Rut Quotes & Sayings

He and Harmony had been wed a week now, and still the briefest glance at his wife awakened the savage in him. The smallest movement or casual touch made him want to rip off her clothes and press her back on the table and rut on her wildly. His mother would not have approved. — Annabel Joseph

In spite of this, our table's status on the Oronsay continued to be minimal, while those at the Captain's Table were constantly toasting to one another's significance. That was a small lesson I learned on the journey. What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power. Nothing much of lasting value ever happens at the head table, held together by familiar rhetoric. Those who already have power continue to glide along in the familiar rut they have made for themselves. — Michael Ondaatje

She had learned how to talk some and leave some. She was a rut in the road. Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels. Sometimes she stuck out into the future, imagining her life different from what it was. But mostly she lived between her hat and her heels, with her emotional disturbances like shade patterns in the woods
come and gone with the sun. She got nothing from Jody except what money could buy, and she was giving away what she didn't value. — Zora Neale Hurston

One of my biggest fears is not being able to break out of a rut; of becoming a prisoner to my ways, unable to change course. But in my mid-thirties, I learned you can change your thinking. — Matt Dillon

The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions. — Ellen Glasgow

At those times I got into ... I suppose you call it a rut. I used to do comedy, comedy, comedy and I suddenly thought I ought to break away from this somehow. — Val Guest

It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences. — Hunter S. Thompson

But there was a difference between being stuck and choosing to stay. Between being found and finding yourself. — Martina Boone

You must be prepared for further efforts of mind and body and further sacrifices to great causes, if you are not to fall back into the rut if inertia, the confusion of aim and the craven fear of being great. — Winston Churchill

When he'd been younger and first starting to feel the urge to rut with females - and before he'd grown up to the point where many of the opposite sex found him irresistible - he'd tried to court girls by bringing them meat and shiny things. It turned out he'd scared them.
"Most women and girls," Dmitri had told him, "don't know what to do when a man drops a hunk of raw meat in their hands. — Nalini Singh

Occasionally, if I'm in a rut, I find changing location helps. — Matt Mullenweg

The other producer of old age is habit: the deathly process of doing the same thing in the same way at the same hour day after day, first from carelessness, then from inclination, at last from cowardice or inertia. Luckily the inconsequent life is not the only alternative; for caprice is as ruinous as routine. Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive. — Edith Wharton

Good intentions never change anything. They only become a deeper and deeper rut. — Joyce Meyer

Someone once told me the difference between a rut and a grave is this: a rut has a little more room to move around. When I find myself in a rut, I know I better get out fast before it becomes a grave. — Regina Brett

Had the ancient Greek poet Archilochus and the modern philosopher Isaiah Berlin been magically transported to northern Italy in November of 218 B.C., they might well have speculated on the strategic prospects. "Hannibal knows many things, but Rome knows one big thing," the Greek might have proposed. To which Berlin might have replied, "Perhaps at the outset. But then the fox could get stuck in a rut, and the hedgehog might learn new tricks." This would have been the Second Punic War epitomized. — Anonymous

They say: misfortunes and sufferings,' remarked Pierre, 'yes, but if right now, right this minute they asked me: "Would you rather be what you were before you were taken prisoner, or go through this all again?" For God's sake let me again have captivity and horse flesh! We imagine that when we are thrown out of our familiar rut all is lost, but that is only when something new and good can begin. While there is life there is happiness. There is much, much before us. I say this to you,' he added, turning to Natasha. — Leo Tolstoy

There is something therapeutic about doing for others that lifts a person out of the rut of self-thought. — Tim LaHaye

I understand that the rule of fashion is to change, even as a successful designer - you do not want to be stuck in the same rut. — Donatella Versace

I carry an invisible box of jerseys with me that say "Team Ian" on the front. My goal is to convince everyone I meet to become my fan and prove it by putting on my "Team Ian" jersey. If they do, then for at least ten minutes I feel like I've won their approval and love. If I have a run of people who don't put it on, I can fall into a rut I have visited so often I should have it decorated and furnished. For me, life is like one long job interview in which I'm trying to impress everyone I meet enough to hire me. The routine is exhausting, mostly for everyone else.
I confessed this nutty practice to my spiritual director. He smiled, put his arm around my shoulder, and said, "I never trust a man without a limp. — Ian Morgan Cron

