Lack Of Thought Quotes & Sayings

For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is "I didn't get enough sleep." The next one is "I don't have enough time." Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don't have enough of ... Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we're already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn't get, or didn't get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack ... This internal condition of scarcity, this mind-set of scarcity, lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice, and our arguments with life. — Brene Brown

I often thought grief was like madness - the lack of control, the overwhelming waves of emotion with unexpected triggers, breathlessness, night sweats, nightmares, and the feeling of utter aloneness, like that of standing on a ledge in a violent wind. — Erika Robuck

Brunetti asked, surprised how painful he still found the thought of his mother. He had tried for the last year, with singular lack of success, to tell himself that his mother, that bright-spirited woman who had raised them and loved them with unqualified devotion, had moved off to some other place, where she waited, still quickwitted and eager to smile, for that befuddled shell that was her body to come and join her so that they could drift off together to a final peace. 'I — Donna Leon

In a congregation meeting, the pastor encouraged the congregation to make a new commitment to serve the people [at the trailer park]. One person stood up and said that past efforts had failed because the church lacked organization. Another person said that the church failed due to a lack of knowledge regarding the people's practical needs. Still another said that the church lacked evangelistic zeal.
In each case, the person offering criticism had the gifts to make the effort succeed! The person who saw a lack of organization had the gift of administration. The person who saw the lack of concern for practical needs had the gift of mercy. And the person who thought the church lacked evangelistic zeal had the gift of evangelism. What should have been a very successful outreach was short-circuited because they had not been using their gifts, the very gifts that were needed most. — Timothy Lane

When I first learned of the existence of pi, I knew immediately that we had something in common. We share a parallel path. Certainly there are many times when I too have been considered irrational. Often when alone in my room, I silently ponder the equation for the area of a circle. Area (A) equals R-squared (RR) times the constant pi (C). Then I thought, by assigning the designation (K) and assuming there was an nth or final numeric digit to pi, it all might somehow become rational. The random rolling numbers that could at some point define that ultimate integer, passed through my mind. To me they were like the consecutive series of episodes that define my life. It seemed that it was more than a coincidence that when I took the variables and the constants from the equation and put them all together, A-R-R-C-K, it spells my name. That is why I need to get to the truth. — John Lack

But to such a man as Schopenhauer, - one who considered five sixths of the population to be knaves or blockheads, and who had thought out a system for the remaining fraction, - to such a man as he, the question of esteem, or the lack thereof, was of small consequence. He cared nothing for the existence which he led in the minds of other people. To his own self he was true, to the calling of his destiny constant, and he felt that he could sit and snap his fingers at the world, knowing that Time, who is at least a gentleman, would bring him his due unasked. — Edgar Saltus

for she could never long endure any conversation of which she was not the chief subject. But she smiled when she spoke, consciously deepening her dimple and fluttering her bristly black lashes as swiftly as butterflies' wings. The boys were enchanted, as she had intended them to be, and they hastened to apologize for boring her. They thought none the less of her for her lack of interest. Indeed, they thought more. War was men's business, not ladies', and they took her attitude as evidence of her femininity. Having — Margaret Mitchell

They thought I suffered from lack of exterior, when I suffered from excess of interior — Romain Gary

Wilbur Larch knew that freedom was an orphan's most dangerous illusion, and when he finally heard from Homer, he scanned the oddly formal letter, which was disappointing in its lack of detail. Regarding illusions, and all the rest, there was simply no evidence.
'I am learning to swim,' wrote Homer Wells. (I know! I know! Tell me about it! Thought Wilbur Larch.) 'I do better at driving,' Homer added. — John Irving

This absolute lack of objectivity might be said to resemble nothing so much as the lack of objectivity these same people had shown during Stalin's life, when they had been so supremely worshipful of his mind and strength of will, of his foresight and genius. Their hysterical worship of Stalin and their total and unconditional rejection of him sprang from the same soil. — Vasily Grossman

I can't blame it. Its whole purpose is to prevent the atmosphere from becoming lethal. Nobody at NASA thought, "Hey, let's allow a fatal lack of oxygen that will make everyone drop dead! — Andy Weir

