Not Like This Quotes & Sayings

If they did it like they did it in '96 or whenever, just picking it from one meet, what if someone had the meet of their life but they're not usually a good competitor? That could be really bad for the team. So, I think this is the best way. — Carly Patterson

Remember, the conventional wisdom is, "Yeah, you can do this like [Donald] Trump has done it during the primaries, buuuut once you get to the general, it's not about national votes. It's about states! It's about swing states. It's about battleground states. And you've gotta have targeted expenditures, great ads running against your opponent in those swing states." — Rush Limbaugh

Because we lack a divine Center our need for security has led us into an insane attachment to things. We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. 'We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like'. Where planned obsolescence leaves off, psychological obsolescence takes over. We are made to feel ashamed to wear clothes or drive cars until they are worn out. The mass media have convinced us that to be out of step with fashion is to be out of step with reality. It is time we awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick. Until we see how unbalanced our culture has become at this point, we will not be able to deal with the mammon spirit within ourselves nor will we desire Christian simplicity. — Richard J. Foster

This is how women are trained to stay indoors, she thought, the idea echoing in her mind like a gravesong. This is how women are trained not to act. — Erika Johansen

In. Long inhale. Out. Low snort. In. long inhale. Out. Low snort.

Oh God. If he keeps breathing like this, I may just pick up my pillow and smother him. I can almost hear myself in court testifying, "The breathing, your honor. He just wouldn't stop. In. Out. In. Out. Over and over. Driving me crazy. I just had to end it." Hell, even I know that defense won't work. Not unless the judge is a woman who's been married for over five years. Then maybe I'd probably have a shot. — K.M. Jackson

I'm not really worried about my numbers now as a 36-year-old. I'm not trying to be the first, experimental case of a 36-year-older trying to maintain his numbers, especially when I'm on a team like this. Can I do the same stuff I could do when I was Amare's age? Of course not. I'm not going to even try. However, I feel that I'm the baddest 36-year-old out there. — Shaquille O'Neal

I'm not sure I ever made a woman come with my mouth before I met you," he admits. "I love kissing you there. And I love your ass, it's perfect." With this, I feel his length stir against my stomach as his hands squeeze me. "I like any kind of sex with you, but I prefer being on top of you ... You make missionary feel dirty the way you grab and move under me. — Christina Lauren

When David Fincher called me up a few years ago and said, 'Hey, I'd like you to score this film 'The Social Network,' I said, 'I'm flattered, but I really don't have any real experience scoring films, and I'd rather not screw it up on a high-profile project. And I like you and I don't want to compromise our friendship.' — Trent Reznor

Westcliff sees an odd sort of logic in why you would finally be the one to win St. Vincent's heart. He says a girl like you would appeal to ... hmm, how did he put it? ... I can't remember the exact words, but it was something like ... you would appeal to St. Vincent's deepest, most secret fantasy."
Evie felt her cheeks flushing while a skirmish of pain and hope took place in the tired confines of her chest. She tried to respond sardonically. "I should think his fantasy is to consort with as many women as possible."
A grin crossed Lillian's lips. "Dear, that is not St. Vincent's fantasy, it's his reality. And you're probably the first sweet, decent girl he's ever had anything to do with."
"He spent quite a lot of time with you and Daisy in Hampshire," Evie countered.
That seemed to amuse Lillian further. "I'm not at all sweet, dear. And neither is my sister. Don't say you have been laboring under that misconception all this time? — Lisa Kleypas

You are not just going to vanish like this, Karou. This isn't some goddamn Narnia book. — Laini Taylor

Playing characters who are wonderful and beautiful is hard because you don't feel like that most of the time ... well, I don't. It's like this whole heart-throb nonsense. It's flattering, but that's not how I feel in the morning. It's something that goes with the job. — Hans Matheson

Like my hero Virginia Woolf, I do lack confidence. I always find that the novel I'm finishing, even if it's turned out fairly well, is not the novel I had in my mind. I think a lot of writers must negotiate this, and if they don't admit it, they're not being honest. — Michael Cunningham

Mr. Bloemker moved closer. He smelled like a wet diaper. "What is it," he asked, looking over Lenore's shoulder.
"If it's what I think it is," said Lenore, "it's a sort of joke. A what do you call it. An antinomy."
"An antinomy?"
Lenore nodded. "Gramma really likes antinomies. I think this guy here," looking down at the drawing on the back of the label, "is the barber who shaves all and only those who do not shave themselves."
Mr. Bloemker looked at her. "A barber?"
"The big killer question," Lenore said to the sheet of paper, "is supposed to be whether the barber shaves himself. I think that's why his head's exploded, here."
"Beg pardon?"
"If he does, he doesn't, and if he doesn't, he does. — David Foster Wallace

The fact remains that books that really put gay people in the center, and especially books that do so in a way that is sexually explicit, tend not to get a great deal of mainstream attention: they don't tend to sell well, and they don't tend to win major awards. This makes the occasional exception, like Alan Hollinghurst, all the more remarkable. — Garth Greenwell

Later, the talk turned to all the other guys/girls who were currently hot for the two of them. 'There's this total dweeb named Robert who's always calling me, and I feel bad because he's really nice, but I'm totally not interested,' Phoebe told Pablo.

