It's The Way I Am Quotes & Sayings

It's a huge, huge pressure that so many people depend on you. The type of player I am and people look at me to come out and perform a certain way. Not being able to play on the biggest stage of the season, it's frustrating. One thing I wanted to do was not be frustrated about it and figure out what I can do to change and better myself on the court. — Jermaine O'Neal

When you haven't found inner meaning, you will always substitute outer performance. It's the only way to fill that void, that sense of significance - that I am significant. So almost the degree of outer performance can, in many cases, mirror the lack of inner alignment. — Richard Rohr

You can't imagine fame. You can only ever see it from an outsider and comment on it with the rueful wisdom of a non participant. When it happens to you, it doesn't matter what age or how, it is a very steep learning curve. The imprtanot thing to realize in all of it is that life is short, to protect the ones you love, and not expose yourself to too much abuse or narcissistic reflection gazing and move on. If fame affords me the type of ability to do the kind of work I'm being offered, who am I to complain about the downsides. It's all relative. And this are obviously very high class problems. The way privacy becomes an every shrinking island is inevitable but also manageable and it doesn't necessary have to get that way ... — Benedict Cumberbatch

There are those who see film and take it seriously as an artistic medium, and others who go to have a good time, to simply be entertained. I have to be careful , because it sounds like I am condemning, or criticizing what people are doing. I have nothing against that, in the same way that some people like rock music or to go dancing, and other people like to go to a Beethoven concert. It's just that I'm more interested in the one than the other. — Michael Haneke

What's happening right now, this month, I check in and go, 'Hey. You are at the top of a wave right now. Look around and enjoy it because it's not going to stay,' ... The wave goes away. It does not dictate how good I am or my worth. It's just the way it happens. — Melissa Etheridge

I don't know how to cure the source-itis except to tell you that I can discover a good many possible sources myself for Wise Blood but I am often embarrassed to find that I read the sources after I had written the book. I have been exposed to Wordsworth's "Intimation" ode but that is all I can say about it. I have one of those food-chopper brains that nothing comes out of the way it went in. The Oedipus business comes nearer home. Of course Haze Motes is not an Oedipus figure but there are the obvious resemblances. At the time I was writing the last of the book, I was living in Connecticut with the Robert Fitzgeralds. Robert Fitzgerald translated the Theban cycle with Dudley Fitts, and their translation of the Oedipus Rex had just come out and I was much taken with it. Do you know that translation? I am not an authority on such things but I think it must be the best, and it is certainly very beautiful. Anyway, all I can say is, I did a lot of thinking about Oedipus. — Flannery O'Connor

So much of my own life inspires what I write. Whether it's work, family, friends, motherhood, I am a writer who tends to write what she knows. In 'Revenge Wears Prada,' a great deal of my own life finds its way into the book. — Lauren Weisberger

In another corner Nathaniel murmured to Maura, "You must know, Miss O'Connell, I ... I loved you even before I saw you. It was your father's way of talking."
Maura shook her head. "You mustn't say that. It's not my dear da's words that should do the wooing," she said gently. "I'd rather be cared for ... for what I am myself."
Nathaniel nodded. "I'll not say more. But I will tell you what I think I'm going to do."
And what is that
I'm going to California to search for gold."
And do you think, Nathaniel Brewster, you'll find it?"
I do. But it won't be as fine as what's here," Nathaniel said with a shy smile. "Maura O'Connell ... will ... will you ... wait for me to come back?"
Maura was silent.
Will you?"
You're a fine young man, Mr. Brewster. I can only say I'll not forget you. — Avi

What I am recommending to the unmarried person, therefore, comes straight out of the Word: Stay out of bed unless you go there alone! I know that advice is difficult to put into practice today. But I didn't make the rules. I'm just passing them along. God's moral laws are not designed to oppress us or deprive us of pleasure. They are there to protect us from the devastation of sin, including disease, heartache, divorce, and spiritual death. Abstinence before marriage and fidelity afterward is the Creator's own plan, and no one has devised a way to improve on it. — James C. Dobson

So when it comes to being a role model to women, I think it's because of the way that I feel about myself, and the way that I treat myself. I am a woman, I treat myself with respect and I love myself, and I think that if I'm holding myself to a certain esteem and keeping it real with myself, then that's going to translate to people like me. — Lizzo

What's important for me now is the same thing it always was - compassion. I can't think of anything more important. I've loved my fellow citizens. I've loved my children. I'm happy with the opportunity I've had to worship the way I want to worship. I'm not worshipping somebody else's God, but I am insisting on the ability to worship my way, and be the person He would have me be. — Ella Mae Cheeks Johnson

For the first time, I realize that it's not just the king who appears inhuman.
I do too.
The ferocity of the scar that runs down my cheek, the tightness of my jaw, the look in my eye - I'm no natural thing. Murder and violence have made me this way. Loss and war have made me this way.
I look like a savage.
A savage queen. One who doesn't need a crown or even a weapon to appear powerful.
I see it now - this world's faith in me. It's not just that I am an anachronism; the harshness of my face speaks to these people who have only ever known war.
No wonder the West wants me gone.
A century has gone by, and yet even after all that time I am still something to fear. — Laura Thalassa

