I Am Not Like Them Quotes & Sayings

I like pacifists and people who have a heavy emotional identification with deathism and war would probably call me a pacifist, but I am a non-invasivist rather than a non-violentist. That is, I believe that an invaded people have the right to defend themselves by any means necessary. This includes putting ground glass or poison in the invaders' food, shooting at them from ambush, sabotage, the general strike, armed revolution, etc. It's up to the invaded to decide which of these techniques they will use. It's not up to some moralist to tell them which techniques are permissible. — Robert Anton Wilson

I was a part of that Beanie Babies generation. I had, like, 400 of them ... OK, maybe not that many, but I had a lot of little stuffed animals that I liked to make talk. I was a big dork, and I still am. — Jessica Stroup

Having travelled to some 20 African countries, I find myself, like so many other visitors to Africa before me, intoxicated with the continent. And I am not referring to the animals, as much as I have been enthralled by them during safaris in Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Rather, I am referring to the African peoples. — Dennis Prager

George!' [Horace] said, the relief evident in his voice. 'Are you all right?'
'No! I am not!' George replied with considerable spirit. 'I have a whacking great arrow stuck through my arm and it hurts like the very dickens! How could anybody be all right in those circumstances?' ...
'You saved my life, George,' Horace said gently ...
George grimaced. 'Well, if I'd known it was going to hurt like this, I wouldn't have! I would have just let them shoot you! Why do you live this way?' he demanded in a high-pitched voice. 'How can you bear it? This sort of thing is very, very painful. I always suspected that warriors are crazy. Now I know. — John Flanagan

I realize that this is not, like, boyish. I realize that properly speaking guys should only think about sex and the acquisition of it, and that they should run crotch-first toward every girl who likes them and etc. But: The part I enjoy most is not the doing, but the noticing. Noticing the way she smells like oversugared coffee, and the difference between her smile and her photographed smile, and the way she bites her lower lip, and the pale skin of her back. I just want the pleasure of noticing these things at a safe distance - I don't want to have to acknowledge that I am noticing. I don't want to talk about it or do stuff about it. — John Green

I could go on all night, Lake. I could go on and on and on about all the reasons I'm in love with you. And you know what? Some of them are the things that life has thrown our way. I do love you because you're the only other person I know who understands my situation. I do love you because both of us know what it's like to lose your mom and your dad. I do love you because you're raising your little brother, just like I am. I love you because of what you went through with your mother.
I love you because of what we went through with your mother. I love the way you love Kel. I love the way you love Caulder. And I love the way I love Kel. So I'm not about to apologize for loving all these things about you, no matter the reasons or the circumstances behind them. And no, I don't need days, or weeks, or months to think about why I love you. It's an easy answer for me. I love you because of you. Because of every single thing about you. — Colleen Hoover

Thunder gods don't hide."
The Russian shrugged. "I am not like Thor. I have Russian depth of character. And I like to help people, not hurt them. Usually I help with vodka. You want some? — Kevin Hearne

I feel good with my husband: I like his warmth and his bigness and his being-there and his making and his jokes and stories and what he reads and how he likes fishing and walks and pigs and foxes and little animals and is honest and not vain or fame-crazy and how he shows his gladness for what I cook him and joy for when I make him something, a poem or a cake, and how he is troubled when I am unhappy and wants to do anything so I can fight out my soul-battles and grow up with courage and a philosophical ease. I love his good smell and his body that fits with mine as if they were made in the same body-shop to do just that. What is only pieces, doled out here and there to this boy and that boy, that made me like pieces of them, is all jammed together in my husband. So I don't want to look around any more: I don't need to look around for anything. — Sylvia Plath

As a composer I might class myself as a Neo-Romantic, inasmuch as I have always regarded music as a highly personal and emotional form of expression. I like to write music which takes its inspiration from poetry, art and nature. I do not care for purely decorative music. Although I am in sympathy with modern idioms, I abhor music which attempts nothing more than the illustration of a stylistic fad. And in using modern techniques, I have tried at all times to subjugate them to a larger idea or a grander human feeling. — Bernard Herrmann

They don't, in some people; those unlucky enough never to change in themselves, but there are few like that." She gave my folded hand a squeeze and patted it. "I doubt that you're one of those. Your hand shows quite a lot of change already, for one so young. That would likely be the War, of course," she said, as though to herself. I was curious again, and opened my palm voluntarily. "What am I, then, according to my hand?" Mrs. Graham frowned, but did not pick up my hand again. "I canna just say. It's odd, for most hands have a likeness to them. Mind, I'd no just say that it's 'see one, you've seen them all,' but it's often like that - there are patterns, you know." She smiled suddenly, an oddly engaging grin, displaying very white and patently false teeth. — Diana Gabaldon

I am not sure if the ladies understand the full value of the influence of absence, nor do I think it wise to teach it them, lest, like the Clelias and Mandanes of yore, they should resume the humour of sending their lovers to banishment. — Walter Scott

I am not like other women. I do not like the things they like or feel the things they feel. And it is better so. I do not want to be like them. I do not want to turn into one of them. — Sharon Shinn

The reason I'm attracted to the light of Scripture is because there's another side of me that is dark. The reason I am interested in men of peace is because I'm not like them and would like to be. I'm not someone in real life who turns the other cheek. — Bono

Listen, first of all, my wife is my best friend. My love for her is deeper than anything. The reality is, I'm not involved, I wasn't involved and I'm not going to be involved. Am I concerned for both of them Sure there's concern from me. I'm more worried about them than me. I'm like you guys, I'm trying to figure it all out. — Wayne Gretzky

