I Am Not So Bad Quotes & Sayings

That's the pathetic thing about high school. Everyone tries so hard to be something they aren't. It's gotten so I don't know who I am, so how can I even try to be who I am, much less who I'm not?
My problem is that I don't even fit in with the misfits.
I don't fit anywhere. — Katie Alender

She was still hugging the cat. "Poor slob," she said, tickling his head, "poor slob without a name. It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't any right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like." She smiled, and let the cat drop to the floor. "It's like Tiffany's," she said.
[ ... ]
It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name. — Truman Capote

Do you know, I am putting off ending this letter as though the end would be the end of something I want to hold on to. That's not true of course - just a feeling like the quick one of hexing your trip so you couldn't go. The mind is capable of any selfishness and it thinks unworthy things whether you want it or not. Best to admit it is a bad child rather than to pretend it is always a good one. Because a bad child can improve but a good one is a liar and nothing can improve a liar. — John Steinbeck

Rubbing herself against a sleeping man just wasn't on. It was morally questionable. Probably illegal. Definitely icky. But why oh why did bad things always feel so damn good? Just once more, she promised herself as she pushed back into him again. "Addie, I am not made of stone. — Amy Andrews

Had I not had the childhood I did, would these traits not be so at the forefront of my personality? Who knows? All I know is that I am the product of all the experiences I have had, good and bad, and if I am in a happy place in my life (as I truly am), then I can have no regrets about any of the combination of events and circumstances that have led me to the here and now. — Alan Cumming

I am delighted to have you play football. I believe in rough, manly sports. But I do not believe in them if they degenerate into the sole end of any one's existence. I don't want you to sacrifice standing well in your studies to any over-athleticism; and I need not tell you that character counts for a great deal more than either intellect or body in winning success in life. Athletic proficiency is a mighty good servant, and like so many other good servants, a mighty bad master. — Theodore Roosevelt

I am a good runner. There are many faster, but not so many for whom it has been as necessary to learn to become nothing but flight. — Peter S. Beagle

I'm not helping you kill anybody else. It's just not happening. I'm done.""What makes you think you have a choice?""You know why? I'll tell you. Because we were just kissing in the street, and deep down, I don't believe you could actually blow up my house or kill my sister. I just don't, and she's probably not even in the house anymore anyway, so if you want to go in there and shoot somebody, fine, but you're on your own."Gobi paused, seeming to consider all of this. "What is it that you want to hear from me, Perry? Do you want me to tell you that these are bad people that I am killing tonight? Because they are. They are very bad people. They deserve to die, each and every one of them.""Nobody deserves to die.""Oh, really?""Okay, I mean, maybe people like Hitler and Pol Pot . . . dictators, tyrants, African warlords who starve their people into submission . . . but that guy at the bar wasn't an evil man.""How do you know? Because he had drinks with Hemingway?""I just know. — Joe Schreiber

You, you buy into all this stuff about good guys and bad guys in the world. A loan shark breaks a guy's leg for not paying his debt, a banker throws a guy out of his home for the same reason, and you think there's a difference, like the banker's just doing his job but the loan shark's a criminal. I like the loan shark better because he doesn't pretend to be anything else, and I think the banker should be where I am sitting right now. I'm not going to live some life where I pay my fucking taxes and fetch the boss a lemonade at the company picnic and buy life insurance. Get older, get fatter, so I can join a men's club in Back Bay, smoke cigars with a bunch of assholes in a back room somewhere, talk about my squash game and my kid's grades. Die at my desk, and they'll already have scraped my name off the office door before the dirt's hit the coffin. — Dennis Lehane

Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one's first feeling, 'Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that,' or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything
God and our friends and ourselves included
as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred. — C.S. Lewis

I am not a music snob. If anything, my musical taste is bad by any critical standards. My favorite song of all time is "Come On Eileen" by Dexys Midnight Runners. A close second is "MMMBop" by Hansen. So I am not out there claiming any musical superiority, but Creed really does suck. Bad music, pretentious lyrics, and a messianic front man. Also they are from Flordia. No good rock music has ever come from Flordia. Undoubtedly, there will be legions of offended readers who think to themselves, What are you talking about! Such-and-such band is from Flordia and they're freaking awesome! No, whatever band you are thinking of, if they are from Flordia, they suck. Not as much as Creed, but they still suck. — Michael Ian Black

Ivanov: I am a bad, pathetic and worthless individual. One needs to be pathetic, too, worn out and drained by drink, like Pasha, to be still fond of me and to respect me. My God, how I despise myself! I so deeply loathe my voice, my walk, my hands, these clothes, my thoughts. Well, isn't that funny, isn't that shocking? Less than a year ago I was healthy and strong, I was cheerful, tireless, passionate, I worked with these very hands, I could speak to move even Philistines to tears, I could cry when I saw grief, I became indignant when I encountered evil. I knew inspiration, I knew the charm and poetry of quiet nights when from dusk to dawn you sit at your desk or indulge you mind with dreams. I believed, I looked into the future as into the eyes of my own mother ... And now, my God, I am exhausted, I do not believe, I spend my days and nights in idleness. — Anton Chekhov

I've been thinking about that ever since. Am I lucky? Am I lucky that I didn't die? Am I lucky that, compared to the other kids here, my life doesn't seem so bad? Maybe I am, but I have to say, I don't feel lucky. For one thing, I'm stuck in this pit. And just because your life isn't as awful as someone else's, that doesn't mean it doesn't suck. You can't compare how you feel to the way other people feel. It just doesn't work. What might look like the perfect life - or even an okay life - to you might not be so okay for the person living it. — Michael Thomas Ford

