I Have Never Changed Quotes & Sayings

And that was the way it was in the old days before the country grew up and men put their guns away. Someday, and I hope it never comes, there may be a time when the Western hills are empty again and the land will go back to wilderness and the old, hard ways. Enemies may come into our country and times will have changed, but then the boys will come down from the old high hills and belt on their guns again. They can do it if they have to. The guns are hung up, the cows roam fat and lazy, but the old spirit is still there, just as it was when the longhorns came up the trail from Texas, and the boys washed the creeks for gold. — Louis L'Amour

Years had passed; I should have long since let go. But how did you let go of something that never really felt over? How did you let go of someone that had changed you from the inside out? — A Meredith Walters

When I was 18 and not sure whether I wanted to be an actor, I realised that a playwright has no voice without an actor. That's my reason for acting: to get that character as right as possible for my writer. And I have never changed my philosophy. — David Suchet

I looked along the aisle and saw her, and it was as if I saw her for the first time. Everything changed. The ancient featureless interior of me spangled orange, mint, cat-blue. I looked back to the window immediately, my face damp, my breath caught. And worried I would never have the courage to look at her again. — Sonya Hartnett

I've never changed my approach to acting. I've always felt like I've gotten better. I think that all of us can get better. I feel like, in my acting, I'm better than I was three pictures ago. I think about it. I'm a slow study. It takes me a long time to grasp the material, in order to perform it. But when I come to the set, on the first day, I know the whole movie. That's why I have to start early. — Kevin Costner

Life was going on. I didn't even have a scar, this time, to remind me of what happened. But sometimes, when I glanced sideways at Rogerson in the car, or right before I fell asleep at night, I would have a sudden flash of his face again, how it had literally changed right before my eyes. And even as life settled back to normal, and we never discussed it, there was a part of me waiting, always braced and ready for him to do it again. — Sarah Dessen

Someone asked me the other day if I missed my ex?
I didn't understand the question, because what's there to miss.. He lost someone who could have loved him forever, but I lost someone who never did ... So the only thing I miss, was the part of me I changed ; in order, for him to love more. How was I so blinded back then ... I don't miss him, I missed me. — Nikki Rowe

When I'm gone, time won't change. It will pass the way it always has. I've seen it happen. People always move on. You will find your mate. You will move on then I'll be nothing but a memory, but I will never forget you. I will always love you for you have drawn emotions in me no other has in two thousand years. I will live with the memory of you in my heart because nothing can erase you from within me. You have forever changed me. You've taught me what it's like to truly love. — J.L. Sheppard

Brady! You can't watch that!"
He looked up at me, his eyebrows furrowed, from his place on the floor. The remote was far away from him, next to the screen, so he couldn't have changed the channel. I snatched it up and hit the information button. "What the hell is a YoGabbaGabba?" I looked back over at Brady and frowned. "Uh, never mind. Go ahead."
Walking with purpose back into the kitchen, I whispered into the receiver. "Okay. No joke, there is a talking, dancing, bright red, studded dildo on the screen. There are other ones that look like him, and I swear to God one is wearing a condom on his head. That's a kids' show?" I looked back into the living room. "Whatever happened to good old-fashioned cartoons? Don't they have good shit like Animaniacs anymore? — Amber L. Johnson

If I knew this is your final goodbye; I'd have told you that still I've a lot of things to say. I'd have told you how you changed my life, how you made me close to Me, how you made me realize the beauty of the world.
If only I knew, this is your final goodbye ... I'd have never let you say it ... — Crestless Wave

A lot happens in our everyday life, but it always happens within the same routine, and more than anything else it has changed my perspective of time. For, while previously I saw time as a stretch of terrain that had to be covered, with the future as a distant prospect, hopefully a bright one, and never boring at any rate, now it is interwoven with our life here and in a totally different way. Were I to portray this with a visual image it would have to be that of a boat in a lock: life is slowly and ineluctably raised by time seeping in from all sides. Apart from the details, everything is always the same. And with every passing day the desire grows for the moment when life will reach the top, for the moment when the sluice gates open and life finally moves on. — Karl Ove Knausgard

Whether that lady's gentle mind,
No longer with the form combined
Which scattered love, as stars do light,
Found sadness where it left delight,

I dare not guess; but in this life
Of error, ignorance, and strife,
Where nothing is, but all things seem,
And we the shadows of the dream,

It is a modest creed, and yet
Pleasant if one considers it,
To own that death itself must be,
Like all the rest, a mockery.

That garden sweet, that lady fair,
And all sweet shapes and odors there,
In truth have never passed away:
'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they.

For love, and beauty, and delight,
There is no death or change: their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure.

