Quotes & Sayings About Refusing To Let Go

I got a number of very thoughtful responses to the email I sent out last night, most of which I don't have time to respond to right now. Thanks everyone for the encouragement, questions, criticism. Daniel's response was particularly inspiring to me and deserves to be shared. The resistance of Israeli Jewish people to the occupation and the enormous risk taken by those refusing to serve in the Israeli military offers an example, especially for those of us living in the United States, of how to behave when you discover that atrocities are being commited in your name. Thank you. — Rachel Corrie

What are you smiling at?" she smirks from under me. "You," I tell her, refusing to wipe the grin from my face. "The answer will always be you. — Karina Halle

To my mind, this embracing of what were unambiguously children's characters at their mid-20th century inception seems to indicate a retreat from the admittedly overwhelming complexities of modern existence. It looks to me very much like a significant section of the public, having given up on attempting to understand the reality they are actually living in, have instead reasoned that they might at least be able to comprehend the sprawling, meaningless, but at-least-still-finite 'universes' presented by DC or Marvel Comics. I would also observe that it is, potentially, culturally catastrophic to have the ephemera of a previous century squatting possessively on the cultural stage and refusing to allow this surely unprecedented era to develop a culture of its own, relevant and sufficient to its times. — Alan Moore

Those who refuse to change and to modify are refusing to be recipients of the anointing. — Dag Heward-Mills

Love's a gift, and can certainly be refused. Refusing doesn't destroy the gift, it simply puts it aside. You're free to do that. I'm not expecting a gift in return. Take what's offered, especially when it's offered so generously and without expectations. — Nora Roberts

You can't tell me what to do anymore, Travis! I don't belong to you!"
Her words ignited a deep anger inside me. I stomped to the bed, planted my hands on the mattress on each side of her thighs, and leaned into her face.
"Well, I belong to you!" I screamed. I put so much force behind my words, I could feel all the blood rush to my face. Abby met my glare, refusing to even flinch. I looked at her lips, panting. "I belong you," I whispered, my anger fading as desire took over. — Jamie McGuire

Within five minutes of leaving the reunion, I'd undone the double wrapping and eaten all six rugelach, each a snail of sugar-dusted pastry dough, the cinnamon-lined chambers microscopically studded with midget raisins and chopped walnuts. By rapidly devouring mouthful after mouthful of these crumbs whose floury richness - blended of butter and sour cream and vanilla and cream cheese and egg yolk and sugar - I'd loved since childhood, perhaps I'd find vanishing from Nathan what, according to Proust, vanished from Marcel the instant he recognized "the savour of the little madeleine": the apprehensiveness of death. "A mere taste," Proust writes, and "the word 'death' ... [has] ... no meaning for him." So, greedily I ate, gluttonously, refusing to curtail for a moment this wolfish intake of saturated fat, but, in the end, having nothing like Marcel's luck. — Philip Roth

We practice conscious forgetting by refusing to summon up the fiery material, we refuse to recollect. To forget is an active, not a passive endeavor. It means to not haul up certain materials, or turn them over and over, to not work oneself up by repetitive thought, picture, or emotion. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

It can happen that when we are at prayer some brothers come to see us. Then we have to choose either to interrupt our prayer or to sadden our brother by refusing to answer him. But love is greater than prayer. Prayer is one virtue among others, whereas love contains them all. — John Climacus

Books - all books - are complicated things, muttering at us in different contradictory voices, refusing to stay the same when we go back to them. Tying them down too much robs of them of the magic. — Andrew Rilstone

Evil is in the existent as its innermost possibility of refusing existence — Jean-Luc Nancy

New York. Tomorrow. He needed more time to prepare. But a lifetime wouldn't be enough. He'd never be ready to face her again. Not without pulling her into his arms. Not without refusing to ever let her go. — Alessandra Torre

[There is] a duty in refusing to cooperate in any undertaking that violates the Constitutional rights of the individual. This holds in particular for all inquisitions that are concerned with the private life and the political affiliations of the citizens. — Albert Einstein

But I was open to anything my students wanted to do, refusing to accept the idea that a teacher should confine his teaching to the classroom when so much was at stake outside it. — Howard Zinn

Astrid Dane. . . Her long colorless hair was woven back into a braid, and her porcelain skin bled straight into the edges of her tunic. Her entire outfit was fitted to her like armor; the collar of her shirt was high and rigid, guarding her throat, and the tunic itself ran from chin to wrist to waist, less out of a sense of modesty, Kell was sure, than protection. Below a gleaming silver belt, she wore fitted pants that tapered into tall boots (rumor had it that a man once spat at her for refusing to wear a dress; she'd cut off his lips). The only bits of color were the pale blue of her eyes and the greens and reds of the talismans that hung from her neck and wrists and were threaded through her hair. . .
"I smell something sweet," she said. She'd been gazing up at the ceiling. Now her eyes wandered
down and landed on Kell. "Hello, flower boy. — V.E Schwab

