Really Better Call Quotes & Sayings

You're prettier than I imagined you", Raphael said. "Uh ... thank you," I said. "But I don't really ... "
"Wait,wait, I've got one," he interrupted. "Somebody better call God. Because Heaven's missing an angel! — Alexandra Adornetto

I like New York better than Seattle. It's bigger. I was really sad when I left, because I miss my friends, but I call them almost every day, and I have friends here now. — Rachel Trachtenburg

But there is nothing a man might not do, with you to encourage him. You make me wish to be a hero." He laughed, but Hester did not laugh. She gave him a keen look, in which there was a touch of disdain. " Do you really think," she said, " that the charm of inspiring, as you call it, is what any reasonable creature would prefer to doing? To make somebody else a hero rather than be a hero yourself? Women would need to be disinterested indeed if they like that best. I don't see it. Besides, we are not in the days of chivalry. What could you be inspired to do - make better bargains on your Stock Exchange? — Mrs. Oliphant

There's more that we need to be liberated from: maybe a system that prizes competition and ruthlessness and short-term thinking and rugged individualism, a system that serves environmental destruction and limitless consumption so well - that arrangement you can call capitalism. It embodies the worst of machismo while it destroys what's best on Earth. More men fit into it better, but it doesn't really serve any of us. — Rebecca Solnit

Been lickin' peanut-butter spoons? Maybe I should call you butterfingers. It has a better ring than Hella Shella. - Tran
'Answer my question, Tran. Right now. Or I show you just what these fingers'
I wiggled my fingers under his nose
'can really do.' I took a step closer, erasing the distance between us. 'And let me tell you, emo boy, you are not going to like it. Let's just say, that peanut butter I ate, freshly made.' I licked my lips with care. 'I'm actually quite skilled when it comes to crushing nuts.' - Shella — Krista Alasti

He's not my lover," Isolfr said.
She raised an eyebrow, a long feathery, shaggy sweep. "You're his beloved. Both of them. I saw enough on the war-trail to know." Then she laughed, and took her hand off his and pushed his chest like a wolf-cub nudging playfully. "We don't get to pick who loves us, you know. And better to get him to write the song than be remembered forever as 'fair Isolfr, the cold.'"
He scrubbed a hand across his face, roughness of beard and scars and the smooth skin of the unmarked cheek. "Is that really what they call me?"
She smiled. "You frighten them, Viradechtisbrother. You went down under the mountain and came out again, twice, and the alfar call you friend. They'll have you among the heroes before you know it. And you can seem quite untouchable - 'ice-eyes, and ice-heart, and ice-hard, his will.'"
"Othinn help me. It is a song already. — Sarah Monette

Being a breast cancer survivor, as I like to call myself - it will be twenty years next year - I did it to make it possible for women to do regular self breast examinations. It's really important - and, it makes common sense: you know your body better than the doctor does who only sees you once a year, you know? — Olivia Newton-John

Don't we all have a certain number of images that stay around in our head, which we undoubtedly call memories and improperly so, and which we can never get rid of because they return in our sky with the regularity of a comet - torn away also from a world about which we know almost nothing? They return more frequently than comets do, in fact. It would be better, then, to speak of them as loyal satellites, a bit capricious and therefore even troublesome: they appear, disappear, suddenly come back to badger our memory at night when we cannot sleep. But, little as we may care to, as our hearts tell us to, we can also observe them at will, coldly, scrutinize their shadows, colors, and relief. Only, they are dead stars: from them we shall never grasp anything other than the certainty that we have already seen them, examined them, questioned them without really understanding the laws that the line of their mysterious orbits obeyed. — Marc Auge

Natalie had what I'd call a slow beauty, the kind you don't really notice at first and then it knocks you back and grows on you and she gets more beautiful every time you see her and then you can't believe that you ever thought that she was anything less than completely stunning. Whenever I saw her, my entire body reacted, as though it were the first time or better. — Harlan Coben

I got the wake-up call that no one is policing our oceans. I wondered, how can I do anything? What really can I do to make things better? There are some perks to being a celebrity. My job is to be funny once in a while, but it's my responsibility to make good use of it. — Angela Kinsey

As soon as Joe was done feeding Ira Kenby's fucking dog, he was going to call social services again, and Casey would be taken to a home that would be more appropriate for a runaway. So really, Joe would say, they owed much of their lives together to a senile old man and a dog tortured by hunger to the point it didn't know better. (Casey would always reply that they would have met again, because there was just no way they could have lived without each other, but Joe's faith didn't run that deep. Casey would say that was because Joe didn't have a Josiah Daniels in his life, and Joe would shake his head and walk off, but that was later in their story.) — Amy Lane