'Believe me, I know what that's like,' Pablo told Phoebe. 'There's this girl at Hunter who's, like, obsessed with me. She's, like, this big fat girl. Ass like a truck. She's always writing me these love letters. Maybe I should fuck her. You know, just to be nice.' (Smile, smile.)

'You're so bad.' (Phoebe shaking her head; Pablo loving it; Phoebe loving it, too. What was more ego-enhancing than making dumb jokes at the expense of ugly women? Phoebe could never decide whom she hated more--other people or herself.) — Lucinda Rosenfeld

You know God does not manifest Himself," Halgan shouted. "That is also heresy. The Revelation is not corporeal. You know this. Why do you persist in this perverted speech?"
"I like perverted. Maybe you would, too, if you gave it a chance."
"Leave my men alone," Rakan said coldly. "Degenerate."
Ringil smooched a kiss at him. — Richard K. Morgan

Today with technological advancement, with the Internet, with planes, with the rate at which we travel - even if you wanted, you cannot hide from the rest of the world. And whether you like it or not, you are part of this global marketplace, and so you might as well understand it, you might as well embrace it, because even if you hide, it will find you. — Wangari Maathai

Children who have the freedom to explore a variety of things and discard them when they no longer make sense do not feel like failures when they choose to drop something. Instead they see it as another experience from which to learn a bit about something and a lot about themselves. This is a much better attitude than the child who is forced to stay, being told to suck it up and stick it out, who begins to feel powerless and resentful. As an adult this child is more likely, for example, to stay in an unhappy career so as not to look or feel like a failure, though he will definitely feel trapped. — Pam Laricchia

Maybe it's the fact the most of the arts here are produced by world-weary and sophisticated older people and then consumed by younger people who not only consume art but study it for clues on how to be cool, hip - and keep in mind that, for kids and younger people, to be hip and cool is the same as to be admired and accepted and included and so Unalone. Forget so-called peer-pressure. It's more like peer-hunger. No? We enter a spiritual puberty where we snap to the fact that the great transcendant horror is loneliness, excluded encagement in the self. Once we've hit this age, we will now give or take anything, wear any mask, to fit, be part-of, not be Alone, we young. The U.S. arts are our guide to inclusion. A how-to. We are shown how to fashion masks of ennui and jaded irony at a young age where the face is fictile enough to assume the shape of whatever it wears. And then it's stuck there, the weary cynicism that saves us from gooey sentiment and unsophisticated naivete. — David Foster Wallace

I think what Pope Francis is saying is that nobody's perfect, you know? And so someone like Joe Biden, you know, where - you know, when he was running for president, people were - there were some bishops that were like don't let him have the Eucharist. And Pope Francis is saying that's not the point of this. — Jim Gaffigan

We need to reflect with great seriousness about why many young people don't feel like getting married ... For fear of failure, many do not want to even think about it ... Many people believe the change that has taken place in recent decades was set in motion by the emancipation of women. But this argument is not valid, it is an insult, a form of misogyny. — Pope Francis

This is a part of post-college life that nobody ever warns you about. Your social life is no longer dropped into your lap by virtue of shared classes and extracurricular activities. Relationships, whether with friends, family, or romantic partners - from here on out, they're going to take a lot more work. No more built-in friends at the sorority, or hollering down the stairs when I need my mom. It's certainly not going to be as easy to meet guys now that I'm done with school. It's not like I can just chat up the cute guy in econ class anymore. — Lauren Layne

Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape
all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can't stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain. — Pema Chodron

A big part of (Janice) Marturano's success in bringing mindfulness to this unlikely venue was that she talked about it not as a "spiritual" exercise but instead as something that made you a "better leader" and "more focused," and that enhanced your "creativity and innovation." She didn't even like the term "stress reduction." "For a lot of us," she said, "we think that having stress in our lives isn't a bad thing. It gives us an edge. — Dan Harris

I will make this world a better place, whether they like it or not. That's the fun of being Queen. — Amanda Hocking

Confused by the emotion of the day, and feeling his being there with this Double of coarse deportment, to be like a dream, Charles Darnay was at a loss how to answer; finally, answered not at all. "Now your dinner is done," Carton presently said, "why don't you call a health, Mr. Darnay; why don't you give your toast?" "What health? What toast?" "Why, it's on the tip — Charles Dickens

Your stepfather? I'd like to meet him."
Oh no ... why?
"I'm not sure that's a good idea."
Christian unlocks the door, his mouth in a grim line.
"Are you ashamed of me?"
"No!" It's my turn to sound exasperated. "Introduce you to my dad as what? 'This is the man who deflowered me and wants to start a BDSM relationship'. You're not wearing running shoes. — E.L. James

Sentences are made wonderfully one at a time. Who makes them. Nobody can make them because nobody can what ever they do see.
All this makes sentences so clear I know how I like them.
What is a sentence mostly what is a sentence. With them a sentence is with us about us all about us we will be willing with what a sentence is. A sentence is that they cannot be carefully there is a doubt about it.
The great question is can you think a sentence. What is a sentence. He thought a sentence. Who calls him to come which he did.
... What is a sentence. A sentence is a duplicate. An exact duplicate is depreciated. Why is a duplicated sentence not depreciated. Because it is a witness. No witnesses are without value. — Gertrude Stein

