Quotes & Sayings About Nothing Working Out

If I'm not working, I really have nothing to do with it - I'm not hanging out and mixing with film people. Not that I have anything against film people; they're some of the best people around and some of the worst people around, just like in any business ... they just gesticulate a little bit more. — Christian Bale

In the infinite wisdom of the Lord of all the earth, each event falls with exact precision into its proper place in the unfolding of His divine plan. Nothing, however small, however strange, occurs without His ordering, or without its particular fitness for its place in the working out of His purpose; and the end of all shall be the manifestation of His glory, and the accumulation of His praise. — B. B. Warfield

The struggle is inner: Chicano, indio, American Indian, mojado, mexicano, immigrant Latino, Anglo in power, working class Anglo, Black, Asian
our psyches resemble the bordertowns and are populated by the same people. The struggle has always been inner, and is played out in outer terrains. Awareness of our situation must come before inner changes, which in turn come before changes in society. Nothing happens in the "real" world unless it first happens in the images in our heads. — Gloria E. Anzaldua

I never have [suffered writer's block], although I've had books that didn't work out. I had to stop writing them. I just abandoned them. It was depressing, but it wasn't the end of the world. When it really isn't working, and you've been bashing yourself against the wall, it's kind of a relief. I mean, sometimes you bash yourself against the wall and you get through it. But sometimes the wall is just a wall. There's nothing to be done but go somewhere else. — Margaret Atwood

The basic problem for Lawrence was that he was lazy. He had figured out that everything was much simpler if, like Superman with his X-ray vision, you just stared through the cosmetic distractions and saw the underlying mathematical skeleton. Once you found the math in a thing, you knew everything about it, and you could manipulate it to your heart's content with nothing more than a pencil and a napkin. He saw it in the curve of the silver bars on his glockenspiel, saw it in the catenary arch of a bridge and in the capacitor-studded drum of Atanasoff and Berry's computing machine. Actually pounding on the glockenspiel, riveting the bridge together, or trying to figure out why the computing machine wasn't working were not as interesting to him. — Neal Stephenson

I started slow, and eventually I started working out 4 to 5 days a week. We all have to start somewhere, and doing something is better than nothing at all. — Khloe Kardashian

The people I'm working with tend to be people I know, who are my friends, and I like hanging out with them. There's nothing better than making a long-term project with your friends. It's just dreamy. — Tilda Swinton

The people's community must not be a mere phrase, but a revolutionary achievement following from the radical carrying out of the basic life needs of the working class. A ruthless battle against corruption! A war against exploitation, freedom for the workers! The elimination of all economic-capitalist influences on national policy ... Maintaining a rotten economic system has nothing to do with nationalism, which is an affirmation of the Fatherland. I can love Germany and hate capitalism. Not only can I, I must. — Joseph Goebbels

Bingo pup. It's a lesson best learned early. They're all afraid of us." He strolled over to Derek. "You're trying to be a good kid, aren't you? You think that'll show them they're wrong. So how'd that working out for you? Guess what? They don't care. To them, you're a monster, and nothing you do
or don't do
will change their minds. My advice? Give 'em what they want. It's a short, brutal life." He smiled. "Live it up."
Derek stared straight ahead, patiently waiting.
"He can't hear a word I'm saying, can he?" Liam said.
"Nope. — Kelley Armstrong

Three a.m. drunks, all over America, were staring at the walls, having finally give it up. You didn't have to be drunk to get hurt, to be zeroed out by a woman; but you could get hurt and become a drunk. You might think for a while, especially when you were young, that luck was with you, and sometimes it was. But there were all manner of averages and laws working that you know nothing about, even as you imagined things were going well. Some night, some hot summer Thursday, night you became the drunk, you were out there alone in a cheap rented room, and no matter how many times you'd been out there before, it was no help, it was even worse because you had got to thinking you wouldn't face it again. All you could do was light another cigarette, pour another drink, check the peeling walls for lips and eyes. What men and women did to each other was beyond comprehension. — Charles Bukowski

I think failure is nothing more than life's way of nudging you that you are off course. My attitude to failure is not attached to outcome, but in not trying. It is liberating. Most people attach failure to something not working out or how people perceive you. This way, it is about answering to yourself. — Sara Blakely

