Quotes & Sayings About Something You Can't Control

You know, it's dangerous to touch me like that." He gazed
down into my eyes.
"You didn't seem to mind."
"That's because I can control myself better than others. You have
a date with danger or something?"
That was an understatement. It was more like death. — Lynn Mullican

I'm going to tell you something that no magazine or novel or television show will ever let on. Love wears you down. We think of it as hearts and flowers and happily ever after but in real life, the things you have to do in the name of love kill you ... You end up doing a thousand things in a day in the name of love that you wouldn't ask a dog to do.
Sex is the most powerful weapon in your arsenal
innocence is attractive in children, but it makes brittle, disappointed adults.
Someone liking you is just the beginning; it always starts nicely but before you know it it's like Persephone being dragged into the Underworld.
Romantic love is an illusion Hughie,. It can be manupulated, twisted, piled up like a bunch of fun-house mirrors. The very nature of it is deceptive. It promises closeness but the only thing is ever really reveals is the dreams and fears of the person with the obsessions. That's why it's so easy to control — Kathleen Tessaro

I had a dream about you. In my dreams you are always different, perhaps even more real to me. How can I explain this to you? It seems like in my dreams I envision parts of you that you prefer keep under surface. You hide from me, as if there was something to hide. You push me away, in fear. Now, I know you are not afraid of me, but that you can't trust yourself, since it's beyond your control. I know it's frightening to love someone that much. I know it because I am afraid, too. And I just wish that for once, we would be afraid together. — Aleksandra Ninkovic

Yes, but the bank is only made of men. No, you're wrong there - quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it. The — John Steinbeck

But the danger with hatred is, once you start in on it, you get a hundred times more than you bargained for. Once you start, you can't stop. I don't know anything harder to control than hating. Easier to kick drinking than to master hate. And that is saying something. — Philip Roth

Listen, I'm about to sound like the shallowest person on the face of the earth right now, but you can't control your grandma's disease. You don't make it any better or any worse...One day, your grandma isn't going to remember anything. Hopefully it's still a while away, but it's coming and there's nothing you can do about it. So, there's no use feeling bad about something you can't control. You just have to have to enjoy how things are now. — Christina Daley

The feeling of love comes and goes on a whim; you can't control it. But the action of love is something you can do, regardless of how you are feeling. — Russ Harris

A woman isn't all that different from a bonfire. A fire's a beautiful thing, right? Something you can't take your eyes off, when it's burning. If you can keep it contained, it'll throw light and heat for you. It's only when it gets out of control that you have to go on the offensive. — Jodi Picoult

There are nights when you are lucky enough to tap into something about yourself that you are unaware of and can't possibly control, and somehow, at that moment, other people can view it or sense it or feel it. — Heather Watts

I nodded, mollified. "Okay, I can roll with that. And then after that, I suppose it's just a matter of time until we're taking the kids to soccer practice."
Her eyebrows rose. "Kids?"
"Relax, it's years away. But can you imagine? Your brains, my charm, our collective good looks . . . then add in the usual physical abilities dhampirs get." She looked more amused than appalled at the speculation, which was something I'd never thought I'd see. "It's really not even fair to everyone else. Good thing you're on birth control, since the world obviously isn't ready for our perfect offspring." "Obviously," she laughed. — Richelle Mead

Too much of my family has messed with drugs. Addiction might be in my genes, so I ain't never tryin' it. It's something you can't control, and I don't like things I can't control. I worked too hard to have it taken away for something stupid. I ain't gonna be laughed at the way I used to laugh at those crackheads. — Edgerrin James

Everybody kind of understands, Oh yeah you take drugs and it does something to your brain and then you can't stop. It's easier to describe that shame, that horrible feeling of not being able to control your own life. — Aimee Mann

The human mind resents control. The ordinary human hypnotist cannot hypnotize a person against his will for that reason. I can, because I'm not a hypnotist, and, believe me, Pritcher, the resentment that you cannot show and do not even know you possess is something I wouldn't want to face." Pritcher — Isaac Asimov

The biggest change we have to tackle that's out there is that we're digging the hole deeper and deeper and spending is totally out of control. And that's something that, quite frankly, is affecting future generations. You're giving a lot of debt to them and you can't keep doing it. It's not helping anybody. — Jon Runyan

