They Can Change Quotes & Sayings

You can spend a lifetime trying to erase memories. It doesn't change the fact that they took place. Acceptance is the key. — Truth Devour

Writing has power, but its power has no vector. Writers can stir the mind, but they can't direct it. Time changes things, God changes things, the dictators change things, but writers can't change anything. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

God is the only
One that can truly change individuals.
I am convinced that He alone is capable of transforming
someone in such a way that they grow and thrive, even in
challenging times. — Ngina Otiende

I'd have to say no, people don't change, but they can learn to behave differently. — Charlaine Harris

The zest for life of those unusual men and women who make a great zealous success of living is due more often in good part to the craftiness and pertinacity with which they manage to overlook the misery of others. You can watch them watch life beat the stuffing out of the faces of their friends and acquaintances, although they themselves seem to outwit the dense delays of social custom, the tedious tick-tock of bureaucratic obfuscation, accepting loss and age and change and disappointment without suffering punctures in their stomach lining. — Edward Hoagland

David Perkins,12 a Harvard psychologist who has devoted his career to improving reasoning, found the same thing. He says that thinking generally uses the "makessense" stopping rule. We take a position, look for evidence that supports it, and if we find some evidence - enough so that our position "makes sense" - we stop thinking. But at least in a low-pressure situation such as this, if someone else brings up reasons and evidence on the other side, people can be induced to change their minds; they just don't make an effort to do such thinking for themselves. — Jonathan Haidt

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn. — Orson Scott Card

Many tennis coaches are enablers. They need the job more than the player needs the coach, and if the coach needs the job more than the player needs the coach, he can't effect change. — Ivan Lendl

Excuse me?" I asked. I always say "excuse me" even though I heard perfectly well what the person said. I feel that by saying "excuse me," I'm giving them a chance to realize they're being an asshole, and they can change their attitude for the second attempt. — Jen Mann

Not only do we have to change the food we eat ... we have to educate people about what they can eat appropriately. — Indra Nooyi

Young people think they never can change, but they do in the most wonderful manner, and very few die of broken hearts. — Louisa May Alcott

Flattery has a short battery life, but reminding people they are amazing and precious and wanted and works of art can truly change their lives. — Donald Miller

Men make the mistake of thinking that because women can't see the sense in violence, they must be passive creatures. It's just not true. In one important way, at least, men are the passive sex. Given a choice, they will always opt for the status quo. They hate change of any kind, and they fight against it constantly. On the other hand, what women want is stability, which when you stop to think about it is a very different animal. — Eric Van Lustbader

Now, as I look back on my life, I can honestly say I wouldn't change it. The pain and suffering have brought me psychological understanding and spiritual strength. I still feel the pain when I reflect on those experiences, but while once they would throw me deeper and deeper into anxious despair, now they feed my desire to keep growing. (3) — Marie Balter

People who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the only ones who do. — Gary Keller

If they lost the incredible conviction that they can change their wives or husbands, marriage would collapse at once. — Logan Pearsall Smith

Radicals often suspect beauty of corruption. Uptight fuckers though they sometimes are, they're right in one thing: art alone cannot change the world. Pens can't take on swords, let alone Predator drones. But as disappointment and violence spread, the antidote is a generosity that the best art can still inspire.

Art is hope against cynicism, creation against entropy. To make art is an act of both love and defiance. Though I'm a cynic, I believe these things are all we have. — Molly Crabapple

Maybe, if you can't get someone out of your head they were never meant to leave. Perhaps, they were meant to help change you into the person you have been waiting to become. — Shannon L. Alder

It's rewarding to be able to change people's perceptions of reality, ... They just see their environment in a different way. They have a kind of different-colored glasses that they can see their world in. To me, that's really cool - when games can change you. — Will Wright

People can change anything they want to, and that means everything in the world. — Joe Strummer

You taught me once, Lorn. I'm a better man for it. But now it's my turn to teach you. Men can change. Sometimes they have to fall. Sometimes they have to leap. — Pierce Brown

And that is what is behind the abrupt rise in climate change denial among hardcore conservatives: they have come to understand that as soon as they admit that climate change is real, they will lose the central ideological battle of our time - whether we need to plan and manage our societies to reflect our goals and values, or whether that task can be left to the magic of the market. — Naomi Klein

They came close. Oh they came close. Was all set to put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger. But there was a computer glitch. Isnt that something? A stupid glitch and I had to wait a few days and then I saw the errors of my ways, saw so clearly that I was killing the wrong person. Its not me that needs killing, its them. Funny how things can change in the wink of an eye. — Hubert Selby Jr.

