Maybe You Re The Problem Quotes & Sayings

You and I read the same books and hear the same sermons and we come away with different messages. That has to be evidence of some serious problem, right? — Dave Eggers

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

We have no problems, only situations. Not all problems have solutions, but all situations have outcomes. — John Edward Gray

There are two kinds of people in boxing. Those who say, 'Oh, boy; Tom Hauser is writing an article about me,' and those who say, 'Big problem; Tom Hauser is writing an article about me.' — Jim Lampley

I think greed is a critical problem - the gap between the poor and the rich. The gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent. — Richard Rogers

We have to start encouraging women to get into math and science early on in life ... But to just say TechCrunch is perpetuating the problem because there aren't enough women speakers at our events is just a way to get attention and not solve the problem. So do we want to solve the problem, or do we want to just pick on me? — Michael Arrington

Writing of only one small part of the broader problem, namely the single-minded pursuit of individualistic 'rights,' [Don] Feder is not wrong to conclude:

Absent a delicate balance--rights and duties, freedom and order--the social fabric begins to unravel. The rights explosion of the past three decades has taken us on a rapid descent to a culture without civility, decency, or even that degree of discipline necessary to maintain an advanced industrial civilization. Our cities are cesspools, our urban schools terrorist training camps, our legislatures brothels where rights are sold to the highest electoral bidder. — D. A. Carson

This is the problem. An unconverted person may have great reasoning power and intellect, but when it comes to spiritual reality and the life of God and eternity, he makes no contribution. Whether it's Athens or Rome, whether it's Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, or Princeton, or wherever else, all the collected wisdom that is outside the Scripture adds up to nothing but foolishness. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

The problem with passion is it goes both ways. Love/Hate. The line between those two is a lot thinner than I thought. — Steph Campbell

Imagine saying to someone, "I have a kidney problem, and I'm having a lot of bad days lately." Nothing but sympathy, right? "What's wrong?" "My mom had that!" "Text me a pic of the ultrasound!" Then pretend to say, "I have severe depression and anxiety, and I'm having a lot of bad days lately." They just look at you like you're broken, right? Unfixable. Inherently flawed. Maybe not someone they want to hang around as much? Yeah, society sucks. My mental problems made me feel ashamed. I felt like I had to hide them until I could "work through it" on my own. Which I never did, because I didn't know how. And I didn't feel brave enough to make fixing my mind a priority because I didn't think anyone would understand. — Felicia Day

You are all desperate for purpose, even though you don't have one. You're animals, and animals don't have a purpose. Animals just are. And there are a lot of intelligent - sentient, maybe - animals out there who don't have a problem with that. They just go on breathing and mating and eating each other without a second thought. But the animals like you - the ones who make tools and build cities and itch to explore, you all share a need for purpose. For reason . That thinking worked well for you, once. — Becky Chambers

If responsibility for the upbringing of children is to continue to be vested in the family, then the rights of children will be secured only when parents are able to make a living for their families with so little difficulty that they may give their best thought and energy to the child's development and the problem of helping it adjust itself to the complexities of the modern environment. — Suzanne La Follette

But you're never taught in schools - we don't teach anyone in public schools that government is the problem. We don't teach anyone in college that government is the problem - except maybe a handful of sort of unique, conservative schools. But mainstream media never talks as if government is the problem. — Jonah Goldberg

The person who causes a problem may be the best person to solve it. — Steven Redhead

There is nothing more negligent than attempting to address a problem one finds on a branch than by censoring the leaves. — Saul Williams

If you put on a lousy production with white actors, it's lousy. There is a problem, or can be, at this stage of our social evolution, with mixing the casts. It may not be a question of race so much as class. You would rarely find a black man in a high executive position where he was swinging his weight around. — Howard Schultz

The only reason you will get hired is because the person hiring you believes you can help them solve their problem. Stop thinking you're "filling an opening;" you're not. You're actually solving a company's problem, and by solving their problem, they will solve yours. — Mayowa O Ajisafe

I figured I'd lay all my cards on the table. You're not having sex. I'm not having sex. Thought maybe we could work through our problem together."
"I don't have a problem."
"So why aren't you having sex, then?"
"Why aren't you?"
"Because I'd like to have it with you, and you haven't given in to me. Yet" He brought the beer to his lips and watched me as he drank.
"I can't believe we're having this conversation. You know I'm seeing someone."
"I do. That's why we're having this conversation. If you weren't seeing someone, I'd have you up on that kitchen island showing you what I want to do to you, rather than telling you."
"Is that so?"
He moved closer. "It is."
"What if I'm not into you in that way?"
Chase looked down, his eyes lingering on my nipples. My very erect nipples. "Your body says otherwise. — Vi Keeland

