Quotes & Sayings About Screwing It Up

People will always try to steal
your power. When you do well, they'll say it's only because you're rich and your parents are big shots. People who care about you will try to steal
your power, too, but they'll go about it differently. When you fail at something, they'll try to make you feel better by saying that nobody's good at
everything, and you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. They might tell you not to feel bad about screwing up a math test because math's hard for girls.
Or they'll say you shouldn't worry so much about injustice in the world because you're only one person. And even though they mean well, they'll be
making you less than what you can be. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

It's... no, nothing." She grunted, turning from the screen with her vodka. "I'm starting to think Morris is right. We're just f---ed. Us, Colby, the whole human race."

"Maybe," Teagan said noncommittally. "Some days I believe that. I look at this f---ed up bloody world and see we don't be needing the likes of monster-gods with unpronounceable names to come and do the job for us. We do just fine screwing ourselves, don't we? — Mary SanGiovanni

You have better luck than you think you do," Cian said firmly.
Turning back toward him, she said, "Yeah? Prove it?"
You found me."
Yeah, and awakening your inner vampire, scaring the shit out of your
girlfriend, and screwing up your life."
Then that's my bad luck," he corrected her. — Rhiannon Frater

Ig had always liked to listen to his father, to watch him while he played. It was almost wrong to say his father played. It often seemed the other way around: that the horn was playing him. The way his cheeks swole out, then caved in as if he were being inhaled into it, the way the golden keys seemed to grab his fingers like little magnets snatching at iron filings, causing them to leap and dance in unexpected, startling fits. The way he shut his eyes and bent his head and twisted back and forth at the hips, as if his torso were in auger, screwing its way deeper and deeper into the centre of his being, pulling the music up from somewhere in the pit of his belly. — Joe Hill

Sneaking up on it sometimes helps: I've found I can be very productive for an hour before dinner, because there obviously isn't enough time to really do anything, so I can tell myself I'm just screwing around. — Michael Crichton

There are many expressions to describe someone who is going about something in the wrong way. "Making a mistake" is one way to describe this situation. "Screwing up" is another, although it is a bit rude, and "Attempting to rescue Lemony Snicket by writing letters to a congressman, instead of digging an escape tunnel" is a third way, although it is a bit too specific. — Lemony Snicket

A lot of your problem was in your head. You see yourself screwing up, it's going to happen. — Joyce Maynard

It depends on your specific conception of God, because belief can equally well leave you with this constant sense that you're coming up short and you're being judged and you're not doing quite the perfect thing. You know, I was brought up very religiously, and I never totally lost that sense, you know, that I'm screwing up. — Joel Achenbach

Knowing his coach likes him is more important to a player than anything else. To me, it was important to be able to chew out a player for screwing up and for him to accept it because he knew I liked him anyway. — John Madden

Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn't he?" he said. I could barely muster a "yeah." That's a good thing," the assistant told me. When you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, it means they've given up on you. — Randy Pausch

Your writing is still yours, no matter what the contract or your editor might say. Trust your gut. It knows when you're screwing up. Your brain will lie to you. It loves the paycheck, it loves positive feedback. Your gut is under no obligation to make you feel good. — Gail Simone

Still i knew because of my own feelings there was something wrong with me and i knew it wasnt only me. I knew it was everybody. It was like a bacteria or a cancer or a trance. It wasnt on the skin, it was in the soul. It showed itself in lonliness, lust, anger , jealousy and depression. It had people screwed up bad everywhere you went- at the store, at home, at church, it was ugly and deep. Lots of singers on the radio were singing about it and cops had jobs because of it. It was as if we were broken I thought, as if we were never supposed to feel these sticky emotions. It was as if we were cracked, coudlnt love right, couldnt feel good things for a long before screwing it all up.
I am talking about the broken quality of life. — Donald Miller

It's ginned up by the corporate plutocracy as a way of distracting the working-class people that it's screwing. We hamstring our own natural progressivism in this country, and that's really stupid. — Edward Norton

