She Believes Quotes & Sayings

Paige, the way you just stood up and left like that, I was awful proud of you. Really, you're stronger than you let on." She sighed. "I should've stood up and left sooner. I was real close." "Me, too," he said. "I think maybe we tried too hard with Bud. Both of us. He always act like that?" "When he's not real quiet and sulky." "He get along with Wes okay?" Preacher asked. "Bud thinks Wes is awesome. Because he thinks Wes is rich. Wes thinks Bud's an idiot." "Hmm." Preacher contemplated. He didn't let go of her hand. "You think Bud really believes it would be all right to get your head bashed in a few times a year for six thousand square feet and a pool?" "I believe he does," she said. "I really believe he does." "Hmm. Think he'd like to move into my big house - test that theory?" She laughed. "Do you have a big house somewhere, John?" "Not at the moment." He shrugged. "But for Bud, I'd be willing to look around." * — Robyn Carr

Jasmine believes in a prophecy that says she is destined to love a man named Josh Toby. Okay, fine. He could believe that. Hell, he had friends who believed carbohydrates were the work of the devil. True love made sense at least. — Diana Holquist

And she came to the monk wearing cosmetics, much gold jewelry, and an elaborate silk dress. The monk admonished her gently; 'By supposing your body to require [all this],' he said,'you condemn the Creator for deficiency.' It is a remark that might be interpreted as misogyny, but in the context of the story
the monk pleads that he is only a man with the same nature as hers, and has no special access to God
it is clear that the monk believes the woman to be made in the image of God, good as she is, without unnecessary adornment. — Kathleen Norris

Philosophy believes she has not made a bad use of her resources when she has bestowed on Reason sovereign mastery over our soul and authority to bridle our appetites. — Michel De Montaigne

It makes us feel and see things in ways that normal people don't. You don't question it or try to understand it. You just accept it for the gift it is. So if she believes he's still alive, give her the benefit of the doubt. — Ednah Walters

If there's a disaster, do you go over to your neighbor's house with: a) a covered dish or b) a shotgun? It's game theory. If you believe your neighbor is coming over with a shotgun, you'd be an idiot to pick a); if she believes the same thing about you, you can bet she's not going to choose a) either. The way to get to a) is to do a) even if you think your neighbor will pick b). Sometimes she'll point her gun at you and tell you to get off her land, but if she was only holding the gun because she thought you'd have one, then she'll put on the safety and you can have a potluck. — Cory Doctorow

In real life, Keaton believes in God. But she also believes that the radio works because there are tiny people inside it. — Woody Allen

Cherish believes that God made her with a special purpose. Like any teenage girl, she has her insecurities, but for the most part she has a real healthy self-esteem. — Charlene Tilton

Being an Irishwoman means many things to me. An Irishwoman is strong and feisty. She has guts and stands up for what she believes in. She believes she is the best at whatever she does and proceeds through life with that knowledge. She can face any hazard that life throws her way and stay with it until she wins. She is loyal to her kinsmen and accepting of others. She's not above a sock in the jaw if you have it coming. — Maureen O'Hara

There's no such thing as security in this life sweetheart, and the sooner you accept that fact, the better off you'll be. The person who strives for security will never be free. The person who believes she's found security will never reach paradise. What she mistakes for security is purgatory. You know what purgatory is, Gwendolyn? It's the waiting room, it's the lobby. Not only does she have the wrong libretto, she's stuck in the lobby where she can't see the show. — Tom Robbins

go on hating myself forever for all the terrible things I'd done. I sank down on the toilet, sharp mental pictures of other temper fits filling my mind. I saw my anger, clenched my fists against my rage. I wouldn't be any good for anything if I couldn't change. My poor mother, I thought. She believes in me. Not even she knows how bad I am. Misery engulfed me in darkness. "If you don't do this for me, God, I've got no place else to go." At one point I'd slipped out of the bathroom long enough to grab a Bible. Now I opened it and began — Ben Carson

Women of worth are those who want positive change for themselves, their families, community or society, which I think is important. For me, a woman of worth is someone who has self -espect, who believes that she can change things in society. — Sonam Kapoor

She snuggled close, nuzzling her hair beneath his chin. "Never leave me," she whispered back.
The siren chuckled sadly, the sound vibrating up through his chest and pleasantly against her ear. "But I must return to the sea every now and then or I will die." He sighed. "Some part of me believes it would be a good death. — Ash Gray