I'm just really glad to hear that things are going well."
"Wait, you're not getting ready to hang up on me, are you?" he asks. "We've only been talking for a couple minutes."
"Well, I don't really have much else to say."
"Are you kidding? The possibilities are endless. For starters, you could tell me that you'll call me again. Or, better yet, you could ask me out for coffee or a slice of pizza. Of course, letting me know that I can call you whenever I want is always a good possibility. Or, if you're feeling really generous, you could tell me that you miss me, too. I mean, I wouldn't even care if it was a lie. — Laurie Faria Stolarz

The Met is such a powerful place for me because it's a natural connection between the ancient world and the modern world. And when you're dealing with ancient mythology, trying to put a modern spin on it, you really can't do much better than to call on the Met. — Rick Riordan

We humans may be brilliant and we may be special, but we are still connected to the rest of life. No one reminds us of this better than our dogs. Perhaps the human condition will always include attempts to remind ourselves that we are separate from the rest of the natural world. We are different from other animals; it's undeniably true. But while acknowledging that, we must acknowledge another truth, the truth that we are also the same. That is what dogs and their emotions give us
a connection. A connection to life on earth, to all that binds and cradles us, lest we begin to feel too alone. Dogs are our bridge
our connection wo who we really are, and most tellingly, who we want to be. When we call them home to us, it'as as if we are calling for home itself. And that'll do, dogs. That'll do. — Patricia B. McConnell

He is not a challenge, he is not a conquest. You were once that for him, back when he used to call you a little beast and defeated you handily, time and again. You got the feeling over time and then again that he didn't want to win, when he sparred with you. That was the motivation you needed. The opportunity presented itself; his weakness presented itself. You took it, you beat him, you got better, you stayed neck and neck. Just stay strong, was the first directive. Get stronger, was the next. Don't die, was the final, and that is where you remain. Daunting, to excel at a game that you must eventually lose. Unless you really are an angel. Unless he really is already a ghost. — Vee Hoffman

These women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by loving parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by 'their happiness' is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That's not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, leaning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life - my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing. — Banana Yoshimoto

My mother's very proud of the name she gave me. She thought it sounded rhythmically better. It doesn't really make a difference to me what people call me, but since my mother calls me Holly Marie when she's angry, I prefer just my first name. — Holly Marie Combs

It's really better this way, Ryan," Paige said with a sympathy that made me nauseous.
"Better for who?" he asked her. "For Jamie? For me? Or maybe just better for you. I can't believe you, Paige! You have no idea what she's been
through! Pain like you could never imagine! And you're throwing it in her face over and over again for what? Because I'd rather go out with her than
with you?
You call her the ice queen, but Jamie would never do something like that to anyone."
"But look at what she's doing to you," Paige said.
"She's done nothing but make me happy, and she's had to turn her entire life around just to do it.
You guys are the ones doing all the damage! — Kelly Oram

If our lives are truly plans of God, someone had better call a meeting soon to remind us, once more, what great miracles we really are. — Og Mandino

I never call myself a singer, ever. I never will. I've always been really embarrassed about my voice. I've never been confident about it. I think it's a little bit better now than when I first started. There are people I admire who are genuinely brilliant singers and I know the difference between what they can do and what I can do. — Gary Numan

Don't you ever feel like, what if the world really IS messed up? What if we COULD Do it all over again from scratch? No more war. Nobody homeless. No more summer reading homework.
'm listening.
Annabeth: I mean, the West represents a lot of the best things mankind ever did
that's why the fire is still burning. That's why OlympusIs still around. But sometimes you just see the bad stuff, you know? And you start thinking the way Luke does: 'If I could tear this all down, i would do it better.'. Don't you ever feel that way? Like YOU could do a better job I'd you ran the world?
Percy:Um ... no. Me running the world would be kind of a nightmare.
Annabeth: then you're lucky. Hubris isn't your fatal flaw.
Percy: what is?
Annabeth: I don't know, Percy, but every hero has one. If you don't find it and learn to control it ... well, they don't call it 'fatal' for nothing.
Percy(thinking to himself): I thought about that. It didn't exactly cheer me up. — Rick Riordan

I was that kid. I was entertaining everybody in the living room and throwing myself down flights of stairs and making the family look special and making my mother feel better and I really wanted to make people happy. That has been my ministry my whole life. I call it The Church of F.F.C. - The Church of Freedom From Concern. And I'm a high priest in that church. — Jim Carrey