All one can do is live the life that God gave you, and you know, you just do the best you can. And if somebody likes you or doesn't like you, that's really, in many ways, something you have no control over. — Hillary Clinton

But love like that can be too big, too. It can be something you shouldn't be trusted to hold when you're the kind of person who drops the eggs and breaks the remote control. — Amy Garvey

Unless you are prepared to give up something valuable you will never be able to truly change at all, because you'll be forever in the control of things you can't give up. — Andy Law

I've found is that by doing stand-up, I've actually learned how to combat depression. I don't have clinical, but I've definitely had my bouts with it. I just figured out that it's a choice. You're in control of your brain. When your brain is sending you bad information or bad thoughts, you can decide to go to the gym, or write a new joke - or if you're on the road, go to a ball game ... something that's going to get the blood going. Or you can let those thoughts take you right down the rabbit hole. — Bill Burr

In times of crisis, you get a public reaction that is incoherence on stilts. On the one hand, most people know that the government is not in the oil business. They don't want it in the oil business. They know there is nothing a man in Washington can do to plug a hole a mile down in the gulf.
On the other hand, they demand that the president 'take control.' They demand that he hold press conferences, show leadership, announce that the buck stops here and do something. They want him to emote and perform the proper theatrical gestures so they can see their emotions enacted on the public stage.
They want to hold him responsible for things they know he doesn't control. Their reaction is a mixture of disgust, anger, longing and need. It may not make sense. But it doesn't make sense that the country wants spending cuts and doesn't want cuts, wants change and doesn't want change. — David Brooks

Distance is something you can control; meeting your soulmate in the short span of a lifetime is something you can't — Morgan Parker

Mine was something along the lines of 'This is who I am, and this is the level at which I'm going to present myself, I feel fine, and if you don't like it then you're more than welcome to look away, thank you very much.' I decided, quite simply, not to care very much at all. As long as my rear-end and stomach were hidden from the public gaze, then I considered any outfit a roaring success.
People are either going to like the look of me, or they're not. And apart from remaining vaguely clean and healthy, there's not very much I can do to control that. Is an eye-lash tint, a facial and the right handbag really going to make all that much difference?
With this decision, I think I've spared myself a lot of misery. You may look at me and see a slightly frayed, wool-clad woman with an inexplicably hefty rucksack, but I look in the mirror and simply give thanks for all I've opted out of. — Miranda Hart

It doesn't matter where you come from. There's nothing you can do about it, so don't waste your energy thinking about it. What matters is where you're going. And that, mate, is something you can control. — Tana French

For me the major turning point in my working life was when I figured out that the work I produced when I felt inspired wasn't any different from the work I produced when I felt uninspired
at least a few months later. I think that "inspiration" has to do with your own confidence in your ideas, your blood sugar, the external pressures in your life, and a million other factors only tangentially related to the actual quality of the work. If creative work makes you sane and happy (and if it supports you financially), it's terrible to harness it to something you can't control, like "inspiration"
it sucks to only be happy when something you can't control occurs. — Cory Doctorow

I don't know. She was a sweet girl. As sweet as they come. I don't know why I didn't love her. It's something you can't really control. — Emily Giffin

You make a film and you can't really pick the way it's put to the public. You control the content, but the way it's marketed, or the poster, or what they're telling the public about the film, it's beyond you. Some people don't even see them, because they think they already know it. That can be frustrating, when something you've done is marketed in a way you think is antithetical to what it is. — Richard Linklater

One day, you muster the courage and let go of the fear. In a brief moment of insanity, you give wings to the stories you had wanted to tell; some you didn't even know were in you. In that instant, something about you changes. You are born again.