(--Conclusion, Autumn - A Dirge) — Percy Bysshe Shelley

This is so much like the old days. And, again, I have mixed feelings. In some ways it's good and comfortable to be fitting straight back in like I've never been away, but, on the other hand, I'm getting this constrictive feeling as well. It's the same places - like the bars and pubs on Friday night - the same people, the same conversations, the same arguments and the same attitudes. Five years away and not much seems to have changed. I can't decide if this is good or bad. — Iain Banks

The whole set of stylizations that are known as "camp" (a word that I was hearing then for the first time) was, in 1926, self-explanatory. Women moved and gesticulated in this way. Homosexuals wished for obvious reasons to copy them. The strange thing about "camp" is that it has been fossilized. The mannerisms have never changed. If I were now to see a woman sitting with her knees clamped together, one hand on her hip and the other lightly touching her back hair, I should think, "Either she scored her last social triumph in 1926 or it is a man in drag. — Quentin Crisp

Giovanni smiled his humble, grateful smile and told me in as many ways as he could find how wonderful it was to have me there, how I stood, with my love and my ingenuity, between him and the dark. Each day he invited me to witness how he had changed, how love had changed him, how he worked and sang and cherished me. I was in a terrible confusion. Sometimes I thought, but this is your life. Stop fighting it. Stop fighting. Or I thought, but I am happy, And he loves me. I am safe. Sometimes, when he was not near me, I thought, I will never let him touch me again. Then, when he touched me, I thought it doesn't matter, it is only the body, it will soon be over. When it was over I lay in the dark and listen to his breathing and dreamed of the touch of hands, of Giovanni's hands, or anybody's hands, hands which would have the power to crash me and make me whole again. — James Baldwin

And I was so tempted that night in Cippanhamm's royal church. There is such joy in chaos. Stow all the world's evils behind a door and tell men that they must never, ever, open the door, and it will be opened because there is pure joy in destruction. At one moment, when Ragnar was bellowing with laughter and slapping my shoulder so hard that it hurt, I felt the words form on my tongue. That is Alfred, I would have said, pointing at him, and all my world would have changed and there would have been no more England. Yet, at the last moment, when the first word was on my tongue, I choked it back. Brida was watching me, her shrewd eyes calm, and I caught her gaze and I thought of Iseult. In a year or two, I thought, Iseult would look like Brida. They — Bernard Cornwell

I never have changed in my taste, and the things that I love, and the way that I act, and all that. I never wanted to change, I just wanted to be successful, and be able to do more things for more people, and for myself as well. — Dolly Parton

I learned to live many years ago. Something really, really bad happened to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my druthers, it would never have been changed at all. What I learned from it is that today seems to be the hardest lesson of all. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and to try to give some of it back because I believed in it completely and utterly. — Anna Quindlen

During these past years, not being able to speak with you, I dedicated myself to reviewing, within myself, the sacred books I know by heart. I had the idea I should summarize them in a single volume. Then, in a single chapter, then in a single page, and finally in a single sentence. This sentence is the greatest thing I can teach you. It seems simple, but if you understand it, you will never have to study again." The Rabbi recited it. And life, from that moment on, changed for Alejandro. "If God is not here, He is nowhere; this instant itself is perfection. — Alejandro Jodorowsky

For the first time in my life, a voice went off in my head:'You have no power over what happens in your life. Drugs dictate exactly what you're going to do. You've taken your hands off the steering wheel, and you're going wherever the drug world takes you.'
That had never changed. The feeling would well up inside of me, and no matter how much I loved my girl or my band or my friends or my family, when that siren song 'Go get high now' started playing in my head, I was off. — Anthony Kiedis

I believe that a good children's book should appeal to all people who have not completely lost their original joy and wonder in life. The fact is that I don't make books for children at all. I make them for that part of us, of myself and of my friends, which has never changed, which is still a child. — Leo Lionni

I've never changed my life since I was 4 and went to the YMCA with a gym bag. I still have that philosophy. In fact, I still have that gym bag. — Dan Gable

Love peeps who have 2 correct me.
Well it's peeps like you that give me fault when it comes to Apple. Apple been annoying me as well when it comes 2 trying 2 auto-correct me. Always ends up spelling it freaking wrong and just generally making me look like an asswipe as well as itself. It was fine b4 you changed it, I know I spelt it right, just like COLOUR is not spelt COLOR in my country!!! I never typed PEAK!! I wrote PEEK! it just decided not to and pissed me off just like peeps, like you, who like 2 auto-correct me!
Rant over! — Ellie Williams

And I don't believe you dead. How can you be dead if I still feel you? Maybe, like God, you changed into something different that I'll have to speak to in a different way, but you not dead to me Nettie. And never will you be. — Alice Walker