My life had become an endless race against the clock. I was always in a hurry, scrambling to save a minute here, a few seconds there. My wake-up call came when I found myself toying with the idea of buying a collection of One-Minute Bedtime Stories Snow White in 60 seconds. Suddenly it hit me: my rushaholism has got so out of hand that I'm even willing to speed up those precious moments with my children at the end of the day. There has to be a better way, I thought, because living in fast forward is not really living at all. That's why I began investigating the possibility of slowing down. — Carl Honore

On to the library. And all through his time at the card catalog, combing the shelves, filling out the request cards, he danced a silent, flirtatious minuet of the eyes with a rosy-cheeked redhead in the biology section, pages of notes spread before her. All his life, he had had a yen for women in libraries. In a cerebral setting, the physical becomes irresistible. Also, he figured he was really more likely to meet a better or at least more compatible woman in a library than in a saloon. Ought to have singles libraries, with soups and salads, Bach and Mozart, Montaignes bound in morocco; place to sip, smoke, and seduce in a classical setting, noon to midnight. Chaucer's Salons, call them, franchise chain. — Stephen Minkin

It is becoming fashionable to scorn the idea of sin in society. The impact of humanistic thinking is to belittle the concept that man is corrupt. Psychologists and psychiatrists would persuade us that people really are not responsible for their wrongs. Rather, the view of sociologists is that the environment is all wrong.
Their cry is, 'Change society and you will get better men and women'. It simply does not happen.
Christ's call is, 'Change men and women and you will get a better society'. This does work. It always has. — W. Phillip Keller

You do what you have to do to give people closure; it makes them feel better and it doesn't cost you much to do it. I'd rather apologize for something I didn't really care about, and leave someone on Earth wishing me well, than to be stubborn and have that someone hoping that some alien would slurp out my brains. Call it karmic insurance. — John Scalzi

Quality is better seen up at the timberline than here obscured by smoky windows and oceans of words, and he sees that what he is talking about can never really be accepted here because to see it one has to be free of social authority and this is an institution of social authority. Quality for sheep is what the shepherd says. And if you take a sheep and put it up at the timberline at night when the wind is roaring, that sheep will be panicked half to death and will call and call until the shepherd comes, or comes the wolf. — Robert M. Pirsig

Ae'anad', he says.
'What did you just call me?'
He's silent.
'Tell me. I command you,' I say.
'Now you're discovering the ways of a keeper. Well, I'll comply once, little lion.'
I blink. 'Please don't tell me you're giving me a cute nickname?'
'Cute, you? Impossible. And "little lion" isn't a cute nickname, either. You're a ferocious animal who happens to be small.'
I glare. 'I don't like it.'
'That makes it all the better.' He whacks my copper curls. 'These, for example, are like a lion's mane.'
'Hmph.'
'I don't know why I didn't come up with this before. You really are a little lion.'
And soon, Korren, very soon, I will be your keeper. — Giselle Simlett

In dreams you can have the feeling that you've had this dream before, that you have this dream over and over again, and you know that it's really nothing that simple. You know that there's a whole underground system that you call 'dreams,' having nothing better to call them, and that this system is not like roads or tunnels but more like a live body network, all coiling and stretching, unpredictable but finally familiar - where you are now, where you've always been. — Alice Munro

We'll call him Maynard McSmollet and he can be from two towns over," said Aidan, snickering. "No one really knew him that well, kept to himself, but he was crashing the party because he could never resist a kegger - or how about Roderick Spoon? Roddy. The Rodster. He was in band and played electric keyboards but got kicked out of several schools for setting small fires. Yeah, that's better. What do you think, Gavriel? — Holly Black

Oh, don't be afraid of dreams," a voice said right next to me. I looked over. Somehow, I wasn't surprised to find the homeless guy from the rail yard sitting in the shotgun seat. His jeans were so worn out they were almost white. His coat was ripped, with stuffing coming out. He looked kind of like a teddy bear that had been run over by a truck. "If it weren't for dreams," he said, "I wouldn't know half the things I know about the future. They're better than Olympus tabloids." He cleared his throat, then held up his hands dramatically: "Dreams like a podcast, Downloading truth in my ears. They tell me cool stuff." "Apollo?" I guessed, because I figured nobody else could make a haiku that bad. He put his finger to his lips. "I'm incognito. Call me Fred." "A god named Fred?" "Eh, well ... Zeus insists on certain rules. Hands off, when there's a human quest. Even when something really major is wrong. But nobody messes with my baby sister. Nobody." "Can — Rick Riordan

