If You Failed Quotes & Sayings

I just want to tell you: the only good thing in these days is that I still believe there's something good behind all these things. I don't know what that good thing is but the idea of it keeps me smile. Stories will be finished. Money has its way to come. Admission result will be announced, and if I get rejected, it does not mean I failed (though I'm pretty sure I will cry, either a lot or a little). There will be something good down the road. There is something meaningful hidden in everything plain but stressful around me right now: A lesson to learn, friends to treasure, stories to create, new places to discover and home to go back, chances to grab, opportunities to develop. — Rio Lam

We overestimate what we hear from others, what the facts may be. But the truth, it always lies in our hearts. When you choose the right person to love, you're happy. Even after one or two failed attempts, when there are obstacles in the way, soon enough things have a way of working out. But if you've tried all you could, and you're still suffering, then it's time to let go. Just ask your heart. If the pain is more than you can handle, then it's time to move on — Effrosyni Moschoudi

I told you I was powerful - not my fault you failed to listen. I'm helping fight the Hunters now and you'll be lucky if my aim doesn't accidently-on-purpose veer and kill you. In fact, I don't think I'll wait for you." She glanced over at the tunnels and counted with a point of her finger. "See you in the ... second one over, sweetcakes. That's where the biggest, baddest Hunter was, last time I checked. I'll just pretend he's you and nail his ass to the wall. — Gena Showalter

That was the one thing about the rain that likened it to sorrow: You did your best to remain untouched, safe and dry, but if and when you failed, there came a point in which you started seeing the problem less in terms of drops than as an incessant gush, and thereby you decide you might as well get drenched. — Elif Shafak

You are a free man now, and Ygritte is a free woman. What dishonor if you lay together?"
"I might get her with child."
"Aye, I'd hope so. A strong son or a lively laughing girl kissed by fire, and where's the harm in that?"
Words failed him for a moment. "The boy ... the child would be a bastard."
"Are bastards weaker than other children? More sickly, more like to fail?"
"No, but-"
"You are bastard born yourself. And if Ygritte does not want a chile, she will go to some woods witch and drink a cup o' moon tea. You do not come in to it, once the seed is planted."
I will not father a bastard. — George R R Martin

If you fail to gain absolute self-control, you have failed in the greatest victory of life. — Antoine R. Ivins

It's important to celebrate your failures as much as your successes. If you celebrate your failures really well, and if you get to the motto and say, 'Wow, I failed, I tried, I was wrong, I learned something,' then you realize you have no fear, and when your fear goes away, you can move the world. — Sebastian Thrun

If your religion hasn't made you a better person, then it has failed you as a religion. — Immortal Technique

I was born with a stain. A mark. Like the mark of Cain. But is the mark of my father, my family. The mark of Borgia. I have tried to be other than I am. And I have failed. And If I have failed you in the process, I am truly sorry. — Cesare Borgia

If you're involved in an accident and you're at fault $500,000 may not be enough. Do you really want to lose your house because you failed to spend an extra couple of hundred bucks? — Bill Vaughan

What's the difference between people who feel successful and people who feel they've failed? The answer is mindset: If you learn and grow from failure, suddenly it becomes a personal asset. People who are successful don't want instant gratification. They don't think about hitting a point of success and never working again. Instead they ask, How do I improve myself and continue to do that consistently over time? — Eben Pagan

I've had a long line of failed television programs, pilots that were never picked up, series that didn't go very long. I've learned that there's really nothing you can do. If it's not in my control, I try not to worry about it. — Nathan Fillion

If you get the U.N. to say we're going to solve the Syrian problem, if you get the Russians involved in a productive posture, you are making progress, but the Republican core says no strategy or failed strategy. — Juan Williams

Have you failed today? If not, you might not be trying hard enough. Failure is a part of growth, a stepping stone towards success. In its own right it is a small victory and should be celebrated as such. So I ask you again, have you failed today? — Shane E. Bryan

Edward's grief if you die will be a terrible thing. It will hurt him, a lot, and men like him never grieve alone. He will spread his grief all over us, not because we failed, but because it'll give him something to focus on so he doesn't have to feel the pain. — Laurell K. Hamilton

From REQUSISITION FOR: A THIEF - Book 1
Female Reporter: "Agent Garret, could you answer one more question?... Why can't the FBI catch this guy?"
Director Denny Garret: "The problem is two-fold, really. ...If we're ever gonna catch him it's gonna be because he's failed. If you want to see Gregg Hadyn fail, a jewel heist is the last place to look."

