your big car, go sleep in your big house. Let the poor look in the windows. Jesus says it's OK. Well, Jesus doesn't say it's OK. OK? P — Tony Hendra

I think that I learned music. And also you learn recommendations that you can use in your life. When you travel, you all the time remember what your mother teach you. You know in the African family the mother has a big role to play because the father is outside in the fields or going to work. — Baaba Maal

Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you're 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written, or you didn't go swimming in those warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It's going to break your heart. Don't let this happen. — Anne Lamott

To live a life of excellence, you will have to take risks. You will have to step into new territory and climb new mountains. If you're up to something that's as big as you are, it's going to be scary. If it feels perfectly safe, you are probably underachieving. To leave your mark in the world, you will have to stand someplace you've never been willing to stand before. And you will have to have the courage to aspire to excellence. — Debbie Ford

Whenever the story of John Wooden's life gets told, his years at UCLA before he started winning championships are usually characterized as a period of struggle. Wooden didn't view them that way. He was a diligent, persistent man. He enjoyed developing his craft, one small lesson plan at a time. "Little things add up, and they become big things. That's what I tried to teach my players in practice," he said. "You're not going to make a great improvement today. Maybe you'll make a little bit. But tomorrow it's a little more, and the next day a little more. — Seth Davis

Just do your best - in any circumstance in your life. It doesn't matter if you are sick or tired, if you always do your best there is no way you can judge yourself. And if you don't judge yourself there is no way you are going to suffer from guilt, blame, and self-punishment. By always doing your best, you will break a big spell that you have been under. — Miguel Ruiz

I had a big event in my personal life. Then I reevaluated and started going to theology class, and then I found my husband. — Ali Landry

She blew a stream of smoke up at the empty clotheslines. 'These silly dreams you have when you're young. I mean, what, Katie and Brendan Harris were going ot make a life in Las Vegas? How long would that little Eden have lasted? Maybe they'd be on their second trailer park, second kid, but it would have hit them sooner or later - life isn't happily ever after and golden sunsets and shit like that. It's work. The person you love is rarely worthy of how big your love is. Because no one is worthy of that and maybe no one deserves the burden of it, either. You'll be let down. You'll be disappointed and have your trust broken and have a lot of real sucky days. You lose more than you win. You hate the person you love as much as you love him. But, shit, you roll up your sleeves and work - at everything -because that's what growing older is. — Dennis Lehane

When love is out of your life, you're through in a way. Because while it is there it's like a motor that's going, you have such vitality to do things, big things, because love is goosing you all the time. — Fanny Brice

If you are in your everyday life, and you feel like you just accomplished something big that you had going on, then that's Beast Mode. It's an accomplishment, that you put yourself through something to get something better out of it. I feel that that's Beast Mode. — Marshawn Lynch

I almost said, you're not broken, you're just going through something. But i couldn't. She knew. There was something terribly wrong with her, all the way inside. She was like a big diamond with a dead spot in the middle. I was supposed to breathe life into that dead spot, but it hadn't worked ... — Janet Fitch

I'm a big believer in, no matter what you go through in life, as long as you can laugh your way through it, you're going to be okay. — Alyssa Milano

There's so much going on in Andrei [Bolkonsky]. He's wrangling with these big existential conundrums, and he tries out different routes to fulfillment. He tries falling in love, that doesn't work. He goes to war and searches for military glory, that doesn't work. He does the quiet life of a farmer. He's always active. That's what I loved about him, he's always looking, searching. He's really inquisitive. — James Norton

We're so terrified of death in Western culture that we have to make up a myth of an afterlife. I think there's something to be said for living your life very mindful of the fact that you're going to die because I think you carry yourself differently. It doesn't have to be this big, negative bummer. — Steve Earle

Where I'm at in life, the women have got to come with something else, not just the body, but the mind and spirit. It usually trips them out, but that's the way it's going to be. I'm looking at the big picture. — Lenny Kravitz

I've never in my life bought a big piece of jewelry - like, 'I'm gonna get myself a big piece of jewelry!' Songwriters' lives are unstable and up and down. Even though mine has sort of has followed more of a going toward the sky trajectory. — Kara DioGuardi

Vaccines are not traditionally big money makers. They're given once or a few times in one's life, so they're never going to be blockbusters. — Paul A. Offit