To The Lilies among Thistles, Just like a lily, a beautiful life does not just happen overnight. It is built daily through informed choices, commitment, faith and prayer. The journey towards becoming A Proverbs 31 Lady cannot therefore be taken lightly. It is a difficult, challenging journey filled with both laughter and tears, but a fulfilling one as you will soon find out. If you commit to becoming this woman just one day at a time, it will change not just your relationships but also your whole life.Consider it as a challenge, from one virtuous woman to the other. — Mary Maina

What is your collective GPA for this year?"
"Not as high as I'd like it to be."
Freud steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. "What about your parents?"
"I don't know. They haven't been in school for a while. — Nenia Campbell

Only other backpackers will understand what it's like to leave home to follow your dreams. Those pals back home will nod along, listening to your travel tales, but for them it's just words and pretty pictures. For you, everything has changed and you look around feeling like an alien in the most foreign place you have visited: home. That's why it's called a travel bug - you literally get bitten with this desire to keep moving and keep exploring, as the life you had back home isn't enough any more and may not ever be enough again. — Katy Colins

I believe that, your art is like a time capsule for where you were at, where your mentality was at, at that specific or that particular space in time. A lot of times people want the same thing over and over again; I'm not going to give you that, I'm just not. So, I want my fans to continue to grow with me and let's take this journey, because it ain't gon' never stop. — Jon Connor

While there is widespread recognition that the War on Drugs is racist and that politicians have refused to invest in jobs or schools in their communities, parents of offenders and ex-offenders still feel intense shame - shame that their children have turned to crime despite the lack of obvious alternatives. One mother of an incarcerated teen, Constance, described her angst this way: "Regardless of what you feel like you've done for your kid, it still comes back on you, and you feel like, 'Well, maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I messed up. You know, maybe if I had a did it this way, then it wouldn't a happened that way.'" After her son's arrest, she could not bring herself to tell friends and relatives and kept the family's suffering private. Constance is not alone. — Michelle Alexander

People write books for children and other people write about the books written for children but I don't think it's for the children at all. I that all the people who worry so much about the children are really worrying about themselves, about keeping their world together and getting the children to help them do it, getting the children to agree that it is indeed a world. Each new generation of children has to be told: 'This is a world, this is what one does, one lives like this.' Maybe our constant fear is that a generation of children will come along and say: 'This is not a world, this is nothing, there's no way to live at all. — Russell Hoban

It was not just the drink, though, that was making me happy, but the tenderness of things, the simple goodness of the world. This sunset, for instance, how lavishly it was laid on, the clouds, the light on the sea, that heartbreaking, blue-green distance, laid on, all of it, as if to console some lost suffering waybarer. I have never really got used to being on this earth. Somethings I think our presence here is due to a cosmic blunder, that we were meant for another planet altogether, with other arrangements, and other laws, and other, grimmer skies. I try to imagine it, our true place, off on the far side of the galaxy, whirling and whirling. And the ones who were meant for here, are they out there, baffled and homesick, like us? No, they would have become extinct long ago. How could they survive, these gentle earthlings, in a world that was meant to contain us? — John Banville

About the same time I came in contact with another Christian family. At their suggestion I attended the Wesleyan church every Sunday. For these days I also had their standing invitation to dinner. The church did not make a favourable impression on me. The sermons seemed to be uninspiring. The congregation did not strike me as being particularly religious. They were not an assembly of devout souls; they appeared rather to be wordly-minded people, going to church for recreation and in conformity to custom. Here, at times, I would involuntarily doze. I was ashamed, but some of my neighbours, who were in no better case, lightened the shame. I could not go on long like this, and soon gave up attending the service. — Mahatma Gandhi

The old Squire was an implacable man: he made resolutions in violent anger, and he was not to be moved from them after his anger had subsided - as fiery volcanic matters cool and harden into rock. Like many violent and implacable men, he allowed evils to grow under favour of his own heedlessness, till they pressed upon him with exasperating force, and then he turned round with fierce severity and became unrelentingly hard ... Godfrey knew all this, and felt it with the greater force because he had constantly suffered annoyance from witnessing his father's sudden fits of unrelentingness, for which his own habitual irresolution deprived him of all sympathy. (He was not critical on the faulty indulgence which preceded these fits; that seemed to him natural enough.) — George Eliot

I remember my son wanted to go to bed with his cowboy boots on, and we had this fight for like an hour. Then I realized that the only good reason I had for him not to do it is because I didn't want him to. There was really no other reason. And finally I said, "OK, fine." It was a great victory for me, because I realized it doesn't really matter. — Michael J. Fox