Please do not think that I am accusing socialists of insincerity or that I wish to hold them up to scorn either as bad democrats or as unprincipled schemers and opportunists. I fully believe, in spite of the childish Machiavellism in which some of their prophets indulge, that fundamentally most of them always have been as sincere in their professions as any other men. Besides, I do not believe in insincerity in social strife, for people always come to think what they want to think and what they incessantly profess. As regards democracy, socialist parties are presumably no more opportunists than are any others; they simply espouse democracy if, as, and when it serves their ideals and interests and not otherwise. Lest readers should be shocked and think so immoral a view worthy only of the most callous of political practitioners, ... — Joseph Alois Schumpeter

Anais: 'I made a note to ask you why I am obsessed with a few persons only. Why are my devotions so concentrated on a few people? I do not spread out as Henry does.' Dr. Allendy: 'Yes, exactly, it is a bad sign. You do not really confide in many people, then they do not know you, and then you quickly surmise they do not understand and love you. On the few people you feel connected with, you pour a lavish devotion. This must cease. In love, too, one must relinquish to really love. You cannot admit rivalry. The more broadly and expansively you love, without exclusiveness, the more you reach the mystic whole, the larger sense of love, the less individualistic, the more universal love. — Anais Nin

She was talking too loud now, shouting almost, and a long silence followed. Why was she being like this? He was only trying to help. In what way did he benefit from this friendship? He should get up and walk away, that's what he should do. They turned to look at each other at the same time.
"Sorry," he said.
"No, I'm sorry."
"What are you sorry for?"
"Rattling on like a ... .mad cow. I'm sorry, I'm tired, bad day, and I'm sorry for being ... so boring."
"You're not that boring."
"I am, Dex. God, I swear, I bore myself."
"Well you don't bore me." He took her hand in his. "You couldd never bore me. You're one in a million, Em."
"I'm not even one in three."
He kicked her foot with his. "Em?"
"What?"
"Just take it, will you? Just shut up and take it. — David Nicholls

We tell each other everything. You take the rap for bad things I do, we have this amazing time together and then all day in classes you ignore me like I don't exist. And I have to watch you and Sally together, and you licking her arse and not telling her about me. And when she says something mean to me you just stand there. I don't even answer back like I used to, I take it and you just stand there and let her speak to me the way she does. What about the fact that I am your best friend now? How do you think that feels, Flo? It feels HORRIBLE, that is how it feels. HORRIBLE.'
I leave her standing in the rain. I deliberately go slowly so she can catch me up, but she doesn't. I get all the way home and she never comes after me. — Dawn O'Porter

It's not like I don't want to play the guy next door. But sometimes they're not the best written or the most complicated. But I am very, very particular about my bad boys. There are certain types of characters I will not play. I've said no so many times to so many parts that are just way too dark. You have to be careful. — Kim Coates

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

Again there are so many records which contain fond memories and music and songs of which I have to say I am quite proud. There are a couple of tracks which in retrospect on which I now wish I had pushed the red button, however I'm sure this is true of any artist career that has spanned the number of years that mine has. I do not believe however that I have ever made a bad record and I have certainly never made a record to which I didn't give my complete commitment. — Greg Lake

The more it changes, the more it's the same thing. But overall, things have changed. I say changed and not "changed for the better" because I am no fool. Fate is a total drama queen. The second you say things are better than they were, she'll come stumbling toward you on her six-inch heels, nasty-ass wig crooked and on sideways. You'll wonder exactly how she got all that makeup slathered onto her face. One nicotine-caked fake fingernail will point at you, and she will make sure that things are anything but better from there on out. So no, thank you. Things are different but not better and, in fact, could get much much worse, so fuck off, Fate! Is she gone? Whew. Things had changed at school and not in a bad way(crosses fingers and hope that doesn't count as pissing Fate off). — John Goode

Democracy is only good for a society where individuals are educated and have the ability to differentiate right from wrong without any influences from the outside. India is the biggest democracy in the world, yet, why is it so venal, divided and poor? America is the greatest democracy of the world, yet, it only has two main political parties, which are heavily influenced by lobbyists from religious groups, and powerful institutions like businesses, trade unions and think-tanks. In contrast, China is a nation ruled by one party, yet it has prospered during the last three decades, which is nothing less than a miracle. No other country on earth has ever achieved that feat. No system is good or bad for all. I am not saying democracy is bad, but it is not good for all. It can be good or bad for certain periods of time, circumstances and societies. There is no such thing as one idea fits all."

FROM MY NO.7 BOOK COMING SOON.... — Tim I. Gurung

I don't believe it!Are you telling me that these ugly creepers have left the Land of Maradonia? And ... they are now in their old world?"
King Apollyon, ruler of the Underworld, stood with his two sons, Abbadon and Plouton, in the empty cave of the unicorns and anger aroused within him.
Prince Abbadon shivered fearfully. His red rimmed eyes gaped wide. He looked so frightful, so pitiful and gestured wildly with both hands. Then he took a deep shuddering breath when he said: "Yes, but we know where they might be. We have information from our outposts telling us that Maya and Joey have reached their world in a region which is called Oceanside. Yes, Father, the discouraging truth is that the teenagers disappeared and it is very difficult to pinpoint them again, because they slipped into a different world. — Gloria Tesch

I'm not crying out for help, but I am sharing my experience in the hopes that readers will get something out of it. I'm not the one who gets to decide what that is, if anything. I'm just starting the "journey" if you will, so I can't possibly know yet what the "message" of my life really is. I only know what has happened so far, and how I've felt up until this moment. I agree that reading about the pain of others is concerning when they are still hurting and in the same situation as when they wrote about it. But what can you do? You can reach out, ask how you can help and be there to listen. You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. You can't love someone who doesn't love themselves enough to take care of themselves and stay out of bad situations. Believe me, I know this. — Ashly Lorenzana

