Same Excuse Quotes & Sayings

Now I have a guy trying to change me and I don't want to be changed, yet I keep hanging in there, hoping that he learns to like what he sees. Isn't that the prime definition of insanity, repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome? My man-radar is busted, so you'll have to excuse my disbelief in what you say. — Celeste Prater

- Your hand is small, yet it can completely cover the power, light and majesty of the great sun. In the same way, the small problems manage to give you the excuse you need in order to hinder your progress along your spiritual journey. — Paulo Coelho

The Devil would be the best way out as an excuse for God; in that way he would be playing the same part as an agent of economic discharge as the Jew does in the world of the Aryan ideal. But even so, one can hold God responsible for the existence of the Devil just as well as for the existence of the wickedness which the Devil embodies. — Sigmund Freud

What exactly is a Rubik's Cube party?" Becca asked.

"It's simple: everyone wears different colors - red shirt, blue shorts, green socks, whatever - and once you get to the party, you have to swap clothes with people until you're wearing all of the same color."

Kinsley tsked. "Sounds like an excuse to see people in their skivvies."

I tossed my luggage onto my bed. "Yes, well, isn't that basically the meaning of life in the first place? — R.S. Grey

Punctuality," said Monte Cristo, "is the politeness of kings, according to one of your sovereigns, I think; but it is not the same with travellers. However, I hope you will excuse the two or three seconds I am behindhand; five hundred leagues are not to be accomplished without some trouble, and especially in France, where, it seems, it is forbidden to beat the postilions. — Alexandre Dumas

The murder of a dozen innocent people is unquestionably a human tragedy. But that is no excuse for reacting blindly by preventing hundreds of thousands of other people from defending themselves against meeting the same fate. — Thomas Sowell

Molly slapped the lid back down then pushed past Luce into the foyer stumbling over Shelby in her path.
"Excuse you " they said gruffly at the same time eyeing each other suspiciously.
"Oh good. " Gabbe leaned in to give Luce a hug. "Molly's made a friend." — Lauren Kate

My anthology continues to sell & the critics get more & more angry. When I excluded Wilfred Owen, whom I consider unworthy of the poets' corner of a country newspaper, I did not know I was excluding a revered sandwich-board Man of the revolution & that some body has put his worst & most famous poem in a glass-case in the British Museum
however if I had known it I would have excluded him just the same. He is all blood, dirt & sucked sugar stick (look at the selection in Faber's Anthology
he calls poets 'bards,' a girl a 'maid,' & talks about 'Titanic wars'). There is every excuse for him but none for those who like him ... (from a letter of December 26, 1936, in Letters on Poetry from W. B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley, p. 124). — W.B.Yeats

I'm sitting on the lumbering late bus, thinking about the way I'm going to start my Monday: by filling out an unexcused absence form for the cranky secretary. The last time the bus was late she actually told me, "Don't tell me the bus was late. That excuse won't work anymore today. About ten kids ahead of you said that their bus was late, too." I tried to explain that we all took the same bus, but there was no pulling the wool over her eyes. She wasn't born yesterday. — Daniel Handler

In fact, for all kinds of offenses - and, for no offenses - from murders to misdemeanors, men and women are put to death without judge or jury; so that, although the political excuse was no longer necessary, the wholesale murder of human beings went on just the same. — Ida B. Wells

It's a good excuse, though, orphanhood. It explains everything - every mistake and wrong turn. As Sherlock Holmes declared. She had no mother to advise her. How we long for it, that lack of advice! Imprudence could have been ours. Passionate affairs. Reckless adventures. Of course we're grateful for our stable upbringings, our hordes of informative relatives, our fleece-lined advantages, our lack of dramatic plots. But there's a corner of envy in us all the same. Why doesn't anything of interest happen to us, coddled as we are? Why do the orphans get all the good lines? — Margaret Atwood

Let me rephrase," he added, sharper than barbed steel. "I'm coming with you."
"Excuse me?" Solara came to a sudden stop, forcing him to do the same. "You'll go wherever I send you."
"I'm not - "
"Don't interrupt."
He sealed his lips shut.
"Our relationship is simple," she told him. "I say 'Jump,' and you say 'Through which window, Miss Brooks?' You don't make demands of me. Are we clear? — Melissa Landers

