Short Break Quotes & Sayings

Remember anything you want that's valuable requires you to break through short-term pain in order to gain long-term pleasure. — Tony Robbins

Poetry can unleash a terrible fear. I suppose it is the fear of possibilities, too many possibilities, each with its own endless set of variations. It's like looking too closely and too long into a mirror; soon your features distort, then erupt. You look too closely into your poems, or listen too closely to them as they arrive in whispers, and the features inside you - call it heart, call it mind, call it soul - accelerate out of control. They distort and they erupt, and it is one strange pain. You realize, then, that you can't attempt breaking down too many barriers in too short a time, because there are as many horrors waiting to get in at you as there are parts of yourself pushing to break out, and with the same, or more, fevered determination. — Jim Carroll

Even complex passwords are getting easy to break if they're too short. That's because today's inexpensive computer chips have the power of supercomputers from the year 2000. — Barton Gellman

What I remember about that experience is that if you went to go see ' Born On The Fourth Of July' and you happened to take a bathroom break real quick or grab some popcorn, you probably missed me. It was short, but it was memorable. — Vivica A. Fox

Remember: Life is short, break the rules — James Dean

Don't get me wrong. For the most part, being strong got me through a lot. And I'm thankful that short of people dying on me, nothing can make me break down.
There are times, however, when being strong feels a bit of a curse.
You see, when you're a very strong person, people always expect you to take care of yourself. People always expect you to put on a calm and collected exterior. You're not given much room to freak out and be human. — Nessie Q.

They sat as if the weight of the world had in this minute been lifted from them both and left them dumb with surprise. But this lasted only for the moment. Arthur held her murderously tight, as if to vanquish her spirit even in the first short contest. But she responded to him, as if she would break him first. It was stalemate, and they sought relief from the great decision they had just brought upon themselves. He spoke to her softly, and she nodded her head to his words without knowing what they meant. Neither did Arthur know what he was saying; both transmission and reception were drowned, and they broke through to the opened furrows of the earth. — Alan Sillitoe

Artemis took a chance on some calculated sarcasm. "Really, Spiro. Did you think I would attempt a break-in? Perhaps you thought I would fly in here with my fairy friends and magic your box away?" Spiro laughed. "You can bring all the fairy friends you like, Arty-boy. Short of a miracle that Cube is staying right where it is. — Eoin Colfer

He slowed to a walk. As he approached her he was surprised at just how pretty she was. She looked a little like Maureen O'Hara in those old pirate movies. His writer's mind kicked in and he thought, This woman could break my heart. I could crash and burn on this woman. I could lose this woman, drink heavily, write profound poems, and die in the gutter of turberculosis over this woman.
This was not an unusual reaction for Tommy. He had it often, mostly with girls who worked the drive-through windows at fast-food places. He would drive off with the smell of fries in his car and the bitter taste of unrequited love on his tongue. It was usually good for at least one short story. — Christopher Moore

I carried with me into the West End Bar, the White Horse Tavern, a long list of things I would never do: I would never have my hair set in a beauty parlor. I would never move to a suburb and bake cakes or make casseroles. I would never go to a country club dance, although I did like the paper lanterns casting rainbow colors on the terrace. I would never invest in the stock market. I would never play canasta. I would never wear pearls. I would love like a nursling but I would never go near a man who had a portfolio or a set of golf clubs or a business or even a business suit. I would only love a wild thing. I didn't care if wild things tended to break hearts. I didn't care if they substituted scotch for breakfast cereal. I understood that wild things wrote suicide notes to the gods and were apt to show up three hours later than promised. I understood that art was long and life was short. — Anne Roiphe

There were undoubtedly those to whom killing was easy and pleasurable: he had met a few such. Millions had been successfully trained to end others' lives; he, Strike, was one of them. Humans killed opportunistically, for advantage and in defense, discovering in themselves the capacity for bloodshed when no alternative seemed possible; but there were also people who had drawn up short, even under the most intense pressure, unable to press their advantage, to seize the opportunity, to break the final and greatest taboo. — Robert Galbraith

You have to have short fingernails or they'd just break off, and you can't wear red polish - it looks like your fingers are bleeding. — Elizabeth Smart

