Only Got Yourself Quotes & Sayings

It was frightening, though, how little time you got. You only became yourself when you were twenty-three or twenty-four. A few years later, you had an old man's chest hair. It wasn't worth it. — Roddy Doyle

Here's a secret: Everyone, if they live long enough, will lose their way at some point. You will lose your way, you will wake up one morning and find yourself lost. This is a hard, simple truth. If it hasn't happened to you yet, consider yourself lucky. When it does, when one day you look around and nothing is recognizable, when you find yourself alone in a dark wood having lost the way, you may find it easier to blame it on someone else
an errant lover, a missing father, a bad childhood
or it may be easier to blame the map you were given
folded too many times, out-of-date, tiny print
but mostly, if you are honest, you will only be able to blame yourself.
One day I'll tell my daughter a story about a dark time, the dark days before she was born, and how her coming was a ray of light. We got lost for a while, the story will begin, but then we found our way. — Nick Flynn

One day, kid, you'll be willing to mortgage your fucking soul for somebody."
"I don't think you should say fucking around me. In case you forgot, I'm only fourteen, And news flash, dude,I've got no soul. There aren't any banks. And there isn't any currency. Ergo. Never. Going. To. Happen."
"I'm not sure you could be any more full of yourself."
I cut him a smug look. "I'm willing to try. — Karen Marie Moning

To speak truth, sir, I don't understand you at all: I cannot keep up the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing I know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that you regretted your own imperfection
one thing I can comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to which you might revert with pleasure. — Charlotte Bronte

you have to come to terms with the fact that you've really only got yourself in life, and if you don't make yourself happy someone else isn't going to make you happy. Too many people clutch onto someone else, looking for security and acceptance. — Will Fellows

It was that stages-of-anger thing. I was shocked and then I got pissed and then I fought like hell ... and then I went numb. They called it acceptance, but it wasn't. It's what happens when you have only two choices: live with the monster, or kill yourself. — Ilsa J. Bick

You can't change other people. You can only change yourself. Everyone's got problems. You learn from them, you live with them, you move on. It's choice you make if you want to have a happy life. Nobody's perfect. People are different and that's what makes them so interesting. You only get one father. The quicker you accept him for who he is, the better your life will be. Your father is who he is. Nobody can change that. Find your self esteem from the inside. — Lorraine Bracco

When I came back I joined a black church in Oakland and that made me feel more at home, a bit like being connected to India. It felt funny to be around so many white people when I came back to the United States. It still bothers me. One of the things I liked living in Hawaii years later was the racial complexity of it. I remember that at the time when Sucheng and I got married--we met as graduate students at Berkeley and have been married almost forty years--one of the first houses we bought was in a Black neighborhood in west Berkeley and we didn't quite notice how uniformly Black it was until some weeks later. I said to Sucheng, "You know, we're the only white people in this neighborhood." And she looked at me and said: "Speak for yourself, honkie! — Mark Juergensmeyer

You've got to be one that, wherever you are, like a flower, you've got to blossom where you're planted. You cannot eliminate darkness. You cannot banish it by cursing darkness. The only way to get rid of darkness is light and to be the light yourself. — Cory Booker

I have discovered there are only a handful of good ideas in the whole world. You already know them. You have heard them your entire life. Here are some of the main keys to being more successful:
Take personal responsibility.
Things change, so be flexible.
Work smart and work hard.
Serve others well.
Be nice to others.
Be optimistic.
Have goals; want something big for yourself.
Stay focused.
Keep learning.
Become excellent at what you do.
Trust your gut.
When in doubt, take action.
Earn all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can.
Enjoy all you've got.
Above all keep it simple. — Larry Winget

You came up this gut-wrenching road yesterday by yourself?" Cassie exclaimed. "You deserve a good cuffing just for driving this goat path on your own."
"It's not so bad once you get used to dodging the ruts."
"You've got some nerve calling these canyons ruts."
"Cassandra Hudson, where is your sense of adventure?"
"I dropped it off going over that last rut-crossing when only two wheels were on the ground."
"Those ones are a bit exhilarating, aren't they?" Alexandra shot Cassie a quick look and wink.
"Keep your eyes on the road!"
"What road?"
"Exactly! — H.H. Laura

Boris laughed, and threw out some fake-looking gang sign. "Suit yourself, yo," he said, in his "gangsta" voice (discernible from his regular voice only by the hand gesture and the "yo") as he got up and roll-walked out. "Nigga gotz to eat. — Donna Tartt

I think you like bossing around a world or two. You've been doing it all along, only now you've got a very fine hat. Of course, it is always easier to fight the powerful than to wield power yourself.
And that is the last lesson of childhood: You spend all your years fighting against the injustice of big folk and their big rules unti you are ready to rule yourself. — Catherynne M Valente

