Quotes & Sayings About Picking

Death carries off a man busy picking flowers with an besotted mind, like a great flood does a sleeping village. — Gautama Buddha

School-boy. The spectators thou regardest as on work-days they regard each other. For thee, then, it may be well to wish thyself behind a desk, over ruled ledgers, collecting tolls, and picking out reversions. Thou feelest not the co-operating, co-inspiring — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

New York City has finally hired women to pick up the garbage, which makes sense to me, since, as I've discovered, a good bit of being a woman consists of picking up garbage. — Anna Quindlen

If they did it like they did it in '96 or whenever, just picking it from one meet, what if someone had the meet of their life but they're not usually a good competitor? That could be really bad for the team. So, I think this is the best way. — Carly Patterson

Morgon of Hed met the High One's harpist one autumn day when the trade-ships docked at Tol for the season's exchange of goods. A small boy caught sight of the round-hulled ships with their billowing sails striped red and blue and green, picking their way among the tiny fishing boats in the distance, and ran up the coast from Tol to Akren, the house of Morgon, Prince of Hed. There he disrupted an argument, gave his message, and sat down at the long, nearly deserted tables to forage whatever was left of breakfast. The Prince of Hed, who was recovering slowly from the effects of loading two carts of beer for trading the evening before, ran a reddened eye over the tables and shouted for his sister. — Patricia A. McKillip

Trouble fell like rain from the heavens, and we just couldn't get enough of it. We went around picking up the stuff and cramming our pockets full of it. Even now I can't figure out why we persisted in doing that. Maybe we mistook it for something else. — Haruki Murakami

People seem to be having these awesome sex lives and I'm just trying to find a life partner to go apple picking with. What's wrong with me? — Mindy Kaling

What I remember the most really was just running wild there. Barefooted, swimming in dirty lakes, selling fruit, picking mango trees, hoping not to get caught because they don't take kindly to thieves in Africa. — Akon

It's the pleasure of picking up the brush and seeing what happens. — Henry Miller

Consider when, on a voyage, your ship is anchored; if you go on shore to get water you may along the way amuse yourself with picking up a shellish, or an onion. However, your thoughts and continual attention ought to be bent towards the ship, waiting for the captain to call on board; you must then immediately leave all these things, otherwise you will be thrown into the ship, bound neck and feet like a sheep. So it is with life. If, instead of an onion or a shellfish, you are given a wife or child, that is fine. But if the captain calls, you must run to the ship, leaving them, and regarding none of them. But if you are old, never go far from the ship: lest, when you are called, you should be unable to come in time. — Epictetus

Pride has quite a bit to do with hatred. In many a case in which one hates another, one subconsciously begins patterns of cherry-picking and selective hearing: he continues to look only for things about the other person which he can use to justify his hatred, things which will then make him feel less guilty about hating someone. In this regard, hatred is not so much an emotion as it is a decision. — Criss Jami

Heaven knows insanity was disreputable enough, long ago; but now that the lawyers have got to cutting every gallows rope and picking every prison lock with it, it is become a sneaking villainy that ought to hang and keep on hanging its sudden possessors until evil-doers should conclude that the safest plan was to never claim to have it until they came by it legitimately. The very calibre of the people the lawyers most frequently try to save by the insanity subterfuge ought to laugh the plea out of the courts, one would think. — Mark Twain

Wait-you mean the Mall, as in a bunch of museums in DC that we would wander around and I'd pretend like I understood modern art while really thinking, holy crap, a gremlin could have painted that and for all we know did, or the mall, as in picking out a new pair of shoes, eating food that's terrible for us, and making up life stories for all the people that pass us?"
'I can see now that I must have meant the second.'
"What a smart boy. — Kiersten White

Mutual funds were created to make investing easy, so consumers wouldn't have to be burdened with picking individual stocks. — Scott Cook

The other shoppers were too well behaved to stare at the green-headed stoner and the tear-streaked lady zigzagging up the aisles with a chubby bearded guy scurrying behind them picking up the things they dropped. — Amy Goldman Koss

At what point did men decide that women are "on the market" to "be picked?" "Pick me! Pick me!" Oh really? Is it really like that? I shall be the one to do the picking, thank you. No one will in any way line me up against the wall and take a pick. Men do not do the picking. Women do the picking. Only stupid women wish to be "picked out." This is the ancient way, this is the way of gods and angels. Women are not "on the market;" women are seated on thrones. — C. JoyBell C.