Being strong means allowing yourself to cry over the things you can't change; laugh when things are funny; smile when you're happy. It means understanding where your breaking point is, and yet, going further and still remaining whole. Strong people push themselves to the limits of pain and joy. They fall to their knees in agony, then they lift up their faces to find the beautiful morning rays shining down on them, and they rise to their feet. Being strong means never giving up, no matter how crushed you are, and finding happiness in the smallest parts of life. — D. Nichole King

Certainly, a gallery has to sell your work, so they'll be very frightened of you doing anything too different, and that can be difficult, but they can also recognize the need to change. Usually, if you just go and do it, and other people like it, it will still get recognized. — Catherine Yass

Growing up my whole life, my mom was telling me how incredible and special I was and that I was going to change the world. I think it's important for girls to know that they can change the world, that they do have an impact. — Ashley Greene

[Life]It is what you make it. If you think you can't change the world, then go on and follow the path already carved out for you. But there are other roads to choose, they're just harder to trudge through. Changing the world is'nt easy, but I sure as hell am going to keep trying. Are you? — Simone Elkeles

As long as people tend to define themselves at least partially in terms of the work they do, any change to that work, its procedures and modes, is likely to have self-definitional importance to them. This can lead to surprising amounts of change resistance. — Tom DeMarco

The deepest problems of the human race are spiritual in nature. They are rooted in man's refusal to seek God's way for his life. The problem is the human heart, which God alone can change. — Billy Graham

She always says she doesn't believe women should get married before the age of thirty-five ... she says women change so much in their twenties, they can't possibly know who they are, and the choices they make before the age of thirty are rarely good ones. — Jane Green

This is a consistent theme in stories about traveling to the future: Things are always worse when you get there. And I suspect this is because the kind of writer who's intrigued by the notion of moving forward in time can't see beyond their own pessimism about being alive. People who want to travel through time are both (a) unhappy and (b) unwilling to compromise anything about who they are. They would rather change every element of society except themselves. — Chuck Klosterman

It is said in the Upanishads: 'I am the Universe.' If you ask a hundred people as to how they find the world, they are all likely to give different answers. For some, the world is beautiful and the people are good, while for others, the world is extremely bad, and the people are treacherous and sinful. Why the same world is different for different people? It is so, because the outer world is the projection of our inner world. Therefore, the only way to improve the world outside is to improve the world within. While we may not have any control over the outside world, we can change our world within and thus change the world outside. — Awdhesh Singh

Due to a combination of dispositional characteristics and personal performance histories, functional performers typically expect positive performance outcomes, and dysfunctional performers typically expect negative performance outcomes. Over time, these beliefs become strongly held and difficult to change. In addition, these belief sets can become self-fulfilling because they affect how the performer interprets challenge or threat in performance situations (Sbrocco & Barlow, 1996). For — Frank Gardner

One of the advantages of moving quickly is if you do something wrong you can change it. What technologies tend to do is they tend to make a lot of mistakes ... but then we go back and aggressively attack those mistakes - and fix them. And you usually recover pretty quickly. — Marc Andreessen

Men cannot be men - much less good or heroic men - unless their actions have meaningful consequences to people they truly care about. Strength requires an opposing force, courage requires risk, mastery requires hard work, honor requires accountability to other men. Without these things, we are little more than boys playing at being men, and there is no weekend retreat or mantra or half-assed rite of passage that can change that. A rite of passage must reflect a real change in status and responsibility for it to be anything more than theater. No reimagined manhood of convenience can hold its head high so long as the earth remains the tomb of our ancestors — Jack Donovan

