Starting Line Up Quotes & Sayings

Superior quality is a prerequisite to entering the game. By definition, an entrepreneur is undercapitalized relative to the status quo. Therefore, if you enter a product that is either at parity with the leaders, or not as good, you won't even get to the starting line. — Gary Hirshberg

But that wasn't what happened. What happened was they drove to Harry's and parked the Camaro next to an Audi and a Lexus and Gansey ordered flavors of gelato until the table wouldn't hold anymore and Ronan convinced the staff to turn the overhead speakers up and Blue laughed for the first time at something Gansey said and they were loud and triumphant and kings of Henrietta, because they'd found the ley line and because it was starting, it was starting. — Maggie Stiefvater

You're just going to be a Starter. The starting line is the only line you completely control. — Jon Acuff

You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying you are free to compete with all the others, and still justly believe you have been completely fair ... We seek not just freedom but opportunity ... not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result. — Lyndon B. Johnson

Then you get the wrong answer and you can't go to the Moon that way! Nature isn't a person, you can't trick them into believing something else, if you try to tell the Moon it's made of cheese you can argue for days and it won't change the Moon! What you're talking about is rationalization, like starting with a sheet of paper, moving straight down to the bottom line, using ink to write 'and therefore, the Moon is made of cheese', and then moving back up to write all sorts of clever arguments above. But either the Moon is made of cheese or it isn't. The moment you wrote the bottom line, it was already true or already false. Whether or not the whole sheet of paper ends up with the right conclusion or the wrong conclusion is fixed the instant you write down the bottom line. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

Sometimes you start a little further back from the starting line. And you're going to have to work a little bit harder, and push it faster to get to the finish. I'm willing to put in the work, to compensate for other things, to get ahead, to get to where I want to be. — Nick Newell

The Story of the Rabbit and the Eggplant
Once there was a race between a rabbit and an eggplant. Now, the eggplant, as you know, is a member of the vegetable kingdom, and the rabbit is a very fast animal.
Everybody bet lots of money on the eggplant, thinking that if a vegetable challenges a live animal with four legs to a race, then it must be that the vegetable knows something.
People expected the eggplant to win the race by some clever trick of philosophy. The race was started, and there was a lot of cheering. The rabbit streaked out of sight.
The eggplant just sat there at the starting line. Everybody knew that in some surprising way the eggplant would wind up winning the race.
Nothing of the sort happened. Eventually, the rabbit crossed the finish line and the eggplant hadn't moved an inch.
The spectators ate the eggplant.
Moral: Never bet on an eggplant. — Daniel Pinkwater

I had no need to apologize that the look-wider, search-more affirmative action that Princeton and Yale practiced had opened doors for me. That was its purpose: to create the conditions whereby students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be brought to the starting line of a race many were unaware was even being run. — Sonia Sotomayor

You can't wait for the race to start to get ready. That's a loss. You must get your mind right before you get to the starting line. Mindset is everything! — Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr.

Finally, it became perfectly obvious. A finish line marks a stopping point. Once we stop, we must start over, and starting over is harder than continuing. — Gretchen Rubin

When I was growing up listening to music, it was 2004, when The Starting Line and Finch and The Used were kind of my favorite bands. — Kellin Quinn

Happens every time. She gets up to go to the bathroom, leaving her bag behind to focus very intently on walking in a straight line. She's not drunk, she tells herself, but finally starting to relax. The worry of losing her job to the dreadful Louise is starting to recede, and life is looking rosy again, despite no plan and no viable ideas. In the bathroom mirror she — Jane Green

I dreamed of setting it up out here in front of where I am sitting now, on the tripod that I would have ordered too, and starting, taking my time, to focus on a curling line of water, a piece of the world indifferent to the fact that there is language, that there are names to describe things, and grammar and verbs. My eye, solitary, filled with its own history, is desperate to evade, erase, forget; it is watching now, watching fiercely, like a scientist looking for a cure, deciding for some days to forget about words, to know at last that the words for colours, the blue-grey-green of the sea, the whiteness of the waves, will not work against thefullness of watching the rich chaos they yield and carry. — Colm Toibin

I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line. — Jeanette Winterson

As Donilon [President Obama's security advisor] would tell me, Obama said: Here's the deal. I want this hunt for Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to come to the front of the line. I worry that the trail has gone cold. This has to be our top priority and it needs leadership in the tops of your organizations. You need to ensure that we have expended every effort to take down the top leadership of al Qaeda, especially these two individuals. And I want regular reports on this *to me* and I want them starting in thirty days.
Donilon followed up and drove and drove the point home with a memo, which the president signed. He sent it to each of those present. It read: 'In order to ensure that we have extended every effort - directly provide to me a detailed operational plan for locating and bringing to justice Osama bin Laden. — Mark Bowden

