It Up Quotes & Sayings

It is up to us, whether to be happy for what we have, or to be unhappy for what we don't have. — Shon Mehta

I can discover nothing in any mere animal but an ingenious machine, to which nature has given senses to wind itself up, and guard, to a certain degree, against everything that might destroy or disorder it. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Ah! but a man cannot be held to write down in cold blood the wild and black thoughts that storm his brain when an uncontrolled passion has battered a breach for them. Yet, unless he sets up as a saint, he need not hate himself for them. He is better employed, as it humbly seems to me, in giving thanks that power to resist was given to him ... — Anthony Hope

The leaders were less willing to fight. It is always the young and impressionable who strap on the explosives and blow themselves up. — Mark Owen

This is the problem. An unconverted person may have great reasoning power and intellect, but when it comes to spiritual reality and the life of God and eternity, he makes no contribution. Whether it's Athens or Rome, whether it's Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, or Princeton, or wherever else, all the collected wisdom that is outside the Scripture adds up to nothing but foolishness. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

On practical level I can't pick up the camera until I think I know what I want. I don't wander around. It's almost impossible for me to pick up a camera ... it's really hard. — Bill Henson

When David Fincher called me up a few years ago and said, 'Hey, I'd like you to score this film 'The Social Network,' I said, 'I'm flattered, but I really don't have any real experience scoring films, and I'd rather not screw it up on a high-profile project. And I like you and I don't want to compromise our friendship.' — Trent Reznor

She grabbed her bag and strode to the front door, able to hear the murmur of the Hudson in the background. She wondered if the house had a water view, or if the trees blocked it. Probably didn't matter to a being who could fly up for a good vantage point. — Nalini Singh

Look, I've been doing this a long time. If I'm honest with you, then yes. The Families could have done both. The car thing is absolutely their style, like you said."

Luc frowned. "But you don't think they did it."

David shook his head. "No. Because you're alive. The Families wouldn't screw up twice." He left, closing the door behind him.

"If that was supposed to make me feel better," Curtis said, "it needed way more puppies. Or something from the chocolate family. — Nathan Burgoine

Yakov spent the whole day playing his fiddle; when it got completely dark, he took the notebook in which he recorded his losses daily, and out of boredom began adding up the yearly total. It came to over a thousand roubles. This astounded him so much that he flung the abacus to the floor and stamped his feet. Then he picked up the abacus, again clicked away for a long time, and sighed deeply and tensely. His face was purple and wet with sweat. He thought that if he could have put that lost thousand roubles in the bank, he would have earned at least forty roubles a year in interest. And therefore those forty roubles were a loss. In short, wherever you turned, there was nothing but losses everywhere.
- Rothchild's Fiddle — Anton Chekhov

It's a real challenge to complete a story arc and end up with a cool punchline in 120 characters. — Mark Hoppus

Some three or four years before this Dr. Sloper had moved his household gods up town, as they say in New York. He had been living ever since his marriage in an edifice of red brick, with granite copings and an enormous fanlight over the door, standing in a street within five minutes' walk of the City Hall, which saw its best days (from the social point of view) about 1820. After this, the tide of fashion began to set steadily northward, as, indeed, in New York, thanks to the narrow channel in which it flows, it is obliged to do, and the great hum of traffic rolled farther to the right and left of Broadway. — Henry James

It would be nice if models were allowed to be a more healthy weight - for the models, and for the young women who look up to them. We were athletic and healthy, and we looked like women. — Tatjana Patitz

What we also have to recognize is that the deficit levels that I'm inheriting, over a trillion dollars, coming out of last year, that that is unsustainable. At a certain point, other countries stop buying our debt, at a certain point, we'd end up having to raise interest rates, and it would end up creating more economic chaos and potentially inflation. — Barack Obama

Let your motto then always be 'Excelsior', for by living up to it there is no such word as fail. — P.T. Barnum

Fiji, I'm betting you don't drink a lot," he said, trying to suppress a smile.
"I don't," she confessed. "How did you know?"
"Just a lucky guess."
"You think he'd like my phone number?"
"Feej, that guy is tough as nails, and he's not only been around the block, he's run a marathon. He could eat you for breakfast," Olivia said, half smiling.
"And wouldn't that be a great way to wake up?" Fiji said, with a broad wink. Manfred laughed; he couldn't help it. — Charlaine Harris

