Say All The Right Things Quotes & Sayings

What is freedom? What is slavery? Does man's freedom consist in revolting against all laws? We say No, in so far as laws are natural, economic, and social laws, not authoritatively imposed but inherent in things, in relations, in situations, the natural development of which is expressed by those laws. We say Yes if they are political and juridical laws, imposed by men upon men: whether violently by the right of force; whether by deceit and hypocrisy - in the name of religion or any doctrine whatever; or finally, by dint of the fiction, the democratic falsehood called universal suffrage. — Mikhail Bakunin

The Lord says that "truth is knowledge of things as they are and as they were, and as they are to come" (Sec. 93.) Some of our brethren in writing, and a good many in talking, say truth is the knowledge, or a knowledge of things. . . . The insertion of a or the is a mistake. Truth is knowledge itself, information, intelligence, things that are, things that were, things that are to come--knowledge concerning them. That is truth. It is a splendid definition and answers the question of ages more clearly than anything I have ever heard attempted; even better than "truth the sum of existence," and yet the two in meaning are identical. Now, let us be correct in that little thing, and so in all things that pertain to our doctrines, our duties in the Priesthood, brethren, and in our quotations of scripture let us try to be right, as nearly correct as we can. — Charles W. Penrose

And I think for a moment, because people don't actually ask that very often. They tell me what they think I feel because they've read it in books, or they say incredible things like "autistic people have no sense of humour or imagination or empathy" when I'm standing right there beside them (and one day I'm going to point out that that is more than a little bit rude, not to mention Not Even True) or they -- even worse -- talk to me like I'm about five, and can't understand.
"It's like living with all your senses turned up to full volume all the time," I say. "And it's like living life in a different language, so you can't ever quite relax because even when you think you're fluent it's still using a different part of your brain so by the end of the day you're exhausted. — Rachael Lucas

My mom used to say, 'Life isn't fair,'" said Shadow.

"Of course she did," said Wednesday. "It's one of those things that moms say, right up there with 'If all your friends jumped off a cliff would you do it too?'"

"You stiffed that girl for ten bucks, I slipped her ten bucks," said Shadow, doggedly. "It was the right thing to do."

Someone announced that their plane was boarding. Wednesday stood up. "May your choices always be so clear," he said. — Neil Gaiman

Peter sighed into the water, and his breath sent a small circle of it into tiny ripples. "It seems cowardly, getting old. Don't you think?"
She rolled onto her side to look at him, pillowing her ear with her right arm, and letting her fingers dangle in the water beyond her head. "How is it cowardly?"
Peter kept his eyes on his reflection. "You just curl up around yourself, and sit by the fire, and try to be comfortable. When you get old, you just get smaller inside, and you try not to pay attention to anything but your blankets and your food and your bed."
"Being comfortable is not a bad thing."
Peter shrugged and turned his head to look at her as if it was a matter of fact. "Of course it is. Old people lock out all the scary, wild things. It's like they don't exist."
She wanted to say that she would have liked for those things not to exist, either, but she held her tongue, because she didn't want to sound like a coward. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

We all convince ourselves of things like this- not necessarily about Say Anything, but about any fictionalized portrayals of romance that happen to hit us in the right place, at the right time. — Chuck Klosterman

In My Shoes They do not understand my pain, They say I should be strong, They say that it's not right, To grieve for far too long, They say I need to get back up, They say in time I'll heal, But they are not the ones, Who feel the way I feel, Some days I want to lie in bed, And stay there all day long, What's the point of getting up? What's the point? You've gone? They say things will get better, That time will heal my blues, Maybe they would understand, If they walked in my shoes. — John Connor

I need everyone to love me. My feelings of inadequacy and lack of parental attachment have made me one of those sick bitches who can't tolerate being ignored. My parents say all the right things when they are pretending to listen to me. But the truth is, they are more like cats. They accidentally had a litter of kittens, and then emotionally moved on to whatever ball of yarn rolled past their line of sight. When self-obsessed people breed, they make empty people like me who spend the rest of their time on earth trying to gain the love and approval they didn't get as children. This doesn't excuse my behavior. It's just to say, if my parents had actually noticed me, I probably wouldn't care so much about whether everyone else on the planet adored me. Unfortunately, I'm a bottomless pit of need. — Jenny Mollen

When I was a kid, I used to wonder (I bet everyone did) whether there was somebody somewhere on the earth, or even in the universe, or ever had been in all of time, who had had exactly the same experience that I was having at that moment, and I hoped so badly that there was. But I realized then that could never occur, because every moment is all the things that are going to happen, and every moment is just the way all those things look at one point on their way along a line. And I thought how maybe once there was, say, a princess who lost her mother's ring in a forest, and how in some other galaxy a strange creature might fall, screaming, on the shore of a red lake, and how right at that second there could be a man standing at a window overlooking a busy street, aiming a loaded revolver, but how it was just me, there, after Chris, staring at that turtle in the fourth-grade room and wondering if it would die before I stopped being able to see it. — Deborah Eisenberg

It's when things are going just right that you'd better be suspicious. There you are, fat as can be. The whole world is yours and you're the answer to the Wright brothers' prayers. You say to yourself, nothing can go wrong ... all my trespasses are forgiven. Best you not believe it. — Ernest K. Gann

A self-made man, if he is made at all, has already won the battle of life ... he has learned to resist. He has learned the value of money, and how to refuse to spend it. He has learned the value of time, and how the conversion of it into useful things will make of his life something worthwhile. He has learned to say no, to say no at the right time and then to stand by it. Without resistance, and the self-denial which it often imposes, there is no real happiness. In the quest for happiness man must learn that temptation resisted strengthens the mind and the soul. — Alvin R. Dyer