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

The worl is ful of things waiting to happen. Thats the meat and boan of it right there. You myt think you can jus go here and there doing nothing. Happening nothing. You cant tho you bleeding cant. You put your self on any road and some thing wil show its self to you. Wanting to happen. Waiting to happen. You myt say, 'I dont want to know.' But 1ce its showt its self to you you wil know wont you. You cant not know no mor. There it is and working in you. You myt try to put a farness be twean you and it only you cant becaws youre carrying it inside you. The waiting to happen aint out there where it ben no more its inside you. — Russell Hoban

There's nothing like watching Dr. Oz and working out at the same time; you feel like you're the healthiest human being on the planet. — Lecy Goranson

We haven't been on the same page in years. It is what it is. Sometimes that match burns out. So, no, I don't feel bad about it. It's good. I'm grateful for everything we have done throughout our careers and if there's nothing else to put out, then there's nothing to put out. I'm constantly writing and working. It doesn't stop there. — GZA

I think it is probably more important to attend specialized conventions for a journeyman writer than any other, but it's useful at all stages of a career, if for nothing else, to find out how the industry is working at any given time. — Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

The thing is, work has simply swamped my whole existence. Slowly but surely it's robbed me of my mother, my wife, and everything that meant anything to me. It's like a germ planted in the skull that devours the brain, spreads to the trunk and the limbs, and destroys the entire body in time. No sooner am I out of bed in the morning than work clamps down on me and pins me to my desk before I've even had a breath of fresh air. It follows me to lunch and I find myself chewing over sentences as I'm chewing my food. It goes with me when I go out, eats out of my plate at dinner and shares my pillow in bed at night. It's so extremely merciless that once the process of creation is started, it's impossible for me to stop it, and it goes on growing and working even when I'm asleep. ... Outside that, nothing, nobody exists. — Emile Zola

The girl remembered London as a place of infinite freedom. Now it seemed she'd rented out her whole life to the Joneses in advance. Service had reduced her to a child, put her under orders to get up and lie down at someone else's whim; her days were spent obeying someone else's rules, working for someone else's profit. Nothing was Mary's anymore. Not even her time was hers to waste. — Emma Donoghue

You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist. — Isaac Asimov

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good. — W. H. Auden

I leaned back on my elbows and basked in the warming spring sun. There was a curious peace in this day, a sense of things working quietly in their proper courses, nothing minding the upsets and turmoils of human concerns. Perhaps it was the peace that one always finds outdoors, far enough away from buildings and clatter. Maybe it was the result of gardening, that quiet sense of pleasure in touching growing things, the satisfaction of helping them thrive. Perhaps just the relief of finally having found work to do, rather than rattling around the castle feeling out of place, conspicuous as an inkblot on parchment. — Diana Gabaldon

Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed - no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull. The — George Orwell

Number one comes freedom first for my people and equality. And this is what I plan to do after I'm through fighting - working with nothing but the people, the little people in the alleys: the downtrodden people, going out and helping them with my image. — Muhammad Ali

Nothing on earth has greater potential to change lives and carry out His kingdom work in your community, than your local church.There's nothing like the local church when it's working right. Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is breathtaking. Its potential is unlimited. No other organization on earth is like the church. Nothing even comes close. — Bill Hybels

I don't go out unless I'm working. My quality time is when I'm doing nothing. — Nas

I imagine you working on me as an algebra problem, reducing me to fractions, crossing out common denominators, until there's nothing left on the page but a line that says x = whatever it is that is wrong with me. — Patricia McCormick

One guy yelled at me, 'You stupid bitch, how do you live like that with nothing in your brain?' Well, that did it. I wasn't going to put up with that. Ok, I'm not so smart. I'm working class. But it's the working class that keeps the world running, and it's the working classes that get exploited. What kind of revolution is it that just throws out big words that working-class people can't understand? What kind of crap social revolution is that? I mean, I'd like to make the world a better place, too. If somebody's really being exploited, we've got to put a stop to it. That's what I believe, and that's why I ask questions. Am I right, or what? — Haruki Murakami

No offense, doll, but that's not something I'm willing to share. I'd prefer to live a long and happy life if it's all the same to you."
"You can't just throw out vague allegations and then say nothing else!"
"See, that's the good thing about being a fugitive like me. I can do what the hell I like, and I'm not answerable to anyone." Stepping away from the bars, he stands with his legs stretched out wide. His stance matches his grin.
"Sure looks like that's working out well for you," I say, piercing him with a scornful look. — Siobhan Davis