One of the things that adds tension to our lives is small frustrations. Losing car keys can give you a panic attack. Not being able to find a comb when you get out of the shower, losing scissors and nail clippers, can make you fight with your roommate. The problem is that we think that these things are not supposed to happen to us. And that's what makes us tense. We think we can avoid these frustrations by making ourselves and others be more careful. I like to take the opposite tack-to assume that these things are a part of life and that they will happen no matter what. — Jennifer James

Piracy is not the problem, obscurity is. — Seth Godin

We don't so much solve our problems as we outgrow them. We add capacities and experiences that eventually make us bigger than the problems. — Carl Jung

Once you're president, you can't go anywhere without causing trouble. President Obama shows up in China, he's chewing gum, they go crazy. A big stink because the president's chewing gum. And you think, the Chinese are so easygoing about human rights. What's the problem? — David Letterman

Actually I've never seen a cycle-maintenance problem complex enough really to require full-scale formal scientific method. Repair problems are not that hard. When I think of formal scientific method an image sometimes comes to mind of an enormous juggernaut, a huge bulldozer-slow, tedious, lumbering, laborious, but invincible. It takes twice as long, five times as long, maybe a dozen times as long as informal mechanic's techniques, but you know in the end you're going to get it. There's no fault isolation problem in motorcycle maintenance that can stand up to it. When you've hit a really tough one, tried everything, racked your brain and nothing works, and you know that this time Nature has really decided to be difficult, you say, "Okay, Nature, that's the end of the nice guy," and you crank up the formal scientific method. — Robert M. Pirsig

If the only thing wrong with Moses is that he's not yours; if the only thing wrong with Jesus is that he's not yours; if the only thing wrong with mosques, Lent, chanting, Mecca, Buddha, confession, or reincarnation is that they're not yours
well, maybe the problem is you. — Mitch Albom

The problem with suicide is that it seems so flamboyant. It's camp. You have to be a bit of a drama queen to ever seriously consider it. — Craig Ferguson

They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? — W.E.B. Du Bois

I know how to work a problem. Frustration is the enemy. It makes you do stupid things. So you don't let it beat you. Instead you search for landmarks, look for signs. The task takes every single bit of me I have left. It's good, this task, because it keeps my mind focused. — Carolyn Lee Adams

What your problem is, you're all just a raindrop. One of an endless number. If only you'd just accept it, things would be so much easier. Say it with me: I am a drop in the ocean. I am neighbour, nation, north, and nowhere. I am one among many and we all fall together.
Or maybe I'm just a rat with wings and I don't know what I'm talking about. — Stephen Kelman

Math. It's your favorite subject. Which surprises you. Last year your teacher tried to convince you that you had a real "aptitude" for math, but all you got in the end was a B minus. The truth is you weren't even trying. But then you got low Cs and Ds in all your other classes and you weren't trying there, either, so maybe you are good at math after all.
You like it because either you're right or you're wrong. Not like social studies and definitely not like English, where you always have to explain your answers and support your opinions. With math it's right or it's wrong and you're done with it. But even that's changing, my teacher said now you have to explain how you solved the problem and support your answer, saying that having the right answer isn't as important as explaining how you got it and bam, just like that, you hate math. — Charles Benoit

It's all about self-discipline. Like, self-obsession is connected completely with self-loathing, and it's the same with, if you've got a weight problem. It's all about ... finding some worth in yourself, knowing that you've got the discipline to do it, and knowing that other people maybe can't do it. And it's also, I think, really connected to the fact that you almost feel, like, silent, you have no voice, you're mute, there's just no, you've got no option. Even if you could express yourself nobody would listen anyway. Things that go on inside you, there's no other way to get rid of them. — Richey Edwards

Independence is the luxury of all those people who are too confident, and busy, and popular, and attractive to be just plain old lonely. And make no mistake, lonely is absolutely the worst thing to be. Tell someone that you've got a drink problem, or an eating disorder, or your dad died when you were a kid even, and you can almost see their eyes light up with the sheer fascinating drama and pathos of it all, because you've got an issue, something for them to get involved in, to talk about and analyse and discuss and maybe even cure. But tell someone you're lonely and of course they'll seem sympathetic, but look very carefully and you'll see one hand snaking behind their back, groping for the door handle, ready to make a run for it, as if loneliness itself were contagious. Because being lonely is just so banal, so shaming, so plain and dull and ugly. — David Nicholls

