Happy These Days Quotes & Sayings

I was happy with the umpiring in India last year, New Zealand is OK these days, and the only real area of concern is Pakistan. They seem to have a chip on their shoulders about their cricket there. — Allan Border

Lilah did little more than sleep and eat and cry, which to me was the most fascinating thing in the entire universe. Why did she cry? When did she sleep? What made her eat a lot one day and little the next? Was she changing with time? I did what any obsessed person would do in such a case: I recorded data, plotted it, calculated statistical correlations. First I just wrote on scraps of paper and made charts on graph paper, but I very quickly became more sophisticated. I wrote computer software to make a beautifully colored plot showing times when Diane fed Lilah, in black; when I fed her, in blue (expressed mother's milk, if you must know); Lilah's fussy times, in angry red; her happy times, in green. I calculated patterns in sleeping times, eating times, length of sleep, amounts eaten.
Then, I did what any obsessed person would do these days; I put it all on the Web. — Mike Brown

Optimism is a political act. Those who benefit from the status quo are perfectly happy for us to think nothing is going to get any better. In fact, these days, cynicism is obedience. — Alex Steffen

I have to admit we are locked in the most exquisite mysterious muck. This muck heaves and palpitates. It is multi-directional and has a mayor. To describe it takes many hundreds of thousands of words. Our muck is only a part of a much greater muck
the nation-state
which is itself the creation of that muck of mucks, human consciousness. Of course all these things also have a touch of sublimity
as when Moonbelly sings, for example, or all the lights go out. What a happy time that was, when all the electricity went away! If only we could re-create that paradise! By, for instance, all forgetting to pay our electric bills at the same time. All nine million of us. Then we'd all get those little notices that say unless we remit within five days the lights will go out. We all stand up from our chairs with the notice in ours hands. The same thought drifts across the furrowed surface of nine million minds. We wink at each other, through the walls. — Donald Barthelme

That's the thing with the young these days, isn't it? They watch too many happy endings. Everything has to be wrapped up, with a smile and a tear and a wave. Everyone has learned, found love, seen the error of their ways, discovered the joys of monogamy, or fatherhood, or filial duty, or life itself. In my day, people got shot at the end of films, after learning only that life is hollow, dismal, brutish, and short. — Nick Hornby

She felt a sudden, unexpected surge of hope. Despite the tragedy they'd all gone through, this was what a happy family looked like; this, she thought, is what a loving family did when they were together. For them, it was nothing but an ordinary day on an ordinary weekend, but for her, there was something revelatory about the notion that wonderful moments like these existed. And that maybe, just maybe, it would be possible for her to experience similar days in the future. — Nicholas Sparks

Hello, old friend. And here we are. You and me, on the last page. By the time you read these words, Rory and I will be long gone. So know that we lived well and were very happy. And above all else, know that we will love you always. Sometimes I do worry about you though. I think once we're gone you won't be coming back here for awhile. And you might be alone. Which you should never be. Don't be alone, Doctor. And do one more thing for me. There's a little girl waiting in a garden. She's going to wait a long while, so she's going to need a lot of hope. Go to her. Tell her a story. Tell her that if she's patient, the days are coming that she'll never forget. Tell her she'll go to see and fight pirates. She'll fall in love with a man who'll wait two thousand years to keep her safe. Tell her she'll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived. And save a whale in outer space. Tell her, this is the story of Amelia Pond. And this is how it ends. — Steven Moffat

A priest in New York City was arrested on gun possession. These days, you better be happy that the bulge in his pocket is a .38. — David Letterman

Rhythm, symmetry, and a happy combination of elegance and utility - a blend often desired in later days of hope and struggle - these have been fully attained, and with them a delight in quiet communion with Nature, expressing as she does the sense of beauty in orderliness. — Marie-Luise Gothein

I settled back into his arm. "If you produce a flannel graph out of somewhere, you will make me very happy."
He smiled. He was smiling a lot these days. "No flannel graph. I do a mean shadow puppet, though. — Temple West

These days I find that I am happy enough in the same way that I am warm enough - the goal isn't bliss or even comfort in some cases. The goal is to feel alive. — Dee Williams

I am happy that the young girls have a lot more choices these days and an opportunity to feel better about themselves. — Mia Hamm

We bend. I bend to sweep crumbs and I bend to wipe vomit and I bend to pick up little ones and wipe away tears ... And at the end of these days I bend next to the bed and I ask only that I could bend more, bend lower. Because I serve a Savior who came to be a servant. He lived bent low. And bent down here is where I see His face. He lived, only to die. Could I? Die to self and just break open for love. This Savior, His one purpose to spend Himself on behalf of messy us. Will I spend myself on behalf of those in front of me? And people say, "Don't you get tired?" and yes, I do. But I'm face to face with Jesus in the dirt, and the more I bend the harder and better and fuller this life gets. And sure, we are tired, but oh we are happy. Because bent down low is where we find fullness of Joy. — Katie J. Davis

