Pick Me Up Words Quotes & Sayings

Now, there is a tendency at a point like this to look over one's shoulder at the cover artist and start going on at length about leather, tightboots and naked blades.
Words like 'full', 'round' and even 'pert' creep into the narrative, until the writer has to go and have a cold shower and a lie down.
Which is all rather silly, because any woman setting out to make a living by the sword isn't about to go around looking like something off the cover of the more advanced kind of lingerie catalogue for the specialized buyer.
Oh well, all right. The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hun Ling's Oriental Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a short sword.
All right, maybe the boots were leather. But not black. — Terry Pratchett

As I mentioned briefly on the phone, the best thing about the Air Chrysalis is that it's not an imitation of anyone. It has absolutely none of the usual new writer's sense of 'I want to be another so-and-so'. the syle, for sure, is rough,and the writing is clumsy. She even gets the title wrong: she's confusing 'chrysalis' and 'cocoon'. You could pick it apart completely if you wanted to. But the story itself has real power: it draws you in. the overall plots is a fantasy, but the descriptive details is incredibly real.The balance between the two is excellent. I don't know if words like 'originality' or Inevitability' fit here, and I suppose I might agree if someone insisted it's not at that level, but finally, after you work your way through the thing, with all its faults, it leaves a real impression- it gets to you in some strange, inexplicable way that may be a little disturbing. — Haruki Murakami

Sometimes when I pick up a book off the shelf, when I'm buying a new book to read, I'll look at all of them and they all have the exact same words inside, but I'll think that one is meant to go home with me. I'll never pick the first thing off the shelf, I'll always go one behind. — Jennifer Carpenter

There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself. — John Gregory Brown

Lying in bed, my body and soul bruised and tired, I realize that the Officials are right. Once you want something, everything changes. Now I want everything. More and more and more. I want to pick my work position. Marry who I choose. Eat pie for breakfast and run down a real street instead of on a tracker. Go fast when I want and slow when I want. Decide which poems I want to read and what words I want to write. There is so much that I want. I feel it so much that I am water, a river of want, pooled in the shape of a girl named Cassia. — Ally Condie

I got an emergency leave. I visited my dad on his deathbed. His last words to me: "Try to pick up every waitress who serves you. — James Ellroy

She would talk to him in the car, ask him something, then turn on the radio and find her question answered by the lyrics of a song; pick up a book and turn to a random page, to find the words that were exactly what she needed to hear. There is no such thing as coincidence, she would think, blowing a kiss of thanks to the heavens. — Jane Green

I wish I were three feet tall and he could pick me up and he still had a beard and he wore cotton sweaters that felt soft on my cheek and I could cry it all away and I would wipe my tears on his shoulder and I could suck my thumb and suck the end of my ponytail and he wouldn't tell me only babies did that and he would rock me on the front porch with the wind coming clean from the north and he would sing nursery rhymes with made-up words like Mom used to and he could teach me the alphabet again and how to walk and how to run and maybe I would do it better this time. — Laurie Halse Anderson

Angus was courting me with lines that stabbed deep in lonely, barren places. Like an unfair conqueror, he was delivering his words with an accent that had me dreaming of castles and lochs, and strong thighs under a rough kilt. — Cheryl R Cowtan

Rhythm. Life is full of it; words should have it, too. But you have to train your ear. Listen to the waves on a quiet night; you'll pick up the cadence. Look at the patterns the wind makes in dry sand and you'll see how syllables in a sentence should fall. Arthur Gordon — Arthur Gordon

Every book is an image of solitude. It is a tangible object that one can pick up, put down, open, and close, and its words represent many months if not many years, of one man's solitude, so that with each word one reads in a book one might say to himself that he is confronting a particle of that solitude — Paul Auster

Very quickly, very suddenly, words fell through my mind. They landed on the floor of my thoughts, and in there, down there, I started to pick the words up. They were excerpts of truth gathered from inside me. — Markus Zusak

The result is that much reading robs the mind of all elasticity, as the continual pressure of a weight does a spring, and that the surest way of never having any thoughts of your own is to pick up a book every time you have a free moment. The practice of doing this is the reason erudition makes most men duller and sillier than they are by nature and robs their writings of all effectiveness: they are in Pope's words: For ever reading, never to be read. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Integrity, humor and patience were the three words for Atticus Finch. There was also a phrase for him: pick at random any citizen from Maycomb County and its environs, and ask him what he thought of Atticus Finch, and the answer would most likely be, I never had a better friend. — Harper Lee

