I'm Petty Quotes & Sayings

Someone sent me a letter that had one of the best quotes I've ever read. It said "What is to give light must endure burning." It's by a writer named Viktor Frankl. I've been turning that quote over and over in my head. The truth of it is absolutely awe-inspiring. In the end, I believe it's why we all suffer. It's the meaning we all look for behind the tragedies in our lives. The pain deepens us, burns away our impurities and petty selfishness. It makes us capable of empathy and sympathy. It makes us capable of love. The pain is the fire that allows us to rise from the ashes of what we were, and more fully realize what we can become. When you can step back and see the beauty of the process, it's amazing beyond words. — Damien Echols

A clever enemy would kiss my hand, then stab at my back while I was distracted. (Stryker)
A coward's action. Truly. Don't insult either one of us with such a suggestion. I don't believe in petty juvenile attacks. I go after what I want, and when it's the life of an enemy I don't want there to be any mistaking my intention. If you're worth my hatred, then you're worth my letting you know that I'm coming for you. (Zephyra) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I quit driving, I'm not retired. — Richard Petty

I didn't thank God. Doctor Carter, do you think everything happened the way it did because I forgot to thank God? Do you think that God might somehow be as petty as I am? — Monika Basile

A lot of people think my sarcasm comes from insecurity and defensiveness, but I assure you I'm just being petty and cruel. — Dana Gould

The method I take to do this is not yet very usual; for instead of using only comparative and superlative Words, and intellectual Arguments, I have taken the course (as a Specimen of the Political Arithmetic I have long aimed at) to express myself in Terms of Number, Weight, or Measure; to use only Arguments of Sense, and to consider only such Causes, as have visible Foundations in Nature. — William Petty

I'm looking forward to getting older. I look at people like Peter Gabriel and Sting and even Tom Petty, Don Henley. People that didn't lose it. I'm hopefully going to join that club. — Brandon Flowers

I don't think it's a good attitude in your life to feel that you have to be rich to have self-esteem. — Tom Petty

That's stupid. You couldn't pay me to go. I'm not oversimplifying it. That's what's going on. I don't think it would be any fun without the drugs. It's a drug party. — Tom Petty

I didn't miss out on a family life because of racing. I had one because of it. — Richard Petty

I don't treat the band like I'm above them or that they're a hired hand for me. We've never worked that way. So I'm a team player. I would be very uncomfortable having to do this alone. — Tom Petty

It's like Tom Waits said," Petty remarks. "'I'm an artist, but I'm still in show business. — Warren Zanes

The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural default-setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home. — David Foster Wallace

We need to ascend beyond our own petty Resistance, our own negative self-judgment and self-sabotage, our own "I'm not worthy" mind-set. — Steven Pressfield

Last dance with Mary Jane
One more time to kill the pain
I feel summer creepin' in and I'm
Tired of this town again — Tom Petty

Well, I started out down a dirty road Started out all alone And the sun went down as I crossed the hill And the town lit up, the world got still I'm learning to fly but I ain't got wings Coming down is the hardest thing Well, the good ol' days may not return And the rocks might melt and the sea may burn I'm learning to fly but I ain't got wings Coming down is the hardest thing Well, some say life will beat you down Break your heart, steal your crown So I've started out for God knows where I guess I'll know when I get there I'm learning to fly around the clouds But what goes up must come down — Tom Petty

I remember once visiting an outdoor exhibition of sculpture in Arnhem, the Netherlands. One of the artists had placed this notice at the base of a majestic beech: "Statues are hewn by fools like me: only God could make this tree." The Taoists looked at the inside of the tree. They saw God present, not as the super-sculptor, but as the primal force from which the tree drew its being and its specific form. Becoming aware of this divine origin was for them "great knowledge," to be distinguished from the "small knowledge" of our petty, every-day existence. — John Wijngaards

But I'm a believer in the perfectibility of human beings. I think we can be better. I think we can be perfect or near to it. And when we become our best selves, the possibilities are endless. We can solve any problem. We can cure any disease, end hunger, everything, because we won't be dragged down by all our weaknesses, our petty secrets, our hoarding of information and knowledge. We will finally realize our potential. — Dave Eggers

The more personal, revealing and sniveling, the more interesting...I wanna feel like I'm snooping, peeking thru the keyhole into somebody's, anybody's, private hell...no detail is too petty if it's honest... — Aline Kominsky-Crumb

I'm pregnant! " (Cassidy)
"Your face isn't, and quite frankly, you need to be put in yiur place. You are no longer a child and playing petty games such as these should get you punished." (Ashling)
"My father is the mayor of this town!" (Cassidy)
"Run along to Daddy then, but don't expect me to frighten me when you're too much of a coward to fight your own battles against an opponent who will not cower before your nonexistent wrath." (Ashling) — Rosetta M. Overman