I am not quite sure what the advantage is in having a few more dollars to spend if the air is too dirty to breathe, the water too polluted to drink, the commuters are losing out in the struggle to get in and out of the city, the streets are filthy, and the schools so bad that the young perhaps wisely stay away, and the hoodlums roll citizens for some of the dollars they saved in the tax cut. — John Kenneth Galbraith

I was brought up an atheist and have always remained so. But at no time was I led to believe that morality was unimportant or that good and bad did not exist. I believe passionately in the need to distinguish between right and wrong and am somewhat confounded by being told I need God, Jesus or a clergyman to help me to do so. — Nigella Lawson

Maybe Artist is hard job. It is not for me to say. But I would be surprised if it was as hard a job as Rock Thrower. Throwing rocks is not so easy. For example, five years ago, one of my shoulders detached from my arm when I was throwing a boulder off a cliff. And two years after that, the other shoulder detached also. I can still throw rocks. But now, when I throw them, I am screaming. Not just once in a while, but constantly. Every time I throw a rock I am screaming, so loud. I do not always realize I am screaming - it is just part of my life. Usually, by sundown, I have no voice left. It is gone, you understand, because I was screaming so much from the pain of throwing rocks. Another thing is that sometimes I fall off the cliff, which is a bad situation. — Simon Rich

I am the only one of us who brings in any money. the other two cannot make money fortune telling. this is because they only tell the truth, and the truth is not what people want to hear. it is a bad thing and it troubles people, so they do not come back. — Neil Gaiman

Calm down. I'm a demon, Nick. Hematite doesn't like my genetics. It doesn't mean anything other than I have really bad parentage."
"Then why am I having flashes of you killing me?"
"What'd you eat this morning?"
Nick didn't care for that answer. Not one little bit. "I saw it happen. You were choking the life out of me."
Caleb rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah. That is definitely a figment of your overactive, over-Hollywood-stimulated imagination. I assure you. I don't kill people that way. Takes too long. I'm not into torture. I prefer a quick death so that I can move on to something more satisfying."
Strangely enough, that he believed. Patience wasn't a virtue Caleb practiced. "You sure?"
"Dude, look at me. You think I'd have let the demons pound all over me last night so that you could escape if I had any intention of killing you? Really? — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I read neither good nor bad about me. I let it not even in my life, so it has no effect on me. I am very sensitive. — Bette Midler

So while I drove my little and planned his fantasy night of how I was going to give Otter the key to my soul (his words, not mine), I silently panicked and wrote lines of bad poetry. Normally, I am quite adept at writing poems and lyrics to songs I'l never sing, but this stuff was just atrocious. For example:
I love you
You love me
Thank God for that
I'm so happy
And Ty's personal favorite (which he helped me on):
Otter! Otter! Otter!
Don't lead cows to slaughter
I love you and I know
I should've told you soon-a
But you didn't buy the dolphin-safe tuna!
TY asked me if I got the hidden message in his poem. I told him it was loud and clear. — T.J. Klune

I think the 'Just say no' mentality is so crazed. I saw a thing in a women's magazine the other day. 'He smokes cannabis, what am I to do? He laughs it off when I try to tell him, he says it's not really harmful ... ' Of course you're half hoping the advice will be, 'Well, you know it's not that harmful; if you love him, if you talk to him about it, tell him maybe he should keep it in the garden shed or something,' you know, a reasonable point of view. But of course it was, 'No, no, all drugs are bad. Librium's good, Valium's good. But cannabis, ooooh!' I hate that unreasoned attitude. — Paul McCartney

I realized that the wonder is not that conditions are so bad, but that humanity has advanced so far in spite of them. & now I am in the fight to change things. I may be a dreamer, but dreamers are necessary to make facts! — Helen Keller

I didn't need to transform after all.
My name is Harriet Manners and I am a geek.
And maybe that's not so bad after all. — Holly Smale

There are problems connected with infidelity and problems connected with being faithful at any cost, and I am for letting those concerned choose the problems they'd prefer. There need not be one rule for all. Infidelity is enlarging and fragmenting and very very dangerous, but it has been known to retrieve people as well as marriages, so it can't be only bad. — Merle Shain

Science has the capacity to uplift us to heights of undreamed of sophistication and quality of life or to drag us down into an abyss, from which we may never return. I do not believe science and/or technology are bad. However, I am very concerned with the beliefs the majority of scientists have about the world, which is its overriding view of reality - the mainstream scientific worldview. I believe it is the greatest weakness of science and so the greatest weakness of modern society and poses a serious risk, as we accelerate toward the biggest upheaval in human history, within the context of the enormity of global issues we face. — Jonathan R. Banks

I am not a child, and I know plenty of love. Love is wanting to be with that person for the rest of your life no matter of the consequences. Love is being willing to sacrifice your life for somebody else." He met his father's eyes, "Love is seeing the good in somebody regardless of their title or station in life. Love is so painful and yet so wonderful that it is worth it!" Emane pushed himself back up again from the table speaking deliberately. "Love is understanding that someday you might lose the person that you love, but that every day you get to spend with them is worth the risk. Love is taking the good with the bad." His voice rose with each sentiment. "Love is trust. Love is wanting to understand even when you don't." Staring at his father, Emane added, "I know of love, Father, and I did not learn it from Ciera. — Devri Walls