Chromosomes. Sex. Grasshoppers. "Pick me up, Mommy."
This is an odd list, except in the eye of evolution. For in the major developments in the history of life, the ability to say, "Pick me up, Mommy" features prominently along with the emergence of genes, sexual reproduction, and multicellular organisms. On a smaller but no less wondrous scale, the ability to speak opens one mind to another. Babies announce their arrival with a loud cry, but it is their first words that launch the journey of a lifetime. — Charles Yang

Just as the last of him disappears and the guards surrounding me prod me forward, I swear a whisper floats back. Eogan's breath breezing across my soul, "Don't let him take who you are." They were Colin's last words. Except Draewulf's already taken who I am. What I am. Along with the people I love. I pick up following the delegates who've stopped to wait for me and glance down at my bandaged hands, my fingers, my gimpy wrist, as the words stir something in my soul awake. I won't let him take any more. — Mary Weber

Few pleasures, for the true reader, rival the pleasure of browsing unhurriedly among books: old books, new books, library books, other people's books, one's own books - it does not matter whose or where. Simply to be among books, glancing at one here, reading a page from one over there, enjoying them all as objects to be touched, looked at, even smelt, is a deep satisfaction. And often, very often, while browsing haphazardly, looking for nothing in particular, you pick up a volume that suddenly excites you, and you know that this one of all the others you must read. Those are great moments - and the books we come across like that are often the most memorable. — Aidan Chambers

Remember, never give up on love. It is easier to give up in search of a better prize, because the brain always keeps craving for new stimulants, but this way you only keep on searching, never to find peace in love. Let me tell you a story. There was a student who asked his teacher, what is love. The teacher said go into the field and bring me the most beautiful flower. The student returned with no flower at hand and
said, I found the most beautiful flower in the field but I didn't pick it up for I might find a better one, but when I returned to the place, it was gone.
We always look for the best in life. When we finally see it, we take it for granted and after some time start expecting a better one, not knowing that it's the best. Seek for your love, and once you have it never ever give up on it, no matter the situations. — Abhijit Naskar

He began to pick the trumps he desired, their words - happiness set beside her ear, home by her feet. He surrounded her with hope, each card a wish. — Erika Swyler

In general, I would think that at present prose writers are much in advance of the poets. In the old days, I read more poetry than prose, but now it is in prose where you find things being put together well, where there is great ambition, and equal talent. Poets have gotten so careless, it is a disgrace. You can't pick up a page. All the words slide off. — William H Gass

At some point during my research, I came across the term "gender fluid." Reading those words was a revelation. It was like someone tore a layer of gauze off the mirror, and I could see myself clearly for the first time. There was a name for what I was. It was a thing. Gender fluid.

Sitting there in front of my computer--like I am right now--I knew I would never be the same. I could never go back to seeing it the old way; I could never go back to not knowing what I was.

But did that glorious moment of revelation really change anything? I don't know. Sometimes, I don't think so. I may have a name for what I am now--but I'm just as confused and out of place as I was before. And if today is any indication, I'm still playing out that scene in the toy store--trying to pick the thing that will cause the least amount of drama. And not having much success. — Jeff Garvin

Acting is the best job in the world. Look at the way they treat you when you turn up for work. They give you breakfast and a cup of tea and ask, 'Are you all right' They tart up your face, you say somebody else's words, then pick up your check and go home. And you get days off. I tell you, it really is the way to live. — Bob Hoskins

Whatever you can handle, it's up to you. Pick something where you are going to do it to failure
in other words, where you can hardly do it. That's the key. So many people will just take five pound weights and do something 10 times. What are they getting out of it? Nothing! Say you are going to build up your bank account. If you put in a penny a day, it's going take a long while. It's the same with exercise
the more you put into it the more you take out. — Jack LaLanne

He made me pick a safe word." Nik peeked between his fingers. Sam's mouth was hanging open.
"Oh." Sam's voice was a whisper. More of the throat clearing. "What did you pick?"
Not the question he'd been expecting. Nik looked up at Sam from under his hand.
"Lemonade."
"Lemonade?" Nik nodded. "Do you like lemonade?"
"Does it matter? Yes, I like lemonade."
"Shouldn't you have picked something you didn't like, to make sure there were no, um, inadvertent exclamations at an important moment?"
He dropped his hand and stared at Sam. "Who screams out 'lemonade' in the middle of sex?"
Sam blushed. Nik was momentarily grateful for his dark skin. "You'd be surprised," Sam mumbled. — Anne Tenino

