Settle Up Quotes & Sayings

And I knew what I wanted: I would settle in a hill station and write my novel. I had visions of myself at a table on a large veranda, my notes spread out in front of me next to a steaming cup of tea. Green hills heavy with mists would lie at my feet and the shrill cries of monkeys would fill my ears. The weather would be just tight, requiring a light sweater mornings and evenings, and something short-sleeved midday. Thus set up, pen in hand, for the sake of greater truth, I would turn Portugal into a fiction. That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming the reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence? What need did I have to go to Portugal? — Yann Martel

Decided?" his mother continued with no scant irony. "He hasn't yet made up his mind, and we sail at ten o'clock!" "What does it matter when my things are put up?" the young man said. "There's no crowd at this moment; there will be cabins to spare. I'm waiting for a telegram - that will settle it. I just walked up to the club to see if it was come - they'll send it there because — Henry James

Piper had trouble falling asleep. Coach Hedge spent the first hour after curfew doing his nightly duty, walking up and down the passageway yelling, "Lights out! Settle down! Try to sneak out, and I'll smack you back to Long Island!" He banged his baseball bat against a cabin door whenever he heard a noise, shouting at everyone to go to sleep, which made it impossible for anyone to go to sleep. Piper figured this was the most fun the satyr had had since he'd pretended to be a gym teacher at the Wilderness School. — Rick Riordan

We are made for art ... The moment Maddy took up the tendril phrase, Els knew she was as dear to him as his own life. Talons gripped his ribs, and he felt a joy bordering on panic. He needed to know how this woman would unfold. He needed to write music that would settle into her range like frost on fields. They'd spend their years together, grow old, get sick, die in shared bewilderment. — Richard Powers

if we suppose that God, being supremely powerful, supremely wise, and supremely loving, can achieve, and will settle for nothing less than, perfect justice, then we must also suppose that he will settle for nothing less than a full atonement for sin - something that will actually make up for, or cancel out, sin; and as we have seen, punishment (in and of itself) has no power to do that. — Thomas Talbott

Never have I been able to settle in life. Always seated askew, as if on the arm of a chair; ready to get up, to leave. — Andre Gide

I have a boyfriend who knows how to settle me. He puts his hand on my chest and tells me boring stories. On one of our first nights together I woke up apologizing for my snoring and he pulled out two earplugs he had worn to bed so he could hear what I was saying. — Amy Poehler

You will then. Listen here ... I've always got this to look forward to: I'll settle down by that man's side. I'll be as virtuous as any woman. I've made up my mind to it and I'll be it. And I'll be bored stiff for the rest of my life. Except for one thing. I can torment that man. And I'll do it. Do you understand how I'll do it? There are many ways. But if the worst comes to the worst I can always drive him silly ... by corrupting the child!' She was panting a little, and round her brown eyes the whites showed. 'I'll get even with him. I can. I know how, you see. And with you, through him, for tormenting me. I've come all the way from Brittany without stopping. I haven't slept ... But I can ... — Ford Madox Ford

Just because we haven't met Mr. Right doesn't mean we're doing anything wrong. And by the way, you're brilliant and awesome, too. If I were a
lesbian, I'd totally settle down with you and make lots of in vitro babies. — Julie James

I know we can make it through anything, Rowen. The past couple of months have proven that to me. I know we could make it if we were far away from each other, I trust that. I have faith in that. The thing is ... I don't want to do it. I want to be near you. Every day. Every night. Why should I settle for you from far away when I can have you near me every morning when I wake up? — Nicole Williams

First, it's okay to be sad. It's okay to feel things. Remember that. Second, be a kid for as long as you can. Play games, Travis. Be silly" - her eyes glossed over - "and you and your brothers take care of each other, and your father. Even when you grow up and move away, it's important to come home. Okay?"
My head bobbed up and down, desperate to please her.
"One of these days you're going to fall in love, son. Don't settle for just anyone. Choose the girl that doesn't come easy, the one you have to fight for, and then never stop fighting. Never" - she took a deep breath - "stop fighting for what you want. And never" - her eyebrows pulled in - "forget that Mommy loves you. Even if you can't see me." A tear fell down her cheek. "I will always, always love you. — Jamie McGuire

In a world hooked in "Start-ups"
She was his final "Settle-down"

-The Drenched Writer — Shonali Dey

You're going to have to settle on one eventually. Why not save us both the hassle, close your eyes and point. Whoever you're pointing at will be our winner." "I've played that game once before. Ended up
" Paris shuddered. "Never mind. It's not good to wander down that particular memory trail. So no. Just no. — Gena Showalter

