I May Not Have Everything Quotes & Sayings

There has appeared in our time a particular class of books and articles which I sincerely and solemnly think may be called the silliest ever known among men ... these things are about nothing; they are about what is called Success. On every bookstall, in every magazine, you may find works telling people how to succeed. They are books showing men how to succeed in everything; they are written by men who cannot even succeed in writing books. To begin with, of course, there is no such thing as Success. Or, if you like to put it so, there is nothing that is not successful. That a thing is successful merely means that it is; a millionaire is successful in being a millionaire and a donkey in being a donkey ... I really think that the people who buy these books (if any people do buy them) have a moral, if not a legal, right to ask for their money back. — G.K. Chesterton

Jesus offered a single incentive to follow him; it was woven into all he said and did. Here is how I would after twenty-four years of following summarize his selling point: Follow me, and you might be happy
or you might not. Follow me, and might be empowered
or you might not. Follow me, and you might have more friends
or you might not. Follow me, and you might have the answers
or you might not. Follow me, and you might be better off
or you might not. If you follow me, you may be worse off in every way you use to measure life. Follow me nevertheless. Because I have an offer that is worth giving up everything you have: you will learn to love well. — Samir Selmanovic

I see everything, everything that there is. Why does each thing on the earth war against each other thing? Why does each small thing in the world have to fight against the world itself? Why does a fly have to fight the whole universe? Why does a dandelion have to fight the whole universe? So that each thing that obeys law may have the glory and isolation of the anarchist. So that each man fighting for order may be as brave and good a man as the dynamiter. So that the real lie of Satan may be flung back in the face of this blasphemer, so that by tears and torture we may earn the right to say to this man, 'You lie!' No agonies can be too great to buy the right to say to this accuser, 'We also have suffered.' It is not true that we have never been broken. We have been broken upon the wheel. It is not true that we have never descended from these thrones. We have descended into hell. — G.K. Chesterton

I ask, "How may I be of service? Why are you here to see me?" I put a slight emphasis on "me," and they respond to that, first.
"You ask us to come," they intone, in unison.
Considering for a moment, I chuckle. "Yeah, I guess so," I reply. "But, why now? And, I can't be the only one inviting you. So why come to me?" I repeat.
They make those amused sounds again (at least, that's what I think they are) and do not respond further.
I shrug and ask, "Will you help us humans? I have lots of questions."
"We have lots of answers," one of them says. — Sally Ember

My boy, you shall be everything in the world, animal, vegetable, mineral, protista, or virus, for all I care-before I have done with you-but you will have to trust my superior backsight. The time is not yet ripe for you to be a hawk ... so you may as well sit down for the moment and learn to be a human being. — T.H. White

Because, I'm a guy, and we have to measure everything, I can assure you I am a humble ten inches or so, not twenty-four. Yes, I realize I'm on the large side, I also know while it may be a snug fit," his voice dropped to a wicked, suggestive growl, "every slow, thick inch WILL fit. — T. Hammond

It makes me happier, more secure, to think that I do not have to plan and manage everything for myself, that I am only a sword made sharp to smite the unclean forces, an enchanted sword to cleave and disperse them.
Grant, O Lord, that I may not break as I strike! Let me not fall from Thy hand! — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I always want us to be like this, connected, sharing everything with each other. Not holding anything back, no matter how the other person may feel."
"You have my word from this point forward. No matter what. — Nicole Gulla

Everything comes down to this: the reason for every word I have written and every word I will write. I am recounting my life for you so that you may know this secret without the pain of discovering it: We are unhappy because we think that love is something we require from someone else. Our salvation depends on a simple gesture that is nonetheless the most difficult act we can perform: We must give away the thing we most long for. Not to receive but to give. — Arthur Japin

There are peaks, there are valleys. But they're all kind of carved and smoothed out, and it feels like a low level of despair you live in. Where you're not getting any answers, but you're living OK. And you can smile at the office. You know? But it's a low level of despair. I was on Prozac for a long time. It may have helped me out of a jam for a little bit, but people stay on it forever. I had to get off at a certain point because I realized that, you know, everything's just OK. — Jim Carrey

When I was young I believed people should be told everything and that, as a pastor, I had a duty to share all my knowledge. Over the years I came to see that was a mistake. A person may know only what they are capable of assimilating. I have been thinking about this for half my life, and especially since I have been in Israel, but there are few people I can confide in. Really only you. You see, it is a terrible thing to disturb someone's equilibrium. If a person has become accustomed to thinking in a particular way, even a slight digression from that can prove painful. Not everybody is open to new ideas, to making their understanding more precise and supplementing it, to change. I have to admit that I am changing. Today my views on many matters have diverged from those generally accepted in the Catholic world, and I am not the only person in that situation. "You see, the birth of the One whom — Lyudmila Ulitskaya

I may not be the number one movie star, or my films might not be doing too good. I am grateful for what life has offered me. I have got a great family, parents are together, have a great sister, I get to holiday. All these things make me grateful towards life, for everything. I always say - have an attitude of gratitude. — Sonam Kapoor