Make sure the seaweed lies flat.'
'Okay.'
'Leave an inch below the knee.'
'Okay.'
'It's got to be loose enough to put a finger in the top.'
'Sean Kendrick.' I say it emphatically enough that the stallion's ears prick toward me. ( ... )
Sean doesn't appear to be at all apologetic. 'I think you'd better let me do that after all.'
'You're the one who had me in here in the first place.' I say. 'Now I think it's you who doesn't trust me.'
'It's not just you,' He replies.
I glower at him. 'Well, I'll tell you what. I'll hold him and you wrap. That way, when it's done wrong, there's only yourself to slap. And take your jacket. I'm tired of holding it. — Maggie Stiefvater

Everyone was always hungry. The poorer you were, the hungrier you were, and with the hunger came weakness and irritability. It became difficult to think clearly and you needed to think clearly to work out how to survive the next day, how to get food. You were sure you could still work if you could find work, and you could look for it if only you could eat. But how were you going to get food, for yourself, for your children, for your wife or husband, for your parents? There were simply too many people within those walls for the calories that were let in. How were you to get food when there just wasn't enough of it? What were you going to have to do? With hunger of this severity came fatigue, a weakness that transcended tiredness and permeated your sinews and bones. As your limbs got ever lighter, they felt progressively heavier with each new day. — Elliot Perlman

What if ... all the rules and ways we lay down in our heads, don't even exist at all? What if we only believe that they're there, because we want to think that they're there? All the formalities of morality and the decisions that we see ourselves making in order to be better (or the best) ... what if we think we've got it all under control - but we don't? What if the path for you, is one that you would never dare take because you never saw yourself going that way? And then what if you realized that one day - would you take the path for you? Or would you choose to believe in your rules and your reasons? Your moralities and your hopes? What if your own hope, and your own morality - are going the other way? — C. JoyBell C.

The general advice is always be yourself, be yourself, which only makes sense if you haven't got an attitude problem. — Helen Oyeyemi

If only Jason could have reached out to us. Any one of us. He could have saved himself. But you know what? Some people don't want to be saved. Because saving means changing. And changing is aways harder then staying the same. It takes courage to face yourself in the mirror and look beyond the reflection. To find the you that you should have ben. The you who got derailed by crul childhood events. Events that took your life's natural trajectory and twisted it. Changing it into something unmaginable... or even incredible...... giving you thecourage to embrace your birthright, you destiny, and finaly realize... that you ARE BATMAN. — Tony S. Daniel

- Losing is all that's left, I say.
- Losing is all we've got left to lose, you say
The impossibility of not telling, I cannot do otherwise, one can only tell otherwise, with always the same need to make sense of what you've lost, the need not to lose this feeling of losing, the need to feel yourself not losing this feeling that you are still losing the irreplaceable. — Helene Cixous

You will tell us what we need to know." "The only thing we're going to tell you is how much you can go fuck yourself. If you'd like, we could take control of you and make you do it to yourself? You might get rid of some of the tension you've got there." Selene's hands balled into fists. — Steve McHugh

There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin, for example."
"And what do they think? Against it, are they?"
"It is not as simple as that. It's not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray."
"Nope."
"Pardon?"
There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."
"It's a lot more complicated than that
"
"No it ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts."
"Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes-"
"But they Starts with thinking about people as things ... — Terry Pratchett

I must begin at whatever pace is possible, to work on the book of my own that i vaguely keep assuming lies at the end of the rainbow. It is after all my rainbow and if I don't do it no one else will ... Survival is the secret so you really can't afford to doubt yourself for long because you are all you've got. The only thing to do is to go the limit with it. Exceed. — Diane Arbus

The secret of creativity is then to place yourself in situations where you've got to be creative, but this is done only when one doesn't know in advance that one will have to be creative. This, in turn, is so because we underestimate our creative resources; quite properly, we cannot believe in our creativity until we experience it; and since we thus necessarily underestimate our creative resources we do not consciously engage upon tasks which we know require such resources; hence the only way in which we can bring our creative resources into play is by similarly underestimating the difficulty of a task. — Albert O. Hirschman

When you're a caregiver, you need to realize that you've got to take care of yourself, because, not only are you going to have to rise to the occasion and help someone else, but you have to model for the next generation. — Naomi Judd

Asshole," she muttered, but she wasn't really mad. That was part of being a girl - you were resigned to whatever feedback you'd get. If you got mad, you were crazy, and if you didn't react, you were a bitch. The only thing you could do was smile from the corner they'd backed you into. Implicate yourself in the joke even if the joke was always on you. I — Emma Cline

If you live your life only following the path you think is approved or acceptable, or the one you think is expected of you, you'll be making a huge mistake. Not a single successful person ... has ever done great things because they played it safe. You've got to be true to yourself. — Carson Kressley

