Great Pick Me Up Quotes & Sayings

When talking about writing, I often use the analogy of archaeology. There are these great tunes all around. Your skill as a musician allows you to pick them out without breaking them. — Pat Metheny

I suppose that it was inevitable that my word-base broadened. I could now for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying. Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened. Let me tell you something: from then until I left that prison, in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading in my bunk. You couldn't have gotten me out of my books with a wedge ... Months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life. — Alex Haley

Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, Why have you done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. Then they said to him, What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us?; for the sea was growing more tempestuous. And he said to them, Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me." (Jonah 1:10-12) Jonah — Val Waldeck

Toronto's likable, but it could be a lot more, as I think Montreal is, lovable. What we need more than anything, I think, is a great pedestrian promenade. Pick a busy streetscape, close it to cars forever, and it will fill with people enjoying nothing more than the pleasure of their own company. — Andy Barrie

Brad got me this great thing for Christmas. It's a bookshelf that has a book on every religion. That's how we plan to raise our kids. Teach them about all religions. They can pick one or be a student of all of them. We'll celebrate Kwanzaa for our girl. We'll celebrate moon and water festivals for our boys. We'll take them to temples in certain countries. Also to church. — Angelina Jolie

I used to play trumpet when I was a kid, and then I got braces, and I couldn't really play it anymore, so sometimes I wish I could still play that; I think it's a great instrument, so maybe one of these days I'll pick it back up. — Eric Hutchinson

So let's say you marry this girl. All right, you can still be a great man. Look at all the great men who had wives. Go ahead, be a great man, don't let me stop you. Only first you should stop by the grocer and pick up something for the dog. Also for the baby, soft, because he's getting his teeth. To do this, you have to have a job five days a week, you can be a great man on week ends. — Peter S. Beagle

We've all had the experience of you pick up a book, you can't get into it, you can't concentrate.Then one day you pick up the same book and you don't hear the phone ring. You're totally absorbed. Same thing I have to do every day. When you get into that special place of unconsciousness - you get it listening to great music or seeing a great movie - it just takes you out of yourself, out of this whole world. There's no feeling quite like it. — T.C. Boyle

Great sculptors and artists spend countless hours perfecting their talents. They don't pick up a chisel or a brush and palette, expecting immediate perfection. They understand that they will make many errors as they learn, but they start with the basics, the key fundamentals first. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

There is much to do, pulling people away, right up until the Coast Guard comes and orders us to stop. Scott is dead. My cell phone is dead. My mother must think me dead. So it goes. I pick up the papers that have drifted down on the boat and have become plastered there, these relics from great buildings that no longer stand. The first one I grab is an insurance document. Listen: What I tell you here is true. The first line on the first page I pick up, it begins: In the event of damage to the building ... So it goes. — Hugh Howey

It's kind of funny to me listening to people who claim to have these great records of winning a hundred and some odd straight felony cases without a loss and that kind of stuff that you hear of all the time. I'm here to tell you, if you let me pick out which hundred cases I get to try, I'll win a hundred of them in a row, too. Case selection is everything in creating records like that. My philosophy was, I tried them all. If I made a determination that the evidence was sufficient to justify the prosecution, then I would try the case, and certainly whenever you do that, you're going to lose a certain percentage of them. — Mark Baker

Imagining the worst has always been a great comfort to me. If there is turbulence there is an imminent crash. If she doesn't pick up the phone, she is fucking someone. If there is a lump it is a tumor. By thinking like this I protect myself from disappointment. And if anything other than the worst-case scenario unfolds, what a pleasant surprise! — Marc Maron

I feel like men are more romantic than women. When we get married we marry, like, one girl, 'cause we're resistant the whole way until we meet one girl and we think I'd be an idiot if I didn't marry this girl she's so great. But it seems like girls get to a place where they just kinda pick the best option ... 'Oh he's got a good job.' I mean they spend their whole life looking for Prince Charming and then they marry the guy who's got a good job and is gonna stick around. — Blue Valentine

So much of the destruction on Earth has been wrought by men. Women are the ones who give life and try to pick up the pieces ... What a great gender they are. — William T. Vollmann

One of the things that I loved about listening to Miles Davis is that Miles always had an instinct for which musicians were great for what situations. He could always pick a band, and that was the thing that separated him from everybody else. — Branford Marsalis

Pick something and make it great. — Marissa Mayer

These days, there are a great many books about childhood trauma and its effects, but at the time all the experts agreed that one should forget about it as quickly as possible and pick up where you left off. — Peter Straub