I felt I had nothing more to say. Everything would have had to be a replay of the previous two or three albums, and that decided me to stop. What bothered me most was not playing guitar at all anymore. I felt I had no more contact with the instrument. It was just a piece of wood to me. I even thought music had definitely left me. After fourteen albums, there may be an overload phase, a sort of lassitude. — Richard Pinhas

I will love you, Meena," he said fiercely, "until the end of time. I will never stop loving you. My life, before I met you, was nothing. Can you understand that? My life was nothing, meant nothing, even if I may not have known it. And then you came along, and suddenly, everything I knew, or thought I knew, was turned upside down. I will never be the same again. How could I be? You have shown me what it is to love, to feel and laugh and, yes, even to feel alive again. So whether you choose to be one with me or not, I will go on loving you, Meena, even after you are a rotting corpse in the ground. But, Meena, I would like to do whatever I can to prevent you from turning into a corpse. I think I mentioned that before. — Meg Cabot

It's true, he did look like the hero in all this, and for the most part, he was. What he did for this girl was a lot, but I knew from experience that lies have a way of coming back to haunt you. He may have done everything with the best intentions, but he still may not be able to escape how this all began. — Angela Richardson

Great pals we've always been. In fact there was a time when I had an idea I was in love with Cynthia. However, it blew over. A dashed pretty and lively and attractive girl, mind you, but full of ideals and all that. I may be wronging her, but I have an idea that she's the sort of girl who would want a fellow to carve out a career and what not. I know I've heard her speak favourably of Napoleon. So what with one thing and another the jolly old frenzy sort of petered out, and now we're just pals. I think she's a topper, and she thinks me next door to a looney, so everything's nice and matey. — P.G. Wodehouse

I do not believe that Mr. Jefferson ever hated me. On the contrary, I believe he always like me: but he detested Hamilton and by whole administration. Then he wished to be President of the United States, and I stood in his way. So he did everything that he could to pull me down. But if I should quarral with him for that, I might quarrel with every man I have had anything to do with in life. This is human nature ... I forgive all my enemies and hope they may find mercy in Heaven. Mr. Jefferson and I have grown old and retired from public life. So we are upon our ancient terms of goodwill. — John Adams

Working on 'NYPD Blue' and '24', those two series, I did full runs on those. It's great work, but everything has to align. The producers have to want you; the network has to want you; there has to be great writing; and it's not as easy as it may appear to the outsiders to make all those things align. — Ricky Schroder

Over time I tried everything from "the good girl" with my "perform-perfect-please" routine, to clove-smoking poet, angry activist, corporate climber, and out-of-control party girl. At first glance these may seem like reasonable, if not predictable, developmental stages, but they were more than that for me. All of my stages were different suits of armor that kept me from becoming too engaged and too vulnerable. Each strategy was built on the same premise: Keep everyone at a safe distance and always have an exit strategy. — Brene Brown

Who can pray this request and mean it? Only he who looks at the whole of life from this point of view. Such a man will not fall into the trap of superspirituality, so concentrating on God's redemption as to disregard his creation; people like that, however devoted and well-meaning, are unearthly in more senses than one, and injure their own humanity. Instead, he will see everything as stemming ultimately from the Creator's hand, and therefore as fundamentally good and fascinating, whatever man may have made of it (beauty, sex, nature, children, arts, crafts, food, games, no less than theology and church things). Then in thankfulness and joy he will so live as to help others see life's values, and praise God for them, as he does. Supremely in this drab age, hallowing God's name starts here, with an attitude of gratitude for the goodness of the creation. — J.I. Packer

I'm terrified to lose you, but I am way more terrified of living without you while you're alive and well. For the record, I would rather have a single day of truly being with you than twenty thousand days of going through the motions with someone who doesn't have my heart. I don't care if I never have the chance to grow old and decrepit with you. I want today. I want to watch creepy movies with you and the dogs, burn toast in your apartment. I want to feel you inside of me. I want to experience everything with you while we're both alive. WE ARE BOTH ALIVE. A good life is about quality, not quantity. I just want to be with you for however long that may be. But I can't force you to see things the way I do. When — Penelope Ward

I know the package may not be ideal ... But the 'content,' those characteristics that you're looking for, are what you want ... I'm a good risk, Gina. Take a leap and make the decision that your future is with me. Trust me, trust the fact I love you. I'm not asking you to have everything sorted out and not have any doubts. I don't need that from you. What I need, what I think you need, is a yes. — Dee Henderson

I believe it went like this - and stop me if I'm wrong, Mousey: 'Listen, we may not be our own continent and everything, but we have a big country over in America too. — Elle Lothlorien

I've always believed in my abilities. Nobody ever gave me anything in life. I had to work for everything I got. It may have gotten really rocky for a while, but I persevered, because I'm not afraid of failing. — Chauncey Billups

Take your time, think a lot,
Why, think of everything you've got.
For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.
From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen.
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go. — Cat Stevens

You get a team that goes out there and they find a little bit of something that advantage is going to seem larger then it is if the rules were not as tight because it's harder for other people to find whatever that advantage may be. I'm not saying points leader Tony Stewart has a huge advantage. What they've got is that they are hitting everything exactly right. When they have everything working just right, that's how it shows to be dominant. — Chad Knaus