The Hubbell space telescope, it's first year up after they fixed it, categorized and counted 500 billion galaxies in any one photograph field of view of dark matter. That's like grains of sand at the beach and you've just got a handful. It's massive amounts. I'm sure that of all of the galaxies, and I'm sure the universe is teeming with life. — Alex Jones

I hung up the phone and tapped it lightly against my chin, then wrapped myself tighter in my giant woolen cardigan and poured another glass of boxed wine - the official drink of emotionally confused women on a budget. — Heather Cocks

People in London are so much more exposed to danger, or bad things. It took me quite a long time to grow up in that environment. — Eliot Paulina Sumner

The goal was never dependent on the route that took me there. It was always dependent on the heart that got me through whatever route opened itself up to my efforts. — Daniel Pearce

[The truth] is what actually happens. Not what you want to happen. Not what you're afraid will happen. We make up stories when we want things to happen or are afraid they may happen. And sometimes we do it for fun-or to scare people or make them do our way or to hurt them. And sometimes we do it because it's a pretty story and we tell it just as we fly a kite or send balloons floating. — Lillian Smith

It is almost possible to sum up the whole process of thinking as the occurrence of suggestions for the solution of difficulties and the testing out of those suggestions. The suggestions or suppositions are tested by observation,memory, experiment. — Henry Hazlitt

So I just had to step up how I was doing it and the moment that I stepped up and the moment I focused all my energy on that is when things started to happen. So there's a direct relationship between my inspiration and my output. — Talib Kweli

Tavish could tell he was being sized up. And by the narrowing of Joseph's eyes, he recognized Tavish's intent as well. They stood, eyeing one another for several long and silent moments. Tavish had not intended to pursue Katie in the least. Now, it seemed, he had a rival. Joseph Archer was infuriatingly difficult to read. Was it confidence that kept him so at ease? Joseph did have the advantage. Katie lived in his house. He could see her, talk to her every day. Joseph was wealthy, with the air of class and money about him. Tavish had none of those things. And though Katie had warmed to him a bit, he didn't yet feel she'd entirely shed her wariness of him. — Sarah M. Eden

The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office. — Robert Frost

We're brought up to expect a happy ending. But there are no happy endings. There's only death waiting for us. We find love and happiness, and it's snatched away from us without rhyme or reason. We're on a deserted space ship careening mindlessly among the stars. The world is Dachau, and we're all Jews. — Sidney Sheldon

I knew that Clara kept Carax's book in a glass cabinet by the arch of the balcony. I crept up to it. My plan, or my lack of it, was to lay my hands on the book, take it out of there, give it to that lunatic, and lose sight of him forever after. Nobody would notice the book's absence, except me. Carax's book was waiting for me, as it always did, its spine just visible at the end of a shelf. I took it in my hands and pressed it against my chest, as if embracing an old friend whom I was about to betray. Judas, I thought. I decided to leave the place without making Clara aware of my presence. I would take the book and disappear from Clara's life forever. Quietly, I stepped out of the library. The door of her bedroom was just visible at the end of the corridor ... I walked slowly up to the door. I put my fingers on the doorknob. My fingers trembled. I had arrived too late. I swallowed hard and opened the door. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Who told you it was too late? And more importantly, why did you choose to believe them? — Richelle E. Goodrich

I just figured out what you are," he said.
"What?"
"You're a present." He nodded as if in satisfaction. "Tightly wrapped, with lots of tape, lots of beautiful shiny ribbon, all tied up in impossible knots. The kind of present that makes you half mad when you're trying to get it open. Because you know, the whole time, what's inside is going to be wonderful. — Sierra Donovan

Get used to your mortality.
It will eventually consume you
so why not pick up an addiction. — Pamela August Russell

I've been thinking that when people break up there's usually a reason, and whatever it is, it's still going to be there even if we do get back together. — Paula Stokes

