The More You Practice Quotes & Sayings

But then, out of nowhere, Cletus said, "I guess we're going to have to practice."

"Pardon me?"

"Practice kissing. Like what you did with Billy."

I reeled back as my head whipped to the side, our eyes colliding. I couldn't believe my ears. "You think . . . you want me to practice kissing with Billy?"

"No. No. Absolutely not." Again, Cletus's gaze flickered over me. "I mean you and me. I'll help you practice."

The heart flip returned, but this time it was more forceful than before. And it brought some friends - the tummy cartwheel, the throat cinch, and the chest ache.

What. The. Hell . . .? — Penny Reid

Why didn't you become a sorcerer, Geralt? Weren't you ever attracted by the Art? Be honest.'
'I will. I was.'
'Why, then, didn't you follow the voice of that attraction?'
'I decided it would be wiser to follow the voice of good sense.'
'Meaning?'
'Years of practice in the witcher's trade have taught me not to bite off more than I can chew. Do you know, Vilgefortz, I once knew a dwarf, who, as a child, dreamed of being an elf. What do you think; would he have become one had he followed the voice of attraction? — Andrzej Sapkowski

Practice being fully present with something. Perhaps you may find something of God there. Go outside and look at the stars. Not for just a few seconds - lay a blanket in the yard, lie on your back and really look at the stars. Try to let your heart feel the incomprehensible size and grandeur of the universe. Take the time to really attend to a meal, a good book, a piece of music, or a sunrise. The point is to be fully present, to not be swept up into the distraction of a thousand voices, but to learn how to simply and fully attend to one. Then, when one enters back into the noisy world that we live in, even the million colors together are more vibrant because you have learned to better see color in its essence. To truly see is to find hope. — Michael Gungor

Katniss, it's just hunting. You're the best hunter I know." Gale

"It's not just hunting. They're armed, they think." --Katniss

"So do you. And you've had more practice. Real practice. You know how to kill." --Gale

"Not people." --Katniss

"How different can it be, really?" --Gale

The awful thing is that if I can forget they're people, it will be no different at all. --Katniss — Suzanne Collins

The more you practice and study, the better you are ... so I still practice and study all the time. — Cyndi Lauper

Learning to write clean code is hard work. It requires more than just the knowledge of principles and patterns. You must sweat over it. You must practice it yourself, and watch
yourself fail. You must watch others practice it and fail. You must see them stumble and retrace their steps. You must see them agonize over decisions and see the price they pay for making those decisions the wrong way. — Robert C. Martin

Know what makes a sentence more than a random list, practice constructing sentences and explaining what you have done, and you will know how to make sentences forever and you will know too when what you are writing doesn't make the grade because it has degenerated into a mere pile of discrete items. — Stanley Fish

When you practice Buddhism, you have to always self-reflect, and you can't avoid your problems. That makes me understand human beings better. I feel that the more I do that in my own life, the more I can see how to play a character. — Vinessa Shaw

Does one scent appeal more than another? Do you prefer this flavor, or that feeling? Is your practice sacred and your work profane? Then your mind is separated: from itself, from oneness, from the Tao. — Laozi

Anyway, I think I made a bit of progress."
"How did you manage that?"
"Well, they liked that you served in the First Army, and that you saved their prince's life."
"After he risked his own life rescuing us?"
"I may have taken some liberties with the details."
"Oh, Nikolai will love that. Is there more?"
"I told them you hate herring."
"Why?"
"And that you love plum cake. And that Ana Kuya took a switch to you when you ruined your spring slippers in puddles."
I winced. "Why would you tell them all that?'
"I wanted to make you human," he said. "All they see when they look at you is the Sun Summoner. They see a threat, another powerful Grisha like the Darkling. I want them to see a daughter or a sister or a friend. I want them to see Alina."
I felt a lump rise in my throat. "Do you practice being wonderful?"
"Daily," he said with a grin. Then he winked. "But I prefer 'useful. — Leigh Bardugo

We look at some people as if they were special, gifted, divine. Nobody is special and gifted and divine.
No more than you are, no more than I am. The only difference, the very only one,
is that they have begun to understand what they really are and have begun to practice it. — Richard Bach

In my nutritional philosophy, tradition has weight. After all, we've survived anywhere from 7,000 to 77,000 generations on this planet (depending on whose science you believe). If we didn't know how to adequately nourish our children all that time, how did we even get here? And guess what? Traditional cultures didn't (and don't) feed their young babies infant cereal. Among the few cultures that fed their babies a gruel of grains, their practice radically differed from what we do today. They would either pre-chew the gruel for their babies until they were at least a year old, or the gruel was mildly fermented by soaking the grains for 24 hours or more. — Kristen Michaelis