Oh!" cried Anne eagerly, "I hope I do justice to all that is felt by you,
and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should undervalue
the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures!
I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment
and constancy were known only by woman. No, I believe you capable
of everything great and good in your married lives. I believe you equal
to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance,
so long as
if I may be allowed the expression
so long as you have
an object. I mean while the woman you love lives, and lives for you.
All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one;
you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence
or when hope is gone. — Jane Austen

Now, though, that meadow scene is the first thing that comes back to me. [ ... ] And yet, as clear as the scene may be, no one is in it. No one. Naoko is not there, and neither am I. Where could we have disappeared to? How could such a thing have happened? Everything that seemed so important back then - Naoko, and the self I was then and the world I had then: where could they have all gone? It's true, I can't even bring back her face - not straight away, at least. All I'm left holding is a background, pure scenery, with no people at the front. — Haruki Murakami

I believe my judgment has never been clearer. I have seen firsthand their potential, their strength of will, in a way you have not."

"You have loosed a chaotic, unstable variable into the Mosaic. They will destroy everything."

"It is a risk. They also may save everything. — G.S. Jennsen

Well, right now it seems that things are going very badly for me, have been doing so for some considerable time, and may continue to do so well into the future. But it is possible that everything will get better after it has all seemed to go wrong. I am not counting on it, it may never happen, but if there should be a change for the better I should regard that as a gain, I should rejoice, I should say, at last! So there was something after all! — Vincent Van Gogh

Bucky's expression wasn't hostile, but it was serious. "Someday I'm going to fight and you won't be at my back."
"Nonsense. I'm your friend. Who I work for doesn't change that."
"If you leave it too long, you won't have a choice anymore. If the Steam Council turns on the people, each of us is going to have to decide where we belong."
"And you're going to play the rebel? You won't even carry a gun," Tobias snapped. "Your father may own an arms factory, but you make toys for a living."
"I don't carry a gun because I'm too good a shot," Bucky said quietly. "But when I fire, I don't miss. I never want to find you in my sights."
"It's not that simple," Tobias shot back, feeling a need for justification.
Bucky shrugged. "No, but the barons are running out of time, and that means we won't have many more chances to talk before everything falls apart. — Emma Jane Holloway

[On deciding not to have children:] Yes, there is a little sadness ... But there's also a little sadness around the fact I may never get to go to the moon. Jeez, you can't do everything in this lifetime. — Henriette Mantel

You have a house if not a home," she spat. "You have people who care for you if not about you. You may not have everything you want, but I'd wager you have everything you could ever need, and you have the audacity to claim it all forfeit because it is not love."
"I--"
"Love doesn't keep us from freezing to death, Kell," she continued, "or starving, or being knifed for the coins in our pocket. Love doesn't buy us anything, so be glad for what you have and who you have because you may want for things but you need nothing. — Victoria Schwab

You're wrong, Miss Midwinter. Though I may not have approved of everything you've done, it wasn't because I didn't admire you, but because I did."
She looked up then, a tentative smile brightening her face. — Julie Klassen

The girl may have been tiny, but everything about her said, I'm not scared of you, so piss off. — Christine Manzari

There may not be a hell, but those who judge may create one. I think people are over-taught. They are over-taught everything. You have to find out by what happens to you, how you will react. I'll have to use a strange term here ... "good." I don't know where it comes from, but I feel that there's an ultimate strain of goodness born in each of us. I don't believe in God, but I believe in this "goodness" like a tube running through our bodies. It can be nurtured. It's always magic, when on a freeway packed with traffic, a stranger makes room for you to change lanes ... it gives you hope. — Charles Bukowski

this is very important, so listen carefully. As I told you before, there is no middle ground with me. You take either all of me or nothing. That's the way it works. If you don't mind continuing the way we are now, I don't see why we can't do that. I don't know how long we'd be able to, but I'll do everything in my power to see that it happens. When I'm able to come see you, I will. But when I can't, I can't. I can't just come to see you whenever I feel like it. You may not be satisfied with that arrangement, but if you don't want me to go away again, you have to take all of me. Everything. All the baggage I carry, everything that clings to me. And I will take all of you. Do you understand that? Do you understand what that means? — Haruki Murakami

I know now that everything after the accident was merely a tactic to indulge in escapism and self-delusion. When you are hit by a streetcar that almost smashes you to a pulp, when you experience your own end...there is no recovery, only temporary respite, she thought.