I had become wiser, I tried to find out what irony really is, and discovered that some ancient writer on poetry had spoken of "Ironia, which we call the drye mock." And I cannot think of a better term for it: The drye mock. Not sarcasm, which is like vinegar, or cynicism, which is so often the voice of disappointed idealism, but a delicate casting of cool and illuminating light on life, and thus an enlargement. The ironist is not bitter, he does not seek to undercut everything that seems worthy or serious, he scorns the cheap scoring-off of the wisecracker. He stands, so to speak, somewhat at one side, observes and speaks with a moderation which is occasionally embellished with a flash of controlled exaggeration. He speaks from a certain depth, and thus he is not of the same nature as the wit, who so often speaks from the tongue and no deeper. The wit's desire is to be funny; the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement. — Robertson Davies

This is the part where you apologize to me," I said, getting angry. "You guys screwed up and this is where you make me feel better about it." I like to use this tactic on people. It can work. When someone is being rude, abusing their power, or not respecting you, just call them out in a really obvious way. Say, "I can't understand why you are being rude because you are the concierge and this is the part of the evening where the concierge helps me." Act like they are an actor who has forgotten what part they are playing. It brings the attention back to them and gives you a minute to calm down so you don't do something silly like burst into tears or break their stupid fucking glasses. — Amy Poehler

Most of all I discovered that my change of mind was closely connected with a change of heart. As a young man, I was comfortable with teachings that supported my leadership role. The role of women was a great topic for debate because it really didn't affect me and my identity. However, as I have been able to better receive God's calling to leadership as a call to humility rather than supremacy, I have been more able to receive women in leadership as well. It is here where I believe that my mind and heart and the Scriptures are most connected. — Robert Fryling

But I know I didn't love school for school's sake. I had never really been what people call an 'academic' person, nor did I see myself becoming one. Instead, I took pleasure in the fact that my work existed in a social setting, one that was based on the promise of a brighter future. I knew that what I adored about school was that each of my assignments - readings, essays, or in-class presentations - was inseparable from my relationships [ ... ] If I loved school at all, I loved it for what it provided me access to: bonds with people I grew to cherish. And nothing was better than working toward my dreams alongside people I loved who were doing the same. — Liz Murray

You call me the unhuman," it might say to him, "and so I really am - for you; but I am so only because you bring me into opposition to the human, and I could despise myself only so long as I let myself be hypnotized into this opposition. I was contemptible because I sought my 'better self' outside me; I was the unhuman because I dreamed of the 'human'; I resembled the pious who hunger for their 'true self' and always remain 'poor sinners'; I thought of myself only in comparison to another; enough, I was not all in all, was not - unique.[102] But now I cease to appear to myself as the unhuman, cease to measure myself and let myself be measured by man, cease to recognize anything above me: consequently - adieu, humane critic! I only have been the unhuman, am it now no longer, but am the unique, yes, to your loathing, the egoistic; yet not the egoistic as it lets itself be measured by the human, humane, and unselfish, but the egoistic as the - unique. — Max Stirner

In our Ashrams of East and West, places of spiritual retreat, we begin with what we call "The Morning of the Open Heart," in which we tell our needs ... We give four or five hours to this catharsis. The reaction of one member, who listened to it for the first time, was: "Good gracious, have we all the disrupted people in the country here?" My reply was: "No, you have a cross section of the church life honestly revealed." In the ordinary church, it is suppressed by respectability, by a desire to a appear better than we really are. — E. Stanley Jones

What technology is really about is better ways to evolve. That is what we call an 'infinite game.' ... A finite game is played to win, and an infinite game is played to keep playing. — Kevin Kelly

If you think ahead to what to say next - like how to fix it or make the person feel better - BOOM! Off the board. You're into the future. Empathy requires staying with the energy that's here right now. Not using any technique. Just being present. When I have really connected to this energy, it's like I wasn't there. I call this "watching the magic show". In this presence, a very precious energy works through us that can heal anything, and this relieves me from my "fix-it" tendencies. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

When I was a teenager, I was an umpire for a competitive league for 8- to 9-year-olds. I was really bad at it because I didn't know all the rules, and all these kids were better athletes than me. I made a bad call, and this dad snapped on me. Then he dumped his trash from his cooler, and I had to kick him out of the stands. — Adam DeVine