Barbee had always wondered about mental institutions. He thought of taking notes for a feature story on this adventure at Glennhaven, as the evening wore on, began to seem remarkable for utter lack of anything noteworthy. It began to appear as a fragile never-never land, populated with timid souls in continual retreat from the real world outside and even from one another within. — Jack Williamson

The greatest choice we have is to think before we act and then take action toward our life goals every day. Our problems result not only from our lack of action, but from our action without thought. — Denis Waitley

I blinked as I heard chamber music coming from the other room. "What are you listening to?"
"I picked up a DVD for Luke while I was out. Something with Mozart and sock puppets."
A grin rose to my lips. "At this stage I don't think Luke can see more than ten inches beyond his face."
"That explains his lack of interest. I thought maybe he preferred Beethoven."
-Ella & Jack — Lisa Kleypas

In England, more than in any other country, science is felt rather than thought ... A defect of the English is their almost complete lack of systematic thinking. Science to them consists of a number of successful raids into the unknown. — John Desmond Bernal

And what we will all be seeking when we decamp, and for the rest of our lives, will be large, stable communities of like-minded people, which is to say relatives. They no longer exist. The lack of them is not only the main cause, but probably the only cause of our shapeless discontent in the midst of such prosperity. We thought we could do without tribes and clans. Well, we can't. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Persistence trumps talent.
What's the most powerful force in the universe? Compound interest. It builds on itself. Over time, a small amount of money becomes a large amount of money. Persistence is similar. A little bit improves performance, which encourages greater persistence which improves persistence even more. And on and on it goes.
Lack of persistence works the same way
only in the opposite direction.
Of course talent is important, but the world is lit erred with talented people who didn't persist, who didn't put in the hours, who gave up too early, who thought they could ride on talent alone. Meanwhile, people who might have less talent pass them by.
That's why intrinsic motivation is so important. Doing things not the get an external reward like money or a promotion, but because you simple like doing it. The more intrinsic motivation you have , the more likely you are to persist. The more you persist, the more likely you are to succeed. — Daniel H. Pink

Someone who is said to have a big ego is thought to be full of themselves, to lack the ability to listen, to always rush to be at the top of the tree and to think their own ideas are the best. — Gyalwa Dokhampa

People in Japan and the Faeroe Islands kill dolphins and pilot whales by running steel rods into their spinal columns while they squeal in pain and terror and thrash in agony. (In Japan, it's illegal to kill cows and pigs as painfully and inhumanely as they kill dolphins.) The lack of compassion for dolphins and whales indicates that humans' "theory of mind" is incomplete. We have an empathy shortfall, a compassion deficit. And human-on-human violence, abuse, and ethnic and religious genocide are all too pervasive in our world. No elephant will ever pilot a jetliner. And no elephant will ever pilot a jetliner into the World Trade Center. We have the capacity for wider compassion, but we don't fully live up to ourselves. Why do human egos seem so threatened by the thought that other animals think and feel? Is it because acknowledging the mind of another makes it harder to abuse them? We seem so unfinished and so defensive. Maybe incompleteness is one of the things that "makes us human. — Carl Safina

I read a lot of bad scripts and weird television shows. I don't know. There's a lot of work out there I was reading at 14 years old and noticing this lack of thought. And then, reading 'Afterschool,' that's full of thought. It was bursting with ideas. — Ezra Miller

The Christian's instincts of trust and worship are stimulated very powerfully by knowledge of the greatness of God. But this is knowledge which Christians today largely lack: and that is one reason why our faith is so feeble and our worship so flabby ... When a person in the church, let alone the person in the street, uses the word God, the thought is rarely of divine majesty. — J.I. Packer

There are intangible realities which float near us, formless and without words; realities which no one has thought out, and which are excluded for lack of interpreters. — Natalie Clifford Barney

30 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste; Then can I drown an eye (unus'd to flow) For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight; Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before: But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end. — William Shakespeare

