Let's Make Things Work Quotes & Sayings

Apparently nobody really read it, it was a cheap movie, it fit their schedule in terms of things so fine, let the guy make that high school comedy. I used to work with Mel Brooks so they figured oh it's going to be one of those really silly movies and that's how it got made. — Barry Levinson

From his vantage point on the window sill, The Dude cocked a rear leg back over his head and proceeded to lick at his private parts with a thoroughness that would make a lesser man blush. I shook my head at the sight and mumbled, "Show off," in the animal's general direction. For a moment the tiny kitten hesitated, leg still extended behind its head, face still over its crotch. It narrowed its eyes at me, let out a displeased sound, then promptly got back to work.
I suppose there are worse things than being a cat. — Emmett Spain

Grit isn't something you're born with, Carter says. It's something you can learn and exercise, like a muscle. If you're a parent, you can teach grit. How? Let your children struggle. A little challenge, a little anguish, even, is good for them. When children learn to resolve their own conflicts, without Mom or Dad swooping in to the rescue, they build grit, self-confidence, and the creative problem-solving skills that lead to higher academic achievement.14 Teach them to try new things, she says, to take risks, follow inklings, see if they turn into passions, work hard, maybe master something, maybe make mistakes, but love the journey itself, not the reward. — Brigid Schulte

Trickle-down economics So long as power remains privately concentrated, everybody, everybody, has to be committed to one overriding goal, and that's to make sure that the rich folk are happy - because, unless they are, nobody else is going to get anything. So, if you're a homeless person sleeping in the streets of Manhattan, let's say, your first concern must be that the guys in the mansions are happy - because, if they're happy, then they'll invest, and the economy will work, and things will function, and then maybe something will trickle down to you somewhere along the line. But if they're not happy, everything's going to grind to a halt, and you're not even going to get anything trickling down. — Noam Chomsky

Don't take no for an answer. Don't let yourself get pushed around, and don't be afraid to be the bad guy. Find a producer who will be there to back you up when things get difficult. Make sure you work with key crew that you trust. — Ruba Nadda

At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages, mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud pies and call it modelling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work. Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have - I believe the English already use the phrase - "parity of esteem." An even more drastic scheme is not impossible. Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma - Beelzebub, what a useful word! - by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's attempts to spell out 'A Cat Sat On A Mat'. — C.S. Lewis

Brothers are not like sisters [ ... ] They don't call each other every week. They don't have secret worlds to share. Can you think of two brothers who are really, inseparably close? No, for brothers it's a different set of rules. Like it or not, we're held to the bare minimum. Will you be there for him if he needs you? Of course. Should you love him without question? Absolutely. But those are the easy things. Do you make him a large part of your life, an equal to a wife or a best friend? At the beginning, when you're kids, the answer is often yes. But when you get to high school, or older? Do you tell him everything? Do you let him know who you really are? The answer is usually no. Because all these other things get in the way. Girlfriends. Rebellion. Work. — David Levithan

BAD PEOPLE
A man told me once that all the bad people
Were needed. Maybe not all, but your fingernails
You need; they are really claws, and we know
Claws. The sharks - what about them?
They make other fish swim faster. The hard-faced men
In black coats who chase you for hours
In dreams - that's the only way to get you
To the shore. Sometimes those hard women
Who abandon you get you to say, "You."
A lazy part of us is like a tumbleweed.
It doesn't move on its own. Sometimes it takes
A lot of Depression to get tumbleweeds moving.
Then they blow across three or four States.
This man told me that things work together.
Bad handwriting sometimes leads to new ideas;
And a careless god - who refuses to let people
Eat from the Tree of Knowledge - can lead
To books, and eventually to us. We write
Poems with lies in them, but they help a little. — Robert Bly

WE CAN'T SAVE OURSELVES We need God. We all need to repent of trying to extend his kingdom in our own strength. We need him to change things. The great news is that he delights in helping us when we listen, trust, and obey him. Don't we want to make a difference and see God turn around the decline in Christianity? Don't we want to see our family members and friends find Jesus as Savior? Then let's draw closer to God and talk with him. This is what sincere believers in Christ have done for hundreds of years. And when they have, miracles happened. Nowhere in the Bible did God ever promise that anything would "work," except him. If you're a Christian who is bewildered and disheartened by the things you see going on, or if you're a pastor or church leader who is discouraged by a lukewarm church and lack of fruit, be sure of this promise: "Come near to God and he will come near to you" (James 4:8). — Jim Cymbala

