If We Are Meant To Be Quotes & Sayings

I have heard and seen many examples of the cruelty that we are able to visit on one another during my time ... I have also seen incredible forgiveness and compassion. Yes, each of us has the capacity for great evil. But for every act of evil there are a dozen acts of goodness in our world that go unnoticed. It is only because we believe that people should be good that we despair when they are not. Indeed, if people condoned the evil, we would be justified in losing hope. But most of the world does not. We know that we are meant for better. — Desmond Tutu

We must become the person who is ready to accept the thing/s that we want. Sometimes, what you want is already waiting for you, alongside the person that you are capable of becoming. Alongside the destined you. So in between here and there, you have that journey, that process, of becoming that person. Wiser, stronger, gentler. We think that to attain what we want, means simply to achieve what we wish to attain. But if we could only see ourselves
our destined selves
already there in the future, standing hand-in-hand with our desires, we would always know that our worthy desires are objects that call us unto a higher calling, a higher state of existence. — C. JoyBell C.

You see, we were able to give you something, something which even now no one will ever take from you, and we were able to do that principally by sheltering you. Hailsham would not have been Hailsham if we hadn't. Very well, sometimes that meant we kept things from you, lied to you. Yes, in many ways we fooled you, I suppose you could even call it that. But we sheltered you during those years, and we gave you your childhoods. Lucy was well-meaning enough. But if she'd have her way, your happiness at Hailsham would have been shattered. Look at you both now! I'm so proud to see you both. You built your lives on what we gave you. You wouldn't be who you are today if we'd not protected you. You wouldn't have become absorbed in your lessons, you wouldn't have lost yourselves in your art and your writing. Why should you have done, knowing what lay in store for each of you? You would have told us it was all pointless, and how could we have argued with you? So she had to go. — Kazuo Ishiguro

How can I ever trust you? (Acheron)
You can't. But I have lived inside your memories for the last three years. I know the pain you hide. I know the pain I caused. If I stay here, I will go mad from the screams. If I return to the Vanishing Isle, I'll languish there alone and in time I will probably learn to hate you all over again. I don't want to hate you anymore, Acheron. You are a god who can control human fate. Is it not possible that there was a reason why we were joined together? Surely the Fates meant for us to be brothers. (Styxx) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

We're getting by but getting by, was never our destiny. We were meant to be profoundly effective. Why have we accepted average? Are the few effects most of us see and experience all Christianity has to offer? Is this it? All we can expect? If so, someone out there needs to feel sorry for us. — Beth Moore

Our dreams are meant to come true, you know. What would be the purpose of dreaming if we could not fulfill our dreams? — Gautama Chopra

Being asked to describe what 'post-racial' means is a bit like being asked to describe a leprechaun, cold fusion or unicorns: we know what is meant, but, if we are willing to be honest, we also know that none of the four describe something real, something tangible, something true. — Tim Wise

But let us be sure of something. We are not sheep. This government is ours, and it is meant to serve our best interests. And if it has grown into something it shouldn't be, and shucked off the rules of the Constitution it was based on, then it is our responsibility to rein it back in. — Gary Hansen

If we aren't living our lives doing what we are meant to be doing, and what we were essentially created to bring to the planet, the universe is going to let us know. Nothing will be working in our favor, nothing will ever seem to go right, and we will exist in a miserable robotic lifestyle. — J. Goldenberg

The temptation is to make an idol of our own experience, to assume our pain is more singular than it is. Experience means nothing if it does not mean beyond itself: we mean nothing unless and until our hard-won meanings are internalized and catalyzed within the lives of others. There is something I am meant to see, something for which my own situation and suffering are the lens, but the cost of such seeing - I am just beginning to realize - may very well be any final clarity or perspective on my own life, my own faith. That would not be a bad fate, to burn up like the booster engine that falls away from the throttling rocket, lighting a little dark as I go. — Christian Wiman

I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time [his grandchildren are] my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American. — Newt Gingrich

our lives are steered by uncertainties, many of which are disruptive or even daunting; but that if we persevere and remain generous of heart, we may be granted a moment of supreme lucidity - a moment in which all that has happened to us suddenly comes into focus as a necessary course of events, even as we find ourselves on the threshold of a bold new life that we had been meant to lead all along. — Amor Towles

Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.
Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance. — Steven Pressfield

Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take office, not because they would, but because they cannot help - not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present; then we should have plain proof that the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard his own interest, but that of his subjects; and every one who knew this would choose rather to receive a benefit from another than to have the trouble of conferring one. So far am I from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is the interest of the stronger. — Plato

Evan Connell said once that he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and taking out commas and then going through the story again and putting the commas back in the same places. I like that way of working on something. I respect that kind of care for what is being done. That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places so that they an best say what they are meant to say. If the words are heavy with the writer's own unbridled emotions, or if they are imprecise and inaccurate for some other reason
if the worlds are in any way blurred
the reader's eyes will slide right over them and nothing will be achieved. Henry James called this sort of hapless writing 'weak specification'. — Raymond Carver

It's time, we're waiting for you. We're tired of your excuses, your complaining, your everything else. We need you now more than we have ever needed you before, so it's time for you to use your boredom wisely. Yes there will be time for you to have fun, and life is indeed meant to be fun, but if you fill every waking moment with something to amuse you, then you will never accomplish anything worthwhile - which makes me concerned for you, because after all, if you were not meant for something worthwhile, then why exactly are you here? — Osayi Emokpae Lasisi

Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions."
"I hate them for it," cried Hallward. "An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some day I will show the world what is it; and for that the world shall never see my portrait of Dorian Gray. — Oscar Wilde

We should understand the Constitution as the founders meant that it should be understood. We can do this by reading their words about it, such as those contained in the Federalist Papers. Such understanding is essential if we are to preserve what God has given us. — Ezra Taft Benson

God will help us become the people we are meant to be, if only we will ask Him — Hannah Whitall Smith

Dear You, You are holding in your hands what was promised to you years ago. I'm sorry it took so long. But life, as is so often the case, is life and we forget about the promises we've made. You, however, are harder to forget. I know the world is crazy. I know love is not always the way it's meant to be. I know sometimes, things hurt. But I also know that we'll get through this. That our hearts will arrive on the other side, in one piece. That everything is beautiful, if we give it the chance to be. I've tried to write down what I saw and what you told me and I sincerely don't think I missed anything. Let me know if I have. I love you. I miss you. Me — Pleasefindthis

The right to pursue happiness sends me and other Americans, even here where we are meant to resist outside temptation, on a hunt for it. If I'm not hungry, I might seek other forms of happiness, or pleasure, which is part of my American birthright, though the most misconceived notion of them or the most difficult to realize; I can pursue several means and ways to be happy, if I am able to forget what makes me habitually sad. — Lynne Tillman

We are what we love. If we love God, in whose image we were created, we discover ourselves in him and we cannot help being happy: we have already achieved something of the fullness of being for which we were destined in our creation. If we love everything else but God, we contradict the image born in our very essence, and we cannot help being unhappy, because we are living a caricature of what we are meant to be. — Thomas Merton

A man is a free being who is always changing into himself. This changing is never merely indifferent. We are always getting either better or worse. Our development is measured by our acts of free choice, and we make ourselves by the patterns of our desires.
If our desires reach out for the things that we were created to have and to make and to become, then we will develop into what we were truly meant to be.
But if our desires reach out for things that have have no meaning for the growth of our spirit, if they lose themselves in dreams or passions or illusions, we will be false to ourselves and to other men and to God. We will judge ourselves as aliens and exiles from ourselves and from God.
In hell, there is no recollection. The damned are exiled not only from God and from other men, but even from themselves. — Thomas Merton

When we surrender, we allow the universe to work its magic; we say yes to infinite possibilities; we trust that things will work out as they are meant to; and we give ourselves permission to let go of the outcome. This can be liberating, intimidating, blissful, scary, and a swirl of so many other emotions. But in the end, if we are true to our heart, life unfolds with magnificence ... and we get to celebrate — Davidji

I'm a man. Why would you expect anything else? We're meant to be easy and predictable. You are woman. You possess what we seek. We cannot afford to confuse your minds if we are to attain what we seek. Therefore, we elect to be easy and predictable. — Jack Dancer

Son, that's a pretty hard question to answer. But I do believe that any wish you make can come true if you help the wish. I don't think that the Lord meant for our lives to be so simple and easy that every time we wanted something, all we had to do was wish for it and we'd get it. I don't believe that at all. If that were true, there would be a lot of lazy people in this old world. No one would be working. Everyone would be wishing for what they needed or wanted.
"Papa," I asked, "how can you help a wish?"
"Oh, there are a lot of ways," Papa said. "Hard work, faith, patience, and determination. I think prayer and really believing in your wish can help more than anything else. — Wilson Rawls

And if sorrow clouds your soul, don't fight it; allow the tears to flow. We are not meant to be invincible, we bruise easily, and the heart is soft; prone to bleed at the slightest touch. It is in those moments of sadness that we must be brave enough to allow Christ in, to let him be present in our pain; our sorrow is seen by Christ.

One day He will wipe away every tear, He will hold us tight, but for now we must pray through the pain. Just know that Christ shares our pain, He understands the sorrow that is within you, for He was a man of many sorrows. He wept alone, He was tormented and forsaken. Believe me, a man who has been forsaken such as Christ will never forsake you. Jesus is the only person who knows all that you have been through, He is the only one who knows the deepest, darkest spots of your soul, and still---He remains.

Jesus has the scars to prove that He is trustworthy, He has the only heart that bled for you; and He will never stop loving you. — T.B. LaBerge

I was challenged to do a little exercise with these verses (1 Cor 13:4-8), one that was profoundly convicting. Take the phrase "Love is patient" and substitute your name for the word "love." (For me, "Francis is patient ... ") Do it for every phrase in the passage.
By the end, don't you feel like a liar? If I am meant to represent what love is, then I often fail to love people well.
Following Christ isn't something that can be done halfheartedly or on the side. It is not a label we can display when it is useful. It must be central to everything we do and are. — Francis Chan

I'm through with you. Yes, I am going to put you down. From now on, I am my own God. I am going to live by the rules I se for myself. I'll discard everything I was once taught about you. Then I'll be you. I'll be my own God, living my life as I see fit. Not as Mr. Charlie says I should live it, or Mama or anybody else. I shall do as I want in this society that apparently wasn't meant for me and my kind. If you are getting angry because I am talking to you like this, then just kill me, leave me here in this graveyard dead. Maybe thats where all of us belong anyway. Maybe then we wouldn't have to suffer so much. At the rate we are being killed now, we'll all be soon dead anyway. — Anne Moody

