Grip On Life Quotes & Sayings

All your stress, pain, suffering, misery is due to your attachment with it. If you don't attach with the things, that doesn't serve you, either in your internal or external life, slowly those things lose grip on you, and you release yourself from it forever. — Roshan Sharma

600 million years ago, the monopolizing grip of the algae was broken and an enormous proliferation of new lifeforms emerged, an event called the Cambrian explosion. Life had arisen almost immediately after the origin of the Earth, which suggests that life may be an inevitable chemical process on an Earth-like planet. — Carl Sagan

Only by acknowledging the full extent of slavery's full grip on U.S. Society - its intimate connections to present day wealth and power, the depth of its injury to black Americans, the shocking nearness in time of its true end - can we reconcile the paradoxes of current American life. — Douglas A. Blackmon

Even as we improved as teachers and as students, the children continued to have raging impulse-control problems; the very thing that made them spontaneous and immediate could also make them mean ... The other teachers and I had dreamed of taking the kids on field trips, to remove them from the grip and tangle of life
of a day on the beach; of sandy, sacramental hot dogs; of playing in the ocean, making sculptures, and drawing with sticks. But we could barely manage them in class. — Anne Lamott

Like so many plain cups on the shelves. You can reach for them, use them without thinking. Most of them don't matter. Sometimes you lose your grip on one of them and it falls and smashes to piece, and you shrug and say to yourself, what a pity. Then you reach for the cup that you use every day, one that you love and use so often that as you stretch out your hand it is already making the shape that fits its curve. You are certain that yesterday it was in its proper place, but now there is nothing. Just air. You have lost something that was so familiar, so much a part of your life that you were not even looking for it. Just expecting it to be there, as always. — Rosie Thomas

If your grip on coins of life is not strong enough than they will gradually slip away from your hands,for surely one day you will find that your hands are empty — Kiran

A river season will last as long as it takes you to reach your new
place. If you get into the river and let it take you where you need to
be, your river season will last an afternoon. But if you fear change
and struggle and hold on to the rocks, the river season will last and
last. It will not end until your body becomes exhausted, your grip
weakens, your hands slide off the rocks and the current takes you to
your new place. — Andrew Kaufman

Eagleton has spent his life inside two mental boxes, Catholicism and Marxism, of both of which he is a severe internal critic - that is, he frequently kicks and scratches at the inside of the boxes, but does not leave them. Neither are ideologies that loosen their grip easily, and people who need the security of adherence to a big dominating ideology, however much they kick and scratch but without daring to leave go, hold on to it every bit as tightly as it holds onto them. The result is of course strangulation, but alas not mutual strangulation: the ideology always wins. — A.C. Grayling

When Aziza first spotted Mariam in the morning, her eyes always sprang open, and she began mewling and squirming in her mother's grip. She thrust her arms toward Mariam, demanding to be held, her tiny hands opening and closing urgently, on her face a look of both adoration and quivering anxiety ...
"Why have you pinned your little heart to an old, ugly hag like me?" Mariam would murmur into Aziza's hair ... "What have I got to give you?"
But Aziza only muttered contentedly and dug her face in deeper. And when she did that, Mariam swooned. Her eyes watered. Her heart took flight. And she marveled at how, after all these years of rattling loose, she had found in this little creature the first true connection in her life of false, failed connections. — Khaled Hosseini

Here is a paradox for the creator: if you love your work, let it go.15 Because if you grip it too tightly, you will strangle it. If you hold it in open hands, you may actually find that the work has a life of its own. Creativity is more about listening and following than it is about forcing or manipulating. The truth for the creator is that you have a very limited control over anything in the world, even your own creation. You can work on it. You can help mold and shape its form. But there will come a point in the creative process where your creation is what it is. There comes a point where there is nothing left to do but to rest. To open your hands and let it go. You cannot control how others will receive it. They — Michael Gungor

There are certain segments of society that will never lend an ear to a new idea. They squat in a certain place and will not budge from it. They will find many reasons to maintain a way of life that is comfortable to them. They'll cling to old religions; they'll fasten with the grip of death on ethics that were dead, without their knowing it, centuries before; they will embrace a logic that can be blown over with a breath, still claiming it is sacrosanct. — Clifford D. Simak

I invite you to read again the full accounts of this inspired vision. Study them, ponder them, and apply them to your daily life. In modern terms we might say we are invited to "get a grip." We must hold on tight to the iron rod and never let go. — Ann M. Dibb

If we were entirely sane, if madness did not have a serious grip on one side of us, other people's tragedies would hold a great deal less interest for us. — Alain De Botton