I took many notes, more than usual before I sat down and wrote Act One, Scene One. I had perhaps eighty pages of notes ... I was so prepared that the script seemed inevitable. It was almost all there. I could almost collate it from my notes. The story line, the rather tenuous plot we have, seemed to work out itself. It was a very helpful way to write, and it wasn't so scary. I wasn't starting with a completely blank page. — Charles Busch

Forget he never wanted this in the first place. Forget he was convinced she might be clinically insane and definitely feral. The bottom line was, she ran. She didn't even stop to shower. She woke up, saw Zach lying next to her, and took to the Texas hills. Not a good sign when one was just starting out in a relationship. — Shelly Laurenston

Achieving your vision doesn't mean you've reached the end of the line. It simply means that you've come to a new starting place. — Nido R. Qubein

Plane Ride -
In our sport it is natural and necessary to set up goals to inspire us. We all want to achieve the next level, the break-thru performance. What we (all of us) must not forget is that the journey to these goals is the best part. The daily process of obtaining success takes up the majority of our time and effort throughout our lives. Remember to appreciate what you've done in the past and what you are doing in the present on your way to higher goals. This will allow you to always strive for something more without missing out on the fact that your path to success is as much a starting point as it is a finish line. — Matthew Alan

Imagine that a career is like a marathon - a long, grueling, and ultimately rewarding endeavor. Now imagine a marathon where both men and women arrive at the starting line equally fit and trained. The gun goes off. The men and women run side by side. The male marathoners are routinely cheered on: "Lookin' strong! On your way!" But the female runners hear a different message. "You know you don't have to do this!" the crowd shouts. Or "Good start - but you probably won't want to finish." The farther the marathoners run, the louder the cries grow for the men: "Keep going! You've got this!" But the women hear more and more doubts about their efforts. External voices, and often their own internal voice, repeatedly question their decision to keep running. The voices can even grow hostile. As the women struggle to endure the rigors of the race, spectators shout, "Why are you running when your children need you at home? — Sheryl Sandberg

Think of it, half the race is over, and I still stand here at the starting line - me, the first one out of his swaddling clothes and into his track suit! a hundred and fifty-eight points of I.Q., and still arguing with the authorities about the rules and regulations! disputing the course to be run! calling into question the legitimacy of the track commission! — Philip Roth

The measure of a design is how easily it accommodates changes. With no changes, it's a runner who never leaves the starting line. — Robert Nystrom

This is my 25th year of being on stage. A lot of people who I kind of toed up to the starting line with are no longer in this position. I feel very, very lucky. — Henry Rollins

Love is infinite. There is no beginning and no end. There's no starting point and no finishing line. Love just is. Love is born, grows, matures, and sometimes it dies. But the memory will remain with you for the rest of your breathing hours. You will fall in love, you will fall out of love. But you will love again. You always do. — Mia Asher

Courage is crossing a starting line. — Amby Burfoot

When the finish line seems too far away, remember how you felt when you were back at the starting line. Regain that motivation to recharge your momentum. — Toni Sorenson

How we're brought in to this world determines where we begin on life's starting line. Are we born on the first row or in the back of the line? Do we have to stand in the back because of our gender, race or color? Do we have enough food in the house to eat breakfast this morning? Do we own a pair of running shoes? Do we wake up with a view of the mountains or with metal bars on our doors? Do we need permission before leaving the house? How long is it going to take us to realize the structure we're born into? — Sadiqua Hamdan

The basis of bureaucratic rule is the poverty of society in objects of consumption, with the resulting struggle of each against all. When there is enough goods in a store, the purchasers can come whenever they want to. When there is little goods, the purchasers are compelled to stand in line. When the lines are very long, it is necessary to appoint a policeman to keep order. Such is the starting point of the power of the Soviet bureaucracy. It "knows" who is to get something and who has to wait. — Leon Trotsky

There's no "get rich quick." There's no "overnight success."

However, this doesn't mean that when you decide to start a business that you're just starting. You could start making new money tomorrow.

I was fishing with my son and taught him that you can't catch a fish unless your line is in the water. A truth my dad once taught me.
You may have spent years learning a skill or creating a product or service that you just simply haven't thought to monetize. Like leaving a fishing pole on the ground along side the river, but not having your line in the water yet.

All you need to create a new stream of income is to make something consumable and offer it at a price that someone will pay.

If you're not making offers, you're not making money.

