One Small Thing Quotes & Sayings

Good things come in small packages.
Shopping isn't a good thing, so be ready to carry big packages! — Shubham Choudhary

It was a good thing to be an African. There were terrible things that happened in Africa, things that brought shame and despair when one thought about them, but that was not all there was in Africa. However great the suffering of the people of Africa, however harrowing the cruelty and chaos brought about by soldiers - small boys with guns, really - there was still so much in Africa from which one could take real pride. There was the kindness, for example, and the ability to smile, and the art and the music. — Alexander McCall Smith

Though we have rightly applauded our ancestors for their spiritual achievements (and do not and must not discount them now), those of us who prevail today will have done no small thing. The special spirits who have been reserved to live in this time of challenges and who overcome will one day be praised for their stamina by those who pulled handcarts. — Neal A. Maxwell

Blake waited for her to look at him with a smile, but her shoes were still too captivating. He held a hand up to stop Cole from beginning the ceremony. He knelt on one knee, close to the hem of her dress, and looked up at her. She watched him as he kissed her hand.
"Beautiful, enchanting Livia, will you marry me today?"
Livia's disobedient tears emerged, gravity bathing his smiling face with their small, splashy wishes. She took her hand from his and covered her mouth. She nodded over and over as she cried.
Blake stood and gathered her. Livia dissolved into him, leaving the guests alternately tearing up or looking in other directions.
Blake tried to stroke her hair through the veil, but he was afraid he would pull it out. "Shhh. It's okay. I'm not that terrible, am I?"
Livia shook her head.
"I'm making you my wife right now, even if you cry through the whole damn thing." Blake switched to wiping her tears. — Debra Anastasia

'I'll sit on him,' Otis says and laughs like it's the funniest thing in the world. He twirls a small ball of fire in one hand and a Desert Eagle .50 Caliber in the other. If Seven didn't know him, he'd probably be running away as fast as he could. It's a big gun. — T.J. Klune

Hey Sydney, she said, giving me a small, crooked smile as she entered the room. Her flashing, dark eyes were friendly, but they were also assessing everything in the room, much as Eddie's gaze was. It was a guardian thing. Rose was about my height and dressed very casually in jeans and a red tank top. But, as always, there was something as exotic and dangerous about her beauty that made her stand out from everyone else. She was like a tropical flower in this dark, stuffy room. One that could kill you. — Richelle Mead

When there is a huge crack in your relationship with someone, you wonder what others do in similar situations. I realize I'm trying as hard as I can to present myself as the most unthreatening being in the world, like a small animal. I hunch into myself, avoiding going back to the same places I frequented with him. Obviously I don't eat the kind of food we ate or made together. But I don't think I'm going to move to a new house, because I have the kitchen and the large fridge that I'd wanted for so long. People say you can't possibly like your lover every single second of your life. But that's not true. I liked and looked to my lover every single second we were together. And I still can't admit that he's gone. True sorrow is when one person desires but the other doesn't. I don't know any better words to describe it, and I can't yet express this feeling through any kind of food. The one thing we know about sorrow is that it's a very personal, individual feeling. — Kyung-ran Jo

My friend," he said, "there is no worse traitor than a small lapdog. The first thing I always do when I am in love with a woman is to give her one of these little dogs. This way, I can always discover whether there is someone more favored than myself. The test is infallible. As you saw just now, the dog wanted to bite me because I am a stranger, but when it saw you, it went mad with joy." Two days after this visit, Poniatowski left Russia. — Robert K. Massie

We'll do this together. I tell you one thing about me every day, and every day you will tell me one one thing about you. We can learn about each other in small doses. One sad, fucked up, complicated, heartbreaking layer at a time. — Pamela Sparkman

In a lot of ways it is easier to do things on a large scale. It is easier to build a skyscraper in Manhattan than it is to buy a bungalow in the Bronx. For one thing, it takes just as much time to close a big deal as it does to close a small deal. You will endure as much stress and aggravation; you will have all the same headaches and problems. It is easier to finance a big deal. Bankers would much rather lend money for a big project than for a small one. They are more comfortable investing money in a big prestigious building than they are a rundown house in a bad section of town. If you succeed with the big project, you stand to gain a lot more money. — Donald J. Trump

One small thing
I've learned these years,
how to be alone,
and at the edge of aloneness
how to be found by the world. — David Whyte

Still, he could feel a fine cord stretched between them, a thin luminous fiber that ran from his chest all the way across the continent and forked into theirs. Never before had he lived through a fever without his mother; when he'd been sick in Debrecen she'd taken the train to be with him. Never had he finished a year at school without knowing that soon he'd be home with his father, working beside him in the lumberyard and walking through the fields with him in the evening. Now there was another filament, one that linked him to Klara. And Paris was her home, this place thousands of kilometers from his own. He felt the stirring of a new ache, something like homesickness but located deeper in his mind; it was an ache for the tie when his heart had been a simple and satisfied thing, small as the green apples that grew in his father's orchard. — Julie Orringer