Carly Macklin: "What is your thing, Gregg Hadyn?"
Gregg Hadyn: "You know, I'm really good at taking things that don't belong to me."

Director Denny Garret: "Bobby pins?"
International Jewel Thief Gregg Hadyn: "They make the best handcuff picks. — J.A. Devereaux

Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for YOUR sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades, cried Squealer almost pleadingly — George Orwell

He [Wallace] sent a quick note to his friend [Franzen] explaining his behavior. "the bold fact is that I'm a little afraid of you right now,"[ ... ] "all I can tell you is that I may have been that [a worthy opponent] for you a couple/ three years ago, and maybe 16 months or tow or 5 or 10 years hence, but right now I am a pathetic and very confused man, a failed writer at 28, who is so jealous, so sickly searing envious of you and Vollmann and Mark Leyner and even David Fuckward Leavitt and any young man who is right now producing pages with which he can live and even approving them off some base-clause of conviction about the entrprise's meaning and end that I consider suicide a reasonable- if not at this point a desirable- option with respect to the whole wretched problem. — D.T. Max

Said an opponent to me after my last protest was sent in, what party would you vote for, if you could? Neither. I would have a moral sentiment party. I would know the private character of my candidate, would know also whether he takes care of his own property
whether he had failed in business
if so, whether he had paid back every dollar of debt as fast as he had earned them. Yes, every candidate should be examined morally, and if it be found that he has not been true to the monitions of conscience in one direction, he cannot or will not be in another ... — Harriot Kezia Hunt

That Castrima has lasted this far, a comm of stills who have repeatedly failed to lynch the roggas openly living among them, is miraculous. Even if "hasn't yet committed genocidal slaughter" is a low bar to hop, other communities haven't even managed that much. You'll give credit where it's due. It — N.K. Jemisin

Athletes train 15 years for 15 seconds of performance. Ask them if they got lucky. Ask an athlete how he feels after a good workout. He will tell you that he feels spent. If he doesn't feel that way, it means he hasn't worked out to his maximum ability.
Losers think life is unfair. They think only of their bad breaks. They don't consider that the person who is prepared and playing well still got the same bad breaks but overcame them. That is the difference. His threshold for tolerating pain becomes higher because in the end he is not training so much for the game but for his character. Alexander Graham Bell was desperately trying to invent a hearing aid for his partially deaf wife. He failed at inventing a hearing aid but in the process discovered the principles of the telephone. You wouldn't call someone like that lucky, would you?Good luck is when opportunity meets preparation. Without effort and preparation, lucky coincidences don't happen. — Shiv Khera

you weren't that unhappy. "Contrast him with the Air Corps man of the same education and longevity," Stouffer wrote. His chance of getting promoted to officer was greater than 50 percent. "If he had earned a [promotion], so had the majority of his fellows in the branch, and his achievement was less conspicuous than in the MP's. If he had failed to earn a rating while the majority had succeeded, he had more reason to feel a sense of personal frustration, which could be expressed as criticism of the promotion system." Stouffer's point is that we form our impressions not globally, by placing ourselves in the broadest possible context, but locally - by comparing ourselves to people "in the same boat as ourselves." Our sense of how deprived we are is relative. This is one of those observations that is both obvious and (upon exploration) deeply profound, and it explains all kinds of otherwise puzzling observations. Which do you — Malcolm Gladwell

