Open Up To Quotes & Sayings

So all of these things are going on that make you wake up and realize you are a mortal person. You can choose to cruise through your life, but if you do, you're going to open your eyes at some point, and it's gone. — Kathy Mattea

I am actually very well-organized. All I need to do is open my closet and just choose. But, you see, although I carry many different choices with me, I always end up wearing a tank top, jeans and sneakers. — Kristen Stewart

I take the rawest, realest moments in anyone's life and I open them up and lay them bare. The innocence of a five year old child, the awkwardness of a teenager's first sexual encounter, the heartbreak of longing for a relationship you can't have, confronting the possibility of the death of your newborn child, whatever it is, you open your soul and put it out there and dare the world to read it, ready to have them stomp on you and laugh, but ready to do it again the next day. You have to put yourself out there as a writer, you can't play it safe. Great writing isn't safe. — Dan Alatorre

Death, thy servant, is at my door. He has crossed the unknown sea and brought thy call to my home.

The night is dark and my heart is fearful---yet I will take up the lamp, open my gates and bow to him my welcome. It is thy messenger who stands at my door.

I will worship him placing at his feet the treasure of my heart.

He will go back with his errand done, leaving a dark shadow on my morning; and in my desolate home only my forlorn self will remain as my last offering to thee. — Rabindranath Tagore

Hiro and Chuck grab the closest thing they can find to a corner table. Hiro
buttonholes a waiter and surreptitiously orders a pitcher of Pub Special, mixed
half and half with nonalcoholic beer. This way, Chuck ought to remain awake a
little longer than he would otherwise.
It doesn't take much to make him open up. He's like one of these old guys from
a disgraced presidential administration, forced out by scandal, who devotes the
rest of his life to finding people who will listen to him. — Neal Stephenson

Flaws in oneself open you up to others with flaws. — Haruki Murakami

I like psycho chicks ... Yeah, you hook up with a psycho, you're gonna learn something. First thing you learn is how to sleep with one eye open. — Alonzo Bodden

My mouth fell open. "Did you really just compare me to Olivia Newton-John?"
"I just meant like going from, y'know, prim to all sexed up."
"I feel . . . weird."
"You look amazin. Amazin."
He pulled me against him, hands snaking under the glamour cardigan to make the acquaintance of my arse.
Chloe gave a warning screech. "Don't smudge 'im!"
He grinned, tilting his head because, in my heels, I was just a little bit taller than he was. "You're giving me chills, babes."
"Is that so? Are they multiplying?"
"Hunjed pahcent."
"You'd better shape up, then."
"You're like totally the one that I want — Alexis Hall

I had always thought about running for high political office, and I was kind of waiting for the stars to line up. And, you know, they don't hold the door open for you. You kind of have to muscle your way in. — Matt Cartwright

We had a signal. When I turned the pail upside down by the kitchen house, that meant everything was clear. Mauma would open the window and throw down a taffy she stole from missus' room. Sometimes here came a bundle of cloth scraps - real nice calicos, gingham, muslin, some import linen. One time, that true brass thimble. Her favorite thing to take was scarlet-red thread. She would wind it up in her pocket and walk right out the house with it. — Sue Monk Kidd

The clock struck eleven and cat the vampire huntress was on the loose, except my battle armor was a push-up bra, curled hair, and a short dress. Yeah, it was a dirty job, but I was going to do it. Come one, come all, bloodsuckers! Bar's open! — Jeaniene Frost

If I do anything, I have to start over, but all I have is fragments of ideas. Just pieces. Like a germ of an idea for this, and a germ of an idea for that. Nothing whole or concrete" - Violet

" 'Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.' Pearl S. Buck. Maybe a germ is enough. Maybe it's all you need. We can start small. Open up a new document or pull out a black piece of paper. We'll make it our canvas. Remember what Michelangelo said about the sculpture being in the stone - it was there from the beginning, and his job was to bring it out. Your words are in there too" -Finch — Jennifer Niven

The outright propagandist sets up in me such a fury of opposition I am not apt to care much whether he has got his facts straight or not. He is like someone standing on your toes between you and an open window, describing the view to you. All I ask of him to do is to open the window, stand out of the way, and let me look at the view for myself. — Katherine Anne Porter