We never see the people who are dear to us save in the animated system, the perpetual motion of our incessant love for them, which, before allowing the images that their faces present to reach us, seizes them in its vortex and flings them back upon the idea that we have always had of them, makes them adhere to it, coincide with it. How, since into the forehead and the cheeks of my grandmother I had been accustomed to read all the most delicate, the most permanent qualities of her mind, how, since every habitual glance is an act of necromancy, each face that we love a mirror of the past, how could I have failed to overlook what had become dulled and changed in her, seeing that in the most trivial spectacles of our daily life, our eyes, charged with thought, neglect, as would a classical tragedy, every image that does not contribute to the action of the play and retain only those that may help to make its purpose intelligible. — Marcel Proust

I am still a coward, still fearful; none of that has changed. But I turn and walk away from her. It's like stepping off a cliff, believing the air will hold you up. And it does. I see that I don't have to do what she says, and worse and better, I've never had to do what she says. I can do what I like. — Atwood, Margaret

You can take away my anger, my fear, my fury, even my pain, but I could never live with myself if I'm not the one to bring that demon to justice. You're all the family I have left, Serwa, and I pledged myself to you when I was a man-child of twenty-one years. Now, as a man of centuries, that responsibility hasn't changed. If anything, it's only gotten stronger. — N.D. Jones

The soul often hangs in a balance of some sort. Tonight do I lie down in the high fields with Dirk Tanner or not? At the fair, do I buy ribbons or wine? For the new ferry's headboard, do I use camphor or pearwood? Small things. A kiss, a ribbon, a grain that coaxes the knife this way or that. They are not, Kit Meinem of Atyar. Our souls wait for our answer because any answer changes us. This is why I wait to decide what I feel about your bridge. I'm waiting until I know how I will be changed."
"You never know how things will change you," Kit said.
"If you don't, you have not waited to find out. — Kij Johnson

Day gazed out at the sky, where a shooting star was winging across the heavens. "I stepped in between Jenna and the hex. I wasn't even thinking; it was just instinctive."
"Of course it was." Barbara gazed at him fondly. "You may think you have changed, but your gallantry was never just for show; it's part of who you are. — Deborah Blake

Sometimes I forget this insoluble mess and dream: he'll save me, we'll travel; we'll hunt in the deserts, we'll sleep on the pavements of strange cities, carelessly, without his guilt, without my pain. Or else I'm going to wake up and all the human laws and customs of this world will have changed - thanks to some magical power - or this world, without changing, will let me feel desire and be happy and carefree.
What did I want from him who hurt me more than I thought it was possible for two people to hurt each other? I wanted the adventures found in kids' books. He couldn't give me these because he wasn't able to. Whatever did he want from me? I never understood. He told me he was just average: average regrets, average hopes. What do I care about all that average shit that has nothing to do with adventure? — Kathy Acker

I think in a sense seeing how films have changed me and seeing how fiction moves me more than facts in many ways, and I think that I can talk for many people that fiction moves us more than real life, it certainly helps us to set forth on this a journey of a utopia, which can never be achieved. — Gael Garcia Bernal

You ran into my life, this beautiful, amazing girl who changed everything. I finally saw what my world could be. What being normal and happy could look like. You've given me everything I never thought I could have! It scares to me think of life without you. Of not seeing your smile or hearing your voice. — A Meredith Walters

I have never been happier, more exhilarated, at peace, rested, inspired, and aware of the grandeur of the universe and the greatness of God than when I find myself in a natural setting not much changed from the way He made it. — Jimmy Carter

I have heard of people's lives being changed by a dramatic or traumatic event
a death, a divorce, a winning lottery ticket, a failed exam. I never heard of anybody's life but ours being changed by a dinner party. — Wallace Stegner

My style hasn't changed much in all these sixty years. I still use, most of the time, existing light and try not to push people around. I have to be as much a diplomat as a photographer. People don't often take me seriously because I carry so little equipment and make so little fuss ... I never carried a lot of equipment. My motto has always been, "Keep it simple". — Alfred Eisenstaedt

There's something very ... I don't know; primitive, perhaps, about you, Gurgeh. You've never changed sex, have you?' He shook his head. 'Or slept with a man?' Another shake. 'I thought so,' Yay said. 'You're strange, Gurgeh.' She drained her glass. — Iain Banks

Although much has been written of the exploits of Canadians who answered the call to arms in World Wars I and II, nothing has been written about the young men who flocked to join the Cold War. Thanks to Canada's menacing presence, Russia has never invaded Germany.
The author menaced Russia, as a fighter pilot based in NATO Europe during the 1950s. Much of the material herein is derived from his diaries of that period. Some names have been changed to protect the guilty. Accounts have been embellished. No harm or libel is intended. The harm is to the author's self-image. The diaries reveal that he was brash and intolerant. He considers it one of life's miracles that his friends put up with him. — R.J. Childerhose