There was a soft chiming sound, which meant, tragedy of tragedies, the angel had just popped himself up onto the countertop. "So, what are we doing tonight? Wait, let me guess, sitting in morose silence. Or, no ... you're mixing it up. Brooding with soulful intensity, right? What a fucking wild child you are. Whoo. Hoo. Next thing you know, you'll be opening for Slipknot."
With a curse, Tohr stood up and went over to turn on the shower, hoping that if he refused to look at the loudmouth, Lassiter would get bored more quickly and move on to ruin someone else's afternoon. — J.R. Ward

More about the selection theory: Jerne meant that the Socratic idea of learning was a fitting analogy for 'the logical basis of the selective theories of antibody formation': Can the truth (the capability to synthesize an antibody) be learned? If so, it must be assumed not to pre-exist; to be learned, it must be acquired. We are thus confronted with the difficulty to which Socrates calls attention in Meno [ ... ] namely, that it makes as little sense to search for what one does not know as to search for what one knows; what one knows, one cannot search for, since one knows it already, and what one does not know, one cannot search for, since one does not even know what to search for. Socrates resolves this difficulty by postulating that learning is nothing but recollection. The truth (the capability to synthesize an antibody) cannot be brought in, but was already inherent. — Niels Kaj Jerne

You went from my life right into my dreams,
i can hardly tell,If i'm cursed or blessed ;
I am sure things aren't always as they seem,
but i drift away,mesmerized, possessed.

Memories i have uncertain and fragile,
Is what i have left and i have no peace,
At dawn fades away,all that i imagine,
i crave for your closeness,i need more then this.

Perhaps you are meant to guide and inspire,
to be ever timeless in the veil of mist,
flowing through my being in flaming desire,
the one i can't reach and cannot resist.

My darling,unique,outstanding perfection,
so utterly complex you can't be recreated,
I may be unworthy of your smallest fraction,
But you've never loved,nor anticipated.

Every great passion is a work of fiction,
when we long for something that we cannot find,
Single thought of you is like an addiction,
yet,you're not exalted,except in my mind. — Aleksandra Ninkovic

In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality, and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it might be, priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a merciless light and what I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid? To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death. But we are all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change or end. Death on the other hand, is the final silence. And that might be coming quietly now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone Else's words ... I was going to die, if not sooner then later whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. — Audre Lorde

How different the world would be if each parent could say to the child: "Who you are is terrific, all you are meant to be. And who you are, as you are, is loved by all of us. You have a source within, which is the soul, and it will express itself to you through what we call desire. Always respect the well-being of the other, but live your own journey, serve that desire, risk being that which wishes to enter the world through you, and you will always have our love, even if your path takes you away from us." Such persons would then have a powerful tool to enable them to change their lives when it was not working out for them. Such persons would be able to make difficult decisions, mindful always of the impact on others, but also determined to live the life intended by the gods who brought us here. — James Hollis

You said something else ... something about needing me, for me. What did you mean?"
"I meant-I mean, well, we're friends-"
"Are we? Are we friends?"
"I-yes. What else would you, uh.."
"I am not sure what I would call it. I had never given it much thought until recently. There did not seem to be a point."
"Yes, yes, exactly. And there's no reason to suddenly-"
"But I suppose I shall have to now, if I am returned, that is. Won't I? — Karen Chance

Sometimes I wonder if man was really meant to discover magic," Fogg said expansively. "It doesn't really make sense. It's a little too perfect, don't you think? If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so. Words and thoughts don't change anything. Language and reality are kept strictly apart - reality is tough, unyielding stuff, and it doesn't care what you think or feel or say about it. Or it shouldn't. You deal with it, and you get on with your life. "Little children don't know that. Magical thinking: that's what Freud called it. Once we learn otherwise we cease to be children. The separation of word and thing is the essential fact on which our adult lives are founded. — Lev Grossman

We have to let go of our plans if we are to become the person we are meant to be. — Joseph Campbell

There are times when I worry that I've already lost myself. That is, that my self is so inseparable from being with you that if we were to separate, I would no longer be. I save this thought for when I feel the darkest discontent. I never meant to depend so much on someone else. — David Levithan

It's a McLaren SLR 722 Roadster."

"How big is it?"

"It's a convertible."

"Will a tiger fit?"

"No. It seats only two, but the boys are man half the day now."

"Is it more than $30,000?"

He squirmed and hedged, "Yes, but-"

"How much more?"

"Much more."

"How much more?"

"About $400,000 more."

My mouth dropped open. "Mr. Kadam!"

"Miss Kelsey, I know it's extravagant, but when you drive it, you will see it's worth every cent."

I folded my hands across my chest. "I won't drive it."

He looked offended. "That car was meant to be driven."

"Then you drive it. I'll drive the Jeep."

He looked tempted. "If it will appease you, perhaps we can share it."

Kishan clapped his hands. "I can't wait."