We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we're all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. We develop all those long-winded ideas which just interpret the reality of our lives in different ways, without really extending our body of worthwhile knowledge, about the big things, the real things. Basically, we live a short disappointing life; and then we die. We fill up our lives with shite, things like careers and relationships to delude ourselves that it isn't all totally pointless. — Irvine Welsh

If you have a story to tell, put it out there. Get the thing done. No excuses. No procrastinating. No apologies. It will never be as good as you want it to be, so forget about perfection. Just be satisfied that you've done the best work you can do at this stage in your life as an author. Then roll the rocket onto the launch pad and fire it off. After that, write another story. Always keep going. Move fast. Stay one step ahead of the forces of distraction and self-doubt. Love your characters enough to give them a good home. Love your readers enough to give them a place of refuge from life's tragedies, big and small. And love the world you live in enough to make it the world of your dreams. — James Hampton

Camus-boy, you're always going to be the same you, just older. It's not like there's a moment when you wake up and go, Shit, I'm grown-up, I don't feel like myself anymore.'
I don't tell him, but this is the scariest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. Being grown-up should feel like a big transition. It can't be something that, despite my best efforts, I've been drifting closer and closer to every summer. It needs to be a shock. I need to know at what point to stop holding on. And that moment will suck, and probably every moment after that will suck, but at least I'll know that everything that came before really was valid. I really was young and innocent. I wasn't fooling myself. — Hannah Moskowitz

If you're strutting around Beverly Hills and hitting up these big industry parties every night when you're not making movies, then it's going to eventually consume you. But for me, I live most of my life in Boston. I do things no different from the way my buddies back home do them, except when I go to work, I go to a film set. — Chris Evans

From my own point of view, I went to college in the States. I am very comfortable on the PGA Tour. I have made my family life over there. It would be a big upheaval for me to play full time in Europe, which is why I have decided that I am going to play mostly in the U.S. but still support Europe when it is possible. — Luke Donald

I'm still the same person I've always been. I can't say exactly what I'll do; I'm an excessive person. Talk about violence
I don't do anything violent. Talk about violence, what's going on in Nicaragua? What's going on in El Salvador? That's violent. What are they doing to the planet with chemicals and acid rain? That's violent. What are people doing to each other? Raping. That's violent. I'm striking out at ac icon that has no life. There's a big difference between what has life and what doesn't. I mean. I've been a vegetarian for 16 years. — Wendy O. Williams

I sat back down and poured a glass of wine. I left my door open. The moonlight came in with the sounds of the city: juke boxes, automobiles, curses, dogs barking, radios ... We were all in it together. We were all in one big shit pot together. There was no escape. We were all going to be flushed away. — Charles Bukowski

You don't have that much choice in your life, which is one of the big lessons I've learned. I was going to be a designer whether I wanted to be a designer or not. — Donna Karan

I absolutely get thrills from taking on these big guys and recognizing how, behind all their power, they are so empty. I just keep going at it. Each of these balloons does deflate. I've seen a lot of balloons get deflated in my life. — Vandana Shiva

I'll tell you why I keep my scrapbooks. It's in case my real father shows up .I never met him, don't even know his name ... I've got this feeling he's out there searching for me. When he bursts through the door and tells me he's spent a fortune on detectives looking all over the world for me, I'm not going to sit there like a dumb cluck when he asks me what I've been doing. I'm going to yank out my eleven scrapbooks filled with my experiences and inner-most thoughts on life lived in three time zones in America. I was a Girl Scout for three months when we lived in Atlanta. I couldn't get those square knots down for anything, but I got the big concept. Be prepared. Addie always told me, It's more important to get the big concept than to be an expert in the small stuff. — Joan Bauer

I could hear and indescribable seething roar which wasn't which wasn't in my ear but everywhere and had nothing to do with sounds. I realised that I had died and reborn numberless times but just didn't remember especially because the transitions from life to death and back to life are so ghostly eas, a magical action for naught, like falling asleep and waking up again a million times, the utter casualness and deep ignorance of it.
I realised it was only because of the stability of the intrinsic Mind that these ripples of birth and death took place, like the action of wind on a sheet of pure, serene, mirror-like water. I felt sweet, swinging bliss, like a big shot of heroin in the mainline vein, like a gulp of wine late in the afternoon and it makes you shudder; my feet tingled.
I thought I was going to die the very next moment. — Jack Kerouac