She said to me, "This is fun."
"It weirdly is," I said.
"Maybe these are our salad days."
"Huh?"
"You know. Happy."
"What's happy about a salad?"
She shrugged. "Ranch," she said. — Terry Pratchett

This is the burgeoning days of feminism. This is when the militant feminists are the feminism hormones are raging. They are excited. They are happy. This is a new day! They are through being plugged into these formulas where men run everything and you're in servitude to them. — Rush Limbaugh

These were the months that shaped us.behind all our frustrations over all these years has been the wish to get back to those happy days.Once we began to see the world differently we could feel time running out on us and we were impatient with each other.Every disagreement was an interruption of what we knew was possible-and soon there was only interruption.And in the end time did run out,but memories are still there,accusing us,and we still can't let each other alone. — Ian McEwan

I wouldn't say so. I've told people I'm a medieval historian when asked what I do. It freezes conversation. If one tells them one's a poet, one gets these odd looks which seem to say, "Well, what's he living off?" In the old days a man was proud to have in his passport, Occupation: Gentleman. Lord Antrim's passport simply said, Occupation: Peer - which I felt was correct. I've had a lucky life. I had a happy home, and my parents provided me with a good education. And my father was both a physician and a scholar, so I never got the idea that art and science were opposing cultures - both were entertained equally in my home. I cannot complain. I've never had to do anything I really disliked. Certainly I've had to do various jobs I would not have taken on if I'd had the money; but I've always considered myself a worker, not a laborer. So many people have jobs they don't like at all. I haven't, and I'm grateful for that. — W. H. Auden

Community as belonging ...
In many groups of people and clubs of all sorts (political, sports, leisure, liberal professions, etc.) people find a sense of security. They are happy to find others like themselves. They receive comfort one from another, and they encourage one another in their ways. But frequently there is a certain elitism. They are convinced that they are better than others. And, of course, not everyone can join the club; people have to qualify. Frequently these groups give security and a sense of belonging but they do not encourage personal growth. Belonging in such groups is not for becoming.
You can often tell the people who belong to a particular club, group or community by what they wear, especially on feast days, or by their hairstyle, their jargon or accent or by badges and colours of some sort. Grouping seems to need symbols which express the fact that they are one tribe, one family, one group. — Jean Vanier

It is the painting that makes me so happy these days. — Vincent Van Gogh

I can't be overwhelmingly happy. I'm never free for a moment day and night from the uncertainty in which we live these days, which excludes any carefree plans for tomorrow and casts a shadow over all the days to come. — Sophie Scholl

I read because one life isn't enough, and in the page of a book I can be anybody;
I read because the words that build the story become mine, to build my life;
I read not for happy endings but for new beginnings; I'm just beginning myself, and I wouldn't mind a map;
I read because I have friends who don't, and young though they are, they're beginning to run out of material;
I read because every journey begins at the library, and it's time for me to start packing;
I read because one of these days I'm going to get out of this town, and I'm going to go everywhere and meet everybody, and I want to be ready. — Richard Peck

People think you have to be tortured or miserable to write, but I'm finding that I get inspired a lot more these days before I'm happy. — Billy Bob Thornton

These days, the selfie and its main outlet, Instagram, generally come in for much adult loathing. But consider this: The selfie is a tiny pulse of girl pride - a shout-out to the self. ... The selfie suggests something in picture form - I think I look [beautiful] [happy] [funny] [sexy]. Do you? - that a girl could never get away with saying. It puts the gaze of the camera squarely in a girl's hands, and along with it, the power to influence the photo's interpretation. — Rachel Simmons

Humans want to conquer everyone they can, and buy everything they see. I think this is because humans have forgotten how to be happy. It's not their fault - it's not easy figuring out how to be happy in these days of anything-but-moderation. — A.S. King

Looking back over my life so far I am able to remember specific days that were perfect. These tend to be days, and parts of days, in which nothing in particular happened, except that I was utterly happy. — Daniel Pinkwater

I'm a little older and fatter now, and I'm not exercising as much. My lifestyle these days involves a lot of beer and pasta. But there's something satisfying in letting your body go to hell. So maybe I won't get offered the same kind of role as before. So what? I'm happy to play the guy in his mid-30s who may be a little unhealthy. Fat and arrogant is what I'm bringing to the script. — Luke Wilson

most reviews are written by morons about morons. sensibility is at a premium in american culture these days. — Jim Dodge

The other day Nan said, 'Nothing can ever be quite the same for any of us again.' It made me feel rebellious. Why shouldn't things be the same again - when everything is over and Jem and Jerry are back? We'll all be happy and jolly again and these days will seem just like a bad dream. — L.M. Montgomery

