Start Of Something Good Quotes & Sayings

You don't have to start from scratch to do something interesting. You don't have to start from scratch to have a massive impact on the world. You have to have a good idea. You have to convince other people of those good ideas. And you have to push as quickly as possible. — Jack Dorsey

Now, there is a tendency at a point like this to look over one's shoulder at the cover artist and start going on at length about leather, tightboots and naked blades.
Words like 'full', 'round' and even 'pert' creep into the narrative, until the writer has to go and have a cold shower and a lie down.
Which is all rather silly, because any woman setting out to make a living by the sword isn't about to go around looking like something off the cover of the more advanced kind of lingerie catalogue for the specialized buyer.
Oh well, all right. The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hun Ling's Oriental Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a short sword.
All right, maybe the boots were leather. But not black. — Terry Pratchett

My parents were reluctant to let me start auditioning until I was at least a little bit emotionally stable - I'm still working on that! And so I started when I was fifteen, and it was the best thing that could have happened to me in terms of being able to focus my crazy teenage energy into something good. — Zoey Deutch

I really love modeling a lot. Once I am behind the camera and start moving, there's a kind of energy that makes me feel good. But I know I have to prepare for something else before I grow up. — Lisanne Falk

I think one thing we went through was common to a lot of people: You work your whole life to achieve something, then you achieve it and find out that you still have good days and bad days. So you start thinking, 'Is that all there is?' After a while you calm down and get back to work. — Elliot Easton

Take, for instance, studies from the past decade examining the impacts of exercise on daily routines.4.10 When people start habitually exercising, even as infrequently as once a week, they start changing other, unrelated patterns in their lives, often unknowingly. Typically, people who exercise start eating better and becoming more productive at work. They smoke less and show more patience with colleagues and family. They use their credit cards less frequently and say they feel less stressed. It's not completely clear why. But for many people, exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespread change. "Exercise spills over," said James Prochaska, a University of Rhode Island researcher. "There's something about it that makes other good habits easier. — Charles Duhigg

Be the start of something that is good, revolutionary and powerful. Everything after that is a bonus! — Carlos Wallace

You should focus relentlessly on something you're good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future. For the startup world, this means you should not necessarily start your own company, even if you are extraordinarily talented. If anything, too many people are starting their own companies today. People who understand the power law will hesitate more than others when it comes to founding a new venture: they know how tremendously successful they could become by joining the very best company while it's growing fast. The power law means that differences between companies will dwarf the differences in roles inside companies. You could have 100% of the equity if you fully fund your own venture, but if it fails you'll have 100% of nothing. Owning just 0.01% of Google, by contrast, is incredibly valuable (more than $35 million as of this writing). — Peter Thiel

Formerly (it had begun almost from childhood and kept growing till full maturity), whenever he had tried to do something that would be good for everyone, for mankind, for Russia, for the district, for the whole village, he had noticed that thinking about it was pleasant, but the doing itself was always awkward, there was no full assurance that the thing was absolutely necessary, and the doing itself, which at the start had seemed so big, kept diminishing and diminishing, dwindling to nothing; while now, after his marriage, when he began to limit himself more and more to living for himself, though he no longer experienced any joy at the thought of what he was doing, he felt certain that his work was necessary, saw that it turned out much better than before and that it was expanding more and more. — Leo Tolstoy

On the fifth night of this solitude, she falls asleep with a candle burning and dreams herself a mermaid with a thick and golden tail, a crown of shimmering conch shells, then awakens with a start. Whether the ship hit something or something hit the ship, another change has come. The ship is dying; she can feel it slipping away. She waits beneath the blanket for icy water to greet her. But instead of the sea, it's a bear that opens the door.

A great white bear up on its hind legs steps across the threshold.

'Good morning,' he says, and reaches out a paw. — Danielle Dutton

I always cringe when people tell me they don't eat breakfast, as though that's a good thing. Eek! You have to start the day off with something in your stomach to get your metabolism active. Also, the mental game of 'holding out,' not eating for as long as possible, at least for me, was a really unhealthy mental place. — Alison Sweeney

I've said about a million times that the best thing a young photographer can do is to stay close to home. Start with your friends and family, the people who will put up with you. Discover what it means to be close to your work, to be intimate with a subject. Measure the difference between that and working with someone you don't know as much about. Of course there are many good photographs that have nothing to do with staying close to home, and I guess what I'm really saying is that you should take pictures of something that has meaning for you — Annie Leibovitz

I've had two great years, probably five good years. So I had 20 years of just kind of uncertainty and suffering and ego destruction and poverty. All these things. There's no way I'm ever going to catch up to the misery years. It's impossible ... If I don't do anything dumb or I don't get a disease or something, and then I've got to five to eight years I think where it'll really be great and then it will start to degenerate like uranium, you know? — Louis C.K.