He handed her a plastic container of dried fruit Loreen had packed for the trip to use as a steering wheel so she could practice matching the turns ... Fan's arms began to ache from holding up the container but she was beginning to enjoy herself, too, feeling an unlikely liberty and exhilaration, which if you think about it, can be seen as a good approximation of this life, where control is more believed than actual. — Chang-rae Lee

At a certain point in the writing of any book, you become absolutely certain that it's terrible and is only getting more terrible with every word you write. This is normal. You just have to keep going, push your way through, and have faith that, through practice and experience and determination, you will get to the end. — Greg Van Eekhout

Is it ... can we ... is it safe?"
Tub checked the lot but he seemed unconcerned.
"Coach Lawrence nabbed him for practice. We live to fight another day, soldier."
"No ... I mean, the thing ... is it ... ?"
Tub frowned.
"The thing. Hmmm. Can you be more specific?
I clutched at the bumper and raised myself to unsteady feet. I patted the truck bed, taking solace in the cake of dust. It was real; I was not caught in a nightmare. I smeared the dust with my fingers and smelled it.
"If you lick that, we're no longer friends," Tub said. — Guillermo Del Toro

The mind is just like a muscle - the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets and the more it can expand. — Idowu Koyenikan

All that is required to become an optimist is to have the goal and to practice it. The more you rehearse optimistic thoughts, the more 'natural' and 'ingrained' they will become. With time they will be part of you, and you will have made yourself into an altogether different person. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

When a painful emotion comes up, stop whatever you're doing and take care of it. Pay attention to what is happening. The practice is simple. Lie down, put your hand on your belly, and begin to breathe. Stop thinking, and focus all your attention on the rise and fall of the abdomen. Breathe deeply and focus your attention only on your in-breath and out-breath.

An emotion is only an emotion, and you are much more than one emotion. You are body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. The territory of your being is large. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Priorities versus Posteriorities Setting priorities requires setting posteriorities as well. A priority is something that you do more of and sooner, whereas a posteriority is something you do less of or later. You are probably already overwhelmed with too much to do and too little time. Because of this, for you to embark on a new task, you must discontinue an old task. Getting into something new requires getting out of another activity. Before you commit to a new undertaking, ask yourself, "What am I going to stop doing so that I have enough time to work on this new task?" Go through your life regularly and practice "creative abandonment": Consciously determine the activities that you are going to discontinue so that you have more time to spend on those tasks that can really make a difference to your future. — Brian Tracy

Then she told herself to stop her nonsense. If you looked for things to make you feel hurt and wretched and unnecessary, you were certain to find them, more easily each time, so easily, soon, that you did not even realize you had gone out searching. Women alone often developed into experts at the practice. She must never join their dismal league. — Dorothy Parker

Preaching is to much avail, but practice is far more effective. A godly life is the strongest argument you can offer the skeptic. — Hosea Ballou

Let me pull you close and whisper a heart-stopping truth. That daily stuff - those responsibilities that seem more like distractions - those things we want to rush and just get through to get on with the better and bigger assignments of life - those things that are unnoticed places of service? They are the very experiences from which we unlock the riches of wisdom. We've got to practice wisdom in the everyday places of our lives. Never despise the mundane. Embrace it. Unwrap it like a gift. And be one of the rare few who looks deeper than just the surface. See something more in the everyday. It's there. — Lysa TerKeurst

A Home Run Derby is fun. It's just like taking batting practice, and you just want to go deep. Guys do it every day. Yes, there's a little more pressure when they pull that cage back, but if you practice properly, it shouldn't affect the second half of your season at all. — Frank Thomas

I think the self-burning itself on practice of non-violence. These people, you see, they easily use bomb explosive, more casualty people. But they didn't do that. Only sacrifice their own life. So this also is part of practice of non-violence. — Dalai Lama

Here are two dichotomies here. In the West it is a very physical practice, and even meditation is a practice to become productive and more at peace. In the East, you think of the deep spiritual practices as a journey of complete dissolution of the self, the ego. — Karan Bajaj

If you are that patient, your mind is more settled, and what you do will be more perfect. If you are unsettled and anxious to get the result, you are already disturbed; nothing done with that disturbed mind will have quality. So, it is not only how long you practice, but with what patience, what earnestness and what quality also. — Swami Satchidananda

Some parents have difficulty expressing their love physically or vocally. I do not ever recall my own father using the words, "Son, I love you," but he showed it in a thousand ways which were more eloquent than words. He rarely missed a practice, a game, a race, or any activity in which his sons participated. — James E. Faust