There are seasons when faith shows itself in taking; there are seasons when it is witnessed in refusing. — George H Morrison

No one should be surprised at the difficulty of faith, if there is some part of his life where he is consciously resisting or disobeying the commandment of Jesus. Is there some part of your life which you are refusing to surrender at his behest, some sinful passion, maybe, or some animosity, some hope, perhaps your ambition or your reason? ... How can you hope to enter into communion with him when at some point in your life you are running away from him? — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Sorting Hat is notorious for refusing to admit it has made a mistake in its sorting of a student. On those occasions when Slytherins behave altruistically or selflessly, when Ravenclaws flunk all their exams, when Hufflepuffs prove lazy yet academically gifted and when Gryffindors exhibit cowardice, the Hat steadfastly backs its original decision. On balance, however, the Hat has made remarkably few errors of judgement over the many centuries it has been at work. — J.K. Rowling

If Catherine would just let go' had been their mantra for so long. Now Mamah understood Catherine's dilemma better. She wouldn't divorce Frank because she feared he wouldn't pay her child support and alimony. And there was revenge to be sure: By refusing to divorce after twenty years of accommodating him, Catherine was squeezing recompense from Frank for a longstanding emotional debt. But that was only part of it. Catherine held on because she still loved him, and remembered what it was like to be loved by him. Nothing else in the world compared to the incandescent joy Frank brought to his best beloved. — Nancy Horan

Allegiance to Jesus and loving the truth are primary truths (2Thessalonians 2 v10). The Body of Christ must tolerate all religions in the sense of greatly valuing the dignity of their people and religious liberties. They possess great dignity before God. Yet, we are not willing to let them go to hell by refusing to love them and tell them the truth about Jesus. A false application of tolerance is foundational in the movements that lead to the harlot religion. — Mike Bickle

Divided we stand,' Simon thought, his stubborn biceps refusing to bulge. 'United we do push-ups. — Cassandra Clare

The knowledge that change can be frightening, that responsibility can, but that the answer to that is not refusing to change or to accept responsibility. — Jo Walton

Courage wasn't a matter of taking the whole mountain in a single massive leap. Courage was taking it one step at a time, doing what was necessary now, preparing for the next step, and refusing to worry about whether some step in the future would be the one that would break him. — Timothy Zahn

Whatever posessions and objects of its desires the lower self may obtain, it hangs on to them, refusing to let them go out of greed for more, or out of fear of poverty and need. — Rumi

Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality. — Sheri S. Tepper

I am humbly following in your footsteps and having a row with the Government over the iniquity of the Marriage Tax in the form of supertax ... our incomes being added together we are liable for supertax which we are refusing to pay on the grounds of morality as I consider in a Christian country it is an immoral and outrageous act to tax me because I am living in Holy matrimony instead of as my husband's mistress. — Marie Stopes

Subordination of the state to Christian values is precisely what the early Puritans, even those in the tradition of the Mayflower Pilgrims, aimed to do. The First Amendment notwithstanding, large numbers of the American public (especially churchgoing Protestant Christians) have embodied this Puritan way of thinking, viewing America as a "Christan nation." Relatively recent poll data bear out the enduring character of these Puritan convictions. According to a Pew Forum poll held just prior to the 2004 election, over one-half of the public would have reservations voting for a candidate with no religious affiliation (31 percent refusing to vote for a Muslim and 15 percent for a Catholic). — Mark Ellingsen

Marie Caroline Jensen, will you marry me?" he asked suddenly, looking right into my eyes. I bit my lip, trying to decide how long to drag it out. Maybe a little longer ... he'd used the "b" word, I should probably make him suffer. I looked away, refusing to meet his eyes as he stopped laughing and grew still.
"Marie?" he asked, his voice suddenly strained. "Oh fuck, don't do this to me, please. I - "
"Yes," I said, catching his eye and smirking. "I'll marry your big, dumb ass but only because you said the magic word."
"Fuck? You're right, that is a magic word. Let's test it out. — Joanna Wylde

Out in the Field, Down by the Sea, The Hour has peal'd, Whoever ye be, Daughter of Erin, Scotia's Son, Let us be daring, - Let it be done. It is time for The Choosing, - Americans all, No more refusing The Cry, and the Call, - For the Grain to be sifted, For the Tyrants to fall, As the Low shall be lifted, - Americans all . . . Till the end of the Story, Till the end of the Fight, Till the last craven Tory Has taken to Flight, Let us go to the Wall, Let us march thro' the Pain, Americans all, Slaves ne'er again. — Thomas Pynchon

