I've Been Through It All Quotes & Sayings

I have been struck by the way all the young people I've met through coming back to music are so much more generous-spirited with each other than I remembered people being. It gives me hope. — Vashti Bunyan

I am about life. I surround myself with beautiful things. I work hard to have a better life. This job helps me achieve that through the people I meet. I'm lucky - not to have been a cover girl - but to have been able to meet all these people, to live these adventures and travel so comfortably. But despite that, it's still difficult. Nothing comes easily. Everything I've earned is down to me, and no one else. — Lea Seydoux

But I can be alone without Yoko, but I just have no wish to be. There's no reason on earth why I should be alone without Yoko. There's nothing more important than our relationship, nothing. And we dig being together all the time. Both of us could survive apart but what for? I'm not going to sacrifice love, real love for any whore or any friend or any business, because in the end you're alone at night and neither of us want to be. And you can't fill a bed with groupies. It doesn't work. I don't want to be a swinger. I've been through it all and nothing works better than to have someone you love hold you. — John Lennon

I've never been good at writing letters, so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not able to make myself clear.
I've been thinking about you constantly since I left, wondering why the journey I'm on seemed to have led through you. I know my journey's not over yet, and that life is a winding path, but I can only hope it somehow circles back to the place I belong.
That's how I think of it now. I belong with you.
It is almost as if a part of you is with me. I want to believe that's true. No, change that - I know it's true. Before we met, I was as lost as a person could be, and yet you saw something in me that somehow gave me direction again. It was you, that I had been looking for all along. And it's you who is with me now.
I realize that I miss you more than I've ever missed anyone. In the short time we spent together, we had what most people can only dream about, and I'm counting the days until I can see you again. Never forget how much I love you. — Unknown

There are people out there who have x-ray vision. They can see through my walls, armor and scrims and filters right down to the real me. And the saddest thing in the world? I haven't forgotten who that person is. She's on there and waiting. Like sleeping beauty locked high in a tower, she's been patient and aware of the coma I've been in all these years. I realise the one hitch in having x-ray glasses is that I'm utterly exposed to him. It's one thing to want someone to keep looking, to swim over moats and dodge flaming arrows to find you. It's quite another when you ask yourself, really ask yourself, if you're finally ready to come out into the open. No matter what. — Liza Palmer

It's been me all along," said September slowly. "Me who gave up my shadow, me who went down into Fairyland-Below and Fairyland-Lower-Than-That to wake up the Prince. Me who shot the poor Minotaur. You oughtn't just hand the whole business over the moment a Prince comes on the scene. I've got to see it through, don't you see? The Hollow Queen is hollow because she's missing the part of her that's me. We've got to come together again. And he can't do a thing about that. — Catherynne M Valente

No one has touched me in 264 days. Sometimes I think the loneliness inside of me is going to explode through my skin and sometimes I'm not sure if crying or screaming or laughing through the hysteria will solve anything at all. Sometimes I'm so desperate to touch to be touched to feel that I'm almost certain I'm going to fall off a cliff in an alternate universe where no one will ever be able to find me. It doesn't seem impossible. I've been screaming for years and no one has ever heard me. "Aren't you hungry?" His voice is lower now, a little worried now. I've been starving for 264 days. "No." The word is little more than a broken breath as it escapes my lips — Tahereh Mafi

Music is a really powerful way for me to catalyze all kinds of things. It's always been the cure. Through music, I've healed all the wounds I've had and celebrated all the good things in life. Through music, I turn things, good or bad, into energy. — Juanes

Hana?" Lena says softly. "Are you okay?"
That single stupid question breaks me. All the metal fingers relax me at once, and the tears they've been holding back come surging up at once. Suddenly I am sobbing and telling her everything: about the raid, and the dogs, and the sounds of skulls cracking underneath regulator's nightsticks. Thinking about it again makes me feel like I might puke. At a certain point, Lena puts her arms around me and starts murmuring things into my hair. I don't even know what she's saying, and I don't care. JUst having her here - solid, real, on my side - makes me feel better than I have in weeks. Slowly I manage to stop crying, swallowing back the hiccups and sobs that are still running through me. I try to tell her that I've missed her, and that I've been stupid and wrong, but my voice is muffled and thick — Lauren Oliver

I mean, you have had sixteen years of humiliation. Begging for lifts from people who don't give a shit about your image. You've had to stand and watch as all the pretty girls drove off in some older jerk's car. Humiliation - I know, I've been through it. But that's all over now. Les, that thing in your wallet, that's no ordinary piece of paper. That's a driver's license. — Meredith Castile

I look for a thematic idea running through my movies and I see that it's the outsider struggling for recognition. I realize that all my life I've been an outsider, and above all, being lonely but never realizing it. — Martin Scorsese