Analysis is simplifying, breaking down things into parts, picking out strands and elements. Analysis is comparing unknown things with things that are known. Analysis also involves picking out relationships and putting them back together as a whole. — Edward De Bono

I didn't say what I said to be controversial just because most people are picking the Patriots to win. I consider myself a pretty good judge of talent when it comes to defensive linemen and the Panthers' biggest strength is their defensive line. You win the battle of the trenches and that goes a long way to winning the game. — Warren Sapp

He sat in the chapel for hours picking his way through fugues. A dozen notes, hardly music. But then those few notes spoke to each other, subject and answer, by repetition, by diminution, by augmentation, even looping backwards on themselves in a course like the retrograde motion of Mars. He listened as if he had as many ears as fingertips, and, like a blind man, could feel textures that were barely there. At the end of two or three pages of music he would hear all the voices twining together in a construction of such dizzying power that the walls of the chapel could barely contain it. — Kate Grenville

Kat had been picking things up since her third birthday, when Hamish and Angus's father took them all to the circus because he needed to "borrow" an elephant. — Ally Carter

The bluejacket girlie rode like a clan warrior, but there was no way she'd escape. It was a private life-and-death contest that had nothing to do with him.
He told himself he should ride on, grateful that the chase would keep them occupied while he took a different path.
But what had he told Rebecca when she'd asked what he meant to do when he returned to the Fells?
'I'm tired of people in power picking on the weak. I'm going to help them. — Cinda Williams Chima

Riza: Without his Alchemy he's just ...
Jean: A little brat who swears a lot
Maes: An arrogant pipsqueak
Roy: Useless. Just useless
Alphonse: Sorry big brother, I don't know how to add to that ...
Ed *starts to cry*: YOU'RE ALL PICKING ON ME!!! — Hiromu Arakawa

I'd love to say I made the smart decision of picking projects that became hits, but with 'The Good Wife,' I read the script and something inside me said, 'I love this, I want to do this.' — Archie Panjabi

Prayer is picking a fight with the Enemy. It's spiritual warfare. Intercession transports us from the sidelines to the front lines without going anywhere. And that is where the battle is won or lost. Prayer is the difference between us fighting for God and God fighting for us. But we can't just hit our knees. We also have to take a step, take a stand. And when we do, we never know what God will do next. — Mark Batterson

it ain't as hard as picking cotton — Wynton Marsalis

I think that my IQ level grew as a player. I think that I [run] the game a little bit better. I'm waiting for the game to come to me, and I'm picking and choosing my spots instead of just going out there and just doing whatever because I don't have to do that with this team. — Derrick Rose

Face the fact that there's only one sure-fire way to erase credit card debt. By picking up a big, shiny pair of scissors and cutting your wife in half. — Bill Maher

You have been spying all along," Conrad said, unconvinced. "The manhunt for you was a ruse."
"Check with the emperor," Ferrin replied coolly.
... "That will not take long," said a man in the corner, studiously picking at a fingernail with a small knife. He raised his head, wavy gray hair framing his pallid face. He wore a long coat of brown leather.
"Torvic!" Ferrin called, the exuberance hollow. "I hadn't seen you over there. Still in touch directly with Felrook? You know, to come clean, I haven't brought Maldor in on my plan yet, so it might be of little use to bother him at this juncture. — Brandon Mull

I'd die for you. You know that. But would I kill someone innocent? What about a lot of innocent lives? What about the whole world? Is it really love to tell someone that if it came down to picking between them and every other life on the planet, you'd pick them? — Cassandra Clare

My mother read it when she was a teenager," Henry said, picking a piece of lint off his lap. "To Kill a Mockingbird. The day she accepted my father's proposal, she gave him a copy and told him that Atticus Finch is the kind of father she wants her husband to be. — Ophelia London