That is not to say the fear and worry and second-guessing go away. They are there. But you learn to cope with them. You learn that they don't control you at all times. In those fleeting moments of freedom, you have the power. You know you are not perfect. You realize no one was born perfect. No one. Rome wasn't built in a day either.
A weird thing happens when you get a glimpse of that side of you. A child-like zeal possesses you. It is addictive. You discover your voice. You matter. Maybe not to the world, yet. You matter to yourself. You are worthy. You are alive. You can be. — K.J. Kilton

You can't control the paparazzi. But if you go to Coachella you're going to get photographed. Whereas if you're at home, walking down the street you probably won't. It's something I've learnt to navigate my way around but I try to keep my private life private. — Ashley Greene

As the writer you are the puppet-master and can control everything. Believe me, that is a whole lot of fun because it ain't something that's going to be happening very often in real life! — Christopher Paul Curtis

I believe in controlling the control elements. Something where we don't have control on certain things, those things you obviously cannot waste your energy in trying to figure out 'How can I control this?' You would much rather focus all your energy on the things that you can control. — Sachin Tendulkar

You are telling me that I did something because I was going to do something."
"Well, didn't you? You were there."
"No, I didn't - no ... well, maybe I did, but it didn't feel like it."
"Why should you expect it to? It was something totally new to your experience."
"But ... but - " Wilson took a deep breath and got control of himself. Then he reached back into his academic philosophical concepts and produced the notion he had been struggling to express. "It denies all reasonable theories of causation. You would have me believe that causation can be completely circular. I went through because I came back from going through to persuade myself to go through. That's silly."
"Well, didn't you? — Robert A. Heinlein

The best definition I've heard is that guilt is about what you've done, shame is about who you are. If something's out of my control, I don't feel shame about it, because what could I have done? If you're guilty, you can at least try to atone for it or make it better or not do it again. If it's who you are, you can't do much about it except change yourself, and that's pretty hard. — Mary Gaitskill

Love is something that we don't control. We have to be ourselves. You can be sexual, nonsexual, asexual, bisexual, or trisexual and it really doesn't have a lot to do with enlightenment. — Frederick Lenz

You know what the really scary thing about bad dreams? It's that something's going on in your head, and you can't control it. I mean, It's like there's these bad worlds inside you. But it's just you ... it's like you're betraying yourself. — Neil Gaiman

When you yield to something, you will soon realize the tremendous control it has over you. Even though you say, "Oh, I can give up that habit whenever I like," you will know you can't. You will find that the habit absolutely dominates you because you willingly yielded to it. It is easy to sing, "He will break every fetter," while at the same time living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. But yielding to Jesus will break every kind of slavery in any person's life. — Oswald Chambers

Love makes everybody a victim because it's something you can't control. You can't control how you feel or what you're going through when you're doing it. — Drake Doremus

I do have more directorial control over animation, because it's like trial and error: If something doesn't work, you can always go back and change certain things. Whereas in live action, every day is a challenge, and you have to make decisions on an hourly basis. So in live action I have more freedom as a director, but in animation, I have more control over the final product. — Mamoru Oshii

Thaddeus knew again what it felt like to be living a life that was totally out of control. Which is something a cancer diagnosis can do in an eye blink. You don't know what it means, you're threatened and scared to death, and you lack all the information you'll need to try to pull yourself — John Ellsworth

there's no such thing as time management since you can't manage something you can't control. — Christine Louise Hohlbaum

Alright. So how are we getting down there? Can you turn invisible or something?"

"What do I look like? A magician?"

"Well, can you fight?"

"Can you?"

"No," said Thalcu with a sad laugh. "Zonbiri women aren't allowed to handle anything bigger than a butter knife. Not legally, anyway. Besides, I could never shoot a gun. My hands are used to pushing remote control buttons, pounding game controllers . . . picking the good chips from the bag. — Ash Gray

It's a Buddhist meditation that Teza uses to calm his mind, to put aside not just the physical pain but the sadness and rage he's feeling: He starts to whisper a prayer. "Whatever beings there are, may they be free from suffering. Whatever beings there are, may they be free from enmity. Whatever beings there are, may they be free from hurtfulness. Whatever beings there are, may they be free from ill health. Whatever beings there are, may they be able to protect their own happiness." "I particularly like that last phrase," Mom said. "About protecting your own happiness." "But how can you protect your own happiness when you can't control the beatings?" I asked. "That's the point, Will. You can't control the beatings. But maybe you can have some control over your happiness. As long as he can, well then, he still has something worth living for. And when he's no longer able, he knows he's done all he can." In my mind, I replaced the word beatings with cancer. — Will Schwalbe