What you do in practice is going to determine your level of success. I used to tell my players, 'You have to give 100 percent every day. Whatever you don't give, you can't make up for tomorrow. If you give only 75 percent today, you can't give 125 percent tomorrow to make up for it.' — John Wooden

It seems like he's keeping my foot within his grasp for longer than necessary when I see his eyes wander up my legs again. I tingle in every spot his gaze touches.
His voice sends shivers up my spine when he asks, "Have you ever been fucked, Eve?"
My eyelids flutter and I let out a small surprised gasp at his question, breath gushing from my lips. I'm not exactly a virgin, not too far off though, and I can safely say that I have never been fucked in the way that Phoenix is insinuating. Most of the sex I've had has been the fantasy kind. Our eyes lock and he moves his hand from the heel of my foot up along the back of my leg, massaging my shin.
I actually moan when his fingers press in, releasing the tension from a knotted muscle. His mouth opens as he watches me.
"I don't think that's a very appropriate question to ask of a friend," I finally manage to croak out.
He smiles darkly. "I told you I was bad news. — Raine Anthony

Great! I hope different police officers are here this time."
"Might be, but we're in the same police jurisdiction. I'm certain from the last time you were here, they probably have a record about you. What was it you said? You were playing some game re-enactment the last time you were injured?"
"Yes. How did your brother come up the idea of a paint-ball game? That's a good one."
"He's played them here before. He would like to bring the game back to our world, but we fight for real. — Terry Spear

If I'm researching something strange and rococo, I'll go to the London Library or the British Library and look it up in books. — Ben Schott

If these things are alchemical," said Sofia, "I'd better be the one to have a look at them."
"If it could be dangerous, I'm going as well," said Lorenzo.
"And me," said Conte
"Great! We can all go! It'll be fun!" Locke waved his tied hands at the door. "But hurry it up, for fucks sake. — Scott Lynch

When I talk to audiences about the size and age of the cosmos, people often say, "It makes me feel so insignificant." I answer, "The bigger and more impersonal the universe is, the more meaningful you are, because this vast, impersonal place needs something significant to fill it up." We've abandoned the old belief that humanity is at the physical center of the universe but more come back to believing we are at the center of meaning. — Alan Dressler

That's one of the things we learn as we grow older
how to forgive. It comes easier at forty than it did at twenty. — L.M. Montgomery

No, I don't work here, I'm taking pictures of messy bathrooms for a photo essay on the American West. But I'm always up for clean, so if you want to pitch in, I've got Pine Sol and a sponge in my car ... It's that VW microbus parked next to the dumpster, and you don't need a key, just pull hard. — Pansy Schneider-Horst

I got a lot more interested in songs that could hold up completely on their own, with just a guitar and voice. For some people that's easy to do, but I find it's really difficult. — Daniel Rossen

It is absolutely essential to hang in there - especially when you feel most discouraged. — Steve Shallenberger

They just change. Their body changes. Their abilities - the things they do that make them who they are - leave, sometimes temporarily, sometimes forever. Every day they wake up with that big what if?
And nothing is scarier than a life filled with what ifs - living by day without predictability and control. Some people end up losing feeling. Some have uncontrollable spasms. Some can't function. Some end up blind or in a wheelchair. Some end up bedridden and paralyzed.
It's hard to know who "some people" will be. — Lindsey Leavitt

Although I never publicly defended promiscuity, I never publicly attacked it. I attempted to avoid the subject, in part because I felt, and often still feel, unable to live up to the ideals I really hold. — Andrew Sullivan

There's a lot of people who don't want anything from me but to laugh and have a good time. You see them at the show and they like - they dress up to come see your show and stuff. And they pack these auditoriums and it's a lot of fun, man. It's like, this is how I started, and it's still fun for me. — Dave Chappelle

I am a very honest person, and I can only say there are moments in my life where I really did think I was being me in the sense of my morals and beliefs and the way I acted. But when I look back at certain things that I wore and my hair and make-up, I was like, 'Whoa! That wasn't me!' But I didn't know it back then. — Jessie J.