Going to the gym and looking for a specific result is a short-lived existence, as opposed to going to the gym and adopting it as a lifestyle. Develop a routine, because it's much harder to break it if you have one. If you have no routine, you have nothing to break, so discipline goes out the window. — Eric Dane

Life is short, break the rules. — Mark Twain

Every day is precious. And like is too damned short!"
Ren hadn't forgotten the heart attack that had nearly killed Blackjack two years before. "Are you all right?" she asked, laying her hand on his heart.
"My heart will be fine. So long as you don't break it. — Joan Johnston

He could have a break at last, albeit a short one, one he sorely needed. And with that appealing thought he further squelched the subconscious screams, true message lost in the deceptive world of emotion and will. — Marcha A. Fox

As a young man I started searching for my own identity by looking into family, friends and inside

Myself. My mother always taught us to live free even when confined, meaning "never let anyone break you down physically or mentally." Since my living environment was so heavily impacted with violence and illegal activity I found myself adapting to social norms that later in my adult life would negatively affect me. For example, certain physical reactions that were acceptable, as a child would give you a reputation on the street as tough guy, don't mess with him. The same mentality later in life, as a man would label you as a predator of some sort and a woman abuser. It was hard to understand the true value of a man and all his worth and everything he is capable of achieving, when you're surrounded by pimps, hustlers and con men that all may make more money than the men with trade jobs and have more of an appealing lifestyle for the short- term progress. — Rubin Scott

You are wise as well as short."
"I can also break bricks with my bare hands."
"That's a handy skill if you ever find yourself walled up in the basement of an abandoned house by a psychopath. — Nora Roberts

In 1951 Dec 20th, Nehru, while campaigning for the first democratic elections in India, took a short break to address a UNESCO symposium in Delhi. Although he believed democracy was the best form of governance, while speaking at the symposium he wondered loud...
the quality of men who are selected by these modern democratic methods of adult franchise gradually deteriorates because of lack of thinking and the noise of propaganda....He[the voter] reacts to sound and to the din, he reacts to repetition and he produces either a dictator or a dumb politician who is insensitive. Such a politician can stand all the din in the world and still remain standing on his two feet and, therefore, he gets selected in the end because the others have collapsed because of the din.
-Quoted from India After Gandhi, page 157. — Ramachandra Guha

Therapeutic fasting goes back thousands of years, of course, and was long regarded by doctors as being more appropriate for philosophers than physicians. Researchers, however, have investigated what occurs when the body takes a short break from nutrients. They have studied the biochemical events that occur in the bloodstream, in the joints, in the fat tissues, and in the brain, and have found astonishing results. — Joel Fuhrman

Sometimes, in a tight game with runners on, digging in at short, ready to break with the ball, a peace I'd never felt before would paralyze the diamond. For a moment of eternal stillness I felt as if I were cocked at the very heart of the Midwest. — Stuart Dybek

Poetry: that can mean an Atemwende, a breathturn. Who knows, perhaps poetry travels this route - also the route of art - for the sake of such a breathturn? Perhaps it will succeed, as the strange, I mean the abyss and the Medusa's head, the abyss and the automatons, seem to lie in one direction - perhaps it will succeed here to differentiate between strange and strange, perhaps it is exactly here that the Medusa's head shrinks, perhaps it is exactly here that the automatons break down - for this single short moment? Perhaps here, with the I - with the estranged I set free here and in this manner - perhaps here a further Other is set free? Perhaps the poem is itself because of this ... and can now, in this art-less, art-free manner, walk its other routes, thus also the routes of art - time and again? Perhaps. — Paul Celan

Life is short, love is sweet, regrets can either make you or break you, nothing lasts forever.
Nathan, Georgia on My Mind — Marie Force

We were a really crazy band. This was in '73. I had my hair real short with a white stripe down the middle of my head. The guitarists had pink hair. We weren't playing CBGB's either, we were playing Statesborough, Georgia, for cowboys on penny beer night. We used to keep crowbars onstage when fights would break out. Those were really wild times. — Rex Smith

Our Headmaster is taking a short break,' said Professor McGonagall, pointing at the Snape-shaped hole in the window. — J.K. Rowling

I got a lot of body paint on me in a short period of time. I would definitely do it again because Joann [Gair] is so brilliant, but I would definitely need, like, a good long break for it. — Ronda Rousey