Fiction is dangerous because it lets you into other people's heads. It shows you that the world doesn't have to be like the one you live in." At the first nationally recognized science fiction convention in China in 2007, Gaiman took a party official aside and said, "While not actually illegal, science fiction is regarded as dangerous and subversive in China. Why did you say yes to a science-fiction convention?"
The party official answered, "In China, we're really good at making things people bring to us, but we don't invent, we don't innovate." When Chinese party officials visited Google, Apple and Microsoft, they asked what the executives read as children. The official continued: "They all said, 'We read science fiction. The world doesn't have to be the way it is right now. We can change it.' " "That," said Gaiman, "is the big dangerous thing. — Neil Gaiman

... he would apologize. He would say all the right things. But he just didn't get it. The next time, nothing would have changed. — Delphine Dryden

Usually, I say, your mind gets stuck when you're trying to do too many things at once. What you have to do is try not to force words to come. That just gets you more stuck. What you have to do now is separate out the things and do them one at a time. You're trying to think of what to say and what to say first at the same time and that's too hard. So separate them out. Just make a list of all the things you want to say in any old order. Then later we'll figure out the right order. "Like — Robert M. Pirsig

Rules only have meaning as long as you're abiding by them. As soon as you start ignoring them, it turns out that you don't owe anyone anything, you're not obligated to make up all kinds of silly stories about things you actually know nothing about. Then it turns out that you can get by just fine without all those made-up stories, and there aren't any rules - what they're showing you doesn't exist anymore, so there's nothing to say. It's all a sham, they're just trying to use you... and it's all perfectly legal, of course. It's like school all over again. The thing is that we all grew up a long time ago, but we're still being treated like kids, like unintelligent, deceitful, irrational bastards who need to be coerced and corrected and have the right answers beaten out of them. — Serhiy Zhadan

When you get down to it, though, explaining what you believe isn't all that easy. If you say that you believe something to be true, you might mean one of two things - that you're still weighing the alternatives, or that you accept it as a fact. I don't logically see how one single word can have contradictory definitions, but emotionally, I completely understand. Because there are times I think what I am doing is right, and there are other times I second-guess myself every step of the way. — Jodi Picoult

Can I have a motorcycle when I get old enough?"
"If you take care of it."
"What do you have to do?"
"Lot's of things. You've been watching me."
"Will you show me all of them?"
"Sure."
"Is it hard?"
"Not if you have the right attitudes. It's having the right attitudes that's hard."
"Oh."
After a while I see he is sitting down again. Then he says, "Dad?"
"What?"
"Will I have the right attitudes?"
"I think so," I say. "I don't think that will be any problem at all. — Robert M. Pirsig

I never wanted to make a graphic novel. As soon as you become a 'writer,' you have to be intelligent all the time ... I like the fact that I have the right once in a while to say silly things. — Marjane Satrapi

Look around. The hantavirus is waiting for you. Ebola and the tropical rainforest is cooking up all kinds of brews to make sure that the population is kept in control. All these things are necessary. Why is there an increase in sexual deviance right now? Because it goes against procreative sex. Mother Nature does not want more children. This is not a time of birth. It is not a time to give birth, it's a time to die. The Bible says all things under heaven and that includes death as well as life. You out there, you comfortable ones, you point the finger. You say the junkie is the problem, you say the sexual deviant, serial killer, racist, and the man who hates his fellow man is the problem. But they ain't the problem. You're the problem. The sexual deviant, the murderer, the serial killer, the taker of human life is the cure, you're the problem. — Joe Coleman

TODD: Well, listen, Neil. I-I appreciate this concern, but I-I'm not like you.All right? You, you, you say things and people listen. I'm, I'm not like that.
NEIL: Don't you think you could be?
TODD: No! I--I, I don't know, but that's not the point. The, the, the point is that there's nothing you can do about it, so you can just butt out. I can take care of myself just fine. All right?
NEIL: No.
TODD: What do you mean, "no"?
NEIL: No. — Tom Schulman

We can't be perfect all the time and that's okay. In the heat of the battle, in the heat of the moment, you might say things or do things that aren't right, but at the same time, Christ forgives us. Christ will always forgive you. — Mark Teixeira

Lord Peter Wimsey: Facts, Bunter, must have facts. When I was a small boy, I always hated facts. Thought they were nasty, hard things, all nobs.
Mervyn Bunter: Yes, my lord. My old mother always used to say ...
Lord Peter Wimsey: Your mother, Bunter? Oh, I never knew you had one. I always thought you just sort of came along already-made, so it were. Oh, excuse me. How infernally rude of me. Beg pardon, I'm sure.
Mervyn Bunter: That's all right, my lord.
Lord Peter Wimsey: Thank you.
Mervyn Bunter: Yes indeed, I was one of seven.
Lord Peter Wimsey: That is pure invention, Bunter, I know better. You are unique. But you were going to tell me about your mater.
Mervyn Bunter: Oh yes, my lord. My old mother always used to say that facts are like cows. If you stare them in the face hard enough, and they generally run away.
Lord Peter Wimsey: By Jove, that's courageous, Bunter. What a splendid person she must be.
Mervyn Bunter: I think so, my lord. — Dorothy L. Sayers

I feel the curve of his smile against my skin. But as he lifts his head and looks into my eyes, his grin fades. "Haven ... I don't know if I'm going to be a good father. What if I don't do it right?"
I am touched by Hardy's concern, his constant desire to be the man he thinks I deserve. Even when we disagree, I have no doubt that I am cherished. And respected. And I know that neither of us takes the other one for granted.
I have come to realize you can never be truly happy unless you've known some sorrow. All the terrible things Hardy and I have gone through in our lives have created the spaces inside where happiness can live. Not to mention love. So much love that there doesn't seem to be room for bitterness in either of us.
"I think the fact that you're worrying about it at all," I say, "means you'll probably be great at it. — Lisa Kleypas