I know friends of mine who have never changed their mind about anything in their lives, despite evidence from all directions. And I think if you can keep an open mind and some understanding, that helps you stay young. — Dick Van Dyke

You broke me up there in the mountains. You cracked something in my head, I don't know. I have never been obsessed with another person before or after. You just drilled your way in and since then, I've been yours. You got to a place that I didn't know existed ... and all that has changed me, taken the stuff away I thought was true about me. In some weird, weird way, started something that turned me into more than a goodlooking bastard. — Aleksandr Voinov

Have you ever really wanted to be able to do something, but you came across a roadblock of some kind?
You have a difficult choice. I made that choice once and it changed my whole life, by giving me experiences I never would have had if I took the easy street and had not tried. — Deanie Humphrys-Dunne

I know most of my records are real good but I know that there are definitely things I would've changed at the end of the day. I work on things forever, and there are things I wish I didn't do, but ultimately I know the records are good. I kind of let go of big expectations, maybe because hopefully that means if I don't have them, that it'll do really well, but you just never know. — Kurt Vile

I've done four other films since 'Submarine,' so that's quite cool. It's just good to have people respect your work; I've never had that before. Yeah, my life has changed crazy. I'm a kid from a small town in south Wales, I play my Xbox usually and all that sort of stuff, and it's a whole new world. — Craig Roberts

The man of my dreams is almost faded now. The one I have created in my mind. The sort of man each woman dreams of in her most secret and deepest part of her heart. I could almost see him now before me. What would I say to him if he were really here? Forgive me, I've never known this feeling. I've lived without it all my life. Is it any wonder that I fail to recognize it? You brought it to me for the first time. Is there any way I can tell you how my life has changed? Anyway at all, to let you know what sweetness you have given me? There's so much to say
and I can't find the words
except for these ... I love you. That is what I would say to him if he were really here. — Richard Matheson

I never listen to debates. They are dreadful things indeed. The plain truth is that I am not a fair man, and don't want to hear both sides. On all known subjects, ranging from aviation to xylophone-playing, I have fixed and invariable ideas. They have not changed since I was four or five. — H.L. Mencken

My life will be what I make it," he told her. "That is true for all of us all the time. We cannot know what the future will bring or how the events of the future will make us feel. We cannot even plan and feel any certainty that our most carefully contrived plans will be put into effect. Could I have predicted what happened to me in the Peninsula? Could you have predicted what happened to you in Cornwall? But those things happened to us nevertheless. And they changed our plans and our dreams so radically that we both might have been excused for giving up, for never planning or dreaming again, for never living again. That too is a choice we all have to make. — Mary Balogh

I'm sure I'm not Ada for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine does'nt go in ringlets at all; and I'm sure I'm not Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she's she and I'm I, and-oh dear, how puzzling it all is! i'll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is tweleve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is-oh dear! I shall never get to tewnty at that rate! However, the Multiplication- Table doesn't signify: let's try geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Rome-no, that's all wrong, I'm certain! I must have been changed for Mabel! — Lewis Carroll

I just don't understand why you're trying so hard. It was really a long time ago."
"Because, when I was nineteen years old, I fell in love with a girl who changed my life by showing me that even the darkest nights still had stars and it didn't matter one bit that you had to lie in the weeds to see them. We were kids and I barely knew her, but I loved her. I should have been there while she grew up, but I was a fool. Now, I have the woman back and I have every intention of making her fall in love with me again, and this time ...I'm never letting go. — Aly Martinez

I don't always think I'm a good person. But telling people this only makes them want to prove me wrong, and the more they try to prove me wrong, the more I want to push them away, but the more I push them away, the guiltier I get, the nicer I become, the more they think I've changed. It never lasts. In the end I learn to hate both myself and them for things that should have lasted no longer than a few hours.' She reflected on this. 'Maybe a few nights. Inky and I could have stayed friends.'
'This is the most twisted thing you've said so far'
'What, that being kind to people makes me want to hurt them? Or that hurting them makes me want to be kind? — Andre Aciman

When our daughter, Alexandra, was about three years old, she used to wake up at night and come down the stairs into our room. Of course, we would have to take her back to bed. For a few months she was waking up two or three times a night and coming down. This was not long after I took over for my father and started pastoring. I was learning to minister, and there was a lot of stress and change just with that, so I wasn't sleeping much. One time I was telling Victoria, "We've just got to do something about Alexandra. She's coming down so much. You know, I'm just so tired. I'm not getting enough sleep." On and on. Victoria said something I'll never forget. She said, "Joel, just remember, twenty years from now, you'll give anything to hear those little footsteps coming down the stairs. You'll give anything to have her wanting to come into your room." That changed my whole perspective. I began looking forward — Joel Osteen