So this is my attempt to give a preliminary - probably far too crude - account of how philosophy by showing can really teach us. The attempts we make to work through problems by reasoning always presuppose starting points, and even the most self-critical philosophers adopt some of those starting points simply by picking them up from the social environments in which they grow up. — Philip Kitcher

Whenever you have the kind of market that is taking shape now - a wildly volatile one with big pricing discrepancies - it plays right into the hands of managers who are very focused on research and stock picking. — James Russell Lowell

But I was losing so much bone density that I would have been in grave danger. And I mean grave danger. If I had let it go just a few more years I could have broken my hip or spine just picking up my granddaughter. — Sally Field

There is no easy way to do a deadlift - not involving actually picking up the bar - which explains their lack of popularity in gyms around the world. — Mark Rippetoe

These warriors of the Sacred Band were inscrutable; they loved their war and death and picking through the bones of time to sort out right from wrong, good from bad, holy from profane, honor from dishonor. — Janet Morris

Picking one of your favorite creation or character is like picking the best one of your children! I'm not sure it really works. My very favorite characters tend to be ones I can go back to and look at, and have no idea how they popped out of my head. — Neil Gaiman

Even fans of actively managed funds often concede that most other investors would be better off in index funds. But buoyed by abundant self-confidence, these folks aren't about to give up on actively managed funds themselves. A tad delusional? I think so. Picking the best-performing funds is 'like trying to predict the dice before you roll them down the craps table,' says an investment adviser in Boca Raton, FL. 'I can't do it. The public can't do it.' — Paul Samuelson

Jimmy: One day, when I'm no longer spending my days running a sweet-stall, I may write a book about us all. It's all here. (slapping his forehead) Written in flames a mile high. And it won't be recollected in tranquillity either, picking daffodils with Auntie Wordsworth. It'll be recollected in fire, and blood. My blood. — John Osborne

She had a lot of empathy. Maybe that's why she liked all those bad boys. They were outcasts. It was like she was picking up strays and taking them in. It's like she could see past their rough exteriors and see the parts of them that hurt. Maybe she thought she could take away the hurt. She was wrong, of course. But I found it hard to fault her for her good heart. — Benjamin Alire Saenz

I am not supposed to be an expert in every field. I am supposed to be an expert in picking experts. — Moshe Dayan

Even bullying was important to Wonder Woman, and in Sensation Comics #23 she stopped a gang who were picking on a young boy, showed the head bully the error of his ways and learned about his home situation, spoke to his father about his abusive tendencies, and then helped the father get a job in a wartime factory. She always took the time to get to the root of the problem. — Tim Hanley

There are boys lying awake, hating themselves. There are boys screwing for the right reasons and boys screwing for the wrong ones. There are boys sleeping on benches and under bridges, and luckier unlucky boys sleeping in shelters, which feel like safety but not like home. There are boys so enraptured by love that they can't get their hearts to slow down enough to get some rest, and other boys so damaged by love that they can't stop picking at their pain. There are boys who clutch secrets at night in the same way they clutch denial in the day. There are boys who do not think of themselves at all when they dream. There are boys who will be woken in the night. There are boys who fall asleep with phones to their ears. — David Levithan

There's the matter of picking the time. There's such a thing as the favorable moment. Determination alone counts for nothing. — Yukio Mishima

As an athlete, you sort of just win every day. Because you're going to sometimes lose every day. And so you just keep picking yourself up and going forward. — Beth Brooke

I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three. — Elayne Boosler

Picking the right stocks is one of the hardest parts of investing, and every night on Mad Money, I try to take some of that burden off your shoulders. — Jim Cramer

I wish my powers were good for things like picking out asparagus. Is there a way to divine where the asparagus came from? Why are some of them thick and some thin, and over there, there's white ones. How will they taste? Do they all taste different? Which are the freshest? Oh my god, this is the hardest thing I've ever done. — Kelly Thompson

