One Day It'll Get Better Quotes & Sayings

As a philosophical problem, it comes down to a better way to engage with the passage of time; and I think we're getting close to one, because the imaginative loss of the future is becoming acute.The most effective political actors on the planet now are people who want to blow themselves up.These are people who really don't want to get out of the bed in the morning and face another unpredictable day. — Bruce Sterling

One day I'll make it. Is your goal taking up so much of your attention that you reduce the present moment to a means to an end? Is it taking the joy out of your doing? Are you waiting to start living? If you develop such a mind pattern, no matter what you achieve or get, the present will never be good enough; the future will always seem better. A perfect recipe for permanent dissatisfaction and nonfulfillment, don't you agree? — Eckhart Tolle

Our lives are epic, but we don't realize it.

Every situation is a hologram of the whole of life. We are searching for a way in the dark. Yet every life experience is complete and contains all secrets, everything that was and everything that is to come. Can it be that the universe is reflected in a person or in a moment? How come we don't realize it and don't remember the millions of years? And how come no day is free of pain?

There had better be a good reason. Maybe we will find that reason one day. When we get out of this prison. — Stephen Muires

I envy Johnny and at the same time I get sore as hell watching him destroy himself, misusing his gifts, and the stupid accumulation of nonsense the pressure of his life requires. I think that if Johnny could straighten out his life, not even sacrificing heroin, if he could pilot that plane better, maybe he'd end up worse, maybe go crazy altogether, or die, but not without having played it to the depth, what he's looking for in those sad a posteriori monlogues, in his retelling of great, fascinating experiences which, however, stop right there, in the middle of the road. And all this I back up with my own cowardice, and maybe basically I want Johnny to wind up all at once like a nova that explodes into a thousand pieces and turns astronomers into idiots for a whole week, and then one can go off to sleep and tomorrow is another day. — Julio Cortazar

Eighteen months pass in a mere blink of an eye. But when you miss someone, someone that took up over half of your heart, the days seem to drag on for an eternity. Each day seems longer than the one before it. And no matter what everyone tells you, the pain that comes with losing someone you love doesn't get better. You just get better at living with it. — J.L. Vallance

You know, life is not one in which you just get to choose the things every day that come easily to you. And it's also true - and this is the self-esteem problem - you learn that there are people who are better at things than you are. — Condoleezza Rice

Once the habit is ingrained and you become the starter, the center of the circle, you will find more and more things to notice, to instigate, and to initiate. Momentum builds and you get better at generating it. If you go to bed at night knowing that people are expecting you to initiate things all day the next day, you'll wake up with a list. And as you create a culture of people who are always seeking to connect and improve and poke, the bar gets raised. What might be considered a board-level decision at one of your competitors' companies gets done as a matter of course. What might be reserved for a manager's intervention gets handled at the customer level, saving you time and money (and generating customer joy). This incredibly prosaic idea, the very simple act of initiating, is actually profoundly transformative. Forward motion is a defensible business asset. — Seth Godin

After he made up his mind to spend the rest of the war in the hospital, Yossarian wrote letters to everyone he knew saying that he was in the hospital but never mentioning why. One day he had a better idea. To everyone he knew he wrote that he was going on a very dangerous mission. "They asked for volunteers. It's very dangerous, but someone has to do it. I'll write you the instant I get back." And he had not written anyone since. — Joseph Heller

A man is always a little shamefaced on his wedding day, like a fox caught in a baited trap, ensnared because his greed overcame his better judgment. The menfolk laughed at Charlie that spring day, and said he was caught for sure now. As the bride, I was praised and fussed over, as if I had won a prize or done something marvelous that no one ever did before, and I could not help feeling pleased and clever that I had managed to turn myself from an ordinary girl into a shining bride. Now I think it is a dirty lie. The man is the one who is winning the game that day, though they always pretend they are not, and the poor girl bride is led into a trap of hard work and harsh words, the ripping of childbirth and the drubbing of her man's fists. It is the end of being young, but no one tells her so. Instead they make over her, and tell her how lucky she is. I wonder do slaves get dressed up in finery on the day they are sold. — Sharyn McCrumb