Suppose I should say to a wrestler, 'Show me your muscle'. And he should answer me, 'See my dumb-bells'. Your dumb-bells are your own affair; I want to see the effect of them.
Take the treatise 'On Choice', and see how thoroughly I have perused it.
I am not asking about this, O slave, but how you act in choosing and refusing, how you manage your desires and aversions, your intentions and purposes, how you meet events
whether you are in harmony with nature's laws or opposed to them. If in harmony, give me evidence of that, and I will say you are progressing; if the contrary, you may go your way, and not only comment on your books, but write some like them yourself; and what good will it do you? — Epictetus

I grew up in a household that was filled with Scottish and Irish ballads. So I think that the complexity and the melancholy and the languor of them has kind of gotten into my bones and that's the way I write. Now what does it contribute to my books? I don't know; I guess I would say that those are the kinds of books I like to read, books with vivid images and lots of mist and velvet cloaks and stuff. It's not as though I'm setting out to do that; it's just who I am. — Franny Billingsley

When they had dismounted, he indulged himself in a shudder of his whole body. "That is more than I undertake to do again!' --this to the admiral, in reproachful tones. "Those two monstrously large beasts! Going right up to them like that and dangling their captains in front of them just as if to say, look what I have got, ha ha! I am all astonishment they did not leap upon me at once. I hope they did not get a clear look at me. If they ever saw me again I am sure they would not let it pass."

"I beg you not to repine upon it," Laurence said. "Temeraire understands well that orders must be obeyed, and will not hold it against you; he knows it was not in your power to deliver us to him."

"Well, but it was," Souci said, not conciliated, and Granby said nothing reassuring at all. Iskierka allow of assurances of her behavior, good, evil, or otherwise. — Naomi Novik

She talked like that. But I understood what she meant. About having another you inside that isn't anything like you. Dorcas and I used to make up love scenes and describe them to each other. It was fun and a little smutty. Something about it bothered me, though. Not the loving stuff, but the picture I had of myself when I did it. Nothing like me. I say myself as somebody I'd seen in a picture show or a magazine. Then it would work. If I pictured myself the way I am it seemed wrong. — Toni Morrison

My name is Nathan, just twenty-three and given to the curation of stories. I listen, retain, then polish and release them over the fire at night, when the others hush and lean forward in their desire to hear of the past. They crave romance, particularly when autumn sets in and cold nights await them, and so I speak of Alice, and Bethany, and Sarah, and Val, and other dead women who all once had lustrous hair and never a bad word on their plump lips. I can remember this is not how they were; I knew them, I knew them! Only six years have passed and yet I mythologize them as if it is six thousand. I am not culpable. Language is changing, like the earth, like the sea. We live in lonely, fateful flux, outnumbered and outgrown. — Aliya Whiteley

I am going to make you what you may perhaps consider rather a singular proposition. It is this, that if you don't like me, say so at once, and we will part now, before we have time to know anything more of each other, and I will endeavour not to cross your path again unless you seek me out. But if on the contrary, you do like me, - if you find something in my humour or turn of mind congenial to your own disposition, give me your promise that you will be my friend and comrade for a while, say for a few months at any rate. I can take you into the best society, and introduce you to the prettiest women in Europe as well as the most brilliant men. I know them all, and I believe I can be useful to you. But if there is the smallest aversion to me lurking in the depths of your nature" - here he paused, - then resumed with extraordinary solemnity - "in God's name give it full way and let me go, - because I swear to you in all sober earnest that I am not what I seem! — Marie Corelli

Some people even think that I'm still just not right for it [ballet]. And I think it's shocking because they hear those words from critics saying I'm too bulky, I'm too busty. And then they meet me in person and they're like, you look like a ballerina. And I think it's just something maybe that I will never escape from, those people who are narrow-minded. But my mission, my voice, my story, my message, is not for them. And I think it's more important to think of the people that I am influencing and helping to see a broader picture of what beauty is. — Misty Copeland

My Latin roots are very strong. All my life, because I'm blonde and blue-eyed, people who aren't Hispanic can't believe I am. And people who are Hispanic always think I'm not, because I don't look like them. Being Latin is part of who I am and I bring that part to every role. — Cameron Diaz

One day a few houses appeared," said Toshaway. "Someone had been cutting the trees. Of course we did not mind, in the same way you would not mind if someone came into your family home, disposed of your belongings, and moved in their own family. But perhaps, I don't know. Perhaps white people are different. Perhaps a Texan, if someone stole his house, he would say: 'Oh, I have made a mistake, I have built this house, but I guess you like it also so you may have it, along with all this good land that feeds my family. I am but a kahuu, little mouse. Please allow me to tell you where my ancestors lie, so you may dig them up and plunder their graves.' Do you think that is what he would say, Tiehteti-taibo?"
That was my name. I shook my head.
"That's right," said Toshaway. "He would kill the men who had stolen his house. He would tell them, 'Itsa nu kahni. Now I will cut out your heart. — Philipp Meyer

That is when I understood the magical meaning of the circle. If you go away from a row, you can still come back into it. A row is an open formation. But a circle closes up, and if you go away from it, there is no way back. It is not by chance that the planets move in circles and that a rock coming loose from one of them goes inexorably away, carried off by centrifugal force. Like a meteorite broken off from a planet, I left the circle and have not stopped falling. Some people are granted their death as they are whirling around, and others are smashed at the end of their fall. And these others (I am one of them) always retain a kind of faint yearning for that lost ring dance, because we are all inhabitants of a universe where everything turns in circles. — Milan Kundera