Get your line in the water! — Richie Norton

The great thing is that young talent isn't tied to a how-to model for starting a line; we get to find new ways to go about doing things. And don't let people tell you you can't. Go find a way to show that you can. — Alexander Wang

Normal life is nuts. It's a downhill deterioration to death no matter how you spice it along the way, and there's nothing you can do about it. Now, a sane person, when faced when that, would just plunk his ass down at the starting line, or wherever along the way this realization finally came to him, and say, "Are you kidding? I quit. I'll slide the rest of the way or sit here and smoke." It takes a true lunatic, or someone functioning with the critical apparatus of a worker bee, to keep scrabbling up that hill when he knows his destiny is dust. But that us what is required. Go on. — Norah Vincent

Nellie's brow furrowed. "The great Mr. Hip-Hop Mogul standing in line with the common peasants? How do you figure that?"
Dan grinned. "I'm starting to dig this 'no cars' thing. It's a great equalizer. — Gordon Korman

Some people spend their life studying maps but never start the journey; other people blast off the starting line full speed ahead without first charting a course. Most of us could benefit from a better balance between planning and doing. — Gregory D. Kincaid

Crossing the starting line may be an act of courage, but crossing the finish line is an act of faith. Faith is what kepes us going when nothing else will. Faith is the emotion that will give you victory over your past, the demons in your soul, & all of those voices that tell you what you can & cannot do & can & cannot be. — John Bingham

I'm trying to strip myself down to my barest essentials so I can figure out where I begin and where the woman the world told me to be begins. I'm going back to the starting line. — Glennon Doyle Melton

Another form of laziness is thinking: 'That's not for me; it's beyond my abilities. I'd rather not get involved with it.' In other words, you give up the race before you reach the starting line. — Matthieu Ricard

I realize something. That wasn't a finish line for me ... This is my new starting line. — Wendelin Van Draanen

I always send new writers to 'Writer's Digest Books' line-up of how-to books. I read them all when I was starting out, and they were very helpful. — Gail Z. Martin

MONOPOLY. Tesla started with a tiny submarket that it could dominate: the market for high-end electric sports cars. Since the first Roadster rolled off the production line in 2008, Tesla's sold only about 3,000 of them, but at $109,000 apiece that's not trivial. Starting small allowed Tesla to undertake the necessary R&D to build the slightly less expensive Model S, and now Tesla owns the luxury electric sedan market, too. They sold more than 20,000 sedans in 2013 and now Tesla is in prime position to expand to broader markets in the future. — Peter Thiel

I worked as an assistant editor, actually, for a few years. That was right when I was just starting to get out at night and do a lot of stand-up, improv, and sketch work in New York. It really is invaluable. I think it pounded into me an awareness of what an editor wants and needs, in terms of clarity of a moment, where and when to start and stop a line. — Ed Helms

It's starting to look like Donald Trump may be a serious presidential candidate. If you're in my line of work, Trump running for president for real is the greatest thing that has ever happened. — Conan O'Brien

All right, Jeffy. Here are some big-boy pants. Put 'em on and crank out fifty miles for me. By the way, the iPod only has one playlist on it. Press play when you leave the starting line, okay? — Jordan Sonnenblick

Toeing the starting line of a marathon, regardless of the language you speak, the God you worship or the color of your skin, we all stand as equal. Perhaps the world would be a better place if more people ran. — Dean Karnazes

When you really want something, you will give up a million times, but your heart keeps taking you back to the starting line. — Shannon L. Alder

Reality is the only place you can deal from. If you're still worrying about the way things should be, you haven't even approached the starting line. — Georgette Mosbacher

Cassidy's heart tried to leap out through his taught skin and hop into his wet hands. But outwardly it was all very calm, very serene, just as always, and it seemed to last a tiny forever, just like that, a snapshot of them all on the curved parabola of a starting line, eight giant hearts attached to eight pairs of bellows-like lungs mounted on eight pairs of supercharged stilts. They were poised on the edge of some howling vortex they had run 10,000 miles to get to. Now they had to run one more — John L. Parker Jr.

I had as many doubts as anyone else. Standing on the starting line, we're all cowards. — Alberto Salazar

When I went to the starting line of the 1976 Olympic marathon in Montreal, it was with the unsettling conviction that some of my competitors were cheaters. — Don Kardong

My leg hurts, I wonder if it's cancer? There's a bump. I'm starting to sweat. Stop sweating. I've got to stop sweating.
Can she see it dripping down my forehead? She looked at my hair line. She thinks I'm bald. — Charlie Kaufman

Long Distance training can be a positive & constructive form of selfishness. After all, once you're at the starting line, you're there by yourself. No one can run a single step for you. No one can jump in & help you. No one but you can make the decisions about what to do to keep going. It's all up to you. — John Bingham

Paul's vision, though, is starting small, with actual communities in which reconciliation and justice has to be practiced - like the rich/poor distinction in the Corinthian church, for instance, or the projected reconciliation between Philemon and Onesimus. But he clearly believes (Ephesians 3) that communities like this send a signal to the wider world that Jesus is Lord - which is aimed at then the whole world coming into line. — N. T. Wright

