Knowing You Tried Quotes & Sayings

Perhaps they had tried to migrate in the past but had found either their winter habitat destroyed or the path so fragmented and fraught with danger that it made more sense - to these few birds - to ignore the tuggings of the stars and seasons and instead to try to carve out new lives, new ways of being, even in such a stark and severe landscape: or rather, in a stark and severe period - knowing that lushness and bounty were still retained with that landscape, that it was only a phase, that better days would come. That in fact (the snipe knowing these things with their blood, ten million years in the world) the austere times were the very thing, the very imbalance, that would summon the resurrection of that frozen richness within the soil - if indeed that richness, that magic, that hope, did still exist beneath the ice and snow. Spring would come like its own green fire, if only the injured ones could hold on. And — Lex Williford

If you try to live this without me, without the ongoing dialogue of us sharing this journey together, it will be like trying to walk on the water by yourself. You can't! And when you try, however well intentioned, you're going to sink." Knowing full well the answer, Jesus asked, "Have you ever tried to save someone who was drowning?" Mack's chest and muscles instinctively tightened. He didn't like remembering Josh and the canoe, and the sense of panic that suddenly rushed back from the memory. "It's extremely hard to rescue someone unless he is willing to trust you." "Yes, it sure is." "That's all I ask of you. When you start to sink, let me rescue you. — Wm. Paul Young

It had always been the two of them through everything -every adventure and every expedition- and now there was this awful distance between them, and she tried not to think about all the stories they were missing out on, all the litle moments and bigger milestones that had happened over the past few weeks without the other knowing — Jennifer E. Smith

Once I knew nothing about McKay and now I knew everything about him. This seemed as good as any reason for not walking out the door. There are so many ways to stop the knowing, and I tried them all. I tried silence, I tried heroin, I tried calling it love. And then I stopped trying to call my dumbness any one of ten thousand names. — Alice Hoffman

His joy dribbled away, turned into a deep mourning for the twenty people who'd lost their lives. Despite the alternative, despite knowing that if they hadn't tried to escape, all of them might've died, it still hurt, even though he hadn't known them very well. Such a display of death - how could it be considered a victory? — James Dashner

A voice spoke in his head, mellow and vast:

"Long have we watched you, little one."

"Who's there?" he quavered. "Who are you?"

"Your concepts are inadequate."

"Malfunction! Malfunction!" squalled the scouter.

"Shut up, it's not a malfunction. Who's talking to me?"

"You may call us: Rulers of the Galaxy."

The scouter was lunging wildly, buffeting him as it tried to escape the white grasp. Strange crunches, firings of unknown weapons. Still the white stasis held.

"What do you want?" he cried.

"Want?" said the voice dreamily. "We are wise beyond knowing. Powerful beyond your dreams. Perhaps you can get us some fresh fruit."

- 'Painwise — James Tiptree Jr.

Part of the problem was that I couldn't seem to get past the fact that I hadn't tried to escape from Kas. Even in France, when he'd left me on my own for several days, I'd carried on working [as a prostitute] and doing all the things he'd told me to d. And although I knew that it was because of the fear he'd so carefully and deliberately instilled in me, I still felt as though I'd somehow colluded in what had happened to me - despite knowing, deep down, that nothing could have been further from the truth. — Sophie Hayes

So they gave me love in form of poison and tiny little pills, programming my emotions, teaching me how to feel. To act correct and talk correct and answer without knowing the question, because that, my dear, is how you get love. Yes that, dear youth, is how you'll be loved. I tried to medicate my own fucked up little mind with chemicals and adrenaline, tasting sweeter every night, shaking louder every time. Sitting wide awake in bed until the world disappears, writing poetry to concentrate on something real while waiting for the love to arrive.
I've been looking for it night after night, waiting patiently for it to show up, maybe somewhere in between the state of awake and asleep, alive and not so alive, sober and not so sober.
(I lost track of the difference somewhere in between.) — Charlotte Eriksson