Sherlock shrugged. "I don't understand the need for power, really. There are more important pursuits."
"Only those who have never felt powerless can afford to think like you. — Heather W. Petty

I'm afraid I don't suffer petty bureaucrats gladly. A very bad habit, but one I find hard to break. Nevertheless, you will find, Dr. Kelly, that humiliation and blackmail, when used judiciously, can be marvelously effective — Douglas Preston

I've never had any idea that what I like would resonate with the audience, and I'm pleasantly surprised when it does. — Tom Petty

I'm actually better on the guitar than when I started, I think, because I've had so much time with it and I still practice and I love to do it and I love to sing. — Tom Petty

I'm trying to get at something a little transcendent between humans. But at the same time, there's all that baggage: What's beautiful about humans is what's balanced by what's kind of ugly and petty and depressing. — Lynn Coady

I'm an old rock and roll buff. I love Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. — Nick Carter

Free Falling
She's a good girl, loves her mama
Loves Jesus and America too
She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Elvis
Loves horses and her boyfriend too
It's a long day livin' in Reseda
There's a freeway runnin' through the yard
I'm a bad boy, 'cause I don't even miss her
I'm a bad boy for breakin' her heart
And I'm free, I'm free fallin'
All the vampires walkin' through the valley
Move west down Ventura Blvd
All the bad boys are standing in the shadows
All the good girls are home with broken hearts
And I'm free, I'm free fallin'
I wanna glide down over Mulholland
I wanna write her name in the sky
I wanna free fall out into nothin'
Gonna leave this world for a while
And I'm free, I'm free fallin — Tom Petty

'Free Fallin' is a very good song. Maybe it would be one of my favorites if it hadn't become this huge anthem. But I'm grateful that people like it. — Tom Petty

I'm very glad you asked me that, Mrs Rawlinson. The term 'holistic' refers to my conviction that what we are concerned with here is the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. I do not concern myself with such petty things as fingerprint powder, telltale pieces of pocket fluff and inane footprints. I see the solution to each problem as being detectable in the pattern and web of the whole. The connections between causes and effects are often much more subtle and complex than we with our rough and ready understanding of the physical world might naturally suppose, Mrs Rawlinson.

"Let me give you an example. If you go to an acupuncturist with toothache he sticks a needle instead into your thigh. Do you know why he does that, Mrs Rawlinson?

No, neither do I, Mrs Rawlinson, but we intend to find out. A pleasure talking to you, Mrs Rawlinson. Goodbye. — Douglas Adams

It's not my fault if I'm not any good at things like that." "I'll differ there," Coker told her. "It's not only your fault - it's a self-created fault. Moreover, it's an affectation to consider yourself too spiritual to understand anything mechanical. It is a petty and a very silly form of vanity. Everyone starts by knowing nothing about anything, but God gives him - and even her - brains to find out with. Failure to use them is not a virtue to be praised; — John Wyndham

Shopping malls rarely have any windows on the outside. There is a good reason for this: if you could see the world beyond the window you would be able to orientate yourself and might not get lost. Shopping malls have maps that are unreadable even to the most skilled cartographer. There is a good reason for this: if you could read the map you would be able to find your way to the shop you meant to go without getting lost. Shopping malls look rather the same whichever way you turn. There is a reason for this too: shopping malls are built to disorientate you, to spin you around, to free you from the original petty purpose for which you came and make you wander like Cain past rows and rows of shops thinking to yourself, "Ooh! I should actually go in there and get something. Might as well seeing as I'm here." And this strange mental process, this freeing of the mind from all sense of purpose or reason, is known to retail analysts as the Gruen transfer. — Mark Forsyth

I go through a loop in which I notice all the ways I am - for just an example - self-centered and careerist and not true to standards and values that transcend my own petty interests, and feel like I'm not one of the good ones; but then I countenance the fact that here at least I am worrying about it; so then I feel better about myself (I mean, at least this stuff is on my mind, at least I'm dissatisfied with my level of integrity and commitment); but this soon becomes a vehicle for feeling superior to (imagined) Others ... It has to do with God and gods and a basic sense of trust in the universe v. fear that the universe must be held at bay and micromanaged into giving me some smidgen of some gratification I feel I simply can't live without. It's all very confusing. I think I'm very honest and candid, but I'm also proud of how honest and candid I am - so where does that put me. — D.T. Max