Yet in reality, the likelihood of reaching the pinnacle of capitalist society today is only marginally better than were the chances of being accepted into the French nobility four centuries ago, though at least an aristocratic age was franker, and therefore kinder, about the odds. It did not relentlessly play up the possibilities open to all those with a take on the future of the potato crisp, and so, in turn, did not cruelly equate an ordinary life with a failed one.
Our era is perverse in passing off an exception as a rule. — Alain De Botton

The wave came again and carried them out onto the sea of pain, where he wondered again why life ever came into the world...The tide that drew them out into the troubled waters once again spent itself, and they floated slowly back, resting for a minute or so, only to be dragged out again. He held her up while she contracted and pushed inside herself, trying to open the petals of her flowering body...He lifted her, trying to free the load she was struggling with, but she was straining against the traces, getting nowhere, her eyes like those of a draft horse...Who would choose this, thought Laski, this work, this woe? Life enslaves us, makes us want children, gives us a thousand illusions about love, and all so that it can go forward. — William Kotzwinkle

It just makes it even harder for people to even approach the (open source) side, when they then end up having to worry about public humiliation. — Linus Torvalds

To Your eyes a thousand years are like yesterday come and gone, no more than a watch in the night.
You sweep men away like a dream, like grass which springs up in the morning.
In the morning it springs up and flowers, by evening it withers and fades.
So we are destroyed in Your anger, struck with terror in Your fury.
Our guilt lies open before You; our secrets in the light of Your face.
All our days pass away in Your anger. Our life is over like a sigh.
Our span is seventy years or eighty for those who are strong. And most of these are emptiness and pain, they pass swiftly and we are gone. — Psalm 89

Any path you take, if you commit with passion, you can be successful. By going to business school, certain opportunities may open up to you sooner. But it's who you are and how you take advantage of your opportunities that matter. — Dan Rosensweig

It is then, when we have set our intention to align our will with God's will, feeling, believing, and knowing our loving connection with all that is, that we can open up our intuition to our full potential. — Catherine Carrigan

But Aoi found it impossible to fully open herself up to any of her
new friends. She could laugh with them, rant with them, even play
at falling in love with them. But there remained a certain line she was loath to let anybody cross, and if someone tried to come closer
than that, she hastily erected a wall, not answering the phone and
staying away from classes until a more comfortable distance reasserted
itself. — Mitsuyo Kakuta

So what if I don't learn algebra?'
'Someday schools will be open again,' Mom said. 'Things will be normal. You need to do your work now for when that happens.'
'That's never going to happen,' Jon said. 'And even if schools do open up somewhere, they're not going to open up here. There aren't enough people left.'
'We don't know how many people are like us, holed up, making do until times get better.'
'I bet whoever they are, they aren't studying algebra,' Jon said. — Susan Beth Pfeffer

If you're wearing smoky eye makeup, a little beige or gold pencil on the inner eye corners will open up the area, but you only want to do it if the shadow is really dark. Otherwise, light pencil makes your eyes look too far apart, like a fish. — Gisele Bundchen

You always want to be able to convey items of interest, items that make the fan see what's happening, help them in their conversations of comparing teams or players and then be able to back it up to open his eyes to the history of the league. — Hubie Brown

When I wake up earlier than you and you
are turned to face me, face
on the pillow and hair spread around,
I take a chance and stare at you,
amazed in love and afraid
that you might open your eyes and have
the daylights scared out of you.
But maybe with the daylights gone
you'd see how much my chest and head
implode for you, their voices trapped
inside like unborn children fearing
they will never see the light of day.
The opening in the wall now dimly glows
its rainy blue and gray. I tie my shoes
and go downstairs to put the coffee on. — Ron Padgett

Religions, creeds and forms are only a characteristic outward sign of the spiritual impulsion and religion itself is the intensive action by which it tries to find its inward force. Its expansive movement comes in the thought which it throws out on life, the ideals which open up new horizons and which the intellect accepts and life labours to assimilate. — Sri Aurobindo