Can our actions change our destiny? Or are they like sand piled against the breakage in a dam, merely delaying the inevitable? — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

They just change. Their body changes. Their abilities - the things they do that make them who they are - leave, sometimes temporarily, sometimes forever. Every day they wake up with that big what if?
And nothing is scarier than a life filled with what ifs - living by day without predictability and control. Some people end up losing feeling. Some have uncontrollable spasms. Some can't function. Some end up blind or in a wheelchair. Some end up bedridden and paralyzed.
It's hard to know who "some people" will be. — Lindsey Leavitt

But if sleep it was, of what nature, we can scarcely refrain from asking, are such sleeps as these? Are they remedial measures - trances in which the most galling memories, events that seem likely to cripple life for ever, are brushed with a dark wing which rubs their harshness off and gilds them, even the ugliest, and basest, with a lustre, an incandescence? Has the finger of death to be laid on the tumult of life from time to time lest it rend us asunder? Are we so made that we have to take death in small doses daily or we could not go on with the business of living? And then what strange powers are these that penetrate our most secret ways and change our most treasured possessions without our willing it? Had Orlando, worn out by the extremity of his suffering, died for a week, and then come to life again? And if so, of what nature is death and of what nature life? — Virginia Woolf

Things happen; people have different experiences that change the way they look at the world. Sometimes you just have to accept that there's nothing you can do. Sometimes friendships just naturally come to an end.' Radu — Lisa Hall

Young people, when informed and empowered, when they realize that what they do truly makes a difference, can indeed change the world. — Jane Goodall

I saw a man swerve his car and try to hit a stray dog, but the quick mutt dodged between two parked cars and made his escape. God, I thought, did I just see what I think I saw? At the next red light, I pulled up beside the man and stared hard at him. He knew that'd I seen his murder attempt, but he didn't care. He smiled and yelled loud enough for me to hear him through our closed windows: 'Don't give me that face unless you're going to do something about it. Come on, tough guy, what are you going to do?' I didn't do anything. I turned right on the green. He turned left against traffic. I don't know what happened to that man or the dog, but I drove home and wrote this poem. Why do poets think they can change the world? The only life I can save is my own. — Sherman Alexie

The problems that the world faces - from nuclear proliferation to climate change - can't be tackled by the West alone. They need a coalition of not just West and East, but they need a coalition of Christian and Jew and Muslim. — David Miliband

It wouldn't cost too much to change the rules of trade so that poor countries can work their way out of poverty. But the world's leaders won't act unless they hear enough people telling them. And every day they fail to act, thousands of people die because they can't afford the basics of survival. — Edward De Bono

There's always fear. There's always fear. Always fear. Anyone who says they are not afraid is lying to you. Because this can all change tomorrow. I could say something dumb today and be in the news for it tomorrow. And maybe the phone stops ringing. You're always afraid of losing what you have. Regardless of success or anything, you're always afraid. — Donald Faison

It's a myth that people change. They spend tens of thousands of dollars on therapy trying to address their issues, but I know very few people who have ever made any significant changes. You are who you are. You can bemoan it, you can try to become a different person, or you can celebrate yourself. I choose to do the latter — Dennis Hof

Mathematicians also make terrible salesmen. Physicists can discover the same thing as a mathematician and say 'We've discovered a great new law of nature. Give us a billion dollars.' And if it doesn't change the world, then they say, 'There's an even deeper thing. Give us another billion dollars.' — Gian-Carlo Rota

Many well-meaning Americans have bought into the PC speech code, thinking that by being extra careful not to offend anyone we will achieve unity. What they fail to realize is that this is a false unity that prevents us from talking about important issues and is a Far Left strategy to paralyze us while they change our nation. People have been led to become so sensitive that fault can be found in almost anything anyone says because somewhere, somehow, someone will be offended by it. To stop this, Americans need to recognize what is happening, speak up courageously, avoid fearful or angry responses, and ignore the barking and snarling as we put political correctness to bed forever. — Ben Carson