Words were dangerous when loosed. They were more powerful than cannon and more unpredictable than storms. They could turn men's heads inside out and warp their destinies. They could pick up kingdoms and shake them until they rattled. — Frances Hardinge

I wouldn't pick a judge who said that the Pledge of Allegiance couldn't be said in a school because it had the words 'under God' in it. I think that's an example of a judge allowing personal opinion to enter into the decision-making process, as opposed to strict interpretation of the Constitution. — George W. Bush

To be able to let you know who someone is in just a couple of words, I'd have to pick the most pronounced features of a character's personality. And I always feel like I'm leaving out so many important little ones. — Lisa Kudrow

Software is a reflection of our own mind. And as our software improves it will not only take on the patterns of our minds more closely, but it will also pick up the energy of our minds; in other words, I think that software is alive. — Frederick Lenz

If you write a blog post, you've got something to say; you're not just creating words and synonyms. We'd like the computers to actually pick up on that semantic meaning. — Ray Kurzweil

But today I'm indifferent. And with this comes a glimmer of understanding: I can pick and choose what I absorb and what I deflect. This is how the color spectrum works: Some colors absorb light, while others deflect it, depending on where they are on the spectrum. Earlier in my life, when it came to hurtful words from my mother, I was more like an off-shade of brown, absorbing most of them. Now, with experience, wisdom, and a little more self-confidence, my spectrum is shifting. I'm making a choice to be less absorptive. And her comment... is one for which I choose to become pure white. — Katie Hafner

I can pick a liar from a lineup of thieves and slanderers: the best of the best. I was hoping you would not resist the information we need but I must ask you now to answer my question truthfully and to choose your next words wisely. What does the key open? — Celia Mcmahon

There are times in people's lives when a significant event occurs and they're not aware of it - the last time you pick up a son before he's too heavy, the final kiss of a marriage gone bad, the view of a beloved landscape you'll never see again. Weeks later, I realized those were Dad's last words to me. — Chris Offutt

The script is like music to me. I approach it like it's a musical piece and I hear how it's supposed to sound when people say the words. There's rhythms and there's intonations and things, and so, when somebody comes in and hits the notes that I hear, I go okay. Or, they come close enough, and then I'll say "Well how about you try it like this?" and if they have a good ear and they can pick it up, then I think okay, they've got it. — Rob Reiner

As for myself, I met with as much success as I ever could have wanted. In other words, I was enthusiastically run-down by every critic of the period. — Claude Monet

Meaning I want to put words to it. I want to give it a name. I'm not okay with kissing you and holding you, being by your side for all the things a boyfriend would be there for, without it being understood in no uncertain terms that that's what I am to you. I wan us to be a couple. I want to be by your side though everything that's coming, to hold your hand when you're scared and pick you up when you're weak. I want to know that you're not going to run to some other asshole when we disagree or when I try to make sure you do what we both know is the best for you. I wan you to run to me, even if I piss you off. Because I will piss you off. Because I love you. And because you love me. And because I can't go one more day without being able to tell you that as often as it comes to mind, which is about a dozen times a minute. - Jamie Babcock — Catherine Gayle

But the truth is that I don't want to simply offer others a fleeting moment of "inspiration." I want my story to spark real change. An aha moment becomes most meaningful when it leads us to do more. Dream bigger. Move past our so-called limitations. Defy expectations. Bounce back with the resilience that every single one of us was born with. I didn't write this book because I want you to say, "Wow, look at what that girl overcame - good for her." I'm sharing my story because I want you to see what's possible in your own life. Right here. Right now. Starting the second you pick up your pen and create your own amazing narrative. The words of the Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu have always resonated with me: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." What follows is my first step. My first stumble. My first dance. My first dream. — Amy Purdy

I am not alone in this. I only let him do to me what men have ever done to women: march off to empty glory and hollow acclaim and leave us behind to pick up the pieces. The broken cities, the burned barns, the innocent injured beasts, the ruined bodies of the boys we bore and the men we lay with.
The waste of it. I sit here, and I look at him, and it is as if a hundred women sit beside me: the revolutionary farm wife, the English peasant woman, the Spartan mother-'Come back with your shield or on it,' she cried, because that was what she was expected to cry. And then she leaned across the broken body of her son and the words turned to dust in her throat. — Geraldine Brooks

