Quotes & Sayings About How To Start A Day

Resurrection plants are usually tiny, no bigger than your fist. They are ugly and small and useless and special. When it rains, their leaves puff up but do not become green for forty-eight hours because it takes time for photosynthesis to start up. During those strange days of its reawakening the plant lives off of pure concentrated sugar, an intense sustained infusion of sweetness, a year's worth of sucrose coursing through its veins in just one day. This little plant has done the impossible: it has transcended the wilted brown of death. The miracle is not sustainable, of course, and within a day or two things will inevitably go back to normal. Such a crazy life takes its toll, and in the long term, even a resurrection plant withers and dies completely. But for a brief, glorious moment it knows something that no other plant has ever known: how to grow without being green. — Hope Jahren

I know. Love should be easier than this," I complained. "If this were a romantic comedy, it'd be called Love Actually Sucks." "Maybe we should've stuck with Sex and the City." "Tried that. Ended up Knocked Up. I should've gone for being a 40-Year-Old Virgin, but I had way too much of a head start." "We can write a manual on How to Lose a Guy in 10 Weeks." Cary looked at me. "Fucking perfect. — Sylvia Day

And that's how things are. A day is like a whole life. You start out doing one thing, but end up doing something else, plan to run an errand, but never get there ... And at the end of your life, your whole existence has the same haphazard quality, too. Your whole life has the same shape as a single day. — Michael Crichton

If a child smiles, if an adult smiles, that is very important. If in our daily lives we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. If we really know how to live, what better way to start the day than with a smile? Our smile affirms our awareness and determination to live in peace and joy. The source of a true smile is an awakened mind. — Thich Nhat Hanh

life, can become the truth of your life. He imagined them in Paris trying to talk to each other. She'd give small lectures on the country's innovative health care system; he'd give similar disquisitions on French jurisprudence. That would get them through one day, maybe two. Then they'd start making small talk about whatever was in front of them at that moment: the charming Parisian streets, the weather, the waiters, the daylight that clung on until well past ten. Museums would be a good choice because of the enforced silence. But then they'd be at a restaurant looking at menus and she'd say what looked good and he'd say what looked good and they'd stare at the plates of other diners and point out those that also looked good and express how they were perhaps changing their mind about what they intended to — Nathan Hill

Hopefully as you get older, you start to learn how to live with your demon. It's hard at first. Some people give their demon so much room that there is no space in their head or bed for love. They feed their demon and it gets really strong and then it makes them stay in abusive relationships or starve their beautiful bodies. But sometimes, you get a little older and get a little bored of the demon. Through good therapy and friends and self-love you can practice treating the demon like a hacky, annoying cousin. Maybe a day even comes when you are getting dressed for a fancy event and it whispers, "You aren't pretty," and you go, "I know, I know, now let me find my earrings." Sometimes you say, "Demon, I promise you I will let you remind me of my ugliness, but right now I am having hot sex so I will check in later. — Amy Poehler

We get a lot of calls where the person is murdered at home, but is not found for a period of time. And so the animals have already started to take the body apart because they haven't been fed in that period. So your evidence is being chewed up by the family pet.
I tell you - Dogs are more loyal than cats. Cats will wait only a certain period of time and they'll start chewing on you. Dogs will wait a day or two before they just can't take the starving anymore. So, keep that in mind when choosing a pet.
You know how a cat just stares at you, maybe at the top of the TV, from across the room? That's because they're watching to see if you're gonna stop breathing. — Connie Fletcher

Every day I spend in Hollywood, I start to realize how many films are made with no heart and no love. They just do it for the paycheck, and I cannot imagine making a film that way. — Fede Alvarez

Don't blame me, Pongo,' said Lord Ickenham, 'if Lady Constance takes her lorgnette to you. God bless my soul, though, you can't compare the lorgnettes of to-day with the ones I used to know as a boy. I remember walking one day in Grosvenor Square with my aunt Brenda and her pug dog Jabberwocky, and a policeman came up and said the latter ought to be wearing a muzzle. My aunt made no verbal reply. She merely whipped her lorgnette from its holster and looked at the man, who gave one choking gasp and fell back against the railings, without a mark on him but with an awful look of horror in his staring eyes, as if he had seen some dreadful sight. A doctor was sent for, and they managed to bring him round, but he was never the same again. He had to leave the Force, and eventually drifted into the grocery business. And that is how Sir Thomas Lipton got his start. — P.G. Wodehouse

I told him that it was very fine for well-fed, over-paid actors flaunting toughness at these deprived people, who are gentle and nice and, if ever tough, only so because of environment. I asked him how tough he would be if he were living the life that some of these unfortunate families must live. How easy for him, with five meals a day beneath that thrust-out chest with his muscles trained and perfect, trying to start something with these people. Of course they were not tough, but when it comes to four years of War, when it comes to losing an arm or a leg, then they are tough. But they are not going around looking for fights unless there is a reason. — Charlie Chaplin

yet religion itself, any religion, keeps a person on the right path. Not the fear of God, but upholding your own sense of honour and obeying your own conscience. How noble and good everyone could be if, at the end of each day, they were to review their own behaviour and weigh up the rights and wrongs. They would automatically try to do better at the start of each new day and, after a while, would certainly accomplish a great deal. Everyone is welcome to this prescription; it costs nothing and is definitely useful. Those who don't know will have to find out by experience that 'a quiet conscience gives you strength'! — Anne Frank