Over the slow pass of winters and summers, Amanda had grown to understand the cycles that made up small-town life. She knew that fewer tourists meant easier work for the staff, but fewer tips for the servers, and less chance of picking up extra hours. A busy summer kept everyone hopping and the tills full, but it also shifted the steady pace of life, tugging it into a frenetic rate. — Danika Stone

I have come to use the pan-Celtic history, which spans from 500 BC to the present, as a creative springboard. The music I am creating is a result of traveling down that road and picking up all manner of themes and influences, which may or may not be overtly Celtic in nature. — Loreena McKennitt

Linda shares her packet of Custard Creams with me, and Marion says "Picking is hungry work" in her bunged up voice, and I say, "Yeah, it is, Marion," and Marion's really happy, and I wish her life could be easier than it's going to be. — David Mitchell

There's not a day I live that doesn't start with me getting up and first saying, "What can I do for somebody else?" Whether that means sending something to one of my children or picking up the phone and calling a stranger who is in the hospital, I start every day by wanting more for others than I do for myself. — Wayne Dyer

Philosophy is no longer the pillar of fire going before a few intrepid seekers after truth: it is rather an ambulance following in the wake of the struggle for existence and picking up the weak and wounded. — Bertrand Russell

The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance. — Rich Hall

I wanted to design the house around my body and my needs, instead of following the pattern that I'd fallen into in my big house: picking paint colors and finishing the woodwork with some future owner and salability in mind. This was going to be my house. — Dee Williams

Real education is a radical process. It thumps you on the head until everything you know makes no sense anymore. Then you run around picking up the pieces of your head and picking them back together. The pieces never go back together in the same way. — Debbie Millman

I've always loved independent music stores because the staff is usually there because of a genuine love and appreciation for music. They're more in-tune with the customers and I'm willing to pay the extra dollar or two for the service they provide. Some of my greatest music discoveries have come from picking up an album at an indy store and the cat behind the register saying "You like this man? Have you heard of so-and-so?" I prefer to shop where people understand me and the music- the music i like. — Brother Ali

No matter how hard we try. No matter how much we plan and prepare. There will always be an enemy at the door and a storm trying to knock us down. Life's not about security. It's about picking up the pieces after it's all over and carrying on. We can choose to be cowards who fear letting someone inside us, and do that alone. Or we can choose to be brave and let someone stand by our side and help us."

"- Lydia, Time Untime — Sherrilyn Kenyon

When I was younger and my parents used to always slap my hand if I was picking my nose or if I was running around screaming I was told to shut up. — Prince William

My dad has always been extremely supportive in every decision I've made and much more interested in me picking what I wanted to do. — Colin Hanks

That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfeast cereals based on color instead of taste. — John Green

Keeper!"
He inhaled slowly, took Azalea's outstretched hand-shudders went through her throat, he felt so solid-and pressed the brooch into her marked palm.
"I was only picking it up," he said, quietly. His thumb rubbed the red nail mark on her hand. A smile crossed his lips. "Temper, temper. — Heather Dixon

I don't know what your Company is feeling as of today about the work of Dr. Alice Hamilton on benzol [benzene] poisoning. I know that back in the old days some of your boys used to think that she was a plain nuisance and just picking on you for luck. But I have a hunch that as you have learned more about the subject, men like your good self have grown to realize the debt that society owes her for her crusade. I am pretty sure that she has saved the lives of a great many girls in can-making plants and I would hate to think that you didn't agree with me. — Bradley Dewey

I don't dare touch her. Loss is a knowledge I'm sorry to have. Perhaps the only thing worse than experiencing it, is watching it replay anew in someone else
all the awful stages picking up like a chorus that has to be sung. — Lauren DeStefano

And yet ... marriage seems to be the worst thing to happen to me. Though there are days I would argue that that wasn't true at all, and that the worst thing to happen to me is Nick Hudson. Not that picking one definitive answer would change the outcome. Nothing can change that now. Nothing dead can be brought back to life, literally or otherwise. — Crystal Cierlak

Safe. No one ever is. No matter how hard we try. No matter how much we plan and prepare. There will always be an enemy at the door and a storm trying to knock us down. Life's not about security. It's about picking up the peices after it's all over and carrying on. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