Sex only gets better, and we agree we'd like to practice. He tells me, speaking of practice, he can set up a training schedule. And now he rambles.
He inform me every morning will begin with some calisthenics followed by sex. Then we'll eat a breakfast rich in carbohydrates to maintain energy, followed by sex. In the evening, there'll be some warm-up stretches followed by sex. Then a cooldown followed by more sex. The ice cream, preferably chocolate. Then sleep to rest up for the morning practice.
I brush my lips across his warm shoulder. "I'm glad to see you're a normal healthy male. — Katie Kacvinsky

Sure enough the goldfish was swimming upside down, its boggle eyes wide and staring, its fins flapping madly at its sides. Brandon felt like the fish looked. He was anxious over how Lewis
knew he was a vet and the address of the practice he worked at.
"I don't think it has vertigo, Lewis." A professional approach was all he could think of. "Has it ever done this before?"
"He. He's not an 'it' and his name is Fluffles. I'd appreciate it if you referred to Fluffles by his name rather than a generic term demeaning him into nothing more than an object devoid of gender." Lewis cocked his head, staring unblinking. "Fluffles is a beloved pet. I demand you show him respect!"
"Ooookaaaay." Brandon pressed his lips together and released them with a loud pop. "Has Fluffles ever done this before?"
"Don't know." Lewis peered into the bag. "I've only had him forty-five minutes. — Zathyn Priest

My lessons from my mother's life are many, but one that stings the most and the one I want to imbue in my heart is to not judge people negatively by how they act, even if they look normal, or have been normal in your past, because you never know what they have to fight inside - something they never chose to have.
The answer to Dustin walking was not willpower. He was not born to walk, and while trying made us better people, more practice wasn't the answer - compassion was. The answer to the feeling that I was losing my mother slowly over the years was not to try to motivate her into a new perspective to magically fix all the problems - it was love. — Darcy Leech

yoga positions. She's got all the curtains and blinds in her living room lifted, which exposes her half-dressed body as it twists itself into sexual positions. Of course they're sexual positions. You chicks may call it 'yoga' but it's really nothing more than sex practice. When else would you need to be that flexible except in someone's bed? — Xavier Neal

Tell me about Raffe."
Nothing.
"okay. Let's practice fighting," I said in an enthusiastic voice as if I'm talking to a little kid. "I could use more lessons."
Nothing.
"Right. Well, I guess I have nothing better to do now than to decorate the teddy bear with ribbons and bows. What do you think of dusky pink?"
The room wavers, then morphs. — Susan Ee

The object is not so much to get you to keep a journal while you are young, as it is to get you to continue it after you become men and women, even through your whole lives. This is especially needed in the generation in which you live, for you live in as important a generation as the children of men ever saw, and it is far more important that you should begin early to keep a journal and follow the practice while you live, than that other generations should do so. — Wilford Woodruff

Ever feel like you're always winding up and never throwing it out? You might blame it on perfectionism or procrastination or preparation. You may even call it prudent. But whatever it is...IT'S NOT WORKING. I call this phenomenon "petrified performance." Where you're busy, busy, busy (on the wrong activities or the right activities for too long), and never accomplishing the idea or task you set out to do. You're stuck. Like a tree that once was lively is now dead and immovable like a stone. What once was a fluid idea is now frozen in time. How do you overcome petrified performance? With practice, silly. Everything you do should be considered a "project" because projects have a beginning and an end with a timeline. No more dreaming. Wake up and put those dreams to work by putting the steps necessary to make them happen on the calendar. Are you willing to practice? That's my prescription. — Richie Norton

Do you call yourselves Christians? Does then the religion of Him whom you call your Savior inspire your spirit, and guide your practices? Surely not. It is recorded of him that a bruised reed he never broke. Cease, then, to call yourselves Christians, lest you declare to the world your hypocrisy. Cease, too, to call other nations savage, when you are tenfold more the children of cruelty than they. — Joseph Brant

Acting on desire is more like a craft, a science, an art. It takes careful mindful practice. Be patient and quiet. Listen, observe, take notes. Figure out what you want, privately, and then choose to want it, publicly. Put your desire out in the open. I want to go swimming. I want to bake bread. I want to paint a picture. I want to build a chair. I want to write a book. You act and then you fail. Over and over. And it's better to start failing when you're young, when all you lose is an ice-cream cone or a basketball game or an afternoon of fun. When you're older, the stakes are higher. If adults don't know how to want, then they lose a love, a career, a life. — David Barringer

My father told us all the time: to become a good writer takes writing. Because the more you do it, the better you get at it. It's like bull-riding. You can't do it once, you know. You've got to practice it and practice it. — Thomas Steinbeck