How seriously would we take person who said, "I have faith in Adolf Hitler, or in John Dilinger. I can't explain why they did the things they did, but I can't believe they would have done them without a good reason." Yet people try to justify the deaths and tragedies God inflicts on innocent victims with almost these same words.
Furthermore, my religious commitment to the supreme value of an individual life makes it hard for me to accept an answer that is not scandalized by an innocent person's pain, that condones human pain because it supposedly contributes to an overall work of esthetic value. If a human artist or employer made children suffer so that something immensely impressive or valuable could come to pass, we would put him in prison. Why then should we excuse God for causing such undeserved pain, no matter how wonderful the ultimate result may be? — Harold S. Kushner

A process of self-deception to satisfy and summarily persuade yourself of righteousness. What one among us has any excuse but self-love? We do not create or confess a morality that is convenient, that lends itself to growth, and remains simple, that allows transgression without excuse or punishment. It would be wise and commonsense to do so, whatever the state of affairs in your mind. Nature eventually denies that which it affirms: Through permanent association with the same moral code we help desire to transgress. Desire of those things denied, the more you restrict the more you sin, but desire equally desires preservation of moral instinct, so desire is its own conflict (and weakly enough). Have no fear, the Bull of earth has long had nothing to do with your unclean conscience, your stagnant ideas of morality. The microbe alone would seem without fear! — Austin Osman Spare

Pay attention, people! There's no excuse for making the same mistakes that others have made. If you do, it's your own fault and you should expect no sympathy, no compassion. — Donald Trump

I have sometimes said to a client: "If you are so in touch with your feelings from your abusive childhood, then you should know what abuse feels like. You should be able to remember how miserable it was to be cut down to nothing, to be put in fear, to be told that the abuse is your own fault. You should be less likely to abuse a woman, not more so, from having been through it." Once I make this point, he generally stops mentioning his terrible childhood; he only wants to draw attention to it if it's an excuse to stay the same, not if it's a reason to change. — Lundy Bancroft

I don't feel so good." Lula said. And she farted.
She squeezed her eyes shut tight and did a full minute-long fart. "Excuse me." she said.
I was horrified and impressed all at the same time. It was a record breaking fart. On my best day, I couldn't come near to farting like that. — Janet Evanovich

Yet Poe was a drunkard, and Coleridge an addict, and Byron a rake, and Verlaine a degenerate. You have to separate the man from the thing. The genius has to pay a ransom for his genius in the instability of his temperament. A great medium is even more sensitive than a genius. Many are beautiful in their lives. Some are not. The excuse for them is great. They practise a most exhausting profession and stimulants are needed. Then they lose control. But their physical mediumship carries on all the same. — Arthur Conan Doyle

There are people in the world who like to be right all the time. They're the same people who, when you tell them something, immediately google it to see if you're right. And if you correct them, and they discover that you're right, they'll come up with an excuse as to why they're wrong. Those people are a real pain in the ass. — Steve McHugh

; the man who does not "understand" a woman is happy to replace his subjective deficiency with an objective resistance; instead of admitting his ignorance, he recognizes the presence of a mystery exterior to himself: here is an excuse that flatters his laziness and vanity at the same time. — Simone De Beauvoir

Volume II: Chapter V
What are we, the inhabitants of this globe, least among the many that people infinite space? Our minds embrace infinity; the visible mechanism of our being is subject to merest accident. Day by day we are forced to believe this. He whom a scratch has disorganized, he who disappears from apparent life under the influence of the hostile agency at work around us, had the same powers as I - I also am subject to the same laws. In the face of all this we call ourselves lords of the creation, wielders of the elements, masters of life and death, and we allege in excuse of this arrogance, that though the individual is destroyed, man continues for ever. — Mary Shelley

When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you understand that, you'll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger. Your sense of good and evil may be the same as theirs, or near it, in which case you have to excuse them. Or your sense of good and evil may differ from theirs. In which case they're misguided and deserve your compassion. Is that so hard? — Marcus Aurelius

Same reason why young women on juries are not a good idea, they don't get it. They're not in that same life experience of paying the bills, doing the mortgage, kids, community, crime, education and health care. They're like healthy and hot and running around without a care in the world ... I just think, excuse them, so they can go back on Tinder and Match. — Kimberly Guilfoyle

Sorry!I just couldn't control myself!" would be the excuse any virile man would offer to a girl he had just deflowered- after the event. He would offer the same excuse to Jupiter Foo. The King of the Gods would surely blow his top- like Vulcan, the Volcano God!Yak! Yak! Yak![MMT] — Nicholas Chong

