Quotes & Sayings About The Places You've Been

I think that Vegas is one of the wildest places I've ever been to. You can look to your left and there's a drag queen getting married by Elvis, to the right there is some old bird sticking quarters into a slot machine for hours. — Marsha Thomason

I locate the ladies' room. Luckily, it's empty, no one to see the vacant-eyed girl, staring in the mirror. Staring at a stranger who doesn't care if she dies. Maybe she wants to die. Who would care if I died? My face is hollow-cheeked, spiced with sores
the places where I stab at bugs. Tiny bugs, almost invisible, but irritating. Usually they come out at night, when I'm lying there, begging for sleep. I've been meaning to tell the manager that the apartment needs to be sprayed. Sprayed. Steam cleaned. Deodorized. My hair looks odd too. It used to be darker. Shinier. Prettier. Can hair lose color when you're only eighteen? What if I go all the way gray? Will Trey still love me? Will anyone? That is, if I fool them all and don't die. — Ellen Hopkins

We've always had a love for other places outside the US. I would be right with him. Now that Michael's been vindicated, we all have to be careful ... you never know what someone's plotting and planning. — Jermaine Jackson

Every time I have seen families embrace and accept their homosexual family members, nothing bad had happened! The association has always been positive and loving, caring "family" experience has only grown and flourished. They are available to each other for that family support that is so valued in our culture. Families are strengthened not weakened. When families have rejected their homosexual family members it has not turned out well, even when that rejection was done 'lovingly.' You know, love the sinner...hate the sin? I've known homosexuals rejected by their families who looked for acceptance in all the wrong places. Bright, promising lives lost to drugs, disease, and death. I've seen families who reject those they should love, depriving themselves of that valuable relationship. (120) — Carol Lynn Pearson

You have given me something ... I didn't even know I needed. It's the greatest gift I will ever receive
it's, like, completing me already in places I wasn't aware were empty. And yet ... in spite of all that? I don't love you one bit more. You are as important to me as you've always been." He curled down and pressed a kiss to the loose shirt she was wearing
it was one of his, actually, and wasn't that great. "I was wholly bonded to you before this, and will be after this
and forevermore."
"You're going to make me cry again."
"So cry. And let me take care of you. I got this. — J.R. Ward

Ah walk doon Hammersmith Broadway, London seeming strange and alien, after only a three-month absence, as familiar places do when you've been away. It's as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the wey things are in a dream. They say you have to live in a place to know it, but you have to come fresh tae really see it. — Irvine Welsh

Without parental guidance telling you there's another way to live it can be tough but my kids have an advantage over my life. I can tell them I know what it's like and that they don't ever want to go to the places I've been, whereas when I grew up, it was so accepted and normal that if you didn't do it, you were considered weird. — Christian Hosoi

After seeing amazing magical places like Neverland, Oz, Narnia and Wonderland, why did you ever want to leave?"
The girls looked to one another; they had never been asked the question before, at least in Alex's mind.
"Because no matter where you go or what you see, you'll always want to be where you belong," Lucy said.
"Your home is where you feel most comfortable and loved," Wendy said.
"It's a part of you," Alice added. "It's where your family is."
"There's no place like home," Dorothy said, as if it was the first time she'd ever said those words.
Alex appreciated what they had to say, but wasn't sure if she entirely agreed. "I wonder, though, if home sometimes isn't where you're from," she said.
The girls looked at her as if she had already answered her own question. Alex wondered if that had been the real question lingering in her mind all along. — Chris Colfer

A plane is a bad place for an all-out sleep, but a good place to begin rest and recovery from the trip to the faraway places you've been, a decompression chamber between Here and There. Though a plane is not the ideal place really to think, to reassess or reevaluate things, it is a great place to have the illusion of doing so, and often the illusion will suffice. — Shana Alexander

Because I'm Parisian, I wanted to show a Paris that I don't see at the movies, so I spent a lot of time looking for places that have never been filmed, for streets that have never been filmed because there's a thing about Paris, where it's kind of like a charming music box, this luminous cocoon, like those things that have fake snow in them that you turn upside down. — Louis Garrel

It's a rare gift, to know where you need to be, before you've been to all the places you don't need to be. — Ursula K. Le Guin

If there is a heaven, it should be like all the places you love or the places you've never been but wish you'd visited while you were still alive." -Giselle — Edwidge Danticat