I hated tobacco. I could have almost lent my support to any institution that had for its object the putting of tobacco smokers to death ... I now feel that smoking in moderation is a comfortable and laudable practice, and is productive of good. There is no more harm in a pipe than in a cup of tea. You may poison yourself by drinking too much green tea, and kill yourself by eating too many beefsteaks. For my part, I consider that tobacco, in moderation, is a sweetener and equalizer of the temper. — Thomas Huxley

I want our home to be a place where we can be our bravest selves and our most fearful selves. Where we practice difficult conversations and share our shaming moments from school and work. I want to look at Steve and my kids and say, "I'm with you. In the arena. And when we fail, we'll fail together, while daring greatly." We simply can't learn to be more vulnerable and courageous on our own. Sometimes our first and greatest dare is asking for support. — Brene Brown

J.D. scoffed at this. "Please - as if I'm worried about anything Payton has to say. What's she going to do, give me another one of her little pissed-off hair flips?" He flung imaginary long hair off his shoulders, exaggerating. "I'll tell you, one of these days I'm going to grab her by that hair and ... " He gestured as if throttling someone.
Without breaking stride, he returned Tyler's serve. The two smashed a few back and forth, concentrating on the game when
Is violence always part of your sexual fantasies?" Tyler interjected.
J.D. whipped around
Sexual - ?"
- and got hit smack in the face with the squash ball. He toppled back and sprawled ungracefully across the court.
Tyler stepped over and twirled his racquet. "This is nice. We should talk like this more often. — Julie James

Step back and scrutinize your work, to delve deep into the meaning behind the words, it will get both easier in some ways and harder in others. Either way, you need to practice everyday. You will probably get faster with time, because you learn to do this instinctively, and the writing may flow better on some days more than others, but it doesn't get easier. And if you aren't writing everyday, you are doing yourself and your craft a disservice. Writing is a habit. Get into the habit. — Darynda Jones

The more you know, the more you don't know," the further you go in your training, learning, and experience as a yoga teacher, the more you'll realize that there's an infinite universe of knowledge and wisdom to bring to the practice. — Mark Stephens

Zazen, on the other hand, is kind of the opposite of sex in that it's really, really boring. And, honestly speaking, most of our lives are pretty boring. So if you want to learn how to be fully present for most of what goes on, it's better to try and do so by concentrating on a really boring activity rather than on a really exciting one ... To find the way of being fully engaged in doing the dishes, you might want to try becoming fully engaged in something way more boring than doing dishes. This is why zazen is so desperately dull. — Brad Warner

You study the Path of Peace. I practice the Art of War. There are some congruities between these different approaches but there are many more differences, and they are significant. The Art of War is carried out on the battlefield with deadly weaponry and sometimes, more importantly, in other places and in other ways that you would find distasteful. If I speak little about my plans it's because the Art of War teaches that it is the business of a general to ensure secrecy. You might want to mollify or change my tactics or strategies to fit the morals of your peacetime world and I'd be shackled and hampered in seeing the victory won as it should be, as quickly as possible, with as little fighting as possible, and at the lowest cost possible. You cannot bear the consequences of battle and you don't know the resources required. I do. — Aleksandra Layland

You cannot simply take a mala from someone else and start using it. When you buy a mala you have to make sure that it accords with the advice we have just discussed, and then before you use a mala - whether it is old or new - you should bless it. How do we bless the mala? There are different methods for blessing a mala, and some are more elaborate than others. In Buddhism there are two types of conduct: elaborate and simple. Elaborate conduct, for example, involves having many thangkas, statues, and lots of offerings, such as flowers and so forth. However, Buddhism is also very practical, and so there are more simple forms of practice where you utilize visualization. However, you should not use unelaborated versions of practice simply out of laziness. Making offerings are an important part of practice since these actions accumulate merit, and it is merit that brings about our happiness. People often refer to luck and fortune, but really — Zurmang Gharwang Rinpoche

When it comes right down to it, the challenge of mindfulness is to realize that "this is it" Right now is my life. The question is, What is my relationship to it going to be? Does my life just automatically "happen" to me? Am I a total prisoner of my circumstances or my obligations, of my body or my illness, or of my history? Do I become hostile or defensive or depressed if certain buttons get pushed, happy if other buttons are pushed, and frightened if something else happens? What are my choices? Do I have any options? We will be looking into these questions more deeply when we take up the subject of our reactions to stress and how our emotions affect our health. For now the important point is to grasp the value of bringing the practice of mindfulness into the conduct of our daily lives. Is there any waking moment of your life that would not be richer and more alive for you if you were more fully awake while it was happening? — Jon Kabat-Zinn

After a great deal of practice, we no longer think about all the necessary movements we must make; they become part of our existence. Before reaching that stage, however, you must practice and repeat. And if that's not enough, you must practice and repeat some more. — Paulo Coelho