It has been said that if you aim at nothing in life, you are likely to hit nothing! I have never had anyone come to me and say, 'Venita, I plan to fail.' Yet I have observed many who failed to plan and who unfortunately met with the same dismal results. — Venita VanCaspel

If you have never failed at anything, then you haven't been trying hard enough, aren't very imaginative, or have had such extraordinarily good luck that you have come to believe you are invincible. — Margaret Heffernan

You cannot succeed if at some point you haven't failed. — Maria Ressa

The generations before you failed. They didn't stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn't ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn't make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it. — Paul Hawken

The secret of a full life is to live and relate to others as if they might not be there tomorrow, as if you might not be there tomorrow. It eliminates the vice of procrastination, the sin of postponement, failed communications, failed communions. This thought has made me more and more attentive to all encounters. meetings, introductions, which might contain the seed of depth that might be carelessly overlooked. This feeling has become a rarity, and rarer every day now that we have reached a hastier and more superficial rhythm, now that we believe we are in touch with a greater amount of people, more people, more countries. This is the illusion which might cheat us of being in touch deeply with the one breathing next to us. The dangerous time when mechanical voices, radios, telephones, take the place of human intimacies, and the concept of being in touch with millions brings a greater and greater poverty in intimacy and human vision. — Anais Nin

It is once your ideas have been transformed into enough money, and if all failed, you would still live your lifestyle, and you understand that just because you have made more money than most, you are not better than the common person. We are all going to die broke. — Tim Blixseth

If you can't come clean and tell investors how and why you failed, that raises a red flag. They need to see that you learned from it and came back stronger. — Daymond John

Certainly, if we believe in democracy and democratic systems, when [Benazir Bhutto] failed to pass any legislation, really, at all in her first two years in government during her first term and in fact had a tenure that was marked not only by gross corruption but by human rights abuses, that should have been a time for people to say, "Well, OK, we've given you an opportunity and you haven't bettered the institutions, you haven't strengthened the democratic cause - we may not vote you back." — Fatima Bhutto

If you believe you have a foolproof system, you've failed to take into consideration the creativity of fools. — Frank Abagnale

No," he said. "Relius was right and I was wrong. You are My Queen. Even though you cut my head from my shoulders, with my last breath as a noose tightens, to the last beat of my heart if I hang from the walls of the palace, you are My Queen. That I have failed you does not change my love for you or my loyalty. — Megan Whalen Turner

Innovation in tech favors the naive and the stubborn. If you are too rational you won't tackle problems that others once failed at. — Aaron Levie

If what you create does not outlive you, then you have failed. — Uday Kotak

There were people whom you positively ached to please. If you failed with such people they would put you into a category in their minds where they could kee you and have contempt for you forever. — Alice Munro

If you think you can execute a previously failed idea, you just have to be able to show that now is the time. — Marc Andreessen

Princess Caspida, I have nothing but respect and admiration for you. Truly you will be the queen this city needs. But I can't marry you."
The princess stands still as stone, her face unreadable. "Why not, Prince Rahzad?"
"I am sorry," he replies. "The truth is, I am in love, but not with you."
He turns to me, and my spirit takes flight like a flock of doves, startled and erratic. I cannot move, cannot speak, as he takes my hands in his and looks me earnestly in the eye. He presses the ring into my palm, and the gold feels as if it burns my skin.
"This belongs to you, and you alone. I've been so blind, Zahra. So caught up in the past that I've failed to see what's happening in front of me. I've been such an idiot, I don't know how I can expect anything from you. But I have to try. I have to tell the truth, and the truth is . . . I love you. — Jessica Khoury

If a bell failed to ring, if a stove smoked, if a wheel on a machine stuck, you knew at once where to look and did so with alacrity; you found the defect and knew how to cure it. But the thing within you, the secret mainspring that alone gave meaning to life, the thing within us that alone is living, alone is capable of feeling pleasure and pain, of craving happiness and experiencing it- that was unknown. You knew nothing about that, nothing at all, and if the mainspring failed there was no cure. Wasn't it insane? — Hermann Hesse