It preoccupies me until it's time to leave. It seems such the right expression of grief. I am sad, so in whatever small way I can, I will tear myself apart. They've taken what's on the inside and made it visible. If I thought it wouldn't be inappropriate I'd do it myself. — Jael McHenry

She was talking too loud now, shouting almost, and a long silence followed. Why was she being like this? He was only trying to help. In what way did he benefit from this friendship? He should get up and walk away, that's what he should do. They turned to look at each other at the same time.
"Sorry," he said.
"No, I'm sorry."
"What are you sorry for?"
"Rattling on like a ... .mad cow. I'm sorry, I'm tired, bad day, and I'm sorry for being ... so boring."
"You're not that boring."
"I am, Dex. God, I swear, I bore myself."
"Well you don't bore me." He took her hand in his. "You couldd never bore me. You're one in a million, Em."
"I'm not even one in three."
He kicked her foot with his. "Em?"
"What?"
"Just take it, will you? Just shut up and take it. — David Nicholls

This was totally influenced by me and the direction that I am writing about and the stuff that I am writing about. There is just no way that you can be as intense as what I have been through in my life over a drum beat machine, sample, or loop; it's just not going to happen. — Vanilla Ice

Coincidence sometimes happens as in a fairy tale. Wong was in an emotional state of mind. Still smoking opium, he thought about Kwang's long-dead father, who had arrived in Singapore from Amoy on the junk Nam Hong. The opium den now felt bare and lonely without all the old vibrations. It was also dark and damp and the small kerosene lamp was running low on fuel. Wong added more kerosene and mumbled to himself, "Tonight I am going to smoke my way to heaven! — Ming Cher

I focus on my favorite daydream, the one where I return from London at the end of the summer and am all glamorous and drop-dead gorgeous and every girl in my school is completely jealous when Quinn McKeyan asks me to Fall Homecoming because he can't resist my charm.
Hey, it's my daydream. I can dream what I want to.
The thing is, Quinn's face keeps getting replaced in my head by Dante's.
Since I've had a mad crush on Quinn from the time we started kindergarten all the way through our junior year last year, that's saying something.
Every daydream I've had for eleven years has been of him. I'm a very loyal daydreamer. And I suddenly feel like I'm cheating on my imaginary boyfriend, a boy who happens to be real, but who has been dating my best friend Becca for the past two years. And no. Becca has no idea that I'm secretly in love with her boyfriend. It's the one secret that I've kept from her. — Courtney Cole

I think it's great to be flawed. I am hugely flawed, and I like it this way. That's the fun of life. You fall, get up, make mistakes, learn from them, be human and be you. — Priyanka Chopra

But ya know what, I am a part of something that happened. I'm a part of the music that happened. My voice is one more instrument, is what it is. So that's the way I feel about people who play on sessions. — Waylon Jennings

For twenty-seven years I was told and believed it to be true, that if you really liked someone, you'd wish her/him to 'stay the way s/he is'.

Today I know that I was not wrong, but my view was limited. If I really like someone today, I don't want them to merely stay that way, I want them to grow, to discover their potential, and am excited to see who they choose to become. — Akilnathan Logeswaran

We run for an hour and a half?"
"Five miles."
"Every morning?"
"Every morning."
"Even Saturdays and Sunday."
"Yes, but you don't have to do the obstacle course on the weekend."
Obstacle course? Sterling didn't say anything about an obstacle course did he? I'd never run five miles in my entire life and now i was going to have to do it every day? And with obstacles on most of those days? I am going to die, I thought, I am literally going to have a heart attack and die the very first day.
Well, that's one way to get out of being a mandate." — Christine Manzari

As the leader of Southeast Asia's oldest democracy, I am always keen to share our experiences. In the half-century since independence, we have found that steady reform is the best way to secure lasting stability. It is a process that continues in Malaysia to this day. — Najib Razak

Where am I going to grow a garden in a penthouse?"
"Next time I visit I'll fix you up a spot in one of the corners. You won't even know it's there until its time to harvest."
"Wonderful." But then it occurred to her. "Jenny, next time you visit?"
"What? What is it?" Jennifer asked.
Christine half stuttered. "You have never been to my penthouse."
"Really?" Jennifer thought back when something came to mind. "Well, what was that great big building we went to the last time we visited? You know, we went all the way to the top."
"That was the Empire State building."
"No fooling? Huh, what do you know? Well you should move in there, it was beautiful as I recall."
"You can't move into the Empire State building."
"Oh, that's right," Jennifer soon realized, "those mean terrorists tore it down. My, that was just awful. — Carroll Bryant

I'm trying to learn that in my Christian walk as well. If I'll move to the beat of the Spirit and relinquish control of my life to Him, I'll be able to dance to the music God has playing in His head rather than movin' and agroovin' to the catchy little tunes I've got going in my own. For when I allow the Lord to provide the accompaniment to my life, I discover a richly layered soundtrack more beautiful than anything I could compose myself. But following God's beat, dancing to His rhythm, trusting in His sovereignty - all that can be hard for a rhythmically challenged, control-loving person like me. Because when it comes right down to it, I'm a headstrong little girl who wants her own way in pretty much every area of life. Fortunately, I have a Father who loves me in spite of that. But while He loves me as I am, He also loves me too much to leave me that way. So He insists I follow His lead in order to "grow up" in my salvation (1 Peter 2:2). Becoming more like Jesus and less like me. — Joanna Weaver

