It's Not Always All About You Quotes & Sayings

Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am. There is no mystery about why this should be so. Stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines, your refrigerator full of your food, your closet full of your clothes
with all this taken away, you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. That's not always comfortable, but it is always invigorating. — Michael Crichton

You guys know about vampires? ... You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There's this idea that monsters don't have reflections in a mirror. And what I've always thought isn't that monsters don't have reflections in a mirror. It's that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn't see myself reflected at all. I was like, "Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don't exist?" And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it. — Junot Diaz

I guess I should say a little bit about my method - I really am a fence sitter. I *loathe* Science and am always keen to attack it in most situations, though not here, because I love Reason and I'm perfectly aware of the difference. I also know what a concept means like Rules of Evidence. I'm not sure that's a concept as widely circulated in these circles as it needs to be - in other words, how *do* you tell shit from shinola? That's very critical. I think reason can only take us a certain distance, and then we have to go with the divine imagination, but with all safety systems fully in operation, or the divine imagination will lead us into complete paranoia. — Terence McKenna

All children grow up, all but one. His name is Peter and by now, all the civilized world has heard of him. He has captured the public imagination and become a legend, a subject for poets, philosophers and psychologists to write about, and for children to dream of. The children's tales might be lacking in some details, but on the whole they are more accurate than most other accounts, for children will always understand Peter intuitively, as I did when I first met him.

"I shall endeavor to tell you the true story of my friend Peter, because he cannot tell it to you himself. Afterward I hope you will love him and defend him as I have for the remainder of your days. Pass on to others a true account of the wild boy who would not grow up, who danced with kings and won the hearts of princesses. He defied logic and reason, lived and loved with an innocent heart, and found peace in the midst of a turbulent world. — Christopher Daniel Mechling

Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call 'humble' nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody.
Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him.
If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all. — C.S. Lewis

Resurrection. In the crude form in which it is preached to console the weak, it is alien to me. I have always understood Christ's words about the living and the dead in a different sense. Where could you find room for all these hordes of people accumulated over thousands of years? The universe isn't big enough for them; God, the good, and meaningful purpose would be crowded out. They'd be crushed by these throngs greedy merely for the animal life.
But all the time, life, one, immense, identical throughout its innumerable combinations and transformations, fills the universe and is continually reborn. You are anxious about whether you will rise from the dead or not, but you rose from the dead when you were born and you didn't notice it. — Boris Pasternak

And what we've been always been is ... ?"
"Is living on borrowed time. Never caring about who's paying for it, who's starving somewhere else all jammed together so we can have cheap food, a house, a yard in the burbs ... planetwide, more every day, the payback keeps gathering. And meantime the only help we get from the media is boo hoo the innocent dead. Boo fuckin hoo. You know what? All the dead are innocent. There's no uninnocent dead."
After a while, "You're not going to explain that, or ... "
"Course not, it's a koan. — Thomas Pynchon

On this particular afternoon, they all started teasing me. "You should go out to the lobby, Jo. There's a hot guy out there. Go talk to him!" they said.
"No," I said. "Stop it! I'm not doing that."
I was all of twenty-three, and I wasn't exactly outgoing.

She was a bit awkward--no doubt about that.

I hadn't dated all that much, and I'd never had a serious relationship--nothing that lasted longer than a month or two. I'd always been an introvert and still am (believe it or not). I was also very picky, and I just wasn't the type of girl who struck up conversations with guys I didn't know. I was honestly comfortable being single; I didn't think that much of it.
"Who is this guy, anyway?" I asked, since they all seemed to know him for some reason.
"Oh, they call him Hot John," someone said, laughing.
Hot John? There was no way I was going out in that lobby to strike up a conversation with some guy called Hot John. — Joanna Gaines

I like walking round London at night, I do it all the time. Not for no reason, just cos ... it's home, innit? It's brilliant, you can't ever get bored of London cos even if you live here for like a hundred and fifty years you still won't ever know everything about it. There's always something new. Like, you're walking round somewhere you've known since you was born and you look up and there's an old clock on the side of a building you never seen before, or there's a little gargoyley face over a window or something. Don't you think it's cool? — Richard Rider

She said, "It's not life or death, the labyrinth."
"Um, okay. So what is it?"
"Suffering," she said. "Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering? ... Nothing's wrong. But there's always suffering, Pudge. Homework or malaria or having a boyfriend who lives far away when there's a good-looking boy lying next to you. Suffering is universal. It's the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about. — John Green

There was something about the story she told us...that didn't seem right to him. He didn't buy the idea they'd been lovers. He reckoned it was something else. It's the sort of thing he used to pick up on, when I worked with him. You know as well as I do, sir, in a case like this you collect all sorts of facts, but only a few really matter, and Mr Madden had a gift for spotting them. Not that he always knew why: often it was just something he felt - a sort of instinct, I suppose - though he would have said it was simply a matter of paying attention. That's what he used to tell me. — Rennie Airth

Well, now," Mrs. Havisham said, all but purring as she leaned forward, ample cleavage on display. "You've grown up, haven't you? Tell me, Gustavo. What are your thoughts on having an experienced lover?"
"Not many," Gus said. "In fact, none at all. Also? I came out when I was thirteen. You were there. As was the whole town. Pastor Tommy announced it at the Fall Harvest Festival. On stage. Into a microphone. There was apple pie afterward."
"Still?" she said with an exaggerated pout.
"Yes," Gus said, deadpan as he could make it. "Still. Funny how that works."
"Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me," she said, dragging a pink fingernail down his arm. "My door is always open. Like my body."
"That's not even remotely healthy," Gus said with a sniff.
"Maybe that's why I need your protein," she said with a wink.
"Nope," Gus said. "Nope, nope, nope."
"You sure about that?"
"Maybe you should close that door. And your legs. — T.J. Klune

