Quotes & Sayings About The Only One

It is impossible for me to be all sugar one day and spit venom the next. I'd rather choose the golden mean (which is not so golden), keep my thoughts to myself, and try for once to be just as disdainful to them as they are to me. Oh, if only I could! — Anne Frank

It was with a homosexual, I was barely 14 years old. But let's be fair, I wasn't the only one who did it. He was a man in Bauru that all our team visited. — Pele

The great ones do not set up offices, charge fees, give lectures, or write books. Wisdom is silent, and the most effective propaganda for truth is the force of personal example. The great ones attract disciples, lesser figures whose mission is to preach and to teach. These are gospelers who, unequal to the highest task, spend their lives in converting others. The great ones are indifferent, in the profoundest sense. They don't ask you to believe: they electrify you by their behavior. They are the awakeners. What you do with your petty life is of no concern to them. What you do with your life is only of concern to you, they seem to say. In short, their only purpose here on earth is to inspire. And what more can one ask of a human being than that? — Henry Miller

Why should I trust you?" Her eyes narrowed. "All I really know about you is that you're not loyal to your girlfriends, you treat one-night stands like crap, and apparently you've made quite a name for yourself not only in the business world, but also in the bedroom since we last met. — Zoe Forward

The only one who can beat me is me. — Michael Johnson

Writing of only one small part of the broader problem, namely the single-minded pursuit of individualistic 'rights,' [Don] Feder is not wrong to conclude:

Absent a delicate balance--rights and duties, freedom and order--the social fabric begins to unravel. The rights explosion of the past three decades has taken us on a rapid descent to a culture without civility, decency, or even that degree of discipline necessary to maintain an advanced industrial civilization. Our cities are cesspools, our urban schools terrorist training camps, our legislatures brothels where rights are sold to the highest electoral bidder. — D. A. Carson

You can buy all sorts of expensive fancy waters that will supposedly give you more energy, make you smarter, and turn straw into gold. (Okay, I made up that last one, but frankly, I think it is about as likely to happen as the first two. Mostly the only thing those specialty waters do is magickally turn your money into someone else's money.) — Deborah Blake

Anyhow, be happy. I get the feeling a lot of shit is going to come your way, but you're a stubborn son of a bitch, I'm sure you'll handle it. Mind if I give you one piece of advice?" "Sure, go ahead." "Don't feel sorry for yourself," he said. "Only assholes do that. — Haruki Murakami

One does not lash hat lies at a distance. The foibles that we ridicule must at least be a little bit our own. Only then will the work be a part of our own flesh. The garden must be weeded. — Paul Klee

Society can give its young men almost any job and they'll figure how to do it. They'll suffer for it and die for it and watch their friends die for it, but in the end, it will get done. That only means that society should be careful about what it asks for ... Soldiers themselves are reluctant to evaluate the costs of war, but someone must. That evaluation, ongoing and unadulterated by politics, may be the one thing a country absolutely owes the soldiers who defend its borders. — Sebastian Junger

We have noted thatthe two creation stories contained no pointers toward male "headship" in the sense that men or husbands are supposed to exercise authority or leadership over women or wives. But the audience of Genesis knew that patriarchy was a reality of life. Genesis here tells them how this came to be. Male authority or domination was not God's design but a consequence of a breakdown in relationship between humanity and God, between humanity and the animal world, and between human beings and one another. From now on, the Bible will assume the reality of patriarchy and of male headship, but it begins by noting that this came about only as a result of those various breakdowns of relationship. — John E. Goldingay

My grandfather was an architect, and his father, and his father; one of them built houses only for millionaires in California, and that was where the family wealth came from, and one of them was certain that houses could be made to stand on the sand dunes of San Francisco, and that was where the family wealth went. — Shirley Jackson

I am amazed that without any hesitation whatsoever I can completely believe myself to be on a grand journey of massive vistas and bold ascents, only to find that they are nothing more than a figment of a frightened imagination that needed a journey but could not admit to the fear of actually taking one. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