Only Ron's dog was watching William. He considered that it had, for a dog, a very offensive and knowing look.
A couple of months ago someaone had tried to hand William the old story about there being a dog in the city that could talk. ( ... ) The dog in front of William didn't look as if it could talk, but it DID look as if it would swear. — Terry Pratchett

I thought of all the others who had tried to tie her to the ground and failed. So I resisted showing her the songs and poems I had written, knowing that too much truth can ruin a thing. And if that meant she wasn't entirely mine, what of it? I would be the one she could always return to without fear of recrimination or question. So I did not try to win her and contented myself with playing a beautiful game. But there was always a part of me that hoped for more, and so there was a part of me that was always a fool. — Patrick Rothfuss

I've always tried to really focus on The Hunger Games movie, knowing that, yes, these are amazing books and I would feel like a failure, if I didn't get all three of them made. — Nina Jacobson

Do you think the people who were trying to reach to the Everest were not full of doubts? For a hundred years, how many people tried and how many people lost their lives? Do you know how many people never came back? But, still, people come from all over the world, risking, knowing they may never return. For them it is worth it - because in the very risk something is born inside of them: the center. It is born only in the risk. That's the beauty of risk, the gift of risk. — Rajneesh

Often, people give up without knowing success was just around the corner; if they had only preserved a little longer, if they had only tried one more time, they could have succeed. — Ashley Ormon

Living is struggling to do something impossible;
To succeed or die, knowing that you had tried. — Anne McCaffrey

Jules: Why didn't you tell me any of this?
Emma: Because of what Jem said. That finding out that what we had was forbiddne for good reason would just make it worse. Belive me, knowing what I know hasn't mae me love you any less.
Jules: So you decided to make you hate you.
Emma: I tried. I didn't know what else to do.
Jules: But I could never hat you. Hating you would be like hating the idea of good things ever happening in the world. It would be like death. I thought you didn't love me, Emma. But I never hated you. — Cassandra Clare

He was like a kid who'd grown up beside an ocean, taking it as much for granted as he took the sky, but knowing nothing of currents, shipping routes, or the ins and outs of weather. He'd used decks in school, toys that shuttled you through the infinite reaches of that space that wasn't space, mankind's unthinkably complex consensual hallucination, the matrix, cyberspace, where the great corporate hotcores burned like neon novas, data so dense you suffered sensory overload if you tried to apprehend more than the merest outline. — William Gibson

The tears of those who never cry, the calm, the levelheaded ones, are terrible to see. She seemed to be split or torn by the force of the tears, which she squeezed her eyes shut against, which she forced back with her fist against her lips. Smokey, afraid and awed, came immediately to her as he might to rescue his child from a fire, without thought and without knowing quite what he would do. When he tried to take her hand, speak softly to her, she only trembled more violently, the red cross branded on her face grew uglier; so he enveloped her, smothered the flames, Disregarding her resistance, as well as he could he covered her, having a vague idea that he could by tenderness invade her and then rout her grief, whatever it was, by main strength. He wasn't sure he wasn't himself the cause of it, wasn't sure if she would cling to him for comfort or break him in rage, but he had no choice anyway, savior or sacrifice, it didn't matter so long as she could cease suffering. — John Crowley

There are many excellent guitar players but I have to say Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton are still at the top! There are many imitators but very few genuine articles. There is so much more to playing than a fast blur of notes, like feeling and emotion from the soul. It's like punctuating a sentence and knowing when to lay back and not fill up all the space. Those are the things I tried to teach my son Tim when he began playing. — Merrell Fankhauser

I've tried to imagine how she'd feel knowing that her cells went up in the first space missions to see what would happen to human cells in zero gravity, or that they helped with some of the most important advances in medicine: the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization. I'm pretty sure that she - like most of us - would be shocked to hear that there are trillions more of her cells growing in laboratories now than there ever were in her body. — Rebecca Skloot

He eyed me curiously, his eyes fluttering over my breasts, and I swallowed, knowing he was thinking things he shouldn't. His tongue snuck between his lips and lightly darted to moisten them. I heard what sounded like a moan before he moved his left hand from under the table. He tried to rest his palm on my resting hand but I inched away. I looked at his hand, and noticed the shading of where his wedding ring used to go ... My mind caught up - used to? Where was it? — Mercy Cortez