They have to leave their mark. They can't just watch. They can't just appreciate. They can't just fit into the natural order. They have to make something unnatural happen. That is the scientist's job, and now we have whole societies that try to be scientific ... We've had four hundred years of modern science, and we ought to know by now what it's good for, and what it's not good for. It's time for a change. — Michael Crichton

Journeys bring power and love back into you. If you can't go somewhere, move in the passageways of the self. They are like shafts of light, always changing, and you change when you explore them. — Rumi

They say just give up; that the world cannot be changed. Just live your life the best you can. Bullshit! — Bryant McGill

I think you have to be a niche player. You've got to find smaller ideas that are going to benefit in the conditions as they are. You can change the conditions and always try to find ways to make money in the conditions as they exist. — Jim Oberweis

Sometimes the media gives us the impression that we are terminal patients, because of problems of global warmth or the ozone layer. And the people, they don't understand that they can could change this situation for the better if they could act locally in a city. — Jaime Lerner

(Love is the puzzle that) can't be solved. Catlike, it follows no rules but its own, and only it knows what they are. Also it can change the rules any time it wants, in any way it wants, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. — Chris Dee

Writer's groups work for some new writers, not for others. I was never cut out for a writer's group. So much depends on the people in it. What are they criticizing about your work? Grammar, syntax, plot holes? Or are they criticizing your personal style, your world view and your personal philosophy? If they're criticizing the latter, it's not a good group for you, no matter what support you might think you're getting from it. Your style, your perspective, and your philosophy of life are the main things you have to sell; they are what make you different, and you shouldn't
in fact you can't
change them. — Dean Koontz

Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change?
Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice.
God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching.
Harper: And then up you get. And walk around.
Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending.
Harper: That's how people change. — Tony Kushner

Creativity, innovation, and nontraditional ways of solving problems are feared by noncreative, uninnovative, and traditional people. It causes them apprehension and consternation. They cope with their fear by criticizing people who do things differently. If nothing can ever change, nothing can ever get any better. If you don't create new ways to solve old problems, you'll always be stuck with the old problems. — Maggie Righetti

People are terrified. A lot of them are in relationships that aren't satisfying, and if you tell them they can change their life, they get really scared. — Erica Jong

You can push a person to change, but the only time the change will stick is when it's something they want to achive on their own. — Belle Aurora

Wealth isn't always measured in dollar signs. We each have time, talent and creativity, all of which can be powerful forces for positive change. Share your blessings in whatever form they come and to whatever level you have been blessed. — Jon M. Huntsman Sr.

Helping professionals, therapists, life coaches, healers can greatly assist you in changing your life for the better, but they pale in comparison to the power thats gained from developing a relationship with yourself. It's you that holds the power for change — Renae A. Sauter

Of course they were saying: No doping! But as a rider, it's difficult to believe that things can really change from one day to the next. — Patrik Sinkewitz

I had crossed fifty years of my life, and come across uncountable females as son, husband, father, friend in my life. Coming across several women I carefully studied most of them, and feels that I got master knowing female. But every time when my heart comes across to a female, my all knowledge on female goes to a vain. What they want? , What are they looking for? When their mind changes? When their priority changes? No one knows, in a minute they use to change decisions, if someone ask, they says it's a little thing. They never think, little things makes big or if they can't stick on little things how they can stand in important decisions. They never show they are weak, but every time they are compromising themselves. It's their big heart but impacting every around. They always think they can do anything by doing nothing. — Nutan Bajracharya

Many people find that they frequently slip into negative, unproductive moods, and, once in these moods, it can be difficult to shift out of them. We suggest that this happens because most people have an interpretation of mood and emotion that limits their power to observe and change their moods. — Fernando Flores

I'm a part of a program called Toyota's Engines of Change Program. The message is that anyone can make a difference in their community or for whatever cause they feel strongly about. Everyone can be an Engine of Change. — Aaron Peirsol

Addiction is more malleable than you know. When people come to me for therapy, they often ask me whether their behavior constitutes a real addiction (or whether they are really alcoholic, etc.). My answer is that this is not the important question. The important questions are how many problems is the involvement causing you, how much do you want to change it, and how can we go about change? — Stanton Peele

