Ordinary Special Quotes & Sayings

The night was ordinary. It usually is, I think, when your life changes. Most people aren't doing anything special when the carefully placed pieces of their life break apart. — Carole Radziwill

There is a mathematical underpinning that you must first acquire, mastery of each mathematical subdiscipline leading you to the threshold of the next. In turn you must learn arithmetic, Euclidian geometry, high school algebra, differential and integral calculus, ordinary and partial differential equations, vector calculus, certain special functions of mathematical physics, matrix algebra, and group theory. For most physics students, this might occupy them from, say, third grade to early graduate school - roughly 15 years. Such a course of study does not actually involve learning any quantum mechanics, but merely establishing the mathematical framework required to approach it deeply. — Carl Sagan

I think you're really nice"
"I'm nothing special." it's not a lament. More a statement. — Elise Valmorbida

You take ordinary things and turn them rainbow bright. It's what makes you so special. — Christi Barth

Be ordinary, but bring a quality of awareness to your ordinary life. Bring God to your ordinary life introduce God into your ordinary life. Sleep, eat, love, pray, meditate, but don't think that you are making or doing something special - and then you will be special. — Osho

And as I went on and read, I lighted upon that passage, To one is given, by the Spirit, the word of wisdom; to another the word knowledge by the same Spirit; and to another faith, etc. 1 Cor. xii. And though, as I have since seen, that by this scripture the Holy Ghost intends, in special, things extraordinary, yet on me it did then fasten with conviction, that I did want things ordinary, even that understanding and wisdom that other Christians had. On this word I mused, and could not tell what to do, especially this word 'Faith' put me to it, for I could not help it, but sometimes must question, whether I had any faith, or no; but I was loath to conclude, I had no faith; for if I do so, thought I, then I shall count myself a very cast-away indeed. — John Bunyan

Consider also the special word they used: survivor. Something new. As long as they didn't have to say human being. It used to be refugee, but by now there was no such creature, no more refugees, only survivors. A name like a number
counted apart from the ordinary swarm. Blue digits on the arm, what difference? They don't call you a woman anyhow. Survivor. Even when your bones get melted into the grains of the earth, still they'll forget human being. Survivor and survivor and survivor; always and always. Who made up these words, parasites on the throat of suffering! — Cynthia Ozick

The act of collaboration must start with dialogue. You cannot build relationships without having an understanding of your potential partners, and you cannot achieve that understanding without a special form of communication that goes beyond ordinary conversation. — Daniel Yankelovich

I think about our marriage. The weft of our seventeen years together was so easily torn apart. Our love was as ordinary as the identical welcome mats found in the suburbs we grew up in. The fact that our bodies, our thoughts, our hearts had once moved in rhythm with each other had only fooled us into thinking we were special. — Amy Tan

From youth to middle, and often to past middle, age, most men are apt to be too closely engaged in the struggle of life to pay due attention to the strength of the body. They may take daily what they consider a sufficient amount of exercise; but the exercise is not calculated to keep the various limbs and muscles, still less the internal organs, in proper working order. Amid the ordinary concerns of life the man may appear strong, even stalwart. But when occasion arises for some special muscular exercise, or taxing the action of some organ, he finds out his weakness. — Richard A. Proctor

It is a pity to make a mystery out of what should most easily be understood. There is nothing occult about the thought that all things maybe made well or made ill. A work of art is a well-made thing - that is all. It may be a well-made statue of a well-made chair or a well-made book. Art is not a special sauce applied to ordinary cooking; it is the cooking itself that is good. Most simply and generally, Art may be thought of as "The Well Doing of What Needs Doing." — Oscar Wilde

In this world, the greatest rewards of success, wealth and happiness are usually obtained not through the exercise of special powers such a genius or intellect but through one's energetic use of simple means and ordinary qualities. — Og Mandino