Teaching was great for me, because I got to show people how writing can really change the way you see not only yourself but the world. — Sarah Dessen

You put a tattoo on yourself with the knowledge that this body is yours to have and enjoy while you're here. You have fun with it, and nobody else can control (supposedly) what you do with it. That's why tattooing is such a big thing in prison: it's an expression of freedom - one of the only expressions of freedom there. They can lock you down, control everything, but 'I've got my mind, and I can tattoo my body - alter it my way as an act of personal will.' — Don Ed Hardy

You want to know the truth about drugs? You can only go one or two ways. You can go up, or you can go down. That's it. After a certain point, though, no matter what you do, what you take, you don't go anywhere, and that's when you've got to sit down and face yourself. — RuPaul

People often remark that I'm pretty lucky. Luck is only important in so far as getting the chance to sell yourself at the right moment. After that, you've got to have talent and know how to use it. — Frank Sinatra

Amy bit her lip. "I was so scared, Dan. I couldn't think. She shook her head. "I feel so ashamed of myself. If it wasn't for you, we would have been toast."
"Whoa," Dan said. "If you're throwing a pity party for yourself, don't invite me." He poked her. "You were the one who got Jonah to find us. Awesome lung power. I thought you only used that volume to get me out of the bathroom. — Jude Watson

Ah, I fancy it is just the same with most of what you call your emancipation. You have read yourself into a number of new ideas and opinions. You have got a sort of smattering of recent discoveries in various fields - discoveries that seem to overthrow certain principles which have hitherto been held impregnable and unassailable. But all this has only been a matter of intellect, Miss West - superficial acquisition. It has not passed into your blood. — Henrik Ibsen

It was my crime, too. I may not have been there to see it, but I've seen it in my head every fucking day since." "I was the one that got raped." "I was the one that failed to save you." "And because you blamed yourself - " "I wasn't the only one blaming me." "I didn't blame you for not saving me," I growl. It's nobody's responsibility to save me but mine." "You blamed me for letting them live. — Karen Marie Moning

Do you have the heart to push yourself? If you don't, find a way to get it because talent will only get you so far. You've got to be hungry. You've got to have heart. That's just reality. — Tiffeny Milbrett

Meir, let me ask you something," I said after a while.
"Sure."
"Do you think I'm a bad person?"
"Only God knows that for sure, Willy."
"So you don't have an opinion at all?"
"Not one that really matters."
"Okay, let me ask you something else. If the Polish peasant who hid Jews from the Nazis is a hero, what is the Polish peasant who turned the Jews away? Is he a coward?"
Meir smiled, "Of course."
"Really? A coward? A bad man?"
"A coward isn't a bad man, necessarily. You can't know if you're a bad man until you die."
"You've got to wait until you hear god's decision?"
"Well, yes, that's true. But I meant something else. Only when you die do you run out of chances to be good. Until then, there is always the possibility of turning yourself around. — Zoe Heller

You've got to not only love yourself for who you are with all your mistakes, but you've got to love the world for what it can bring you if you have the right attitude — Tom DeLonge

But you have fought and you have scraped and you have committed in a way that very few can. No one in any company has come as far as you have this year. No one. There's a princess in you, Evie, and a cracking good one. You've simply got to allow yourself the chance to be great." He began to pack away sewing supplies into wooden tubs. "Surviving the Academy only becomes more difficult next year. If you're planning to be here through the end, there is one thing you must absolutely understand. No victim has ever graduated from this Academy." She studied his bulbous back as he shuffled to the storeroom, letting his words linger. "You are not a victim in this world unless you choose to be. And if that's your choice, then you'll never be more than a frightened girl lost in the woods." He paused in the doorway, rubbing his back with the heel of his hand. "But the nature of choices is that there is always another." And a great, mischievous smile crawled across his face. — M.A. Larson

The only boring part of it is finding the fact that got you from point A to point B. Most actors, if they're being honest, are not going to say that that's the most stimulating acting work they've ever done. But the dynamics of staring into the face of evil and it looking back at you, and seeing yourself in that or not, is interesting. — Benjamin McKenzie

You, faulty men! Not only got lost on the way of charlatains, but contravened against the divine nature. Weren't settled for the wealthy, clear air, you bewitched it with smoke and burnt smell, you weren't settled for the best spring water, you filled up yourself with several kinds of hard drinks, the sun shined for you in vain, you didn't behold it ... — Tivadar Kosztka Csontvary

Great way to impress your future brother-in-law, by the way," Kieran continued. "You look like you took a blood bath. The only thing missing is the axe. Would Dallas really let his little sister date a crazed murderer who hacks bodies in the basement? You need to change that shirt pronto. And oh, you're welcome. I just saved you from making a complete and utter fool of yourself, but don't mention it."
I curled my lips into a fake smile. "Thanks. It's so nice to know you've got my back."
Kieran regarded me coolly. "A hobby might help ease all that hunger. Have you ever considered fixing cars, or woodworking, or maybe a DIY project around the house?"
"You're getting a big laugh out of this, aren't you?"
Kieran shrugged. "There's nothing on TV. — Jayde Scott