He had in his Bronx apartment a lodger less learned than himself, and much fiercer in piety. One day when we were studying the laws of repentance together, the lodger burst from his room. "What!" he said. "The atheists guzzles his whiskey and eats pork and wallows with women all his life long, and then repents the day before he dies and stands guiltless? While I spend a lifetime trying to please God?" My grandfather pointed to the book. "So it is written," he said gently. - "Written!" the lodger roared. "There are books and there are books." And he slammed back into his room.
The lodger's outrage seemed highly logical. My grandfather pointed out afterward that cancelling the past does not turn it into a record of achievement. It leaves it blank, a waste of spilled years. A man had better return, he said, while time remains to write a life worth scanning. And since no man knows his death day, the time to get a grip on his life is the first hour when the impulse strikes him. — Herman Wouk

Perhaps I had never had a grip on myself to start with, living life on cruise-control while I waited for a home that would never be mine. It would be warm. Loving. Wonderfully chaotic, occasionally tempestuous, but full of good intentions and laughter. It would be all of the great things embodied by your run-of-the-mill greeting card, and it was still the last thing that I thought of each night as I let myself believe for a moment or two that such things were possible. — Alice Yi-Li Yeh

As I accept the flowers, I release my grip on the balloons, and they bounce gently against the ceiling the way they did before - hovering, annoyed, frustrated, contained by the ceiling and disappointed by the limits of life. — Shannon Mullen

Most people in the grip of depression at its ghastliest are, for whatever reason, in a state of unrealistic hopelessness, torn by exaggerated ills and fatal threats that bear no resemblance to actuality. It may require on the part of friends, lovers, family, admirers, an almost religious devotion to persuade the sufferers of life's worth, which is so often in conflict with a sense of their own worthlessness, but such devotion has prevented countless suicides. — William Styron

Staying chaste until marriage, a commandment of my faith, was one of the most difficult challenges of my young life. I had a powerful sense that if I did not get a grip on my identity, my ethics, and my religion, I would go off the rails. — Feisal Abdul Rauf

I always thought that there was going to be life after baseball, and so I designed that in my life I would have other interests after baseball that I would be able to step into. And I didn't realize the grip that baseball had on me and on my family. — Nolan Ryan

Give yourself permission to not be perfect. Life's too short, but you're still young. Give up that iron-knuckle grip you have on excellence and just ... have fun. For a change. — Cherrie Lynn

We don't want to think about our weaknesses. We don't want to talk about them, and we certainly don't want anyone else to point them out. This is a classic sign of mediocrity, and this mediocrity has a firm grip on the Church and humanity at this moment in history. — Matthew Kelly

My whole life I've harbored a resentment toward those who could ride no-handed. To this day, I can't even sit on an exercise bike without clinging to the handlebars with a serious G.I.-Joe- kung-fu grip. Every time I see someone on the road, all smug and well-balanced, using their cell phone and gesturing while they talk and ride, I secretly want to bash them with my car door. It's — Jen Lancaster

He rubbed his unshaven chin with the back of his hand. Beyond the gates lay a life he had been forbidden. He tightened his grip on the satchel and walked spindle-legged over the sodden ground, glancing at the numerous closed doors on either side of the passage, expecting one to open at any moment. The walls echoed as he splashed through puddles of oil and water. He reached the gates, allowed himself a deep breath, and squinted through the ironwork. — Richard A. Kirk

Is it my relative sanity that makes my life here so painful, so desperate, so hopeless? Loosen my grip on that, and perhaps life both in the asylum and out becomes much easier ... — Emilie Autumn

Solitude is escapist. People who like being alone are running away from 'reality', refusing to make the effort to 'commit' to real life and live instead in a half-dream fantasy world. They should 'man up', get real, get a grip. But if social life is so natural, healthy and joyous as contemporary society insists, why would anyone be 'escaping' from it?
Solitude is antisocial. Well of course it is - that's the point. This argument is tautological. But 'antisocial' is a term that carries implicit rather than explicit moral condemnation; it is clearly a 'bad thing' without it being at all clear what it might mean. All this actually says is 'solitude is preferring to be alone rather than with others/me [the speaker] and I am hurt.' It is true, but is based on the assumption that being alone is self-evidently a bad thing, and being social is equally self-evidently a good thing. — Sara Maitland

Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth? — Bill Watterson

To spend your existence in the grip of anxiety about death, he wrote, is mere folly. It is a sure way to let your life slip from you incomplete and unenjoyed. He gave voice as well to a thought I had not yet quite allowed myself, even inwardly, to articulate: to inflict this anxiety on others is manipulative and cruel. — Stephen Greenblatt

Each child is poisoned by the society through teaching him ambition. Ambition is a poison far more dangerous than any alcohol can ever be, far more dangerous than marijuana or LSD, because ambition destroys your whole life. It keeps you moving in a false direction. It keeps you imagining, desiring, dreaming, it keeps you wasting your life. Ambition means a subtle creation of the ego, and once the ego is created you are in the grip of darkness. And the whole social structure depends on ambition. — Rajneesh