The aim of any practice of concentration and meditation is to free the aspirant from his usual way of thinking, feeling and being, so that he manages to become aware of himself in a manner which is totally different from the way he is normally.
This self-awareness, inaccessible to the seeker in his ordinary state of being, is closely linked with a very special inner presence which is liberating, transforming and therapeutic at the same time. — Edward Salim Michael

No dog ever thinks that ordinary loyalty is anything special. But people have elevated this feeling dogs have into something unusual because not all people have a sense of loyalty and fidelity strong enough to be the root of their lives, the natural base of their existence. — Gavriil Troyepolsky

There is no special protection when you cross that invisible line from your ordinary life to that parallel world where tragedies happen. It happens just like this. You don't become someone else. You're still exactly the same. Everything around you still smells and looks and feels exactly the same. — Liane Moriarty

When true happiness shows up, the ego is bored with it: It's too plain, too ordinary, and it doesn't leave us feeling special or above the fray. It doesn't take away our problems, which is the ego's idea of happiness. The ego wants no more difficulties: no ore sickness, no more need for money, no more work, no more bad feelings, only unending pleasure and bliss. Such perfection is the ego's idea of a successful life. However, the happiness the ego dreams of will never be attained by anyone. The ego denies the reality of this dimension, where challenges are necessary to evolution and blissful states and pleasure come and go. — Gina Lake

When is nothing special the most important thing? When it's the only thing. Where we come from, beauty is so ordinary that we don't even know we are beautiful. — Bennett Madison

We are having wool pulled over our eyes if we let ourselves be convinced that scientists, taken as a group, are anything special in the way of brains. They are very ordinary professional men, and all they know is their own trade, just like all other professional men. There are some geniuses among them, just as there are mental giants in any other field of endeavor. — Anthony Standen

We are just ordinary people. They're special. Adam's tied to the ley line. Ronan's a dreamer. Blue amplifies all of that."
"Richie Rich is just a person," Orla said.
Yes, and he's going to die. — Maggie Stiefvater

They [the English] have a special word, "civil," for what is elsewhere merely ordinary politeness. — Edmund Wilson

Unlike film and TV, theater is a luxury object, but one that ordinary middle-class people can still afford. Above all, it isn't a mass medium: Live theater is a small-scale, handmade art form. Intimacy is what makes it special. — Terry Teachout

I never thought of myself as anything but plain and ordinary until you came along. The way you look at me, the way you see me ... you pull something out of me. When I want to hide, you urge me forward. When I think I'm not good enough, you make me believe I am. When I feel anything but pretty, you convince me I'm beautiful. Just being around you makes me feel special. You don't think you're good at loving people, but you are. Your friends, your family ... the level of love that you have for people astounds me. You don't think people love you back, but they do. They fiercely love you. I fiercely love you. I've never met anyone as passionate as you, as kindhearted as you ... as amazing as you. You love with every fiber of your soul. You inspire me every day. And if you'll agree to be my husband, I'll do my best to make you proud of me, to inspire you. — S.C. Stephens

The country is stronger than the result of any one election. But we shouldn't forget that these are just ordinary people. I wish Americans would look at them level, not down or up - just level. It doesn't take some special dimension to be president. — Jack Germond

I'm smart enough to know that Elizabeth had no doubt seen dozens of men leap over curbs without her falling in love with the leaper, but I do believe this: When an endeavor is special in a person's life, others discern it intuitively and appreciate it more, like the praise a child receives for a lumpy clay sculpture. And as ordinary as such an event might be, it can be instilled with uncommon power. — Steve Martin

There is nothing special about Tim Scott. I'm an ordinary guy serving an extraordinary God and that makes the difference. — Tim Scott

I get the ideas from everything. Children sometimes think you have to have special experiences to write, but good writing brings out what's special in ordinary things. — Laurence Yep