You don't want to start A Game of Thrones when you might catch fire all of a sudden. There's something horribly unfair about dying in the middle of a good story, before you have a chance to see how it all comes out. Of course, I suppose everyone always dies in the middle of a good story, in a sense. Your own story. Or the story of your children. Or your grandchildren. — Joe Hill

Repetition takes time, but it builds behaviors with fewer side effects. If you expose yourself to something over and over, it can "grow on you." You can get to like things that are good for you, even if you don't like them instantly. But who wants to repeat something over and over if it doesn't feel good? Usually, people don't, which is why we tend to rely on the circuits built by accidents of experience. You will be shaped by accident unless you start repeating things by choice. — Loretta Graziano Breuning

Would you like to do something good for the future of the human race; well, start killing some of its powerful members. — William C. Brown

In most cases an act of unwelcome sex is no more bother than being vaccinated, so there's no point going on about it as if it werea fate worse than death. With skill and good manners you can avoid having to make the sacrifice, but should you find yourself in a compromising situation largely of your own making, you should stop defending your virtue and start worrying about your maturity. It will give you something to think about while the savage pumper bangs away. — Quentin Crisp

There's something to that in both directions," said Ekaterin mildly. "Nothing is more guaranteed to make one start acting like a child than to be treated like one. It's so infuriating. It took me the longest time to figure out how to stop falling into that trap."
"Yes, exactly," said Kareen eagerly. "You understand! So - how did you make them stop?"
"You can't make them - whoever your particular them is - do anything, really," said Ekaterin slowly. "Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste ... years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just ... take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that, and walk away. But that's hard. — Lois McMaster Bujold

People that don't know and hear about it, they start to think that all the people that do jiu-jitsu smokes pot, is a drug addict. Here I am fighting for something good, and the guy is fighting for something bad, in my point of view. I can't agree with that, what he represents. Nothing to do with his jiu-jitsu, his school. If you want to do something like that, do it in private. Keep it to yourself. — Royce Gracie

Do I believe in an old man in the clouds with a white beard judging us mortals with a moral code from one to ten? Good Lord no, my sweet Elly, I do not! I would have been cast out from this life years ago with my tatty history. Do I believe in a mystery; the unexplained phenomenon that is life itself? The greater something that illuminates inconsequence in our lives; that gives us something to strive for as well as the humility to brush ourselves down and start all over again? Then yes, I do. It is the source of art, of beauty, of love, and proffers the ultimate goodness to mankind. That to me is God. That to me is life. That is what I believe in. — Sarah Winman

If you've as many films as I have, and missed as many opportunities as I have to do good work and been pissed off about it, you say, "Well, now you've got to start getting it right". If you get a chance, you really want to cook. And the tragedy is, when you finally feel that way about yourself, about your work, nobody wants to give you a chance. And that happens to a lot of actors. But I'm feeling very wanted these days, so there must be something in the air. — Burt Reynolds

Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-based love story. It all begins when the object of your adoration bestows upon you a heady, hallucinogenic dose of something you never even dared to admit that you wanted - an emotional speedball, perhaps, of thunderous love and roiling excitement. Soon you start craving that intense attention, with the hungry obsession of any junkie. When the drug is withheld, you promptly turn sick, crazy and depleted (not to mention resentful of the dealer who encouraged this addiction in the first place but who now refuses to pony up the good stuff anymore - despite ... — Elizabeth Gilbert

Nearly all the things I do that are of any merit at all start off just being good fun, and I think I'm sort of building up to doing something else quite soon. — Brian Eno

Take off your shoes," Jake said after the kids disappeared up the stairs. Meridith eyed her leather loafers. For some reason, she was reluctant to part with them. Not to mention she needed every inch of height. "You're still wearing yours." "I'm not planning on trampling your feet." She removed her shoes and set them by the wall, taking her time. "You want something to drink? I made coffee. Or there's always tea or soda if you prefer." He tucked the corner of his lip. "No, thanks. You want to come closer? I can't teach you from over there." She inched closer. "I'm really bad." "So you said." He gestured to the blue box. "We'll start with a basic box step. Ballroom dancing is counted off like this: one-two-three, one-two-three. Max said he knows how to lead, so I'll teach you to follow." "Good luck with that." "Stand — Denise Hunter

We all think we only have to be knocked a little bit off course and we've lost everything, but it's only the start of something new and good. Where there is life, there is happiness. There — Leo Tolstoy