Every person has a different battle they must fight. One person may have to break covenants with the spirit husband/wife, another must break evil covenants with Masonic groups; but first you have to go before God for direction in the route YOU must take. Do not be short changed by only praying what has been written in this book. You should now have better understanding to the battles you must make preparation for. Deliverance is an ongoing process; it is like peeling an onion one layer at a time. — Alisha Anderson

The campaign was also among the most heated in recent memory, or short -term anticipation. The soon-to-be Opposition Leader never tired of listing the promises the new Prime Minister would break; she in turn countered with statistics of the mess he'd create as Treasurer, in the mid-eighties. (The causes of that impending recession were still being debated by economists; most claimed it was an "essential precursor" of the prosperity of the nineties , and that The Market, in its infinite, time -spanning wisdom, would choose / had chosen the best of all possible futures. Personally, I suspect it simply proved that even foresight was no cure for incompetence. — Greg Egan

There is a sort of genre of optimistic science fiction that I like, and I don't think there is enough of. One of my favourites is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, 'The City and the Stars.' It's set in this far future on Earth in this somewhat static society and trying to break out. — Peter Thiel

Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it. Your problem is, you just can't let this one go. It's over, Groceries. David's purpose was to shake you up, drive you out of that marriage that you needed to leave, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. That was his job, and he did great, but now it's over. Problem is, you can't accept that this relationship had a real short shelf life. You're like a dog at the dump, baby - you're just lickin' at an empty tin can, trying to get more nutrition out of it. And if you're not careful, that can's gonna get stuck on your snout forever and make your life miserable. So drop it. — Elizabeth Gilbert

My books are more about people experimenting with different identities and social models in a short-term way before they can break through to something authentic. — Chuck Palahniuk

From the baking aisle to the post office line to the wrapping paper bin in the attic, women populate every dark corner of Christmas. Who got up at 4 a.m. to put the ham in the oven? A woman ... Who sent the Christmas card describing her eighteen-year-old son's incarceration as 'a short break before college?' A woman. Who remembered to include batteries at the bottom of each stocking? A woman. And who gets credit for pulling it all off?
Santa.
That's right. A man. — Rachel Held Evans

Look up, you whose gaze is fixed on this earth, who are spellbound by the little events and changes on the face of the earth. Look up to these words, you who have turned away from heaven disappointed. Look up, you whose eyes are heavy with tears and who are heavy and who are crying over the fact that the earth has gracelessly torn us away. Look up, you who, burdened with guilt, cannot lift your eyes. Look up, your redemption is drawing near. something different from what you see daily will happen. Just be aware, be watchful, wait just another short moment. Wait and something quite new will break over you: God will come. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. — George Orwell

So much misinformation has been published and broadcast over the years about Jimi's short but spectacular life by people with an interest only in self-aggrandizement, that a few years ago I finally decided to break my silence of twenty years and record my version of events. This is not just a story about Jimi, but it's about me, and others who I knew in those early days and who are no longer with us, like Keith Moon, Brian Jones and Chas Chandler, and it's about what it was like to live in those extraordinary times. — Kathy Etchingham

As you get past the first few weeks of your travel experience however, you'll discover that partying on the road is different from partying at home. At home, partying is a way of celebrating the weekend or taking a pause from the workaday world. On the road, every moment is a weekend, every day a break from the workaday world. Thus, falling into a nightly ritual of partying - as can easily happen in traveler hangouts anywhere on the planet - is a sure way to overlook the subtlety of places, stunt your creativity, and trap yourself in the patterns of home. Granted, you can have plenty of fun in the process; but if you travel the world merely to indulge in the same kinds of diversions you enjoy at home, you'll end up selling your experience short. — Rolf Potts

I hate you. You are the reason fungus exists. You are the slime that grows in swamps that even acid can't break down - "
"How long do you plan to keep this up, Rhubarb?"
"Why?"
"Because I was going to hail down a bottle of beer and I figured you might get thirsty having your mouth open so much."
"Make it a white wine and I'll keep it short."
"No, you won't, but it might slow you down. Be right back. — Dee Tenorio

Acknowledging the lucky breaks are paramount to enjoying life. Not being defensive about our successes/failures. So, in short. — Dan Mangan