My son is the reason why I write music. He's the reason why everything is different for me. Because when he came into the picture, my priorities changed. I can risk possibly being incarcerated because the only person pays for it is me. I know that if I'm not physically available to take care of him, nobody else will. I want to have the relationship with him that me and my father never had. — Curtis Jackson

Humans have changed the landscape so much, but images of the sea could be shared with primordial people. I just project my imagination on to the viewer, even the first human being. I think first and then imagine some scenes. Then I go out and look for them. Or I re-create these images with my camera. I love photography because photography is the most believable medium. Painting can lie, but photography never lies: that is what people used to believe. — Hiroshi Sugimoto

I have changed refuge so often, in the course of my rout, that now I can't tell between dens and ruins. But there was never any city but the one. It is true you often move along in a dream, houses and factories darken the air, trams go by and under your feet wet from the grass there are suddenly cobbles. I only know the city of my childhood, I must have seen the other, but unbelieving. All I say cancels out, I'll have said nothing. — Samuel Beckett

I wish to say that we Anarchists have never changed our position. We are Anarchists as of old and still pursue the same ideals. — Federica Montseny

My own personality, which was molded by the furnace of time and circumstances ... strengthened by the touchstone of varied experiences, has changed a bit due to the benevolence and graciousness of people around me but I have never felt trapped in the nets of influence. — Balroop Singh

I thought about the earth then, really thought about it, the tsunami's and earthquakes and volcanoes, all the horrors I haven't witnessed but have changed my life, the lives of everyone I know, all the people I'll never know. I thought about life without the sun, the moon, stars, without flowers and warm days in May. I thought about a year ago and all the good things I'd taken for granted and all the unbearable things that had replaced those simple blessings. And even though I hated the thought of crying in from of Syl, tears streamed down my face. — Susan Beth Pfeffer

What makes the self?
Experiences. Acculturation.
What else?
I don't know.
What's within you.
She says, I don't know what was within me and what got put there by my life as it was lived.
You can never know that.
No.
But there is a you that was there before you were born and that nobody shaped or changed or could have changed. — Carolina De Robertis

Until death," Jem replied gently. "Those are the words of the oath. 'Until aught but death part thee and me.' Someday, Will, I will go where none can follow me, and I think it will be sooner rather than later. Have you ever asked yourself why I agreed to be your parabatai?"
"No better offers forthcoming?" Will tried for humor, but his voice cracked like glass.
"I thought you needed me," Jem said. "There is a wall you have built about yourself, Will, and I have never asked you why. But no one should shoulder every burden alone. I thought you would let me inside if I became your parabatai, and then you would have at least someone to lean upon. I did wonder what my death would mean for you. I used to fear it, for your sake. I feared you would be left alone inside that wall. But now ... something has changed. I do not know why. But I know that it is true."
"That what is true?" Will's fingers were still digging into Jem's wrist.
"That the wall is coming down. — Cassandra Clare

I wish I could adjust my voice, but it's just what's happened to me. It's because I've lived abroad for a long time, and my wife is English and my kids all have English accents, and every voice I hear is English. I've never intentionally changed my accent at all. — Bill Bryson

In the next picture, Reagan is saying, "Haley, have I ever told you the one about the two Episcopal preachers?" "No, sir, Mr. President." "One of the preachers said to the other, 'Times have really changed, haven't they? I never had sex with my wife before we were married, did you?' "And the other Episcopal priest said, 'I don't know, what is your wife's maiden name? — Mark Leibovich

We talked for hours. Long, rambling conversations about everything under the sun. Spending time with her was intoxicating. We seemed to have everything in common. We shared the same interests. We were driven by the same goal. She got all of my jokes. She made me laugh. She made me think. She changed the way I saw the world. I'd never had such a powerful, immediate connection with another human being before. — Ernest Cline

I was born to score goals, I feel. How I score them - how I get the ball into the back of the net - might have changed. The actual ability of what I was born to do will never leave me. — Michael Owen

Hey,' Wildgirl says, 'let me into your backpack. I've got a light on my keys that I totally forgot about.'
I turn my back to her and feel her fumbling with the zip of my pack. It's a lot lighter now.
'I'm glad you hung on to your bag. I would have had to kick your ass if you lost all my stuff.'
I probably wouldn't mind that, although if I were given a choice, I'd opt for another kiss. It's the first time I've been so close to someone since I've changed. Kissing felt better than I remembered, but it also felt like it was something I had to be careful about. It never felt that way before. — Leanne Hall