We women, me and you. Tell me something real. Don't just say I'm grown and ought to know. I don't. I'm fifty and I don't know nothing. What about it? Do I stay with him? I want to, I think. I want ... well, I didn't always ... now I want. I want some fat in this life."
"Wake up. Fat or lean, you got just one. This is it."
"You don't know either, do you?"
"I know enough to know how to behave."
"Is that it? Is that all it is?"
"Is that all what is?"
"Oh shoot! Where the grown people? Is it us?"
"Oh, Mama." Alice Manfred blurted it out and then covered her mouth.
Violet had the same thought: Mama. Mama? Is this where you got to and couldn't do it no more? The place of shade without trees where you know you are not and never again will be loved by anybody who can choose to do it? Where everything is over but the talking?
- Violet Trace and Alice Manfred — Toni Morrison

When her touch feels like this is the way perfect should be.
When her heart beats so peacefully next to mine.
When we intertwine our fingers and pretend like we're never going to be apart and it feels like everything is right with the world.
When every moment I spend with her, feels like I'm falling in love all over again.
We might never find forever, or a happily-ever-after. Not with the things I now know. But for those few moments, we can pretend that we have it all.
But that's the thing about moments.
No matter how hard you try to hold on -
They always end. — Kady Hunt

Author Martha Beck says of the ego, "Don't leave home without it." But do not let your ego totally run the show, or it will shut down the show. Your ego is a wonderful servant, but it's a terrible master - because the only thing your ego ever wants is reward, reward, and more reward. And since there's never enough reward to satisfy, your ego will always be disappointed. Left unmanaged, that kind of disappointment will rot you from the inside out. An unchecked ego is what the Buddhists call "a hungry ghost" - forever famished, eternally howling with need and greed. Some version of that hunger dwells within all of us. We all have that lunatic presence, living deep within our guts, that refuses to ever be satisfied with anything. I have it, you have it, we all have it. My saving grace is this, though: I know that I am not only an ego; I am also a soul. And I know that my soul doesn't care a whit about reward or failure. — Elizabeth Gilbert

So what? You act all mysterious to seem more interesting?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're always wandering off or running away," he said. "But you're a lot more
interesting when you're just being yourself you know. When you're actually here."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Emma said coldly. "Where else would I be?"

"You know what I mean," he said, a rough edge to his voice. "It's like you're so busy trying not to act like your family that you've never even stopped to consider that it might not be such a bad thing."

"Well what about you?" she shot back, aware of the bitterness in her words.
"You complain about your dad not wanting you around, and then you complain when he wants you to stay home for school. You can't have it both wars."

"Well neither can you," he said. " You can't keep everyone at arms length and then expect them to be there for you when you need them. — Jennifer E. Smith

It's really hard when people write nasty things about you all the time. As much as good things are said about you, it's always those one or two bad comments that really stay with you and gnaw at you. I try not to read that stuff if I can. — Jordin Sparks

When you have a problem with an adult - say, for example, you have a friend who's always borrowing things and returning them late or broken or not at all - you probably don't think about how you can punish that person. You think about how to respectfully protect yourself. You don't say, "Now that you've given me back my jacket with a stain on it, and broken the side mirror off my car, I'm going to . . . slap you." That would be assault. Or ". . . lock you in your room for an hour." That would be imprisonment. Or ". . . take away your smart phone." That would be theft. You'd probably say something like, "I don't feel comfortable lending you clothes anymore. I get very upset when they come back damaged. And, I can't lend you my car, which I just got repaired. I need to have it in working condition. In fact, I'd appreciate some help with the repair bill! — Joanna Faber

Look you don't know I'm your soul mate," Lily said. " You barely know me at all. I have terrible habits. I swallow toothpaste. My socks don't always match. I'm not good at small talk. I'm just about the most unpopular kid in class, a close third behind the guy who doesn't shower and the girl who's a compulsive liar. Besides, it's not like Jake and me ... He was just being nice."
"You are my soul mate, even if you don't know it yet," Tye said — Sarah Beth Durst

Dagmar, really. Annwyl has always been crazy. All you've been doing the last few years is muffling it. You've never shut it off. Not completely."
"And did Annwyl just threaten me? Me?"
"She threatens me and Briec all the time. I wouldn't take it too personally."
"That, in no way, makes me feel better!" She stopped in front of him, stamping her foot. "Why are you being so bloody calm about this? Annwyl took out that woman's eyes."
"I'm sure she took them only after she took her head. You know Annwyl does her dismembering in a very orderly way. — G.A. Aiken

At first it was, as I have said, rather bracing and tonic. For after the dream there is not reason why you should not go back and face the fact which you have fled from (even if the fact seems to be that you have, by digging up the truth about the past, handed over Anne Stanton to Willie Stark), for any place to which you may flee will not be like the place from which you have fled, and you might as well go back, after all, to the place where you belong, for nothing was your fault or anybody's fault, for things are always as they are. And you can go back in good spirits, for you will have learned two very great truths. First, that you cannot lose what you have never had. Second, that you are never guilty of a crime which you did not commit. So there is innocence and a new start in the West after all.
If you believe that dream you dream when you go there. — Robert Penn Warren

Kaidan had been captivated by the store owner's deep Texan accent. He asked a ridiculous number of questions just to keep the man talking. He then tried to repeat the man's accent when we got in the car. "Where are y'all young'uns headed? We got us some maps over yonder by them there h-apples."
I laughed out loud as he butchered the man's beautiful drawl.
"He did not say 'over yonder'!"
"I've always wanted to say that. I love Americans. You've got a nice little accent, though not nearly as wicked as his."
"I do?"
He nodded.
Aside from the occasional y'all, I didn't think I sounded Southern, but I guess it's hard to say about your own self. — Wendy Higgins

People are always saying bad things about them, but really they think they're just trying to clean up our planet. I'm not saying it's right but, you know, we could all benefit from following that example. — Zach Braff