Someone with a low degree of epistemic arrogance is not too visible, like a shy person at a cocktail party. We are not predisposed to respect humble people, those who try to suspend judgement. Now contemplate epistemic humility. Think of someone heavily introspective, tortured by the awareness of his own ignorance. He lacks the courage of the idiot, yet has the rare guts to say "I don't know." He does not mind looking like a fool or, worse, an ignoramus. He hesitates, he will not commit, and he agonizes over the consequences of being wrong. He introspects, introspects, and introspects until he reaches physical and nervous exhaustion.
This does not necessarily mean he lacks confidence, only that he holds his own knowledge to be suspect. I will call such a person an epistemocrat; the province where the laws are structured with this kind of human fallibility in mind I will can an epistemocracy. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I was never a 'bad' kid, but I did get into minor juvenile trouble. Look, I grew up in Brooklyn. This was the '60s, and the neighborhood was rapidly changing and not without its problems. All the kids of the neighborhood 'did their thing,' breaking windows and the like. I was no different. — William Forsythe

I thought that deserved a book and feel like the door needs to be open so people can say, "Ok, here we go, let's deal with this" because we're not dealing with it. I'm waiting for somebody to write another book but it hasn't happened yet, though I guess mine's only been out for a year and a half. — Brad Warner

It's not like we grew up hanging around in church every day. We'll always stick to what we feel is right for us to do, and I don't think either of us have had a hard time saying, 'This is who I am, and I'm fine with it.' — Josh Dun

Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless; this would be to overcome nature, to reshape God's handiwork. If God bade man annihilate the passions he has given him, God would bid him be and not be; He would contradict himself. He has never given such a foolish commandment, there is nothing like it written on the heart of man, and what God will have a man do, He does not leave to the words of another man. He speaks Himself; His words are written in the secret heart. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Some say their world's will end with fire, some say with ice. From what I've tasted with desire I hold with those who favor fire. My world may not be ending, even though it feels like it. I do know this however, what doesn't kill you only mke you stronger. — Genesis

And this is the straight dope, right here. These people are not exactly human. They don the dress but they're like monkeys dolled up in the circus. They're clever and can learn, but that is all. — Philip K. Dick

Yeah, things are better for blacks and women and gays, but it was the blacks and women and gays that did it, not fuck-ups like this bunch. Whites and straights came along to give help, all right, after the blacks said 'enough' and got their heads busted, and it's the same for the gays and the women. The whites and straights, they control things, and they could have changed it anytime. — Joe R. Lansdale

Every sensitive person should make his point of view let known, at least, to one person other than yourself on every subject that gets you worked up. This is basic to every social being. And like theory of vibration it gains momentum as the time passes. However, it also happens that it can turn out to be wasted effort. Because we are common people. The fact that we are of no consequence, so are our utterances and statements, makes us indifferent to a lot of issues and situations around us. However, in a set-up we live in, it becomes incumbent upon every educated individual to air our views for the general good of all. Like wise, as public-spirited individuals we must believe in doing something, rather than grumble at home over the breakfast table that the World is not a pleasant place. After all, lighting a lamp is wiser than cursing the darkness. — Manasa Rao

Those of us who are working with these strange substances trying to find the best way of using them, both in the treatment of illnesses and for the exploration of the human mind, need men like Bishop to come forward and explain that our purposes are serious and good, to emphasize that this is not a diversion, an amusement or an attempt to relieve people of their spare cash.

-Robert Dickins — Cameron Adams

Each man must not think only of himself, but also of his buddy fighting beside him. We don't want yellow cowards in this Army. They should be killed off like rats. If not, they will go home after this war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the Goddamned cowards and we will have a nation of brave men. — George S. Patton

Eeyore", said Owl, "Christopher Robin is giving a party."
"Very interesting," said Eeyore. "I suppose they will be sending me down the odd bits which got trodden on. Kind and Thoughtful. Not at all, don't mention it."
"There is an Invitation for you."
"What's that like?"
"An Invitation!"
"Yes, I heard you. Who dropped it?"
"This isn't something to eat, it's asking you to the party. To-morrow."
Eeyore shook his head slowly.
"You mean Piglet. The little fellow with the exited ears. That's Piglet. I'll tell him."
"No, no!" said Owl, getting quite fussy. "It's you!"
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. Christopher Robin said 'All of them! Tell all of them'"
"All of them, except Eeyore?"
"All of them," said Owl sulkily.
"Ah!" said Eeyore. "A mistake, no doubt, but still, I shall come. Only don't blame me when it rains. — A.A. Milne

Yet, even allowing for these failings, was not St John Clarke still a person more like myself than anyone else sitting round the table? That was a sobering thought. He, too, for longer years, had existed in the imagination, even though this imagination led him (in my eyes) to a world ludicrously contrived, socially misleading, professionally nauseous. On top of that, had he not on this earlier occasion gone out of his way to speak a word of carefully hedged praise for my own work? Was that, therefore, an aspect of his critical faculty for which he should be given credit, or was it an even stronger reason for guarding against the possibility of corruption at the hands of one whose own writings could not be approved? — Anthony Powell

You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book ... or you take a trip ... and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken. — Anais Nin

Life in Christ is like traveling on a metro link train, with a predetermined destination. You are not the driver, Jesus is, and God provided the route on this one time trip. He plotted everything, the date and the time of your travel and arrival. There will be stops and delays along the way, but remember this, at the bottom of a traffic light is always a green light. — Rolly Lavapie