We say we want revival . . . but on our terms. We don't pray this way, but this is what our hearts are saying to God: "Come Holy Spirit . . . but only if you promise in advance to do things the way we have always done them in our church." "Come Holy Spirit . . . but only if I have some sort of prior guarantee that when you show up you won't embarrass me." "Come Holy Spirit . . . but only if your work of revival is one that I can still control, one that preserves intact the traditions with which I am comfortable." "Come Holy Spirit . . . but only if your work of revival is neat and tidy and dignified and understandable and above all else socially acceptable." "Come Holy Spirit . . . but only if you plan to change others; only if you make them to be like me; only if you convict their hearts so they will live and dress and talk like I do." "Come Holy Spirit . . . but only if you let us preserve our distinctives and retain our differences from others whom we find offensive. — Sam Storms

The revolt. It will come. The Order cannot stand - evil cannot stand, not forever, anyway. In my homeland, when I was young, there used to be beauty, and there used to be freedom. They were shamed into giving up their lives, their freedom, bit by bit, to the cause of fairness to all men. People didn't know what they had, and let freedom slip away for nothing but the hollow promise of a better world, a world without effort, without struggle to achieve, without productive work. It was always someone else who would do these things, who would provide, who would make their lives easy. — Terry Goodkind

I spent years trying to outrun myself, Mel says. Trying to make enough noise to drown myself out. It makes me ashamed to admit this. But it's okay to let yourself catch up. It's okay if you work to catch up to the things that have happened to you. You do it for yourself. But also for the people around you. The people who deserve to experience you, undiluted, honest. Your genuine self, given to them. — Kayla Rae Whitaker

What you're doing is building a horrible kind of logic. People read what you write and they say, 'Yes, he is talking about things that really happen,' and they keep reading, and it makes sense to them. You're explaining things that can't be defended, and the explanations themselves are mad, just bizarre - but you offer them with such confidence. It was because she kept the chain on the door; it was because he needed to let off steam after a hard day's scraping and bowing at work; it was because she was irritating and stupid; it was because she lied to him, made a fool of him; it was because she had to die, she just had to, it makes dramatic sense; it was because 'nothing is more poetic than the death of a beautiful woman'; it was because of this, it was because of that. It's obscene to make such things reasonable. — Helen Oyeyemi

You try too hard to make life fit your way of doing things. If you don't want to spend time in an insane asylum, you have to open up a little more and let yourself go with life's natural flow. I'm just a powerless and imperfect woman, but still there are times when I think to myself how wonderful life can be! Believe me, it's true! So stop what you're doing this minute and get happy. Work at making yourself happy! — Haruki Murakami

When things in your life do not make sense, keep on praying. Ask God what He wants you to do, and let Him heal you on the inside. He understands that you and I are not perfect. We are works in progress, but we should let Him work within us. — Nick Vujicic

Whatever happens this season happens for a reason. But one thing we are sure of is that all things work for us, not against us! Let it come whatever may; by the grace of God, we gonna be victorious! — Israelmore Ayivor

I feel such a creative force in me: I am convinced that there will be a time when, let us say, I will make something good every day , on a regular basis ... I am doing my very best to make every effort because I am longing so much to make beautiful things. But beautiful things mean painstaking work, disappointment, and perseverance. — Vincent Van Gogh

I only know what it is that's wrong with him; not why it is."
And what is it?" asked Lucy fearfully, expecting some harrowing tale.
The old trouble; things won't fit."
What things?"
The things of the universe. It's quite true. They don't."
Oh Mr. Emerson, whatever do you mean?"
In his ordinary voice, so that she scarcely realized he was quoting poetry, he said:

"'From far, from eve and morning,
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I."