Look what you created, only got yourself to blame, I remember when you hated — Drake

And one day when you wake up, you happen to realise that your battle isn't with the man you had got into a brawl with the other day, it isn't with a friend turned foe, it isn't with those parents who chose to give up on you, it isn't with the bus driver for not having waited until you got in, it isn't with the employer who cancelled the application to your leave, it isn't with the examiner who resolved into failing you, it isn't with the woman who did not reciprocate your feelings, it isn't with child who dropped his ice-cream cone on you, it isn't with your ill fate and it isn't with that superior being above you.
Your battle, your fight isn't against the world but against yourself and the only way to come through all of it and beyond, to win, is improvement, self-improvement which needs to be gradual and progressive with the transverse of each day. — Chirag Tulsiani

You got a tattoo?" It's the third time I've asked Holder the same question, but I just don't believe it. It's out of character for him. Especially since I'm not the one who encouraged it. "Jesus, Daniel," he groans on the other end of the line. "Stop. And stop asking me why." "It's just a weird thing to tattoo on yourself. Hopeless. It's a very depressing term. But still, I'm impressed." "I gotta go. I'll call you later this week." I sigh into the phone. "God, this sucks, man. The only good thing about this entire school since you moved is fifth period. — Colleen Hoover

The only person with you all your life is you. Your parents die. Things inside you die - illusions, gushes of personality. Only you can sort yourself out. Yourself may not be all you need, but it's all you've got. — Kate Bush

Skiing not only for yourself and your family, but for your country, was surreal. The amount of support I got from back home in Indiana was insane. — Nick Goepper

So I'd stabbed needles into my eyes and pretended not to see certain things. Bad things. Only by turning my back on certain thing, I ended up turning my back on my dearest friend, a betrayal I never intended.
Or so I told myself. That was the problem with lying to yourself. Sometimes you got too good. — Lauren Myracle

It is critical to your family's well being and to your kids' self-esteem that you like (not just love) your youngsters. What does "like" mean? Here's an example. It's a Saturday and you're home by yourself for a few hours - a rare occurrence! Everyone has gone out. You're listening to some music and just puttering around. You hear a noise outside and look out to see a car pulling up in the driveway. One of your kids gets out and heads for the front door. How do you feel in your gut right at that moment? If it's "Oh no, the fun's over!" that may not be like. If it's "Oh good, I've got some company!" that's more like like. Liking your children and having a good relationship with them is important for lots of reasons. The most important reason, though, may be that it's simply more fun. Kids are naturally cute and enjoyable a lot of the time, and you want to take advantage of that valuable quality. And they only grow up with you once. — Thomas W. Phelan

The only reason we write - well, the only reason why I write; maybe I shouldn't generalize - is so that I can find out something about myself. Writers have this narcissistic obsession about how we got to be who we are. I have to understand my ancestors - my father, his mother and her mother - to understand who I am. It all leads back to the narcissistic pleasure of discovering yourself. — Sandra Cisneros

I tell you I'm tired of hearing it. There ain't nothing that happens to a person that ain't that person. The world out there only does what you tell it to do. The world is happening to you the way it is happening because you're telling yourself the story that way. If you want to change the world so damn bad, Ida, then where you got to start is how it is you're looking at it. — Tom Spanbauer

Basketball isn't easy. All my life I've been striving to make myself better. It's a full time commitment. To be the best, you have to work the hardest. You have to chase what seems impossible over and over and over again, because giving up is not an option, and when you feel like you've reached your limit, it's only the beginning, that's when the time to dig deep, to find the courage to push some more, because if you've got the drive, the discipline, and the bizarre to do what it takes to make yourself great, then the rewards are endless. — LeBron James

It's a sign of weakness to feel stuff, in prison. To care. To admit you're lonely, or sad, or that you're aching for somebody. Writing to you was the only time I got to get that stuff out of me. I just wrote down whatever needed to come out."
"I think you may be the most romantic man I've ever met."
"Give yourself some credit. I don't write letters like that to just anybody. — Cara McKenna

You, and rule!" she said. "You don't rule, don't flatter yourself. You have only got more than your share of the money, and make people work for you for two pounds a week, or threaten them with starvation. — D.H. Lawrence

One day, you will find yourself close to the end, and thinking about the beginning. TODAY is that beginning. TODAY is life. You've got to live it.
Live for what's right. Live for what you believe in. Live for what's important to you. Live for the people you love, and never forget to tell them how much they mean to you. Realize that today you're lucky because you still have a chance. So stop for a moment and think. Whatever you still need to do, start doing it now. There are only so many todays left. — Anonymous