III
But may I, when alone again I have the city's crush
and tangled noise-skein and the furor
of its traffic all around me,
may I above the mindless swirl
recall sky and the gentle mountain rim
on which the far-off herd curved homeward.
May my spirit be hard as rock
and the shepherd's life to me seem possible-
the way he drifts and turns brown in the sun and with a practiced
stone-throw mends his flock, whenever it frays.
Steps slow, not light, his body pensive,
but in his standing there, majestic. Even now a god
might enter this form and not be lessened.
He lingers for a while, then moves on, like the day itself,
and shadows of the clouds
pass through him, as though space were slowly
thinking thoughts for him. — Rainer Maria Rilke

You give me a credit to which I have no claim in calling me "the writer of the Constitution of the United States." This was not, like the fabled Goddess of Wisdom, the offspring of a single brain. It ought to be regarded as the work of many heads and many hands. — James Madison

Thus, it does not seem clear (to us) that there is truly a unified research program here, under the name of materialism. The apparent consensus could be something of a mirage, with the only thing holding it together being a denial of the Soul Hypothesis. If so, it begins to look more like a shared assumption than a shared discovery. And of course there can be consensuses based on fashion and the spirit of the age, as well as consensuses based on observation and reason. Even scientists must always be on guard to make sure they are part of the latter rather than the former. The honorable mantle of the scientist conveys no inherent infallibility in this regard. — Mark C. Baker

It is when we think we can act like God, that all respect is lost, and I think this is the downfall of peace. We lie if we say we do not see color and culture and difference. We fool ourselves and cheat ourselves when we say that all of us are the same. We should not want to be the same as others and we should not want others to be the same as us. Rather, we ought to glory and shine in all of our differences, flaunting them fabulously for all to see! It is never a conformity that we need! We need not to conform! What we need is to burst out into all these beautiful colors! — C. JoyBell C.

I heard a horrible, stomach-turning crack that vibrated up my arms. Ari and I stared at each other in shock. "You really hurt me," he gasped rawly, terrible surprise in his voice. "I wouldn't hurt you. Not like this." Then his head flopped down, and Ari went totally limp. His — James Patterson

The inability of Americans to value intellect is, to me, maddening. If someone possesses physical beauty they will not be cloistered or hidden in dark shadows. No, they are expected to be a source of pleasing scenery to others. We are not frightened in this country by beauty. We celebrate it, as we should. But what about beautiful brains, the kind that create amazing worlds out of nothing but thoughts, that can find a way to intricately bond elements of our lives that common wisdom tells us are inert? Why should anyone hide this intellect ever? No. Fuck boring financiers like Warren Buffett...there is no such thing as unnecessary beauty, physical or intellectual. — Stuart Rojstaczer

She knew her duty inside and out. The prosperity of the cash drawer brought happiness to husband and wife. Not that Madame Puta was bad looking, not at all, she could even, like so many others, have been rather pretty, but she was so careful, so distrustful that she stopped short of beauty just as she stopped short of life - her hair was a little too well dressed, her smile a little too facile and sudden, and her gestures a bit too abrupt or too furtive. You racked your brains trying to figure out what was too calculated about her and why you always felt uneasy when she came near you. This instinctive revulsion that shopkeepers inspire in anyone who goes near them who knows what's what, is one of the few consolations for being as down at heel as people who don't sell anything to anybody tend to be. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I'll speak any goddamn way I like. This is my bloody place, and because of you, it's got fucking gunshot holes in the walls and dead bodies all over. Not to mention, a rabid rabbit bit my leg. A wolf, that's respectable. A caribou gore, a fine battle wound, but getting chewed on by a bloody bunny, I won't have it. I want you out! — Eve Langlais

The voices of fear are so loud today. The voices of love should never shout, but neither should they whisper - not at a time like this. — Marianne Williamson

My emotional range is limited. I can't do grief, but rage is my friend. For instance, I hate death by sickness. It is nothing like Homer, the Old Testament, and Tolkien led me to expect. It is not noble and awe-inspiring. No one delivers a final soliloquy. It is as abrupt and banal as the flicking of a switch. The squiggly line on the monitor straightens out, the defibrillator doesn't even go whomp, the epinephrine is useless, the nurse doing CPR looks up and even before the doctor pronounces the words, you know. This is not what death should be. Death, the reason for religion, the subject of great literature, the certainty we spend our lives warding off, the giant mystery that looms over everything we do, death should be spectacular, not pity-inducing, a bang and not a whimper. A huge ball of fire, a shower of sparks, a final charge into the ranks of your enemies, a terrific explosion, a backward dive into the fiery pit. Not ... this. — Jessica Zafra

I never really understood that massive collaboration involving hundreds of people is what makes movies possible, and it's also why I would agree that curiosity is not the most important human trait; the urge to collaborate is. Heck ... only we have the ability to cooperate to make like online communities and space telescopes and imaginariums and movies. So the great thrill of this whole experience [my novel being made into a movie] for me was ..seeing humanity do what it's best at, which ultimately is not competing but cooperating. — John Green