I'm very pleased to be offered the job. I would love to work here, and I think I have a lot of to contribute. But I was hoping for $60,000." (That number allows him to find something in the middle that could still make you happy.) Then sit there with your lips tightly zipped. There's a more-than-decent chance that the person will make a counteroffer. If he says, "I can do that," great. If he offers $53,000, give it one more try. Say, "Is there any chance you can do a bit better?" He may say he'll have to get back to you. Remind him you'd love the job and tough it out (a frozen margarita that night can help!). When he comes back with $55,000 the next day, it will all be worth it. And if they insist you name a number? Be both realistic but generous to yourself, and add that you're open to discussion. — Kate White

No one rises above who he or she has been without first having fallen down. The best time - in fact, the only time - to make a real change in your life is in the moment of seeing the need for it. He who hesitates always gets lost in the hundred reasons why tomorrow is a better day to get started. — Guy Finley

He had in his Bronx apartment a lodger less learned than himself, and much fiercer in piety. One day when we were studying the laws of repentance together, the lodger burst from his room. "What!" he said. "The atheists guzzles his whiskey and eats pork and wallows with women all his life long, and then repents the day before he dies and stands guiltless? While I spend a lifetime trying to please God?" My grandfather pointed to the book. "So it is written," he said gently. - "Written!" the lodger roared. "There are books and there are books." And he slammed back into his room.
The lodger's outrage seemed highly logical. My grandfather pointed out afterward that cancelling the past does not turn it into a record of achievement. It leaves it blank, a waste of spilled years. A man had better return, he said, while time remains to write a life worth scanning. And since no man knows his death day, the time to get a grip on his life is the first hour when the impulse strikes him. — Herman Wouk

When I've gone back to work, it's always with that sense of inevitability. That may be a complete delusion, but it's the one that I need to get out of bed and go about my business. That sense that I can't avoid this thing. I better just get on with it. — Daniel Day-Lewis

You're lying to yourself. Voron made us into serial killers. We can be okay without violence for a few weeks, but after a couple of months, the hand starts itching for the sword. You start looking for that rush. You get irritable, life turns stale, and then one day some fool crosses your path, attacks, and as you cut him down, you feel that short moment of struggle when he leverages his life against yours. If you're lucky, he's very good and the fight lasts a few seconds. But even if it doesn't, that short moment of triumph is like getting an adrenaline shot. Suddenly color comes back into life, food tastes better, sleep is deeper, and sex is rapture.
I knew exactly what he was talking about. I lived it and I felt it. — Ilona Andrews

He'd been at the Glade for roughly twenty-four hours. One full day. And look at all the things that had happened. All the terrible things. Surely it could only get better. — James Dashner

You just work at it. You just keep grinding away, keep trying to get better, and if you got the ability, one day you have a chance. — Tony Romo

It is unlikely you will truly get the feeling of the violin until you have been studying for at least a year -- perhaps even two. Then one day the sheer pleasure of playing the instrument will suddenly flow over you. Perhaps it will be when you hear a fine string quartet. Maybe the revelation will come at the concert of an outstanding string orchestra, or better yet, when you are asked to sit in one made of boys and girls your own age. In any case, you will hear the singing strings clearly -- perhaps for the first time -- as the pure, jubilant spirit of music. — Bill Ballantine

But I cannot be worrying-worrying all the time about the truth. I have to worry about the truth that can be lived with. And that is the difference between losing your marbles drinking the salty sea, or swallowing the stuff from the streams. My Niece-of-Shame believes in the talking cure, eh?" says Alsana, with something of a grin. "Talk, talk, talk and it will be better. Be honest, slice open your heart and spread the red stuff around. But the past is made of more than words, dearie. We married old men, you see? These bumps"
Alsana pats them both
"they will always have daddy-long-legs for fathers. One leg in the present, one in the past. No talking will change this. Their roots will always be tangled. And roots get dug up. Just look in my garden - birds at the coriander every bloody day ... — Zadie Smith

The way I look at it, women in the City are like first-generation
immigrants. You get off the boat, you keep your eyes down, work as
hard as you can and do your damnest to ignore the taunts of ignorant
natives who hate you because you look different and you smell
different and because one day you might take their job. And you hope.
You know it's probably not going to get that much better in your own
lifetime, but just the fact that you occupy the space, the fact that
they had to put a Tampax dispenser in the toilet - all that makes it
easier for the women who come after you.... The females who come
after us will scarcely give us a second thought, but they will walk on
our bones. — Allison Pearson

It's a risk casting anyone against type or what they're known to do. But there's one thing better than having a great actor, which is having a great actor who's never done what you're asking him to do. He's hungry to get out of the trailer every day and hungry to test himself. — Sam Mendes