I felt that I admired you, but I told myself it was only friendship; and till I began to make comparisons between yourself and Lucy, I did not know how far I was got. — Jane Austen

That's the problem with reality, that's the fallacy of therapy: It assumes that you will have a series of revelations, or even just one little one, and that these various truths will come to you and will change your life completely. It assumes that insight alone is a transformative force. But the truth is, it doesn't work that way. In real life, every day you might come to some new conclusion about yourself and about the reasoning behind your behavior, and you can tell yourself that this knowledge will make all the difference. But in all likelihood, you're going to keep on doing the same old things. You'll still be the same person. You'll still cling to your destructive, debilitating habits because you emotional tie to them is so strong that the stupid things you are really the only things you've got that keep you centered and connected. They are the only things about you that you you. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.
Do it or don't do it.
It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself,. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.
You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.
Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got. — Steven Pressfield

In my past, there's also an opportunity I could have taken advantage of that I didn't, and that I wish I had. There's a thing I got rid of that I really wish I'd kept. But the train never backs up. Never. I missed those things, and I will never get a second chance. Do yourself a favor, right now, and realize two things: 1. You will keep getting older, and then you will die. 2. Everything that's ever entered your experience has lasted and will continue to last for only a brief moment in the life of the universe. This is game time, champ. You're in. You're in, playing, right now, and the clock is ticking. So stop wondering what it all means and how you'll possibly ever do X and what people will think, and get on with your life already. Stop being a pussy and go do something amazing. *** DO EPIC SHIT. — Johnny B. Truant

There is nothing as powerful as a made up mind. Do not give yourself another excuse to put off making up your mind. You know in your heart of hearts that once you do that you have got to act.
You owe it to the world, your family and most importantly, to yourself to live a life of no regrets. Stop worrying about what other people will think, say, or do. You only have one life. LIVE IT now. You have GREATNESS within you!! — Les Brown

Because any fool knows that to work hard at something you want to accomplish is the only way to be happy. But beyond that it is entirely up to you. You've got to do for yourself all the seeking and finding concerned with what you want to do. Anyone but yourself is useless to you there. — Eugene O'Neill

If the whole world seems like it's against you, it helps to know that you've still got home. A safe place. It just takes one person - a teacher, a friend, a parent. If I didn't have you and Dad, if you hadn't made it so clear you loved me as much as you did, or if you'd said, 'yeah, why don't you do it, and put yourself out of our misery, just shut up,' I would have killed myself. I really would have. I spent most of those days wishing I were dead anyway, and what always stopped me was the fact that doing so would destroy the lives of the only people who ever cared about me. — Nenia Campbell

It says right here you've got to be saved to go to heaven. But the way I see it, you've only got to be yourself to go to hell. — Marilyn Manson

Imagine your body replaced by dust and vapor, and having a tingly feeling in your stomach without even having a stomach. Imagine having to concentrate just to keep yourself from dispersing into nothing. I got so angry, a flash of lightning crackled inside me. "Don't be that way," Amos chuckled. "It's only for a few minutes. — Rick Riordan

This immoral system, how do you get outside it? Option one, you drop out, sever the connections. They got that far in '68, okay? People went as far with that as they could, to say, I'm free, you're free, kumbaya and barbaric yawp and yadda yadda, and look what happened. The problem with the whole Rousseau trip is that man is primordially a social animal, in the sense of clan or tribe. Marx says this somewhere. You detach completely, you not only find yourself way out on a limb, against your nature, but you've lost any power for group resistance. And eventually, you come crawling back, clutching credit-card applications, begging to be let in. — Garth Risk Hallberg

Maybe you ask, what has this all got to do with popularity? The answer is that popularity depends on your ability to get along with people, all kinds of people, and the better you learn to adjust to each situation the more easily you will make friends. You will find that you can make those adjustments more successfully if you have yourself well in hand. And the only way to get yourself in hand is to know yourself, to analyze yourself, to turn yourself inside and out as you would an old pocketbook--shake out the dust and tidy up the contents. — Betty Cornell

You've got to stop thinking of consciousness as your own. You're only thinking for yourself when you are by yourself. As soon as you are in the presence of others, your consciousness is linked at some level to those others. — James Rozoff

Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.
Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.
Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.
There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay?
Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself. — Tom Robbins

There was a knock on the bedroom door. "Matt?"
Fuck. "Nope.
Silence. "Would you be the owner of the leather pants?"
"Yep."
She paused briefly. "I'm going to pass these through the door. You have exactly thirty seconds to pull them on, make yourself presentable and get your ass out here."
"Do I have any other options?"
"Only if Matt's got a window."
He looked at the window longingly. The thirty-six-story drop with no fire escape might be less painful, but he decided there was no avoiding it. "Understood. — Christine Price