Never settle on a life you don't want when God is trying to give you a better life. — Shannon L. Alder

The settle, followed by 10 for power will give you that grasp on their nuts that you need. Once you've got that, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze and squeeze and don't ever let up! You'll just be breaking 1500 meters down when you hear them yelp. Listen for the yelp, and then bring it into the dock. — Christopher Allsopp

Once sin is allowed to settle in your heart, it will not be turned out at your bidding. Custom becomes second nature, and its chains are not easily broken. The prophet has well said, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil" (Jeremiah 13:23). Habits are like stones rolling down hill--the further they roll, the faster and more ungovernable is their course. Habits, like trees, are strengthened by age. A boy may bend an oak when it is a sapling--a hundred men cannot root it up, when it is a full grown tree. A child can wade over the Thames River at its fountain-head--the largest ship in the world can float in it when it gets near the sea. So it is with habits: the older the stronger--the longer they have held possession, the harder they will be to cast out. — J.C. Ryle

Unless the Labour leadership candidates decide to settle the issue through televised mud-wrestling (Adam Boulton, I think, for referee, and he may even take part) they will find it hard to gain massive attention for their utterances. Nor would the wannabes be wise to sign up to Lord Adonis's optimistic gloom about the coalition not lasting. Watching David Laws this week going about deficit reduction with an avidity bordering on the erotic, I realised that there are very good reasons why the centre should hold. — David Aaronovitch

Economics is really about two stories. One is the story of the old economist and younger economist walking down the street, and the younger economist says, 'Look, there's a hundred-dollar bill,' and the older one says, 'Nonsense, if it was there somebody would have picked it up already.' So sometimes you do find hundred-dollar bills lying on the street, but not often - generally people respond to opportunities. The other is the Yogi Berra line 'Nobody goes to Coney Island anymore; it's too crowded.' That's the idea that things tend to settle into some kind of equilibrium where what people expect is in line with what they actually encounter. — Paul Krugman

They speak little; it is as if the air has been churned up with decade's worth of fruitless pursuit and missed connections and thoughts unspoken, and they are waiting quietly for all this matter - these motes of opportunity forgone - to settle around them. — Doug Dorst

In meditation we discover our inherent restlessness. Sometimes we get up and leave. Sometimes we sit there but our bodies wiggle and squirm and our minds go far away. This can be so uncomfortable that we feel's it's impossible to stay. Yet this feeling can teach us not just about ourselves but what it is to be human ... we really don't want to stay with the nakedness of our present experience. It goes against the grain to stay present. These are the times when only gentleness and a sense of humor can give us the strength to settle down ... so whenever we wander off, we gently encourage ourselves to "stay" and settle down. Are we experiencing restlessness? Stay! Are fear and loathing out of control? Stay! Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay! What's for lunch? Stay! I can't stand this another minute! Stay!" — Pema Chodron

The rest of the morning would consist of checking on a pothole in the parking lot of the village clinic and writing up a schedule for the community centre that might finally settle the ongoing feud between the local quilting group and the bridge club.
It was good to be queen. — Molly Harper

Second choice always comes as a result of being realistic and lowering your sights. If you want to go through life accepting second best, or worse still, third or fourth, then don't be surprised if you end up feeling unfulfilled with your lot. Set a goal that puts fire in your belly and keep striving until you reach it. Providing you want it badly enough, you will do whatever it takes. ~ "Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life." - John F. Kennedy ~ — Jack The Crack

As I pulled the covers up and let Micah settle in next to me, I heard Mom's voice in my ears: Children need to get used to being in the dark. She'd repeated that countless times throughout my childhood. No, I thought, they don't. — Ruth Wariner

If he is not going anywhere in life, then look him straight in the eyes and inform him that you are not going anywhere with him either. — Moffat Machingura

She had never been beautiful- she had known that from the start- but she would like to have been loved, above all things. She would have to settle for being liked, perhaps for being trusted, respected. Best of all would have been to have had the courage to stand up for herself and fight for what she believed in. — Anne Perry

I could tell you that when you have trouble making up your mind about something, tell yourself you'll settle it by flipping a coin. But don't go by how the coin flips; go by your emotional reaction to the coin flip. Are you happy or sad it came up heads or tails? — David Brooks

You're only as much as you settle for. If they settle for being somebody's dishwasher that's their own f***ing problem. If you don't settle for that and you keep fighting it, you know, you'll end up anything you want to be. — Janis Joplin