The truth about most people: they will never accept you as you are. You'll need to change. And I'm begging you, change. But only for yourself, and even if that means by yourself. Never bend for them. Don't calm your heart, don't scale back these dreams. Stay strange, lost your mind, finger fuck the rules, burn bridges if you must, and follow your insanity. Feel everything, it's telling you something. People will love you in bits and pieces, and hate you just the same. You'll always be too much for some, and not enough for others. They will never believe in you, as much as you do. And understand that you will never be a success in the eyes of a failure. There's a magic in you that most others can't believe in, simply because they haven't made sense of themselves. But you're magic, still. You've been that way all along. And even if the world changed everything in you, that much would always be true. — J. Raymond

They make a fuss about Hogsmeade, but I assure you, Harry, it's not all it's cracked up to be. All right, the sweetshop's rather good, and Zonko's Joke Shop's frankly dangerous, and yes, the Shrieking Shack is always worth a visit, but really, Harry, apart from that, you're not missing anything. — J.K. Rowling

Absolutely, says Steve Maxwell. And with the little device in his pocket, he can prove it. Steve is a former world champion Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter and now a strength-and-conditioning coach who specializes in recovering lost innovations. "The old-timers knew what was up with fascia long before we even had a word for it," he explains. "You'll always be safe if you go back to the mighty men of old, the guys before the 1950s. Look at the old gyms, with their Indian clubs and medicine balls. What's that all about if not balance, range of motion, being fluid, using elastic recoil? — Christopher McDougall

But what Liberty would remember best was the feel of his own small hand gathered in the warm, comforting grip of the man, those times alone when all of Thatcher's potent attention was concentrated on his son, as something inside Liberty always insisted, occasionally to contrary evidence that it should be, their trips together, their talks, the information about the sorry state of the world Thatcher shared reluctantly, almost sadly, with his son and heir out of a conviction that I do not enjoy having to tell you these things, but it is important you hear this news, no matter how distasteful, because, unfortunately, it is the truth, whereas it is lies and the promulgation of lies that will make you and the people in your life sick. — Stephen Wright

It'd be nice to just hear, "You did a great job." I don't say this from personal experience because I have an amazing husband who is an amazing father. I say this knowing he does it all the time. He's always great about saying, "You were amazing today." He does it without me having to ask for it and there's something so beautiful about not fishing for that compliment from your partner that gives you that much more of stability and confidence. — Mila Kunis

Be a man. Not any old man, not mankind, but manhood. To do this you don't need to play pro football and grow hair on your chest and seduce every third woman you meet long as she's female. All you have to do is hunt, fish (or talk sense about 'em as if you had) and go bug-eyed when the girls go by. If a sunset moves you so much you have to express yourself, do it with a grunt and a dirty word. Or you say, 'That Beethoven, he blows a cool symphony.' Never champion a real underdog unless it's a popular type, like a baseball team. Always treat other men as if you were sore at something and will wipe it off on them if they give you the slightest excuse. I mean sore, Louis, not vexed or in a snit. And stay away from women. They have an intuition that'll find you nine times out of ten. The tenth time she falls for you, and there's nothing funnier."
"I think," Loolyo said after a time, "that you hate human beings. — Theodore Sturgeon

My mom always said if you have a gift, it is absolutely not about you. So I don't get twisted and think for one second it's all about me. — Tessanne Chin

I know I don't have all the answers about weight loss; this is an evolving challenge, and I know I'll always be learning new things. I don't feel like I've uncovered some big mystery, but I've learned what it takes to overcome being overweight--and that it's not just about the food. It's about becoming the person you are meant to be in all aspects of your life. It's about removing the fears in life that keep us blocked. It's about being brave and learning to love yourself--no matter how you may feel about yourself. — Stephen Cremen

The thing is," he said, "maybe in the same situation, even knowing what I know now, I'd still do the same thing. I'd still tear that Christian bastard's nails out, get him to talk, find out where the bomb was, hope that the plods got the right street, the right end of it, the right fucking city." He looked at me with what might have been defiance or even a sort of pleading. "But I'd still insist that I was charged and prosecuted." He shook his head again. "Don't you see? You can't have a state where torture is legal, not for anything. You start saying it's only for the most serious cases, but that never lasts. It should always be illegal, for everybody, for everything. You might not stop it. Laws against murder don't stop all murders, do they? But you make sure people don't even think about it unless it's a desperate situation, something immediate. And you have to make the torturer pay. In full. There has to be that disincentive, or they'll all be at it. — Iain Banks

My mother has always been sickly; and though she has only gone to the hospital when she has been compelled to, it has cost a great deal of money, and my father's life has been practically given up to it. "If only I knew how much the operation costs," says he. "Have you not asked?" "Not directly. I cannot do that - the surgeon might take it amiss and that would not do; he must operate on Mother." Yes, I think bitterly, that's how it is with us, and with all poor people. They don't dare ask the price, but worry themselves dreadfully beforehand about it; but the others, for whom it is not important, they settle the price first as a matter of course. And the doctor does not take it amiss from them. — Erich Maria Remarque

Disagreements are inevitable. There will always be opposing viewpoints and a variety of perspectives on most subjects. Tastes differ as well as preferences. That is why they make vanilla and chocolate and strawberry ice cream, why they build Fords and Chevys, Chryslers and Cadillacs, Hondas and Toyotas. That is why our nation has room for Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals - and moderates. The tension is built into our system. It is what freedom is all about, including religious freedom.
I am fairly firm in my theological convictions, but that doesn't mean you (or anyone) must agree with me. All this explains why we must place so much importance on leaving "wobble room" in our relationships. One's theological persuasion may not bend, but one's involvement with others must. — Charles R. Swindoll

We part, then, for the nonce, do we?'
'I fear so, sir.'
'You take the high road, and self taking the low road, as it were?'
'Yes, sir.'
'I shall miss you, Jeeves.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'Who was that chap who was always beefing about gazelles?'
'The poet Moore, sir. He complained that he had never nursed a dear gazelle, to glad him with its soft black eye, but when it came to know him well, it was sure to die.'
'It's the same with me. I am a gazelle short. You don't mind me alluding to you as a gazelle, Jeeves?'
'Not at all, sir. — P.G. Wodehouse

