Quotes & Sayings About Nothing Going Right

In due course I would learn how to cover up for this event, but on that awful day I knew of nothing to say but: 'Well, I guess they aren't going to do that either, heh, heh. FINALLY Hoku and Kiko stopped staring suspiciously through the glass long enough to go over the six bars, gracefully arcing in and out of the water against the glass, making the beautiful picture they were supposed to. I waved frantically at Chris to stop right there, to quit while we were ahead. I thanked the politely clapping audience and suggested they come back in a month and see what Hoku and Kiko could really do (I didn't have the courage to order them to KEEP clapping, and louder, please, so that Hoku and Kiko would do the applause jump). Then I yanked out the mike plug, raced down the ladder into the trainers' little sitting room underneath the stage, and took up smoking again. — Karen Pryor

Some things are not meant to be kept forever ... You know you have to stop and let go when things aren't going right, and everything you do is unappreciated. Remember what batman said? 'it is wiser to be alone but happy ... than with somebody who does nothing while you're doing everything ... ' — Noemie Lenoir

My main goal is to stay alive. To keep fooling myself into hanging around. To keep getting up every day. Right now I live without inspiration. I go day to day and do the work because it's all I know. I know that if I keep moving I stand a chance. I must keep myself going until I find a reason to live. I need one so bad. On the other hand maybe I don't. Maybe it's all bullshit. Nothing I knew from my old life can help me here. Most of the things that I believed turned out to be useless. Appendages from someone else's life.
Everything I have I would give to not know what I know. To not feel emptiness as my constant companion. To not look into this room and be reminded why I'm in it. I'm not getting enough air. The room feels so small all of a sudden. It's pathetic to be this lonely and know it. To keep breathing. To be silent and alone. And to know. — Henry Rollins

A good man likes a hard boss. I don't mean a nagging boss or a grouchy boss. I mean a boss who insists on things being done right and on time; a boss who is watching things closely enough so that he knows a good job from a poor one. Nothing is more discouraging to a good man than a boss who is not on the job, and who does not know whether things are going well or badly. — William Feather

I do most anxiously wish to see the highest degrees of education given to the higher degrees of genius and to all degrees of it, so much as may enable them to read and understand what is going on in the world and to keep their part of it going on right; for nothing can keep it right but their own vigilant and distrustful superintendence. — Thomas Jefferson

Listen, I'm about to sound like the shallowest person on the face of the earth right now, but you can't control your grandma's disease. You don't make it any better or any worse...One day, your grandma isn't going to remember anything. Hopefully it's still a while away, but it's coming and there's nothing you can do about it. So, there's no use feeling bad about something you can't control. You just have to have to enjoy how things are now. — Christina Daley

If we aren't living our lives doing what we are meant to be doing, and what we were essentially created to bring to the planet, the universe is going to let us know. Nothing will be working in our favor, nothing will ever seem to go right, and we will exist in a miserable robotic lifestyle. — J. Goldenberg

And then . . . we're going to get in my car."
I waited for him to elaborate on a destination. "And?"
He gently kissed the nape of my neck. "What do you think?"
I couldn't help a small gasp of delight. "Oh, wow."
"I know, right? I was racking my brain for the best present ever, and then I realized that nothing was going to rock your world more than you and me in your favorite place in the entire world."
I swallowed. "I'm kind of embarrassed at how excited I am about that." Never had I guessed my love of cars would play a role in my sex life. Eddie was right. Something had happened to me.
"It's okay, Sage. We've all got our turn-ons."
"You kind of ruined the surprise, though."
"Nah. It's part of the gift: you getting to think about it for the next three days. — Richelle Mead

The things that bring couples together will always terrify me more than the things that tear us apart. They will always be harder to explain. They will always keep me up later. Love gone wrong has inspired so many great songs, but somehow, love going right is what's bizarre. It exposes deep freakcraft in the universe. As far as I'm concerned, 'some people are very kind' is the scariest line Bob Dylan ever wrote. Compared to that, his breakup songs are kid stuff. Some people are very kind and there's nothing in the universe to explain why.
It's a mystery how people lose each other
but to me, it's an even stranger mystery we manage to stay together, or to collide together at all. — Rob Sheffield

What you learn from that first, and I don't call it 'trial by fire,' I call it 'baptism by fire,' is that you are going to have to take all of the responsibility, because basically when it gets right down to it, you are going to get all of the blame, so you might as well have made all of the decisions that led to people either liking it or disliking it. There's nothing worse than hearing somebody say 'Oh, you made that movie? I thought that movie sucked,' and you have to agree with them, you know? — David Fincher

How can we not ask at every turn, 'What is going to happen? How will this turn out?' The main thing is not to consent consciously to anxiety or a troubled mind. The moment you realize you are worrying, make very quickly an act of confidence: 'No, Jesus, You are there: nothing--nothing--happens, not a hair falls from our heads, without Your permission. I have no right to worry." Perhaps He is sleeping in the boat, but He is there. He is always there. He is all-powerful; nothing escapes His vigilance. He watches over each one of us 'as over the apple of His eye.' He is all love, all tenderness. — Jean C.J. D'Elbee

It is in the more muddled moments of my life, that i become painfully aware of my issues. When nothing is going right, when life gets away from me. When i feel like life is living me, instead of me, living life. It's a difficult place be, but it's also where the seeds of change, often take root. And from those roots, a wellspring of hope and positive transformation, blooms. — Jaeda DeWalt

I Worried
I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang. — Mary Oliver

Evan Connell said once that he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and taking out commas and then going through the story again and putting the commas back in the same places. I like that way of working on something. I respect that kind of care for what is being done. That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places so that they an best say what they are meant to say. If the words are heavy with the writer's own unbridled emotions, or if they are imprecise and inaccurate for some other reason
if the worlds are in any way blurred
the reader's eyes will slide right over them and nothing will be achieved. Henry James called this sort of hapless writing 'weak specification'. — Raymond Carver