... prison was at best, only a temporary reprieve from life,for two reasons. First, life creeps back into prison. There are always places to go further down, even when you've been taken off the board;life goes on, even if it's life under a microscope or life in cage. And second, if you just hang in there, some day they're going to have to let you out. — Neil Gaiman

Driving a hot car is a lot like sex to me, or a lot like I keep thinking sex should be: A total body experience, overwhelming, to all the senses, taking you places you've never been, packing a punch that leaves you breathless and touches your soul. The Viper was way more satisfying then my last boyfriend. — Karen Marie Moning

I sometimes have the feeling you've been here a long time, more than one lifetime, and that you've dwelt in private places none of the rest of us has even dreamed about. — Robert James Waller

It wasn't that we didn't know history. Even if you only count the real world, we knew more history than most people. We'd been taught about cavemen and Normans and Tudors. We knew about Greeks and Romans. We knew masses of personal stories about World War II. We even knew quite a lot of family history. It just didn't connect to the landscape. And it was the landscape that formed us, that made us who we were as we grew in it, that affected everything. We thought we were living in a fantasy landscape when actually we were living in a science fictional one. In ignorance, we played our way through what the elves and giants had left us, taking the fairies' possession for ownership. I named the dramroads after places in The Lord of the Rings when I should have recognized that they were from The Chrysalids. — Jo Walton

It was as if we'd only been gone the weekend. Or had we been gone a lifetime. Part of that was because when you've lived in Alaska, living in other places seems easier, less challenging, less threatening. Alaska had enlarged each of us. No one is ever the same after coming back from Alaska. — Peter Jenkins

There was no other place I loved so well as this one."
"Me as well,"... For all the places I've loved, there have been none like this. This place is a deeper love, a sisterhood of water and sand and soul. A place where you fill me through my eyes and my ears, Father. — Lisa Wingate

The first time I've actually filmed in London, the locations we've all had have been real inner city, grimy urban places which has been great. Filming here, you've got everything on your doorstep, so when you've got time off, you can go into town, so I've really enjoyed it. — Jonas Armstrong

CBGB was a wild place, ... The first time I ever played there was in 1987, I think, with my hardcore band, Scream. And I remember the craziest [thing] about that club was you could be in
front of the stage and it could be louder than any show you've ever been to in your life. But if you were towards the back of the club at the bar, you could sit and have a conversation with
someone. It was the weirdest thing to me. — Dave Grohl

I'll tell you what, I've been in some seriously bad places playing golf and it's just part of the game. — Tiger Woods

If you look at the field of robotics today, you can say robots have been in the deepest oceans, they've been to Mars, you know? They've been all these places, but they're just now starting to come into your living room. Your living room is the final frontier for robots. — Cynthia Breazeal

You're never lost. You always know exactly where you are. You're right here. It's just that sometimes you've misplaced your destination.
Brian W. Porter 2005
Have you ever wondered how the computer you're using got to the store? How about your medicines, the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the furniture, the plants in the garden center? Do they have a railroad right there? Does merchandise magically appear? Only if you grow your own food, make your own clothes, make your own tools, cut your own wood, and make your own furniture, can you get away from trucking. Everything you see, even the nature outside in some places, has been on at least one truck. — Brian W. Porter

But nothing I have seen in the world has supported your famous pronouncements that love is more powerful than my kind of magic, Dumbledore." "Perhaps you have been looking in the wrong places," suggested Dumbledore. — J.K. Rowling

But you're so easy to sneak up on." He crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall. "You should be honored that I bother, since there's no challenge to it."
"Right," I said dryly.
Tybalt has never made a secret of his contempt for changelings in general and me in particular. Not even the years I spent missing could change that. If anything, it made things worse, because when I came back, I promptly removed myself from all the places he was accustomed to finding me. Hating me suddenly took effort - an effort he's proved annoying glad to make. On the other hand, it's actually been something of a relief, because it is something I can count on. Dawn comes, the moon rises and Tybalt hates me. — Seanan McGuire

I've been lucky to have made a number of travel programmes with the BBC, the object being to see places off the beaten track. As a result, I've often had a guide who's been able to show me things that you wouldn't see with a tour group. — Michael Palin