Hope rarely shouts and often whispers. It seldom barges in and frequently knocks softly. Like embers left untended, hope lies quietly, ready to be fanned into sparks that will ignite a roaring fire. Like a dim flashlight that keeps you moving forward as you stumble in the dark, hope can provide just enough light to show you where to place your next foot even when the future looks shadowy and unclear. Hope fervently promises that things will get better, that the journey will get easier, and that one day the pain will soften. — Suzy LaBonte

Pop said life was like learning to drive. You were bound to fuck up, make mistakes, maybe even cause an accident, but if you practice and follow the rules, people didn't have to get hurt - and one day you'd just get better at it. Just don't . . . give it up, he said. — Anyta Sunday

It is has been a long time since I have written one of my statuses about life. I have been very busy trying to promote my Fan page, Friends and services, and my books. However, I can tell you all one thing for certain. I am not a Quitter. I will not stop writing books. I will not stop pushing myself to succeed. I will not stop being who I am.
I am a winner. Winning is an attitude. You take the good with the bad and you keep on going. It gets hard, you get tired and sometimes burnt out but you keep on going anyway, because you can.
Winners have setbacks, but winners learn tighten their belts and go on. Winner look at what has gone wrong and instead of complaining they find ways of doing it better. Winners know that Rome was not built in a day and take every day as it comes.
Winners do not whine, they roar. — Alexander Stone

I love babies. I think they are beautiful in all sorts of different ways. I try to pick up and hold a baby every day, if possible, because it nourishes me. It feeds my soul. Babies are drawn to me. And I think it's because they see me as one of them. But ... cooler and with my life put together a little bit more. If a baby were president, there would be no taxes. There would be no war. There would be no ... government, and ... things could get terrible. And actually probably it would be a better screenplay idea than a serious suggestion. — Michael Scott

Writing is like being in love. You never get better at it or learn more about it. The day you think you do is the day you lose it. Robert Frost called his work a lover's quarrel with the world. It's ongoing. It has neither a beginning nor an end. You don't have to worry about learning things. The fire of one's art burns all the impurities from the vessel that contains it. — James Lee Burke

It must have taken her a while to get ready before dropping the kids off at day care, then she spent the day e-mailing, on the phone, in various meetings, and once she got home, around nine, exhausted (Bruno was the one who picked the kids up, who made them dinner - he had the hours of a civil servant), she'd collapse, get into a sweatshirt and yoga pants, and that's how she'd greet her lord and master, and some part of him must have known - had to have known - that he was fucked, and some part of her must have known that she was fucked, and that things wouldn't get better over the years. The children would get bigger, the demands at work would increase, as if automatically, not to mention the sagging of the flesh. — Michel Houellebecq

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

I'm going to be in a better place. I'm going to see Daddy. But you are going to help people. You are the helper, Sophelia, the one who will take all the bad and ugly and make it what it was supposed to be in the first place. You will bring this world to its knees one day." I opened my mouth to say ... something. "I - " "One day you'll get to fly, Soph, just like Pan and Wendy. Fly away home to a better place where everything is brighter, boys are never lost, and mothers don't ever leave. But right now? Don't mourn me," she whispered. "I love you and I planned this. All is as it should be. One day, you will understand. — Shelly Crane

I was afraid to become a writer. I didn't think I had the ability - it was too big a thing. Who was I to say I am a writer? Every day men are squelching their instincts, their desires, their impulses, their intuitions. One has to get out of the fucking machine he is trapped in and do what he wants to do. But we say no, I have a wife and children. I better not think of it. That is how we commit suicide every day. It would be better if a man did what he liked to do and failed then to become a successful nobody. Isn't that so? — Henry Miller

Anyone who has ridden the subway twice a day to earn their bread knows how it goes: When you board, you exhibit the same persona you use with your colleagues and acquaintances. You've carried it through the turnstile and past the sliding doors, so that your fellow passengers can tell who you are - cocky or cautious, amorous or indifferent, loaded or on the dole. But you find yourself a seat and the train gets under way; it comes to one station and then another; people get off and others get on. And under the influence of the cradlelike rocking of the train, your carefully crafted persona begins to slip away. The super-ego dissolves as your mind begins to wander aimlessly over your cares and your dreams; or better yet, it drifts into ambient hypnosis, where even cares and dreams recede and the peaceful silence of the cosmos pervades. — Amor Towles