Pain made me aware of my body. My body made me aware of deterioration and death. That awareness made me old. My death sentence may have been deferred, but I now had to live with a twofold realization. Not only was I going to die - there was nothing unusual about that except that I was made to realize it at a tender age - but I knew exactly what that meant. Because I had already been through it. Unlike other condemned people for whom death is an abstraction because they have no idea what really awaits them, my stay of death came with a constant reminder, the presence of pain. — Slavenka Drakulic

You're right [Joshua], I have taught you nothing. I could teach you nothing. Everything that you needed to know was already there. You simply needed the word for it. Some need Kali and Shiva to destroy the world so they may see past the illusion to divinity in them, others need Krishna to drive them to the place where they may perceive what is eternal in them. Others may perceive the Divine Spark in themselves only by realizing through enlightenment that the spark resides in all things, and in that they find kinship. But because the Divine Spark resides in all, does not mean that all will discover it. Your dharma is not to learn, Joshua, but to teach."
"How will I teach my people about the Divine Spark?"
...
"You must only find the right word. The Divine Spark is infinite, the path to find it is not. The beginning of the path is the word. — Christopher Moore

Letter to Bill Smith, 1921

Wish to hell I was going North when you men do. Doubt if I get up this summer-Jo Eezus (Jesus), sometimes I get to thinking about the Sturgeon and Black during the nocturnal and damn near go cuckoo. May have to give it up for something I want more but that does not keep me from loving it with everything I have. Dats de way tings are. Guy loves a couple of or three steams all his life and loves 'em better than anything in the world--falls in love with a girl and the goddamn streams can dry up for all he cares. Only the hell of it is that all that country has as bad a hold on me as ever--there's as much pull this spring as there ever was--and you know how it's always been--just don't think about it all daytime, but at night it comes and ruins me--and I can't go. — Ernest Hemingway,

It isn't that to have an honorable relationship with you, I have to understand everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you.
It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you. That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive, to me. That I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words. That we both know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us.
The possibility of life between us. — Adrienne Rich

Inside this pencil
crouch words that have never been written
never been spoken
never been taught

they're hiding

they're awake in there
dark in the dark
hearing us
but they won't come out
not for love not for time not for fire

even when the dark has worn away
they'll still be there
hiding in the air
multitudes in days to come may walk through them
breathe them
be none the wiser

what script can it be
that they won't unroll
in what language
would I recognize it
would I be able to follow it
to make out the real names
of everything

maybe there aren't
many
it could be that there's only one word
and it's all we need
it's here in this pencil

every pencil in the world
is like this — W.S. Merwin

I may not believe in sin," he said, "but I do feel guilt. We Shadowhunters live by a code, and that code isn't flexible. Honor, fault, penance, those are real to us, and they have nothing to do with religion and everything to do with who we are. This is who I am, Clary," he said desperately. — Cassandra Clare

DFW: I think there are different people on the page than in real life. I do six to eight drafts of everything that I do. Um, I am probably not the smartest writer going. But I also
and I know, OK, this is gonna fit right into the persona
I work really really hard. I'm really
you give me twenty-four hours? If we'd done this interview through the mail? I could be really really really smart. I'm not all that fast. And I'm really self-conscious. And I get confused really easily. When I'm in a room by myself alone, and have enough time, I can be really really smart. And people are different that way. You know what I mean? I may not
I don't think I'm quite as smart, one-on-one with people, when I'm self-conscious, and I'm really really confused. And it's like, My dream would be for you to write this up, and then to send it to me, and I get to rewrite all my quotes to you. Which of course you'll never do ... — David Lipsky

Find what you love to do, what you're good at and passionate about and then dedicate your entire life to working hard at it. I wil say it again. Work hard. I mean that. Even if you're not sure where that work will lead, even if it is underappreciated or undervalued. Do it because the satisfaction, pride, and sense of self that comes from a job well done; from being the very best at what you do; from knowing that you did this, will be your ulltimate weapon and our greatest shield in a life that will often test you. One day destiny may conspire to take everything away from you, but it can never take away the abilities you have cultivated. As I am sure your grandfather will tell you, your winning lottery ticket is your mind. — Amy Mowafi

I, on the other hand, am walking through a larch wood and every step I take is history. I think 'I love you, Adriana' and that is history, will have great consequences. I'll behave tomorrow in battle like a man who has thought tonight 'I love you, Adriana.' Perhaps I may not accomplish great deeds but history is made up of little anonymous gestures; I may die tomorrow even before that German, but everything I do before dying and my death too will be little parts of history, and all the thoughts I'm having now will influence my history tomorrow, tomorrow's history of the human race. — Italo Calvino

I wasn't around, and I guess if I had been, I would have been part of the oppressor class and think it was the way things should be. But I have been told that things are a lot better now. I won't say they're perfect. Things don't get perfect. But most of the women I know are happy. They don't think there's many battles left to fight." "You'd better stop there," Robin cautioned. "Most women have always been happy with the way things were, or at least they said so. That goes back to before peckish society allowed women to vote. Just because we of the Coven believe some things that I now know are overstated or incorrect, don't draw the conclusion that we are foolish about everything. We know that the majority is always willing to let things remain as they are until they are led to something better. A slave may not be happy with her lot, but most do nothing to improve it. Most do not believe it can be improved. — John Varley

Becoming a father increases your capacity for love and your level of patience. It opens up another door in a person - a door which you may not even have known was there. That's what I feel with my son. There's suddenly another level of love that expands. My son is my greatest joy, out of everything in my life. — Kyle MacLachlan