How tragic it is that so often we stop everything just as we reach the starting line. We must move past the narcissistic preoccupation with getting the love we think 'works' for us. The point of love is to make us grow, not to make us immediately happy. Many of us have forsworn the chance for the deepest love in reaching out for the easier one. — Marianne Williamson

I have an idea and a first line
and that suggests the rest of it. I have little concept of what I'm going to say, or where it's going. I have some idea of how long it's going to be
but not what will happen or what the themes will be. That's the intrigue of doing it
it's a process of discovery. You get to discover what you're going to say and what it's going to mean. — T.C. Boyle

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

I got the breaks. Starting from nowhere in the corn belt, I helped edit a country weekly, then was jack-of-all-departments on an obscure daily, so that when I arrived in a big city everything I tackled in the line of column conducting and syndicate peddling and playwriting had to bring promotion, because I had no social standing which could be endangered, no reputation to toss away and no pride which might suffer a setback. Everything I acquired had to be velvet. You cannot lose your silver spoon if you are brought up on pewter. — George Ade

When you're starting out, every line in a show or a commercial is like a huge success. — Emmanuelle Chriqui

I do not believe in eternal progress, that we are growing on ever and ever in a straight line. It is too nonsensical to believe. There is no motion in a straight line. A straight line infinitely projected becomes a circle. The force sent out will complete the circle and return to its starting place. — Swami Vivekananda

A moment later the race began - poof - without any fanfare. There was no horn or gun or even a megaphone. But someone at the starting line must have yelled, "Go!" for everyone began running. Some things, even some of the most life-changing experiences, start that way. No one says, "This (fill in the blank) is going to be one of the most radical rites of passage you will ever travel through, so pay attention." Someone just says, "Okay, go ahead now," and you find yourself in the middle of an unexpected lightning storm with your life flashing before you. — Cami Ostman

In order to realize the goal of creating a new starting line that anyone can instinctively understand we have come up with a design that differs greatly from any of today's controllers. We have also made bold innovations in play style as well. — Satoru Iwata

I live intimately with my characters before starting a book. I cut out pictures of them for my wall. I do time lines for each major character and a time line for the entire novel: What is going on in the world as my characters struggle with their problems? — Walter Dean Myers

It's the uncertainty, the challenge and the willingness to put it all on the line that draws a lot of people to climb mountains. That can also apply to a lot of other challenges in life, whether it's running for office, starting a family, going to grad school or taking all of your cash and assets and starting a business. — Mark Udall

I thought I was getting better at this. I thought I was starting to make peace with being in love with a girl who despises me, but I don't think I'm so okay with it after all. Somewhere along the line I made a dark bargain with the universe without ever really being aware of it
a bargain that if I was allowed to see her, even if we never spoke, then I could live with that. And now a week without her has swallowed up all of my rational thinking. I feel like a junkie, sick for my next fix and not sure when it will come. — Holly Black

The only reason nice guys finish last is because they think they'll finish last. You don't win the race by walking around the starting line saying 'I'm not going to win this race'. — Mitch Rowland

For if one were to suppose that the stars' motion takes place in a straight line towards infinity, as some people have thought, what device could one conceive of which would cause each of them to appear to begin their motion from the same starting-point every day? How could the stars turn back if their motion is towards infinity? Or, if they did turn back, how could this not be obvious? [On such a hypothesis], they must gradually diminish in size until they disappear, whereas, on the contrary, they are seen to be greater at the very moment of their disappearance, at which time they are gradually obstructed and cut off, as it were, by the earth's surface. — Michael J. Crowe

The starting line of the New York Marathon is kind of like a giant time bomb behind you about to go off. It is the most spectacular start in sport. — Bill Rodgers

Here it is: our collaboration with Project Spark . Instead of a traditional music video for GUILTY ALL THE SAME (feat. Rakim), we are giving you this as a starting line for you guys to create and share. This is the first interactive, remixable game. We look forward to seeing what you make with it. — Joe

I made a boy's mistake, common enough, of thinking that real life was knowing many things and many people, living dangerously in faraway places, crossing the sea, or starting a power company on the Columbia River, a steamship line in Bolivia. — Mark Helprin

There are seven winners of the Monaco Grand Prix on the starting line today, and four of them are Michael Schumacher. — Murray Walker

I limbered up just a little before entering the stadium, and even so I felt a twinge in my thigh, no doubt the fruit of my imagination. And I went back to the massage room so that my faithful Morizot could take the trouble off my muscles. This soothed me considerably and I thought I was back to a normal state until somebody summoned me to the starting line. It was like feeling a blade go through my flesh. — Jules Ladoumegue

You get to a point where you have to start planning, when you cross that line where you have enough value to get someone's movie made if you attach yourself to it, you have to be very thoughtful and have to plan. When you're starting out, you're willing to do anything. — Chris Pratt