The first three years was our honeymoon period. Then you settle into the relationship, and it morphs into just living, breathing. It becomes more comfortable, but it becomes a necessity - something you can't give up, like an addict. — David Burtka

Actually for a while Jessica had contemplated making a grand entrance wearing only the dress, thinking wickedly about how the sight of her cold, shivering body would prompt Nicholas to rush up and put his arms around her to warm her up. But evenings at this time of year were usually chilly, and she saw no reason to risk pneumonia just for a sympathy hug. She'd have to settle for throwing her coat off dramatically as she was being ushered into the Morrow mansion. — Francine Pascal

I'd rather I was a stray pup,' I made bold to say. And then all my fears broke my voice as I added, "You wouldn't let them do this to a stray pup, changing everything all at once. When they gave the bloodhound puppy to Lord Grimsby, you sent your old shirt with it, so it would have something that smelled of home until it settle in.'
'Well,' he said, "I didn't ... come here, fitz. Come here, boy.'
And puppy-like, I went to him, the only master I had, and he thumped me lightly on the back and rumbled up my hair, very much as if I had been a hound. — Robin Hobb

Could the peaceable principle of the Quakers be universally established, arms and the art of war would be wholly extirpated: But we live not in a world of angels ... I am thus far a Quaker, that I would gladly agree with all the world to lay aside the use of arms, and settle matters by negotiation: but unless the whole will, the matter ends, and I take up my musket and thank Heaven He has put it in my power. — Thomas Paine

Silence then, "Are you smashed?"
"Completely and totally."
"What are you wearing?"
"Who cares?"
"I do."
"Why?"
"'Cause you're smashed, you been with your girls, you somehow got riled up about somethin' and once I settle you down about whatever's aggravating you, I'm gonna rile you up a different way. — Kristen Ashley

You should never settle for what you think is just good. You should drive the editors and writers and everybody nuts until it's great. And if you don't go for great, you won't end up with good. You've got to go beyond your wildest dreams because the exigencies of filmmaking are going to smash you into the ordinary. — Fred Schepisi

Follow your heart and take a chance that you'll be wrong. Take a chance that maybe you'll fuck it all up and everyone will say you're crazy. What's the worst that can happen? Face that fear and accept it. Because to silence your heart and forget your dreams is to die while living. LIVE. Don't let the world scare you into being something you're not. Get out there and risk the unusual or you'll have to settle for the ordinary. So, no-one else has done it before? There is no road map for you to follow? Then, you be the first! Pave the way for someone else. Find your courage and follow your heart.
Be brave, wild one, be brave. — Brooke Hampton

After World War II society had to settle back for a moment before it picked up the 20th century. — Stella Blum

He looked at me, eyebrows high and the sun glinting on his disguise-black hair. "You do the damnedest things in order to rile yourself up. Most people settle for doing it in an elevator, but not you. No, you have to make sure it's a vampire you're playing kissy-face with."
Heat washed through me, pulled by anger and embarrassment. Ivy had said the same thing.
"I do not!"
"Rache," he cajoled, sitting up to match my posture. "Look at yourself. You're an adrenaline junkie. You not only need danger to make good in the bedroom, you need it to get through your normal day."
"Shut up!" I shouted, giving him a backhanded thwack on his shoulder. "I like adventure, that's all. — Kim Harrison

Old Flossie settle down on the other side of What-the-Dickens and dragged some handiwork out of a sack. She armed herself with two thorns shaped into knitting needles. A wodge of curlicued metallic scrubbing pad supplied the threat. 'I knit handcuffs as a hobby,' explained Old Flossie happily, and set to work. 'Idle hands get up to no good, so I like to be prepared in case I meet up with any idle hands. — Gregory Maguire

Sometimes we go to a play and after the curtain has been up five minutes we have a sense of being able to settle back in the arms of the playwright. Instinctively we know that the playwright knows his business. — Anton Chekhov

It's a dark place, not knowing.
It's difficult to surrender to.
But I guess it's where we live most of the time. I guess it's where we all live, so maybe it doesn't have to be so lonely. Maybe I can settle into it, cozy up to it, make a home inside uncertainty. — Nina LaCour

Loneliness is something that finds us all when we think about it and when we're by ourselves when we don't want to be. It creeps up when we desperately feel like we need someone special but can't seem to find anything more than a friend that wishes they could help. Sometimes a friend cannot be found when your willing to settle for one. Sometimes it passes quickly, and sometimes it sticks around to try to drive us to insanity. Its like a creature lying in wait to take us at our weakest moment, but only toying with us when we give up to it. In the end it always passes. There is always something to appreciate and someone to cheer us up. We adapt and overcome. Life is a gift with much more to it than a passing emotion. All around us are beautiful things to console us. Life is much more than one feeling. It is as great as we let it be. — Joshua Hartzell