Jesus was not a whisperer. No one ever saw Him close to His neighbor's ear, looking stealthily around lest some one should overhear what He was going to say. He stood upright, looked men squarely and kindly in the eye, and spoke what He had to say right out, boldly, frankly, that the whole world might hear; and when He did speak privately to His disciples, He told them to shout it from the housetops. 'Truth fears nothing but concealment,' said an old Church Father, and Jesus spake only the truth. — Samuel Logan Brengle

But no, I'm sorry. I can't end there. I haven't yet said everything I want to say. A little girl is at school, out in the playground with her friends, and she sees a flower and says to her friends, just thinking out loud, wondering gently to herself: Do you think flowers have feelings? And for the rest of the day her friends tease her relentlessly, with every new opportunity that arises. Do flowers have feelings, that's so stupid. Right, flowers have feelings. All day and for the rest of the week: stupid flowers have stupid feelings and that little girl feels she is never going to say anything like that ever again. She has already learned that when you open your heart or express genuine, innocent curiosity or wonder about the world, your friends will pounce on the opportunity and use it to hurt you as viciously as possible and there is nothing anyone can do to protect her. It's simple stories like that that really break my heart. — Jacob Wren

I had seen the Magic Shop from afar several times; I had passed it once or twice, a shop window of alluring little objects, magic balls, magic hens, wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls, the material of the basket trick, packs of cards that looked all right, and all that sort of thing, but never had I thought of going in until one day, almost without warning, Gip hauled me by my finger right up to the window, and so conducted himself that there was nothing for it but to take him in. — H.G.Wells

Mankind will someday realize that we are actually in contact with the dead and with the other world, whatever it is; right now we could predict, if we only exerted enough mental will, what is going to happen within the next hundred years and be able to take steps to avoid all kinds of catastrophes. When a man dies he undergoes a mutation in his brain that we know nothing about now but which will be very clear someday if scientists get on the ball. The bastards right now are only interested in seeing if they can blow up the world. — Jack Kerouac

Waltz back into our lives as if nothing had happened. We were dealing with Dad's death and I wasn't about to take on her problems, too." "I'm not going to argue with you, sweetheart. Like I said, you did the right thing." "I have to wonder," she murmured, her brow furrowed with consternation. "Karen ... " "I know, I know. It doesn't do any good to rehash this over and over. What's done is done. When I spoke to Nichole about the inheritance, she was adamant we did everything we should have. Cassie wasn't — Debbie Macomber

She could remember a time when she thought things could be right with her and Jack. Now it seemed like that was such a long time ago. How could she have ever told herself things were going to be alright? She now knew with every once of her being that there was absolutely nothing left of the man she had once loved. — K.A. Linde

When they had dismounted, he indulged himself in a shudder of his whole body. "That is more than I undertake to do again!' --this to the admiral, in reproachful tones. "Those two monstrously large beasts! Going right up to them like that and dangling their captains in front of them just as if to say, look what I have got, ha ha! I am all astonishment they did not leap upon me at once. I hope they did not get a clear look at me. If they ever saw me again I am sure they would not let it pass."

"I beg you not to repine upon it," Laurence said. "Temeraire understands well that orders must be obeyed, and will not hold it against you; he knows it was not in your power to deliver us to him."

"Well, but it was," Souci said, not conciliated, and Granby said nothing reassuring at all. Iskierka allow of assurances of her behavior, good, evil, or otherwise. — Naomi Novik

I can't do this to you again," I whispered, lowering my eyes, so I didn't have to meet his.
"You can't do what again to me? Let me fall for you?" He exhaled sharply, keeping me close. "I fell for you forever ago and there's nothing you've done since that moment that has changed that. There's nothing you could do to change that. When a person falls, they don't just get up, dust themselves off, and keep going. If they fell right, if they fell good and hard the first time, there's no getting up from that fall because they landed right where they were supposed to be. — Nicole Williams

It's when things are going just right that you'd better be suspicious. There you are, fat as can be. The whole world is yours and you're the answer to the Wright brothers' prayers. You say to yourself, nothing can go wrong ... all my trespasses are forgiven. Best you not believe it. — Ernest K. Gann

I look at the names on the mailboxes and the bells inside number 1940 and pick out a couple of women's names and press the first one. I stand there waiting, feeling the image
build up and not thinking about what I'm going to say to her because I know
something will come to me like it always does. Nothing happens. I press the second doorbell and in a few minutes she buzzes the door, twice, and I walk into the hallway. The stairs are curved around an elevator and to the right and I go up them, not in a hurry or nothing, just taking them one at a time.
Its funny, isn't it, how the first woman didn't answer the bell or wasn't home or something and just that little chance, you understand what I mean? — Sebastian Junger

You want a guy to fight. You want him to be willing to go to battle for you. Don't for one second envy a situation you know nothing about. Instead, be at peace with where you're at in life and know that when the right time comes, it will happen. And when it happens, it's going to be hard, and you're going to have to ask yourself if it's worth it. — Rachel Van Dyken

I can pick up the city feeds on my antenna. It said they were going to change you all. Turn you into something less dangerous. Are you still ... ?"
She gazed at him. "What do you think, David?"
He peered into her eyes for a long moment, then sighed and shook his head. "You just look like Tally to me."
She looked down, her vision blurring.
What's the matter?"
Nothing, David." She shook her head. "You just took on five million years of evolution again."
I what? Did I say something wrong?"
No." She smiled. "You said something right. — Scott Westerfeld

I can't even begin to describe how I miss him. He always supported me in everything I did. He was a very wise man and I realised at an early age I could learn a lot from him. He always gave me the right answer. But above all he was a very easy-going guy and all he wanted was to be my best friend. I'm an only child and so he shared everything with me. Of course he was very young to die and I was very young to lose a father. But there was nothing left unsaid between us. — Dhani Harrison