That is why, I explained to Bojia, as a columnist, "I am either in the heating business or the lighting business." Every column or blog has to either turn on a lightbulb in your reader's head - illuminate an issue in a way that will inspire them to look at it anew - or stoke an emotion in your reader's heart that prompts them to feel or act more intensely or differently about an issue. The ideal column does both. But — Thomas L. Friedman

Dear you,
Yes, you. The person reading this right now.
If you're anything like me, sometimes you might feel like you don't matter. Like you're completely ordinary, unremarkable, boring, invisible. Like if you disappeared, nobody would notice.
Don't.
Don't feel that way.
You are extraordinary. You are remarkable. You are interesting. You are dazzling. Your presence is noticed and appreciated. You are moonbeams and starlight, a sugar rush, the sound of laughter like bells. You are a soft breeze on a sweltering summer day, the wonder of a year's first snow, and the magic of a million smiling faces.
You mean something to someone out there. You mean something to someone right here. You are important, and the footprints you leave in this world make a difference. Even though you might not always realize it, you are wonderful.
You matter. And I am happy you exist. — Emily Trunko

A Storm In April"

Some winters, taking leave,
Deal us a last, hard blow,
Salting the ground like Carthage
Before they will go.

But the bright, milling snow
Which throngs the air today -
It is a way of leaving
So as to stay.

The light flakes do not weigh
The willows down, but sift
Through the white catkins, loose
As petal-drift

Or in an up-draft lift
And glitter at a height,
Dazzling as summer's leaf-stir
Chinked with light.

This storm, if I am right,
Will not be wholly over
Till green fields, here and there,
Turn white with clover,
And through chill air the puffs of milkweed hover. — Richard Wilbur

I am cool with people. I am not the one at the top of the water tower with the rifle at all. I am cool when they are cool. I am not a people person. I live alone and don't visit much with people. I do answer all the mail and meet anyone after the show though. I have no problem with this. These people took the time out to check me out, there's no way I am blowing that off or in any way disrespecting that. The Black Flag years were turbulent and it took a lot of work to be cool with people after that. I have never been one to go to clubs or events unless I am performing or on business. It's just not me. — Henry Rollins

Explain to Atticus that it wasn't so much what Francis said that had infuriated me as the way he had said it. "It was like he'd said snot-nose or somethin'." "Scout," said Atticus, "nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don't mean anything - like snot-nose. It's hard to explain - ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody's favoring Negroes over and above themselves. It's slipped into usage with some people like ourselves, when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody." "You aren't really a nigger-lover, then, are you?" "I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody . . . I'm — Harper Lee

More often than not, focusing on stress, pain and chaos in our lives creates even more stress, pain and chaos for us. Here's what I've experienced, and my guess is that it's happened to you as well: Whenever I am focused on how difficult my life is, I begin to feel overwhelmed, stressed, depressed, and worried. These emotions, in turn, influence my productivity, actions and choices. They may even change my sleeping patterns and compromise my immune system. Sooner or later they begin to interfere with my relationships with family and friends. They even hinder the way I worship or approach God. As these emotions continue to influence how I live, cope, function, and relate to those around me, they can even impact my finances and long-term security. — Gaylyn Williams

But before I could come up with an answer, Tod appeared in the desk chair, where I'd sat minutes earlier. 'Hey. Am I interrupting something?'
'Yes,' Nash said. 'Get out.'
But Tod was watching me, and I could tell from the angry line of his jaw that he'd been listening long before he showed himself. He'd heard what Avari had done to me. What Nash had let him do.
'You want me to go?' Tod asked me, his back to his brother.
Nash implores me silently to say yes. Tod waited patiently.
'No,' I said, looking right at Nash. He scowled, and his shoulders sagged.
'Good.' Tod stood and kicked the rolling chair out of his way. 'I just checked on your friend in the straitjacket. But first ... ' The reaper swung before either of us realized what he intended to do.
Tod's very sold first slammed into Nash's jaw. Nash's head snapped back. He stumbled into the wall. Tod shook his hand like it hurt. 'That's for what you let him do to Kaylee. — Rachel Vincent

I am all for art's finding a large audience. But the way that's happening now, with big works filling big galleries and bigger shows, is mostly stopping statements from being made. Or heard. Or talked about. Or really examined. It's watering things down. — Jerry Saltz

There's not one woman in America who does not care about her hair, but we give it way too much value. We deprive ourselves of things, we use it to destroy each other, we'll look at a child and judge a mother and her sense of motherhood by the way the child's hair looks. I am not going to traumatize my child about her hair. I want her to love her hair. — Viola Davis

I have experience and I am employing it in the service of a Chilean road for Chile's problems. We always take advantage of experience wherever it comes from, but adapting it to our reality. I am putting it to use in a Chilean way, for the problems of Chile. We are not anyone's mental colonists. — Salvador Allende

I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I'm off-putting in some way. It's not just that I've put on weight, or that my face is puffy from the drinking and the lack of sleep; it's as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move. — Paula Hawkins