I'm not in the business of saying just one thing about just one place. If you only see Palestine in my films, then I've failed because then I'm just a provincial filmmaker. — Elia Suleiman

If you never failed, then you're probably not doing very much. — Charles Koch

If you have never failed, you have never tried anything new. — Albert Einstein

If you try, you've got a chance at succeeding. Failure isn't guaranteed. If you don't even try at all, you've already failed. — Christi Barth

You're correct that I've never experienced poverty, but you've never experienced a man you've grown up with for 20 years, more brother than friend, try to assassinate you because another man wanted what was yours. You've never had your older sister gouge you in the leg with a throwing star and try to end your life. You've never had to live every day knowing the only thing between you and a body bag is a good bodyguard and the people who would kill you being too afraid of what you'd do if they failed. — Sam Mariano

If the world is telling you you're successful, but you don't feel it, you might as well have failed. — John Burdett

You can only arrive at mastery by practicing the techniques you have learned, facing challenges and apprehending them, using to the fullest the tools you have been taught, until they shatter in your hands and you are left in the midst of wreckage absolute ... I cannot create masters. I have never known how to create masters. Go, then, and fail ... You have been shaped into something that may emerge from the wreckage, determined to remake your Art. I cannot create masters, but if you had not been taught, your chances would be less. The higher road begins after the Art seems to fail you; though the reality will be that it was you who failed your Art. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

And even if you have failed at all else in the eyes of the world, if you have a loving family, you are a success. — Og Mandino

If you are afraid to fail, then you are afraid to succeed. You can never succeed of you have not failed. — Joban Singh Bal

If you can fix something that needs to be fixed, go ahead and fix it. But real leadership is most often needed where simple solutions have already been tried and have failed. When things are hard, sometimes the best thing you can do is to drown what's wrong in a sea of what's right. — Eric Greitens

Define your own success: If you're going after a million bucks with your own startup, you've already failed yourself. Instead, do something because it's interesting, challenging, it offers you the chance to learn something new or gives you the chance to work with really interesting people. Most startups that are designed to make money, especially in this environment, don't. — Tara Hunt

She thinks, I failed twice. If I failed twice I'm going to fail forever. No! That is not the law of life. If you failed twice that means you can learn. It's just a learning experience. It's an obstacle. An imaginary obstacle. She made it real. She made failing a journey of life ... Instead do again and make a journey of your life. — Cesar Millan

No matter how widely you have travelled, you haven't seen the world if you have failed to look into the human hearts that inhabit it. — Donald C. Peattie

As a child, my own mother told me the human heart spun on an axis smaller than a dime. Like her father, she sold "life for love" insurance. For the price of ten years off your life, you could purchase insurance on a ten-year love affair. Plans were also available in increments of twenty-five and fifty. If your love affair failed before your insurance expired, they'd provide you with a clone of the loved one for the duration of the term. Sometimes the clone worked out even better than the original. — Miranda Mellis

He will give you strength for every battle, wisdom for every decision, peace that passes understanding. God will vindicate you for the wrongs that have been done. He will pay you back for unfair situations. He promised He will not only bring your dreams to pass but He will give you even the secret desires of your heart. Dare to trust Him. Come back to that place of peace. Quit being worried, stressed out, wondering if it will happen. God has you in the palm of His hand. He has never once failed before, and the good news is He is not about to start now. — Joel Osteen

For by giving it some hard thought, by considering the whole thing calmly, I could see that the trouble with the guillotine was that you had no chance at all, absolutely none. The fact was that it had been decided once and for all that the patient was to die. It was an open-and-shut case, a fixed arrangement, a tacit agreement that there was no question of going back on. If by some extraordinary chance the blade failed, they would just start over. So the thing that bothered me most was that the condemned man had to hope the machine would work the first time. And I say that's wrong. And in a way I was right. But in another way I was forced to admit that that was the whole secret of good organization. In other words, the condemned man was forced into a kind of moral collaboration. It was in his interest that everything go off without a hitch. — Albert Camus