Working together, they will dig out the truth and nothing but the truth about what happened in '99, to assign responsibility, and to look at the institutional failings. — Jose Ramos-Horta

Sometimes the thought of his mother working so hard while he did nothing would come suddenly upon his and he would rush off and try to help her, but whatever he did turned out wrong ... So that it always ended in his mother saying, 'Oh, run along for goodness' sakes, and let me get on with my work.' And then Jack would go and lie on his front ... and make up pretty poems about the Dignity of Labor, or about how dear and good mothers are. — E. Nesbit

Nothing had worked out the way he'd hoped. He should've expected it by now, maybe. After all, things never had before. And yet he kept on pissing into the wind. He was like a man whose door's too low, but instead of working out how to duck, keeps on smacking his head into the lintel every day of his miserable life. He wanted to feel sorry for himself, but he knew he deserved no better. A man can't do the things he'd done, and hope for happy endings. — Joe Abercrombie

He points out that mystics have always worked systematically to modify their brain chemistry, whether through fasting, self-flagellation, sleeplessness, hypnotic movement, or chanting.* The brain can be made to drug itself, as seems to happen with certain placebos. We don't merely imagine that the placebo antidepressant is working to lift our sadness or worry - the brain is actually producing extra serotonin in response to the mental prompt of swallowing a pill containing nothing but sugar and belief. What all this suggests is that the workings of consciousness are both more and less materialistic than we usually think: chemical reactions can induce thoughts, but thoughts can also induce chemical reactions. — Michael Pollan

I think for most people, the audience probably couldn't tell the difference, but I know they can be better. And the people working know they can be more precise. I'm still doing another round of sound mixing and color timing, pretty technical stuff. I think the movie's really presentable, nothing was left out that would take you out of the movie. I just need to perfect the job and I still have two weeks to go. — Ang Lee

When I'm working I'm wishing I was doing nothing and when I'm doing nothing I'm wondering if I should be working. I hurry through what I've got to do and then, when I've got nothing to do, I keep glancing at the clock, wishing it was time to go out. Then, when I'm out, I'm wondering how long it will be before I'm back home. — Geoff Dyer

If you made something and it didn't work out, let it go. Remember that you're nothing but a beginner - even if you've been working on your craft for fifty years. We are all just beginners here, and we shall all die beginners. So let it go. Forget — Elizabeth Gilbert

Historically, psychologists have looked at introversion as the absence of extroversion. They measure extroversion, and if you are low in it, then you are considered an introvert. This perpetuates the perception of introversion as negative space, and introverted activities as not really doing anything. We need to train ourselves, and others, out of this idea. We need to start seeing doing nothing (or reading, or working alone on projects, or whatever it is we do to recharge) as activities that are as valid as any social event. — Sophia Dembling

- Excellent, excellent, your plan is working. -
- What plan? - I ask.
- The plan to make her wonder if you love her. Nothing makes a women more curios then the suspicion that she's loved by someone. She'll do anything to confirm it now, you see. She'll go out of her way to find out if you really do. That's just human nature. Who doesn't want to be loved? - — Mahbod Seraji

It's a game of failure [softball]. Everybody would play, that was easy and everyone's not playing because it is so tough. But it's a matter of keep plugging away, keep working hard, believing in yourself and it is a team sport and there is nothing better than being out there, having a ball in your hand, playing the game that you love and ultimately that's what it comes down is having fun and enjoying it. — Jennie Finch

Fortunately he had nothing resembling a plan, so he didn't have to worry about things not working out according to it. He simply let them happen, unable to make up his mind whether he was losing his judgement or finally developing some perspective. — L.J. Davis

As long as there is democracy, there will be people wanting to play jazz because nothing else will ever so perfectly capture the democratic process in sound. Jazz means working things out musically with other people. You have to listen to other musicians and play with them even if you don't agree with what they're playing. It teaches you the very opposite of racism and anti-Semitism. It teaches you that the world is big enough to accommodate us all. — Wynton Marsalis

Instead of working from a place of favour and out of a secure identity, we worked for favour and to have an identity! Our reason for living wasn't life itself. We weren't satisfied with the life that we had, so we did all we could to disengage from life and in so doing created for ourselves some sort of false world which was only relevant to those living in it! No wonder guys wanted nothing to do with us. No wonder our families and old friends thought that we had totally lost the plot and feared for our sanity! Religion is no different the world over, they honour what their traditions say are relevant and in so doing they make themselves irrelevant to all around them! A form of godliness but with no real power! — David Vaughan

Nothing pleases me more than when somebody who was awe-inspired to be working with me realizes I'm just another schmuck that they're bored of hanging out with on a set. I love that moment. I like it when that persistent illusion is smashed. — Robert Downey Jr.