One should always look to the end of everything, how it will finally come out. For the god has shown blessedness to many only to overturn them utterly in the end. — Herodotus

We have been marching for the last one hundred and fifty years. We sacrifice our individual liberties, and sometimes we fail and suffer. Sometimes we divide into separate groups and our methods conflict, though we all aim at one common goal. The significant thing is that we march on without turning back. What we want is peace not violence, We know that we thrive and prosper only in peace. — Carlos Bulosan

Rhosh, remember the being's skin, smooth, dark brown skin, like this one's skin, and the being's hair. The hair was the same, thick like this and with loose curls and the very same golden streak in it, only broader and on the right side of the head. — Anne Rice

Not only the adoration of images is idolatry, but also trust in one's own righteousness, works and merits, and putting confidence in riches and power. As the latter is the commonest, so it also is the most noxious. — Martin Luther

An indigenous culture with sufficient territory, and bilingual and intercultural education, is in a better position to maintain and cultivate its mythology and shamanism. Conversely, the confiscation of their lands and imposition of foreign education, which turns their young people into amnesiacs, threatens the survival not only of these people, but of an entire way of knowing. It is as if one were burning down the oldest universities in the world and their libraries, one after another - thereby sacrificing the knowledge of the world's future generations. — Jeremy Narby

Norms appearing in the form of law entitle actors to exercise their rights or liberties. However, one cannot determine which of these laws are legitimate simply by looking at the form of individual rights. Only by bringing in the discourse principle can one show that each person is owed a right to the greatest possible measure of equal liberties that are mutually compatible. — Jurgen Habermas

When auditioning, I try to imagine that I'm the only person that they [directors] are seeing that day because it can be overwhelming, in the same sense that it could be overwhelming if you try to fulfil everyone's expectations rather than the people closest to you in the creative process, be it your director, or fellow actors and the writers. So, that's kind of it - I try to trick myself into believing that no one has ever gone there before. — Benedict Cumberbatch

Gogol remembers having to do the same thing when he was younger, when his grandparents died ... He remembers, back then, being bored by it, annoyed at having to observe a ritual no one else he knew followed, in honor of people he had seen only a few times in his life ... Now, sitting together at the kitchen table at six-thirty every evening, his father's chair empty, this meatless meal is the only thing that seems to make sense. — Jhumpa Lahiri

If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another. — Winston S. Churchill

There is only one kind of failure I cannot tolerate: the failure to risk failure. — Richard Marcinko

One of God's central qualities is compassion, a word that in Hebrew is related to the word for "womb." Not only is compassion a female image suggesting source of life and nourishment but it also has a feeling dimension: God as compassionate Spirit feels for us as a mother feels for the children of her womb. Spirit feels the suffering of the world and participates in it ... — Marcus Borg

This is not pessimism but rather casting a cold eye on things. It is only one man's story, and I think that things will go better, but difficulties exist and nothing is served by hiding them under a poetic veil or under a lyricism of the past. I am against slogans. — Chinua Achebe

How joyously the young sea-mew
Lay dreaming on the waters blue,
Whereon our little bark had thrown
A little shade, the only one;
But shadows ever man pursue. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

On a level, they might be perfect for one another, but it's a theoretical perfection only, compromised by timing. Their bests passed one another on the way to here, and now exist epochs apart. — Billy O'Callaghan

Obedience is the fruit and proof of love; and the words of the Master are suggestive, "If a man love Me he will keep My words" (John 14:23). One has forcibly remarked, "When people speak of 'essentials' and 'non-essentials' they generally mean by the former what concerns their own salvation, and by the latter those things which only concern the glory of God! — Alexander Marshall

We allow it to be dumped into this community asset, which is our one and only atmosphere. So that has to change, and there's really only one entity that can do that. So we have proposed a cap-and-trade system to stop that unlimited pollution, to use the forces of the market to efficiently allocate scarce permits to allow CO2 into the atmosphere. That's just one of 500 things we need to do, but it's probably the granddaddy of them all. — Jay Inslee