The problem with movies and books is they make evil look glamorous, exciting, when it's no such thing. It's boring and it's depressing and it's stupid. Criminals are all after cheap thrills and easy money, and when they get them, all they want is more of the same, over and over. They're shallow, empty, boring people who couldn't give you five minutes of interesting conversation if you had the piss-poor luck to be at a party full of them. Maybe some can be monkey-clever, some of the time, but they aren't hardly ever smart. — Dean Koontz

But the problem is that you don't dare to think about anything. You're afraid; you don't know where your thoughts might lead you. Everything inside you is confused. You keep your eyes closed and stay on the old path. They brought you here, I don't know why and it doesn't concern me, but you won't accept my explanations of human guilt. You think it's a joke. Maybe it is, but maybe one could develop quite a nice philosophical idea out of it — Mesa Selimovic

You may think that I should just somehow know what the problem is but give me some credit that I'm maybe not that smart. I'm a guy and you should know good and well that you can't expect me or any guy for that matter to automatically know or understand what's ticking away in any woman's mind. We're just not that smart. You gotta lay it out in front of us and hope that we can even get it that way. — Jack Dancer

If you're facing what looks like a large problem, receive it as a compliment from the Universe. What a great soul you must be! — Mary Morrissey

A man in this world must solve a problem: to be with Christ, or to be against Him. And every man decides this, whether he wants to or not. He will either be a lover of Christ or a fighter of Christ. There is no third option. — Justin Popovic

The problem is I want to do everything. I really love all of it, and I love every aspect of movie-making and storytelling, and I love television, I love the Internet. I wish I had time to do absolutely everything. — Joss Whedon

When faced with a problem, we have two options: solve it or wish for it to go away. If you don't solve it, it will never go away. — Vinita Kinra

The only difference between a drug and a computer is that one is slightly too large to swallow ... And our best people are working on that problem, even as we speak. — Terence McKenna

He looked like he wanted to eat you."
With that, I throw my head back and laugh. "That man has no problem finding a meal. I highly doubt he's starving."
She scrunches her nose to show me she doesn't agree. "Well, maybe he just spotted something new on the menu. You know men and their food; they have to try a little bit of everything until they're completely satisfied. — K.K. Allen

Are you going to continue to scold me?" "Is that what I'm doing?" "I think so." "You're lucky I'm just scolding you." "What do you mean?" "Well, if you were mine, you wouldn't be able to sit down for a week after the stunt you pulled yesterday. You didn't eat, you got drunk, you put yourself at risk." He closes his eyes, dread etched briefly on his face, and he shudders. When he opens his eyes, he glares at me. "I hate to think what could have happened to you." I scowl back at him. What is his problem? What's it to him? If I was his ... Well, I'm not. Though maybe part of me would like to be. The thought pierces through the irritation I feel at his high-handed words. I flush at the waywardness of my subconscious - she's doing her happy dance in a bright red hula skirt at the thought of being his. — E.L. James

What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice. — Ronald Reagan

The only problem with him and Henry was they were like Charlie Brown and Lucy. The only difference was once in a while Henry would hold onto the football so Eddie could kick it
not often, but once in a while. Eddie had even thought, when in one of his heroin dazes, that he ought to write Charles Schultz a letter. Dear Mr. Schultz, he would say. You're missing a bet by ALWAYS having Lucy pull the football up at the last second. She ought to hold it down there once in a while. Nothing Charlie Brown could ever predict, you understand.
Sometimes she'd maybe hold it down for him to kick three, even four times in a row, then nothing for a month, then once, and then nothing for three or four days, and then, you know, you get the idea. That would REALLY fuck the kid up, you know? — Stephen King

The main problem is just that people think that other people care about them way more than they do. Anything that you do, that requires anyone to do an ounce of work that's about you, is a mistake. Because unless you are Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, or David Letterman, or just a really, really giant celebrity, or you're maybe at the center of a media storm where everyone is trying to get in touch with you, people don't want to have to do any work to remember who you are, what you're selling, or what your website is. — Mandy Stadtmiller

Here's what I think I'm having trouble with: this is what happiness is. When I was a kid, I thought I'd just get happier and happier as I got older, and have more things to be happy about. I based this theory on observation of select adults. The problem with my results is that I couldn't tell the difference then between happy and fake-happy. Now I know you pretend to be just frigging ecstatic over everything, maybe because you're so glad it's not worse. — Emma Bull

