Quotes & Sayings About Making It Count

We were making our own history every day, trying to make it count. — Katie Delahanty

Life is political, not because the world cares about how you feel, but because the world reacts to what you do. The minor choices we make are a kind of vote, making it more or less likely that free and fair elections will be held in the future. In the politics of the everyday, our words and gestures, or their absence, count very much. — Timothy Snyder

Writing is about space. It's about what's not said. About showing rather than telling. About making every word count. — Jeff Goins

When coming to making kids: Size doesn't count, it's sperm count that counts. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

They tried picturing leaving Uncle Monty and living by themselves, trying to find jobs and take care of each other. It was a very lonely prospect. The Baudelaire children sat in sad silence awhile, and they were each thinking the same thing: They wished that their parents had never been killed in the fire, and that their lives had never been turned topsy-turvy the way they had. If only the Baudelaire parents were still alive, the youngsters wouldn't even have heard of Count Olaf, let alone have him settling into their home and undoubtedly making evil plants — Lemony Snicket

Sure, it may be one step forward and two steps back, but after a time with Parkinson's, I've learned that what is important is making that step count; always looking up. — Michael J. Fox

I am like a remnant of a cloud of autumn uselessly roaming in the sky, O my sun ever-glorious! Thy touch has not yet melted my vapour, making me one with thy light, and thus I count months and years separated from thee.
If this be thy wish and if this be thy play, then take this fleeting emptiness of mine, paint it with colours, gild it with gold, float it on the wanton wind and spread it in varied wonders.
And again when it shall be thy wish to end this play at night, I shall melt and vanish away in the dark, or it may be in a smile of the white morning, in a coolness of purity transparent. — Rabindranath Tagore

82/ The truth is that writing is simply not reliable. You can't count on it to be there just because you've made time for it. In fact, making space might make it disappear. — Kim Addonizio

I am not going to let him win, Guillaume. Not this time. I could not keep him from making my mother pay the price for our failed rebellion. Fifteen years she has been his prisoner, fifteen years! And she is his prisoner, for all that she no longer wants for a queen's comforts. I have had to submit to his demands and subject myself to his whims and endure the indignity of having him brandish the crown before me as he would tease a dog with a bone. But no more. I will not let him rob me of my birthright, and I will not let him keep me from honoring my vow to defend the Holy Land. I do think he is behind that very opportune rebellion in my duchy, and I would not put it past him to be conniving with the Count of Toulouse, either. And if by chance he did not, it is only because he did not think of it. No, a reckoning is long overdue, and we will have it at Bonsmoulins. — Sharon Kay Penman

It was generally agreed that a coffin-size studio on Avenue D was preferable to living in one of the boroughs. Moving from one Brooklyn or Staten Island neighborhood to another was fine, but unless you had children to think about, even the homeless saw it as a step down to leave Manhattan. Customers quitting the island for Astoria or Cobble Hill would claim to welcome the change of pace, saying it would be nice to finally have a garden or live a little closer to the airport. They'd put a good face one it, but one could always detect an underlying sense of defeat. The apartments might be bigger and cheaper in other places, but one could never count on their old circle of friend making the long trip to attend a birthday party. Even Washington Heights was considered a stretch. People referred to it as Upstate New York, though it was right there in Manhattan. — David Sedaris

It takes an incredibly strong person to walk away from someone they love," Jenks said, holding up two fingers as if making a list. "Especially knowing they will do something asinine, like shopping when their blood count is so low they ought to be in the hospital. You should give her credit for respecting you like that. — Kim Harrison

Each day when the train stopped, we'd lean out of the car and try to count the number of bodies thrown. It grew every day. I noticed Jonas kept track of the children, making marks with a stone on the floor board of the car. I looked at his marks and imagined drawing little heads atop each one - hair, eyes, a nose, and a mouth. — Ruta Sepetys

And that's what it's about, isn't it? Love? Love's about making it last, making it stick, making it count - even when it hurts, when times are hard, when people change, when life changes them. If you love someone, then you have to want to love them, whoever they are. — Rowan Coleman

It came to her that he was going to leave without making love to her. This would mean they had made love for the last time this morning. But that did not count: this morning they did not know it was for the last time. When the door shut behind him, she still could not believe it. "It can't end like this," she said to herself over and over, drumming with her knuckles on her mouth to keep from screaming. — Mary McCarthy

It's easy to let life deteriorate into making a living instead of making a life. It's not the hours you put in, but what you out into the hours that count. Learn to express rather than impress. Expressing evokes a me too attitude while impressing evokes a so what attitude. — Jim Rohn

... "It was fun tonight. But you know what would be even more fun?" "What's that?" she asks. "Making out with you in my car when we get back to your place. You know, to see how foggy we can get the glass?" "That does sounds like fun. Count me in." By the time I walked her to her door, I couldn't see anything outside of my windows. — Sawyer Bennett

The truth is that writing is simply not reliable. You can't count on it to be there just because you've made some space for it. In fact, making space might make it disappear. You tell yourself you can't write in the middle of your daily life, with all its distractions and commitments, and when you finally clear the decks, light off for someplace scenic or at least private, you sit there completely paralyzed. You have devoted yourself to writing, but it has not returned your devotion. If writing were a person, you would be in an abusive relationship. The healthy thing to do would be to get a restraining order and shut it right out of your heart. — Kim Addonizio