My uncle used to let me pretend they were bricks," Linden says, startling me. He eases a thick hardcover from the shelf, hefts it in either hand, and then places it back. "I like to build houses out of them. They never came out exactly like I'd planned, but that's good. It taught me that there are three versions of things: the one I see in my mind, and the one that carries onto the paper, and then what it ultimately becomes."
For some reason I'm finding it difficult to meet his eyes. I nod at one of the lower shelves and say, "Maybe it's because in your mind you don't have to worry about building materials. So you're not as limited."
"That's astute," he says. He pauses. "You've always been astute about things. — Lauren DeStefano

Take a few minutes and come up with a personal list of what's most important to you. Consider the following: People like family, friends, role models, and mentors (animals count too) Places you've been and loved Places you dream of visiting Activities you love to do and look forward to Beliefs about what is good in life Moments that you've most treasured Values about how the world should be Goals, both for personal achievement and making the world a better place Now take this list and circle four or five items that mean the most to you in terms of giving you a feeling that your life has been and — Julian D. Ford

Pico Iyer: And at some point, I thought, well, I've been really lucky to see many, many places. Now, the great adventure is the inner world, now that I've spent a lot of time gathering emotions, impressions, and experiences. Now, I just want to sit still for years on end, really, charting that inner landscape because I think anybody who travels knows that you're not really doing so in order to move around - you're traveling in order to be moved. And really what you're seeing is not just the Grand Canyon or the Great Wall but some moods or intimations or places inside yourself that you never ordinarily see when you're sleepwalking through your daily life. I thought, there's this great undiscovered terrain that Henry David Thoreau and Thomas Merton and Emily Dickinson fearlessly investigated, and I want to follow in their footsteps. — Krista Tippett

Do you know what Aunt Marmoset told me once? She compared you to a spice drop. Overpowering and hard at first, but all sweetness at the center. I'll admit, I've been desperate to try an experiment." She gave him a teasing look. "How many times do you suppose I could lick you before you crack?"
His every muscle tightened.
Smiling, she tucked her face into the curve of his neck and ran her tongue seductively over his skin. "There's one."
"Katie." The word was a low, throaty warning. It made her toes curl.
She nuzzled at the notch of his open shirt, pushing the fabric aside. The familiar musk of his skin stirred her in deep places.
With a teasing swirl of her tongue, she tasted the notch at the base of his throat. "Two ... "
"Finn," he called in a booming voice, lifting his head. "Send for the vicar."
She pulled back, shocked. "Two? That's all, truly? Two? I'm not sure whether to feel proud or disappointed. — Tessa Dare

I think you've got the wrong idea. I like women."
"I do too." A light burned in Deacon's eyes that sent something sizzling through Shelby's body. "Most of the time. Nothing like sweet perfume and soft curves, is there?"
Shelby didn't say anything. He couldn't break Deacon's mesmerizing gaze.
"Nothing except the hot, hard body of a man all sweaty and furious after a game of tag football that turned violent and ended with dirt in places dirt isn't meant to go. Or a man's mouth on your cock, god, there is nothing like a man sucking you off, Thursday. Have you ever been sucked off by a man? — Mercy Celeste

The park looks different at night," she remarked. "You've never been here at night?" "No," she admitted, quickly adding, "but I've been out at night in other places. Once I - " Alexander leaned in to her. "Tania, you want to know something?" "What?" she said, leaning away. "The less you've been out at night, the better I like it. — Paullina Simons

The world is less homophobic, depending on where you are in the world. As a gay man I feel very strongly about those issues around the world - there've been huge changes and developments, but there are still places where things are scary. — Boy George

Agreeing completely, Zarya came to an abrupt halt as she saw the small side table that had been pulled out for them. "Small" being the operative word. It must have been an end table in the conference room. The chairs were tiny foldaways with stained gray cushions. And while the linens were clean, they, too, were stained in places. It was the ultimate slap in the face. But for Darling, she'd be throwing a tantrum over it. Instead, she smiled at the woman and graciously sat down while Maris followed suit. Never let them know how much they've hurt you. Don't give them the satisfaction. Her father had raised her on those principles and she held them tight. Starskas didn't flinch or bitch. They got even. Lady — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Home is a relative concept for me. I've been in Los Angeles 10 years, and I definitely feel at home here, but I also feel at home in a lot of places. I'm not too attached to anywhere, really. Home is where the people you love are at the time. — Stuart Townsend

If you allow yourself, you can become stronger in the very places that you've been broken. — Jane Fonda