The problem with playing hide-and-seek with your sister is that sometimes she gets bored and stops looking for you.And there you are - under the couch, in the closet, wedged behind the lilac tree - and you don't want to give up,because maybe she's just biding her time. But maybe she's wandered off. ... Maybe she's downstairs watching TV and eating the rest of the Pringles.You wait. You wait until you forget that you're waiting, until you forget that there's anything to you beyond stillnessand quiet; an ant crawls over your knee, and you don't flinch. And it doesn't matter now whether she's coming for you - the hiding is enough. (You win when no one finds you, even if they're not looking.)When you break from behind the tree, it's because you want to. It's the first breath after a long dive. Branches snapunder your feet, and the world is hotter and brighter.
Ready or not, here I come. Here I come, ready or not. — Rainbow Rowell

I keep thinking that maybe you and I could take a road trip and tell all the girls we meet along the way that we're both vets. You've got a messed up face and my war wounds have put me in this chair. You think they'd believe it? Maybe then I could get some action. Problem is, how am I going to get a handful of tit if I can't lift my arms? — Amy Harmon

I put my head on his shoulder
'Wh-what are you doing?' he yells, shoving me away from him with wide eyes.
'I was giving you a hug!' I say.
'Y-you-!'
'Pff. D'you really think I'd do that? I'm trying to keep warm, idiot. You're like my overgrown Furby.'
'I'm in a human form, not my kytaen!'
'Tomayto, tomahto.' I come close to him.
He pushes me away. 'You shouldn't be doing that!'
'What's the problem? You said you're my tool, right? Well, I'm cold, tool of mine, so why don't you calm the hell down and give me some of that sweet, sweet warmth?'
'Don't touch me!'
'I'm starting to think you're self-conscious in this form. You let me cuddle you in your other-'
'We did not cuddle!' he shouts.
I manage a grin. 'Would you prefer I use a different word? Snuggle, maybe? — Giselle Simlett

Maybe the problem was that we never struggled. We just coasted along. The thing about coasting is that it usually means you're going downhill. — Molly Harper

The problem with being a second-generation Californian is you're not objective about California itself. I think a lot of people come here for the comfort of it, or to reinvent themselves, and maybe creative people are natural searchers, searching for someplace to be. The lifestyle becomes very appealing--Clint Eastwood — Barbara Isenberg

There is no problem that is not actually a gift. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Let me put it this way: You cannot live in the world without being in pain, spiritual and physical pain. We have developed mechanisms to deal with these pains, to overcome them somehow. Therapy, religion and spirituality, relationships, material success. All this can work, but also become a problem itself.
The pursuit of happiness has even been put into the American constitution a couple centuries ago. Today we're so rich, we own much more than we need, we have liberties unknown before, even though they are endangered in the current political climate in the US - and we forget how wonderful it nevertheless is, compared to most other political and economic systems. We have a saying that goes: Give a man enough rope and he hangs himself. — David Foster Wallace

In the 1970's and in early 1980's, a startling discovery was made that almost every problem contains an element of solutions. — Insoo Kim Berg

By acknowledging a petty problem you give it existence and credibility. The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him; and a small mistake is often made worse and more visible when you try to fix it. It is sometimes best to leave things alone. If there is something you want but cannot have, show contempt for it. The less interest you reveal, the more superior you seem. — Robert Greene

Play for young children is not recreation activity, It is not leisure-time activity nor escape activity. Play is thinking time for young children. It is language time. Problem-solving time. It is memory time, planning time, investigating time. It is organization-of-ideas time, when the young child uses his mind and body and his social skills and all his powers in response to the stimuli he has met. — James L Hymes

And so the problem remained; — Douglas Adams

This basic problem of relevance-cum-subservience has been given an added twist in the modern world, where relevance has become not only hollow but fragile and short-lived. A wider range of choices, a deeper uncertainty of events, a more pressing need for new styles - all this makes for an accelerating turnover of issues, concerns and fads. Nothing tires like a trend or ages faster than a fashion. Today's bold headline is tomorrow's yellowing newsprint. Thus the relevance-hungry liberals achieve relevance, but their victory is Pyrrhic. It is precisely as they win that they lose. As they become relevant to one group or movement, they become irrelevant to another and find themselves rudely dismissed. Far from being in the avant-garde, Christian liberals trot smartly behind the times. Far from being genuinely new or radical, they catch up and announce their discoveries breathlessly, only to see the vanguard disappearing down the road on the trail of a different pursuit. — Os Guinness