Find your own picture, your own self in anything that goes bad. It's awfully easy to mouth off at your staff or chew out players, but if it's bad, and your the head coach, you're responsible. If we have an intercepted pass, I threw it. I'm the head coach. If we get a punt blocked, I caused it. A bad practice, a bad game, it's up to the head coach to assume his responsibility. — Bear Bryant

I've always thought of myself as a realist. I can remember fighting with my professors about it in grad school. The world that I live in consists of 250 advertisements a day and any number of unbelievably entertaining options, most of which are subsidized by corporations that want to sell me things. The whole way that the world acts on my nerve endings is bound up with stuff that the guys with the leather patches on their elbows would consider pop or trivial or ephemeral. I use a fair amount of pop stuff in my fiction, but what I mean by it is nothing different than what other people mean in writing about trees and parks and having to walk to the river to get water 100 years ago. It's just the texture of the world I live in. — David Foster Wallace

All of us growing up have come to terms with too much pain. Although we repress it, it's still there. The worst pain is that of not being wanted, of realising your parents do not need you in the way you need them. — John Lennon

I'm not just influenced by the '60s - it's who I am. I grew up with Allen Ginsberg and Che Guevara. I flirted with various forms of communism when it was way out of style. It was this really strange and creative time in music and culture, and it was fabulous. — Thom Mayne

We could sit around and talk if you'd like."
"Okay." She crossed her arms and tried to look casual. "So what's up?"
"Considering what you're wearing beneath that sheet, and what we just heard in the hallway, you might want to rephrase that particular statement. — Jill Shalvis

Why have you not broken from the pack? You're playing it safe. Safe aint gonna get you sh!t in this world — Stone Cold Steve Austin

It started off for me as just wanting to be an actor and sort of resenting in a weird way being expected to write as well as be a comedian and an improviser. And then you think about it for a minute, and I smartened up and realized that the only way to sustain a career is to generate your own material. Or to be in control of your career as best you can. And in allowing yourself to do that it opens up a whole new world of possibilities. And then you're like "Oh, producing is a thing." — Rob Corddry

When I create works of art, I do it because it is part of me and I must create. But afterward, when the work is done, I hope that it'll speak to people, that it'll open up their hearts or their minds. That cannot happen if the art is buried for safekeeping. — Nalini Singh

There are no perfect human beings! Persons can be found who are good, very good indeed, in fact, great. There do in fact exist creators, seers, sages, saints, shakers, and movers ... even if they are uncommon and do not come by the dozen. And yet these very same people can at times be boring, irritating, petulant, selfish, angry, or depressed. To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it. — Abraham Maslow

My friend Wicker once said to be careful what and how you say what you're really thinking to a woman. After much screwing up in that department with Emma, I've learned it's not what you should hide, but what you say that makes her react the way she does. If I am unable to make myself clear, as I so often do, it's more likely going to go to pot if I try to explain how I really feel. Instead, I rework in my brain what she needs to hear. I don't always nail it, but I'm getting better at it. And it's always the truth even if it isn't how I see it.
Is it deceiving? No. It's being considerate and aware that she is an emotional creature, and that for some crazy reason, craves my attention. I love to make her happy. My jumbled up mess of a mind isn't important in the long run if it just confuses her. So I chose words carefully. When something goes right, I use it over and over again. -Ames — Cyndi Goodgame

Death does determine life. Once life is finished it acquires a sense; up to that point it has not got a sense; its sense is suspended and therefore ambiguous. However, to be sincere I must add that for me death is important only if it is not justified and rationalized by reason. For me death is the maximum of epicness and death. — Pier Paolo Pasolini

Daniel is asleep. A care assistant, a different one today is swishingaroundthe room with a mop that smells of pine cleaner.

Elisabeth wonders what's doing to happen to all the care assistants. She realizes she hasn't so far encountered a single care assistant here who isn't from somewhere else in the world. That morning on the radio she;d heard a spokesperson say, but it's not just that we;ve been rhetorically and practically encouraging the opposite of integration for immigrants to this country. It's that we've been rhetorically and practically encouraging ourselves not to integrate. We've been doing this as a matter of self-policing since Thatcher taught us to be selfish and not just to think but to believe that there's no such thing as society.