Sometimes, when I'm feeling down because nothing seems to be going right, I like to take a home pregnancy test. Then I can say, Hey, at least I'm not pregnant — Daniel Tosh

What you don't even realize now - what you will only come to understand in time, but lucky for you, I'm here to tell you - is you're not going to give two shits about this band in a few years. In fact, I guarantee that this group that you admire so much and that you are putting all of your love and dedication and devotion into will be nothing more than an obsession you will be immensely embarrassed of having had. One day you'll be in college, maybe you'll be at a party, and someone will say, 'Hey, do you remember The Ruperts? How shitty was their music?' and you will have a moment of crisis: Do you admit your former love for them, or do you concede, because you know in your heart that this person is right? And guess what you'll say? You'll say, 'Yeah, their music was utter. Putrid.Garbage. — Goldy Moldavsky

Passion is a feeling that tells you: this is the right thing to do. Nothing can stand in my way. It doesn't matter what anyone else says. This feeling is so good that it cannot be ignored. I'm going to follow my bliss and act upon this glorious sensation of joy. — Wayne W. Dyer

Nothing is ever solved, or created, by standing still. Movement is the process of the Universe. So move. Do something. Anything. But do not stand still. Do not fence sit. Put your foot down on one side or the other, swing the opposite leg over and start walking. You'll know before you take ten steps if you're going in the right direction. — Neale Donald Walsch

Nothing to finish? You wondered why sex with a vampire was such a big deal. I'm going to show you." He moved toward her, slowly, like a cat sneaking up on a bird. "Stamina." He stepped closer. "Multiple orgasms." Closer, and her mouth went dry. "Flexibility." Closer. Her skin flushed hot. "Strength." Closer. Her stomach did a flip-flop. "The ability to sense heat so we know what parts of the body are the most sensitive at the right time." Closer. A throbbing ache started low in her pelvis. "The ability to hear the slightest change in the tempo of your pulse so we know exactly how every stroke, kiss, and lick affects you." Oh. Dear. Lord. — Larissa Ione

He's quite a bit of a snob, you know, and when he hears I'm going to marry the daughter of an earl - "
"I say, old man," I couldn't help saying, "aren't you looking ahead rather far?"
"Oh, that's all right. It's true nothing's actually settled yet, but she practically told me the other day she was fond of me."
"What!"
"Well, she said that the sort of man she liked was the self-reliant, manly man with strength, good looks, character, ambition, and initiative."
"Leave me, laddie," I said. "Leave me to my fried egg. — P.G. Wodehouse

Sometimes you see English people going out to pub, bar or disco with friends, standing awkwardly together drinking beer or gin and tonic and waiting for something 'romantic' to happen. Usually nothing happens apart from everybody getting drunk, which is hardly romantic. So, typically, instead of meeting Mr or Miss Right they meet Mr or Miss Right Now, which lasts as long as there is enough alcohol circulating in the blood vessel. — Angela Kiss

Old man," she said. "Don't you want to prepare or something?"
"Prepare what?"
"Yourself. For death."
Siri laughed.
"Well, Bpoo. Let's see. If the Buddhists are right, I'm just on my way to the next incarnation. Unless there's a manual for how to behave correctly as a gnat I'm not sure how I'd prepare for that. If the Catholics are right, nothing short of an asbestos suit and a glass of iced water will help where I'm going. And if the communists are right, you do your best and when you're gone they put up a statue in your honor and the locals dry their laundry on it. So, if I'm going, you're the heir to today's legacy. — Colin Cotterill

In those days, a gay man was made to feel nothing but shame about his feelings and his sexuality. I wanted my drawings to counteract that, to show gay men being happy and positive about who they were. Oh, I didn't sit down to think this all out carefully. But I knew - right from the start - that my men were going to be proud and happy men! — Tom Of Finland

You're right, Jottie, but what good is it? Rightness is nothing. You can't live on it. You might as well eat ashes." I glanced at Father, his bloodshot eyes and the stain on his pants. I loved him so. Once more, I tried to explain. "This is all we can do; it's all we're allowed. We can't go back. The only thing time leaves for us to decide" -- I picked up Father's hand and held it tight-- "is whether or not we're going to hate each other. — Annie Barrows

When everything is going wrong, it seems like nothing goes right — Gary Speed

Somehow, spending time in God's Word helps us hear His voice more clearly. There's nothing like the conviction of the Holy Spirit at just the right time to keep us from going over the edge. — Brooke McGlothlin

INDECISION, n. The chief element of success; "for whereas," saith Sir Thomas Brewbold, "there is but one way to do nothing and divers way to do something, whereof, to a surety, only one is the right way, it followeth that he who from indecision standeth still hath not so many chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards"
a most clear and satisfactory exposition on the matter.
"Your prompt decision to attack," said Genera Grant on a certain occasion to General Gordon Granger, "was admirable; you had but five minutes to make up your mind in."
"Yes, sir," answered the victorious subordinate, "it is a great thing to be know exactly what to do in an emergency. When in doubt whether to attack or retreat I never hesitate a moment
I toss us a copper."
"Do you mean to say that's what you did this time?"
"Yes, General; but for Heaven's sake don't reprimand me: I disobeyed the coin. — Ambrose Bierce

My only desire in the world is to have my revenge against everyone who hurt me, disbelieved me, and made me into the bad guy. After that, I don't know... But, right now, nothing in the world matters but my payback. And I'm going to love every sick, twisted minute of it. — Jaimie Roberts

Purple light passed over the paper, but nothing happened.
"Next!" Amy said. She was sure the man in black was going to burst in on them any second.
"Whoa!" Dan said.
Amy gripped his arm. "You found it?"
"No, but look! This whole essay - 'To the Royal Academy.' He wrote a whole essay on farts!" Dan grinned with delight. "He's proposing a scientific study on different fart smells. You're right, Amy. This guy was a genius! — Rick Riordan