I wrote six nonfiction books before getting into narrative fiction with 'Robopocalypse,' including 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising.' My goal all along was to start writing fiction, and I guess one day I'd just had enough. — Daniel H. Wilson

I don't really remember the day we lost our home in the floods, but looking back I can understand how devastating it was for my parents. I was only six, so I remember us having to move to Adelaide - but not much of the actual day and night of the flood. We had to start all over again and my parents opened a cafe. — Samantha Stosur

How we start our day determines how we create our life. Are you snoozing through your morning ... snoozing through your life ... and snoozing through your unlimited potential ... Or are YOU committed to waking up each day with passion, purpose, and a plan so you can create the life you truly want & deserve? — Hal Elrod

She had spent days balancing on the edge of a choice.
A choice, she had suddenly realized, that was never truly a matter of selection. It was what Damien had seemed to know from the start. The only choice she could make was to ignore the demands of her heart and her spirit, both of which she had tried to ignore no matter how loudly they had screamed at her. In truth, there was no choice.
She was meant to be his, and he was meant to be hers.
She had searched day after day for outside proof of this, only to realize that there was none, and never would be. The proof was stamped in the desires of her soul. It was the instinct that had been born in her, flipped on like a switch, the moment it had flipped on as brilliantly in him. Only he had seen the light, and she had been blinded by it. — Jacquelyn Frank

Why does it take a life ending to learn how to cherish each day? Why must we wait until we run out of time to start to accomplish all that we dreamed, when once we had all the time in the world? Why don't we look at the person we love the most like it's the last time we will ever see them? Because if we did, life would be so vibrant. Life would be so truly and completely lived. — Tillie Cole

But when you say, "I am beautiful," not only does beauty, youth, and freshness start coming your way, but on the inside your spirit also comes alive. Your self-image begins to improve, and you'll start carrying yourself like you're someone special. You won't drag through the day feeling less than or inferior. You'll have that spring in your step, that "You go, girl!" attitude. Beauty is not in how thin or tall you are, how perfect you look. Beauty is in being who God made you to be with confidence. If you're a size 4, great. If you're a size 24, great. Take what you have and make the most of it. — Joel Osteen

We do and say useless and pointless stuff and words, if we think little deeper why we go and masturbate?? (No,... No don't change the page... don't close it or whatever do.... look me right in the face and listen it's not a shit... it's how the matrix is build)... well... let's start from here... we masturbate and after all in the other day or after few days we will do it again..., we eat food and after all we eat again and again until we die... we say useless words and after all who in the hell to know why, we do that???

But after all from this useless words comes the one useful story if the useless words didn't exist... it won't also exist the advange called itself "story". — Deyth Banger

Start every morning by drinking a cup of love, and you will enjoy the day and love everyone. — Debasish Mridha

I remember sitting in my room and thinking of where it all went wrong and how I ended up losing control of everything, and I realized I hadn't asked myself one question: And then what? That was my most important lesson. I learned to think about the consequences before the action and that saves me, to this day, from a lot of trouble. If you play it down the line, you'll start making better choices. — Karrine Steffans

Back inside, I'm shown an antique cabinet in which members of the community, famous for their homegrown produce, dried herbs.
The Oneida Community was an upstate tourist attraction right from the start, second, Valesky says, to Niagara Falls. I'm taking the same guided tour offered a hundred and fifty years ago to prim rubbernecks who came here to peep at sex fiends. I wonder how many of my vacationing forebears went home disappointed? They thought they were taking the train to Gomorrah but instead they got to watch herbs dry. Valesky opens a drawer in the herb cabinet so I can get a whiff. He mentions that back in the day, when one tourist was shown the cabinet she rudely asked her community-member guide, "What's that odor?" To which the guide replied, "Perhaps it's the odor of crushed selfishness." Valesky grins. "How about that for a utopian answer?" To my not particularly utopian nose, crushed selfishness smells a lot like cilantro. — Sarah Vowell

This I would wish, that there was no time or sleep. No more past, or future, and everything we did was good the first time, for the day. Without the need of looking back to learn from the past, and no future to hope for the better. No more tiredness, or having a need to dream, and no nightmares to fear. If there was a second time, this is how I would like to start over. — Anthony Liccione

If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties? How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck? — Linda Ellerbee

When I was in art school, I thought art was something I would learn how to do, and then I would just do it. At a certain point I realized that it wasn't going to work like that. Basically, I would have to start over every day and figure out what art was going to be. — Bruce Nauman

Think of trying to balance a pencil vertically on its tip. No matter how we try to balance the pencil, it usually falls down. In fact, it requires a fine-tuning of great precision to start the pencil balanced just right so it doesn't fall over. Now try to balance the pencil on its tip so that it stays vertical not just for one second but for years! You see the enormous fine-tuning that is involved to get Omega to be 0.1 today. The slightest error in fine-tuning Omega would have created Omega vastly different from 1. So why is Omega so close to 1 day, when by rights it should be astronomically different? — Michio Kaku

Even before the start of history, the sky must have been commonly used as a compass, a clock, and a calendar. It could not have been difficult to notice that the Sun rises every morning in more or less the same direction, that during the day one can tell how much time there is before night from the height of the Sun in the sky, and that hot weather will follow the time of year when the day lasts longest. — Steven Weinberg