One thing that's really interesting is not only the magnitude of the recent immigration into this country, but also its distribution and its investment in the country. About 9.3 percent of the population is now foreign-born [announced by the Census Bureau at over 10 percent a few days later]. What's really surprising is how well distributed those population groups are. Historically, we see new immigrants primarily on the coast and in a few big cities. I think the data are going to show a much wider distribution of the new population groups than we've experienced historically. — Kenneth Prewitt

How English you are, Basil! If one puts
forward an idea to a real Englishman, - always a rash
thing to do, - he never dreams of considering whether the
idea is right or wrong. The only thing he considers of any
importance is whether one believes it one's self. Now, the
value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the
sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the
probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it
will not be colored by either his wants, his desires, or his
prejudices. However, I don't propose to discuss politics,
sociology, or metaphysics with you. I like persons better
than principles. Tell me more about Dorian Gray. How
often do you see him? — Oscar Wilde

O was infinitely more moving when her body was covered with marks, of whatever kind, if only because these marks made it impossible for her to cheat and immediately proclaimed, the moment they were seen, that anything went as far as she was concerned. For to know this was one thing, but to see the proof of it, and to see the proof constantly renewed, was quite another. — Pauline Reage

Buddhas can take you to the boundary line of meditation and samadhi. That is the only difference between meditation and samadhi. If your mind has become utterly quiet and silent, but only the master is there, then it is meditation. If your mind has become so quiet that even the master has disappeared, it is samadhi. The last barrier is going to be the master. He will take you out of the world, but one day you will have to leave him too. And the real master will always keep you alert that you have to leave him one day, at the final stage. — Rajneesh

When he had ended, the holy hermit was a moment silent, then said: My son, I have attended to thy story and I know the maiden. I have myself seen her, as have many. Know, then, that she is capricious for she imposeth conditions that man cannot fulfill, and delinquency is punished by desertion. She cometh only when unsought, and will not be questioned. One manifestation of curiosity, one sign of doubt, one expression of misgiving, and she is away! — Ambrose Bierce

In every truth, the opposite is equally true. A truth can only be expressed and enveloped in words if it is one-sided. — Hermann Hesse

The Forgotten Man ... delving away in patient industry, supporting his family, paying his taxes, casting his vote, supporting the church and the school ... but he is the only one for whom there is no provision in the great scramble and the big divide. Such is the Forgotten Man. He works, he votes, generally he prays-but his chief business in life is to pay ... Who and where is the Forgotten Man in this case, who will have to pay for it all? — William Graham Sumner

You never compete with the people in your crew; you have your own team. Competition is only with those people whose film is releasing alongside on Friday and never with one's own team. — Emraan Hashmi

People come to the Bible with expectations that do not fit the Bible, and this clash becomes one main reason, though not the only one, why people do not find the Bible's claims acceptable. — Vern Sheridan Poythress

Worship isn't destructive, Martin. I know that.
I don't. I only know it's the core of his life. What else has he got? He can hardly read. He knows no physics or engineering to make to world real for him. No paintings to show him how others have enjoyed it. No music except television jingles. No history except tales from a desperate mother. No friends. Not one kid to give him a joke, or make him know himself more moderately. He's a modern citizen for whom society doesn't exist. — Peter Shaffer

Yea ! by your works are ye justified
toil unrelieved ;
Manifold labours, co-ordinate each to the sending achieved ;
Discipline, not of the feet but the soul, unremitting, unfeigned ;
Tortures unholy by flame and by maiming, known, faced, and disdained ;
Courage that suns
Only foolhardiness ; even by these, are ye worthy of your guns. — Gilbert Frankau

Every ordinary thing in your life is a word of God's love: your home, your work, the clothes you wear, the air you breathe, the food you eat ... the flowers under your feet are the courtesy of God's heart flung down on You! All these things say one thing only: "See how I love you." — Caryll Houselander

When I function in only one mode or the other, I am denying half myself, half my potential. — Dean Koontz

You had no right." "Ah, the morally outraged cry of the weak: You're not 'allowed' to do that. One is allowed to do anything one can get away with. Only when you understand that will you know your place in this world. And your power. Might is right. — Karen Marie Moning