Dogmatic religion has been used to fantastic effect over thousands of years to fuel and exploit emotions like fear and guilt, and the feeling of being 'unworthy'. This has encouraged people to hand over their right to think and feel to a Bible and a priest because they have not had the confidence or self-belief to realize that they have a right, and an infinite gift, to make their own decisions — David Icke

What are you? (Nick)
Completely perplexed. You remember everything that happened. (Acheron)
Yeah. Duh. Not like you're going to forget the killer zombie stalkers and psyched-out kitchen staff. What kind of freak show is this? (Nick) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

What is surprising is not the magnitude of our forecast errors, but our absence of awareness of it. This is all the more worrisome when we engage in deadly conflicts: wars are fundamentally unpredictable (and we do not know it). Owing to this misunderstanding of the causal chains between policy and actions, we can easily trigger Black Swans thanks to aggressive ignorance-like a child playing with a chemistry kit. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I didn't say, "I'll call you." I didn't hug her because of the wet clothes. Just a quick kiss. Then I turned and left. I made my way quietly down the hallway to the stairwell. I could tell she thought she wasn't going to see me again. I had to admit she might be right. The knowledge was as damp and dispiriting as my sodden clothes. I came to the first floor and looked out at the entranceway of the building. For a second I pictured the way she had hugged me here. It already seemed like a long time ago. I felt an unpleasant mixture of gratitude and longing, streaked with guilt and regret. And in a flash of insight, cutting with cold clarity through the fog of my fatigue, I realized what I hadn't been able to articulate earlier, not even to myself, when she'd asked me what I was afraid of. It had been this, the moment after, when I would come face to face with knowing that it would all end badly, if not this morning, then the next one. Or the one after that. — Barry Eisler

Would you not like to fill up a whole note-book at the street crossings when you see a forger borne along upon the necks of six porters, and exposed to view on this side and on that in his almost naked litter, and reminding you of the lounging Maecenas: one who by help of a scrap of paper and a moistened seal has converted himself into a fine and wealthy gentleman? — Juvenal

She struggled. She became uncomfortable. She longed for more freedom and began to sense that the world she inhabited was not where she ultimately belonged. She did not know what was on the other side of her struggle, but she was getting ready to experience something new and wonderful that in her wildest imaginings could not be described. Darrel ... she was getting ready to breathe. "And when she finally drew that first breath, it was clean and fresh and like nothing she had ever felt. She took another breath and another - and all around her, loved ones and friends cheered in a joyous celebration of her arrival." Jones looked closely at the woman's face. "Look at her now, Darrel," he said. "For many years this dear child was happy and content in — Andy Andrews

God is dead. Let us not understand by this that he does not exist or even that he no longer exists. He is dead. He spoke to us and is silent. We no longer have anything but his cadaver. Perhaps he
slipped out of the world, somewhere else like the soul of a dead man. Perhaps he was only a dream ... God is dead. — Jean-Paul Sartre

I don't want you to change, Bridgette. I'm not in love with who you could be, or who you used to be, or who the world says you should be. I'm in love with you. Right now. Just like this. — Colleen Hoover

I like the idea of bringing cartoon characters to life ... and although the Americans have already attempted this, their culture is not sufficiently humane to make it work. — Gerard Depardieu

We all love each other, Ange," I said impatiently, hating this whole conversation. "No, not like this," she went on relentlessly. "Fang loves you." ... My mouth dropped open. How does she know this stuff? "Forget it! No one's getting married!" I hissed. "Not in New Hampshire or anywhere else! Not in a box, not with a fox! Now go to sleep, before I kill you! Oh yeah, like I got any sleep after that. - pg 35 — James Patterson

It was one of those rare times of shared happiness, of perfect contentment. We had a feeling of expectation, that what was already wonderful would only get better and better as time went on. These moments are one of the rarest, most fragile things in the world. You have to seize the day; you have to recall all the rotten, dirty things you endured to earn this peace. You have to remember to enjoy each minute, each hour, because although you may feel like it's going to last forever, the world plans otherwise. You want to be grateful for every precious second, but you simply can't do it. It's not in human nature to live life to the fullest. Haven't your ever noticed that equal amounts of pain and joy are not, in fact, equal in duration? Pain drags on until you wonder if life will ever be bearable again; pleasure, though, once it's reached its peak, fades faster than a trodden gardenia, and your memory searches in vain for the sweet scent. — George Alec Effinger

The forty days of the soul begin on the morning after death. That first night, before its forty days begin, the soul lies still against sweated-on pillows and watches the living fold the hands and close the eyes, choke the room with smoke and silence to keep the new soul from the doors and the windows and the cracks in the floor so that it does not run out of the house like a river. The living know that, at daybreak, the soul will leave them and make its way to the places of its past ... and sometimes this journey will carry it so far for so long that it will forget to come back. — Tea Obreht

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

Why the delay? Why does God let evil and pain so flagrantly exist, even thrive, on this planet? ... He holds back for our sakes. Re-creation involves us; we are, in fact, at the center of his plan ... the motive behind all human history, is to develop us, not God. Our very existence announces to the powers in the universe that restoration is under way. Every act of faith by every one of the people of God is like the tolling of a bell, and a faith like Job's reverberates throughout the universe. — Philip Yancey