Knowing to whom she owed the new warmth, Alanna tried to thank Mari Fahrar. The old woman brushed her words aside. "All things change," she told Alanna frankly. "It does not hurt men to know women have power, too." Alanna had to laugh. Until Mari and Farda entered her life, she never realized that the tribeswomen viewed their men not with fear but with loving disrespect. Sometimes she felt that she was the one getting the education, not her pupils. — Tamora Pierce

To be alive was to be disappointed. You tried and failed and kept on trying, never knowing whether you'd ever get what you wanted. But sometimes we get what we need. — Joan D. Vinge

Weddings are friendship deal breakers if the friendship is weak. There are too many favors, too many tasks, too much required devotion and Aqua Net for imposters like me. I tried to make eye contact with Francine, to give her a knowing good-bye smile like a ghost of a loved one in a movie. It was no usue, I decided to cut my final pink wire. There would be no more yearly "happy birthdays" and certainly no more bonding with the girl in the duct tape dress. That ship had sailed. — Sloane Crosley

Arkady looked at the other man. he felt that he was actually seeing him as a physical being for the first time ... He tried to imagine that body with Bella, with any woman, and found the idea ... not repulsive exactly, but incomprehensible. How would it work exactly? And how would either of them, knowing nothing of their lover's body, needs and desires, ever be able to satisfy the other? — Chris Moriarty

If I leave this Earth, I want to leave this Earth just knowing I've tried to give something back and tried to do something worthwhile with myself. — Patrick Swayze

It's bad idea to try to prevent people from knowing their own history. If you want to do anything new you must first make sure you know what people have tried before. — E.H. Gombrich

. . . More octo . . .pi?' Thaniel said, knowing that it sounded wrong, though so did puses and podes. He tried to think where he had heard it last , but he did not often have business with more than one octopus at a time. — Natasha Pulley

She tried to remind herself that beauty was only skin deep, but that didn't offer any helpful excuses when she was berating herself for never knowing what to say to people. There was nothing more depressing than an ugly girl with no personality. — Julia Quinn

He stopped and took my hand. "If we die, or if I die ... "
He was speaking of dying, and I couldn't stop smiling.
In the dark he must not have noticed, because he said in a rush, "I must tell you that I love you, and if I live I will ask for your hand, but you needn't say anything now if it distresses you, and I might rather die without knowing that you don't love me if that's how you feel."
I tried to speak, but nothing came. I had gained courage during my adventures, but not for this.
"Addie?"
Too soft to hear, I whispered, "I do love you."
But he heard. He cupped his hand under my chin and tilted my face up so I had to meet his eyes. He was smiling too, with a smile as happy as mine. "Oh, Addie!" He leaned down to kiss me ... — Gail Carson Levine

I phoned the Admiral back.
'It's no use, Admiral, the French speak nothing but French.'
There was a short pause on the end of the line then his voice rattled into life like a sabre.
'They're lying, Tim!'
'What?'
'The French Navy must by law speak English, as English is the international maritime language of the sea.'
'Has anyone told the French that?'
The line went dead for a moment before he thundered, 'Yes Nelson. At the battle of Trafalgar.'
I tried to stifle an irresistibly British giggle not knowing if the Admiral was making a joke or not. I got it right. He was serious. — Tim FitzHigham

Muslim Girlhood

I never found myself in a pink aisle.
There was no box for me
with glossy cellophane like heat
and a neat packet of instructions in six languages.

Evenings, I watched TV like a religion I moderately believed.
I watched to see how the others lived, not knowing I was the other - no laugh track in my living room, no tidy and punctual resolution waiting.

I took tests in which Jane & William had so many apples.

I fasted through birthday parties
and Christmas parties
and ate leftover tajine at plastic lunch tables,
picked at pepperoni from slices like blemishes and tried not to complain.