I am very fussy; I am very detailed; I nag a lot. So in a sense, I am like Mr. Ping. I am temperamental, I am emotional, I'm fussy, and I'm very exact. And I want people to not fail; I want them to execute - all those things Mr. Ping wants in other people. Or animals. — James Hong

I never wanted to be Protestant. Jews do, plenty of them. Not me. To be assimilated, to be respectable, to be detached like the Wasps, I understand the desire, but I knew never to try. I see all those distinguished Wasps with the beautiful gray hair and the pinstripe suits who don't have pimples on their ass. They're my lawyers ... These guys are quiet. I don't want to be that way. I couldn't begin to be that way. I'm the wild Jew of the pampas. I am the Golem of the U.S.A. — Philip Roth

I am tomorrow I wonder what the future holds. I hear rippling water that soothes me when things are not calm. I see the word success, big and bold. I want to see the world. I am Tomorrow I claim I already have what I know is yet to come. I feel apprehensive because change is something that I have to endure. I touch a black pen and make beautiful, vivid colors. I worry about inflation, war, revolution, a car, self-destruction, hate, hidden prejudices, my fate. I cry when I think I won't see my mom anymore. I AM TOMORROW I understand that tomorrow is not promised. I say live like you're trying to get your name on his list. I dream that I am happy, prosperous, and loved. I try to meet the world and greet them with a smile on my face. I hope that the weight on my shoulders will take off and fly like a dove. I am tomorrow — Ericka Davis

(about William Blake)
As for Blake's happiness
a man who knew him said: "If asked whether I ever knew among the intellectual, a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me."
And yet this creative power in Blake did not come from ambition ... He burned most of his own work. Because he said, "I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I want nothing whatever. I am quite happy."
... He did not mind death in the least. He said that to him it was just like going into another room. On the day of his death he composed songs to his Maker and sang them for his wife to hear. Just before he died his countenance became fair, his eyes brightened and he burst into singing of the things he saw in heaven. — Brenda Ueland

The girl did not even know the video would be leaked. Yet it is her willingness to suffer hardship that gave her power. Martyrs, you see, are like bees. Their only power comes in death. How many of you would sacrifice yourself to not kill, but merely hurt your enemy? Not one of you, I wager."

I taste blood in my mouth. I have the knifeRing Dancer gave me. But I breathe the fury down. I am no martyr. I am not vengeance. I am Eo's dream. Still, doing nothing while her murderer gloats feels like a betrayal.

"In time you will receive your Scars from my sword," Augustus closes. "But first you must earn them. — Pierce Brown

I am improvising a brassiere," I said with dignity. "I don't mean to ride sidesaddle through the mountains wearing a dress, and if I'm not wearing stays, I don't mean my breasts to be joggling all the way, either. Most uncomfortable, joggling." "I daresay." He edged into the room and circled me at a cautious distance, eyeing my nether limbs with interest. "And what are those?" "Like them?" I put my hands on my hips, modeling the drawstring leather trousers that Phaedre had constructed for me - laughing hysterically as she did so - from soft buckskin provided by one of Myers's friends in Cross Creek. "No," he said bluntly. "Ye canna be going about in - in - " He waved at them, speechless. "Trousers," I said. "And of course I can. I wore trousers all the time, back in Boston. They're very practical." He — Diana Gabaldon

Political liberty, what are we to understand by that? Perhaps the individual's independence of the State and its laws? No; on the contrary, the individual's subjection in the State and to the State's laws ... Political liberty means that the polis, the State, is free; freedom of religion that religion is free, as freedom of conscience signifies that conscience is free; not, therefore, that I am free from the State, from religion, from conscience, or that I am rid of them. It does not mean my liberty, but the liberty of a power that rules and subjugates me; it means that one of my despots, like State, religion, conscience, is free. State, religion, conscience, these despots, make me a slave, and their liberty is my slavery. — Max Stirner

I have an unfortunate character; whether it is my upbringing that made me like that or God who created me so, I do not know. I know only that if I cause unhappiness to others, I myself am no less happy. I realize this is poor consolation for them - but the fact remains that it is so. In my early youth, after leaving the guardianship of my parents, I plunged into all the pleasures money could buy, and naturally these pleasures grew distasteful to me. Then I went into high society, but soon enough grew tired of it; I fell in love with beautiful society women and was loved by them, but their love only aggravated my imagination and vanity while my heart remained desolate ... I began to read and to study, but wearied of learning, too; I saw that neither fame nor happiness depended on it in the slightest, for the happiest people were the ignorant, and fame was a matter of luck, to achieve which you only had to be shrewd ... — Mikhail Lermontov

I would like to emphasize that this book does not belong to any existing view, school, or field, as far as I am aware, so that it does not subscribe to any tradition walled off from the rest of intellectual life. It therefore has no gatekeepers, clad in the traditional metaphorical chain-mail armor and bearing the traditional metaphorical halberd, proclaiming threats to their perceived enemies in archaic languages, dedicated to keeping new knowledge out and stamping out all possible threats to those inside its walls so that the residents can safely continue their traditional beliefs without the necessity of thinking about them. — Christopher I. Beckwith

Siobhan said that I should write something I would want to read myself. Mostly I read books about science and maths. I do not like proper novels. In proper novels people say things like, "I am veined with iron, with silver and with streaks of common mud. I cannot contract into the firm fist which whose clench who do not depend on stimulus." What does this mean? I do not know. Nor does Father. Nor does Siobhan or Mr. Jeavons. I have asked them. — Mark Haddon