She thinks that if she gives it up, she'll lose the great abilities she believes she's acquired. It's a terrible paradox really: the mind falls in love with psychosis. The evil seduction, I call it. (186) — Michael Greenberg

A bulimic person may be so disconnected from her experience that she does not even know what she needs or wants. If she does not know, needing something or someone only confirms her sense that she is weak and inadequate. She believes her needs are not legitimate, and therefore finds it difficult to seek care or engage with any care she does manage to seek. In fact, she is likely to greet others' expressions of concern with contempt, the very contempt with which she views herself. — Sheila M. Reindl

I believe his lies, so he believes mine.' She turns and looks at me straight on. 'That's how it goes at the end of love. — Paul Murray

She believes that I love her!" cried the King. "What a fatal mistake! What is to be done to undeceive her?" "You know best," answered the Mermaid, smiling kindly at him. "When people are as much in love with one another as you two are, they don't need advice from anyone else. — Andrew Lang

Some of George W. Bush's friends say that Bush believes God called him to be president during these times of trial. But God told me that He/She/It had actually chosen Al Gore by making sure that Gore won the popular vote and, God thought, the Electoral College. 'That worked for everyone else,' God said. — Al Franken

In this way unwittingly the Widow-to-Be is assuring her husband's death - his doom. Even as she believes she is behaving intelligently - "shrewdly" and "reasonably" - she is taking him to a teeming petri dish of lethal bacteria where within a week he will succumb to a virulent staph infection - a "hospital" infection acquired in the course of his treatment for pneumonia. Even as she is fantasizing that he will be home for dinner she is assuring that he will never return home. How unwitting, all Widows-to-Be who imagine that they are doing the right thing, in innocence and ignorance! — Joyce Carol Oates

Sometimes, when it is going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationary. — David Nicholls

Mary believes she was put on earth to bring an end to the living world."
Both Nick and Mikey just stared at her.
"What do you mean ... end?" asked Mikey.
"End means end. Complete and total destruction. She wants to kill everyone and everything. She wants to bring down every building, burn every forest, empty every ocean of life. She wants to turn the earth into a dead planet ... — Neal Shusterman

My wife wanted my children to have some Chinese culture and education. She believes the children need to learn two languages and two cultures. — Jet Li

Ruth Levinson Third grade teacher. She believes in me and I can be anything I want when I grow up. I can even change the world. — Nicholas Sparks

In her opinion, Alexander Graham Bell and Clarence Birdseye are the two greatest Americans that ever lived excluding Robert E. Lee. She believes we never lost the War Between the States, that General Lee thought General Grant was the butler and just naturally handed him his sword. — Fannie Flagg

I laid it all out for him: Eliza believes in me, she moves me, and she's moved BY me. She makes me happy, she makes me sad, she makes me try harder, she makes me laugh, and she makes me feel like I can fly. Isn't that the goddamn definition of Love? — Tiffanie DeBartolo

Any seeming deception in a statement is costly, not only in the expense of the advertising but in the detrimental effect produced upon the customer, who believes she has been misled. — John Wanamaker

She is seventy, and she believes you try new things or you may as well die. — Gabrielle Zevin

Never trust a woman whose father calls her 'Princess'. Chances are she believes it. — Wes Smith

Is the raggle-taggle Brangelina tribe any more bogus than that of the landlocked yummy mummy who believes that she can drop half a dozen brats and still keep a modest carbon footprint? I don't think so. — Julie Burchill

Nurse. Registered Massage therapist. Yoga instructor. She considered al of the above programs and costed out notions, and returned, always, to the library, to its heat, the fragrance of dried pages like pressed leaves, its quietude. Something else is present here too: oscuridad - the Spanish word for darkness, which Juliet believes contains so much more than its translation. The oscuridad in here mirrors her own: one tiny darkness amidst the darkness of a multitude of minds seeking illumination, dead and alive trapped in dormant words. She thinks she can hear the oscuridad, her cheek pressed to the fake wood of the carrel she has earned; she can hear it, even though the library's lights are forever on. — Carrie Snyder

The university... has intimidated her so that she will always give the "right" answer instead of the Christian answer, regardless of what she really believes. — Anna Sofia Botkin

She has very strong ideas about family - ideas that probably sound kind of sexist to you. She believes all dhampirs should train and put in time as guardians, but that the women should eventually return home to raise their children together.
But not the men?
No, he said wryly. She thinks men still need to stay out there and kill Strigoi. — Richelle Mead