Clary raised her eyebrows at Jace. "You hate bergamot?"
Jace had wandered over to the narrow bookshelf and was examining its contents. "You have a problem with that?"
"You may be the only guy my age I've ever met who knows what bergamot is, much less that it's in Earl Grey tea."
"Yes, well," Jace said, with a supercilious look, "I'm not like other guys. Besides," he added, flipping a book off the shelf, "at the Institute we have to take classes in basic medicinal uses for plants. It's required."
"I figured all your classes were stuff like Slaughter 101 and Beheading for Beginners. — Cassandra Clare

The most serious political problem posed by filter bubbles is that they make it increasingly difficult to have a public argument. — Eli Pariser

Is typecasting really a problem? — Christopher Walken

Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the artist is eternally but to draw, by a geometry of his own, the circle within which they shall happily appear to do so. — Henry James

I wish I had been less keen to inject my own opinions, but I was a teenager and your teenage self is generally an idiot compared to the adult you. That's the way it should be. If it's the other way around, you have a problem. — Emma Forrest

Americans have a tendency to believe that when there's a problem there must be a solution. — Henry Kissinger

The stark racial differences in crime rates undoubtedly impact black-white relations in America. So long as they persist, young black men will make people nervous. Discussions about the problem can be useful if they are honest, which is rare. Liberals don't help matters by making excuses for counterproductive behavior. Nor does the media by shying away from reporting the truth. — Jason L. Riley

Anything can be an instrument, Chugurh said. Small things. Things you wouldn't even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. It's just a coin. For instance. Nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. to separate the act from the the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, it's just a coin. Yes. That's true. Is it? — Cormac McCarthy

The problem I want to talk to you about tonight is the problem of belief. What does it mean to believe? We use this word all the time, and I think behind it lurk some really extraordinary taboos and confusions. What I want to argue tonight is that how we talk about belief- how we fail to criticize or criticize the beliefs of others, has more importance to us personally, more consequence to us personally and to civilization than perhaps anything else that is in our power to influence. — Sam Harris

If Pelagius had solved the problem of sin and human responsibility by arguing that humans are perfectly capable of doing whatever they want, Augustine solved it by saying that humans deliberately act against the good ideals that they don't know and are selfish, greedy, lustful, stubborn, and proud. In his words, people are non posse non peccare, "not able not to sin," because even the good things that we do are not out of love for God but for some lesser purpose. — Justin S. Holcomb

The biblical counselor must always remember that the ROOT problem is deeper than skin; it is sin. The ultimate cure is not culture, but Christ. — James MacDonald

To centralize power in the name of freedom is akin to putting a crime syndicate in charge of rooting out corruption. It is the normal state of politics that the more centralized it is, the more damage it does. Fast-track authority [for government-to-government trade agreements] centralizes power and is therefore part of the problem. — Llewellyn Rockwell

As Solomon said in the Old Book, if two women squabble over which of them is the mother of a certain infant, the way to solve the problem is to cut the baby in half and share the baby in parts. — Gregory Maguire

People often need to describe things quickly and so they use a shorthand. The problem is that after they use a label, they begin to think only in terms of the label instead of the totality of the experience a novel provides. — Akhil Sharma

Much of what I have learned, as well as much of my intellectual enjoyment, has come through problem solving. Through the years, I've found it more and more difficult to tell when I was working and when playing, for it has so often turned out that what I have learned playing with problems has been useful in my serious work. — Frederick Mosteller

I believe anything has to be possible. You have to be able to face any problem that comes along and unravel it into a solution. — Jon Oringer

The problem is, we're all using social networks as distribution instead of native platforms to actually tell stories. — Gary Vaynerchuk

If I have to do something, I feel I should do it perfectly, and ofcourse, Hindi language is a problem. — Soundarya

Sitting there, watching the shades of evening settle slowly on the drab little town, it seemed to me that nothing but blind blundering vengeance, howsoever camouflaged, awaits all those who dare to step out of its stifling confines. It is a confrontation whose outcome is as certain as the end of solitary boats beating against a maelstrom. — Arun Joshi

Kids are never the problem. They are born scientists. The problem is always the adults. They beat the curiosity out of kids. They outnumber kids. They vote. They wield resources. That's why my public focus is primarily adults. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Only when one thinks even much more madly than the philosophers can one solve their problems. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

But the problem is, people tend to assign you the role of the person you are at your worst, you know? — Jill Shalvis

In a startup, both the problem and solution are unknown. — Eric Ries