Miracles don't have to be big, and they can happen in the unlikeliest places. Sometimes they are so small people don't notice. Sometimes miracles are shy. They brush against your sleeve, they settle on your eyelashes. They wait for you to notice, then melt away. Lots of things start by being small. It's a good way to begin, because no one takes any notice of you. You're just a little thing beetling along, minding your own business. Then you grow. — Grace McCleen

I grew up in Pennsylvania in a small town. Real small, like one high school and one movie theater. Well, there was a state college there, that was the only good thing about it. — Keith Haring

I became aware that our love was doomed; love had turned into a love affair with a beginning and an end. I could name the very moment when it had begun, and one day I knew I should be able to name the final hour. When she left the house I couldn't settle to work. I would reconstruct what we had said to each other; I would fan myself into anger or remorse. And all the time I knew I was forcing the pace. I was pushing, pushing the only thing I loved out of my life. As long as I could make believe that love lasted I was happy; I think I was even good to live with, and so love did last. But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly. It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death; I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck. — Graham Greene

Love was everyone's to experience if they opened their hearts, but true love was a rare and sterling thing, damn if it wasn't, a sterling thing that required the intervention of destiny: two hearts fated to be as one, finding each other among the billions of the world. True love, by God, was the Excalibur of emotions, and if you recognized it when you saw it, if you drew that noble, shining blade from the stone, your life would be a grand adventure even if you lived it entirely in one small town. — Dean Koontz

I shall die here. Every last inch of me shall perish. Except one. An inch. It's small and it's fragile and it's the only thing in the world worth having. we must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us. — Alan Moore

When my sister was released from the mental hospital, she came to live with me in the tilting and crumbling one-bedroom house I'd bought with the small amount of money I inherited when our parents died. She arrived one afternoon unannounced in a taxi. She must have known instinctively that I'd take her in. I don't know how or why they released her. Probably due to overcrowding, and they had her scratch her name on a form then pushed her out the door. Or maybe she just slipped away when no one was looking (who'd notice in a place like that?)
she never did tell me and I didn't ask her. I was so happy to have her with me again that the last thing I wanted to do was break the spell by letting reality intrude. Ever since they'd dragged her away weeping with laughter and reaching out for me with our parents' blood still coating her hands with shiny red gloves, I'd felt amputated, like they'd pulled her kicking and screaming and insane out of my guts. — Michael Gira

Some objects seem to disappear immediately while others never want to leave. Here is a small black plastic gizmo with a serious demeanor that turns up regularly, like a politician at public functions. It seems to be an "integral part," a kind of switch with screw holes so that it can be attached to something larger. Nobody knows what. This thing's use has been forgotten but it looks so important that no one is willing to throw it in the trash. It survives by bluff, like certain insects that escape being eaten because of their formidable appearance. — Louis Jenkins

I hate imperialism. I detest colonialism. And I fear the consequences of their last bitter struggle for life. We are determined, that our nation, and the world as a whole, shall not be the play thing of one small corner of the world — Sukarno

Jaime, you must be half-dead"
He laughed tiredly, holding me close with one large warm hand on the small of my back.
"A lot more than half, Sassenach. I'm knackered, and my cock's the only thing too stupid to know it. I canna lie wi' ye without wanting you, but wanting's all I'm like to do. — Diana Gabaldon

Gary tried not to notice how pale Savannah was as she fixed him a pot of coffee.Her satin skin was almost translucent.He was groggy from the trance-induced sleep and had a hard time waking up, even after a long shower. He had no idea where the change of clothes had come from,but they were lying on the end of the bed when he awakened.
Savannah was beautiful, moving through the house like flowing water, like music in the air.She was dressed in faded blue jeans and a pale turquoise shirt that clung to her curves and emphasized her narrow rib cage and small waist.Her long hair was pulled back in a thick braid that hung below her bottom.Gary tried to keep his eyes to himself.He hadn't seen any evidence of Gregori this evening,but he didn't want to take any chances.He had a feeling the one thing that could change that remote expression fast was to have another man ogling Savannah. — Christine Feehan

When something feels really big, too big to handle, just go very small. Just go real small, just look at the person next to you and look in their eyes and meet the person next to you, find out their name, change one person's life and make one call, write one letter, give one dollar. Whatever small thing feels like what you can do - it changes the course of the ship and that is all it is. — Amy Poehler

It is strange, is it not, how an accident of a millimeter here, a millimeter there, makes one face so important. Think about it Elliot, She has two eyes, a nose, a mouth, just like everyone else. It,s all in tiny degrees of placement, such small area of magic to make such a big difference. For me, Elliot, I must tell you it is a hard thing to understand- why these things, these millimeters, are so crucial to you, you of all men. — Judith Krantz