A lot of my books deal with very controversial issues that most people often don't want to talk about, issues that, in my country, are more likely to get put under the carpet than get discussed. And when you talk about moral conundrums, about shades of gray, what you're doing is asking the people who want the world to be black and white to realize instead that maybe it's all right if it isn't. I know you'll learn something picking up my books, but my goal as a writer is not to teach you but to make you ask more questions. — Steven Tyler

[Preparing for award shows] gets insane. The dress, the hair, the makeup ... I end up always picking the dress at the last second. — Julie Bowen

I saw the Village as a place you could escape to, to express yourself. When I first went there, I wrote and performed poetry. Then I drew portraits for a couple of years. It took a while before I thought about picking up a guitar. — Richie Havens

The most frustrating thing is picking up a script and loving the roles in it except the female ones ... It's really annoying and something I've striven to change in the industry. — Margot Robbie

When you first saw 'The Truman Show,' did anyone else walk around for the next week not picking your nose just in case? — Anna Kendrick

Human beings are like the screwed-up children of alcoholic parents in that way, picking up the pieces afterward and trying to make up reasons why. — Joe Schreiber

I said, "And then, when those all-American Joes get out and some of them fucking turn into monsters? What happens then?"
Amy said, "Then we will once again err on the side of not letting people be murdered. You take the choice in front of you, and then you keep picking the non-murder choices as long as you can. — David Wong

I have a shoebox: for ideas, fragments, snatches of conversation I hear. I scrawl it down, throw the scraps in the box. Every time I start a new script I start picking through the pieces. Suddenly you get five pieces together and think: this is almost the first Act of a movie, if I flesh it out a bit. — Shane Black

I always lived with guitarists. When they would leave, I would just pick up their acoustic guitars and start doing finger picking and write. — Lou Doillon

My parents would always say, 'It doesnt' matter if it's a guy picking up the garbage or the President of the United States, treat everybody as you would want to be treated. — Dan Marino

No matter what, we have to keep moving forward, even if we have to crawl. — Kellie Elmore

Clearly, I'm a genius at picking boyfriends. In my defense, have you seen what there is to choose from? The sea is big, but the fish are scraggly, immature, and obsessed with video games. — Nicole Christie

The morning air was like a new dress. That made her feel the apron tied around her waist. She untied it and flung it on a low bush beside the road and walked on, picking flowers and making a bouquet ... From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything. — Zora Neale Hurston

Why must we be left, the survivors picking among the flotsam, among the small, unnoticed, unvalued clutter that was all that remained when they vanished, that only catastrophe made notable? — Marilynne Robinson

He unpacks his bag of tales
with fingers quick
as a weaver's
picking the weft threads
threading the warp.
Watch his fingers.
Watch his lips
speaking the old familiar words:

"Once there was
and there was not,
oh, best beloved,
when the world was filled with wishes
the way the sea is filled with fishes..."

All those threads
pulling us back
to another world, another time,
when goosegirls married well
and frogs could rhyme,
when maids spoke syllables of pearl
and stepmothers came to grief.

.... (from The Storyteller poem) — Jane Yolen

But I know you have courage, and I know you have will. The rest is just picking yourself up and ramming into the wall again and again until it falls down. You get a bloody forehead, so what? You can do it, I swear you can. — Lois McMaster Bujold

It's like picking the place you're going to live for the next fifty years by using a wall map, a blindfold, and what you really, truly, deeply believe is your lucky dart.' Sullenly Judith said, 'I don't believe I have a lucky dart,' and her mother cast an unhappy smile her way and said, 'You will, though. — Tom McNeal

You were picking up the vibes off a guy who was supposed to be alive and scaring us, but who was - is - dead and scaring us? — J. Cameron McClain

As soon as I got successful, the Scottish press started picking on me. It's something they reserve just for me. — Billy Connolly

Initially, in starting to pick the songs for the live show, it was really a matter of picking songs that I loved over the years. As far as the album goes, it happened very naturally. — Cheyenne Jackson

Mutual fund manager performance does not persist and the return of stock picking is zero. — William J. Bernstein