Mr. Kadam wagged a finger at him. "Oh, no! Not you. We'll get you a nice sedan. Used. — Colleen Houck

We must wake up. If we are going to find our callings, we must live intentionally and audaciously. And we must be generous. This choice is not an easy one, and it doesn't come naturally, but it's how we were meant to live. It's the only way - I'm quite convinced of this - that we can find the satisfaction we've been searching for, the lives we've been dreaming of. And although there are legitimate health, business, and psychological benefits to generous living, the most important one is this: generosity gives your life meaning. — Jeff Goins

I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. — Peter Jackson

The quest, I am beginning to think, whether it be for money, for notoriety, reputation, increase of pride, whether it leads us to thievery, slaughter, sacrifice, the quest is one and the same. All the striving is for one end. I do not entirely understand this impulse. But it seems to me that its final end is the desire for pure freedom. We are all drawn toward the same craters of the spirit--to know what we are and what we are for, to know our purpose, to seek grace. And, if the quest is the same, the differences in our personal histories, which hitherto meant so much to us, become of minor importance. — Saul Bellow

Why are you here, Harley? What is it that you really want from me?" I came away from the wall with my hands balled into fists. He nodded thoughtfully, a slight tilt to his head. "I want to know what Arys has that I don't. I want to know what is so important that he is willing to destroy anything that dares to threaten you. Clearly he loves you, yet he chooses not to bond you." Harley's voice was low, contemplative. "I want to know what joins him to the most powerful werewolf alive." I stared at him fearfully as if he were mad, which I was pretty sure he was. This was all about what Arys had that he did not. Was it just a vampire's need to dominate or was there more to it? "All I can tell you is this, whatever Arys and I have, it's meant to be. It's bigger than we are and try as I might to find my way out, it is here to stay." I saw no harm in divulging that much to Harley. I was hoping he would see it for the truth it was and leave me alone. — Trina M. Lee

and when love came to us twice
and lied to us twice
we decided to never love again
that was fair
fair to us
and fair to love itself.

we ask for no mercy or no
miracles;
we are strong enough to live
and to die and to
kill flies,

attend the boxing matches, go to the racetrack,
live on luck and skill,
get alone, get alone often,
and if you can't sleep alone
be careful of the words you speak in your sleep;
and
ask for no mercy
no miracles;

and don't forget:
time is meant to be wasted,
love fails
and death is useless. — Charles Bukowski

Here are the things I want for you -
I want you to be happy. I want someone else to know the warmth of your smile, to feel the way I did when I was in your presence.
I want you to know how happy you once made me and though you really did hurt me, in the end, I was better for it. I don't know if what we had was love, but if it wasn't, I hope to never fall in love. Because of you, I know I am too fragile to bear it.
I want you to remember my lips beneath your fingers and how you told me things you never told another soul. I want you to know that I have kept sacred, everything you had entrusted in me and I always will.
Finally, I want you to know how sorry I am for pushing you away when I had only meant to bring you closer. And if I ever felt like home to you, it was because you were safe with me. - I want you to know that most of all. — Lang Leav

Philosophers who have denied that there are any innate ideas probably meant only that all ideas were copies of our impressions. [W]hat is meant by 'innate'? If 'innate' is equivalent to 'natural', then all the perceptions and ideas of the mind must be granted to be innate or natural, in whatever sense we take the latter word, whether in opposition to what is uncommon, what is artificial, or what is miraculous. If innate means 'contemporary with our birth', the dispute seems to be frivolous - there is no point in enquiring when thinking begins, whether before, at, or after our birth. — David Hume

God's Creation gives usa model for making and sharing homes with people, but the reality of God's Trinitarian life suggests that Christian hospitality goes farther than that. We are not meant simply to invite people into our homes, but also to invite them into our lives. Having guests and visitors, if we do it right, is not an imposition, because we are not meant to rearrange our lives for our guests - we are meant to invite our guests to enter into our lives as they are. It is this forging of relationships that transforms entertianment ... into hospitality ... As writer Karen Burton Mains puts it, Visitors may be more than guests in our home. if they like, they may be friends. — Lauren F. Winner

If true love breaks as easily as a delusion, on what can we rely? What will people pin their hopes on?" [Nilima]
"They'll have the sweet, intimate memories of a lost paradise, and beside it a sea of sorrow ... People looking on from outside think all is lost ... What remains when everything is lost can be held in the palm, like a jewel. It can't be flaunted in a pageant, so the lookers-on are disappointed and jeer as they return home.." [Kamal]
" ... Jewels are not meant for everybody, certainly not for the rabble. People who're only happy when decked out with gold and silver from top to toe won't understand the value of your tiny diamonds and gems. Those who want a lot feel secure only after tying knot upon knot. They put a price on something only by its weight and show and bulk. But it's useless to try and show the sunrise from a western window..[Nilima] — Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay

Remember when you see a man at the top of a mountain, he didn't fall there""Values are meant to be costly. If it doesn't cost much, we probably wouldn't appreciate the value — Jim Rohn

So let me see if I got everything straight ... This ... means that we are somehow meant to be husband and wife. But if I refuse you, you spend the rest of your life impotent and alone? But I, on the other hand, am free to live my life however I see fit?" He nodded. "It really sucks to be you, doesn't it? — Sherrilyn Kenyon

If our elaborate and dominating bodies are given to us to be denied at every turn, if our nature is always wrong and wicked, how ineffectual we are - like fishes not meant to swim. — Cyril Connolly