Perhaps the thought of going to hell doesn't alarm you, because you don't believe in it. That may be your belief, but if hell exists, your lack of belief won't make it go away. Standing on a freeway and saying, "I don't believe in trucks" won't make the 18-wheeler disappear. — Kirk Cameron

Our earth is like a child who has grown up without parents, having no one to guide her ... Some have attempted to help her but most have simply tried to use her. Humans, who have been given the task to lovingly steer the world, instead plunder her with no consideration, other than their immediate needs. And they give little thought for their own children who will inherit their lack of love. So they use her and abuse her with little consideration and then when she shudders of blows her breath. They are offended and raise their fist at God. — William P. Young

History will help to remedy intellectual faults such as excessive concentration on one line of thought, absence of understanding for other points of view, belief in simple solutions, lack of balance of mind, absence of an imaginative understanding. — Geoffrey Elton

It's a sun lamp. I thought you might be tired of your pasty-pale complexion. (Chris)
Christopher, I happen to be a Viking in the middle of winter in Minnesota. Lack of a deep tan goes with the whole Nordic territory. Why do you think we raided Europe anyway? (Wulf)
Because it was there? (Chris)
No, we wanted to thaw out. (Wulf) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Shut your eyes and you will know what I mean by thought entombed in darkness. Light comes through the senses, and not only through the sense of sight. When you see without feeling, you are still partly blind; you lack the inner light that brings awareness. Awareness requires the interplay of every faculty, the use of your entire being as an eye. — Charles Lindbergh

I've often thought that my lack of intimacy with those around me is the fault of those around me. — Luke Ford

One nurse thought I was "brave." I think she was talking about my steely-eyed, grin-and-bear-it kind of attitude. There were no tears, no complaints from me - a total lack of affect. In a victim, it is courage and thus admirable; in a predator, it is a lack of humanity and instills fear. — M.E. Thomas

You make me laugh, with your metaphysical anguish, its just that you're scared silly, frightened of life, of men of action, of action itself, of lack of order. But everything is disorder, dear boy. Vegetable, mineral and animal, all
disorder, and so is the multitude of human races, the life of man, thought,
history, wars, inventions, business and the arts, and all theories, passions
and systems. Its always been that way. Why are you trying to make something out
of it? And what will you make? what are you looking for? There is no Truth.
There's only action, action obeying a million different impulses, ephemeral
action, action subjected to every possible and imaginable contingency and
contradiction, Life. Life is crime, theft, jealousy, hunger, lies, disgust,
stupidity, sickness, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, piles of corpses. what can you do about it, my poor friend? — Blaise Cendrars

Never ever continue to complain of lack of time all the time for no one is in possession of all the time. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Darona's face bore the pinched, taut look and shadowed eyes of someone constantly in pain, but the lack of lines suggested she was younger than Jesral had first thought; middle-aged, fifty at the very most.
'You make an uncommonly fine looking noblewoman, for a Mhrydaineg commoner.'
'Thank you.' Jesral was careful to keep all tone out of her voice. Darona gave her a shrewd stare, then a slight smile.
'Self-control. Good. You must ignore me when I offend you unintentionally. They say that pain can make one waspish, but my brothers and son tell me there's been no change in my manner. I was acid-tongued long before this set in,' she held up a knotted hand, 'and taking devil's claw root has no effect on that. Rest assured, young woman, when I intend offence people are in no doubt about it. — Helen Bell

If you lose a man because you thought the best but were all wrong, then that's his fault. If you lose him because you thought the very worst and were wrong, then that's yours. And there's nothing so sad as missing out on love for lack of a little faith. — Jennifer Blake

What are you
listening to?"
"I picked up a DVD for Luke while I was
out. Something with Mozart and sock
puppets."
A grin rose to my lips. "At this stage I
don't think Luke can see more than ten
inches beyond his face."
"That explains his lack of interest. I
thought maybe he preferred Beethoven. — Lisa Kleypas

Yet it's not for want of future that I'm here, he thought. It's for want of a present. — John Le Carre

If you feel inadequate to face challenges, unworthy of love or respect, untitled to happiness, and fear assertive thought, wants, or needs- if you lack basic self trust, self-respect, and self-confidence- your self-esteem deficiency will limit you, no matter what other assets you possess. — Nathaniel Branden