An actress reading a part for the first time tries many ways to say the same line before she settles into the one she believes suits the character and situation best. There's an aspect of the rehearsing actress about the girl on the verge of her teens. Playfully, she is starting to try out ways to be a grown-up person. — Stella Chess

I had confessed fully-with all the misguided passion of one who believes that she is cleansing herself and forgets that she may be staining the listener. — Robin Black

You are no longer a young girl who believes that she should be out of life what is best. Just nothing you do not. A couple of times you get lucky and drop you from the sky this or that, accidentally and undeservedly, but most of the things you have to fight it alone and you can enjoy if you get half of what you wanted. — Charlotte Link

I sank down on the toilet, sharp mental pictures of other temper fits filling my mind. I saw my anger, clenched my fists against my rage. I wouldn't be any good for anything if I couldn't change. My poor mother, I thought. She believes in me. Not even she knows how bad I am. Misery engulfed me in darkness. "If you don't do this for me, God, I've got no place else to go." At one point I'd slipped out of the bathroom long enough to grab a Bible. Now I opened it and — Ben Carson

A reader is entitled to believe what he or she believes is consonant with the facts of the book. It is not unusual that readers take away something that is spiritually at variance from what I myself experienced. That's not to say readers make up the book they want. We all have to agree on the facts. But readers bring their histories and all sets of longings. A book will pluck the strings of those longings differently among different readers. — Richard Ford

She prefers books to jewels and saris. She believes as I do. — Jhumpa Lahiri

If all I can say is I'm not in this swamp, I'm not in this swamp then there is not a rope in front of me and there is not an alligator behind me and there is not a girl sitting at the edge eating a hot dog and if I believe that, then dying would be the only answer because then Death couldn't come and say Peachy to me anymore and after all she has a brother who believes in hope. — Tori Amos

I can't even handle love, there's no way I can handle it being taken away. I won't survive it. Please. Please. Please!
I said that I had something to say to her, which made her listen in a way that she didn't when I simply said things without the preface. Even though the preface meant nothing, it calmed her, just as it calmed real people, for the same no-reason.
I told her what people tell people. That this was what it felt like when love was taken away - but that it wasn't the truth, it was just a feeling. It would pass. It would take time.
She would recharge.
She didn't believe me.
No one ever believes it, I said. That's part of what the feeling is. — B.J. Novak

There are always going to be jerks in the world, Auggie," she said, looking at me. "But I really believe, and Daddy really believes, that there are more good people on this earth than bad people, and the good people watch out for each other and take care of each other. Just — R.J. Palacio

Whatever you may think of Mrs. Clinton as a character, I think she believes quite strongly in public service. — Peter Jennings

What I love about Ann Coulter is that she's sort of the-she's sort of a version of myself in that she absolutely never pulls a punch. Even when she's saying something that I think is outrageous, it's what she really believes and she doesn't back off of it. And that is what I find so refreshing and, unfortunately, so unique. I can't name five other people who do that, who don't calculate before they speak. — Bill Maher

She knows what matters and what doesn't,' she answered, choosing her words carefully. 'She remembers what she receives, but never what she gives. She doesn't hold grudges, and if she thinks something is funny she will laugh, whether it is the "done thing" or not. She loves the opera, and gorgeous clothes. She is honest when it is fashionable not to be, but she is never unnecessarily unkind. And she will fight to the death for a cause she believes in. — Anne Perry

On bad days I talk to Death constantly, not about suicide because honestly that's not dramatic enough. Most of us love the stage and suicide is definitely your last performance and being addicted to the stage, suicide was never an option - plus people get to look you over and stare at your fatty bits and you can't cross your legs to give that flattering thigh angle and that's depressing. So we talk. She says things no one else seems to come up with, like let's have a hotdog and then it's like nothing's impossible.
She told me once there is a part of her in everyone, though Neil believes I'm more Delirium than Tori, and Death taught me to accept that, you know, wear your butterflies with pride. And when I do accept that, I know Death is somewhere inside of me. She was the kind of girl all the girls wanted to be, I believe, because of her acceptance of "what is." She keeps reminding me there is change in the "what is" but change cannot be made till you accept the "what is. — Tori Amos

I understand Neverfell, you see. For Neverfell, it is as if other people are part of her. When she believes they are in pain, it hurts her, like a wound in a pretend limb. So right now she is in pain for all the people she saw in the Undercity. — Frances Hardinge