Bhogpur is two kos from Bhagmalpur," he said. If Bhogpur is two kos from Bhagmalpur, then it may be possible to make a reasonable guess at our position. It depended on what he meant by a kos.
"There are seventy rassis in one kos," Karam Chand said.
"There are twelve hundred laggis in one kos," said Bhosla in a sudden garrulous outburst.
"There are three thousand six hundred gaj in one kos, said Jagganath, the youngest boatman.
"Now I am telling you," said G. "If one kos is three thousand six hundred gaj, there are three miles and eighty yards in one kos." If this was so, we had not travelled more than five miles since the previous morning.*
* There is also a gaukos, a rather vague measure - the distance a cow's bellow can be heard. — Eric Newby

We can say the brotherhood of man, and pretend that we include the sisterhood of women, but we know that we don't. Folklore has it that women only congregate to bitch an absent member of their group, and continue to do so because they are to well aware of the consequences if they stay away. It's meant to be a joke, but like jokes about mothers-in-law it is founded in bitter truth. — Germaine Greer

How each of us comes for our own reasons." "Comes where?" "To be with them and listen to their message. What Stephen meant was that our motives are wrong. Our thinking is wrong. But if we come . . . with an open heart and mind, we will see the rightness of their declarations. — Janette Oke

Rough as life can be, I know in my bones we are supposed to stick around and play our part. Even if that part is coughing to death from cigarettes, or being blown up young in a house with your mother watching. And even if it's to be that mother. Someone down the line might need to know you got through it. Or maybe someone you won't see coming will need you. Like a kid who asks you to help him clean motel rooms. Or some ghost who drifts your way, hungry. And good people might even ask you to marry them. And it might be you never know the part you played, what it meant to someone to watch you make your way each day. Maybe someone or something is watching us all make our way. I don't think we get to know why. It is, as Ben would say about most of what I used to worry about, none of my business. — Bill Clegg

If he can't get to the clock, any idea how we deal with this lot?"
"With great care," Donegan suggested.
"How about we run off shout and they follow?" Said Gracious. "Then, just when they think they've caught us they fall into our trap."
"OK," said Tanith. "And that trap would be?"
"A big hole we'd dug earlier and covered with branches.'
Tanith frowned. "I thought you were meant to be smart."
Gracious frowned back at her. "Who told you that?"
"Gracious is book smart," said Donegan. "He leaves the real world thinking to people like you and me and small dogs that he meets."
"The innocent are often the wisest. — Derek Landy

If we are meant to be gifts to one another, living in the past negates the present we need to be. — T.F. Hodge

There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of 'Heaven' ridiculous by saying they do not want 'to spend eternity playing harps'. The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity. Crowns are mentioned to suggest the fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendour and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold does not rust) and the preciousness of it. People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs. — C.S. Lewis

If you are walking backward, away from something you think is a mistake, you may be right in supposing it is a mistake, but for you to be walking backward is never right. You know what happens to people who walk backward ... We are meant to walk forward, not backward, and reaction is always a matter of walking backward. — J.I. Packer

In fact, we would know ourselves that we are not meant to be meat eaters, and we would not have allowed ourselves to become conditioned to meat eating in the first place, if the effects of meat eating were felt right away. But since heart disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, etc. usually take many years to develop, we are able to separate them from their cause (or contributing factors) and go on happily eating an animal-based diet. — Sharon Gannon

We were just about the last ones to leave. Reverend Ballou took Joseph's hand to shake it, and Joseph said, "How much of that story is true?" Reverend Ballou considered this. "I think it all has to be true, or none of it," he said. "The angels?" said Joseph. "Really?" "Why not?" said Reverend Ballou. "Because bad things happen," said Joseph. "If there were angels, then bad things wouldn't happen." "Maybe angels aren't always meant to stop bad things." "So what good are they?" "To be with us when bad things happen." Joseph looked at him. "Then where the hell were they?" he said. I thought Reverend Ballou was going to start bawling. — Gary D. Schmidt

Only about 2 percent of people can work entirely without supervision. We call those people 'leaders'. This is the kind of person you are meant to be and that you can be, if you decide to be. — Brian Tracy

The tongues of God's people are meant to be set ablaze by the holy fire of heaven, achieving that which glorifies God. But a sanctified mouth is too unnatural to ever be coincidental. If we want it, we need to pursue it regularly and cooperate with God to receive it. — Beth Moore

Phillip muttered something under his breath.
"What did you say?" she asked.
"Nothing."
"You said something."
He gave her an impatient look. "If I'd meant for you to hear it, I would have said it out loud."
She sucked in her breath. "Then you shouldn't have said it at all."
"Some things," Phillip muttered, "are impossible to keep inside."
"What did yousay?" she demanded.
Phillip raked his hand through his hair. "Eloise - "
"Did you insult me?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"Since it appears we are to be wed," she bit off, "yes."
"I don't recall my exact words," Phillip shot back, "but I believe I may have uttered the wordswomen
andlack of sense in
the same breath. — Julia Quinn