The really great thing about cats is their endless variety. One can pick a cat to fit almost any kind of decor, income, personality, mood. But under the fur, there still lies, essentially unchanged, one of the world's free souls. — Eric Gurney

I'm going to have to pick my shots and play great tennis. — Andre Agassi

There is great value in being able to say "yes" when people ask if there is anything they can do. By letting people pick herbs or slice bread instead of bringing a salad, you make your kitchen a universe in which you can give completely and ask for help. The more environments with that atmospheric makeup we can find or create, the better. — Tamar Adler

Great meals rarely start at points that all look like beginnings. They usually pick up where something else leaves off. This is how most of the best things are made - imagine if the world had to begin from scratch each dawn: a tree would never grow, nor would we ever get to see the etchings of gentle rings on a clamshell ... Meals' ingredients must be allowed to topple into one another like dominos. Broccoli stems, their florets perfectly boiled in salty water, must be simmered with olive oil and eaten with shaved Parmesan on toast; their leftover cooking liquid kept for the base for soup, studded with other vegetables, drizzled with good olive oil, with the rind of the Parmesan added for heartiness. This continuity is the heart and soul of cooking. — Tamar Adler

It's usually very, very hard for me to pick up a script that was written and try and see myself as a part of that, especially when you're used to performing all your own material. It's OK with drama, I like being handed great material but I think with comedy it's far more personal and probably a lot harder for me to find a fit. — Eric Bana

Economics works great for planning your life when you don't have a work passion, since we tend to assume that your job delivers only money and you trade off job hours with leisure hours. If you think your job will just be a job, pick one that pays well per hour and leaves you some time off, even if the activity of the job is boring. — Emily Oster

Mid the sharp, short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,
The wild tulip at the end of its tube, blows out its great red bell,
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell. — Robert Browning

I pick up a lot of stuff from them, but I don't think there's any great trick to acting. — Jason Statham

In general, I would think that at present prose writers are much in advance of the poets. In the old days, I read more poetry than prose, but now it is in prose where you find things being put together well, where there is great ambition, and equal talent. Poets have gotten so careless, it is a disgrace. You can't pick up a page. All the words slide off. — William H Gass

Ever since Sir Isaac Newton's times, scientists have worked in the same sort of way: They show a great respect for experiment and observation, They don't cherry pick data, They take a skeptical approach to what they do. And then scientists work together to get a consensus as to what should be believed And that generates very reliable knowledge and that reliable knowledge drives innovation — Paul Nurse

Here are more lines from The Great Gatsby. I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter into their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove.

I like to remember when I was one of them, or to pretend that I am one of them still, sensing that restless man at my back and half turning, no, turning all the way, open-armed, saying, Pick me, pick me. — Sigrid Nunez

If they are good characters, they have minds of their owns. If they are great characters, they go stomping off into the sunset and leave you to pick up the trash. — Wendi Kelly

I teach in M.F.A. programs now, and I think that's a great way to become a novelist, but I mourn that Pete Dexter and Joan Didion's route is maybe less likely because there are fewer of those jobs. I always liken it to playing piano in some great dive jazz bar. You didn't pick the songs, you played what people asked for, but you got your chops. — Jess Walter

For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture. — Walter Lippmann

If there's 10,000 people looking at the stocks and trying to pick winners, one in 10,000 is going to score, by chance alone, a great coup, and that's all that's going on. It's a game, it's a chance operation, and people think they are doing something purposeful ... but they're really not. — Merton Miller

You've got to give great tools to small teams. Pick good people, use small teams and give them great tools so that they are very productive in terms of what they are doing. — Bill Gates

Ego had brought him to this point, that stupid refusal to quit the case, to simply do the job according to procedure and pick up the monthly salary transfer. Now look where it had brought him, sitting right next to a crapping great fusion bomb. — Peter F. Hamilton

These days, I find I'm applying a little more patience to my process. If I look back on my work, I can see those songs I bailed on could have been better, that had those great two verses and then I kind of coasted from there. These days, if a song is giving me trouble, I put it aside and pick it up later, and keep doing that, for a year if I have to, until it takes shape. — Ani DiFranco

You just pick up any paper, and it's always talking about, how are we going to overthrow Donald Trump? I'm representing a tremendous - I'm representing millions of people that have - really feel angry and disenfranchised. And these are great people. And they like me and I love them. And I'll tell you what. We're not being treated right. — Donald Trump