Great leaders live and leave noble and indelible footprints. Any leader can start something. Any leader can do anything but, the real hallmark and a great measure of a great leader is not necessarily what happens now but, what happens later. The noble works of a true and a great leader stand the test of time and never vanish with time. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I got a lot of problems, but I'm really good at intuiting what I need to do to be happy with whatever I create. I know when to stop myself, I know when to start, I know when to leave something alone. I guess I just kind of indulge that completely, and so I just take my time. — Fiona Apple

Great meals rarely start at points that all look like beginnings. They usually pick up where something else leaves off. This is how most of the best things are made - imagine if the world had to begin from scratch each dawn: a tree would never grow, nor would we ever get to see the etchings of gentle rings on a clamshell ... Meals' ingredients must be allowed to topple into one another like dominos. Broccoli stems, their florets perfectly boiled in salty water, must be simmered with olive oil and eaten with shaved Parmesan on toast; their leftover cooking liquid kept for the base for soup, studded with other vegetables, drizzled with good olive oil, with the rind of the Parmesan added for heartiness. This continuity is the heart and soul of cooking. — Tamar Adler

Feel that?" he asked. "You're the first woman who's ever made my heart beat like that. You're the first woman I've ever wanted to spend all my time with, the only one who could convince me to start a new life. You're the first woman who's ever made me genuinely happy. Who makes me glad to be alive, who makes me burn hotter than fire. You're the first woman who's ever made me afraid."
I stared at him. "Afraid?"
"Afraid of how good this is. Afraid it won't last." He pushed a lock of hair off my forehead. "Scared to death of losing you."
"Oh." I was speechless. I swallowed hard. "You're ... You don't have to be scared of losing me."
Something flickered in his expression that I didn't understand, couldn't decipher.
"I don't?" he said.
"No." I shook my head. "No."
"Good." He pulled me closer. "Because you're the first woman I've never wanted to let go. — Nina Lane

Today 5:14 p.m.
"Mrrrrrowl. Mrrrrrowl."
"Ow! Ow, stupid cat! Ahem. You told me, 'stop calling, Isabelle,' but I'm not the one calling you. Church is calling you. Mine are merely the fingers that work the phone.
"See, here's something you may not have known before you committed your recent rash acts. Our cat, Church, and your cat, Chairman Meow? They're in love. I've never seen such love before. I never knew such love could exist in the heart of a ... cat. Some people say that love between two dude cats is wrong, but I think it's beautiful. Love makes Church happier than I've ever seen him. Nothing makes him happy like Chairman Meow. Not tuna. Not shredding centuries-old tapestries. Nothing. Please don't keep these cats apart. Please don't take the joy of love away from Church.
"Look, this is really just a warning for your own good. If you keep Church and Chairman Meow apart, Church will start to get angry.
"You wouldn't like Church when he's angry."
Beep — Cassandra Clare

Religious / Spiritual leaders and motivational speakers tell us to give more of ourselves to get back much more in return but the fact that we start expecting something back in return is in itself a rotten deal for us to push ourselves into.
"Who am I?" is a good question to ask myself when there is nothing else to do with my time. — Suraj Dahal

Return to spirituality. Forget about religion. That statement is going to anger a lot of people. People will react to this entire book with anger ... unless they do not. Why do You say, forget religion? Because it is not good for you. Understand that in order for organized religion to succeed, it has to make people believe they need it. In order for people to put faith in something else, they must first lose faith in themselves. So the first task of organized religion is to make you lose faith in yourself. The second task is to make you see that it has the answers you do not. And the third and most important task is to make you accept its answers without question. If you question, you start to think! If you think, you start to go back to that Source Within. Religion can't have you do that, because you're liable to come up with an answer different from what it has contrived. So religion must make you doubt your Self; must make you doubt your own ability to think straight. — Neale Donald Walsch

I was thinking we could get a picture of you holding a pitchfork or something. Maybe a big wooden cross? Sound good?"(Brian)
She stared at him. He lifted his hands and leaned back in his seat, as if he was afraid she might start spitting on him. "Hey, only joking."
"Very funny."
"Oh, I do love jokes." Greyson Dante stood by her side.
"Hello, Mr. Dante. I'm afraid this is a private conversation, so you will, of course, be going now."
His grin widened. Was there no way to insult the man? — Stacia Kane

If you start thinking about the kids being born now, for them the computer is ancient history. So one imagines that when children think of it as the only place to be, because there isn't anywhere else, then the geniuses of those generations will find their way into doing something that is impressive and as good as a Shakespeare or a Cervantes. But nowadays, we can't see that. We're not close enough to it yet. — Robert Coover

Annabeth, thank goodness, would be staying in New York. She'd gotten permission from her parents
to attend a boarding school in the city so she could be close to Olympus and oversee the rebuilding
efforts.
"And close to me?" I asked.
"Well, someone's got a big sense of his own importance." But she laced her fingers through mine. I
remembered what she'd told me in New York, about building something permanent, and I thought - just
maybe - we were off to a good start. — Rick Riordan