Desire is the outcome of sensation - the outcome with all the images that thought has built. And this desire not only breeds discontent but a sense of hopelessness.
Never suppress it, never discipline it but probe into the nature of it - what is the origin, the purpose, the intricacies of it? To delve deep into it is not another desire, for it has no motive; it is like understanding the beauty of a flower, to sit down beside it and look at it. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

We therapists often make inaccurate assumptions about people living with DID and DDNOS. They often appear to be "just like us," so we often assume their experience of life reflects our own. But this is profoundly untrue. It results in a communication gap, and, as a consequence, treatment errors. Because the dominant culture is one of persons with a single sense of self, most with multiple "selves" have learned to hide their multiplicity and imitate those who are singletons (that is, have a single, non-fragmented personality). Therapists who do not understand this sometimes describe their clients' alters without acknowledging their dissociation, saying only that they have different "moods." In overlooking dissociation, this description fails to recognize the essential truth of such disorders, and of the alters. It was difficult for me to comprehend what life was like for my first few dissociative clients. — Alison Miller

The conservative does not defend the Old Regime; he speaks on behalf of old regimes - in the family, the factory, the field. There, ordinary men, and sometimes women, get to play the part of little lords and ladies, supervising their underlings as if they all belong to a feudal estate . . . The task of this type of conservatism---democratic feudalism - -becomes clear: surround these old regimes with fences and gates, protect them from meddlesome intruders like the state or a social movement, while descanting on mobility and innovation, freedom and the future. — Corey Robin

I'm like a ventriloquist chasing his own voice. I can whisper and shout at the same time, and this is the closest approximation I have to a description of love. I would offer you something to drink, but I'm not in the kitchen, even though it may sound like I am. — Jarod Kintz

Writers tend to hate recurring characters; there's this writer snob thing about it. But I don't have that. I feel like the challenge is always to find a cool and innovative way to do it and, obviously, to not repeat your jokes. — Ana Gasteyer

You reach a certain age when reality grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shouts in your face:"Hey, look, this is what life is." And you have to open your eyes and look at it, listen to it, smell it: people who don't like you, things you don't want to do, things that hurt, things that scare you, questions without answers, feelings you don't understand, feelings you don't want but have no control over.
Reality.
When you gradually come to realise that all that stuff in books, films, television, magazines, newspapers, comics - it's all rubbish. It's got nothing to do with anything. It's all made up. It doesn't happen like that. It's not real. It means nothing. Reality is what you see when you look out of the window of a bus: dour faces, sad and temporary lives, millions of cars, metal, bricks, glass, rain, cruel laughter, ugliness, dirt, bad teeth, crippled pigeons, little kids in pushchairs who've already forgotten how to smile ... — Kevin Brooks

The Buddhist explanation is that we feel this uneasiness because we're always trying to get ground under our feet and it never quite works. We're always looking for a permanent reference point, and it doesn't exist. Everything is impermanent. Everything is always changing - fluid, unfixed, and open. Nothing is pin-down-able the way we'd like it to be. This is not actually bad news, but we all seem to be programmed for denial. We have absolutely no tolerance for uncertainty. It seems that insecurity — Pema Chodron

Camus-boy, you're always going to be the same you, just older. It's not like there's a moment when you wake up and go, Shit, I'm grown-up, I don't feel like myself anymore.'
I don't tell him, but this is the scariest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. Being grown-up should feel like a big transition. It can't be something that, despite my best efforts, I've been drifting closer and closer to every summer. It needs to be a shock. I need to know at what point to stop holding on. And that moment will suck, and probably every moment after that will suck, but at least I'll know that everything that came before really was valid. I really was young and innocent. I wasn't fooling myself. — Hannah Moskowitz

Once you cross into the next loyal kingdom, however ... be warned. You may not find such a warm reception. The Mimosa Land and its residents are not nearly so accommodating.
This was warm and accommodating? That didn't bode well for the next kingdom. I also found it sad that a place called the Mimosa Land was unfriendly. It sounded like a party waiting to happen. — Richelle Mead

Shit ... this was a bad idea. A pure-blooded, bonded male vampire about to watch his shellan feed someone else. Holy hell, when the Scribe Virgin had suggested Beth come down, V had assumed it was for ceremonial purposes, not so she could be a vein. But what was the choice? Butch was going to suck Marissa dry and not have enough and there wasn't another female in the house who could do the job: Mary was still human and Bella was pregnant.
Besides, like dealing with Rhage or Z would be any easier? For the beast, they'd need a tranq gun the size of a cannon and Z ... well, shit. — J.R. Ward

The study of theology is not merely a theoretical exercise of the intellect. It is a study of the living God, and of the wonders of all his works in creation and redemption. We cannot study this subject dispassionately! We must love all that God is, all that he says, and all that he does. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart" (Deut. 6:5). Our response to the study of the theology of Scripture should be that of the psalmist who said, "How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!" (Ps. 139:17). In the study of the teachings of God's Word, it should not surprise us if we often find our hearts spontaneously breaking forth in expressions of praise and delight like those of the psalmist. — Wayne A. Grudem