I prayed at the wrong times in the wrong tongue.
I hungered for Jell-O & Starburts & margarine;
could read mono- and diglycerides by five,
knew what gelatin meant, and
where it came from. — Leila Chatti

You're strong, you're resilient, you fight for everything you believe in, especially me. It didn't matter how many times I tried to push you away, knowing everything about us was wrong. You wouldn't have it. You were never scared of me, Lexi. As much as I tried to show you my Hell, you were more than willing to burn right along with me. — M. Robinson

Many times he had tried unsuccessfully to let go his hold on her. They had many fine times together, fine talks between the loves of the white nights, but always when he turned away from her into himself he left her holding Nothing in her hands and staring at it, calling it many names, but knowing it was only the hope that he would come back soon. — F Scott Fitzgerald

...I'd rather live knowing I made a mistake than wondering if I could have made a difference if I'd tried.
The way I see it, nothing in life is a rehersal. It's not preparation for anything else. There's no getting ready for it. There's no waiting for the real part to begin. Not ever. Not even for the smallest child. This is it. And if you wait too long to figure that out, to figure out that we are the ones making the world, we are the ones to whom all the problems- and all the possibilities for grace- now fall, then you lose everything. Your only shot at this world.
I get that this one small life is all we have for whatever it is we are going to do. And I want in. — Laura McBride

I couldn't see him anymore, and I couldn't see anybody, and I knew what the loneliness of the long-distance runner running across country felt like, realizing that as far as I was concerned this feeling was the only honesty and realness there was in the world and I knowing it would be no different ever, no matter what I felt at odd times, and no matter what anybody else tried to tell me — Alan Sillitoe

If human beings had really tried to invent a god, we would never have invented the God of Christianity. He's just too terrifying. Our God is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-holy, and omnipresent. There's no place to run and hide from Him, no place where we might secretly indulge a favorite vice. We can't even retreat into the dark corners of our minds to fantasize about that vice without God knowing it right away. — Scott Hahn

-"Stop"
"I've tried. I can't. These past few days, not knowing if you were okay have been hell."
-"I'm okay."
"I'm not. — Rachel Gibson

The thing to remember about love affairs," says Simone, "is that they are all like having raccoons in your chimney."
...
We have raccoons sometimes in our chimney," explains Simone.
And once we tried to smoke them out. We lit a fire, knowing they were there, but we hoped the smoke would cause them to scurry out the top and never come back. Instead, they caught on fire and came crashing down into our living room, all charred and in flames and running madly around until they dropped dead." Simone swallows some wine. "Love affairs are like that," she says. "They are all like that. — Lorrie Moore

Don't ever give up. Believe in yourself or no one else will. My personal saying is: 'I'd rather die knowing that I tried to do what I love.' — Adrienne Bailon

There's something about you," Tate tried to explain as he traced his fingers along his jaw. "In the way you are. It pulls me in, Logan. I can't imagine knowing you and not feeling it. — Ella Frank

"I've learned what's funny verbally ain't so funny on e-mail: They don't hear your intonations. Melissa broke up with somebody over that. She tried to tell him: "That was a joke!" But he just didn't get it. Mick Jagger said, "F- 'em if they don't get the joke." And I love him. That comes with age: Knowing it's their problem, not mine." — Joan Rivers

In three weeks my betrothed is coming here, to the castle. But Rose, I can't marry her. I tried to believe that I could love her, and I'm sure I could have had I not met you. But knowing you, Rose, loving you as I do, I can't possibly marry someone else. So I came up with a plan. — Melanie Dickerson

And why did this Probert pretend to be so Welsh? I remembered that like me he'd been awarded nought for Welsh in School Certificate. Such a result, in that language, means an almost psychotic ignorance. It's standard practice, of course, with writers of Probert's allegiance to pretend to be wild valley babblers, woaded with pit-dirt and sheep-shit, thinking in Welsh the whole time and obsessed by terrible beauty, etc., but in fact they tend to come from comfortable middle-class homes, have a good urban education, never go near a lay preacher and couldn't even order a pint in Welsh, falling back, as Probert had done earlier in the evening, on things like the Welsh for big Jesus. (And don't tell me they can think in Welsh without knowing the language. Ever tried thinking in Bantu?) — Kingsley Amis

Imagine how foolish you'd look if, like one clever salesman who once pitched to me, you tried to license your product to a big industry player without knowing they just launched a competing product. With the right background research, he could have avoided that and other landmines - and so can you. — Kevin O'Leary

When Love Was New

When love was new
and life was young,
and once we walked
in gracious sun,
I never dreamt of darker days,
or feared that fate had cruel ways.