For the most part, Ranger had a consistent personality.
He wasn't a guy who wasted a lot of unnecessary energy and effort. He moved and he spoke with an efficient ease that was more animal than human. And he didn't telegraph his emotions. Unless Ranger had his tongue in my mouth it was usually impossible to tell what he was thinking. But every now and then, Ranger would step out of the box, and like a little treat that was doled out on special occasions, Ranger would make an entirely outrageous sexual statement.
At least it would be outrageous coming from an ordinary guy ... from Ranger it seemed on the mark. — Janet Evanovich

Just as in prayer it is not we who momentarily catch His attention, but He ours, so when we fail to hear His voice, it is not because He is not speaking so much as that we are not listening. We must recognize that all things are in God and that God is in all things, and we must learn to be very attentive, in order to bear God speaking in His ordinary tone without any special accent. — Charles Brent

Evolution is a theory in a special philosophical sense of science, but in terms of ordinary laymen's use of language, it's a fact, .. Evolution is a fact in the same sense that it's a fact that the Earth is round and not flat, [that] the Earth goes round the Sun. Both those are also theories, but they're theories that have never been disproved and never will be disproved. — Richard Dawkins

Look out the window behind her. "I see trees, the sky, and some clouds. Some birds on tree branches." "Nothing out of the ordinary. Right?" "That's right." "But if you knew you might not be able to see it again tomorrow, everything would suddenly become special and precious, wouldn't it?" "I suppose so." "Have you ever thought about that?" "I have." A surprised look comes over her. "When?" "When I'm in love," I tell her. — Haruki Murakami

Far from making me feel different and special, my [spiritual] experiences made me feel the same, ordinary, and interconnected. If I felt more spiritual, everyone else felt more spiritual as well. (276) — Julia Cameron

I'm not a writer who looks for the fantastic and the sensational. I like the world we've got. If there is anything special and magical, I have to find it in the ordinary stuff. — Graham Swift

The firefly is an unassuming insect in the daytime. If you didn't know what it was, you'd think it was nothing special. But at night, the firefly glows with its own light source. The darkness brings out its most beautiful gift. That's an extraordinary talent for an ordinary-looking creature, isn't it? — Lisa Kleypas

I suspect everybody has a degree of psychic ability, just as a everybody has a degree of athletic or artistic ability. Some people have special gifts; other people have a particular interest that leads them to develop their abilities. But the phenomenon itself is ordinary and widespread. — Michael Crichton

Yes, it was a "beautiful" sermon, tugging the emotions and conjuring up pictures of greatness and peace. But were they talking about the decent peppery ordinary old man he knew, or had the subject strayed to the story of some saint of the past? Or were there perhaps two men being buried under the same name? One perhaps had shown himself to Ross, while the other had been reserved for the view of men like William-Alfred. Ross tried to remember Charles before he was ill, Charles with his love of cockfighting and his hearty appetite, with his perpetual flatulence and passion for gin, with his occasional generosities and meannesses and faults and virtues, like most men. There was some mistake somewhere. Oh well, this was a special occasion...But Charles himself would surely have been amused. Or would he have shed a tear with the rest for the manner of man who had passed away? — Winston Graham

My mother taught me to be polite to dragons. Particularly polite, I mean; she taught me to be ordinary polite to everyone ... but dragons are a special case. -Daystar (Talking to Dragons) — Patricia C. Wrede

It's misleading to think of writers as special creatures, word sorcerers who possess some sort of magical knowledge hidden from everyone else. Writers are ordinary people who like to write. They feel the urge to write, and they scratch that itch every chance they get. — Ralph Fletcher

To be a parent is a great art. To give birth to children is nothing - any animal can do it; it is a natural, biological, instinctive process. To give birth to a child is nothing great, it is nothing special; it is very ordinary. But to be a parent is something extraordinary; very few people are really capable of being parents. — Osho

We all try to camouflage the monotony, But it takes a lot of energy. To insist on being special all the time. When we're so much like one another anyway. Our triumphs are the same. Our pain. Try for a moment to feel what relief there is in the ordinary. — Peter Hoeg