You can't deny that religion has done some good. It organizes lots of anti-poverty programs and soup kitchens and missionary work. But I would say that, first of all, all those things can be accomplished without religion. You can be ethical, somebody who does the right thing without feeling that he has to in order to get his ass saved in the next life. — Bill Maher

The filling of the Holy Spirit brings a sharp separation between the believer and the world.
Actually, after Pentecost, they were looking at another world. They really saw another world.
Nowadays, we perceive that even a large part of evangelical Christianity is trying to convert this world to the church. We are bringing the world in head over heels
unregenerated, uncleansed, unshriven, unbaptized, unsanctified. we are bringing the world right into the church. If we can get some big shot to say something nice about the church, we rush into print and tell about this fellow and what nice things he said. I don't care at all about big shots because I serve a living Saviour, and Jesus Christ is Lord of lords and King of kings. I believe every man ought to know this ability to see another world. — A.W. Tozer

Your leader is only one man," I heard my voice say. "His strength is no more supernatural than your own, nor is his virtue, and by himself he could never preserve the good things that belong by right to everyone. To govern well, he must have your help - the help of his true, trustworthy friends. You must forever be worthy of his trust, and you must raise up true friends of your own, to help you carry your own burdens. And it is love that must bind all of us together. — Xenophon

Few of us will do the spectacular deeds of heroism that spread themselves across the pages of our newspapers in big black headlines. But we can all be heroic in the little things of everyday life. We can do the helpful things, say the kind words, meet our difficulties with courage and high hearts, stand up for the right when the cost is high, keep our word even though it means sacrifice, be a giver instead of a destroyer. Often this quiet, humble heroism is the greatest heroism of all. — Wilferd Peterson

They say being in love and loving someone are two different things, right? I mean, you love your best friend, but you love your husband, right? Falling in love with someone is easy. It's loving when the newness has worn off, when life gets tough, when things get in the way, when physical passion is gone, that true love remains. When love can conquer it all. — Mia Asher

Before I knowed it, I was saying out loud, 'The hell with it! There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain't nice, but that's as far as any man got a right to say. — John Steinbeck

You want me. And I'm here, now, saying I want you too, saying I love you, and I don't know where the hell it'll end up, but I'm brave enough to say that right now you're my everything. You've opened my eyes, and my body, and my heart so much more than I knew existed, and you make me feel beautiful, and protected, and adored, and I don't think you could do all of those things if you didn't love me back. — Kitty French

Don't talk to yourself in such a way that if you did so to a friend, it would end your friendship. If you had a friend dealing with the same things, you wouldn't berate that person, say, 'You're not working hard enough,' 'You suck,' or 'You're not as good as [whomever].' You'd offer your friend encouragement, you'd try to point out all the things your friend did right, and how much progress your friend had made.
You should do no less for yourself.

Be very careful how you talk to yourself. Because you are listening. — Pat Cadigan

But remember in tenth grade, when I wanted to go out with that junior and you said, 'Eh. I don't think she's the right girl for you'?"

"She wasn't."

"Because she was setting things on fire!" Ric announced loudly, making Gwen burst out laughing and Lock roll his eyes. "I'm serious, Gwen." Ric went on. "And when I say setting things on fire, I mean entire buildings. Mostly schools. She'd been setting them on fire or trying to, for weeks. I didn't find out until the cops came and arrested her during gym class. But does he say to me, 'She's setting things on fire! She's crazy! Stay away from her!' No. He says, 'Eh. I don't think she's the right girl for you.' And he's all calm about it over our chocolate pudding in the cafeteria."

"I don't see the point of getting hysterical. — Shelly Laurenston

I think a lot of the writing, you know, I write is just kind of like that where, you know. I write exactly how I'm feeling sometimes, and hardships that I'm going through. But I always end up, like the choruses are like, "God, You are good. God, you're faithful. You know, I know You understand, You're right here by my side." All these different things. And I just say very personal experiences that I've been through. I mean, it's not always detrimental thing. — Jeremy Camp

You need a job and I need a PA, why don't you come and work for me?"
"No thanks, God knows what being your PA would involve."
He laughs. "Well it would involve the usual, faxing, filing, answering the phones, taking
bookings, relieving my sexual needs, etcetera."
"Yeah I thought as much." I tell him, my tone doing all the rejecting for me.
"Seriously though, the offer stands. Think it over." He tells me in a soft voice.
"I don't have PA experience."
"I'll teach you," he says, in a tone that insinuates other things.
"Sure."
He lowers his voice. "I think I'd enjoy teaching you things."
"Can't say I w-would enjoy it." Yeah, right.
"You stuttered," he says — L. H. Cosway

I had many things to say, I did not have the words to say them. Painfully aware of my limitations, I watched helplessly and language became an obstacle. It became clear that it would be necessary to invent a new language ... I would pause at every sentence, and start over and over again. I would conjure up other verbs, other images, other silent cries. It still was not right. But what exactly was "it"? "It" was something elusive, darkly shrouded for fear of being usurped, profaned. All the dictionary had to offer seemed meager, pale, lifeless. — Elie Wiesel

The thing is, all memory is fiction. You have to remember that. Of course, there are things that actually, certifiably happened, things you can pinpoint the day, the hour, the minute. When you think about it, though, those things, mostly seem to happen to other people.
This story actually happened, and it happened pretty much the way I am going to tell it to you. It's a true story as much as six decades or telling and remembering can allow it to be true. Time changes things, and you don't always get everything right. You remember a little thing clear as a bell, the weather, say, or the splash of light on the river's ripples as the sun was going down into the black pines. things not even connected to anything in particular, while other things, big things even, come completely disconnected and no longer have any shape or sound. The little things seem more real than the big things. — Robert Goolrick