Hoping to settle the wheelchair matter once and for all, Graham dragged his chief of construction, his chief of architecture, and a film crew out to Dulles Airport, whose escalators were approximately the same width as those planned for Metro. There he produced a variety of braces and crutches. As the cameras rolled, Graham rode up and down the escalators using one aid after another, climaxing by riding both directions in a wheelchair, facing up each time. Graham clearly believed he had proved beyond doubt that 'it is entirely possible, easily and safely, for wheelchair travelers to use escalators.' His aides watched in disbelief; a fit and fearless major general in his fifties hardly represented the disabled population, whatever braces he strapped to his legs. All he had proved, concluded the WMATA architect Sprague Thresher, was that 'if everybody who had to use a wheelchair was Jack Graham, we wouldn't need elevators. — Zachary M. Schrag

This is better than a romance novel." P.J. said with a wistful sigh.
"You read that stuff?" Cole demanded.
"Why the hell do you ask the question like that?" P.J. said, annoyance evident in her tone and expression.
"You just didn't seem the type," Cole mumbled.
She flipped him the bird, and Shea had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. P.J. was easily half Cole's size but she also looked like she had the confidence to take on the much larger man. She might even kick his ass. The idea intrigued Shea greatly.
"I'm tempted to shove one of my romance novels up your ass." P.J. said sharply. "But I love my books too much to desecrate them like that, I'll settle for my boot."
Cole held up his hands in surrender. "I won't say another word. Romance novels are great. I love romance novels. I think everyone should read them. — Maya Banks

Settle this in your heart: Whether I am up or down, the Lord Jesus is the same. Whether I sing or sigh, the promise is true and the Promiser is faithful. Whether I stand on the summit or am hidden in the vale the covenant stands fast and everlasting love abides. — Charles Spurgeon

It feels so great when things finally fall into places and you can smile all over again seeing that incomplete puzzle all complete in one pieceSome people are like those incomplete pieces of the puzzle, which we keep looking for.Its either lost,hidden,Ignored or out of our sight.And we try so hard to look for that one piece we are looking for, but end up finding other pieces which we did not want, but then still settle for it thinking maybe we will finish the other half of the puzzle with whatever we get and don't put in our effort to look for that one piece which we were looking for in the begining and we get distracted.But then when we find that piece it makes us so happy to finally put in the last piece while we smile at it feeling happy and contented — Nadia

If you don't know what you want, you'll never find it.
If you don't know what you deserve, you'll always settle for less.
You will wander aimlessly, uncomfortably numb in your comfort zone, wondering how life has ended up here.
Life starts now, live, love, laugh and let your light shine! — Rob Liano

Slang, too, is the wholesome fermentation or eructation of those processes eternally active in language, by which froth and specks are thrown up, mostly to pass away; though occasionally to settle and permanently chrystallize. — Walt Whitman

I've learned that in order to be happy, you first have to have been extremely depressed. Until you have learned to suffer, happiness will never endure. The love that lasts just three years is the love that has neither scaled mountains nor lingered in the depths of despair, but the kind of love that is handed to you on a plate. Love only lasts if everyone involved knows what it costs, and it's best to pay in advance, or else you might find yourself having to settle the bill later on. We weren't prepared for happiness, because we weren't yet used to misery. We had grown up in the religion of comfort. You first have to know who you are and who you love. You have to be a finished person to live an unfinished story. — Frederic Beigbeder

When they are in power, whether in statehouses, Congress, or the White House, Republicans are magnetically drawn to practice political overreach along with scorched-earth tactics, be it through vote suppression, the K Street Project to force lobbying firms to hire only Republicans, or outing a covert CIA agent in their own administration to settle political scores, as happened to Valerie Plame. When they are out of power they focus single-mindedly on seizing up the wheels of government to prove to the American people that government just doesn't work - at least, when the GOP is out of power. These take-no-prisoners tactics flow naturally from an embittered, Manichaean mind-set. This mentality has grave implications for the health of our constitutional system. — Anonymous