I look out again at the sun-my first full gaze. It is blood-red and men are walking about on rooftops. Everything above the horizon is clear to me. It is like Easter Sunday. Death is behind me and birth too. I am going to live now among the life maladies. I am going to live the spiritual life of the pygmy, the secret life of the little man in the wilderness of the bush. Inner and outer have changed places. Equilibrium is no longer the goal-the scales must be destroyed. Let me hear you promise again all those sunny things you carry inside you. Let me try to believe for one day, while I rest in the open, that the sun brings good tidings. Let me rot in splendor while the sun bursts in your womb. I believe all your lies implicitly. I take you as the personification of evil, as the destroyer of the soul, as the maharanee of the night. Tack your womb up on my wall, so that I may remember you. We must get going. Tomorrow, tomorrow ... — Henry Miller

Seven thousand of them were indicted and arraigned, and then they entered the maw of the criminal justice system - right here - through the gateway into Gibraltar, where the vans were lined up. That was about 150 new cases, 150 more pumping hearts and morose glares, every week that the courts and the Bronx County District Attorney's Office were open. And to what end? The same stupid, dismal, pathetic, horrifying crimes were committed day in and day out, all the same. What was accomplished by assistant D.A.'s, by any of them, through all this relentless stirring of the muck? The Bronx crumbled and decayed a little more, and a little more blood dried in the cracks. The Doubts! One thing was accomplished for sure. The system was fed, and those vans brought in the chow. — Tom Wolfe

When he went to PARC for his formal interview, Kay was asked what he hoped his great achievement there would be. "A personal computer," he answered. Asked what that was, he picked up a notebook-size portfolio, flipped open its cover, and said, "This will be a flat-panel display. There'll be a keyboard here on the bottom, and enough power to store your mail, files, music, artwork, and books. All in a package about this size and weighing a couple of pounds. That's what I'm talking about." His interviewer scratched his head and muttered to himself, "Yeah, right." But Kay got the job. — Walter Isaacson

You have shown me, along with that man over there, that life and love aren't as far apart as we think. They go hand-in-hand, like you and me. You can't have one without the other. Everything around us, inside of us, is love. It's in the birds and the rivers, the newborn baby whimpers, and yes, the passionate kisses we share. Life is a package wrapped up in love. To experience love, we have to open it. Carefully. And cherish every gift we're given. — Marilyn Grey

I could still see some blood caked on at the back of his whitish paws. Doggie stigmatas. I carefully held out my hand. Junior nervously leaned forward, sniffed it instinctively. He looked at my hand, then up at me, then he rested his furry jaw in my open palm. Next to me, I heard Cindy crying softly. Girls. — J.R. Rain

What did the mat say to the door? You must be really aDOORable to open up to everyone who knock at you. And I welcome everyone and what do I get? People stepping all over me — Ana Claudia Antunes

1. A Cup of Tea
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), recieved a university professor who came to inqure about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your up? — Nyogen Senzaki

D'Artagnan is the youngest of the four, and they're like his big brothers. They bring him up and teach him the ways of what it's like to be a Musketeer, and he embraces it with open arms. — Luke Pasqualino

Prepare to evacuate soul in ten, in nine, eight.
Chloe's splashing through the ankle-deep back-up of renal fluid from her failed kidneys.
Death will commence in five.
Five, four.
Around her, a parasitic life spray paints her heart.
Four, three.
Three, two.
Chloe climbs hand-over-hand up the curled lining of her own throat.
Death to commence in three, two.
Moonlight shines in through the open mout ...
h.
Prepare for the last breath, now.
Evacuate.
Now.
Soul clear of body.
Death commences.
Now. — Chuck Palahniuk

She was never likely to say out loud, "I wish that I could marry a handsome prince," but knowing that if you did you'd probably open the door to find a stunned prince, a tied-up priest, and a Nac Mac Feegle grinning cheerfully and ready to act as best man definitely made you watch what you said. — Terry Pratchett

The obvious one, in a market system, in a really functioning one, whoever's making the decisions doesn't pay attention to what are called externalities, effects on others. I sell you a car, if our eyes are open we'll make a good deal for ourselves but we're not asking how it's going to affect her [over there.] It will, there'll be more congestion, gas prices will go up, there will be environmental effects and that multiplies over the whole population. Well, that's very serious. — Noam Chomsky

An innovative mind allows "the creative flow" to open up for information abundance. — Pearl Zhu

Sometimes, we have bad on the inside and good on the outside. In these instances, we need to be able to open up our boundaries to let the good in and the bad out. In other words, our fences need gates in them. — Henry Cloud