You're what gives me strength. If I am what centers you, Nikki, then you are what anchors me. Every time I touch you, every time I bury myself deep inside you - Nikki, don't you see?
You are the talisman of my life, and if I lose my grip on you, then I have lost myself. — J. Kenner

Things can get tough out there. I am in no way saying life is easy and we should breeze through it like a fart through silk filter; we are going to take our lumps and deal with our own unique adversity. What I am saying is that in all the chaos, remember to breathe, remember to smile, and remember that the only time to panic is when there is truly no tomorrow. Fortunately for the majority of us, tomorrow will always meet us in the morning with a cup of coffee and a fresh deck of cigarettes, ready to crack it's cocoon and mature into today. So ease the grip on your moralities and be yourself. Fantastic is really just the flaws. Nobody is perfect - not you, not me, not Jesus, Buddha, Jehovah, not God. But the great thing is that you do not have to be perfect to be alive, and that is what makes life absolutely perfect. — Corey Taylor

You're not like any man I've ever known," she said. "You're not even someone I could have dreamed. You're like someone from a fairy story written in a language I don't even know."
"The prince, I hope."
"No, you're the dragon, a beautiful wicked dragon." Her voice turned wistful. "How could anyone have a normal everyday life with you?" Cam took her in a safe, firm grip and lowered her to the mattress. "Maybe you'll be a civilizing influence on me." He bent over the slope of her breast, kissing it through the muslin veil of her gown. "Or maybe you'll get a taste for the dragon." He found the bud of her nipple, wet the cotton with his mouth, until the tender flesh pricked up against his tongue.
"I th-think I already have." She sounded so perturbed that he laughed. "Then lie still," he whispered, "while I breathe fire on you. — Lisa Kleypas

If everything was determined
by the common human condition, by social and cultural categories, and by chance, it would be useless to reflect on ways to make one's life excellent. Fortunately there is enough room for personal initiative and choice to make a real difference. And those who believe this are the ones with the best chance to break free from the grip of fate. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Will rose slowly to his feet. He could not believe he was doing what he was doing, but it was clear that he was, clear as the silver rim around the black of Jem's eyes. "If there is a life after this one," he said, "let me meet you in it, James Carstairs."
"There will be other lives." Jem held his hand out, and for a moment, they clasped hands, as they had done during their parabatai ritual, reaching across twin rings of fire to interlace their fingers with each other. "The world is a wheel," he said. "When we rise or fall, we do it together."
Will tightened his grip on Jem's hand, which felt thin as twigs in his. "Well, then," he said, through a tight throat, "since you say there will be another life for me, let us both pray I do not make as colossal a mess of it as I have this one. — Cassandra Clare

I didn't see Danny come in or run towards me. He was just suddenly there, pulling me up by my arm so hard that I gasped. I felt his grip on my skin long after he let go. We ran down the steps where Mom met us, coughing. She was followed by a thick black cloud of smoke. I had never felt smoke that hot in my life. I tasted ash when I breathed in.
"Go! Get out!" she choked, waving us towards the front door.
We ran out into the night in our pajamas.
"Run to Violet's!" Mom called behind us.

- The Stable House — Laura Smith

You must learn to call on the Lord. Don't sit all alone or lie on the couch, shaking your head and letting your thoughts torture you. Don't worry about how to get out of your situation or brood about your terrible life, how miserable you feel, and what a bad person you are. Instead, say, Get a grip on yourself, you lazy bum! Fall on your knees, and raise your hands and eyes toward heaven. Read a psalm. Say the Lord's Prayer, and tearfully tell God what you need. — Martin Luther

American democracy is a chess-game in which pawns imagine themselves to be free individuals with wills of their own: that delusion is one of the rules of the game, without which the game could not continue. I doubt anyone, no matter how sharp and sharp-tongued, could succeed in getting across to high school students how vital an acute mind is for just keeping a grip on one's life and earnings in our mendacious politics and economics. No wonder our school system is devoutly dedicated to demoralizing and blunting such minds. — Kenny Smith

Valten tightened his arms around Gisela. She buried her face against his chest, holding on to him as if her life depended on her grip. — Melanie Dickerson

She gave Cooper a quick nod, indicating she was going out the back, and didn't wait around to see if he understood her meaning. She pushed through the swinging doors to the small kitchen in the back, snagged the keys to her truck from the hook, and replaced them with her apron. She gave a quick glance to the grill, making sure Sandy hadn't left anything to burn on it when he'd been pulled out front, but everything looked in order. Stop stalling.
She sighed, shook her head, but the rueful smile that accompanied the movement was fleeting. For what might be the first time in her life, she had absolutely no idea how she was going to handle what came next.
"Only one way to find out," she murmured. Tightening her grip on her keys, if not her emotions, she let herself out the back door of the pub and found herself staring straight up into the crystalline blue eyes of Cooper Jax. — Donna Kauffman