That's the funny thing," she said. "Men always want to die for something. For someone. I can see the appeal. You do it once and it's done. No more worrying, not knowing, about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I know you all think it sounds brave, but I'll tell you something even braver. To struggle and fight for the ones you love today. And then do it all over again the next day. Every day. For your whole life. It's not as romantic, I admit. But it takes a lot of courage to live for someone, too. — Victor LaValle

I hear actresses talking about this all the time - this idea that you sit in meetings and the studio says, "Well, you can't do that because the audience won't like that. They won't root for you. It's not sympathetic." I think that we've been served this one dish for so long that we believe that it's all that audiences want, but when we test them or throw something out there that has some truth to it, they seem to always respond. — Kristen Stewart

Listen, she said, "cherubim have come to my planet before."
"I know that. Where do you think I got my information?"
"What do you know about us?"
"I have heard that your host planet is shadowed, that it is troubled."
"It is beautiful," Meg said defensively.
She felt a rippling of his wings. "In the middle of your cities?"
"Well-no-but I don't live in a city."
"And is your planet peaceful?"
"Well-no-it isn't very peaceful."
"I had the idea," Proginoskes moved reluctantly within her mind, "that there are wars on your planet. People fighting and killing each other."
"Yes, that's so, but-"
"And children go hungry."
"Yes."
"And people don't understand each other."
"Not always."
"And there's-there's hate?"
"Yes."
She felt Proginoskes pulling away. "All I want to do," he was murmuring to himself, "is go some place quiet and recite the names of the stars... — Madeleine L'Engle

I know you're just trying to be kind. But the world isn't always kind. So sometimes you have to know what you're up against, and match it.' He held up a hand to stop the words about to be spoken; I could see the vague shape of it hovering in the blackness. 'I know it's not right to fight fire with fire. But sometimes, it's all we've got." His voice grew soft, and, in the darkness, his hand found mine, squeezed. 'Don't put your fire out, Kaitlyn. Use it, or pass the torch. — Mackenzie Herbert

Can't you clerk in a store?'
'No.'
'Can't you be a waitress?'
'Would you be anything like you're suggesting to me? Then why, if you're too good, is it all right for me?'
'It's not a question of superiority, Dora. Come on, be a telephone operator and get paid while you work. Or how about ushering in a theater? I have it. You'll get a job in a flower shop. They always do.'
He looked at her so sharply that she knew she must make some answer, and she began to speak as if her words came from another mind, another mouth. 'I am beyond this plane of animal existence. I'm made of different stuff. I lived all this ages ago and I'm through with it for good. — Margery Latimer

It's not always the case that things will fall into your lap or that life will be great, but it's all about perspective and having a positive outlook. If something goes wrong you say: "That happened for a reason, what can I learn from that and how can I grow?" — Chris Pine

The interesting thing about movies, it's not always - y'know, you have to have structure etc and all those things, but an audience responds, in many ways, we walk away and certain things stay in our heads that are memorable. — Barry Levinson

The drawing Anna was thinking of wasn't particularly wicked, not so far as drawings in Anover House went. It was a colored sketch of a young man and woman embracing in a sun-dappled garden.

Her embarrassment was not in the nudity portrayed ... well, not all the embarrassment ... it was in the sentiment. The couple were entwined in each other's arms, lost in each other's gaze, seemingly oblivious to the world around them.

For Anna, the picture was a sweet bit of ink and imagination that epitomized every silly romantic notion she'd ever had about falling in love. And it was that silly romanticism that embarrassed her. It was always a little uncomfortable to admit wanting something you knew you couldn't have. — Alissa Johnson

I'm not wise at all. I told you, I know nothing. I know books, and I know how to string words together
it doesn't mean I know how to speak about the tings that matter most to me."
"But you're doing it now
in a way."
"Yes, in a way
that's how I always say things: in a way. — Andre Aciman

Aren't we all agreed about those things
in theory?'
In theory, yes,' said Bobby. 'But not in reality. If every one really wanted to abolish the difference of rich and poor it would be as easy as pie to find a way. There's always a way to everything if you want to do it enough. But nobody really wants to do these things. Not as we want meals. All sorts of other things people want, but wanting to have no rich and poor any more isn't real wanting; it is just a matter of pious sentiment. And so it is about war. We don't want to be poor and we don't want to be hurt or worried by war, but that's not wanting to end those things. — H.G.Wells

I said something that surprised me. I said, after two such men had just walked slowly by, "I know it's terrible of me, but I'm almost jealous of them. Because they have each other, they're tied together in a real community." And he looked at me then, and with real kindness on his face, and I see now that he recognized what I did not: that in spite of my plenitude, I was lonely. Lonely was the first flavor I had tasted in my life, and it was always there, hidden inside the crevices of my mouth, reminding me. He saw this that day, I think. And he was kind. "Yes" is all he said. He could easily have said, "Are you crazy, they're dying!" But he did not say that, because he understood that loneliness about me. That is what I want to think. That is what I think. — Elizabeth Strout

Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have. So let us leave behind all these boys' philosophies
these over simple answers. The problem is not simple and the answer is not going to be simple either. — C.S. Lewis

Once a rebel, always a rebel. You can't help being one. You can't deny that. And it's best to be a rebel so as to show 'em it don't pay to try to do you down. Factories and labour exchanges and insurance offices keep us alive and kicking - so they say - but they're booby-traps and will suck you under like sinking-sands if you're not careful. Factories sweat you to death, labour exchanges talk you to death, insurance and income tax offices milk money from your wage packets and rob you to death. And if you're still left with a tiny bit of life in your guts after all this boggering about, the army calls you up and you get shot to death. And if you're clever enough to stay out of the army you get bombed to death. Ay, by God, it's a hard life if you don't weaken, if you don't stop that bastard government from grinding your face in the muck, though there ain't much you can do about it unless you start making dynamite to blow their four-eyed clocks to bits. — Alan Sillitoe

