Raise Your Game Quotes & Sayings

It was a test. That was just how we spoke. Every conversation a game of poker, every line a bet or a raise, a bluff or a call. "Party — Mark Lawrence

That was just how we spoke. Every conversation a game of poker, every line a bet or a raise, a bluff or a call. — Mark Lawrence

Would you have joined the Circle. Would you have stood by Valentine's side at the Uprising? Raise your hand, if you think it's possible.
Simon was unsurprised to see not a single hand in the air. He'd played this game back in mundane school, every time his history class covered World War II. Simon knew no one ever thought they would be a Nazi.
Simon also knew that, statistically, most of them were wrong. — Cassandra Clare

When we raise our game aesthetically, we elevate it morally and spiritually as well. — Steven Pressfield

The Venusian artist must always be leading the interaction. He has no choice. Women seldom take responsibility for what is happening.
For example, it is necessary to keep things interesting during the opening phase of the game. If you don't work to steer the conversation onto interesting topics, the woman may accidentally raise her own boring topics - and then she'll feel bored and blame it on you. — Mystery

I'd like all of you to ask yourselves what you would have done, were you a student here in Valentine Morgenstern's day. Would you have joined the Circle? Would you have stood by Valentine's side at the Uprising? Raise your hand, if you think it's possible. Simon was unsurprised to see not a single hand in the air. He'd played this game back in mundane school, every time his history class covered World War II. Simon knew no one ever thought they would be a Nazi. Simon — Cassandra Clare

In the '70s, Florida-style golf communities started to be built for America's baby-boomers who were doing well and taking up the game but couldn't get into exclusive golf and tennis clubs and were looking for a nice place to live and raise their families. — Alex Shoumatoff

I grew up with heroes, people who made me aspire to raise my game, to dream bigger and I like to keep it that simple. — Mike Vallely

Good managers succeed because of, not in spite of, their teams and raise their game by raising the game of the whole team, not by distancing themselves from them in pointing out their errors. — Tim Phillips

I don't know if tennis players feel like that but when you have a great opponent - although I didn't feel like he [ Ben Mendelsohn ] was an opponent - you just know your game is going to jack up and it's just going to raise the bar. I couldn't wait for that elevation. — John Leguizamo

Yet reason frowns in war's unequal game,
Where wasted nations raise a single name;
And mortgag'd states their grandsire's wreaths regret,
From age to age in everlasting debt;
Wreaths which at last the dear-bought right convey
To rust on medals, or on stones decay. — Samuel Johnson

On every job you do, you've got to raise your game. My ambition is to just get better and better every job you do - you should never stop trying to get better. You have to teach yourself new things - I don't think you necessarily learn them from other people because you have your own style of doing things, but hopefully you get better. — Ray Winstone

Concept is what makes actors raise their game. — Joe Dempsie

I'm hip to their game, hip to the science of war
Propoganda makes me fight but what am I fightin for?
My way of life? Beans and rice? Give and take, less or more?
See through the eyes of the poor, plus I'm black to the core
Ignorance is on tour bookin stadiums and more
The days of hitler painted pictures patriotic before
You raise your flag on a land snatched from bald eagles claw, and stamp the symbol on your currency to finance your war.
I'm sayin no.
Not in my name.
Not in my life.
Not by my hands.
That ain't my fight.
Not in my name.
You wage your war against terrorists and violence, and try to wave your guns and fear us all into silence.
NO. — Saul Williams

Both 'The Daily Show' and 'The Colbert Report,' you're working with the best. When you work with the best, you have to raise your game. If you're working with people who are sub par, you're not forced to give 100 percent because you can get by on 80 percent. — Nate Corddry

Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: 'After the revolution even we will have more, won't we, dear?' Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picknickers on her property.
I guess the trouble was that we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew - at least they claimed to be Communists - couldn't have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves. — John Steinbeck

On how to make the game more exciting - Eliminate the referees, raise the basket four feet, double the size of the basketball, limit the height of the players to 5 feet 9 inches, bring back the centre jump, allow taxi drivers in for free and allow the players to carry guns. — Al McGuire

A Germany team should not be afraid going into a tournament. History shows that we can raise the level of our game when it matters. — Oliver Kahn

Very few American parents give a crap about how they raise their kids. They put minimal effort into it. Who told you it's a good idea to buy a developing mind a video game? — Louis C.K.