I tend to do something for two years then move on to something new. Yoga, then biking, then weight lifting, then back to biking. The moment it feels like a rut, I switch and search for a new love. It's like having a midlife crisis, but without the new wife or cheesy BMW. — Brad Meltzer

Criticism is like many other things, it drags along after what has already been said and doesn't get out of its rut. — Eugene Delacroix

I must do something to keep my thoughts fresh and growing. I dread nothing so much as falling into a rut and feeling myself becoming a fossil. — James A. Garfield

A rut is a grave with the ends kicked out. — Earl Nightingale

To keeping silence I resigned My friends would think I was a nut Turning water into wine Open doors would soon be shut So I went from day to day Though my life was in a rut 'Til I thought of what I'd say Which connection I should cut — Peter Gabriel

My closet is a sea of black pants, skirts, tops, and bags, so it's great to come across a brand that makes me want to break out of my fashion rut! The Sequence Collection is an accessories line that is all about color, from funky woven bracelets to brightly-patterned bags. — Amanda Hearst

I think that's what's important, to see how we ourselves can become all that we are and can be. Everybody says they want to change, but it's not that simple, it's not that easy. Who's ready to change and give up? Who's ready to get out of their rut and leave it behind, not just pour honey or syrup over their heads and over the rut? Who's ready to change and give up that rut, who's ready willing and able? — Surya Das

The hardest thing to believe when you're young is that people will fight to stay in a rut, but not to get out of one. — Ellen Glasgow

When I feel like I'm in a rut, I remember it's the little things in life that are important, like riding a bike with a friend or eating ice cream with my baby niece. — Michelle Kwan

I stood there, my head bowed, my shoulders hunched. This is how it feels to be dragged from the cement shoes of a comfortable rut. The slow, steady strain on my legs became an excruciating amputation. My ankles pulled free from my feet. Bones snapped, cartilage tore, veins pulsed blood onto the soft brown clay of the yard. — Deborah Smith

Realists are, as a rule, only men in the rut of routine who are incapable of transcending a narrow circle of antiquated notions. — Theodor Herzl

One of the traits of genius is not to drag its thought through the rut worn by vulgar minds. — Stendhal

You ugly rat-faced birds.
You call yourself a bird?
You call yourself an owl?
You ain't no decent kind of fowl!
They call you Jatt?
They call you Jutt?
I'm gonna toss you in a rut!
Then I'm gonna punch you in the gut!
Then your gonna wind up on your butt!
Think you're all gizzard!
I seen better lizards.
One-Two-Three-Four,
You're goin' down, won't ask for more.
Five-Six-Seven-Eight,
You ain't better than fish bait ...
Nine-Ten-Eleven-Twelve,
I'm gonna send you straight to hell.
-Twilight — Kathryn Lasky

If you can transcend from the dark rut of disempowered thinking to the bright light of an empowered agreement with reality, you will see opportunities not barriers. You will see the finish line, not the hurdles. — Steve Maraboli

They both went to opposite sides of the bed, snapped on their bedside lamps and pulled back the cover in a smooth, practiced, synchronized move that proved, depending on Madeline's mood, that they either had the perfect marriage or that they were stuck in a middle-class suburban rut and they needed to sell the house and go traveling around India. — Liane Moriarty

If youth is the period of hero-worship, so also is it true that hero-worship, more than anything else, perhaps, gives one the sense of youth. To admire, to expand one's self, to forget the rut, to have a sense of newness and life and hope, is to feel young at any time of life. — Charles Horton Cooley

I visited those friends who'd just had a baby, and she was washing dishes and he was cleaning the house, and I burst with happiness. And in their minds, they were in this terrible domestic rut. — Josh Lucas

I am a diamond in the rut. A diamond to an untrained eye looks like a rock stone. So men will kick it around on the ground. It takes a man with an expert eye for fine Jewelry to notice its worth. Do not feel bad when men treat you like the little boys in Africa who gave away stones in exchange for candy. The hungry boys thought they were getting something better but had exchange wealth for a sugar high. Some men will do that. Exchange a valuable woman for the transient high of another. The boys didn't know better and so do some of these men. They don't know your worth. — Crystal Evans

And who you are isn't already cast in everyone's eyes. No one knows what to expect from you. Some would say society's in a rut. Stagnant. By virtue of being new, you have the power to shake us out of that. — Jodi Meadows