All right, so give me some idea of what you can do," says Haymitch.
I can't do anything," says Peeta, "unless you count baking bread."
Sorry, I don't. Katniss. I already know you're handy with a knife," says Haymitch.
Not really. But I can hunt," I say. "With a bow and arrow."
And you're good?" asks Haymitch.
I have to think about it. I've been putting food on the table for four years. That's no small task. I'm not as good as my father was, but he'd had more practice. I've better aim than Gale, but I've had more practice. He's a genius with traps and snares. "I'm all right," I say. — Suzanne Collins

A couple of pieces of advice for the kids who are serious about writing are: first of all, to read everything you can get your hands on so you can become familiar with different forms of writing: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, journalism. That's very important. And also keep a journal. Not so much, because it's good writing practice. Although it is, but more because it's a wonderful source of story starters. — Ann M. Martin

I have listened with the greatest pleasure to all the inspirations of your brilliant mind. But all your grand principles, which I understand very well, would do splendidly in books and very badly in practice. In your plans for reform, you are forgetting the difference between our two positions: you work only on paper which accepts anything, is smooth and flexible and offers no obstacles either to your imagination or your pen, while I, poor empress, work on human skin, which is far more sensitive and touchy. — Robert K. Massie

When I was growing up, people didn't tell me to slow down, to do less, to be calmer, or to practice being content.
In fact, people told me to do the opposite: be involved, challenge myself, stay busy, push through the pain, chase after my goals, swing for the fences, do more, make more, go all out.
But you wanna know something? When it comes to dealing with the hard stuff in life, it's the slowing down and remembering the basics that are most important. Also, all of those other words sound exhausting. — Chad Eastham

You have to train your mind and your ears, but they're more like athletic skills. So, part of music you just have to learn those things or you can't practice the art. — Tod Machover

Fasting is meant to take you, temporarily, out of the realm of the physical and focus your attention heavenward; as one Jewish guide to fasting puts it, 'at the heart of this practice is a desire to shift our attention away from our immediate needs and to focus on more spiritual concerns. — Lauren F. Winner

To become proficient in any field you must practise. There is simply no achievement without practice and the more practice, provided it is done intelligently, the greater will the proficiency be and the sooner will it be attained. — Emmet Fox

Besides.
Eternity was going to seem like forever.
With the crowds of smiling people smiling at me in the dark, me who spent my life cleaning bathrooms and mowing the lawn, I told myself, why rush anything?
I'd backslid before, I'd backslide again. Practice makes perfect.
If you could call it that.
I figured, a few more sins would help round out my resume.
This is the upside of already being eternally damned.
I figured, Hell could wait. — Chuck Palahniuk

The more you practice zazen, the more you will be able to accept something as your own, whatever it is. — Shunryu Suzuki

In meditation, you are moving closer and closer to yourself, and you begin to understand yourself so much more clearly. You begin to see clearly without a conceptual analysis, because with regular practice, you see what you do over and over and over and over again. You see that you replay the same tapes over and over and over in your mind. The name of the partner might be different, the employer might be different, but the themes are somewhat repetitious. Meditation helps us to clearly see ourselves and the habitual patterns that limit our life. — Pema Chodron

Belief without any practice is of no use to us. But there are two sides to religious practice: one is the ritualistic, which is terribly important to the people engaged in it, and the other is moral, living your life in a better way. You can pray five times a day and still not lead the moral life. We in our communities put more emphasis on the moral life than on ritual. I don't want to say that in order to restore what we need we have to be believers in any strict sense, though I do mourn the loss of the christian faith because I regard it, in some of its better forms, as a relatively peaceful way of giving people access to this idea. — Roger Scruton

Contrary to popular wisdom, you cannot hide from evil in the practice of evil. You can no more master the horrors of the world by immersing yourself in them then one can master an earthquake by standing in front of a collapsing building every Tuesday to see where one gets hit, or if, and when, or how badly. Trauma is not tenderized one itty bit by inviting the host in repeatedly. — John Thomas Allen

In the art of love," she said thoughtfully, "you are the best I've ever seen. You are stronger than others, more agile, more willing. Well have you learned my art, Siddhartha. Some day, when I am older, I wish to bear your child. And yet all this time, beloved, you have remained a Samana. Even now you do not love me; you love no one. Is it not so?" "It may be so," Siddhartha said wearily. "I am like you. You, too, do not love - how else could you practice love as an art? Perhaps people of our sort are incapable of love. The child people can love; that is their secret. — Hermann Hesse