In fact, I think my life is always going to be difficult, because I am trying to do something ... "original" is a big word. It's kind of pathetic, but I have to love what I'm doing. — Ethan Hawke

There's always someone out there telling you your nose is too big or too small, or you're too fat or too thin, or they don't like your hair. In life, there's always going to be someone who doesn't like something about you, so you have to focus on what makes you happy about yourself. You're the only person you need to please. — Lauren Conrad

You can stay on the porch. Like how you left me on the floor outside our room."
"I didn't know what else to do. You found the check, and I panicked."
"That isn't an excuse."
"I know. And I'm not saying that this is going to make up for it. I'm going to try, really try, to make you trust me again. I want you to trust me. I just ... I couldn't sleep last night without you. It was the strangest thing, being in the room alone without you. I couldn't hear you breathing, and your laughter was gone and you were gone, and it was like a part of my life was missing. A big part. I tripped going to the bathroom and banged my head. See?" He pointed to a lovely gash on his forehead.
"And then I burned my hand on the toaster oven. And then my car wouldn't start. Again. I've never had such bad luck in my life. — Chelsea M. Cameron

I'm not sure I'm ready for another big research project just yet," I said.
Oh Yeah?" he said, handing me one of the beers. "What else you going to do? You can't fix nothing , you never worked a day in your life. The only thing you know how to do is hang out with niggers like us."
I nearly choked on my beer when he summarized my capacities so succinctly - and, for the most part accurately. — Sudhir Venkatesh

I think I went through my phase of feeling sort of invisible when I left my small hometown in Canada and moved to the big city of Vancouver. I kind of had to decide right there in that moment what I was going to do with the rest of my life and make a thousand decisions after finishing high school. Fortunately, I chose acting. — Justin Chatwin

I wanted to pull away, remind him that I was a big girl, a highly trained operative, a spy - that I'd been training for this mission my entire life, and I wasn't going to be left on the sidelines. But in the dim space with Zach pressed tightly against me, only one thought came to mind. I kissed him - longer and deeper than I ever had before. The school was not watching us this time. There was nothing playful in the tone. We were just two people kissing as if for the first time, as if it might be the last.
And then I broke away. "So," I asked, as if I got kissed like that all the time (which, believe me, I don't), "where is it you're taking me again?"
"The tombs. — Ally Carter

I've dated people who I thought were going to be a big deal in my life, and I've also spent long periods by myself. — Lauren Graham

Without a revolution of the inner life, however slow, all our big designs are worthless. The work we have to do is with ourselves if we're ever going to be at peace with each other ... the good that flows from it will shape our societies in an unprogrammed, unforeseen way, under the control of no single group of people or set of ideas. — Ian McEwan

I am a big believer that orderliness begets wealth. A pile of bills and statements - whether paid or not - is a sign that someone is clueless about what's coming in and going out. When you consciously open, read, and file away your bills and statements, you are connecting with your money and taking control of your life. — Suze Orman

Lor blows in like he was plastered to the other side of the door.
"Escort the kid to clean the fuck up and get that stench off her."
"Sure thing, boss."
He scowls at me.
I scowl right back.
Lor points through the glass floor. "See that blonde down there with the big tits? I was about to get laid."
"One, I'm too young to hear that kind of stuff, and two, I don't see you carrying a club to knock her over the head with, so how were you going to accomplish that?"
Behind me, Ryodan laughs.
"You're ruining my night, kid."
"Ditto. Ain't life at Chester's grand. — Karen Marie Moning

Most photographers have some kind of verbal patter going on when they shoot: "Great. Turn to me. Big smile. Less shark eyes. Have fun with it. Not like that." Some photographers are compulsively effusive. "Beautiful. Amazing. Gorgeous! Ugh, so gorgeous!" they yell at shutter speed. If you are anything less than insane, you will realize this is not sincere. It's hard to take because it's more positive feedback than you've received in your entire life thrown at you in fifteen seconds. It would be like going jogging while someone rode next to you in a slow-moving car, yelling, "Yes! You are Carl Lewis! You're breaking a world record right now. Amazing! You are fast. You're going very fast, yes! — Tina Fey

If you're going to do anything great in life, there will be opposition, setbacks, delays and critics. When you have big dreams, you're going to have big challenges. — Joel Osteen

It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin. — Alexander McCall Smith