Style begins with the people passing through one's life, the harbingers we push against and the stylemakers we want to clone. Some are famous, some not. Style grows from admiration, from longing, from discrimination - and, yes, from love. It's all the places you've been to and the people and the moments you've known: the parts you've adopted, to keep forever, and transformed. We wear our history in our hearts and on our backs. — Carol Edgarian

I've been trying to think of words to tell you how all this makes me feel." "The Tetons?" "Yeah, but not just them. All of this. All this . . . you know. These places. Nature. It makes me feel different. But I just can't figure out what words to use." "Most people say it makes them feel smaller. Like the world is so big, it makes them feel insignificant." "No," Seth said. But then he didn't immediately elaborate. "Bigger," he said after a time. — Catherine Ryan Hyde

Writing can take you to places you've never been, introduce you to people you've never met, take you back to when you first saw those shadows in your room, when you first heard the sounds mumbling ever so softly from your closet, and it can show you what uttered them. It can scare the hell out of you, and that's when you know it's good. — J.D. Barker

It's ... You've been all over the world. Been in perilous places, taken risks that stop my breath. In comparison to all that, will what we might have ... will I be enough?"
"Sweetheart ... "
"You said my world, this world, is colorless, remember?" It almost made him laugh. "Honey-pie, when I'm with you, I think of a thousand colors. Your beautiful silvery eyes, your lemon-yellow swimsuit, your pink sunburn, your pumpkin shoes. You're ... you're my rainbow." His darling, serious, wonderful, brave, spirited, beautiful, talented Jane. So, so lovable — Christie Ridgway

I'll admit, Jasnah, that I empathize with your skepticism, but I don't agree with it. I just think you've been looking for God in the wrong places."
"I suppose that you're going to tell me where you think I should look."
"You'll find God in the same place you're going to find salvation from this mess," Wit said. "Inside the hearts of men."
"Curiously," Jasnah said, "I believe I can actually agree with that, though I suspect for different reasons than you imply. — Brandon Sanderson

Maybe he wasn't at his best. He smelled of horses and road dust. His lean jaws were shadowed by stubble, and his sweat-soaked hair stuck up in a couple of places where he'd run his hands through it. But he couldn't have looked better to her if he'd been wearing a Sunday suit. "You're the handsomest cowboy I've ever seen. — Alexis Harrington

And at some point, I thought, well, I've been really lucky to see many, many places. Now, the great adventure is the inner world, now that I've spent a lot of time gathering emotions, impressions, and experiences. Now, I just want to sit still for years on end, really, charting that inner landscape because I think anybody who travels knows that you're not really doing so in order to move around - you're traveling in order to be moved. And really what you're seeing is not just the Grand Canyon or the Great Wall but some moods or intimations or places inside yourself that you never ordinarily see when you're sleepwalking through your daily life. I thought, there's this great undiscovered terrain that Henry David Thoreau and Thomas Merton and Emily Dickinson fearlessly investigated, and I want to follow in their footsteps. You've — Krista Tippett

Obeying the Spirit instead of your own self-centered whims will lead you to places you've never been, challenge you in ways you have never been challenged, and invite levels of sacrifice you never dreamed you could make. This is the power and the promise of full-throttle faith, of living a life fueled solely by God. — Bill Hybels

That dot covers all the places we've ever been. You could cut that piece of land out of the ground and sing it into this ocean and no one would even notice.
I feel that fear again, the fear of my own size. 'Right. So?'
'So? So everything I've ever worried about or said or done, how can it possibly matter?' He shakes his head. 'It doesn't.'
'Of course it does,' I say, 'All that land is filled with people, every one of them different, and the things they do to each other matter. — Veronica Roth

Singing 'Blowin' in the Wind' all the places we've been, it takes on a different meaning everywhere. When you sing the line, 'How many years can a people exist, before they're allowed to be free?' in a prison yard for political prisoners in El Salvador; if you have sung it to a group of union organizers, who have all been in jail, in South Korea; if you've sung to Jews in the Soviet Union who have been refused exit visas; if you've sung it with Bishop Tutu protesting apartheid, the song breathes, it lives, it has a contemporary currency. — Mary Travers

Your heart broke again and again, and you tried to fix the pieces with the salves of the world. But they can only dull the pain; they cannot heal. You have been chained. You've hidden your heart in the dark places. But I came to heal the brokenhearted and set the captives free. — James L. Rubart