When I turned to climb the third wave, I saw at my feet a small leaf, perhaps an inch long, pointed, withered to bright chestnut but still smooth. It was supported above the soil in the grey points of short grasses which did not bend beneath its weightlessness. It was curved in all three planes. Fibrous veins displayed its structure. It was quite still. And as I watched its stillness spread; first to me. I wanted not to move by a hair's breadth. Lest the bond between it and me should break. The stillness spread to the grass around us. It encompassed the hill. The beech wood became attendant on it. The whole valley slowly filled with it. The leaf, and I its participant, had drawn the mileswide landscape into an attentive, breathless synthesis ... there was no movement, no sound and no distinction or identifying of parts in all that had been there united. For there was no 'I' that gazed ... through that tiny gateway I became one with what was boundless. — Geoffrey Vickers

When one's stomach is as fluttery as all that, it is nice to take a short break to lie down and perhaps sip a fizzy beverage, but there was no time for such things. — Lemony Snicket

Don't even try to figure out where that came from. I assure you the logic chain in Bear's head makes sense if you actually know him (and by 'makes sense' I mean in a Bear way), but for a newbie like you, it'll probably just break your mind — T.J. Klune

My conscience is crosswired with my sweat glands, but there's a short in the system and I break out over things I didn't do, which only makes me look more suspect. — David Sedaris

Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile. Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. — Mark Twain

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields
Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you, from falling hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields. — John McCrae

Cormag caught his hand and pulled him back until they were facing each other. "I think you're amazing," he said, blurting the words out.
Lachlan smiled, completely shocked and thrilled by how captivating he found him.
He had never thought this could happen to him, that he would be attracted to another boy.
He thought he knew himself so well.
"I think you're smart, sexy, funny as hell. You have hidden depths, Lachlan. You only need the right person to coax you out of your protective shell," he claimed.
"Are you the right person?" Lachlan wondered, as he took a half step forward.
Cormag took a deep breath and brushed at a strand of hair that was sticking out at a funny angle from behind the top of his ear. He tugged at his short hair every time he talked about his recent break up. He was such a dork. — Elaine White

I didn't want to talk about things like that. "Listen," I said; "I haven't any money. I never have had any. I just go along, and trust to God." "Sure," he agreed; "sure. But that don't signify. What you want to ask yourself is, what does God think about it?" It brought me up short, and made me feel a little uncomfortable. "I don't know, Gus," I said. "What do you think He thinks?" The toothpick was well chewed out by now; he wrapped his legs around the rungs of his chair, and leaned back. "I wish I could tell you, Mack," he said; "I do indeed. Sometimes you'd almost think He don't know we're here at all. And then when it looks worst, you get a break; along comes a fare for Jersey City, or some drunk tips you what's left of a five dollar bill. That don't make you believe in God, but it shows which way the land lies." "The — Robert Nathan

I think the idea of a soul mate is too romanticised, Don't get me wrong; romance is bliss, but to me, A soul mate is something so much more. It is possibility when hope falls short, it is waking on a Monday excited for breakfast - because it's with them, it's finding the simple pleasures of life so exhilarating - because your side by side, it is experiencing a connection that won't break, alter or dis-courage the growth of both individual journeys, a soul mate isn't just romance, to me it is so much more. — Nikki Rowe

It is of the essence of life that it does not begin here or end there, or connect a point of origin with a final destination, but rather that it keeps on going, finding a way through the myriad of things that form, persist and break up in its currents. Life, in short, is a movement of opening, not of closure. — Tim Ingold

How prone we are to come to the consideration of every question with heads and hearts pre-occupied! How prone to shrink from any opinion, however reasonable, if it be opposed to any, however unreasonable, of our own! How disposed are we to judge, in anger, those who call upon us to think, and encourage us to enquire! To question our prejudices seems nothing less than sacrilege; to break the chains of our ignorance, nothing short of impiety! — Frances Wright

A new governing majority will depend on two breakthroughs. The first is that voters, not big money, once again determine election outcomes. We need to break out of the money-politics-media trap. The second is that government be able to translate increased revenues into effective public services and infrastructure. We need, in short, a return to civic virtue, in which Americans recommit to contributing to the common benefit and to cooperating for mutual gain. — Jeffrey D. Sachs