And I am always flattered," Rusty continued, "but I love my sister. Not in an 'I love my sister and I want to make out with her' way, that would be terrible and disturbing, but in an 'I love my sister, and I'm not going anywhere near the girl she likes' way. Be a big mess. Life is hard for me, with all my irresistible sexual magnetism. It's a real problem, almost as bad as the fact that my steps are now the number one crying spot in Sorry-in-the-Vale. I have to maintain control of the situation at all times or my life would devolve into a nonstop romantical frenzy". — Sarah Rees Brennan

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I suggest that people walk around under the moon barefoot, as I have today. There's that voice of your mom and dad and aunt and big sister and uncle and annoying cousin in your ear saying "Your feet are going to get dirty and you're going to turn into a bat" so the defiance in the act of simply taking your shoes off and standing there under that moon - is astronomical. A dirty-feet-moonlit-defiance that will make you smile. — C. JoyBell C.

I know. And I'm not saying that this going to make up for it. I'm going to try, really try, to make you trust me again. I want you to trust me again. I want you to trust me. I just ... I couldn't sleep last night without you. It was the strangest thing, being in the room alone without you. I couldn't hear you breathing, and your laughter was gone and you were gone, and it was like a part of my life was missing. A big part. I tripped going to the bathroom and banged my head. See?" HE pointed to a lovely gash on his forehead. "And then I burned my habd on the toaster oven. And then the car wouldn't start. — Chelsea M. Cameron

What are you going to do for a living? Yea, you're going to have to work because you can't be a housewife. Somebody has to marry you before you can be a housewife. And you, you are a plant. Do you know that? That's all you are if you don't talk. If you don't talk, you can't have a personality. You'll have no personality and no hair. You've got to let people know you have a personality and a brain. You think somebody is going to take care of you all your stupid life? You think you'll always have your big sister? You think somebody's going to marry you, is that it? Well you're not the type that gets dates, let alone gets married. Nobody's going to notice you. And you have to talk for interviews, speak right up in front of the boss. Don't you know that? — Maxine Hong Kingston

Mostly, as I'm sitting here in A.P. English, I think about the way my classmates are always raising their hands and sucking up to Mrs. Giavotella just so she will give them As, which they will send to Harvard or Princeton or Stanford or where-fucking-ever, to go along with their lies about how much community service they supposedly did and essays about how much they care about poor minority children they'll never meet in real life or how they are going to save the world armed with nothing but a big heart and an Ivy League education. — Matthew Quick

She glanced pointedly at the flopping tadpole.
"What?"
"Take it back."
"You're kidding, right?" he said disbelievingly.
"Do we have time?"
He considered that. "Yes, but
"
"Then, no I'm not."
"That lake was three hops ago," he said impatiently.
"If you don't take it back it's going to die, and while you may think it's just a pathetic little thing with an abbreviated little life that hardly even signifies in the fairy scheme of things, I'll bet in the tadpole scheme of things it's really looking forward to becoming a frog. Now take it back. A life is a life. I don't care how tiny an almighty fairy thinks it is."
One dark brow arched and he inclined his head. "Yes, Gabrielle." Scooping up the tadpole in one big hand, gently enough that it gave her pause, he popped out.
-Gabrielle and Adam Black — Karen Marie Moning

For those of you who think that I have my life altogether, I definitely do not. Every season brings new challenges. For example, since I had my fifth child, I am notoriously 5-10 minutes late everywhere no matter how hard I try to be on time. I would like to say that I am "fashionably" late, but that isn't the truth either. Running in a mad dash in a parking lot (all holding hands of course) to make it somewhere 5 minutes late (instead of 6 minutes cause that makes a big difference) while one child is missing shoes and my hair is going in every direction. Yep, that is my family. — Tamara L. Chilver

You win over people just like you win over a dog. You see a dog passing down the street with an old bone in his mouth. You don't grab the bone from him and tell him it's not good for him. He'll growl at you. It's the only thing he has. But you throw a big fat lamb chop in front of him, and he's going to drop that bone and pick up the lamb chop, his tail wagging to beat the band. And you've got a friend. Instead of going around grabbing bones from people ... I'm going to throw them some lamb chops. Something with real meat and life in it. I'm going to tell them about New Beginnings. — David Wilkerson