People talk about the ability to endure. To endure anything and everything, to keep going, to be strong. But you can do that only if you're not alone. That's always the infrastructure life's built on. A closeness with others. Alone it all becomes a struggle of mere endurance. — Iain Reid

Yes, yes, many months ago. But your mother is someone who will always be in my life. She's not the kind of person who leaves your life when she's in it. Anyway, when someone you care about gets ill, all the other business...it just goes. — Zadie Smith

When I came to faith, I thought I would have to stop being an actor, because it's all about artifice and manipulation. But we're living in a world where God doesn't really have an influence, unless it's fundamentalists, so I'll always be an outsider because of my faith. And when you think about it, faith and acting are all about stories, so the two are not mutually exclusive. — Tamsin Greig

Life is All About How you Handle Plan B
Plan A is always my first choice.
You know, the one where
Everything works out to be
Happily ever-after.
But more often than not,
I find myself dealing with
The upside-down, inside-out version
Where nothing goes as it should.
It's at this point that the real
Test of my character comes in..
Do I sink, or do I swim?
Do I wallow in self pity and play the victim,
Or simply shift gears
And make the best of the situation?
The choice is all mine ...
Life is all about how you handle Plan B. — Suzy Toronto

You know, I get it. Being raised as a superstar must be really, really difficult for you. Always a commodity, never a human being, not a single person in your family thinking you're worth a damn off the court - yeah, sounds rough. Kevin and I talk about your intricate and endless daddy issues all the time. I know it's not entirely your fault that you are mentally unbalanced and infected with these delusions of grandeur, and I know you're physically incapable of holding a decent conversation with anyone like every other normal human being can, but I don't think any of us should have to put up with this much of your bullshit. Pity only gets you so many concessions, and you used yours up about six insults ago. So please, please, just shut the fuck up and leave us alone. — Nora Sakavic

My parents always told me that life is about asking questions which I didn't understand that until more recently. See the truth is like life is like a collection of questions really if you think about it. Or at least the ones we choose to acknowledge. See within those questions that we choose to acknowledge we answer them for ourselves because we have the need to and in those answers I believe that we find our own meaning, we find our own definition, we define what is we stand for, you know what I'm saying; who we are as people, as individuals, what we believe in. And that's how we celebrate our individuality. Now you would think that individuality would separate us but on the contrary the truth is we all answer pretty much the same basic questions for ourselves, they're not complicated questions you know. They're very simple, basic universal questions and that's why I wrote this song — Miguel

I did it because he wasn't fair to you. Because you deserve credit for what you've done. Because he needs to realize you aren't the person he's always thought you were. He needs to see you for who you really are, not for all the ideas and preconceptions he's built up around you." The power in Adrian's gaze was so strong that I kept talking. I was nervous about meeting that stare in silence. Also, part of me was afraid that if I pondered my own words too hard, I'd discover they were just as much about my own father and me as Adrian and his. "It should have been enough for you to tell him who you are - show him who you are - but he wouldn't listen — Richelle Mead

Chess and you taking a picture of me reading Slaughterhouse-Five, telling me I'd need proof someday because nobody in Creek View would ever believe I had actually read a goddamn book, let alone five. Talking about God and why there's evil in the world and bitching because the Steelers won the Super Bowl. Camp Leatherneck, me not missing home at all and you missing it like crazy, always talking about going to college and how when you had leave you were gonna marry Hannah. And you wanted kids, and I said I didn't because people like me, we just end up disappointing one another and I'd probably be like my dad, and you told me I had to get over it, get over my dad and my mom and how screwed up everything is because you said, Josh, you're gonna have it all. I know it. You're gonna have it all. And for the first time, I'm almost believing that. — Heather Demetrios

And I was
this is just how I was afraid you'd take it. I knew it, that you'd think this means you were right to be afraid all the time and never feel secure or trust me. I knew it'd be 'See, you're leaving after all when you promised you wouldn't.' I knew it but I'm trying to explain anyway, okay? And I know you probably won't understand this either, but
wait
just try to listen and maybe absorb this, okay? Ready? Me leaving is not the confirmation of all your fears about me. It is not. It's because of them. Okay? Can you see that? It's your fear I can't take. It's your distrust and fear I've been trying to fight. And I can't anymore. I'm out of gas on it. If I loved you even a little less maybe I could take it. But this is killing me, this constant feeling that I am always scaring you and never making you feel secure. Can you see that? — David Foster Wallace

She laughed softly. "Therapy isn't so much about what I think as you do."
"Then why do it at all?"
"Because we don't always know what it is we're thinking or feeling. When you have a guide, it's easier to figure things out. You'll often discover that you already know what to do. I can help you ask questions and go places you mihgt not have on your own."
"Well, you're good at the qujestion part." I noted dryly. — Richelle Mead

The worst part is, you know they're not going to be together forever. I mean, come on, she's fifteen. Okay, sixteen. Still. It's not like they're going to get married or anything. Even if they last a couple of years which they won't she'll go to one college and he'll go to another, and pretty soon they'll forget all about each other. That's what always happens. That's why teenage dating is so dumb, because it's doomed to fail. You'd think people would have learned that by now, but I guess they haven't. They go right on falling in love and thinking it's going to survive high school. Allie and Burke, true love always. Whatever.
Anyway, happy birthday, Allie. I hope it was a good one. — Michael Thomas Ford

He'd set down his drink and leaned in. "Fine. You want me to elaborate, I will. Here's the deal: I'm a guy. Generally speaking, we're pretty simple folk. I know women always want to think we have these deep, romantic, and emotionally angsty thoughts going on in our heads, but in reality? Not so much. You women have layers and you're complicated and mysterious and you say one thing, but you really mean another, and it's this whole tricky package that intrigues us and scares us and challenges us all at the same time. But men aren't like that. You talk about me not letting you in, but maybe what you don't realize is this: there is no in." He pointed to himself. "It's all right here on the surface, Jessica. What you see is what you get. — Julie James