There have been a dozen times in the past when I should have liked a particular gentleman. When it would have been convenient, and appropriate, and easy. But no, I had to wait for someone special. Someone who would make my heart feel as if it's been trampled by elephants, thrown into the Amazon, and eaten by piranhas."
Amelia smiled at her compassionately. Her gloved hand slipped over Beatrix's. "Darling Bea. Would it console you to hear that such feelings of infatuation are perfectly ordinary?"
Beatrix turned her palm upward, returning the clasp of her sister's hand. Since their mother had died when Bea was twelve, Amelia had been a source of endless love and patience. "Is it infatuation?" she heard herself asking softly. "Because it feels much worse than that. Like a fatal disease."
"I don't know, dear. It's difficult to tell the difference between love and infatuation. Time will reveal it, eventually. — Lisa Kleypas

Beliefs are not some special category of idea sitting at a higher station of truth than our ordinary, everyday mortal thoughts. Beliefs are not neccesarily "the truth" at all. (Remember, there was a time everyone believed the earth was flat) — John Assaraf

There is, indeed, nothing more vexing than to be, for example, rich, of good family, of decent appearance, fairly well educated, not stupid, rather good-hearted even, and at the same time to possess no talent, no special quality, no eccentricity even, not a single idea of one's own, to be precisely "like everyone else."
One is rich, but not so rich as Rothschild; of a good family, but one which has never distinguished itself in any way; of decent appearance, but an appearance expressive of very little; well educated, but without knowing what to do with that education; one is intelligent, but without one's own ideas; one is good-hearted, but without greatness of soul, and so on and so forth. There are a great number of such people in the world, far more than it appears. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Can one think that because we are engineers, beauty does not preoccupy us or that we do not try to build beautiful, as well as solid and long lasting structures? Aren't the genuine functions of strength always in keeping with unwritten conditions of harmony? ... Besides, there is an attraction, a special charm in the colossal to which ordinary theories of art do not apply. — Gustave Eiffel

Life does not have to be huge and over-the-top to be fulfilling. Everyday doesn't have to be out-of-the-ordinary spectacular to be inspiring. There is a joy in sharing simple things with someone special, in finding your own way, and following the path that was laid out for you. There is a joy in the journey that you are totally missing. — Sandra D. Bricker

The Lord has a great work for each of us to do. You may wonder how this can be. You may feel that there is nothing special or superior about you or your ability ... The Lord can do remarkable miracles with a person of ordinary ability who is humble, faithful, and diligent in serving the Lord and seeks to improve himself. This is because God is the ultimate source of power. — James E. Faust

If something isn't special, then it's ordinary. — Nora Roberts

I often recall these words when I am writing, and I think to myself, "It's true. There aren't any new words. Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words." I find the thought reassuring. It means that vast, unknown stretches still lie before us, fertile territories just waiting for us to cultivate them. — Haruki Murakami

The next time you check your moves in the mirror and reflect on how special you are, consider that somewhere in this universe or in another parallel universe, your double might be doing the same. This would be the ultimate Copernican Revolution. Not only are we not special, we could be infinitely ordinary. — Seth Shostak

That's the curious thing about love, isn't it? It makes very ordinary things seem special. It makes them seem so much more valuable than they really are. — Alexander McCall Smith

"You know you are seeing such a photograph if you say to yourself, "I could have taken that picture. I've seen such a scene before, but never like that." It is the kind of photography that relies for its strengths not on special equipment or effects but on the intensity of the photographer's seeing. It is the kind of photography in which the raw materials-light, space, and shape-are arranged in a meaningful and even universal way that gives grace to ordinary objects." — Sam Abell

In Buddhism, there is no place for using effort. Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water and when you're tired go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand. — Bruce Lee

If you're going to be a fucking rock star go be one. People don't want to see the guy next door on stage; they want to see a being from another planet. You want to see somebody you'd never meet in ordinary life. — Lemmy Kilmister