I'm gonna say it one more time. We are Georgia Southern. Our colors are blue and white. We call ourselves the Bald Eagles. We call our offense the Georgia Power Companyand that's a terrific name for an offense. Our snap count is 'rate, hike.' We practice on the banks of Beautiful Eagle Creek and that's in Statesboro, Georgia-the gnat capital of America. Our weekends begin on Thursday. The co-eds outnumber the men 3 to 2. They're all good looking and they're all rich. And folks, you just can't beat that and you just can't beat Georgia Southern. And you ain't seen nothin yet! — Erk Russell

When it comes to making the right moves at the right time, your dance partner is life itself or what can be referred to as your destiny. The more you pay attention and practice intuitive decision making skills, the better you will become at sensing the unique rhythm of your life. — Paul O'Brien

The opposite of scarcity is not abundance; the opposite of scarcity is simply enough. Empathy is not finite, and compassion is not a pizza with eight slices. When you practice empathy and compassion with someone, there is not less of these qualities to go around. There's more. Love is the last thing we need to ration in this world. The refugee in Syria doesn't benefit more if you conserve your kindness only for her and withhold it from your neighbor who's going through a divorce. Yes, perspective is critical. But I'm a firm believer that complaining is okay as long as we piss and moan with a little perspective. Hurt is hurt, and every time we honor our own struggle and the struggles of others by responding with empathy and compassion, the healing that results affects all of us. — Brene Brown

A crucial capability of System 2 is the adoption of "task sets": it can program memory to obey an instruction that overrides habitual responses. Consider the following: Count all occurrences of the letter f in this page. This is not a task you have ever performed before and it will not come naturally to you, but your System 2 can take it on. It will be effortful to set yourself up for this exercise, and effortful to carry it out, though you will surely improve with practice. Psychologists speak of "executive control" to describe the adoption and termination of task sets, and neuroscientists have identified the main regions of the brain that serve the executive function. One of these regions is involved whenever a conflict must be resolved. Another is the prefrontal area of the brain, a region that is substantially more developed in humans than in other primates, and is involved in operations that we associate with intelligence. — Daniel Kahneman

You know, I think everybody I've seen has come from some other therapy, and almost invariably it's very much the same thing: the therapist is too disinterested, a little too aloof, a little too inactive. They're not really interested in the person, he doesn't relate to the person. All these things I've written so much about. That's why I've made such a practice really, over and over to hammer home the point of self-revelation and being more of yourself and showing yourself. Every book I write I want to get that in there. — Irvin D. Yalom

Young people are swaddled in delusion. You think you are more awesome than you are, the world more interested in you than it is, your countenance more dazzling, your ideas more captivating, and that LeBron James was just a natural talent recruited from a neighborhood pickup game. You don't want to practice, you don't see the value in sacrifice, and you are convinced there is some vast comedy conspiracy to keep you from buying your first Bentley and dating a model by the time you are twenty-five. Wow. You are a douche. — Aisha Tyler

Loving music had pushed all of us off the track- away from the normal pursuit of career, mate, and family, on an endless quest for that vibrating high, the plunge beyond time that comes only when you submerge yourself beneath the waterline of amplified sound. We were addicts, in a way, but also adept, enlightened by a noise most people considered no more than a pleasant distraction. What was left for us but to practice our art of listening? — Ann Powers

By means of meditation, I feel that we have planted dynamite to transcend the world of confusion. So it would be good if you could practice meditation as much as you can, as much as physically and psychologically possible. You could become more clear and sane, and you could also influence the national neurosis in that way. — Chogyam Trungpa

The human body is a funny machine. When you want to move something - say, your arm - the brain actually sends two signals at the same time: "More power!" and "Less power!" The operating system that runs the body automatically holds some power back to avoid overexerting and tearing itself apart. Not all machines have that built - in safety feature. You can point a car at a wall, slam the accelerator to the floor, and the car will crush itself against the wall until the engine is destroyed or runs out of gas.
Martial arts use every scrap of strength the body has at its disposal. In martial arts training, you punch and shout at the same time. Your "Shout louder!" command helps to override the "Less power!" command. With practice, you can throttle the amount of power your body holds back. In essence, you're learning to channel
the body's power to destroy itself. — Hiroshi Sakurazaka

We need to transcend our thoughts and desires to truly understand philosophy and the universe as a whole. However, in our everyday life, we deal with the micro universe and with our own affairs. Therefore we need to use our brain. To practice Tao is not to rid yourself of all thoughts. There are actually more occasions when you would use your true intention instead of non-desire. — Henry Chang

I train myself mentally with visualization. The morning of a tournament, before I put my feet on the floor, I visualize myself making perfect runs with emphasis on technique, all the way through to what my personal best is in practice ... The more you work with this type of visualization, especially when you do it on a day-to-day basis, you'll actually begin to feel your muscles contracting at the appropriate times. — Camille Duvall