The popular idea that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years. — Agatha Christie

One of the hardest lessons in young Sam's life had been finding out that the people in charge weren't in charge. It had been finding out that governments were not, on the whole, staffed by people who had a grip, and that plans were what people made instead of thinking. — Terry Pratchett

It's easy to forget that the pursuit of happiness is not what life is about. Only as we remember that life is a test, a trust, and a temporary assignment will the appeal of these things lose their grip on our lives. We are preparing for something even better. "The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever."10 — Rick Warren

But what Liberty would remember best was the feel of his own small hand gathered in the warm, comforting grip of the man, those times alone when all of Thatcher's potent attention was concentrated on his son, as something inside Liberty always insisted, occasionally to contrary evidence that it should be, their trips together, their talks, the information about the sorry state of the world Thatcher shared reluctantly, almost sadly, with his son and heir out of a conviction that I do not enjoy having to tell you these things, but it is important you hear this news, no matter how distasteful, because, unfortunately, it is the truth, whereas it is lies and the promulgation of lies that will make you and the people in your life sick. — Stephen Wright

When he starts to fall asleep, he keeps his arms around me fiercely, a life-preserving prison. But I wait, kept awake by the thought of bodies hitting pavement, until his grip loosens and his breathing steadies.
I will not let Tobias go to Erudite when it happens again, when someone else dies. I will not.
I slip out of his arms. I shrug on one of his sweatshirts so I can carry the smell of him with me. I slip my feet into my shoes. I don't take any weapons or keepsakes.
I pause by the doorway and look at him, half buried under the quilt, peaceful and strong.
"I love you," I say quietly, trying out the words. I let the door close behind me.
It's time to put everything in order. — Veronica Roth

We must also acknowledge that the majority of the men and women of our time continue to live daily in situations of insecurity, with dire consequences. Certain pathologies are increasing, with their psychological consequences; fear and desperation grip the hearts of many people, even in the so-called rich countries; the joy of life is diminishing; indecency and violence are on the rise; poverty is becoming more and more evident. People have to struggle to live and, frequently, to live in an undignified way. — Pope Francis

As i discovered, the path to sobriety is a precarious, complex journey. you obviously want to purge yourself of something that has been so destructive and has had such a grip on you. but in the deep recesses of your mind, you wonder if you will mourn the loss of this old friend that has been by your side for years. i know this sounds sick, but you actually find yourself wondering if your life is going to become quite boring without this crutch. of course, the yearning for true health far outweighs everything else. you know things are going to be better for you, for your loved ones, and for everyone you encounter. you will no longer have to hide things and live a lie. yes, that initial high of drugs and booze can be very, very attractive, but it's not worth the wrecked and trashed feeling you have the next morning. nor is it worth the cumulative toll it exacts from you. — Lou Gramm

He wonders if words aren't an essential element of sex, if talking isn't finally a more subtle form of touching, and if the images dancing in our heads aren't just as important as the bodies we hold in our arms. Margot tells him that sex is the one thing in life that counts for her, that if she couldn't have sex she would probably kill herself to escape the boredom and monotony of being trapped inside her own skin. Walker doesn't say anything, but as he comes into her for the second time, he realizes that he shares her opinion. He is mad for sex. Even in the grip of the most crushing despair, he is mad for sex. Sex is the lord and the redeemer, the only salvation on earth. — Paul Auster

Almost everyone today is prepared to say that those teachings of Christianity cannot be things we know and that, in this respect, they are like the teachings of every religion. We in the United States live under a social consensus that seems to require such a response. According to it, the teachings of religion are not possible subjects of knowledge. But we must not accept this conclusion without question, for its implications are of profound importance. They place the teachings of religion at a crushing disadvantage before all that passes for knowledge in our world. They relegate them to practical irrelevance and loosen any grip they might otherwise have on the understanding and direction of life. Is that really justified? Or is it a terrible mistake? — Dallas Willard

He's been asleep since the war began. He knows this now. In defending himself from death he lost his grip on life. He thinks of Emina, risking her life to deliver expired pills to someone she's never met. Of the young man who ran into the street to save her when she was shot. Of the cellist who plays for those killed in a mortar attack. He could run now, but he doesn't. — Steven Galloway

If I were another person, I go on, I wouldn't want to deal with me, I don't want to deal with me, It's so hopeless, I want out of this life. I really do. I keep thinking that if I could just get a grip of myself, I could be all right again. I keep thinking I'm driving myself crazy, but I swear, I swear to God, I have no control. It's so awful, It's like some demons have taken over my mind. And nobody believes me, Everybody thinks I could be better if I wanted to. But I can't be the old Lizzy anymore, I can't be myself anymore, I mean, actually, I am being myself right now and it's horrible. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