I don't get scared very often," he said finally. "I was scared the first morning I woke up and you weren't here. I was scared when you left me after Vegas. I was scared when I thought I was going to have to tell my dad that Trent had died in that building. But when I saw you across the flames in the basement ... I was terrified. I made it to the door, was a few feet from the exit, and I couldn't leave.
"What do you mean? Are you crazy?" I said, my head jerking up to look into his eyes.
"I've never been so clear about anything in my life. I turned around, made my way to that room you were in, and there you were. Nothing else mattered. I didn't even know if we would make it out or not, I just wanted to be where you were, whatever that meant. The only thing I'm afraid of is a life without you, Pigeon."
I leaned up, kissing his lips tenderly. When our mouths parted, I smiled. "Then you have nothing to be afraid of. We're forever. — Jamie McGuire

Works of art are meant to be lived with and loved, and if we try to understand them, we should try to understand them as we try to understand anyone - in order to know them better, not in order to know something else. — William H Gass

Children's literature is considerably more functional than a good portion of adult literature. If I were cynical, I might say: Children's books are written to be read; adult books are written to be talked about at cocktail parties.
There may be more truth that cynicism in that statement. My impression is that many adult books are written only to shock the reader (a short term goal, since shock quickly turns into boredom) or as calisthenics for the author's ego.
On the other hand, children's literature seems an area where books function as they were meant to; where they amaze, delight, and move our emotions. We can respect and admire any number of current adult books, but I find it hard to love them. — Lloyd Alexander

Life is supposed to be a risk. It's written everywhere around us. We are meant to take chances. We are meant to explode and shatter and spiral. Even if we break, we'll come back to a still point. We are made that way, just another natural element, if we remember to stay natural. — Katie Kacvinsky

The reporter had to set his or her own course, had to push back against editors at times, to roam and be free to explore, to defy the conventional wisdom if necessary. It meant the reporters, whatever they covered, had to find the bookkeepers and the Deep Throats if possible. At the same time, as we had just been reminded, reporters need editors. In the end we are collaborators and they make the final calls. — Bob Woodward

What if you are wrong? What if the gods sent you, and indeed the rest of us, not because we were never meant to be, but because we were always meant to be? — Marie Lu

I'm hungry.'
'Me too.'
'Will you get us something to eat?'
'I suppose I could take a look around. Maybe find a baby bird or a dead squirrel, or something. One word about a quiche, and I'll kill you.'
'While you're up there, try to find some nice, soft grasses we can sit on and be more comfortable.'
'Yes, comrade.
...
Here. I found some eggs to suck on.'
'Did you remember to get the grasses?'
'No. I forgot.'
'Are you going to get the grasses?'
'Can I eat first?'
'I don't know why you say you'll do things if you don't mean it.'
'I MEANT it! I just FORGOT!'
'You can get the grasses after you finish eating.'
'Thank you.'
'And try to find some water. We're going to need water if we plan on hiding out here.'
'YES COMRADE! ANYTHING ELSE?'

...

'Y'know, we could've had these eggs in a quiche! — Jeff Smith

If you pledge yourself to the Inquisition, to me, and swear to use your powers and your knowledge to send malfettos back to the Underworld, I will give you everything you've ever wanted. I can grant your every desire. Money? Power? Respect? Done." He smiles. "You can redeem yourself, change from an abomination in the gods' eyes to a savior. You can help me fix this world. Wouldn't it be nice, not having to run anymore?" He pauses, and for a moment, a note of real, painful tragedy enters his voice. "We are not supposed to exist, Adelina. We were never meant to be." We are mistakes. — Marie Lu

If every life is a river, then it's little wonder that we do not even notice the changes that occur until we are far out in the darkest sea. One day you look around and nothing is familiar, not even your own face.
My name once meant daughter, grandaughter, friend, sister, beloved. Now those words mean only what their letters spell out; Star in the night sky. Truth in the darkness.
I have crossed over to a place where I never thought I'd be. I am someone I would have never imagined. A secret. A dream. I am this, body and soul. Burn me. Drown me. Tell me lies. I will still be who I am. — Alice Hoffman

But if we are to say anything important, if fiction is to stay relevant and vibrant, then we have to ask the right questions. All art fails if it is asked to be representative - the purpose of fiction is not to replace life anymore than it is meant to support some political movement or ideology. All fiction reinscribes the problematic past in terms of the present, and, if it is significant at all, reckons with it instead of simply making it palatable or pretty. What aesthetic is adequate to the Holocaust, or to the recent tragedy in Haiti? Narrative is not exculpatory - it is in fact about culpability, about recognizing human suffering and responsibility, and so examining what is true in us and about us. If we're to say anything important, we require an art less facile, and editors willing to seek it. — Michael Copperman

It is one thing to die. It is another thing for an innocent person to die for a guilty one. It is something much more that Jesus would take on himself all the curses the world deserved in concentrated form. This meant that his relationship with his Father, the one thing that had sustained him throughout all the previous insults and rejection, was about to be removed. Moses knew he could not lead the people through the wilderness unless God was present. Without his Father's grace and mercy, Jesus had to wonder if he would be able to take one more step, let alone make it all the way to the cross. So he prayed. The result was that he was strengthened. His mission came into full view (John 18:11), and he was able to see the divine plan to the end. From that point on, the gospel accounts communicate two unmistakable points. They press these points until we are undone by them: Jesus experienced incomparable shame, and he experienced it at the hands of everyone. — Edward T. Welch

We are meant to be heroes. We are meant to fight witches and monsters and evil spirits, even if it appears that we will not survive the encounter. In short, we are meant to hope and to believe in the impossible. The meaning comes from the fight itself, from fighting against such great odds and such great powers, regardless of whether there is a great victory at the end, or not. Our victory is in the trying. — Francisco X Stork