Guys who would make fun of girls for sexual inexperience are terrible people, and when girls do it to other girls it feels even shittier. Guys who shame girls who haven't had sex want them to feel like they aren't doing their job, which is to be sexually available and attractive to guys. (And never mind if they are gay, or just uninterested.) Girls who shame other girls for these reasons are helping those guys. They are saying this: You are not accomplished where it matters, and I am better than you. I have proven that men find me attractive, and that is what counts. These people, boys and girls and men and women alike, are all dickheads. — Katie Heaney

I never think of stories as made things; I think of them as found things. As if you pull them out of the ground, and you just pick them up. Someone once told me that that was me low-balling my own creativity. That might or might not be the case. But still, on the story I am working on now, I do have some unresolved problem. It doesn't keep me awake at nights. I feel like when it comes down, it will be there ... — Stephen King

Because I am really interested in gardening, I do really interesting plants, not even always flowers. And because I have grown them, I really know them like friends. I paint everything from exotic orchids to rosehips growing wild in a hedge. They just have to speak to me. — Emma Tennant

When good things come in, my agent calls or sends me the script. But I allow them to sort through the offers so that I am not just sitting and reading everything because honestly, sometimes the scripts that appeal to me are projects that are not good projects, but I just really like the script or the characters. — Megan Fox

We live in a trans period. Contemporary issues of sexuality, for example - the exciting aspects of them - have to do with transgenderedness. And there's trans-nationality. There are people like me, for example. I mean, what am I? Am I Indian? Am I American? And I'm not alone in being between things. — Vijay Seshadri

It's just that I don't want to be somebody's crush. If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too. — Stephen Chbosky

Since I am a loyal American, I am not supposed to tell you why this has taken place, but then it is not usual for us to examine why anything happens; we simply accuse others of motiveless malignity. "We are good," G.W. proclaims, "They are evil," which wraps that one up in a neat package. Later, Bush himself put, as it were, the bow on the package in an address to a joint session of Congress where he shared with them - as well as with the rest of us somewhere over the Beltway - his profound knowledge of Islam's wiles and ways: "They hate what they see right here in this Chamber." I suspect a million Americans nodded sadly in front of their TV sets. "Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." At this plangent moment what American's gorge did not rise like a Florida chad to the bait? — Gore Vidal

When you care about perfection, you care about an expectation. But there is also caring for where I am right now, for what's happening right now. When I spend time with students, they tell me that they've read something in a book or heard something from a teacher that they don't think they're living up to. And I tell them, Take care of yourself right now. Befriend what's happening, not just who you're supposed to be or what the world should be like. This is where you are now. So how do you care for yourself this minute? — Bernie Glassman

We must say to ourselves something like this: 'Well, when Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn't think "I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me." No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us - denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him - and in the greatest act of love in history, he STAYED. He said, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely. That is why I am going to love my spouse.' Speak to your heart like that, and then fulfill the promises you made on your wedding day. — Timothy Keller

I am saying the same to Muslims in the global South, telling them: "Just ignore what is done." However, in the Southern countries they are not living in a comfortable society like you and me. They deal with unemployment, corruption, and surviving. For the majority of them, their religion is helping them survive. — Tariq Ramadan

I have no routines or personal history. One day I found out that they were no longer necessary for me and, like drinking, I dropped them. One must have the desire to drop them and then one must proceed harmoniously to chop them off, little by little. If you have no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts. It is best to erase all personal history because that makes us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people. I have, little by little, created a fog around me and my life. And now nobody knows for sure who I am or what I do. Not even I. How can I know who I am, when I am all this? — Carlos Castaneda

Fuck it," said Private First Class Chris Barnes, raising his hand. "Let's do it. This sounds like a great fucking idea. Who wants to get blown up?" They started laughing. Watt, Barker, Cortez, and Private First Class Shane Hoeck all raised their hands. They did not give a damn anymore. It was all so absurd to them, that they were going to drive up and down a road for the next eight hours as bomb magnets. The only thing that they could do was laugh. "Hooray! We're going out to get blown up!" they sang. "Who's on board? Hey, who wants to come get blown up? Woohoo! Yeah, dude, I am ready to go fucking die! We are all going to fucking die! — Jim Frederick

I'm not comparing myself with anyone, but I am very confident about my captaincy, as I have already led India and in the IPL also. I have confidence I can bring out each player's ability fully and also give them a lot of confidence ... I would like to stick to what I know best and what I have confidence in. — Virat Kohli

Ah, Toulouse, you have travelled too much. You know the gods of a hundred lands, those of the trees and mountains, the sky and sea, the stars and planets, of demons and angels, and even the Master of the Cosmos. But I am speaking of God. There are others, I'm sure, but only one God who created even great Zeus and Rama. Yet travel is like philosophy: a few years of it will perk the eye to differences, which you shall be able to notice with ease. Yet living as I have, travelling to lonely lands and through a thousand metropolises and hidden woods, you rather see the similarities. All becomes one, and God too becomes one. Not the sum of all those gods here, but beyond them, a being few philosophers have truly grasped. He has always been one, but he is severed in our minds. So it is up to us to piece him back together. If our souls possess a clarity beyond what our mortal nature can bestow, we shall see him. — Mary-Jean Harris

I've always been a man for details, can't get enough of them. Not a spy, not a bit of it, not really. An observer. Product of an unsentimental education. It's the least you can do - watch.
Watch it all tumbling down like the Wall - Berliner Mauer, the Antifacist Protection Rampart. Never a good sign when your wording tries that hard to fight reality, it suggests the beginning of your tumble. Yes, it does. It always does.
But I'd rather watch beauty.
And is that a denial of reality, or an attempt to embrace it? I think I am too tired to know. I hope I am too tired to know. — A. L. Kennedy