Comfort When I hit that wall, and I am going to hit it As I'm lying on the floor consumed by despair don't try and pick me up don't whisper words of comfort Don't tell me it's going to be ok Let me be in this moment where I think it's not Lie beside me and let me find hope in the comfort of your presence Let me deal with my thoughts and fears I will eventually reprimand myself for indulging in such an emotion for so long I will want to get up and keep moving forward Until then, let me lie here and let the salt of my tears sting the wounds you can't see Until I'm ready, let me be I have to heal myself — Samantha King

No one knows, but don't worry," Zehrunisa said. "Just leave everything to God and keep praying. Now we have a lawyer who will say the right words, and then it will end, because the judge will pick up the truth."
"Pick up the truth," he repeated skeptically. As if truth were a coin on a footpath. He changed the subject. — Katherine Boo

He lifted the lavender soap to his hair, and she squeaked.
"You don't use that in your hair," she hissed, jolting from her perch to reach for one of the many
hair tonics lining the little shelf above the bath. "Rose, lemon verbena, or ... " She sniffed the glass
bottle. "Jasmine." She squinted down at him.
He was staring up at her, his green eyes full of the words he knew he didn't have to say. Do I look
like I care what you pick? — Sarah J. Maas

Though Ailes had spent more than four decades in Washington, D.C., and New York City, he still saw himself as a scrapper from a small town in a flyover state who'd had to fight for everything he had. When asked by one reporter what his antagonists thought of him, he replied, "I can pretty much pick the words for you: paranoid, right-wing, fat. — Gabriel Sherman

As a society, we pick words that are offensive based on what we're most afraid of. We associate sounds with some dangerous idea, and right now the most dangerous thing to us are the differences between us. — Richard Dooling

I love words, but I also love finding out that there is a word for something that you've experienced but didn't know there was a word for. Like 'toothpack' - that is a word for when you eat biscuits or cookies and you get that annoying layer of chewed substance on your molars that you kind of have to pick out. — Mary Roach

I am she who lifts the mountains
When she goes to hunt,
Who wears mamba for a headband
And a lion for a belt.
Beware!
I swallow elephants whole
And pick my teeth with rhinoceros horns,
I drink up rivers to get at the hippos.
Let them hear my words!
Nhamo is coming
And her hunger is great.
I am she who tosses trees
Instead of spears.
The ostrich is my pillow
And the elephant is my footstool!
I am Nhamo
Who makes the river my highway
And sends crocodiles scurrying into the reeds! — Nancy Farmer

You know, it's such a peculiar thing
our idea of mankind in general. We all have a sort of vague, glowing picture when we say that, something solemn, big and important. But actually all we know of it is the people we meet in our lifetime. Look at them. Do you know any you'd feel big and solemn about? There's nothing but housewives haggling at pushcarts, drooling brats who write dirty words on the sidewalks, and drunken debutantes. Or their spiritual equivalent. As a matter of fact, one can feel some respect for people when they suffer. They have a certain dignity. But have you ever looked at them when they're enjoying themselves? That's when you see the truth. Look at those who spend the money they've slaved for
at amusement parks and side shows. Look at those who're rich and have the whole world open to them. Observe what they pick out for enjoyment. Watch them in the smarter speak-easies. That's your mankind in general. I don't want to touch it. — Ayn Rand

I love language, words, and all the lovely, exciting, and heart wrenching things you can do with them. Pick the right ones, put them in the right order, and you've created a moment in time where the reader forgets about the late car payment, the dirty dishes, the impending workweek. You have created a state of bliss. Or negligence, depending on your perspective. — Darynda Jones

Hello?" he said, waiting out the shrill stream on the other end of the line. He smiled, "Because I'm her husband. I can answer her phone, now." He glanced at me, and then shoved open the cab door, offering his hand. "We're at the airport, America. Why don't you and Shep pick us up and you can yell at us both on the way home? Yes, the whole way home. We should arrive around three. All right, Mare. See you then." He winced with her sharp words and then handed me the phone. "You weren't kidding. She's pissed. — Jamie McGuire

