I Am Not Second Best Quotes & Sayings

one dream had him chased by a giant pumpkin wielding knives, while a later dream had him chased by a giant knife wielding pumpkins. The first had been scarier, yet curiously it was the second that jerked him from his slumber. — Drew Hayes

We enter upon a stage which we did not design and we find ourselves part of an action that was not of our making. Each of us being a main character in his own drama plays subordinate parts in the dramas of others, and each drama constrains the others. In my drama, perhaps, I am Hamlet or Iago or at least the swineherd who may yet become a prince, but to you I am only A Gentleman or at best Second Murderer, while you are my Polonius or my Gravedigger, but your own hero. Each of our dramas exerts constraints on each other's, making the whole different from the parts, but still dramatic. — Alasdair MacIntyre

I've always said that I favour an elected second chamber and I think it's important that there are members of the House of Lords who are willing to vote for their own demise. — Jim Knight

One should make the best choice possible given the circumstances, and then avoid second-guessing for the sake of one's own sanity. — Lisa Kleypas

The best of all things is something entirely outside your grasp: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best thing for you is to die soon. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Even now, she wished she could write a note, push it across the table, and go away to her room. But she was no longer a Second Assistant Librarian of the Great Library of the Clayr. Those days were gone, vanished with everything else that had defined her previous existence and identity. — Garth Nix

Great minds have sought you--lacking someone else.
You have been second always. Tragical?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing — Ezra Pound

Don't live your life like an attempt, because if you fail there is no second attempt. — Amit Kalantri

I came into my teens unaware that most Americans, blacks as well as whites, were ignorant of the main facts of Negro history. And so it was the facts of other histories that I found most intriguing. I fell into a U.S. history major by chance late in my second year at Fisk University. — David Levering Lewis

I loved you then and I love you now and I have loved you every second in between. — Stephen King

One second, we are surrounded by angels holding their swords. The next second, one of their arms drops and his sword thunks to the grass like a lead weight. The angel stares at his blade uncomprehendingly.
Another sword drops.
Then another.
Then a whole bunch, until all the other unsheathed swords fall, thudding on the grass like subjects bowing down to their queen.
The angels stare at the swords at their feet in utter shock.
Then everyone looks at me. Actually, it's probably more accurate to say they're looking at my sword.
"Whoa." That's about the most intelligent thing I can say right now. Did Raffe say something about an archangel sword intimidating other angel swords if she could gain their respect?
I swivel my eyes to look at the blade in my hands. Was that you, Pooky Bear? — Susan Ee

People go on about the first time being important, but it's the second time that really matters. Or the second person, anyway. — Nick Hornby

The second part of it, which I think is really critical, is understanding that being creative means that you have to sell your ideas. — Jocelyn K. Glei

Chance is a second master. — Pliny The Elder

My second album was written while I was on the road promoting the first record. I tried to take my personal experiences and elevate them to universal experiences, so that I wasn't writing songs about living on a tour bus or being on a TV set for the first time. — Kate Voegele

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

Well, Nero," Genghis said, "I just wanted to give you this rose-a small gift of congratulations for the wonderful concert you gave us last night!"
"Oh, thank you," Nero said, taking the rose out of Genghis's hand and giving it a good smell. "I was wonderful, wasn't I?"
"You were perfection!" Genghis said. "The first time you played your sonata, I was deeply moved. The second time, I had tears in my eyes. The third time, I was sobbing. The fourth time, I had an uncontrollable emotional attack. The fifth time-" The Baudelaires did not hear about the fifth time because Nero's door swung shut behind them. — Lemony Snicket

There are two kinds of businesses: The first earns 12%, and you can take it out at the end of the year. The second earns 12%, but all the excess cash must be reinvested - there's never any cash. It reminds me of the guy who looks at all of his equipment and says, 'There's all of my profit.' We hate that kind of business. — Charlie Munger

Dutton, the home of Winnie the Pooh, would find a second identity as a home for gay fiction. — Christopher Bram

In Shara's estimation, lists form one half of the heart of intelligence, the second half being patience. Most espionage work, after all, is a matter of collecting data and categorizing it: who belongs to which group, and why; where are they now, and how are we sure, and do we have someone else in the region; and now that we have cataloged those groups, what threat level should they be categorized under; and so on, and so on, and so on. — Robert Jackson Bennett

I had great femme mentors, I had good role models of gentle men, I found ways to be a butch that did not require being an ass in public, ways of masculinity that were not misogyny - which is what I see more often than I used to these days, this way of butches distancing themselves from any and all things feminine by embodying the worst excesses of men, from relatively harmless ones like spitting on the street and wearing too much cheap cologne to behaving as though women were an entirely separate species of second-class citizen, the objects of jokes and derision. — S. Bear Bergman