He chuckled. "I cannot speak for other men, but I want the woman who stumbles over a word like virgin and can say whore without raising a blush." His smile faded and he spoke soberly. "Your soldier ... your first love ... and every circumstance that followed in some way brought you to me, and while I can wish that you had never had your heart hurt, that you had never suffered even a moment of doubt, of pain, of sadness ... of betrayal, I also know that you would in some way be changed. It would have made your life different. Mine also." North gave her hand a light squeeze. "Whether we are shaped by the circumstances of our lives, or by our perceptions of them, I still find I very much admire the shape you have become. — Jo Goodman

And so when I moved to IBM, I moved because I thought I could apply technology. I didn't actually have to do my engineer - I was an electrical engineer, but I could apply it. And that was when I changed. And when I got there, though, I have to say, at the time, I really never felt there was a constraint about being a woman. I really did not. — Ginni Rometty

When we had our children, our ideas changed somewhat. Thenceforward we lived only for them; they made all our happiness and we would never have found it save in them. In fact, nothing any longer cost us anything; the world was no longer a burden to us. As for me, my children were my great compensation, so that I wished to have many in order to bring them up for Heaven. — Rev. Fr. Stephane-Joseph Piat

Lord, why was it his child you gave to me? Why did you send me here to this man so that I remember the things done to me? Shimei interceded and brought me to you, and you healed me. Now, I see Atretes and feel the old wounds reopened. Hold me fast, Father. Don't let me slip; don't let me fall. Don't let me think as I used to think or live as I used to live. "Life is cruel, Atretes, but you have a choice. Choose forgiveness and be free." "Forgiveness!" The word came out of the dark shadows like a curse. "There are some things in this world that can never be forgiven." Her eyes burned with tears. "I once felt the same way, but it turns back on you and eats you alive. When Christ saved me, everything changed. The world didn't look the same." "The world doesn't change." "No. The world didn't. I did." He — Francine Rivers

I wanted to tell them that I'd never had a friend, not ever, not a real one. Until Dante. I wanted to tell them that I never knew that people like Dante existed in the world, people who looked at the stars, and knew the mysteries of water, and knew enough to know that birds belonged to the heavens and weren't meant to be shot down from their graceful flights by mean and stupid boys. I wanted to tell them that he had changed my life and that I would never be the same, not ever. And that somehow it felt like it was Dante who had saved my life and not the other way around. I wanted to tell them that he was the first human being aside from my mother who had ever made me want to talk about the things that scared me. I wanted to tell them so many things and yet I didn't have the words. So I just stupidly repeated myself. Dante's my friend. — Benjamin Alire Saenz

I AM LOVE

I have rubbed shoulders with presidents, stars and queens

Though they know not my name as I have never been seen

I have touched their hearts, lips and minds

Always gentle, caring, giving and kind

I have shaped their world and changed their lives

I can turn war to peace so they put down their guns

I have fed every life with my innocent arms

I touch their lives though they don't know my name

I touch their hearts they are never the same

I come with truth, wisdom and joy

Though some people hurt me treat me like a toy

I am ever present but never seen

I visit at night just like a dream

Like an illusion, ever present but oh so rare

I am a joy to be seen with every stare

Who am I?

Love! — Jill Thrussell

I never knew him. We both knew this place,
apparently, this literal small backwater,
looked at it long enough to memorize it,
our years apart. How strange. And it's still loved,
or its memory is (it must have changed a lot).
Our visions coincided--'visions' is
too serious a word--our looks, two looks:
art 'copying from life' and life itself,
life and the memory of it so compressed
they've turned into each other. Which is which?
Life and the memory of it cramped,
dim, on a piece of Bristol board,
dim, but how live, how touching in detail
--the little that we get for free,
the little of our earthly trust. Not much.
About the size of our abidance
along with theirs: the munching cows,
the iris, crisp and shivering, the water
still standing from spring freshets,
the yet-to-be-dismantled elms, the geese. — Elizabeth Bishop

I feel excitingly ... free. Things were going to happen to me last night that I did not like - and I stopped them. I have never prevented my own doom before. I have never stood in the path of certain unhappiness and told myself - lovingly, like a mother to myself - "No! This unhappiness will not suit you! Turn around and go another way!"
I have previously been resigned to any and all fates ahead - mute and compliant, worried about seeming weird or unfuckable, or about making a fuss. But now things have changed: it seems I am now the kind of girl who can instigate a threesome - then cancel a threesome, then order a cab. I am in charge of me. I can change fates! I can reorder evenings! I can say "Yes" - and then "No!" This is new information to me. I like this information. I like all information about me. I am compiling a dossier. I am my own specialist subject. — Caitlin Moran

Deep down you've never changed from what you are."
"And what's that?"
"Alone," said Ash. "Outcast to both worlds, demon and human... I'm not afraid of you. I never have been. You're the best person I've ever known, Parvati. In all my lives. — Sarwat Chadda

My direction has never really changed, because I don't think that you can really work gimmicks in gospel music. With gospel music, there is this central theme that always comes around about the love of God, the love of Jesus and the power that you have through Jesus Christ. You don't need a gimmick when you have that. — Yolanda Adams