At Rainbow Cake, January's special flavors would be dark chocolate and coffee, those pick-me-ups we all needed to start the day- or a new year. To me, their toasty-toasty flavors said that even if you only had a mere handful of beans and your life went up in flames, you could still create something wonderful.
A little trial by fire could do you good. After all, if it worked so well with raw cacao and coffee beans, it could work for others, including me. — Judith Fertig

When you wait all your life for something and then you find it, it's like a miracle. All the parts inside you that've been on hold, they open up and start beating. You were okay before, you were good. You had purpose and direction and everything was just fine. But now it's more. You can't explain what the more is, but you know, if you lose it, you'll never be able to fill those empty spaces in just the same way again. Not ever. That's terrifying. I'm afraid that what's inside me is just a trick. That I'll wake up tomorrow and what's beating in here will have stopped. It'll be quiet again. I won't feel this way. I won't feel the way I've waited all my life to feel.
I can stand you not loving me back. There's always hope that you will. But I don't know if I can stand not loving you. It would be like ... like having something stolen from inside of me. I don't know if I can handle going back to the way I was. — Nora Roberts

I turn on the TV sometimes, start watching something and think: 'This seems quite good, a bit familiar.' Then I realise ... It's one of my movies. It's a pretty odd feeling. — Alan Parker

The most important step of all is the first step. Start something! What if that idea you have in the back of your head is a really good one, one that might end up helping tens of thousands of people? You owe it to the world ot act. Or maybe it will help only a few people: The same advice applies. If you don't do it, you are missing out on something big, and so are the people who could have been helped. — Blake Mycoskie

Instead of staying strong and working through when times are really tough, I usually quit this recipe for failure and start a whole new recipe. So if something is too challenging, I tend to chalk it up as not a good fit, and move on to something else. — Derek Sivers

So it's not really $100 a shot because it goes on all day, from the start when you wake up and feel her body next to you, and you don't miss a thing, not a thing of what's next to you, her arm, her leg, her shoulder, her face, that good skin, I have felt other good skin, but this skin is just the edge of something else, and you're going to start going, and no matter how much you crawl all over each other it won't be enough, and when your hunger dies down a little then you think how much you love her and that starts you off again, and her face, you look over at her face and can't believe how you got there and how lucky and it's still all a surprise and it never stops, even after it's over, it never stops being a surprise. — Lydia Davis

Perhaps there was no answer right from the start. Humans lose sight of this ... They fear the truth that they cannot comprehend. There are no true boundaries between good and evil in this world. Heaven and Hell do not really exist. The real truth is something you must discover for yourselves, as you stumble through suffering and confusion.
You suffering ... you dear ones ... We who dwell in Heaven ... There's only one thing I can do. I can pray that you all never have to be sad. I hope you meet the people that you love. Find the truth. Be happy. Never forget that you were born out of great love. We will meet again. Somewhere, somehow in the great pool of time. We will meet again. — Kaori Yuki

Mistakes have been always the path of learning, but to close something because of mistakes and to start it again maybe it's good idea, maybe not! — Deyth Banger

Luther also said that one of our biggest problems was our own "good" works. They obscure our need for a Savior. "At the cross," said Gerhard Forde, "God has stormed the last bastion of the self, the last presumption that you were really going to do something for him." Genuine freedom awaits all who stop trusting in their own work and start trusting in Christ's work. — Tullian Tchividjian

The second rule of improvisation is not only to say yes, but YES, AND. You are supposed to agree and then _add something of your own._ If I start a scene with 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you just say, 'Yeah ... ' we're kind of at a stand-still. But if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'What did you expect? We're in hell.' Or if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'Yes, this can't be good for the wax figures.' Or if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'I told you we shouldn't have crawled into this dog's mouth,' now we're getting somewhere. — Tina Fey

I've been good at this world, the one that hits you when you are born and makes you cry right from the start, so that crying is your first language. I've learned what I was supposed to learn, bu now it comes to me that in doing so I've unlearned other things. I've lost my sense; I cannot sense things. Yes, we are a shambles. And maybe Ama found the way; she found it when all the paths were washed away by rivers from the sky, when all the buildings were blown down by the breath of a God. For just one day, that one day, she found a way out of that shambles, a way around it. And it's this I want to find. But now she has no path back, no way to return even if she wanted to be here in this America. She will always live away from this world, in something of a twilight that is not one thing or the other, one time or the next. She lives in a point, a small point, between two weighted things and it is always rocking this scale, back and forth. — Linda Hogan