In October 1805, Stoddard's tour left St. Louis, including forty-five Indians from eleven tribes. They arrived in Washington in January 1806. Jefferson gave them the standard Great Father talk: "We are become as numerous as the leaves of the trees, and, tho' we do not boast, we do not fear any nation. . . . My children, we are strong, we are numerous as the stars in the heavens, & we are all gun-men." He followed the threat with the carrot: if they would be at peace with one another and trade with the Americans, they could be happy. (In reply, one of the chiefs said he was glad the Americans were as numerous as the stars in the skies, and powerful as well. So much the better, in fact, for that meant the government should be strong enough to keep white squatters off Indian lands.) — Stephen E. Ambrose

There will surely always be people with straight hair and blue eyes, as there have been for all history. But some of these straight-haired people with blue eyes have been "black," and this points to the great difference between their world and ours. We did not choose our fences. They were imposed on us by Virginia planters obsessed with enslaving as many Americans as possible. They are the ones who came up with a one-drop rule that separated the "white" from the "black," even if it meant that their own blue-eyed sons would live under the lash. The result is a people, black people, who embody all physical varieties and whose life stories mirror this physical range. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I understood that at the core, our essence is made of pure love. We are pure love-every single one of us. How can we not be, if we come from the Whole and return to it? I knew that realizing this meant never being afraid of who we are. Therefore, being love and being our true self is one and the same thing! — Anita Moorjani

The words (she was looking at the window) sounded as if they were floating like flowers on water out there, cut off from them all, as if no one had said them, but they had come into existence of themselves. "And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves." She did not know what they meant, but, like music, the words seemed to be spoken by her own voice, outside her self, saying quite easily and naturally what had been in her mind the whole evening while she said different things. — Virginia Woolf

But God has to be given permission to work in this earth realm on behalf of man. You are in control! So if man has control, who no longer has it? God. When God gave Adam dominion, that meant God no longer had dominion. So God cannot do anything in this earth unless we let Him. And the way we let Him or give Him permission is through prayer. — Frederick K. C. Price

That beauty which is meant by art is no mere accident of human life which people can take or leave, but a positive necessity of life if we are to live as nature meant us to, that is to say unless we are content to be less than men. — Oscar Wilde

To ensure the survival of Payoh, we must first understand the reason for its existence in the first place. If you think Payoh exists because of us, the resident birds, you're wrong. This may surprise you, but this sanctuary is really meant for the migrants from the north who make it their winter feeding ground. And, if you believe that the greedy local authorities give a hoot about our friends from the north, you couldn't be more mistaken. The truth is that they are pressured by powerful international environmentalists. — Jim Tan

And then one babbles - "If only I could bear it, or the worst of it, or any of it, instead of her." But one can't tell how serious that bid is, for nothing is staked on it. If it suddenly became a real possibility, then, for the first time, we should discover how seriously we had meant it. But is it ever allowed?
It is allowed to One, we are told, and I find I can now believe again, that He has done vicariously whatever can be done. He replies to our babble, "You cannot and you dare not. I could and dared. — C.S. Lewis

It occurred to me, as it sometimes does, that this day is over and will never be lived again, that we are only the sum of days, and when those are spent, we will not come back to this place, to this time, to these people and these colors, and I wonder whether to be sad about this or to be happy, to trust that these moments were meant for some kind of enjoyment, as a kind of blessing. And if feels, tonight, as if there is much to think about, there is much we have been given and much we have left behind. The smell of freedom is as brisk as the air through the windows. And there is a feeling that time itself has been curtained by darkness. — Donald Miller

He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn't live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place ... We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we've got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different world, and then we'll build ... The Republic of Heaven. — Philip Pullman

He had said that our lives are steered by uncertainties, many of which are disruptive or even daunting; but that if we persevere and remain generous of heart, we may be granted a moment of lucidity - a moment in which all that has happened to us suddenly comes into focus as a necessary course of events, even as we find ourselves on the threshold of the life we had been meant to lead all along. — Amor Towles

I don't care if Todd Rand is as kind as Jesus himself, my place was with you and I will never regret that. You and Damien and Spencer gave Dominique and me an amazing life that I love more than I can ever tell you. Things worked out the way they were supposed to. This family was always the best option for me, Dante, the only option I'd ever have chosen if I'd been given the choice. This changes nothing in my heart. We were all meant to be together, meant to make up a family that defied the odds. I hope that Todd and Flynn are wonderful and that I can have relationships with both, but if they don't want to know me, I'm not going to be upset. I already have the perfect family for me, and since you're the head of this family, that's on you. — Ella Fox

If I had to catalog all the moronic plot turns in The Day After Tomorrow, we'd be here until the next ice age. It's just so very bad. You can have a pretty good time snickering at it-unless, like me, you think there's something to this global warming thing, and you shudder at the irony of a movie meant to warn people about a dangerous environmental trend that completely discredits it. Is it possible that the film is a plot to make environmental activists look as wacko as anti-environmentalists always claim they are? — David Edelstein