Our teachers remind us there are just five more weeks of school, and I should be happy, but instead I feel nothing. I feel a lot of nothing these days. I've cried a few times, but mostly I'm empty, as if whatever makes me feel and hurt and laugh and love has been surgically removed, leaving me hollowed out like a shell. I — Jennifer Niven

I should be happy, but instead I feel nothing. I feel a lot of nothing these days. I've cried a few times, but mostly I'm empty, as if whatever makes me feel and hurt and laugh and love has been surgically removed, leaving me hollowed out like a shell. — Jennifer Niven

Nonetheless, many people, and especially intellectuals, passionately loathe capitalism. As they see it, this ghastly mode of society's economic organization has brought about nothing but mischief and misery. Men were once happy and prosperous in the good old days preceding the Industrial Revolution. Now under capitalism the immense majority are starving paupers ruthlessly exploited by rugged individualists. For these scoundrels nothing counts but their moneyed interests. They do not produce good and really useful things, but only what will yield the highest profits. They poison bodies with alcoholic beverages and tobacco, and souls and minds with tabloids, lascivious books and silly moving pictures. The "ideological superstructure" of capitalism is a literature of decay and degradation, the burlesque show and the art of striptease, the Hollywood pictures and the detective stories. — Ludwig Von Mises

One of these days I'm gonna beat him in the face with the butt of my service revolver until an eyeball pops out. These are the thoughts that keep me happy. — John Layman

She remembers these as happy times - tomboy days, when she still glittered like quartz in her father's eye. Until puberty came along, as puberty will, and shattered the cosy sense of conspiracy. — Alison Fell

It's not just that," Chief Porter said. "A guy who once would have raped and killed a woman, now a lot of times he also has to cut off her lips and mail them to us or take her eyes for a souvenir and keep them in his freezer at home. There's more flamboyant craziness these days." Giving the buttered cinnamon roll a reprieve, Ozzie said, "Maybe it's all these superhero movies with all their supervillains. Some psychopath who used to be satisfied raping and murdering, these days he thinks that he should be in a Batman movie, he wants to be the Joker or the Penguin." "No real-life bad guy wants to be the Penguin," I assured him. "Norman Bates was happy just dressing up like his mother and stabbing people," Chief Porter said, "but Hannibal Lecter has to cut off their faces and eat their livers with fava beans. The role models have become more intense. — Dean Koontz

Let's face it; people are doing everything online these days. So if they are going to watch my movies, I'm happy as long as it's being bought legally and being exhibited legally, as long as they are paying even a small fee for it. I'm just anti-piracy. If it's a legitimate way of watching film online, then I'm very happy. — Vidya Balan

She felt happy these days, yet there was always an undercurrent of sadness just below the surface — Diane Chamberlain

There were glowing pumpkins and ghost lights in the yard and cheerful looking spiders and vampire posters everywhere. "This is just disgusting," Abel said in disgust, landing on a happy mummy poster staked in the yard. "Must everything be commercialized these days? I'm surprised the vampires don't sparkle. — John H. Carroll

a happy child grows up to be a happy adult. When I was growing up, spoiling a child meant ruining a child. If something was spoiled, it either went down the drain or was tossed into the rubbish. These days, however, parents pat themselves on the back because their children want for nothing. Wanting is good. If you want for nothing, then you have no goals. And if you have no goals, you have no life, no drive, and no ambitions. Chances are, if today's children don't inherit a lot of money from their parents, they'll grow up and live off the welfare system. — Jamie Eubanks

The superhero genre speaks to a vast swath of humanity these days, and studios are in the business of constantly renewing their money-printing licenses. I sense we're nearing a saturation point with some of these icons, where it becomes more about the action figures and Happy Meals than it does the mythological heartbeat of the core ideas. — Mark Frost

Subsistence, I am happy to report, is not much of a problem for me these days either. I could probably subsist for a decade or more on the food energy I have thriftily wrapped around various parts of my body. — Jeffrey Steingarten

Who's to blame when your kid goes nuts? Is it a blessing to not have children? 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' became a hit cult book for women without offspring who were finally able to admit they didn't want to give birth. They felt complete, thank you very much, and lived in silent resentment for years at other women's pious, unwanted sympathy toward them for not having babies. With even gay couples having children these days, aren't happy heterosexual women who don't want to have kids the most ostracized of us all? To me they are beautiful feminists. If you're not sure you could love your children, please don't have them, because they might grow up and kill us. — John Waters

The musicals had a good, happy feeling, saying that the world is a better place. They say it's not reality, but who cares? There's too much reality these days. — Shirley Jones

Who's happy these days? — Ethel Merman

Men have, for the most part, done with lamenting their lost faith. Sentimental tears over the happy, simple Christendom of their fathers are a thing of the past. They are proclaiming now their contempt for Christ's character, and their disgust at the very name of love. Scorn and hatred, difference and division, must be more than ever our lot, if we would be the followers of Christ in these days. Conventional religion and polite unbelief are gone forever. — Neville Figgis