I want to set people up for success, like a good diet plan. If I pick just one, it may not be the right one for you. That's why there are 500 shifts, so you can literally flip it open and have an easy starting point. — Elizabeth Rogers

The world into which I have tumbled is peopled with strange beings. They are always busy erecting walls and rules round themselves, and how careful they are with their curtains lest they should see! It is a wonder to me they have not made drab covers for flowering plants and put up a canopy to ward off the moon. If the next life is determined by the desires of this, then I should be reborn from our enshrouded planet into some free and open realm of joy. — Rabindranath Tagore

If you have the guts to follow the risk ... if one follows what I call one's "bliss" - the thing that really gets you deep in the gut and that you feel is your life - doors will open up ... if you follow your bliss, you'll have your bliss, whether you have money or not. — Joseph Campbell

Emily just knew that the grocery store clerk's cousin had slipped on a bath mat and fallen out a second-story open window only to be saved because the woman landed on a discarded mattress.
But what interested Emily most about the incident was how the cousin had subsequently met a man in physical therapy who introduced her to his half brother who she ended up marrying and then running over with her car a year later after a heated argument. And that man, it was discovered, had been the one to dump the mattress in her yard.
He'd saved her so that she could later cripple him.
Emily found that not ironic but intriguing.
Because everything, she believed, was connected. — Holly Goldberg Sloan

If life becomes one naval lint fuzzball after another, enjoy picking naval lint. Be open to the changes that life brings. Find a way to make the best life you can for yourself, regardless of the situation. Look to stay healthy and stay positive in your thinking. Focus on the good parts of your life. Be content with finding happiness in everyday events. Add fun and silliness to your life. Whatever you end up doing find the joy in it. — Susan Spira

Was that all it took?"
"What?" she asked, completely bewildered.
"To shut you up," he clarified with a definite grin this time. "All it took was agreeing with you."
She glared at him. "If you'd ever tried agreeing with me before, you'd have known that," she snapped.
"I had to wait until you were right about something," he replied, then hurried to open the door before she could smack him, which she dearly wanted to do. — Victoria Thompson

Many of the greatest works of philosophy seem to me to be valuable not because of their arguments, but because they offer us perspectives that open up new possibilities. They show us how we might start in different places, and not buy into the assumptions tacitly made on the first pages of the philosophical works that have influenced us. — Philip Kitcher

When my parents fought, I'd run up to my room, put on The Sound of Music, open the window and sing out. My voice was my escape. I saw it as a way out. — Christina Aguilera

But by us doing a lot on the road, we were able to afford things like videos on the tours, cartoons that we'd open up the shows with. We were doing that way back when and now it's the hippest thing to do. We're just coming back around, I guess trying to play catch-up. — Bootsy Collins

Open on three," Minho said. "And guard lady, you try anything or run away, I guarantee one of us will get you. Thomas, you count off." The woman pulled out her key card but said nothing. "One," Thomas began. "Two." He paused, allowed himself a moment to suck in a breath, but before he could yell the last number an alarm started blaring and the lights went out. CHAPTER 14 Thomas blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the darkness. The alarm rang in shrill, deafening bursts. He sensed Minho stand up, then heard him shuffling about. "The guard's gone!" his friend shouted. "I can't find her! — James Dashner

I threw flips and cartwheels straight across the grass, fuck my imaginary stitches, fuck whether Lexie had done gymnastics, I couldn't remember the last time I had been this drunk and I loved it. I wanted to dive deeper into it and never come up for air, open my mouth and take a huge breath and drown on this night — Tana French

thought of Dr. Court and was sorry that she was going to be disappointed. Joey knew his mother would be upset, but she had Donald and the new baby. It wouldn't take her long to see that it was all for the best. And his father. His father would just get drunk again. Joey kept his eyes open. He wanted to see the trees rush up at him. He took a long breath, held it, and dove. — Nora Roberts

Dedicating some time to meditation is a meaningful expression of caring for yourself that can help you move through the mire of feeling unworthy of recovery. As your mind grows quieter and more spacious, you can begin to see self-defeating thought patterns for what they are, and open up to other, more positive options. — Sharon Salzberg

And if small businesspeople say they made it on their own, all they are saying is that nobody else worked seven days a week in their place. Nobody showed up in their place to open the door at five in the morning. Nobody did their thinking, and worrying, and sweating for them. — Paul Ryan