I think every writer has got to direct. If you don't direct, you can't protect your work. The only way to ensure that it's going to be as close as possible to what you put down on paper - and what you see and hear in your head - is to do it yourself. — Amy Sherman-Palladino

There was a special Nolan idea about the coffee. It was their one great luxury. Mama made a big potful each morning and reheated it for dinner and supper and it got stronger as the day wore on. It was an awful lot of water and very little coffee but mama put a lump of chicory in it which made it taste strong and bitter. Each one was allowed three cups a day with milk. Other times you could help yourself to a cup of black coffee anytime you felt like it. Sometimes when you had nothing at all and it was raining and you were alone in the flat, it was wonderful to know that you could have something even though it was only a cup of black and bitter coffee.
Neeley and Francie loved coffee but seldom drank it. Today, as usual, Neeley let his coffee stand black and ate his condensed milk spread on bread. He sipped a little of the black coffee for the sake of formality. Mama poured out Francie's coffee and put the milk in it even though she knew that the child wouldn't drink it. — Betty Smith

The way I see it, truth only looks good when you're looking at it from far away. It's kind of like that beautiful girl you see on the street when you're riding past in the bus ... there she is, this amazing girl walking by on the street, and you think if you could only get off this stupid bus and introduce yourself to her, your life would change.
The thing is, she's not as perfect as you think, and if you ever got off the bus to introduce yourself, you'd find out ... This girl is truth. She's not so pretty, not so nice. But then, once you get to know her, all that stuff doesn't seem to matter. — Neal Shusterman

I'm convinced that the only way to get ahead in this world is to live and sell dangerously. You've got to live beyond your means. You've got to commit yourself to an act or vision that pulls you further than you want to go and forces you to use your hidden strengths. — John H. Johnson

You're neither unnatural, nor abominable, nor mad; you're as much a part of what people call nature as anyone else; only you're unexplained as yet
you've not got your niche in creation. But some day that will come, and meanwhile don't shrink from yourself, but face yourself calmly and bravely. Have courage; do the best you can with your burden. But above all be honourable. Cling to your honour for the sake of those others who share the same burden. For their sakes show the world that people like you and they can be quite as selfless and fine as the rest of mankind. Let your life go to prove this
it would be a really great life-work, Stephen. — Radclyffe Hall

You've got to love yourself enough, not only so that others will be able to love you, but that you'll be able to love others. — Cornel West

She flapped her hands, anxious energy coursing through her. "How can you be so calm?"
He got to his feet, unfolding with an easy grace. He held out a hand, his dark eyes focused solemnly on hers. "Come with me."
"For what?"
"That's part of the lesson." Was it her imagination, or did a twinkle of humor stir in those eyes? "Center yourself, and grab onto the here and now."
That made no sense - what was he now, Sir Medieval Zen Master? But she slipped her hand into his strong, calloused one. He hauled her up until she bumped into his chest. With a finger under her chin, he tilted her face until she looked in his eyes.
"Listen to the world around you. Hear the birds? Hear the small animals scurrying? You are in this moment, this moment only, and sometimes that's all you can do, all you can be." His finger pulled away, brushing against her skin, and he tapped her nose, stepping away. — Angela Quarles

That was part of being a girl--you were resigned to whatever feedback you'd get. If you got mad, you were crazy, and if you didn't react, you were a bitch. The only thing you could do was smile from the corner they'd backed you into. Implicate yourself in the joke even if the joke was always on you. — Emma Cline

Ram, can't you see it doesn't matter anymore what I do, but you, you're still needed at home. You go. If my people are still there, tell them the truth. Let them rejoice that Fergox took me away before I could do any more damage to my country."

"No, I refuse that mission, Princess. See, you are still ordering me around like a ruler--it's in you, it's what you are meant to be, no matter what others are telling you. I've given my word that I'll only escape with you by my side. So forget about yourself for a moment: if you care anything about me, about the fate of my country and yours, you are coming with me or I don't go."

"But, Ram--"

"You've got my little horse still?"

She nodded.

"I believe that in the Islands it is understood that when you accepted it, you took responsibility for my soul. I'm holding you to that, Tashi. — Julia Golding

I am pitching it feebly," said young Bingo earnestly. "You haven't heard the thing. I have. Rosie shoved the cylinder on the dictating-machine last night before dinner, and it was grisly to hear the instrument croaking out those awful sentences. If that article appears I shall be kidded to death by every pal I've got. Bertie," he said, his voice sinking to a hoarse whisper, "you have about as much imagination as a warthog, but surely even you can picture to yourself what Jimmy Bowles and Tuppy Rogers, to name only tow, will say when they see me referred to in print as "half god, half prattling, mischievous child"?"
I jolly well could
"She doesn't say that?"I gasped.
"She certainly does. And when I tell you that I selected that particular quotation because it's about the only one I can stand hearing spoken, you will realise what I'm up against. — P.G. Wodehouse