We therapists often make inaccurate assumptions about people living with DID and DDNOS. They often appear to be "just like us," so we often assume their experience of life reflects our own. But this is profoundly untrue. It results in a communication gap, and, as a consequence, treatment errors. Because the dominant culture is one of persons with a single sense of self, most with multiple "selves" have learned to hide their multiplicity and imitate those who are singletons (that is, have a single, non-fragmented personality). Therapists who do not understand this sometimes describe their clients' alters without acknowledging their dissociation, saying only that they have different "moods." In overlooking dissociation, this description fails to recognize the essential truth of such disorders, and of the alters. It was difficult for me to comprehend what life was like for my first few dissociative clients. — Alison Miller

Love itself is the most elitist of passions. It acquires its stereoscopic substance and perspective only in the context of culture, for it takes up more place in the mind than it does in bed. Outside of that setting it falls flat into one-dimensional fiction. — Joseph Brodsky

The rich strutted around, assuming they'd be safe, so long as they stayed in the good parts of town. But Lila knew there were no good parts. Only smart parts and stupid parts, and she was quick enough to know which one to play. — V.E Schwab

Pope smiled. "You're thinking all wrong, boy. There's no such thing as law or government inside this room. It's just you and me. I am the one and only authority in your little world, whose borders are these walls. I could kill you right now if I wanted to. — Blake Crouch

I hate to say anything that may hurt UCLA, but I can't be quiet when I see what the NCAA is doing to Jerry Tarkanian only because he has a reputation for giving a second chance to many black athletes other coaches have branded as troublemakers. The NCAA is working night and day trying to get Jerry, but no one from the NCAA ever questioned me during my four years at UCLA! — Bill Walton

I do not know what, in the end, makes a person who they are. If we're all born one way, or if we only arrive there after as series of chioces. The bible claims that the wicked act on their own desires and impulses, because God is good, only good, and He would never compel a soul to wickedness. That I'm supposed to count on justice in the next life, even if I can't have it in this one. — Alexandra Bracken

47 Ronin is a very special movie for me. Not only a Samurai thing. Not only a Hollywood fantasy. It has a very special mixture between Japanese traditional culture and Western culture for the costume, set, story. Everything. I believe it will be a very special film that no one has ever seen. — Hiroyuki Sanada

I remember as a very young child being warned that libraries and bookstores were quiet places where noise wasn't allowed. Here was yet another thing the adults had gotten wrong, for these book houses pulsed with sounds; they just weren't noisy. The books hummed. The collective noise they made was like riding on a large boat where the motor's steady thrum and tickle vibrated below one's sneakers, ignorable until you listened, then omnipresent and relentless, the sound that carried you forward. Each book brimmed with noises it wanted to make inside your head the moment you opened it; only the shut covers prevented it from shouting ideas, impulses, proverbs, and plots into that sterile silence. — Wendy Welch

Follow the ball, man. There's only one ball. They can only give it to one of them at a time, so let's not get too far away from the reality of it all. — Jon Gruden

You can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn't deceive anybody. It's the deceivers who make you feel bad. — Charles Bukowski

The only way you can continue to make artistic films is to make an occasional one of those. They kind of keep your marketability going to the extent that people will employ you. — Gabriel Byrne

For a lot of kids, the Boys and Girls Club is really a sanctuary, an oasis of sanity and safety for them because their home life is so tragic. Some of these kids have only one parent, and that one is addicted to drugs. — Judge Reinhold

You will never know the love I feel for her. How beautiful it is. How painful it can be. What it felt like when I first looked at her. And what it felt like when I thought I might lose her before I could even save her. You will never know true love until you experience true fear. And you will never feel those toward her, as I am the only one for her. She. Is. Mine. — Sarah Brianne

David tried to give a form to the beast at the heart of the poem but found that he could not. It was more difficult than it appeared, for nothing quite seemed to fit. Instead, he could only conjure up a half-formed being that crouched in the cobwebbed corners of his imagination where all the things that he feared curled and slithered upon one another in the darkness. — John Connolly