Hester kept her company by bringing her meals and tea, fussing over Rosebud, washing Morrow's clothes, and doing her hair as if she was the colonel's lady. "Colonel Clark is sure taken wi' you," she said. "Neither man nor beast ever talks back to that man, but you shore put him in his place over that bad business at Fort Randolph. And lo and behold, I think he liked it. But for one little thing." Morrow looked up from nursing Rosebud. "He just can't figure out why a beautiful woman like yo'self would settle for a savage. — Laura Frantz

We can't settle for pieces from a man. We can't trade our happiness and self-respect for the opportunity to be held, cuddled and given tenderness. we can't give ourselves away for the words we want to hear if there's no action behind them. We deserve a healthy man who can make us happy. We can't stop remembering: "All men are jerks until proven otherwise." Until he proves otherwise, we can't get too caught up in his "goodies". — Daylle Deanna Schwartz

I thought about my mother, and the words she said to me almost a lifetime ago. That's when it clicked: she had asked me not to settle, to fight for the person I loved, and for the first time, I did what she expected of me. I had finally lived up to who she wanted me to be. — Jamie McGuire

Backup?" Tori said. "You mean he didn't need that?"
"Apparently not," I murmured.
Simon looked from her to me, confused, then understanding. "You guys thought ... "
"That if you didn't get your medicine in the next twenty-four hours, you'd be dead?" I said. "Not exactly, but close. You know, the old 'upping the ante with a fatal disease that needs medication' twist. Apparently, it still works."
"Kind of a letdown, then, huh?"
"No kidding. Here we were, expecting to find you minutes from death. Look at you, not even gasping."
"All right, then. Emergency medical situation, take two."
He leaped to his feet, staggered, keeled over, then lifted his head weakly.
"Chloe? Is that you?" He coughed. "Do you have my insulin?"
I placed it in his outstretched hand.
"You saved my life," he said. "How can I ever repay you?"
"Undying servitude sounds good. I like my eggs scrambled."
He held up a piece of fruit. "Would you settle for a bruised apple? — Kelley Armstrong

There are guys who grow up thinking they'll settle down some distant time in the future, and there are guys who are ready for marriage as soon as they meet the right person. The former bore me, mainly because they're pathetic; and the latter, frankly are hard to find. — Nicholas Sparks

I try not to put pressure on filmmakers to come up with a big scare at the beginning. I think that helps let the audience settle in and get to know the people they're about to spend 90 minutes with. Once the scarier stuff happens, it's scarier because of that. — Jason Blum

Other primates, of course, have none of these problems, but even they strive for a certain kind of society. In their behavior, we recognize the same values we pursue ourselves. For example, female chimpanzees have been seen to drag reluctant males toward each other to make up after a fight, while removing weapons from their hands. Moreover, high-ranking males regularly act as impartial arbiters to settle disputes in the community. I take these hints of community concern as a sign that the building blocks of morality are older than humanity, and that we don't need God to explain how we got to where we are today. On — Frans De Waal

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. — Michael Moore

Have you ever had one of those days where you give up on being really clean, and settle for being largely clean? Where you don't have time for the entire scrubbing and exfoliating regime, so you settle for the basics? Where brushing your teeth becomes the most rigorous part of your cleaning ritual? Yeah, welcome to Monday morning at St. Sophia's School for (Slightly Grimy) Girls. — Chloe Neill

But wasn't time for what was. Was time to settle up the future. — J.D. Jordan

The sharp scents made my throat ache. I had been up such hillsides before, and smelled these same spring scents. But then the pine and grass scent had been diluted with the smell of petrol fumes from the road below and the voices of day trippers replaced those of the jays. Last time I walked such a path, the ground was littered with sandwich wrappers and cigarette butts instead of mallow blossoms and violets. Sandwich wrappers seemed a reasonable enough price to pay, I supposed, for such blessings of civilization as antibiotics and telephones, but just for the moment, I was willing to settle for the violets. I badly needed a little peace, and I felt it here. — Diana Gabaldon

Life in God should be a daring adventure of love - a continuous journey of putting aside our securities to enter more profoundly into the uncharted depths of God. Too often, however, we settle for mediocrity. We follow the rules and practices of prayer but we are unwilling or, for various reasons, unable to give ourselves totally to God. To settle on the plain of mediocrity is really to settle for something less than God that leaves the heart restless and unfulfilled. A story from the desert fathers reminds us that giving oneself wholly to God can make a difference: Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, "Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?" Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, "If you will, you can become all flame."15 — Ilia Delio

These things don't just come, arrive and settle like a bird picking up a few bits of crumbs. They develop. I think the best word for these things is develop. They develop because of the human beings who just happen to be there at the time. — Patrick Macnee