I'm behind what is happening to you. I'm doing it. It's both of us. But without me, nothing would be changing in you. I'm . . . taking something from you. And giving something in return. It's the way it used to work, though I can't remember how or when. I just know that it was. I'm willing to stop it, if you want. But I would go back to being as I was before. That scares me. Floating on the wind, never remembering anything for longer than a few minutes. It's because of this tie between us that I can think again, that I can remember what and who I am. If we end it, I lose that. — Brandon Sanderson

The Angels don't like to be called losers, but they have learned to live with it. "Yeah, I guess I am," said one. "But you're looking at one loser who's going to make a hell of a scene on the way out. — Hunter S. Thompson

As pertaining to this perfect atonement, wrought by the shedding of the blood of God - I testify that it took place in Gethsemane and at Golgotha, and as pertaining to Jesus Christ, I testify that he is the Son of the Living God and was crucified for the sins of the world. He is our Lord, our God, and our King. This I know of myself independent of any other person. I am one of his witnesses, and in a coming day I shall feel the nail marks in his hands and in his feet and shall wet his feet with my tears. But I shall not know any better then than I know now that he is God's Almighty Son, that he is our Savior and Redeemer, and that salvation comes in and through his atoning blood and in no other way. God grant that all of us may walk in the light as God our Father is in the light so that, according to the promises, the blood of Jesus Christ his Son will cleanse us from all sin. — Bruce R. McConkie

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

I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years. — Khaled Hosseini

Who takes the Pandorica takes the Universe. But bad news everyone. 'Cause guess who! Hah! Listen, you lot, you're all whizzing about. It's really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I. AM. TALKING! Now, the question of the hour is, who's got the Pandorica? Answer: I do. Next question: Who's coming to take it from me? Come on! Look at me! No plan, no back-up, no weapons worth a damn, oh, and something else. I don't have anything to lose. So if you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceship with all your silly little guns and you've got any plans on taking the Pandorica tonight, just remember who's standing in your way! Remember! Every black day I ever stopped you! And then! And then! Do the smart thing! Let somebody else try first. — Steven Moffat

It is too simple
to pet a stray dog
then watch it run under a car
and say it wasn't mine

It is too simple
to admire a rose
then pick it and forget
to put water in the vase

It is too simple
to use a person
for loving without love
then leave him standing alone
and say I don't know him
anymore

It is too simple
to know one's flaws
then live them at great cost to others
and say that's just the way I am

It is too simple
the way we sometimes live our lives
for after all life simply is
a serious matter — Margot Bickel

The click of the seat belt securing into the buckle is the only sound to break the awkward silence. I feel his warm breath on my neck as he reaches and I take a deep nervous inhale. His scent fills my nose, it is clean and warm, just like in the coffee shop. The smell of his skin is delicious. I try to stop these thoughts, but they are invading my brain in a way that has never happened to me before. Not even with ... Rick. I try push him back out of my mind at this moment because I feel a sense of guilt. Rick and I are frozen. That's the only way I can describe us. He is faithful, he is steady, he is nice, but he is not like this man in front of me: new, mysterious, and unpredictable. Rick and I are in a state of comfort, but like much of my life, I am becoming more and more discontent with comfort. — Nina G. Jones

I can only tell you one thing that I do know for sure, I am a dreamer. There are not many people that will recognize or want to recognize the fact that they are dreamers in their own life ... I continue to get up in the morning,enthusiastically, and go pick up a golf club with a thought that I can somewhere find that secret to making the cut. That's just an example, but it applies to other things in life, too, and that's the way I live and the way I think and the way I feel. — Arnold Palmer

Nobody would know me from my own description of myself; which is why, when called upon (rarely, I grant) to provide an account, I tailor it, I adapt, I try to provide an outline that can, in some way, correlate to the outline that people understand me to have
that, I suppose, I actually have, at this point. But who I am in my head, very few people really get to see that. Almost none. It's the most precious gift I can give, to bring her out of hiding. — Claire Messud

I don't want to...be like this," I whispered as I looked away, and once I said it, I didn't even want to take the words back. A weird sensation hit me, almost like...like relief. That didn't make sense. Or did it? "I don't like who I am."
My gaze returned to his, and the concern was still there, filling his hazel eyes and thinning out his mouth. Tears crawled up the back of my throat. Humiliating actually, to admit something so intimate like that, but now I wasn't the only one who knew this about myself. It wasn't my secret.
"It's okay. You're not going to feel that way forever." Rider smoothed his thumb along my jaw. I closed my eyes, wanting to believe him. Needing to. He kept his voice low as he spoke. "Nothing lasts forever, Mouse. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

You in trouble? Sam asks. The way he says it, I wonder if he's thinking about how to get out of here if I am. — Holly Black

It's like I am glimpsing the possibility of living in a different way. I wonder whether it would be an easier life - less choked with misunderstandings and disappointment. — Chrissie Perry

Take a trip in my mind
see all that I've seen,
and you'd be called a
beast, not a human being ...
Fuck it, cause there's
not much I can do,
there's no way out, my
screams have no voice no
matter how loud I shout ...
I could be called a
low life, but life ain't
as low as me. I'm
in juvenile hall headed
for the penitentiary.
George Trevino, sixteen, Who Am I? — Edward Humes

I'm often asked - and occasionally in an accusatory way - 'Are you atheist?' And it's like, 'You know, the only 'ist' I am is a scientist, all right?' I don't associate with movements. I'm not an 'ism.' I just - I think for myself. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