I had to get over [him]. For months now, a stone had been sitting on my heart. I'd shed a lot of tears over [him], lost a lot of sleep, eaten a lot of cake batter. Somehow, I had to move on. [Life] would be hell if I didn't shake loose from the grip he had on my heart. I most definitely didn't want to keep feeling this way, alone in a love affair meant for two. Even if he'd felt like The One. Even if I'd always thought we'd end up together. Even if he still had a choke chain on my heart. — Kristan Higgins

I feel like I'm a compassionate guy, but I also feel if somebody's grip on life or sanity is so tenuous that a joke in an advice column that usually is nothing but jokes pushes them over the edge, then if not me, it would have been a leaf blowing past them that did it, or something else. You almost have to feel that way, doing this. — Dan Savage

Omens. If I were beginning again, starting out in life, I would ignore all omens, neither heeding them nor trying to disable them. If we chose to pass them by, then perhaps they would lose their power, as old gods and goddesses, no longer worshiped, fade away and lose their grip on us. — Margaret George

Poem Written in a Copy of Beowulf
At various times, I have asked myself what reasons
moved me to study, while my night came down,
without particular hope of satisfaction,
the language of the blunt-tongued Anglo-Saxons.
Used up by the years, my memory
loses its grip on words that I have vainly
repeated and repeated. My life in the same way
weaves and unweaves its weary history.
Then I tell myself: it must be that the soul
has some secret, sufficient way of knowing
that it is immortal, that its vast, encompassing
circle can take in all, can accomplish all.
Beyond my anxiety, beyond this writing,
the universe waits, inexhaustible, inviting. — Jorge Luis Borges

I don't think people realize, when they're just getting started on an eating disorder or even when they're in the grip of one, that it is not something that you just "get over." For the vast majority of eating-disordered people, it is something that will haunt you for the rest of your life. You may change your behavior, change your beliefs about yourself and your body, give up that particular way of coping in the world. You may learn, as I have, that you would rather be a human than a human's thin shell. You may get well. But you never forget. — Marya Hornbacher

Will I see you at all?
He shook his head. But he couldn't yet make himself move away. He was unwilling to relinquish his hold on her, unwilling to say that final good-bye. He held her for a minute, then two, then three, simply holding her and committing to memory what he could not have in life. There was a sweet, comforting scent to her.
His memory was very, very good, but she was better.
He only loosened his grip when he feared he might not be able to let go of her at all. — Courtney Milan

Hey," the other said, coming to life. "You're supposed to be in jail."
Al grinned at him, his white-gloved grip tightening on the wooden handle, which was intricately carved in the shape of a naked, writhing woman. Nice. "And your momma wanted you to have a brain," he said, yanking the door open and slamming it into the guy's face. — Kim Harrison

Every culture that's ever existed has operated under the illusion that it understood 95% of reality and that the other 5% would be delivered in the next 18 months, and from Egypt forward they've been running around believing they had a perfect grip on things and yet we look back at every society that preceded us with great smugness at how naive they all were. Well, it never occurs to us, then, that maybe we're whistling in the dark too! That the universe is stranger than you CAN suppose, and that that openness that that perception imparts is a great joy, a great blessing, because then you can live your life not in service to some fascistic metaphor but in service to the living mystery: the fact that you're not going to understand it; it is not going to yield to logic; or magic; or any other technique that's been developed ... — Terence McKenna

Our desire to segregate the mind's cogitations from the body's exertions reflects the grip that Cartesian dualism still holds on us. When we think about thinking, we're quick to locate our mind, and hence our self, in the gray matter inside our skull and to see the rest of the body as a mechanical life-support system that keeps the neural circuits charged. More than a fancy of philosophers like Descartes and his predecessor Plato, this dualistic view of mind and body as operating in isolation from each other appears to be a side effect of consciousness itself. Even though the bulk of the mind's work goes on behind the scenes, in the shadows of the unconscious, we're aware only of the small but brightly lit window that the conscious mind opens for us. And our conscious mind tells us, insistently, that it's separate from the body. — Nicholas Carr

If there isn't an immediate surrender, they'll fight to take the palace." An anger burned inside Cleo's chest. "What will he do?" Emilia's grip on her hands tightened. "Had you been in the Limerian's clutches, I think he would have done anything to save your life." "And now that I'm back?" "Now," Emilia said, gazing into her sister's eyes, "if King Gaius is looking for a war, a war is exactly what he'll get. — Morgan Rhodes

I took a final look at my mother's silhouette in the doorway and tightened my grip on the steering wheel.
Hades followed my gaze. "She was trying to protect you."
"I know. That's the worst part. I'm just tired of her deception. I mean, keeping the fact that I was a goddess from me my whole life was one thing, but to still keep something from me? That's just ... " I couldn't put words to the feelings that were bothering me.
"You wanted her to be as honest as you've always perceived her to be."
"Yes."
"It could be worse."
"How?"
"My father ate me. — Kaitlin Bevis