Well, there it is. It's about what we went for. We found, as we had suspected, that the Russian people are people, and, as with other people, that they are very nice. The ones we met had a hatred of war, they wanted the same things all people want - good lives, increased comfort, security, and peace. We know that this journal will not be satisfactory either to the ecclesiastical Left, nor the lumpen Right. The first will say it is anti-Russian, and the second that it is pro-Russian. Surely it is superficial, and how could it be otherwise? We have no conclusions to draw, except that Russian people are like all other people in the world. Some bad ones there are surely, but by far the greater number are very good. — John Steinbeck

Not to be rude, but it was all pointless," I noted from across the room. Four eyes narrowed at me. "What? I said 'not to be rude'. That's like saying 'God bless them' right after you say bad things about someone. It means it doesn't count! — Molly Harper

Assuming a sentence rises into the air with the initial capital letter and lands with a soft-ish bump at the full stop, the humble comma can keep the sentence aloft all right, UP like this, UP, sort-of bouncing, and then falling down, and then UP it goes again, assuming you have enough additional things to say, although in the end you may run out of ideas and then you have to roll along the ground with no commas at all until some sort of surface resistance takes over and you run out of steam anyway and then eventually with the help of three dots ... you stop. But the thermals that benignly waft our sentences to new altitudes - that allow us to coast on air, and loop-the-loop, suspending the laws of gravity - well, they are the colons and semicolons. — Lynne Truss

I love where he and I stand right now. It's like we're on the brink, and everything's full of excitement and potential precisely because the heavy making out is still something to look forward to. I realize we can't remain PG-rated forever. I'm all too aware, though, how easy it is to let hooking up become the crux of a relationship. Then you forget how to just be together and why you should stay together. So for the meantime I'd like to take things slowly in order to prevent hooking up from ever getting too
important.
Amy would say I'm overreacting, but I'm just trying to learn from past mistakes. — Daria Snadowsky

Adam didn't look at him when he said, finally, It doesn't matter how you say it. It's what you wanted, in the end. All your things in one place, all under your roof. Everything you own right where you can see ... — Maggie Stiefvater

You're a hopeless romantic," said Faber. "It would be funny if it were not serious. It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the 'parlor families' today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios, and televisors, but are not. No,no it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type or receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. Of course you couldn't know this, of course you still can't understand what I mean when i say all this. You are intuitively right, that's what counts. — Ray Bradbury

Let's say you and a small child go to a magic show, where things are made to float in the air. Which of you would have the most fun?"
"I probably would."
"And why would that be?"
"Because I would know how impossible it all is."
"So ... for the child it's no fun to see the laws of nature being defied before it has learned what they are."
"I guess that's right."
"And we are still at the crux of Hume's philosophy of experience. He would have added that the child has not yet become a slave of the expectations of habit; he is thus the more open-minded of you two. I wonder if the child is not also the greater philosopher? He comes utterly without preconceived opinions. And that, my dear Sophie, is the philosopher's most distinguishing virtue. The child perceives the world as it is, without putting more into things than he experiences — Jostein Gaarder

That's where it all begins. That's where we all get screwed big time as we grow up. They tell us to think, but they don't really mean it. They only want us to think within the boundaries they define. The moment you start thinking for yourself - really thinking - so many things stop making any sense. And if you keep thinking, the whole world just falls apart. Nothing makes sense anymore. All rules, traditions, expectations - they all start looking so fake, so made up. You want just get rid of all this stuff and make things right. But the moment you say it, they tell you to shut up and be respectful. And eventually you understand that nobody wants you to really think for yourself.
Ray N. Kuili - Awakening — Ray N. Kuili

It's all right," I said, spying what was inside his bag. "Went grocery shopping?"

"I picked up a few things," he said amicably, but then a silence stretched out between us. I got my key out, wanting to say so much more but not knowing where to start. "I see you did too."

Oh my God. I covered up the side of my bag, even though I knew he'd already seen the big yellow rooster with Cocks-A-Lot emblazoned on the side. I really had to have a word with Terry about his packaging. — Lori Toland

It [speaking with words that bring about harmony] consists of speaking of what is good about people, instead of what is wrong with them. For some people this is an almost impossible exercise, for they have become totally habituated to speaking critically. We all seem to have a special talent for finding critical things to say about the world, about others, and about ourselves! (117) — Jean-Yves Leloup

Who gave you the right to say all this?"
"You did."
"Well, go on."
"Do you wish the rest?"
"Go on."
"I think it hurts you to know that you've made me suffer. You wish you hadn't. And yet there's something that frightens you more. The knowledge that I haven't suffered at all."
"Go on."
"The knowledge that I'm neither kind nor generous now, but simply indifferent. It frightens you, because you know that things like the Stoddard Temple always require payment
and you see that I'm not paying for it. You were astonished that I accepted this commission. Do you think my acceptance required courage? You needed far greater courage to hire me. You see, this is what I think of the Stoddard Temple. I'm through with it. You're not. — Ayn Rand

I might have been a fuckup and a failure and a disappointment, but I wasn't a liar.
I did lie to Belly, though. Just that one time in that crappy motel. I did it to protect her. That's what I kept telling myself. Still, if there was one moment in my life I could redo, one moment out of all the shitty moments, that was the one I'd pick. When I thought back to the look on her face - the way it just crumpled, how she'd sucked in her lips and wrinkled her nose to keep the hurt from showing - it killed me. God, if I could, I'd go back to that moment and say all the right things, I'd tell her I loved her, I'd make it so that she never look that way again. — Jenny Han

I think LPGA players for a long time were afraid to say what's on their minds. But we're doing all the right things and there's nothing wrong with having some great personalities and rivalries and some friction. I think that's really good for the sport. — Cristie Kerr