I KNOW HE'S GONE. I CAN STILL FEEL THE LINGERING pain from the new scar on my leg. I might never stop feeling that; it could be with me for the rest of my life.
I have to try.
I fall to my knees in the mud next to Eight's body. The wound doesn't even look so bad. There's not as much blood as there was in New Mexico, and Eight lived through that. I should be able to heal this, right? It should work. It has to work. But this one is right on his heart, straight through. I press my hands across the puncture and will my Legacy to kick in. I did it before. I can do it again. I have to.
Nothing happens. I feel cold all over, but it's not the iciness of my Legacy.
I wish I could lie down next to Eight here in the muck and just shut out everything that's going on around me. I'm not even crying - it's like the tears have gone out of me and I just feel hollow. — Pittacus Lore

The way - the only way - to "find" your story is to tell it. Nobody in the whole world has ever before told the story you are about to tell. You yourself have never told it to anyone, not even to yourself. You may have lots of intuitions about what the story is going to be, and you may even have a sort of summary overview of it. These are good and useful things to have; they are fine places to start. They are not enough. Until you actually tell the story, the whole story, it will be nothing but smoke. Moreover, you probably will not tell the story exactly right the first time you try. You'll make wrong turns, use the wrong key, or use the right key in the wrong door. After all, you have nobody to guide you. If you are like most people, you will have to tell this story more than once - maybe even several times - before you really get it down. — Stephen Koch

Clara Oswald: This is just a dream, but very clever people can hear dreams. So please, just listen. I know you're afraid, but being afraid is all right, because didn't anybody ever tell you fear is a superpower? Fear can make you faster and cleverer and stronger.
And one day, you'll come back to this barn and on that day you're going to be very afraid indeed. But that's ok because if you're very wise and very strong, fear doesn't have to make you cruel or cowardly. Fear can make you kind.
It doesn't matter if there's nothing under the bed or in the dark, so long as you know it's ok to be afraid of it. You're always going to be afraid, even if you learn to hide it. Fear is like a companion, a constant companion, always there. But that's ok, because fear can bring us together.
Fear can bring you home.
I'm going to leave you with something just so you always remember: Fear makes companions of us all. -Listen, Doctor Who, episode 8.4 — Steven Moffat

Something wonderful happens at night, though. There are no more distractions, at least there is no more threat of imminent distraction. Since everyone is asleep you can be fairly certain nobody is going to give you a call, nobody will ask you a random question, nothing interesting is going to happen on the internet. For at least ten hours nothing will be expected of you. Nothing. That's a lot of freedom right there. — Anonymous

Maybe Laney's right. Maybe June did love me. But I'm far less certain that she knew I loved her. Did she realise how much I needed her around? It's not like I ever told her. I was too wrapped up in my own world to notice what was going on in hers. Even if she did know, it wasn't enough to count. It wasn't enough to make her stay. So really, what did it matter, in the end?
The bottom line is, it's my fault. I didn't love her enough. I didn't do enough. I wasn't enough. There's no excuse. There is nothing that will ever make that okay. — Hannah Harrington

The Fifth Brother lived in a housing development, and his room was guarded by a crackhead with six arms, holding (in descending order, and going right to left) a dirty razor, a scale, a crumbled wad of five-dollar bills, a Saturday-night special, a human head, and nothing. Blood dripped from its mouth. "What is the secret to life?" it asked. "Crack," M said. "Correct!" the thing replied happily. "Do you have any?" "No," M said, but the crackhead with six arms let them by anyway. — Daniel Polansky

I am inundated with feeling. I feel like a pinball machine on tilt. All the buzzers are ringing, lights are flashing, and I am about to fry my circuits. Nothing is coming in,and nothing is going out. I feel electrified. The wires ignited, sparked, and fizzled. I want it all to slow down. I go right to the water to douse my flame. I immerse myself in the hot water. I want to wash the smells off my body. I can smell Isabella's hair, her breath, and her child vaginal scent. My hair smells of smoke,and I want to wash Francis off me. — Holly A. Smith

Decide yourself who was right: you or the one who questioned you then? Recall the first question; its meaning, though not literally, was this: 'You want to go into the world, and you are going empty-handed, with some promise of freedom, which they in their simplicity and innate lawlessness cannot even comprehend, which they dread and fear - for nothing has ever been more insufferable for man and for human society than freedom! But do you see these stones in this bare, scorching desert? Turn them into bread and mankind will run after you like sheep, grateful and obedient, though eternally trembling lest you withdraw your hand and your loaves cease for them. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

If you pray, "Oh God, please have mercy. Don't pour out Your wrath!" you have just pushed the Lord aside and declared, "Jesus, I know You atoned for us and that You dealt with sin. The Word says that You are the only mediator, but I think I can help. It's also going to take my pleading and interceding to make things right!" You're trying to add to what Jesus has already done! Jesus + anything = nothing. Jesus + nothing = everything. By attempting to intercede the way Abraham and Moses did, the way others in the Old Testament did, you aren't esteeming what Christ has done and you're trying to become a mediator. — Andrew Wommack

Your mistake is this, and it is a very common mistake. This young bounder has a life of his own. What right have you to conclude it is an unsuccessful life, or, as you call it, 'grey'?"
"Because - "
"One minute. You know nothing about him. He probably has his own joys and interests - wife, children, snug little home. That's where we practical fellows" he smiled - "are more tolerant than you intellectuals. We live and let live, and assume that things are jogging on fairly well elsewhere, and that the ordinary plain man may be trusted to look after his own affairs. I quite grant - I look at the faces of the clerks in my own office, and observe them to be dull, but I don't know what's going on beneath. — E. M. Forster