The book will be a demonstration that children, without being coerced or manipulated, or being put in exotic, specially prepared environments, or having their thinking planned and ordered for them, can, will and do pick up from the world around them important information about what we call the Basics. It will also demonstrate that "ordinary" people, without special schooling themselves, can give their children whatever slight assistance may be needed to help them in their exploration of the world, and that to do this requires no more than a little tact, patience, attention and readily available information. — John Holt

You're not ordinary, Gwyneth," he whispered as he began stroking my hair. "You're totally, absolutely extraordinary. You don't need the magic of any raven to be special to me." He leaned as close as he could get, with his head and arms through the opening of the confessional window, and when his lips touched my mouth, I shut my eyes. Okay. So now I was going to faint. — Kerstin Gier

Enlightenment is very possible for the ordinary individual. Actually, it is easier than for someone who thinks that they are special. — Ravi Shankar

Everyone calls everybody special, so what's so special about being special? We all must have heard "you have the spark/you're the best/ you will rule the world" and just in the cut throat competition of being "special" we have forgotten to be Simple/ordinary/mediocre.. — Himmilicious

Beginning with Bilbo's unexpected party in chapter 1 with its tea, seed-cakes, buttered scones, apple-tarts, mince-pies, cheese, eggs, cold chicken, pickles, beer, coffee, and smoke rings, we find that a reverence, celebration, and love of the everyday is an essential part of Tolkien's moral vision — Devin Brown

All of these people had character. None of them thought they were special people, born with the right to win. They were people who worked hard, who learned how to keep their focus under pressure, and who stretched beyond their ordinary abilities when they had to. — Carol S. Dweck

Sanctification is not to be understood here as a separation from ordinary use or consecration to some special use, although this meaning is often present in Scripture, sometimes referring to outward and sometimes to inward or effectual separation. — William Ames

No matter what the other fifty odd weeks of his life offered, here, at least for a few days, he was officially a very special person in an otherwise ordinary world. — Lisa Luciano

The Interborough issues are an example of a rather special group of situations in which analysis may reach more definite conclusions respecting intrinsic value than in the ordinary case. These situations may involve a liquidation or give rise to technical operations known as "arbitrage" or "hedging. — Benjamin Graham

Writing, to me, is the meaning of life. My life became something special because of writing. My desk is for me what the phone booth is for Clark Kent: Here I become Superman. I can do anything I want when I'm writing. I'm not afraid anymore. I can take anything from my imagination. I can save the world when I'm writing. But as soon as I leave the desk, I become Clark Kent again. Trust me, I am the most ordinary person in the world. I'm a good husband, I don't yell at anyone, never lose it. But I don't have a single idea for my literature in everyday life. When I run, cook or relax on the beach, there is absolutely nothing on my mind. — Haruki Murakami

He was just standing on an ordinary pavement as cars roared behind him, and there was nothing special about it whatsoever except my heart didn't seem to realise. It soared out of my chest and into the sky, a flash of scarlet in all the blue. — Annabel Pitcher

I'm nothing special, just an ordinary human being. That's why I always describe myself as a simple Buddhist monk. — Dalai Lama

Amit likens fashion to a mask, and style to beauty of countenance. Style, he feels, belongs to the literary elite, who live by their own wishes. And fashion is for the ordinary lot, who make it their business to please other people ... You may view a professional dancing girl beneath the awning of a public marquee; but for the first glimpse of the bride's face during the shubhodrishti ritual, a veil of Benarasi fabric is required. The marquee belongs to fashion, the Benarasi veil
which reveals the special one's countenance shaded by a special hue
to style. — Rabindranath Tagore

He was so different and special and brave that it didn't matter that they would never be his girlfriend because he was too beautiful and they were too ordinary. Their love for him made them love each other more. — Tanya Egan Gibson

God created you not as an ordinary personality, but eminent, peculiar, and with a special assignment — Sunday Adelaja

And I wanted Jordan, because if he wanted me back it would mean I wasn't ordinary. A guy like him wouldn't settle for that. — Vikki Wakefield