Wide reading is important. You don't have to like it, but it's important to grapple with things you don't understand. I've been spending the last six months getting up an hour early to try to understand economics because I need to. I don't want to be one of these bewildered schmucks. The things that you understand will inform your writing. The bigger your mind, the better your work is going to be. You're not born with a big mind; you have to build it. If I don't read for an hour a day, I get ill. — Jeanette Winterson

You're in a combat zone one day. You come home, and then you have to readjust, and it takes a few days. We just sit in the house, hang with the family and then things get better. — Chris Kyle

You have to keep the faith that it will all get better. Yes ... it may get worse but you have to believe in your heart that one great day ... it will all be better! — Timothy Pina

I never enjoy anything. I'm always waiting for whatever's next. I think everyone's like that..living life in fast-forward. Never stopping to enjoy the moment. Too busy trying to rush through everything so we can get on with what we're really supposed to be doing with our lives. I get these flashes of clarity, brilliant clarity, where for a second I stop and I think "Wait, this is it. This is my life. I better slow down and enjoy it because one day we're all gonna end up in the ground and that'll be it. We'll be gone. — Josh Boone

We sit in an awkward silence for a few minutes before she speaks. "You're right. There's more to it." I'm not sure if I should wait and let her speak, or if she's waiting for an acknowledgement. I slowly turn my head toward her and settle my eyes on hers. "I went through a rough time a few years ago. I wasn't sure things would get better for me. One day, Rick and Jo were able to knock some sense into me. When a Phoenix dies, it rises from its ashes to have a new life." Her eyes leave mine as she rolls to her back and stares at the stars. "The tattoo reminds me of that. One chapter of my life may end, but that doesn't mean a new chapter won't come from the ashes. It probably sounds silly to you. — Rein Scott

I'm a fighter and I just want to fight better guys all the time, tougher guys so I just want to beat better guys and my goal is to be number one one day so if I get a chance to fight a better guy I'll do it, anytime, anywhere. — Alexander Gustafsson

I think in the bullpen you can tell during your warmups, if you have a good feel for it. But anything can happen once you get into a game. Sometimes you just wind up throwing it better than ever before one day without knowing why. — Barry Zito

Everybody has heard of the great Heidelberg Tun, and most people have seen it, no doubt. It is a wine-cask as big as a cottage, and some traditions say it holds eighteen hundred thousand bottles, and other traditions say it holds eighteen hundred million barrels. I think it likely that one of these statements is a mistake, and the other is a lie. However, the mere matter of capacity is a thing of no sort of consequence, since the cask is empty, and indeed has always been empty, history says. An empty cask the size of a cathedral could excite but little emotion in me. I do not see any wisdom in building a monster cask to hoard up emptiness in, when you can get a better quality, outside, any day, free of expense. — Mark Twain

Knowing what [Christ] knew , knowing all about mankind
ah! who would have thought that the crime is not so much to make others die, but to die oneself
confronted day and night with his innocent crime, it became too difficult to go on. It was better to get it over with, to not defend himself, to die, in order not to be the only one to have survived, and to go elsewhere, where, perhaps, he would be supported. — Albert Camus

You see mock death in movies every day, but when it really happens, you're not used to it. Most things in life, you get better the more that you do them, but this is one of those things you don't really want to get any better at. — Joe Elliott

One key relationship we have is with ourselves. It may seem odd to think of having a relationship with ourselves, but we do. Some people can't get along with themselves. They criticize and belittle themselves all day long until they begin to hate themselves. May I suggest that you reduce the rush and take a little extra time to get to know yourself better. Walk in nature, watch a sunrise, enjoy God's creations, ponder the truths of the restored gospel, and find out what they mean for you personally. Learn to see yourself as Heavenly Father sees you - as His precious daughter or son with divine potential. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

But I'm the only one in my class who has to stay after school."
"Yeah, well... that's okay. I had to stay after school when I was a kid, too."
That seemed to get his attention. "You did?"
"Yeah. Only I didn't have to do it for only a couple of months, I had to do it for two years."
"Two years?"
Miles nodded for emphasis. "Every day."
"Wow," he said, "you must really have been dumb if you had to stay for two years."
That wasn't my point, but I guess if it makes you feel better, I'll take it.
"You're a smart young man and don't you ever forget it, okay? — Nicholas Sparks