When life was strong
and love was free,
and time was once
eternity -
we never planned for more or less,
nor stopped to think we should digress.

When love was young
and life was new,
and everything
was once our due,
I never doubted what I owned,
nor knew the cost was merely loaned.

Now love is tried
and life is old,
and still my feet
drag down the road -
not knowing where it all has gone,
nor how much more it still goes on.

But life grows new
and love gets old,
and this tired heart
stays off the cold -
not caring it compares with fools,
nor wise enough to fear the rules.
-Drea Damara — Drea Damara

I wished I was old. I was tired of being so young, so stupidly knowing, so stupidly forgetful. I was tired of having to be anything at all. I felt like the Internet, full of every kind of information but none of it mattering more than any of it, and all of its little links like thin white roots on a broken plant dug out of the soil, lying drying on its side. And whenever I tried to access myself, whenever I'd try to click on me, try to go any deeper than a single fast-loading page on Facebook or MySpace, it was as if I knew that one morning I'd wake up and try to log on to find that not even that version of I existed any more, because the servers all over the world were all down. And that's how rootless. And that's how fragile. — Ali Smith

Live and invent. I have tried. I must have tried. Invent. It is not the word. Neither is to live. No matter. I have tried. [ ... ] I say living without knowing what it is. I tried to live without knowing what I was trying. Perhaps I have lived afterall, without knowing. — Samuel Beckett

My foster mother always laughed and said it was his reputation for knowing everything that allowed for him to appear infallible: all he had to do was walk through the room and see who looked guiltiest when they saw him. Maybe she was right, but I tried looking innocent the next time, and it didn't work. — Patricia Briggs

There was no back home any more, not in the essential way, and that was part of Paris too. Why we couldn't stop drinking or talking or kissing the wrong people no matter what it ruined. Some of us had looked into the faces of the dead and tried not to remember anything in particular. Ernest was one of these. He often said he'd died in the war, just for a moment; that his soul had left his body like a silk handkerchief, slipping out and levitating over his chest. It had returned without being called back, and I often wondered if writing for him was a way of knowing his soul was there after all, back in its place. Of saying to himself, if not to anyone else, that he had seen what he'd seen and felt those terrible things and lived anyway. That he had died but wasn't dead any more. — Paula McLain

Living was struggling to do something impossible - to succeed, or die, knowing you had tried! — Anne McCaffrey

It's hard enough losing with out the confusion of knowing I tried. — Neil Young

I tried very hard. But I can't help it. The Fates are cruel. They sent you to me, my brave one, knowing that you would break my heart. — Rick Riordan

A child's eyes, those clear, wells of undefiled thought - what on earth can be more beautiful? Full of hope, love and curiosity, they meet your own. In prayer, how earnest; in joy, how sparkling; in sympathy, how tender! The man who never tried the companionship of a little child has carelessly passed by one of the great pleasures of life, as one passes a rare flower without plucking it or knowing its value — Caroline Norton

Una furtiva lacrima had been the only really beautiful thing in her life. Wiping away her own tears she tried to sing what she heard. But her voice was as crude and out of tune as she was. When she heard it she started to cry. It was the first time she'd ever cried, she didn't know she had so much water in her eyes. She cried, blew her nose no longer knowing what she was crying about. She wasn't crying because of the life she led: because, never having led any other, she'd accepted that with her that was just the way things were. But I also think she was crying because, through the music, she might have guessed there were other ways of feeling, there were more delicate existences and even a certain luxury of soul. — Clarice Lispector