Then the other spokesperson in the dialogue said, well, you would say that. Get over it. Grow up. Your time's over. Democracy. You lost. — Ali Smith

Young people can be disruptive and screw up classes. But even if they are being a pain in the arse it's a cry for help - they don't feel like they are being listened to. — Jamie Oliver

It seems the older we get, the tighter our inner circle becomes. When life has you down, some of those you thought had your back run, others ... sometimes strangers surprise you and fill that empty space up. Oh, but life has a great balancing act and when that axle turns and you are right side up again ... you will definitely not be looking for any long, lost "friends" because your inner circle is battle-tested to win! — Sanjo Jendayi

My life had been like a painter who climbs up a road overhanging a lake that is hidden from view by a screen of rocks and trees. Through a gap he glimpses it, he has it all there in front of him, he takes up his brushes. — Marcel Proust

I must say the Linux community is a lot nicer than the Unix community. A negative comment on Unix would warrent death threats. With Linux, it is like stirring up a nest of butterflies. — Kenneth P. Thompson

Battles are fought in our minds every day. When we begin to feel the battle is just too difficult and want to give up, we must choose to resist negative thoughts and be determined to rise above our problems. We must decide that we're not going to quit. When we're bombarded with doubts and fears, we must take a stand and say: "I'll never give up! God's on my side. He loves me, and He's helping me! I'm going to make it!" — Joyce Meyer

This whole society, up to now, has been very violent with the individual. It does not believe in the individual; it is against the individual. It tries in every possible way to destroy you for its own purposes. It needs clerks, it needs stationmasters, deputy-collectors, policemen, magistrates, it needs soldiers. It does not need human beings. — Rajneesh

The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes. But when you hit a wall in your personal life, and you screw up, people don't give you a chance to navigate your way through it and tap into what's extraordinary about you. — Viola Davis

People need to be given enough so that they feel like they're not missing something. There's a thing that you have when you watch a movie where, if you feel like you're not following and you're going to get tested on it later, you're going to get disengaged. So, you have to give people just enough information, so that they're able to keep up with the story. — Mark Waters

I'm thankful I grew up the way I did. It made me a hard worker and insightful to other people's lives. — Rachel Roy

David tried to give a form to the beast at the heart of the poem but found that he could not. It was more difficult than it appeared, for nothing quite seemed to fit. Instead, he could only conjure up a half-formed being that crouched in the cobwebbed corners of his imagination where all the things that he feared curled and slithered upon one another in the darkness. — John Connolly

...Americans didn't stick to cities, which makes us different from the people in other industrialized countries. We no sooner arrived in town, turning those towns into great mid-century metropolises, than we decided to take off for the green world beyond, so that by the 1970 Census, we had become the first suburban nation in the history of the world. And Detroit led the way, with a population curve up and down just like everywhere else, but with its urban decline a lot steeper over the past sixty years - so typical a place that it only looks like an exception. — Jerry Herron

Sometimes when we're feeling sad, it's important just to feel the sadness. Like a snake shedding its skin, old feelings of remorse and regret and hurt and anger often have to come up in order to be released. On the other side we're a better person, capable of a happier life ... who we are when we're no longer burdened by the buried feelings that weighed us down, or the self - defeating patterns that the pain produced. — Marianne Williamson

The design of the Mac wasn't what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it's all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. — Steve Jobs

They will wake up one morning and realize their civilization has been pulled out from under them, inch by inch, dollar by dollar, just as ours was. They will know what it is to have been asleep for the most important century of their history. — G. Willow Wilson

[T]he more we do this, the more I learn about what I think Chains was really training us for. And this is it. He wasn't training us for a calm and orderly world where we could pick and choose when we need to be clever. He was training us for a situation that was fucked up on all sides. Well, we're in it, and I say we're equal to it. I don't need to be reminded that we're up to our heads in dark water. I just want you boys to remember that we're the gods-damned sharks."
"Right on," cried Bug. "I knew there was a reason I let you lead this gang! — Scott Lynch

Do you know that two is an untouchable number too?" Finn said after several long minutes, his eyes on his hand.
"It is?"
He nodded slowly and traced the dots which now numbered six. "And six is what is known as a perfect number. The sum of its divisors - one, two, and three - all add up to six. The product of its divisors are also six."
"So what you're telling me, then, is together we are perfect and untouchable? — Amy Harmon