It might be extremely dorky to point out, but who you are is singular. It's science. No one else in existence has your point of view or exact genome (identical twins and clones, look for inspiration elsewhere, please). That is why we need people to share and help us understand one another better. And on a bigger level than just taking a selfie. (Not hating on selfies, but a few is enough. You look good from that angle; we get it.) We need the world to hear more opinions, give glimpses into more diverse subcultures. Are you REALLY into dressing your cat in handcrafted, historically authentic outfits? No problem, there are people out there who want to see that! Probably in excruciating detail! — Felicia Day

When you get a typical injury, you're given a time frame; you're gradually working towards getting back. With concussions, there is not generally a time frame or a span where you're feeling better. You feel like you're getting better, and it can be one day and you're back to where you started. — Sidney Crosby

Women like clothes, they like shoes, they like flowers and they like people to look at them and think,'God, she's gorgeous.' The more people who think that, the better it is. The one day in your life where you get all that rolled up into one is your wedding day. And it
comes with jewelry and presents and ends
with a vacation where it's practically law that you have to wear fabulous underwear and have lots of sex. — Kristen Ashley

There's one thing better than having a great actor, and that's having a great actor who's never done this kind of role before and is hungry to do it. They're testing themselves every day. They want to get out of their trailer and get to work. — Sam Mendes

I think I should learn to get along better with people," he explained to Miss Benson one day, when she came upon him in the corridor of the literature building and asked what he was doing wearing a fraternity pledge pin (wearing it on the chest of the new V-neck pullover in which his mother said he looked so collegiate). Miss Benson's response to his proposed scheme for self-improvement was at once so profound and so simply put that Zuckerman went around for days repeating the simple interrogative sentence to himself; like Of Times and the River, it verified something he had known in his bones all along, but in which he could not placed his faith until it had been articulated by someone of indisputable moral prestige and purity : "Why," Caroline Benson asked the seventeen-year-old boy, "should you want to learn a thing like that? — Philip Roth

As long as it's a regular day, not too rough to begin with, the ocean is pretty smooth once you make it out past the first set of waves. That's why people are afriad to swim in the ocean. They try to jump over those waves and get slammed down to the bottom and pulled across the sand like a piece of shell. You've got to go throught them, dive under just when they're rising up for you, set your direction, close your eyes, and just swim like hell. Once you get throught that, you'll find there isn't a better place for swimming because it's the ocean and it goes on forever. You don't have to see anyone if you don't want to. If you look out, away from the beach, it's easy to imagine that there's no one else but you in the whole world, you and maybe a couple of sea gulls. — Ann Patchett

Work hard but work smart. Always. Every day. Nothing is handed to you and nothing is easy. You're not owed anything ... No job or task is too small or beneath you. If you want to get ahead, volunteer to do the things no one else wants to do, and do it better. Be a sponge. Be open and learn. — Bobbi Brown

Get a person who is so close to you, be it your friend, co- worker or casual acquaintance and start up a conversation with the sole aim of talking about one of your small talk subjects. This is a good way to kick start the day with a good snippet of small talk. It's of use in the morning when people tend to be prone to being in the rush and do not really want to get caught up in any conversation. It's an ideal warm up to start a better day. — Jack Steel

I like you in my bed," Patch said. "I rarely pull down the covers. I rarely sleep. I could get used to this picture."
"Are you offering me a permanent place?"
"Already put a spare key in your pocket."
I patted my pocket. Sure enough, something small and hard was snug inside. "How charitable of you."
"I'm not feeling very charitable now," he said, holding my eyes, his voice deepening with a gravelly edge. "I missed you, Angel. Not one day went by that I didn't feel you missing from my life. You haunted me to the point that I began to believe Hank had gone back on his oath and killed you. I saw your ghost in everything. I couldn't escape you and I didn't want to. You tortured me, but it was better than losing you. — Becca Fitzpatrick

Writing helped to have jobs that involved running around, pushing things like dish carts and wheelbarrows. It would be hard to sit at a desk all day, and then come to sit at another desk. Also, it helps to abandon hope. If I sit at my computer, determined to write a New Yorker story I won't get beyond the first sentence. It's better to put no pressure on it. What would happen if I followed the previous sentence with this one, I'll think. If the eighth draft is torture, the first should be fun. At least if you're writing humor. — David Sedaris