If you have not failed, you have not really tried. — Colleen S. Myers

You're not supposed to be admitted to America if you're likely to be a charge on the public - if you're going to need government aid to take care of yourself ... It [2006 immigration bill] failed because it did not do what it said it would do ... End the illegality first. Then we can wrestle with how to treat compassionately people who have been in America for a long time. — Jeff Sessions

Someday, sometime, you will be sitting somewhere. A berm overlooking a pond in Vermont. The lip of the Grand Canyon at sunset. A seat on the subway. And something bad will have happened: You will have lost someone you loved, or failed at something at which you badly wanted to succeed. And sitting there, you will fall into the center of yourself. You will look for some core to sustain you. And if you have been perfect all your life and have managed to meet all the expectations of your family, your friends, your community, your society, chances are excellent that there will be a black hole where that core ought to be. I don't want anyone I know to take that terrible chance. And the only way to avoid it is to listen to that small voice inside you that tells you to make mischief, to have fun, to be contrarian, to go another way. George Eliot wrote, 'It is never too late to be what you might have been.' It is never too early, either. — Anna Quindlen

It was the blue-tinged taste of a regret so deep you could never plumb its depths. It was the victory at Rajal that never came, it was his brother walking away down the long dark wood corridor, it was a life he might have had in Yhelteth if disgust and fury had not sent him away in disgrace instead. It was the slaves he could not free, the screaming women and children of Ennishmin he could not save, the piled-up, silent dead and the smashed-in, ruined homes. It was every wrong decision he'd ever made, every path he'd failed to walk, fanned out and held up for him to understand, and it hurt. — Richard K. Morgan

Life = Risk.
If you haven't failed, you have lived. — Felisha Antonette

You won't "bear fruit for God" if you continually think about how you have failed to keep the law. Instead, your heart and mind have to be convinced of the love of your new husband, and you have to delight in him alone. It's only a responsive love for Jesus and all he has done for you personally that will cause godly fruit to be born in your life. — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

Nobody but a parcel of usurping little monarchs and nobilities who despise you; would feel defiled if you touched them; would shut the door in your face if you proposed to call; whom you slave for, fight for, die for, and are not ashamed of it, but proud; whose existence is a perpetual insult to you and you are afraid to resent it; who are mendicants supported by your alms, yet assume toward you the airs of benefactor toward beggar; who address you in the language of master to slave, and are answered in the language of slave to master; who are worshiped by you with your mouth, while in your heart - if you have one - you despise yourselves for it. The first man was a hypocrite and a coward, qualities which have not yet failed in his line; it is the foundation upon which all civilizations have been built. — Mark Twain

Jazz swung his head to the side and shrugged, as if he were trying to affect shyness. He failed. Everything he did was cat-like, sharp, and lazy and confident. "It suits you."
Christian didn't care if it did or didn't at that point. This entire encounter was electric and surreal, like putting one's tongue to a battery. — Micaela Vee

You will always win if you make an effort, no matter how much. However, if you failed it means you were too lazy. — Albert Camus

I thought you were happy about having a baby.' I was happy in the way that I would be happy if the captain of an aircraft in which I was travelling announced that he had succeeded in restarting one engine after both had failed. Pleased that I would now probably survive, but shocked that the situation had arisen in the first place, and expecting a thorough investigation into the circumstances. — Graeme Simsion

If you're not polarizing, you failed, in my opinion. — Miranda Lambert

If, after the election, you find a Cy Vance as Secretary of State and a Zbigniew Brzezinski as head of National Security, then I would say we failed. And I'd quit. — Hamilton Jordan

You can study the rules until your eyes fall out of your head, but if you cannot recall which rule fits your particular situation just before some large ship hits you broadside, then a study of the rules has failed you at the worst possible time. — John W. Trimmer