I don't take up the story and follow it as if it were a road, taking me somewhere ... I go into it, and
move back and forth
and settle here and there, and stay in it for a while. It is more
like a house.
Alice Munro on reading. — Alice Munro

One of the things I am very aware of not having in my life is the love of my father ... but I know now that it is hard to make up that loss in the life of a daughter.
It's your dad who tells you that you are beautiful.
Its your dad who picks you up over his head and carries you on his shoulders.
It's your did who will fight the monsters under your bed.
It's your dad who tells you that you are worth a lot, so don't settle for the first guy who tells you you're pretty. — Sheila Walsh

Braeden sighed and looped his arm across my shoulders again and steered me toward a stack of books. "So innocent," he mused. "Tutor girl, as your man's best friend and your self-appointed big brother, I feel like it's time I teach you about the real world."
"You're my self-appointed big brother?" I asked, looking up at him.
He nodded like it was obvious. "You and Rome ... you're an exception to the rule. You two are the real deal, but most guys, guys like me, aren't looking to settle down. They like - "
"To have fun?" I finished for him, slightly amused.
"Exactly."
"But what about the girls?" I asked.
He gave me a clueless look.
I sighed. "Maybe it's me who needs to teach you, brother."
He lifted an eyebrow.
"Guys might want to have fun," I said, using his words, "but girls have a harder time keeping their feelings from getting involved."
"Relax, tutor girl," Braeden said. "I know how to handle things."
-Braeden & Rimmel — Cambria Hebert

Liberty may be an uncomfortable blessing unless you know what to do with it. That is why so many freed slaves returned to their masters, why so many emancipated women are only too glad to give up the racket and settle down. For between announcing that you will live your own life, and the living of it lie the real difficulties of any awakening. — Walter Lippmann

I just couldn't go there yet. Settle for less. I didn't want to process through anything. I didn't want to pick up any pieces. Lower my expectations. Get on with my less-than life. I didn't want to feel better about being still alive. Start compensating. — Chuck Palahniuk

Every morning when I wake up I forget for a fraction of a second that you are gone and I reach for you. All I ever find is the cold side of the bed. My eyes settle on the picture of us in Paris, on the bedside table, and I am overjoyed that even though the time was brief I loved you and you loved me. — Anonymous

To live the lives we truly want and deserve, and not just the lives we settle for, we need a Third Metric, a third measure of success that goes beyond the two metrics of money and power, and consists of four pillars: well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving. These four pillars make up the four sections of this book. — Arianna Huffington

Jane." Molly rubbed her arm. "You've got so much going on! You don't need this Pembrook Park, and you definitely don't need Mr. Darcy."
"I know. I mean, he's not even real. He's not, he's not, I know he's not, but maybe ... "
"There's no maybe. He's not real."
Jane groaned. "But I don't want to have to settle."
"You always do. Every single guy you ever dated was a settle."
She sat up. "None of them loved me, did they? Ever. Some of them liked me or I was convenient but ... Am I truly that pathetic?"
Molly smoothed her hair. "No, of course not," she said, which meant, Yes, but I love you anyway. — Shannon Hale

Great works of art can be produced in barbarous societies in fact the very narrowness of primitive society gives their ornamental art a peculiar concentration and vitality. At some time in the ninth century one could have looked down the Seine and seen the prow of a Viking ship coming up the river. Looked at today in the British Museum, it is a powerful work of art; but to the mother of a family trying to settle down in her little hut, it would have seemed less agreeable as menacing to her civilisation as the periscope of a nuclear submarine. — Kenneth Clark

It's nice when one of these books falls into your hands. It's nice when you read through the first few pages and realize it's going to be a good one, and you settle down, knowing you've got pages and pages to go. You settle into the sofa and put your feet up, feel all that thickness in your hand, and just wonder what it's got in store for you. — Elliot Mabeuse

She wasn't ready to settle down, she told her friends. That was one way of putting it. Another was would have been that she had not found anyone to settle down with. There had been several men in her life, but they hadn't been convincing. They'd been somewhat like her table - quickly acquired, brightened up a little, but temporary. The time for that kind of thing was running out, however. She was tired of renting. — Margaret Atwood

You didn't fail ... You just didn't use the right method. It's neither hail nor storm ... It's just a stir that precedes the settlement of your destiny. Believe that you will not remain on the ground. Wake up and try again! — Israelmore Ayivor

In the sacred fact of obligation you touch the immutable, and lay hold, as it were, on the eternities. At the very center of your being, there is a fixed element, and that of a kind or degree essentially sovereign. A standard is set up in your very thought, by which a great part of your questions are determined, and about which your otherwise random thoughts may settle into order and law. — Horace Bushnell

