Great Going Away Quotes & Sayings

A Farewell For a while I shall still be leaving, Looking back at you as you slip away Into the magic islands of the mind. But for a while now all alive, believing That in a single poignant hour We did say all that we could ever say In a great flowing out of radiant power. It was like seeing and then going blind. After a while we shall be cut in two Between real islands where you live And a far shore where I'll no longer keep The haunting image of your eyes, and you, As pupils widen, widen to deep black And I am able neither to love or grieve Between fulfillment and heartbreak. The time will come when I can go to sleep. But for a while still, centered at last, Contemplate a brief amazing union, Then watch you leave and then let you go. I must not go back to the murderous past Nor force a passage through to some safe landing, But float upon this moment of communion Entranced, astonished by pure understanding - Passionate love dissolved like summer snow. — May Sarton

Fuck, I think. Just that. A multitude of various fucks all in one great big clusterfuck. As in: I am fucked if I want this ... this ... newborn imbecile. And she is so fucked if I take her. And fuck if I'm going to walk away. — Karen Marie Moning

I was just glad I've got an opponent, to be honest. This is my third opponent for this fight prep. [I'm over the moon] to be fighting in my hometown and I just didn't want that taken away. The fact that they've got me a new opponent, I'm not bothered who it is. I just focus on what I can control in my preparation and that's all I've got to worry about. My opponent changes but they're all great fighters in the UFC. Doesn't matter who you step in there with, it's going to be a tough fight. — Richie Vaculik

What's funny about that office is it's entirely dependent on how close you are to the president, because the president decides what your role will be. If you get on with the president, that's great; if you fall out with the president, power can go away. — Armando Iannucci

If it's a band I like, I just hope they will survive it all. And I'll admit that if it's crap music, I hope they won't and it'll go away. Simply because there are too many great bands who should be heard in their place. — Eddie Vedder

Just dandelion leaves trod all down his path with this going away and the coming back. Some great ending it feels like. For now though, just go through his broke door. — Eimear McBride

What did I tell you? Something's happening!' cried Sam. '"The war's going well," said Shagrat; but Gorbag he wasn't so sure. And he was right there too. Things are looking up, Mr. Frodo. haven't you got some hope now?'
'Well, no, not much, Sam,' Frodo sighed. 'That's away beyond the mountains. We're going east not west. And I'm so tired. And the Ring is so heavy, Sam. And I begin to see it in my mind all the time, like a great wheel of fire. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Sydney, don't leave Adrian because of me."
"It's more complicated than that," I said automatically.
"It's really not," she said. "From everything I've seen and heard, you're just afraid. You've always controlled every detail of your life. When you couldn't-like with the Alchemists-you found a way to seize back that control."
"There is nothing wrong with wanting control," I snapped.
"Except that we can't always have it, and sometimes that is a good thing. A great thing, even," she added. "And that's how it is with Adrian. No matter how hard you try, you aren't going to be able to control your feelings for him. You can't help loving him, and so you're running away. I'm just an excuse. — Richelle Mead

There are thirty kids there, too," Justineau adds. "And most of your men. What are we going to do? Just walk away from them?" "That's exactly what we're going to do," Parks tells them. "If you shut up, I'll tell you why. I've been up on that radio every ten or fifteen minutes since we stopped. Not only is there no answer from the base, there's no answer full stop. Nobody else got out of there. Or if they did, they got out without wheels or comms, which means they might just as well be on another planet as far as we're concerned. There's no way to get their attention right now without getting the junkers bouncing at us too. If we meet them on the road, that's great. Otherwise, we're alone, and the only sensible thing to do is to head for home fires. For Beacon." Caldwell — M.R. Carey

And I know that when you get hurt, your first instinct is to run. But I also realized something else. No one has ever followed you when you did run. But I'm going to follow, and I'm going to keep following until you realize that you can trust me. I'm not going to let you run away from something that could be so great. That is so great. Marty, I love you.
- Nate — Kathy Love

People who are great thinkers, in science or in art, people who are great performers, have to have that kind of capacity. Without that kind of capacity, it's extremely difficult to manage a high level of performance because you're going to get a lot of extraneous material chipping away at the finery of your thinking or the finery of your motor execution. — Antonio Damasio

The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go. — Theodore Roethke

I wonder how God is good, how it doesn't do any good to run from Him because what He has is good and who He is, is good. Even if I want to run, it isn't really what I want - what I want is Him, even if I don't believe it. If He made all this existence, you would think He would know what He is doing, and you would think He could be trusted. Everything I want is just Him, to get lost in Him, to feel His love and more and more of this dazzling that He does. I wonder at His beautiful system and how it feels better than anything I could choose or invent for myself. I wonder as I gaze up at the night sky, this love letter from God to creation, this reminder that somewhere there is peace, somewhere there is order, and I think about how great His kingdom is, and is going to be, and I wonder, in this rare and beautiful moment, how I could ever want to walk away from it all. — Donald Miller