Come on,"he said, gesturing toward the exit. "let's take a walk."
"Where?"
"It doesn't matter. We just need you calmed down or you'll be in no shape to fight."
"Yeah? Are you afraid of my possibly insane dark side coming out?"
"No, I'm afraid of your normal Rose Hathaway side coming out, the one that isn't afraid to jump in without thinking when she believes something is right."
I gave him a dry look. "Is there are a difference?"
"Yes. The second one scares me. — Richelle Mead

The man believes the woman's got the hidden secret. That's a rare thing. You meet lots of people, and they're all deserved of love, of course, but romantic love involves some kind of supplement: she has the secret. That's what's desired. — John Maus

What woman, indeed, among the most faithful adherents of the truth, believes the promises and threats of the Word in the sense in which she believes in her own children, or would not throw her theology to the wind if weighed against their happiness? — Thomas Hardy

Being beautiful is a quality of spirit recognized primarily in a woman whose soul is at rest because she believes her God when he calls her lovely. — Stasi Eldredge

Oh, I remember, I remember all those moments! And I want to add, too, that when such young creatures, such sweet young creatures want to say something so clever and profound, they show at once so truthfully and naively in their faces, "Here I am saying something clever and profound now" - and that is not from vanity, as it is with any one like me, but one sees that she appreciates it awfully herself, and believes in it, and thinks a lot of it, and imagines that you think a lot of all that, just as she does. Oh, truthfulness! It's by that they conquer us. How exquisite it was in her! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Flannery O'Connor's writing is quite dark, but it is so because she believes in the Devil, and in the Fall, and in humanity as it is. Novels that avoid the horror of human existence in this time between Eden and New Jerusalem can reinforce a Christian's tendency to Pelagianism. The Christian gospel isn't "clean" and "safe" and "family-friendly." It comes to its narrative climax at a bloody Place of the Skull and in a borrowed grave. — Russell D. Moore

For a while, Mirabelle believes there will be a moment when he will cave in and let himself love her, but eventually she lets the idea go. She hits bottom. She dwells in the muck for several months, not depressed exactly, but involved in a mourning that at first she thinks is for Ray but soon realizes is for the loss of her old self. — Steve Martin

Reasercher 101,
I do not long for the old, unreachable days. When I'm plugged in I can go anywhere, do and learn anything. Today, for instance, I visited a tiny library in Portugal. I learned how the Shakers weave baskets and I discovered my best friend in middle school loves blood-orange sorbet. Okay, I also learned that a certain pop star actually believes she's a fairy, an honest-to-goodness fairy from the fey people, but my point is access. Access to information. I don't even have to look out my window to see what the eather is like. I can have the weather delivered every morning to my phone. What could be better?
Sincerely,
Wife 22
Wife 22,
Getting caught in the rain?
All the best,
Researcher 101 — Melanie Gideon

What do the American people think? I am eager to know. I would like to believe the majority of Americans want to see Justice done, and they are not interested in financing the detention of innocent people. I know there is a small extremist minority that believes that everybody in this Cuban prison is evil, and that we are treated better than we deserve. But this opinion has no basis but ignorance. I am amazed that somebody can build such an incriminating opinion about people he or she doesn't even know. — Mohamedou Ould Slahi

Jo turns towards me. Her voice is calm but now I see her eyes blaze in a holy hazel fire. She doesn't want to die, but she will, for what she believes in. I need new friends. — Eliza Crewe

Sometimes, when it's going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery. The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus tickets, on the wall of a cell .Emma is lost on anything less than 120gsm. — David Nicholls

She believes in will. It is so frail and delicate at night that she can't even imagine the next morning, but it is so wide and binding by the middle of the next day that she cannot even remember the terrible night. It is as if she gives birth every day. — Amy Bloom

She was a grown up now, and she discovered that being a grown up was not quite what she had suspected it would be when she was a child. She had thought then that she would make a conscious decision one day to simply put her toys and games and little make-believes away. Now she discovered that was not what happened at all. Instead, she discovered, interest simply faded. It became less and less and less, until a dust of years drew over the bright pleasures of childhood, and they were forgotten — Stephen King

She drove me to ballet class ... and she took me to every audition. She'd be proud of me if I was still sitting in that seat or if I was watching from home. She believes in me and that's why this [award] is for her. She's a wonderful mother. — Elisabeth Moss