There's an old, private cemetery here in Palm Springs, where I live, just down the street from the airport, that belongs to one of the local Native American tribes, and it occurred to me one day that if you really wanted to get away with murder, you'd kill someone, put them in a coffin and bury them in a private cemetery or, better, an abandoned one. And then suddenly this whole idea of a long con appeared before me and I had this idea of using a Jewish cemetery. — Tod Goldberg

Would it make you feel better to know that we all get the same number of hours in a day, days in a year? Some people might be rich and some might be poor, but none of them can buy time. It is one of the fairest systems in the world. — L. H. Cosway

This is for girls who have the tendency to stay up at night listening to music that reminds them of their current situation. Who hide their fears, hurt, pain and tears under the smiles, laughs and giggles on a daily basis. The girls who wear their heart on their sleeve. The girls who pray that things will work out just once and they'll be satisfied. The girls who sceam and cry to their pillows because everyone else fails to listen. The girls who have so many secrets but wont tell a soul. The girls who have mistakes and regrets as a daily moral. The girls that never win. The girls that stay up all night thinking about that one boy and hoping that he'll notice her one day. The girls who take life as it comes, to the girls who are hoping that it'll get better somewhere down the road. For the girls who love with all their heart although it always gets broken. To girls who think it's over. To real girls, to all girls: You're beautiful. — Zayn Malik

From a distance,' he says, 'my car looks just like every other car on the freeway, and Sarah Byrnes looks just like the rest of us. And if she's going to get help, she'll get it from herself or she'll get it from us. Let me tell you why I brought this up. Because the other day when I saw how hard it was for Mobe to go to the hospital to see her, I was embarrassed that I didn't know her better, that I ever laughed at one joke about her. I was embarrassed that I let some kid go to school with me for twelve years and turned my back on pain that must be unbearable. I was embarrassed that I haven't found a way to include her somehow the way Mobe has.'
Jesus. I feel tears welling up, and I see them running down Ellerby's cheeks. Lemry better get a handle on this class before it turns into some kind of therapy group.
So,' Lemry says quietly, 'your subject will be the juxtaposition of man and God in the universe?'
Ellerby shakes his head. 'My subject will be shame. — Chris Crutcher

European festivals area lot bigger than American ones, but I like the travelling festivals, it's the same production every day and the bands get used to the stage set up and by the third or fourth show of the tour they're putting on a better show than if they just played one day. — Tim Lambesis

The healthy attitude, the only reasonable one towards a fault made or a sin committed is surely a vigorous shake of one's moral shoulders, vigorous enough to shake it off and out of remembrance. The sin itself was a sad waste of time and happiness, and absolutely no more should be wasted in lugubriously reflecting on it. Shall we, poor human beings at such a disadvantage from the first in the fight with Fate through the many weaknesses and ailments of our bodies, load our souls as well with an ever-growing burden of regret and penitence? Shall we let a weight of vivid memories break our hearts? How are we to get on with our living if we are continually dropping into sloughs of bitter and often unjust self-reproach? Every morning comes the light, and a fresh chance of doing better. Is it not the sheerest folly and ingratitude to let yesterday spoil the God-given to-day? There — Elizabeth Von Arnim

All practice is the practice of making a turn in a different direction. Toward one thing and away from another; the particulars in any given situation don't matter, because you always know the right way. A different way. With practice, you get better at turning.
This is my practice. It's not anything special you need to learn. It is not some new information you neet to get. It is nothing you haven't heard before. It is just a turn you might not yet have made, or made again, and again, and again. A turn toward intimate engagement with the life you already have.
Fulfillment derives not from lofty achievements, but from ordinary feats. It arrives not once in a lifetime, but every moment of the livelong day. — Karen Maezen Miller

What are you going to do with your life?" In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer ... "Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance. — David Nicholls

It will get better. You'll never forget them, not even after years. But one day, you'll go a whole minute without feeling the pain. Then an hour. A day. That's all you can ask for, really." His voice drops. "You'll heal, I promise. — Sabaa Tahir

The truth that people are missing about certain things, you know when they get fearful and they get hateful, and they repress other peoples, is the greatest truth of all, you know, the truth of love and understanding and clarity about all those issues. And it's like, one day, one day, everybody's gonna know, myself included, over certain things. But, so it's like, it's alright, you know, you hate me now, but that's cool, because I see a better day and I know that there's a higher truth, and you're wrong about hating me because I'm gay. — Emily Saliers