So what's the point, then, if we can't be happy? Why are we doing any of this?"
"Oh, there's definitely happiness," Jack said, turning his back on the ocean and looking at her. "But it's just about moments, not ever-afters." He grinned. "Like when you're right in the middle of the ocean with your friends, with no one trying to kill you in any kind of horrifying way. You have to appreciate these moments when they happen, 'cause obviously we don't get many of them. — James Riley

Consider the core of the mind to be a wagon, with will-power to be carried about in it. Push it to a place where there can be failure, and there will be failure. Push it to a place where there can be success, and there will be success. But whether there is success or failure, if one entrusts himself to the straightness of this wagon of the core of the mind, he will attain right-mindedness in either case. Severing oneself from desire and being like a rock or tree, nothing will ever be achieved. Not departing from desire, but realizing a desireless right-mindedness - this is the Way. — Takuan Soho

As an organization, would we like to be in a better spot Everybody would like to know they're in the playoffs. But that's not a reality, year after year being in a playoff spot with 10, 12, 15 games left. We don't have that this year, so our playoffs have started. — John Tortorella

The firing of nerves in the amygdala, thereby dampening fear. Laughter, then, can help to temper negative emotions. And while all this might seem of purely academic interest, it could prove helpful when your partner breaks his leg at 19,000 feet in a blizzard on a Peruvian mountain. It is not a lack of fear that separates elite performers from the rest of us. They're afraid, too, but they're not overwhelmed by it. They manage fear. They use it to focus on taking correct action. Mike Tyson's trainer, Cus D'Amato, said, Fear is like fire. It can cook for you. It can heat your — Laurence Gonzales

Something else emerges from this discussion about us as human individuals: we're not fixed, stable intellects riding along peering at the world through the lenses of our eyes like the pilots of people-shaped spacecraft. We are affected constantly by what's going on around us. Whether our flexibility is based in neuroplasticity or in less dramatic aspects of the brain, we have to start acknowledging that we are mutable, persuadable and vulnerable to clever distortions, and that very often what we want to be is a matter of constant effort rather than attaining a given state and then forgetting about it. Being human isn't like hanging your hat on a hook and leaving it there, it's like walking in a high wind: you have to keep paying attention. You have to be engaged with the world. — Nick Harkaway

Can you say those words and not like it? Don't it bring to you a magnificent picture of the pristine world, - great seas and other skies, - a world of accentuated crises, that sloughed off age after age, and rose fresher from each plunge? Don't you see, or long to see, that mysterious magic tree out of whose pores oozed this fine solidified sunshine? What leaf did it have? What blossom? What great wind shivered its branches? Was it a giant on a lonely coast, or thick low growth blistered in ravines and dells? That's the witchery of amber, - that it has no cause, - that all the world grew to produce it, maybe, - died and gave no other sign, - that its tree, which must have been beautiful, dropped all its fruits, and how bursting with juice must they have been - — Harriet Prescott Spofford

No one's fated or doomed to love anyone.
The accidents happen, we're not heroines,
they happen in our lives like car crashes,
books that change us, neighborhoods
we move into and come to love.
Tristan and Isolde is scarcely the story,
women at least should know the difference
between love and death. No poison cup,
no penance. Merely a notion that the tape-recorder
should have caught some ghost of us: that tape-recorder
not merely played but should have listened to us,
and could instruct those after us:
this we were, this is how we tried to love,
and these are the forces they had ranged against us,
and these are the forces we had ranged within us,
within us and against us, against us and within us. — Adrienne Rich

Even to this day it is easier than it ought to be for me to get a rise out of an American by telling him something about himself which is equally true about every human being on the face of the globe. He at once resents this as a disparagement and an assertion on my part that people in other parts of the globe are not like that, and are loftily superior to such weaknesses. — George Bernard Shaw

I had great femme mentors, I had good role models of gentle men, I found ways to be a butch that did not require being an ass in public, ways of masculinity that were not misogyny - which is what I see more often than I used to these days, this way of butches distancing themselves from any and all things feminine by embodying the worst excesses of men, from relatively harmless ones like spitting on the street and wearing too much cheap cologne to behaving as though women were an entirely separate species of second-class citizen, the objects of jokes and derision. — S. Bear Bergman

Stop for moment... an event has happen (Think on this, how did it happen, why it happen? Is there something like sign from the universe for your question? How positive will use this which have happen (Focus on the positive not on the negative) )... continue... now stop on this quotes (Again to the same process), find out why, how and everything else... Use this process to all stuff, it's important to show that you think! — Deyth Banger

Every couple of days I have to remind myself that I'm really okay. And it's not the pretend kind of okay. It's the kind that you feel from the inside out. It's the kind of okay that has me thinking about outfits and coffee first thing in the morning, and homework that's due later this week, and that I need to call Jodi back, and what Cole's abs look like when he flexes. It's the kind of okay that makes life a zillion times more bearable and also has me waiting for the other shoe to drop. I — Autumn Doughton