'Boardwalk' begins literally on the first day of Prohibition, which I think was a wonderful way to start - to have the story kind of come out of this massive historical phenomenon. And the more I researched the '20s, the more I discovered just how interesting it was. — Michael Pitt

My sister Brenda said I was more interested in the idea of writing a book than actually writing it, because if I really wanted to write, I just would, every day, by myself, for myself, whether it was a book or not. She said a writer felt compelled to write whether they had an idea or not, whether they had a computer or not, whether they had a pen and paper or not. [ ... ] I wanted to write, I just didn't know if I could, and if I ever made a start I was afraid I'd discover that I couldn't. (from How to Fall in Love) — Cecelia Ahern

Sometimes when I'm having a boring interview on the telephone, and I'm trying to think about something else because the questions are too boring, and I start looking around the room where I work, you know, full of books piled up to the sky, all different kinds of topics. I start calculating how many centuries would I have to live reading twenty-four hours a day every day of the week to make a dent in what I'd like to learn about things, it's pretty depressing.[ ... ] You know, we have little bits of understanding, glimpses, a little bit of light here and there, but there's a tremendous amount of darkness, which is a challenge. I think life would be pretty boring if we understood everything. It's better if we don't understand anything ... and know that we don't, that's the important part. — Noam Chomsky

Yes. Kissing. Overrated."
"I could change your mind," Zach said, surprising the hell out of them both. Why would he take something as simple as this banter as a challenge? "I don't know that I want to, but I feel right sure I could."
"How arrogant. How typically male."
"I suppose." He shrugged and reached for the wine bottle. "More?"
She nodded, frowning now. "How do you know you could change my mind? It's been a long time since you ... well - "
"Over two years." The pain was there, an ache in his chest he imagined he would feel every time he thought of Hannah.
And he thought of her every day. Dreamed of her about as often. But lately, maybe only in the past week, he'd begun to realize that his life had not ended with his wife's.
He either had to die or start living again. — Tracy Sumner

Are you a Genesis 1 Christian or a Genesis 3 Christian? Do you start your story with shalom or with sin? Shalom is the Hebrew word for "peace." For rhythm. For everything lining up exactly how it was meant to line up. Shalom is happening in those moments when you are at the dinner table for hours with good friends, good food, and good wine. Shalom is when you hear or see something and can't quite explain it, but you know it's calling and stirring something deep inside of you. Shalom is a sunset, that sense of exhaustion yet satisfaction from a hard day's work, creating art that is bigger than itself. Shalom is enemies being reconciled by love. — Jefferson Bethke

You're allowed to believe in a god. You're allowed to believe unicorns live in your shoes for all I care. But the day you start telling me how to wear my shoes so I don't upset the unicorns, I have a problem with you. The day you start involving the unicorns in making decisions for this country, I have a BIG problem with you. — Matt Shultz

I wish you could simply extirpate violence and war from the world, abolish all the armed forces, and destroy all the bombs. But this is probably not very realistic. Ultimately, everyone has to start with themselves. Many want to be active somewhere else, at best in a country where they don't currently live. But what's the point, if there's no peace in your own life? So be at peace with yourself. And how? Through peaceful dealings with others. Start by ensuring peace at home before you go out into the world. Or work for peace in both spheres. You can't be working for a peace camp in the Middle East during the day and then in the evening have a quarrel with your family over the phone. — Jon Gnarr

Today, you are as old as you have ever been and as young as you will ever be! It is never too late, or too early to start working toward your goals and your dreams. Every moment, every situation, and every turn of events presents you with an opportunity to build the self you are capable of being, and the life you are worthy of living. It's just a matter of accepting, implementing ideas, taking action and actively expressing the purpose that is uniquely YOU.
Every word you speak and every action you take should be intended to make tomorrow a little bit better. There is no such timer, clock or watch that measures quality time. You are given 24 hours a day and it is up to you as to how you will use it! — John Geiger

You have to be very cautious about what you are doing for charity and things like that. I think you have to start with your life. I think that's what life is expecting you to do. In your family, in your surroundings, in your work life, in the people you're with, your relationships; how you behave and doing what you need to accomplish. That for me is being a hero every day of your life. — Juliette Binoche

I've had boyfriends before, and frankly, each one was a disappointment.
There was nothing horribly wrong with these boys. It was my fault. I'm kind of a snob when it comes to guys.
So far, the biggest problem with the boys I've dated is that they weren't too smart. And eventually I ended up hating myself for being with them. It scared me, trying to pretend I was something I wasn't. I could see how easily it could be done, and it made me realize that was what most of the other girls were doing as well - pretending. If you were a girl, you could start pretending in high school and go on pretending your whole life, until, I suppose, you imploded and had a nervous breakdown, which is something that's happened to a few of the mothers around here. All of a sudden, one day something snaps and they don't get out of bed for three years. — Candace Bushnell

One could start just by taking a few minutes out of every day to sit quietly and do nothing, letting what moves one rise to the surface. One could take a few days out of every season to go on retreat or enjoy a long walk in the wilderness, recalling what lies deeper than the moment or the self. One could even, as Cohen was doing, try to find a life in which stage sets and performances disappear and one is reminded, at a level deeper than all words, how making a living and making a life sometimes point in opposite directions. The — Pico Iyer