That day, watching that episode with Rylee, I said to her, "That is what I need. Drugs." And, much to my surprise, she responded, "Oh, well I have some right here." Apparently, her then-boyfriend had asked to leave a little unopened vial of pot behind with her after visiting one weekend, because he was taking an airplane back home and couldn't fly with it. For five minutes I chastised her for temporarily allowing illicit substances in our home, sullying our apartment's good name. But then she said to me, "I think what we need to do, for you to feel better, is to get high and play Dream Phone." And there wasn't really much to think about, right then. I told her, "That is a really good idea. — Katie Heaney

In one of the extras that come with the DVD version of the movie (Groundhog Day), Danny Rubin, who came up with the original idea and then wrote the script, says that the movie is about "doing what you can do in the moment to make things better instead of making them worse." Which might not sound like very much, but it's just about all you can do in life.

Which only proves that the world itself runs on Yiddish-speaking principles: the best way to get what you want and make all those bastards out there so jealous that they'll want to poke their own eyes out is to go out of your way to be nice to those bastards. That's the way to show them. That's how a mentsh gets revenge. — Michael Wex

What can I do but stand with my mouth open, no sound emerging? My lips move and I wave my arms making gestures from the other side of the glass, which I can't penetrate.
... people can speak out of anything, though the struggle takes years. The problem is, whatever I say about the present feels false-nothing contains it all, or catches the depth of things, or their terrible one-dimensionality.
What am I living on? Someone said the other day, "that old irrepressible-impossible- hope." And I thought no, this doesn't feel like hope. But maybe that's what hope is, no shining thing but a kind of sustenance, plain as bread, the ordinary thing that feeds us. How could we confuse this optimism, when it has nothing to do with expecting things to get better?
Hope has to do with continuing, that's all ... I can imagine now, where I couldn't before, this long erosion of faith, this steady drawing from one's strength, until what's left is tenuous, transparent. — Mark Doty

One day Bethany the nightmares will not plague you, the hurt will not be all encompassing, and you will be able to breathe again. It does get better, I can promise you that much. — Erica Stevens

The relationship that counts most in my life is the one I have with myself. I have a great, great, great relationship with myself, and it gets better and better as I get older. The other day, I was talking to Barry in the car and I said, 'I'm so glad I'm me!' — Diane Von Furstenberg

It's not possible to advise a young writer because every young writer is so different. You might say, 'Read,' but a writer can read too much and be paralyzed. Or, 'Don't read, don't think, just write,' and the result could be a mountain of drivel. If you're going to be a writer you'll probably take a lot of wrong turns and then one day just end up writing something you have to write, then getting it better and better just because you want it to be better, and even when you get old and think 'There must be something else people do,' you won't quite be able to quit. — Alice Munro

Hope that had sparked in my chest now lit a fire, and I fanned it, wanting it to burn hot and bright, because hope ... hope was not the enemy. It was a friend, a savior. Hope was more than a new beginning. Hope was tomorrow, and hope was the symbol that I would get better, that I would undo the bad choices that I'd made, and that I would never make them again. Hope was more than a chance of redemption. It was the promise of one day finding absolution, of forgiving myself.
But it was more than that. Hope was also today, and today was so very important. There would be no more rushing through seconds and minutes. I promised myself that. I was going to live, and it was going to be hard at times. There would be setbacks and days when everything would feel dull and tarnished somehow, but I had hope and I had the knowledge to face what was causing me to suffer. I had my friends. I had Tanner.
And most importantly, I had myself. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Not many people bothered to look for beauty beyond the greenhouses. They went about life with their heads down, just praying to get through the day, to feed themselves and their family. No one ever did anything to make it better. — Erica Lindquist

Here's what you need to know: some cliches are true, and war is definitely hell. It's being afraid all the time, and when you're not afraid it's because you're pumped full of adrenaline you could literally burst. It's watching people who you love- really profoundly love- get blown to pieces right next to you. It's seeing a leg lying in the ditch and picking it up to put it in a bag because no man- or part of a man, your friend- can be left behind. It's the dark night of the soul. There's no front line over there. The war is all around them, every day, everywhere they go. Some handle it better than others. We don't know why, but we do know this: the human mind can't safely or healthily process that kind of carnage and uncertainty and horror. It just can't. No one comes back from war the same. — Kristin Hannah