In that moment, I wanted to cut out all my sins from my body and lay them down upon the earth before you. Like pieces of bark they are rough and dead, once clutching onto my very skin, all a part of me. You make me want to strip myself bare and lay myself out to you, I want you to see all my flaws, I want you to know I am not beautiful, yet all the while wanting you to take me anyway. I am composed of things that are dead, I am not a tree, I do not give life, I am just bark, flaws, stitched together with hope for something more. I wish for love, I wish for more. — Joshua Allen

Lots of people make fun of me, but the truth is I'm just a man. I like food, I like people, and I like making people happy with food. I have a wife; I have two sons. I love them more than anything. Sure, my TV personality might not be for everyone, but that's okay. I just want to live my life. Please, leave me in peace. I am a man. I have dignity. I am a man. — Guy Fieri

Being-in-the-world means that I am inextricably knit into the fabric of this fluid, indivisible, and contingent reality I share with others. There is no room for a disembodied mind or soul, however subtle, to float free from this condition, to contemplate it from a hypothetical Archimedean point outside. Without such a mind or soul, it is hard to conceive of anything that will go on into another life once this one comes to an end. My actions, like the words of dead philosophers, may continue to reverberate and bear fruits long after my death, but I will not be around to witness them. — Stephen Batchelor

Unconditional Love is a perpetual emotion machine. It inspires us to include others. The longer I am bathed in its radiance, the more I find myself looking at others with an open heart. I can look past their faults and love them. I can say, "I may not like the things you do, but I love you. — Rosa Marchisella

I want to be softened, not stiff. Pliable, not rigid. I don't want anyone to look at my life and think it is perfect or, worse, that I want them to think it is perfect. Instead, I want anything that is unapproachable or harsh in me to be scrubbed away by the salt and the sand, revealing the imperfections, the brokenness, the cracks. Not because I am proud of those parts, but because I know it is real. Like the Skin Horse or the Velveteen Rabbit, I am shabby because I live life, because I am loved, and because it is all work - living and loving and being loved, being transformed, being worn and faded — Jerusalem Jackson Greer

I am not depressed; my life is just shit. As a consequence of my not being depressed, I am not like them. You need to know this from the very off. You need to know I, Arch Fry, will not allow myself to be neatly pigeonholed, erroneously labelled or closed off in some tidy little box - one to be shelved away and conveniently forgotten about.
No, I am not depressed: NOT. DEPRESSED.
You see, I'm just not stuck in some deep unassailable chasm like all the rest, like all these other poor fuckers who've so readily accepted that noose of a word. — Tom Conrad

You float like a feather," sings Radiohead, "In a beautiful world." I've listened several times to the Radiohead songs, because it was nice of Raymond to say he heard a bit of them in what I sang. I'm not sure I hear it myself, but I am pleased and touched. Sometimes that's what you need, just a quick casual word of knowledgeable encouragement. Radiohead reminds me a little of the songs in Garden State soundtrack. Now, that's a soundtrack. They were all songs that Zach Braff liked, so he put them in his movie. And there's that beautiful moment near the beginning where Natalie Portman hands him the headphones and she watches him listen to the song and she smiles her huge, innocent Natalie Portman smile. — Nicholson Baker

My brothers always like to believe that my father pampered me and I am spoilt. While it is not true, they felt that way. As for my dad, I could not do anything wrong. So, if I did something wrong, I would put the blame on them, and he would shout at them. — Sonakshi Sinha

I really am a unicorn?' I asked again.

'You think Janis and I escaped from an asylum, don't you?' she teased.

'I hope you're not,' I said, horrified at the thought of being turned into a lunatic like them. — Deepika Kumaaraguru

I'd like to think I am taking people on a journey; I am not just entertaining people, but giving them something to think about when they leave. — Madonna Ciccone

" You think I am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to talk nonsense. That's man's one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth." --Crime and punishment, F. Dostoevsky — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I am thrilled with my fan base. For some reason some of them are quite young, so they are quite frightened. I remember when I did 'Click' and I'd see Adam Sandler's fan base. He's the guy that people feel that he's their best friend, so he's walking down the street and people sort of high five him and want to tell him a joke or invite him to come home and have a sandwich with them. Mine are not like that. Mine tend to go: 'Argh,' and look horrified. They shake and take a picture from a really long way away. I do feel I've got quite good, respectful ones though. — Colin Farrell

I'm - I'm Marjorie, a fourteen-year-old girl, scared of everything, who doesn't know why she hears voices that tell her confusing things. And I try to be good and I try. Try not to listen to them.
Are you scared and confused like I am? I think everyone is secretly like me. — Paul Tremblay

Like most Americans I am no lover of cops, and the consistent investigation of city forces for bribery, brutality, and a long and picturesque list of malfeasances is not designed to reassure me. However, my hostility does not extend to the state troopers now maintained in most parts of the country. By the simple expedient of recruiting intelligent and educated men, paying them adequately, and setting them beyond political coercion, many states have succeeded in creating elite corps of men, secure in their dignity and proud of their service. Eventually our cities may find it necessary to reorganize their police on the pattern of the state police. But this will never happen while political organizations retain the slightest power to reward or to punish. — John Steinbeck

I love people. Everybody. I love them, I think, as a stamp collector loves his collection. Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me. My love's not impersonal yet not wholly subjective either. I would like to be everyone, a cripple, a dying man, a whore, and then come back to write about my thoughts, my emotions, as that person. But I am not omniscient. I have to live my life, and it is the only one I'll ever have. And you cannot regard your own life with objective curiosity all the time ... — Sylvia Plath