I'm going to start work on developing a series for HBO, because I'm naturally given to episodic stories of considerable length. And I won't have to listen to complaints about how wordy and long my work is if you can watch it on your telephone on the subway: You can make it conform to your day as if it were a book. — Tony Kushner

People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things. You don't necessarily even have to be afraid of punishment after death; purgatory, hell, and heaven are things that a lot of people can't accept, but still a religion, it doesn't matter which, keeps a person on the right path. It isn't the fear of God but the upholding of one's own honor and conscience. How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the while day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then, without realizing it you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that: A quiet conscience mades one strong! — Anne Frank

When you have a good friend that really cares for you and tries to stick in there with you, you treat them like nothing. Learn to be a good friend because one day you're gonna look up and say I lost a good friend. Learn how to be respectful to your friends, don't just start arguments with them and don't tell them the reason, always remember your friends will be there quicker than your family. Learn to remember you got great friends, don't forget that and they will always care for you no matter what. Always remember to smile and look up at what you got in life. — Marilyn Monroe

You're warning me off. There's no need, I assure you. At this moment in time, my only ambition is to get myself through the day ---" He broke off, realising too late what he'd admitted, remembering, suddenly, why he had kissed her in the first place. And now he'd given her the perfect opening to start again.
But to his surprise, her expression softened. "Yes," she said. "That is how I have felt since --- since." She blinked rapidly, and forced a smile. "It is a good thing, this -- this---between us, because now I know that I am recovering myself... — Marguerite Kaye

Start with a brand new good-morning. To your husband or your wife. To your kids. To those you work with - and don't work with. What's the harm? How difficult is it? And it isn't, and you know it. So do it. — Carew Papritz

This one," he said, "is for my wife."
With a pointed glance, Gideon signaled the band to start. An instantly recognizable bass beat ratcheted up my pulse.
"Lifehouse!" Shawny crowed, clapping her hands. "I love them!"
"He's calling you his wife already!" Megumi yelled, leaning toward me. "How freaking' lucky are you?"
I didn't glance at her. I couldn't. My attention was riveted on Gideon as he looked directly at me and sang, telling me in a lusciously raspy voice that he was desperate for change and starving for truth.
He was answering my song.
My eyes burned even as my heart began to beat with a different rhythm. Had I thought he'd be unemotional? My Good, he was killing me, baring his soul in the rough timbre of his voice.
"Holy fuck," Cary said, his eyes on the stage. "The man can sing."
I was hanging by a moment, too, hanging on to every word, hearing his message about chasing after me and falling more in love. — Sylvia Day

If you want to write and can't figure out how to do it, try this: Pick an amount of time to sit at your desk every day. Start with twenty minutes, say, and work up as quickly as possible to as much time as you can spare. Do you really want to write? Sit for two hours a day. — Ann Patchett

So it's not really $100 a shot because it goes on all day, from the start when you wake up and feel her body next to you, and you don't miss a thing, not a thing of what's next to you, her arm, her leg, her shoulder, her face, that good skin, I have felt other good skin, but this skin is just the edge of something else, and you're going to start going, and no matter how much you crawl all over each other it won't be enough, and when your hunger dies down a little then you think how much you love her and that starts you off again, and her face, you look over at her face and can't believe how you got there and how lucky and it's still all a surprise and it never stops, even after it's over, it never stops being a surprise. — Lydia Davis

You Don't Know What Love Is
But you know how to raise it in me
like a dead girl winched up from a river. How to
wash off the sludge, the stench of our past.
How to start clean. This love even sits up
and blinks; amazed, she takes a few shaky steps.
Any day now she'll try to eat solid food. She'll want
to get into the fast car, one low to the ground, and drive
to some cinderblock shithole in the desert
where she can drink and get sick and then
dance in nothing but her underwear. You know
where she's headed, you know she'll wake up
with an ache she can't locate and no money
and a terrible thirst. So to hell
with your warm hands sliding inside my shirt
and your tongue down my throat
like an oxygen tube. Cover me
in black plastic. Let the mourners through. — Kim Addonizio

Surely there is the handful of nursery marchen that start, 'Once in the middle of a forest lived an old witch' or 'The devil was out walking one day and met a child,' " Said Oatsie, who was showing that she had some education as well as grit. "To the grim poor there need be no pour quoi tale about where evil arises; it always is. One never learns how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her - is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not the devil? It is at the very least a question of definitions. — Gregory Maguire

Most of us would give anything for the chance to play just one day of MLB baseball - especially for our favorite team. Well, there once was a pitcher named Bock Baker who actually got two opportunities to pitch in the big leagues. He took the mound for Cleveland against the Chicago White Sox in his big league debut. How did he fare? Well, he pitched a complete game. Pretty spectacular, right? Well, sure - but it depends on your perspective. He gave up 23 hits and 13 runs. Baker never pitched for Cleveland again, but the Philadelphia Athletics gave him a second big league start that same year (1901). He lasted juts six innings, and lost again after giving up 11 runs - and then his career was over. — Tucker Elliot