As we did every New Year's Eve we made ridiculous resolutions that no one would keep, and quietly we all wondered what the coming year would hold, each of us praying for our own private miracles. Good health. Better health. A marriage for this child, a good job for another. This hopefulness was something hardwired into our psyches, that a new year might mean some monumental something wonderful could happen to bring us happiness at a level we had never known. A new year was a chance to start over. Maybe even, just maybe, there would be peace on earth for one entire day. — Dorothea Benton Frank

This is a good time to remember that when we harden our heart against anyone, we hurt ourselves. The fear habit, the anger habit, the self-pity habit - all are strengthened and empowered when we continue to buy into them. The most compassionate thing we can do is to interrupt these habits. Instead of always pulling back and putting up walls, we can do something unpredictable and make a compassionate aspiration. We can visualize this difficult person's face and say his name if it helps us. Then we say the words: "May this person who irritates me be free of suffering and the roots of suffering." By doing this, we start to dissolve our fear. — Pema Chodron

Why incentivize laziness? High-school students shouldn't be discouraged from grappling, sometimes unsuccessfully, with challenging books, pictures, and songs. A really, really good work of art doesn't bow down to you; you step up to it, and it rewards you. In the end, kids faced with what Chaucer actually wrote may still dislike him, and I'm fine with that; they will have earned that opinion rather than had it handed to them. For heaven's sake, it's easy for kids to see themselves and their peers in a rap song. When they can start to see themselves in a 14th-century poem, then they're actually learning something. — Jeff Sypeck

Leading a healthy, active lifestyle is all about momentum. If I'm in the middle of training it's easy for me to keep that up. It gets tough when I'm on a break. I just try to start my day with a good breakfast and a quick walk, something simple that gets the day off on the right foot. The more I do that, the more I make healthy choices that reflect the good choices made earlier. — Natalie Coughlin

At the center of the bouquet is a monstrous peony, probably purchased on sale at the supermarket. By Tuesday its curling petals had begun to collect at the bottom of the vase, infusing the room with the faint but unmistakable sweet odor of corruption and imminent death ... In Tick's opinion there was something extravagantly excessive about the peony from the start, as if God had intended so suggest with this particular bloom that you could have too much of a good thing. The swiftness with which the fallen petals bean to stink drove the point home in case anybody missed it. As a rule, Tick leans toward believing that there is no God, but she isn't so sure at times like this, when pockets of meaning emerge so clearly that they feel like divine communication. — Richard Russo

Music is where my love is. I don't think the acting thing is going to start outweighing that, but I think it's going to start being a good chunk of something I want to do. — Mary J. Blige

I love the idea of getting up early on Sundays and walking to the market to pick up fresh fruits and vegetables. It's a good way to start my day, and it makes me feel like I've accomplished something before other people are even awake. — Mandy Moore

I think the best way to find out about something is to try to do it to the max. A lot of people take up a hobby or sport and then find an excuse not to carry on with it. Once I start something, I won't stop until I'm as good at it as I'll ever be. — Bruce Dickinson

Sometimes I can't tell the difference between living and dead. Sometimes I look at a pretty little girlie and I think to myself, Is she a living, breathing thing? Or is she just a doll? Are those actualy tears she's crying? Are those real creams coming out of her mouth? And it's like a fog in my mind, like I get all confused and frustrated and mixed up, so I start doing things. Start small at first, like maybe with the ears or the lips or the toes. And then move on to the bigger things, and there's blood, so I keeping going and my hands are wet and my mouth is warm and I keep going and then something magical happens, Jasper. It's real magical and special and beautiful. See, they stop moving. They stop struggiling. All the fight just goes away and that's when it's all clear to me: She's dead. And if she's dead, then that means that she used to be alive. So then I know: This was a living one, a real one. And I feel good after that 'cause I figured it out. — Barry Lyga

He realized with a start that something was about to begin. It might be something dull and uninspiring, something he had experienced countless times before, something that wouldn't make a lick of difference when he died. But it was always good to have something about to begin. — Nobuko Takagi

Every day is the start of something beautiful. — Matt Nathanson

Are you a Genesis 1 Christian or a Genesis 3 Christian? Do you start your story with shalom or with sin? Shalom is the Hebrew word for "peace." For rhythm. For everything lining up exactly how it was meant to line up. Shalom is happening in those moments when you are at the dinner table for hours with good friends, good food, and good wine. Shalom is when you hear or see something and can't quite explain it, but you know it's calling and stirring something deep inside of you. Shalom is a sunset, that sense of exhaustion yet satisfaction from a hard day's work, creating art that is bigger than itself. Shalom is enemies being reconciled by love. — Jefferson Bethke