One thing that I feel very, very strongly is that we talk about Islamic countries, Islamic people, Islamic leaders, as either moderates or extremists. It's almost like there are only two categories of Muslims. And actually, that doesn't show respect. It shows lack of understanding of the diversity of Muslim thought. — David Miliband

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

I don't know when the idea of suicide first occurred to me. In some ways, it had been in the back of my mind for years. Yet, oddly, I would never have thought of it as an option. It was the perceived lack of options-the final, unacceptable solution to a grave and insoluble dilemma. I had always thought of it in the same way: If all else fails, if I have nowhere else to turn, I can do this. — Tracy Thompson

I had kissed my share of men, particularly during the war years, when flirtation and instant romance were the light-minded companions of death and uncertainty. Jamie, thought, was something different. His extreme gentleness was in no way tentative; rather it was a promise of power known and held in leash; a challenge and a provocation the more remarkable for its lack of demand. I am yours, it said. And if you will have me, then ... — Diana Gabaldon

But there was something telling about that photograph, I thought; our protective glass frame shattered and now here we were, punctured with microscopic holes that might one day tear. Those holes all had names: mortgage, adolescent child, lack of communication, retirement savings, cancer. — Mary Kubica

I always thought the biggest failing of Americans was their lack of irony. They are very serious there! Naturally, there are exceptions ... the Jewish, Italian, and Irish humor of the East Coast. — Colin Firth

How you wake up each day and your morning routine (or lack thereof) dramatically affects your levels of success in every single area of your life. Focused, productive, successful mornings generate focused, productive, successful days-which inevitably create a successful life-in the same way that unfocused, unproductive, and mediocre mornings generate unfocused, unproductive, and mediocre days, and ultimately a mediocre quality of life. By simply changing the way you wake up in the morning, you can transform any area of your life, faster than you ever thought possible. — Hal Elrod

Caius was one of those who gloried in his ignorance, called his lack of letters purity, scorned any subtlety of thought or expression. A man for his time, indeed. — Iain Pears

Pecuniary embarrassment, he thought, was the cause of all evil to the blacks, for poverty kept them ignorant and their lack of enlightenment kept them degraded. — Carter G. Woodson

If you were to fault yourself in one of three areas, which would it be: (1) the inability to prioritize; (2) the inability or desire to organize around those priorities; or (3) the lack of discipline to execute around them? ... Most people say their main fault is a lack of discipline. On deeper thought, I believe that is not the case. The basic problem is that their priorities have not become deeply planted in their hearts and minds. They haven't really internalized Habit 2 [Begin with the end in mind]. — Stephen Covey

Like everyone who possesses something precious in order to know what would happen if he ceased for a moment to possess it, he had detached the precious object from his mind, leaving, as he thought, everything else in the same state as when it was there. But the absence of one part from a whole is not only that, it is not simply a partial lack, it is a derangement of all the other parts, a new state which it was impossible to foresee in the old. — Marcel Proust

My lack of initiative was the root cause of all my troubles - of my inability to want something before having thought about it, of my inability to commit myself, of my inability to decide in the only way one can decide: by deciding, not by thinking. I'm like Buridan's donkey, dying at the mathematical midpoint between the water of emotion and the hay of action; if I didn't think, I might still die, but it wouldn't be from thirst or hunger. — Fernando Pessoa

For the past few years, I've been on a quest for a good old-fashioned date, the kind where the guy calls, makes the plans, picks you up in a car that's not his dad's or his other girlfriend's, and takes you somewhere that shows he put thought into what you might like, not what he might get off on like the latest how-many-naked-boobs-can-we-cram-into-this-movie-to-disguise-the-complete-lack-of-plot movie. I'm looking for the kind of date that starts with good conversation , has a sweet and satisfying middle, and ends with long, slow kisses and the dreamy feeling that you're walking on clouds. — Karen Marie Moning

In the vastness of the cosmos, everything is going perfect, but one nasty little thought in your mind can make it a bad day. That is lack of perspective. — Jaggi Vasudev