There is a story of a hummingbird who lives in a beautiful forest. One day that forest goes up in flames. All the animals watch on in dismay as flames destroy their home. Only the tiny hummingbird tries to stop the fire. Backwards and forwards he flies, with drop after drop of precious water. Feeling helpless, the elephant with his big trunk and the giraffe with his long neck watch the flames in dismay. They stand and do nothing. The hummingbird continues in vain and the animals start to laugh. They laugh at how small he is and how hard he is trying to save the forest that he loves. "What are you doing?" they ask him, "You can't save the forest." He stops, just for a second, to look at all the hopeless animals. He knows that he cannot save the forest but it doesn't matter. "I'm doing the best that I can," he says. — Anonymous

The alcohol was awful. I was a terrible alcoholic. I mean, people used to ask how much drugs I did. I said, 'I only do drugs so I can drink more'. I was doing the coke so I could drink more. I mean, I don't know any other reason. I'd start drinking in the morning. I'd drink all day long. — Dennis Hopper

What do you say to taking up our game where we left off? I was winning, you will recall.'
Winning, for all love: how your ageing memory does betray you, my poor friend,' said Stephen, fetching his 'cello. They tuned, and at no great distance Killick said to his mate, 'There they are, at it again. Squeak, squeak; boom, boom. And when they do start a-playing, it's no better. You can't tell t'other from one. Never nothing a man could sing to, even as drunk as Davy's sow.'
I remember them in the Lively: but it is not as chronic as a wardroom full of gents with German flutes, bellyaching night and day, like we had in Thunderer. No. Live and let live, I say.'
Fuck you, William Grimshaw. — Patrick O'Brian

Hopscotch is played with a pebble that you move with the tip of your toe. The things you need : a sidewalk, a pebble, a toe, and a pretty chalk drawing, preferably in colors. On top is Heaven, on the bottom is Earth, it's very hard to get the pebble up to Heaven,you almost always miscalculate and the stone goes off the drawing. But little by little you start to get the knack of how to jump over the different squares (spiral hopscotch, rectangular hopscotch, fantasy hopscotch, not played very often ) and then one day you learn how to leave Earth and make the pebble climb up into Heaven (Et tous nos amours, Emmanuele was sobbing face down), the worst part of it is that precisely at that moment,
when practically no one has learned how to make the pebble climb up into Heaven, childhood is over all of a sudden and you're into novels, into the anguish of the senseless divine trajectory, into the speculation about another Heaven that you have to learn to reach too. — Julio Cortazar

Are you going to put on your old cheer uniform?"
Ryan was a little too excited by the thought of me in a costume, so I squashed that idea, and fast.
"In your dreams."
"Not exactly." Ryan grinned wickedly. "In my dreams you're usually dressed like Wonder Woman."
Ugh. I wondered how long it would take for him to start in on the superhero crap. Obviously, not long. I was not amused, but Ryan seemed to think
himself hilarious. I could also tell by the look on his face that he was quite confident he'd have me in costume one day. "Never gonna happen," I
assured him. "Ever."
And of course he responded with that classic, cocky smile. "Just like you were never gonna be my girlfriend, right? — Kelly Oram

The turning point was when I hit my 30th birthday. I thought, if really want to write, it's time to start. I picked up the book How to Write a Novel in 90 Days. The author said to just write three pages a day, and I figured, I can do this. I never got past Page 3 of that book. — James Rollins

One day, you will find yourself close to the end, and thinking about the beginning. TODAY is that beginning. TODAY is life. You've got to live it.
Live for what's right. Live for what you believe in. Live for what's important to you. Live for the people you love, and never forget to tell them how much they mean to you. Realize that today you're lucky because you still have a chance. So stop for a moment and think. Whatever you still need to do, start doing it now. There are only so many todays left. — Anonymous

I look at it this way: How much of the day are you awake? You think, "I've gotta get that dry cleaning, I gotta get this going, and this, and this, and this." And all of a sudden it's dinnertime. And then there's a moment of connection with your spouse or your friends. Then you read and go to bed. Wake up and then it's the same all over. You're not awake, you're not living, you're not experiencing. We start early medicating ourselves. We start kids early, on TV and video games and so on. — Tim Allen

What does somebody like you want? More power? More toys? More sex?"
"All of the above. All the time."
"Greedy bugger."
"Kid, let me tell you something. Most people spend their short time in this world less than half alive. They wander through their days in a haze of responsibility and resentment. Something happens to them not long after they're born. They get conflicted about what they want and start worshipping the wrong gods. Should. Mercy. Equality. Altruism. There's nothing you should do. Do what you want. Mercy isn't Nature's way. She's an equal opportunity killer. We aren't born the same. Some are stronger, smarter, faster. Never apologize for it. Altruism is an impossible concept. There's no action you can make that doesn't spring from how you want to feel about yourself. Not greedy, Dani. Alive. And happy about it every single fucking day. — Karen Marie Moning

How often do the poor daydream of a better life? Plenty, no doubt, and where does it get them? It is the poor who begin with a daydream and realize at some point that they have to get up, roll their sleeves, and start doing something about those day dreams who succeed. And there are many who have. — Stephen Richards