Dearest Charles
I found a box of this paper at the back of a bureau so I must write to you as I am mourning for my lost innocence. It never looked like living. The doctors despaired of it from the start ... I am never quite alone. Members of my family keep turning up and collecting luggage and going away again, but the white raspberries are ripe. I have a good mind not to take Aloysius to Venice. I don't want him to meet a lot of horrid Italian bears and pick up bad habits. Love or what you will. S. — Evelyn Waugh

Sorry' he said. 'No, I'm sorry.' 'What are you sorry for?' 'Rattling on like a mad old cow. I'm sorry, I'm tired, bad day, and I'm sorry for being so ... boring.' 'You're not that boring.' 'I am, Dex. God, I swear I bore myself.' 'Well, you don't bore me.' He took her hand in his. 'You could never bore me. You're one in a million, Em. — David Nicholls

Yeah, I lied and I shouldn't have and it was lousy of me and I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you, I never wanted that, and I wish so bad I could take it all back, okay? But we both know which one of us is lying now and it's not me. So you call me when you want to actually talk to me and not just yell at me or tell me what a shitty person I am. I already ... yeah, I already know that, okay? — Stacia Kane

Butterhorn?" Ben asked, holding out a bag full of pastries.
"Well, you did condemn yourself to bad luck just to get them for me," I said, "So absolutely!"
"Yeah," Ben agreed, "they'd better be worth it."
"Mmmm, completely worth it," I said with my mouth full. "The rest of you have to have some of these."
"Hmmm," Sage mused, examining his, "no garlic. I'm not entirely sure my taste buds will know how to handle this."
"Um, you guys," Rayna asked, "where am I driving?"
"Excellent question-let's find out!" I pulled the cribbage board out of duffel bag and handed it to Sage, pointing out the longitude and latitude notations on the back. "Where is that?"
Sage took out his phone, then entered the coordinates. "Interesting."
"What?" I asked. "It's not Antarctica, is it? I didn't pack a parka. — Hilary Duff

For very long periods I am really patient, and then out breaks my bad temper. It is not so difficult to bear great trials, but these little buzzing mosquitos are so trying. — Robert Alexander

I am a diamond in the rut. A diamond to an untrained eye looks like a rock stone. So men will kick it around on the ground. It takes a man with an expert eye for fine Jewelry to notice its worth. Do not feel bad when men treat you like the little boys in Africa who gave away stones in exchange for candy. The hungry boys thought they were getting something better but had exchange wealth for a sugar high. Some men will do that. Exchange a valuable woman for the transient high of another. The boys didn't know better and so do some of these men. They don't know your worth. — Crystal Evans

If people don't like my style, then I can't do anything about that. I have been like that since I first entered into the game and it hasn't done me bad in the past, so I am not going to change now. — Alan Shearer

He was the son of this bitchy book reviewer. Totally blasted my first book. Called all my lovely kinksters 'sick' and 'abusive.' So I got my payback by sickly abusing her youngest all night long."
"And you felt guilty about that?"
"Not the sex. The note I sent Mom the next day."
"You sent his mother a note after you seduced her son? What did it say?"
"It said..." Nora began, and paused for a breath. Not one of her prouder moments. "It said, 'Your son gave me five stars last night. And five fingers.'"
"You're smiling."
"I'm trying so hard to feel bad about it. I swear to God I am. — Tiffany Reisz

There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see the colored
men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before. So I am for keeping the thing going while things are stirring; because if we wait till it is still, it will
take a great while to get it going again. — Sojourner Truth

Dear Stanley, It was wonderful to hear from you Your letter made me feel like one of the other moms who can afford to send their kids to summer camp. I know it's not the same, but I am very proud of you for trying to make the best of a bad situation. Who knows? Maybe something good will come of this. Your father thinks he is real close to a breakthrough on his sneaker project. I hope so. The landlord is threatening to evict us because of the odor. I feel sorry for the little old lady who lived in a shoe. It must have smelled awful! — Louis Sachar

Is this a case of "Do as I say, not as I do?" The reader has a perfect right to ask the question, and I have a duty to provide an honest answer. Yes. It is. You need only look back through some of my own fiction to know that I'm just another ordinary sinner. I've been pretty good about avoiding the passive tense, but I've spilled out my share of adverbs in my time, including some (it shames me to say it) in dialogue attribution. (I have never fallen so low as "he grated" or "Bill jerked out," though.) When I do it, it's usually for the same reason any writer does it: because I am afraid the reader won't understand me if I don't. I'm convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. — Stephen King

When I forget that the only way that God could stand to have me in his family was by crushing the Son he loves-that without the perfect record of someone else I could not stand before his judicious holiness, that on my own I do not have within me either the desire or the power to please God-I am tempted to believe that I'm really pretty good. And although I might need a nip or tuck, if I try hard enough, I can accomplish all he has called me to. It's when we forget the gospel, when we think we're not really all that bad, not so much in need, not so far from Christlikeness, that pride, arrogance, and the inevitable guilt crush hope and faith. — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

Man, what is your problem?" Leo grumbled. Percy blinked. "So ... I guess we're not cool?" "Of course we're not cool! You're as bad as Jason! I'm trying to resent you for being all perfect and hero-y and whatnot. Then you go and act like a standup guy. How am I supposed to hate you if you apologize and promise to help and stuff?" A smile tugged at the corner of Percy's mouth. "Sorry about that. — Rick Riordan

My wife is so analytical with raising kids, and I am not. My feeling is if they turn out good, then that means I was a good daddy and put a lot of effort into it. If they turn out bad, it means they took after her side of the family. — Jeff Foxworthy

I think unscripted variety television may or may not get a bad rap now, but it is a fabulous environment. It is exactly who I am, and there's so much creativity there to express. — James Pearse Connelly