It's about picking which baggage is worth carrying with you later, when you go into the real world, where people don't want to hear about body parts on the roads. — Caroline Burau

I have nothing but sympathy for the people who are forced to work with me. I'm better now at picking out those that want to play that game with me, and those that don't. — Alton Brown

For Saffron," it said in shaky old writing on the damaged base, and on the other side, "Saffy's angel."
Saffron, picking up the broken fragments one by one, said it didn't matter. She hugged Rose and Indigo and Caddy and Sarah, and said again and again that it didn't matter, it didn't matter at all. — Hilary McKay

When you accept everything, everything is beyond dimensions. The earth is not great nor a grain of sand small. In the realm of Great Activity picking up a grain of sand is the same as taking up the whole universe. To save one sentient being is to save all sentient beings. Your efforts of this moment to save one person is the same as the eternal merit of Buddha. — Shunryu Suzuki

Southerners have mastered picking, choosing, and rationalizing religious texts to fit their social agenda better than their own mother's fried chicken recipe. — Maggie Young

I've changed my ways - from what roles I was picking till now. I don't do straight "faith" movies. It's one thing I always tell people. I'm not a preacher, I'm a sinner. I'm still learning and falling in a journey that God has me on and doing the best I can. — Drew Waters

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

I love dressing up. I like going out and buying some crazy stuff. I like stuff that's new, innovative and weird. I just pick out stuff that is unique and anything that I'm really diggin'. I don't really care if it's kind of out there. That's what I'm about. I like picking stuff that is really different. — Roshon Fegan

He looks up and the loss in his Noise is so great it feels like I'm standing on the edge of an abyss, that I'm about to fall down into him, into blackness so empty and lonely there'd never be a way out.
"Todd," I say again, a catch in my voice. "On the ledge, under the waterfall, do you remember what you said to me? Do you remember what you said to save me?"
He's shaking his head slowly. "I've done terrible things, Viola. Terrible things-"
"We all fall, you said." I'm gripping his hand now. "We all fall but that's not what matters. What matters is picking yourself up again. — Patrick Ness

Parenthood is shit, snot, slime, fear, tears, spit, and spills. It's as intense as combat, which is to say hours of tedium relieved by moments of alarm and flashes of joy to remind you that you're alive. It is intensely practical and profoundly square, even if you're not. It's feeding, wiping, and picking up. — Scott Simon

Doing it all the time, whether or not we are in the mood, gives us ownership of our writing ability. It takes it out of the realm of conjuring where we stand on the rock of isolation, begging the winds for inspiration, and it makes it something as do-able as picking up a hammer and pounding a nail. Writing may be an art, but it is certainly a craft. It is a simple and workable thing that can be as steady and reliable as a chore - does that ruin the romance? — Julia Cameron

One of those cases where you couldn't just fold. God, across the table of Fate, was picking His nose, scratching His ear, laying on tells with a prodigal hand, it had to mean something, and a faulty guess would be better than none. — Thomas Pynchon

The wind was picking up off the ocean now and the whole coastal scene had a bleak, abandoned look, as though Maine in November really belonged to the ragged gulls who wheeled over the sun-worn pier, and the humans had just gotten the news and taken a powder. — Jonathan Lethem

For me, family means the silent treatment. At any given moment, someone is always not speaking to someone else.'
Really,' I said.
We're passive-aggressive people,' she explained, taking a sip of her coffee. 'Silence is our weapon of choice. Right now, for instance, I'm not speaking to two of my sisters and one brother ... At mine [my house], silence is golden. And common.'
To me,' Reggie said, picking up a bottle of Vitamin A and moving it thoughtfully from one hand to the other, 'family is, like, the wellspring of human energy. The place where all life begins.' ...
Harriet considered this as she took a sip of coffee. 'Huh,' she said. 'I guess when someone else does something worse. Then you need people on your side, so you make up with one person, jsut as you're getting pissed off at another.'
So it's an endless cycle,' I said.
I guess.' She took another sip. 'Coming together, falling apart. Isn't that what families are all about? — Sarah Dessen