The reason why Jane's spirit was not broken was that she had a secret. It was her own special secret and she had told no one else except Peggy. She locked it in her heart and hugged it to herself. It was this glorious secret that filled her with such irrepressible joy and exhilaration. But it was also to be the cause of her greatest disaster, and her life-long grief.
The rumour that her father was a high-born gentleman in Parliament must have reached Jane's ears when she was a little girl. Perhaps she had heard the officers talking about it, or perhaps another child had heard the adults talking and told her. Perhaps Jane's mother had told another workhouse inmate, who had passed it on. One can never tell how rumours start.
To Jane, it was not a rumour. It was an absolute fact. Her daddy was a high-born gentleman, who one day would come and take her away. She fantasised endlessly about her daddy. She talked to him, and he talked to her. — Jennifer Worth

Daily devotional time is the single most important discipline in the Christian life. During that daily time, Jesus transforms us, feeds us, and gives us new revelation. On the other hand, not spending sufficient time with God can bring the agony of defeat. How often have we raced out of the house, hoping to accomplish a little bit more, only to return bruised, depressed, and hurt? When we start the day without time with our Lord, we lack power and joy to face the demands of life. — Joel Comiskey

For a moment I think to myself, which connection is quicker to God? Telepathically or by email? Maybe there's a quicker turnaround time if I email my problems. I should probably start by apologizing and doing something spiritual to make up for my long absence. Would an Angel with poor customer service etiquette respond to my email? Is there an 800 holy number to dial? If so, which manual would the Angel be reading from? The Bible or the Qur'an? Does it matter? Would the Angel have Sister Mary sitting next to her, watching and coaching her on how to talk to people with issues? And how do you handle four billion calls a day? I suppose I would have to wait my turn in line, just like everyone else. — Sadiqua Hamdan

Mother, I am young. Mother, I am just eighteen. I am strong. I will work hard, Mother. But I do not want this child to grow up just to work hard. What must I do, mother, what must I do to make a different world for her? How do I start?"
"The secret lies in the reading and the writing. You are able to read. Every day you must read one page from some good book to your child. Every day this must be until the child learns to read. Then she must read every day, I know this is the secret — Betty Smith

Receiving feels wonderful once you get used to it. But first you must acknowledge how scary it is to be open. If, as a child you were left to fend for yourself or there were strings attached to getting what you needed, you learned that nurturing was either unavailable or unsafe. But now, receiving doesn't have to mean owing something back. Start asking for at least one thing you want every day. — Ellen Bass

I try to be aware of what I'm concerned about, aware of how I feel about myself in the world, aware of how I feel about the issues of the day, but I guess I don't want to write essays in my head about my craft and maybe it's because I teach and talk about craft of other writers as a reader. I feel the moment I start doing that is when it's going to kill me. — Chang-rae Lee

The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us? — Dorothy Day

Some people are like ants. Give them a warm day and a piece of ground and they start digging. There the similarity ends. Ants keepon digging. Most people don't. They establish contact with the soil, absorb so much vernal vigor that they can't stay in one place, and desert the fork or spade to see how the rhubarb is coming and whether the asparagus is yet in sight. — Hal Borland

Sure, occasionally a certain sappy song or romantic movie would come on, and you'd wonder what he or she was up to, but there was no way to know. Of course, you could always pick up the phone (and more recently, text or e-mail), but that would require that person's knowing you were thinking of him or her. Where's the fun in that? You never want them to know you're thinking of them, so you refrain. Before long the memories start to fade. One day, you realize you can't quite remember how she smelled or the exact color of his eyes. Eventually, without ever knowing it, you just forget that person altogether. You replace old memories with new ones, and life goes on. It was the clean break you needed to move forward. — Brandi Glanville

I start every morning with a Rosicrucian ritual, meditation and exercise. I can't separate myself from this habit of connecting myself to the other realm every day, not anymore, because I'm actually more there than here. I always was, but now I know how to maintain this balance, even in solitude. — Robin Sacredfire

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece - all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round - more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back. — Mark Twain

If you really know how to live, what better way to start the day than with a smile? — Nhat Hanh

I haven't been a good guest in Hugo's life. I access his memories and discover that he and Austin first became boyfriends at this very celebration, a year ago this weekend. They'd been friends for a little while, but they'd never talked about how they felt. They were each afraid of ruining the friendship, and instead of making it better, their caution made everything awkward. So finally, as a pair of twentysomething men passed by holding hands, Austin said, "Hey, that could be us in ten years."
And Hugo said, "Or ten months."
And Austin said, "Or ten days."
And Hugo said, "Or ten minutes."
And Austin said, "Or ten seconds."
Then they each counted to ten, and held hands for the rest of the day.
The start of it.
Hugo would have remembered this.
But I didn't. — David Levithan

It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over. — Joseph Conrad

As a mom, I understand how important it is to ensure kids start their day right and always make sure my kids have a nutritious breakfast. One in five U.S. children live in homes where food is not always available, which is why I partnered with Kellogg's on their 'Share Your Breakfast' campaign, which provide breakfasts to kids in need. — Monica Potter

And this is how it started. Just with coffee and the exchange of their long stories. Love can be incremental. Predicaments, too. Coffee can start a life just as it can start a day. This was the meeting of two people who were destined to love from before they were born, from before they made choices that would complicate their lives. This love just rolled toward my mother as though she were standing at the bottom of a steep hill. Mother had no hand in this, only heart. — Tayari Jones