He's in a rut. Gehringer goes two for five on opening day and stays that way all season. — Lefty Gomez

The first act is the easiest to plot. The second act is always the hardest to plot. Generally a good, you know, sometimes the third act can be difficult because you can get into a rut in the third act - everybody runs to their Corvette, has a chase, and you catch the bad guy. — Stephen J. Cannell

Get out of that comfortable rut. — Denis Waitley

Much public thinking follows a rut. The same thing is true in science. People get stuck and don't look in other directions. — Charles H. Townes

Lack of ownership over your anger can incorrectly absolve you of all responsibility and so keep you stuck in the anger. — Sam Owen

They grow stiff in the joints. They get in a rut. They go to seed. — James A. Garfield

One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wanting to die; one asks to be moved from the old cell, which one hates, to a new one, which one willl only in time come to hate. In this there is also a residue of belief that during the move the master will chance to come along the corridor, look at the prisoner and say: This man is not to be locked up again, He is to come with me. — Franz Kafka

I am a black stone, the size of a kitchen stove. They wash me in the stream every summer and sing over me. I am skulls and cocks, spring rain and the blood of the bull. Virgins lie with strangers in my name, the young priests throw pieces of themselves at my stone feet. I am white corn, and the wind in the corn, and the earth whereof the corn stands up, and the blind worms rolled in an oozy ball of love at the corn's roots. I am rut and flood and honeybees. — Peter S. Beagle

There are those who would misteach us that to stick in a rut is consistency - and a virtue, and that to climb out of the rut is inconsistency - and a vice. — Mark Twain

The rut I was in with the people that I had been previously been with it took the heart right out of me. — Peter Cetera

Are we willing to shun vain repetition and keep our prayers out of an unchallenging rut by asking God to make us more sensitive to our own sin? — John Pereira

It's hotter than a snake's ass in a wagon rut — Robin Williams

Ritualism is nothing more than a rut and the only difference between a rut and a grave is the length and the depth. — Chuck Smith

I get into a rut, unable to yank my mind out of it. — Sylvia Plath

Once, I discovered the skulls of two impala rams, their horns locked into an irreversible figure-of-eight; the two animals had been trapped in combat, latched to each other during the battle of the rut. The harder they had pulled to escape from each other, the more intractably stuck they were, until they had fallen exhausted, to their knees, in an embrace of hatred that had killed them both. When I picked up the skulls to add to my growing collection of what Vanessa called "Bobo's smelly pile," the hooked horns fell away from each other and the story of the impalas' death struggle was undone. — Alexandra Fuller

Television and cable have become the new independent films, in a sense, for writers and actors to gravitate towards. That's why I like short films, too; I love doing readings, audio books, working with young filmmakers; anything that keeps you from getting blase about yourself or in a rut. — Campbell Scott

I'm done with girls on rocks! I've painted them for thirteen years and I could paint them and sell them for thirteen more. That's the peril of the commercial art game. It tempts a man to repeat himself. it's an awful thing to get to be a rubber stamp. I'm quitting my rut now while I'm still able. — Maxfield Parrish

You are not beneath me. I am so not beneath you. I might not be as glamorous as what you are accustom to but I am a diamond in the rut. It doesn't matter how pretty one of those Chinese store accessories are, they will never worth more than the dirtiest diamond in the deepest parts of the earth's core. That my dear is a fact. — Crystal Evans

... it's important to have something going on somewhere, at work or at home, otherwise you're just clinging on. — Nick Hornby

You have to remember the band played from 1960 to 1965, every night. You get into a rut playing nightclubs every night, and you didn't want to run it into the ground. — Rick Danko

A rut ... is little more than a coffin with the ends kicked out. — James Hunter

I get so fed up with the making of an album taking over my life - it's all I can think about or talk about. You find yourself in a rut and lacking inspiration and it's hard to get out of that because I'm working alone in the studio. — Imogen Heap

To succeed, find the right rut and stay with it. — Mason Cooley

Suddenly, they saw its back end drop down, as into a rut, and the gee-pole, with Hal clinging to it, jerk into the air. Mercedes's scream came to their ears. They saw Charles turn and make one step to run back, and then a whole section of ice give way and dogs and humans disappear. A yawning hole was all that was to be seen. The bottom had dropped out of the trail. John Thornton and Buck looked at each other. "You poor devil," said John Thornton, and Buck licked his hand. — Jack London