In a matter of a moment the amount of sand in the upper part of the hour-glass had dwindled dramatically, the tiny grains were rushing through the opening, each grain more eager to leave then the last, time is just like people, sometimes it's all it can do to drag itself along, but at others, it runs like a deer and leaps like a young goat, which, when you think about it, is not saying much, since the cheetah is the fastest of all the animals, and yet it has never occurred to anyone to say of another person He runs and jumps like a cheetah, perhaps because that first comparison comes from the magical late middle ages, when gentlemen went deer-hunting and no one had ever seen a cheetah running or even heard of its existence. Languages are conservative, they always carry their archives with them and hate having to be updated. — Jose Saramago

-I don't know that thin and pretty is what Nat is supposed to be, though. Does that make any sense?"
If she'd been holding on to any illusions about how much she liked Vince Grasso-not lusted for him, which she also did-that last speech would have cinched it. "It makes perfect sense. She's beautiful in her own way, but pretty is something ... else. And I've had friends who were really pretty-it didn't always help them all that much.'
"Yeah," he said. "My wife was pretty, and she was miserable her whole life. I just want my girls to be happy. Be themselves, you know, whatever it is. — Barbara O'Neal

And everyone drank too much coffee too, at the wrong times and for the wrong reasons. They drank it when they came in every morning to get going, and then again in the afternoon to keep going. They ran on caffeine fumes all day and never fucking got anywhere. Then they went home spent and empty and crashed in front of the TV every night and slept away the few hours they had for themselves. All these motherfuckers are always talking about the best ways to manage your time. The fact is any time spent at work not sleeping in the bathroom is wasted time, and it's hard to sleep when you're pumped full of caffeine. Everyone's awake for the wrong part of their lives. And by the weekend they're too exhausted from all the frantic, useless activity to even care, and it's only fucking two days off anyway. Nobody has the time or the energy to do what they really want, or to even figure out what that is. — Paul Neilan

Do you remember that piece of footage on the local news, just as the first tower comes down, woman runs in off the street into a store, just gets the door closed behind her, and here comes this terrible black billowing, ash, debris, sweeping through the streets, gale force past the window ... that was the moment, Maxi. Not when 'everything changed.' When everything was revealed. No grand Zen illumination, but a rush of blackness and death. Showing us exactly what we've become, what we've been all the time."
"And what we've always been is ... ?"
"Is living on borrowed time. Getting away cheap. Never caring about who's paying for it, who's starving somewhere else all jammed together so we can have cheap food, a house, a yard in the burbs ... planetwide, more every day, the payback keeps gathering. And meantime the only help we get from the media is boo hoo the innocent dead. Boo fuckin hoo. You know what? All the dead are innocent. There's no uninnocent dead. — Thomas Pynchon

We can't all leave this country, Bijan had told me-this is our home. The world is a large place, my magician had said when I went to him with my woes. You can write and teach wherever you are. You will be read more and heard better, in fact, once you are over there. To go or not to go? In the long run, it's all very personal, my magician reasoned. I always admired your former colleague's honesty, he said. Which former colleague? Dr. A, the one who said his only reason for leaving was because he liked to drink beer freely. I am getting sick of people who cloak their personal flaws and desires in the guise of patriotic fervor. They stay because they have no means of living anywhere else, because if they leave, they won't be the big shots they are over here; but they talk about sacrifice for the homeland. And then those who do leave claim they've gone in order to criticize and expose the regime. Why all these justifications? — Azar Nafisi

The Fire

When a human is asked about a particular fire,
she comes close:
then it is too hot,
so she turns her face -

and that's when the forest of her bearable life appears,
always on the other side of the fire. The fire
she's been asked to tell the story of,
she has to turn from it, so the story you hear
is that of pines and twitching leaves
and how her body is like neither -

all the while there is a fire
at her back
which she feels in fine detail,
as if the flame were a dremel
and her back its etching glass.

You will not know all about the fire
simply because you asked.
When she speaks of the forest
this is what she is teaching you,

you who thought you were her master. — Katie Ford

I'm not a huge kind of visual director. For me, it's all about the acting. There's no greater buzz than working with actors and seeing what they can do and how much they can improve on what you'd written. That will always be on the top of my list. It's a real privilege to see it live before anyone else sees it. — Peter Mullan

My theory about meeting people,' he said,'is that it's better not to make a really good first impression. Because it's all downhill from there. You're always having to live up to that first impression, which was just an illusion. — Lisa Kleypas

The ultimate sexist put-down: the prick which lies down on the job. The ultimate weapon in the war between the sexes: the limp prick. The banner of the enemy's encampment: the prick at half-mast. The symbol of the apocalypse: the atomic warhead prick which self-destructs. That was the basic inequity which could never be righted: not that the male had a wonderful added attraction called a penis, but that the female had a wonderful all-weather cunt. Neither storm nor sleet nor dark of night could faze it. It was always there, always ready. Quite terrifying, when you think about it. No wonder men hated women. No wonder they invented the myth of female inadequacy. — Erica Jong

And I recognized then the process by which I had always attempted difficult things. I had simply not allowed myself to think of the consequences, but had closed my eyes, jumped in, and before I knew where I was, it was impossible to renege. I was basically a dreadful coward, I knew that about myself. The only way I could overcome this was to trick myself with that other self, who lived in dream and fantasy and who was annoyingly lackadaisical and unpractical. All passion, no sense, no order, no instinct for self-preservation. That's what I had done, and now that cowardly self had discovered an unburnt bridge by which to return to the past. As Renata Adler writes in Speedboat: I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray. It is the momentum of last resort. — Robyn Davidson

I think what's surprised me most about the club is to feel that wherever you go, even when you go on holiday to a quiet place, you always find Man Utd supporters. It's something that you do not expect in some countries, yet we have them all around the world. Manchester United is a special and unique club because of its history. No-one has won as many trophies as we have in the English league. That history is something that you cannot buy. I think this club has a lot of great history and I feel very proud to be part of it. — Juan Mata