Sometimes I just wanted a break from it, but every time I looked forward to see if a break was possible, it never seemed like it could happen. I honestly thought I'd be that way forever, which sometimes made me wish that forever would be a really short time. — Jessica Sorensen

On an impulse he went into the room and stood before the window, pushing aside the sheer curtain to watch the snow, now nearly eight inches high on the lampposts and the fences and the roofs. It was the sort of storm that rarely happened in Lexington, and the steady white flakes, the silence, filled him with a sense of excitement and peace. It was a moment when all the disparate shards of his life seemed to knit themselves together, every past sadness and disappointment, every anxious secret and uncertainty hidden now beneath the soft white layers. Tomorrow would be quiet, the world subdued and fragile, until the neighborhood children came out to break the stillness with their tracks and shouts and joy. He remembered such days from his own childhood in the mountains, rare moments of escape when he went into the woods, his breathing amplified and his voice somehow muffled by the heavy snow that bent branches low, drifted over paths. The world, for a few short hours, transformed. — Kim Edwards

I have, for a few years, been writing comedy prose - short pieces for my blog - because I found it to be a good way to write while I was on a TV show. It was different enough from my scripts that it felt like a break, but it still was comedy and very fun. I like to do comedy! — Megan Amram

A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick
a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart. — Neil Gaiman

Fast-forward to March 17, 2014, when the Los Angeles Times was the first news company to break a story about a nearby earthquake. Their edge? The article was written entirely by a robot - a computer program that scans streams of data, like that from the U.S. Geological Survey, and puts together short pieces faster than any newsroom chain of command could. This program earned the paper a few minutes of lead time at most, but today, those minutes are critical. — Stanley McChrystal

I want lots and lots of sex."
"You really are the woman of my dreams."
"First round, wet shower sex, after we scrape off a few layers of the Alaskan tundra, then a short and satisfying lunch break. Then a second round of make-the-mattress-sing sex."
"I feel a tear of gratitude and awe forming in the corner of my eyes. Don't think less of me. — Nora Roberts

Life is eternal; death only punctuates it for a short while. After a little break life starts again. Death is ultimate truth; life is truth beyond ultimate. Life is never destroyed; it just keeps on changing shapes. Endless processes are attached with this life; many stages are there in this grand journey of life. From an insect to an enlightened soul it keeps on changing. Creation is always beautiful in the beginning. It can be beautiful all the time also. What is purpose of life? It's evolution to higher levels — Mahesh Babu

The poet lives and writes at the frontier between deep internal experience and the revelations of the outer world. There is no going back for the poet once this frontier has been reached; a new territory is visible and what has been said cannot be unsaid. The discipline of poetry is in overhearing yourself say difficult truths from which it is impossible to retreat. Poetry is a break for freedom. In a sense all poems are good; all poems are an emblem of courage and the attempt to say the unsayable; but only a few are able to speak to something universal yet personal and distinct at the same time; to create a door through which others can walk into what previously seemed unobtainable realms, in the passage of a few short lines. — David Whyte

He was getting undressed and it snapped something inside of him that had been drawing taut, ready to break for months.
"I'm hungry, Bruno," he said, in a soft voice, as he removed the shirt from his broad shoulders, revealing a perfect sight of smooth dark skin. "I can't wait for dinner," he continued, with a smile.
When he put his hands to the fastening of his trousers, Bruno let out a sigh and put the take out menus on the counter. He couldn't look at him, because he knew Lyon was trying to seduce him on purpose. He didn't want to talk or hear him out or spend time with him that didn't end with an orgasm.
"I can't do this anymore," Bruno confessed, quietly. — Elaine White

Youth is marked by a breathtaking novelty that diminishes with each year of age - until life becomes a delusive struggle to break routines, escape the ordinary, and rediscover the joy of discovery. — Zack Love

Maturity is only a short break in adolescence. — Jules Feiffer

The short story is a very natural mode of storytelling; most stories can be told quickly. I always think of them as like a tightrope walk - every sentence is a step along the rope, and you can so easily misplace your step and break your neck. — Kevin Barry

