Not Paying Back Quotes & Sayings

I also never would have imagined I'd quote back a church lesson, but when the rest of the crowd stood up to take communion, I found myself saying to Dimitri: "Don't you think that if God can supposedly forgive you, it's kind of egotistical for you not to forgive yourself?"
"How long have you been waiting to use that line on me?" he asked.
"Actually, it just came to me. Pretty good, huh? I bet you thought I wasn't paying attention."
"You weren't. You never do. You were watching me. — Richelle Mead

So when folks talk about the deficit and leaving the deficit for our children, we will never get out of debt had this country until people get back to work, until they have good-paying jobs, and in between times, we will not move this economy forward until we are helping people be able to keep going in this recession. — Debbie Stabenow

I think the American people have a generous instinct. They understand that we're a nation of immigrants. But if those folks are going to live in this country, they have to be put on a pathway to citizenship that involves them paying a fine, making sure that they are at the back of the line and not cutting in front of people who applied legally to come into the country. — Barack Obama

If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea.
You have to get out past the harbor into the great dephts of God, and begin to know things for yourself ... beg in to have spiritual discernment.
Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. — Oswald Chambers

We were taking out mortgages we couldn't afford because they were camouflaged to look as if we had a reasonable chance of paying them back. Banks then changed the bankruptcy laws so that we could not get out of our obligations once the rates changed. Lastly, they sold us back our own mortgages, shifting back to us any of the risk through our money-market accounts and pension funds. — Douglas Rushkoff

You, you buy into all this stuff about good guys and bad guys in the world. A loan shark breaks a guy's leg for not paying his debt, a banker throws a guy out of his home for the same reason, and you think there's a difference, like the banker's just doing his job but the loan shark's a criminal. I like the loan shark better because he doesn't pretend to be anything else, and I think the banker should be where I am sitting right now. I'm not going to live some life where I pay my fucking taxes and fetch the boss a lemonade at the company picnic and buy life insurance. Get older, get fatter, so I can join a men's club in Back Bay, smoke cigars with a bunch of assholes in a back room somewhere, talk about my squash game and my kid's grades. Die at my desk, and they'll already have scraped my name off the office door before the dirt's hit the coffin. — Dennis Lehane

When people say that college isn't worthwhile and paying all this money isn't worthwhile, I really disagree. I think those experiences and those classes that may not necessarily seem applicable in the moment end up coming back to you time and time again. — Kevin Systrom

I knew there was evil in the world. Death and taxes were all necessary evils.
So was shopping.
"I hate shopping," I muttered.
"Of course you do," Phaelan said. "You're a Benares, [the daughter of a long line of professional thieves]. We're not used to paying for anything." Phaelan was my cousin; he called himself a seafaring businessman. Law enforcement in every major city called him "that damned pirate," or less flattering epithets, none of them repeatable here.
...
"Have you considered something in scarlet leather?" Phaelan mused from beside me.
"Have you considered just painting a bull's eye on my back?" I retorted.
My cousin wasn't with me because he liked shopping. He was by my side because being within five feet of me was a guarantee of getting into trouble of the worst kind. Phaelan hadn't plundered or pillaged anything in weeks. He was bored. So this morning, he was a cocky, swaggering invitation for Trouble to bring it on and do her worst. — Lisa Shearin

It's not like paying attention to them instead would make anything better. Maybe that is what is so hard about it all. There's nothing useful to do with yourself in so many ways. Your mind just gropes along the edges of that empty space and can't make any sense of it, can't find any meaning in it, so you go back to thinking about yourself. It might be that's all you can do. — L.T. Vargus

I knew now what my earlier passion for Harry had hidden from me. That although I had bedded him as a free woman I was as bound as if I were the slave. For it was not a free choice. I had wanted him because he was the Squire, not for himself ... And it was no free choice, because I could not choose to say "No." My safety and security on the land meant I had to keep my special, costly hold on its owner. I paid him rent as surely as the tenants who came to my round rent table with their coins tied up in a scrap of cloth. When I lay on my back, or strode round the room threatening him with every imaginable, ridiculous torment, I was paying my dues. And the knowledge galled me. — Philippa Gregory