You have to look for a unique quality in that person and it's not just always physical. I don't think models are great models because of their face or their body. Obviously, I think their physical characteristics are important, but I think it's very much about your personality and inner beauty and really understanding how to be a great model instinctively. And that's where it all comes from. — Michael Flutie

For me, family means the silent treatment. At any given moment, someone is always not speaking to someone else.'
Really,' I said.
We're passive-aggressive people,' she explained, taking a sip of her coffee. 'Silence is our weapon of choice. Right now, for instance, I'm not speaking to two of my sisters and one brother ... At mine [my house], silence is golden. And common.'
To me,' Reggie said, picking up a bottle of Vitamin A and moving it thoughtfully from one hand to the other, 'family is, like, the wellspring of human energy. The place where all life begins.' ...
Harriet considered this as she took a sip of coffee. 'Huh,' she said. 'I guess when someone else does something worse. Then you need people on your side, so you make up with one person, jsut as you're getting pissed off at another.'
So it's an endless cycle,' I said.
I guess.' She took another sip. 'Coming together, falling apart. Isn't that what families are all about? — Sarah Dessen

Thinking about somebody every day of his life ... oh yes, he said to himself. Oh yes, you do. You think about somebody. He fills your world. He is all about you, a presence, and you think about him; you can't help it, because he's always there, in your thoughts. But you know, of course, that all the while you're thinking about him, he's not thinking about you. That's the hardest thing about it. That's what makes it so very, very hard to bear. So hard that sometimes you just sit there and let the misery wash over you; the misery, the emptiness. — Alexander McCall Smith

You may be a good person, and some people will nonetheless still treat you terribly. We don't always get what we give, but that's fine, because you aren't giving it for them anyway, at least not exclusively. It's really all a statement by, about and for you. How you treat others is really about who you choose to be in this — Bryant McGill

We seem to live in a world where you have to walk around grinning like a loon. I can't understand all the fuss about Mona Lisa painting, everyone wondering why she's not smiling, if she's depressed or heartbroken. No, she was just normal!
Emotions are always extreme these days: you either have to be crying with laughter or crying in pain. No wonder water levels are rising. It's not global warming, it's all the tears from crying. — Karl Pilkington

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

Cass Mastern lived for a few years and in that time he learned that the world is all of one piece. He learned that the world is like an enormous spider web and if you touch it, however lightly, at any point, the vibration ripples to the remotest perimeter and the drowsy spider feels the tingle and is drowsy no more but spring out to fling the gossamer coils about you who have touched the web and then inject the black, numbing poison under your hide. It does not matter whether or not you meant to brush the web of things. You happy foot or you gay wing may have brushed it ever so lightly, but what happens always happens and there is the spider, bearded black and with his great faceted eyes glittering like mirrors in the sun, or like God's eye, and the fangs dripping. — Robert Penn Warren

I don't want to know about love.'
'But you should, my child. You need to know about love. The things people will do for love. All truths come down to love, do they not? One way or another, they do. See, there is a difference between love and need. Sometimes, what you feel is immediate and without rhyme or reason.' She sat up a little straighter. 'Two people see each across a room or their skin brushes. Their souls recognize the person as their own. It doesn't need time to figure it. The soul always knows ... whether it's right or wrong. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Whenever I hear people say clean food is expensive, I tell them it's actually the cheapest food you can buy. That always gets their attention. Then I explain that with our food all the costs are figured into the price. Society is not bearing the cost of water pollution, of antibiotic resistance, of food-borne illness, of crop subsidies, of subsidized oil and water
of all the hidden costs to the environment and the taxpayer that make cheap food seem cheap. No thinking person will tell you they don't care about all that. I tell them the choice is simple: You can buy honestly priced food or you can buy irresponsibly priced food. — Michael Pollan

Are all the scientists here men, then?" "Scientists?" Oiie asked, incredulous. Pae coughed. "Scientists. Oh, yes, certainly, they're all men. There are some female teachers in the girls' schools, of course. But they never get past Certificate level." "Why not?" "Can't do the math; no head for abstract thought; don't belong. You know how it is, what women call thinking is done with the uterus! Of course, there's always a few exceptions, God-awful brainy women with vaginal atrophy." "You Odonians let women study science?" Oiie inquired. "Well, they are in the sciences, yes." "Not many, I hope." "Well, about half. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The world's a headmaster who works on your faults. I don't mean in a mystical or Jesus way. More how you'll keep tripping over a hidden step, over and over, till you finally understand: Watch out for that step! Everything that's wrong with us, if we're too selfish or too Yessir, Nosir, Three bags full sir or too anything, that's a hidden step. Either you suffer the consequences of not noticing your fault forever or, one day, you do notice it, and fix it. Joke is, once you get it into your brain about that hidden step and think, Hey, life isn't such a shithouse after all again, then BUMP! Down you go, a whole new flight of hidden steps.
There are always more. — David Mitchell

Here's an interesting form of murder we came up with: assassination. You know what's interesting about assassination? Well, not only does it change those popularity polls in a big fucking hurry, but it's also interesting to notice who it is we assassinate. Did you ever notice who it is? Stop to think who it is we kill? It's always people who've told us to live together in harmony and try to love one another. Jesus, Gandhi, Lincoln, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, John Lennon, they all said, "Try to live together peacefully." BAM! Right in the fucking head. Apparently we're not ready for that. — George Carlin

Love is agony, isn't it? I've been involved with someone for some time now, but it's all so complicated. It's never straightforward is it? You meet someone, you fall in love, it's the most wonderful thing ever but ... There's always something that's not quite right about love, isn't there? — Daphne Guinness