This ain't right, you know. She's the one who ought to rule, fair enough. And you used magic to help her this far, and that's all right. But it stops right here. It's up to her what happens next. You can't make things right by magic. You can only stop making them wrong."
Mrs. Gogol pulled herself up to her full, impressive height. "Who's you to say what I can and can't do here?"
"We're her godmothers," said Granny.
"That's right," said Nanny Ogg.
"We've got a wand, too," said Magrat.
"But you hate godmothers, Mistress Weatherwax," said Mrs. Gogol.
"We're the other kind," said Granny. "We're the kind that gives people what they know they really need, not what we think they ought to want. — Terry Pratchett

While they were thus embarrassed, a large chest was brought and deposited in the presbytery for the Bishop, by two unknown horsemen, who departed on the instant. The chest was opened; it contained a cope of cloth of gold, a mitre ornamented with diamonds, an archbishop's cross, a magnificent crosier, - all the pontifical vestments which had been stolen a month previously from the treasury of Notre Dame d'Embrun. In the chest was a paper, on which these words were written, "From Cravatte to Monseigneur Bienvenu."
"Did not I say that things would come right of themselves?" said the Bishop. Then he added, with a smile, "To him who contents himself with the surplice of a curate, God sends the cope of an archbishop."
"Monseigneur," murmured the cure, throwing back his head with a smile. "God - -or the Devil."
The Bishop looked steadily at the cure, and repeated with authority, "God! — Victor Hugo

Bethany." His quiet voice intruded.
Her heart turned over heavily. "This is real right?"
His face contorted as if he were in pain. "Yes, it's real."
Crazy people probably did things like this all the time. Asked their imaginary alien friends if they were real, and of course, they'd say yes. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I know you want her back, kid. And I know that people saying things like 'there are plenty more fish in the sea' is only going to make you hurt more. And I could tell you all about the science of what your brain is going through right now. How it's processing a pain as intense as hitting a nerve in your tooth, but it can't find a source for that pain, so you kind of feel it everywhere. I could tell you that when you fall for someone, the bits of your brain that light up are the same as when you're hungry or thirsty. And I could tell you that when the person you love leaves you, you starve for them, you crave them, Heartbreak is a science, like love. So trust me when I say this: you're wounded right now, but you'll heal. — Krystal Sutherland

He kept trying to come up with words to say, but his brain and mouth were having a disconnect. So he crashed his mouth down over hers. She made a little gasp noise, and he took advantage, deepening the kiss, taking her stolen breath in and letting himself get lost in the feel of her soft lips, the familiar taste of her tongue.
He was half tempted to take her right here in the back of the truck, despite all the people nearby
the horse trailer mostly hid them, after all.
There was a small whispering in the back of his mind that they were gonna make a mess of things, but with her draping her legs across his lap and her nails running over his back, he couldn't help thinking that
Well, actually it was more like he couldn't actually think at all. — Cindi Madsen

I checked my words carefully. Words more powerful than atom bombs and more cutting than AK-47s. People are fragile and words, not bullets will break them, and once they break every part of them spills out. Their soul, spirit, identity, ugliness, and their beauty. It's all there, right in front of you if you know where to look. Most people see the ugly and I didn't want to become that. I thought I looked for beauty but then wondered why I often say such ugly things. — Bruce Crown

But there were other great writers who had done all these things. What set Shakespeare apart ... even from other greats, was his generosity: his invitation, even insistence,for others to join him in the act of imagining ... His reticence [to add stage directions] made his works wonderfully elastic. It also made them demnding
sometimes maddeningly so
for directors and actors who had to figure out at every turn why these words and no others needed to be said right here and now. But Shakespeare was also demanding of his audiences: 'Yes,' you could almost hear him say, 'you are sitting in a fairly barren wooden theater. But dream yourselves to France. To a seacoast in Bohemia. To a magic-haunted island in a tempest-tossed sea. I dare you.' -Kate Stanley — Jennifer Lee Carrell

Why are you speaking like this? Are you the one who is to come? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? What sign can you show us? Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners? Where did this man get all this wisdom? How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Who are you? Why do you not follow the traditions? Do the authorities think he's the Messiah? Can the Messiah come from Galilee? Why are you behaving unlawfully? Who then is this? Aren't we right to say that you're a Samaritan and have a demon? What do you say about him? By what right are you doing these things? Who is this Son of Man? Should we pay tribute to Caesar? And climactically: Are you the king of the Jews? What is truth? Where are you from? Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One? Then finally, too late for answers, but not too late for irony: Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself and us! If you're the Messiah, why don't you come down from that cross? — N. T. Wright

And don't mention it to anyone else unless you find that they've had adventures of the same sort themselves. What's that? How will you know? Oh, you'll know all right. Odd things they say
even their looks
will let the secret out. — C.S. Lewis

Women's magazines will often ask me things like, 'All right, I need six five-minute happiness strategies.' And I say, well, there aren't any five-minute happiness strategies. This is something you have to do kind of every day for the rest of your life. Just like if you want to raise moral children or if you want to advance in your career. It's a goal you pursue your whole life. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

He loved me, Mama. He just didn't know how things fall down around me like they do. I think he did the right thing. He gave himself another chance, that's all.....I was trying to say it's all right that Cecil left. It was...a relief in a way. I never was what he wanted to see, so it was better when he wasn't looking at me all the time. — Marsha Norman

The thing about me-the reason Erin can shoot me the wink-and-double-thumbs-up combo-is that I'm your typical good girl. I dress nicely, but I wouldn't say I'm at the bleeding edge of fashion. I always have my homework done on time. I say please and thank you and adults like me. Because of all these things, everyone always assumes that I'll do the right thing. No one ever thinks I would lie. But I do.... — Goldy Moldavsky