Everything we do - our whole life, Greenie - revolves around the Maze. Every lovin' second of every lovin' day we spend in honor of the Maze, tryin' to solve somethin' that's not shown us it has a bloody solution, — James Dashner

One day Mom came to my hospital room and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing me. I could already see tears forming in the corners of her eye. She said she had something to tell me. Whatever she was about to say was hard for her to get out. Her voice was noticeably shaky and her chin quivered as she spoke.
"Noah, I've got to leave and get back to work. And besides, I am helping you too much. You need to be doing more on your own." She couldn't hold it back at all and by the time she finished the second sentence the tears were streaming down her rosy cheeks.
After a few deep breaths, she continued, "But your dad is here, and you know Dad, he's not that helpful." We both laughed at that as she leaned forward on the bed and grabbed my hand. I told her that I understood and that yes, it was probably best because Dad would help but not too much. — Noah Galloway

I'm so sorry, Henri," I whisper in his ear. I close my eyes. "I love you. I wouldn't have missed a second of it, either. Not for anything," I whisper. "I'm going to take you back yet. Somehow I am going to get you back to Lorien. We always joked about it but you were my father, the best father I could have ever asked for. I'll never forget you, not for a minute for as long as I live. I love you, Henri. I always did. — Pittacus Lore

I am Outcast."
"The kids behind me laugh so loud I know they're laughing about me. I can't help myself. I turn around. It's Rachel, surrounded by a bunch of kids wearing clothes that most definitely did not come from the EastSide Mall. Rachel Bruin, my ex-best friend. She stares at something above my left ear. Words climb up my throat. This was the girl who suffered through Brownies with me, who taught me how to swim, who understood about my parents, who didn't make fun of my bedroom. If there is anyone in the entire galaxy I am dying to tell what really happened, it's Rachel. My throat burns."
"Her eyes meet mine for a second. "I hate you," she mouths silently. — Laurie Halse Anderson

Some years ago a writer not much older than I am now told me (not bitterly, but matter-of-factly) that it was a good thing that I, as a young writer, did not have to face the darkness that he faced every day, the knowledge that his best work was behind him. And another, in his eighties, told me that what kept him going every day was the knowledge that his best work was still out there, the great work that he would one day do.
I aspire to the condition of the second of my friends, I like the idea that one day I'll do something that really works, even if I fear that I've been saying the same things for over thirty years. As we get older, each thing we do, each thing we write reminds us of something else we've done. Events rhyme. Nothing quite happens for the first time anymore. — Neil Gaiman

What I have always liked best is when he talks about having no memory. No memory of things he'd done just a second before. Good or bad. Because memory is time folding back on itself. To remember is to disengage from the present. In order to reach any success in automobile racing, a driver must never remember. Which is why drivers compulsively record their every move, their every race, with cockpit cameras, in-car video, data mapping; a driver cannot be a witness to his own greatness. This is what Danny says. He says racing is doing. It is being a part of a moment and being aware of nothing else but that moment. Reflection must come at a later time. The great champion Julian Sabella Rosa has said: When I am racing, my mind and my body are working so quickly and so well together, I must be sure not to think, or else I will definitely make a mistake. — Garth Stein

Morpheus grunts, low in his chest. "I am not going to wait around and play second fiddle to Jebediah while your mortal side grows to understand and trust me."
"You're not second best. You and I get to have forever. Forever . Jeb has one life. It's only fair I spend it with him." I dance around the truth, as close as I'm willing to get.
" Fair? All this time, he's been with you during your waking hours. I've ever only had you in your dreams. I want you in reality. I've waited for what feels like a thousand years already. It is time for our forever to begin." — A.G. Howard

I am not good at first or second impressions, and you have to spend some time with me to know me. Also, I don't want to put my best foot forward and prove something, as that is not me. I would rather be me and have you like me for who I am, instead of being someone else. — Emraan Hashmi

I said that I am in love with you. I've tried not to be, I really have, but it's just useless. I know you don't feel the same way about me, but I had to tell you because ... well, you're all I think about. All the time. I miss you every second that you're not with me ... and I know you won't want to be around me anymore, but, Camilla ... you're one of the best friends I've ever had. You're smart and amazing and weird and probably the most beautiful person I've ever seen ... and before I met you, all I wanted was just to fast-forward through everything. But, really, I think my life was just paused, or something. You ... made me press play. You made everything move. And no matter where you go, or whatever you feel about me ... I will love you forever for that. — Melissa Keil

I remind myself that if there was anything in the air that would react with my body, it would've reacted with the scanner. What I really want right now is a second scanner to scan this scanner. — Hugh Howey