What'll happen is," Alex McClean advises, "is you'll get hammer'd paying double taxes, visits all the time from Sheriffs of both provinces looking for their quitrents, tax collectors from Philadelphia and Annapolis, and sooner or later you'll have to decide just to get it up on some Logs, and roll it, one way or the other. Depends how your Property runs, I'd guess." ". . . as North is pretty much up-hill," Mr. Price is reckoning," 'twould certainly not be as easy, to roll her up into Pennsylvania, as down into Maryland." "Where I am no longer your Wife," she reminds him. "Aye, and there's another reason," he nods soberly. "Well then, let's fetch the Boys and get to it, - 'tis Maryland, ho! — Thomas Pynchon

We've made a beautiful mess of things lately, haven't we?" He flashed that sexy crooked smile at me, which made my heart flutter.
"But it's our crazy story," "It's been ours, only ours. There's been a lot of romance, sometimes way too much drama ... " "very memorable comedy, a few pulse-racing action scenes ... "
"We've also had our fair share of suspense and raw terror, and unfortunately gut-wrenching heartache too."
"I think we've covered it all, everything except fo being captured by aliens!"
"But through it all you've loved me unconditionally, and I know how fortunate I am to have your love. I don't want to live without you, not for one more minute, not for one more second. I want to spend the rest of my days living my story with you ... only you."
"It is here that I fell in love with you"
"And as fate would have it, it is here that I humbly kneel before you and ask you to be my wife. — Tina Reber

Now you here and dealing not with him, who is dead, but with me, who is sitting here."
"But," he said in exasperation, "that's not the way it should be."
"I agree," Janie King said.
"You agree," he said, showing some surprise in his voice.
"Yes," said Janie with a smile. "No idiot should ever be in your position. But since an idiot is and I am dealing with him, it is bloody unfortunate for us both." She rose.
David Adams Richards River of the Brokenhearted — David Adams Richards

This dead man is bound up with my life, therefore I must do everything, promise everything in order to save myself; I swear blindly that I mean to live only for his sake and his family, with wet lips I try to placate him--and deep down in me lies the hope that I may buy myself off in this way and perhaps even get out of this; it is a little stratagem: if only I am allowed to escape, then I will see to it. So I open the book and read slowly:--Gerard Duval, compositor.

With the dead man's pencil write the address on an envelope, then swiftly thrust everything back into his tunic.

I have killed the printer, Gerard Duval. I must be a printer, I think confusedly, be a printer, printer... — Erich Maria Remarque

A few years ago I was involved with a man and when we stopped seeing each other I worried about what it meant to him. Will he remember me the way I remember him? Did I make a lasting impression on him the way he did on me? At some point I thought about that little sentence describing one woman's passion vs. a man's dalliance and seeing how well her passion served her in other ways, and I chose not to care. I don't care what he did or didn't feel. What he does or doesn't remember. I am a person and I count. It meant something to me, therefore it meant something. I will now take my passion and do what I damn well please. How extraordinary to be the passionate one. — Samara O'Shea

Not to be rude, but what the hell? I live for it. You can't start running your mouth about what you've seen here tonight. (ZT)
Great threat you've going there big ZT. News flash, I didn't want to see anything. Your people dragged me into this against my will, not the other way around, and who am I going to tell anyway? The last thing I want is to be dragged off and committed because I saw ... something that no rational human being has ever seen before. (Geary)
I don't think you understand what's going on here, do you? (ZT)
Not a clue and, no offense, I like it that way. Clueless rules. (Geary) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I understand what I'm saying here. Feeling this way is a theme in every girl's life, I think, and at that age, you think there's some other version of yourself that is waiting to come out and blow everyone's dick off. I am so glad this is almost fifteen years ago and I know myself and my body now. Sorry, girls this age, but if you can, just skip the self-hatred and the striving to be some other type of girl. Just let that phase pass you by and love yourself how you are. Don't waste any energy on it. If you want to lose a little weight, fine. Make sure you are healthy, but fuck, skip all the rest. You are hot and the person who will love you won't notice ten pounds. I really promise. — Amy Schumer

I pity the woman who will love you
when I am done. She will show up
to your first date with a dustpan
and broom, ready to pick up all the pieces
I left you in. She will hear my name so often
it will begin to dig holes in her. That
is where doubt will grow. She will look
at your neck, your thin hips, your mouth,
wondering at the way I touched you.
She will make you all the promises I did
and some I never could. She will hear only
the terrible stories. How I drank. How I lied.
She will wonder (as I have) how someone
as wonderful as you could love a monster
like the woman who came before her. Still,
she will compete with my ghost.
She will understand why you do not look
in the back of closets. Why you are afraid
of what's under the bed. She will know
every corner of you is haunted
by me. — Clementine Von Radics

In Ky's eyes is such complete love and hunger that it goes through me like the sharp, high note of a bird in the canyon, echoing all the way through my body. I am seen and known, if not yet touched. The — Ally Condie

People say, "I have heart disease," not "I am heart disease." Somehow the presumption of a person's individuality is not compromised by those diagnostic labels. All the labels tell us is that the person has a specific challenge with which he or she struggles in a highly diverse life. But call someone "a schizophrenic" or "a borderline" and the shorthand has a way of closing the chapter on the person. It reduces a multifaceted human being to a diagnosis and lulls us into a false sense that those words tell us who the person is, rather than only telling us how the person suffers. — Martha Manning