One thing that unites us all, one thing is universal among the human species; the anatomy. Big, small, fat, thin, colour or creed are irrelevant. Under the skin, under the flesh, we are one and the same. We desire the same things; love, money, power. All the things we can not have, not without cost. — Rob Shepherd

To be ultra is to go beyond. It is to attack the sceptre in the name of the throne, and the mitre in the name of the attar; it is to ill-treat the thing which one is dragging, it is to kick over the traces; it is to cavil at the fagot on the score of the amount of cooking received by heretics; it is to reproach the idol with its small amount of idolatry; it is to insult through excess of respect; it is to discover that the Pope is not sufficiently papish, that the King is not sufficiently royal, and that the night has too much light; it is to be discontented with alabaster, with snow, with the swan and the lily in the name of whiteness; it is to be a partisan of things to the point of becoming their enemy; it is to be so strongly for, as to be against. — Victor Hugo

I would hesitate to use the word 'success' in the way many people do. I don't know that I would apply it to what I've done as though I have now reached the ultimate goal. To me success is a continuing thing. It is growth and development. It is achieving one thing and using that as a stepping stone to achieve something else. Success comes as you have confidence in yourself. Self-confidence is built by succeeding, even if the success is small. It is the believing that makes it possible. — Walter Knott

You realized you were surrounded by love, that you were held by love, and that you'd had too small an imagination about that word, that thing. Romantic love, absolutely. Our notion of love - it just seems a very unevolved and very unenlightened notion. That it's this one person who you will meet. Eve Ensler — Krista Tippett

In popular culture, the term "butterfly effect" is almost always misused. It has become synonymous with "leverage" - the idea of a small thing that has a big impact, with the implication that, like a lever, it can be manipulated to a desired end. This misses the point of Lorenz's insight. The reality is that small things in a complex system may have no effect or a massive one, and it is virtually impossible to know which will turn out to be the case. — Stanley McChrystal

And she meant it. If there was one thing that kept Tabitha Crum going during the days and brought her comfort throughout nights, it was a flicker of hope that she kept burning despite her misfortunes. It was a small hope really.

It was the hope that life could and deserved to be better for her. It was a hope that one day, wherever that version of her life was, it would present itself in a way that allowed her to leap and cling and claim it so adamantly that it could never let her go or push her away. (pg. 23-24) — Jessica Lawson

Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time. — J.M. Barrie

Texts between Dr. Stayner & Livie(with a little help from Kacey)
Dr. Stayner: Tell me you did one out-of-character thing last night
Livie: I drank enough Jell-O shots to fill a small pool, and then proceeded to break out every terrible dance move known to mankind. I am now the proud owner of a tattoo and if I didn't have a video to prove otherwise, I'd believe I had it done in a back alley with hepatitis-laced needles. Satisfied?
Dr. Stayner: That's a good start. Did you talk to a guy?
Kacey(answering for Livie): Not only did I talk to a guy but I've now seen two penises, including the one attached to the naked man in my room this morning when I woke up. I have pictures. Would you like to see one?
Dr. Stayner: Glad you're making friends. Talk to you on Saturday — K.A. Tucker

How did the date go?"
"Bad. A text-a-holic...."
"Not the good kind of trouble."
"There's only one thing to say when this happens."
"What's that?"
"Next. — Melissa McClone

What does 'stuck' mean?" "It means I should make some big decision, I should do some enormous thing. And I can't do anything. I can't stand my life, and I can't change it." "Maybe it's not an enormous thing," he says. "Maybe you have to do one small thing and then another small thing. — A.M. Homes

...there are enormous regions where I have never been, and what one has not known is what one has not been. An anxiety to start running, go into a house, into that store, jump on a train, devour all of Jouhandeau, know German... What is defective is felt more as an intuitive poverty than as a mere lack of experience. It really doesn't afflict me not having read all of Jouhandeau, at most the melancholy feeling of too short a life for so many libraries, etc. The lack of experience is inevitable, if I read Joyce I am automatically sacrificing another book and vice versa, etc. The feeling of lack is sharper in... zones for detention of your eyes, your smell, your taste, and you can't get beyond that limit when you think you've caught anything fully, just like an iceberg the thing has a small piece outside and shows it to you, and the enormous rest of it is beyond our limits and that's why the Titanic went down. — Julio Cortazar

After three years down here, I've not learned too much. But one thing I do know is that our bellies aren't big enough for revenge. It turns sour and eats you up. We'll get out, but we'll get out for the sun, the moon, and mothers, not for small-souled enemies, though we'll deal with them when we get there. — N.D. Wilson

We twist and turn, we plead and beg, we offer our tormentor what he wants so that the hurting will stop. And when there is no torturer to placate, no hooded man with hot irons and tongs, just a burn you can't escape, we bargain with God, or ourselves, depending on the size of our egos. I made mock of the dying at Mabberton and now their ghosts watched me burn. Take the pain, I said, and I will be a good man. Or if not that, a better man. We all become weasels with enough hurt on us. But I thing a small part of it was more than that. A small part was that terrible two-edged sword called experience, cutting away at the cruel child I was, carving out whatever man might be yet to come. I promised a better one. Though I have been known to lie. — Mark Lawrence

Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not obeying in the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person's seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be shown what to do next. — Elisabeth Elliot

Valentine
my friends stitched it up with golden thread
like a red
satin pillow they gave me other whole ones too
roses and charms and red candles
milagros to repair the real one
they told me i was no longer allowed to give it away
a pretty pin cushion
a piece of mexican folk art
a hundred beating poems left unanswered
like a thing to wear around the neck
they said you must heal we will protect you
but i sat weeping at the computer forging ahead anyway
with the small stitched thing struggling in my chest
it knew that it had needed to be torn
so that it could recognize and receive the hundred kindnesses
traveling across three thousand miles at the speed of light
a storm of petals and beautiful words and tiny hearts to keep it
company — Francesca Lia Block

Small steps can help people make big changes to achieve what they really desire. That wish isn't going to go anywhere unless you do something about it. Every day, just do one thing. At the end of six months, you'll be somewhere. — Marlo Thomas

My parents gave me a small telescope, then I built my own, and one thing led to another. So that's how I ended up going from being a hobby astronomer to a professional astronomer. — Dimitar Sasselov

If you try, you will find it impossible to do one great thing. You can only do many small things with great love. — Mother Teresa

I can only tell you how I felt. Ugly. disgusting. Stupid. Small. Worthless. Forgotten. It just feels like there's no choice. Like it's the most logical thing to do because what else is there? You think, No one will even miss me. They won't know I'm gone. The world will go on, and it won't matter that I'm not here. Maybe it's better if I was never here. — Jennifer Niven

He was like one of those pictures full of small errors, the kind you could only pick out by searching the image from every angle, and even then, a few always slipped by. On the surface, Eli seemed perfectly normal, but now and then Victor would catch a crack, a sideways glance, a moment when his roommate's face and his words, his look and his meaning, would not line up. Those fleeting slices fascinated Victor. It was like watching two people, one hiding in the other's skin. And their skin was always too dry, on the verge of cracking and showing the color of the thing beneath. — Victoria Schwab

But he (Nietzsche) never would be able to realize that he is like ordinary people and he should realize that too. For instance, if he were really a sage, he would say to himself "Go out into the street, go to the little people, be one of them and see how you like it, how much you enjoy being such a small thing. That is yourself." And so he would learn that he was not his own greatness. — C. G. Jung

The most dangerous thing I've ever encountered was a run-in with Boko Haram around 2007 in a small town in Nigeria. I got caught along with the photographer I was working with, the same one I worked with on the Afghanistan book, Seamus Murphy. We were caught in an attack by a mob after Friday prayers. And the level of violence was so extreme. It was more violent than any other mob violence I have ever seen. — Eliza Griswold

Anything can be an instrument, Chugurh said. Small things. Things you wouldn't even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. It's just a coin. For instance. Nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. to separate the act from the the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, it's just a coin. Yes. That's true. Is it? — Cormac McCarthy

Show me your memories of the kiss." I close my eyes. The heat creeps up my cheeks, which is silly because the sword was there when the kiss happened and saw the whole thing. So what if I'm curious about what he felt?
"Oh, come on. Do we have to do this again?"
Nothing.
"That last one was totally awful. I need a little comfort. It's just a small favor. Please?"
Nothing.
"Extra ribbons and bows for you," I try to sound like I mean it. "Maybe even sparkly makeup on the teddy bear."
Still nothing.
"Traitor." I know that's a funny statement since the sword is actually being loyal to Raffe but I don't care. — Susan Ee

One thing that is sometimes forgotten in this "future of books" discussion is that there are all these awesome presses - big and small - that are producing and designing amazing books. — Kevin Sampsell

To find one's way anywhere one has to find one's door, just like Alice, you see. You take too much of one thing and you get too big, then you take too much of another and you get too small. You've got to find your own doorway into things ... — Paula Rego

If social cohesion is one of the good things about growing up in a small town, the downside is the unchallengeable power of cliques. That sort of thing is in the nature of the teenage beast, but in bigger towns and cities there are usually so many different social groups within a single school or locality that most kids can find others they feel comfortable with. Not so in a small town. If you don't conform, even at the cost of sacrificing your principles and self-respect, you will be an outcast. And if you have a sensitive nature, it will mark you for life. — Sela Ward

The hub, it would allow the portable devices to become simpler. A lot of the functions that the devices tried to do, such as editing the video or pictures, they did poorly because they had small screens and could not easily accommodate menus filled with lots of functions. Computers could handle that more easily. And one more thing . . . What Jobs also saw was that this worked best when everything - the device, computer, software, applications, FireWire - was all tightly integrated. I became even more of a believer in providing end-to-end — Walter Isaacson