Crossroads about the same time tomorrow. Ashton spent a few moments chattering about her excuse for being away from Mont Royal; it also involved staying with a friend, a nonexistent one. Madeline heard Ashton's voice, but few of the words registered. The three women crowded into the chaise, Ashton in the middle. It was evident to Madeline that Orry's sister didn't like squeezing against a Negress, but she'd just have to put up with it. — John Jakes

Almost everybody's here doing the same thing. Who am I to come up with an excuse when there's 64 other players here doing the same thing? 63 others, sorry. — Andy Roddick

We spend too much time teaching girls to worry about what boys think of them. But the reverse is not the case. We don't teach boys to care about being likable. We spend too much time telling girls that they cannot be angry or aggressive or tough, which is bad enough, but then we turn around and either praise or excuse men for the same reasons. All over the world, there are so many magazine articles and books telling women what to do, how to be and not to be, in order to attract or please men. There are far fewer guides for men about pleasing women. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Have you ever heard a woman claim that the reason why she is chronically mistreating her male partner is because a previous man abused her? I have never run into this excuse in the fifteen years I have worked in the field of abuse. Certainly I have encountered cases where women had trouble trusting another man after leaving an abuser, but there is a critical distinction to be made: Her past experiences may explain how she feels, but they are not an excuse for how she behaves. And the same is true for a man. — Lundy Bancroft

If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it; but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at. — Arthur Schopenhauer

There is one excuse for every mistake a man can make, but only one. When a fellow makes the same mistake twice he's got to throw up both hands and own up to carelessness or cussedness. — George Horace Lorimer

All the same, we should excuse ourselves," Vergil said. "Although I am wondering if the meeting was already well concluded when we intruded." He gave Nathaniel a deep look on the last sentence that made Charlotte's caution prickle. She saw the big brother in him, thinking that a private chat with this man was in order.
Bianca still had not picked up the cue. "You are making plans regarding the petitions?"
"I trust that a petition came up at some point in the visit," Vergil said dryly. "Correct, Knightridge?"
Charlotte wanted to die. "Indeed one did," she said. "Mr. Knightridge is proving to be a great help in the cause."
Bianca beamed. "I always knew that the two of you would find common ground in something."
"Yes, we have discovered that we think alike in one small area," Nathaniel agreed.
Charlotte wanted to hit him.
"Indeed," Vergil muttered. — Madeline Hunter

Because the Nome King intends to do evil is no excuse for my doing the same, — L. Frank Baum

He bumped into a pay phone and said, 'Excuse me, miss,' on our way in," said Julian.
"It's polite to apologize," said Mark with the same small voice.
"Not to inanimate objects. — Cassandra Clare

It happened very fast. And now that he's dead he can't remember pain. It's as if he'd never existed.'
He wanted her to believe this, but he wasn't sure he believed it himself. If time was infinite, then three seconds and three years represented the same infinitely small fraction of it. And so, if inflicting three years of fear and suffering was wrong, as everyone would agree, then inflicting three seconds of it was no less wrong. He caught a fleeting glimpse of God in the math here, in the infinitesimal duration of a life. No death could be quick enough to excuse inflicting pain. If you were capable of doing the math, it meant that a morality was lurking in it. — Jonathan Franzen

I've criticized Republicans for their lack of fiscal discipline when they controlled Congress before 2007. However, that is no excuse to just continue with more of the same or, as the case is now, to make it worse. Under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's budget, we will double the national debt in five years and triple it in 10. — Erik Paulsen

There's no such thing as post-feminism. It's like saying post-democracy, excuse me, what does that mean? We're nowhere near equality, so the very idea of post-feminism is ridiculous. The same people who 30-40 years ago said the women's movement is not necessary, 'it's going against nature, my wife is not interested' [are] the same people now saying 'well it used to be necessary but not anymore.' The very invention of the word post-feminism is the current form of resistance. — Gloria Steinem

You cannot solve a problem in the same frequency in which it was created. — Lynn Grabhorn

On a basic level, he had seen first-hand how his government used the element of fear to accomplish its objectives; the same element of fear that had been used as an excuse to engage its huge war machine in conflicts for the profits of America's oligarchy. — Kenneth Eade

They may well have had a backup system, but if it crashed at the same time as their main system, then that's all she wrote,' Riker said. 'Excuse mee, sir' said Data. 'That's all who wrote?' 'It's merely an expression, Mr. Data,' said Picard. 'It means that was the end of it. There was nothing they could do.' 'That's all she wrote' repeated Data. He nodded. 'Yes, I see. She, in this case, doubtless referring to the human conceptualization of Fate, writing a final chapter, as it were, and putting a period to the-' 'Please, Mr. Data,' Picard said impatiently. — Simon Hawke