For I have shown from the Scriptures, that no one of the sons of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord. But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth. Now the Scriptures would not have testified these things of Him, if, like others, He had been a mere man. — Irenaeus Of Lyons

When you present something that you have worked on to somebody else, for some reason that is the moment when you can see everything that you have done wrong. They may or may not agree, but it is more of a personal thing for me. It is that I am looking at it because you are self conscious and suddenly there is someone in the room that is seeing it for the first time. — Michael Giacchino

I may not be the biggest Kid in the world, and I may not be the smartest, and I may not have been around to learn everything there is to know, but I do know this: people in love do the stupidest things. — T.J. Klune

You taught me about everything I had forgotten and things I'd never known. And the only way I can repay you is with my heart. You one hundred percent have my heart. It may not be worth much coming from a troubled man like me, but it's real and it's yours. Ti amo, mia leonessa. — Karina Halle

I may not understand what is going on in your heart, but I do see that you have put this contest before everything and everyone ... even God. — Sarah Holman

When it comes to love, I realize that I am masochistic. They might consider me crazy for loving you despite everything that we have been through. You may not be worth the pain, but if it's from you, I really don't mind the devastation. I don't want to ever let you go. I may deserve better than you, but you're just the same, aren't you? You are me. There is no difference. Tomorrow I will feel the same as I did the day before. You are the only one I could love this way, and that's not something I ever want to give up. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

I really would like to be able to face all my superstitions that may have existed and walk under the ladder and do everything you're not supposed to do. — Nicolas Cage

The word desire suggests that there is something we do not have. If we have everything already, then there can be no desire, for there is nothing left to want. I think that what the Buddha may have been trying to tell us is that we have it all, each of us, all the time; therefore, desire is simply unnecessary. — Tom Robbins

I think motherhood is the noblest task of all, because you cannot do it at your convenience, or tailor it to suit your preferences. You have to be ready to give up everything when you take on this task: your time, restful nights, your hobbies, your pursuit of physical fitness, any beauty you may have had, and all of the private little pleasures you might have counted as a right, from late dinners and long soaks in the tub to weekend excursions and cycling trips ... I'm not saying you can't have any of these things, but you have to be ready to let them all go if you're going to have children and put them first. — Johann Christoph Arnold

I am
asking myself what is fear not what I am afraid of.
I lead a certain kind of life; I think in a certain pattern; I have
certain beliefs and dogmas and I don't want those patterns of
existence to be disturbed because I have my roots in them. I don't
want them to be disturbed because the disturbance produces a state
of unknowing and I dislike that. If I am torn away from everything
I know and believe, I want to be reasonably certain of the state of
things to which I am going. So the brain cells have created a
pattern and those brain cells refuse to create another pattern which
may be uncertain. The movement from certainty to uncertainty is
what I call fear. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

When I say God it is poetry and not theology. Nothing that any theologian has written about God has helped me much, but everything the poets have written about flowers and birds and skies and seas and saviors of the race, and God - whoever He may be - has at one time or another reached my soul! ... The theologians gather dust upon the shelves of my library but the poets are stained with my fingers and blotted by my tears. — John Haynes Holmes

Americans should never forget that the founders of this country, like all who have served her in uniform, were willing to die defending everything its flag represents. It's so easy to get lost in the controversies that divide us. But I believe, no matter what our race, religion, or beliefs may be, that Americans should be able to come together to keep our country rooted in what made it great: a land of opportunity, a place where people can make something of themselves, limited only by their imaginations and willingness to work hard; a country where we can all come together, whatever our differences, for the greater good; a country of hands up, not handouts, where we try to live by the meaning of the words "Love thy neighbor," and put as much effort into helping others as we do helping ourselves. By doing those things, we can continue to live up to the idea of "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. — Marcus Luttrell

You're right, I have taught you nothing. I could teach you nothing. Everything that you needed was already there. You simply needed the word for it. Some need Kali and Shiva to destroy the world so they may see past the illusion to divinity in them, others need Krishna to drive them to the place where they may perceive what is eternal in them. Others may perceive the Divine Spark in themselves only by realizing through enlightenment that the spark resides in all things, and in that they find kinship. But because the Divine Spark resides in all, does not mean that all will discover it. Your dharma is not to learn, Joshua, but to teach — Christopher Moore

That's how I see myself as an actress. I may not be the best in the world, but I love my craft more than just about anything, and I will give everything I have to it, whatever the cost . — Anne Hathaway

Sometimes I think some of my fellow novelists who have not worked in television and film are very naive about this process. They get an offer and there's the dump truck full of money and they sign it, they cash the check and then they're not involved in the series. They may get invited to the premiere and they come out of the premiere looking like all of their children had just been gassed, with a stunned look on their face because everything has been changed. — George R R Martin

Of course a miracle may happen, and you may be a great painter, but you must confess the chances are a million to one against it. It'll be an awful sell if at the end you have to acknowledge you've made a hash of it."
"I've got to paint," he repeated.
"Supposing you're never anything more than third-rate, do you think it will have been worth while to give up everything? After all, in any other walk in life it doesn't matter if you're not very good; you can get along quite comfortably if you're just adequate; but it's different with an artist."
"You blasted fool," he said.
"I don't see why, unless it's folly to say the obvious."
"I tell you I've got to paint. I can't help myself. When a man falls into the water it doesn't matter how he swims, well or badly: he's got to get out or else he'll drown. — W. Somerset Maugham

I shall be supplied with whatever I need; and, if I have not everything I desire, I may conclude it is either not fit for me, or I shall have it in due time. — Matthew Henry

And I said to the priest, "Where is the god?"