As far as he was concerned, all women wanted all men. And vice versa. What stood in the way between a man and a woman at Cafe Algiers was a few chairs, a table, maybe a door
material distance. All a man needed was the will and above all the patience to wait out a woman's scruples or help her brush them aside. As in a game of penny poker, he explained, all that matters was simply the will to keep raising the pot by a single penny each time; a single penny, not two; a single penny was easy, you wouldn't even feel it; but you had to wait for her to raise you by a penny as well, which is when you'd raise her by another, she by yet another, and so on. Seduction was not pushing people into doing things they did not wish to do. Seduction was just keeping the pennies coming. — Andre Aciman

Hold'em is a game of calculated aggression. If your cards are good enough for you to call a bet, they are good enough to raise with. — Al Alvarez

Audiences in every medium are becoming far more savvy. No one goes to watch a Tom Cruise movie any more just because it's starring Tom Cruise. No one gives a toss. Concept is what makes actors raise their game. Everyone's on merit now. — Joe Dempsie

And what do YOU like in life?' [the priest] asks me, ready to play the patronising game at my expense in order to raise a giggle from the rest of the class, thus rendering him popular for a few perverse minutes. 'Mott The Hoople,' I answer truthfully. — Morrissey

When you think of dog movies, that genre, Old Yeller is sort of the benchmark and you hope that you can raise your game up to that. — Jennifer Aniston

I'm real ambivalent about [working mothers]. Those of use who have been in the women's movement for a long time know that we've talked a good game of "go out and fulfill your dreams" and "be everything you were meant to be." But by the same token, we want daughters-in-law who are going to stay home and raise our grandchildren. — Erma Bombeck

A rival may raise your game in the short-term. An Ally will raise your game for the long-term. — Morag Barrett

I'm also inspired by anything that I consider great. It makes me want to raise my game too - Hitchcock movies, Hopper paintings, Springsteen concerts. — Harlan Coben

I knew how to raise my own child, what did he think it was, a game of Scrabble or Monopoly, there are no rules, was she so blind that she couldn't see that all that mental midget had done was turn her into a nervous wreck, full of doubt about something that had come naturally to her from the beginning, something any idiot could see, which was that she was a wonderful mother, full of love and patience? — Nicole Krauss

We need to raise the level of our game in terms of explaining the planetary warming by infrared absorption of CO2 etc. The missing area of understanding seems to be the actual physical mechanism. Lets target an explanation at an audience that has taken 1 year each of undergraduate physics and chemistry, plus calculus. Once we have something that is convincing at this level, we can work on how to communicate this to the interested public (i.e. those that hang out in the climate blogosphere). Willis Eschenbach's help is needed in translating this for the WUWT crowd. — Judith Curry

Who can tell?
Your living is an organized hell.
The mansion of your mind just an oversized cell.
The pressure, everything is done to a measure.
In the sea of competition sunk like a treasure.
Like a feather falling slow spiraling to the floor.
Strung up like a broken violin to your course.
Opportunity is knocking at your door,
But you never left a welcome mat (It doesn't matter anymore.).
Or anyhow, but you're too late to turn back.
Fate pushing you into the wall like a thumbtack.
Ain't no comebacks in this game of life.
Roll the dice again,
Roll it once, never twice.

Keep on going, and taste the stars.
Keep on growing, and raise the bar.
You're living life for the As down to the Zs,
After one drop you got a fountain to seize.

Wanna break from the world, but the world wanna break you,
The weight makes your backbone curl up and make you. — Tablo

Come out of the fog, young man. And remember you don't have to be a complete fool in order to succeed. Play the game, but don't believe in it--that much you owe yourself. Even if it lands you in a strait jacket or a padded cell. Play the game, but play it your own way--part of the time at least. Play the game, but raise the ante, my boy. Learn how it operates, learn how you operate--I wish I had time to tell you only a fragment. — Ralph Ellison

I don't think we have any choice. I think we have an obligation to change the rules, to raise the bar, to play a different game, and to play it better than anyone has any right to believe is possible. — Seth Godin

I've just discovered the secret of golf. You can't play a really hot game unless you're so miserable that you don't worry over your shots. Take the case of a chip shot, for instance. If you're really wretched, you don't care where the ball is going and so you don't raise your head to see. Grief automatically prevents pressing and over-swinging. Look at the top-notchers. Have you ever seen a happy pro? — P.G. Wodehouse

We all need to be compassionate and know that its is a game for all of us to win, we have to be on the same page and raise our level of awareness of what's possible and the awareness of how powerful we are and how good we need to be to each other. — John Assaraf

I was fortunate to start the sport at a young age. I was 6 years old when my dad started teaching me. We started playing tournaments together when I was 11, in the lower ranking of beach volleyball in California. We weren't playing against kids; we played against grown men, so immediately, I had to raise my game to compete. — Karch Kiraly

Street-casting - people like Katie Jarvis in 'Fish Tank,' spotted having a row with her boyfriend on a railway platform - has helped make actors raise their game. They have to. — Joe Dempsie

I always feel like I want to work with people who raise my game, and I can do the same for them, and we can jump off the cliff together. — Carla Gugino

Take that absurd fool Elipas Levi who was supposed to be the Grand High Whatnot in Victorian times. Did you ever read his book, The Doctrine and Ritual of Magic? In his introduction he professes that he is going to tell you all about the game and that he's written a really practical book, by the aid of which anybody who likes can raise the devil, and perform all sorts of monkey tricks. He drools on for hundreds of pages about fiery swords and tetragrams and the terrible aqua poffana, but does he tell you anything? Not a blessed thing. Once it comes to a showdown he hedges like the crook he was and tells you that such mysteries are far too terrible and dangerous to be entrusted to the profane. Mysterious balderdash my friend. I'm going to have a good strong nightcap and go to bed. — Dennis Wheatley