Brett: Husband! Father of my child! Dance partner, emergency grilled-cheese maker. The kind of fellow who knows how to pick the wine. The kind of fellow who looks great in a tux. Also a zombie-tux. The guy with the generous laugh and the glorious whistle. The guy who has the answer. The man who makes my child laugh till he falls down. The man who makes me laugh till I fall down. The guy who lets me ask all sorts of invasive, inappropriate, and intrusive questions about being a guy. The man who read and reread and reread and then reread, and not only gave advice, but gave me a bourbon app. You're it, baby. Thanks for marrying me. Two words, always. — Gillian Flynn

Let us ponder over this basic truth until we are steeped in it, until it becomes as familiar to us as our awareness of shapes or our reading of words: God, at his most vitally active and most incarnate, is not remote from us, wholly apart from the sphere of the tangible; on the contrary, at every moment he awaits us in the activity, the work to be done, which every moment brings. He is, in a sense, at the point of my pen, my pick, my paint-brush, my needle - and my heart and my thought. It is by carrying to its natural completion the stroke, the line, the stitch I am working on that I shall lay hold on that ultimate end towards which my will at its deepest levels tends.1 — Michael Frost

We have each had the experience of others reacting to us; often there seems to be no logic to it. But in fact, people do pick up on our subtle energy, and even if they can't see it or put it into words, they feel it and, subliminally, they know. They vote yes, no or maybe according to the qualities and strength of the energy we project. — Stuart Wilde

He felt so tired, so weary of holding on with an iron grip to something he knew was slipping away.
"You can't make someone love you," he said.
Her hand stilled for a moment, the dirty tissue between her fingers. "True."
"Even if you love them so much you'd do anything, anything, for them." The truth of his words sank in. Speaking about it wasn't helping. It felt worse, like probing an open wound.
"Even if," his grandmasaid, nodding.
"Sometimes they pick another person to love when you've been right in front of them the whole time."
"It does happen." Her voice was soft.
"And then there's nothing left but to keep going as you were, pretending you never felt anything more than . . ."
"Friendship?" Her eyes met his and there was the faintest glimmer of tears.
"But I don't think I can have even that, anymore. — Mary Jane Hathaway

[Grace talking to Billy.] "It's like people who want to feel only happy but not sad," she said. "It never works. You either feel things or you don't. You don't get to pick and choose. At least, I don't think so. — Catherine Ryan Hyde

I said I heard them, it's like a, like a chittering I guess. You hear it, you don't hear it really but you just get the sound in the middle of your head, like an itch. It's not so much like a swarm of bees but more like a crowd, a crowd at a concert because you can pick out words and, I say it out loud and it sounds insane, but you can hear them talking to each other, coordinating. And more than that, you can hear their hate. — David Wong

you must pick your words very carefully and be sure to say just what you intend to say. — Norton Juster

The public official must pick his way nicely, must learn to placate though not to yield too much, to have the art of honeyed words but not to seem neutral, and above all to keep constantly audible, visible, likable, even kissable. — Learned Hand

We can all take pictures but not everyone can capture the beauty that's usually hidden in plain view ...
We can all open our mouth to sing but not everyone can melodically touch your soul ...
We can all pick up a pen to write but not everyone can write words in such a way that they leap off of the page for you ...
We can all part our lips to speak but not everyone can speak life into you ...
We can all move our bodies to a beat but not everyone can become one with music, stir emotions and shift energy with dance ...
Point is: WE CAN all do something but Know your gifts, cultivate them and ALWAYS, ALWAYS BE YOURSELF! Then working together becomes effortless. Copies aren't accepted everywhere ... ORIGINALS are eventually required! — Sanjo Jendayi

When I started to learn how to read, I discovered the same kind of power. I could create an environment that I didn't have, and I could order this environment in the way that I couldn't in my actual life. Then, when I learned to write, I learned that I could do this not only for myself, but for other people. I could create whole things that were believable, at least to myself, at that point. And in this way, I began to wield an authority and a power that I had not had before. In other words, every child goes through this. Some pick football and some pick the library. I picked the library. — Donald Richie

Yeah. I'll put the pizza in, if you want to pick a movie."
"Oh, I think I get to pick the next five movies." Her grin was just a little wicked as she said it.
He couldn't help but grin back. "Is that right?"
"YHep. Call it part of your apology."...
"I can think of some other ways to make it up to you." He dropped his voice, the intent in his words clear...
Her cheeks tinged pink. "If these ways involve you naked with your head between my legs, I'll allow it. — Katie Reus