My sentiments for the American cause, from the Stamp Act downward, have never changed ... I am still of opinion that it is the cause of liberty and of human nature. — Christopher Gadsden

I have lost years that I will never get back. Only now am I just beginning to live, on the verge of old age. It is painful and unfair. But today I have a different attitude to life: it can't be constructed from superficial things, no matter how attractive they may appear. Neither wealth not appearances have any importance now.
Pain gave me new life. It took a long time for me to die as Malika, General Oufkir's eldest daughter, the child of a powerful figure, of a past. I've gained an identity. My own identity. And that is priceless.
If there had not been all that waste, all that horror ... I'd almost venture to say that my suffering made me grow. In any case, it changed me. for the better. It's as well to make the best of things. — Malika Oufkir

The game has changed since the '70s as more coaches have looked at ways to make it tougher on defenses. But I'm glad my career turned out the way it did - I would have never gotten a chance to learn the defensive side of the ball. — Tony Dungy

I know vaudeville isn't supposed to be art. It's supposed to be entertainment, which is different. But I think art ... I think it's making something from nothing, basically. It's taking something as simple as movement, or a few notes, or steps, or words, and putting them all together so that they're bigger than what they ever could have been separate. They're transformed. And just witnessing that transformation changes you. It reaches into your insides and moves things around. It's magic, of a sort.
I never really knew that until I saw your act. But when you walked out on that stage, I knew I was seeing something ... different. Something maybe more amazing than what the professor and Silenus had done. You were making something up there, out of just the simplest elements possible, and seeing it changed something in me. I'd never encountered anything like that. — Robert Jackson Bennett

Yeah, I wish I could have stayed awake long enough to see your face when I changed over. (Wren) No, you don't. I assure you, it wasn't pretty. (Maggie) There's never anything about you that isn't pretty, Maggie. You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. (Wren) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I do not believe in mixing of the races. You can quote me. I don't believe in it, and I never have. I've never changed. I've never changed my hair. I've never changed my color, I have always been proud of myself, and my fans are proud of me for remaining the way I've always been. I married a white man one time, but he was a creep — Nina Simone

The way we value black beauty has changed. I'm single now, but back in the slave days, I would have never been single. I'm 6 feet tall and I'm strong. Look at me, I'm a Mandingo. — Leslie Jones

Over the past year, I have realized something about myself. I suffer from a form of claustrophobia: I hate being at home by myself. I am a people person. My life has been a magnificent indulgence. I've been able to do what I love and share it. Who would want to quit? I suppose that I never completely gave up my childhood idea of being a minister. Only the medium and the message changed. I have still endeavored to touch people's souls, to raise their spirits and put smiles on their faces. — Dick Van Dyke

Acceptance is not a state of passivity or inaction. I am not saying you can't change the world, right wrongs, or replace evil with good. Acceptance is, in fact, the first step to successful action. If you don't fully accept a situation precisely the way it is, you will have difficulty changing it. Moreover, if you don't fully accept the situation, you will never really know if the situation should be changed. — Peter McWilliams

Like a comet pulled from orbit,
As it passes a sun.
Like a stream that meets a boulder,
Halfway through the wood.
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you,
I have been changed for good

It well may be,
That we will never meet again,
In this lifetime.
So let me say before we part,
So much of me,
Is made of what I learned from you.
You'll be with me,
Like a handprint on my heart.
And now whatever way our stories end,
I know you have re-written mine,
By being my friend...

Like a ship blown from its mooring,
By a wind off the sea.
Like a seed dropped by a skybird,
In a distant wood.
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you,
Because I knew you,
I have been changed for good. — Stephen Schwartz

As for my batting, the best part about it is I have never changed it. I have never changed my thinking, I have never changed my batting style. — Virender Sehwag

A smile can save a life. Did you know that there's scientific evidence that smiling can boost your immune system and help you live a longer and happier life, not to mention that it makes the people around you happier too because smiling is contagious? There was a time I was going through security at an airport and out of nowhere a TSA agent smiled at me, and it changed my entire day. When you make someone else's day brighter, it makes your day better too. Goal: Smile often - you never know whose day you will brighten. You never know the impact one smile will have on someone's life. — Demi Lovato

I have been thinking about existence lately. In fact, I have been so full of admiration for existence that I have hardly been able to enjoy it properly ... I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can't believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don't imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try. — Marilynne Robinson

It was like the sun had appeared again in my life, Sophia, You. You changed everything when you stepped into that room. You have a freshness, a strength, an allure, I've never seen before. The way you walk, talk, hold yourself. The way you move your hands, these long red nails. You've become the light of my life. — Cristiane Serruya