In Christmas, God reveals himself not as one who stands above and who dominates the universe, but as He who lowers himself. It means that to be like Him, we do not have to place ourselves above the others, but come down, come down and serve them, become small among the small, and poor among the poor. It's a bad thing when one sees a Christian that does not want to come down, a Christian that uses everything to show off. Not nice, eh? That is not Christian, that is paganism — Pope Francis

Hey, Rhubarb, we may need to rethink our approach."
"No, we don't."
"I've only got one hand here, kiddo. Maybe if I grab the middle-"
"If you grab the middle, it'll be the last thing that hand ever does!"
He pondered that as if it explained something. "So I'm guessing then you don't get a lot of company down here."
"Bobby, so help me, I will rip your arm off and beat you with it, do you hear me?"
"Okay, geez. Let me just get a look - " He picked her skirt up and pulled it over his head.
"Bobby!" She was actually too mortified to even scream so it came out like a squeak from a dying rat.
"Dammit, there's no light under here, can't see a thing."
Thank God for small blessings. "Get out of there!"
"Tell you what, how about you use your spare hand and I use mine on either side of your hips and we yank together. — Dee Tenorio

I believe there's something you'll need, Sentinel." Ethan slid from his chair, dropped to one knee on the carpet. My mind had to race to keep up, but my heart pounded madly. Ethan looked up at me, grinned. "That thing, of course, is this." He held up a small dessert fork. "You dropped your fork, Sentinel." My blood pounded in my ears. I stood up, swatted his arms with slaps. "You are a jerk." He roared with laughter. "Ah, Sentinel. The look on your face." He doubled over with laughter. "Such terror." I kept swatting. "At the thought of marrying you, you pretentious ass." He roared again, then picked me up and carried me to the bed. "My pretentions are well earned, Sentinel." "You have got to stop doing that." "I can't. It's hilarious." Only a man would think fake proposals were so funny. — Chloe Neill

The entertainment business is hard on relationships, but it's just as hard on your own spiritual well-being. It's easy to lose focus, to forget your priorities and wander from the path. There is not any one thing you can do to survive this desert. It's a matter of maintenance, of the small things you do every day and every week to keep the engine running smoothly. — Ralph K. Winter Jr.

I perceived or thought of the Light of God and in it suspended one small mote (or millions of motes to only one of which was my small mind directed), glittering white because of the individual ray from the Light which both held and lit it ... And the ray was the Guardian Angel of the mote: not a thing interposed between God and the creature, but God's very attention itself, personalized ... This is a finite parallel to the Infinite. As the love of the Father and Son (who are infinite and equal) is a Person, so the love and attention of the Light to the Mote is a person (that is both with us and in Heaven): finite but divine, i.e. angelic. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The reason they did not work is because I was trying to rid myself of how I felt instantly. This is the problem; so many people just want this 'dreadful thing to go away'. They go from one treatment to another, sometimes spending a small fortune doing the exact opposite of what they should be doing, which is allowing themselves to feel the way they do. — Paul David

But you know, there's one simple thing I see absolutely clearly, now that I am so very old.
I looked at her. The Albert Einstein hairstyle, and the bright black eyes and the sharp nose. That pallor on her face.
She put her small hand on mine.
The world is wonderful, she said. All its little things. It is wonderful. — Nuala O'Faolain

I look at him with the nostalgic affection men are said to feel for their wars, their fellow veterans. I think, I once threw things at this man. I threw a glass ashtray, a fairly cheap one which didn't break. I threw a shoe (his) and a handbag (mine), not even snapping the handbag shut first, so that he was showered with a metal rain of keys and small change. The worst thing I threw was a small portable television set, standing on the bed and heaving it at him with the aid of the bouncy springs, although the instant I let fly I thought, Oh God, let him duck! I once thought I was capable of murdering him. Today I feel only a mild regret that we were not more civilized with each other at the time. Still, it was amazing, all those explosions, that recklessness, that Technicolor wreckage. Amazing and agonizing and almost lethal. — Margaret Atwood

Try to find something that makes you happy. Your life is not going to get easier once Queen Levana is your wife. If you had even one small thing that brought you happiness, or hope that things could someday be better, then maybe that would be enough to sustain you. — Marissa Meyer

If you have a story to tell, put it out there. Get the thing done. No excuses. No procrastinating. No apologies. It will never be as good as you want it to be, so forget about perfection. Just be satisfied that you've done the best work you can do at this stage in your life as an author. Then roll the rocket onto the launch pad and fire it off. After that, write another story. Always keep going. Move fast. Stay one step ahead of the forces of distraction and self-doubt. Love your characters enough to give them a good home. Love your readers enough to give them a place of refuge from life's tragedies, big and small. And love the world you live in enough to make it the world of your dreams. — James Hampton

Zenia has stolen something from him, the one thing he always kept safe before, from all women, even from Roz. Call it his soul. She slipped it out of his breast pocket when he wasn't looking, easy as rolling a drunk, and looked at it, and bit it to see if it was genuine, and sneered at it for being so small after all, and then tossed it away, because she's the kind of woman who wants what she doesn't have and gets what she wants and then despises what she gets. What — Margaret Atwood