These kids spend a majority of their time in school, and if they're not having a positive experience, they can become depressed. In some cases, they lash out, grabbing whatever weapon is available to them. It can be an assault rifle, a knife, a Molotov cocktail, poison, Indian burns or MMA. But if you take one weapon away, these kids are just going to grab the next thing available to them. Maybe they will use a gun with a smaller clip, limiting the amount of lives they can take. Or maybe they'll get more creative, and think of something far more terrible. So taking a weapon away won't really solve anything, and this is my point here. — Aaron B. Powell

No. Wait. When will I see you again?" she asked. "How will I find you?"
"Well, you don't have to stand on the end of a diving board."
Ivy smiled.
"The end of a tree limb will do," he said. "Or the roof of any building three stories or higher."
"What?"
"Just kidding," he said, laughing. "Just call
anytime, anywhere, silently
and I'll hear you. If I don't come, it's because I'm in the middle of something that I can't stop, or I'm in the darkness. I can't control the darkness." He sighed. "I can feel it coming on
I can feel it right now
and I can fight it off for a while. But in the end I fall unconscious. It's how I rest. I guess one day the darkness will be final."
"No!"
"Yes, love," he said softly.
A moment later he was gone. — Elizabeth Chandler

But reductionism is not the right viewpoint for everything, and it certainly won't explain the relationship between the brain and the mind. This is because of a feature known as emergence. When you put together large numbers of pieces and parts, the whole can become something greater than the sum. None of the individual metal hunks of an airplane have the property of flight, but when they are attached together in the right way, the result takes to the air. A thin metal bar won't do you much good if you're trying to control a jaguar, but several of them in parallel have the property of containment. The concept of emergent properties means that something new can be introduced that is not inherent in any of the parts. — David Eagleman

Please remain calm: The Earth will heal itself - Climate is beyond our power to control ... Earth doesn't care about governments or their legislation. You can't find much actual global warming in present-day weather observations. Climate change is a matter of geologic time, something that the earth routinely does on its own without asking anyone's permission or explaining itself. — Robert B. Laughlin

We can do something else," Paul offered casually, taking another long drink of Danny's beer, enjoying the game in a way he probably shouldn't. Seduction was always a challenge, and he had an unfair advantage with knowing Danny as well as he did. It almost felt like cheating. "You may not be a sadist, but you are absolutely a Dom. No question, being in control gets you off. I know it does. — Kele Moon

From 1997 through 1999, I had gained so much. People don't realize how something like weight gain can make you sad. Losing weight has changed my life. If you can take control of your life, you can lose weight. — La India

I don't think that the flesh is necessarily treacherous, evil, bad. It is cantankerous, and it is independent. The idea of independence is the key. It really is like colonialism. The colonies suddenly decide that they can and should exist with their own personality and should detach from the control of the mother country. At first the colony is perceived as being treacherous. It's a betrayal. Ultimately, it can be seen as the separation of a partner that could be very valuable as an equal rather than as something you dominate. — David Cronenberg

Lisa Smith-Batchen, the amazingly sunny and pixie-tailed ultrarunner from Idaho who trained through blizzards to win a six-day race in the Sahara, talks about exhaustion as if it's a playful pet. 'I love the Beast,' she says. 'I actually look forward to the Beast showing up, because every time he does, I handle him better. I get him more under control.' Once the Beast arrives, Lisa knows what she has to deal with and can get down to work. And isn't that the reason she's running through the desert in the first place-to put her training to work? To have a friendly little tussle with the Beast and show it who's boss? You can't hate the Beast and expect to beat it; the only way to truly conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you , is to love it. — Christopher McDougall

Do you know what's so strange, Uilleam?" she asked, saying his name perfectly. "You have never, in your entire life, done something for which you should truly be ashamed. You think you have, but you haven't. Not until you hurt your own mate, blaming the poor girl for things she can't control."
- NIX to MacRieve ~ — Kresley Cole

You ever hope for something so much? So much you can't sleep, so much your skull hurts? But the thing is, you don't even know if the thing you're wishing for is possible? You don't even know if it could happen? And it's all out of your control? — Anthony Doerr