Every time I felt the pain coming on I'd go downstairs and hammer out an idea. After a few months I started to take a look at what I was making, I had for the first time in my life written a large grip of songs completely alone and without any expectations or plans of what they would be for. — Frank Iero

of yourself and of other people. If you wish to attain to lasting happiness you must be ready to hate father, mother, even your own life and to take leave of all your possessions. How? Not by renouncing them or giving them up because what you give up violently you are forever bound to. But rather by seeing them for the nightmare they are; and then, whether you keep them or not, they will have lost their grip over you, their power to hurt you, and you will be out of your dream at last, out of your darkness, your fear, your unhappiness. So spend some time seeing each of the things you cling to for what it really is, a nightmare that causes you excitement and pleasure on the one hand but also worry, insecurity, tension, anxiety, fear, unhappiness on the other. — Anthony De Mello

Good friend, don't forget all I've taught you; take to heart my commands. They'll help you live a long, long time, a long life lived full and well. 3-4 Don't lose your grip on Love and Loyalty. Tie them around your neck; carve their initials on your heart. Earn a reputation for living well in God's eyes and the eyes of the people. 5-12 Trust GOD from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for GOD's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track. Don't assume that you know it all. — Anonymous

Our world spins upside down and sometimes we have to lose our grip on the things we value in this life in order to grab on to true life. — Jon Foreman

(Ravic speaking of a butterfly caught in the Louvre) In the morning it would search for flowers and life and the light honey of blossoms and would not find them and later it would fall asleep on millennial marble, weakened by then, until the grip of the delicate, tenacious feet loosened and it fell, a thin leaf of premature autumn. — Erich Maria Remarque

White Fang received the nursing. Judge Scott's suggestion of a trained nurse was indignantly clamoured down by the girls, who themselves undertook the task. And White Fang won out on the one chance in ten thousand denied him by the surgeon. The latter was not to be censured for his misjudgement. All his life he had tended and operated on the soft humans of civilization, who live sheltered lives and had descended out of many sheltered generations. Compared with White Fang, they were frail and flabby, and clutched life without any strength in their grip. White Fang had come straight from the Wild, where the weak perish early and shelter is vouchsafed to none. In neither his father nor his mother was there any weakness, nor in the generations before them. A constitution of iron and vitality of the Wild were White Fang's inheritance, and he clung to life, the whole of him and every part of him, in spirit and in flesh, with the tenacity that of old belonged to all creatures. — Jack London

Tie your heart at night to mine, love,
and both will defeat the darkness
like twin drums beating in the forest
against the heavy wall of wet leaves.
Night crossing: black coal of dream
that cuts the thread of earthly orbs
with the punctuality of a headlong train
that pulls cold stone and shadow endlessly.
Love, because of it, tie me to a purer movement,
to the grip on life that beats in your breast,
with the wings of a submerged swan,
So that our dream might reply
to the sky's questioning stars
with one key, one door closed to shadow. — Pablo Neruda

I'm not perfect. I think more highly of snow and ice than love. It's easier for me to be interested in mathematics than to have affection for my fellow human beings. But I am anchored to something in life that is constant. You can call it a sense of orientation; you can call it woman's intuition; you can call it whatever you like. I'm standing on a foundation and have no farther to fall. It could be that I haven't managed to organize my life very well. But I always have a grip - with at least one finger at a time - on Absolute Space. That's why there's a limit to how far the world can twist out of joint, and to how badly things can go before I find out. I now know, without a shadow of a doubt, that something is wrong. I — Peter Hoeg

We postpone the finality of heartbreak by clinging to hope. Though this might be acceptable during early or transitional stages of grief, ultimately it is no way to live. We need both hands free to embrace life and accept love, and that's impossible if one hand has a death grip on the past. — Kristin Armstrong

Our movement took a grip on cowardly Marxism and from it extracted the meaning of socialism. It also took from the cowardly middle-class parties their nationalism. Throwing both into the cauldron of our way of life there emerged, as clear as a crystal, the synthesis
German National Socialism. — Hermann Goring

When I joined the Mumfords I made a commitment to them so they'll always come first. But I'm a bit of a workaholic and Communion helps me get a grip on dealing with my life. — Ben Lovett

A child blind from birth doesn't even know he's blind until someone tells him. Even then he has only the most academic idea of what blindness is; only the formerly sighted have a real grip on the thing. Ben Hanscom had no sense of being lonely because he had never been anything but. If the condition had been new, or more localized, he might have understood, but loneliness both encompassed his life and overreached it. — Stephen King

His grip on my shoulders changes into a massage that causes me to close my eyes. He could touch me like that for the rest of my life and I'd never move. — Katie McGarry

I loosened my grip on my opinions. I entered recovery for being such a know-it-all. I stopped expecting everyone to experience God or church or life like I thought it should be done. In fact, I stopped using the word should about God altogether, I sought God, and he was faithful to answer me. — Sarah Bessey