Daniel looked down the barrel of the shotgun al set to blow his
brains out and grinned. These days, even a gun-toting, trigger-happy
female was a delight to behold, and she was perfect.
Sunlight streamed in through the kitchen window. She all but shone
with it, like an angel or a princess or something. Something a little
overdue for a bath and a lot on edge, but something very good just
the same. The feeling of sweet relief rushing through him nearly
buckled his knees.
Tall and curvy, around thirty at a guess, and uninfected, she was by
far the best thing he had ever seen in jeans and a t-shirt. Not even the
dried blood splattered on the wal behind her could diminish the
picture she made.
Sadly, his girl did not appear to share his joy — Kylie Scott

What are these songs, and what do they mean? I know little of music and can say nothing in technical phrase, but I know something of men, and knowing them, I know that these songs are the articulate message of the slave to the world. They tell us in these eager days that life was joyous to the black slave, careless and happy. I can easily believe this of some, of many. But not all the past South, though it rose from the dead, can gainsay the heart-touching witness of these songs. They are the music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment; they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways. — W.E.B. Du Bois

I never fully realized how much a New England birth in itself was worth, but I am happy that that was my lot. I have felt it so keenly these last few days. Dear old New England, with all her sternness and uncompromising opinions; the home of all that is good and noble. — Matthew Pearl

He was a compact, clearcut man, with precise features, a lot of very soft black hair, and thoughtful dark brown eyes. He had a look of wariness, which could change when he felt relaxed or happy, which was not often in these difficult days, into a smile of amused friendliness and pleasure which aroused feelings of warmth, and something more, in many women. — A.S. Byatt

Well! I feel happy these days. I've started taking a herbal anti-depressant. It's called Saint John's Wort. Apparently it's the best-selling anti-depressant in many places. It's the most popular anti-depressant in Germany ... After, I'm guessing, amnesia ... — Emo Philips

We like to think that we plan what happens to us, but it is chance, surely, that lies behind so many of the great events of our lives
the meeting with the person with whom we are destined to spend the rest of our days, the receiving of a piece of advice whic influences our choice of career, the spotting of a particular house for sale; all of these may be put down to pur chance, and yet they govern how our lives work out and how happy
or unhappy
we were going to be. — Alexander McCall Smith

To be politically happy these days you need to have no more memory than an animal. — George Orwell

Standards are a little crazy these days. I think that, when you go to sleep, as long as you're happy with the way you are and the way you look, that's the most important thing. I think it's an internal thing. As long as you feel good with who you are and comfortable with what you're wearing, but not if that's the most important thing. — Ashlee Simpson

I offered one of my best smiles, but this time it was genuine. It was another one of those Happy Abby moments I sort of wished for these days. — Jamie McGuire

A clear horizon - nothing to worry about on your plate, only things that are creative and not destructive ... I can't bear quarreling, I can't bear feelings between people - I think hatred is wasted energy, and it's all non-productive. I'm very sensitive - a sharp word, said by a person, say, who has a temper, if they're close to me, hurts me for days. I know we're only human, we do go in for these various emotions, call them negative emotions, but when all these are removed and you can look forward and the road is clear ahead, and now you're going to create something - I think that's as happy as I'll ever want to be. — Alfred Hitchcock

It occurred to me, as it sometimes does, that this day is over and will never be lived again, that we are only the sum of days, and when those are spent, we will not come back to this place, to this time, to these people and these colors, and I wonder whether to be sad about this or to be happy, to trust that these moments were meant for some kind of enjoyment, as a kind of blessing. And if feels, tonight, as if there is much to think about, there is much we have been given and much we have left behind. The smell of freedom is as brisk as the air through the windows. And there is a feeling that time itself has been curtained by darkness. — Donald Miller

I am alone this evening, and I am alone because of a cruel twist of fate, a phrase which here means that nothing has happened the way I thought it would. Once I was a content man, with a comfortable home, a successful career, a person I loved very much, and an extremely reliable typewriter, but all of those things have been taken away from me, and now the only trace I have of those happy days is the tattoo on my left ankle. As I sit in this very tiny room, printing these words with a very large pencil, I feel as if my whole life has been nothing but a dismal play, presented just for someone else's amusement, and that the playwright who invented my cruel twist of fate is somewhere far above me, laughing and laughing at his creation. — Lemony Snicket

What did she do that made her happy? The question implied action, a conscious purpose. She did many things in a day, and many things made her happy, but that, Claire could tell, wasn't the issue. Nor the only one, Claire realized. Because in order to consciously do something that made you happy, you'd have to know who you were. Trying to figure that out these days was like fishing on a lake on a moonless night - you had no idea what you would get. — Erica Bauermeister