I grew up on food stamps. I come from a very humble background. And I've had many friends that have been destitute - you know, running into trouble - and places like The Midnight Mission have given them hope and have fed them and gotten them back on the right path. — Debi Mazar

Experience is all I have. I equate song-writing with archeology. Every day you dig. You dig into different places within yourself - even finding places that you've rarely been. And buried within the soil is song. — Jon Foreman

88. People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. I've been living ten years in Paris and the answer seems simple to me: because it's the best place to pick ideas. Just like Italy, Spain.. or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris. — Roman Payne

Don't you think it's actually harder for you . . . to adapt, I mean? Because you've done all that stuff?'
'Are you asking me if I wish I'd never done it?'
'I'm just wondering if it would have been easier for you. If you'd led a smaller life. To live like this, I mean.'
'I will never, ever regret the things I've done. Because most days, if you're stuck in one of these, all you have are the places n your memory that you can go to.' He smiled. It was tight, as if it cost him. 'So if you're asking me would I rather be reminiscing about the view of the caste from the minimart, or that lovely row of shops down off the roundabout, then, no. My life was just fine, thanks. — Jojo Moyes

I've been in some seriously bad places playing golf and it's just part of the game. You're going to hit bad shots, you're going to be in bad spots, and each course, when you learn it, you learn where not to go. — Tiger Woods

I've been traveling the world and experiencing different places, and you always discover new things. — Jason Derulo

Your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they've been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don't explore; you only play what is confident and pleasing. I'm learning to break those habits by playing instruments I know absolutely nothing about, like a bassoon or a waterphone. — Tom Waits

Whitney and I have fun reading the newspaper sometimes. You'd be amazed at the places they say I've been. — Bobby Brown

Alecto, have you noticed how downhill this little island is becoming?" Mandy questioned sadly. "All these organic food stores and yoga studios and cellular phone towers ... Cape Breton was one of the only places left where it still had that nostalgic small town atmosphere but now ... I've only been away for a year, how could things have changed so quickly? I mean, how can the world accept it?"
"C'est la vie," said Alecto, looking extremely tired as he stared out the window at the late November maple keys fluttering down from vibrantly red trees lining the streets on either side of the windshield. — Rebecca McNutt

One of the exciting things about reporting is going to places you've never been to before. — H. G. Bissinger

Reversing roles sometimes is good. I'll free you from having to be in control all the time. I'll take you places you've never been. — Scarlet Risque

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing's sake, back home to aestheticism, to one's youthful idea of 'the artist' and the all-sufficiency of 'art' and 'beauty' and 'love,' back home to the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, to the cottage in Bermude, away from all the strife and conflict of the world, back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time
back home to the escapes of Time and Memory. — Thomas Wolfe

I told you.. whenever I'm afraid to write, I still do it. It's like going to a place that you've never been. You are not familiar with the streets, establishments, and even the kind of people that you may encounter as you go along your way. But once you get in there, you enjoy anything about that place and you are getting usual to its culture and beautiful places. — Alexina Benavidez

He places the skull in the palm of my hand. There are four canines; the top two are so long and curved I can feel them pricking my skin. There's a green tinge round the eye socket and in a fine line across the cranium. I'm not sure what animal it's from.
'Stoat,' Harris says, as if I've spoken out loud. 'They hunt grouse and partridge. I found it behind my house. I buried the body in the furze until it was just bone.'
His hand is still beneath mine, supporting it. I think of him seeing the small dead creature and digging a tiny grave for it. Planning ahead for all those months just so he'd see the skeleton. Or maybe he severed the animal's head and that was the only part he buried.
'It's been waiting for you all this time. Like I have. — Sanjida Kay

Fate's funny like that, sticking her hand into places that at the time you want to curse her for - then, years later, you just want to nod and wink at her as you move into that sweet spot you've been hoping for all those years. — A. Wilding Wells

I am going to show you great and mighty things which no one has ever seen before ... I am going to take you places where no one has ever been. I am going to take you to heights where no one has ever reached. If you will only come to me with all your heart, I will do a mighty work in you, which no man can undo but yourself. — M.J. Chrisman

Still, we often talked on the farm of the Safaris that we had been on. Camping places fix themselves in your mind as if you had spent long periods of your life in them. You will remember a curve of your wagon track in the grass of the plain, like the features of a friend. — Karen Blixen