There's a very fine line between a groove and a rut; a fine line between eccentrics and people who are just plain nuts. — Christine Lavin

Staying locked into an image of how things are supposed to be can blind us to the grace of what is. — Elaine Orabona Foster

I think a lot of us are not on a path; we're in a rut. We have confused comfort with peace, belief with faith, safety with wisdom, wealth with blessing, and existence with life. — Erwin McManus

Let's go again to Niag'ra,
This time we'll look at the Fall.
Let's leave our hut, Dear,
Get out of our rut, Dear,
Let's get away from it all. — Tom Adair

I must break out ...
... start a new life ...
been here for years ...
might be getting into a rut ...
something a bit more exciting ...
more adventurous ...
something with more of a challenge ...
There's not much opportunity for self-advancement in toilets ... — Raymond Briggs

When we are stuck in a rut we are being invited to grow and expand. — Dana Arcuri

The difference between a grave and a rut are the dimensions. — Dale Carnegie

Ours has been an expansionist society, but that narrative must change as we run out of places to expand into. But our culture is like a cart stuck in the same old rut that has been leading us in one direction. The longer we've been using a path, the deeper the ruts get, the harder it is to escape them. We've been moving ever Westward, but there's only so far we can go in that direction before we fall into the ocean. It's a direction that we cannot continue on forever, but the breaking of those ruts will require a major rupture. The old narrative is dying, and it will be quite a crushing of gears before things are re-adjusted. A shared story is needed for a civilization to endure. — James Rozoff

The perfume works," she insisted. "Not only did you respond to it, but Annabelle tried it on her husband - and she swears that he kept her up all night as a result." "Sweetheart," Marcus said wryly, "Hunt has behaved like a boar in rut around Annabelle since the first day they met. It's typical behavior for him, where she is concerned. — Lisa Kleypas

One thing they don't tell you 'bout the blues when you got 'em, you keep on fallin' 'cause there ain't no bottom,' sings Emmylou Harris, and she may be right. Perhaps it would help to be told that there is no bottom, save, as they say, wherever and whenever you stop digging. You have to stand there, spade in hand, cold whiskey sweat beaded on your brow, eyes misshapen and wild, some sorry-ass grave digger grown bone-tired of the trade. You have to stand there in the dirty rut you dug, alone in the darkness, in all its pulsing quiet, surrounded by the scandal of corpses. — Maggie Nelson

The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alteration of old beliefs. — John Dewey

A prayerless Christian is like a bus driver trying alone to push his bus out of a rut because he doesn't know Clark Kent is on board. — John Piper

It is in vain that we can predict and control the course of events in the future, unless we know how to live in the present. It is in vain that doctors prolong life if we spend the extra time being anxious to live still longer. It is in vain that engineers devise faster and easier means of travel if the new sights that we see are merely sorted and understood in terms of old prejudices. It is in vain that we get the power of the atom if we are just to continue in the rut of blowing people up. — Alan W. Watts

Then sleep the seasons, full of might; While slowly swells the pod, And rounds the peach, and in the night The mushroom bursts the sod. The winter comes: the frozen rut Is bound with silver bars; the white drift heaps against the hut; and night is pierced with stars. — Coventry Patmore

Avoid the traffic by using one of the park's shuttle buses and view the elk rut with a park ranger. — Dave Barry

The great advantage of being in a rut is that when one is in a rut, one knows exactly where one is. — Arnold Bennett

I think many of us live in a rut. Stuck in a groove we can't get out of, whether it's our job, family drama or the little frustrations of everyday life. — Brian Pinkerton

If you feel like you're getting into a rut with a song, a night off usually fixes it. — Levon Helm

Every year I try to grow as a player and not get stuck in a rut. I try to improve my game in every way possible. But that trait is not something I've worked on, it's part of me. — Lionel Messi

Winter near the shore is cold. The wind kicks up a salty mist and elephant seals come to shore to trumpet and rut and birth their pups. Retired people put sweaters on their lap dogs and drag them down the street on retractable leashes in a nightly parade of doggy humiliation. Surfers don their wetsuits against the chill of storm waves and white sharks adjust their diets to include shrink-wrapped dude-snacks on fiberglass crackers. — Christopher Moore

You've got to try and take things to the next level, or you'll just get stuck in a rut. — Ozzy Osbourne