George and I both know this, but why does it distress him? We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all of life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice. I don't believe in this world of sorrow. — E. M. Forster

I understand there are inevitable things that we have to go through: heartbreak, family problems. I don't feel like some Quixotic idiot who says, 'We don't have to feel pain.' No! Let's feel it, let's make it work for ourselves. But I want us all to be able to get past it. — Drew Barrymore

You may live or work around a bunch of weeds, but don't let that stop you from blooming. Realize that your environment does not prevent you from being happy. Some people spend all their time trying to pull up all the weeds. Meanwhile, they miss much of their lives. Don't worry about things you can't change. You can't change the traffic in the morning. You can't fix everybody at work. You can't make all your family members serve God. But you shouldn't let that keep you from being happy. Bloom anyway and focus on the things that you can change. You can change your own attitude. You can choose to be happy right where you are. — Joel Osteen

When you get into a production, there are a lot of things you have to hit to make the show work - like my cues or a cue for another person or making sure you don't mess up the beat, and you can let all of that get in the way. — Matthew James Thomas

Pushing too hard will only make things freeze up. How many great problems have gone unsolved because men didn't know enough, or have enough faith in the creative process and in themselves, to let go for the whole mind to work at it? — Daniel Keyes

They haven't spoken about it, they haven't said what will we do when we leave here, do you want to come with me, let's work something out, and she knows that this means they will quickly and easily drift apart, into other people's lives, into other people's arms in rooms like this. She is surprised that this doesn't make her feel sad. She listens to the music, she looks around at the things people dropped when they fell asleep or went out of the room, she kisses the boy's arm again and she feels only a kind of sweet nostalgia. She wonders if you can feel nostalgic for something before it's in the past, she wonders if perhaps her vocabulary is too small or if her chemical intake has corroded it and the music goes doowah doowah doowah. — Jon McGregor

I think he decided to be one kind of guy but liking us is rattling that kind of guy and that's why he's gruff and grumpy. I think maybe we just leave him alone and be gentle and maybe things will work out. You can't make people be who they don't want to be yet. You just be gentle and let them get there themselves. — Brian Doyle

With ye, I don't want your land or money. I don't need power or prestige. I just want ye. I love ye, Aella. I love it when you're angry
and outspoken and killing things. I love ye when ye claw my back to
ribbons and scream to wake the dead. I love that ye are not meek or
mild, or willing to let others make your decisions." "Even if it does
drive you mental and I need to have the last word?" "Because ye do those
things." "So we're stuck together forever?" "And ever." "Seal it with a
kiss?" she asked with a sensuous smile. Her Scot did better than that.
He made short work of their clothes, his powerful hands ripping them
from their bodies while she laughed, a young, girlish sound, carefree
and wanton. — Eve Langlais

And what about us?" Catcher asked.
Gabriel's eyebrows lifted. "You're part of the mystery-solving gang, aren't you?"
Catcher muttered something unflattering, and Mallory nudged him. "I presume you want us to stay here tonight?" she asked.
"It would make things easier," Gabe said.
"So we'll sleep on the couch," Catcher said, "like we're twelve-year-olds at a slumber party."
"In fairness," Ethan said, "we don't all have to sleep on the couch."
"In fairness," Catcher said, "you can kiss my ass."
"Ladies," Mallory said. "Let's put on our big-girl panties. Merit and Ethan are already sleeping in the bedroom, and there's no point in making them move. Catcher and I can take the couch. The shifters will feel better if we make this work, and it's no great loss to any of us. — Chloe Neill

Don't let life's challenges discourage you. Some things are just out of your control. Make it work for you! The most painful lessons of the past can teach you how to survive in the present . — Carlos Wallace

Clear Your Mind Clearing your mind is the same as clearing your environment. Seeing a lot of stuff cluttered on the floor or disorganized in your cabinets can make you crazy. Your mind becomes confused with a lot of things that you see and this might cause you headaches. Try to organize your things in boxes, clean your room, fix your bed, sweep your floor, open your curtains to let the sunshine in and arrange things according to size or color. If you work on your desk, this is the best time to organize documents into folders, arrange them properly in drawers and throw out those that are not needed anymore. Making a habit of cleaning your environment can clear your mind and can make your life easier. — Kerry Elise