He said, Contented? I am the MOST discontented man in the world! Don't you know I am the wealthiest man in the world? That is my discontent. Now I know there is no more to wealth: all that is possible I have attained, and yet I am dying empty. My life has been just a wastage. Next time, if God gives me another opportunity, I am not going to try money any more - it has failed. — Rajneesh

I firmly believe, however, that if your children have never hated you, you have failed as a parent. — Bette Davis

When you have failed at being nice, you've actually succeeded in being mean. Success is everywhere if you know where to look for it. — Katina Ferguson

You always were the martyr, weren't you?" The Overlord snickered, and I closed my eyes briefly, relieved and devastated that he was accepting the trade. "So loyal,so brave, so foolishly self-sacrificing. I will see you regret it all before you die."
"You failed the last time you tried," London shot back. "I'm quite eager to see if you've improved. — Cayla Kluver

any country which failed to live up to its international responsibilities and allowed terrorists to use its territory was likely to be a target of US special operations forces. "Those responsibilities include the requirement to stop terrorism within its borders," O'Connell said. "And if you can't do that as a sovereign nation, you can expect the United States to have to respond. — Michael Smith

It's my job to lead you to success, and, if you fail, it's because I failed, not you.' (Spoken by Bracke, told by Eric) — Shannon A. Thompson

Will and Tessa were in the carriage now, and their driver was snapping the reins. 'Do you think there's a chance for him?'
'A chance for who?'
'Will Herondale. To be happy.'
Woolsey sighed gustily and put down his glass. 'Is there a chance for you to be happy if he isn't?'
Magnus said nothing.
'Are you in love with him?' Woolsey asked - all curiosity, no jealousy. Magnus wondered what it was like to have a heart like that, or rather to have no heart at all.
'No,' Magnus said. 'I have wondered that, but no. It is something else. I feel that I owe him. I have heard it said that when you save a life, you are responsible for that life. I feel I am responsible for that boy. If he never finds happiness, I will feel I have failed him. If he cannot have that girl he loves, I will feel I have failed him. If I cannot keep his parabatai by him, I will feel I failed him. — Cassandra Clare

There's nothing wrong with failing if you learn from it, and I've failed out here plenty. — Trent Dilfer

They say, if you care about something, you have to set it free and if it comes back to you, it was meant to be."
"They're full of shit."
Obviously, I failed spectacularly at being philosophical. — Kristen Ashley

[Clayton] Christensen had seen dozens of companies falter by going for immediate payoffs rather than long-term growth, and he saw people do the same thing. In three hours at work, you could get something substantial accomplished, and if you failed to accomplish it you felt the pain right away. If you spent three hours at home with your family, it felt like you hadn't done a thing, and if you skipped it nothing happened. So you spent more and more time at the office, on high-margin, quick-yield tasks, and you even believed that you were staying away from home for the sake of your family. He had seen many people tell themselves that they could divide their lives into stages, spending the first part pushing forward their careers, and imagining that at some future point they would spend time with their families
only to find that by then their families were gone. — Larissa MacFarquhar

These feelings of rage and distress and despair that you talk about," I said, circling something I knew I would have trouble articulating. "They only exist because of your original love for your father. They are like signposts back to that love. His leaving took that love with him, or appeared to, but you will see, if you stay with your meditation, that all of that love is still there in you. From the infant's perspective, it's directed at only one or two people, but even if they failed you, that capacity for love is still there in you. It's too bad for your father that he didn't get to know it - but there are plenty of people now who will be grateful for it. There's a whole roomful right here. — Mark Epstein

And what does a person with such a romantic temperament seek in the study of the classics? He asked this as if, having had the good fortune to catch such a rare bird as myself, he was anxious to extract my opinion while I was still captive in his office.
'If by romantic you mean solitary and introspective,' I said, 'I think romantics are frequently the best classicists.'
He laughed. 'The great romantics are often failed classicists. But that's beside the point, isn't it? — Donna Tartt