Though under great pressure to conform to a culture of brutality, a few guards refused to participate in the violence. In one incident, a captive was clubbed so savagely that he was certain he was going to be killed. In the middle of the assault, the attacking guard was called away, and a guard knows as Hirose was ordered to finish the beating. Out of sight of other guards, Hirose told the captive to cry out as if he were being struck, then pounded his club harmlessly against the floor. The two acted out their parts until it seemed enough "beating" had been done. The captive believed that Hirose may have saved his life. — Laura Hillenbrand

My friends stood on the ground two feet below me, and miles away from understanding why I would want to sleep on a trailer platform... I couldn't possibly begin to explain what was only beginning to bud inside me: I wanted a home. I wanted to be at home, in the world and in my body (a feeling I had been missing since I'd woken up in the hospital) and somehow, in some as yet undefined way, I knew that windows in the great room and a skylight over my bed were going to help with that. — Dee Williams

There's a great scene in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre [1974] that I'm obsessed with: Sally is being chased by Leatherface with a chainsaw. And she runs into thorn bushes. And she's getting tangled up in it because she's running fast. But Sally needs to move slowly in order to get through the bushes - she will get farther faster by going slowly because her hair and clothes won't get tangled and caught. There's something really beautiful about understanding that, while someone's chasing you with a chainsaw, you have to move more slowly in order to get away. — Christopher Bollen

Everyone talks about green cities now, but the concrete results in affluent cities mostly involve curbside composting and tackling solar panels onto rooftops while residents continue to drive, to stop, to eat organic pears flown in from Argentina, to be part of the big machine of consumption and climate change. The free-range chickens and Priuses are great, but they alone aren't adequate tools for creating a truly different society and ecology. The future, at least the sustainable one, isn't going to be invented by people who are happily surrendering selective bits and pieces of environmentally unsound privilege. It's going to be made by those who had all that taken away from them or never had it in the first place. {...} There is no moral reason why they should do and be better than the rest of us - but there is a practical one. They have to. Detroit is where change is most urgent and therefore most viable. — Rebecca Solnit

If given a really great chance, I'm going to put it away every single time. — Abby Wambach

The lovely paradox of willing compliance with what an ancient prophet called "the great plan of happiness," is that conformity to law breeds both freedom and individualism. We may think a leaping child, in the euphoria of his imagination, enjoys unfettered freedom when he tells us he is going to land on the moon. But the rocket scientist hard at work in the laboratory, enmeshed in formulae and equations she has labored to master, and slaving away in perfect conformity with the laws of physics, is the one with true freedom: for she will land on the moon; the boy will not. — Terryl L. Givens

I go for my completely routine mammogram and then I get a call from my gynecologist. And she says, 'Well, I have some - it's not such great news, but here it is, but it's very small and we're just going to get in there and take it right out, right away, and then you'll probably have radiation.' — Cynthia Nixon

To be a writer is to sit down at one's desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone - just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and over and over ... — John Hersey

All I cared about then was catching a glimpse of Chairman Mao. I turned my eyes quickly away from Liu to the front of the motorcade. I spotted Mao's stalwart back, his right arm steadily waving. In an instant, he had disappeared. My heart sank. Was that all I would see of Chairman Mao? Only a fleeting glimpse of his back? The sun seemed suddenly to have turned gray. All around me the Red Guards were making a huge din. The girl standing next to me had just pierced the index finger of her right hand and was squeezing blood out of it to write something on a neatly folded handkerchief. I knew exactly the words she was going to use. It had been done many times by other Red Guards and had been publicized ad nauseam: "I am the happiest person in the world today. I have seen our Great Leader Chairman Mao!" Watching her, my despair grew. Life seemed pointless. A thought flickered into my mind: perhaps I should commit suicide? — Jung Chang

I remember I wanted to get away; I wanted to run. I couldn't stand any more. But I didn't want to run. I wanted everything to be perfect; everything was going to be great - I just had to be careful. I was responsible for it all. The clouds coming, I was dragging them towards us; my thoughts were doing it. I was ruining everything. It was up to me. I could control the whole day. All I had to do was make sure that I made no stupid mistakes. Don't walk on the cracks. Don't look at the clouds. It's up to you. — Roddy Doyle

If you are going to wrestle a bear, try to stay away from all fish oil products, you know. I mean it's tough for me, because I love to rub myself with salmon oil every day - it's a great conditioner for the hair, skin. — Will Ferrell

That was the big lesson for all of us. Everything was going great on paper, but we all became miserable because we were so caught up in the machinery of how you make that happen, it took away the sheer joy. — Susanna Hoffs

So here we go, you and me. Because what else are we going to do? Say no? Say no to an opportunity that may be slightly out of our comfort zone? Quiet our voice because we are worried it is not perfect? I believe great people do things before they are ready. This is America and I am allowed to have healthy self-esteem. This book comes straight from my feisty and freckled fingers. Know it was a battle. Blood was shed. A war raged between my jokey and protective brain and my squishy and tender heart. I have realized that mystery is what keeps people away, and I've grown tired of smoke and mirrors. I yearn for the clean, well-lighted place. So let's peek behind the curtain and hail the others like us. The open-faced sandwiches who take risks and live big and smile with all of their teeth. These are the people I want to be around. This is the honest way I want to live and love and write. — Amy Poehler