I'm a writer. That's who I am, at my core. I'm a writer, and then I learned production and administration, along the way. I feel like most people can learn it because production and the administration part is all about logic, and it's all about learning rules and budgets. — Ronald D. Moore

You say you're looking for beauty, but this isn't the way to achieve it, my dear friend. You won't find it while you look to yourself, as if everything revolved around you. Don't you see? It's exactly the other way around, precisely the other way around. You mustn't be careful, you must get hurt. What I am trying to explain, child, is that unless you allow the beauty you seek to hurt you, to break you and knock you down, you'll never find it. — Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

But one day she was telling me how every room has a note. You just have to find it. She started warbling away, up and down. And suddenly one note came back to us, just bounced back off the walls and rose from the floor and filled the place with this perfect hum. This beautiful sound. Like you've thrown a plum and an orchard comes back at you. You wouldn't believe it, Mr. Evans. These two completely different things, a note and a room, finding each other. It sounded ... right. Am I being ridiculous? Do you think that's what we mean by love, Mr. Evans? The note that comes back to you? That finds you even when you don't want to be found? That one day you find someone, and everything they are comes back to you in a strange way that hums? That fits. That's beautiful. — Richard Flanagan

You are in love, at a point where pride and apprehension scuffle within you. Part of you wants time to slow down: for this, you say to yourself, is the best period of your whole life. I am in love, I want to savour it, study it, lie around in languor with it; may today last forever. This is your poetical side. However, there is also your prose side, which urges time not to slow down but hurry up. How do you know this is love, your prose side whispers like a sceptical lawyer, it's only been around for a few weeks, a few months. You won't know it's the real thing unless you (and she) still feel the same in, oh, a year or so at least; that's the only way to prove you aren't living a dragonfly mistake. Get through this bit, however much you enjoy it, as fast as possible; then you'll be able to find out whether or not you're really in love. — Julian Barnes

I now know that to do a worthwhile family history I must interpret the past without falling into either demonizing or unquestioning acceptance ... As a playwright, what I object to right now is any form of fundamentalism, whether it's nationalistic, religious or ethnic ... I think it is ridiculous - and fundamentalist, by the way - to say that I am not changed by the culture around me. — David Henry Hwang

It's like my ear attunes to the weird language and I'm sucked fully into the story, the same way I am when I watch a movie, so that I feel it. — Gayle Forman

If morality is always relative to one's own society, then you, coming from your society, have your moral standards and I, coming from my society, have mine. It follows that when I criticize your moral standards, I am simply expressing the morality of my society, but it also follows that when you condemn me for criticizing the moral standards of your society, you are simply expressing the morality of your society. There is, on this view, no way of moving outside the morality of one's own society and expressing a transcultural or objective moral judgment about anything, including respect for the cultures of different peoples. Hence if we happen to live in a culture that honors those who subdue other societies and suppress their cultures, then that is our morality, and the relativist can offer no cogent reason why we should not simply get on with it. — Peter Singer

By the by ... " He glances at Jeb's back and leans closer, murmuring low. "Tumtum juice alters a person's inhibitions, magnifies their hunger. But it's not hunger for food. It's experiences they crave. Had it been me instead of your toy soldier, I would've found a means to slake your ravenous hunger without resorting to berries." His arrogance simmers my blood. "You don't have the equipment to satisfy anything. Moth. Remember?" He laughs, dark and soft, under his breath. "I am a man in every way that counts. Just like you are a woman, even if some people believe you're nothing more than a scared little girl in constant need of saving. — A.G. Howard

I'm not a quick wit. I'm only funny on paper. I mean, I'm not totally humorless! It's just that in person, I'm not quite the way I am on paper. — Mary Roach

The whole land seems aroused to discussion on the province of woman, and I am glad of it. We are willing to bear the brunt of thestorm, if we can only be the means of making a break in that wall of public opinion which lies right in the way of woman's rights, true dignity, honor and usefulness. — Angelina Grimke

I am not a politician going around bragging about family values or putting myself on some ridiculous virtuous pedestal. I write comedy. And I am an actor. I am not going to solve the nation's problems. I don't actually spend my life in the way the tabloids like to think I do. I actually spend 95 percent of it writing comedy. Sober. Well, nearly sober anyway. — Steve Coogan

I knock on Grace's door twenty minutes later, ordering myself to keep the gloating to a minimum. But damn, I'm feeling pretty fucking gloaty about the way I've successfully fulfilled all of her demands. It really is a shame that people don't grasp what a stubborn motherfucker I am. — Elle Kennedy

I'm still an idealist. My manager is always trying to talk me out of it, but that's just the way I am. — Ariel Rechtshaid

It's like he's seeing the only thing that matters. I am sickly familiar with the way he looks at Olivia, because it is the way I look at him. — Tarryn Fisher