The gotta, as in: "I think I'll stay up another fifteen-twenty minutes, honey, I gotta see how this chapter comes out." Even though the guy who says it spent the day at work thinking about getting laid and knows the odds are good his wife is going to be asleep when he finally gets up to the bedroom. The gotta, as in: "I know I should be starting supper now - he'll be mad if it's TV dinners again - but I gotta see how this ends." I gotta know will she live. I gotta know will he catch the shitheel who killed his father. I gotta know if she finds out her best friend's screwing her husband. The gotta. Nasty as a hand-job in a sleazy bar, fine as a fuck from the world's most talented call-girl. Oh boy it was bad and oh boy it was good and oh boy in the end it didn't matter how rude it was or how crude it was because in the end it was just like the Jacksons said on that record - don't stop til you get enough. — Stephen King

Trouble was, everyone always made talking out a problem sound like it was so simple and solved everything, but actually doing it, and securing the desired outcome without screwing up, seemed about as easy as rowing upriver with a teaspoon. — Babette James

But it does make you feel smaller, which is a relief in some ways. When you screw up, it seems less terrible. all these people, everybody screwing up. — Rebecca Scherm

Sent him to the Harvard Business School to study the minds of the movers and shakers who were screwing up our economy for their own immediate benefit, taking money earmarked for research and development and new machinery and so on, and putting it into monumental retirement plans and year-end bonuses for themselves. — Kurt Vonnegut

A large part of being a parent is a constant near certainty that you are screwing it up, and it is comforting to be able to spread the blame around. — Cody McFadyen

I've learned my lesson. For good this time. Seriously. If I come home and Kate is screwing some random guy in our bed? I won't freak out - I won't say a word.
I'll just pick her up, toss her over my shoulder, and carry her to the nearest DNA lab to make sure it's actually Kate, and not some evil long-lost twin hell-bent on wrecking our lives. — Emma Chase

Speed showering. Speed shaving. Speed dressing. Then it hit me. What a waste of energy. It was all for nothing. I was going to miss that meeting no matter what I did. I could be on the platform right now, waiting for the PATH train, and it would still be a no-go. I could be on the train, heading out of the station, and it still wouldn't work. So I took a minute for four or five gulps of too-hot coffee, which had already brewed on a timer. I wanted to call Sturgis and tell him I'd be late and I was sorry. But by then it was almost 8:35 a.m., and I thought it would be worse to interrupt his meeting. Crap. Crap. Crap. This was the worst. The absolute worst. The worst possible thing that could have happened to me. The job meant more to me than anything, than my own life, than the world. Why did I keep screwing up like this? — Catherine Ryan Hyde

She was feeling reckless; nothing that she did mattered. She walked to the window and twitched the curtain apart. There were the stars pricked in little holes in the blue-black sky. There was a row of chimney-pots against the sky. Then the stars. Inscrutable, eternal, indifferent - those were the words; the right words. But I don't feel it, she said, looking at the stars. So why pretend to? What they're really like, she thought, screwing up her eyes to look at them, is little bits of frosty steel. And the moon - there it was - is a polished dish-cover. But she felt nothing, even when she had reduced moon and stars to that. — Virginia Woolf

And he makes me think ... that it'll be okay. That I don't have to worry about screwing it up. — Rainbow Rowell

But I AM saying don't chase perfection for perfection's sake, or for anyone else's sake at all. If you strive for something, make sure it's for the right reasons. And if you fail, that will be a better lesson for you than any success you'll ever have. Because you learn a lot from screwing up. — Felicia Day

I caught my second wife screwing my stepdad. OK? It's a cruel world, Walt. Grow up. — Saul

I've always been good at screwing up and eventually I learned to expect it. That's why I didn't fight for you when you left me. That's one of the things I regret the most. Sometimes you have to lose something to realize that you don't want to live without it. I should have said it a long time ago: I love you. There are many questions in my life right now, but you are the one thing I'm sure about.

Please give me another chance. — Cora Reilly

Government shouldn't try to dictate what art looks like or what it portrays. Last thing we want is government screwing it up, which is what they would do. — Mike Huckabee

He [Logan] wasn't wearing his baseball cap for once, and the day was bright, almost warm, so his face was bathed in a soft glow from the winter sun. Logan's normally shaded eyes looked a much lighter brown in the sun, and they crinkled up at the corners as he gave me an easy smile.
Are you deliberately screwing with me, sun? What's next? Is his smile going to sparkle as a bell-like "ding" chimes in the distance? Is a butterfly going to land on his shoulder? Give the boy a white horse and it's a wrap for poor Paige's heart. — Cara Lynn Shultz