Everybody, listen!" he shouted to the far-off crowds. "Rundark has super-powerful magical bombs. And they will be headed straight toward those giant vision orbs you're watching. You need to get as far away from those orbs as possible!"
And all around the Thirteen Kingdoms, seven people turned away from the orbs and fled. Yes, that's right: seven. The thousands of others stayed glued to the action. They'd discovered a new form of moving-picture entertainment, and nothing was going to tear them away — Christopher Healy

Nothing is worth the damage of self-abuse. It solves no problem, accomplishes no goal, and helps no one. It has no benefit or productive value. It serves only one purpose: to make you feel bad, which doesn't help you or anyone else. We are more likely to emotionally resign, mentally disengage, or stop trying when we feel bad about ourselves. It does not motivate or inspire us to do better; instead, it disempowers us from moving forward because we stop trusting ourselves to make the right choices. If it can be changed, fixed, or forgiven, then mentally abusing yourself is unnecessary. If it can't be changed, fixed, or forgiven, then mentally abusing yourself is pointless. Offer yourself some compassion as you move through life. Of course you're not going to have all the right answers. That's how we learn. Don't beat yourself up for a very human and very normal process. — Emily Maroutian

Dear Fran
I'm watching you sleep. You are sucking your thumb. (We're going to need to talk about this.)
I can't pretend you look like a delicately slumbering princess, because you don't. Apart from the thumb business you are twitching around like a ferret and about ten minutes ago you pulled the entire duvet over yourself and left me with nothing. But I've never loved you more than I do right now.
I love you so much. I hope we can have a life together. There's so much I want to say to you. Please wake up soon.
Freddy x — Lucy Robinson

Let me try," he said, and he took the ends and positioned
himself in front of her mirror.
She watched him for about two seconds before declaring,
"You're going to have to go home."
His eyes did not leave the reflection of his neckcloth in the
mirror. "I haven't even got past the first knot."
"And you're not going to."
He gave her a supercilious look, brow quirked and all.
"You're never going to get it right," she pronounced. "I must
say, between this and your boots, I am revising my opinion on the
impracticalities of couture, male versus female."
"Really?"
Her gaze dropped to his boots, polished to a perfect shine. "No
one has ever had to take a knife to my footwear."
"I wear nothing that buttons up the back," he countered.
"True, but I may choose a dress that buttons in the front,
whereas you cannot go out and about without a neckcloth. — Julia Quinn

It is a queer weapon, a shotgun. Every effort to secure additional range is well paid for. A bird may be going away at tremendous speed, "burning the air" as a youngster would put it. Seemingly nothing but chain-lightning, which zig-zagged a bit, could stop him. A crack of the gun and that wild flier is dead in the air, a full forty yards away. Right then the conviction comes to us that man never made another weapon so deadly as the shotgun. However, go back another forty yards, set the bird up on the limb of a tree and you might shoot at him all day and not kill him. The shotgun is a deadly weapon but its range is strictly limited and we are ourselves pretty well convinced that nothing less than a two-inch cannon will regularly kill single game-birds at one-hundred yards, with any kind of shot that can be put in the gun. — Charles Askins

The fact is that in any open society people constantly say things that other people don't like. It's completely normal that should happen. And in any confident, free society you just shrug it off and you proceed. There is no way of creating a free society where nobody says anything that others don't like. If offendness is the point at which you have to limit your thoughts then nothing can be said. There might be people who might be offended by various kinds of literature. I myself, I am not very fond of, let me not mention Chetan Bhagat, I wasn't going to say that, so I have not. And yet, I believe such writer have a right to publish, and of course to live. The point is behind these ideas of offendness and respect there is always the threat of violence. Always the threat is if you do that which disrespect or offends me I will be violent to you and so the real subject is not religion, its violence. — Salman Rushdie

I was a ballet dancer. I did other kinds of dance but ballet was my great love. But then it became clear, when I was 12, that my body wasn't going to be right. That's always a heartbreaking moment because there's nothing you can do about that. Your body is just not right. You don't have enough turnout. You're not built properly. — Greta Gerwig

Grace Taylor, I am going to kiss you right now and you are not going to run away from me, because you have no excuse now. Then you are going to go back upstairs to be and all you are going to think about are my fucking lips on yours and nothing else. — Christine Zolendz

There were so many people, so much to navigate, and as the distance fluctuated between us his hand kept slipping, down my arm to my wrist. And maybe he was going to let go as people pressed in on all sides, but all I could think was how when nothing made sense and hadn't for ages, you just have to grab onto anything you feel sure of. So as I felt his fingers loosening around my wrist, I just wrapped my own around them, right, and held on — Sarah Dessen

Once, during the Siege of Boston, when almost nothing was going right and General Schuyler had written from Albany to bemoan his troubles, Washington had replied that he understood but that "we must bear up against them, and make the best of mankind as they are, since we cannot have them as we wish." It was such resolve and an acceptance of mankind and circumstances as they were, not as he wished them to be, that continued to carry Washington through. "I will not however despair," he now wrote to Governor William Livingston. — David McCullough

The genesis of my interest in being a writer can be traced to fourth grade when we listened to a radio production of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and I asked the teacher if I could rewrite it for our class to present. Nothing like going head-to-head with the Bard, right?
I can still visualise the pages I filled creating this first "great" literary endeavor. Encouraged by teachers (and one doting grandmother), I went on to write reams of yearbook copy in high school and college and, then, to teach high school English. My "real" writing career didn't begin until I turned from education to the full-time pursuit of storytelling. — Laura Abbot

A lot of people stop short. They don't actually die but they say, 'Right I'm old, and I'm going to retire,' and then they dwindle into nothing. They go off to Florida and become jolly boring. — Mary Wesley