If I pick up a book with spaceships on the cover, I want spaceships. If I see one with dragons, I want there to be dragons inside the book. Proper labeling. Ethical labeling. I don't want to open up my cornflakes and find that they're full of pebbles ... You need to respect the reader enough not to call it something it isn't. — Margaret Atwood

Really good work probably comes out of a willingness to disclose yourself, open yourself up in spiritual and emotional ways that risk making you look banal or melodramatic or naive or unhip or sappy, and to ask the reader really to feel something. To be willing to sort of die in order to move the reader, somehow. Even now I'm scared about how sappy this'll look in print, saying this. And the effort actually to do it, not just talk about it, requires a kind of courage I don't seem to have yet. — David Foster Wallace

I'm wide open to getting married, but actors are not easy people to date. You end up sharing that person with this other mistress that is their career. I very much like the traditional courtship method of making a date. That's what they do in normal places, but Hollywood's not normal. — Seth MacFarlane

Lee nodded, his smile somehow bigger like he was trying not to laugh then his eyes moved to Hector and he said, "I tried to stop it."
Hector looked at Lee then looked at me then he muttered, "Oh fuck."
"It was Ally's idea," Lee told Hector.
"What was Ally's idea?" Hector asked Lee.
"It was not Ally's idea!" I cried.
"It wasn't!" super-power-eared Ally yelled from the open back window of Lee's Explorer. "It was Sadie's idea. I just was offering moral support."
"Shut up, Ally!" Indy shouted out the open passenger side window.
"I will not shut up! I'm not taking the fall for this one!" Ally shouted back. — Kristen Ashley

I'm going to call me girls." Sadie stood in the open doorway and yelled. "Clare, Dora, I want yiz!" The cry went up, repeated over and over again as the children playing in the street outside passed the message along. Sadie waited, sure the message would eventually reach her two girls, where ever they were playing. It was an efficient message system used by every mother around the place. — Gemma Jackson

Shocked, Raven flung back her head to listen more intently. "The wolves are talking to you! How do I know that, Mikhail? How could I possibly know such a thing?"
He ruffled her hair lightly, affectionately. "You hang out with the wrong crowd."
He was rewarded with a bubble of laughter. It tugged at his heart, left him open and vulnerable.
"What is this?" she teased. "Lord of the manor picks up seventies slang?"
He grinned at her boyishly, mischievously. "Maybe I am the one hanging out with the wrong crowd."
"And maybe there's hope for you yet." She kissed his throat, his chin, the stubborn line of his blue-shadowed jaw. — Christine Feehan

Life is real, reality is not a dream.
Those who chose to sleep ... I wake em up,
Cause you're sleepin with your mouth open hummin deez nuts. — King Sun

I know that I'm very susceptible to getting caught up in storylines like, "I want him to be different. I want him to be more open. I want him to call." We have all of these storylines that kind of take over sometimes, and I think there's real grace and a peaceful heart at the center of just accepting what is, and knowing that everything's OK. The good, the bad, the ugly, the pain, the hurt, the frustration - all of that is valuable and part of this human experience, so we should lean in to all of it. — Sara Bareilles

Then he reached to an even higher shelf and brought down another plastic grocery bag, this one from Tesco, which is decidedly less upscale. "Now, a smell is going to hit you when I open this up, but don't worry," he said. "It's just the smoke they used to preserve the head." That's a phrase you don't hear too often, so it took a moment for it to sink in. — David Sedaris

I didn't want to write unless I could say, and think for myself. I looked to peers that I not only respected but those that supported that. I finished becoming who I am today by sticking up for myself as a voice, but that is in part thanks to the huge role the good guys I chose to work with played in my professional development. Some really terrific human beings who loved horror welcomed me with open arms. — Karen Walton

Gareth's eyes slipped open. "You make me nervous when you do that."
"Do what?"
"Brood. Your brooding is rather loud."
"Oh please. I was hardly - "
His eyebrow rose.
"Fine. I was brooding. It's not like you don't."
"Mine is inherent to my romantic nature. Cloaks and castles."
Adele threw up her hands. "That's it. You are forbidden to look at any more cheap books about yourself. — Clay Griffith