He found that mice with a defect in their CREB activator gene were virtually incapable of forming long-term memories. They were amnesiac mice. But even these forgetful mice could learn a bit if they had short lessons with rest in between. Scientists theorize that we have a fixed amount of CREB activator in the brain that can limit the amount we can learn in any specific time. If we try to cram before a test, it means that we quickly exhaust the amount of CREB activators, and hence we cannot learn any more - at least until we take a break to replenish the CREB activators. — Michio Kaku

Would you believe it? Would you believe it. Okay, this is WLRB, all-talk radio. Take a short break, then come right back to talk about whatever you want. Man, but I'm telling you: what's happening to this country! — Avi

Captain Owen Hartford, at your service." He tipped his hat.
Oh, so it was going to be like this, was it? She searched her memory for a good name. "Patience Corntower. Of Thorny Hollow way."
His grin went wide. "We are well acquainted. You may not recollect me."
"But I do, sir. Quite clearly."
Something flickered in his gaze. "Would the miss be available for a short walk on the pier?"
"In the middle of a battle?" Her eyes went wide and she tried not to laugh. "Aren't you supposed to be getting something amputated?"
"Shhh." He held up a finger, eyes crinkled at the corners. "Don't break character. — Mary Jane Hathaway

The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the ones that we carry around in public in order to drown them out with the noise; like diseases that are treated superficially and foolishly, they just withdraw and after a short interval break out again all the more terribly; and gather inside us and are life, are life that is unlived, rejected, lost, life that we can die of. — Rainer Maria Rilke

All human affairs rest upon probabilities, and the same thing is true everywhere. If man were immortal he could be perfectly sure of seeing the day when everything in which he had trusted would betray his trust, and, in short, of coming eventually to hopeless misery. He would break down, at last, as every great fortune, as every dynasty, as every civilization does. In place of this we have death. — Charles Sanders Peirce

Elyograg-He struggled once more to break free, but it was no use. He was tied to the pyre; a torch set the mound ablaze. He closed his eyes and prepared to feel the burn engulfing him, his short life flashing by. But instead of feeling the burning heat of the fire, he felt a cold spread against him from the outside in, turning his human remains not to ash, but to stone. — Lorraine Beaumont

I wanted to shove her
away, thinking of my job, of headlines,
of how this kind of comfort was outside
the behavioral guidelines of my contract.
She began to sob more softly while holding me
tightly, and I let her. I let her have control
of me for that moment. I let her break
behavioral guidelines as more important ones
had been broken on her. And then we stopped
being student and teacher - just a couple people
at a loss when the powerful and unexpected
had been suddenly thrust upon us.
The principal and three students turned the corner
and stopped short. I knew it might be years
before I cleared my name, but far longer
for her to reclaim her life. — B.J. Ward

I used to publish these stories in 32-page comics, and I would either do short stories or break the long ones up into chunks so there would be some variety inside the comic. But since then, people have been doing more and more long, standalone works, and the term 'graphic novel' has sort of become the codified term now. — Jim Woodring

So after some instruction, Joseph put on the apron and started carefully polishing the clean dishes even though it made no sense to him.
Over the course of the day, he learned how to wash the floors and clean the windows and empty out the iron stove. Soon the kitchen smelled of lemons and spices, fresh bread and soap.
There was a short break for lunch before resuming work. The light shifted during the afternoon and cascaded through the clean windows, burnishing the room with gold.
Joseph was so focused on the work, on the patters of the silverware and the curve of the handles on the ancient pitchers and measuring cups, that he forgot for a little while about his parents, and St. Anthony's, and the fire, and losing Blink. He felt a kind of pride in being allowed to touch all the delicate glassware, plates, and bowls, and he hadn't broken a single thing. — Brian Selznick

Why do we sacrifice so much energy to our art?
Not in order to teach others but to learn with them what our existence, our organism, our personal and repeatable experience have to give us; to learn to break down the barriers which surround us and to free ourselves from the breaks which hold us back, from the lies about ourselves which we manufacture daily for ourselves and for others; to destroy the limitations caused by our ignorance or lack of courage; in short, to fill the emptiness in us: to fulfill ourselves ... art is a ripening, an evolution, an uplifting which enables us to emerge from darkness into a blaze of light. — Jerzy Grotowski