You wouldn't think the touch of someone's hand could blow your mind. It's nothing, right? People don't right songs and poems about holding hands - they write them about kisses and sex and eternal love. I mean, when you're a little kid you hold hands with your parents to cross the street. Who's going to write an ode to that?
We were alone in the dark, even though the enormous theater was filled with probably a thousand people. We were a tiny island in a sea of other people who didn't matter, who had no meaning, who were so stupid, so oblivious, so stuck in their own boring lives that they didn't even notice the huge, momentous, life-shattering event that was taking place right there in row L, between seats 102 and 104.
Derek Edwards was holding my hand. — Claire LaZebnik

I am carved like David,
every line of my body perfectly chiseled.
Hunger is the blade that has made me smooth.
I am a statue, yet I am only air at my center.
I go to hug myself and
-poof!-
my arms go right through me
finding nothing to hold on to.
My hands meet behind my own back
in a stone handshake.
This is not what you were expecting.
I'm so cold.
I'm so sharp.
I've been cut, now I'll cut you.
Come closer.
Yes, come closer to me.
I am going to make you see what I see. — Madeleine George

He felt so tired, so weary of holding on with an iron grip to something he knew was slipping away.
"You can't make someone love you," he said.
Her hand stilled for a moment, the dirty tissue between her fingers. "True."
"Even if you love them so much you'd do anything, anything, for them." The truth of his words sank in. Speaking about it wasn't helping. It felt worse, like probing an open wound.
"Even if," his grandmasaid, nodding.
"Sometimes they pick another person to love when you've been right in front of them the whole time."
"It does happen." Her voice was soft.
"And then there's nothing left but to keep going as you were, pretending you never felt anything more than . . ."
"Friendship?" Her eyes met his and there was the faintest glimmer of tears.
"But I don't think I can have even that, anymore. — Mary Jane Hathaway

Six month of sitting home, six month of doing absolutely nothing but watching TV, going out, sleeping, getting drunk and sleeping again. Oh no, wait, I was busy with something, I was doing some renovations in my new apartment. Which legally became mine only a month ago. Yep, that's what all my life has been about, spontaneous decisions and living in the moment. Because right now technically I'm a 25-year-old illegal immigrant from Russia, four years in New York, no papers, no work authorization, no work itself. Only a crazy life filled with restaurants, shops, beauty salons, clubs and restaurants again. How is it all possible? Very simple. I used to be a stripper. — Ellie Midwood

Christy said. "It's just weird, your seeing him like that. What are you going to do?"
"Nothing. What can I do?"
"Maybe he'll call you to see if you're okay," Katie said.
"No," Christy said, "in the movies he would have told his friend to stop the car, and he would have run back to you with an umbrella and walked you the rest of the way hoe, and you would have made him a pot of tea."
Sierra laughed. "I am drinking tea right now," she said. "Maybe my life is a low budget 'B' movie, and all I get is the tea. No hero. No umbrella."
"Yeah, well then my life is a class 'Z' movie," Katie said. "No tea. No hero. No umbrella. No plot
"
"Yours is more of a mystery," Christy interrupted cheerfully. "The ending will surprise all of us. — Robin Jones Gunn

It's always something that's going to be a part of me. It's the reason why I work so hard each and every day. It's the reason I come to work dedicated to become the best that I can be. Nothing's going to come easy in life, and I've learned a lot of lessons, some the hard way, and I think just the things that I've been through have helped mold me into the person I am and what (is in) my future and that's continuing to do things the right way. — Michael Vick

Glenn could see I was bricking it and turned round to me as I sat there, gripping the armrests.
"You all right?" he said.
"I hate flying, Boss. I'm shitting myself."
"Don't worry, Merse. It's going to be OK. We *won't* crash."
I thought, "Thank God for that. Glenn's said we're going to be safe. Nothing's going to fuck with us now. — Paul Merson

I'm confused, Beatrice," she says. "What exactly do you want us to do?"
"I didn't come here to ask you for help," I say. "I thought you should know that a lot of people are going to die, very soon. And I know you don't want to stay here doing nothing while that happens, even if some of your faction does."
She looks down, her crooked mouth betraying just how right I am.
"I also wanted to ask you if we can talk to the Erudite you're keeping safe here," I say. "I know they're hidden, but I need access to them."
"And what do you intend to do?" she says.
"Shoot them," I say, rolling my eyes.
"That isn't funny."
I sigh. "Sorry. I need information. That's all. — Veronica Roth

[ ... ] at this point the God-understanding stuff kind of makes him want to puke, from fear. Something you can't see or hear or touch or smell: OK. All right. But something you can't even feel? Because that's what he feels when he tries to understand something to really sincerely pray to. Nothingness. He says when he tries to pray he gets this like image in his mind's eye of the brainwaves or whatever of his prayers going out and out, with nothing to stop them, going, going, radiating out into like space and outliving him and still going and never hitting Anything out there, much less Something with an ear. Much much less Something with an ear that could possibly give a rat's ass. — David Foster Wallace

Everyone stop moving!" he bellowed. "Especially you, chickens! CHICKENS, GIVE UP! WE'RE GOING TO EAT YOU! THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT! STOP RUNNING AWAY RIGHT NOW! — Tui T. Sutherland

There's nothing.
Nothing to hold on to while the current takes me.
Whatever I might have had until today, I've lost.
I feel my love for her, swelling; bloating into something that's about to explode, like an abscess that's been allowed to rot for too long, but the pain drowns it so completely I know I'm never coming back out. This feeling, that you're choking and that your body is underwater, immersed in the ocean, a dense flood that overpowers your breathing abilities, and your will to survive gets drowned right along with it. And as I'm drowning I see her face and hear her voice - and it doesn't give me hope, it terrifies me. I'm terrified because I know she's going to be the death of me. I'm terrified because I know I won't be able to cope. I'm terrified because the darkness is the only true friend I've ever had and if it wants to embrace me I don't have the power to make it stop. — Kady Hunt

