Gracefully Quotes & Sayings

The feeling, for those seconds, is glorious - it reminds him that he is human, that he is so insignificant as to be utterly free, and he is being guided along gracefully, lovingly, by the hand of Nature - and it frees him, however transiently, from all worry and fear and fury and grief. 'I enjoyed that,' he says aloud, as much to the stars as to the rower. — Doug Dorst

Among men who are really free, every form of industry becomes more rapidly improved - all the arts flourish more gracefully - all the sciences extend their range. — Wilhelm Von Humboldt

When you're up against a superior enemy, sometimes it's okay to just bow out gracefully — Lurlene McDaniel

Growing old is humbling and it takes effort to accomplish this stage of life with dignity. — Kilroy J. Oldster

It is impossible to win gracefully at chess. No man has yet said "Mate!" in a voice which failed to sound to his opponent bitter, boastful and malicious. — A.A. Milne

I hope I leave this world gracefully, like a pilgrim slips from the back of his donkey at the end of a long ride, like a traveler disembarks from an airplane that has carried him across a great ocean. — Kim Wright

Though Jonah felt transfixed inside his own childhood, no one else saw him as a child. He was already over the hump of middle age, heading rapidly toward those year that no one like to speak of. The best parts had already passed for people Jonah's age. By now you were meant to have become what you would finally be, and to gracefully and unobtrusively stay in that state for the rest of your life. — Meg Wolitzer

And the beauty of a woman, with passing years only grows! — Audrey Hepburn

Toppling sounds like it jumped from a tall building and landed gracefully on is g. — Edmond Manning

If there was a moral issue involved, she would, of course, defend her position to the end. But long ago her mother had taught her that often it is the little things over which people battle foolishly, losing friends, disturbing peace of mind, destroying serenity with no end in view save that they continue to defend the position they have already taken. It was far better, her mother pointed out, to give in gracefully, remembering that a fight in a lesser cause is never worth the struggle. She maintained that by doing so one gained everything really worth having, serenity, sweetness, and inner strength. — Loula Grace Erdman

I don't think I've aged gracefully. — Robert Plant

Get out of your own way. Learn to exist gracefully and peacefully with yourself. — Bryant McGill

Life is a series of problems to figure out how to solve gracefully and with dignity. That is what life is and I can't see it any other way. — Aimee Mann

In the first act get your principal character up a tree; in the second act, throw stones at him; in the third, get him down gracefully. — Anonymous

I began to understand that dancing well had everything to do with believing you could. Like those dreams of flying- dipping gracefully through the air in your weightless body- if in your sleep, you stopped to think about it for more than half a second, you'd crash like a sack of dead ducks onto the roof of a church. — Laura Kasischke

It is better not to sit on the grass after thirty when sprawling at all is difficult, let alone sprawling gracefully. — Elizabeth Bibesco

This set off a series of additional questions from Batty, which Iantha gracefully took on, giving Rosalind the chance to slip away unnoticed. She crossed the street to the Geigers' house, headed round to the back, and knocked on the kitchen door, just as she'd done a thousand times before. — Jeanne Birdsall

I don't want to grow old gracefully. I want to put up a bit of a fight. — Bruce Forsyth

In the woods lay a bleeding angel in all her glory. Her arms posed gracefully above her head and her hair soaked in the mud, the blood and feces in which she lay. Dying, fading into the other realm, her form christened by the rain as though the trees had begun to weep upon her in sadness for the brutality she had endured. (The Children of Ankh series) — Kim Cormack

The older I get, the less I know. It's wonderful--it makes the world so spacious. — Swami Chetanananda

There is a major turning point in life when you have to decide: shall I grow old gracefully or shall I try everything to stem the tide? For me, that point came in 2001, when I stopped dyeing my hair. — Nik Kershaw

the key to surviving change: embracing it, however cumbersomely, or gracefully, one can. — J.A. Redmerski

Paxton choked on the tears that were gushing uncontrollably down his face. "This feels ... a lot like falling," he let out through his gasps for air.
Jade pulled Paxton's trembling frame against hers. His hoodie was warm from his body heat and it smelt like cigarette smoke and deodorant. "No," she corrected him. "This is just ... slipping gracefully. — Megan Duke

I once laughed at the vanity of women of thirty or forty who whitened their ruddy old skin with lead, but now I know such salves are not disguises for old crones who wish to catch a young husband. Instead they are only a mask we wear so that we can, for a little while, still recognize ourselves. — Rebecca Johns