What's happened now, in this new era of settlements and nonprosecutions, is that the state has formally surrendered to its own excuses. It has decided just to punt from the start and take the money, which doesn't become really wrong until it turns around the next day and decides to double down on the less-defended, flooring it all the way to trial against a welfare mom or some joker who sold a brick of dope in the projects. Repeat the same process a few million times, and that's how the jails in America get the population they have. Even if every single person they sent to jail were guilty, the system would still be an epic fail - it's the jurisprudential version of Pravda, where the facts in the paper might have all been true on any given day, but the lie was all in what was not said. — Matt Taibbi

Losers with no imagination say that if you start a new school, there has to be a first day. How come they haven't figure out how to be that? Just think existentially. All you do is take what is supposed to be the first day and bury someplace in the next month. By the time you get around to it a month later, who cares? — Francine Pascal

Look," Linden says. " Look how beautiful it is."
"The sunrise?" I ask.
"The start of a new day," Linden says. "Being healthy enough to witness it. — Lauren DeStefano

Many Christians expend so much energy and worry trying not to sin. The goal is not to try to sin less. In all your efforts to keep from sinning, what are you focusing on? Sin. God wants you to focus on him. To be with him. "Abide in me." Just relax and learn to enjoy his presence. Every day is a collection of moments, 86,400 seconds in a day. How many of them can you live with God? Start where you are and grow from there. God wants to be with you every moment. — John Ortberg

Incidentally, sir, while we're on the topic of yoga - may I just say that an hour of deep breathing, yoga, and meditation in the morning constitutes the perfect start to the entrepreneur's day. How I would handle the stresses of this fucking business without yoga, I have no idea. Make yoga a must in all Chinese schools - that's my suggestion. — Aravind Adiga

When your children arrive, the best you can hope for is that they break open everything about you. Your mind floods with oxygen. Your heart becomes a room with wide-open windows. You laugh hard every day. You think about the future and read about global warming. You realize how nice it feels to care about someone else more than yourself. And gradually, through this heart-heavy openness and these fresh eyes, you start to see the world a little more. Maybe you start to care a teeny tiny bit more about what happens to everyone in it. — Amy Poehler

The marker slants, flowerless, day's almost done,
I stand above my father's grave with rage,
often, often before
I've made this awful pilgrimage to one
who cannot visit me, who tore his page
out: I come back for more,
I spit upon this dreadful banker's grave
who shot his heart out in a Florida dawn
O ho alas alas
When will indifference come, I moan & rave
I'd like to scrabble till I got right down
away down under the grass
and ax the casket open ha to see
just how he's taking it, which he sought so hard
we'll tear apart
the mouldering grave clothes ha then Henry
will heft the ax once more, his final card,
and fell it on the start. — John Berryman

walked down the hill and stuck out my thumb, standing in the same spot where I had stood when I hitchhiked to high school. My clothes and gear were in my official Boy Scout backpack, a big old thing on an aluminum rack, with my sleeping bag and pup tent lashed to it. I'd been a serious Boy Scout - I joined at 12, after my failed Little League career, and took to it immediately, racking up merit badges and making it all the way to Eagle Scout. I knew first aid, how to start a fire in the rain, how to make a mean camp stew, and lots of other useful stuff. And I didn't mind sleeping outside, which was a good thing, since there was no way I could afford motels. My official Boy Scout sheath knife, a serious piece of business with a leather-wrapped handle and a five-inch blade, was also in the pack; I'd move it into my boot by the end of the first day. — David Noonan

When you do drugs, you count like a chemist: The numbers are wild, the formulas are easy. Then, when you try to get clean, you start to count like a pharmacist: How many hours between doses? How much or how little do you need to maintain? Then, when you finally give it up completely, you count like Noah in his dinky, seafaring ark full of pairs of every animal in God's creation: You count days. You wait for the rain to stop, for the sky to clear, for life to ever seem normal again. And then eventually it does. Then you start to count how many cups of black coffee you need just to get through every day, how many cigarettes you smoke. You know the address of every Starbucks in a mile radius, which is easy because there so many, and you know the names of every restaurant where they allow you to smoke, which is easy because they are so few. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

Most of what I know about writing I've learned through running every day. These are practical, physical lessons. How much can I push myself? How much rest is appropriate - and how much is too much? How far can I take something and still keep it decent and consistent? When does it become narrow-minded and inflexible? How much should I be aware of the world outside, and how much should I focus on my inner world? To what extent should I be confident in my abilities, and when should I start doubting myself? I know that if I hadn't become a long-distance runner when I became a novelist, my work would have been vastly different. How different? Hard to say. But something would have definitely been different. — Haruki Murakami

Cop a squat, animals and folks. I don't want to be here any more than the rest of you so make it fast and get out of my hair. Let's quickly run down the bullshit pedagogy. Hear ye ... Who the hell wrote this crap? ... Welcome to the Omegrion Chamber. Here we gather, one rep from each branch of the two patrias. We come in peace (he paused to snort derisively) to make peace. I'm your mediator, Savitar, and if you don't know that by now, you need to be hit in the head with a jackhammer and replaced because you're too stupid to represent your patria. But in case you're dense and forgot, I am the summation of all that was and what will one day be again. I make order from chaos and chaos from order, which is how I got drafted into this shit. Now let's get on with this before I start splitting your hairs. (Savitar) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I'm focussing on what I haven't attained, not what I have. A lot has come to me early. I don't want to get consumed with that. Winners live in the present tense. People who come up short are consumed with future or past. I want to be living in the now. My goal is to play one full game in the now, but I haven't even gotten past the first inning yet. I start thinking about where my mom is or if my dogs have been fed. The average human has 2,000 thoughts a day. The really accomplished have 1,500 because you can focus longer. I need to learn how to focus longer. — Alex Rodriguez