In the past, my brain babbling at such length had meant there was something it either didn't want to think about
which things numbered in the dozens right now
or it was working out some extreme cleverness that would at any moment leap out and surprise me. Much to my dismay, nothing leapt out. — C.E. Murphy

Then for no reason at all, I felt magnificent. It was as though my body until that instant had simply been lazy as though the aches and exhaustion were all imagined, created from nothing in order to keep me from truly exerting myself. Now my body seemed at last to say, "Well, if you must have it, here!" and an accession of strength came flooding through me. Buoyed up, I forgot my usual feeling of routine self-pity when working out, I lost myself, oppressed mind along with aching body; all entanglements were shed, I broke into the clear. — John Knowles

There is nothing stereotyped about God's dealings with His children. Therefore, we must not by our prejudices and preconceptions make watertight compartments for the working out His Spirit, either in our own lives or in the lives of others. We must leave God free to work as He wills and to leave what evidence He pleases of the work He does. — Watchman Nee

... It's just so' - she frowned, hunting for the right word - 'relentless. You think you're getting on top of it. You scoop up a few villains, get a result or two, make a night of it in the bar, then next morning you wake up and start all over again. It never bloody stops...
She described the pressures from headquarters, and from her own divisional Superintendent. The never-ending demands to beat performance target after performance target. The blizzards of paperwork. The fact that no one really knew what their political masters were after. They claimed to have priorities, lots of priorities, but in the end you got to realise there were so many that absolutely nothing got to the top of the heap. When it came to working out what politicians wanted, really wanted, she'd finally sussed the truth: that they were all equally clueless.
pg 157 — Graham Hurley

Nathan stared at the floor. "Honestly? He's a C5-6 quadriplegic. That means nothing works below about here ... " He placed a hand on the upper part of his chest. "They haven't worked out how to fix a spinal cord yet." I stared at the door, thinking about Will's face as we drove along in the winter sunshine, the beaming face of the man on the skiing holiday. "There are all sorts of medical advances taking place, though, right? I mean ... somewhere like this ... they must be working on stuff all the time. — Jojo Moyes

It wasn't until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can't be as bad as that workout. — Henry Rollins

Age to me means nothing. I can't get old; I'm working. I was old when I was twenty-one and out of work. As long as you're working, you stay young. When I'm in front of an audience, all that love and vitality sweeps over me and I forget my age. — George Burns

When you spend two to three years working on an album that I feel very happy with the end result, there is nothing I would change. Musically, I have achieved what I set out to do. — Enya

My father had left behind an old piano. My sister was already going to school, my mother was out working, and I stayed at home alone with my adorable grandmother who understood nothing I said. It was so boring that I stayed at the piano all day long, and that saved my life. — Michel Legrand

I can't just wake up and watch TV and do nothing. I need a day off working out, seeing the wife, play a little golf, see my kids. — Pete Sampras

I have abstained from expressing any opinion, so far," says Mr. Superintendent, with his military voice still in good working order. "I have now only one remark to offer, on leaving this case in your hands. There IS such a thing, Sergeant, as making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Good-morning."
"There is also such a thing as making nothing out of a mole-hill, in consequence of your head being too high to see it." Having returned his brother-officer's compliment in those terms, Sergeant Cuff wheeled about, and walked away to the window by himself. — Wilkie Collins

She's here, in front of me. Just my luck. I obsessed about her all night, working out a plan to find her and take her soul. After the disappointment in my kill last night, I knew nothing would satisfy me until I had her.
Only her. — Christine Fonseca