If you happen to be the only one with negative interest rates, you also weaken your currency, which means you make your exports more competitive. — Mohamed El-Erian

The difference between lonely and lovely is only of one single alphabet. That single alphabet is called Friends. — Sarvesh Jain

The Soul's [our true self's] natural form is the absolute supreme Self [Parmatma]. It does not show you 'wrong [doing]', nor does it show 'right [doing]'. When demerit karma effect is unfolding, then one will see the 'wrong' and when merit karma is unfolding, it will show 'right'. The Soul is not the 'doer' in any of this; it continues to 'See' only the vibrations! — Dada Bhagwan

Of all the questions about the future of leadership that we can raise for ourselves, we can be certain in our answer to only one: 'Who will lead us?' The answer, of course, is that we will be lead by those we have taught, and they will lead us as we have shown them they should. — William C. Richardson

There is among us a far closer relationship than the purely social one of a fraternal organization because we are bound together not only by a single interest but by a common goal. To win. Nothing else matters, and nothing else will do. — Sandy Koufax

It was one of those rare times of shared happiness, of perfect contentment. We had a feeling of expectation, that what was already wonderful would only get better and better as time went on. These moments are one of the rarest, most fragile things in the world. You have to seize the day; you have to recall all the rotten, dirty things you endured to earn this peace. You have to remember to enjoy each minute, each hour, because although you may feel like it's going to last forever, the world plans otherwise. You want to be grateful for every precious second, but you simply can't do it. It's not in human nature to live life to the fullest. Haven't your ever noticed that equal amounts of pain and joy are not, in fact, equal in duration? Pain drags on until you wonder if life will ever be bearable again; pleasure, though, once it's reached its peak, fades faster than a trodden gardenia, and your memory searches in vain for the sweet scent. — George Alec Effinger

The only one you can accurately compare yourself to is you! — Mike Mentzer

One has to guard against a formula that is good for everything, that can interpret reality in addition to the other arts, and that rather than creating can only result in a style, or a stylization. — Georges Braque

This basic problem of relevance-cum-subservience has been given an added twist in the modern world, where relevance has become not only hollow but fragile and short-lived. A wider range of choices, a deeper uncertainty of events, a more pressing need for new styles - all this makes for an accelerating turnover of issues, concerns and fads. Nothing tires like a trend or ages faster than a fashion. Today's bold headline is tomorrow's yellowing newsprint. Thus the relevance-hungry liberals achieve relevance, but their victory is Pyrrhic. It is precisely as they win that they lose. As they become relevant to one group or movement, they become irrelevant to another and find themselves rudely dismissed. Far from being in the avant-garde, Christian liberals trot smartly behind the times. Far from being genuinely new or radical, they catch up and announce their discoveries breathlessly, only to see the vanguard disappearing down the road on the trail of a different pursuit. — Os Guinness

The jailer is you. You're the only person who has the key to your cell. You're the only one who can open the door that leads to freedom. — Norman Vincent Peale

For the mind and the imagination, bookstores aren't enough, college courses aren't enough, the Internet isn't enough. Those resources are all governed by the tastes and needs of the moment. Only libraries take the long view, quietly shelving the unused with the used, knowing that one of these days the two categories will be reversed by a student's discovery of those hitherto undisturbed volumes whose contents will unsettle the learned world. — Helen Vendler

Moved on ... " he said. "Rusted nuts! You can do that?"
"Certainly."
"Huh. You think ... I should ... you know ... Ranette ... "
"Wayne, if ever someone should have taken a hint, it was you. Yes. Move on. Really."
"Oh, I took the hint," he said, taking a swig of sherry. "Just can't remember which jacket I left it in." He looked down at the jug. "You sure?"
"She has a girlfriend, Wayne."
"'S only a phase," he mumbled. "One what lasted fifteen years. ... — Brandon Sanderson