Tales of ordinary characters would appeal to a larger class , but I have no wish to make such an appeal . The opinions of the masses are of no interest to me , for praise can truly gratify only when it comes from a mind sharing the author's perspective . There are probably seven persons in all , who really like my work and they are enough . I should write even if I were the only patient reader , for my aim is merely self expression . I could not write about ' ordinary people ' because I am not in the least interested in them . Without interest there can be no art . Man's relations to man do not captivate my fancy . It is man's relations to the cosmos - to the unknown - which alone arouses in me the spark of creative imagination . — H.P. Lovecraft

Listen, Mollie, I need to get home and let my parents know I'm alive. Then I am coming back for you. If my home is still standing, I'll provide a place for you and Frank as long as you need." "Why would you do that?" She looked a little taken aback, which surprised him. Because he loved her. Because they had just experienced the worst two days imaginable, and the bond that had been forged between them was not something to be tossed away. If Louis Hartman didn't like it, he would quit. The fire had just taught Zack what was most important in this world, and she was looking straight at him. — Elizabeth Camden

devastate him. I don't want him to watch me die by degrees. I don't want that for his daughters, either. I know what it is like; some images, once seen, can never be forgotten. I want them to remember me as I am, not as I will be when the cancer has had its way. He leads me into the small living room and gets me settled on the couch. While I wait, he pours us some wine and then sits beside me. I am thinking of how it will feel when he leaves, and I am sure the same thought occupies his mind. With a sigh, he reaches into his briefcase — Kristin Hannah

It matters not at all that I do not want to marry, that I am afraid of the wedding, afraid of consummating the marriage, afraid of childbirth, afraid of everything about being a wife. Nobody even asks if I have lost my childhood sense of vocation, if I still want to be a nun. Nobody cares what I think at all. They treat me like an ordinary young woman, bred for wedding and bedding, and since they do not ask me what I think, nor observe what I feel, there is nothing that gives them pause at all. — Philippa Gregory

What is coping? This is what it is like: a cave underground deep in rock, hung across its roof with accretions of dripping salts. I am cavernous and hard as mineral. The cave holds a pool of dark water that has not seen light. The water is very cold; it is undrinkable and its size is unmapped. It is mine, but people cannot see it. Only Ev sometimes senses that it is there. All the time people say that I am coping very well. It is impossible to explain my strategy to them. It is opaque even to me. — Marion Coutts

She was in big trouble now.
"You stupid man," she said to the body on the floor. "Why did you have to lunge at me like that? Why couldn't you have left well enough alone? I told your father I wasn't going to marry you. I told him I wouldn't marry you if you were the last idiot in Britain."
She nearly stamped her foot in frustration. Why was it her words never came out quite the way she
intended them to?
"What I meant to say was that you are an idiot," she said to Percy, who, not
surprisingly, didn't respond, "and that I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man in Britain, and- Oh, blast. What am I doing talking to you, anyway? You're quite dead. — Julia Quinn

I laughed it off but I close the bedroom door and I lose it and I stick it all down here and this is where it all stays.
And this is where it has to stay because I am not ending up in the nutter ward again with brown walls, jigsaws, and people crying that their husbands left them, and men slamming their heads against walls, and Mum bringing me a mini trifle and a copy of Smash Hits like that would make everything better.
It didn't. It won't. It can't. Psychiatric wards when most of my mates were ... .I can't tell anyone what is going on ... Can't write ... Can't think about it.
Not even here. — Rae Earl

You have a morbid aversion to dying. You probably resent the fact that you're at war and might get your head blown off any second."
"I more than resent it, sir. I'm absolutely incensed."
"You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don't like bigots, bullies, snobs, or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate."
"Consciously, sir, consciously," Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. "I hate them consciously."
"You're antagonistic to the idea of being robbed, exploited, degraded, humiliated, or deceived. Misery depresses you. Ignorance depresses you. Persecution depresses you. Violence depresses you. Corruption depresses you. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if you're a manic-depressive!"
"Yes, sir. Perhaps I am."
"Don't try to deny it."
"I'm not denying it, sir," said Yossarian, pleased with the miraculous rapport that finally existed between them. "I agree with all you've said. — Joseph Heller

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?
They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us -- they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.

And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them. — Hunter S. Thompson

Xmas all grown ups sa is the season for the kiddies but this do not prevent them from taking a tot or 2 from the bot and having, it may seme, a better time than us. For children in fact Xmas is often a bit of a strane wot with pretending that everything is a surprise. Above all father xmas is a strane. You canot so much as mention that there is no father xmas when some grown-up sa Hush not in front of wee tim. So far as i am concerned if father xmas use langwage like that when he tripped over the bolster last time we had beter get a replacement. — Geoffrey Willans

The future rushes in and all we can do is take our memories and move forward with them. Memory keeps only what it wants. Images from memories are sprinkled throughout our lives, but that does not mean we must believe that our own or other people's memories are of things that really happened. When someone stubbornly insists that they saw something with their own eyes, I take it as a statement mixed with wishful thinking. As what they want to believe. Yet as imperfect as memories are, whenever I am faced with one, I cannot help getting lost in thought. Especially when that memory reminds me of what it felt like to be always out of place and always a step behind. Why was it so hard for me to open my eyes every morning, why was I so afraid to form a relationship with anyone, and why was I nevertheless able to break down my walls and find him? — Kyung-Sook Shin

First of all, I was running scams when you were at keggers at Kappa Kappa Werewolf. You don't know much about me but I am way smarter than Gabriel was. I'm a consummate liar. I can street fight with the best of them and I can cheat at cards like nobody's business. This on top of my computer skills. I may not howl at the moon and have superhuman strength but I can hold my own. — Lauren Dane