You need to give me a break. I'm an eighteen-year-old girl, and you're my first boyfriend . . . and you just happen to be stupidly hot. So what if I get petty and jealous?" She shrugged. "I'm allowed. I bet if a guy looked at me like that, you'd probably feel the same."
I let her words sink in before speaking. "A, if a guy looked at you in any way, I'd probably beat his ass. B, I didn't know I was your boyfriend."
Her eyes went wide. "I just assumed - "
"Good," I interrupted. "Assume away, girlfriend. — Jay McLean

I hated the idleness, the stupidity, the respectability, the petty unselfishness. — E. M. Forster

I'm not any happier anywhere than when I'm in the studio. I'm over the moon about it. It keeps me young, it keeps me feeling like I have some purpose. — Tom Petty

On the music side, I'm a cross between maybe that Texas songwriter and that Tom Petty feel. — Bryan Hayes

More and more, I felt that I was meeting people like Lee who didn't at all seem part of this modern world and this moment in time - the world of petty aggravations and obligations and boundaries, a time of bored cynicism - because how they lived and what they lived for was so optimistic. They sincerely loved something, trusted in the perfectibility of some living thing, lived for a myth about themselves and the idea of adventure, were convinced that certain things were really worth dying for, believed that they could make their lives into whatever they dreamed. — Susan Orlean

I'm more interested in what I'm going to leave behind me than in making a big hit record. I've refined what I do for a long time. If getting better at it means it goes over the heads of those who only wanted to party, then so be it. — Tom Petty

I like making money like anybody else, and I'm paid well, but I think there is a point at which you can out-price your audience or your base. — Tom Petty

Petty unselfishness," she repeated. "I had got an idea that every one here spent their lives in making little sacrifices for objects they didn't care for, to please people they didn't love; that they never learnt to be sincere - and, what's as bad, never learnt how to enjoy themselves. — E. M. Forster

One of my major shortcomings - I'm vindictive. I don't know why that is. Even in petty things in my life I tend to strike back. It's a lot more pleasurable a sensation than feeling threatened. — Andy Rooney

I have found it very important in my own life to try to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. I am finding that when I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen for me. (Finding My Way Home) — Henri J.M. Nouwen

I'm old enough to have lived in a country where, if you were willing to work hard, you could have a fairly nice life. You could support your family, and even get a shot at owning your own home. But you never thought you'd get a swimming pool. Now culture has hypnotised people into thinking they're really nothing if they're not wealthy and a Kardashian. — Tom Petty

Honey, don't walk out, I'm too drunk to follow. — Tom Petty

It's a petty thing, but I wouldn't join the Scouts when I was a kid, 'cause you had to swear allegiance to the queen. I'm just not a royalist. I think it's idiotic, a hereditary principle. — Elvis Costello

I'm not trying to be cool. I have a problem with lights. I have one eye that's become super-sensitive to lighting, so I do wear sunglasses quite a bit. — Tom Petty

Do something you really like, and hopefully it pays the rent. As far as I'm concerned, that's success. — Tom Petty

I've been falsely accused of drawing too much from real life. But I am a petty thief - I take little things. And, I mean, I can hardly write 10 words before I start to make things up. I start to invent, because that's what I want to do. I'm running away to an invented place. — Lorrie Moore

Directing is genderless. The only thing ... I love men. I'm not being mean to them, but they can't hear you. I don't have a husband, and so I'm not really attuned to it, but I didn't know that they could not really hear you. Like, I'm talking, and they just walk away. — Lori Petty

I don't know, my music has always just come from where the wind blew me. Like where I'm at during a particular moment in time. — Tom Petty

I'm tired of screwing up. I'm tired of being down. I'm tired of myself. I'm tired of bein' down. — Tom Petty

It doesn't matter if I think like a boy or a girl. It doesn't matter anymore if I'm either or both or neither. All that shit seems so petty and immaterial now. There's so little difference between one human being and the next, it's just hypotheses, human ideas about life and the world and words that mean nothing, about definitions that mean nothing to Earth, to nature, to the universe. Boys and girls and intersex people and me
we're just ideas, and when we're dead, the ideas will go with us. It all means nothing. — Abigail Tarttelin

In a lot of ways, I'm seeking some sort of peace of mind for myself. I'm a fairly emotionally petty, resentful guy who has an inflated sense of himself, and I needed to take that down a notch. — Marc Maron

I love history, doesn't matter what era, I'm fascinated. — Tom Petty

You get into your late fifties, people start falling like flies all around you. I don't take life for granted any more. I'm really glad to be here. — Tom Petty

The dreamed outcome of launching a psychic attack can make you feel small and petty. I think for that reason I'm going to refrain from launching any. — Heidi Julavits