Teenage girls, please don't worry about being super popular in high school, or being the best actress in high school, or the best athlete. Not only do people not care about any of that the second you graduate, but when you get older, if you reference your successes in high school too much, it actually makes you look kind of pitiful, like some babbling old Tennessee Williams character with nothing else going on in her current life. What I've noticed is that almost no one who was a big star in high school is also big star later in life. For us overlooked kids, it's so wonderfully fair. — Mindy Kaling

There is no straight path from your seat today to where you are going. Don't try to draw that line. You will not just get it wrong, you'll miss big opportunities. And I mean big-like the Internet. Careers are not ladders, those days are long gone, but jungle gyms. Don't just move up and down, don't just look up, look backwards, sideways around corners. Your career and your life will have starts and stops and zigs and zags. Don't stress out about the white space-the path you can't draw- because there in lies both the surprises and the opportunities. — Sheryl Sandberg

The bait's got a theory; the bait's finding a practice, working it out; the bait's going to write it down and she don't have to use words, she'll make signs, in blood, she's good at bleeding, boys, the vein's open, boys, the bait's got plenty, each month more and more without dying for a certain long period of her life, she can lose it or use it, she works in broad strokes, she makes big gestures, big signs; oh and honey there's so much bait around that there's going to be a bloodbath in the old town tonight, when the new art gets its start. — Andrea Dworkin

I made a decision a long time ago that I was going to choose joy. I even painted a big rectangle on my wall and printed it in big letters so I wouldn't forget to make that choice every day. The major word in that rectangle isn't joy, it's CHOOSE. It's looking around me when life is difficult and trading every complaint I have for something beautiful in my life that far outweighs it. I know, it's that Pollyanna personified thing again, but living joyful beats being cynical any day of the week. — Jessica N. Turner

Whatever. I've never understood what the big deal is about reading." He shuts the door and locks it, turning for the stairs. "Going to another place. Getting lost in time. Pretending that you're living a different life." He heads down the stairs and I follow him. "What's not to love? — Jessica Sorensen

It's all a lie. I said to myself. Romance. This notion that some guy is going to swoop and fall madly in love with me and change my life and make everything perfect. It's one big, horrible lie and I bought it. Hook, line, and a ten thousand-pound sinker. Or I guess I should say it's a lie for a girl like me. For Skye, that's another story. The first time Dakota kissed me, down at the hot tub, I remember thinking, this is too good to be true. But if something feels too good to be true, maybe it's not true. Maybe the truth is that Skye deserves him. She'll always be the winner. And I, pathetically, will always be me. — Carolyn Mackler

There's a woman I see who's not my therapist, but she's like an old friend who's a therapist in profession. She lets me talk to her like a therapist once in a while, and she does a great thing. Whenever I have a big dilemma, like this is a big problem in my life, she always says, 'Wow, you're going to have to figure that out.' — Louis C.K.

I feel a big obligation to the audience, almost in a moral sense, to say something useful. If I'm going to spend a year of my life on these things, I want something that I feel that strongly about. — Harold Ramis

There was a Japanese TV set in front of us. There were Japanese TV sets all over the prison. They were like portholes on an ocean liner. The passengers were in a state of suspended animation until the big ship got where it was going. But anytime they wanted, the passengers could look through a porthole and see the real world out there.
Life was like an ocean liner to a lot of people who weren't in prison, too, of course. And their TV sets were portholes through which they could look while doing nothing, to see all the World was doing with no help from them.
Look at it go! — Kurt Vonnegut

He lifted my foot and placed a kiss on the tip of my big toe. That toe had never been kissed in its life. I wondered if it was smart enough to know what had just happened. Would it lord it over the other toes now that it had been singled out and kissed by Frank Wells, or was it just a fucking toe and didn't know what the hell was going on? Like me. — John Inman

There are drawbacks in being famous too, but you can live with those. They're not life-threatening. If the paparazzi are outside your restaurant or your house - and actors make such a big thing of it and scurry into cars and drape things - you think they're going to be crucified or something. It's not a big deal. You can get used to that. It's not so terrible. — Woody Allen

Are we ever getting out of these mountains?" she asked without turning to look at him.
He moved up behind her and put his arms around her.
She leaned back against him. Her hair glistened with melting snow. She felt small in his arms.
"We're going to get out of here," he whispered as he slowly turned her to face him. "Do you trust me?"
She raised her head to meet his eyes and held his gaze for a long moment. "With my life. — B. J. Daniels