Elliot - Elliot waved absently, making a decision right then and there. He'd take the trip that Patrick offered. A cruise down Europe's most famous rivers couldn't be any more disruptive than home, after all.
Alice -I stood up shaking the laptop at nothing. "He made me think we were going to get married at the end of this trip! He had me look up the laws for Americans getting married in Budapest!"
"Ball-hanging is too good for him. He serves something worse. Off with his head!"
"I will take that trip!" I yelled at the small living room filled with boxes that I had yet to unpack. "And I will enjoy myself! A lot! — Katie MacAlister

I've learned that doing what you think is right doesn't always make you feel good. For another, I've learned that sometimes you just have to keep on going when you want to do nothing but drop. And that just doing the everyday things, like keeping a shop running or getting up every morning, will keep the work going until things can straighten out again. And doing those things right every day soon becomes more important than the more pressing issues of the time. — Ann Rinaldi

I'm right here," he said. "Dad's right here. I'm going nowhere. Just gonna wait until you're ready to come out into the world, and then your mom and I are going to take care of you. So you hang tight, we
clear? Do your thing, and we'll wait for however long it takes."
With his free hand, he took Layla's palm, and put it over his own.
"Your family is right here. Waiting for you ... and we love you."
It was totally stupid to talk to what was, no doubt, nothing but a bundle of cells. But he couldn't help
it. The words, the actions ... they were at once totally his, and yet coming from a place that was foreign to him.
Felt right, though.
Felt ... like what a father was supposed to do. — J.R. Ward

I always feel that I am a traveler, going somewhere and to some destination.
If I tell myself that the somewhere and the destination do not exist, that seems to me very likely and reasonable enough.
The brothel keeper, when he kicks anyone out, has similar logic, argues it well, and is always right, I know. So at the end of the course I shall find my mistake. Be it so. I shall find then that not only the Arts, but everything else as well, were only dreams, that one's self was nothing at all. — Vincent Van Gogh

We turned our back on Israel, our ally. You know, and a situation like that, of course [Barack]Obama's not going to be able to do anything. I would shore up our military first, because if you don't get the military right, nothing else is going to work. — Benjamin Carson

If you will, for just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else. It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever." "You can't just decide to be happy." "No, you can't. But you can sure as hell decide to be miserable. Is that what you want? Do you want to be the asshole who went to Fillory and was miserable there? Even in Fillory? Because that's who you are right now." There — Lev Grossman

We live in a terrible world, "happiness" is defined by how lucky you are in society, let me say this; out of life experiences spanning throughout my 19-20 years of my life, I learned that life is unfair, but ironically, every time I TRY to do something right, it gets spit back in my f###### face. In short, even though it may sound depressing or negative, in life, it is desperately not fair, nothing will be happy or normal and if something happens that you thought shouldn't or cant, it's going to happen anyway, the truth is the truth, and the truth hurts, deal with it, and sometimes nothing will ever get better from there ever again, deal with it. — C.J. Butler

Life is not easy and comfortable, with nothing ever going wrong as long as you buy the right product. It's not true that if you have the right insurance everything is going to be fine. That's not what it's really like. Terrible things happen. And those are the things we learn from. — Madeleine L'Engle

But for me, the true attraction of America is that it's practically godless. When I was younger and dodging the Romans, I could hardly walk a mile in Europe without stepping on a stone sacred to some god or other. But out here in Arizona, all I have to worry about is the occasional encounter with Coyote, and I actually rather like him. (He's nothing like Thor, for one thing, and that right there means we're going to get along fine. The local college kids would describe Thor as a "major asshat" if they ever had the misfortune to meet him.) — Kevin Hearne

[Clayton] Christensen had seen dozens of companies falter by going for immediate payoffs rather than long-term growth, and he saw people do the same thing. In three hours at work, you could get something substantial accomplished, and if you failed to accomplish it you felt the pain right away. If you spent three hours at home with your family, it felt like you hadn't done a thing, and if you skipped it nothing happened. So you spent more and more time at the office, on high-margin, quick-yield tasks, and you even believed that you were staying away from home for the sake of your family. He had seen many people tell themselves that they could divide their lives into stages, spending the first part pushing forward their careers, and imagining that at some future point they would spend time with their families
only to find that by then their families were gone. — Larissa MacFarquhar

Nothing in my life is going right, right now and there's got to be a reason for that. I think that God is trying to get my attention to tell me that this is going to end very, very badly if I don't walk away from it. — Mindy McCready

Travis, I love you with all of my being, but I love Cassie, too. And right now she needs me more than you do. Forgive me. Meri She loved him. The wonder of the statement seeped into him, but the joy that should have accompanied the knowledge faded beneath his growing frustration and fear. How could she possibly think that anyone needed her more than he did? She was his heart, his very life. If anything happened to her . . . Travis tore the top page from the tablet and hardened his jaw. He'd just have to make sure nothing did happen. After all, if a wife was going to tell her husband she loved him, she ought to do it in person. And he aimed to see that she did precisely that. Right after he kissed the living fire out of her and showed her exactly how much he truly needed her. — Karen Witemeyer

I stared blankly at Rhys for what felt like about three days.
"Me?" I finally sputtered.
He nodded.
"You're kidding, right?"
"Not kidding."
I laughed then, and it sounded slightly hysterical. "I'm not
going to marry you."
"I'm not asking you to."
"Good."
He eyed me. "And you can wipe that horrified look off your
face because it's obviously not true."
"Do I look horrified?"
"Yes, you do."
I grimaced. "Nothing personal, Rhys, but - "
He held up a hand. "Say nothing else. I shouldn't have even
mentioned it to you. I'll find another dragon to help me."
"Second opinions are really important," I said.
He just glowered at that.
We rode the rest of the way back to Erin Heights in silence.
Now I had even more information crowding my already full brain.
Maybe that Irena chick should go see a shrink, herself. She was
one crazy dragon lady. — Michelle Rowen