DEAR MISS MANNERS:
I a tired of being treated like a child. My father says it's because I am a child
I am twelve-and-a-half years old
but it still isn't fair. If I go into a store to buy something, nobody pays any attention to me, or if they do, it's to say, "Leave that alone," "Don't touch that," although I haven't done anything. My money is as good as anybody's, but because I am younger, they feel they can be mean to me. It happens to me at home, too. My mother's friend who comes over after dinner sometimes, who doesn't have any children of her own and doesn't know what's what, likes to say to me, "Shouldn't you be in bed by now,dear?" when she doesn't even know what my bedtime is supposed to be. Is there any way I can make these people stop?
GENTLE READER:
Growing up is the best revenge. — Judith Martin

I am a teacher. It's how I define myself. A good teacher isn't someone who gives the answers out to their kids but is understanding of needs and challenges and gives tools to help other people succeed. That's the way I see myself, so whatever it is that I will do eventually after politics, it'll have to do a lot with teaching. — Justin Trudeau

It doesn't benefit me to lie to people. They're eventually going to find out the truth, and then where am I? That's the problem with liberalism and socialism, by the way: it has to be propped up by lies. — Rush Limbaugh

The queen sighed. "What am I going to do with all of you now!"
"You're going to let us continue our journey," Belgarath replied calmly. "We'll argue about it, of course, but in the end that's the way it'll turn out."
She stared at him.
"You did ask, after all. I'm sure you feel better now that you know. — David Eddings

I have realized that we all have plague, and I have lost my peace. And today I am still trying to find it; still trying to understand all those others and not to be the enemy of anyone. I only know that one must do what one can to cease being plague-stricken, and that's the only way in which we can hope for some peace or, failing that, a decent death. This, and only this, can bring relief to men and, if not save them, at least do them the least harm possible and even, sometimes, a little good. — Albert Camus

Chloe scoffed. "Excuse me, but if this place reeks of body odor, it's not because of me. I am not the one with the shirt soaked in sweat here." She glanced at me.
My cheeks burned. It was one of those moments where you wished the earth could rip open and swallow you whole.
"Oh, that's why I can see your bra," Vincent pointed out, looking at my chest. "Nice boobs by the way."
I looked down and almost had a heart attack. In the haste, I'd put a white top over a black bra. — Tatiana Vila

The film is an iconic pop-culture creation and touches a bazillion filmgoers to their very core. It can also be very useful. Useful? What the hell am I talking about? Glad you asked. What I mean is the way that George Lucas's masterpiece contains lessons that can and should be applied to real life. The one that jumps out at me is the message of The Force and how if you stay pure and good and mentally sharp you can, in fact, conquer the Dark Side. — Olivia Munn

Once again I am being held hostage for my vagina," She sighs. "What is it with you aliens? Can't a girl just make her own decisions for once? Is that so freaking hard?"
"The khui has decided," I tell her.
She gives a small shake of her head. "It's always someone else's decision. When's it going to be mine?"
I watch her, frustrated. There is no decision to be made. The khui has decided. And yet... I don't like the way her words make me feel.
Or the defeat in her voice. Liz is a fighter. I don't want her to give up. — Ruby Dixon

The reason I love rules and plans and religions is that people feel safe in them for a while. And, personally, I don't have any rules. I don't need them. There's a sense of order that goes on all the time as things move and change, and I am that harmony, and so are you. Not knowing is the only way to understand ... Meanings, rules, the whole world of right and wrong, are secondary at best. I understand how some people think they need to live by rules ... It's very frightening for them to watch the world unfolding in apparent chaos and not realize that the chaos itself is God in his infinite intelligence. — Byron Katie

I think it's great to be talked about as a woman film-maker. It's part of who I am; it affects me daily. I want it to be part of the conversation. I'm for any scheme or initiative that gives women a way in. — Sarah Gavron

I've written what and when I want to. It's been about expressing myself. But with the degree, I had to learn to do everything in a very specific, disciplined way. I am very disciplined, but this demanded a totally different kind of discipline. A real challenge. — Joan Armatrading

You told me mornings were the best time to break your own heart. So here I am, smoking your brand of cigarettes for the scent. I wonder if you still sing Beatles songs as you make coffee. You said your mother used to sing them to you when you couldn't sleep, nineteen years before we met, twenty before you moved your clothes out of our closet while I was at work. By the way, I hate you for leaving all the photographs on the fridge. Taking them down felt like peeling off new scabs, like slapping a sunburn. I spent so many nights carving your body into pillows, I can promise you nothing feels like sleeping with your arm around me and your breath in my ear. Still, it's comforting to know we sleep under the same moon, even if she's so much older when she gets to me. I like to imagine she's seen you sleeping and wants me to know you're doing well. — Clementine Von Radics

You haven't learned anything yet, have you? Don't you know My hand sustains you?" I began to shiver in the chilly wind, and wrapped my cloak tighter. Then - I just couldn't help it - I said, "You - have a hand?" "Only in a manner of speaking. I thought you'd understand it better that way." "Oh, I'm sorry." "You ought to be. You're very troublesome, for a woman." "For a woman - ? Are You a man, then, after all?" "I am what people expect Me to be. It's all they are capable of comprehending. After all, doesn't it surprise you that I'm speaking in English instead of Latin?" "But I don't know any Latin." "Exactly. — Judith Merkle Riley

Mila, I've said this before, but you are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. You are beautiful inside and out. I don't deserve to have met you. I don't deserve you in any way. But there's nothing I want more than to be with you. to wake up beside you for the rest of my life. I am so grateful that you stuck by me for as long as you did. And all I want to know now is what I can do to make you stick with me again? You name it and i'll do it. Anything. — Courtney Cole

Perhaps it's time you stopped sulking over an engagement three years broken and bore yourself like a man!" The duke's voice snaps like a whip. "Zeus and Hera, how did I beget such an unruly son?"