Where's my life gone? Where's it going? Looking across the grassy marshland to Flint and up the coast to Point Of Air, I start to wonder what all those poor fuckers in Wales are doing with their lives. Screwing? Sleeping in? Debating whether to take breakfast in bed to their broken fathers? Unlikely. They're probably doing what the gilded folk of Hollywood are doing, or Kowloon or Port Elizabeth. Worrying. Worrying about getting old, or about work, or about money, or about their boyfriend, mistress, lover, house, health, future. Life is shit. There is no fucking point to any of it. Not now that we've evolved past the survival stage. Maybe we used to live to hunt to kill to eat to live another day. Now we just kill time in as many sophisticated ways as possible. Pointless jobs. Pointless lives. Work. Television. Football. — Kevin Sampson

When it comes to diamonds, there is one power which they possess without a doubt, and that is the power to make people kill." "Are you talking about Mr. Collicutt?" I asked. "To be blunt, yes. Which is why I want you to keep well away from the church. Let me deal with it. That's why I'm in Bishop's Lacey. It's my job." "Is it?" I asked. "I should have thought it Inspector Hewitt's." "There are more things in heaven and earth than Inspector Hewitt," Adam said. "May I ask you one question?" I said, screwing up my courage. "You may try." "Who are you working for?" The air between — Alan Bradley

I am always struck by how difficult it is for people to see how much cruelty they are bringing not only upon animals but upon themselves and their loved ones and other people, how much we are screwing up the planet, how much we are hurting our own health, how hard it is to change all that, how eager people are to make a buck at everybody else's expense - all those things are discouraging. — Neal Barnard

I never get tired of people telling me how important their job is as an excuse for screwing it up. — Christopher Farnsworth

I told my kids when they were little, 'Look, kids, your mother and I are screwing you up somehow. We don't understand how, or we wouldn't do it. But we're parents. So somehow we're damaging you, and I want you to know that early. So just ignore me when I go to that part of my parenting.' — Pat Conroy

Putting his mouth close to her ear, he said, I'm going to ride you raw, baby, but you won't care. It's going to feel so good, all you'll be able to think about is getting me back inside you. Keeping me here, packed up tight and deep, screwing into you so hard you go hoarse from your screams ... — Rhyannon Byrd

It was almost as if my screwing everything up was beyond my control, destined, written in the stars. — Cyn Balog

An old rusty beer can lay in her path; she kicked it viciously. What is it, she thought, is this the way Nueva York is set up, then, freeloaders and victims? Schoenmaker freeloads off my roommate, she freeloads of me. Is there this long daisy chain of victimisers and victims, screwers and screwees? And if so, who is it I am screwing. — Thomas Pynchon

But when I compare the idea that "Yeah, sometimes life sucks, and I have to deal with it as best I can" with the idea that "An immensely powerful being is screwing with me on purpose and won't tell me why" - I, for one, find the first idea much more comforting. I don't have to torture myself with guilt over how I must have angered my god or screwed up my karma, with that guilt piling onto the trauma I'm already going through. — Greta Christina

When cerebral processes enter into sports, you start screwing up. It's like the Constitution, which says separate church and state. You have to separate mind and body. — Bill Lee

My friend Wicker once said to be careful what and how you say what you're really thinking to a woman. After much screwing up in that department with Emma, I've learned it's not what you should hide, but what you say that makes her react the way she does. If I am unable to make myself clear, as I so often do, it's more likely going to go to pot if I try to explain how I really feel. Instead, I rework in my brain what she needs to hear. I don't always nail it, but I'm getting better at it. And it's always the truth even if it isn't how I see it.
Is it deceiving? No. It's being considerate and aware that she is an emotional creature, and that for some crazy reason, craves my attention. I love to make her happy. My jumbled up mess of a mind isn't important in the long run if it just confuses her. So I chose words carefully. When something goes right, I use it over and over again. -Ames — Cyndi Goodgame

The rabbit is one of the few animals that (de facto) enjoys screwing: after copulating it does a backward flip and drums on the ground. If it could light up a fag, it would no doubt do that too, and blow smoke rings into the sky. — Peter Zilahy

The last four days
where everything has finally made some sense. And why is she so ready to throw this away? Because.
Because eventually every relationship she's been in has turned to shit. Eventually she ends up
screwing everything up. So maybe it's better to leave now before people's feelings get hurt. — Joe Meno