The last thing he felt was Bethany being pulled from his limp arms. A finality of black crashed over him in waves he couldn't surface from, welcoming him into the nothingness that dug in deep, refusing to ever let him go. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I won't let him come between us, Konnor," Grayson promised, refusing to let go. "I feel so close to you ... more than best friends. It's like we're soul mates. You're the part of me that I've always been missing. And he'll have to kill me to get me away from you," he swore, unknowingly cementing his place in Konnor's heart with the words. He felt exactly the same. — Elaine White

I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind & my eyes, refusing to be stamped & stereotyped. The thing is to free ones self; to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded. (Diary 4: 187) — Thomas C. Caramagno

When one embraces a moment of rapture from the past, either by trying to reclaim it or by refusing to let it go, how can its brightness not tarnish, turn grey with longing and sorrow, until the wild spell of the remembered interlude is lost altogether and the memory of sadness claims its rightful place in the mind? And what is it we expect from the sun-drenched past? There is no formula for re-entry, nothing we can do to enable reconstruction. — Jane Urquhart

I will not be "famous," "great." I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one's self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded. — Virginia Woolf

Affirm my life every morning and let myself have a good day, free myself each night to dream the necessary dreams, find pleasure in serving those I love, give up guilt at refusing to when they demand my self-annihilation, find joy in teaching, joy in talking to loving readers ... , give my self time every day to walk or go to a museum, be generous because it reminds me how much abundance I have been given, be loving because it reminds me not to feel jealous of those who only seem to have more, seize my life, release my anger, bless the known and the unknown world ...
If, every day, I dare to remember that I am here on loan, that this house, this hillside, these minutes are all leased to me, not given, I will never despair. Despair is for those who expect to live for ever.
I no longer do. — Erica Jong

We shall not find life by refusing to let go of our precious, protected selves. — Rowan Williams

I pass to the Stationery Department. I buy several fountain and stylographic pens - it being my experience that, though a fountain pen in England behaves in an exemplary manner, the moment it is let loose in desert surroundings, it perceives that it is at liberty to go on strike and behaves accordingly, either spouting ink indiscriminately over me, my clothes, my notebook and anything else handy, or else coyly refusing to do anything but scratch invisibly across the surface of the paper. I also buy a modest two pencils. Pencils are, fortunately, not temperamental, and though given to a knack of quiet disappearance, I have always a resource at hand. After all, what is the use of an architect if not to borrow pencils from. — Agatha Christie Mallowan

Only one thing can keep something close over time: holding it there. Grappling with it. Wrestling it to the ground, as Jacob did with the angel, and refusing to let go. What we don't wrestle we let go of. Love isn't the absence of struggle. Love is struggle. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Let go of it this instant, or I'll dump it's contents on your head and leave you to wallow in honeyed misery," he whispered in her ear, his amusement as plain as his threat.
Shahrzad froze, his breath tickling her skin.
"Do it and I'll bite your hand," she said. "Until you scream like a little boy."
He laughed--a rich susurrus of air and sound. "I thought you were tired of bloodshed. Perhaps I'll toss you over my shoulder. In front of everyone."
Refusing to comply with out a fight, she pinched his forearm until he grimaced. — Renee Ahdieh

Closeness,' he said, surveying the congregation. 'It's easy to be close, but almost impossible to stay close. Think about friends. Think about hobbies. Even ideas. They're close to us--sometimes so close we think they are part of us--and then, at some point, they aren't close anymore. They go away. Only one thing can keep something close over time: holding it there. Grappling with it. Wrestling it to the ground, as Jacob did with the angel, and refusing to let go. What we don't wrestle we let go of. Love isn't the absence of struggle. Love is struggle.'
That sounded like the person I wanted to be, but couldn't be. It sounded like Max. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Defrosting is excruciatingly painful. You have been numb for so long. As feeling comes back to your soul, you start to tingle, and it's uncomfortable and strange. But then the tingles start feeling like daggers. Sadness, loss, fear, anger, anxiety - all of these things that you have been numbing with the booze - you feel them for the first time. And it's horrific at first, to tell you the damn truth. But welcoming the pain and refusing to escape from it is the only way to recovery. You can't go around it, you can't go over it, you have to — Glennon Doyle Melton