It has been said by a distinguished philosopher that England is "usually the last to enter into the general movement of the European mind." The author of the remark probably meant to assert that a man or a system may have become famous on the continent, while we are almost ignorant of the name of the man and the claims of his system. Perhaps, however, a wider range might be given to the assertion. An exploded theory or a disadvantageous practice, like a rebel or a patriot in distress, seeks refuge on our shores to spend its last days in comfort if not in splendour. — Isaac Todhunter

Now he was gone.
She said a silent prayer. Sent it up to heaven.
Sam, if you can hear me, I hope you've got nice food where you are. Some vegetables like these. They're meant to be good for you. So eat them all up, like I'm doing. When I die I'll come and see you, and we'll be together again. But for now I'm going to think of you safe and happy and playing knights with a friend.
Love from Ella. Your sister.
P.S. I got a good long turn with Godzilla today after we got here. Godzilla is very happy.
P.P.S. I forgot, you never met Godzilla. He is a puppy and is very cute. He belonged to a boy called Joel who got killed by monkeys. I think the monkeys were sick. Monkeys are usually nice. At least in stories.
P.P.P.S. Maybe you'll meet Joel where you are. Say hello. He is nice.
P.P.P.P.S. Good night, Sam. The others call you Small Sam. To me you're just Sam - my brother.
I miss you. I wish I was with you. — Charlie Higson

The majority of the people of the world today are unsane, not insane, unsane meaning having been exposed to methods of evaluation that have long rendered obsolete, our language in the future will change to a saner language where we have no argument in it, 'can there be such a language?' there is, when engineers talk to each other, it's not subject to interpretation, they use math, they use descriptive systems, if I interpreted what another engineer said in the way I think he meant it: you couldn't build bridges, dams, power transmission lines. The language has to have meaning — Jacque Fresco

Yes, but bad language is bound to make in addition bad government, whereas good language is not bound to make bad government. That again is clear Confucius: if the orders aren't clear they can't be carried out. Lloyd George's laws were such a mess, the lawyers never knew what they meant. And Talleyrand proclaimed that they changed the meaning of words between one conference and another. The means of communication breaks down, and that of course is what we are suffering now. We are enduring the drive to work on the subconscious without appealing to the reason. They repeat a trade name with the music a few times, and then repeat the music without it so that the music will give you the name. I think of the assault. We suffer from the use of language to conceal thought and to withhold all vital and direct answers. There is the definite use of propaganda, forensic language, merely to conceal and mislead. — Ezra Pound

Having this, we want that.
Owning some, we want more.
Standing here, we wish to be there.
If it's impossible, we struggle to make it happen.
Why are we like this? Why not be content with some, here, and now? Why is enough not enough?
Because humans are ambitious creatures not meant to be idle or fruitless. We strive to learn, to grow, to achieve, to amass; therefore, we will never be content. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Be useful, that's all you ever say to me. But how can I be useful?" "That's something you have to discover for yourself, like everything else in life. No one can give you advice about that. I'd really like to
if I thought it would do any good." "And I'd like to know what you really mean." Silvestri smiled. "Don't worry. All I mean is that we won't become what we are meant to be in life by listening to other people's words or advice. We have to feel in our own flesh the wound that will make us into proper men. Then it's up to us to act ... — Jose Saramago

First of all, it's friendship with God that makes possible friendship with one another in a manner that is not that we just like one another, but that were are joined by common judgments, by God, for the good of God's church. Such friendship occurs not by trying to be each other's friend, but by discovering you were engaged in common good work that is so determinative, you cannot live without one another. Now, if the church is that, it will talk about friendship in a way that avoids the superficiality of the language of relationship. Because relationships are meant to be spontaneous and short. Friendship, if it is the friendship of God, is to be characterized by fidelity in which you are even willing to tell the friend the truth. Which may mean you will risk the friendship. You need to be in that kind of community to survive the loneliness that threatens all of our souls. — Stanley Hauerwas

When some people say, as they do, that when we preach faith alone good works are forbidden, it is as if I were to say to a sick man, "If you had health you would have the full use of all your limbs, but without health the works of all your limbs are nothing," and from this he wanted to infer that I had forbidden the works of his limbs. Whereas on the contrary I meant that the health must first be there to work all the works of all his limbs. In the same way faith must be the master-workman and captain in all the works, or they are nothing at all. — Martin Luther

And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike out these and similar passages, not because they are unpoetical, or unattractive to the popular ear, but because the greater the poetical charm in them, the less are they meet for the ears of boys and men who are meant to be free, and who should fear slavery more than death. — Plato

I don't mean to insinuate that you are unfeeling or stifled of life ... excuse me on
that one. I just meant to ask you how you breathe when you are down here reading or
writing."
He smiled. "I have five years more experience in breathing on this earth than you. I
know when it is I can breathe and when it is I can't and I know just what to do when
such a thing as suffocation occurs."
I can't believe it, there is actually a qualitative property to every breath
taken ... That must be wonderful. You must also know your cells are degenerating five
years faster than mine."
He smiled again, the same relaxed annoying way. "I get that you find it amusing to
liken me to my cadavers. It's not the first time you've done it, but truly we are not in
lieu to play smart."
I was wondering if you could call the cadaver of a smart man, a smart cadaver. I've
always wondered. — Dew Platt

You were always meant to be mine." His eyes burned, his chest so painful that it felt as if his heart had burst. "Whether it's for a year or a century, it doesn't diminish who and what we are together. — Nalini Singh