URSKADAMUS TINE SMYORFIN MASACH!" Edme wasn't sure what to believe now - her ears or her eye? There was only one wolf who swore in both the language of bears and that of Old Wolf. "Faolan?" "Who else, for the love of Lupus? One would think you saw a ghost." "But with all that frost - you look like a lochin." Faolan gave a dismissive bark. "You should see yourself," Edme persisted. "You've got icicles hanging from your chin fur. Your belly fur looks as if it's ... " "I know! I know! I can feel it!" he replied crankily. "You look absolutely ancient. I mean older than the Sark." "Thanks a lot," Faolan huffed. "Well, what did you find?" "No meat." His voice dwindled. — Kathryn Lasky

Once I accepted the fact that I was bad luck, I shied away from group activities. And groups. And activities. I started spending a lot of time in my room, tucked under my covers reading books. There's only so much damage a book can do, and I wasn't worried about hurting myself. Accidentally hurting yourself is way better than hurting other people.
Sure, I got lonely for a while. But getting invited to slumber parties just wasn't worth the stress of wondering if I might accidentally burn down the house with my flat iron or be the only survivor of a freak sleepover massacre. And loneliness is just like everything else - if you endure it long enough, you get used to it. — Paula Stokes

And let me tell you - carrying sad memories will wear you out. You've got to put them down walk away. Do whatever you must to put emotional space between yourself and your past. That's the only way you're going to make it through. — Angela Elwell Hunt

My co-stars call me selfish. They say, 'You are only interested in yourself and what you are only interested is yourself and what you are doing in front of the camera.' I reply, 'I can't help it; it's what got me where I am.' — Kareena Kapoor Khan

Your penguin. You know, penguins. They mate for life. Penguins are one of the only animals on the planet that do that, like humans. It's sweet. You've got yourself a little penguin, Uncle Mitch. — Elisabeth Naughton

You've got to realize that the world's a test,
You can only do your best and let Him do the rest.
You've got your life, and got your health,
So quit procrastinating and push it yourself. — Cee Lo Green

Well, well, nobody's perfect, but" - here Mr. Garth shook his head to help out the inadequacy of words - "what I am thinking of is - what it must be for a wife when she's never sure of her husband, when he hasn't got a principle in him to make him more afraid of doing the wrong thing by others than of getting his own toes pinched. That's the long and the short of it, Mary. Young folks may get fond of each other before they know what life is, and they may think it all holiday if they can only get together; but it soon turns into working day, my dear. However, you have more sense than most, and you haven't been kept in cotton-wool: there may be no occasion for me to say this, but a father trembles for his daughter, and you are all by yourself here. — George Eliot

Sometimes parties of men went spud-gathering in no-man's-land. About a mile to the right of us, where the lines were closer together, there was a patch of potatoes that was frequented both by the Fascists and ourselves. We went there in the daytime, they only at night, as it was commanded by our machine-guns. One night to our annoyance they turned out en masse and cleared up the whole patch. We discovered another patch further on, where there was practically no cover and you had to lift the potatoes lying on your belly - a fatiguing job. If their machine-gunners spotted you, you had to flatten yourself out like a rat when it squirms under a door, with the bullets cutting up the clods a few yards behind you. It seemed worth it at the time. Potatoes were getting very scarce. If you got a sackful you could take them down to the cook-house and swap them for a water-bottleful of coffee. And — George Orwell

At the same time that you've got to open yourself up to the fact that experience is going to teach you year after year, decade after decade. I remember I very badly wanted to write a newspaper column when I was only 21 years old, and I went to my editor and told him that, and he said, "You're a really good writer, but you haven't lived long enough to be qualified to live out loud." — Anna Quindlen

And that's what your holy men discuss, is it?" "Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example." "And what do they think? Against it, are they?" "It's not as simple as that. It's not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray." "Nope." "Pardon?" "There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is." "It's a lot more complicated than that - " "No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts. — Terry Pratchett

I've got a lot of artistic energy, but there's only so much of it, though. You don't want to spread yourself thin. — Bryan Greenberg

If you spend the first 30 years of your life only trying to look good, you're not going to know yourself very well. If you got it, flaunt it. — Ariel Pink

You may scold your carpenter, when he has made a bad table, though you can't make a table yourself.' I say to you - 'Mr. Finch, you may point out a defect in a baby's petticoats, though you haven't got a baby yourself!' Doesn't that satisfy you? All right! Take another illustration. Look at your room here. I can see in the twinkling of an eye, that it's badly lit. You have only got one window - you ought to have two. Is it necessary to be a practical builder to discover that? Absurd! Are you satisfied now? No! Take another illustration. What's this printed paper, here, on the chimney-piece? Assessed Taxes. Ha! Assessed Taxes will do. You're not in the House of Commons; you're not a Chancellor of the Exchequer - but haven't you an opinion of your own about taxation, in spite of that? Must you and I be in Parliament before we can presume to see that the feeble old British Constitution is at its last gasp? — Wilkie Collins