There's a lot of pressure on women to fulfill certain fantasies. They expect you to be a little bit of a tart, to flirt with all the men. A lot of women do it. But I'm not doing that. I talk with these guys about their wives and kids right away. When they say inappropriate things, I let them, because boys will be boys, but I'm not looking to participate in their conversations. — Jessica Alba

I put my alligator tooth down the rubbish pipe. I heard it fall down to the bottom and disappear. It was an offering for the volcano god. It was a present for God himself. If I gave him my best good luck then he'd save us from all the bad things, the sickness and chooking and dead babies, he'd bring us all back together again. He'd have to or it wouldn't be fair. It was a good swap, nobody could say it wasn't. I knew it would work. Thank you pigeon for showing me the right star. — Stephen Kelman

My great frustration is that, more and more, my memories come and go, and friends all my life are not recognized. Many of the things I say and do, I can no longer remember even right afterwards. — Alex Spanos

But, y'know, today I got a lot of help myself. There're tons of things we can't do ourselves, right? And that's why we're helped out. If someone, or something, can lend you a helping hand, great, I say! After all, we're all in this together! — Sakura Tsukuba

Ask me, then, if I believe in the spirit of the things as they were used, and I'll say yes. They're all here. All the things which had uses. All the mountains which had names. And we'll never be able to use them without feeling uncomfortable. And somehow the mountains will never sound right to us; we'll give them new names, but the old names are there, somewhere in time, and the mountains were shaped and seen under those names. The names we'll give to the canals and mountains and cities will fall like so much water on the back of a mallard. No matter how we touch Mars, we'll never touch it. And then we'll get mad at it, and you know what we'll do? We'll rip it up, rip the skin off, and change it to fit ourselves. — Ray Bradbury

The One

I don't want you to love me because I'm good for you, because I say and do all the right things. Because I am everything you have been looking for.

I want to be the one that you didn't see coming. The one who gets under your skin. Who makes you unsteady. Who makes you question everything you have ever believed about love. Who makes you feel reckless and out of control. The one you are infuriatingly and inexplicably drawn to.

I don't want to be the one who tucks you into bed - I want to be the reason why you can't sleep at night. — Lang Leav

In the end there is nothing to be done but to state clearly what has been done, without shame or regret, and say: Here I am, and this is what I am. Now deal with me as you see fit. That is your right. Mine is to stand by the act, and pay the price.
You do what you must do, and pay for it. So in the end all things are simple. — Ellis Peters

When I am dead
I say it that way because from the things I know, I do not expect to live long enough to read this book in its finished form
I want you to just watch and see if I'm not right in what I say: that the white man, in his press, is going to identify me with "hate". He will make use of me dead, as he has made use of me alive, as a convenient symbol, of "hatred"
and that will help him escape facing the truth that all I have been doing is holding up a mirror to reflect, to show, the history of unspeakable crimes that his race has committed against my race. — Malcolm X

Our language, tiger, our language: hundreds of thousands of available words, frillions of legitimate new ideas ... And yet, oh, and yet, we, all of us, spend all our days saying to each other the same things time after weary time: "I love you," "Don't go in there," "Get out," "You have no right to say that," "Stop it," "Why should I," "That hurt," "Help," "Marjorie is dead. — Stephen Fry

AGE DIFFERENCE
What if I told you that one day you will meet a girl who is unlike anyone else you've known. She will know all the right things to say, what makes you laugh, what turns you on, what drives you wild and best of all, you will do for her exactly what she does for you.
"When will I meet her?"
Well let's put it this way, she doesn't even exist yet. — Lang Leav

I know that of all the great shifts that have occurred in America
the freedom of slaves, the rights of women, the equality of gays and lesbians
none has happened easily, and certainly none has happened instantly and without serious attacks and backlash. But the reason we have these things is because the fair-minded people who came before us would not give up. In my life, I have seen elections stolen
either outright or through the electoral college. I have seen wars fought because there was no other way to get peace. I have seen the rich get richer and I have seen the poor get poorer. I have seen facts get harder and harder to hide
and easier and easier to manipulate. I have been angry and I have been frustrated and I have been ecstatic and I have been proven right and wrong and back again. I have given up on some things, but I have refused to give up on most things. And I can honestly say that all of it
all of it
seems to have led me to where we are, here and now. — David Levithan

What seems wrong to you is right for him
What is poison to one is honey to someone else.
Purity and impurity, sloth and diligence in worship,
These mean nothing to Me.
I am apart from all that.
Ways of worshipping are not to be ranked as better
or worse than one another.
Hindus do Hindu things.
The Dravidian Muslims in India do what they do.
It's all praise, and it's all right.
It's not I that's glorified in acts of worship.
It's the worshippers! I don't hear
the words they say. I look inside at the humility.
That broken-open lowliness is the Reality,
not the language! Forget phraseology.
I want burning, burning.
Be Friends
with your burning. Burn up your thinking
and your forms of expression! — Karen Armstrong

And here's the shock
when you risk it, when you do the right thing, when you arrive at the borders of common sense and cross into unknown territory, leaving behind you all the familiar smells and lights, you do not experience great joy and huge energy.
You are unhappy. Things get worse.
It is a time of mourning. Loss. Fear. We bullet ourselves through with questions. And then we feel shot and wounded.
And then all the cowards come out and say, 'See, I told you so.'
In fact, they told you nothing. — Jeanette Winterson

Please, help me. Young werewolves in love. I turned to walk into the house, moving carefully.
I had never much believed in God. Well, that's not quite true. I believed that there was a God, or something close enough to it to warrant the name if there were demons, there had to be angels, right? If there was a Devil, somewhere, there had to be a God. But He & I had never really seen things in quite the same terms.
All the same. I flashed a look up at the ceiling. I didn't say or think any words, but if God was listening, I hoped he got the message nonetheless. I didn't want of these children getting themselves killed. — Jim Butcher