She'd started swimming early in the morning, when the kids were asleep, when she thought he was asleep. She didn't know her absence woke him, that the shift in the bed was an earthquake. When she climbed back in, she smelled like salt and seaweed. Sometimes her hair would still be knotted on top of her head. She tried to keep it dry. She didn't want him to know. The problem with marrying the mermaid girl from the carnival was knowing that one day she'd swim away. — Erika Swyler

So much pressure in this life of mine, I cry at times, I once contemplated suicide and woulda tried, but when I held that nine, all I could see was my mama's eyes, no one knows my struggle, they only see the trouble, not knowing it's hard to carry on when no one loves you. — Tupac Shakur

Aden St. George managed to avoid having to kill the guard stationed outside his quarry's crypt-like cell, although the thug outside the caves hadn't been so lucky. Still, that bastard had tried to knife him in the gut so Aden could hardly be faulted for returning the favor. And knowing what he did about the men who'd kidnapped Lady Vivien Shaw, he wouldn't waste his fitful conscience on that brutal but necessary act. Killing was not a favorite pastime, but only rarely did it disturb his sleep.
Tonight's rescue mission carried no inconvenient opportunities for remorse since a woman's life and innocence hung in the balance. True, the gossips whispered that Lady Vivien's innocence was an open question, but what would happen to her if Aden failed wasn't. Without his intervention she would disappear into a nightmarish life, forever beyond the protection of her family and friends. — Vanessa Kelly

I realize this is blasphemy, but a few weeks ago I tried to watch a NASCAR race being run at Talladega. I lasted about five minutes before terminal boredom overtook me. It appeared to be nothing more than a high-speed freeway commute
a mob of luridly painted, identical lumps of metal loping at 180 mph around the banking, fender to fender, nose to tail. Knowing the scenario would surely devolve into a multicar demolition derby that would thrill the goobers in the grandstands, I turned off the set to later learn that this time it was Jimmie Johnson who triggered the eight-car melee. — Brock Yates

I tried to cheer her up, and apparently succeeded in some degree, before the walk was over; but in the very act my conscience reproved me, knowing, as I did, that, sooner or later, the tie must be broken, and this was only nourishing false hopes and putting off the evil day. — Anne Bronte

Odd, she thought, how intensely you knew a person, or thought you did, when you were in love - soaked, drenched in love - only to discover later that perhaps you didn't know that person quite as well as you had imagined. Or weren't quite as well known as you had hoped to be. In the beginning, a lover drank in every word and gesture and then tried to hold on to that intensity for as long as possible. But inevitable, if two people were together long enough, that intensity had to wane. — Anita Shreve

So far Kat has been through all the Wa's she could think of, but Hale hadn't admitted to being Walter or Ward or Washington. He'd firmly denied both Warren and Waverly. Watson had prompted him to do a very bad Sherlock Holmes impersonation throughout a good portion of a train ride to Edinburgh, Scotland. And Wayne seemed so wrong she hadn't even tried.
Hale was Hale. And not knowing what the W's stood for had become a constant reminder to Kat that, in life, there are some things that can be given but never stolen.
Of course, that didn't stop her from trying. — Ally Carter

She tried not to think about what it would be like running across the airfield to the radio room an hour from now, under fire. But she did it. Because you do. It is incredible what you do, knowing you have to. — Elizabeth Wein

My friend, my editor, still had the cancer. Each day she had to cross a terrible chasm, a bottomless hole of not knowing what to hope or believe. I tried to imagine what she saw, but I did not have her perspective. — Amy Tan

The major thing I'm afraid of is being 65 and saying, 'Gee, I wish I had done this and that, and that.' I want to face old age knowing I've tried all I wanted to try. — Harry Chapin

She smiled from ear to ear at the thought of knowing his name. She perched herself up onto her tip toes to try to be able to get a good look at him. He was smiling a charming smile and he escorted his bridesmaid through the manmade aisle. Again, like before as his proximity got closer, so did the intense feelings she felt burning inside of her body. She tried really hard to not feel them. She wished she had something stronger to drink to dull the uncomfortable and scary emotions he was bringing out in her. — J.B. McGee