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

Seriously, if you complain about going to a Paris fashion show, you have officially lost all perspective on life as we know it. And I have little kids who are hard to be away from sometimes when school's going back and there are tons of things that you're missing. But you know, there's that great Billie Jean King expression: "Pressure is a privilege." We can all deal. — Cynthia Leive

I can sit down at a piano or with a guitar and just chug away for hours and be perfectly content with whatever comes out. But when it comes to something that somebody else is going to listen to, then I do feel a great deal of pressure to do something that's exceptional, at least in what I consider to be at the limits of what I can do. — Tom Scholz

Suddenly it seemed to me that I looked back from a great distance on that smile and saw it all again - the smile and the day, the whole sunny, sad, funny, wonderful day and all the days that we had spent here together. What was I going to do when such days came no more? There could not be many; for we were a family growing old. And how would I learn to live without these people? I who needed them so little that I could stay away all year - what should I do without them? — Jetta Carleton

I will prove that the world is wrong, by showing what God is ... God himself was once as we are now and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret ... I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see — Joseph Smith Jr.

Being a writer all boils down to this: It's you, in a chair, staring at a page. And you're either going to stay in that chair until words are written, or you're going to give up and walk away. The great writers have to fight for their words. They have to choose to write, choose words over distractions, and their characters over their friends. Great writers can be lonely, exhausted souls. But through our characters, we live. — Alessandra Torre

There is going to come a time when we have to accept who we are without the assistance of religion. That will be the dawn of true faith. We leave the big decisions to invisible consultants and pray we get the answers we are looking for. The late great George Carlin once said he gave up praying to God and started praying to Joe Pesci because his prayers to Joe Pesci were answered with as much accuracy and frequency as those to God. [ ... ] If we as people are still looking for answers, we should turn our eyes away from the heavens and look to each other. I know we do not play well together - hell, some of us do not even like being in the same room with each other - but the divine lies in all of us. We are miracles. We are "god." If we shared a little more, we would not be left feeling less. We hold the keys to our own destinies. It is time we started looking for the locks. — Corey Taylor

I don't know,' said Frodo. 'It came to me then, as if I was making it up; but I may have heard it long ago. Certainly it reminds me very much of Bilbo in the last years, before he went away. He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain or even further and to worse places?" He used to say that on the path outside the front door at Bag End, especially after he had been out for a long walk. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I like my privacy. I love being a part of [films], but when I'm not doing stuff, I like to go away. I enjoy being a person, a great deal. — Mike Myers

I know that life is busy and hard and that there's crushing pressure to just settle down and get a real job and khaki pants and a haircut. But don't. Please don't. Please keep believing that life can be better, brighter, broader because of the art that you make. Please keep demonstrating the courage that it takes to swim upstream in a world that prefers putting away for retirement to putting pen to paper, that chooses practicality over poetry, that values you more for going to the gym than going to the deepest places in your soul. Please keep making your art for people like me, people who need the magic and imagination and honesty of great art to make the day-to-day world a little more bearable. — Shauna Niequist

Although things seem to be sometimes going up and sometimes descending, sometimes slipping away, nevertheless there is a reality, the same today as in the past. It does not change, for nothing can affect it. Could we not say it is one great harmony? So why shouldn't we ask about it ... — Zhuangzi

So far as Emma was concerned she did not ask herself whether she was in love. Love, she thought, was something that must come suddenly, with a great display of thunder and lightning, descending on one's life like a tempest from above, turning it topsy-turvy, whirling away one's resolutions like leaves and bearing one onward, heart and soul, towards the abyss. She never bethought herself how on the terrace of a house the rain forms itself into little lakes when the gutters are choked, and she was going on quite unaware of her peril, when all of a sudden she discovered
a crack in the wall! — Gustave Flaubert

I've learned when to get out. I've never wasted too much time with the wrong person, and that's one thing I'm proud of. The longer you're with the wrong person, you could be completely overlooking or not having the chance to meet the right person. And if it doesn't feel right, it isn't right. How do you know if something feels right? I think the great defining factor for me is whether I want more. When they drive away, do I wish they would turn around at the end of the street and come back? Or am I fine that they're going home? — Taylor Swift

They were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force - nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind - as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea - something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to — Joseph Conrad