I take my seat and pick the e-reader back up. "You know, Breckin. You really are pretty damn great." He smiles and winks at me. "It's the Mormon in me. We're a pretty awesome people. — Colleen Hoover

I would hope that people, no matter what age, would find something to identify with in my books, pick one up and experience a personal sense of discovery. That's great. But for them, not for me. — Shel Silverstein

What's not so great is that all this technology is destroying our social skills. Not only have we given up on writing letters to each other, we barely even talk to each other. People have become so accustomed to texting that they're actually startled when the phone rings. It's like we suddenly all have Batphones. If it rings, there must be danger.
Now we answer, "What happened? Is someone tied up in the old sawmill?"
"No, it's Becky. I just called to say hi."
"Well you scared me half to death. You can't just pick up the phone and try to talk to me like that. Don't the tips of your fingers work? — Ellen DeGeneres

I felt my energy return and that I said to myself, in any event I'll recover from it, I'll pick up my pencil that I put down in my great discouragement and I'll get back to drawing, and from then on, it seems to me, everything has changed for me. — Vincent Van Gogh

All paths lead to God, but only one path will present you before God without fault and with great joy. Pick a path, any path - it will take you to God. Trust me: you will stand before Him one day. You will meet your Maker. You will see the face of Christ. There are many ways up the mountain, but only one will result in life instead of destruction. — Kevin DeYoung

The last time I saw this many doctors was in 1982 at the NFL Combine. They flew me in, put me in a nice hotel and took great care of me. All you have to do is just pick up the phone and call P.A.S.T. and they will do the rest for you. I am very proud of the P.A.S.T. program. — Rob Brown

So after 11 years you're just picking up all this information. I'm a basketball junky, so I watch old players. The '90s was a great era of basketball. I watched so much of that. That just helped me be a student of the game and pick up any moment. It's the 10,000 hour rule. You're just trying to master your craft. — Andre Iguodala

I mean, these are kids that are getting on rail cars, riding the top of rail cars all the way up through Mexico. I mean, the danger that they're put in, the sexual assaults that are occurring - I mean, all of this is a great consternation, I think, for any of us. But when they come here and then they're dumped on our cities and our counties and our state is expected to pick up the costs, there's a point in time where you say, 'Quit giving these individuals incentives to come up and then be resettled in the United States'. That's the real issue for me. — Rick Perry

They were structured, but let me do almost anything I wanted. I don't mean I was allowed to stay up until three in the morning. I mean that whatever I wanted to do or try, they let me. It was great because it made me feel like they loved me enough to understand I was my own person. It was terrible at the same time because sometimes, after I failed miserably, I wished they would have shown some parental insight and protected me from getting hurt. But ... they were always there to celebrate or pick up the pieces. — AnnaLisa Grant

That's the thing about being an evader. You have to be flexible and know when to bail before it all gets weird. Better for everyone, really. I'm a giver.

My plane landed half an hour ago, but I'm taking a circuitous route to what I hope is the backside of baggage claim, where my dad is supposed to pick me up. The key to avoiding uncomfortable situations is a preemptive strike: make sure you see them first. And before you accuse me of being a coward, think again. It's not easy being this screwed up. It takes planning and sharp reflexes. A devious mind. My mom says I'd make a great pickpocket, because I can disappear faster than you can say, Where's my wallet? The Artful Dodger, right here. — Jenn Bennett

She held up three hangers inside a vinyl garment bag and hooked them sideways on the coatrack to unzip. "Raw silk. Vintage. Sort of a purple-black."
"Aubergine," he declared and cracked the opening wider.
"I love a man who can make colors sound dirty." She grinned.
"Cross-dyed." He wondered if Trip had helped pick this out, if he'd seen her model it and convinced her to splurge. "Great suit."
"I gotta stand next to J.R. Ward. Feel me?" She fluttered her short nails at him. "Baby, I went and bought a pair of Givenchy boots I cannot even afford because the Warden is gonna be there in full effect, and you know what that means!"
He didn't really, but he got the gist. "So you want nighttime for daytime."
"Extra vampy, hold the trampy. Like, more Lust For Dracula than Breaking Dawn." Rina squeezed her shoulders together to amp her cleavage. "If I'm hauling the girls out, no way can I do sparkly anorexia. — Damon Suede