'And he answered me: "There is no god but this mirror that thou seest, for this is the Mirror of Wisdom. And it reflecteth all things that are in heaven and on earth, save only the face of him who looketh into it. This it reflecteth not, so that he who looketh into it may be wise. Many other mirrors are there, but they are mirrors of Opinion. This only is the Mirror of Wisdom. And they who possess this mirror know everything, nor is there anything hidden from them. And they who possess it not have not Wisdom. Therefore is it the god, and we worship it." And I looked into the mirror, and it was even as I he had said to me. — Oscar Wilde

Everything happens for a reason? I don't see it that way at all. To me, only the first part is clear: Everything happens. Then other things happen, and other things, still. Out of each of these moments, we make something. Any number of somethings, in fact.

What comes of our own actions becomes the "reason." It is no predestined thing. We may arrive where we are by way of a specific path - we can take just one at a time - but it's never the only one that could have led us to our destination. Nor does a single event, even a string of them, point decisively to a single landing spot. There are infinite possible versions of our lives. Meaning is not what happens, but what we do with what happens when it does. — Jessica Fechtor

Noah had always been my best friend, my partner in crime, my protector, my soul mate, the love of my life. My everything. I may not have gotten all the beauty, intelligence or talent, but I got Noah Stewart, the one "perfect" thing I could claim as mine and I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world — Alison G. Bailey

Ever feel like you're always winding up and never throwing it out? You might blame it on perfectionism or procrastination or preparation. You may even call it prudent. But whatever it is...IT'S NOT WORKING. I call this phenomenon "petrified performance." Where you're busy, busy, busy (on the wrong activities or the right activities for too long), and never accomplishing the idea or task you set out to do. You're stuck. Like a tree that once was lively is now dead and immovable like a stone. What once was a fluid idea is now frozen in time. How do you overcome petrified performance? With practice, silly. Everything you do should be considered a "project" because projects have a beginning and an end with a timeline. No more dreaming. Wake up and put those dreams to work by putting the steps necessary to make them happen on the calendar. Are you willing to practice? That's my prescription. — Richie Norton

Don't you think," said Father Rothschild gently, "that perhaps it is all in some way historical? I don't think people ever want to lose their faith either in religion or anything else. I know very few young people, but it seems to me that they are all possessed with an almost fatal hunger for permanence. I think all these divorces show that. People aren't content just to muddle along nowadays ... And this word "bogus" they all use ... They won't make the best of a bad job nowadays. My private schoolmaster used to say, "If a thing's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well." My Church has taught that in different words for several centuries. But these young people have got hold of another end of the stick, and for all we know it may be the right one. They say, "If a thing's not worth doing well, it's not worth doing at all." It makes everything very difficult for them. — Evelyn Waugh

Remember that the fool in the eyes of the gods and the fool in the eyes of man are very different. One who is entirely ignorant of the modes of Art in its revolution or the moods of thought in its progress, of the pomp of the Latin line or the richer music of the vowelled Greeks, of Tuscan sculpture or Elizabethan song may yet be full of the very sweetest wisdom. The real fool, such as the gods mock or mar, is he who does not know himself. I was such a one too long. You have been such a one too long. Be so no more. Do not be afraid. The supreme vice is shallowness. Everything that is realised is right — Oscar Wilde

It strikes me you might place your gifts better. Why should you send powder to a ruffian who will use it to commit crimes? But for the deplorable weakness every one here seems to have for the bandits, they would have disappeared out of Corsica long ago."
"The worst men in our country are not those who are 'in the country.'"
"Give them bread, if it so please you. But I will not have you supply them with ammunition."
"Brother," said Colomba, in a serious voice, "you are master here, and everything in this house belongs to you. But I warn you that I will give this little girl my mezzaro, so that she may sell it; rather than refuse powder to a bandit. — Prosper Merimee

At times I feel as if I had lived all this before and that I have already written these very words, but I know it was not I: it was another woman, who kept her notebooks so that one day I could use them. I write, she wrote, that memory is fragile and the space of a single life is brief, passing so quickly that we never get a chance to see the relationship between events; we cannot gauge the consequences of our acts, and we believe in the fiction of past, present, and future, but it may also be true that everything happens simultaneously ... That's why my Grandmother Clara wrote in her notebooks, in order to see things in their true dimension and to defy her own poor memory. — Isabel Allende