Violence against women is learned. Each of us must examine - and change - the way in which our own behavior might contribute to, enable, ignore or excuse all such forms of violence. I promise to do so, and to invite other me and allies to do the same. — Patrick Stewart

She was mine. All mine. I'd give her everything. She'd want for nothing. I'd give her everything she wanted and I'd avenge her for anyone who'd ever crossed her, including her sorry excuse for a father. I'd never wanted to give a woman so much before. I'd never wanted to take so much from her at the same time. I wanted her to give me everything she had, every emotion. I went to sleep filled with emotions I'd never had before. Possessiveness, need, and fear. — D.D. Prince

Why are you here?"
"Oh - I came to tell the chieftain we're going to die." The girl said it quickly and with the same casual indifference as if she were announcing that the sun sets in the evening.
Persephone narrowed her eyes. "Excuse me? What did you say? Who's going to die?"
"All of us."
"All of whom?"
"Us." The girl looked puzzled, but this time Persephone wasn't certain if it was the tattoos or not.
"You and I?"
Suri sighed. "Yes - you, me, the funny man with the horn at the gate, everyone. — Michael J. Sullivan

We will not read of that which hurts our pride or fears or 'feelings'. We forget, or gloss over, or excuse, an experience which injured the tentacles of our personality. We forget the pscyhiatrist's definition of a neurosis as 'refused pain'. In the same way we escape from mental pain. We refuse to believe what we do not like. — Christmas Humphreys

We imitate each other with slavish devotion and our most strenuous efforts are put forth to try to say the same thing that everyone around us is saying - and yet to find an excuse for saying it, some little safe variation on the approved theme or, if no more, at least a new illustration. — A.W. Tozer

The good part about having a mental disorder is having a valid reason for all the stupid things we do because of a damaged prefrontal cortex. However, the best part is seeing someone completely sane do the exact same things, without a valid excuse. This is the great equalizer of God and his little gift for all us crazy people to enjoy. — Shannon L. Alder

I have often been asked to be fair and view a matter from all sides. I did so, hoping that something might improve if I viewed allsides of it. But the result was the same. So I went back to viewing things only from one side, which saves me a lot of work and disappointment. For it is comforting to regard something as bad and to be able to use one's prejudice as an excuse. — Karl Kraus

We try to do a little better than the previous generation and find out in the end we've made the same mistakes without intending. Instead of striving to love as God first loved us, we let past hurts and grievances rule. Ignorance is no excuse. — Francine Rivers

Be neat, Philothea; let nothing be negligent about you. It is a kind of contempt of those with whom we converse, to frequent their company in uncomely apparel; but, at the same time, avoid all affectation, vanity, curiosity, or levity in your dress. Keep yourself always, as much as possible, on the side of plainness and modesty, which, without doubt, is the greatest ornament of beauty, and the best excuse for the want of it. — Saint Francis De Sales

Yesterday the Supreme Court lifted the ban on same-sex marriage in Kansas. They didn't give a reason for the ruling, but then again when a state is famous for a Judy Garland musical about a rainbow and a wizard who comes out of a closet, do you really need an excuse? — Jimmy Fallon

A moose tried to eat us, Hearth signed. "Excuse me?" I asked. "A moose?" Hearth grunted in exasperation. He spelled out: D-E-E-R. Same sign for both animals. "Oh, that's much better," I said. "A deer tried to eat you. — Rick Riordan

Dad was thirsty, not given to great displays of affection, like his father and his father's father before him. A long line of self-indulgent men who couldn't give love but lived to take it, which isn't the same as receiving it. They were all in so much pain and that's always the perfect excuse. — Courtney Summers

I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the time. If there's anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same story: "You're undeserving; so you can't have it." Buy my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. — George Bernard Shaw

Science provides tangible evidence of its accuracy and importance. Religion makes excuses for its absence of the same. — PZ Myers

You know that murder is wicked. If you saw your master kill a man, do you suppose this would be any excuse for you, if you should commit the same crime? — Jupiter Hammon

Contrasting British servicemen and women with the appeasers, it is hard not to laugh. Are these two sides even the same species, let alone the same nationality? On one hand the selflessness and internationalism of the soldiers; on the other the Whites-First isolationism of the protesters. Excuse me, who are the idealists here? — Julie Burchill