The longer you practice nonviolence and the meditative qualities of it that you will need, the more likely you are to do something intelligent in any situation. — Joan Baez

Excellence is the result of loving more than others think is necessary, dreaming more than others think is practical, risking more than others think is safe, and doing more than others think is possible. Every day is a golden opportunity to learn, practice gratitude, and positively impact the world around you. Do not ask for instant fulfillment in your life, but for patience to accept your current frustrations. Do not ask for perfection in all you do, but for the wisdom to make better choices. Do not ask for more before saying, "THANK YOU" for everything you have already received. — John Geiger

Doctors kept stressing that mental disease was the same as physical disease. Telling someone who was clinically depressed, for example, to shake it off and get out of the house was tantamount to telling a man with two broken legs to sprint across the room. That was all well and good in theory, but in practice, the stigma continued. Maybe, to be more charitable, it was because you could hide a mental disease. — Harlan Coben

You don't need to sleep with more men to gain more experience. You need to wake up and understand that practicing with different teams every time won't make you perfect for one team. The team you need practice with is the team you're guaranteed to be on forever. Get the ring first, then, get to practicing. — Pierre Alex Jeanty

When I was teaching basketball, I urged my players to try their hardest to improve on that very day, to make that practice a masterpiece.
Too often we get distracted by what is outside our control. You can't do anything about yesterday. The door to the past has been shut and the key thrown away. You can do nothing about tomorrow. It is yet to come. However, tomorrow is in large part determined by what you do today. So make today a masterpiece. You have control over that.
This rule is even more important in life than basketball. You have to apply yourself each day to become a little better. By applying yourself to the task of becoming a little better each and every day over a period of time, you will become a lot better. Only then will you will be able to approach being the best you can be. It begins by trying to make each day count and knowing you can never make up for a lost day. — John Wooden

Attempting to recall the material you are trying to learn - retrieval practice - is far more effective than simply rereading the material. — Barbara Oakley

If you wish to take shamatha all the way to its ground, however, it requires a supportive, serene environment, good diet, proper exercise, and very few preoccupations. The necessary internal conditions are minimal desires, few activities and concerns, contentment, pure ethical discipline, and freedom from obsessive, compulsive thinking. It is my feeling that the achievement of shamatha is so rare today because those circumstances are so rare. It is difficult to find a conducive environment in which to practice at length and without interference - even more so to have that and access to suitable spiritual friends for support and guidance. Therefore, if the causes are difficult to bring together, the result - shamatha - is also necessarily rare. — B. Alan Wallace

Understand: your mind is weaker than your emotions. But you become aware of this weakness only in moments of adversity
precisely the time when
you need strength. What best equips you to cope with tthe heat of battle is neither more knowledge nor more intellect. What makes your mind stronger, and more able to control your emotions, is internal discipline and toughness.No one can teach you this skill; you cannot learn it by reading about it. Like any discipline, it can come only through practice, experience, even a little suffering. The first step in building up presence of mind is to see the need for ii
to want it badly enough to be willing to work for it. — Robert Greene

He'd stood amidst the ranks more than once, sensing the soldiers alongside him seeking and finding that place in the mind, cold and silent, the place where husbands, fathers, wives and mothers became killers. And practice made it easier, each time. Until it becomes a place you never leave. — Steven Erikson

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.
Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives ... .
You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what's inside you, and you have made your soul grow. — Kurt Vonnegut

My father taught me that the only way you can make good at anything is to practice, and then practice some more. — Pete Rose

finding the time to practice takes a little effort and thought. For many of us, already feeling maxed out in terms of time constraints, being told that we need to set aside more time five days a week to do something else is in itself stressful. As you make your wellness and wholeness a priority, you will find it becomes easier to protect your practice by creating a special place and time in which to work on yourself. — Beryl Bender Birch

Fight me as long as you're able.
You will find I have far more practice with eternity — Leigh Bardugo

Writing doesn't come easily to anyone, I think, certainly not to me. But pressure and practice does lend a certain fluency, I think - the more sentences you write, the more sentences you have written, if that slightly Zen confection makes any sense. — Adam Gopnik

Clinical trials have proven that projectile vomiting is up to FOUR times more efficient than ordinary vomiting. You don't even have to run to the bathroom! With practice, and careful placement of your chair within thirty feet
and line of sight
of your bathroom, you can project your lunch from the comfort of your armchair. — Chris Dolley

Acting is a growing tick muscle. I really believe that it's similar to being a musician in that the more you practice it in any capacity, as much as you practice doing it every day, the better you get. — Katie Lowes