The little box that was given to me was by no means unique. I'd heard of prayer boxes, and I knew what they were for.
... Any scrap of paper will do, anywhere, anytime of the day or night. The important part, in a world of fractured thoughts, hurried moments, and scattershot prayers, is to take the time to think through, to write down, to clarify in your own mind the things you're asking for, the things you're grateful for, the things your're troubled about, the hopes you've been nurturing.
And then?
Put them in the box and ...
Let. Them. Go.
That's what trust is. It's letting go of the worry. It's the way of peace and also the way of God. such a hard road to travel for people like me, who are worriers. When I'm writing a story, I control the whole universe. In life ... not so much. Actually, not at all. Things happen that I hadn't anticipated and wouldn't choose and can't change. That's the tough part. — Lisa Wingate

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

From depression to ceiling fans, I've been through it all. I've taken almost every step that life has to offer and invariably I've found several different endings to my Choose Your Own Adventure stories. I've lived, loved, sacrificed and scraped for this existence, this paltry little city state I call my time so far. And by God, I wouldn't change a single frame of this movie. — Corey Taylor

I think that as human beings we are all different. On a third dimensional level we're all different but there are two things we share in common ... one is birth, and we know about that because we've been through it, we understand it, and the other is death. — James Van Praagh

The orange turns to dull bronze light and continues to show what it has shown all day long, but now it seems to show it without enthusiasm. Across those dry hills, within those little houses in the distance are people who've been there all day long, going about the business of the day, who now find nothing unusual or different in this strange darkening landscape, as we do. If we were to come upon them early in the day they might be curious about us and what we're here for. but now in the evening they'd just resent our presence. The workday is over. It's time for supper and family and relaxation and turning inward at home. We ride unnoticed down this empty highway through this strange country I've never seen before, and now a heavy feeling of isolation and loneliness becomes dominant and my spirits wane with the sun. — Robert M. Pirsig

If I'm away from you for more than an hour, I can't stop thinking about you. I carry you in my spirit. I pray for you more than I pray for myself ... I know you don't believe in fairy tales. But, if you did, I'd want to be your knight in shining armor. You've been through so much. I don't want to see you hurt anymore. Now I may not be able to give you all that your used to. But I do know I can love you past your pain. I don't want you to worry about anything. You just wake up in the morning, that's all you have to do and I'll take it from there ... There's one condition ... You have to be my wife — Tyler Perry

The Complete Work is essentially dramatic, thought it takes different forms - prose passages in this first volume, poems and philosophies in other volumes. It's the product of the temperament I've been blessed or cursed with - I'm not sure which. All I know is that the author of these lines (I'm not sure if also of these books) has never had just one personality, and has never thought or felt except dramatically - that is, through invented persons, or personalities, who are more capable than he of feeling what's to be felt. — Fernando Pessoa

There are many self-help books by Ph.D.s, but I hold a different degree: an I.B.T.I.A.-I've Been Through It All. This degree comes not on parchment but gauze, and it entitles me to tell you that there is a way to get through any misfortune. — Joan Rivers

All that I've done, thought or been is a series of submissions, either to a false self that I assumed belonged to me because I expressed myself through it to the outside, or to a weight of circumstances that I supposed was the air I breathed. In this moment of seeing, I suddenly find myself isolated, an exile where I'd always thought I was a citizen. At the heart of my thoughts I wasn't I. — Fernando Pessoa

Now I can do the bolts," she slurred. "I've been trying to focus enough magic all week."
The magic shifted and swirled, finally etching a picture in the air. It was a rough picture of Foaly, and he was laughing.
I hate you, centaur!" screamed Opal, lunging toward, and then through, the insubstantial image. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and then she collapsed, snoring, on the floor.
Artemis straightened his tie.
Freud, he was certain, would have a field day with that. — Eoin Colfer

I couldn't have gotten through any of this without you. Through all of it, you've been my support, my anchor. I don't know how one man's shoulders can possibly be so strong."
...
He tilted her face up to his. "With the love I feel for you, bella, I could lift up the world. — Pamela Clare

Perhaps we should explore some other options before swanning off to Ireland," Dad said, pushing his glasses up. "After all, Sophie, you've been through quite the ordeal."
"I'll nap on the plane. Look, we are dealing with the possibility of an army of demons. I don't know about you guys, but those words are right up there with 'root canal' and 'school on Saturdays' in terms of things that terrify me. Were already three weeks behind. We don't have time to just sit here and explore options or read more books or listen to more half-assed prophecies from this jerk," I said, pointing to Torin. He made a gesture that I think was the old-timey version of flipping me off.
"So, yeah," I continued. "Maybe this is a totally stupid idea. But if there's even a chance one of us can get into the underworld, then we have to take it."
"Okay, I do like you," Finley said, flashing me a grin. — Rachel Hawkins