As long as you are forced to be a woman first instead of a person, by default, you need to be a feminist. That's it. Men are people, women are women? Screw that. Screw that. I am sick of having words aimed to shut me up. I am sick of having to be anything other than a person first. Zounds! I enjoy being a girl, whatever that means. For me, that meant Star Wars figurines, mounds of books, skirts and flats. It meant Civil War reenacting and best girlfriends I'd give a kidney to and best guy friends I'd ruin a liver with and making messes and cleaning up some of them and still not knowing how to apply eye shadow. That's being a girl. That's being a person. It's the same damn thing. I wish Rush had just called me an idiot. I'm happy to be called an idiot! On the day when someone on the Internet calls me an idiot first and ugly second, I will set down my feminist battle flag and heave a great sigh. Then I will pick it back up and keep climbing. There are many more mountains to overcome. — Alexandra Petri

Although I have guitars all around and I pick themm up occasionally and write a tune and make a record, I don't really see myself as a musician. It may seem a funny thing to say. It's just like, I write lyrics amd I make up songs, but I'm not a great lyricist or songwriter or producer. It's when you put all these things together - that makes me. — George Harrison

I think every coach has to adapt to what they have, because they're what you get. You can't just go out to the player tree and pick all the great ones. That doesn't happen. You get a Barry Sanders every now and then. You get a Billy Sims every once in a while. And when you have it, you adapt to their strengths. Whoever comes in here and whoever has this job needs to adapt and will do that. — Matt Millen

Nobody is expecting us to do anything. We can't let that perception become our reality, because with the ability on this team, if everybody can pick it up a notch, we'll be fine. It's not going to be Brooks coming in saving the day, or myself. It's got to be everybody as a unit playing consistent. If it happens, it's going to be great. It will be something like I've never experienced. — Vinny Testaverde

Antiphon, as another man gets pleasure from a good horse, or a dog, or a bird, I get even more pleasure from good friends. And if I have something good, I teach it to them, and I introduce them to others who will be useful to them with respect to virtue. And together with my friends I go through the treasures of wise men of old which they left behind written in books, and we peruse them. If we see something good, we pick it out and hold it to be a great profit, if we are able to prove useful to one another. — Socrates

But my absolute favorite part of it is after I finish, so I can wait there to encourage people to keep pushing to the end. By the time I'm finished all the fast people are already passed, so it's good to be able to cheer on those who really need that encouragement to finish. It's a great feeling when you acknowledge someone and they just brighten up and pick up their pace. That cheering at the end makes such a difference for the runners, you see it in the smiles on everybody's face. I love to be a part of that. It's just a tremendously inspiring race. — Chris Cooper

The problem was Mike Tyson always had trouble with bigger men. Even fighters like Bud Green, "Bonecrusher", he had trouble with them whether he wanted to or not. He would have had great trouble with Lennox Lewis, particularly since he maximized his shortness by crouching, and he couldn't fight inside so the guy would pick him apart like Buster Douglas. — Bert Sugar

Successful succession is more than selecting someone with an appropriate skill set - it's about finding someone who is in lockstep with the original cause around which the company was founded. Great second or third CEOs don't take the helm to implement their own vision of the future; they pick up the original banner and lead the company into the next generation. That's why we call it succession, not replacement. There is a continuity of vision. — Simon Sinek

Americans who have parents raised during the Great Depression or World War II understand how drastically things have changed on the home front. My father did not care a whit whether I liked him, and it would have been unthinkable for him to pick up my stuff. There were rules in the house, and they were enforced. — Bill O'Reilly

During their lifetimes, every man and woman will stumble across a great opportunity. Sadly, most of them will simply pick themselves up, dust themselves down and carry on as if nothing ever happened. — Winston S. Churchill

I am she who lifts the mountains
When she goes to hunt,
Who wears mamba for a headband
And a lion for a belt.
Beware!
I swallow elephants whole
And pick my teeth with rhinoceros horns,
I drink up rivers to get at the hippos.
Let them hear my words!
Nhamo is coming
And her hunger is great.
I am she who tosses trees
Instead of spears.
The ostrich is my pillow
And the elephant is my footstool!
I am Nhamo
Who makes the river my highway
And sends crocodiles scurrying into the reeds! — Nancy Farmer

Are you a fun-loving Tigger or a sad-sack Eeyore? Pick a camp. I think it's clear where I stand on the great Tigger/Eeyore debate! — Randy Pausch

Only a dreamer or a fool would pick a stock at random and expect it to take off like a space ship from its launching pad. Certainly this has happened - about as often as a dime-store clerk has become a Hollywood star or a boy born in a log cabin has been elected President of the United States - just often enough, that is, to keep alive the Great American Dream. — Catherine Crook De Camp