I know, it looks pure and beautiful to you now, at your great old age of twenty-two. But do you know what it means? Thirty years of a lost cause, that sounds beautiful, doesn't it? But do you know how many days there are in thirty years? Do you know what happens in those days? ... I want you to know what's in store for you. There will be days when you'll look at your hands and you'll want to take something and smash every bone in them, because they'll be taunting you with what they could do, if you found a chance for them to do it, and you can't find that chance, and you can't bear your living body because it has failed those hands somewhere. — Ayn Rand

It is quite possible that, even if you set the most relevant, realistic goals, you may not achieve them in the way or the time you wanted to. Life may throw something unexpected in your path, which stops you from achieving what you want, when you want. This is not failure. Feeling like you have failed is bound to lead to low mood, and can often come about if things haven't quite gone according to plan. However, the best thing to do is to draw a mental line under the experience, learn from what has happened and try again. As long as you are still trying, you are working towards your long-term aims; and as long as you are doing that, you are never truly failing. — Anna Barnes

This problem," Rick said, "stems entirely from your method of operation, Mr. Rosen. Nobody forced your organization to evolve the production of humanoid robots to a point where - "
"We produced what the colonists wanted," Eldon Rosen said. "We followed the time-honored principle underlying every commercial venture. If our firm hadn't made these progressively more human types, other firms in the field would have. We knew the risk we were taking when we developed the Nexus-6 brain unit. But your Voigt-Kampff test was a failure before we released that type of android. If you had failed to classify a Nexus-6 android as an android, if you had checked it out as human - but that's not what happened." His voice had become hard and bitingly penetrating. "Your police department - others as well - may have retired, very probably have retired, authentic humans with underdeveloped empathic ability, such as my innocent niece here. Your position, Mr. Deckard, is extremely bad morally. Ours isn't. — Philip K. Dick

You can picture pretty easily if there were a paying passenger aboard a rocket that failed, like Challenger failed. Certainly it would be a tragedy, and a tragedy for the company. They would have a hard time recovering from it. — Sally Ride

Jules lips quivered, and I feared she was about to cry. Then she asked, "He bit off more than he could chew, didn't he?" She made a motion as if she was biting into a tough piece of steak.
Gabriella's lips sealed shut as she tried to hide her grin, though she failed at it when Andrew asked, "Was he eating?" He turned desperately to Gabriella, confused.
Jules wasn't about to cry, she was trying not to laugh! She giggled then, the sound tinkling and odd in the outlandish setting.
Andrew straightened and shook his head at Gabriella. "Did you see him eat? — Laura Kreitzer

I will have failed in this if in five years there are not many more people using public transport and far fewer journeys by car. It is a tall order but I want you to hold me to it. — John Prescott

Personally, I avoid deus ex machina like the plague - if you have to use one, it means you failed to set up the universe and the plot properly. It's like a whodunnit where there's no actual way for the reader to identify the perpetrator before the climactic reveal: there's no sense of closure for the reader. — Charles Stross

If you take the hard facts of a failed relationship, it's pretty grim. But if you make an album out of it, and if the violins represent all the tears, you create something magical out of something very normal. — Lykke Li

I think the more
she has failed at things like relationships
and parenting, the more she has cut
herself off from feeling bad about those
things. And if you don't let yourself feel
bad, sooner or later you stop feeling
good, too. You insulate yourself. Build
up layers, like stacking paper, everything
growing heavier. And when the weight
becomes too much, those layers compress.
Become hard. Sad, really, to think that
Kristina has turned herself into cardboard. — Ellen Hopkins

I am sorry for you tonight, Mr. President. You are facing one of the greatest decisions of your career. Upon what you decide depends on whether or not you are going to get your canal. If you fall back upon the old methods of sanitation you will fail, just as the French failed. If you back up Dr. Gorgas and his ideas, and you let him make his campaign against mosquitoes, then you get your canal. I can only give you my advice; you must decide for yourself. There is only one way of controlling yellow fever and malaria, and that is the eradication of the mosquitoes. But it is your canal; you must do the choosing and you must choose tonight whether you are going to build that canal. — Thomas W. Martin