Maybe acting as if she believes in such a future will help to create it, which is the kind of thing the Gardeners used to say. — Margaret Atwood

She firmly believes feminism to be anti-woman because it pressures women to become more like men. Everyone — Eric Metaxas

Natalya hugged him hard, already torn with remorse over the forces that govern this family. "No, Seva, you won't be allowed to capture it," she said.
"Your grandfather believes in freedom. — Barbara Kingsolver

For a woman, love is the highest dream, and if a man promises to build a ladder tall enough to reach it, she believes him, hikes up her skirt, and follows him to the stars. Now — Adriana Trigiani

And there has been no attempt to investigate it,' I said, 'to see what it really is?'

'Eh, Cornel,' said the coachman's wife, 'wha would investigate, as ye call it, a thing that nobody believes in? Ye would be the laughing-stock of a' the country-side, as my man says.'

'But you believe in it,' I said, turning upon her hastily. The woman was taken by surprise. She made a step backward out of my way.

'Lord, Cornel, how ye frichten a body! Me! there's awful strange things in this world. An unlearned person doesna ken what to think. But the minister and the gentry they just laugh in your face. Inquire into the thing that is not! Na, na, we just let it be.' ("The Open Door") — Mrs. Oliphant

There aren't many irritations to match the condescension which a woman metes out to a man who she believes has loved her vainly for the past umpteen years. — Edward Hoagland

Her intensity often surprises and mystifies the people within the Warrior Princess Submissive's circle of associates. They will occasionally forget how deeply she feels and believes in her causes and, as a result, suddenly find themselves being pummeled in a debate that they hadn't expected, nor wanted. — Michael Makai

At this time in his life Zinkoff sees no difference between the stars in the sky and the stars in his mother's plastic Baggie. He believes that stars fall from the sky sometimes, and that his mother goes around collecting them like acorns. He believes she has to use heavy gloves and dark sunglasses because the fallen stars are so hot and shiny. She puts them in the freezer for forty-five minutes, and when they come out they are flat and silver and sticky on the back and ready for his shirts. — Jerry Spinelli

Each of us is called upon to take a stand. So in these days ahead, as we examine ourselves and each other, our works, our fears, our differences, our sisterhood and survivals, I urge you to tackle what is most difficult for us all, self-scrutiny of our complacencies, the idea that since each of us believes she is on the side of right, she need not examine her position. — Audre Lorde

Jenny is what people would call a "big girl." Jenny from screenwriting class. I watch how she lives in her own imperfect skin, recognizing her limitations but still going for what she wants and doing what she loves - writing, smoking, drinking coffee, eating cake, listening to rock 'n' roll, reading Shakespeare, and wearing cute, punky clothes, all despite being a "big girl." It's like she actually believes she has a right to be in this world. — Lisa Kotin

Julie has told Faye that she believes lovers go through three different stages in getting really to know one another. First they exchange anecdotes and inclinations. Then each tells the other what she believes. Then each observes the relation between what the other says she believes and what she in fact does. — David Foster Wallace

She could surely rise to a dishwasher, but she prefers to use her children. She believes that a row of children chopping vegetables is a better thing than a machine. — Barbara Trapido

She believes in something. It is an old-fashioned idea — Tony Benn

He held her gaze steady while he summarized her promises. She will honor me, protect me, obey me only when she believes I'm being reasonable - but I shouldn't hold out hope that that day will ever come - try to love me before she's an old woman, and I'd better get it straight in my mind that she will respect me until or unless I do something to prove I'm not worthy, and God save me then. Have I left anything out, Brenna? — Julie Garwood

I have no idea what Andrew might have done, and I do not ask. She believes that I can fix this, and like always, that's enough to make me think that I can. I'll take care of it,: I say, when what I really mean is: I'll take care of you. — Jodi Picoult

Six years previously, Miss Brodie had led her new class into the garden for a history lesson underneath the big elm. On the way through the school corridors they passed the headmistress's study. The door was wide open, the room was empty.
'Little girls,' said Miss Brodie, 'come and observe this.'
They clustered round the open door while she pointed to a large poster pinned with drawing-pins on the opposite wall within the room. It depicted a man's big face. Underneath were the words 'Safety First'.
'This is Stanley Baldwin who got in as Prime Minister and got out again ere long,' said Miss Brodie. 'Miss Mackay retains him on the wall because she believes in the slogan "Safety First". But Safety does not come first. Goodness, Truth and Beauty come first. Follow me. — Muriel Spark