I remember the people I've heard complain about the very texture of digital images, filmless film: how it lacks richness, depth. I've heard the same thing said about CDs. Someone once told me that it was Mark Twain who turned in the first typewritten manuscript, and this was generally thought to be a Bad Thing: Work composed on a machine would naturally lack richness, depth. — William Gibson

Know what it's like to feel like something's eating away at your mind?" I'd been about to tell him I needed to leave, but his words left me cold. I remembered Jill saying something similar when she was telling me about him and spirit. "No," I said honestly. "I don't know what it's like ... but to me, well, it's pretty much one of the most terrifying things I can imagine. My mind, it ... it's who I am. I think I'd rather suffer any other injury in the world than have my mind tampered with." I couldn't leave Adrian right now. I just couldn't. I texted to Brayden: Going to be a little longer than I thought. "It is terrifying," said Adrian. "And weird, for lack of a better word. And part of you knows ... well, part of you knows something's not right. That your thinking's not right. But what do you — Richelle Mead

And a young man with every reason to work - a wife-to-be to support and a baby on the way - carelessly tossing aside a good job with excellent health insurance. More troublingly, when it was all over, he thought something had been done to him. There is a lack of agency here - a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself. This is distinct from the larger economic landscape of modern America. It's — J.D. Vance

Souls (or minds) are thought of as purely non-physical, they can't be weighed, split in half, heated or cooled, they lack mass, electric charge and so on ... but how could they possibly have a cause and effect relationship with bodies that are said to have these, and only these physical properties? — Austin Dacey

I was young, still so young, that I thought my lack of wholeness was somehow my fault. I had no idea everyone feels this way - that the most essential part of growing up is figuring out where your empty places are and learning how to fill them by, and for, yourself. — Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

I do not like this idea that we have begun to kill off - at great velocity and accelerating speed - all of the things that sustain us. I didn't like it at all when I first thought of it, but most people around me do not seem that disturbed by it, even though the knowledge of this is obvious and readily available to anyone who looks up trees on the Internet. At least, no one seems bothered, because no one has taken action to amend it. So they must not care. That is the only explanation I can think of for the lack of reaction to this fact. — Ned Hayes

The incarnation means that for whatever reason God chose to let us fall . . . to suffer, to be subject to sorrows and death - he has nonetheless had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine. . . . He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He himself has gone through the whole of human experience - from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. . . . He was born in poverty and . . . suffered infinite pain - all for us - and thought it well worth his while.4 Isaiah — Timothy J. Keller

Loneliness, she thought, was craving for other people's company. But she did not know that loneliness can be an unnoticed cramping of the spirit for lack of companionship. — Doris Lessing

To William's complete lack of surprise, the little cellar under the shed was much better built than the shed itself. But then, practically everywhere in Ankh-Morpork had cellars that were once the first or even second or third floors of ancient buildings, built at the time of one of the city's empires when men thought that the future was going to last forever. And — Terry Pratchett

I just noticed a lack of ego in the room and thought 'hey, where's Braden? — Samantha Young

The others set up all this because they want me to know that what I did was important - important enough to burn coal.

But it doesn't feel important. Not like it should.

I'm reminded now, watching the coals burn, of why I never feel like I truly belong to Winter. I want to understand all this as deeply as Sir and Alysson and everyone else, a reminder of a time when everything was how it should be, but all this is wasted on me, someone whose only connection to Winter lies in stories told by others. I thought that if I had a hand in saving Winter, I'd feel like I deserve it, the kingdom everyone else remembers. I thought I could fill the void left by my lack of memories with purpose. That's what I've always told myself: if I matter to Winter, Winter will matter to me. And today I mattered to my kingdom.