I like writing books. I'd rather be at home with my wife. I can write, take a break, come out, have a glass of tea, give my wife a kiss, and go back in and write some more. It's not so bad. I am really lucky. — Gene Wilder

One thing I love about life and God: the creator of life.
Within a blink of an eye; things can change either good or bad. It depends on how you want it.
Good in the sense that luck will come to you; if you wish, want, need or even require the good changes.
But, bad same as good changes; but, if you are evil. The evil you did will bite you in the ass. Remember these quotes:
- You sow what you reap
- Karma is a bitch (if you are evil) or Karma is a blessing (if you are good)
- What goes around will eventually come around
- What goes up will come down
So be careful what you do to others.
That's why I am always cautious on the way I treat people. Yes; I am not perfect. But, I always try to be the best I can as a good and loving person despite my roots that is horrifying. — Temitope Owosela

I used to think that I wouldn't change anything from my past, because doing so would inevitably affect who I am now. But considering my current state, I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to go back in time to fix things. — Megan McCafferty

Not that I mind this in the least," he said quietly, reluctant to give up the intimacy but worried enough that he had to ask, "but is something troubling you, Sam?"
Her breath caught, then began again. Slowly she nodded against his chest. Christ.
Okay, it was bad. Calculating how hard he should push and how she would react, he decided to cajole her into talking. "You're not sick, are you?"
"No," she said, her voice muffled against his shirt.
So far, so good. "I'm not sick, am I?"
"No."
"No one's died?"
"No. No one at all."
Nearly complete sentences now. That seemed like an improvement. Keeping his voice calm and quiet and the questions over the top and nonthreatening, he kept talking. "You haven't stolen anything that will force you to flee the country? — Suzanne Enoch

It took me years, but letting go of religion has been the most profound wake up of my life. I feel I now look at the world not as a child, but as an adult. I see what's bad and it's really bad. But I also see what is beautiful, what is wonderful. And I feel so deeply appreciative that I am alive. How dare the religious use the term 'born again.' That truly describes freethinkers who've thrown off the shackles of religion so much better! — Julia Sweeney

In the beginning I revelled in being so rebellious and bad. I had recently discovered the new age book You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay, which incorporated the power of visualization and affirmations. Even then the book resonated, resulting in me asserting, 'I, Paris, am the best hooker in town!' repeatedly on the long drive to work. I am not sure this is what Louise Hay had in mind! — Joanne Brodie

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

He took a deep breath and held out his hand. "We got off to a bad start, but you're obviously a friend of Becks's."
Cole stared at his hand,stumped. He looked at me like, What the hell am I supposed to do with this? I'd never seen him so baffled.It was almost comical.
Then the second-to-last thing that I ever would have anticipated happened. Cole took Jack's hand and shook it. "I'm Neal."
"Jack." Jack briefly glanced sideways at me. "I'll try not to hit you again."
Cole and Jack, shaking hands. I covered my eyes with my fingers,wondering when the world had officially tipped over onto its side.When I lowered my hand, they were both looking at me.I'd had enough awkward.
"Let's go," I said, tugging on Jack's arm.
Cole frowned and looked away. "Take care of our girl," he muttered sarcastically. — Brodi Ashton

Our eyes meet. Am I mistaken or does the corner of her mouth tuck in ever so slightly and the petal of her lower lip curl out ever so richly? She is smiling-at me! My mind hits upon half a dozen schemes to circumvent the terrible moment of separation. No doubt she is a Texan. They are nearly always bad judges of men, these splendid Amazons. Most men are afraid of them and so they fall victim to the first little Mickey Rooney that comes along. In a better world I should be able to speak to her: come, darling, you can see that I love you. If you are planning to meet some little Mickey, think better of it. What a tragedy it is that I do not know her, will probably never see her again. What good times we could have! — Walker Percy

I am not suggesting that everything bad that happens to us is sent directly by a knowing hand - cooked up specially for our personal development. Nor do I mean that by using the stuff of life as grist for the mill you will learn what you need to learn and move on into a problem-free world. And I also don't recommend courting drama and disaster so that you can be broken open to the truth. A catastrophe is not a sign that God has singled you out for greatness. What I do mean is that you can use anything - everything - as a wake-up call; you can find a treasure trove of information about yourself and the world in the big trials and the little annoyances of daily life. If you turn around and face yourself in times of loss and pain, you will be given the key to a more truthful - and therefore a more joyful - life. — Elizabeth Lesser

There are times now, and my life has changed so completely, that I think back on the early years and I find myself thinking: It was not that bad. Perhaps it was not. But there are times, too - unexpected - when walking down a sunny sidewalk, or watching the top of a tree bend in the wind, or seeing a November sky close down over the East River, I am suddenly filled with the knowledge of darkness so deep that a sound might escape from my mouth, and I will step into the nearest clothing store and talk with a stranger about the shape of sweaters newly arrived. This must be the way most of us maneuver through the world, half knowing, half not, visited by memories that can't possibly be true. But when I see others walking with confidence down the sidewalk, as though they are free completely from terror, I realize I don't know how others are. So much of life seems speculation. — Elizabeth Strout

Yet this distance, all those abysses unbridged and then unbridgeable by radio, television, cheap travel and the rest, was not wholly bad. People knew less of each other, perhaps, but they felt more free of each other, and so were more individual. The entire world was not for them only a push or a switch away. Strangers were strange, and sometimes with an exciting, beautiful strangeness. It may be better for humanity that we should communicate more and more. But I am a heretic, I think our ancestors' isolation was like the greater space they enjoyed: it can only be envied. The world is only too literally too much with us now. — John Fowles