Courage is called for on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis, even when there's nothing urgent at stake. It is up to us to create our lives consistent with who we know ourselves to be - making what's at stake that which we say is at stake. It's the stand we take on ourselves. That stand then becomes who we are. Saying that something is at stake is always a purely existential act. This business about freedom, this business about power, is really a product of a place to stand - not something that is out in front of us, that we're working on or measuring ourselves against. When we live consistent with what we say, we are being true to ourselves. — Nancy Zapolski

Nothing can substitute for just plain hard work. I had to put in the time to get back. And it was a grind. It meant training and sweating every day. But I was completely committed to working out to prove to myself that I still could do it. — Andre Agassi

I suggested that he write from 11:00 to 1:00 every weekday. During that time, he was to write or do nothing. No email; no calls; no research; no clearing off a desk; no hanging out with Jack, my adorable, three-year-old, train-obsessed nephew. Write, or stare out the window. "Remember," I added, "working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination. You want to use your writing time for writing only. Nothing else, including no other kinds of work. — Gretchen Rubin

In the context of the English language, there were many more important words than "in." There were fancy words, historic words, words that meant life or death. There were multi-syllabic tongue-twisters that required a sort out before speaking, and mission-critical pivotals that started wars or ended wars ... and even poetic nonsensicals that were like a symphony as they left the lips. Generally speaking, "in" did not play with the big boys. In fact, it barely had much of a definition at all, and, in the course of its working life, was usually nothing but a bridge, a conduit for the heavy lifters in any given sentence. There was, however, one context in which that humble little two-letter, one-syllable jobbie was a BFD. Love. The difference between someone "loving" somebody versus being "in love" was a curb to the Grand Canyon. The head of a pin to the entire Midwest. An exhale to a hurricane. — J.R. Ward

If we are going to learn to trust God in adversity, we must believe God will allow nothing to subvert His glory so He will allow nothing to spoil the good He is working out in us and for us. — Jerry Bridges

I've been in your skin," he taunted. "I know you inside and out. There's nothing there. Do us all a favor and die so we can start working on another plan and quit thinking maybe you'll grow the fuck up and be capable of something. — Karen Marie Moning

The Coffee Guy, whose name is Rosie by the way, has moved to El Salvador.' I lied.
This was not met with happy noises.
'He's turned his back on coffee and is in the wilds of Central America building houses for the poor. I think we should all take a moment away from our quest for coffee-satisfaction and think about this noble decision. As you clamor for caffeine and curse the hard-working but innocent staff at my store, Rosie is sitting in the bed of a beat-up pickup bumping across roads to make one room homes out of mud for those who have nothing at all — Kristen Ashley

I will be capable of loving, regardless of whether I am loved in return,
Of giving, when I have nothing,
Of working happily, even in the midst of difficulties,
Of holding out my hand, even when utterly alone and abandoned,
Of drying my tears, even while I weep,
Of believing, even when no one believes in me. — Paulo Coelho

I have nothing but gratitude for the people who made the film. It was a most unusual experience. I'm no judge, and the only film I've ever seen made was Mockingbird, but there seemed to be an aura of good feeling on the set. I went out and looked at them filming a little of it, and there seemed to be such a general kindness, perhaps even respect, for the material they were working with. I was delighted, touched, happy, and exceedingly grateful. — Harper Lee

On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters, and on the wrapping of a cigarette packet - everywhere. Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed - no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull. — George Orwell

One of the things that concerned me was the way the system operated: the wife who went out to work got a full personal allowance, but the wife who was working at home got nothing. This was particularly hard on wives who gave up work for a time to bring up children. — Nigel Lawson

I meditate twice a day. I meditate two hours every day. I spend at least an hour working out. So that's three hours every day of something mind/body discipline. Other than that: nothing. — Deepak Chopra

Third, it puts more small-scale capitalists out of business. They can do nothing but join the working class. 'Thus', says Marx, 'the forest of uplifted arms demanding work becomes ever thicker, while the arms themselves become ever thinner. — Anonymous

Within our working lives, and perhaps even amongst friends, we see deceptions played out before our eyes: people who pretend to be happy when they are aching with sadness, or to like each other when they feel nothing but contempt. Perhaps these are actions of self-preservation, driven by a will to hide our pain from a wider audience. Within a relationship, though, pretence is indeed both unreasonable and illogical. Admit to being the person you really are. Never play that deadly game of charades. — Rachel Abbott