I think what people like about my channel is that I am not perfect. I always point to my pimple, my bad hair day ... people relate to that. They are watching somebody who is exactly like them and talking about things that they experience as well. — Lilly Singh

I used to think I'd be just like them when I grew up, but I am not. And the thing is, somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting to be like them, anyway. — Jodi Picoult

Eli snorted, her eyes narrowed.
- Because I am like you.
- What do you mean like me? I..
Eli thrust her hand through the air as if she was holding a knife, said:
- What are you looking at, idiot? Want to die, or something? - Stabbed the air with empty hand. - That what happens if you look at me.
Oskar rubbed his lips together, dampening them.
- What are you saying?
- It's not me that's saying it. It's you. That was the first thing I heard you say. Down on the playground.
Oskar remembered. The tree. The knife. How he had held up the blade of the knife like a mirror, seen Eli for the first time. — John Ajvide Lindqvist

You're carrying on as if I am being chased by hordes of men, when that is obviously not the case. At Stony Cross Park, men went out of their way to avoid my company - and you were one of them!"
The charge, though true, seemed to startle Sebastian. His face became taut, and he stared at her in stony silence. "You hardly made it easy for anyone to approach you," he said after a moment. "A man's vanity is more fragile than you might think. It's easy for us to mistake shyness for coldness, and silence for indifference. You could have exerted yourself a bit, you know. One brief meeting between the two of us ... one smile from you ... was all the encouragement I would have needed to jump on you like a grouse on laurel. — Lisa Kleypas

Why are you so prickly, English? Is it because I am a Scot?" "It's because you are overbearing, domineering, and pushy." "I am a man," he replied easily. "If men are allowed to behave in such an atrocious fashion, how are women supposed to act?" "Appreciative. And among my clan we like them demanding in bed," he added with a smile. When her gaze grew even cooler, he said, "You do not respond well to a jest. Be easy, Gwen Cassidy. I seek but to lighten your fears. You need fear naught, lass. I will care for you, despite your bad blood. Even the English can learn. On occasion," he added, just to provoke her. — Karen Marie Moning

Occasionally, I get a letter from someone who is in "contact" with extraterrestrials. I am invited to "ask them anything." And so over the years I've prepared a little list of questions. The extraterrestrials are very advanced, remember. So I ask things like, "Please provide a short proof of Fermat's Last Theorem." Or the Goldbach Conjecture. And then I have to explain what these are, because extraterrestrials will not call it Fermat's Last Theorem. So I write out the simple equation with the exponents. I never get an answer. On the other hand, if I ask something like "Should we be good?" I almost always get an answer. — Carl Sagan

You study Yoga in India, Liss?" he asks. "Yes, Ketut." "You can do Yoga," he says, "but Yoga too hard." Here, he contorts himself in a cramped lotus position and squinches up his face in a comical and constipated-looking effort. Then he breaks free and laughs, asking, "Why they always look so serious in Yoga? You make serious face like this, you scare away good energy. To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver. Practice tonight at hotel. Not to hurry, not to try too hard. Too serious, you make you sick. You can calling the good energy with a smile. All finish for today. See you later, alligator. Come back tomorrow. I am very happy to see you, Liss. Let your conscience be your guide. If you have Western friends come to visit Bali, bring them to me for palm-reading. I am very empty in my bank since the bomb. — Elizabeth Gilbert

'Two things.'
'Name them. I am instructing you to name them.'
'I don't think you've been in love. Not recently, anyway. I'm not sure you remember what it's like. It compromises you. It takes over your body. Like a bareword. I think love is a bareword. That's the first thing.' Yeats didn't react. If anything, he seemed baffled. 'The second thing is I wouldn't characterize Harry as indecisive and untrained with weapons.' — Max Barry

I am going to explain to you why we went to war. Why mankind always does to war. It is not social or political. It is not countries that go to war, but men. It is like salt. Once one has been to war, one has salt for the rest of one's life. Men love war because it allows them to look serious. Because it is the one thing that stops women from laughing at them. — John Fowles

I only believe in the easy things, like red lipstick
and coffee before noon and writing essays in pen.
I make my mind up about boys and then I unmake it,
compare us to continental drift, two ships passing.
I hit the snooze button too often. Write disposable
poems on napkins and old homework, try to discipline
myself when it comes to removing my makeup
before bed. I am trying to understand men better,
cut them some slack, write about them less. I dream
about oceans and mountains and wolves. I do not
always love myself. I do not always forgive myself.
I write apology letters and do not send them. Usually,
I do not mean it when I tell someone goodbye. — Kristina Haynes

Oh no."
Percy looks sideways at me. "Oh no what?"
I swallow. "I'd first like it to be noted that I am most certainly not a smuggler."
"Monty..." he says, my name sopping with dread.
"And," I continue overtop him, "I'd like you to both remember just how much you adore me and how dull and gloomy your lives would be without me in them."
"What did you do? — Mackenzi Lee

It's such a wonderful feeling to watch a child discover that reading is a marvelous adventure rather than a chore. I know that many writers for children say they do not write specifically with a child audience in mind ... This isn't true for me. I am very aware of my audience. Sometimes I can almost see them out there reacting as I write. Sometimes I think, 'Oh, you're going to like this part. — Zilpha Keatley Snyder

I like to think that you receive my words with pleasure but am content with the more probable event that you do not read them at all. In either case writing is a comfort to me and gives shape to my days. — Eleanor Catton