Their love was equal; on the hills they roamed together, and together they would go back to their cave; and this time too they went into the Lapith's palace side by side and side by side were fighting in the fray. A javelin (no knowing from whose hand) came from the left and wounded Cyllarus, landing below the place where the chest joins neck
slight wound, but when the point was pulled away, cold grew his damaged heart and cold his limbs. Hylonome embraced him as he died, caressed the wound and, putting lips to lips, she tried to stay his spirit as it fled. And when she saw him lifeless, she moaned words that in that uproar failed to reach my ears; and fell upon the spear that pierced her love, and, dying, held her husband in her arms. — Ovid

I always wanted to be that guy who pushed the envelope in all kind of ways and tried something new. When I keep that rule going, it always takes me to a new place. There are times when I fail miserably, but I always find myself knowing one more thing better, doing one more thing that I never did before. — Terry Crews

There were some tragic cases of women whose love was abused, who for a certain time procured important documents or information, not knowing who for, what service they worked for, and for a variety reasons got jailed, were tried and sentenced. — Markus Wolf

I tried to tell him to stop, knowing full well that he would not. I tried to tell him it hurt, when I knew he simply did not care. — Nikki Rae

The houses have been condemned on Memory Lane
I'm tired of this struggle that leaves everything the same
I've tried so hard to make it work
that I'm dying inside
Well, you can take my past
But you can't have my tomorrow

Promises that remain promises are useless and they're cheap
I wish I could put a price on words so I could make them keep
I put so much faith in you
I lost all my faith in me
Well, you can take my past
But you can't have my tomorrow

I'm giving up on giving up
I can't leave it all to prayer
'Cause the first step in getting better
is knowing what's not there
You said you'd make it better
and that just makes it worse
Well, you can take my past
But you can't have my tomorrow

Yes, I want my life to last
So you can't have my tomorrow
No, you can't have my tomorrow — David Levithan

It was not a good death."
"No such thing," Sorhatani said, wheezing. "It is never kind, Kublai. All we can do is ignore it until the time comes." The effort of speaking was enormous and he tried to stop her, but she waved his objections aside. "People do that so well, Kublai. They live knowing they will die, but no matter how many times they say the words, they don't truly believe it. They think somehow that they will be the one death passes by, that they will live and live and never grow old. — Conn Iggulden

She was too curious to back out now. While they watched her with knowing faces, she tried the rusty doorknob. Two things happened at once. A whiff of musty air assaulted her nostrils, and her eyes were dazzled by darkness. — Erica Miles

I crawled back to bed, knowing I was done for. Hours later, the phone in our room started ringing. It was George. He was not happy.
"Room 312. Now!" he shouted.
Bouldy got up. I tried to pull myself together, splashing my face with water and hauling on my shorts and flip flops. It was a lovely day outside, the sun was scorching hot and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but it might as well have been a pissing wet morning in St Albans for all I cared. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach as we made the Walk of Death to Room 312, which I knew was Paul and Gus's room.
When we walked in, I thought I'd arrived in downtown Baghdad. Water dripped from the ceiling. The board games were in pieces and all the plastic parts were scattered over the floor. The balcony window was wide open and I could see a bed upended by the pool outside. — Paul Merson

Some former POWs became almost feral with rage. For many men, seeing an Asian person or overhearing a snippet of Japanese left them shaking, weeping, enraged, or lost in flashbacks. One former POW, normally gentle and quiet, spat at every Asian person he saw. At Letterman General Hospital just after the war, four former POWs tried to attack a staffer who was of Japanese ancestry, not knowing that he was an American veteran. Troubled former POWs found nowhere to turn. — Laura Hillenbrand

Sophie left the den and wandered about in the large garden. She tried to forget what she had learned at school, especially in science classes.
If she had grown up in this garden without knowing anything at all about nature, how would she feel about the spring?
Would she try to invent some kind of explanation for why it suddenly started to rain one day?
Would she work out some fantasy to explain where the snow went and why the sun rose in the morning? — Jostein Gaarder

I can look you in the eye and tell you I feel I've tried to solve the problem diplomatically to the max, and would have committed troops both in Afghanistan and Iraq knowing what I know today. — George W. Bush