Child, child, love while you can
The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man;
Never fear though it break your heart-
Out of the wound new joy will start;
Only love proudly and gladly and well,
Though love be heaven or love be hell.
Child, child, love while you may,
For life is short as a happy day;
Never fear the thing you feel-
Only by love is life made real;
Love, for the deadly sins are seven,
Only through love will you enter heaven. — Sara Teasdale

I wait, you play. You speak, I cave. I promise, you break. You game me, daily, you play me. — Coco J. Ginger

Having all the wisdom and advice in the world doesn't mean we all won't have the occasional bad day. If someone isn't in the best mood and they're short with you- it's not your fault. Let them cool off. We all have days like that. Take a break and decompress. it'll pass.
Goal: If you're having a bad day, unplug and relax. Take some time for yourself. — Demi Lovato

We were to write a short essay on one of the works we read in the course and relate it to our lives. I chose the "Allegory of the Cave" in Plato's Republic. I compared my childhood of growing up in a family of migrant workers with the prisoners who were in a dark cave chained to the floor and facing a blank wall. I wrote that, like the captives, my family and other migrant workers were shackled to the fields day after day, seven days a week, week after week, being paid very little and living in tents or old garages that had dirt floors, no indoor plumbing, no electricity. I described how the daily struggle to simply put food on our tables kept us from breaking the shackles, from turning our lives around. I explained that faith and hope for a better life kept us going. I identified with the prisoner who managed to escape and with his sense of obligation to return to the cave and help others break free. — Francisco Jimenez

Good Bones

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I've shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I'll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that's a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful. — Maggie Smith

The short story can be hot and sweet or hot and fierce. You get it in one sitting or you don't get it. It's like a shore break. It happens quickly, and is right there in front of you, menacing you. First you're looking at the shore break, and then if you don't back up, it's on you. The novel is the long, low wave that you ride south from the Arctic Circle. It's powerful, but its power accumulates over a very long time as it rolls towards the reef. — Stephanie Vaughn

It's much easier to feel (and be) safer in a tiny house. After a very short time, you will know every little nook and cranny in your house. In a large house, there are more places for someone to break into, more places for someone to hide, and more places that you have to be wary of danger. — Michael Holtby

If you love somebody, tell them. If there is conflict, let it go and fight instead for peace. Break the numb false silence and break the distance too. Laugh and cry and apologize and start again. This life is short and fragile but friendship is among the greatest miracles. — Jamie Tworkowski

The best sentences orient us, like stars in the sky, like landmarks on a trail. They remain the test, whether or not to read something. The most compelling narrative, expressed in sentences with which I have no chemical reaction, or an adverse one, leaves me cold. In fiction, plenty do the job of conveying information, rousing suspense, painting characters, enabling them to speak. But only certain sentences breathe and shift about, like live matter in soil. The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace. Style and personality are irrelevant. They can be formal or casual. They can be tall or short or fat or thin. They can obey the rules or break them. But they need to contain a charge. A live current, which shocks and illuminates. — Jhumpa Lahiri

You can't write a novel all at once, any more than you can swallow a whale in one gulp. You do have to break it up into smaller chunks. But those smaller chunks aren't good old familiar short stories. Novels aren't built out of short stories. They are built out of scenes. — Orson Scott Card

Take the great example of the four-minute mile. One guy breaks it, then all of a sudden everyone breaks it. And they break it in such a short period of time that it can't be because they were training harder. It's purely that it was a psychological barrier, and someone had to show them that they could do it. — Malcolm Gladwell

Short of preventing harm to the child, the standard of 'best interest of the child' is insufficient to serve as a compelling state interest overruling a parent's fundamental rights ... To suggest otherwise would be the logical equivalent to asserting that the state has the authority to break up stable families and redistribute its infant population to provide each child with the 'best family.' It is not within the province of the state to make significant decisions concerning the custody of children merely because it could make a 'better' decision. — Barbara Madsen

The market for short stories is hard to break into, but a magazine editor isn't always looking for big names with which to sell his magazine - they're more willing to try stories by newcomers, if those tales are good. — Eric Brown

My mother, Nicolette, is the Katagaria Grand Regis Ursulan- so don't start no shit, won't be no shit. Quick rule rundown. No fighting, no biting, no magick. You break the rules, we break body parts and you're banned from here ... if you survive. In short, come in peace or leave in pieces. (Dev) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