It was one of the most sublimely exhilarating moments of my life. I was half a step in front of the real, an inch or two beyond the confines of my body, and when the thing happened just as I thought it would, I felt my skin had become transparent. I wasn't occupying space anymore so much as melting into it. What was around me was also inside me, and I had only to look into myself in order to see the world. — Paul Auster

It was so easy to defy once you got started. The first step was the only one that really counted. — L.M. Montgomery

It's all right."
"It's not. Nothing's right. I've never done a right thing in my life, it seems."
"That makes a pair of us then." Her lips pressed against the spot under his ear. "But I believe we are right together, don't you? People like us ... we have no talent for following rules. We can only follow our hearts. I've wronged people as well, but is it horribly wicked that I can't bring myself to regret it? It brought me to you."
He took one of her hands and kissed it. "You're so young, you can't know the meaning of true regret. It's never what you've done, love, it's what you've left undone. — Tessa Dare

The cowardly belief that a person must stay in one place is too reminiscent of the unquestioning resignation of animals, beasts of burden stupefied by servitude and yet always willing to accept the slipping on of the harness. There are limits to every domain, and laws to govern every organized power. But the vagrant owns the whole vast earth that ends only at the non-existent horizon, and her empire is an intangible one, for her domination and enjoyment of it are things of the spirit. — Isabelle Eberhardt

To heal will require real effort, and a change of heart, from all of us. To heal means that we will begin to look upon one another with respect and tolerance instead of prejudice, distrust and hatred. We will have to teach our children-as well as ourselves-to love the diversity of humanity ... We can do it. Yes, you and I and all of us together. Now is the time. Now is the only possible time. Let the Great Healing begin. — Leonard Peltier

EJ cries, "We've been best friends since kindergarten. You can't become a babe slayer and leave me in the dust! I don't have an older sister. I'm disadvantaged. All I got is Emmy, who can only drop preschool wisdom like, 'No pull Barbie's hair!'"
"That's probably some early girl wisdom. Nobody likes to get their hair pulled," I say. "Except this one chick in my porno; I think she's into it. I cant really tell, though. I wish they would slow down. — Brent Crawford

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish, and men do,
I shall have only good to say of you. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

And isn't that the tragedy of love, it's utter and complete deceit, that you can only be true in it, that you only wish to reveal your full truth to the one you love, with no frills and no lies, that you want to be loved as you are? That you wish to be loved for your truth, and not your ability to hide it? — Omair Ahmad

Jonathan is one of the most corrupt Nigerians I ever investigated while at EFCC & his level of corruption even as deputy governor is just disturbing. PDP is just a disaster and a total failure. Change is the only panacea. — Nuhu Ribadu

What nobody seems to understand is that love can only be one-sided, that no other love exists, that in any other form it is not love. If it involves less than total giving, it is not love. It is impotent; for the moment it is nothing. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Only one-fourth of the sorrow in each man's life is caused by outside uncontrollable elements, the rest is self-imposed by failing to analyze and act with calmness. — Holbrook Jackson

I've seen only painters and fishermen and I think they're both the same kind of men who made a different choice one time in their lives. The fisherman held a rod in his hand and said yes and the painter held a brush in his hand and said yes and sometimes I hold a beer in my hand and say yes. — Sherman Alexie

Unarmed hand-to-hand fighting does not change through the ages; only the name changes, and it has only one rule: do it first, do it fast, do it dirtiest. — Robert A. Heinlein

went in. The doctor's questions had started him thinking along several lines. Losing to a superior opponent was always a possibility, but one he acknowledged only in an academic sense. — Robert Daniels

Only when one thinks even much more madly than the philosophers can one solve their problems. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

At this stage, it was only man. Only change, carrying the world from one state to another. In time, there would be more to be done, and the changes would not be so easy. He would go to war and he would die.

His day had passed. Things would change, they would find ruin, and the ruins would settle.