Though Napoleon at that time, in 1812, was more convinced than ever that it depended on him, verser (ou ne pas verser) le sang de ses peuples1 - as Alexander expressed it in the last letter he wrote him - he had never been so much in the grip of inevitable laws, which compelled him, while thinking that he was acting on his own volition, to perform for the swarm-life - that is to say for history - whatever had to be performed. — Leo Tolstoy

Few understand that horses are never truly domesticated. Their instincts are always there and readily take over once they are free. They stay or return to us by their choice, not the compulsion forced upon them.
Once realized you must also recognize only kindness will prevail to make a partner of an animal who'd prefer only the company of his kind and the freedom of wide open spaces. Any other relationship is based on the inadequacies of the tormentor on the tormented. One will lose. It's always the horse, for even if he wins his defensive battle the mark of rogue will remain.
It's been witnessed how a mustang will give up his life if his freedom can't be regained when in the grip of adversity. There's so much for us to learn from this, if we'd only learn to listen to their message. — Judith-Victoria Douglas

The society that loses its grip on the past is in danger, for it produces men who know nothing but the present, and who are not aware that life had been, and could be, different from what it is. — Aristotle.

In My Secret Life"
"I saw you this morning,
you were moving so fast.
Can't seem to loosen my grip
On the past.
And I miss you so much,
there's no one in sight.
And we're still making love
In my secret life.
I smile when I am angry,
I cheat and I lie,
I do what I have to do
to get by,
In my secret life. — Leonard Cohen

Generous giving will break the grip of greed on your life. So whether or not you think you have extra, give and give generously. You've got to give to the point that it forces you to adjust your lifestyle. If you're not willing to give to the point that it impacts your lifestyle, then according to Jesus you're greedy. If you're consuming to the point of having little or nothing left to give, you're greedy. If you're consuming and saving to the point that there's little or nothing to give, you're greedy. I know, that's strong. Actually, it's harsh. But it's true. — Andy Stanley

Whenever a person holds onto personal rights, he sets himself up for the tyranny of fear when those rights are threatened. The only way to be free to experience God's will is to go thruogh life with a loose grip on everything around us. He is the only security we have life - and He is enough! — Steve McVey

In some ways my life in Willoughby had begun to fade, much the same way a nightmare loses its grip when you find the courage to reach out in the darkness and turn on the light. — Beth Hoffman

Swarmers run the risk of skittering like water bugs on the surface of life. By being quickly and constantly connected, they can avoid deep contact in time-consuming and meaningful ways ... You're flitting from one place to another. You're more likely to pursue superficial engagements rather than deep pursuits. It contributes to this certain MTV approach to life where you engage in something for a few minutes and then there's a commercial ... You have to get a grip on reality. Unless you know what is real-what is a real friendship and relationship-neither can have an effect on you. — Joel Garreau

So much wanting and longing, clutching, desiring, passion and hatred and terrible need. Here, death was suitable, there was room for it, the grip of life's relentless urges slackened, replaced by this icy simplicity. This wasnt her death. It was his. That was the sad and honest truth. Though it would stay with her, it would be more like a black onyx heart on a silver chain, worn privately, under her clothes, close to her body, all her life. The guilt, the beauty, everything. It wasnt over, it had only begun. Well ok then, Okay. — Janet Fitch

As I see it, life is an effort to grip before they slip through one's fingers and slide into oblivion, the startling, the ghastly or the blindingly exquisite fish of the imagination before they whip away on the endless current and are lost for ever in oblivion's black ocean. — Mervyn Peake

My last chance had vanished into itself like a snail coiling up into his shell.
Insidiously I had lost my grip, and now this was it. I thought all this without much emotion. I really didn't care anymore. I couldn't hang on anymore. I didn't have the guts to kill myself, but I didn't want it to continue. I walked a couple of blocks, empty, listless, and wished I could cry.
... The diabolic hope, the purposeful pulsing of blood, the flight into coherence allowed for some rationalizing an afterlife. A new theology was evolving, one that had a faith-in-death clause. It was evolved when I kicked a dead waterbug on the pavement. It was dried out, hollowed, emptied, like some kind of shell. Maybe, I thought, its body is a shell, maybe all bodies are shells. We hatch and die. Our spirit or something like that is the yoke: it lives the real life, the true life.
It wasn't comforting. — Arthur Nersesian

You have lost all delight in life. Ahead is a large array of blind alleys. You are half-deliberately, half-desperately cutting off your grip on creative life. You are becoming a neuter machine. You cannot love, even if you knew how to begin to love. Every thought is a devil, a hell-if you could do a lot of things over again, ah, how differently you would do them! You want to go home, back to the womb. You watch the world bang door after door in your face, numbly, bitterly. You have forgotten the secret you knew, once, ah, once, of being joyous, of laughing, of opening doors. — Sylvia Plath