And this was what we foresaw, and this was the reason why truth forced us to admit, not without fear and hesitation, that neither cities nor States nor individuals will ever attain perfection until the small class of philosophers whom we termed useless but not corrupt are providentially compelled, whether they will or not, to take care of the State, and until a like necessity be laid on the State to obey them; or until kings, or if not kings, the sons of kings or princes, are divinely inspired with a true love of true philosophy. That either or both of these alternatives are impossible, I see no reason to affirm: if they were so, we might indeed be justly ridiculed as dreamers and visionaries. Am I not right? Quite right. If — Plato

Sophie." He said her name softly. If her life depended on it, she could not have looked anywhere but into the flat, silver depths of his eyes. She didn't think it was possible to be more aware of him than she already was, but the next moment proved her wrong. "Darling. I must turn down your offer. I am as astonished as you. But this is a subject upon which I've had months to think.
You're intelligent. You suspected my first offer of marriage was based upon my conviction that you would never consent to an affair with me and that it was desperation only for your person
that drove me to offer for you."
"And the second upon a need to rescue me."
He nodded. "Far more straightforward, darling, yet hopelessly complex."
She ignored the shiver in her belly. "Meaning?"
"I love you." He reached for the wine and filled the two glasses, though he left them on the table.
"I've become like you. A hopeless fool who cannot break his vows. And I did make vows to you today. — Carolyn Jewel

Others, I am not the first,
Have willed more mischief than they durst:
If in the breathless night I too
Shiver now, 'tis nothing new.
More than I, if truth were told,
Have stood and sweated hot and cold,
And through their veins in ice and fire
Fear contended with desire.
Agued once like me were they,
But I like them shall win my way
Lastly to the bed of mould
Where there's neither heat nor cold.
But from my grave across my brow
Plays no wind of healing now,
And fire and ice within me fight
Beneath the suffocating night. — A.E. Housman

If I am guilty of anything it is of believing what God said about children: 'Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for such is the Kingdom of Heaven.' In no way do I think that I am God, but I try to be God-like in my heart. — Michael Jackson

I have decided to keep a record of my inmost real-self thoughts. Perhaps it will help me to find out what I really am like: horrid, I know: selfish, conceited, and material-minded. For instance, lately whenever I've tried to concentrate on anything serious or beautiful, I've started thinking about the Spencers' dance next week. I am ashamed of my pettiness. I'm going to try to do better this year
develop my character more and not always be thinking about enjoying myself. I've always been so happy, I dread disappointment and unhappiness, but they would be good for me. But I don't want them. — Rosamond Lehmann

So just tell me what you like on the menu, and we'll negotiate."
All that is required is that you taste what is ordered. You do not have to eat it."
No, no more of this tasting shit. I've gained weight. I never gain weight."
You have gained four pounds, so I am told. Though I have searched diligently for this phantom four pounds and cannot find them. It brings your weight up to a grand total of one hundred and ten pounds, correct?"
That's right."
Oh, ma petite, you are growing gargantuan." I looked at him, and it was not a friendly look. — Laurell K. Hamilton

to speak to anyone on her way, and by no means to speak to any Free State soldier, for if she does, we will be killed here. They will kill us as easily as they killed Willie on the mountain, that's for sure. I would say to you, we will kill you if she speaks, but I am not sure if we would.' My father looked at him surprised. And it seemed so honest and polite a thing to say, I resolved to do as he asked, and speak to no one. 'And anyhow, we have no bullets, which is why we stayed in the heather, like hares, and didn't stir. I would we had stirred, lads,' said the brother of the dead man, 'and risen up, and thrun ourselves at them, because this is no way to stand in the world, with Willie dead, and us living.' And — Sebastian Barry

Listen to me. I did not wish to be summoned by your Princess. Summoned, I did not wish to come. But having been summoned, and having come, I mean to give a good account of myself. That's how I was taught by my father, and the men of his age who slew Kings and swept away not merely Governments but whole Systems of Thought, like Khans of the Mind. I would have my son in Boston know of my doings, and be proud of them, and carry my ways forward to another generation on another continent. Any opponent who does not know this about me, stands at a grave disadvantage; a disadvantage I am not above profiting from. — Neal Stephenson

Most bodybuilders only have a hazy notion of what they want to look like. They do not say, 'I am going to be a winner.' The negative impulses around the gym can be incredible. I would hear bodybuilders complaining, 'Oh,no! Not another set!' That destroyed them. I have always believed that if you're training for nothing, you're wasting your effort! — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Ordinary philosophy is like a hound hunting his own tail. The more he hunts the farther he has to go, and his nose never catches up with his heels, because it is forever ahead of them. So the present is already a foregone conclusion, and I am ever too late to understand it...The truth is that we travel on a journey that was accomplished before we set out; and the real end of philosophy is accomplished, not when we arrive at, but when we remain in, our destination (being already there) - which may occur vicariously in this life when we cease our intellectual questioning — Benjamin Paul Blood

What would she tell me, about the Commander, if she were here? Probably she'd disapprove. She disapproved of Luke, back then. Not of Luke but of the fact that he was married. She said I was poaching, on another woman's ground. I said Luke wasn't a fish or a piece of dirt either, he was a human being and could make his own decisions. She said I was rationalizing. I said I was in love. She said that was no excuse. Moira was always more logical than I am. I said she didn't have that problem herself anymore, since she'd decided to prefer women, and as far as I could see she had no scruples about stealing them or borrowing them when she felt like it. She said it was different, because the balance of power was equal between women so sex was an even-steven transaction. I said "even Steven" was a sexist phrase, if she was going to be like that, and anyway that argument was outdated. She said I had trivialized the issue and if I thought it was outdated I was living with my head in the sand. We — Margaret Atwood