Sweetheart, I've been there with you through all of it. I was the one who camped out with you in that old tree house for days on end and held you after your mom died. It was me who sat with you while we waited for your sister to come out of the surgery that cut out her cancer. I was the one holding your hand while we waited for those test results to come back, and I was the one who supplied the alcohol to get you drunk, and the shoulder to cry on while you processed it. I understand. You don't have to do this alone. — Katee Robert

And three, he had been staring at my boobs through the entire interview. At this point, I've come to expect this of human men and realize that it has nothing to do with me. They want to see all women naked. Except for their mothers. — Molly Harper

I've been through a lot, both personally and professionally, and the album that I started to record two and a half years ago is a different album from the one that exists today. I even changed the album title. First it was 'All I Want is Everything,' and now it's 'Jumping Trains.' — Jojo

There's a saying that goes something like: 'We are all one drink or pill away from addiction,' and I know this is meant to destigmatize what addicts go through, but I feel like I've been seeing variations on this 'common knowledge' more and more lately being used (on social media) as a cudgel to remind patients to not overdo it," Anna says, speaking to the dual-edged sword of awareness. A motto designed to humanize the experience of addiction has been turned into a weapon that targets people who rely on opioids for pain management, and that translates to real-world stigma. — S. E. Smith

You can say no," he rasped, his breath warming her lips. "But you ought to know I've been thinking about this all day."

Crystal savored the heat that slammed through her body as she placed her palms on his chest. Rising on tiptoe, she said softly, "Just do it, Tanner. — Roz Denny Fox

It's like we learn to think something's ugly. Maybe if we're could all stop being taught that only certain things are right or pretty, or that only certain things are the way that everything else should be, you know, I mean physically, then we could start looking at things through fresh eyes. And then we're wouldn't look at things or people in a way that would make them sad or that would exclude them. It might even stop us from constantly trying to change our own body image, and maybe we'd just learn to enjoy what we have, enjoy what great gifts we've been given and revel in them instead of wishing they'd be different. — John C. Horst

Is it strange for me to say that if I were to die today, there's not a thing I would change? I've lived well. Maybe I have made mistakes and been through my fair share of pain but all in all, it's been okay. I've lived well. — Jhene Aiko

A lot of things have been thrown at me in life, and I've got through it all without a rule book, taking it one day at a time. — Yoko Ono

Everest silences you ... when you come down, nothing seems worth saying, nothing at all. You find the nothingness wrapping you up, like a sound. Non-being. You can't keep it up, of course. the world rushes in soon enough. What shuts you up is, I think, the sight you've had of perfection: why speak if you can't manage perfect thoughts, perfect sentences? It feels like a betrayal of what you've been through. But it fades; you accept that certain compromises, closures, are required if you're to continue. — Salman Rushdie

I mean, I'm 48 years old and I've been through a lot in my life - you know, loss, whether it be death, illness, separation. I mean, the failed expectations ... We all have dreams. — Annie Lennox

Whether it's New York or somewhere else, the metaphor of 'Avenue Q,' which is the place you live when you can't afford to live anywhere else - and we've all been through that in our journey. As I always say, at any moment I could be back on Avenue Q if I pick the wrong show. — Kevin McCollum

I was a heavy drinker, but the alcohol affected my heart rather than my liver. So I stopped. I smoke grass now. I say that to everybody, because marijuana should be legalized. It's ridiculous that it isn't. If at the end of the day I feel like smoking a joint I do it. It changes the perception of what I've been through all day. — Robert Altman

1 Cor 3:15a If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

Number Five is one many deem unimportant, but the apostles and I do not. I tell you now the results of that day will last for all eternities, and though I haven't fully grasped them I tell you there's a huge reason their labeled in the line of disciplinary actions. That day will make big men small, small men big, and seal it for all eternity's to come. Who can dare think they will hear a well done good and faithful servant if they've been a bad and unfaithful servant regarding Christ commands? Remember this discipline carries more weight than I can rightly understand. — Billy Witt

I think a lot of the writing, you know, I write is just kind of like that where, you know. I write exactly how I'm feeling sometimes, and hardships that I'm going through. But I always end up, like the choruses are like, "God, You are good. God, you're faithful. You know, I know You understand, You're right here by my side." All these different things. And I just say very personal experiences that I've been through. I mean, it's not always detrimental thing. — Jeremy Camp

I told my parents, 'You've taken care of me all my life, helped me through college. You've been awesome, but now it's my turn to be my own man.' — Eric Close