When you love someone you tend to tell them so much about your past because you're trying to catch up to the present moment. You're trying to say, my past has been bloody. My past has been as painful and pounding as an ear ache, but I am still here. I survived it. You're trying to say, here I am before you. I can be brutal. I can be as harsh and unforgiving as sun burn, but this is how I got to this moment. This is who I am. I am not always kind and lovely, I am so often fierce and cutting and unforgiving. I have made some mistakes I'm still trying to forgive myself for. Please accept it. Please try to love me for it. Here is the muscle and bone of me. It's frightening. It's a roller coaster. Here is the meat of me, after I've shed my skin, after I've left the cicada shell behind. It's manic. It's a monster, but it will try to love you well. It will try to leave fingerprints all over you. — Jessica Therese

Glancing at Danika, I notice she isn't wearing her normal 'look at me, all proper' style. Instead she has on jeans, a red t-shirt with the image of a smiling mushroom on it, and a pair of tennis shoes.
"Wow, you look ... different."
She cast a peek down at her clothes. "This was always my preferred style, but I thought I had to dress prim and proper to be taken seriously. But you know what I realized when I met you?"
"What?"
She takes a step forward, placing her hand over my heart. "It's not about appearances, it's about heart. — Brandy Nacole

It's always fun to do something that you know ultimately is not about the money, and it's certainly not the fame because it's a pain in the ass, but it's really the person in the seat you think about when you sit in the rooms and write, and you do all the things you have to do. — Jim Carrey

I've always seen this overlap between medieval warfare and heavy metal. You see heavy metal singers and they'll have like a brace around their arm and they'll be singing about Orcs. So let's just make a world where that all happens. That all gets put together, the heavy metal, and the rock, and the battling, actually does happen. Let's not flirt around with this let's just do it. — Tim Schafer

The Beatles were hard men too. Brian Epstein cleaned them up for mass consumption, but they were anything but sissies. They were from Liverpool, which is like Hamburg or Norfolk, Virginia
a hard, sea-farin' town, all these dockers and sailors around all the time who would beat the piss out of you if you so much as winked at them. Ringo's from the Dingle, which is like the f***ing Bronx. The Rolling Stones were the mummy's boys
they were all college students from the outskirts of London. They went to starve in London, but it was by choice, to give themselves some sort of aura of disrespectability. I did like the Stones, but they were never anywhere near the Beatles
not for humour, not for originality, not for songs, not for presentation. All they had was Mick Jagger dancing about. Fair enough, the Stones made great records, but they were always s**t on stage, whereas the Beatles were the gear. — Lemmy Kilmister

You run toward things, not away from them. I don't know who you are, except you're not Harry Potter. There's something about you, I don't know what it is, but it's something, and it's good. Only a worse fool than I would reply to that, for any response would diminish either her or me, or both of us. Such genuine trust, so sweetly expressed, bears witness to an innocence in the human heart that endures even in this broken world and that longs to ring the bell backward and undo the days of history until all such trust would be justified in a world started anew and as it always should have been. — Dean Koontz

Ever since I was a little girl, I've worried too much. It always bothers me because sometimes you end up worrying more about the worry and you are not resolving things that are right there in front of you. I have been like that all my life, and it's hard to change. — Penelope Cruz

You can't create a movie as you think about it. And what's in the scene is not what's being seen. A shot always means something other than what it is. All are vehicles. A landscape is just a vehicle. The viewer might think different things, and I'm not going to intervene. — Bruno Dumont

Pablito, the Bible was meant to be a bridge, not a wedge. It's the greatest love story ever told, about God's enduring and unconditional love for his creation
love beyond all reason. To understand it, you have to read it with love as the standard. Love God. Love your neighbor. Love yourself. Always remember that. — Alex Sanchez

When you realise that money doesn't actually make you happy, it's a quick fix to have things you've always wanted, but then when you have it, you realise that's not what actually makes you happy. It's more about having a great marriage and happy children; that's what life's all about. — Shane Filan

What a surprise it is to discover that you have never needed to strive to survive and be happy after all. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, who discovered that she always had the means for going home, you already have what you need to be happy and safe. You have never really left Home. However, if you don't believe you already have what you need to be happy and safe, it is as if it isn't true: If we don't know the ruby slippers will take us home, it's like not having them. The ego keeps us from seeing the truth about those ruby slippers- it keeps us from seeing the truth about life. Home is right here, right now, but we may not realize it and there for not experience Home, or Essence as much as we might. — Gina Lake

Here's the rub. Leadership can be learned; however, not everyone wants to learn it, and not all those who learn about leadership master it. Why? Because becoming the very best requires a strong belief that you can learn and grow, an intense aspiration to excel, the determination to challenge yourself constantly, the recognition that you must engage the support of others, and the devotion to practice deliberately. Moreover, the best leaders realize that no matter how good they might be, they always can be even better, and are open to learning how to do so.4 — James M. Kouzes

When you're young, your whole life is about the pursuit of fun. Then, you grow up and learn to be cautious. You could break a bone or a heart. You look before you leap and sometimes you don't leap at all because there's not always someone there to catch you. And in life, there's no safety net. When did it stop being fun and start being scary? — Carrie Bradshaw

I've been waiting years for this moment, do you really think something like that's going to stop me? You are and have always been the most beautiful and sexiest woman I've ever known. I love you. I love everything about you- not just your legs, or arms, or eyes, or heart, or humor, or intellect. I love all of it. I love all of you. That will never change." Tears were trickling down my face. Then with a flirtatious grin, he said, "Besides, I've never been much of a leg man. I'm more of a breasts kind of guy and yours are phenomenal." Laughter burst out of me while I wiped away my tears. — Alison G. Bailey

I bet if we all threw our problems in a huge pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is about. That's why I always give people the benefit of the doubt; it's one of my rules to live by. There may be a reason why someone is having a bad day, there's often something that we can't see. She is not necessarily a bad person, just someone facing a bad situation. — Robin Roberts

How did you act when all was not good? Did you rise to the challenge? Did you display grit, resilience, and integrity in your response? Character isn't about being perfect or always doing the right thing. Character is how you respond to your own failures. It's when you screw up and life hits you in the mouth that you have an opportunity to reveal your inner strength. — Bill Courtney