Then why don't I feel anything more for the fire pit than the slight burn on my finger? — Sara Raasch

Subject: Desert Dick
So, I'm emailing you right now because I just thought about how much pain you're in currently ... We haven't talked about you getting laid in quite a while, and that concerns me. Greatly. Like, I've CRIED about your lack of pu**y ... I'm very sorry that so many women have sent you fraudulent pictures and given you a severe case of blue balls. I'm attaching the links to a top of the line lotion that I think you should invest in for the weeks to come.
Your dick is in my prayers,
- Alyssa. — Whitney Gracia Williams

It's your turn to talk," Tod said when several seconds had elapsed in pensive, angry silence from the hellion. "Negotiation is like playing tennis with words instead of balls. I thought you'd be better at this, considering your apparent lack of balls. — Rachel Vincent

I'll bet you didn't think a handful of economists could save the world, did you? You thought the world would end with nuclear war or something? No, it's much more basic than that. It's more likely going to be from a disruption in the water supply, power, and from lack of food due to an economic collapse. Either that or a financial war. — Kenneth Eade

The new captain looked up. Oh, good grief, Vimes thought. It's bloody Rust this time round!
And it was indeed the Hon. Ronald Rust, the god's gift to the enemy, any enemy, and a walking encouragement to desertion.
The Rust family had produced great soldiers, by the undemanding standards of 'Deduct your own casualties from those of the enemy, and if the answer is a positive number, it was a glorious victory' school of applied warfare. But Rust's lack of any kind of military grasp was matched only by his high opinion of the talent he in fact possessed only in negative amounts. — Terry Pratchett

The victimisation, I saw, was universal. It didn't depend on poverty, on lack of education or on tradition. It didn't depend on any of the things I had thought it depended on. Men took it everywhere with them. — Tsitsi Dangarembga

though. Our Azadian friends are always rather nonplussed by our lack of a flag or a symbol, and the Culture rep here - you'll meet him tonight if he remembers to turn up - thought it was a pity there was no Culture anthem for bands to play when our people come here, so he whistled them the first song that came into his head, and they've been playing that at receptions and ceremonies for the last eight years." "I thought I recognized one of the tunes they played," Gurgeh admitted. The drone pushed his arms up and made some more adjustments. "Yes, but the first song that came into the guy's head was 'Lick Me Out'; have you heard the lyrics?" "Ah." Gurgeh grinned. "That song. Yes, that could be awkward." "Damn right. If they find out they'll probably declare war. Usual Contact snafu. — Iain M. Banks

Yes, he would have done that for Tessa - died to keep the ones she needed beside her - and so would Jem have done that for him or for Tessa, and so would Tessa, he thought, do that for both of them. It was a near incomprehensible tangle, the three of them, but there was one certainty, and that was that there was no lack of love between them. — Cassandra Clare

For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is - limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death - He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile. — Dorothy L. Sayers

I thought that the main problem in the gay community is the lack of funding, I was wrong. The essential quality that this movement needs is courage and an ideal; without an ideal, nothing is possible. — Nikolay Alexeyev

They'd paid some madman who thought he was a decorator a lot of money to make the place look hip and unique. Maybe it's my lack of fashion sense talking, but I thought they should have held out for one of these gorillas who has learned to paint. The results would have been of similar quality, and they could have paid in fresh produce. — Jim Butcher

What I've learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head. First there's the vinegar-lipped Reader Lady, who says primly, "Well, that's not very interesting, is it?" And there's the emaciated German male who writes these Orwellian memos detailing your thought crimes. And there are your parents, agonizing over your lack of loyalty and discretion; and there's William Burroughs, dozing off or shooting up because he finds you as bold and articulate as a houseplant; and so on. And there are also the dogs: let's not forget the dogs, the dogs in their pen who will surely hurtle and snarl their way out if you ever stop writing, because writing is, for some of us, the latch that keeps the door of the pen closed, keeps those crazy ravenous dogs contained. — Anne Lamott

There are times when I just can't bring myself to sit down and write and I'm never sure whether it's pure laziness or lack of courage - there's always the thought in the back of my mind that my writing won't be good enough. — Kate Cary

It was helpful to have the confidence of youth that came from a lack of desperation. I thought, 'If I don't succeed, I'll go back to school and study.' — Olivia Wilde

There is an old cliche, 'You can see the glass half empty, or you can see it half full.' You can focus on what's wrong in your life, or you can focus on what's right. But whatever you focus on, you're going to get more of. Creation is an extension of thought. Think lack, and you get lack. Think abundance, and you get more. — Marianne Williamson