I think I'm probably going to have more luck on tour, on the road, than I am at home, because as hectic as traveling can be, I have a little bit more control, for life situations out there on the road. It's the one aspect of my life I feel like I do have some control of. I can wake up in my hotel room, I'm alone and I can ease into the day and do what I need to do. It's not like I've got to get up and drive the kids to school, feed the dog, get to the gym, go to practice, go pay a bill, you know what I mean? — Mike Ness

One positive result of past failure is that you surrender the pursuit of perfection and, if you've gained any sense along the way, you replace it with the pursuit of God's redemption. Nothing is more redemptive than faith in God. You learn that failure may be painful, but it's rarely fatal. After coming to grips with the high premium God places on our faith, I refuse to give up a life practice of believing God just because I accidentally swerve off the road a few times in my faith journey. Hebrews 11:6 says faith is what pleases God, not perfection. — Beth Moore

I watched them carefully, as always, searching for a sign of mental weakness. But there was none. Every man was coping well with the hardship, each one of them locked into his task. But it is one thing to practice, and quite another to race. And the trouble is, you never know who, on the day, will find it within his soul to give more than he has ever given before. It takes a kind of madness to compete like that, because of the will power and the ego, and his loyalty. And while some men have it, others have yet to find it. And a coach can only use his best judgement as to who those men will be. — Daniel Topolski

You know, I always say musicians, they can do it on their own. They can practice their violin on their own. A painter can paint by himself. A writer can write by himself. But an actor needs a group, and the hardest thing about expanding your ability and your craft is to have a group to do it with that is of a caliber where you can grow even more. — Anne Archer

But this brings me back to my nagging question. I had notebooks filled with potential missions, yet I had resisted devoting myself to any one in particular. And I'm not alone in this reluctance to act. Many people have lots of career capital, and can therefore identify a variety of different potential missions for their work, but few actually build their career around such missions. It seems, therefore, that there's more to this career tactic than simply getting to the cutting edge. Once you have the capital required to identify a mission, you must still figure out how to put the mission into practice. If you don't have a trusted strategy for making this leap from idea to execution, then like me and so many others, you'll probably avoid the leap altogether. This — Cal Newport

Clumsily she reached for her bodice, trying to pull the reinforced fabric together.
"Allow me. You're still unsteady." His hands brushed hers aside and he began to hook her corset deftly.
Clearly he was familiar with the intricacies of a woman's undergarments. Amelia didn't doubt there had been more than a few ladies willing to let him practice.
Flustered, she asked, "Was I stung anywhere?"
"No." Mischief flickered in his eyes. "I checked thoroughly. — Lisa Kleypas

Coach wastes no time delivering one of his brief, post-game speeches. As usual, it sounds like he's talking in point form.

"We lost. It feels shitty. Don't let it get to you. Just means we work harder during practice and bring it harder for the next game." He nods at everyone, then stalks out the door.

I'd think he was pissed at us, if not for the fact that his victory speeches more or less go the same way - "We won. It feels great. Don't let it go to your head. We work just as hard during practice and we win more games." If any of our freshman players are expecting Coach to deliver epic motivational speeches a la Kurt Russell in Miracle, they're in for a grave disappointment. — Elle Kennedy

You can practice to learn a technique, but I'm more interested in conceiving of something in the moment. — Herbie Hancock

Habit 7 is taking the time to sharpen the saw. By renewing the four dimensions of your nature - physical, spiritual, mental and social/emotional, you can work more quickly and effortlessly. To do this, we must be proactive. This is a Quadrant II (important, not urgent) activity that must be acted on. It's at the center of our Circle of Influence, so we must do it for ourselves. — Stephen Covey

The more you write, the more you find your voice. I think with my earlier stuff, when I was dabbling, it definitely wasn't there. I was writing like other people I admired. It wasn't until I had a story I had to tell that I could step into my own words. And maybe that's what it'll take for you. Maybe you just haven't had to tell those stories in your head. But the more practice on the stories you'd like to tell, the closer you get to the one you need. — Chessela Helm

This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Some days you don't want to run and you resist every step of the three miles, but you do it anyway. You practice whether you want to or not. You don't wait around for inspiration and a deep desire to run ... That's how writing is too ... One of the main aims in writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and nonaggressive. — Natalie Goldberg

Worrying does not accomplish anything. Even if you worry twenty times more, it will not change the situation of the world. In fact, your anxiety will only make things worse. Even though things are not as we would like, we can still be content, knowing we are trying our best and will continue to do so. If we don't know how to breathe, smile,and live every moment of our life deeply, we will never be able to help anyone. I am happy in the present moment. I do not ask for anything else. I do not expect any additional happiness or conditions that will bring about more happiness. The most important practice is aimlessness, not running after things, not grasping. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Practice random acts of kindness, the world needs it more than you think — Boonaa Mohammed