I've been sitting here and thinking about God. I don't think I believe in God any more. It is not only me, I think of all the millions who must have lived like this in the war. The Anne Franks. And back through history. What I feel I know now is that God doesn't intervene. He lets us suffer. If you pray for liberty then you may get relief just because you pray, or because things happen anyhow which bring you liberty. But God can't hear. There's nothing human like hearing or seeing or pitying or helping about him. I mean perhaps God has created the world and the fundamental laws of matter and evolution. But he can't care about the individuals. He's planned it so some individuals are happy, some sad, some lucky, some not. Who is sad, who is not, he doesn't know, and he doesn't care. So he doesn't exist, really. — John Fowles

So,if it's all love or money, which is Alex Bainbridge?"
I blinked at him. "What?"
"He's a turd, Ella. He looked right through you like you were a ghost, but you still have a thing for him."
"I do n-"
"Don't even. You've gone through the whole week watching for him. So what is it? I would really like to know. Love or money?"
"I have not been watching for him!" I snapped. Oh, but I had, in every hallway, at lunch, when I took my seat at the edge of English class. "And if I have, it's just so I can look away first."
Frankie rolled his eyes. "Shall I get you a pail of water?"
"Why?"
"Your pants are on fire."
I actually looked down at my lap. "Oh, very funny." I shot Sadie a look when she giggled. — Melissa Jensen

I'm no crazier than anyone else. I love life the same as most people - what else have we got that's real? I like to take a good picture; I like to wake up in love; I like to read a good book; I like to travel without many plans; I like a shifting mix of the expected and the unexpected; I like to swim in rivers and oceans; I like to walk; I like to see sunlight coming through trees; I like old cites and snow and live music and all the kooky things I've been doing these last few days. All of it, the good and the bad and the stuff in between. I'm not saying I haven't made mistakes. I'm not saying I haven't been rude or cavalier or predictable. I'm only saying that if you asked me, I'd say, Yeah, I'm too young to die. — Michael Jarvis

I feel like I've reached an age where I can relax a little bit with the knowledge of what I've been through, take all that experience and use it. I love the challenge of trying to get back to where I've been, and beyond it. — Cathy Freeman

Skillshare is a terrific online learning community for creative people. It teaches you new skills through well-made videos with great production values. I've been using Skillshare to teach myself Adobe After Effects. All the videos feature people who are professionals in their field. I love this site. — Mark Frauenfelder

I've been a storyteller all my life. When I was in high school, I used to amuse myself by driving through the woods at night and see how long it would be before I scared the pants off my friends - and if I could do it before I scared myself. — Patricia Briggs

After all the stops and starts, we keep coming back to these two hearts. Two angels rescued from the fall, and after all that we've been through, it all comes down to me and you. I guess it's meant to be, forever, you and me, after all. — Peter Cetera

I've never been very interested in literary narrative in movies, it always seems an obligatory trait and the least interesting of all the things film can do. It forces us to look through the thing instead of at it, it teaches us to ignore our senses and look for meaning outside the immediate world of our experience. — Rick Alverson

Struggling through young adulthood is half the fun, or so I've been told. Except we all know that's bullshit. It wasn't fun at all. It was painful, and now I just wanna go somewhere no one knows me, start the next chapter of my life fresh. But I can't. — Sara Wolf

I'll tell you why I keep my scrapbooks. It's in case my real father shows up .I never met him, don't even know his name ... I've got this feeling he's out there searching for me. When he bursts through the door and tells me he's spent a fortune on detectives looking all over the world for me, I'm not going to sit there like a dumb cluck when he asks me what I've been doing. I'm going to yank out my eleven scrapbooks filled with my experiences and inner-most thoughts on life lived in three time zones in America. I was a Girl Scout for three months when we lived in Atlanta. I couldn't get those square knots down for anything, but I got the big concept. Be prepared. Addie always told me, It's more important to get the big concept than to be an expert in the small stuff. — Joan Bauer

Our lives are entwined and we're bound together by everything that we've been through, what we feel and the love I have for you. I know you love me too Layla and I wish I could make it all right again but I can't. — Marie Coulson

Whenever I think about an issue, I always argue the opposite side of it. So, when I ultimately decide on a course of action, I've already been through all the conceivable scenarios, and I'm going to go for it. — Kenneth I. Chenault

I've been frozen solid against the wall in Mazzo's, staring at my index finger for a couple of hours, when my dead brother Morton shows up. He does that literally. I mean, I look down on one side and see him coming up through the floor. Nothing special about that. People have been showing up through the floor all evening. They pop up and mushroom in bursts, clumps of people that explode and disappear. In the Mazzo theme park it's another of those acid nights. — John David Morley

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

You've been quiet, lass. Are you alive back there?'
All she could do was grunt with exasperation through the tight gag that was pressing down on her tongue.
'Aye, I know.' He nodded, as if he had understood every word. 'I was thinking about removing it, but something tells me you've been working up a mountain of complaints, so if it's all the same to you, I'll wait till we're somewhere more remote before I release that mouth of yours, so no one will hear your screeching.'
'I won't screech,' she tried to say, but it came out as a muffled grumble.
'What was that? You think I'm very wise? Aye, I think so, too. — Julianne MacLean