My father-in-law and I always had great interest in Indian sport. At the Athens Olympics, watching the wrestling event, we started discussing the state of Indian sport - inadequate representation, lack of satisfactory results etc. We thought we should do something about it. — Amit Bhatia

Please tell me you're not chastising me over my lack of
manners right now. Because if I thought that were true, I just might get
one of those stupid shrimp forks your mother insisted we have and jam it
into your eye. — Christine Bell

Religion is the root of so much misery in the world, and I've always thought there is lack of criticism against it. — Bjorn Ulvaeus

We lack the sense of our own visibility as we lack that of distances, imagining as quite close to us the interested attention of people who on the contrary never give us a thought, and not suspecting that we are at the same moment the sole preoccupation of others. — Marcel Proust

And I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in; and, thinking of the safety and prosperity of the one sex and of the poverty and insecurity of the other and of the effect of tradition and of the lack of tradition upon the mind of a writer, — Virginia Woolf

I don't feel pressure, because I do what I want to do. I don't feel pressure at all. I've never done any movies because I thought this was what somebody wanted me to do. I'm a bit more, for lack of a better word, selfish than that. But like I say in the movie, you do what you have to do so that you can do what you want to do. — Denzel Washington

Another real danger to young men is thoughtlessness and lack of consideration. Lack of thought is one simple reason why thousands of souls are cast away forever. Men will not consider,-will not look forward,-will not look around them,-will not reflect on the end of their present course, and the sure consequences of their present ways,-and awake at last to find they are damned for lack of thinking. — J.C. Ryle

Everyone said I had a boyish look about me. The Thunderdome manager Axel mentioned the same thing when I arrived for my first fight. Why does a sweet boy like you want to get your ass kicked? I just smiled at his comment since I never had a talent for the kind of trash talking that made so many men scary. As a teenager, I practiced acting tough in front of the mirror. I always ended up laughing because even I didn't believe the bullshit coming out of my mouth. Though tall and strong, I'd never be scary.
Every guy I'd fought over the years thought he could take me in less than a minute. Even now as Dragon, I never scared anyone. Their lack of fear was what made the first punch so perfect. The moment my opponents realized they were fucked. — Bijou Hunter

If the onset of wrinkles in middle age were referred to as laughter lines, then to look at him, Scott thought, Twinkle's life must have been hilarious. He had sharp eyes that often seemed to visually contradict the lack of intelligence that could be derived from listening to him talk. There might not be a lot to respect in Twinkle, but Scott liked him. He just didn't want to end up like him. — R.D. Ronald

If we were committing an injustice, we ought to think about it, and decide if it was necessary and inevitable, or if it was only the result of taking the easy way out, of laziness, of a lack of thought. It was a question of rigor. I knew that these decisions were made at a much higher level than our own; still, we weren't automatons, it was important not just to obey orders, but to adhere to them; yet I was having doubts, and that troubled me. Finally — Jonathan Littell

Am I missing something because of my lack of education? Being an intellectual - I'm not. So I hire him as a corner man, like a boxer; he watches me and tells me what I do wrong before I go in for the next round. Barry thought he was going to write what became Executioner's Song, and I told him he wasn't going to. And Barry's closest friend was Joan Didion. — Lawrence Schiller

It seems to me that my lack of faith is not, as I once thought, a triumph of the rational mind, but rather a failure of the imagination - an inability to tolerate mistery. — Zoe Heller

Condemning Nyasha to whoredom, making her a victim of her femaleness, just as I had felt victimised at home in the days when Nhamo went to school and I grew my maize. The victimisation, I saw, was universal. It didn't depend on poverty, on lack of education or on tradition. It didn't depend on any of the things I had thought it depended on. Men took it everywhere with them. Even heroes like Babamukuru did it. And that was the problem. You had to admit Nyasha had no tact. You had to admit she was altogether too volatile and strong-willed. You couldn't ignore the fact that she had no respect for Babamukuru when she ought to have had lots of it. But what I didn't like was the way that all conflicts came back to the question of femaleness. Femaleness as opposed and inferior to maleness. — Tsitsi Dangarembga