Oh, Ichigo. My darling Ichigo. There's so much that I owe you, too. But I'm never paying any of it back - not a smidgen. You're also the one who showed me that growing up might not be such a bad thing after all. Thank you, Ichigo. This is much too embarrassing for me to ever say out loud, but you're the best friend I could ever have. — Novala Takemoto

Zhou," Biyu said, when Sabaa paused, "before the Jade Emperor, humans were just like the beasts in the field. We ate, lived and reproduced, but we were going nowhere. The universe is order in all its perfection, stagnant and unchanging. The wars set us free. Free to change, to learn, to adapt, to become more than we were. To do that, we sacrificed order for a measure of chaos, of challenge. It let some people, men and women, do evil, but even that inspired many more to do good. Medicines, writing, music, architecture, all the accomplishments of your Empire came at a high price, but it was worth paying. Tonight we reaffirm that fact. Without the power we grant the Jade Emperor from the realms we represent, we would lose all that we have gained. The universe would reassert its control. Over the years, order would take charge once more and progress would end. Given time, our race would slide back into the beasts we were once. It is something we could not survive. — G.R. Matthews

I decided the reason why Luccas rushed off was he was allergic to the food that they had brought out. Not paying compliments to the decorations, I poked at the squid with a fork making sure it was dead. Yuck, it reminded me of squid shaped spaghetti. My mind imagined it struggling to break free from my fork. Its legs flopped back and forth, to the sides almost as if it danced. Then to eat it while it squirmed after every bite; chomp, chomp, chomp. On the other hand, you could also eat it raw, but I suppose that was where the squirming comes in. Hmm ... Any who ... Before we get off topic, I finally ate it. Yes, even with the gross images in mind. — Millicent Ashby

Celebrities are our heroes and heroines now, discussed the next day over latte or lunch. We have such a strong need to talk to each other, to have some commonality of story, that we're finding it in celebrities. In effect, we're turning reality into fiction. Using actors and actresses, just off duty. And how is this working for us? Not great. It leaves us with a perennially empty feeling. We find the celebrities empty, and at some level, we find ourselves empty for paying them so much attention. We've become reluctant voyeurs, and at some level, we know they're just people trying to live their lives. Our culture begins to lack content, depth, and substance. We miss the richness of human experience that story embodies, reflects, and carries forward. We might have to go back to reading books. Yay! — Lisa Scottoline

The whole body-mind thing comes into play, when you are feeling that self-doubt and your body is not going to help you if you're not paying attention. Your body's going to go with the self-doubt and make you feel worse, so by making the adjustments - pulling your shoulders back, standing up straight, walking in a more sort of expansive way - all sorts of little things will help pull you out of that self-doubt. — Amy Cuddy

Be yourself one hundred and one thousand percent. Everybody man, from the sides to the back to the middle to the sides, you might not even know people, but if you rock with Lil B music and respect me from the core, you should know that based means you have someone you can trust, because we all have a common courtesy. It's about having empathy now. What I mean is really caring and paying attention to somebody else's feeling. You gotta have empathy and know we all on this common vibe. It's all peace. It's saying, hey, you know what, you can hit me and I'm not hitting you back. And that takes a very big person to do that. — Brandon McCartney

He was saved from having to reply by Philippa, turning to face them. "What on earth? Do you see this?"
He had not been paying attention, but Olivia was now alternately pantomiming cracking a whip, and screwing up her face, eyes tightly closed, teeth bared, with her fingers splayed out at either edge of her mouth.
"Driving a squid! Whipping the sunshine!" the marchioness called out, pride in her tone, drawing laughter from the rest of the room.
"Driving a Squid is a play I would dearly love to read," Philippa said on a giggle, turning back to Penelope. "Penny, really. We could use your help. — Sarah MacLean