I'll make Goyle do lines, it'll kill him, he hates writing," said Ron happily. He lowered his voice to Goyle's low grunt and, screwing up his face in a look of pained concentration, mimed writing in midair. "I ... must ... not ... look ... like ... a ... baboon's ... backside. — J.K. Rowling

I would always drink purple drink - syrup. I would just be in a room, screwing and chopping up music. It was like an alter ego - I would turn into another person when I was on a substance. My music would get darker and weirder, and it inspired a lot of people. But I've changed my life and stopped smoking. I like to turn up and have fun when I get the chance, but I don't overdo it now. — SpaceGhostPurrp

Good lord, look at you!" he cried, delighted at my grubbiness. "What have you been doing? You're filthy!" He looked me up and down admiringly, then said in a more solemn tone: "You haven't been screwing hogs again, have you, Bryson?"
"Ha ha ha."
"They're not clean animals, you know, no matter how attractive they may look after a month on the trail. And don't forget we're not in Tennessee anymore. It's probably not even legal here - at least not without a note from the vet." He patted the chair beside him, beaming all over, happy with his quips. "Come and sit down and tell me all about it. So what was her name - Bossy?" He leaned closely and confidentially. "Did she squeal a lot? — Bill Bryson

Kyle is my best friend. Why would I risk screwing that up?"
"Mackenzie Catherine Dobson, have you learned nothing from romantic comedies? Do I need to make a trip to the video store?" Tess set her fork down and sighed. "'We're just friends' is the oldest plot device in the book. All it really means is that you're just friends until one of you get the balls to do something about all the unresolved tension. — Kathleen Peacock

Most change in America doesn't come from, politicians. It comes from people inventing things and creating. The telephone, the telegraph, the computer, all those things didn't come from government. Our world is going to get better and better, as long as we keep the politicians from screwing it up. — David Boaz

A present," he said, then winced. The presents he'd bought for Portia usually included ropes of pearls or gemstones the size of robin's eggs. A man of his wealth ought to provide something much nicer than a sack of strange-looking pods. Sophie peeked inside the bag, her face screwing up in confusion. "What are they?" she asked, lifting the odd vegetable from the bag. It was a ruddy orange shade, larger than her hand, and looked like an oblong pumpkin. There were four of them in the bag. "You once said the cocoa powder in this village was bad, and you wanted to make your own. These are cocoa pods, shipped directly from Brazil. If you split it open, you will find fresh cocoa beans inside. Then you can begin your culinary adventure of making chocolate from scratch." "You remembered!" she exclaimed. Her eyes widened in delight as she held the pod to her nose for a sniff and then ran her fingers along its waxy skin. "It's fabulous. Thank you! — Elizabeth Camden

My grandmother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house. It leaked, she contended, out of empty sockets if the wall switch had been left on. She would go around screwing in bulbs, and if they lighted up, she would fearfully turn off the wall switch and go back to her Pearson's or Everybody's, happy in the satisfaction that she had stopped not only a costly but dangerous leakage. nothing could ever clear this up for her. — James Thurber

Eaten up with guilt, shame, fears and insecurities and obtaining, if he's lucky, a barely perceptible physical feeling, the male is, nonetheless, obsessed with screwing; he'll swim a river of snot, wade nostril-deep through a mile of vomit, if he thinks there'll be a friendly pussy awaiting him. He'll screw a woman he despises, any snaggle-toothed hag, and, further, pay for the opportunity. Why? Relieving physical tension isn't the answer, as masturbation suffices for that. It's not ego satisfaction; that doesn't explain screwing corpses and babies. — Valerie Solanas

He had no memory of ever being hugged like this, as though by a mother. The full weight of everything he had seen that night seemed to fall in upon him as Mrs. Weasley held him to her. His mother's face, his father's voice, the sight of Cedric, dead on the ground all started spinning in his head until he could hardly bear it, until he was screwing up his face against the howl of misery fighting to get out of him. — J.K. Rowling

Wanting to kill myself is was an appropriate and reasonable response to a whole series of unfortunate events that had rendered life unlivable. Oh, yes, I know the shrinks would say that they could have helped, but that's half the trouble with this bloody country, isn't it? No one's willing to face their responsibilities. It's always someone else's fault. Boo hoo hoo. Well, I happen to be one of those rare individuals who believe that what went on with Mummy and Daddy had nothing to do with me screwing a fifteen-year-old. I happen to believe that I would have slept with her regardless of whether I'd been breast-fed or not, and it was time to face up to what I'd done. — Nick Hornby