What's up?" Doug asked with a loud whisper as he swung the door open. His short blond hair was in a state of disarray and the pajama pants he wore were horribly wrinkled. The poor guy looked like a disheveled mess. Pressing his finger to his lips, he stepped back and gestured for Sadie to come in. "Emily is finally asleep, and if she wakes up, I might actually cry. — Sara Humphreys

Open your eyes, baby. Look at me." He pressed his forehead down to meet mine, my eyelids fluttering open at his command. "Look at me and tell me you don't want it."
I peered up at him with unsteady breaths, hearing his throat work when I tilted my lips to graze his. The contact was feather light, my heart hammering through my chest at the feel of it. "I'm looking," I breathed against him.
"Good. Because right now, all I want to do is rip your clothes off and make you come until you can't stand, and I want your eyes on me the whole time, are we clear?"
-Jackson and Emma — Rachael Wade

Let the risen Jesus enter your life - welcome him as a friend, with trust: he is life! If up till now you have kept him at a distance, step forward. He will receive you with open arms. If you have been indifferent, take a risk; you won't be disappointed. If following him seems difficult, don't be afraid. Trust him, be confident that he is close to you, he is with you, and he will give you the peace you are looking for and the strength to live as he would have you do. — Pope Francis

So often, we think we can guess our destiny. We're so certain we know what it looks like that we forget to open ourselves up to the pleasure of surprise. — Melissa Hart

What I teach you to do is how to bring the light of the supraconscious throughout your being, because once you have done that, the chakras will open up by themselves. — Frederick Lenz

When leaders wonder what they can do to position their societies for the industries of the future, they need to open up and resist control-freak tendencies. The 21st century is a terrible time to be a control freak; future grown depends on empowering people. — Alec J. Ross

I spent a lot of time protecting myself. I mean, I've met a lot of extraordinary people over the years - and I just wish I had been able to open myself up to them more. — Diane Keaton

The psychotherapist learns little or nothing from his successes. They mainly confirm him in his mistakes, while his failures, on the other hand, are priceless experiences in that they not only open up the way to a deeper truth, but force him to change his views and methods. — Carl Jung

My grandfather ran off the V-2 rocket film a dozen times and then hoped that someday our cities would open up more and let the green and the land and the wilderness in more, to remind people that we're allotted a little space on earth and that we survive in that wilderness that can take back what it has given, as easily as blowing its breath on us or sending the sea to tell us we are not so big. When we forget how close the wilderness is in the night, my grandpa said, someday it will come in and get us for we will have forgotten how terrible and real it can be. You see? — Ray Bradbury

The other night I took her on-out of pity-and what do you think the crazy bitch had done to herself? She had shaved it clean ... not a speck of hair on it. Did you ever have a woman who shaved her twat? It's repulsive, ain't it? And it's funny, too. Sort of mad like. It doesn't look like a twat any more: it's like a dead clam or something." He describes to me how, his curiosity aroused, he got out of bed and searched for his flashlight. "I made her hold it open and I trained the flashlight on it. You should have seen me ... it was comical. I got so worked up about it that I forgot all about her. I never in my life looked at a cunt so seriously. — Henry Miller

You reach a certain age when reality grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shouts in your face:"Hey, look, this is what life is." And you have to open your eyes and look at it, listen to it, smell it: people who don't like you, things you don't want to do, things that hurt, things that scare you, questions without answers, feelings you don't understand, feelings you don't want but have no control over.
Reality.
When you gradually come to realise that all that stuff in books, films, television, magazines, newspapers, comics - it's all rubbish. It's got nothing to do with anything. It's all made up. It doesn't happen like that. It's not real. It means nothing. Reality is what you see when you look out of the window of a bus: dour faces, sad and temporary lives, millions of cars, metal, bricks, glass, rain, cruel laughter, ugliness, dirt, bad teeth, crippled pigeons, little kids in pushchairs who've already forgotten how to smile ... — Kevin Brooks

You get very comfortable doing the open mic circuit, turning up to the same places and playing to 20 people. In that situation, it won't matter if you aren't great on that night because no one will really remember who you are. Then suddenly you are doing rooms to 400 people and you have to up your game. — Pippa Evans