I also wrote them about you." His blue gaze bored into her with paralyzing force. She couldn't move. Couldn't flee. Could only stare at the social travesty of his ungroomed features - the scruffy half beard shadowing his jaw, the too-long hair falling over his forehead - and feel her heart beat with love for this unconventional man. Darius's grip softened on her wrist until his fingers were tracing tiny circles over the sensitive skin. "I told them that I had met a woman who wasn't afraid to stand toe-to-toe with me. A woman who had seen my flaws and learned my darkest secrets, yet didn't immediately run for the hills." His self-deprecating chuckle coaxed a reluctant smile from her, the sound soothing the sharp edges of her turmoil. "I told them how this woman seemed instinctively to know when to comfort and when to confront, and how I was better with her in my life than I'd ever been on my own. — Karen Witemeyer

IF YOU REALLY let life take you, if you release control and stop clinging to sameness, you can't imagine the places you'll end up. But most people don't do that. Most people get this death grip on what they know, and the only thing that loosens their grasp is some kind of tragedy. — Lisa Unger

If it is true that we not only are the Beloved, but also have to become the Beloved; if it is true that we not only are children of God, but also have to become children of God; if it is true that we not only are brothers and sisters, but also have to become brothers and sisters . . . if all that is true, how then can we get a grip on this process of becoming? If the spiritual life is not simply a way of being, but also a way of becoming, what then is the nature of this becoming? — Henri J.M. Nouwen

When you make giving a priority, something happens inside of you. Especially when it's financially challenging to do so. It's like you loosen your grip on a value system whose motto says, "Money is the key to life and happiness and safety." — Andy Stanley

You've got mountains of your own, I'll bet on it. Take heart. Be encouraged. Remain steadfast. Hang on for dear life. You've got a better grip than you realize. — Adam Young

I think actors who know their job know that's how you do it. You don't show up and make people miserable. That poor grip who's standing there, he just wants to feed his family. He doesn't need to hear about your psychosis on life and love and death. — Charlize Theron

It is an unwritten rule of life that when you are in acute pain and have no one to console you, someone, from somewhere, will emerge in your life to offer you comfort. However, 'that' someone will vanish from the scene once you begin to regain grip on your life, leaving you with another sense of loss to nurse. — Hari Parameshwar

Rose," said my mother. For once in my life, she sounded unsure about herself. Scared, maybe. "Mia said you wanted to see me." I didn't answer. I didn't look at her. "What ... what do you need?" I didn't know what I needed. I didn't know what to do. The stinging in my eyes grew unbearable, and before I knew it, I was crying. Big, painful sobs seized my body. The tears I'd held back so long poured down my face. The fear and grief I'd refused to let myself feel finally burst free, burning in my chest. I could scarcely breathe. My mother put her arms around me, and I buried my face in her chest, sobbing even harder. "I know," she said softly, tightening her grip on me. "I understand. — Richelle Mead

The world has its own ways of treating us like what we will never be, but want to be. It relinquishes its grip on our souls while lulling us with the songs of freedom and conquest of beauty. It magnifies every tiny bit of something useless over an unfathomable presence of humanity. And we all waste the whole of our lives standing in queue for gaining its attention to be abdicated as if we never existed in the eyes of our fellow men. — Annie Ali

This is life, he thinks, this is why we live, to play like this on a day when winter is finally releasing its grip. — Anthony Doerr

Life tol'ably queer. You think you've got a grip on it, then you open your hands and you find there's nothing in them. — Alvin C. York

When Verlaine and Rimbaud were young," [Snyder] said, they were protesting the iron-grip bourgeois rationality had on all aspects of nineteenth-century French culture - the manners, the view of reality, and the exclusion of 'the wild' from public life. Rationality in business and society were dominant values. 'Deranging the senses' was one strategy artists like Verlaine and Rimbaud employed to break free of that.

"Today," he continued, "the bourgeoisie is sociopathic, overindulged, distracted, spoiled beyond measure, and unable to restrain its gluttony, even in the face of pending planetary destruction. In the face of such a threat, it has, by necessity, become the responsibility of the artist to model health and sanity. — Peter Coyote

Pleased? On the contrary. I think you're in the grip of tedium. You're tired of life, you think you've learned all there is to learn, and everything you see around you only increases your sense of tedium. Why, then, should I feel pleased? It isn't always easy to cut off a tentacle. You can always leave a boring job and, even more easily, a boring woman, but tedium, how do you cut yourself off from that? — Jose Saramago

I was in the situation of someone who has assumed, all his life, that madness was on eway, and suddenly in its grip, discovers that it is not only different from the way he'd imagined but that the person suffering from it is someone else, and that this someone else is not interested in finding out what madness is like: he is simply immersed in it, or it has descended on him, and that's that. — Felisberto Hernandez