I have one very basic rule when it comes to "good ideas". A good idea is not an idea that solves a problem cleanly. A good idea is an idea that solves several things at the same time. The mark of good coding is not that the program does what you want, it's that it also does something that you didn't start out wanting. — Linus Torvalds

I love you, Jillian. I love you, and I want this to be the start of something new."
...
"I love this life, I love you, and I want to start our lives together now."
"You're ... serious?"
"Can you handle not knowing who I was? ... Can you deal with the man I am now?"
"Yes," she whispered in a husky rasp. "Oh, yes."
"Good," he said, lowering his mouth to her throat. "Because the man I am now is who I want to be. Forever. — Larissa Ione

I feel like most folks want a book they feel like they have time to finish. You don't want to start A Game of Thrones when you might catch fire all of a sudden. There's something horribly unfair about dying in the middle of a good story, before you have a chance to see how it all comes out. Of course, I suppose everyone always dies in the middle of a good story, in a sense. Your own story. Or the story of your children. Or your grandchildren. Death is a raw deal for narrative junkies. Around — Joe Hill

It might be a kind of relief to be finished. You have to start all over again. But I believe you're always as good as your potential. I now live in my work and in a few relationships with the few people I can really count on. Fame will go by, and, so long, I've had you fame. If it goes by, I've always known it was fickle. So at least it's something I experienced, but that's not where I live. — Marilyn Monroe

There is all this stuff about how sensitive poets are and how in touch with feelings, etc. they are, but really all we care about is language. At least in the initial stages of the process of writing the poem, though later other things start to come in, and a really good poem usually needs something more than just an interest in the material of language to mean anything to a reader. — Matthew Zapruder

On My Last-Place Finish in the 50-Yard Dash During Little League Tryouts It kinda looked like you were being attacked by a bunch of bees or something. Then when I saw the fat kid with the watch who was timing you start laughing ... . Well, I'll just say it's never a good sign when a fat kid laughs at you. — Justin Halpern

Romeo had the attention span of a slice of bread.
Which is none at all.
Every time I start to explain something, it's like not only his eyes glazed over, but his entire body. At one point, I wondered if it were possible for him to be asleep with his eyes open.
And God, he smelled good. — Cambria Hebert

You look lousy,' he said.
Jace blinked. 'Seems an odd time to start an insult contest, but if you insist, I could probably think up something good.'
'No I mean it. You don't look good.'
'This is from a guy ho has all the sex appeal of a penguin. Look, I realize you may be jealous that the good Lord didn't deal you the same chiseled hand he dealt me, but that's no reason to-'
'I am not trying to insult you.' Simon snapped. — Cassandra Clare

Well, a good place to start if you want to know what something was about is to look to see what changes it introduced. And particularly in the case of a war planned in advance where the outcome was never in any doubt, I think you have solid reason to believe the result was what the thing was really for in the first place. — Noam Chomsky

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.

In a way I do hate the process of writing. It's like learning a role where you never think you're going to be able to conquer it when you start and it just takes enough focus and narrowing and getting enthusiastic and not losing it and so on. It's never good enough, but you aim for something and you hope it comes somewhat close. But it is a pleasure once you have written it. — Julie Andrews

She squeezed his in response. "There are over two hundred of us and we're all immune. It'll be a good start." Thomas looked over at her, suspicious at how sure she sounded - like she knew something he didn't. "What's that supposed to mean?" She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then the lips. "Nothing. Nothing at all." Thomas put it all out of his mind and pulled her closer as the last wink of the sun's light vanished below the horizon. — James Dashner

But, it takes some of the characters to some very dark places, and they start doing things that they might not do, if they were in regular circumstances. Their true humanity comes out - the good and the bad. Something else that was fun was that every director would come in so excited to go with their own creativity. — Kyra Zagorsky

When your feeling down, do you know you can change it, like that. Put on a beautiful piece of music, start singing, that will change your emotion - or think of something beautiful, think of a baby, maybe one you love, really keep that thought in your mind, block out everything but that thought. I guarantee you'll start to feel good. — Bob Proctor

Start by thanking God for all He has already given you and then ask for the desires of your heart. Ask Him to bless you so you can serve His purposes and bless others. Don't worry that in asking boldly you will ask for too much. God is not going to give you something that is not good for you or before you are ready to receive it. He will always answer your prayers according to His will and in His perfect timing. — Stormie O'martian

What motivates Olympic athletes to train for years for one event - in some cases, for just seconds of actual competition? It's the same thing that kept my friend Pete nosing around old bookstores for years. It's the same thing that makes a person venture out of a comfortable job to start a new business. We see it in the artist who spends day after day in a studio chipping away at a block of stone. Look closely and you'll find it in the shopper who passes up the good deal in search of the best deal. It's one of the things that makes us most human. We consciously pursue what we value. It's not simply a matter of being driven by biology or genetics or environmental conditioning to satisfy instinctive cravings. Rather, we perceive something, prize it at a certain value, then pursue it according to that assigned value because we were created that way. This ability to perceive, prize, and pursue is part of our essential humanness, and it's the essence of ambition. — Dave Harvey