The Scripture was given to us to teach and to uplift. To provide a path to God. Occasionally a person fixates on a certain portion, a portion that many of us would consider narrative history
such as the book of Daniel. It is a record of Daniel's experience in exile, in the court of Babylon. We can see God's sovereignty over kings, in this case Nebuchadnezzar." Tate jingled the change in his pocket, unsure where Mitch was headed. "In addition to the historical aspects, there are spiritual lessons to be found within this portion of the Scripture
God's faithfulness to his people and his omnipotence." "But ... " "But when someone fixates on one portion versus the Scripture as a whole, confusion sets in. They pick and choose certain words and use them to justify almost any action." Tate hesitated, then asked, "Even murder?" "Especially murder. — Vannetta Chapman

Then came the fateful day Mrs. Davis went through her class list, letting each boy pick his folk dance partner for the upcoming "Hooray for Culture!" assembly.
Mrs. Davis called Justin's name.
Jane sat up.
Justin said, "Hattie Spinwell."
Hattie flipped her hair.
For years after, there were few things Jane distrusted so much as the words "guy's choice." — Shannon Hale

I don't really believe in writer's block or anything like that. If I'm not feeling words, I may pick up an instrument and play with sounds or delve into different types of creativity and expression. — Saul Williams

Pick up any newspaper in the morning. Count the words in the lead sentences. There will be at least 25 in all of them: Guaranteed. The writers just want to tell you how many degrees they have from this college or that university. — Jimmy Breslin

I need a little language such as lovers use, words of one syllable such as children speak when they come into the room and find their mother sewing and pick up some scrap of bright wool, a feather, or a shred of chintz. I need a howl; a cry. When the storm crosses the marsh and sweeps over me where I lie in the ditch unregarded I need no words. Nothing neat. Nothing that comes down with all its feet on the floor. None of those resonances and lovely echoes that break and chime from nerve to nerve in our breasts making wild music, false phrases. I have done with phrases. — Virginia Woolf

Try telling the boy who's just had his girlfriend's name
cut into his arm that there's slippage between the signifier
and the signified. Or better yet explain to the girl
who watched in the mirror as the tattoo artist stitched
the word for her father's name (on earth as in heaven)
across her back that words aren't made of flesh and blood,
that they don't bite the skin. Language is the animal
we've trained to pick up the scent of meaning. It's why
when the boy hears his father yelling at the door
he sends the dog that he's kept hungry, that he's kicked,
then loved, to attack the man, to show him that every word
has a consequence, that language, when used right, hurts. — Todd Davis

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

Pick your words carefully as it has the power to make the sentence beautiful or ugly ... — Adil Adam Memon

When we feel like giving up, like we are beyond help, we must remember that we are never beyond hope. Holding on to hope has always motivated me to keep trying. I have found this hope by connecting with others. I've found it not only in individuals who have dealt with eating disorders but also in people who have battled addictions and those who have survived abuse, cancer, and broken hearts. I have found much-needed hope in my passions and dreams for the future. I've found it in prayer. Real hope combined with real actions has always pulled me through difficult times. Real hope combined with doing nothing has never pulled me through. In other words, sitting around and simply hoping that things will change won't pick you up after a fall. Hope only gives you strength when you use it as a tool to move forward. Taking real action with a hopeful mind will pull you off the ground that eighth time and beyond. — Jenni Schaefer

Comedians are innately programmed to pick up oddities like mispronounced words, upside-down books on a shelf, and generally undetectable mistakes in everyday life. — Bob Newhart

As long as you are forced to be a woman first instead of a person, by default, you need to be a feminist. That's it. Men are people, women are women? Screw that. Screw that. I am sick of having words aimed to shut me up. I am sick of having to be anything other than a person first. Zounds! I enjoy being a girl, whatever that means. For me, that meant Star Wars figurines, mounds of books, skirts and flats. It meant Civil War reenacting and best girlfriends I'd give a kidney to and best guy friends I'd ruin a liver with and making messes and cleaning up some of them and still not knowing how to apply eye shadow. That's being a girl. That's being a person. It's the same damn thing. I wish Rush had just called me an idiot. I'm happy to be called an idiot! On the day when someone on the Internet calls me an idiot first and ugly second, I will set down my feminist battle flag and heave a great sigh. Then I will pick it back up and keep climbing. There are many more mountains to overcome. — Alexandra Petri

Our eyes meet in the mirror but neither of us speaks; we are afraid that whatever words we pick won't be able to bear the weight of what's happened. — Jodi Picoult