Failure is an excuse for losers to hide from life and the same failure is an energy booster for winners to transform their lives — Keerthi Singhe

America undermines its own ideals when it ignores the very values it is promoting around the world. You cannot ask other people in the world to follow the law and act responsibly if we don't do the same ... and being afraid is not an excuse. — Aasif Mandvi

I don't mean to insinuate that you are unfeeling or stifled of life ... excuse me on
that one. I just meant to ask you how you breathe when you are down here reading or
writing."
He smiled. "I have five years more experience in breathing on this earth than you. I
know when it is I can breathe and when it is I can't and I know just what to do when
such a thing as suffocation occurs."
I can't believe it, there is actually a qualitative property to every breath
taken ... That must be wonderful. You must also know your cells are degenerating five
years faster than mine."
He smiled again, the same relaxed annoying way. "I get that you find it amusing to
liken me to my cadavers. It's not the first time you've done it, but truly we are not in
lieu to play smart."
I was wondering if you could call the cadaver of a smart man, a smart cadaver. I've
always wondered. — Dew Platt

The birth of a better world is not ultimately up to you, though I know, each day, there are grown men and women who tell you otherwise. The world needs saving precisely because of the actions of these same men and women. I am not a cynic. I love you, and I love the world, and I love it more with every new inch I discover. But you are a black boy, and you must be responsible for your body in a way that other boys cannot know. Indeed, you must be responsible for the worst actions of other black bodies, which, somehow, will always be assigned to you. And you must be responsible for the bodies of the powerful - the policeman who cracks you with a nightstick will quickly find his excuse in your furtive movements. And this is not reducible to just you - the women around you must be responsible for their bodies in a way that you never will know. You have to make your peace with the chaos, but you cannot lie. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Never tell the same lie twice. Lies have to be fresh, constantly changing. You cheat on your spouse, come up with a new excuse every time you're home late. Don't, and you get eaten. — Nicholas Lamar Soutter

We spend too much time telling girls that they cannot be angry or aggressive or tough, which is bad enough, but then we turn around and either praise or excuse men for the same reasons. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We owe something to the government to grow up in this great country. I'm tired of hearing people in the private sector talk like they don't owe the government anything. We do. This is a great country because we all pay into it. It's about time we all pay into it ... If we paid the same amount of taxes we paid when Bill Clinton was president, I would be a happy guy, and the budget would be closer to balanced. You cannot give away money, whether you give it to rich or poor people. That's what George Bush did
excuse me, trillions of dollars. You can't do that. — Howard Dean

God's Righteous Judgment 1You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. 2Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. 3So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? 4Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? — Various

As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs. I might possibly invent some excuse for them and him, but I have no time for it. As for the religion and love of art of the builders, it is much the same the world over, whether the building be an Egyptian temple or the United States Bank. It costs more than it comes to ... For my part, I should like to know who in those days did not build them
who were above such trifling. — Henry David Thoreau

I'm only saying I want you to be happy. I hate your being unhappy. I don't mind anything you do that makes you happy."
You just want an excuse. If I sleep with anybody else, you feel you can do the same - any time."
That's neither here nor there. I want you to be happy, that's all."
You'd make my bed for me?"
Perhaps. — Graham Greene

Whatever hurt you felt is not an excuse to inflict the same on others. — Joanne Crisner Alcayaga

The meaning of words had no longer the same relation to things ... Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage; prudent delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation was the disguise of unmanly weakness; to know everything was to do nothing. Frantic energy was the true quality of man. — Thucydides

It turns out that the more you repeat the same action, no matter how reprehensible, the more you can make an excuse for it in your own mind. — Jodi Picoult

Iorek Byrnison: Can is not the same as must.
Lyra Silvertongue: But if you must and you can, then there's no excuse. — Philip Pullman

Bono: But you write. Why do you write?
Michka: well, because I'm unable to express things in another way. I often believe that the words that come out of my mouth are not the ones I should be using. I can't cut things loose unless I'm really sure about them.
It's good, but sometimes it's an excuse.
Bono: That's often an excuse. You have to dare to fail. I think that's the big one: fear of failure. I've never had a fear of failure. Isn't that mad?
Michka: that's the maddest thing, but at the same time I think that's the secret. Because you've never been afraid of making a fool of yourself, you've never been afraid of looking ridiculous. — Michka Assayas