In real life I always seem to have a hard time winding up a conversation or asking somebody to leave, and sometimes the moment becomes so delicate and fraught with social complexity that I'll get overwhelmed trying to sort out all the different possible ways of saying it and all the different implications of each option and will just sort of blank out and do it totally straight
'I want to terminate the conversation and not have you be in my apartment anymore'
which evidently makes me look either as if I'm very rude and abrupt or as if I'm semi-autistic and have no sense of how to wind up a conversation gracefully ... I've actually lost friends this way. — David Foster Wallace

Life is about loosing, everything, gracefully — Mia Farrow

Life is about losing everything, gracefully. — Mia Farrow

By seizing every opportunity for kindness, forgiveness, healing, and love that crosses my path each day, I hope that my death, although perhaps sad for some, will be gracefully concluded. — Lisa J. Shultz

In the most extreme cases, I would pull a big pair of glasses out of my pocket and carefully slide them up my nose, almost past the bridge. Then I wasn't pretending anymore: everything was a blur, the other person's pimples disappeared. Behind my thick lenses, I could say anything, without worrying about possible consequences. I felt my body flow into this gelatinous mist effortlessly, gracefully as a drop of oil falling into a glass of water. Blindness set me free. No longer a slave to outward forms, I finally became myself. — Marie Nimier

Growing old gracefully used to begin at about 35, but today women prefer to 'stay young gratefully' with thanks to designers, beauticians and plastic surgeons. — Edith Head

We don't ask when people age out of singing, or eating ice cream; why would we stop making love? — Ashton Applewhite

I look at Gloria with her red hair and glass of champagne and expression of utter disdain and wonder how many expletives she'd manage to fit into a sentence if I asked her to teach me to knit or bake me a cake. — Clare Furniss

I've been going through photos of my mother, looking back on her life and trying to put it into context. Very few people age gracefully enough to be photographed through their aging. — Jamie Lee Curtis

We can grow gracefully, or gorgeously. I pick both. — Diane Keaton

Grow old with me! The best is yet to be. — Robert Browning

I would love to continue in music, with writing ... but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don't need to be blonde when I'm 60! — Taylor Swift

He only stopped once, to pick her some great blue violets. She thanked him with real pleasure. In the company of this common man the world was beautiful and direct. For the first time she felt the influence of spring. His arm swept the horizon gracefully; violets, like other things, existed in great profusion there; would she like to see them?
'Ma buoni uomini.'
He bowed. Certainly. Good men first, violets afterwards. — E. M. Forster

After all,' Magnus remarked aloud to himself, swinging his monkey-headed cane, 'attractive and interesting persons do not simply drop out of the sky.'
It was then that the fair-headed Shadowhunter that Magnus had spotted at the Institute somersaulted from the top of a wall and landed gracefully in the street before him.
'Devastating ensembles made on Bond Street with red brocade waistcoats do not simply drop out of the sky!' Magnus proclaimed experimentally to the Heavens. — Cassandra Clare

Be able to decline a date so gracefully that the person isn't embarrassed that he or she asked. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Don't be afraid. Change is such a beautiful thing, said the Butterfly. — Sabrina Newby

When one wants to be famous, one has to dive gracefully into rivers of the blood of cannon-blasted bodies. — Comte De Lautreamont

When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in ... How beautifully they go to their graves! How gently lay themselves down and turn to mould. They teach us how to die. One wonders if the time will ever come when people, with our boasted faith in immortality, will lie down as gracefully and ripe-with such an Indian-summer serenity will shed our bodies. — Henry David Thoreau

Hidden by diaphanous clouds of mist and fog floating gracefully over vales of heather and flowing runnels, she began to dance. — Lawren Leo

When Mother had told me that animals found quiet, unexposed places to die, I had always imagined they knew they were dying, and accepted it, almost gracefully. Now I saw that this wasn't so at all: they crept into corners in the hope of surviving, they only knew they were weakened and exposed, easy prey, and their instinct was to find a hidden place and try to outlive whatever it was they were suffering. It had been a mistake to imagine they wanted to be alone, to die in peace. Animals have no knowledge of death; for them, death is the unexpected end of life, something they resist by instinct, for no good reason. In that sense, their existence has an almost mechanical quality. — John Burnside

It behooves me to remember as I advance in age that death is an inevitable part of the life cycle rather than a medical failure. — Lisa J. Shultz