If you employed a strategy that is not conducive to the results you are looking for, then you will not achieve the desired result. You have to understand that it's not you that failed; it's just that you employed the wrong strategy. — Julian Pencilliah

We don't go to Sabbath meetings to be entertained or even solely
to be instructed. We go to worship the Lord. It is an individual
responsibility, and regardless of what is said from the pulpit, if one
wishes to worship the Lord in spirit and truth, he may do so by
attending his meetings, partaking of the sacrament, and
contemplating the beauties of the gospel If the service is a
failure to you, you have failed. No one can worship for you. You
must do your own waiting upon the Lord. — Spencer W. Kimball

If you want to succeed in your life, remember this phrase: That past does not equal the future. Because you failed yesterday; or all day today; or a moment ago; or for the last six months; the last sixteen years; or the last fifty years of life, doesn't mean anything ... All that matters is: What are you going to do, right now? — Tony Robbins

in this you have failed
you have invalidated your dysfunctional efforts
of innocence
of perverted virginity
with a mangy face before the eye of God
not even summations of crawling
not even rust cutters or combustion
as if to test your blue vaginal mirrors
inside a Protestant Crimea
listening to your fallacious absorption neurosis

you've forfeited your flames
you've cast into the moat
salacious bonfire bathing
you've given up the power of deepened torturing rums
of magnetic chromosomal nerves
for a weakly neutered clairaudience of failure — Will Alexander

Never promise to do the possible. Anyone could do the possible. You should promise to do the impossible, because sometimes the impossible was possible, if you could find the right way, and at least you could often extend the limits of the possible. And if you failed, well, it had been impossible. — Terry Pratchett

If you told me a year ago that I would kiss a girl when I was 12, then I would have either laughed at you or started to sweat. Girls have always been a puzzle of which I have failed to connect the pieces. They are so complicated and emotional that the average dude has absolutely no chance to get within shouting range. — Phil Wohl

Failure's relative. I've always felt, even early on, if I lose the freedom to fail, something's not right about that. It's how you treat failure, too. There's something to learn from it. I've had movies that have failed colossally, so you kind of analyze your failures: What kind of failure was it? A failure because it's misunderstood by others? A failure because you misunderstood it yourself? — Al Pacino

Patients with complex trauma may at times develop extreme reactions to something the therapist has said or not said, done or not done. It is wise to anticipate this in advance, and perhaps to note this anticipation in initial communications with the patient. For example, one may say something like, "It is likely in our work together, there will be a time or times when you will feel angry with me, disappointed with me, or that I have failed you. We should except this and not be surprised if and when it happens, which it probably will." It is also vital to emphasize to the patient that despite the diagnosis and experience of dividedness, the whole person is responsible and will be held responsible for the acts of any part. p174 — Elizabeth F. Howell

Performing arts buildings are complex. The acoustics, the sight lines and all that have to just be perfect. So you begin with just making these things sublime as musical instruments. And if you fail there, you have failed it all. — Moshe Safdie

Being humble at all times reflects how secure you are, without the tendency to feel intimidated by others. If you go wrong at times, admit that you indeed failed and you may not have all the right answers. Adopting this attitude is the hallmark of someone with true inner confidence and desire to better themselves. — Derek Stanzma

How, in good conscience," Alessandro asked, "can you ride across the countryside in perfect safety, as if you were on holiday, stopping mainly to swim and eat oysters, while men are crushed and pulverized in the filth of the trenches?" "Because the object of war is peace, and I have merely thrown out the middle. If everyone did the same, no one would be crushed and pulverized in the filth of the trenches." "Everyone doesn't have the privilege. You do because you're a field marshal in command of a microscopic unit." "I realize that," Strassnitzky answered, "and, given such a rare opportunity, of which most men cannot even dream, I would be unforgivably remiss if I failed to seize it, would I not? I exploit it to the full. — Mark Helprin