In my movies, I'm not trying to erase any old image of myself, really. And also I'm not trying to imitate anyone or follow in their footsteps, because I know, Burt Reynolds was just one of the people that told me this, I know how you can only last in this business if you got something special to offer, just by being yourself. — Mark Wahlberg

The problem with English is this: You usually can't open your mouth and it comes out just like that
first you have to think what you want to say. Then you have to find the words. Then you have to carefully arrange those words in your head. Then you have to say the words quietly to yourself, to make sure you got them okay. And finally, the last step, which is to say the words out loud and have them sound just right.
But then because you have to do all this, when you get to the final step, something strange has happened to you and you speak the way a drunk walks. And, because you are speaking like falling, it's as if you are an idiot, when the truth is that it's the language and the whole process that's messed up. And then the problem with those who speak only English is this: they don't know how to listen; they are busy looking at your falling instead of paying attention to what you are saying. — NoViolet Bulawayo

American culture, perhaps more than any other, prizes individualism. Our narratives of art, politics, and business idolize the person who triumphs against the odds, with only himself or herself to answer to. The lone wolf. The stranger in town. The maverick. The plucky kid. The Final Girl. You've only got yourself, in the end. It's all up to you. — Andi Zeisler

What makes me say these things is that I see how much you care about the way people look at you. It matters too much to you. And there are people who take advantage of that. They haven't got anything of their own and they'll leave you nothing for yourself. They want to put themselves in your thoughts and in your mind, and that you should care for them. It's a sickness. But they don't want you to care for them as they really are. No, that's the whole stunt. You have to be conscious of them, but not as they are, only as they love to be seen. They live through observation by the ones around them, and they want you to live like that too. Augie darling, don't do it. They will make you suffer from what they are. And you don't really matter to them. — Saul Bellow

And I told him, I said: One day you're going to miss the subway because it's not going to come. One of these days, it's going to break down and it's not going to come around and everyone else will just wait for the next one or will take the bus, or walk, or run to the next station: they will go on with their lives. And you're not going to be able to go on with your life! You'll be standing there, in the subway station, staring at the tube. Why? Because you think that everything has to happen perfectly and on time and when you think it's going to happen! Well guess what! That's not how things happen! And you'll be the only one who's not going to be able to go on with life, just because your subway broke down. So you know what, you've got to let go, you've got to know that things don't happen the way you think they're going to happen, but that's okay, because there's always the bus, there's always the next station ... you can always take a cab. — C. JoyBell C.

It was Gideon who finally broke the silence, which gave me a certain satisfaction. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" The way he asked, he sounded almost embarrassed.
"What?"
"It's what my mother always used to when I was little. If I was looking straight ahead and saying nothing, like you right at this moment."
"You have a mother?" Only when I'd said it did I realize what a silly question it was! Oh, for heaven's sake!
Gideon raised one eyebrow. "What did you expect?" he asked, amused. "You thought I was an android put together by Uncle Falk and Mr. George?"
"Well, it's not such an outlandish idea. Do you have photos of yourself as a baby?" Trying to imagine a baby Gideon with a round, soft plump-cheeked face and a bald head made me grin. — Kerstin Gier

[On Jerry Falwell] No, and I think it's a pity there isn't a hell for him to go to ... The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing: that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you'll just get yourself called Reverend. Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September 11th were the result of our sinfulness and were God's punishment if they hadn't got some kind of clerical qualification. People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup. — Christopher Hitchens

A textbook on how to create a terrorist or criminal. Crush him with society's cruelness, take his poor soul to a madman like me, and infest his brain with revengeful thoughts so powerful that he only sees humans as bridges to his cause. Then you've got yourself a first-class nuthead killing for reasons that make no sense. — Cameron Jace

As to Mr Plornish, he had married these articles of belief in marrying Mr Nandy's daughter, and only wondered how it was that so gifted an old gentleman had not made a fortune. This he attributed, after much reflection, to his musical genius not having been scientifically developed in his youth. 'For why,' argued Mr Plornish, 'why go a-binding music when you've got it in yourself? That's where it is, I consider.' Old Nandy had a patron: one patron. He had a patron who in a certain sumptuous way - an apologetic way, as if he constantly took an admiring audience to witness that he really could — Charles Dickens

People are not so dreadful when you know them. That's what you have to remember! And everybody has problems, not just you, but practically everybody has got some problems. You think of yourself as having the only problems, as being the only one who is disappointed. But just look around you and you will see lots of people as disappointed as you are. — Tennessee Williams