In the yoga sutras, they have this beautiful analogy that the journey of life is like the flight of an eagle, or the journey over multiple lifetimes is like a flight of an eagle. First, the eagle stretches its wings high, high, high, and experiences everything that the world has to offer in terms of flight. It's growing and flying and it's experiencing, and then it brings its wings down gracefully and that is the completion of the journey. — Karan Bajaj

Oh, child! Somewhere inside you, your future has already unfurled like one of those coiled-up party streamers, once shiny, shaken loose, floating gracefully for a brief moment, now trampled underfoot after the party is over. The future you're capable of imagining is already a thing of the past. Who did you think you would grow up to become? You could never have dreamt yourself up. Sit down. Let me tell you everything that's happened. You can stop running now. You are alive in the woman who watches you as you vanish. — Dani Shapiro

What, suddenly I am a figure from an ancient bit of nursery nonsense?" He lifted a forepaw and began chewing his toes, the picture of dismissive indifference. "And the next egg you come across you'll ask, 'Tell me, sir, what were you doing up on that wall anyway?'"
"Are you ashamed to answer?"
"I am ashamed of nothing. I am a cat." The cat gracefully placed his paw next to the other, sitting as prim as a perfect statue. — Anne Elisabeth Stengl

I think that the heroism which at this day would make on us the impression of Epaminondas and Phocion must be that of a domestic conqueror. He who shall bravely and gracefully subdue this Gorgon of Convention and Fashion, and show men how to lead a clean, handsome and heroic life amid the beggarly elements of our cities and villages; whoso shall teach me how to eat my meat and take my repose and deal with men, without any shame following, will restore the life of man to splendor, and make his own name dear to all history. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'm just growing old, darling. I don't know about gracefully. — Judy Parfitt

You develop patience that enables you to wait gracefully and gratefully until the best arrives because you know it will. — Sarah Ban Breathnach

I was really obsessed with age. I kept saying it was a record about trying to age gracefully. — Craig Finn

You don't get over a broken heart/ You just learn to carry it gracefully. — Jens Lekman

Kirk Cameron pulls no punches in his exploration of mankind's greatest dilemma. Unstoppable is a captivating, raw, and candid journey that gracefully delivers hope and poignant truth every step of the way. It's a masterful and timely production! — Ray Comfort

Your breathing should flow gracefully,
like a river, like a watersnake crossing
the water, and not like a chain of rugged mountains or the gallop of a horse. To master our breath is to be in control of our bodies and minds. Each time we find ourselves dispersed and find it difficult to gain control of ourselves by different means, the method of watching the breath should always be used. — Thich Nhat Hanh

The polished executive is ultimately the happy executive who can walk gracefully through life. — Letitia Baldrige

If I am to tell you how to grow old gracefully, I must tell you at the beginning of life; for no man can grow old gracefully unless he begins early. — Lyman Abbott

The very austerity of the Brahmans is tempting to the devotional soul, as a more refined and nobler luxury. Wants so easily and gracefully satisfied seem like a more refined pleasure. Their conception of creation is peaceful as a dream. — Henry David Thoreau

Julia poured tea gracefully, but it all ran over into the saucers. — Elizabeth Taylor

To deceive gracefully is the very essence of social life. One must start by deceiving oneself, and make a lifelong practice of deceiving others; if one does it well enough, in time one might even become an artist, the greatest illusionists of all. — Elspeth Huxley

How many flutterings before they rest quietly in their graves! They that soared so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again, and are laid low, resigned to lie and decay at the foot of the tree, and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! They teach us how to die. One wonders if the time will ever come when men, with their boasted faith in immortality, will lie down as gracefully and as ripe,
with such an Indian-summer serenity will shed their bodies, as they do their hair and nails. — Henry David Thoreau

I want to age nicely. Rather than being afraid of aging, I want to take each year coolly and age gracefully. — L.Joe

I found that jazz musicians, possibly more than their classical counterparts, wear long-standing friendships easily and gracefully. — Andre Previn

I just pray I can keep working. I just pray I grow old gracefully. — Robin Wright

As the boys screamed and hauled off handfuls of mulch, Olivier had slowly, deliberately, gently taken Gabri's hand and held it before gracefully lifting it to his lips. The boys had watched, momentarily stunned, as Olivier had kissed Gabri's manure-stained hand with his manure-stained lips. The boys had seemed petrified by this act of love and defiance. But just for a moment. Their hatred triumphed and soon their attack had re-doubled. — Louise Penny

So for me the essence of life is very simple. It is just this, awareness that allows us to trust in our own truths (without feeling any need to convince others), living gracefully amidst the chaos, maintaining a sense of balance (not being pulled around by the supposed opposites or false paradoxes), and being able to choose how we direct our lives. — Julia Woodman