Sure, cried the tenant men,but it's our land ... We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it's no good, it's still ours ... .That's what makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it."
"We're sorry. It's not us. It's the monster. The bank isn't like a man."
"Yes, but the bank is only made of men."
"No, you're wrong there - quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it. — John Steinbeck

You're going to leave me, aren't you? ... You've had enough of me, haven't you? You're probably so tired of all this crying and all these moods, and I've got to tell you, so am I. So am I. Sometimes it seems like my mind has a mind of its own, like I just get hysterical, like it's something I can't control at all. And I don't know what to do, and I feel so sorry for you because you don't know what to do either. And I'm sure you're going to leave me now. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

The one who plays this game the best is Iniesta: he knows exactly when to go forward and when to drop back. He picks the right moment to do everything: when to dribble, when to speed things up and when to slow things down. And I think that's the only thing that can't be taught or bought. You can learn how to shoot and how to control the ball, but being aware of everything that's happening out on the pitch - that's something you're either born with or you're not. — Juan Roman Riquelme

Don't think you can ... know you can! Your human body is the most impressive tool that you will ever own. Even if you can't control everything ... you can always control something. Your body - Use it ... Amuse it ... because one day ... you're going to lose it. — Jeff Hardy

Government want to tell you things you can't say because they're against the law, or you can't say this because it's against a regulation, or here's something you can't say because its a ... secret; "You can't tell him that because he's not cleared to know that." Government wants to control information and control language because that's the way you control thought, and basically that's the game they're in. — George Carlin

Nobody wants to make something that displeases people, but once you make a film, that's out of your control and you can't think about that. You just have to follow your head and make sure that you're satisfied by putting down what you intended. — Clint Eastwood

Not only do we all have magic, it's all around us as well. We just don't pay attention to it. Every time we make something out of nothing, that's an act of magic. It doesn't matter if it's a painting or a garden, or an abuelo telling his grandchildren some tall tale. Every time we fix something that's broken, whether it's a car engine or a broken heart, that's an act of magic.

And what makes it magic is that we *choose* to create or help, just as we can choose to harm. But it's so easy to destroy and so much harder to make things better. That's why doing the right thing makes you stronger.

If we can only remember what we are and what we can do, nobody can bind us or control us. — Charles De Lint

The first key to leadership was self-control, particularly the mastery of pride, which was something more difficult, he explained, to subdue than a wild lion and anger, which was more difficult to defeat than the greatest wrestler. He warned them that if you can't swallow your pride, you can't lead. — Jack Weatherford

Sometimes you just don't know what's going to happen, exactly. And that's because sometimes you just don't have control over circumstances in your life. The amazing thing is that - it is during these times that we free-fall through the sky! All we have is the breath in our lungs right here and right now and it's just exhilarating! And it takes humility to accept that we might not have everything we want in our hands at the moment - but that what we do have is good, is worth keeping. Even if something isn't everything, yet, it can be worth everything, right now! You just have to spread your arms in the air and start gliding! — C. JoyBell C.

I try not to live in the future too much; that can make you crazy as an actor. There are so many people who are obsessed about their career path, like it's something which you can control, which fundamentally you can't. — Romola Garai

You asked if I thought my fiction had changed anything in the culture and the answer is no. Sure, there's been some scandal, but people are scandalized all the time; it's a way of life for them. It doesn't mean a thing. If you ask if I want my fiction to change anything in the culture, the answer is still no. What I want is to possess my readers while they are reading my book
if I can, to possess them in ways that other writers don't. Then let them return, just as they were, to a world where everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt, and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise, to have set loose in them the consciousness that's otherwise conditioned and hemmed in by all that isn't fiction. This is something that every child, smitten by books, understands immediately, though it's not at all a childish idea about the importance of reading. — Philip Roth

The next suitable person you're in light conversation with, you stop suddenly in the middle of the conversation and look at the person closely and say, "What's wrong?" You say it in a concerned way. He'll say, "What do you mean?" You say, "Something's wrong. I can tell. What is it?" And he'll look stunned and say, "How did you know?" He doesn't realize something's always wrong, with everybody. Often more than one thing. He doesn't know everybody's always going around all the time with something wrong and believing they're exerting great willpower and control to keep other people, for whom they think nothing's ever wrong, from seeing it. — David Foster Wallace