Brett: Husband! Father of my child! Dance partner, emergency grilled-cheese maker. The kind of fellow who knows how to pick the wine. The kind of fellow who looks great in a tux. Also a zombie-tux. The guy with the generous laugh and the glorious whistle. The guy who has the answer. The man who makes my child laugh till he falls down. The man who makes me laugh till I fall down. The guy who lets me ask all sorts of invasive, inappropriate, and intrusive questions about being a guy. The man who read and reread and reread and then reread, and not only gave advice, but gave me a bourbon app. You're it, baby. Thanks for marrying me. Two words, always. — Gillian Flynn

Great. He was a hottie, a good kisser, and a literature buff. God really must have had a sense of humor, because if I had to name my biggest turn-on, it was literature. And he had just recommended a book that I didn't know, that wasn't taught in school. If I were single, there would be no better pick-up line. Suddenly, I found myself thinking back to Atonement - you know, the scene in the book where the two main characters have sex in the library? Even though Chloe said doing it against bookshelves would be really uncomfortable (and she'd probably know), it was still a fantasy of mine. Like, what's more romantic than a quiet place full of books? But I shouldn't have been thinking about my library fantasies. Especially while I was staring at Cash. In the middle of a library. — Kody Keplinger

Thanks for being the kind of person who likes to pick up a book. That's a genuinely great thing. I met a librarian recently who said she doesn't read because books are her job and when she goes home, she just wants to switch off. I think we can agree that that's creepy as hell. — Max Barry

People seem to read so much more nonfiction than fiction, and so it always gives me great pleasure to introduce a friend or family member to a novel I believe they'll cherish but might not otherwise have thought to pick up and read. — Chris Bohjalian

A lot of other bass players have told me I'm the only bass player who plays with a pick but sounds like he's playing with the thumb and fingers, which is a great compliment. — Glenn Hughes

But you're kind of like a great book ... you know, you pick up a book at the bookstore because it has a beautiful cover ... but it's what's inside that pulls you in. — Miranda Kenneally

Oh my God! You have Empire Records?" I grab the DVD and rush over to put it in the player. "You know this movie is cinema gold," Jackson says as he brings over popcorn and settles into the couch. "This is the best movie ever!" I exclaim and snuggle into his side. "Okay. Before we start watching, if you could be anyone, who would you pick? I'd be Lucas. He's hysterical." I smile and grab the bowl, putting it on my lap. "I guess Joe. He's the boss." I laugh at his choice. Of course he'd pick the one who's in charge. Joe is pretty badass, though. "I think you'd be a great Rex. Oh Rexy, you're so sexy." I smirk and push play as he scoffs. — Corinne Michaels

Lev looks at Risa, almost afraid to ask the obvious question. Finally he says, 'Uh ... why do we have a baby?'
'Ask him,' says Risa.
Stone-faced, Conner looks out of the window. 'They're looking for two boys and a girl. Having a baby will throw them off.'
'Great,' snaps Risa. 'Maybe we should all pick up a baby along the way. — Neal Shusterman

Keep a diary, but don't just list all the things you did during the day. Pick one incident and write it up as a brief vignette. Give it color, include quotes and dialogue, shape it like a story with a beginning, middle and end - as if it were a short story or an episode in a novel. It's great practice. Do this while figuring out what you want to write a book about. The book may even emerge from within this running diary. — John Berendt

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

I'd pick a young white guy over an old white guy for president anytime because the younger guy is more likely to have been influenced by the great social changes of the '60s and '70s. — D. L. Hughley

I don't really mind what people say about my love life or anything like that, but the one thing is that, yes, I do sing and write all my own music. That is something that I hold really dear. And yeah, I made a fool of myself in front of the world, but it was also great to pick myself back up and go on tour. — Ashlee Simpson

My family has had a lot of trouble with cancer in particular. There are a lot of great causes out there but for me to pick one I would say anything that is cancer related. — Casey James

You pick up the phone and you talk to somebody. There's a voice on the other end and you say what you have to say. This is how I perceive my life. I don't see myself as "Oh, I'm doing this great thing because I'm going to give this talk, now everybody's going to be transformed." — Eckhart Tolle

Now a great debate has been born. The thesis is Democratic Socialism. The antithesis is free-market capitalism. The Obama Democrats have posed the challenge. It is now up to the Republicans to pick it up and fight along these lines. — Dick Morris

I think I just pick really smart and motivated people to work with - people who are probably going to do great things anyway - and I just teach them what I know, maybe teach them how to think a little clearer than they did before, and then off they go. — Tucker Max