No mistaking his accent. He was English. And rich, judging by his threads. Double-breasted coat. Fisherman-style, but the kind you saw on runways, not gangways. He was weaving in place and reeked of alcohol.
That sealed it for me. I hauled off and punched him.
He fell gracefully. Knee, hip, shoulder. Like some part of him had decided,What the heck. I'm passing out tonight anyway. Might as well get started now. — Veronica Rossi

Youth. I don't seek it through another because I have it within; it's a state of mind, a spirit that is free, and a mind that is playful. The shell of my being is altered by the effects of time, but nothing will tarnish a soul that will never forget what its like to experience creation with endless wonder and appreciation. Each time I see the first snowfall of the season I feel it's the first time I've seen it at all. — Donna Lynn Hope

You can either grow old gracefully or begrudgingly. I chose both. — Roger Moore

I'm not an aging gracefully type. But I do believe in aging with grace. — Danielle Steel

People's opinions don't interfere with me. Ageing gracefully is supposed to mean trying not to hide time passing and just looking a wreck. That's what they call ageing gracefully. You know? — Jeanne Moreau

When a stretch of Eye Street was finally ready, he had the barricades gracefully opened by two trained bears on loan from the circus. As a result, both Metro and the circus got good press. Even then Pfanstiehl could not please everybody; a labor representative berated him for giving work to nonunion bears. — Zachary M. Schrag

You need to have the ability to gracefully navigate the world. — Malcolm Gladwell

There's a lot to be said for loafing if you know how to do it gracefully. — Victor Mature

Now listen," said Daniel gravely. "Just you listen to me and I'll tell you something worth remembering. When we're young we make our beds and when we're older we have to lie on them. I'd make myself a comfortable bed if I were you - straight and tidy with the blankets well tucked in at the foot - then it'll not come adrift when you lie in it. If a bed's not properly made at the start the blankets'll maybe fall off in the night and you'll wake up shivering." He nodded to Duggie in a friendly manner and away he went with his dog bounding gracefully beside him. Duggie watched him until he disappeared. Daniel — D.E. Stevenson

Even so, I must admire your skill.
You are so gracefully insane. — Anne Sexton

Our young people, raised under the old rules of courtesy, never indulged in the present habit of talking incessantly and all at the same time. To do so would have been not only impolite, but foolish; for poise, so much admired as a social grace, could not be accompanied by restlessness. Pauses were acknowledged gracefully and did not cause lack of ease or embarrassment. — Kent Nerburn

Why? But I want to know just why it's impossible for an American to be gracefully idle" - his words gathered conviction - "it astonishes me. It - it - I don't understand why people think that every young man ought to go down-town and work ten hours a day for the best twenty years of his life at dull, unimaginative work, certainly not altruistic work. — F Scott Fitzgerald

But this is what I'm finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I'm waiting for, for that adventure, that movie-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets - this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of us will ever experience. — Shauna Niequist

Gracefully and gratefully accept the changes in our lives as casually and flexibly like a butterfly does." ~ Angelica Hopes, Odyssey of a Heart, Home of a Soul — Angelica Hopes

Talent on its own sat gracefully only on the very young. After a certain age it was what you did with it that counted. — Liza Cody

Myrnin blinked, looked at Eve, and smiled. It was his seductive smile, and it came with a lowering of his thick eyelashes. "Sweet lady," he said, "could you get me one of those delicious drinks you prepared for my friend, here?" He gracefully indicated Oliver, who remembered the cup of blood still sitting in front of him, and angrily choked it down. "Perhaps warm the bag a bit in hot water first? It's a bit disgusting, cold."
"Yeah, sure," Eve sighed. "Want a shot of espresso with that?"
Myrnin seemed to be honestly considering it. Claire urgently shook her head no. The last thing she - any of them - needed just now was Myrnin on caffeine. — Rachel Caine

No one ever fell in love gracefully. — Connie Brockway

-I was young! I made a mistake, okay! Haven't you ever made a mistake?
-I'm old! Of course I've made mistakes, you stupid little shit! — Drea Damara

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity. — Jeffrey Zeldman

If you are not for us, then you are against us! One day we will be living alongside you in those mansions. Your choice. Share or lose it all. We're going to take Africa away from its colonial masters. Step aside gracefully, we'll let you stay. Fight us and we'll drive you out. — Richard H. Mcbee Jr.