I just figured out what you are," he said.
"What?"
"You're a present." He nodded as if in satisfaction. "Tightly wrapped, with lots of tape, lots of beautiful shiny ribbon, all tied up in impossible knots. The kind of present that makes you half mad when you're trying to get it open. Because you know, the whole time, what's inside is going to be wonderful. — Sierra Donovan

What Tyler says about the crap and the slaves of history, that's how I felt. I wanted to destroy something beautiful I'd never have. Burn the Amazon rain forests. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight up to gobble the ozone. Open the dump valves on supertankers and uncap offshore oil wells. I wanted to kill all the fish I couldn't afford to eat, and smother the French beaches I'd never see. I wanted the whole world to hit bottom. Pounding that kid, I really wanted to put a bullet between the eyes of every endangered panda that wouldn't screw to save its species and every whale or dolphin that gave up and ran itself aground — Chuck Palahniuk

Open your mind a little, don't believe everything you hear, see or read, the world is so caught up in trying to avoid the topics that matter that you'll lose yourself trying to become like it. — Nikki Rowe

I live completely without regret. Sure there are plenty of things that someone could second guess, but I see the path of life like driving down the road without a map. The thing is, some dark alleys open up in majestic places, and some bright and shiny highways to the top end in cliffs to the bottom. You never know until you get there. What I know for sure is that if many years ago I actually had a map to the path of life, the destination that I would have chosen is right here, with this family, in this place, and with these smiles. That makes anything that could have been regretful, the best decision in the world. — Michael A. Wood Jr.

There is some good news for John McCain. According to the latest polls, which came out today, John McCain has started to open up a lead over Barack Obama. This is true. Yeah. The USA Today poll has McCain ahead by ten points. The 'CBS News' poll has the two tied. And the MSNBC poll says that Obama won the election last week. — Conan O'Brien

Just to be in Boston, in Cambridge, on a Monday night was very horrifying to me. It frightens me . . . All the stores closing up by 5 or 6, coffeehouses being open maybe until 11, just the sense that the world shuts down and you're left with yourself. — Ann Douglas

When I create works of art, I do it because it is part of me and I must create. But afterward, when the work is done, I hope that it'll speak to people, that it'll open up their hearts or their minds. That cannot happen if the art is buried for safekeeping. — Nalini Singh

Let's say that you could carry around a perfect copy of a three-dimensional realization of a Caravaggio painting (or if your tastes are more modern make it a Picasso). You would carry a small box in your pocket, and whenever you wanted, you could press a button and the box would open up into life-sized glory and show you the picture. You would bring it to all the parties you attended. The peak of the culture of the seventeenth century (or say the 1920s if you prefer Picasso) would be at your disposal. Alternatively, let's say you could carry around in your pocket an iPhone. That gives you thousands of songs, a cell phone, access to personal photographs, YouTube, email, and web access, among many other services, not to mention all the applications that have not yet been written. You will have a strong connection to the contemporary culture of small bits. — Tyler Cowen

Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you've closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart. — Desmond Tutu

To succeed, you have to be open to problems. You have to be open to failure. And as you go up the ladder, you gain the right to get more problems. — John C. Maxwell

I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn't groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor of pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again. — Sylvia Plath

But for now he was alone and hurt and broken on the ground, the man, gravely wounded. Worse, he knew himself a fool, knew himself a loser, knew himself too late, and defeated, ruined by his own hand, near to death.
It was the end and then this happened. The wound in his chest, red and burning, open like an eye, an ear, a mouth, began to glow.
It glowed and warmed until it embered him. Flowers closest to where he lay started to wilt in the heat of it. But inside the man, the heat changed into something else. The first thing he felt it become was courage and the next thing was desire.
They went through him, but with a roughness he'd never known. Then instead of in pain he was thirsty, but with a thirst he'd never known. The heat and the glow and the thirst combined and melted the man into someone he'd never been.
He heard a noise. It was the roar of water.
Up he got off the ground to go and sort himself out. — Ali Smith

To love means to open ourselves to suffering. Shall we shut our doors to love, then and 'be safe'?" That's the only alternative, really. But locking ourselves up and never facing another person won't fix what's really going on in our souls. — Elisabeth Elliot

The next time I open my eyes, I'm on the floor, on my back, staring at the water-stained ceiling of The Horny Goat. And . . . I think there's gum up there. What kind of demented bastard puts chewing gum on the ceiling? Has to be a health hazard. — Emma Chase