As she bends for a Kleenex in the dark, I am thinking of other girls: the girl I loved who fell in love with a lion
she lost her head over it
we just necked a lot; of the girl who fell in love with the tightrope, got addicted to getting high wired and nothing else was enough; all the beautiful, damaged women who have come through my life and I wonder what would have happened if I'd met them sooner, what they were like before they were so badly wounded. All this time I thought I'd been kissing, but maybe I'm always doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, kissing dead girls in hopes that the heart will start again. Where there's breath, I've heard, there's hope. — Daphne Gottlieb

I'm walking past the Unitarian church that's not far from the cemetery where you can find Emily Dickinson's grave, when I realize that in this part of my life I've become a scarecrow. It's been like this since that day the police came to the house - I have holes in me, and wind blows through. Oh, I seem to be person-shaped all right, but I'm going nowhere. — Kathryn Burak

We, PANTERA, had the greatest, the most intense, dedicated fans I've ever seen in my ******* life. And I really hope with all my heart that one day, people - especially our fans and my friends - can see clearly enough to think for themselves and really realize that I have nothing but love for them. I've just been going through personal hell since December. Once again, it's very hard to talk about, man. You know, my heart is in a thousand pieces a day. — Phil Anselmo

I know after all the awful places you've had to go, it's hard to imagine how good heaven can be, but I've seen it, and no words can describe it ... It's worth it all. We've both lost a parent, we've been beaten and bruised, and we've done through hell together. I even died. And I can tell you ... giving up everything to serve God is worth it all. — Bryan Davis

Still, a part of me will never stop thinking of her as my sergeant. She's the toughest, most competent, and most evenhanded soldier I've known, and she runs her squad as a strict meritocracy. If only a tenth of the military consisted of people like Sergeant Fallon, we would have kicked the SRA off of every inhabited celestial body between Earth and Zeta Reticuli fifty years ago already. As things stand, we're weighed down by people like Major Unwerth, who coast through the system doing only the expected minimum. If a military is the reflection of the society it serves, it's amazing that the Commonwealth is still at the top of the food chain on Terra. Even with all the dead wood in our ranks, we have been able to hold the line against the SRA and the dozens of regional powers in the Middle East and the Pacific Rim that are short on resources and long on grievances with their neighbors. — Marko Kloos

Sanity:
You can go through your whole life telling yourself that life is logical, life is prosaic, life is sane. Above all, sane. And I think it is. I've had a lot of time to think about that ...
I think; therefore I am. There are hairs on my face; therefore I shave. My wife and child have been critically injured in a car crash; therefore I pray. It's all logical, it's all sane.
... there's a Mr. Hyde for every happy Jekyll face, a dark face on the other side of the mirror ... You turn the mirror sideways and see your face reflected with a sinister left-hand twist, half mad and half sane.
... No one looks at that side unless they have to, and I can understand that.
... I'm the sane one. — Richard Bachman

What? Am I supposed to be damaged? Bitter? My father was an asshole. He was a decent enough father. I mean, he got the job done all right. But he was a shitty husband. Mom was better off without him." I put the bread away and grab a container of butter from the bottom of the bag. "It was hard on us after he left, but we persevered. We got through it together. And I'd be doing a disservice to myself and everything I've been through if I automatically assumed every man is a cheating scumbag like my father. — Winter Renshaw

Livingston: Why did users like Viaweb? Graham: I think the main thing was that it was easy. Practically all the software in the world is either broken or very difficult to use. So users dread software. They've been trained that whenever they try to install something, or even fill out a form online, it's not going to work. I dread installing stuff, and I have a PhD in computer science. So if you're writing applications for end users, you have to remember that you're writing for an audience that has been traumatized by bad experiences. We worked hard to make Viaweb as easy as it could possibly be, and we had this confidence-building online demo where we walked people through using the software. That was what got us all the users. — Jessica Livingston

I'm terrified of men these days. If someone asked me out now, I don't know what I'd say, how I'd react. But I couldn't go through with it, not at all. I suppose I've been terrified of them all along. — Christine Keeler

I knew from the beginning that we'd be addicted after all." His amber eyes bore straight through me. "I just didn't know whether we'd be at a better place than we were before."
We are. I don't even have to say the words. He knows the answer too. We're at the best place we've ever been, reaching a stasis together. It's beautiful up here, and even if I fear falling, it's nice to know I've been down that road before. And I can always walk to the top again. — Krista Ritchie

For a long time, all the way through to the end of elementary school, Beans was my only friend. Because that's how I've always been. I only need one good friend to see me through. Most people aren't like that. Most people are always looking out for more people to know. In the end, Beans was like most people. After a while she had dozens of friends, and by fifth grade it was pretty obvious that even though she was my best friend, I wasn't hers. — Carol Rifka Brunt