The way he moves-a singular motion with such ease-put me in awe. He takes down one, two and then three without even bending his back. Knocking down a man so gracefully was nothing I had ever seen before and this red dance drew me in as it did the others around him. He could have easily killed those men. This is a man who has control over himself. This is the kind of man I need. — Celia Mcmahon

Case shuffled into the nearest door and watched the other passengers as he rode. A pair of predatory-looking Christian Scientists were edging toward a trio of young office techs who wore idealized holographic vaginas on their wrists, wet pink glittering under the harsh lighting. The techs licked their perfect lips nervously and eyed the Christian Scientists from beneath lowered metallic lids. The girls looked like tall, exotic grazing animals, swaying gracefully and unconsciously with the movement of the train, their high heels like polished hooves against the gray metal of the car's floor. Before they could stampede, take flight from the missionaries, the train reached Case's station. — William Gibson

Communication is like a pressure relief valve for your body. When a little pressure gets cooked up inside and needs to be released, you can gently turn the nozzle and release it slowly and gracefully until you feel better, by way of a productive conversation. But if you choose to ignore the warning signals and leave that pressure inside, it's going to grow and inevitably explode and make a mess, by way of an overreaction and possibly an argument. — L.K. Elliott

Remember, the things with which we choose to surround ourselves tell our story. Let's hope it's not "I choose to live in the past," or "I can't finish the projects I start." Instead, let's aim for something like, "I live lightly and gracefully, with only the objects I find functional or beautiful. — Francine Jay

But above everything, drink wines with love. They are like women - different, mysterious, fickle. And each wine has to be taken like a woman. This always begins with a rejection, done gracefully or rudely according to the woman's disposition, and in the end she will grant herself only to someone, who aspires her soul as well as her body. She will belong to the one, who knows how to uncover her with the utmost delicacy. — Luigi Veronelli

I was amazing," Dwayne squealed triumphantly as he landed gracefully in the middle of the room. "I did the meld and they bubbled and turned a lovely bluish-orange-green and then BOOM! The sound was incredible. Absolutely fabulous - like fornicating cats and Madonna. — Robyn Peterman

Disaster followed disaster ... the hero stuck in there, though. Macon had long ago noticed that all adventure movies had the same moral: Perseverance pays. Just once he'd like to see a hero like himself
not a quitter, but a man who did face facts and give up gracefully when pushing on was foolish. — Anne Tyler

Good breeding differs, if at all, from high breeding only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights. — Thomas Carlyle

She grasped the crook and flail with cool hands and sank gracefully to her knees. The High Priest of Amun placed a piece of flatbread imprinted with an ankh, the symbol of everlasting life, upon her tongue. It was gritty, the dough having been sprinkled with sand blessed by all the High Priests before it was baked that morning. — Stephanie Thornton

she clutched her purse and was completely composed, gracefully accepting people's sympathies, but when they started to shovel the dirt over old dick's coffin she began to weep, and her grief was strong enough to chase the sparrows from the trees. — Alice Hoffman

The trick to not growing old is to: Stay curious. Keep your teeth. Stay hopeful. Do everything gracefully, yet kick when you have to. — Carew Papritz

I'm not opposed to aging - even though society is kinder on men than women when it comes to getting old. How can I look at aging as the enemy? It happens whether I like it or not and no one is set apart from growing old; it comes to us all. Youth passes from everyone, so why deny it? I'm proud of my age. I'm proud that I've survived this planet for as long as I have, and should I end up withered, wrinkled and with a lifetime of great wisdom, I'll trade the few years of youth for the sophistication of a great mind ... for however long it lasts. — Donna Lynn Hope

O Tree of God - Tree of Life, In the gift of your shade, I stand, my heart raised to your Creator. Your branches call me to reach out in all directions to many people. Your branches remind me of the sheltering arms of God. Your roots call me to be rooted in all that is good and nourishing. Your roots ask me to spend time in the ground of my being. Teach me, like you, to praise God in the silence of my being. Help me to surrender unnecessary words. Draw me, like a magnet, into the abiding love of God. And when it is time for me to die, teach me to die gracefully and joyfully. Teach me to let go as you let go of your leaves each autumn. In living and in dying, teach me to praise God by living well and dying well. May it come to pass! — Macrina Wiederkehr

When he's like this, Miss Lowell," Mark offered from his seat on the sofa, "I usually take it upon myself to stamp out in a rage."

"Must I stamp? Or can I sweet out gracefully?" "By all means, sweep. — Courtney Milan