Eragon said, I have a new name for pain. What's that? The Obliterator. Because when you're in pain, nothing else can exist. Not thought. Not emotion. Only the drive to escape the pain. When it's strong enough, the Obliterator strips us of everything that makes us who we are, until we're reduced to creatures less than animals, creatures with a single desire and goal: escape. A good name, then. I'm falling apart, Saphira, like an old horse that's plowed too many fields. Keep hold of me with your mind, or I may drift apart and forget who I am. I will never let go of you. — Christopher Paolini

Everything I did to get back, if it wasnt for my team, it was for my city. Thats one thing that I bought into from Day One. Im not just here in this city to play football, Im here to actually create real change in this city. If my effort can give you hope, faith or love, then so be it. Ill give everything I have, and today was about me giving everything that I had, showing people that no matter the circumstances that you may be going through, just push through it. If you can push through it, you will encourage somebody. Today, hopefully through what I did today, somebody was uplifted. — Ray Lewis

When I awaken in the morning, I am thankful for a new day. I am thankful for everything that I have materially. I am thankful for everything I have spiritually. I thank God for allowing me to experience these things, even the experiences that may not seem so positive, such as developing an illness. I may not understand why I have the illness, but I sense that it is there for a purpose, and so I thank God for it. I ask Him to allow me to expand beyond my narrow-mindedness and self-centeredness so that I can see the good that comes from everything. — Betty Eadie

Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the Kingdom. If you may have everything by asking in His Name, and nothing without asking, I beg you to see how absolutely vital prayer is. — Charles Spurgeon

Dear Supreme Altruist-

I hope you are in a receptive mood.

Thanks very much for placing wihin me the bomb that never stops exploding. Though the benefits have been intangible and in fact I feel that this terrifying mechanism has generally made my life intolerable, I shall never ask you to reverse the situation. I feel I have done everything that may be reasonably expected of me in the way of self-abnegation. However, I now find to my dismay that my lifelong fear of death is beginning to desert me. I believe that this may mean that the bomb's continual explosions may be causing the growth of new slabs of man-bark instead of blasting the loathesome stuff away as it has been doing.

I therefore humbly request that the explosive power of the bomb be increased. Please do not make me weaker; make the bomb stronger.

Amen. — Jim Woodring

And all of a sudden, all of my sins came before me. Everything I had ever done wrong that I had forgotten about years ago came into my mind. And I prayed, Lord, forgive me, may the blood of Jesus Christ cleanse me from all of my sins ... not because of my good works or because of all the things I have tried to do, but because the Lord had forgiven me. — Billy Graham

Some people may think that it is a dangerous attitude to take toward the Bible, to pick and choose what you want to accept and throw everything else out. My view is that everyone already picks and chooses what they want to accept in the Bible ... I have a young friend who whose evangelical parents were upset because she wanted to get a tattoo, since the Bible, after all, condemns tattoos. In the same book, Leviticus, the Bible also condemns wearing clothing made of two different kinds of fabric and eating pork ... Why insist on the biblical teaching about tattoos but not about dress shirts, pork chops, and stoning? — Bart D. Ehrman

It's possible, and I stress possible, that such a moment may never come: you may not fall in love, you may not be able to or you may not wish to give your whole life to anyone, and, like me, you may turn forty-five one day and realize that you're no longer young and you have never found a choir of cupids with lyres or a bed of white roses leading to the altar. The only revenge left for you then will be to steal from life the pleasure of firm and passionate flesh - a pleasure that evaporates faster than good intentions and is the nearest thing to heaven you will find in this stinking world where everything decays, beginning with beauty and ending with memory. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

His sigh spoke of fear and regret mingled with grim acceptance. 'Teach her,' he said. 'Teach her to fight. Teach her to defend herself, and teach her to kill. The five of you must be her chatoks in the Dance of Knives. Teach her as you have taught no other. Give her everything. Hold nothing back.'
'Rain ... ' Bel murmured, his eyes troubled.
Rain waved off his unspoken objection. ' She is a Tairen Soul, and we Tairen Souls were born for war. I may not like this path the gods have set before her, but Farsight is right. I must do everything in my power to ensure she is prepared to walk it' ... — C.L. Wilson

Life is conspiring in your favor. It may not always look that way, but it is, I assure you. Everything that is happening, is happening just the wayit must, in order for you to have the opportunity tocreate the experience of your Self for which you yearn. — Neale Donald Walsch

Our whole life is a fooling around. You can do it because you are not aware of how you waste time, how you waste energy - how life is wasted you are not aware. It is going down the drain. Everything is going down the drain. Only when death comes to you, you may become aware, alert: What have I been doing? What have I done with life? A great opportunity has been lost. What was I doing fooling around? I was not sober. I never reflected upon what I was doing. — Rajneesh

Very well. I am now a man with now food, with two less fingers and one less toe than I was born with; I am a gunslinger with shells which may not fire; I am sickening from a monster's bite and have no medicine; I have a day's water if I'm lucky; I may be able to walk perhaps a dozen miles if I press myself to the last extremity. I am, in short, a man on the edge of everything. — Stephen King