Alex cornered her right before she was going to make an appointment at the nurse's station to see him. "Bree, I'm going to be referring you to Carlo from now on," Alex informed her. "I think in light of recent events it would be a conflict of interest for me to continue to be your doctor." "Is that right?" Bree asked leaning her elbow on the counter and raising an eyebrow. "Yes, I wouldn't feel comfortable about it considering what you did to Carrie." "Aw, that's nice," Bree smiled sarcastically, staring up at his smug self-righteous face. "Nice to know this place has such moral upstanding doctors." "Yes, so I will be referring you to him from now on," Alex said, clenching his jaw. "Great," Bree said, fighting not to roll her eyes. "Have a good afternoon," he said curtly and turned to walk away. Don't do it. Don't do it, Bree. The evil Bree won though. "You too, Dr. Home Wrecker." Alex's step faltered but he didn't turn around. — E. Jamie

I am always hearing ... the sound of a far off song. I do not exactly know where it is, or what it means; and I don't hear much of it, only the odour of its music, as it were, flitting across the great billows of the ocean outside this air in which I make such a storm; but what I do hear, is quite enough to make me able to bear the cry from the drowning ship. So it would you if you could hear it.'
'No it wouldn't,' returned Diamond stoutly. 'For they wouldn't hear the music of the far-away song; and if they did, it wouldn't do them any good. You see you and I are not going to be drowned, and so we might enjoy it.'
'But you have never heard the psalm, and you don't know what it is like. Somehow, I can't say how, it tells me that all is right; that it is coming to swallow up all the cries ... It wouldn't be the song it seems if it did not swallow up all their fear and pain too, and set them singing it themselves with all the rest. — George MacDonald

A flat drab mountain could produce its own light, no one in this whole world knows why, and if that was possible then of course there must be other things that seemed impossible but weren't, and so anything - great and terrible - felt possible to me now.

I wondered what else there was out in the world that I had never seen through my lenses. I had speculated about the destination of a nonexistent desert road, I'd kept going. What other magic had I wrongly explained away? I felt like I'd lost something I hadn't ever had.

A thousand things I didn't even know existed had to exist. — Aspen Matis

Here's how you practice shrieking like an insane woman who has been locked in an attic for a great many years:
You stand in the middle of the field.
You look around to be sure that no one is going to hear you.
You breathe in a couple of times to get as much air in your chest as you can.
You stretch your neck up like the Great Esquimaux Curlew.
You imagine that it's Game Seven of the World Series and it's the bottom of the ninth and Joe Pepitone is rounding third base and the throw is coming in and the catcher has his glove up waiting for the ball and Joe Pepitone is probably going to be out and the game will be over and the Yankees will lose.
Then you let out your shriek, because that's how everyone in Yankee Stadium would be shrieking right then.
That's how you practice shrieking like an insane woman who has been locked in an attic for a great many years. And you keep doing it over and over again until all the birds in Marysville have flown away. — Gary D. Schmidt

They were now moving steadily down the river, passing the dark shapes of ships at anchor, and London was a swarm of lights with a pale yellow canopy drooping above it. There were the lights of the great theatres, the lights of the long streets, lights that indicated huge squares of domestic comfort, lights that hung high in air. No darkness would ever settle upon those lamps, as no darkness had settled upon them for hundreds of years. It seemed dreadful that the town should blaze for ever in the same spot; dreadful at least to people going away to adventure upon the sea, and beholding it as a circumscribed mound, eternally burnt, eternally scarred. From the deck of the ship the great city appeared a crouched and cowardly figure, a sedentary miser. — Virginia Woolf

On the first movie we got good reviews, but we were still dealing with genre stuff. It's going away. Judge the movie - is it a good one or a bad one? We know we made a great movie and it's being judged for just being a good film. — Avi Arad

Sometimes I wander round and round in circles, going over the same ground, getting lost, sometimes for hours, or days, or even weeks ... But I know that if I immerse myself in it long enough, things will clarify, simplify. I can count on that. When it happens, it happens fast. Boom ba boom ba boom! One thing after the other, taking the breath away. And then, you know, I feel like I'm walking out in some remote corner of space, where no mortal's ever been, all alone with something beautiful ... Once, when I was in Switzerland some friends took me up in some very high cable cars, climbing up a mountain ... There was a restaurant on top and the view was supposed to be sublime. When we got up it was a great disappointment because the clouds were obscuring everything. But suddenly there was a rent in the clouds and there were the Jungrau and two other peaks towering right in front of us ... That's what it's like. — Steven Pinker

I'm not sure whether to be relieved she didn't hurt you or diappointed. Now he's going to think he got away with that junk." -Abby
I wouldn't say that. He got a stern talking-to, but he already made great progress with his groveling lessons." -Sam
""Ill show you exactly how much progress I've made the next time I get you in a shower." -Noah
"I'm gonna kill him! Did you hear that? You have to let me kill him." -Graham
"Stay right where you are. There will be no killing. I thought I made that clear to everyone last night. Don't make me go over it again!" -Missy — Christine Warren

It was so wonderful! Now it felt as if my brain was just going to melt away. I wanted to stay like that forever, to stay in his arms for the rest of my life. That's how great it was. — Haruki Murakami

I've never felt grounded because of my ancestry or my gender. I think until women get away from that they're not going to be great writers. — Patti Smith