The fact that Ridge has been honest in his conversations with me is not something he did wrong. The fact that he has feelings for me also isn't wrong, when you know exactly how much he's fought those feelings. People can't control matters of the heart, Warren.
They can only control their actions, which is exactly what Ridge did. He lost control once for ten seconds, but after that, every single time temptation reared its ugly head, he walked in the other direction. The only thing Ridge has done wrong is fail to delete his messages, because by doing so, he failed to protect Maggie. He failed to protect her from the harsh truth that people don't get to choose who they fall in love with. They only get to choose who they stay in love with." I look up at the ceiling and blink back tears. "He was choosing to stay in love with her, Warren. Why can't she see that? This will kill him so much more than it's killing her. — Colleen Hoover

Punishment? You don't have any right to punish me. And I can curse. I choose not to most of the time, but don't think it doesn't go through my head, asshole. I was trying to give you something. I was trying to give you my body."
"That's where you fucked up, little girl. I don't want your body. I want your soul. I want your everything. And I definitely want your orgasms. I want them all. I'll be a greedy bastard, savoring them and hoarding them all for myself. You wanted to give me your body? I can buy that on a street corner, sweetheart. You're the one who's being selfish now."
"How is it selfish to offer to have sex? I don't understand what you want."
"First off, I want you to stop hiding yourself from me. You're the one making this tawdry by pretending it's dirty and not worthy of the light of day."
"I didn't mean it that way."
"We're going to do this my way. We tried yours and it didn't work, so I'm taking control. I should have done it in the first place. — Lexi Blake

Like heartbreak, these unpredictable crises are not something you should live in fear of. Perpetual fear won't protect you. Fear is not a citronella candle; scary life happenings are not mosquitoes. They happen in ways we can't predict, control or understand. The only guaranteed outcome of feeling scared all the time is that you will feel scared all the time. — Kelly Williams Brown

Ultimately, as a director, you try and tell people where to look, but unlike film or television, where you force them to look at something, you can't control it completely. — Jason Moore

It is one of the few elements in the process that a director really, really can't control: an actor's performance. If you have a director that understands that, it's comforting to an actor. You're starting the relationship more as a collaborator, rather than as an employee or some kind of a soldier trying to execute something you don't organically feel. — Jason Bateman

If you use too much paint, you'll not only obscure your savvy completely, but most everything else in life will become dull and uninteresting for you too. You can't get rid of part of what makes you you and be happy...So a well-scumbled savvy gives you clarity and control...You have to let your own know-how, your own unique color, shine through as a something-special others can't quite put a finger on."

- Momma — Ingrid Law

Forgiveness is a choice. You control how you respond to something or someone. You can't change things that happened in the past, but you can decide how you let them affect you. — Amalie Howard

I can't control the criticism. It's something you certainly don't appreciate, but by the same token, everybody is entitled to their opinion. — Don Shula

Well," I said, "you obviously have some power. You chased off those hooligans with rotten fruit. Perhaps you have banana-kinesis? Or you can control garbage? I once knew a Roman goddess, Cloacina, who presided over the city's sewer system. Perhaps you're related ... ?"
Meg pouted. I got the impression I might have said something wrong, though I couldn't imagine what. — Rick Riordan

Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can't measure something, you can't understand it. If you can't understand it, you can't control it. If you can't control it, you can't improve it. — H. James Harrington

Acceptance is not a talent you either have or don't have. It's a learned response. My meditation teacher made a great point about the difference between a reaction and a response: You may not have control over your initial reaction to something, but you can decide what your response will be. You don't have to be at the mercy of your emotions, and acceptance can be your first step toward empowerment ... For me, acceptance has been the cornerstone to my having an emotionally healthy response to my illness. — Morrie Schwartz.