So James refusing to sit down was a big deal. Unheard of. Like a black child suddenly saying in an English accent to its mama, "No, madam, I will not retrieve a switch so that you may beat me with it. I believe your request to be not only abusive, but also absurd. — Ernessa T. Carter

Refusing to believe that change can occur at any moment is one of the worst of human failings. — Leigh Hershkovich

Is it better to work out consciously and critically one's own conception of the world and thus, in connection with the labours of one's own brain, choose one's sphere of activity, take an active part in the creation of the history of the world, be one's own guide, refusing to accept passively and supinely from outside the moulding of one' own personality? — Antonio Gramsci

Detachment is not about refusing to feel or not caring or turning away from those you love. Detachment is profoundly honest, grounded firmly in the truth of what is. — Sharon Salzberg

You can make the world beautiful just by refusing to lie about it. — Pleasefindthis

That came from my mother. She was the biggest influence on my life. I remember once refusing to get on a bus with her because she was wearing a mink, and I thought we should be taking a taxi. She just said, 'Who cares what people think?' and I remember sitting on that bus, being utterly embarrassed, but knowing somehow that she was totally correct. — Tony Wilson

Refusing to listen to him any longer, Julian backs up. "Whenever you realize working together is in Summer's best interest, come find me, Boy Scout. Until then, I'll just pretend you don't exist." Then he walks away.
Gage glares at Julian's retreating form. His hand scrapes through his hair as he fumes. A guttural roar of rage crawls up his throat, and he kicks the sand.
Damn him and his stupid logic. He's right. And Gage knows he's right. But that doesn't mean he has to like it. — Laura Kreitzer

Insomnia is a variant of Tourette's
the waking brain races, sampling the world after the world has turned away, touching it everywhere, refusing to settle, to join the collective nod. The insomniac brain is a sort of conspiracy theorist as well, believing too much in its own paranoiac importance
as though if it were to blink, then doze, the world might be overrun by some encroaching calamity, which its obsessive musings are somehow fending off. — Jonathan Lethem

Self-esteem comes from being able to define the world in your own terms and refusing to abide by the judgments of others. — Oprah Winfrey

Despite my professional experience, the fifteen-hour workdays, and a successful new show that I had helped build, MSNBC was still refusing to pay me what I was worth. — Mika Brzezinski

Admiral Dahlgren's twenty-one-year-old son, Ulric, had lost a leg at Gettysburg. When he appeared at a Washington party, he was surrounded by pretty girls. They stayed by his side all night, refusing to dance, in tribute to the handsome colonel who had been known as an expert waltzer. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

I'm old enough to remember Richard Nixon. They called it the imperial presidency when he was refusing to spend money that Congress had appropriated. — Angus King

The history of the church has been largely a history of "believers" refusing to believe in the way of the crucified Nazarene and instead giving in to the very temptations he resisted
power, relevancy, spectacle. — Shane Claiborne

Thy Banners gleam a little, and are furled; Against thy turrets surge His phantom tow'rs; Drugged with his Opiates the nations nod, Refusing still the beauty of thine hours; And fragile is thy tenure of this world Still haunted by the monstrous ghost of God. — George Sterling

You do not stop losing power by refusing to recognize your fear, by anesthetizing yourself to what you feel. The road to authentic power is always through what you feel through your heart. — Gary Zukav

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?
They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us -- they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.

And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them. — Hunter S. Thompson

He stays in the shadows, refusing to let me see him, but I can almost imagine that sinister smile and the intensity in those aqua eyes. — S.L. Jennings

Just remember, no matter how much they love you, they'll never love you as much as I do." I had to catch the tears before they could fall, refusing to make him feel bad about the choice he had to make but also wanted to make.
"I know. And same for you. No matter how many angels you fall for or how many deals you make with the devil, I'll always be the one who loves you most. — Elle Casey

We can't tell China what to do if we don't do it ourselves. You don't inspire someone to take an action by refusing to take it yourself. We are in a race to be the dominant clean-energy provider to the world. Maybe this goes without saying: We've got to get China into an international protocol and the magic words are "common responsibility with differentiated action." — Jay Inslee

On domestic policy, Donald Trump agreed with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the Wall Street bailout, the TARP bailout of big bank. I think the government ought to be standing with mainstream, with working men and women. And then you put on top of that the ethical issues, whether it is refusing to release his taxes. And that's a real problem. — Ted Cruz

O poor, unthinking human heart! Error will not go away, logic and reason are slow to penetrate.We cling with both arms to false hope, refusing to believe in the weightiest proofs against it, embracing it with all our strength. In the end it escapes, ripping our veins and draining our heart's blood; until, regaining consciousness, we rush to fall into snares of delusion all over again — Rabindranath Tagore