I'm going to become the best-remembered artist of my generation by staying away from the party as often as possible. That way, people will remember me, not because I was great, but because I didn't cause them any later embarrassment. — Julian Cope

We're so self-important. So arrogant. Everybody's going to save something now. Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save the snails. And the supreme arrogance? Save the planet! Are these people kidding? Save the planet? We don't even know how to take care of ourselves; we haven't learned how to care for one another. We're gonna save the fuckin' planet? ... And, by the way, there's nothing wrong with the planet in the first place. The planet is fine. The people are fucked! Compared with the people, the planet is doin' great. It's been here over four billion years ... The planet isn't goin' anywhere, folks. We are! We're goin' away. Pack your shit, we're goin' away. And we won't leave much of a trace. Thank God for that. Nothing left. Maybe a little Styrofoam. The planet will be here, and we'll be gone. Another failed mutation; another closed-end biological mistake. — George Carlin

It's the cemetery where my father is already buried. "Great," I say. "Just make sure you leave your forwarding address." I hold the keypad away from my ear and punch the pound button. "Got another call coming in," I lie. "At this hour?" "It's an escort service," I joke. "I don't like to keep Peaches waiting . . ." "You're going to be the death of me, Leo," my mother says with a sigh. "Sons of Abraham Cemetery. Got it," I say. "I love you, Ma." "I loved you first," she replies. "So what am I supposed to tell my podiatrist about Irene?" "If she keeps wearing heels she'll wind — Jodi Picoult

It's hard not to feel humorless, as a woman and a feminist, to recognize misogyny in so many forms, some great and some small, and know you're not imagining things. It's hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you're going to float the fuck away. The problem is not that one of these things is happening; it's that they are all happening, concurrently and constantly. — Roxane Gay

And while they were in the same place, there came a great mist about them and a darkness, so that they could not know what way they were going, and they heard the noise of a rider coming towards them. 'It would be a great grief to us,' said Conn, 'to be brought away into a strange country. — Lady Augusta Gregory

I'm so aware when you make a film, there are so many elements to get right. So many people with such important jobs. You know, it's terrible. I walk away from a film going, "The cinematography was great, wasn't it? But the music wasn't so good. The casting wasn't great." — Stuart A. Staples

They need to do two things if they're going to be great and win a championship: take the ball away and keep teams out of the end zone. You have those two things, that's the recipe for a championship. — Willie McGinest

I believe there is a great deal too much mutual confession going on today, as if sharing one's problems somehow makes them go away. All it really does, of course, is increase the number of people who have to worry about a particular issue. — Helen Simonson

You know, the way I feel, if I read a science fiction book by a new writer which is a lot better than what I do, instead of going on a bummer right away and saying, "Oh Christ, I'm obsolete, I'm outdated, I've lost it." I have this tremendous sense of joy. I don't have to write all the great goddamn science fiction in the world. Somebody else is going to carry this torch. It's such a relief to sit with my feet up on the wall and to know that if I never wrote another book science fiction is going ahead. — Philip K. Dick

I have great assurance when I study my own conversion, when I discuss it with other men, when I look over the 25 years of my pilgrimmage with Christ; I have great assurance of having come to know Him. But even now, if I were to depart from the faith and walk away and keep going in that direction into heresy and worldiness, it could be the greatest of proofs that I never knew Him, that the whole thing was a work of the flesh. — Paul Washer

I admit I do get a bit protective of my big brother. he always protects me.
"The truth is, I don't have to threaten you with anything worse than you've already done to yourself.
"Alec is brave, and he's good, and he's loyal, and like all Lightwoods he has cheekbones you could use to slice salami. You're never going to find anyone as great as my brother or anyone who loves you as much.
"He's one of the best things in my life, and I'm prepared to bet he's one of the best things in yours. You're going to be sorry when you wake up and realize what you threw away. — Cassandra Clare

Hating "The Great Gatsby" (the novel) is like spitting into the Grand Canyon. It will not be going away anytime soon, but you will be. — Joyce Carol Oates

What a silly thing love is!' said the student as he walked away. 'It is not half as useful as logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is always telling one of things that are not going to happen, and making one believe things that are not true. In fact, it is quite unpractical, and, as in this age to be practical is everything, I shall go back to philosophy and study metaphysics.'
So he returned to his room and pulled out a great dusty book, and began to read. — Oscar Wilde

Have you ever climbed a mountain in full armour? That's what we did, him going first the whole way up a tiny path into the clouds, with drops sheer on both sides into nothing. For hours we crept forward like blind men, the sweat freezing on our faces, lugging skittery leaking horses, and pricked all the time for the ambush that would tip us into death. Each turn of the path it grew colder. The friendly trees of the forest dropped away, and there were only pines. Then they went too, and there just scrubby little bushes standing up in ice. All round us the rocks began to whine the cold. And always above us, or below us, those filthy condor birds, hanging on the air with great tasselled wings ... Four days like that; groaning, not speaking; the breath a blade in our lungs. Four days, slowly, like flies on a wall; limping flies, dying flies, up an endless wall of rock. A tiny army lost in the creases of the moon. — Peter Shaffer