At Last a Real Cure A woman goes to the Doctor, worried about her husband's temper. The Doctor asks: "What's the problem? The woman says: "Doctor, I don't know what to do. Every day my husband seems to lose his temper for no reason. It scares me." The Doctor says: "I have a cure for that. When it seems that your husband is getting angry, just take a glass of water and start swishing it in your mouth. Just swish and swish but don't swallow it until he either leaves the room or goes to bed and is asleep." Two weeks later the woman comes back to the doctor looking fresh and reborn. The woman says: "Doctor that was a brilliant idea! Every time my husband started losing it, I swished with water. I swished and swished, and he calmed right down! How does a glass of water do that?" The Doctor says: "The water itself does nothing. It's keeping your mouth shut that does the trick... — Steve Mihaly

You never hear people put it this way, and I don't intend to start a trend, but when we consider the ever-evolving process of a person's thinking, the way a person imagines and organizes the world, it could almost seem appropriate to ask each other from time to time, How's your religion coming along? How's it going? Born again, or the same old, same old? Did you successfully distinguish darkness from light in the course of your day? Is there a fever in your mind that won't go away? Mind if I prescribe a poem? — David Dark

How to walk to Cleveland Shipping is an event. There's life before you ship and then there's the moment you ship. And then there's life after you ship. Starting isn't like that. Starting something is not an event; it's a series of events. You decide to walk to Cleveland. So you take a first step in the right direction. That's starting. You spend the rest of the day walking toward Cleveland, one step at a time, picking your feet up and putting them down. At the end of the day, twenty miles later, you stop at a hotel. And what happens the next morning? Either you quit the project or you start again, walking to Cleveland. In fact, every step is a new beginning. Sure, you're closer than you were yesterday or last week, but you're still heading toward Cleveland. Keep starting until you finish. — Seth Godin

Start your day with good intentions and set yourself up for a good attitude. It's not what happens to you that matters but how you respond. — Ken Blanchard

Forty years ago, Richard Branson, who ultimately founded Virgin Air, found himself in a similar situation in an airport in the Caribbean. They had just canceled his flight, the only flight that day. Instead of freaking out about how essential the flight was, how badly his day was ruined, how his entire career was now in jeopardy, the young Branson walked across the airport to the charter desk and inquired about the cost of chartering a flight out of Puerto Rico. Then he borrowed a portable blackboard and wrote, "Seats to Virgin Islands, $39." He went back to his gate, sold enough seats to his fellow passengers to completely cover his costs, and made it home on time. Not to mention planting the seeds for the airline he'd start decades later. Sounds like the kind of person you'd like to hire — Seth Godin

Once you lose attachment to how you want things to be because you realize you don't control anything, there's a curiously liberating aspect of that. I've always been a control freak, I've always felt that if I try hard enough, everyone I love will be kept safe and everything will be okay. Being shown, in such brutal terms, that that's simply not the way it works, in someways, it messed me up. I've been through hell, but on another level, if you pile up so much tragedy, it either destroys you, or you just start laughing about it. Because at the end of the day, no one gets out alive. — Daniele Bolelli

I thought maybe a day was coming when I'd stop constantly worrying about how to live. Maybe at some point I'd just start living, no questions asked. — John Corey Whaley

Now as you plumb out into the universe and explore it astronomically, it gets very strange. You begin to see things in the depths that at first sight seem utterly remote. How could they have anything to do with us. They are so far off and so unlikely. And in the same way, when you start probing into the inner workings of the human body you come across all kinds of funny little monsters and wiggly things that bear no resemblance to what we recognize as the human image. Look at a spermatozoon under a microscope. That little tadpole! And how can that have any connection with a grown human being. It's so unlike, you see. It's foreign feeling. And you get the creeps, a foreign feeling, about yourself ... But what we will always find out in the end when we meet the very strange thing, there will one day be the dawning recognition: Why that's me. — Alan W. Watts

He didn't know how he'd make it through the next five minutes. Or the next hour. How could he possibly go through an entire day? Then sleep and start the whole thing all over again? Despair sucked at him, an empty, yawning void that threatened to pull him down into an awful abyss. A panic-laced craziness struck him. Suffusing it all, the pain. — James Dashner

Seemingly every culture before our own has had a single acceptable way to raise a baby. These cultures wouldn't have cared about the new scientific findings: they already knew how babies worked. Their answers were all very different, mind you, but they had this in common: all the other answers were wrong.

Such confidence makes sense. If you have to raise a baby, not study a baby, you'd better settle on an answer, and as long as you have settled on an answer, you may as well be certain about it. Pretty much everyone has been very certain. But if everyone has been very certain, and everyone's certainty has been very different, you start to suspect that there aren't that many certainties after all. There's no one true path. Or put another way: the one true path is forked. — Nicholas Day

I've been fascinated by the Internet from the very start. In 2001, I had made a funny black-and-white film called 'How to Dance Properly,' a short video of me dancing to a Madonna song. I sent it to 17 of my friends on a Thursday, and by Monday, one million people a day were logging on to view it. — Ze Frank