Through all the bad guys that I've played, they're justifiably bad - they have their reasons. It's been important to me. — Cam Gigandet

And that brings me to one last point. I've got a simple message for all the dedicated and patriotic federal workers who have either worked without pay, or who have been forced off the job without pay for these last few weeks. Including most of my own staff. Thank you. Thanks for your service. Welcome back. What you do is important. It matters. You defend our country overseas, you deliver benefits to our troops who earned them when they come home, you guard our borders, you protect our civil rights, you help businesses grow and gain footholds in overseas markets. You protect the air we breathe, and the water our children drink, and you push the boundaries of science and space, and you guide hundreds of thousands of people each day through the glories of this country. Thank you. What you do is important, and don't let anybody else tell you different. — Barack Obama

It's okay to not be perfect and not to have everything figured out. It's okay to feel things that are shameful, hate, and feel guilty. I feel like the message we've tried to stand by, is that it's basically okay to have scars and to show them. To show that you've been through all sorts of things and have come out a different and better person because of it. — Hayley Williams

In 35 years of being in the media, I've had all this mud flung at me many, many times. It's not the first time. It's nothing unusual. I've been through it all before and the best way to deal with it is not to read them. — Delia Smith

I'm not sure anyone's ever experienced enlightenment, been born again, been called to repentance or decided to sell their belongings on account of a system. The voice, the tale, the image, the parable that gets through to you
that wins your heart
religiously is the one that makes it past your defenses. You've been won over, and you probably didn't see it coming. You've been enlisted into a drama, whether positively or negatively, and it shouldn't be controversial to note that it happens all the time. When you really think about it, there's one waiting around every corner. It's as near as the story, song or image you can't get out of your head. Religion happens when we get pulled in, moved, called out or compelled by something outside ourselves. It could be a car commercial, a lyric, a painting, a theatrical performance or the magnetic pull of an Apple store. The calls to worship are everywhere. — David Dark

Being Lulu, it made me realize that all my life I've been living in a small, square room, with no windows and no doors. And I was fine. I was happy, even. I thought. Then someone came along and showed me there was a door in the room. One that I'd never even seen before. Then he opened it for me. Held my hand as I walked through it. And for one perfect day, I was on the other side. I was somewhere else. Someone else. And then he was gone, and I was thrown back into my little room. And now, no matter what I do, I can't seem to find that door. — Gayle Forman

i am confident i am over you. so much that some mornings i wake up with a smile on my face and my hands pressed together thanking the universe for pulling you out of me. thank god i cry. thank god you left. i would not be the empire i am today if you had stayed.

but then.

there are some nights i imagine what i might do if you showed up. how if you walked into the room this very second every awful thing you've ever done would be tossed out the closet window and all the love would rise up again. it would pour through my eyes as if it never really left in the first place. as if it's been practicing how to stay silent so long only so it could be this loud on your arrival. can someone explain that. how even when the love leaves. it doesn't leave. how even when i am so past you. i am so helplessly brought back to you. — Rupi Kaur

Snow-melt in the stream: Mama Nature turning winter's storms into nourishment for the soil, fecundity, and beauty. This is what I must now learn to do with the stormy weather I've been passing through: turn it into beauty, turn it into art, so new life can germinate and bloom.
One example of a creative artist who does this is my friend Jane Yolen, who wrote her exquisite book of poems The Radiation Sonnets while her husband was undergoing treatment for the cancer that would eventually claim his life. This is what all artists must do: take whatever life gives us and "alchemize" it into our art (either directly and autobiographically, as in Jane's book, or indirectly; whatever approach works best), turning darkness into light, spinning straw into gold, transforming pain and hardship into what J.R.R. Tolkien called 'a miraculous grace. — Terri Windling

I had to find meaning in it. So I go through this, I see all these homies die; I see all this terrible devastation, people sitting in prison. I've been saved from prison, from death, and from heroine addiction. What am I going to do with that? — Luis J. Rodriguez

It can't be done, old thing. Sorry, but it's out of the question. I couldn't go through all that again."
"Not for me?"
"Not for a dozen more like you."
"I never thought," said Bingo sorrowfully, "to hear those words from Bertie Wooster!"
"Well, you've heard them now," I said. "Paste them in your hat."
"Bertie, we were at school together."
"It wasn't my fault."
"We've been pals for fifteen years."
"I know. It's going to take me the rest of my life to live it down. — P.G. Wodehouse

There aren't a lot of guys like me left. But I'm a war horse. I've been through it all. And you know something about war horses? Through the sleet, through the snow, they just keep going. — Joel Silver