She told me once there is a part of her in everyone, though Neil believes I'm more Delirium than Tori, and Death taught me to accept that, you know, wear your butterflies with pride. — Tori Amos

Not exactly. I see a girl who wants to present someone special to the world. Someone beautiful. The pinnacle of beauty. But she has lost her hold on reality. Real beauty isn't thin. It isn't size two, unless you happen to be four foot ten. What the world sees when they look at you is someone who believes self-worth is all about how she looks, and that very often means that what she's missing is love. Not someone else's love. But love and respect for herself. — Ellen Hopkins

My grandmother once told my mother that there is a splice of quartz inside each of us, like the quartz inside a compass or clock. We feel the stone glow warm when we find what it is we are meant to do. My grandmother was a singer; voice was her quartz, a second heartbeat that reminded her always of who she was. My mother's quartz is dance and Joaquin's is the piano. The saddest souls in the world, my mother believes, are those who never discover this thing within them. There is a difference between those who wander in search of that glow and those who wander in hopes of evading it. It is frightening, after all - that first awakening when the radiance within threatens to topple you. Even more terrifying is the decision to allow the fire to continue smoldering, because the brighter you let it get, the more terrible the darkness should you ever let it out."

- Elizabeth Genovise "Irises" (O. Henry prize winner 2016) — Elizabeth Genovise

When it comes to loving D/ s relationships, the three little words mostly likely to have a significant , positive, and lasting impact on your partner's well-being is probably "I love you." Once we venture beyond that simple three-word endearment, however, the competition gets much stiffer. If I had to predict a winner in the four little words category, I'd choose "I believe in you." When a Dominant believes in his submissive, she eventually grows to believe in herself. That sort of empowerment is priceless beyond measure, and almost always bears sweet fruit. — Michael Makai

Though no longer pregnant, she continues, at times, to mix Rice Krispies and peanuts and onions in a bowl. For being a foreigner Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy
a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been an ordinary life, only to discover that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity of from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Men believe value is created by accomplishment, and they have objectives for the women in their lives. If a
woman meets the objectives, he assumes she loves him. If she fails to meet the objectives, he will assume she does not
love him. The man assumes that if the woman loved him she would have tried harder and he always believes his objectives for her are reasonable. — Scott Adams

It's still romantic," Christine said, "falling in love with someone for who she is and what she says and what she believes in. It's actually much more romantic than her crush on you, which would have to be almost completely physical. You might be nothing like she thinks you are. — Rainbow Rowell

Thanks to a lifetime of brainwashing by Disney and Lifetime and Hallmark, she naively believes glimpsing God during an epic fuck somehow translates into some kind of happily ever after with her Prince Charming. — Lauren Rowe

Imagine a different world, one in which people do not spend an inordinate amount of energy fuming against their fate each time they make a mistake ... though we all agree that to err is human, each of us individually believes that he or she is the exception ... Make a mistake? Not on my watch! — Veronique Vienne

Marriages we regard as the happiest are those in which each of the partners believes he or she got the best of it. — Sydney J. Harris

That was a dhlang!" he said. "An evil spirit! The peasants down in the valleys hang up charms against them! But I thought they were just a superstition!"
"No, they're a substition," said Susan. "I mean they're real, but hardly anyone really believes them. Mostly everyone believes in things that aren't real. Something very strange is going on. Those things are all over the place, and they've got bodies. That's not right. We've got to find the person who built the clock - "
"And, er, what are you, Miss Susan?"
"Me? I'm ... a schoolteacher."
She followed his gaze to the wrench that she still carried in her hand, and shrugged.
"It can get pretty rough at break time, can it?" said Lobsang. — Terry Pratchett

He actually believes that she was murdered. The reality is, of course, also, that his car, his driver, were involved in this crash therefore there will be people that believe that he is ultimately responsible not only for the death of his own son, but for the death of the princess. — Robert Jobson

To get a person's real opinion, ask what she thinks everyone else believes ... If people truly hold a particular belief, they are more likely to think that others agree or have had similar experiences. [People] tend to assume that other people have had life histories at least somewhat similar to their own. When we talk about other people, we are often talking about ourselves, whether we know it ourselves. — Tyler Cowen