In this box are all the words I know ... Most of them you will never need, some you will use constantly, but with them you may ask all the questions which have never been answered and answer all the questions which have never been asked. All the great books of the past and all the ones yet to come are made with these words. With them there is no obstacle you cannot overcome. All you must learn to do is to use them well and in the right places. — Norton Juster

They come from Mobile. Aiken. From Newport News. From Marietta. From Meridian. And the sounds of these places in their mouths make you think of love. When you ask them where they are from, they tilt their heads and say "Mobile" and you think you've been kissed. They say "Aiken" and you see a white butterfly glance off a fence with a torn wing. They say "Nagadoches" and you want to say "Yes, I will." You don't know what these towns are like, but you love what happens to the air when they open their lips and let the names ease out. — Toni Morrison

We have no reason to think that climate change is harmful if you look at the world as a whole. Most places, in fact, are better off being warmer than being colder. And historically, the really bad times for the environment and for people have been the cold periods rather than the warm periods. — Freeman Dyson

Cities, in many ways, are the best repositories for a love affair. You are in a forest or a cornfield, you are walking by the seashore, footprint after footprint of trodden sand, and somehow the kiss or the spoken covenant gets lost in the vastness and indifference of nature. In a city there are places to remind us of what has been. — Edna O'Brien

When you gaze at stars and think about planets, the places it takes your imagination are amazing! You look up the sky, and you know the stars have always been here; they were referenced in biblical times and have always been present. They are somewhere up there in the future, and they guide you; they make you feel safe. — Sarah Brightman

Hollywood is a strange place. The class structure here is more rigid than almost anyplace I've ever experienced. It's made more difficult by the fact that it's constantly changing. You never know what class you belong to unless you're one of the two or three people that have been in the same echelon for a long, long time. — Alan Arkin

Even the grandest lives come down to a few people and places. Loved ones, your daily work, your neighborhood. I don't mean that in a belittling way. I've been realizing how complete our lives can be with just the few people and activities you most love. — Daphne Kalotay

It's been said that the Magi, wise men, gazed up into the night skies, following a star. But they were not looking for a star. They were looking for hope. Hope of a new world. Hope of redemption. Light is not found in dark places, & hope is not found looking down or looking back. May you always look up. — Richard Paul Evans

In so many places in the world, women have been prisoners for so long that they feel they have to scream about their rights. But when you scream, nobody listens to you. Real authority comes when you no longer need to scream - and that's something we women still need to learn. — Monica Bellucci

Travel is the art form available to Everyman. You sit in the coffee shop in a strange city and nobody knows who you are, or cares, and so you shed your checkered past and your motley credentials and you face the day unarmed ... And onward we go and some day in the distant future, we will stop and turn around in astonishment to see all the places we've been and the heroes we were. — Garrison Keillor

It takes courage to push yourself to places you have never been before ... to test yout limits ... to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to stay tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossum. — Anais Nin

Paris is a city that might well be spoken of in the plural, as the Greeks used to speak of Athens, for there are many Parises, and the tourists' Paris is only superficially related to the Paris of the Parisians. The foreigner driving through Paris from one museum to another is quite oblivious to the presence of a world he brushes past without seeing. Until you have wasted time in a city, you cannot pretend to know it well. The soul of a big city is not to be grasped so easily; in order to make contact with it, you have to have been bored, you have to have suffered a bit in those places that contain it. Anyone can get hold of a guide and tick off all the monuments, but within the very confines of of Paris there is another city as difficult to access as Timbuktu once was. — Julien Green

You know, I love traveling and I love being exposed to different cultures, but really it's the people that I've met along the way, not the places I've been, that have opened my eyes. — Amy Adams

I live completely without regret. Sure there are plenty of things that someone could second guess, but I see the path of life like driving down the road without a map. The thing is, some dark alleys open up in majestic places, and some bright and shiny highways to the top end in cliffs to the bottom. You never know until you get there. What I know for sure is that if many years ago I actually had a map to the path of life, the destination that I would have chosen is right here, with this family, in this place, and with these smiles. That makes anything that could have been regretful, the best decision in the world. — Michael A. Wood Jr.