Life follows the same routine-I wake up to nothing new or exciting. Everyday it's the same. Except some days, days like today, when I wake up with a powerful desire of going right back to sleep. Or maybe be spared the pain of having ever to wake up again. I'm just tired. Tired of the monotony, tired of pitying myself and my dad, tired of being a subject of sympathy who crosses my path, and of being so pathetically obsessed with a guy who doesn't give a shit about me. — Durjoy Datta

Your file was empty. Nothing. Not even an immunization record." He didn't even pretend to look surprised. He eased back in his seat, eyes gleaming obsidian.
"And you're telling me this because you're afraid I might cause an outbreak? Measles or mumps?"
"I'm telling you this because I want you to know that I know something about you isn't right. You haven't fooled everybody. I'm going to find out what you're up to. I'm going to expose you."
"Looking forward to it."
I flushed, catching the innuendo too late. — Becca Fitzpatrick

Anyone who's ever flown London to Sydney, seated next to or anywhere in the proximity of a fussy baby, you'll no doubt fall right into the swing of things in Hell. What with the strangers and crowding and seemingly endless hours of waiting for nothing to happen, for you Hell will feel like one long, nostalgic hit a deja vu. Especially if your in-flight movie was The English Patient. In Hell, whenever the demons announce they're going to treat everyone to a big-name Hollywood movie, don't get too excited because it's always The English Patient, or, unfortunately, The Piano. It's never The Breakfast Club. — Chuck Palahniuk

Even if you tell yourself "Today I'm going to drink coffee the wrong way ... from a dirty boot." Even that would be right, because you chose to drink coffee from that boot.
Because you can do nothing wrong. You are always right. Even when you say, "I'm such an idiot, I'm so wrong ... " you're right. You're right about being wrong. You're right even when you're an idiot.
No matter how stupid your idea, you're doomed to be right because it's yours. — Chuck Palahniuk

There's supposedly nothing more than a friendship going on between us, right? So, why does being around you hurt so badly sometimes? I think I might've figured it out tonight. It's because you tell me one thing, but your eyes tell me another, your heart tells me another. Your heart was beating faster than mine today. Why won't you open it up to me? — Penelope Ward

So why don't you tell me what's up?" "You're going to think I'm crazy." "Nothing new there." Harvey chuckled and then scanned the area to make sure that no one was around. "All right," he said slowly, "here goes. As you know, Bruce and I have been running the clinic for almost three years now, trying our best to keep all results secret and avoiding the press at all costs." "I — Harlan Coben

Green leaned his head back, wanting everything Ruxs was going to do to him. "Upstairs. Get the fuck upstairs, Mark. We can't do it right here. What if Curtis comes downstairs?" Green panted. Thank god some portion of his brain was still working. "Oh shit. You're right." Ruxs chuckled softly, rubbing his hand up and down Green's body. "You're so goddamn beautiful, I can't think straight when I see you. You can't be walking around in a fuckin' silk robe, nothing but this soft material between me and your naked body." He squeezed Green's ass, thrust against him a couple more times before he dropped Green's robe back down and pulled his pajama pants back over his ass. "Go — A.E. Via

I don't ever want to feel that way. Feel as if there are no surprises left. The surprises make life worth living. Expecting nothing, accepting it all. Accepting isn't the right word. ACKNOWLEDGING it all. I suppose I'll just try to figure it out as I go or at least try to understand it. Or f***, just think about it. I'll face whatever comes my way ... — John O'Callaghan

The queer thing is that we do trust you," said Bodisham. "In spite of your -- extremism."

"You'd better," said Rud with grim conviction. "I'm right. What is extremism? The whole truth and nothing but the truth. I ask you."

"It's because of his extremism you trust him," said Chiffan. "It's because in the last resort we believe in his indiscretion, and know he won't fail us even if we fail ourselves. All leadership is extravagance. Extra-vagance. Going a bit ahead."

Rud did not quite understand that. "It's because you know I'm right," he said.

"It's because," said Chiffan, letting his thoughts run away with him," to make a new world, the leader must be a fundamentally destructive man, a recklessly destructive man. He breaks his way through the jungle and we follow...We cannot do without you, Rud. — H.G.Wells

Isabel never despaired, even though I think she knew everything that was going to happen, right from the beginning. There was a Walt Whitman poem she liked, especially the part that went - 'All goes onward and outward,/Nothing collapses/And to die is different from/What anyone supposes/And Luckier.' She tried to believe that, and it gave her some comfort, I know. She was very brave. Always. She hid her anguish and sadness, although I know she felt them. Because she wasn't losing only one person she loved - as we have. She was losing all of them. — Patricia Gaffney

People get their hearts broken over and over and over again. But they keep on beating. They keep going. And each time they get stronger. Not a heart made of armor, not a hardened shell. They get stronger because it's like any muscle. You keep using it and it will grow, and if shit gets rough it will bounce right back. The heart is nothing if not resilient. — Karina Halle

There was a clatter as the basilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione's arms. Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such enthusiasm that he lifted Hermione off her feet.
"Is this the moment?" Harry asked weakly, and when nothing happened except that Ron and Hermione gripped each other still more firmly and swayed on the spot, he raised his voice. "OI! There's a war going on here!"
Ron and Hermione broke apart, their arms still around each other.
"I know, mate," said Ron, who looked as though he had recently been hit on the back of the head with a Bludger, "so it's now or never, isn't it?"
"Never mind that, what about the Horcrux?" Harry shouted. "D'you think you could just
just hold it in, until we've got the diadem?"
"Yeah
right
sorry
" said Ron, and he and Hermione set about gathering up fangs, both pink in the face. — J.K. Rowling