It's been a harder book to write for personal reasons too. What gets me most are not the scary scientific studies about melting glaciers, the ones I used to avoid. It's the books I read to my two-year-old. Looking For a Moose is one of his favorites. It's about a bunch of kids that really, really, really want to see a moose. They search high and low - through a forest, a swamp, in brambly bushes and up a mountain, for "a long legged, bulgy nosed, branchy antlered moose." The joke is that there are moose hiding on each page. In the end, the animals all come out of hiding and the ecstatic kids proclaim: "We've never ever seen so many moose! — Naomi Klein

I worked on the line, I've been an executive chef, I've worked for the Mets, I've worked for various steakhouses, vegetarian restaurants, a lot of Middle Eastern stuff. I've worked my fair share of a lot of different things. I've worked at festivals and street fairs, you know? I've been through it all. — Action Bronson

The truth is, part of me is every age. I'm a three-year-old, I'm a five-year-old, I'm a thirty-seven-year-old, I'm a fifty-year-old. I've been through all of them, and I know what it's like. I delight in being a child when it's appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it's appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own. — Mitch Albom

I was reading a poem by my idol, Wallace Stevens, in which he said, 'The self is a cloister of remembered sounds.' My first response was, Yesss! How did he know that? It's like he's reading my mind. But my second response was, I need some new sounds to remember. I've been stuck in my little isolation chamber for so long I'm spinning through the same sounds I've been hearing in my head all my life. If I go on this way, I'll get old too fast, without remembering any more sounds than I already know now. The only one who remembers any of my sounds is me. How do you turn down the volume on your personal-drama earphones and learn how to listen to other people? How do you jump off one moving train, marked Yourself, and jump onto a train moving in the opposite direction, marked Everybody Else? I loved a Modern Lovers song called, 'Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste,' and I didn't want to waste mine. — Rob Sheffield

THE WHISTLER
All of a sudden she began to whistle. By all of a sudden
I mean that for more than thirty years she had not
whistled. It was thrilling. At first I wondered, who was
in the house, what stranger? I was upstairs reading, and
she was downstairs. As from the throat of a wild and
cheerful bird, not caught but visiting, the sounds war-
bled and slid and doubled back and larked and soared.
Finally I said, Is that you? Is that you whistling? Yes, she
said. I used to whistle, a long time ago. Now I see I can
still whistle. And cadence after cadence she strolled
through the house, whistling.
I know her so well, I think. I thought. Elbow and an-
kle. Mood and desire. Anguish and frolic. Anger too.
And the devotions. And for all that, do we even begin
to know each other? Who is this I've been living with
for thirty years?
This clear, dark, lovely whistler? — Mary Oliver

I travel up and down the country and I've been all around the middle of America for many years. Middle America is not one big mass of people with a proverbial beer in its hand, keeping the country down. That is not my experience of it and I don't labor under that misconception. And we have a long tradition of coming together through music in our country. — Wynton Marsalis

You can't know that." "But I do," she said. "I can feel it. Goddamn it, you think you're the only one with a voice inside? Samantha Aldovar is in there, and she is out of time. If we back off, they kill her and eat her. And if we take the time to go through channels and go in with SRT and all that, she disappears and she's dead. I know it. She's in there now, Dex. I got such a strong feeling; I've never been more sure about something." It — Jeff Lindsay

But since I've taught that bodies of matter, made
Completely solid, hither and thither fly
Forevermore unconquered through all time,
Now come, and whether to the sum of them
There be a limit or be none, for thee
Let us unfold; likewise what has been found
To be the wide inane, or room, or space
Wherein all things soever do go on,
Let us examine if it finite be
All and entire, or reach unmeasured round
And downward an illimitable profound. — Lucretius

And you're everything I don't want." Julie pushed away, breaking his embrace, and shook her head. "If you loved me, you couldn't have done this. You couldn't have been so careless with me. You know pain, and loss, and hurt better than anyone." She hated each word as it came out of her mouth. "And that's what you gave me. I know that it's not the same. I know yours is worse. I'm so sorry for you, Matt. For your whole family. You've all been through hell. And you've been braver than anyone could. But I hurt now, too. And I can't love you. — Jessica Park

This isn't over," I said. "After everything we've been through, you don't get the right to brush me off. I'm not letting you off that easily." I wasn't sure if it was a threat, my last stab at defiance, or irrational words spoken straight from my splintered heart.
"I want to protect you," Patch said quietly.
He stood so close. All strength and heat and silent power. I couldn't escape him, now or ever. He'd always be there, consuming my every thought, my heart locked in his hands. I was drawn to him by forces I couldn't control, let alone escape.
"But you didn't. — Becca Fitzpatrick

Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden - in all the places. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

I've been through a lot of beef with other singers, but it's all verbal. — Daddy Yankee