The only thing worse than finishing second is to be lying on the desert alone with your back broken. Either way, nobody ever finds out about you. — Henry Russell Sanders

Your actions are catalysts to another's actions. One could last a second, another could last to the end of mankind. Share kindness, plant the seed, help humanity overcome their greed. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

The most dangerous of devotions, in my opinion, is the one endemic to Christianity: I was not born to be of this world. With a second life waiting, suffering can be endured
especially in other people. The natural environment can be used up. Enemies of the faith can be savaged and suicidal martyrdom praised. — E. O. Wilson

I didn't want to go down any scarier path of low self-esteem than I was already on the track for. So during my second year of college I was like, 'I'm over it! I have to go see what this other thing called life is about!' — Anna Chlumsky

Man is not an end but a beginning. We are at the beginning of the second week. We are children of the eighth day. — Thornton Wilder

The law which attempts a man's life [capital punishment] is impractical, unjust, inadmissible. It has never repressed crime
for a second crime is every day committed at the foot of the scaffold. — Marquis De Sade

What use to me are your nature, your Pavlovsk Park, your sunrises and sunsets, your blue sky and your all-satisfied faces, when the whole of this feast, which has no end, began by considering me alone superfluous? What is there for me in all this beauty, when at each minute, each second, I'm now compelled to be aware that even this tiny housefly buzzing around me in the sunbeam now, even it is a participant in all this feast and chorus, knows its place, loves it and is happy, while I alone am an outcast, — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

And there he was. Standing not five feet away from me. It took me a second to realize, and then I was airborn and throwing myself at him. — Chelsea M. Cameron

It was one of those rare times of shared happiness, of perfect contentment. We had a feeling of expectation, that what was already wonderful would only get better and better as time went on. These moments are one of the rarest, most fragile things in the world. You have to seize the day; you have to recall all the rotten, dirty things you endured to earn this peace. You have to remember to enjoy each minute, each hour, because although you may feel like it's going to last forever, the world plans otherwise. You want to be grateful for every precious second, but you simply can't do it. It's not in human nature to live life to the fullest. Haven't your ever noticed that equal amounts of pain and joy are not, in fact, equal in duration? Pain drags on until you wonder if life will ever be bearable again; pleasure, though, once it's reached its peak, fades faster than a trodden gardenia, and your memory searches in vain for the sweet scent. — George Alec Effinger

One day, Buckley came home from the second grade with a story he'd written: Once upon a time there was a kid named Billy. He liked to explore. He saw a hole and went inside but he never came out. The End. — Alice Sebold

She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversations in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second. — Nicholas Sparks

And for a second she weakens, and the way she used to look at him flashes across her face, and then it's gone, replaced by near hate. It's the saddest thing he's ever seen. It's a tragedy. — Luke Smitherd

Good memories are our second chance at happiness. — Queen Elizabeth II

When we encounter unexpected obstacles in finding out something which we wish to know, there are two possible courses to take. It may be that the right course is to treat the obstacle as a spur to further efforts; but there is a second possibility - that we have been trying to find something which does not exist. You will remember that that was how the relativity theory accounted for the apparent concealment of our velocity through the aether. — Arthur Stanley Eddington

If I must choose between healthy and tasty, I go for the second: having only one life to waste, it might as well be a pleasurable one. — Yotam Ottolenghi

I did not imagine that the second half of my life would be spent on efforts to avert a mortal danger to humanity created by science. — Joseph Rotblat

I didn't say, "I'll call you." I didn't hug her because of the wet clothes. Just a quick kiss. Then I turned and left. I made my way quietly down the hallway to the stairwell. I could tell she thought she wasn't going to see me again. I had to admit she might be right. The knowledge was as damp and dispiriting as my sodden clothes. I came to the first floor and looked out at the entranceway of the building. For a second I pictured the way she had hugged me here. It already seemed like a long time ago. I felt an unpleasant mixture of gratitude and longing, streaked with guilt and regret. And in a flash of insight, cutting with cold clarity through the fog of my fatigue, I realized what I hadn't been able to articulate earlier, not even to myself, when she'd asked me what I was afraid of. It had been this, the moment after, when I would come face to face with knowing that it would all end badly, if not this morning, then the next one. Or the one after that. — Barry Eisler

A pretty handsome jerk, I might add, but a huge, colossal megajerk nonetheless. Kenzie gave me a quick glance to see how I was taking this. I shrugged.
Not going to argue with that.
And then a second later:
She thought I was handsome? — Julie Kagawa

Playing video games was all fine and well. When you were killed in a game, you just started again. In this Shadowrealm, though, there were no second chances, and a lot more ways to die. — Michael Scott