If You Want Something Hard Enough Quotes & Sayings

The dissonance that I felt daily flew in the face of what Silicon Valley says about itself: that it is a meritocracy, that it values intelligence and creativity, that everyone has a fair shot if they just work hard enough. This was true only if you were technical, and even that may not always be enough: in the age of the social network, who you know and who your friends were was becoming increasingly important. — Katherine Losse

Living in the fishbowl is hard enough without worrying about a Secret Service that can't keep mum. — Eleanor Clift

It's hard to say why with some people you could talk all day and all night, while with others it's a struggle to find enough to say during a single course at dinner. — Victoria Clayton

He held me against his body and his upper arm was close to my face, so I turned and bit him. He was so startled he actually released me and I tried to jab him with the knife, but he gripped my wrist.

"Did you bite me?" he asked as he stared at my teeth marks on his bicep.

"Not hard enough. There isn't even blood," I said. Luca's shoulders twitched once, then again. He was fighting laughter. Not the effect I'd intended when I bit him but I had to admit I loved the sound of his deep chuckle.

"I think you've done enough damage for one day," he said. — Cora Reilly

Hanging out with Josh was like learning how to drive stick. It was hard enough just to start and then it was one stall after another. But somehow I always managed to crawl forward, just a little bit. — Heather Demetrios

You have to live in these moments, not for them. If you look too hard, they blow right by you. If you do not live enough, you will regret every breath. — Corey Taylor

A lot of people ask me to produce or direct, but I don't think I'm qualified. It's hard enough for a person to do just one thing well in their life. I don't want to do too much. — Gong Li

Time is, to put it in its most impressive and some might say poncy-sounding form, my domain. I can see things that once happened, even if they haven't happened any more. Well, if I concentrate. The new reality-the real reality- keeps asserting itself, even with me. But the other time line leaves echoes, ripples, if you look hard enough. — Jacqueline Rayner

If you want something hard enough, it just gets done. — Billy Strayhorn

What I liked was the train ride. It took an hour and that was enough for me to be able to lean backwards against the seat with closed eyes, feel the joints in the rails come up and thump through my body and sometimes peer out of the windows and see windswept heathland and imagine I was on the Trans-Siberian Railway. I had read about it, seen pictures in a book and decided that no matter when and how life would turn out, one day I would travel from Moscow to Vladivostok on that train, and I practised saying the names: Omsk, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, they were difficult to pronounce with all their hard consonants, but ever since the trip to Skagen, every journey I made by train was a potential departure on my own great journey. — Per Petterson

I have learned as a journalist that if you look long enough and hard enough and carefully enough, most truths are discoverable. — Edward Klein

Because nothing should be wasted
In a world where sparrows work hard
To prove there is enough. — Gary Soto

In a clean break from the Obama years, and frankly from the years before this president, we will keep federal spending at 20 percent of GDP, or less. That is enough. The choice is whether to put hard limits on economic growth, or hard limits on the size of government, and we choose to limit government. — Paul Ryan

If you want something hard enough, whether it be a material possession or just something in your life, if you work hard enough there is absolutely no reason why you can't obtain it. — Charles Trippy

The thing I've learned most about poverty is how expensive it is to be poor. It's super easy to pay rent every month if you earn enough to pay rent and have a decent job. It's super hard to pay rent if you need a coupon from the state and then need to go find an apartment that will accept that coupon and only that coupon. — Nick Hanauer

The first year I was in New York, I met Martha Graham. She said, 'Well, Mr. Wilson, what do you want to do in life?' I was 21 years old, and I said, 'I have no idea.' And she said, 'If you work long enough and hard enough, you'll find something.' — Robert Wilson

Who is Justin Bieber, and why is his hair poisonous to small girls?" It was a long time before he could stop laughing hard enough to answer her. — Alyssa Day

Let me tell you what I do know: I am more than one thing, and not all of those things are good. The truth is complicated. It's two-toned, multi-vocal, bittersweet. I used to think that if I dug deep enough to discover something sad and ugly, I'd know it was something true. Now I'm trying to dig deeper. I didn't want to write these pages until there were no hard feelings, no sharp ones. I do not have that luxury. I am sad and angry and I want everyone to be alive again. I want more landmarks, less landmines. I want to be grateful but I'm having a hard time with it. — Richard Siken

I need to see you again."
Her pulse jumped, as if it had nothing to do with the rest of her. "Roarke, what's going on here?"
"Lieutenant." He leaned forward, touched his lips to hers. "Indications are we're having a romance." Then he laughed, kissed her again, hard and quick. "I believe I could have held a gun to your head and you wouldn't have looked as terrified. Well, you'll have several days to think it through, won't you?"
She had a feeling several years wouldn't be enough. — J.D. Robb