"If you've forgotten, perhaps you could summon up the dead and ask my lady mother."

The duke barks a laugh. "You got that tongue from her, that's for certain. But she was obedient to me for all her carping."

"Obedient?" says Lord Anax. The desk creaks and shifts; I think he is leaning against it. "We must remember her very differently."

"Always when it counted, my boy, which is more than can be said of you. I wanted that girl for my daughter, you know."

"Adopt her, then. I believe it's legal."

"First I'd have to kill her parents," says the duke, "and I am given to understand that's frowned upon these days."

"It's gone the same sad way as the right of a father to execute his sons. — Rosamund Hodge

To expect wickedness from human beings is the best way I know of to avoid surprises. And when I am surprised, it's always pleasantly. — Orson Scott Card

I say no to people who prioritize being cool over being good. I say no to misogynists who want to weaponize my body against me. I say no to men who feel entitled to my attention and reverence, who treat everything the light touches as a resource for them to burn. I say no to religious zealots who insist that I am less important than an embryo. I say no to my own instinct to stay quiet. It's a way of kicking down the boundaries that society has set up for women - be compliant, be a caregiver, be quiet - and erecting my own. I will do this; I will not do that. You believe in my subjugation; I don't have to be nice to you. I am busy. My time is not a public commodity. — Lindy West

Don't think I don't worry about what I'm missing out on. Don't think I'm not haunted knowing that I might be missing out on things that I'd much prefer not to be missing out on. I am haunted, Betsy. You think I alienate myself from society? Of course I alienate myself from society. It's the only way I know of not being constantly reminded of all the ways I'm alienated from society. That doesn't mean I have anything against other people. Envy them? Of course. Marvel at them? Constantly. Secretly study them? Every day. I just don't get any closer to understanding them. And liking something you don't understand, estranged from it without reason, longing to commune with it - who'd ask for it? — Joshua Ferris

Because of the wonderfully positive response to 'Life's That Way,' I am considering writing some more autobiographical stuff - maybe another book. I don't know. It doesn't help that I'm lazy. — Jim Beaver

People come up to me all the time and ask how I stay the way I am, and it's no secret. The first lesson a chef needs to learn is how to handle a knife; the second is how to be around all that food. — Marcus Samuelsson

I don't know how to put it, but I just can't get it through my head that here and now is really here and now. Or that I am really me. It doesn't quite hit home. It's always this way. Only much later on does it ever come together. For the last ten years, it's been like this. — Haruki Murakami

I hear her pacing the house, mumbling, words I can barely make out and am frightened to hear. The words 'Carpe Diem' come from her lips like she's a broken, skipping record, and I clutch the pendant of my necklace tightly, fighting back tears. Because I know she's talking to him, appealing to an invisible man named John, the one who walked out on her when I was born. I know it's not my fault. Not my fault she's this way. Not my fault he left her. But fuck if I don't feel guilty anyway. — J.M. Darhower

The streets made me. They stay at me. There's nothing that's gonna take away from my legacy. I'm sorry. It is what it is. I'm dying this way. With the crown on my head, nobody can take nothing away from me. It is what it is. I am who I am. Bottom line. — Lil' Kim

-NONREADING-


Bookstores don't provide
a remote control for Proust,
you can't switch
to a soccer match,
or a quiz show, win a Cadillac.


We live longer
but less precisely
and in shorter sentences.


We travel faster, farther, more often,
but bring back slides instead of memories.
Here I am with some guy.
There I guess that's my ex.
Here everyone's naked
so this must be a beach.


Seven volumes - mercy.
Couldn't it be cut or summarized,
or better yet put into pictures.
There was that series called "The Doll,"
but my sister-in-law says that's some other P.*


And by the way, who was he anyway.
They say he wrote in bed for years on end.
Page after page
at a snail's pace.
But we're still going in fifth gear
and, knock on wood, never better. — Wislawa Szymborska

With all of our doing. With all of our leading. With all of our teaching, the most important thing we can do for those whom we lead is to cultivate in their hearts a living, vital, vibrant testimony and knowledge of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world, the Author of our salvation, He who atoned for the sins of the world and opened the way of salvation and eternal life. I would hope that in all we do we would somehow constantly nourish the testimony of our people concerning the Savior. I am satisfied--I know it's so--that whenever a man has a true witness in his heart of the living reality of the Lord Jesus Christ, all else will come together as it should... That is the root from which all virtue springs among those who call themselves Latter-day Saints. — Gordon B. Hinckley

This girl has an air of innocence about her and it gives me pause for a moment, wondering if this siren could actually be untouched. If I were any kind of gentleman, I would leave her alone and forget I ever met her. But, I'm a bastard with a devil on my shoulder making a damn good case as to why I want to be the one to corrupt her. I kicked the angel to the curb years ago and even if I hadn't, it would be out numbered. Between the devil and my cock, it's a clear win. I am going to fuck this woman tonight and if I have my way, it will only be the start. — Aria Cole