Therefore it is to a practical mysticism that the practical man is here invited: to a training of his latent faculties, a bracing and brightening of his languid consciousness, an emancipation from the fetters of appearance, a turning of his attention to new levels of the world. Thus he may become aware of the universe which the spiritual artist is always trying to disclose to the race. This amount of mystical perception - this "ordinary contemplation," as the specialists call it - is possible to all men: without it, they are not wholly conscious, nor wholly alive. It is a natural human activity, no more involving the great powers and sublime experiences of the mystical saints and philosophers than the ordinary enjoyment of music involves the special creative powers of the great musician. — Evelyn Underhill

If you read fairy tales carefully, you'll notice they are mostly about people who aren't heroes. They don't have special powers, or gifts. Often they are despised as stupid, They are bullied, beaten up, robbed, starved. But they find they are stronger than their misfortunes. — Amanda Craig

When you are happy you are ordinary, because to be happy is just to be natural. To be miserable is to become extraordinary. Nothing is special in being happy - trees are happy, birds are happy, animals are happy, children are happy. What is special in that? It is just the usual thing in existence. Existence is made of the stuff called happiness. Just look! - can't you see these trees? ... so happy. Can't you see the birds singing? ... so happily. Happiness has nothing special in it. Happiness is a very ordinary thing. — Rajneesh

We can begin a discussion of artmaking by noting that from very early (as long ago as 200,000 years), humans have been naturally attracted to the extraordinary as a dimension of experience and that at some point they seem also to have been moved to make the ordinary extraordinary-that is, to shape or elaborate everyday, mundane reality and thereby transform it into something special, different from the everyday. — Ellen Dissanayake

need to talk about my mother," one of the women said. Her name was Susan. She was blond, very pretty, a stockbroker. Her mother was dying of cancer. "I have this horrible feeling of never having even known her. All my life, my father . . . was like a god to me. I worshipped him. I couldn't understand why he ever married my mother. He was so special and she's just . . . I always thought she was just this ordinary, everyday . . . I had no sense of her dignity, her nobility, really. She raised five kids and kept a house and gave him the support he needed and totally subjugated herself to him, to all of us, really, to our needs, and now when I think . . . She's even — Judith Rossner

The qualifications that I have to speak on world affairs are exactly the same ones Henry Kissinger has, and Walt Rostow has, or anybody in the Political Science Department, professional historians - none, none that you don't have. The only difference is, I don't pretend to have qualifications, nor do I pretend that qualifications are needed. I mean, if somebody were to ask me to give a talk on quantum physics, I'd refuse - because I don't understand enough. But world affairs are trivial: there's nothing in the social sciences or history or whatever that is beyond the intellectual capacities of an ordinary fifteen-year-old. You have to do a little work, you have to do some reading, you have to be able to think but there's nothing deep - if there are any theories around that require some special kind of training to understand, then they've been kept a carefully guarded secret. — Noam Chomsky

The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary doing. — Blaise Pascal

At dusk in the Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica, Melissa Overton barely heard the constant sound of crickets chirping all around them. Prowling through the dense, tropical rainforest as a jaguar, she listened for the human voices that would clue her in that her prey was nearby.
Waves crashed onto the sandy beaches in the distance as she made her way quietly, like a phantom predator, through the tangle of vines and broad, leafy foliage, searching for any sign of the poachers. Humans wouldn't have a clue as to what she and her kind were when they saw her - apparently nothing other than an ordinary jaguar. And she and her fellow jaguar shifters planned to keep it that way.
Her partner on this mission, JAG agent Huntley Anderson, was nearby, just as wary and observant. The JAG Special Forces Branch, also known as the Golden Claws, was only open to jaguar shifters and served to protect both their shifter kind and their jaguar cousins.... — Terry Spear

Do not try to be special. If you are simply ordinary, more ordinary than others, you will become extraordinary. — Jaggi Vasudev