Family wasn't like that, not really. It was not something small and compact, a "nuclear family": it was a great big mess of people, all interlinked, cousins and aunts and relatives-by-marriage and otherwise
it was a network, like the Conversation or a human brain. It was what he had tried to escape, going into the Up and Out, but you cannot run away from family, it follows you, wherever you go. — Lavie Tidhar

It seemed that Bilbo was not going to be eaten after all. The wizard and the eagle-lord appeared to know one another slightly, and even to be on friendly terms. As a matter of fact Gandalf, who had often been in the mountains, had once rendered a service to the eagles and healed their lord from an arrow-wound. So you see 'prisoners' had meant 'prisoners rescued from the goblins' only, and not captives of the eagles. As Bilbo listened to the talk of Gandalf he realized that at last they were going to escape really and truly from the dreadful mountains. He was discussing plans with the Great Eagle for carrying the dwarves and himself and Bilbo far away and setting them down well on their journey across the plains below. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I feel like we're between two great possibilities: we're either going to turn things around, and in this generation see the rising sun of a new moral dedication in America, or we're going to lose the struggle for that moral renewal, throw away the basic principles on which our life and civilization is based, and head toward a new century that will make the 20th century look like a dress rehearsal for evil. — Alan Keyes

I don't want to be so analytical of my own life, because if I start to be analytical of my own life, maybe I'll choose not to believe anything that's going on. But, the fact of the matter is, I've experienced both sides of it now. Sides where you have a great time with people on set, and then you do just step away. And it's not malicious. It's just that people go back and live their lives and do whatever. — Jamie Campbell Bower

It's amazing, the tremendous capacity of that marvelous final great Heavenly City that Jesus has gone to prepare and is now all prepared for us and on its way here, just ready for its new tenants which Jesus is going to raise from both the dead and the living in the Rapture at His Second Coming and take us all away to be there with Him! — David Berg

[Shakespeare realized that] Women are able to understand themselves better on a personal level and survive in the world if they dress in men's clothing, thus living underground, safe (...). The presence of women disguising themselves as men dictates that the play be a comedy; women remaining in their frocks, a tragedy. In four great tragedies -Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear- almost all the women die (...).
How much the women have to adhere to the rules and regulations of their enviroment makes a large difference. Once Rosalind [disguised as a man in As You Like It] has run away from the court, she has no institutional structures to deal with. Ophelia [in her frocks] is surrounded tightly by institutional structures of family, court, and politics; only by going mad can be get out of it all. — Tina Packer

What am I going to do without you, Oscar?'
'You'll be fine', I answered. 'You could probably do some time away from me. I'm a pain in the neck. You're always saying so.'
'You're right,' she said. 'It'll be great to have you out of my hair for a few months.'
'Oscar, seriously though.'
'What?'
'Stay in touch, will you? Please?'
'Of course I will.'
'Promise?'
'Yes, I promise.'
'Good, because I'm really going to miss you. — Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

This was an extremely difficult decision as I take great pride in representing our country. I know that I owe it to my USA Basketball teammates to be totally invested in the experience. After going through training camp with USAB, I realized I could not fulfill my responsibilities to the team from both a time and energy standpoint. I need to take a step back and take some time away, both mentally and physically in order to prepare for the upcoming NBA season. I will be rooting for USAB and look forward to future opportunities with them. — Kevin Durant

I want to know now," I whine, not caring that I sound like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum.

"How about this? We'll Rock, Paper, Scissors for it."

Yeah, we're going to make great parents, all right.

"Fine." I crack my knuckles, which makes him snicker. "Ready?"

"Ready."

We count in unison. On three, we reveal our hands. He did paper. I did rock.

"I win," he says smugly.

"Sorry, baby, but you lose."

"Paper covers rock!"

I smirk. "Rock weighs down the paper so it can't fly away. It traps it."

A loud sigh fills the room. "I'm not going to win on this, am I?"

"Nope." But he looks so cute right now that I offer a compromise. "How about this? You can leave the room while the doctor tells me, and I swear I won't give it away. I'll hide all my baby purchases in my closet so you can't see what I'm buying."

"Deal — Elle Kennedy

You may think this a strange story, but it is not. There are people whose lives are every bit as unusual as Bobby Box's
I can promise you that. Not all of them end as well, of course. For many people, the world is a place of sadness and sorrow, which is a great pity, as we have only one chance at life, and it is very bad luck if things do not go well.
But even if you think they are not going well, you can still wish, as Bobby Box did. And sometimes those wishes will come true, as his did, and the world will seem filled with light and happiness. That can happen, you know. So never give up hope; never think things are so bad that they can never get better. They can get better, and they do. And if you have the chance to make things easier for another person, never miss it. Stretch out your hand to help them, to cheer them up, to wipe away their tears. Stretch out your hand as that man and that woman did to Bobby Box. Stretch out your hand and see what happens. — Alexander McCall Smith