Robert, there's a creature inside of you that I'm not good enough to bring out, not strong enough to reach. I sometimes have the feeling you've been here a long time, more than one lifetime, and that you've dwelt in private places none of the rest of us has even dreamed about. You frighten me, even though you're gentle with me. If I didn't fight to control myself with you, I feel like I might lose my center and never get back. — Robert James Waller

On Wednesday, April 9, 1969, Bush, who was just beginning his second term as a congressman, flew to see the former president at LBJ's ranch at Stonewall, Texas, about 220 miles from Houston. "Mr. President, I've still got a decision to make and I'd like your advice," Bush said. "My House seat is secure - no opposition last time - and I've got a position on Ways and Means. I don't mind taking risks, but in a few more terms, I'll have seniority on a powerful committee. I'm just not sure it's a gamble I should take, whether it's really worth it." "Son," Johnson said, "I've served in the House. And I've been privileged to serve in the Senate, too. And they're both good places to serve. So I wouldn't begin to advise you what to do, except to say this - that the difference between being a member of the Senate and a member of the House is the difference between chicken salad and chicken shit." The former president paused. "Do I make my point? — Jon Meacham

It's okay. Don't feel bad. Stop beating yourself up. Nothing lasts forever. People come and people go. We cross paths, sometimes even travel together for a bit- to learn from each other. Stop trying to hold onto what is no longer meant to be. Yes, sometimes we need to stay even when it doesn't feel good because we still have something to learn, something to do there. But our souls will die if they stay in places they don't belong. You know the difference. Listen to your heart. If you stay when you've been told to go, you'll stop growing! Go! Give yourself permission to outgrow people and places.
It's okay. — Brooke Hampton

Maybe your country is only a place you make up in your own mind. Something you dream about and sing about. Maybe it's not a place on the map at all, but just a story full of people you meet and places you visit, full of books and films you've been to. I'm not afraid of being homesick and having no language to live in. I don't have to be like anyone else. I'm walking on the wall and nobody can stop me. — Hugo Hamilton

In many ways, it is very real, because I sat there for 9 days, and it was constantly happening, and that was the 9 days of making the film. But you can't say that it's 100% true, because there are places where I've been intrusive and interfered. — Mohsen Makhmalbaf

I know after all the awful places you've had to go, it's hard to imagine how good heaven can be, but I've seen it, and no words can describe it ... It's worth it all. We've both lost a parent, we've been beaten and bruised, and we've done through hell together. I even died. And I can tell you ... giving up everything to serve God is worth it all. — Bryan Davis

Biology doesn't matter, the Christians argued, because this body we live in is not ultimately real; history doesn't matter, they said, because God's time is different and superior to man's anyhow; and forget cause and effect, forget what you've been told about the physical world, because there is heaven and there is hell and there is this green earth in between, and you are always alive in one of the three places. — Russell Banks

If you should ask me where I've been all this time
I have to say "Things happen."
I have to dwell on stones darkening the earth,
on the river ruined in its own duration:
I know nothing save things the birds have lost,
the sea I left behind, or my sister crying.
Why this abundance of places? Why does day lock
with day? Why the dark night swilling round
in our mouths? And why the dead? — Pablo Neruda

We've been very lonely, but we had it easy. Because death is so heavy - we, too young to know about it, couldn't handle it. After this you and I may end up seeing nothing but suffering, difficulty and ugliness, but if only you'll agree to it, I want for us to go on to more difficult places, happier places, what ever comes, together. I want you to make the decision after you're completely better, so take your time thinking about it. In the mean time, though, don't disappear on me. — Banana Yoshimoto

It's different," you said. "You've made, Min, everything different for me. Everything's like coffee you made me try, better than I ever - or the places I didn't even know were right on the street, you know? I'm like this thing I saw when I was little, where a kid hears a noise under his bed and there's a ladder there that's never been there before, and he climbs down and, it's for kids I know, but this song starts playing ... " Your eyes were traveling in the treey light. — Daniel Handler

I went to a place recently I think is one of the most f**ked up places I've ever been to. I'm convinced this place is the epitome of American excess, of American greed. I'm talking about a place called Cold Stone Creamery. Whoa. If you have not been there, the basic gist of Cold Stone is that they take ice cream and then they just go ape sh*t with it. — Aziz Ansari

It's an irritating reality that many places and events defy description. Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu, for instance, seem to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about. For a while after,you fumble for words, trying vainly to assemble a private narrative, an explanation, a comfortable way to frame where you've been and whats happened. In the end, you're just happy you were there- with your eyes open- and lived to see it. — Anthony Bourdain