He swore by all that he ever had loved and reverenced that he would try, try with all his might in the short time that might remain to him ... he would forget himself, he would put his own pain and chagrin and disappointment, his own feeling of defeat and uselessness, his own craving for love and intellectual companionship in the background, and he would see if the more than six feet of bone and muscle that contained his being could do any small service that might come his way for God and his fellow man before he went. Maybe if he could accomplish some little thing, something that would ease the ache of even one heart that ached as his was aching at that minute, just maybe that knowledge would be the secret that he might carry in his breast that would set the stamp of an indelible smile on his face, so that even a child could discern the majesty of the impulse and he would not be ashamed when the end came. — Gene Stratton-Porter

There are lots of things that I will probably never experience in this life. Military combat. Being dictator of a small central American country. Dunking a basketball. Being a famous rock star. Or walking on Mars. But one thing I have been, and will always be, is an entrepreneur. — Michael Arrington

Even one small thing can go right in a world so wrong ~ Mare Barrow — Victoria Aveyard

Svengal lay groaning on the turf. His thighs were sheer agony. His buttocks ached. His calf muscles were on fire. Now, afterhe had tumbled off the small pony he was riding and thudded heavily to the turf on the point of his shoulder, the shoulder would hurt too. He concentrated on trying to find one part of his body that wasn't a giant source of pain and failed miserably. He opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the face of the elderly pony that he had been riding peered down at him.
Now what made you do a strange thing like that? The creature seemed to be asking. — John Flanagan

There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you - of kindness and consideration and respect - not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had.
John Steinbeck in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters — John Steinbeck

Anyone who's taken a lot of creative-writing classes, or taught creative writing, has learned to dread a certain kind of manuscript. It's long, for one thing. It has irritatingly small type; it's grammatically meticulous when it comes to everything but punctuation, for which it has developed its own system of Tolkienic elaboration. — Tom Bissell

Anna Quangel felt herself trembling. Then she looked over at Otto again. He might be right: whether their act was big or small, no one could risk more than his life. Each according to his strength and abilities, but the main thing was, you fought back. Still — Hans Fallada

One shall be born from small beginnings which will rapidly become vast. This will respect no created thing, rather will it, by its power, transform almost every thing from its own nature into another. — Leonardo Da Vinci

Don't you wonder sometimes,' Ursula said. 'If just one small thing had been changed, in the past, I mean. If Hitler had died at birth, or if someone had kidnapped him as a baby and brought him up in
I don't know, say, a Quaker household
surely things would be different. — Kate Atkinson

A garden was one of the few thing in prison that one could control. To plant a seed, watch it grow, to tend it then harvest it, offered a simple but enduring satisfaction. The sense of being the custodian of this small patch of earth offered a taste of freedom. — Nelson Mandela

He thought of these years as another life within the one he had. As though it were a thing he was able to carry. A small box. A handkerchief. A stone. — Paul Yoon

As a society we've progressed to a point where it is unacceptable behavior to knock someone down who is acting a fool. I teach my children to use their words when faced with a conflict. That's what civilized people do. All that is fine and good except for one small thing; we've enabled the fools ...
... What if people could expect a measure of instant justice when they were out of order? The acts of thoughtlessness would decline exponentially. If you give people license to be fools then you are left to deal with fools. However, if you put fools on notice then they'll be forced to snap to attention and act right or suffer the consequences. Think of it as an adult spanking. — Aaron Blaylock

She gulped her whiskey sour. The bar was hot tonight.
CJ circled back to check on them. "You ladies doing okay?"
"Define okay." Natalie's whiskey seemed to be talking. Because the whiskey was the only thing that could've put that husky, suggestive tone in her voice. Yep, that was all the whiskey.
He propped his elbows on the bar, which put his face level with hers, and fixed his undivided attention on her. There went her lady bits fanning themselves. With a few added whimpers. They remembered what his hands and body and lips felt like too.
"Content." His voice was low and raw, his gaze penetrating and unwavering. "Happy. Completely, one hundred percent satisfied."
Her mouth went dry while the rest of her went up in needy flames that made her want to scratch the all-but-gone rash he'd tended so well on Monday.
"Nope," Natalie squeaked. "Not okay then. — Jamie Farrell

We humans do thousand and one thing to impress others and show to the world that we are smart and wise but we tend to forget one very simple thing, there is small child in each one of us which is hungry for our own trust and inspirations. — Santosh Kalwar