You're kidding," Shane said. "Do you think I want to visit Crazy McTeeth in his lair of insanity?"
"No," Claire said, "but I'm pretty sure you won't like it if I go alone when I just kind of promised to be with you. So ... ?"
"Right. I've been missing Nutty McFang anyway."
"Stop making up names for him."
"What about Count Crackula?"
"Just stop. — Rachel Caine

So how do you count in Happiness? It's a little different, but just as easy to learn. In Happiness, you count by making a list of five things that make you happy. Do this daily. Some things will appear on your list every day, and some things will be new from one day to the next. — Valerie Alexander

The Making of Friends Life is sweet because of the friends we have made And the things which in common we share; We want to live on, not because of ourselves, But because of the ones who would care. It's living and doing for somebody else On that all of life's splendor depends, And the joy of it all, when we count it all up, Is found in the making of friends ... — Edgar Guest

I wish she had half a clue what seeing that happy face does for me. I can't quite explain it to myself, but I really wish she could know. It's like when she does it, it's all I can see and I want more of it. Especially after the day we've had. I always want her making happy faces. — Melyssa Winchester

Law is never so necessary as when it has no ethical significance whatever, and is pure law for the sake of law. The law that compels me to keep to the left when driving along Oxford Street is ethically senseless, as is shewn by the fact that keeping to the right answers equally well in Paris; and it certainly destroys my freedom to choose my side; but by enabling me to count on everyone else keeping to the left also, thus making traffic possible and safe, it enlarges my life and sets my mind free for nobler issues. Most laws, in short, are not the expression of the ethical verdicts of the community, but pure etiquette and nothing else. What they express is the fact that over most of the field of social life there are wide limits within which it does not matter what people do, though it matters enormously whether under given circumstances you can depend on their all doing the same thing. — George Bernard Shaw

It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones
I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be for ever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant. — Jean Webster

The Congresswoman was depressed by the fact that a woman of her standing could no longer count on making it to the rest room "in time" during the extensive rehabilitation that followed her shooting. Her husband, commander of a space shuttle crew, encouraged her by identifying with her limitation. Even revered astronauts, he revealed, have bodily limits and have to rely on Huggies during extended launch exercises. — Gabrielle Giffords

It's fine to live in the now. but the best thing about now is that there's another one tomorrow. i'm going to start making them count. — Tim Tharp

Like the wheeling of stars,' muttered the Count as he paced.
"That is how time passes when one is left waiting unaccountably. The hours become interminable. The minutes relentless. And the seconds? Why, not only does every last one of them demand its moment on the stage, it insists upon making a soliloquy full of weighty pauses and artful hesitations and then leaps into an encore at the slightest hint of applause. — Amor Towles

I count it as an absolute certainty that in paradise, everyone naps. A nap is a perfect pleasure and it's useful, too. It splits the day into two halves, making each half more manageable and enjoyable. How much easier it is to work in the morning if we know we have a nap to look forward to after lunch; and how much more pleasant the late afternoon and evening become after a little sleep. If you know there is a nap to come later in the day, then you can banish forever that terrible sense of doom one feels at 9 A.M. with eight hours of straight toil ahead. Not only that, but a nap can offer a glimpse into a twilight nether world where gods play and dreams happen. — Tom Hodgkinson

I know all his sounds because I never sleep. Up all night, sleep all day there are names for women like me. Women like me don't sleep. We know that the night is no friend of us. Night does things, brings people, swallows you up. Night never makes you forget but it enters dreams to make you remember. Night is a game where I wait, I count off until I see the little pink streak cut through our window and I go outside to see the sun rise over the sea. And congratulate myself for making it, because I swear, every night. Every night. — Marlon James

Julian placed her purse in the front seat. "She's got a loaded double-deuce in her purse, Peterson, though I'm not sure she knows how to use it. And be sure to book her on one count of falsifying information on a driver's license while you're at it."
"What?" she cried. "You're just making stuff up!"
He pulled off his shades, met her gaze, saw the outrage and disbelief in her eyes. "It says you weigh one-fifteen, but i know for a fact you're not a pound under one-twenty."
Her cheeks flushed crimson. "Oooh! — Pamela Clare

It isn't the big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones. — Jean Webster

Most people miss their whole lives, you know. Listen, life isn't when you are standing on top of a mountain looking at a sunset. Life isn't waiting at the alter or the moment your child is born or that time you were swimming in a deep water and a dolphin came up alongside you. These are fragments. 10 or 12 grains of sand spread throughout your entire existence. These are not life. Life is brushing your teeth or making a sandwich or watching the news or waiting for the bus. Or walking. Every day, thousands of tiny events happen and if you're not watching, if you're not careful, if you don't capture them and make them COUNT, your could miss it. You could miss your whole life. — Toni Jordan

We can't fully appreciate a picturesque sunset if we're wishing it would never rain again. We can't fully enjoy a moment of true connection if we're wishing we'd never feel alone again. We can't fully savor a relaxing day if we're wishing we'd never be busy again. The key to happiness is to focus less on making moments last and more on making the moments count. — Lori Deschene