So this," she said, "what's happening and what's going to happen, this isn't your fault. You can't control everything and not everything is your responsibility. At Croke Park you said something about how you don't want to drag me around after you so I can die beside you. I wanted to tell you then, but I didn't have the words and I didn't have the time. I'm here because I choose to be. You save my life. I save yours. That's how we work."
"Until the end."
"Until the end. — Derek Landy

Hospitality is gold in this City; you have to be clever to figure out how to be welcoming and defensive at the same time. When to love something and when to quit. If you don't know how, you can end up out of control or controlled by some outside thing like that hard case last winter. — Toni Morrison

Have you ever felt your destiny unfolding, beloved? Have you experienced the intensity of the hunt, the fixation of attention that only fate can explain? Have you ever told yourself your feelings were
excessive, but known that something huge and pivotally important was carrying you along like a riptide? You can fight that current all you want; you know it will still have its way with you. Or you can
try swimming along with it, and grow amazed by your own power - until you pause and realize that you aren't moving but being moved. You're not in control, not at all, and that's what makes the feeling so
exquisitely exciting. — Martha N. Beck

You can't propose that something be a universal space and at the same time keep control of it. — Tim Berners-Lee

That's what life is. One problem after another. You can't control any of it. All you can do is reach out for something good whenever you can. And hold on no matter what. — Lisa Kleypas

Fear and the thought of failure ... But we don't really know what fear is. Fear is something that we create in our own minds. Fear could be like fire. You can use it to heat you up, keep you warm, cook your food. There are so many things you can use it for. But if you allow it to go out of control, it will destroy you and everything around you. — Mike Tyson

I'm a bit of an abstract figure that people can project their fantasies on; it's pretty much what we all are, otherwise we wouldn't be stars, and people wouldn't be interested. But people project things on you that have nothing to do with what you really are, or they see a little something and then exaggerate it. And you can't really control that. — Salma Hayek

Today was the absolute worst day ever
And don't try to convince me that
There's something good in every day
Because, when you take a closer look,
This world is a pretty evil place.
Even if
Some goodness does shine through once in a while
Satisfaction and happiness don't last.
And it's not true that
It's all in the mind and heart
Because
True happiness can be obtaind
Only if one's surroundings are good
It's not true that good exists
I'm sure you can agree that
The reality
Creates
My attitude
It's all beyond my control
And you'll never in a million years hear me say that
Today was a good day

(read from bottom up for a different perspective) — Unknown

Don't just sit there and worry. Be proactive. Do something - anything - about what's worrying you so you can gain information, focus and control over the situation. I've suffered a great many catastrophes in my life. Most of them never happened. — Mark Twain

I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure nothing bad happens. I will do anything to make sure we have the time for everything that we want, but I'm not stupid enough to disregard the fact that something may happen that I can't control. And, dammit, I don't want to look back and see that I didn't seize the chance to make you mine, to really prove that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. That I lost that opportunity. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

You can't possibly judge your ability to control something until you've experienced the extremes of its capabilities. Do you understand? — Richard Russo

You always hope for the best when you put something out and try to make the best music you can make, but you can't control what happens after that. — Chris Stapleton

When you whisper about something, it's too big, and you can't get it under control and take control of it. — Joan Rivers

Byron had drawn his pistol, and was looking closely at the leaves and dirt around him, as if he'd dropped something. "It's
do keep calm now
it's right over your head. I suppose you could look, if you can do it slowly."
Crawford felt drops of sweat run down his ribs under his shirt as he slowly forced the muscles of his neck to tilt his head up; he saw the upper slope, bristling with trees that obstructed a view of the road, and then he saw the outer branches of the tree he was braced against, and finally he gathered his tattered courage and looked straight up.
And it took all of his self-control not to recoil or scream, and he was distantly resentful that he couldn't just die in this instant. — Tim Powers

You are your abilities and they are you. I can't put it to you more plainly. Do you know why I hate this cure? It's a statement that what we are is inherently wrong. It's a punishment for something that isn't our fault - all because they can't control their fear about what we can do, anymore than they can control their resentment that there are people out there stronger and more powerful than they are. They want to strip you of yourself - your ability to protect and enforce your right to make decisions about your life. Your own body. Mark my words: in the end, it won't be a choice. They'll decide this for you. — Alexandra Bracken