Years passed. The trees in our yard grew taller. I watched my family and my friends and neighbors, the teachers whom I'd had or imaged having, the high school I had dreamed about. As I sat in the gazebo I would pretend instead that I was sitting on the topmost branch of the maple under which my brother had swallowed a stick and still played hide-and-seek with Nate, or I would perch on the railing of a stairwell in New York and wait for Ruth to pass near. I would study with Ray. Drive the Pacific Coast Highway on a warm afternoon of salty air with my mother. But I would end each day with my father in his den.
I would lay these photographs down in my mind, those gathered from my constant watching, and I could trace how one thing- my death- connected these images to a single source. No one could have predicted how my loss would change small moments on Earth. But I held on to those moments, hoarded them. None of them were lost as long as I was there. — Alice Sebold

Do one heroic thing today; big or small doesn't matter because it defines who you are and what you really believe — Bob Goff

If I could tell the world just one thing
It would be that we're all OK
And not to worry 'cause worry is wasteful
And useless in times like these
I won't be made useless
I won't be idle with despair
I will gather myself around my faith
For light does the darkness most fear
My hands are small, I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
And I am never broken — Jewel

The Reader may here observe the Force of Numbers, which can be successfully applied, even to those things, which one would imagine are subject to no Rules. There are very few things which we know, which are not capable of being reduc'd to a Mathematical Reasoning, and when they cannot, it's a sign our Knowledge of them is very small and confus'd; and where a mathematical reasoning can be had, it's as great folly to make use of any other, as to grope for a thing in the dark when you have a Candle standing by you. — John Arbuthnot

Still, a thrill raced through her when she thought about the one thing she would have. Camille wrapped her arms around Oscar's waist and held him, breathing in his distinctive scent. It was such a small detail about him. She wanted to discover all the small details about him, and now she could.
"Don't ever die again," Camille whispered, pressing her cheek against the hard muscle of his shoulder.
"I'll give staying alive my best shot. On one condition." He lifted her chin up to look him in the eye. "Choose me."
Choice. She'd always had it, but strangely a life without the soft padding of money and reputation made her feel as though she had more freedom than ever. She could do whatever she wanted to do, be whoever she wanted to be. And the only person she wanted to find her way with was Oscar.
"I already have," she whispered, running her hands up his arms and over his broad shoulders. — Angie Frazier

Jeanne sensed herself becoming more depressed after tweeting. She felt lonely after all of her thoughts had left her and were now staring at her on the Internet. Jeanne sometimes felt fearful of posting her thoughts on twitter. After posting a thought to twitter she sometimes thought, "No, I should have saved that." Jeanne felt unsure as to why she would need to save her thoughts. Maybe she needed to somehow save up all of her thoughts like carnival tickets, and she would be able to one day trade them in for one big, good thing. She could possible trade them in for a giant stuffed animal with a disproportionately large head that is not a trademarked character but very similar looking to a trademarked character.

She thought that if she ever wrote a novel it would be made up of every thought she has ever had. She would title it "One Big Good Thing" even if it were small and bad. — Gabby Bess

You are different from the really great man in only one thing: The great man, at one time, also was a very little man, but he developed one important ability: he learned to see where he was small in his thinking, and actions. Under the pressure of some task which was dear to him he learned better and better to sense the threat that comes from his smallness and pettiness. The great man, then, knows when and in what he is a little man. — Wilhelm Reich

Separate vacations have become more popular among married couples. We don't think this is a good idea. Over time, doing your own thing will cause you to lead separate lives. We are not talking about a three-day trip to Florida with your sister or best friend - if you want to take small trips like this, feel free to. But if you want to take a major vacation - say, to spend two weeks in Europe - your husband should be your travel companion. But suppose your idea of a fun vacation is going to Europe or lying on the beach in the Caribbean, while your husband loves tours of historic sites and museums. Our advice is to figure out a way to do a little of both. One year, you can go to the beach, the next year you can do a tourist package together, or go on a trip with a beach near some sites of cultural interest. Once you start planning separate vacations, you become like roommates, not lovers. — Ellen Fein

I saw all this around me constantly, there were girls everywhere, the supply was infinite, a well, no, I was drifting in an ocean of women, I saw several hundred of them every day, all with their own individual ways of moving, standing, turning, walking, holding and twisting their heads, blinking, looking - take for example a feature such as their eyes, which expressed their utter uniqueness, everything that lived and breathed was here in this one person, was revealed, regardless of whether the gaze was meant for me or not. Oh, those sparkling eyes! Oh, those dark eyes! Oh, that glint of happiness! The alluring darkness! Or, for that matter, the unintelligent, the stupid eyes! For in them too there was an appeal, and no small appeal either: the stupid vacant eyes, the open mouth in that perfect beautiful body.
All this was never far from my mind, and all of them were thirty seconds away from the only thing I wanted - but on the other side of a chasm. — Karl Ove Knausgard

So it seems as though this part of us that is living a life on Earth is only a small piece or splinter of a much larger us. That we are many rather than one, or rather pieces of a more complex whole. We are only able to focus on the splinter we perceive as our totality. That is a good thing, because if we were aware of the complexity of it we would not be able to function in this world or reality. We are only able to see the facade that masks a much larger picture. Only now are we being allowed to peek behind the veil. — Dolores Cannon