In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.
A water-baby? You never heard of a water-baby. Perhaps not. That is the very reason why this story was written.
( ... )
"But there are no such things as water-babies."
How do you know that? Have you been there to see? And if you had been there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that there were none. If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley Wood - as folks sometimes fear he never will - that does not prove that there are no such things as foxes. And as is Eversley Wood to all the woods in England, so are the waters we know to all the waters in the world. And no one has a right to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do. — Charles Kingsley

I don't know what position you're talking about, sir. The Gnomon Society has never questioned the rotundity of the earth. Mr. Jimmerson is himself a skilled topographer."
"Excuse me, Mr. Popper, but I have it right here in Mr. Jimmerson's own words on page twenty-nine of 101 Gnomon Facts."
"No, sir. Excuse me but you don't. Please look again. Read that passage carefully and you'll see what we actually say is that the earth looks flat. We still say that. It's so flat around Brownsville as to be striking to the eye."
"But isn't that just a weasel way of saying that you really believe if to be flat?"
"Not at all. What we're saying is that the curvature of the earth is so gentle, relative to our human scale of things, that we need not bother or take it into account when going for a stroll, say, or laying out our gardens. — Charles Portis

Murtagh was right about women. Sassenach, I risked my life for ye, committing theft, arson, assault, and murder into the bargain. In return for which ye call me names, insult my manhood, kick me in the ballocks and claw my face. Then I beat you half to death and tell ye all the most humiliating things have ever happened to me, and ye say ye love me." He laid his head on his knees and laughed some more. Finally he rose and held out a hand to me, wiping his eyes with the other.
"You're no verra sensible, Sassenach, but I like ye fine. Let's go. — Diana Gabaldon

I wish I could say when Michael's dark eyes met mind, I was completely cool and collected about seeing him again after all this time, and that I laughed airily and said all the right things. I wish I could say after having pretty much single-handedly brought democracy to a country I happen to be a princess of, and written a four-hundred-page romance novel, and gotten into every college to which I applied (even if it's just because I'm a princess), that I handled meeting Michael for the first time again after throwing my snowflake necklace in his face almost two years ago with total grace and aplomb.
But I totally didn't. — Meg Cabot

Puck laughed, shaking his head at the prince's expression. "Looks like you just got scolded by a gremlin, Your Magesty," he chuckled and crossed his arms. "Ah, can't say I'm not gonna miss you two. We had some fun times, right, princeling? Sadest past is, I won't ever hear ice-boy complain that I'm corrupting you again. But, I guess all good things mus come to an end." He sighe'd, gave Kierran a friendly arm punch and raised his hand. "See ya'round kid. Try not to let those Slim Shadys suck out all your fun. Ethan Chase?" Puck winked at me. "I'm sure I'll see you again, whether you like it or not."
"Yeah," I deadpanned. "So looking forward to it." Puck laughed again. "Don't you forget it. Until the next adventure kiddos." Sticking his hands into his pockets, the Great Prankster sauntered off, whistling until he reached the edge of the trees and vanished into the shadows. — Julie Kagawa

The furniture would have missed you?
Furniture's knowing all right. Not much gets past the things in a room, I daresay, and chairs and tables don't go to the grave so soon. Every time I take the soft cloth to that stuff in the drawingroom, I could say, 'Well, you know a bit more'. — Elizabeth Bowen

All right, Pendel had lied to him, if lying was the word. He had told Osnard what he wanted to hear and gone to extraordinary lengths to obtain it for him, including making it up. Some people lied because lying gave them a kick, made them feel braver or cleverer than all the lowly conformists who went on their bellies and told the truth. Not Pendel. Pendel lied to conform. To say the right things at all times, even if the right things were in one place, and the truth was in another. — John Le Carre

Everyone wants to be loved for who they are, even if we keep our true selves locked up and hidden. It's a nice little fantasy to believe that the right person holds the key and all the things you do not say are just somehow, magically, known. — Kate Moretti

Leonardo had felt so too. "I got her bloody smile right in the roughs," he told Crowley, sipping cold wine in the lunchtime sun, "but it went all over the place when I painted it. Her husband had a few things to say about it when I delivered it, but, like I tell him, Signor del Giocondo, apart from you, who's going to see it? — Terry Pratchett

All the tut-tutters out there will say: She should have just left, bundled up what remained of her dignity. Take the high road! Two wrongs don't make a right! All those things that spineless women say, confusing their weakness with morality. — Gillian Flynn

Oh! Almighty and Everlasting God, Creator of Heaven, Earth and the Universe: Help me to be, to think, to act what is right, because it is right; make me truthful, honest and honorable in all things; make me intellectually honest for the sake of right and honor and without thought of reward to me. Give me the ability to be charitable, forgiving and patient with my fellowmen - help me to understand their motives and their shortcomings - even as Thou understandest mine! Amen, Amen, Amen. Say — David McCullough

Some readers may realize that this story, first published in 1956, has been overtaken by events. In 1965, astronomers discovered that Mercury does not keep one side always to the Sun, but has a period of rotation of about fifty-four days, so that all parts of it are exposed to the sunlight at one time or another.
Well, what can I do except say that I wish astronomers would get things right to begin with?
And I certainly refuse to change the story to suit their whims. — Isaac Asimov

If I had the opportunity to say a fine word to all the young people of America, it would be this: Don't think too much about yourselves. Try to cultivate the habit of thinking of others; this will reward you. Nourish your minds by good reading, constant reading. Discover what your lifework is, work in which you can do most good, in which you can be happiest. Be unafraid in all things when you know you are in the right. — Charles William Eliot