May 20, '95 - Mississippi calls. She says, "All my working life I have done things to help black people. I can drive into the black part of town where no white person would dare to go. I have nothing to fear. They say, 'Hi there, Mizz Mississippi.' I still call them niggers, but only because of the way they act. I'd have an affair with Johnnie Cochran in a minute." Once she said to me, "I don't see why I should have to feel guilty about the Holocaust. It's not my fault." I hadn't been talking or thinking about the Holocaust, and hadn't told anyone to feel guilty. Her remark came out of nowhere. We were in a diner, about to have a sandwich and suddenly the moment was explosive. Simply being a Jew arouses a peculiar expectation mixed with resentment, even in a highly intelligent woman. Amazing to me is that she doesn't do much but watch television, drink beer, and smoke Marlboros, and yet seethes with dark thoughts and tumultuous feeling. — Leonard Michaels

I wish the music business was a much easier thing, but you know what? Nothing easy is worth anything. So it is what it is. There comes a time when things can work out and everybody can be happy. And that's what it's all about in the end - everybody being happy and working it out. — Nas

Working with a guy like Ice Cube on 'Ride Along,' you learn so much. He's a guy who produces, writes, and directs, so you watch and learn and ask questions. As you go, you learn and figure out what you should and shouldn't do. I do nothing but soak up information. — Kevin Hart

What do I love most? Working with words. Words in a sentence are like pieces of a puzzle; you try out a whole bunch, then turn them this way and that until they fit into the whole. Creating flow is crucial. There's nothing like the moment when, after working and reworking a sentence, everything falls into place, and you know that it's right. What I do love least? Touring. It's grueling, time-consuming, and lonely. — Barbara Delinsky

For me, working out is nothing to do with looks. It's to let it all out - the stress, the self-consciousness - you think less; it makes you more centred. — Eva Green

Black-and-white thinking is the addict's mentality, which can be a bar to recovery when one is still active. But an addict who finds the willingness can then rely on the same trait to stay clean: "Just don't drink," they say in AA.
How's that going to work for an addicted eater? Food addicts have to take the tiger out of the cage three times a day. I've read that some drinkers have tried "controlled drinking," and it hasn't been very successful. Eaters don't just have to try it; they must practice it to survive.
Having a food plan is an attempt to address that, and having clear boundaries is a key to its working. But the comfort of all or nothing is just out of reach.
...
I'm saying that food addicts, unlike alcoholics and may others, have both to try for perfection and to accept that perfection is unattainable, and that the only tool left is a wholesome discipline.
The problem is, if we had any clue about wholesome discipline, we wouldn't be addicts. — Michael Prager

From: The Crown of Telus
She opened her eyes, saw the crown sitting on her bedside table, and wished that it was all a dream. The crown of Trist was nothing special. It had no gemstones, no gold or silver filigree; instead it was simple, a metal circlet with four points and some inlay around a scratched and dented band.
"It's a working man's crown," she remembered her father holding the symbol of power out to her when she younger. "See the inlay? Three moons, one for each of our gods, over an oak which represents the mighty forests of the north, a shock of wheat for the Plainsmen to the south, a ship for the Gheltes to the west, and a hashap flower for the spice in the east. Nothing more. We don't need anymore."
Tears welled in her eyes. A working man's crown. Nothing fancy or bejeweled, a symbol of the power that guides the land and cares for its people.
This was going to be the first day she wore it as queen. — William Laws

After I had been working as a cap maker for three years it began to dawn on me that we girls needed an organization. The men had organized already, and had gained some advantages, but the bosses had lost nothing, as they took it out on us. — Rose Schneiderman

I try Dr. Pat's breathing exercises but they're not working because my entire mind is focused on keeping myself glued to the couch. I don't want to move any closer to the bathroom just in case. But I hate myself for the thought. I know it's not right or normal. I know I'm not simply some cute quirky girl like Beck says, and every moment I can't get off the couch is a moment that makes me one level crazier. That heavy, pre-crying feeling floods my sinuses and I drop my head from the weight of it. Cover my face with my hands long enough to get out a cry or two. Because there is nothing, nothing worse than not being able to undo the crazy thoughts. I ask them to leave, but they won't. I try to ignore them, but the only thing that works is giving in to them.
Torture: knowing something makes no sense, doing it anyway. — Corey Ann Haydu