Themistocles replied that a man's discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost. — Plutarch

When I grew up in Ireland in the seventies there was no such thing as therapy ... I mean we didn't even have cappuccinos until 1998! So for me music was therapy, it was also the place where one could speak about himself, where he was allowed to speak about his traumatic experiences. — Sinead O'Connor

And then a new screen, one I had never seen before, never even heard of popped up. It gave me a choice. I could become the new Lord of Darkness myself, or I could take a gamble and be reincarnated. I chose wisely. — Laurie Halse Anderson

It wasn't the fact that she texted about hooking up with someone. What terrified me was my knee-jerk reaction. I wanted to throw my phone against the wall and smash it into a million pieces, then throw her against the wall and show her all the ways I could ensure that she never thinks about another man again. — Colleen Hoover

Still, past assholes could make a person feel skittish. You had to be careful. It could all suddenly be different than you thought it was. A big possible mistake could be hidden anywhere, ready to blow up everything, same as stepping on a land mine. — Deb Caletti

Open your mind a little, don't believe everything you hear, see or read, the world is so caught up in trying to avoid the topics that matter that you'll lose yourself trying to become like it. — Nikki Rowe

Galaxie 500 broke up because it was time. We broke up as a result of internal contradictions. — Dean Wareham

Generally, writers descend from a lesser tribe, and whatever claim to beauty we have shows up on the printed page far more often than it does in our mirrors. Even as I writer these words I think of dozens off writers, both male and female, who make a mockery of this generalization. But comeliness among writers is rare enough to be noteworthy. — Pat Conroy

I'm looking for laughs, you know? If it take me to flip over a table, if I have to go physical comedy, I will do it. But whatever the joke needs at that particular time, is where I'm dedicated to. I'm not into beating somebody down and beating myself up. I don't do insults and things like that. I don't do it - I'm a storyteller. — Bernie Mac

Thick black smoke disappears into the darkness of night, blotting out patches of stars. Somewhere up there, higher than his world and mine, is the place where all things go when they have stopped breathing. It is a place my brother visited. Up where it's quiet and calm, and prayers are able to drift up higher than words or wishes or wants. — Lauren DeStefano

I know I might look like a ball of fluff," she said, "but I'm not. Not even close. And the fact that I get up each morning and put a damn smile on my face is the same as ... Batman putting on his cape."
"I
"
"I'm not done. It's ... protection. It's my shield. It's me waving my middle finger to the world because I choose to be happy. The bottom line, Luke, is that I know what matters and what doesn't. — Jill Shalvis

You learn your lines as well as you can and you go in there and go with whatever is thrown at you. Sometimes you don't know whether or not they're going to break the scene up, so you don't have to do it all at one time. — Courtney B. Vance

Oil kindles extraordinary emotions and hopes, since oil is above all a great temptation. It is the temptation of ease, wealth, strength, fortune, power. It is a filthy, foul-smelling liquid that squirts obligingly up into the air and falls back to earth as a rustling shower of money. — Ryszard Kapuscinski

Wait: His boyfriend? He was gay? The focus on the lens sharpened, and I could see it clearly now. Of course he was gay. Everyone could see that, except the chubby little lonely heart sitting at seven o'clock, drawing sparkly rainbows on the page with her glitter crayons. I was still beating myself up when the round robin arrived to me, and I sputtered along trying to assemble some phony epiphany with strong verbs, but tears dripped down my face.
The room fell into silence as people waited for me to explain. But what could I possibly say? That I had just discovered my future husband was gay? That I was going to live the rest of my life surrounded by nothing but empty lasagna pans and an overloved cat destined to die before me?
"I'm sorry," I finally said. "I was just reminded of something very painful." And I guess that wasn't a lie. — Sarah Hepola

It's just ... it's not every day someone comes along willing to take a bullet for your little sister."
I swallow back a laugh, try to lighten the mood. "Nah, I'm sure Hanson would've stepped up."
Daniel rolls his eyes, reaches for his drink. "I hated that kid."
"Jaden thought he was perfect."
"I think Jaden started to see a new kind of perfect when she met you. — Katie Klein