Gansey thought of one hundred things that he could say to Adam about how it would be all right, how it was for the best, how Adam Parrish had been his own man before he'd met Gansey and there was no way he'd stop being his own man just by changing the roof over his head, how some days Gansey wished that he could be him, because Adam was so very real and true in a way that Gansey couldn't ever seem to be. But Gansey's words had somehow become unwitting weapons, and he didn't trust himself to not accidentally discharge them again. — Maggie Stiefvater

It's all right, I want to say to the students who write to me, for things to be what they appear to be, and for words to mean what they say. It's all right, too, for words and appearances to mean more than one thing
ambiguity is a fact of life. — Eudora Welty

I'll never think you're anything other than beautiful."
"You know how to say all the right things," I tell him.
"Because I'm with the right girl," he says against my skin. — Karina Halle

If I should say that he is a victim of injustice, then I would be asking by implication for sympathy; and if one insists upon looking at this boy as a victim of injustice, he will be swamped by a feeling of guilt so strong as to be indistinguishable from hate. Of all things, men do not like to feel that they are guilty of wrong, and if you make them feel guilt, they will try desperately to justify it on any grounds; but, failing that, and seeing no immediate solution that will set things right without too much cost to their lives and property, they will kill that which evoked in them, the condemning sense of guilt. And this is true of all men- whether they be white or black -it is a peculiar and powerful, but common need. — Richard Wright

The subliminal mind has many dark, unhappy corners, after all. Imagine something loosening itself from one of those corners. Let's call it a---a germ. And let's say conditions prove right for that germ to develop---to grow, like a child in the womb. What would this little stranger grow into? A sort of shadow-self, perhaps: a Caliban, a Mr Hyde. A creature motivated by all the nasty impulses and hungers the conscious mind had hoped to keep hidden away: things like envy and malice and frustration... — Sarah Waters

"I like you," I whisper and immediately stare at my shoes. Of all the things I could have said, that shouldn't have been it. I. Am. An. Idiot.
A gentle tug on my hair sends goose bumps raining down my arms. I close my eyes and relish the sweet brush of his knuckles against my neck as he flips my hair over my shoulder. "Rachel?"
"Yes?" I say so softly he may not have heard me.
His hand caresses the sensitive spot right below my chin, and with a gentle pressure, Isaiah raises my head until I look into those warm silver eyes. "I like you, too."
The right side of my mouth quirks and a spring of hope bubbles up inside me. He likes me. A really hot, really awesome guy likes me. — Katie McGarry

Take the time to make some sense for what you wanna say,
And cast your words away upon the waves.
Sail them home with acquiesce on a ship of hope today,
And as they land upon the shore,
Tell them not to fear no more.
I'm not saying right is wrong,
It's up to us to make the best of all the things that come our way.
Cos' everything that's been has past,
The answers in the looking glass.
There's four and twenty million doors
On life's endless corridor,
So say it loud and sing it proud today. — Noel Gallagher

-and this could be the fire
and the wine, an idea she would like to discuss with him, or simply the pleasurable
longing involved in wanting to know when he would come back - Maria would stop what she was doing, smile up at the sky and give thanks for being alive and to be expecting nothing from the man she loved.
On the other hand, if her heart began to complain about his absence or about things she shouldn't have said while they were together, she would say to herself:
'Oh, so you want to think about that, do you? All right, then, you do what you like, while I get on with more important things. — Paulo Coelho

Look, I say. You can't just let your thoughts float around in the ether and hope eventually they'll connect with something. It's absurd.
No, it's not, Gil says. Lots of good things happen that way. Penicillin. Teflon. Smart dust. Something happens that you weren't expecting and it shifts the outcome completely. You have to be open to it.
When I open my brain, I tell him, things bounce around and fall out. They don't connect with anything. Maybe I haven't got enough points of reference stored up yet.
You're young, he says, that's probably it. When I let my thoughts float around, I trust that they'll latch on to something useful in the end or make an association I wouldn't necessarily have predicted. I'm trusting that they'll find the right thought to complete, all by themselves. The right bit of fact to ping. You have to trust your brain sometimes. — Meg Rosoff

I was good. I was at home with baseball. But I set my routines, and I need them. I can't ... I can't play without them."

He didn't say anything else until we got to home plate and stepped on it at the same time. He put his hands on my face and looked at me directly, as if putting a tunnel of attention between us. His thumbs rested on my cheeks.

Why hadn't I seen it the night before? Or an hour ago? Why didn't I put it all together from the exhibition games and the spring training video? He was coming apart at the seams.

"You," he said. "You threw it all in the fire. Things started collapsing right before you, and when you came, everything went to hell. It's you. I denied it, because if I let you in, I had to start over. I tried to bend it around to not want you. But I can't deny it anymore. There's no center without you. — C.D. Reiss

For Miles, one of the great mysteries of marriage was that you had to actually say things before you realized they were wrong. Because he'd been saying the wrong thing to Janine for so many years, he'd grown wary, testing most of his observations in the arena of his imagination before saying them out loud, but even then he was often wrong. Of course, the other possibility was that there was no right thing to say, that the choice wasn't between right and wrong but between wrong, more wrong, and as wrong as you can get. Wrong, all of it, to one degree or another, by definition, or by virtue of the fact that Miles himself was the one saying it. — Richard Russo

In books there's always somebody standing by ready to say hey, the world's in danger, evil's on the rise, but if you're really quick and take this ring and put it in that volcano over there everything will be fine.
But in real life that guy never turns up. He's never there. He's busy handing out advice in the next universe over. In our world no one ever knows what to do, and everyone's just as clueless and full of crap as everyone else, and you have to figure it all out by yourself. And even after you've figured it out and done it, you'll never know whether you were right or wrong. You'll never know if you put the ring in the right volcano, or if things might have gone better if you hadn't. There's no answers in the back of the book. — Lev Grossman