A mother's body against a child's body makes a place. It says you are here. Without this body against your body there is no place. I envy people who miss their mother. Or miss a place or know something called home. The absence of a body against my body created a gap, a hole, a hunger. This hunger determined my life ... The absence of a body against my body made attachment abstract. Made my own body dislocated and unable to rest or settle. A body pressed against your body is the beginning of nest. I grew up not in a home but in a kind of free fall of anger and violence that led to a life of constant movement, of leaving and falling. It is why at one point I couldn't stop drinking and fucking. Why I needed people to touch me all the time. It had less to do with sex than location. When you press against me, or put yourself inside me. When you hold me down or lift me up, when you lie on top of me and I can feel your weight, I exist. I am here. — Eve Ensler

Mark raised his eyebrows, 'you don't know the half of it,' he further mumbled, more to himself than in reply to Frankie. 'But listen up; because this isn't about me anyway; this is about you, about how you need to sort it out, yeah? This is all about you getting yourself a girl, and settling down, right?'

Frankie offered up a wistful kind of sigh, supping his pint as those heavily suggestive words immediately grated: settle down and never settle up. — Tom Conrad

New York Stat agreed to pay $12 million to settle a lawsuit filed three decades ago by inmates swept up in the bloody 1971 revolt at Attica prison. The settlement will be paid in the form of chocolate bars and packs of Newports that can be picked up in the commissary. — Colin Quinn

If you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat. Alone with the cat in the room where you work ... the cat will invariably get up on your desk and settle placidly under the desk lamp ... The cat will settle down and be serene, with a serenity that passes all understanding. And the tranquility of the cat will gradually come to affect you, sitting there at your desk, so that all the excitable qualities that impede your concentration compose themselves and give your mind back the self-command it has lost. You need not watch the cat all the time. Its presence alone is enough. The effect of a cat on your concentration is remarkable, very mysterious. — Muriel Spark

The third kind of loneliness is avoiding unnecesssary activities. When we're lonely in a "hot" way, we look for something to save us; we look for a way out. We get this queasy feeling that we call loneliness, and our minds just go wild trying to come up with companions to save us from despair. That's called unnecessary activity. It's a way of keeping ourselves busy so we don't have to feel any pain. It could take the form of obsessively daydreaming of true romance, or turning a tidbit of gossip into the six o'clock news, or even going off by ourselves into the wilderness. The point is that in all these activities, we are seeking companionship in our usual, habitual way, using our same old repetitive ways of distancing ourselves from the demon loneliness. Could we just settle down and have some — Pema Chodron

How are you?"
"Perfectly fine," he said.
"Are your ribs broken?"
"Probably not. Cracked at most. We fought very carefully."
"Did this settle anything?"
"It made me feel better," he said, sitting up. "Did you see me kick him in the kidneys?"
"I saw. — Ilona Andrews

Never settle up for something that is lesser than what you expected. — Anamika Mishra

Morning breath here. 'A dirty mouth you say,' clean it up with Orbit." Maya chuckled. "Unless you have gum, I'm not letting you near me." She reached for a pillow and plopped it over her face.
"Ha-ha! Good one. No gum on me, but I'll settle for kissing your belly." Alex whisked her pajama top up and knelt down to kiss the roundest part of her tummy. — Melisa M. Hamling

An FBI agent, huh?" Trish's expression turned sly. "Is he foxy?"
"That whole story, about the strange coincidence, and my glorious Speech of Many Insults, and the fact that I'm going to be stuck running into this dude forever, and that's your first question? 'Is he foxy?'" Sidney shook her head. "Trishelle..on behalf of womankind, I was expecting a more enlightened discourse."
Trish simply waited.
"Totally foxy," Sidney said. "When he walked up to my table, my first thought was Criminy. Unfortunately, then he spoke."
Trish threw her arm around Sidney. "Somewhere out there, waiting for you, is the total package. A Criminy guy who's just looking for his Ms. Right to settle down with. — Julie James

Never give up, Never Settle for Less — Kesha Cox

Anyway ... she's asleep, turned away from me on her side. The usual stratagems and repositionings have failed to induce narcosis in me, so I decide to settle myself against the soft zigzag of her body. As I move and start to nestle my shin against a calf whose muscles are loosened by sleep, she sense what I'm doing, and without waking reaches up with her left hand and pulls the hair off her shoulders on the top of her head, leaving me her bare nape to nestle in. Each time she does this I feel a shudder of love at the exactness of this sleeping courtesy. My eyes prickle with tears, and I have to stop myself from waking her up to remind her of my love. At that moment, unconsciously, she's touched some secret fulcrum of my feelings for her. — Julian Barnes