My father got a job at Bradford University in textiles. And he came for - I guess, you know, why do people immigrate? - like, for a better life to find, you know, a new world. And, you know, I think he always - he saw it as an opportunity. And so yeah so we came to this coal mining town in the north of England and that's where I grew up. — Aasif Mandvi

It is possible to enjoy the Mozart concerto without being able to play the clarinet. In fact, you can learn to be an expert connoisseur of music without being able to play a note on any instrument. Of course, music would come to a halt if nobody ever learned to play it. But if everybody grew up thinking that music was synonymous with playing it, think how relatively impoverished many lives would be. Couldn't we learn to think of science in the same way? — Richard Dawkins

It may be a coincidence, but from the minute I took anti-depressants, I didn't pick up a guitar or a pen for seven years. — Adam Ant

Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid.
Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shillyshallying with the question is absurd. — Oscar Wilde

This basic problem of relevance-cum-subservience has been given an added twist in the modern world, where relevance has become not only hollow but fragile and short-lived. A wider range of choices, a deeper uncertainty of events, a more pressing need for new styles - all this makes for an accelerating turnover of issues, concerns and fads. Nothing tires like a trend or ages faster than a fashion. Today's bold headline is tomorrow's yellowing newsprint. Thus the relevance-hungry liberals achieve relevance, but their victory is Pyrrhic. It is precisely as they win that they lose. As they become relevant to one group or movement, they become irrelevant to another and find themselves rudely dismissed. Far from being in the avant-garde, Christian liberals trot smartly behind the times. Far from being genuinely new or radical, they catch up and announce their discoveries breathlessly, only to see the vanguard disappearing down the road on the trail of a different pursuit. — Os Guinness

A very bouncy Kyle woke Livia at some ridiculous o'clock on Friday morning.
"Wakey-wakey, you sloppy, old whore. It's time to do you up. You're going out tonight, so you don't get to dress in nursing home casual." Kyle ripped off Livia's covers. — Debra Anastasia

Gathering her courage, she swallowed past the lump in her throat and held his gaze. It wasn't how she'd envisioned telling him, but she couldn't let him go without saying the words. "I'm falling in love with you."
The smile died, his amused expression dissolving into shock. "What?"
"Yeah. So you have to come back so I can finish the job."
A jumble of emotions swirled in the blue depths of his eyes as he stared at her. Then he broke into a wide smile and brought a hand up to cradle her cheek. "I'm coming back, sweetheart. I wouldn't miss that chance for the world. — Kaylea Cross

I think no-one was surprised to hear that Janis Joplin was dead. She seemed to be living up all of her energy that she had to give in just a few years. Now you listen to covers of her songs by various women, and it's pale in comparison. — Michael Wadleigh

A lot of times we set ourselves up to fail. It's interesting. A lot of times the resolutions we choose are the ones, like you said in the opening, we keep breaking over and over again. Sometimes it reflects parts of ourselves that we really need to accept instead of trying to change. — Cheryl Richardson

If you try to avoid every instance of peer pressure you will end up without any peers whatsoever, and the trick is to succumb to enough pressure that you do not drive your peers away, but not so much that you end up in a situation in which you are dead or otherwise uncomfortable. This is a difficult trick, and most people never master it, and end up dead or uncomfortable at least once during their lives. — Lemony Snicket

The music defied classification. If I had been writing a
review of the show, I would have labeled it progressive,
guitar-driven rock 'n' roll. But the guitars made sounds guitars
didn't always make. Symphonic sounds. Sacred sounds.
The music dug in so deep you didn't hear it so much as feel
it, reminding me of a dream I used to have when I was a kid,
where I would be standing on a street corner, I would jump
into the air, flap my arms, and soar up into the sky.
That's the only way I could describe the music.
It was the sonic equivalent of flight. — Tiffanie DeBartolo

Being a woman in the pop world, sexuality is half poison and half liberation. What's the line? I don't have a line. I am the most sexually free woman on the planet, and I genuinely am empowered from a very honest place by my sexuality. What's more primal than sex? I mean, it's so honest. If I didn't think I had the talent to back that up, I wouldn't have done it. — Lady Gaga