I'm always smiling because I'm happy
I'm happy because the sunrise in the morning is a beautiful site to behold,
even if it's hidden by clouds and rain and snow, I know it's still there
I'm happy because of the person who just let me ahead,
even though ten others wouldn't, one person did, and that was all I needed
I'm happy because I have a friend
even though others have dozens or hundreds, one person who will be there for me is all I need
I'm happy because of the air filling my lungs
even though it may not be the cleanest, it means I'm alive
I'm happy because
While the sun rises and air fills my lungs, My dreams have a chance of one day coming to pass, and one person by my side to see that day with, makes everything else irrelevant.
And that, is why, I'm always smiling. — Omar Kiam

I learned early that business is business and politics is politics. The proof is how few important businessmen have made good politicians. They may think that they are very smart about everything because they made millions of dollars by digging a hole in the ground and finding oil, but the talent and luck needed to become rich are not the same talent and luck needed to succeed on Parliament Hill. — Jean Chretien

Please please read. Everything and anything. You may not remember all of it, you may not remember any of it But from the fairytailes ... to the sweeping soaring classics I hope you will one day discover for yourself, all those words
those lives and characters, ideas and ideals
will, without you realising, shape you and sometimes even shelter you. And it shall be as if you have lived a thousand lives. — Amy Mowafi

I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure nothing bad happens. I will do anything to make sure we have the time for everything that we want, but I'm not stupid enough to disregard the fact that something may happen that I can't control. And, dammit, I don't want to look back and see that I didn't seize the chance to make you mine, to really prove that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. That I lost that opportunity. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Truthfulness, honor, is not something which springs ablaze of itself; it has to be created between people. This is true in political situations. The quality and depth of the politics evolving from a group depends in large part on their understanding of honor. Much of what is narrowly termed "politics" seems to rest on a longing for certainty even at the cost of honesty, for an analysis which, once given, need not be re-examined ... It isn't that to have an honorable relationship with you, I have to understand everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you. It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you. That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive to me. That I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words. That we both know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us. — Adrienne Rich

In a museum in El Paso, Texas, there's a map that shows all the places the border between the U.S. and Mexico has been (because it shifted) - I find it very clarifying (not confusing) to be reminded that everything we feel like we've really pinned down is transient, arbitrary, and marks the site of a painful if not violent negotiation, one that may not have ended. — Laura Mullen

What I mean is, even a dumbass like me can think everything's pointless. Why do I get up and eat? It all ends up shit anyway. Why am I going to school and studying? Even if I happen to succeed I'm going to die anyway. You wear nice clothes, you seek respect, you make a lot of money, but what's the point? It's all pointless. But ... but, you see, we still have emotions like joy and happiness, right? They may not amount to much but they fill up our emptiness. — Koushun Takami

Who was he?" "A magician who took me in after I left the Bone-master. On his good days, he tried to teach me everything he knew." "What about his bad days?" "On his bad days, he generally thought he was an onion." "That's awful," said Jinx. "No, it's not. What was awful was when he thought he was a potato masher." "Oh." "He always said to me, 'Mildred, one day this will all be yours.'" Simon made a wide gesture, encompassing books, cats, and the door to Samara. "Er, he called you Mildred?" "Often as not." "Maybe he really meant to leave everything to Mildred," said Jinx. "If she ever shows up, we'll talk," said Simon. "But I think she may have been a dog he once had. — Sage Blackwood

I'm just not going to tour. One point I want to get across to everybody is that I'm still going to make records and I may still do some events. It's not the last time I'm onstage. It's been a part of my life for too long to quit everything. I have done it since the '80s, and I think it's time now to maybe see if I can live without that part. — George Strait

With me, baseball will never grow old. In my own estimation, it may not have improved so much as many believe, but regardless of everything, it is the same good old game. If I have contributed to its success, I do not refer to this in the sense of boasting. I had to or fall out of the ranks. — Charles Comiskey

I think it laughable, frankly, that the physics community comes up with a theory for everything. There isn't one theory for everything. There is not one explanation. We may eventually have several theories that can tie things together nicely but there is not a single theory of everything. — Edgar Mitchell

Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go. — Anonymous

I'm not even sure he would have realized he was permitted to have his own desires and preferences. That it would have been okay for him to have a favorite place, to walk with satisfaction down the long straight boulevards of whatever post he may have gone to next, to admire the uniformity of the grass, green and neatly shorn beneath a blue, limitless sky, to bury himself in a sandy shallow of some clear cold stream and let the water wash over the pitted skin of his scarred body. I don't know what his favorite place would have been like, because I don't believe he would have let himself have one. He would have waited for one to be assigned to him. That's the way he was ... Everything he'd done had been a response to a preexisting expectation. — Kevin Powers

I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell about something I only feel in my bones and which can only be experienced in those bones. Basically it is nothing other than this fear we have so often talked about, but fear spread to everything, fear of the greatest as of the smallest, fear, paralyzing fear of pronouncing a word, although this fear may not only be fear but also a longing for something greater than all that is fearful. — Franz Kafka

Well, everything with being vegan and vegetarian is a really big commitment. You have to do what you feel is best and what you believe in and what your body is telling you that it needs. I really think everyone should do what's best for them, and what's best for me may not be best for someone else. — Lea Michele