Why are you doing this? (Rafael)
Because life's too short to spend it fighting when you could be holding the one you love. And love's too rare to squander it with petty concerns. I'm lucky I have Chloe and I have no intention of letting a war I didn't start rob me of one second of my time with her. Go in peace, Dark-Hunter. (Apollite) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Only in love can I find you, my God. In love the gates of my soul spring open, allowing me to breathe a new air of freedom and forget my own petty self. In love my whole being streams forth out of the rigid confines of narrowness and anxious self-assertion, which make me a prisoner of my own poverty emptiness. In love all the powers of my soul flow out toward you, wanting never more to return, but to lose themselves completely in you, since by your love you are the inmost center of my heart, closer to me than I am to myself. — Karl Rahner

I'd drink your blood if I could and hook you into every memory inside me, every heartbreak, frame of reference, temporary triumph, petty defeat, mystic moment of surrender. — Anne Rice

Remember, I was only in to fighting; I wasn't a high-ranking underworld figure selling the Crown Jewels! I wasn't the Merthyr Mafia and I had no connections with the goings on of petty criminal matters. — Stephen Richards

Well I won't back down
No I won't back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won't back down — Tom Petty

You told me he was dead."
Red said through his teeth, "There was no point,for there's no meaner, more petty man in all of God's England."
"At least I'm not a wastrel," the old man snapped.
Red started toward the old man, but Sophia stepped between them. "Red, don't."
He looked as if he might burst into flames, then snapped, "I came to get you, Sophie.Have Mary bring your things, and let's go. — Karen Hawkins

I remember things being more clearer, at one time things were more real. — Tom Petty

I think sometimes maybe you're going to connect with the audience more than others, but the journey is about getting all there is to get out of this group of people. — Tom Petty

...like that legendary journey that begins with a single step, I had already embarked upon my first resentment.

A petty one, but most resentments are. And one that for its smallness I felt obliged to repress. — Lionel Shriver

I cannot watch the city of Chicago be destroyed by petty politics and bad government. — Harold Washington

In particular, I'd realized that although I possessed all the elements of a happy life, too often I took my circumstances for granted and allowed myself to become overly vexed by petty annoyances or fleeting worries. I'd wanted to appreciate my life more, and to live up to it better. — Gretchen Rubin

I wanted them to be terrible, hideous monsters. But they aren't. They are petty men who ruin lives and don't even notice. — Pierce Brown

This is payback, isn't it?" Jim glared at me. "Don't be ridiculous," I told him. "As the Consort of the Pack, I'm far above petty revenge. — Ilona Andrews

But can I say, now that she is dead, long dead that I only half believed in her. I wanted, I needed her to revolt. I know, revolutions take vast energy like volcanic eruptions. I know. And the sick must husband their resources even as they are resourceful for their husbands. But I couldn't help wanting for her, couldn't help the feeling that she'd given in, that she had measured out with coffee spoons what it was that she might ask of life and having found it lacking, tragically, gapingly lacking, had decided none-the-less to accept her modest share. I wanted her ignoble, irresponsible, unreasonable, petty, grasping, fucking greedy for the lot of it, jostling and spitting and clawing for every grain of life. — Claire Messud

I'd rather be called King than other things I've been called. — Richard Petty

We decided to read our emails out loud to the group in order to share the warmth and optimism the messages contained. One of the most heartwarming was from the father of Petty Officer Rodney "RaRa" Young of Katy, Texas. His dad got right to the point: "You'd better come home because you promised to help me put up a fence, and I could really use that help." Everyone laughed because the words took us back to the normal world and out of the anxious monotony of our detention. — Shane Osborn

Songwriting ability is a gift. After a while, you come to realize, "I've really been blessed. I can write these things and it makes me happy, and it makes millions of people happy." It's an obligation, it's bigger than you. It's the only true magic I know. It's not pulling a rabbit out of a hat; it's real. It's your soul floating out to theirs. — Tom Petty

I'm convinced that no normal human being ever woke up one morning and said, "Dammit, my life doesn't have enough petty bureaucratic rules, zero-tolerance policies, censorship, and fear in it. How do I fix that?" Instead, they let this stuff pile up, one compromise at a time, building up huge sores suppurating with spore-loaded fluids that eventually burst free and beslime everything around them. It gets normal to them, one dribble at a time. — Bruce Sterling

I think to be successful you have to work really hard but you also have to have a little bit of luck. — Tom Petty

If you stretch your imagination, I'll tell you all a tale, about a time when everything wasn't up for sale. — Tom Petty