If you EVER touch her again, you're a dead man! You got that? There'll be no lawsuit filed against you man, I'll just settle this old school. I don't know how you feel about having your fingers ripped off and shoved up your own arse, but let me tell you, I won't be gentle. — Shelly Pratt

You just have to determine to settle for nothing less than being FULLY ALIVE, to show up, be who you are, and share your gifts. — Gabrielle Roth

The snag in this business of falling in love, aged relative, is that the parties of the first part so often get mixed up with the wrong parties of the second part, robbed of their cooler judgement by the party of the second part's glamour. Put it like this: the male sex is divided into rabbits and non-rabbits and the female sex into dashers and dormice, and the trouble is that the male rabbit has a way of getting attracted by the female dasher (who would be fine for the non-rabbit) and realizing too late that he ought to have been concentrating on some mild, gentle dormouse with whom he could settle down peacefully and nibble lettuce. — P.G. Wodehouse

(Take a deep breath for this next run-on sentence) I believe that two people can fall madly in love and sift that fairy-tale feeling up through the raging sands of reality to settle on top as a polished stone of true joy, where the "happily ever after" will be something two mortals are working towards and not a finished product. — Zack Oates

Gilead was the kind of town where dogs slept in the road for the sun and the warmth that lingered after the sun was gone, and the few cars that there were had to stop and honk until the dogs decided to get up and let them pass by. They'd go limping off to the side, lamed by the comfort they'd had to give up, and then they'd settle down again right where they were before. It really wasn't much of a town. — Marilynne Robinson

In his delicate state he rushed to the cupboard searching something to settle his nerves only to find his larder empty. Feeling a fit of panic, he grabbed at the empty bottles littered about the room, tipping them up seeking some last dregs, drops to quench his nervous thirst. It was at this vulnerable moment that he saw her, standing in the darkness watching him, the red ember of her cigarette rhythmically swallowed by the shadows. He froze. — Parker T. Geissel

Don't let setbacks and disappointments convince you to ever give up and settle for less than you are. Be the great and amazing person, that you were born to be! — Timothy Pina

Events are the ephemera of history; they pass across its stage like fireflies, hardly glimpsed before they settle back into darkness and as often as not into oblivion. Every event, however brief, has to be sure a contribution to make, lights up some dark corner or even some wide vista of history. Nor is it only political history which benefits most, for every historical landscape - political, economic, social, even geographical - is illumined by the intermittent flare of the event. — Fernand Braudel

The truth of the matter was no boy I knew lived up to the fantasy I'd created from the many books I'd read, and I wasn't going to settle. — Natasha Boyd

F
off. It's not like that. Her and me. I'm just saying
"
"That you hadn't left her for good. I never said you had. You just wanted to withdraw long enough to get used to the idea that you'd lost your chance. Lick your wounds, suck it in, and bounce back to being her friend and mentor, and be happy with just that."
"I am happy with just that. It's all I want."
"Is it? Or is that what you're telling yourself because you think you never had a shot in the first place? You'd better wake up fast, Jack, or she's going to settle for Quinn, and let me tell you, it's settling, because it's not Quinn she
— Kelley Armstrong

Do you want to be with Dave for the rest of your life?" Then he rips off a piece of paper and picks up
the smallest charcoal stick from my set. He writes something. He passes it over to me.
It says:
Time will tell.
"And while you're waiting," he says, "don't settle for anything less than what you really want. — Susane Colasanti

If romeo was really gone, never coming back, would it have mattered whether or not juliet had taken Paris up on his offer? Maybe she should have tried to settle into the left-over scraps of life that were left behind. Maybe that would have been as close to happiness as she could get. — Stephenie Meyer

There was so much life wrapped up in that pony's hide that it was mighty hard for him to settle down and behave...he sometimes had to bust out and do things that wasn't at all proper... — Will James

Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire; what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation; what led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause. Hope is what led me here today
with a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas; and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have courage to remake the world as it should be. [January 3, 2008] — Barack Obama

But there was never any knowing or any certitude; the time to come always had more than one possible direction. One could not even give up hope. The wind would blow, the sand would settle, and in some as yet unforeseen manner time would bring about a change which could only be terrifying, since it would not be a continuation of the present. — Paul Bowles