At the age of five or six I just used to kick the ball with both feet. I wasn't very good to start with but I practised and practised. Once I finally got it, it was an unbelievable sensation. It was then that I realised that if you work at something, it pays off. — Filo Tiatia

If you're tall enough, there's no good reason you should be a nerd. Unless you're a nerd that's kind of a dick, and you start your own company like Bill Gates or the Facebook guy or something, odds are you have a shitty job where you do most of the work and don't make anything, while a tall former prep is an executive or in sales, which are both easy and primarily just involve taking credit for a nerd's work, and also make a shitload more money. — A.D. Aliwat

I just don't like the idea of going down that hole tomorrow with this thing hanging over you and me like..." She stopped and struggled for a good simile.
"Like an open airplane storage locker?" I offered.
(...)
"I like the 'open airplane storage compartment' thing better. It means there's a journey with lots of baggage."
"And things being balanced precariously," I added.
"And a lack of closure," she said.
"Ok," I admitted. "I could start bullshitting about frequent flier miles or something, but I cant really think of any more good ones. — Elliott James

I had worked my butt off for those bastards. I was good at my job. I had made them a fortune. And they just slung me out like suddenly I was shit on their shoe. And I was scared. I was going to lose it all, right? And I was tired. I couldn't start again at the bottom of something else. I was too old and I had no energy. I just didn't know what to do. — Lee Child

And when someone grows up knowing so little of what real love feels like, whether from family, or friends, or the love of a companion, that person starts to believe that they weren't meant to be loved, that good things will never happen to them. They start to believe that whenever something good does happen, it's inevitable that something bad will come along to replace it. — J.A. Redmerski

That was something, wasn't it? Trust was a good place to start. Especially after the kind of betrayal she'd been through. It made him want to prove he was the kind of man she deserved. The kind of man who'd love her for better or worse. The kind who was faithful and true. — Denise Hunter

A good therapy helps you develop a sense of irony about your life so that when you start to repeat old and unhelpful patterns, something within you says, "There you go again; let's call this to a halt. You can do something different." Often the first step toward doing something different is developing the capacity to not act, to stay still and reflect. — Sherry Turkle

Once you start carrying your own suitcase, paying your own bills, running your own show, you've done something to yourself that makes you one of those women men like to call 'a pal' and 'a good sport,' the kind of woman they tell their troubles to. But you've cut yourself off from the orchids and the diamond bracelets, except those you buy yourself. — Sophie Tucker

When I first started writing plays I couldn't write good dialogue because I didn't respect how black people talked. I thought that in order to make art out of their dialogue I had to change it, make it into something different. Once I learned to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I let them start talking. — August Wilson

For some reason there's this myth that creativity - [especially] in terms of creative writing - is a gift you either have, or you don't. So when people first start writing, if they write something that's not very good, or if they try and it's difficult, they go, "Oh, I guess I don't have it." That doesn't seem very fair, you have to try and you have to work at it. If we get scared of one bad poem and quit, that's not doing anybody any good. — Sarah Kay

To see talented people in roles that others might not see them in, to see how they might fit in the puzzle of the cast, has always been something that I've been good at. I think that if you look at the successes of my films and start to peel them back, there's usually a really smart casting decision that has gone into that success. — Jon Favreau

Each time I do a trilogy it's ten years out of my life. I'll finish Episode III and I'll be 60. And the next 20 years after that I want to spend doing something other than Star Wars. If at 80 I'm still lively and having a good time and think I can work for another 10 years between 80 and 90, I might consider it. But don't count on it. There's nothing written, and it's not like I'm completing something. I'd have to start from scratch. The idea of a third trilogy was more of a media thing than it was me. — George Lucas

I hear all the time that 'unemployment is greatly reduced, but the people aren't feeling it.' When the media, talking heads, the White House and Wall Street start reporting the truth - the percent of Americans in good jobs; jobs that are full time and real - then we will quit wondering why Americans aren't 'feeling' something that doesn't remotely reflect the reality in their lives. And we will also quit wondering what hollowed out the middle class. — Jim Clifton

I can always tell when I'm about to start writing. I go through cycles in reading. When I'm beginning to start to write something, I start reading what I think of as good literature. I read things with wonderful language. — Patricia MacLachlan

Of course, to my utter mortification, he looked amused. I half-expected him to start golf clapping.
Ooh, epic bitch fit! I give it five stars. Haven't seen one that good in forever, and I live in a town full of queens, so that's saying something. Now, if you've got that out of your system, sit your ass down and let's talk. — Amelia C. Gormley