But if you remove a tyrant in anything other than an open and visible way, another tyrant soon stands up to replace him. — Juliet Marillier

I need a bath." He chuckled. "You smell of smoke, as do I." The duke turned, leaning heavily on his cane. "Jameson, open the carriage door. We shall return to the house." Beth smiled up at Christian. "Shall we adjourn to the house to get some ointment for your hands and a bath, my love?" His eyes lit. "A bath?" Grandfather snorted. "Someone send to London for a special license! Now. — Karen Hawkins

What they say is, life goes on, and that is mostly true. The mail is delivered and the Christmas lights go up and the ladders get put away and you open yet another box of cereal. In time, the volume of my feelings would be turned down in gentle increments to a near quiet, and yet the record would still spin, always spin. There was a place for Rose so deeply within myself that it was another country, another world, with its own light and time and its own language. A lost world. Yet its foundations and edges were permanent-the ruins of Pompeii, the glorious remnants or the Forum. A world that endured, even as it retreated into the past. A world visited, imagined, ever waiting, yet asleep — Deb Caletti

"Yeah, well, if you eat red meat, it stays in your colon for fifteen years!" Good! I paid for it; I want it in my ass, okay? I want them to find a meat sweater from my esophagus to my asshole when they open me up in the end! "This guy's covered in meat! He's Meat-Man! He's Meat-Tracheotomy-Man!" — Denis Leary

I always got the feeling with John Paul that if he could have narrowed down the people he met and blessed those he loved the most, they would not be cardinals, princes, or congressman, but nuns from obscure convents and Down syndrome children, especially the latter. Because they have suffered, and because in some serious and amazing way the love of God seems more immediately available to them. Everyone else gets themselves tied up in ambition and ideas and bustle, all the great distractions, but the modest and unwell are so often unusually open to this message: God loves us, his love is all around us, he made us to love him and be happy — Peggy Noonan

In this moment, with the wind whipping my hair, the view endless and open, I experience joyful abandon for the first time in my existence. It is sweet and sharp. I want to memorize it, store it up, so that when I need it most, I can recall that this feeling does actually exist - and it is entirely worth living for. — Heather Hildenbrand

I have always wanted to open up a brewery slash goat farm. Brew some beer, make some goat cheese, but that's kinda dreamy. — Adam Lamberg

I'm the guy who will persist in his path. I'm the guy who will make you laugh. I'm the guy who strives to be open. I'm the guy who's been heartbroken. I'm the guy who has been on his own, and I'm the guy who's felt alone. I'm the guy who holds your hand, and I'm the guy who will stand up and be a man. I'm the guy who tries to make things better. I'm the guy who's the whitest half Cuban ever. I'm the guy who's lost more than he's won. I'm the guy who's turn, but never spun. I'm the guy you couldn't see. I'm that guy, and that guy is me. — Blake Jenner

If I get to know somebody, I'll open up, but other than that I like to sit back and observe things. — Russell Westbrook

Shut up about Leibniz for a moment, Rudy, because look here: You - Rudy - and I are on a train, as it were, sitting in the dining car, having a nice conversation, and that train is being pulled along at a terrific clip by certain locomotives named The Bertrand Russell and Riemann and Euler and others. And our friend Lawrence is running alongside the train, trying to keep up with us - it's not that we're smarter than he is, necessarily, but that he's a farmer who didn't get a ticket. And I, Rudy, am simply reaching out through the open window here, trying to pull him onto the fucking train with us so that the three of us can have a nice little chat about mathematics without having to listen to him panting and gasping for breath the whole way. — Neal Stephenson

All God's revelations are sealed to us until they are opened to us by obedience. You will never get them open by philosophy or thinking. Immediately you obey, a flash of light comes. Let God's truth work in you by soaking in it, not by worrying into it. Obey God in the thing He is at present showing you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. We read tomes on the work of the Holy Spirit when ... five minutes of drastic obedience would make things clear as a sunbeam. We say, "I suppose I shall understand these things some day." You can understand them now: it is not study that does it, but obedience. The tiniest fragment of obedience, and heaven opens up and the profoundest truths of God are yours straight away. God will never reveal more truth about Himself till you obey what you know already. Beware of being wise and prudent. — Oswald Chambers