One thing he had to give her credit for, she'd never called it a Relationship.
"What is it then, hey," he'd asked once.
"A secret," with her small child's smile, which like Rodgers and Hammerstein in 3/4 time rendered Profane fluttery and gelatinous. — Thomas Pynchon

A needle is such a small brittle thing. It is easily broken. It can hold but one fragile thread. But if the needle is sharp, it can pierce the coarsest cloth. Ply the needle in and out of a canvas and with a great length of thread one can make a sail to move a ship across the ocean. In such a way can a sharp glossy tongue, with the thinnest of thread of a rumor, stitch together a story to flap in the breeze. Hoist that story upon the pillar of superstitious belief and a whole town can be pulled along with the wind of fear. — Kathleen Kent

All the dizzy and colossal things conceded depend upon one small thing withheld. All the wild and whirling things that are let loose depend upon one thing that is forbidden. — G.K. Chesterton

Language and material culture have greatly increased the mobility of the world's population, and some researchers believe that this will lead to an unhealthy and irreversible diminishing of variation in our genome. As more and more humans breed across the boundaries of genetic variation, we become a blander, more homogenous bunch than our diverse parent groups. This could be a problem because variation is important to the evolutionary health of a species, for the more we are the same, the easier it is for one single thing to make us extinct. Indeed, some genetic variants of the human species are disappearing altogether as small indigenous groups die out. — Christine Kenneally

Actually, I can see one advantage to the Western way of thinking, which is that if someone has a name, you know what to call them, don't you? It's only one small advantage, and there are millions of big disadvantages, including the biggest one of all, which is that names are really fascist and don't allow us to express ourselves as human beings, and turn us into one thing. — Nick Hornby

If there is such a thing as saintly renunciation, it is renouncing small gains for better gains; not for no gains, but seeing with open eyes what is better and what is inferior. Even if the choice has to lie between two momentary gains, one of these would always be found to be more real and lasting; that is the one that should be followed for the time. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

The intensity of her religious disposition, the coercion it exercised over her life, was but one aspect of a nature altogether ardent, theoretic, and intellectually consequent: and with such a nature struggling in the bands of a narrow teaching, hemmed in by a social life which seemed nothing but a labyrinth of petty courses, a walled-in maze of small paths that led no whither, the outcome was sure to strike others as at once exaggeration and inconsistency. The thing which seemed to her best, she wanted to justify by the completest knowledge; and not to live in a pretended admission of rules which were never acted on. Into this soul-hunger as yet all her youthful passion was poured; the union which attracted her was one that would deliver her from her girlish subjection to her own ignorance, and give her the freedom of voluntary submission to a guide who would take her along the grandest path. — George Eliot

Shopping for clothes is a Boyfriend Thing. You stand around and look blankly at a bunch of pieces of fabric and you look at the price tags and you wonder how something that'd barely cover your right nut can cost the price of a kidney and you watch the shop assistants check you out and wonder what you're doing with her because she's cute and you're kind of funny-looking and she tries clothes on and you look at her ass in a dozen different items that all look exactly the same and let's face it you're just looking at her ass anyway and it all blurs together and then someone sticks a vacuum cleaner in your wallet and vacuums out all the cash and you leave the store with one bag so small that mice couldn't fuck in it. Repeat a dozen times or until the front of your brain dies. — Warren Ellis

Relationships and marriages are hard enough, but you add war into the mix and small fissures become gaping wounds. No one sees what you're seeing - again that clear-eyed, unbiased thing - except your fellow soldiers. It's like one of those movies where only the hero can see the ghosts and everyone else thinks the hero is crazy. In — Harlan Coben

Will-power, he saw, was not a thing one could suddenly decree oneself to possess. It must be built up imperceptibly and laboriously out of a succession of small efforts to meet definite objects, out of the facing of daily difficulties instead of cleverly eluding them, or shifting their burden on others. — Edith Wharton

After almost exactly three hours, we rolled into a small hole of a town that had one traffic light and a resturant simply marked DINER. There hadn't been any traffic on the road for over an hour, though, which was really the most important thing. We hadn't been followed.
Sydney drove us to a building with a sign that read MOTEL. Apparently this town liked to stick to the basics when it came to names. I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually just called TOWN. — Richelle Mead

The close-up has no equivalent in a narrative fashioned of words. Literature is totally lacking in any working method to enable it to isolate a single vastly enlarged detail in which one face comes forward to underline a state of mind or stress the importance of a single detail in comparison with the rest. As a narrative device, the ability to vary the distance between the camera and the object may be a small thing indeed, but it makes for a notable difference between cinema and oral or written narrative, in which the distance between language and image is always the same. — Italo Calvino

Let's clear one thing up: Introverts do not hate small talk because we dislike people. We hate small talk because we hate the barrier it creates between people. — Laurie A. Helgoe