The thing that's hard about it - the thing that makes it so hard when the person you love has been taken from you, not by something evil you could have seen coming but by random, pure chance - is that you find yourself suddenly living through a history other than the one you expected to live, through no fault of your own. I feel . . . it's hard to describe, but I feel weirdly outside of time. Ever since the accident I've had these moments when I felt like a visiting guest in this world, not a permanent resident. Like sometimes I look in a mirror and I feel like I can almost see through the version of me on the other side of the glass. And sometimes I feel like I can see the history I used to be in more clearly than the history I'm in now - the real history is one where Philip and Sean and I are all together, being a family and doing whatever family things people do, and this one's like . . . like a fake version of events that I've been yanked into, where everything's gone wrong. — Dexter Palmer

I'm an agnostic in the truest sense of the word. I think about these things - I grew up Roman Catholic, I've been interested in Hinduism, in Eastern religions, but I'm not dedicated to anything - I go through periods where I think maybe it's all nonsense; maybe it's 'The Matrix ... ' I'm open to various ideas. — Ronald D. Moore

I've always been an ironic dreamer, unfaithful to my inner promises.
Like a complete outsider, a casual observer of whom I thought I was,
I've always enjoyed watching my daydreams go down in defeat.
I was never convinced of what I believed in.
I filled my hands with sand, called it gold, and opened them up to let it slide through.
Words were my only truth.
When the right words were said, all was done; the rest was the sand that had always been. — Fernando Pessoa

I also just love the idea of making my own love story, making two people fall in love who've been living through such different circumstanes. It's all about the find when it comes to love, the moment when you meet the one person in your life you can't possibly live without, that was what intrigued me. — Meghan Quinn

Welcome to my world! I've been through it all, and I often pinch myself to believe my luck. I design jewlery, create cosmetics, perform comedy, act, lecture, write books, travel, have a fabulous daughter, and a phenomenal grandson-and I feel I'm the luckiest woman on the planet. — Joan Rivers

The goal of [Into My Mind] is to uplift and inspire. We've all been through some sort of adversity in our lives, by sharing mines, I hope to help others get through theirs. I've been through it and came out standing. I want the world to know that they can come out standing too. — Jana Chantel

It took me many years to lose my spirit, to unlearn thinking and forget the unity. Isn't it just as if I had turned about slowly and was on a long detour from being a man to being a child, from a thinker to a childlike person? And yet, this path has been very good, and the bird in my chest has not died. But what a path this has been! I had to pass through so much stupidity, so many vices, so many errors, so much disgust, so many disappointments and woes just to begin again. But it was fitting this way; my heart says "Yes" to it and my eyes smile at it. I've had to experience despair. I've had to descend to the most foolish of all thoughts
the thought of suicide
in order to be able to experience divine grace, to hear "Om" again, to be able to sleep and awaken properly again [ ... ] Where else might my path lead me? This path is foolish; it moves in loops, and perhaps it is going around in a circle. Let it go where it likes; I want to follow it. — Hermann Hesse

You can't show somebody what it's like to experience loss, but you can soundtrack it and help them experience their own loss. I am so lucky to have this venue to be able to say and talk about all the stuff I've been through. — Zachary Cole Smith

True beauty isn't in how big your breasts are, or how large your eyes are, or how pretty your nose is. All that is temporary. Breasts sag, skin gets wrinkles, waists become wider, and strong backs stoop. I tried to teach you this when you were younger, but I must've done a bad job, because you never learned it. True beauty is in how that person makes you feel. When a man truly loves you, the longer you are together, the more beautiful you will be to him. When he looks at you and you look at him, you won't just see the surface. You will see everything you shared, everything you've been through, and every happy moment you hope for. — Ilona Andrews

I've been through my highs, I've been through my lows; I've been through the gamut of all things in this business. Being too thin. Being bigger. I've been criticized for being on both sides of the scale. It's noise I block out automatically. I love my body. — Christina Aguilera

I've often said the most difficult things I have to say to people through humour. I can very quickly put someone in their place with it. But we all walk away unscathed because there's been some funnies around it, and I'll usually make sure that it comes back at me. — Dawn French

Sometimes you just have to give yourself permission to feel how you feel until it passes. I think one of the problems we all have is thinking that feeling sad is wrong. No. It's okay to feel sad. It's okay to feel sad for as long as you need to.
Just don't get lost in there, and forget you are more than your sorrow. You are so much more beautiful and strange than the struggles that you've been through. You are far stronger the moment you realize that. Not many people will understand that strength isn't feeling nothing, it's feeling everything and continuing to move forward despite it. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

I'll tell you," said Beatty, smiling at his cards. "That made you for a little while a drunkard. Read a few lines and off you go over the cliff. Bang, you're ready to blow up the world, chop off heads, knock down women and children, destroy authority. I know. I've been through it all. — Ray Bradbury