There was no reason to think she would survive this. So she was surprised to notice that she was happy. Not the powerful, irrational, and dangerous joy of a euphoric attack, but a kind of pleasure and release all the same. At first, she thought it was because there wasn't anyone there with her, guarding her, judging her. And that, she decided, was part of it. But more than that, she was simply doing what needed to be done without having to concern herself about what anyone else thought. Even Jim. And wasn't that odd? She wanted nothing in the world more than for Jim to be there - followed by Amos and Alex and a good meal and a bed at a humane gravity - but there was a part of her that was also expanding into the silence of simply being herself and utterly alone. There were no dark thoughts, no guilt, no self-doubt tapping at the back of her mind. Either she was too tired for that, or something else had happened to her while she'd been paying attention to other things. — James S.A. Corey

If you're not familiar with it, a college degree is a thing that we tell our kids to buy with money they don't have, in hopes that it will help them make money they might earn, which will give them the ability to pay back the money they spent in order to make the money they're paying it back with. — Matt Walsh

These mortgages, which typically cost less per month than paying rent, were directed at new single-family suburban construction.c Intentionally or not, the FHA and VA programs discouraged the renovation of existing housing stock, while turning their back on the construction of row houses, mixed-use buildings, and other urban housing types. Simultaneously, a 41,000-mile interstate highway program, coupled with federal and local subsidies for road improvement and the neglect of mass transit, helped make automotive commuting affordable and convenient for the average citizen. — Andres Duany

But he grins, so brilliantly, not even paying attention. "I love it when you say my name," he says. "I don't even know why."
"Warner isn't your name," I point out. "Your name is *****."
His smile is wide, so wide. "God, I love that."
"Your name?"
"Only when you say it."
"*****? Or Warner?"
His eyes close. He tilts his head back against the wall. Dimples. — Tahereh Mafi

So I'm not proposing anything radical. I just believe that anybody making over $250,000 a year should go back to the income tax rates we were paying under Bill Clinton. Back when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history, and plenty of millionaires to boot ... At the same time, most people agree that we should not raise taxes on middle-class families or small businesses
not when so many folks are just trying to get by. — Barack Obama

I firmly believe in small gestures: pay for their coffee, hold the door for strangers, over tip, smile or try to be kind even when you don't feel like it, pay compliments, chase the kid's runaway ball down the sidewalk and throw it back to him, try to be larger than you are - particularly when it's difficult. People do notice, people appreciate. I appreciate it when it's done to (for) me. Small gestures can be an effort, or actually go against our grain ("I'm not a big one for paying compliments ... "), but the irony is that almost every time you make them, you feel better about yourself. For a moment life suddenly feels lighter, a bit more Gene Kelly dancing in the rain. — Jonathan Carroll

It's promising and seductive, that huge Italian family, sitting around the dinner table, surrounded by olive trees. But it's not my family and I am not their family, and no amount of birthing sons, and cooking dinner and raking leaves or planting the gardens or paying for the plane tickets is going to change that. If I don't come back in eleven months, I will not be missed, and no one will write me or call me to acknowledge my absence. Which is not an accusation, just a small truth about clan and bloodline. — Gabrielle Hamilton

Staying quiet and fitting in may have been all the first generations of women who entered corporate America could do; in some cases, it might still be the safest path. But this strategy is not paying off for women as a group. Instead, we need to speak out, identify the barriers that are holding women back, and find solutions. — Sheryl Sandberg

APPROACH
Rain is falling. Winter approaches. I drive towards it. In the slow rain. In the semi-darkness. Cello music is playing in the car. The deep sad sound of the cello. It almost swamps me. Routine endeavours to swamp me. The everyday paying of bills.
But I paint men walking in a city of icebergs and crystal. Some of the icebergs are red. I paint a woman swimming in green wavy water. Surrounded by desert mesas. Bright orange in the sunlight. With darker orange for shadows. I paint two people. With purple and pink and yellow and blue circles overlapping the boundaries of their bodies. Dancing.
Life is not ordinary. When I see you tonight I will press my lips to your eyelids. Each one in turn. I will rub my fingertips over the skin on the back of your hands and around your wrists. I will sigh. I will growl. I will whinny. I will gallop into your smile. One sharp foot after the other. — Jay Woodman