Being near Tom and Doug at night kept me from having to say to myself I am not afraid whenever I heard a branch snap in the dark or the wind shook so fiercely it seemed something bad was about to happen. But I wasn't out here to keep myself from having to say I am not afraid. I'd come, I'd realized, to stare that fear down, to stare everything down, really
all that I'd done to myself and all that had been done to me. I couldn't do that while tagging along with someone else. — Cheryl Strayed

I am a sick man ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man. I think my liver is diseased. However, I don't know beans about my disease, and I am not sure what is bothering me. I don't treat it and never have, though I respect medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious, let's say sufficiently so to respect medicine. (I am educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am.) No, I refuse to treat it out of spite. You probably will not understand that. Well, but I understand it. Of course I can't explain to you just whom I am annoying in this case by my spite. I am perfectly well aware that I cannot "get even" with the doctors by not consulting them. I know better than anyone that I thereby injure only myself and no one else. But still, if I don't treat it, its is out of spite. My liver is bad, well then
let it get even worse! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

By the way, leafing through my dictionary I am struck by the poverty of language when it comes to naming or describing badness. Evil, wickedness, mischief, these words imply an agency, the conscious or at least active doing of wrong. They do not signify the bad in its inert, neutral, self-sustaining state. Then there are the adjectives: dreadful, heinous, execrable, vile, and so on. They are not so much as descriptive as judgmental. They carry a weight of censure mingled with fear. Is this not a queer state of affairs? It makes me wonder. I ask myself if perhaps the thing itself - badness - does not exist at all, if these strangely vague and imprecise words are only a kind of ruse, a kind of elaborate cover for the fact that nothing is there. Or perhaps words are an attempt to make it be there? Or, again, perhaps there is something, but the words invented it. Such considerations make me feel dizzy, as if a hole had opened briefly in the world. — John Banville

I was so self-critical. I still am; but it's not as bad anymore. — Fiona Apple

So the real question for me as an educator is, if I go out and tell people that I think they are eating too much sugar, if I go out and tell mothers I think they should stop their kids from eating so much sugar because it is bad for them, am I going to get flak from the scientists? Or am I going to be allowed to make that statement without travail, on the grounds that even though we do not have hard evidence to link sugar with a specific disease, we do know that a dietary pattern containing considerably less sugar, in which sugar is replaced by a complex carbohydrate, would be a much healthier diet? JOAN GUSSOW, chairman, Columbia University nutrition department, 1975 I — Gary Taubes

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

Katherine:Anyway, if you're not bad, you can't be good.
Robbie:What? You have to be bad to be good? That's stupid. It doesn't make any sense at all.
Katherine:No. It doesn't, does it? What I mean was that if you see the bad in yourself, and dislike it, and try not to feel it, then that's good. Nobody's really good through and through. At least I don't think so. Trying to be good, or at least trying not to be bad, is probably as close as we can get.
Robbie:Maybe you're right.
Katherine:Maybe I am ... — Rebecca James

A lot of people would say "well that's not a bad reputation. you sound like a pussy" and I would say yea. but I am passionate about music and being taken seriously about my music, so if you're going to mess with that, we have a problem. — Joan Jett

He cleared his throat and held up one hand dramatically.
"Green grass breaks through snow.
Artemis pleads for my help.
I am so cool."
He grinned at us, waiting for applause.
"That last line was four syllables." Artemis said.
Apollo frowned. "Was it?"
"Yes. What about I am so bigheaded?"
"No, no, that's six syllable, hhhm." He started muttering to himself.
Zoe Nightshade turned to us. "Lord Apollo has been going through this haiku phase ever since he visited Japan. Tis not as bad as the time he visited Limerick. If I'd had to hear one more poem that started with, There once was a godess from Sparta-"
"I've got it!" Apollo announced. "I am so awesome. That's five syllables!" He bowed, looking very pleased with himself. — Rick Riordan

It is said in the Upanishads: 'I am the Universe.' If you ask a hundred people as to how they find the world, they are all likely to give different answers. For some, the world is beautiful and the people are good, while for others, the world is extremely bad, and the people are treacherous and sinful. Why the same world is different for different people? It is so, because the outer world is the projection of our inner world. Therefore, the only way to improve the world outside is to improve the world within. While we may not have any control over the outside world, we can change our world within and thus change the world outside. — Awdhesh Singh

So, it was that bad? That you couldn't just leave Layton behind but had to flee the entire continent?"

"Mm," Felix said noncommittally. His voice went raw. "I am sorry I left like that."

"It's okay. You don't belong here. You were a wild toad caught in a mason jar."

"With a stick and a leaf."

"Hold on . . . am I the stick in this metaphor? Because I have lost some weight . . ."

"I didn't know what I was doing. There was something uncomfortable about it."

"I can't imagine what."

"Certainly not The Little Mermaidcomforter. That felt oh-so-right. — Shannon Hale

It seems as if we can't go right, or do right, or be righted,' said Toby. 'I hadn't much schooling, myself, when I was young; and I can't make out whether we have any business on the face of the earth, or not. Sometimes I think we must have a little; and sometimes I think we must be intruding. I get so puzzled sometimes that I am not even able to make up my mind whether there is any good at all in us, or whether we are born bad. We seem to do dreadful things; we seem to give a deal of trouble; we are always being complained of and guarded against. One way or another, we fill the papers. Talk of a New Year!' said Toby, mournfully. — Charles Dickens

But I am scared. Everybody's scared."
"You know what I mean, like scared scared. Like coward scared, like if you never went to begin with. But with everything you've done nobody's going to doubt you." Then she made a somewhat frantic speech about a website she found that listed how certain people had avoided Vietnam. Cheney, Four education deferments, then a hardship 3-A. Limbaugh,4-F thanks to a cyst on his ass. Pat Buchanan, 4-F. Newt Gingrich, grad school deferment. Karl Rove, did not serve. Bill O'Reilly, did not serve. John Ashcroft, did not serve. Bush, AWOL from the Air National Guard, with a check mark in the "do not volunteer" box as to service overseas.
"You see where I'm going with this?'
"Well, yeah."
"I'm just saying, those people want a war so bad, they can fight it themselves. Billy Lynn's done his part. — Ben Fountain

Idle Jeffrey, when asking his cousin for money: "I fear I have not a mercenary tendency."