Gastronomic boredom leads to lots of unhealthy eating. If you don't make improvisation and experimentation part of your eating life, you are sure to find yourself in an eating rut. — Mireille Guiliano

What does 'stuck' mean?" "It means I should make some big decision, I should do some enormous thing. And I can't do anything. I can't stand my life, and I can't change it." "Maybe it's not an enormous thing," he says. "Maybe you have to do one small thing and then another small thing. — A.M. Homes

You form a society: that limits you. Adopt a name, and you've limited yourself again; draw up a constitution and bylaws and you've made a groove, a rut, that hampers your growth. You think you can fix your course and move straight along it. But sometimes the important thing is to strike out sidewise. — Robert Henri

We are all born with a rut radar. Mine is finely wired, a little oversensitive maybe. Perhaps just a bit hyperactive. Twenty steady boyfriends before turning 16, a new best friend 12 times a year, switched college majors every time I met someone who seemed exactly like the sort of person I really, really wanted to be. I'm not fickle. I'm just never there yet. — Fran Lebowitz

I've had the other kinds of love. Sunday love, all comfortable and familiar. Tuesday love with its caring and closeness. Saturday love where you know it's too good to be true and you'll wake up the next day and it'll all be over. Monday love, where you wonder what the hell you were thinking and the next weekend seems to be incredibly far away. Thursday love where it all seems so close and yet there's so much standing in the way. Wednesday love where you've got all this history but feel like you're in a rut and every day is the same thing. Forget all of those. Right now, I want a Friday kind of love. I want that possibility and recklessness and passion that only comes knowing there's so much that could happen, and never mind that sometimes it doesn't live up to your expectations. — Cameron Chapman

One needs to constantly read up, practice and work, irrespective of your profession. If I feel as an actor that I know everything, then how will I to grow? How will I improve? I'll be stuck in a rut, and eventually I'll grow complacent. — Sonam Kapoor

You can be in the same rut for so long, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, everything changes and you remember what the point is. The point, of course, is love. To love someone, to be loved by someone: that is the point. — Swan Huntley

I actually plan to mess up my life and start over every seven years. That way, I'll never get in a rut. I read somewhere that most of your cells only live about seven years anyway, so in theory you literally are a new person; I figure that's the best time to start over. — Jody Gehrman

It's the age-old tale of complacency, Shea." The tall warrior sighed deeply and stretched as he rose. "We may be standing on the brink of the greatest war in a thousand years, but no one wants to accept the fact. Everyone gets in the same rut - let a few take care of the gates to the city while the rest forget and go back to their homes. It becomes a habit - depending on a few to protect the rest. And then one day ... the few are not enough, and the enemy is within the city - right through the open gates ... — Terry Brooks

I think often women can feel isolated and feel like they get into a rut and don't quite know how to get out of it. — Cate Blanchett

the fact is that the only difference between a rut and a grave is about five feet. — Claire Middleton

You pigs, you. You rut like pigs, is all. You got the most in you, and you use the least. You hear me, you? Got a million in you and spend pennies. Got a genius in you and think crazies. Got a heart in you and feel empties. All a you. Every you ... '
[ ... ]
Take a war to make you spend. Take a jam to make you think. Take a challenge to make you great. Rest of the time you sit around lazy, you. Pigs, you! All right, God damn you! I challenge you, me. Die or live and be great. Blow yourselves to Christ gone or come and find me, Gully Foyle, and I make you men. I make you great. I give you the stars. — Alfred Bester

The wonderful thing about extended travel - the whole lifestyle, with the come-and-go friendships and the rootless freedom - is that it breaks you out of ruts you've carved into your everyday life. But when you never stop traveling, travel itself becomes a rut. At some point, you're no longer gaining a richer perspective on your life. It's more like you're running away. — Seth Stevenson

I guess "rut" isn't the right word. A rut is something you subconsciously want to get out of. The thing is, when I admitted it to myself, I was happy. Happy happy happy. And that's a good thing. — Sean Kennedy

We often find ourselves at ease with that with which we are most familiar, regardless of whether or not the trait serves us well in the end. Is that not yet another example of how we enslave ourselves? — Andrew Levkoff

Those movies sure got me into a rut. — Elvis Presley

Mainly, what I like to do is keep things varied and not get in a rut, not tell the same stories over and over. — Kurt Busiek