Everyone has some kind of debt. Such is life. Debts and liabilities, obligations, gratitude, payments, doing something for someone. Or perhaps for ourselves? For in fact we are always paying ourselves back and not someone else. Each time we are indebted we pay off the debt to ourselves. In each of us lies a creditor and a debtor at once and the art is for the reckoning to tally inside us. We enter the world as a minute part of the life we are given, and from then on we are ever paying off debts, To ourselves. For ourselves. In order for the final reckoning to tally. — Andrzej Sapkowski

I auditioned in Chicago for Juilliard and didn't get in. I was basically living in a back room of my parents' house, paying rent and not doing anything with my life. I'd like to say it was patriotic to join the Marines, but it was also that I was doing nothing honorable with my life and spending too much time at McDonald's. — Adam Driver

O, I do not like that paying back, 'tis a double labor. — William Shakespeare

I'm lying on Cash's chest, tracing his tattoo.
"What does this mean?" I whisper.
"It's the Chinese symbol for awesome," he teases lightly.
I giggle. "If it's not, which I imagine it isn't, then it should be."
"Are you paying me a compliment? I just want to be sure, so I don't miss it."
I slap his ribs. "You make it sound like I'm mean and horrible because I don't throw myself at your feet."
"You don't have to throw yourself at my feet. Although if you want to, I'm sure I can think of something for you to do while you're down there."
I look up at him and he's waggling his eyebrows again.
"I'm sure you could." Shaking my head, I settle back onto his chest and resume tracing the ink shapes. "Seriously, what do they mean?"
Cash is quiet for so long I begin to think he's not going to answer me. But then he finally speaks.
"It's a collage of things that remind me of my family. — M. Leighton

You'll never get that freedom back again once people start paying you attention, and especially not once they start paying you money. — Austin Kleon

I couldn't miss the irony, not as a forty-two-year-old native of the segregated South, still fighting to earn respect in the color-conscious world of American business. How often had my parents and grandparents, other family members and friends, and I myself been directed to the back door of a bus, a restaurant, or a theater because we were considered second class, even after paying a first-class price for service! But that night we were treated to courtesies that even President Nixon could not enjoy: entering through the lobby, approaching the front desk, quietly registering, and being assisted to our room by the highly trained wait staff. A familiar portion of a Bible verse came to mind. The last shall be first and the first last (Matt. 20:16). — John Barfield

America is the brokest country in history. We owe more money than anyone has ever owed anyone. And Obama and Reid say relax, that's no reason not to spend more - because the world hasn't yet concluded we have no intention of paying it back. When they do, the dollar will collapse. — Mark Steyn

Everything was Amelia's fault. He hadn't done anything wrong and neither had Kaitlin, but they were the ones paying the price and for what? To bring back a girl that he hated and wished he could kill but couldn't? To bring back a girl who had broken her mother's heart to such an extent that it killed her? As far as Damian was concerned, it wasn't worth it. She didn't deserve to come back; she didn't deserve to live. No, Amelia deserved nothing, and especially not his love. — Elaine White

And that does concern me, because we're not getting enough back for our taxes that we're paying. I think we really have to look at the whole sort of area. — Rex Hunt

It is not from your own goods that you give to the beggar; it is a portion of his own that you are restoring to him. The Earth belongs to all. So you are paying back a debt and think you are making a gift to which you are not bound. — Saint Ambrose

My son was killed in 2004. I am not paying my taxes for 2004. You killed my son, George Bush, and I don't owe you a penny ... You give my son back, and I'll pay my taxes. — Cindy Sheehan

"Chloe isn't flirting with that guy," Simon said.
"Course not."
"I mean it. She's - "
I glanced back at him. "I'm not blind. She's only paying enough attention to him to be polite. He's the one flirting, which is bugging her and that's why I'm pissed off. She's trying to eat her fries and he's interrupting."
Simon chuckled. — Kelley Armstrong

I knew a dude whose entire check was going to his car. He didn't care. This is back when the Mustang 5.0 came out in, like, '82. Between paying the note and insurance, I think he had like $40 left. A lot of people knew people because of their car, and not them. — Ice Cube