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and his cousin, Plantagenet Palliser: "Men must have mercenary tendencies or they would not have bred. The man who plows, so he may live, does so because, luckily, he has mercenary tendencies."

Jeffrey: "Just so, but you see I am less lucky than the plowman."

Palliser: "There is no vulgar error so vulgar, that is to say common or erroneous, as that by which men have been taught to say that mercenary tendencies are bad. The desire for wealth is the source of all progress. Civilization comes from what men call greed. Let your mercenary tendencies be combines with honesty, and they cannot take you astray. — Anthony Trollope

I do have nightmares. So what? I wouldn't trade places with any of the f**kers I killed. Am I afraid of Hell? No. I've been. It's worse than advertised but not as bad as imagined. ~ Brandon Hull — Jayden Hunter

It took a lot of guts to change it and say 'I don't like the life that I'm living and I don't like the swimmer I am', so let's change it completely and say 'Look, I've got to learn to love myself'. And that's been a really hard thing to do because when you've done a performance that you're not proud of and the public and the media have criticized you ... people are really quick to make judgements so it was tough to say 'Well I don't care what you have to say. I'm going to do this for myself and if you don't like me after this, well then, it's too bad'. — Leisel Jones

Here is an entry from June 12, 1989, three and a half years after my father's death: I feel so helpless sometimes. I know that my destiny is in my own hands, but to what extent? There is so much to think about - family, friends, career, LIFE! Will my grandchildren read this, years from now, and see it as the only thing to remember me by? No legacy? We're here for such a short time. But what exactly are my ambitions? I thought ambition was viewed as bad, as wrong. It turns out it's the key to everything. Where will I be in ten years? I want to be successful. What do I believe in - really believe in? Hell, Megyn, what do you even know about the world? I want to know what my teachers know. Where is it all? In books? I know where it is - it's in years and years of research and experiences. That's not something I can just have. I have to get it all for myself. I'm just sitting here wondering who I really am inside and - who am I to become? — Megyn Kelly

I am Dead, but it's not so bad. I've learned to live with it. — Isaac Marion

[there are] two kinds of things the nature of which it would be quite wonderful to grasp by means of a systematic art ...
the first consists in seeing together things that are scattered about everywhere and collecting them into one kind, so that by defining each thing we can make clear the subject of any instruction we wish to give ...
[the second], in turn, is to be able to cut up each kind according to its species along its natural joints, and to try not to splinter any part, as a bad butcher might do ...
phaedrus, i myself am a lover of these divisions and collections, so that i may be able to think and to speak. — Plato

Has the gift of laughter been withdrawn from me? I protest that I do still, at the age of forty-seven, laugh often and loud and long. But not, I believe, so long and loud and often as in my less smiling youth. And I am proud, nowadays, of laughing, and grateful to any one who makes me laugh. That is a bad sign. I no longer take laughter as a matter of course. — Max Beerbohm

Dad!" I said, trying to get his attention. "It is so official you are a bad father. Good fathers do not shoot their daughters!"
I crossed my arms and brought out the big guns. "I am so telling Mom when I die. — Darynda Jones

So I am not teaching you to be good, I am not teaching you to be bad; I am teaching you only to be whole. To be whole is to be healthy and to be healthy is to be holy. — Rajneesh

Why do you keep looking at your phone?" I ask him. "Shit, is there more bad press? Am I now up for grabs for both sexes?"

"I'd do you," Rolondo puts in with a grin.

"You're too high-maintenance for me."

"This is true." 'Londo nods and looks me over. "I'd most definitely make you shave that beard. I'm not into bears."

I shrug. "We were never meant to be."

Johnson rolls his eyes. "I don't care if I sound like a dick. This whole exchange is bizarre."

"You always sound like a dick," Rolondo says. "So we're used to it."

He ducks a chunk of bread Johnson pings at him. An older couple across the way turns to stare.

"Ladies," I say mildly, "mind your manners. This isn't the college bar. — Kristen Callihan

Half an hour into the movie, Margot started giggling, but it wasn't a funny part or anything. When Quinn looked over at her, she was covering her mouth and nose with one hand while waving the other in front of her. He couldn't hide his shock. No fucking way!
"Margot! You did not just fart!" Quinn exclaimed. He was absolutely dumbfounded. No woman has ever farted in front of him, not even his mom.
"I am sorry!" She laughed. "You would have never known if it did not smell!"
Quinn burst out laughing. He caught a whiff and laughed harder as he clapped a hand over his nose. It wasn't that bad, but he decided to play along. He was laughing so hard that he had tears running down his face. He couldn't remember the last time he laughed until he cried. Margot too was laughing so hard that she had tears running down her face. She gave him a playful shove, which only made it harder for him to breathe. — Andria Large