Life is painful and messed up. It gets complicated at the worst of times, and sometimes you have no idea where to go or what to do. Lots of times people just let themselves get lost, dropping into a wide open, huge abyss. But that's why we have to keep trying. We have to push through all that hurts us, work past all our memories that are haunting us. Sometimes the things that hurt us are the things that make us strongest. A life without experience, in my opinion, is no life at all. And that's why I tell everyone that, even when it hurts, never stop yourself from living. — Alysha Speer

Trust your instincts, follow your bliss, make plans, work hard, learn to let things go. Don't be late. Remember that fortune favors the brave. Live. If you need to run, try and run toward
something. Study for tests. Laugh at silly cartoons. Be organized. If you fall seven times,
get up eight. Always carry an extra pen. Believe you can do everything. Find your key. — Nina Lane

Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!
- Abigail — Arthur Miller

Let's work the problem, people. Let's not make things worse by guessing. — Gene Kranz

The biggest defeat in every department of life is to forget, especially the things that have done you in, and to die without realizing how far people can go in the way of crumminess. When the grave lies open before us, let's not try to be witty, but on the other hand, let's not forget, but make it our business to record the worst of the human viciousness we've seen without changing one word. When that's done, we can curl up our toes and sink into the pit. That's work enough for a lifetime. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

If you're going to make work and you're going to write and you're going to put yourself out there and perform, you will be belittled, you will be insulted, you will be called a standard collection of names, you will be accused, and you just have to stand there and continue to work and find a way to not let those things poison you. — Amanda Palmer

I think deeply about things and want others to do likewise. I work for ideas and learn from people. I don't like excluding people. I'm a perfectionist, but I won't let that get in the way of publication. Except for education and entertainment, I'm not going to waste my time on things that won't have an impact. I try to be friends with everyone, but I hate it when you don't take me seriously. I don't hold grudges, it's not productive, but I learn from my experience. I want to make the world a better place. — Aaron Swartz

I want you to always think of Mrs. Martin. And I want you always to remember that donkey. Never forget that fear and desire can lead you into life's biggest trap if you're not aware of them controlling your thinking. To spend your life living in fear, never exploring your dreams, is cruel. To work hard for money, thinking that it will buy you things that will make you happy is also cruel. To wake up in the middle of the night terrified about paying bills is a horrible way to live. To live a life dictated by the size of a paycheck is not really living a life. Thinking that a job makes you secure is lying to yourself. That's cruel, and that's the trap I want you to avoid. I've seen how money runs people's lives. Don't let that happen to you. Please don't let money run your life. — Robert T. Kiyosaki

Things just happen in the right way, at the right time. At least when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, 'This isn't supposed to be happening this way,' and trying harder to make it happen some other way. — Benjamin Hoff

I've been thinking about all the things I might have done differently. All the choices I didn't make. All the decisions that made and unmade me, all the actions and inactions I did or didn't take. With the shades drawn and the garbage overflowing, I've been thinking about all the bold steps I never took, all the gut instincts I didn't listen to, all the people I let down. I've been thinking about the cruel mathematics of my life, looking at my sums and wishing I'd shown my work. — Jonathan Evison

The critic said that once a year he read Kim; and he read Kim, it was plain, at whim: not to teach, not to criticize, just for love - he read it, as Kipling wrote it, just because he liked to, wanted to, couldn't help himself. To him it wasn't a means to a lecture or article, it was an end; he read it not for anything he could get out of it, but for itself. And isn't this what the work of art demands of us? The work of art, Rilke said, says to us always: You must change your life. It demands of us that we too see things as ends, not as means - that we too know them and love them for their own sake. This change is beyond us, perhaps, during the active, greedy, and powerful hours of our lives; but duringthe contemplative and sympathetic hours of our reading, our listening, our looking, it is surely within our power, if we choose to make it so, if we choose to let one part of our nature follow its natural desires. So I say to you, for a closing sentence, Read at whim! read at whim! — Randall Jarrell