There's something odd about working 24/7, being consumed with everything that's happening in Iraq, and then coming back to the country that ordered you over there only to realize that a lot of Americans are not really paying attention. — Phil Klay

There's a reason why relationships don't work out. It's usually better to take a few steps back if you have any doubts before it gets complicated and you find yourself in a tangled web, not of your doing, but somehow you end up paying the price. — E.R. Wade

Usually during the regular season, if you're starting pitcher, you're kind of walking back and forth from the clubhouse to the dugout and not really paying attention to what's going on. — Jon Lester

Same reason why young women on juries are not a good idea, they don't get it. They're not in that same life experience of paying the bills, doing the mortgage, kids, community, crime, education and health care. They're like healthy and hot and running around without a care in the world ... I just think, excuse them, so they can go back on Tinder and Match. — Kimberly Guilfoyle

Obedience does not consist in paying God back and thus turning grace into a trade. Obedience comes from trusting in God for more grace - future grace - and thus magnifying the infinite resources of God's love and power. — John Piper

You never laugh," she said. "You behave as if everything is funny to you, but you never laugh. Sometimes you smile when you think no one is paying attention."
For a moment he was silent. Then, "You," he said, half reluctantly. "You make me laugh. From the moment you hit me with that bottle."
"It was a jug," she said automatically.
His lips quirked up at the corners. "Not to mention the way you always correct me. With that funny look on your face when you do it. And the way you shouted at Gabriel Lightwood. And even the way you talked back to de Quincey. You make me ... " He broke off, looking at her, and she wondered if she looked the way she felt - stunned and breathless. — Cassandra Clare

I will always remember my delight when Mrs. Georgia Gilmore - an unlettered woman of unusual intelligence - told how an operator demanded that she get off the bus after paying her fare and board it again by the back door, and then drove away before she could get there. She turned to Judge Carter and said: When they count the money, they do not know Negro money from white money. — Martin Luther King Jr.

You stole five cars. Instead of going into prison or juvenile detention, you endured nothing more than volunteer work. Now that you are paying back your legal fees, which were not inconsiderable, perhaps you need to suffer more in your service. It's good for the soul."
"Suffering is good for the soul? You're sitting in your cute little office drinking your gross-ass tea that smells like bacon-"
"It's Lapsang souchong."
"It's disgusting. You're drinking disgusting tea and writing homilies in your room-temperature office while I"m dying in there. I don't see you suffering."
"I have suffered. My suffering has ended."
"Did you find Jesus?"
"No, I found you. — Tiffany Reisz

It feels weird right at this moment to not be anybody's sidekick. Hard to explain, but when I look at the moon, it seems like it's paying attention to me, instead of me paying attention to it. It's way up there now. Hi, moon, I say silently to it. Yes, I'm high, it says back. The moon has a sense of humor. — Jo Ann Beard

In the name of compassion, Obama advocates seemingly endless extensions of unemployment benefits because his economic theology holds that by paying people not to work, you will create jobs. It not only fails to factor in the obvious deterrent that extended benefits have on their recipients but also falsely assumes that transferring money from one pocket to the next generates more spending - by some mythical multiple factor, no less. Back on planet Earth, studies reveal that extending unemployment benefits results in more unemployment. — David Limbaugh

And then she poked him again. Not because he wasn't paying attention but because when she did it the first time she found she liked it. Mrs. Bunny might think she was getting away with this, but Mr. Bunny was silently counting the pokes to pay her back later. — Polly Horvath

I'm rewarded with another sweet smirk, and the knowledge that I like this kind of back and forth when no one is paying for me, when I'm not pretending to like someone, when there's no exchange of power or money or goods. When we are just a guy and a girl spending an hour together on a Wednesday night in the Village in Manhattan, — Lauren Blakely

What was archaeology to him? It was the opposite of killing things. It was trying to will life back into stuff that had been forgotten and buried for thousands or millions of years. It was not about shards and pieces of bone or treasure; it was about kneeling down in the elements, paying very close attention, and trying to locate a spark of the human life that had once touched that spot there. — Marilyn Johnson