There are no extra people alive today. Every single one of us is here for a reason, a special purpose - a mission. Yes, build a beautiful life for yourself and those you love. Yes, be happy and have a lot of fun. And yes, become successful, on your own terms rather than on those suggested to you by society. But - above all else - be significant. Make your life matter. Be of use. And be of service to as many people as possible. This is how each of us can shift from the realm of the ordinary into the heights of the extraordinary. And walk among the best who have ever lived. It — Robin S. Sharma

I'm one of those people who was meant to have a very ordinary life. I have no special talent, no great beauty, nothing that distinguishes me from a hundred, thousand other girls. But I can't go through an entire lifetime without at least one night of magic. — Lisa Kleypas

People want you to be ordinary. They don't like it when people are different. They don't like it when a man soars over their heads while they stand in the dirt. People hate you when you're special; it reminds them of everything that they aren't — Robert Crais

There's a lot of chatter in basketball and, rightfully, you want players to be talking to each other ... But sometimes in practice, it gets too verbose ... so I tried to take things out of the ordinary and make them special so they'd understand the difference. — Phil Jackson

When I was a boy there were two curious men running about who were called the optimist and the pessimist. I constantly used the words myself, but I cheerfully confess that I never had any very special idea of what they meant. The only thing which might be considered evident was that they could not mean what they said; for the ordinary verbal explanation was that the optimist thought this world as good as it could be, while the pessimist thought it as bad as it could be. Both these statements being obviously raving nonsense, one had to cast about for other explanations. An optimist could not mean a man who thought everything right and nothing wrong. For that is meaningless; it is like calling everything right and nothing left. Upon the whole, I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself. — G.K. Chesterton

There is something about Christmas that requires a rug rat. Little kids make Christmas fun. I wonder if could rent one for the holidays. When I was tiny we would by a real tree and stay up late drinking hot chocolate and finding just the right place for the special decorations. It seems like my parents gave up the magic when I figured out the Santa lie. Maybe I shouldn't have told them I knew where the presents really came from. It broke their hearts.
I bet they'd be divorced by now if I hadn't been born. I'm sure I was a huge disappointment. I'm not pretty or smart or athletic. I'm just like them- an ordinary drone dressed in secrets and lies. I can't believe we have to keep playacting till I graduate. It's a shame we just can't admit that we have failed at family living, sell the house, split up the money, and get on with our lives. Merry Christmas. — Laurie Halse Anderson

Whatever else it may be, at the level of chemistry life is curiously mundane: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, a little calcium, a dash of sulfur, a light dusting of other very ordinary elements - nothing you wouldn't find in any ordinary drugstore - and that's all you need. The only thing special about the atoms that make you is that they make you. That is of course the miracle of life. — Bill Bryson

There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. If, for the sake of argument, 1 million are violent, that's a mere .000625 percent of them. I wonder who among you wants to be judged on such a tiny minority. Further, at 1.6 billion, if all Muslims - or even most Muslims - were violent, the world would already be in flames. Most people simply want to live their lives in peace, with some degree of material comfort. I find it bizarre - and disturbing - that so many Americans imagine that being a Muslim somehow trumps human nature and makes ordinary simple people want to rise up and kill everyone. That takes a special kind of stupid. — Dave Champion

He held her face in his hands, and stared into her eyes, and said that she was his for only a while anyway, and that it wasn't his going to Cranwell that would split them up. "You're destined for greater things, Susannah Hammond. I see it in you. You're so clever, so bright. So beautiful. So special. I'm not any of those things. Except when I'm flying, maybe. Down here, I'm ordinary. I'm going to be just a memory for you. A sweet one, I hope. Happy. But just a part of your past. I might be good enough for now, but I'm not good enough forever. Not for you. — Elizabeth Noble

I'm actually very ordinary, except people get to pay their money to come watch me work. The same way that we go to McDonald's.. we don't care about the guy behind the counter, but if he was doing something special, we'd pay our money to go watch him cook that hamburger. — Samuel L. Jackson