The real reason why people are going with digital is that it's extraordinarily mobile, and it's cheaper, and it has a great image, and you just can't beat it at night. It's pulling in variations of colors; it's pulling in lights from 40 miles away - a candle would be seen. — Dan Gilroy

We don't like checklists. They can be painstaking. They're not much fun. But I don't think the issue here is mere laziness. There's something deeper, more visceral going on when people walk away not only from saving lives but from making money. It somehow feels beneath us to use a checklist, an embarrassment. It runs counter to deeply held beliefs about how the truly great among us - those we aspire to be - handle situations of high stakes and complexity. The truly great are daring. They improvise. They do not have protocols and checklists. Maybe our idea of heroism needs updating. — Atul Gawande

In time you may discover everything that can be discovered, and still your progress will only be progress away from humanity. The distance between you and them can one day become so great that your joyous cry over some new gain could be answered by an universal shriek of horror. — Galileo Galilei

There is a great deal that either has to be given up or be taken away from you if you are going to succeed in writing a body of work. — Susan Sontag

I am the most tired woman in the world. I am tired when I get up. Life requires an effort I cannot make. Please give me that heavy book. I need to put something heavy like that on top of my head. I have to place my feet under the pillows always, so as to be able to stay on earth. Otherwise I feel myself going away, going away at a tremendous speed, on account of my lightness. I know that I am dead. As soon as I utter a phrase my sincerity dies, becomes a lie whose coldness chills me. Don't say anything, because I see that you understand me, and I am afraid of your understanding. I have such a fear of finding another like myself, and such a desire to find one! I am so utterly lonely, but I also have such a fear that my isolation be broken through, and I no longer be the head and ruler of my universe. I am in great terror of your understanding by which you penetrate into my world; and then I stand revealed and I have to share my kingdom with you. — Anais Nin

Like the Israelites, you and I have been promised spiritual ground for great and abiding victory on a turf where our enemy stands in defiance. If you're not presently occupying your Promised Land, rest assured the devil is. Are you going to stand by and let him get away with that? God has given you land, Beloved, but He's calling you to go forth and take it. Your enemy is standing on your God-given ground, just daring you to take possession of it. Are you going to let him have it? Or are you going to claim your inheritance? Possession is the law of the Promised Land. — Beth Moore

She didn't need anyone. At Wheeler, even when she stood out with her pink hair and quilter army-surplus jacket and combat bots, she did this without apology. It was a great irony that the very fact of a relationship with her would diminish her appeal, that the moment she came to love me back and depend on me as much as I depended on her, she would no longer be a truly independent spirit. No way in hell was I going to be the one to take that quality away from her. — Jodi Picoult

The question of maintaining a serious moral order while allowing economic freedom has, I think, troubled people right from the beginning of history, and has always been a tension within conservative thinkers, going right back to [Edmund] Burke. The traditional way of reconciling these two things was through religion, which would remove certain things from the market. Sex is removed from the market and made into a religious ceremony, and parent-child relations, education, etc. I think that's the great benefit that religion has deferred on people down the centuries. Take it away now and we don't know quite what's going to happen. — Roger Scruton

You can't just be a wimp and then a year and a half or two years later decide to not be a wimp anymore. Because people will always treat you like a wimp once they have decided that's what you are. You have to be strong and tough and intelligent and smart and kind of plan out what you're going to say and know who you are. So that people will get that right away. Because then they're always going to be great to you. And they're always going to treat you with respect. — Stevie Nicks

What is important is not what is said, but that some talk be continually going on. Silence is the great crime, for silence is lonely and frightening. One shouldn't feel much, nor put much meaning into what one says: what you say seems to have more effect if you don't try to understand. One has the strange impression that these people are all afraid of something - what is it? It is as if the "yatata" were a primitive tribal ceremony, a witch dance calculated to appease some god. There is a god, or rather a demon, they are trying to appease: it is the specter of loneliness which hovers outside like the fog drifting in from the sea. One will have to meet this specter's leering terror for the first half-hour one is awake in the morning anyway, so let one do everything possible to keep it away now. — Rollo May

There are places in the world where real life is still happening, far away from here, in a pre-Hitler Europe, where hundreds of lights are lit every evening, ladies and gentlemen gather to drink coffee with cream in oak-panelled rooms, or sit comfortably in splendid coffee-houses under gilt chandeliers, stroll arm in arm to the opera or the ballet, observe from close-up the lives of great artists, passionate love affairs, broken hearts, the painter's girlfriend falling in love with his best friend the composer, and going out at midnight bareheaded in the rain to stand alone on the ancient bridge whose reflection trembles in the river. * — Amos Oz

The black land slid by and he was going into the country among the hills. For the first time in a dozen years the stars were coming out above him, in great processions of wheeling fire. He saw a great juggernaut of stars form in the sky and threaten to roll over and crush him ... the river was mild and leisurely, going away from the people who ate shadows for breakfast and steam for lunch and vapors for supper. The river was very real; it held him comfortably and gave him the time at last, the leisure, to consider this month, this year, and a lifetime of years. He listened to his heart slow. His thoughts stopped rushing with his blood. — Ray Bradbury