Here's what I like about God: Trees are crooked, mountains are lumpy, a lot of his creatures are funny-looking, and he made it all anyway. He didn't let the aardvark convince him he had no business designing creatures. He didn't make a puffer fish and get discouraged. No, the maker made things - and still does. European film directors often enjoy creative careers, during which their films mature from the manifestos of angry young men to the rueful wisdom of great works by creative masters. Is an afternoon siesta the secret? Is their vita just a little more dolce? We've taken espresso to our American hearts, but we haven't quite taken to the "break" in our coffee breaks. Worried about playing the fool, we forget how to simply play. We try to make our creativity linear and goal oriented. We want our "work" to lead somewhere. We forget that diversions do more than merely divert us. — Julia Cameron

Things may get a little odd at times, but they work out. You don't have to try very hard to make them work out; you just let them. — Benjamin Hoff

The world needs you. There is large work to be done, good work, and you can make a difference. Whatever your life work, take it seriously and enjoy it. Let's never be the kind of people who do things lukewarmly. If you're going to ring the bell, give the rope one hell of a pull. I wish you the fullest lives possible - full of love and bells ringing. — David McCullough

Sometimes you just have to say, " ... I don't know what we are doing, let's just go and see what happens." You have to embrace the experience itself, so that things you didn't intend to happen can make your work more authentic. And you have to hope that it works — Wayne Coyne

What's the first sign of a lurking, hidden expectation you didn't know you had? Pain! People don't do what we want, things don't happen quickly enough, the weather doesn't cooperate, our bodies don't cooperate. Why are these moments so painful? Because our minds are focused on a static, unchanging, me-centric picture while the dynamic unfolding of a broader life continues around us. There is nothing wrong with expectations per se, as it's appropriate to set goals and work, properly, towards their fruition. But the instant we feel pain over life not going "my way," our expectations have clearly taken an improper turn. Any moment you feel resistance or pain, look for
and then let go of
the hidden expectation. Practice giving yourself over to what "you" don't want. Let the line at the store be long. Let the other person interrupt you. Let the nervousness make you shake. Be where your body is, not where your mind is trying to take you. — Guy Finley

There is no plan ... You need to make smart choices, But you can make career decisions for two different types of reasons.
You can do something for instrumental reasons
because you think it's going to lead to something else, regardless of whether you enjoy it or it's worthwhile ... or you can do something for fundamental reasons
because you think it's inherently valuable, regardless of what it may or may not lead to.
The dirty little secret is that insturmental reasons usually don't work. Things are too complicated, too unpredictable. You never know what' going to happen. So you end up stuck. The most successful people
not all of the time, but most of the time
make decisions for fundamental reasons.
They take a job or join a company because it will let them do interesting work in a cool place
even if they don't know exactly where it will lead. They're not fools. They're enlightened pragmatists. — Daniel H. Pink

Your YES! Attitude is permission... A YES! Attitude is your ability to think, listen, speak, and react in a positive way. Your YES! Attitude is permission... To see the good in things, not the bad. To see how to make bad things good. To see the opportunity and the resolve when an obstacle faces you. To see things from the what is right side, not the what is wrong side. To treat others the way you want to be treated. To encourage others when they need support. To never let the negative things affect you for more than five minutes. To (almost) never have a "bad day." To have something nice or humorous to say. To be internally happy. To work at maintaining your attitude every day. — Jeffrey Gitomer

Wanting to give her the best fit I could, I sand the knowledge I had learned from Snow Flower. Everyone needs clothing-no matter how cool it is in summer or how warm it is in winter-so make clothes for others without being asked. Even if the table is plentiful, let your in-laws eat first. Work hard and remember three things: Be god to your in-laws and always show respect, be good to your husband and always weave for him, be good to your children and always be a model of decorum to them. If you do these things, your new family will treat you kindly. In that fine home, be calm of heart. — Lisa See

All God's revelations are sealed to us until they are opened to us by obedience. You will never get them open by philosophy or thinking. Immediately you obey, a flash of light comes. Let God's truth work in you by soaking in it, not by worrying into it. Obey God in the thing He is at present showing you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. We read tomes on the work of the Holy Spirit when ... five minutes of drastic obedience would make things clear as a sunbeam. We say, "I suppose I shall understand these things some day." You can understand them now: it is not study that does it, but obedience. The tiniest fragment of obedience, and heaven opens up and the profoundest truths of God are yours straight away. God will never reveal more truth about Himself till you obey what you know already. Beware of being wise and prudent. — Oswald Chambers