Emotions don't know how to stitch back the way flesh could. How do you go to a person, your wife of two decades, and tell her you want to start over again? How do you say, "Forget everything we've got together. Forget the kids and the fights and all the good times, too. I take it all back." How do you do that? It ain't a lizard's tail, those years. It ain't something you walk away from and start over. — Hugh Howey

Every meaningful cultural act
wherever it takes place
is unquestionably good in and of itself, simply because it exists and because it offers something to someone. Yet can this value 'in itself' really be separated from 'the common good'? Is not one an integral part of the other from the start? Does not the bare fact that a work of art has meant something to someone
even if only for a moment, perhaps to a single person
already somehow change, however minutely, the overall condition for the better? ... Can we separate the awakening human soul from what it always, already is
an awakening human community? — Vaclav Havel

Loving someone is easy. It's your car and all you have to do is start the engine, give her a little gas and point the thing wherever you want to go. But being loved is like being taken for a ride in someone else's car. Even if you think they'll be a good driver, you always have the innate fear they might do something wrong: in an instant you'll both be flying through the windshield toward imminent disaster. Being loved can be the most frightening thing of all. Because love means good-bye to control; and what happens if halfway or three-quarters of the way through the trip you decide you want to go back, or in a different direction, and you're only the codriver? — Jonathan Carroll

I say to my students that I can't teach them how to write a good song, but I can teach you how to write a better song. Talking about this idea of it being a process. By going back and not settling for something and find a way to step back from your songs-which is a very hard thing to do-but when you're stuck or you can't move forward, start doing some polishing. — Andy Wilkinson

Think about what it is you're after."
"Understanding," she said slowly.
"Good," Bill said. "What else?"
A nervous energy was coursing through her, as if she was on the brink of something important. "I want to find out why Daniel and I were cursed. And I want to break that curse.I want to stop love from killing me so that we can finally be together-for real."
"Whoa,whoa,whoa." Bill started waving his hands like a man stranded on the side of a dark road. "Let's not get crazy. This is a very long-standing damnation you're up againat here. You and Daniel,it's like ... I don't know, you can't just snap your pretty little fingers and break out of that. You gotta start out small. — Lauren Kate

Escape is a good novel, a gripping movie, a holiday - not something I can imagine being forced into. I am used to thinking of travel as an escape from security and predictability and stability, not a journey in search of these things. I am used to thinking of home as something that gets left behind at the start of a journey, not something you might be travelling perilously towards. — Adele Dumont

That's the thing people forget when they start talking about things in terms of good and evil. For us, the places we went were home. We didn't care if they were good or evil or neutral or what. We cared about the fact that for the first time, we didn't have to pretend to be something we weren't. We just got to be. — Seanan McGuire

But in the present century, thanks in good part to the influence of Hilbert, we have come to see that the unproved postulates with which we start are purely arbitrary. They must be consistent, they had better lead to something interesting. — Julian Coolidge

I liked Bugs Bunny. He was pretty good. He's annoying as a duck and he's anti-proletarian. Daffy Duck I couldn't see what was going on with him. He seemed like he was angry about something. My favorite one though is Pinocchio. I liked that kid. He was made of wood. I liked that for a start. I also liked how he'd tell a lie and his nose would grow. I liked the morality of that. — Russell Brand

That's what being shy feels like. Like my skin is too thin, the light too bright. Like the best place I could possibly be is in a tunnel far under the cool, dark earth. Someone asks me a question and I stare at them, empty-faced, my brain jammed up with how hard I'm trying to find something interesting to say. And in the end, all I can do is nod or shrug, because the light of their eyes looking at me, waiting for me, is just too much to take. And then it's over and there's one more person in the world who thinks I'm a complete and total waste of space.
The worst thing is the stupid hopefulness. Every new party, every new bunch of people, and I start thinking that maybe this is my chance. That I'm going to be normal this time. A new leaf. A fresh start. But then I find myself at the party, thinking, Oh, yeah. This again.
So I stand on the edge of things, crossing my fingers, praying nobody will try to look me in the eye. And the good thing is, they usually don't. — Carol Rifka Brunt

Life is funny. You start out with limitless potential, but time is always shaving away the possibilities. Every choice you make is the choice not to do a thousand other things. What's important, when all is said and done, is that you made a difference. Your choices, and everything undone, have to mean something. Otherwise, what was the point? I'm lucky that way. My path was already there. I had only to walk it. I often thought even if no one knew of the good I had done with my life, it didn't matter. That it was done is all that counts in the end. But then I died. And I hadn't gotten to do any of it yet. — Brian Clevinger