Why try to be someone you're not? Life is hard enough without adding impersonation to the skills required. — Robert Breault

It is hard to believe, but the phrase 'workshop of the world' was originally coined for Britain, which today, according to Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has 'no industry'. Having successfully launched the Industrial Revolution before other countries, Britain became such a dominant industrial power by the mid nineteenth century that it felt confident enough to completely liberalize its trade (see Thing 7). In 1860, it produced 20 per cent of world manufacturing output. In 1870, it accounted for 46 per cent of world trade in manufactured goods. The current Chinese share in world exports is only around 17 per cent (as of 2007), even though 'everything' seems to be made in China, so you can imagine the extent of British dominance then. — Ha-Joon Chang

Evil became invisible when it was everywhere. Like air, everyone forgot it was there until it was blowing hard enough to knock off their hat or muss up their hair. — Sean DeLauder

You want Felicity. And you're trying to buy her.'
Deerhurst shoved him backward. 'What if I am? How is that different from you keeping a place you don't want just so you can hang about her? I've seen how you look at her.'
Rafe shoved back, hard enough to send the earl staggering against the wall. 'Don't start something you won't be conscious for at the finish. — Suzanne Enoch

Women have a hard enough time in this world: telling them the truth would be too cruel. — H.L. Mencken

Government doesn't do much for the new Americans. The assumption is that they'll take care of themselves if they work hard enough. — David Levering Lewis

I really believe that if you want something bad enough, and you work so hard to get it, and you have it inside, then if you just never stop, it's gonna happen. — Banks

What else can you tell me?" Dad stares at me. "What have you learned while you were awake?"
I learned that life is so, so fragile. I learned that you can know someone for just days and never forget the impression he left on you. I learned that art can be beautiful and sad at the same time. I learned that if someone loves you, he'll wait for you to love him back. I learned that how much you want something doesn't determine whether you get it or not, that "no" might not be enough, that life isn't fair, that my parents can't save me, that maybe no one can. "Nothing much," I mutter. — Beth Revis

I've found in life the more you practice, the better you get. If you want something enough and work hard to get it, your chances of success are greater. — Ted Williams

In the struggle to remain a complete person and to love from her fullness instead of her inadequacy a woman may appear hard. She may feel her early conditioning tugging her in the direction of surrender, but she ought to remember that she was originally loved for herself; she ought to hang on to herself and not find herself nagging, helpless, irritable and trapped. Perhaps I am not old enough yet to promise that the self-reliant woman is always loved, but she cannot be lonely as long as there are people in the world who need her joy and her strength, but certainly in my experience it has always been so. Lovers who are free to go when they are restless always come back; lovers who are free to change remain interesting. The bitter animosity and obscenity of divorce is unknown where individuals have not become Siamese twins. A lover who comes to your bed of his own accord is more likely to sleep with his arms around you all night than a lover who has nowhere else to sleep. — Germaine Greer

... And here it is: You don't win races by wishing, you win them by running faster than everyone else. And to do that you have to train hard and strive your utmost, and sometimes even that isn't enough, because another runner just might be more talented than you are. Here's the truth: If you want something, you can have it, but only if you want everything that goes with it, including all the hard work and the despair, and only if you're willing to risk failure. That's the problem with Karl: He was afraid of failing, so he never really tried. — Philip Pullman

I really think you can manifest your dreams. You can manifest your destiny. If you want something hard enough and you're willing to work for it, I think you can get it. I truly believe that. — Billy Magnussen

He's playing every bit as hard as I am, only he knows what he's doing and I don't. Don't blame me because he's a better manipulator than I am - I haven't been around long enough to learn all his tricks. — Stephenie Meyer

No woman can love a weak man hard enough to make him strong. — Pearl Cleage

People think that the ocean is big enough to sustain anything we throw at it - its hard to get into your head that it's actually finite. — Glenn Close

I just want to do musicals. it's hard enough just to do musicals. No matter how hard I try, I think it's only getting harder. Even If I try harder, there are problems that I just can't deal with. I don't know why it's become like this. — Cheon Eunbi

I wanted it the way an alcoholic must want booze: badly enough to shove aside the hard knowledge that this was a truly lousy idea. — Tana French

Be good to yourself. Listen to your body, to your heart. We're very hard on ourselves, and we're always feeling like we're not doing enough. It's a terribly hard job. — Marcia Wallace

Nineteen people flew into the towers. It seems hard for me to imagine that we could go to war enough to make the world safe enough that nineteen people wouldn't want to do harm to us. So it seems like we have to rethink a strategy that is less military-based. — Jon Stewart