It is not special to be special, it's special to be ordinary — Shahrukh Khan

Seven years, Dawn. Working with the Slayer. Seeing my friends get more and more powerful ... a witch. A demon. Hell, I could fit Oz in my shaving kit, but come a full moon, he had a wolfy mojo not to be messed with. Powerful, all of them. And I'm the guy who fixes the windows.
They'll never know how tough it is, Dawnie, to be the one who isn't Chosen, to live so near the spotlight and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realizes because nobody's watching me.
I saw you last night, and I see you working here today. You're not special; you're extraordinary. — Joss Whedon

If I dismiss the ordinary - waiting for the special, the extreme, the extraordinary to happen - I may just miss my life ... To allow ourselves to spend afternoons watching dancers rehearse, or sit on a stone wall and watch the sunset, or spend the whole weekend rereading Chekhov stories - to know that we are doing what we're supposed to be doing - is the deepest form of permission in our creative lives. The British author and psychologist Adam Phillips has noted, 'When we are inspired, rather like when we are in love, we can feel both unintelligible to ourselves and most truly ourselves.' This is the feeling I think we all yearn for, a kind of hyperreal dream state. We read Emily Dickinson. We watch the dancers. We research a little known piece of history obsessively. We fall in love. We don't know why, and yet these moments form the source from which all our words will spring. — Dani Shapiro

In his better moments, Mr Baxter is a decent, ordinary guy - a guy you wouldn't mistake for anyone special. But he is special. In my book, he is. For one thing he has a full night's sleep behind him, and he's just embraced his wife before leaving for work. But even before he goes, he's already expected home a set number of hours later. True, in the grander scheme of things, his return will be an event of small moment - but an event nonetheless. — Raymond Carver

The chief investigator for Special Cases was a composite of the most ordinary features, a stencil of a man. — Martin Cruz Smith

Hospitality has never been about having House Beautiful with perfectly coordinated accessories and the most up-to-date equipment, nor is it dependent upon having large chunks of leisure time and a big entertainment budget to spend, nor does it require special training in the culinary arts or event planning. Hospitality is about a heart for service, the creativity to stretch whatever we do have available, and the energy to give the time necessary to add a flourish to the ordinary events of life. — Dorothy Kelley Patterson

There is an ordinary kind of forgetting and a special kind: the latter is due, more than likely to the vice of living in two worlds at once. One of the consequences of this tendency is that you live everything out innumerable times. Worse, whatever you succeed in transmitting to paper seems but an infinitesimal fraction of what you've already written in your head. — Henry Miller

I think part of your attraction to him is the draw of the unknown, of being different, even special. He is so out of the ordinary that you feel pulled to that because you yourself are not so ordinary. You're alone. And sometimes the pain of so much loss is written across your face. You wear it like an adornment and that causes other people to wonder about you; they can't relate to you and what you've been through, but you can relate to him in his dark state. — Donna Lynn Hope

Let us remind ourselves that it is ordinary people - men and women, boys and girls - that make the world a special place — Nelson Mandela

Monastic vows rest on the false assumption that there is a special calling, a vocation, to which superior Christians are invited to observe the counsels of perfection while ordinary Christians fulfill only the commands; but there simply is no special religious vocation since the call of God comes to each at the common tasks. — Martin Luther

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

Modernism isn't a design ethos any more, it's an economy of scale, and a marketing tool to sell the ordinary as something special, the sexless as erotic. A technological device without a specific, personalized identity has a subtext: it asserts the value of instrumentality. Its design is a reflection of its role ... The anonymity of these objects is part of what they are: interchangeable commodities whose uniqueness in so far as they possess any is created by what is done with them. Function is an identity. And that identity is something we are encouraged to incorporate into our perception of self, that anonymity is proposed as something to emulate. Whimsy and uniqueness are indulgences. — Nick Harkaway

Glamour is a beautiful illusion - the word 'glamour' originally meant a literal magic spell - that promises to transcend ordinary life and make the ideal real. It depends on a special combination of mystery and grace. Too much information breaks the spell. — Virginia Postrel