Reality has changed, and we changed with it. However, I never changed sides. I have always been on the side of justice, democracy and social equality. — Dilma Rousseff

My life has changed so much over the last month. I lost the most important person in my entire world and when I thought I would never survive it Renee was just there, distracting me from all of it. I don't know what would have happened to me if the only person I had to talk to was Sally. My heart might have stopped, like Dad's. — Dawn O'Porter

I'm going to Bristol," Matthew said desperately. "I'll reschedule the meetings. I won't do anything without your leave. But at least I can gather information - interview the local transport firm, have a look at their horses - "
"Swift," the earl interrupted. Something in his quiet tone, a note of ... kindness? ... sympathy? ... caused Matthew to stiffen defensively. "I understand the reason for your urgency - "
"No, you don't."
"I understand more than you might think. And in my experience, these problems can't be solved by avoidance. You can never run far or fast enough."
Matthew froze, staring at Westcliff. The earl could have been referring either to Daisy, or to Matthew's tarnished past. In either case he was probably right.
Not that it changed anything.
"Sometimes running is the only choice," Matthew replied gruffly, and left the room without looking back. — Lisa Kleypas

Charles," Bones said distinctly. "You'd better have a splendid explanation for her being on top of you."
The black-haired vampire rose to his feet as soon as I jumped off, brushing the dirt off his clothes.
"Believe me, mate, I've never enjoyed a woman astride me less. I came out to say hello, and this she-devil blinded me by flinging rocks in my eyes. Then she vigorously attempted to split my skull before threatening to impale me with silver if I so much as even
twitched! It's been a few years since I've been to America, but I daresay the method of greeting a person has changed
dramatically!"
Bones rolled his eyes and clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm glad you're still upright, Charles, and the only reason you are is because she didn't have any silver. She'd have staked you right and proper otherwise. She has a tendency to shrivel someone first
and then introduce herself afterwards. — Jeaniene Frost

I'm learning how much I have to learn, how little I know, how fragile my understanding is. I'm learning to be thankful and patient; today is all that we will ever have in this life. If we spend our time obsessing with the future or regretting the past then we will never live. Tomorrow will always be tomorrow and yesterday cannot be changed. The wise man seeks God in the now and brings both his regrets and fears before Him. The freedom that we are offered is truly amazing: to live, today, free from even our own fallen desires. This is where I want to be. — Jon Foreman

I've never really talked about this, but I would go days without eating. Or maybe I'd have some fruit and then go to the gym for three hours. I knew I had a problem ... It was a gradual process but I changed myself. — Lucy Hale

I have only a couple friends, but I've known them since, like, you know, fourth grade or something. I've never changed anything about my little group of friends. I think if you're just smart, and you have the friends who care about you most, that's really all that matters. — Rob Kardashian

Pen?"
"Lady?"
"You think I'm pretty."
He blinked in surprise. "I always found you so, Lady. But it's true that your face has changed."
"You always found me pretty?"
Pen shrugged. "It doesn't matter, Lady. Some women are defined by their appearance, but you have never been one of them. — Erika Johansen

After Leaving Las Vegas I did assume that things would get a lot easier than they've been. But it's just been a mirror of the way my career's been from the beginning, so for it to have changed would have been strange. My career has never been perfect. — Elisabeth Shue

Obviously, my tastes and my priorities have changed. But I'm still asking the question 'Why?' Just because I'm a mother doesn't mean I'm not still a rebel and that I don't want to go in the face of convention and challenge the system. I never wanted to think in a robotic way, and I don't want my children to think that way, either. — Madonna Ciccone

Pete Egoscue has totally changed my life. Never have I experienced such complete pain relief as I have by following the Egoscue Method. — Jack Nicklaus

Some people have said that man has improved ... [and] that if Christ came back today, He would not be crucified but would be given a glorious reception. Christ does come to us every day in the form of Bibles that we do not read, in the form of churches that we do not attend, in the form of human need that we pass by. I am convinced that if Christ came back today, He would be crucified more quickly than He was two thousand years ago. Sin never improves. Human nature has not changed. — Billy Graham

I have never changed my message. I preach the Bible, and I preach it with authority. — Billy Graham

I went into the experience with the notion that I was merely going to get a taste of a deviant lifestyle. The Dom was charismatic and the kinky sex might be good if I could get past the whipping part, because there was no way I would ever think that was fun. I believed I could never be truly submissive or enjoy pain. I was so very wrong

My life changed forever. The connection between Dom and sub is one of the closest relationships two people can have. Give and take became more than words. They became the basis of my existence. My body is no longer my own. He has access to everything I am - privacy does not exist, but when he looks at me it's with love. There is no fear and no shame because I am safe. I will always be safe with him.

As my Master will be safe with me. — Debra Varva