If I ever have kids, this is what I'm going to do with them: I am going to give birth to them on foreign soil - preferably the soil of someplace like Oostende or Antwerp - destinations that have the allure of being obscure, freezing, and impossibly cultured. These are places in which people are casually trilingual and everyone knows how to make good coffee and gourmet dinners at home without having to shop for specific ingredients. Everyone has hip European sneakers that effortlessly look like the exact pair you've been searching for your whole life. Everything is sweetened with honey and even the generic-brand Q-tips are aesthetically packaged. People die from old age or crimes of passion or because they fall off glaciers. All the woman are either thin, thin and happy, fat and happy, or thin and miserable in a glamorous way. Somehow none of their Italian heels get caught in the fifteenth-century cobblestone. Ever. — Sloane Crosley

I've found that in places where women have not really been afforded full rights yet - for instance, in the Middle East - even very conservative politicians in the region will say, 'You know, my daughter would really like to meet you,' or, 'Would you send a note to my granddaughter?' — Condoleezza Rice

Living in Montgomery, I've been antagonized by the emergence of a narrative about our history that I believe is quite false and misleading, and actually dangerous. And the narrative that emerges when you spend time in the South - places likes Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana - is that we have always been a noble, wonderful, glorious region of the country, with wonderful, noble, glorious people doing wonderful, noble, glorious things. And there's great pride in the Alabamians of the nineteenth century. — Bryan Stevenson

Those boys at the counter are too dreamy and young to do anything but drool as they watch Gillian. And, to her credit, Gillian is especially kind to them, even when Ephraim, the cook, suggests she kick them out. She understands that theirs might just be the last hearts she will break. When you're thirty-six and tired, when you've been living in places where the temperature rising to a hundred and ten and the air is so dry you have to use gallons of moisturizer, when you've been smacked around, late at night, by a man who loves bourbon, you start to realize that everything is limited, including your own appeal. You begin to look at young boys with tenderness, since they know so little and think they know so much. You watch teenage girls and feel shivers up and down your arms - those poor creatures don't know the first thing about time or agony or the price they're going to have to pay for just about anything. — Alice Hoffman

Something about telling that story made my gut grow back together."
What?"
Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud."
That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of."
The people who've been in your secret hiding places."
The people you bite your thumb in front of."
Hi."
Hi."
... "
... "
Wow. My first Lindsey."
My second Colin."
That was fun. Let's try it again."
Sold."
... "
... "
... "
... — John Green

Always think and always dream. Wonder what's around the next corner for yourself, and don't be afraid to go there, but most of all Love. Loving yourself and the people around you is the easiest path through life. It will bring you around that corner, and places you've never been. — Ron Baratono

Cycling has nothing to do with the Tour de France. Racing a bike is a totally different sport than just being into cycling. Cycling is this therapeutic, beautiful mode of transportation where you attach yourself to this machine and it becomes part of you. Then you can go to all of these new places that you weren't able to go before, and that has nothing to do with racing. I'm not a bike racer; I'm a bike rider. I love riding my bike, but I also love testing what I can do on my bike. So, in that regard, I am a racer. But if I had been born in Belgium and I had to race in Belgium all the time, I would've never gotten to the level that I am now, because the racing over there is so stressful. It just takes everything away from the niceness of being able to ride a bike. — Taylor Phinney

And if he was kind and friendly and funny, and if he told you about places so beautiful that you wanted to go with him to see them, and if he listened to you talk like he actually cared about what you were saying?
And if he tried to protect you when other people tried to tell you what to do, as if they owned you? And if he has the handsomest face you've ever seen, no matter if the skin has been damaged, because he's just lovely even so? — Caroline Leech

My approach to the game has been the same at all the places I've been. Vanilla. The sure way. That means, first of all, to win physically. If you got eleven on a field, and they beat the other eleven physically, they'll win. They will start forcing mistakes. They'll win in the fourth quarter. — Bear Bryant

I've played English a number of times, and used an English accent a number of times, so it becomes a little bit of an obstacle course to go, "Oh, that's teetering into Captain Jack-ville," or "This is teetering into Chocolat or Wonka." You've got to really pay attention to the places you've been. But, that's part of it. That's the great challenge. You may get it wrong. There's a very good possibility that you can fall flat on your face, but that's a healthy thing for an actor. — Johnny Depp