He's not like anything. He's a person who just happens to have been born with something he can't control. It could have happened to you. It could have happened to any of us. So the next time you see someone in a chair, someone spastic, just imagine if that were you! The same you who's standing here now, but your mind's been trapped inside a body you can't control! — Judy Blume

A person has all sorts of lags built into him Kesey is saying. Once the most basic is the sensory lag the lag between the time your senses receive something and you are able to react. One-thirtieth of a second is the time it takes if you are the most alert person alive and most people are a lot slower than that ... You can't go any faster than that ... We are all doomed to spend the rest of our lives watching a movies of our lives - we are always acting on what has just finished happening. It happened at least 1 30th of a second ago. We think we are in the present but we aren't. The present we know is only a movies of the past and we will really never be able to control the present through ordinary means. — Tom Wolfe

Poor people have few choices in life, and most of the time you don't think too much about it. You get the best you can and do without when necessary, and hope to God you won't be wiped out by something you can't control. But there are moments it hurts, where there is something you want in the very marrow of your bones and you know there is no way you can have it. — Lisa Kleypas

Anger is a response that can lead to harm if we don't evaluate what we are upset about. Ask yourself what you are afraid of, as anger is almost always fear in disguise. If we think something or someone threatens us, we feel fear-fear that we are inadequate, that our lives are out of control, that things won't go our way. Then we fight. Find out what you're upset about. We rarely are upset for the reason we think. — Jennifer James

You can't even kill yourself if it isn't your time to go. People have no control whatsoever over what happens to them, and they are beginning to realize this. The future lies in the time of living. Your doing something will get you into tomorrow, if you want to call it tomorrow. If you want to make those distinctions at all. — Richie Havens

Our personal history does not inhibit our present or our future. Don't let anyone (including yourself) tell you you can't do something. Find your passion and take action everyday to work towards achieving your life purpose. — Miya Yamanouchi

Worrying about something you can't control has less benefit than a mosquito's existence. — Mark Cortes

When you want something you can't have, it's like a strong magnet. It can come to control you. — Geraldine Solon

I hate the concept of luck, especially when people try to apply it to me. Yes, it's true: Hundreds of thousands of businesses fail. Mine succeded. Was that all just because I "got lucky"? I don't really think so.
What I hate about luck is that it implies being devois of responsibility. It implies that you can do nothing and the step into success as easily as stepping into a pile of dog poop on the sidewalk. It implies that success is something given to a knighted and often undeserving few. Luck tells us that we don't control our own fate, and that our path to succes of failure is written by someone, or something, entirely outside overselves. Luck let us believe that whatever happens, whether good or bad, it's not to our credit or our fault. That is why I don't buy luck. But I do buy magic. — Sophia Amoruso

Listen to your heart beating, follow the thoughts you can't control, control your desire to get up at once and to do something "useful". Sit for a few minutes each day, doing nothing, getting as much as you can out of that time.

'When you're washing up, pray. Be thankful that there are plates to be washed; that means there was food, that you fed someone, that you've lavished care on one or more people, that you cooked and laid the table. Imagine the millions of people at this moment who have absolutely nothing to wash up and no one for whom to lay the table. — Paulo Coelho

And I understand in a way I never have before that loving someone is always going to feel like flying - the unthinkable drop, the fear of falling, the heart-in-your-throat thrill. It is always going to be impossible until the moment that it's not and you're soaring on pure faith, your altitude completely dependant upon something you can't control. — Amy Engel

My dad died, I write. almost a year ago. Car accident. My hand is shaking; my eyes sting and fill. I add Not his fault before pushing the notebook and pen back across the table, wiping a hand across my cheeks.
As he reads, my impulse is to reach out, grab the notebook, run outside, dump it in the trash, bury it in the snow, throw it under the wheels of a passing car - something, something, so I can go back fifteen seconds when this part ofme was still shut away and private. Then I look at Ravi's face again, and the normally white white whites of his eyes are pink. This causes major disruption to my ability to control the flow of my own tears. I see myself when I look at him right now: he's reflecting my sadness, my broken heart, back to me.
He takes the pe, writes, and slides it over. You'd think it's something epic from the way it levels my heart. It isn't.
I'm really sorry, Jill.
Four little words. — Sara Zarr