I'm sorry for screwing everything up. I hurt you again, and for that I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't want to do that anymore. So ... I'm not going to stay
for the wedding. I'm just going to take off now. I won't see you again, not for a long time. Probably for the best. Being near you like this, it hurts. And
Jere" - Conrad cleared his throat and stepped backward, making space between us - "he's the one who needs you."
Hoarsely, he said, "I need you to know that no matter what happens, it was worth it to me. Being with you, loving you. It was all worth it — Jenny Han

Well, you know what procrastination and masturbation have in common, don't you?" She waits a beat, then answers her own question. "When it comes right down to it, you only end up screwing yourself. — Amy Hatvany

People in general romanticize nature, and they make it out to be something that it isn't because humans are so awful. And yes, we are absolutely screwing up this planet, but that is only because we have the capabilities to do so. Animals are not better than us. They are not nicer than us. — Elise Andrew

Brian must have heard the commotion, because he came up behind her and yanked the door all the way open. "You got a f**king problem with me, James?"
James, ever the type to go off all half-cocked until things started to get serious, seemed to shrink a bit. "I've got a problem with you screwing my sister, yeah."
"I suggest you get the f**k over it. — Cherrie Lynn

I had no idea if I was doing the friend thing right or utterly screwing it up. — Gwenda Bond

She leaned down until they were eye to eye. "His wife loved him. That's no bullshit. I love you."
"That's no bullshit."
"If I found out you were screwing around on me, could I off you?" He inclined his head. "I believe I've already been informed you'd be doing the rhumba - after appropriate lessons - on my cold, dead body."
"Yeah. Yeah." It cheered her up. "Just not sure pink Jolene has the stones for that."
"Jimmy Jay was in violation of the ... which commandment is it that deals with adultery?"
"How the hell would I know, especially since I wouldn't wait for you to face your eternal punishment, should you be in said violation, before I rhumba'd my ass off."
"Such is true love."
"Bet your excellent ass. I got the vibe he might've been screwing around, but maybe I'm just a cynical so-and-so."
Pleased with her, Roarke tapped a finger over the dent in her chin. "You are, but you're my cynical so-and-so. — J.D. Robb

In case you still haven't figured it out, he loves you. Your tiger will be back in the morning, and you can thank me anytime. Now, do I have to paint another picture for you, or do you think you can take it from here by yourself without screwing up? — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

It's a process of getting to know people. That's what photography is to me. It's about paying attention, not screwing up and blowing a great opportunity. — Eugene Richards

If someone's takeaway from this story is "Felicia Day said don't study!," I'll punch you in the face. But I AM saying don't chase perfection for perfection's sake, or for anyone else's sake at all. If you strive for something, make sure it's for the right reasons. And if you fail, that will be a better lesson for you than any success you'll ever have. Because you learn a lot from screwing up. Being perfect . . . not so much. — Felicia Day

Heroism doesn't pay very well. I try to be cold-blooded and money-oriented, but I keep screwing it up. — Jim Butcher

I hate when people question my ability to get from one place to another without mutilating myself. It's tantamount to saying, "Try to get home without screwing it up like last time, dummy," or "Farewell, for I may never see you again, given the mortality that awaits us all like a crouching panther. — Rob Sheffield

She knew, even in marriage, if you advanced too far to please the other person it let them edge away and you ended up always laughing and fighting and screwing on their territory. Sometimes you had to stand your ground and make them come to you - just to keep the equilibrium. — Terry Hayes

It was so screwed up, because the thing that made us the most powerless also gave us such power. We could make them turn away. We could bother them and challenge them and mess them up. You think people are afraid of two boys in love? To hell with that. What people are really afraid of is two boys screwing. — David Levithan

This is so classic. Government comes along under the guise of fairness, fixes something, gonna make it fair, gonna make it equal, gonna make it affordable, maybe even make it free. What they end up doing is blowing it all to hell, screwing it up worse than it's ever been screwed up, then their voters bellyache and complain about it. And the same Democrats come back and demand that something be done, because their voters need a second chance. — Rush Limbaugh

Once you accept that perfection is just a goal, screwing up isn't so hard to handle. Each misstep is still a step, another lesson learned, another opportunity to get it right the next time. — Nick Vujicic