I am now going to state three facts, which will startle a large class of readers on this side of the Atlantic, very much. Firstly, there is a joint-stock piano in a great many of the boarding-houses. Secondly, nearly all these young ladies subscribe to circulating libraries. Thirdly, they have got up among themselves a periodical called The Lowell Offering, 'A repository of original articles, written exclusively by females actively employed in the mills,' - which is duly printed, published, and sold; and whereof I brought away from Lowell four hundred good solid pages, which I have read from beginning to end. The large class of readers, startled by these facts, will exclaim, with one voice, 'How very preposterous!' On my deferentially inquiring why, they will answer, 'These things are above their station.' In reply to that objection, I would beg to ask what their station is. — Charles Dickens

I went away, after trying once more to rouse up Bashan by renewed calls and
encouragement. In vain. He cared as little for my going as for my coming. He seemed weighed down by bitter loathing and despair. He had the air of saying: "Since you were capable of having me put in this cage, I expect nothing more from you." And, actually,
had he not enough ground to despair of reason and justice?
[ ... ]
How could I explain to him we were treating him with great distinction, in shutting him up like a jaguar, without sun, air, or exercise, and plaguing him every day with a
thermometer? — Thomas Mann

I have great luck. I'm used to people dying and going away. Not used to it exactly - but I expect it. Like, whenever people go off on a trip, I save their phone messages because I think they might die. — Rose McGowan

I was thrilled and grateful to be safely away from that maniac. Do you have any idea what it's like to wake up and realize that no one is going to rape you that day? How wonderful it is to see the sunlight pouring through your window? How great it is to just walk around without a heavy chain on your wrist or ankle? It feels amazing. And once you have that feeling, you want your full independence. In other words, you want your whole life back. — Michelle Knight

They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force
nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind
as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness.
The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. — Joseph Conrad

We put the kettle on to boil, up in the nose of the boat, and went down to the stern and pretended to take no notice of it, but set to work to get the other things out. That is the only way to get a kettle to boil up the river. If it sees that you are waiting for it and are anxious, it will never even sing. You have to go away and begin your meal, as if you were not going to have any tea at all. You must not even look round at it. Then you will soon hear it sputtering away, mad to be made into tea. It is a good plan, too, if you are in a great hurry, to talk very loudly to each other about how you don't need any tea, and are not going to have any. You get near the kettle, so that it can overhear you, and then you shout out, "I don't want any tea; do you, George?" to which George shouts back, "Oh, no, I don't like tea; we'll have lemonade instead - tea's so indigestible." Upon which the kettle boils over, and puts the stove out. — Jerome K. Jerome

Well sometimes I do not listen to music. But when I do it could range from Frank Sinatra to Copeland. I spend a great deal of time playing the piano because it really is my salvation at times. But I am perfectly happy just going on a long bike ride that takes many days to complete and staying away from music for a bit. It always feels so fresh when you return to the instrument with a different observation of things than when you were last there. — Tony MacAlpine

The great thing about a name like 'Cougar Town' is that you hear it once and you remember it forever. It's a very 'loud' title. But there's a connection to the word 'cougar' that means a lot of people are going to be turned off right away by the title alone without even giving the show a chance. — Dan Byrd

I love to post behind-the-scenes photos of what is really going on. My twitter friends really seem to like that and the great thing is I can deliver them information right away. — Nancy O'Dell

Today's a great time to be any creative type of person, I think, and in just about every aspect of creativity, this generation is going to blow away every generation ever. Because we're the first ones with the Internet. I can get together with some friends, shoot a movie, cut it on my laptop at home, and then put it online. We don't have to listen to anyone. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Look at the paintings of Picasso. He is a great painter, but just a subjective artist. Looking at his paintings, you will start feeling sick, dizzy, something going berserk in your mind. You cannot go on looking at Picasso's painting long enough. You would like to get away, because the painting has not come from a silent being. It has come from a chaos. It is a by product of a nightmare. But ninety-nine percent art belongs to that category. — Rajneesh

...I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should. We all come home, or ought to come home, for a short holiday - the longer, the better - from the great boarding-school, where we are forever working at our arithmetical slates, to take, and give a rest. As to going a visiting, where can we not go, if we will; where have we not been, when we would; starting our fancy away from our Christmas Tree! — Charles Dickens

Anybody who has a career is going to have to deal with a rumor in their time, or something that usually isn't true. I have a great team behind me and a family that supports me. I just care too much about my career. I have been working too long to let it slip away for something stupid. — Jesse McCartney

For a while I shall still be leaving, looking back at you as you slip away into the magic islands of the mind. But for a while now all are alive, believing that in a single poignant hour we did say all that we could ever say in a great flowing out of radiant power. It was like seeing and then going blind. — Hermann Hesse