The old Squire was an implacable man: he made resolutions in violent anger, and he was not to be moved from them after his anger had subsided - as fiery volcanic matters cool and harden into rock. Like many violent and implacable men, he allowed evils to grow under favour of his own heedlessness, till they pressed upon him with exasperating force, and then he turned round with fierce severity and became unrelentingly hard ... Godfrey knew all this, and felt it with the greater force because he had constantly suffered annoyance from witnessing his father's sudden fits of unrelentingness, for which his own habitual irresolution deprived him of all sympathy. (He was not critical on the faulty indulgence which preceded these fits; that seemed to him natural enough.) — George Eliot

I never think about records. I focus on my race and try to get onto the podium consistently. It's hard enough to do that. — Brittany Bowe

Don't hide who you are. One thing I have learned is you never hide who you
are. If you want something, you fight for it. When you think you have fought hard enough, fight a little more. Don't ever let anyone or any situation make who you are. — Harper Sloan

We're all Running People, as the Tarahumara have always known. But the American approach
ugh. Rotten at its core. It was too artificial and grabby, Vigil believed, too much about getting stuff and getting it now: medals, Nike deals, a cute butt. It wasn't art; it was business, a hard-nosed quid pro quo. No wonder so many people hated running; if you thought it was only a means to an end
an investment in becoming faster, skinnier, richer
then why stick with it if you weren't getting enough quo for your quid? — Christopher McDougall

From the beginning, of course, I had known that the pure forcefulness of my argument would not penetrate deep enough to effect any change. It almost never does. It's never worked for me when I've been in therapy. Only when one feels an insight in one's bones does one own it. Only then can one act on it and change. Pop psychologists forever talk about "responsibility assumption," but it's all words: it is extraordinarily hard, even terrifying, to own the insight that you and only you construct your own life design. Thus, the problem in therapy is always how to move from an ineffectual intellectual appreciation of a truth about oneself to some emotional experience of it. It is only when therapy enlists deep emotions that it becomes a powerful force for change. And powerlessness was — Irvin D. Yalom

We Catholics have not only to do our best to keep down our own warring passions and live decent lives, which will often be hard enough in this odd world we have been born into. We have to bear witness to moral principles which the world owned yesterday and has begun to turn its back on today. We have to disapprove of some of the things our neighbors do, without being stuffy about it; we have to be charitable towards our neighbors and make great allowances for them, without falling into the mistake of condoning their low standards and so encouraging them to sin. Two of the most difficult and delicate tasks a man can undertake; and it happens, nowadays, not only to priests, to whom it comes as part of their professional duty, but to ordinary lay people...So we must know what are the unalterable principles we hold, and why we hold them; we must see straight in a world that is full of moral fog. — Ronald Knox

The mere mention of the Farakka Express, which jerks its way eastward each day from Delhi to Calcutta, is enough to throw even a seasoned traveller into fits of apoplexy. At a desert encampment on Namibia's Skeleton Coast, a hard-bitten adventurer had downed a peg of local fire-water then told me the tale. Farakka was a ghost train, he said, haunted by ghouls, Thuggees, and thieves. Only a passenger with a death wish would go anywhere near it. — Tahir Shah

I was proud to be in America, not just because here I found my voice but because the country made me the woman I am today, a woman with a fierce voice, a woman without shame. I grew up hearing that I was stubborn, a troublemaker, hard headed, and not good enough. But I had been wise enough to look in the mirror. I liked what I was, and I said to myself, I am worthy, lovable, and good enough. — Soraya Mire

The symptoms of executive skills problems are generic enough that it is sometimes hard for people to see them as other than just bad behavior or signs of poor parenting. — Joyce Cooper-Kahn

Few of us know what we are capable of doing ... we have never pushed ourselves hard enough to find out. Alfred — Alfred Armand Montapert

If you pretend something hard enough, could it become real? — Megan Miranda

I asked myself what I believed. I had never prayed a lot. I hoped hard, wished hard, but I didn't pray. I had developed a certain distrust of organised religion growing up, but I felt I had the capacity to be a spiritual person, and to hold some fervent beliefs. Quite simply, I believed I had a responsibility to be a good person, and that meant fair, honest, hardworking and honorable. If I did that, if I was good to my family, true to my friends, if I gave back to my community or to some cause, if I wasn't a liar, a cheat, or a thief, then I believed that should be enough. At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptised. — Lance Armstrong

To change the world, you must first change yourself. And baby, that's hard enough. — Alonzo King

I don't want to be someone that you're settling for. I don't want to be someone that anyone settles for. Marriage is hard enough without bringing such low expectations into it, isn't it? — Nora Ephron