And here's the other problem with consequences. Consequences work on the assumption that a child's core belief about herself is positive and therefore she will choose good things for herself. Many adopted children deep down see themselves as flawed humans who were given away because they were bad. A child who believes he's bad will expect more bad things to happen to him, and will often behave in a way that guarantees more bad things will happen. A child who has been hurt by loved ones will expect hurt from everyone else too. — Mary Ostyn

Sometimes falling rain
carries memories of betrayal
there in the woods
where she was not meant to be
too young she believes
in her right to be free
in her body
free from harm
believing nature
a wilderness she can enter
be solaced
believing the power
that there be sacred place
that there can be atonement now
she returns with no fear
facing the past
ready to risk
knowing these woods now
hold beauty and danger — Bell Hooks

In The Silver Chair, the Marsh-wiggle Puddleglum is all wisdom in rebutting the witch as she denies the existence of the world in which he believes. But as children's fiction isn't quite academically respectable, I'll pretend that I learned this from Blaise Pascal. [ ... ] If the world really is accidental and devoid of meaning, and you and I have no more value in the cosmos than you average bread mold, and Beauty and Goodness are artificial constructs imagined within an explosion, constructs that are controlled by chemical reactions within the accident and have no necessary correspondence to reality, then my made-up children's world licks your real world silly. Depart from me. Go drown in your seething accident. Puddleglum and I are staying here. — N.D. Wilson

Who am I to claim such boundless sorrow? This heartache, acute and true as it may be, is slight compared to all of this world. Five miscarriages, two stillborn, three live births, and Mrs. Connor is one of our fortunate. She is not disemboweled in the snow. Her hands have committed no atrocities. She believes in God.
It is remarkable how we go on. All that we come to know and witness and endure, yet our hearts keep beating, our faith persists. — Eowyn Ivey

These coupling certainly do not fit with the mainstream idea that genes, or at least organisms, are hell-bent on reproducing themselves. They do fit, however, with the idea of a social role for sex, and they fit with the idea that sexual reproduction is a spandrel, a by-product of some other phenomenon. If Roughgarden is on to something, she believes it could have cultural as well as scientific implications. The orthodoxy of biology has corroded our culture like battery acid, she says, In general, we play out the roles prescribed for us by that culture - aggressive male and coy female - because deviation from its "norm" results in emotional and physical violence, bigotry, personal guilt, and criminalized behaviors. If biology has been getting it wrong though, the new orthodoxy could trigger an infusion of tolerance; perhaps the anomalous prevalence of sexual reproduction will end up having deeper repercussions outside of science than within it. — Michael Brooks

Sarah Palin, part-time Governor of Alaska, is angry because Michele Obama is encouraging kids to eat healthy. Sarah Palin believes the government shouldn't tell us what to do. Sarah Palin believes she should tell us what to do. — David Letterman

Whatever our official pieties, deep down we all believe in lives. The sternest formalists are the loudest gossips, and if you ask a cultural-studies maven who believes in nothing but collective forces and class determinisms how she came to believe in this doctrine, she will begin to tell you, eagerly, the story of her life. — Adam Gopnik

The life spills over, some days.
She cannot be at rest,
Wishes she could explode

Like that red tree -
The one that bursts into fire
All this week.

Senses her infinite smallness
But can't seize it,
Recognizes the folly of desire,

The folly of withdrawal -
Kicks at the curb, the pavement,
If only she could, at this moment,

When what she's doing is plodding
To the bus stop, to go to school,
Passing that fiery tree - if only she could

Be making love,
Be making a painting,
Be exploding, be speeding through the universe

Like a photon, like a shower
Of yellow flames -
She believes if she could only catch up

With the riding rhythm of things, of her own electrons,
Then she would be at rest -
If she could forget school,

Climb the tree,
Be the tree,
burn like that. — Alicia Suskin Ostriker

We have no faith in ourselves. I have never met a woman who, deep down in her core, really believes she has great legs. And if she suspects that she might have great legs, then she's convinced that she has a shrill voice and no neck. — Cynthia Heimel

It's just that we don't know what that passion is. If you ask someone, they'll tell you what they think they're passionate about, but they probably have it wrong." In other words, she believes that having passion for your work is vital, but she also believes that it's a fool's errand to try to figure out in advance what work will lead to this passion. — Cal Newport

She was thinking she needed to post a letter in the Lonely Hearts column in the Silver Town Gazette: She-wolf seeking male wolf who believes in ghosts. No others need apply. — Terry Spear