Your young, sitting back thinking about your future, you feel heavily in your heart your desire to create your dream; no matter the tasks set before you. You hold that feeling; close to you, and you age. Your told to grow up, get a job and become successful in ways that will make someone else proud, whilst ignoring the ache inside yourself. Truth is, we're all raised to conform; damn it our parents were raised to conform, but does that mean you have to, too? No, than unravel that long lost dream inside yourself and start to create a life from it, you'll walk alone for a while, you will break down every comfort zone you've ever known; slowly transforming into a being without one, and you know what..? even if it's going to be hard, possibly some of the greatest hurdles of your time; one thing will feel certain- you'll never have felt so empowered in all your life. — Nikki Rowe

I told her we were going to get married, and all she could talk about was frogs.
She said there's these hills where it's hot and rains all the time, and in the rainforests there are these very tall trees and right in the top branches of the trees there are these like great big flowers called ... bromeliads, I think, and water gets into the flowers and makes little pools and there's a type of frog that lays eggs in the pools and tadpoles hatch and grow into new frogs and these little frogs live their whole lives in the flowers right at the top of the trees and don't even know about the ground, and once you know the world is full of things like that, your life is never the same. — Terry Pratchett

Look, let me give you the CliffsNotes: You're a bitch in this life and Daniel doesn't care. Shocker! He courts you for a few weeks, there's some exchanging of flowers. A big kiss and then kaboom. Okay? Not much more to see.

You don't understand.

What? I don't understand that Victorians are as stuffy as an attic and as boring as watching wallpaper peel? Come on, if you're going to zigzag through your past, make it count. Let's hit some highlights.

Luce didn't budge. Is there a way to make you disappear?

Do I have to stuff you in this Announcer like a cat in a suitcase? Let's move! — Lauren Kate

Sometimes you don't need a goal in life, you don't need to know the big picture. you just need to know what you're going to do next! — Sophie Kinsella

Don't. I understand. I knew going into this that a story about us was also going to be a story about the two of you. And it should be. He was a big part of your life, and I'm okay with your history. It made you who you are. And I happen to be in love with who you are. — S.C. Stephens

Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the Unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into. — Wendell Berry

People are going to be upset in life no matter what we do, Bexley. Might as well go big or go home. (Jude) — Frankie Love

The Big Snooze is like an overprotective Italian mother who not only doesn't want you to ever go outside, but who wants you to live with her forever. Her intentions are good, but fully fear-based. As long as you stay inside the familiar, risk-free zone of your present reality, the Big Snooze is content, but should you try and sneak past her to attend the rockin' party outside, your overprotective, controlling mother is going to claw, scratch, scream, bite, hurl her body in front of your rapidly approaching new life - basically she's going to do whatever she can to stop you. And it ain't gonna be pretty. — Jen Sincero

Martha told me, I don't know how you're going to talk about romance in your book, but you're going to have to because its truly part of all our lives down there-and in a big way- because its an incredibly sensuous environment. Think of how many times you've fallen in love down there, and how many times people have fallen in love with you. Its a place where we shine. We're the happiest in our lives. We're vibrant. We're just so full of life, and not only does that put you in the mood for love, it sets you up for it. People are really drawn to people who are shining, who feel so happy where they are and who they are and what they're doing and who they're doing it with. — Martha Clark

And what nags me about this is that the source of my anxiety was exactly what Kierkegaard says the source of anxiety is, and what he praised in direct proportion to the volume any person possesses: possibility. The awareness that life is a series of choices any one of which could be either aggrandizing or disastrous. That this happens to be true I have no trouble signing on to. Any who has lived past the age of ten knows that even piddling actions can wind up having big consequences, and that even when you are super-conscious of your behaviors you can't know how things are going to turn out in the short- or the long-run. That's the drama of it all. On the one hand, your very existence means you can and will change things in your life and others. On the other hand, you aren't God, so everything is always going to be drenched in uncertainty and doubt. — Daniel Smith

The character of a life isn't set in ten big moments. The character of a life is set in ten thousand little moments of everyday life. It's the themes of struggles that emerge from those little moments that reveal what's really going on in our hearts. — Paul David Tripp

Once He created the Big Bang ... He could have envisioned it going in billions of directions as it evolved, including billions of life-forms and billions of kinds of intelligent beings. As a theologian, I would say that the proposed search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is also a search of knowing and understanding God through his works - especially those works that most reflect Him. Finding others than ourselves would mean knowing Him better. — Theodore Hesburgh