Our host drifted away, and Vidia and I continued chatting about this and that. Swift judgments came down. The simplicity in Hemingway was "bogus" and nothing, Vidia said, like his own. Things Fall Apart was a fine book, but Achebe's refusal to write about his decades in America was disappointing. Heart of Darkness was good, but structurally a failure. I asked him about the biography by Patrick French, The World Is What It Is, which he had authorized. He stiffened. That book, which was extraordinarily well written, was also shocking in the extent to which it revealed a nasty, petty, and insecure man. "One gives away so much in trust," Vidia said. "One expects a certain discretion. It's painful, it's painful. But that's quite all right. Others will be written. The record will be corrected." He sounded like a boy being brave after gashing his thumb. The — Teju Cole

My grandfather is the king, my Dad's the prince, I guess that makes me the butler. — Adam Petty

An apt and true reply was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride. "What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor." — Saint Augustine

I'm pretty committed to being a filmmaker because it incorporates everything I love: music, art direction, story, and you know - everything. — Adria Petty

I'm sorry you don't like coming back here, her mother often said, to cap whatever petty dust-up they'd had. How could Emily explain: it wasn't her mother or Kersey she'd disowned, but her earlier self, that strange, ungrateful girl who strove to be first at everything and threw tantrums when she failed. — Stewart O'Nan

I'm always having fun. Playing is fun. Music is fun. — Tom Petty

I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose ... Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well. — Andrew Ryan

I love the music. I'm never, ever tired of playing it. — Tom Petty

I guess I'm more interested in why people feel they have to believe in God. Why can't it just be science? Science is wondrous. The night sky? Amazing. The inside of a human cell? Incredible. Something that tells us we're born bad and that people use to justify all their petty prejudices and awfulness? I dunno. I guess I believe in science. Science is enough. — Nicola Yoon

In a world that keeps on pushing me around, I'm gonna stand my ground, and I won't back down ... — Tom Petty

I'm a big fan of Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, they're my two favorites. — Andrew Shue

I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings. Coming down is the hardest thing. — Tom Petty

I heard that [Clarkson] said some petty things about someone I care deeply about, so I just made some petty remarks 'cause I'm a petty guy. — Bill Vaughan

And I'm a bad boy 'cause I don't even miss her. I'm a bad boy for breakin her heart — Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

My god! i'm thinking, what incredible shit we've put up with most of our lives - the domestic routine (same old jobs, insufferable arrogance of elected officials, the crafty cheating and the slimy advertising of the businessman, the tedious wars in which we kill our buddies instead of our real enemies back home in the capital, the foul diseased and hideous cities and towns we live in, the constant petty tyranny of automatic washers and automobiles and tv machines and telephones -! ah christ!, i'm thinking, at the same time that i'm waving goodby to that hollering idiot on shore, what intolerable garbage and what utterly useless crap we bury ourselves in day by day, while patiently enduring at the same time the creeping strangulation of the clean white collar and the rich but modest four-in-hand garrote) — Edward Abbey

I'm not exactly a guy who makes new friends easily. — Tom Petty

I don't think there's a petty system of heaven and hell. The love of God is much more forgiving. I'm not a believer in a wrathful God at all. — Susan Sarandon

I'm certainly not a Robin Hood, I'm not that way. I don't want to come through, burn everybody for $200 a ticket and then they can't afford to come see me again. Plus, I just don't think it's right. I don't think we need that much money. I just do what seems like the logical thing to do. — Tom Petty

I'm so tired of being tired. Sure as night will follow day most things I worry about will never happen anyway. — Tom Petty

I'm not interested in the TV much. I quit watching the news a couple years ago and my outlook on life has gotten a whole lot better. — Tom Petty

I'm barely prolific and incredibly lazy. — Tom Petty

A good conversation always involves a certain amount of complaining. I like to bond over mutual hatreds and petty grievances. — Lisa Kleypas

It was the end of the October term of my sophomore year, and everything was petty normal, except for Social Studies, which was no big surprise. Mr. Dimas, who taught the class, had a reputation for unconventional teaching methods. For midterms he had blindfolded us, then had us each stick a pin in a map of the world and we got to write essays on wherever the pin stuck. I got Decatur, Illinois. Some of the guys complained because they drew places like Ulan Bator or Zimbabwe. They were lucky. YOU try writing ten thousand words on Decatur, Illinois. — Neil Gaiman

I can't convince myself that it does much good to try to challenge the everyday political delusions and dementias of Americans at large. Their contained and confined mentalities by far prefer the petty and parochial prisons of the kind of sense they have been trained and rewarded for making out of their lives (and are punished for deviating from them). What it costs them ultimately to be such slaves and infants and ideological zombies is a thought too monstrous and rending and spiky for them even to want to glance at. — Kenny Smith