I'm going away anyway. I am. Do you hear me? I may be ugly and clumsy, but one thing I am not, I'm not retarded. I may be ugly and clumsy, but one thing I am not, I'm not retarded. There's nothing wrong with my brain. Do you know what the Teacher Ghosts say about me? They tell me I'm smart, and I can win scholarships. I can get into colleges. I've already applied. I'm smart. I can do all sorts of things. I know how to get A's, and they say I could be a scientist or a mathematician if I want. I can make a living and take care of myself. So you don't have to find me a keeper who's too dumb to know a bad bargain. I'm so smart, if they say write ten pages, I can write fifteen. I can do ghost things even better than ghosts can. Not everyone thinks I'm nothing. I am not going to be a slave or a wife. Even if I am stupid and talk funny amd get sick, I won't let you turn me into a slave or a wife. I'm getting out of here. I can't stand living here anyore. It's your fault I talk weird. — Maxine Hong Kingston

I will live this day as if it is my last. ... I will waste not a moment mourning yesterday's misfortunes, Yesterday's defeats, yesterday's aches of the heart, for why should I throw good after bad?
I will live this day as if it is my last. This day is all I have and these hours are now my eternity. I greet this sunrise with cries of joy as a prisoner who is reprieved from death. I lift mine arms with thanks for this priceless gift of a new day. So too, I will beat upon my heart with gratitude as I consider all who greeted yesterday's sunrise who are no longer with the living today. I am indeed a fortunate man and today's hours are but a bonus, undeserved. Why have I been allowed to live this extra day when others, far better than I, have departed? Is it that they have accomplished their purpose while mine is yet to be achieved? Is this another opportunity for me to become the man I know I can be? — Og Mandino

I am tired of people saying that poor character is the only reason people do wrong things. Actually, circumstances cause people to act a certain way. It's from those circumstances that a person's attitude is affected followed by weakening of character. Not the reverse. If we had no faults of our own, we should not take so much pleasure in noticing those in others and judging their lives as either black or white, good or bad. We all live our lives in shades of gray. — Shannon L. Alder

I'm not a bad guy. I don't lie; I don't sandbag women with flowery
words about a future together and love at first sight. I'm a straight shooter. I'm looking for a good
time - for one night - and I tell them so. That's better than ninety percent of the other guys in here,
believe me. And most of the girls in here are looking for the same thing I am.
Okay, maybe that's not exactly true. But I can't help it if they see me, fuck me, and suddenly want
to bear my children. — Emma Chase

I believe myself to be good, he thought, and so I can afford to titillate myself by considering evil, like a child frightening himself with horror stories. I am not a bad man. But I am not a wise one, either, nor understanding. And yet, if I lose this rumpled and comfortable skin that I wear, how will I ever find anything to replace it? I wish I were younger and could grow skin easily. — Peter S. Beagle

I had to arrange things as well as I could. That's obviously a very bad place for the bed, in front of the door. For instance when the judge I'm painting at present comes he always comes through the door by the bed, and I've even given him a key to this door so that he can wait for me here in the studio when I'm not home. Although nowadays he usually comes early in the morning when I'm still asleep. And of course, it always wakes me up when I hear the door opened beside the bed, however fast asleep I am. If you could hear the way I curse him as he climbs over my bed in the morning you'd lose all respect for judges. I suppose I could take the key away from him but that'd only make things worse. It only takes a tiny effort to break any of the doors here off their hinges. — Franz Kafka

My name is Herbert Badgery. I am a hundred and thirty-nine years old and something of a celebrity. They come and look at me and wonder how I do it. There are weeks when I wonder the same, whole stretches of terrible time. It is hard to believe you can feel so bad and still not die. — Peter Carey

I'm having a bad day. I am not size six. My legs are not skinny as sticks, and dammit, someone's got to pay. I'm afraid that I can't satisfy myself and that my happiness depends on someone else. I feel weak, so you're gonna take the fall. You're so shallow. — Jewel

...only the one who knows and practices the iconoclastic fury of destruction can possess the joy born of freedom, of that unique freedom fertilized by sorrow. I rise up against the reality of the outer world for the triumph of the reality of my inner world. I reject society for the triumph of the I. I reject the stability of every rule, every custom, every morality, for the affirmation of every willful instinct, all free emotionality, every passion and every fantasy. I mock at every duty and every right so I can sing free will. I scorn the future to suffer and enjoy my good and my bad in the present. I despise humanity because it is not my humanity. I hate tyrants and I detest slaves. I don't want and I don't grant solidarity, because I am convinced that it is a new chain, and because I believe with Ibsen that the one who is most alone is the strongest one. This is my Nihilism. — Renzo Novatore

I am one of the lingering bad ones, and so do I slink away, and pause, and ponder, and ponder, and pause, and do work without knowing why - not surely for this brief world, and more sure it is not for heaven - and I ask what this message of Christ means. — Emily Dickinson

Am I really so bad-mannered, conceited, headstrong, pushing, stupid, lazy, etc., etc., as they all say? Oh, of course not. I have my faults, just like everyone else, I kniw that, but they thoroughly exaggerate everything. — Anne Frank

The Soviet Constitution provides a key to the understanding of Soviet psychiatry. In the West, our tradition of human rights pits the citizen against the State. Very occasionally, a politician will, like John Kennedy, ask us to think what we can do for our country. But, in general, we have rights without any major duties other than the duty to obey the law. If I wish to live as a tramp or to devote my life to a study of butterflies, it's my business and my right to do so as long as I hurt no one else. The Soviet constitution proclaims a rather different relationship. The citizen is meant to be a productive member of the socialist community. If I choose to be a tramp or butterfly-maniac, I am hurting others because I am depriving the State of my labour. This is not necessarily bad, just odd given Western traditions. But being a 'parasite' is an actual crime much like being a vagrant was in Tudor England. — David Cohen