There, then, is the role of the amateur: to look the world back to grace. There, too, is the necessity of his work: His tribe must be in short supply; his job has gone begging. The world looks as if it has been left in the custody of a pack of trolls. Indeed, the whole distinction between art and trash, between food and garbage, depends on the presence or absence of the loving eye. Turn a statue over to a boor, and his boredom will break it to bits - witness the ruined monuments of antiquity. On the other hand, turn a shack over to a lover; for all its poverty, its lights and shadows warm a little and its numbed surfaces prickle with feeling. — Robert Farrar Capon

We are to blame for this destruction, we who don't speak your tongue and don't know how to keep quiet either. We who didn't come by boat, who dirty up your doorsteps with our dust, who break your barbed wire. We who came to take your jobs, who dream of wiping your shit, who long to work all hours. We who fill your shiny clean streets with the smell of food, who brought you violence you'd never known, who deliver your dope, who deserve to be chained by neck and feet. We who are happy to die for you, what else could we do? We, the ones who are waiting for who knows what. We, the dark, the short, the greasy, the shifty, the fat, the anemic. We the barbarians. — Yuri Herrera

A lot of artists start out as failed poets, then move on to being failed short-story writers before they finally break through to the big time and become failed novelists. — Gary Reilly

When people come to understand how big the Universe is and how short a human life is, their hearts cry out. Sometimes it's a shout of joy. But for most of us it's a cry of terror. The terror of extinction, the terror of meaninglessness. Our hearts cry out. Maybe to God, or maybe just to break the silence. — Robert Charles Wilson

Satori is a brief flash. Suddenly the light breaks through. For a short timeless time we experience eternity in its unmanifest form. It's comparable to salvikalpa samadhi. — Frederick Lenz

How are things out on the Circle L?" Big John shrugged shoulders the size of a grizzly bear's. "We're shorthanded, as always, and Joellen's a handful. I sure wish Chloe would break down and marry me, so that girl could have a mother." Emma smiled to think of Chloe as Joellen's stepmother. The girl's career as a brat would end in short order. "You know how Chloe is, Big John." He nodded ruefully and tucked the slip of paper Emma had written the book title on into the pocket of his buckskin vest. "There ain't a stubborner woman in the territory, but I'll rope that filly if it's the last thing I ever do." "It just might be," Emma warned, waggling a finger, and she and Big John laughed together. — Linda Lael Miller

Life is precious and all too short. So I laugh, sing and dive into things heads first with the hope that I don't scrape my ass on the bottom. And when I do I break out the bandaids — K.L. Parry

Fantasies were safe. It was a break from reality. A chance to act on desires for a short period of time. — Maya Banks

Believer, your life is too essential to waste on pettiness or word wars, greed or ladder climbing, anger or bitterness, fear or anxiety, regret or disappointment. Life is too short. We must run, not walk, the way of Isaiah 58, embracing authentic faith manifested through mercy and community. Living on mission requires nothing less. It is a grand adventure, a true voyage into the kingdom of God. Would you lose days, months, years pointing fingers and quarreling, or would you rather break yokes of oppression? Imagine what would happen if we all chose the latter. — Jen Hatmaker

I love short stories - reading and writing them. The best short stories distill all the potency of a novel into a small but heady draught. They are perfect reading material for the bus or train or for a lunchtime break. Everything extraneous has been strained off by the author. The best short stories pack the heft of any novel, yet resonate like poetry. — Ian Rankin

Mental health professionals have said for a long time that individuals cannot adapt well to too many life changes at once. If you suffer a loss in the family, change jobs, and move all within a short time, the chances are your own internal stability may break down, or show signs of serious strain. — Ronald A. Heifetz

No one ever told me how sorrow traumatizes your heart, making you think it will never beat exactly the same way again. No one ever told me how grief feels like a wet sock in my mouth. One I'm forced to breathe through, thinking that with each breath I'll come up short and suffocate. — Sarah Noffke

I chose not to go home and struggle with the New York scene. My size sort of locked me out. I was too short for the stage. I would have been doing character roles, so I went to Los Angeles. There is a lot more happening out there. I also felt it was important to break away from my family. — Julie Warner