There was no emotional at this, no concern, no anxiety. It simply was. — Wildbow

And you spend your day going around from the house of the washerman to the house of the sweeper, asking about this one's son and that one's nephew, but spending no time with your own family. It is no secret that many people here think that you are a communist.'
Rasheed reflected that this probably meant only that he loathed the poverty and injustice endemic to the village, and that he made no particular secret of it. — Vikram Seth

Obviously, Jay-Z is one of the greatest entertainers of the world today. Not only is he a remarkable rhetorical genius, he's also a man of deep sympathy and empathy for those who are lost and vulnerable, but especially under-educated youth of all cultures and stripes. — Michael Eric Dyson

In the world we live in, one fool makes many fools, but one sage only a few sages. — Georg C. Lichtenberg

I think of how she lives alone, just like me, and how she never had any real family, and how she only has sex with people. She never lets any love get in the way. I think she had a family once, but it was one of those beat-the-crap-out-of-each-other situations. There's no shortage of them around here. I think she loved them, and all they ever did was hurt her. — Markus Zusak

In a fairy tale, the story can't be altered. The prince and princess will never have a fight. You'll never hear the queen raise her voice. No on ever gets sick; no one ever gets hurt. Maybe love is only safe in places where it can't change. — Jodi Picoult

I need to give you one last bit of advice in the off chance this rather extraordinary and enviable situation in which you find yourself is actually true- that somehow you've fallen deep down into a Cordova story. I stared back at him. Be the good guy, he said. How do I know I'm the good guy? He pointed at me, nodding. A very wise question. You don't. Most bad guys think they're good. But there are a few signifiers. You'll be miserable. You'll be hated. You'll fumble around in the dark, alone and confused. You'll have little insight as to the true nature of things, not until the very last minute, and only if you have the stamina and the madness to go to the very, very end. But most importantly- and critically- you will act without regard for yourself. You'll be motivated by something that has nothing to do with the ego. You'll do it for justice. For grace. For love. Those large rather heroic qualities only the good have the strength to carry on their shoulders. And you'll listen. — Marisha Pessl

From elementary school through high school, my siblings and I were hectored to excel in every class, to win medals in science fairs, to be chosen princess of the prom, to win election to student government. Thereby and only thereby, we learned, could we expect to gain admission to the right college, which in turn would get us into Harvard Medical School: life's one sure path to meaningful success and lasting happiness. — Jon Krakauer

In the matter of animals I love only cats, but I love them unreasonably for their qualities and in spite of their numerous faults. I have only one, but I could not live without a cat. — Joris-Karl Huysmans

The only guy who was at all helpful as a producer was Sam Spiegel with On the Waterfront. He's one of the few who even knows what he's doing. — Elia Kazan

If I must choose between healthy and tasty, I go for the second: having only one life to waste, it might as well be a pleasurable one. — Yotam Ottolenghi

Most of these super-sovereigns feel that God can comment if he wants to, but God must avoid getting loud. While God is welcome to his opinions, he is only one voice, and he doesn't get extra points just for being God. The unstudied opinionated are prone to say, even to God, "Yes, but here's what I think." In such a world, classic apologetics has lost much of its force. — Calvin Miller

From heat and protons, to hearts, central nervous systems, minds and cluster bombs, this is Creation's single compulsion, its one and only passion; a relentless, arguably reckless passage from a state of ancestral simplicity to contemporary complexity, where complexity - and the specialisation it affords - parents a wretched and forever diversifying family of more devoted fears and faithful anxieties, more pervasive ailments and skilful parasites, more virulent toxins, more capable diseases, and more affectionate expressions of pain, ruin, psychosis and loss. In the simplest possible statement: Creation is a vast entanglement apparatus - a complexity machine - whose single-minded mindless state of employment is geared entirely towards a greater potency and efficiency in the delivery and experience of misery and confusion, not harmony and peaceful accord. — John Zande

It's only when the settlement work has gone on for months that one realizes how bad things are. As our secretary said to me, your finger-nails never seem dirty until you wash your hands. — F Scott Fitzgerald

One discovers answers to problems only when one feels that they are burning and that it is a a matter of life and death to solve them. Is nothing is of burning interest, one's reason and one's critical faculty operate on a low level of activity; it appears then that one lacks the faculty to observe. — Erich Fromm

The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable" ... In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. — George Orwell