Do you understand, mortal?" Eanrin said. "We Faerie know it's the spirit that counts, and all else is malleable. Beauty or ugliness; brawn or frailty; height or lack thereof
these appearances can be exchanged with scarcely a thought! But the truth ... now, that's another issue. The truth of the thing, the person behind what you perceive with any of your paltry five senses ... Creature of dust, it's the truth that counts! And you'll rarely find more truth than in Faerie tales."
With those words, the golden man dwindled into the golden cat, and try as he might, the Chronicler could perceive him as nothing else. But he was still Eanrin, and he smiled, pleased with himself.
"That wasn't a half-bad monologue. Do you find yourself inspired to new heights of ambition? — Anne Elisabeth Stengl

She thought suddenly that she was wrong about his lack of emotion: the hidden undertone of his manner was enjoyment. She realized that she had always felt a sense of light-hearted relaxation in his presence and known that he shared it. He was the only man she knew to whom she could speak without strain or effort. This, she thought, was a mind she respected, an adversary worth matching. — Ayn Rand

It turns out that the word atheism means much less than I had thought. It is merely the lack of theism. — Dan Barker

But this book is about something else: what goes on in the lives of real people when the industrial economy goes south. It's about reacting to bad circumstances in the worst way possible. It's about a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it. The problems that I saw at the tile warehouse run far deeper than macroeconomic trends and policy. too many young men immune to hard work. Good jobs impossible to fill for any length of time. And a young man [one of Vance's co-workers] with every reason to work - a wife-to-be to support and a baby on the way - carelessly tossing aside a good job with excellent health insurance. More troublingly, when it was all over, he thought something had been done to him. There is a lack of agency here - a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself. This is distinct from the larger economic landscape of modern America. — J.D. Vance

She turned back to the dude who stood with arms crossed over his broad chest, radiating impatience and hostility. Sexy as hell. She was tired from lack of sleep, exhilarated by the thought of what the day might bring, but she sure as heck wasn't blind. — Toni Anderson

I never thought to ascribe my mother's emotional and physical exhaustion to the lack of a husband and father; rather, I ascribed it to my existence. In other words, I grew up learning the exact opposite of what Eisenhower was taught. I learned that if I didn't exist, the family would be better off. I grew up believing that if I had never been born, things would be easier for the people I loved. (page 35) — Donald Miller

Love is so much more deadly than I had thought, love is so much inherent as the very lack, and we are guaranteed by a need to be renewed continuously. Love is now, is forever. There is just the blow of grace - call it passion. — Clarice Lispector

If we hold the poverty thought, the penury thought, the thought of lack, we cannot demonstrate abundance. We must hold the plenty thought if we would reach plenty. — Orison Swett Marden

Squires thought her need for alone time was a sign of depression. In the end, it was a lack of solitude that triggered her descent into depression. Like Squires, many introverts receive the wrong message about solitude.

Our extroverted culture makes introverts feel despicable for wanting to be alone. Like thieves snatching something that doesn't belong to them, we have to "steal" a moment of solitude. If only introverts could see that we have a right to our alone time. We have a right to enjoy it too. — Michaela Chung

I was deeply disturbed by the meeting. If I couldn't do what I thought was necessary to take care of the troops, I didn't see how I could remain as secretary. I was in a quandary. I shared Obama's concerns about an open-ended conflict, and while I wanted to fulfill the troop requests of the commanders, I knew they always would want more - just like all their predecessors throughout history. How did you scale the size of the commitment to the goal? How did you measure risk? But I was deeply uneasy with the Obama White House's lack of appreciation - from the top down - of the uncertainties and inherent unpredictability of war. "They all seem to think it's a science," I wrote in a note to myself. I came closer to resigning that day than at any other time in my tenure, though no one knew it. During — Robert M. Gates

To use strong language, she thought, was a sign of bad temper and lack of concern for others. Such people were not clever or bold simply because they used such language; each time they opened their mouths they proclaimed I am a person who is poor in words. — Alexander McCall Smith