I admire people who are suited to the contemplative life. They can sit inside themselves like honey in a jar and just be. It's wonderful to have someone like that around, you always feel you can count on them. You can go away and come back, you can change your mind and your hairdo and your politics, and when you get through doing all these upsetting things, you look around and there they are, just the way they were, just being. — Elizabeth Janeway

People who want a cure, provided they can have it without pain, are like those who favour progress, provided they can have it without change. — Anthony De Mello

If trees can create art, if they can encircle the globe seven times in one year, if prisoners can grow plants and raise frogs, then perhaps there are other static entities that we hold inside ourselves, like grief, like addictions, like racism, that can also change. — Nalini Nadkarni

If a man's heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling toward you, you can't win him to your way of thinking with all the logic in Christendom. Scolding parents and domineering bosses and husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people don't want to change their minds. They can't be forced or driven to agree with you or me. But they may possibly be led to, if we are gentle and friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly. — Dale Carnegie

One of the enduring myths of campaign analysis is that you can actually count the number of 'undecided' voters by asking voters if they are undecided or not. Sometimes, significant numbers of voters actually change their minds. — Jeff Greenfield

Dead isn't angels or ghosts. It's a physical state of breakdown, a change in all those carbon atoms that create the temporary house of a body
so that they can return to their most elemental stage. — Jodi Picoult

Secrets have power. And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them. Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it. So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours. — Erin Morgenstern

It will change everything. We won't need governments and corporations. The very concepts our economic and social systems are based on: money, wealth, privilege, will be meaningless. What use is money when everyone can build everything they need?'...
'These are people who've spent their whole lives fighting their way to the top and you're just going to tell them that there is no top anymore?... it's you that doesn't understand: they only care about material things as status symbols, to show that they're better than everyone else, that they've beaten everyone else, that's what drives them. They'll never give that up. — K. Valisumbra

It's clear that we imitate the behaviors of others, whether consciously or not. We are especially keen to see what they're doing when the situation is unfamiliar or ambiguous. And change situations are, by definition, unfamiliar! So if you want to change things, you have to pay close attention to social signals, because they can either guarantee a change effort or doom it. — Chip Heath

Unfortunately, most of my secular friends would agree with Bill Gates, who considers religion a waste of time: "There's a lot more I could be doing on Sunday morning," he told an interviewer. They view the church not as a change agent that can affect all of society but as a place where like-minded people go to feel better about themselves. — Philip Yancey

Change comes, when every person is adequately benefited.
We keep hearing about "change." Change will never come to all of society. Change can only come when the market system adequately provide all of the needs for all people. Millions are living in poverty in the United States and throughout the world, due to "change" passed them by, are struggling: Among them are high unemployment, the mentally challenged, poor education, many of them are homeless and hungry, sick and tired; such individuals, look for ways to move beyond their prison walls that hold them back from moving forward: Through the corridors of their prison, they observe the wealthy getting wealthier. They see the market system passing them at a fast rate of speed. Hope has long left the majority of them. There is a price that must be paid for the sins of those who have built these prisons. — Ellen J. Barrier

Every turning point in a person's life isn't reached by luck, they choose to be successful, they know what it takes to be there, they can do what is expected of them to do, they do not show trepidation about the requirements needed to be on top — Michael Bassey Johnson

You can change only what people know, not what they do. — Scott Adams

Be yourself! Don't be somebody! Be humble to authority, but be assertive! Mind your solemn duty and responsibility to the Supreme God, for you shall give account to Him in the end! You were created uniquely, mind your mind! Mind the things that can change your mindset, and mind people! People are always alert to do all things possible to change your mind set. They wish you become the reason for their joy even if it causes you an inner pain! They wish you halt a purposeful journey. They wish you look and see, hear and listen, think and act, as they do! Their joy is to see you being like them, and their sorrow and envy is to see you living your true you! Be yourself! If only you living your true you please God, no problem exists! Just be yourself and mind your mind! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I love you," "I was wrong," and "I apologize" are powerful words. They can save marriages, deepen friendships, and change lives. Don't be afraid to use them. — John Hawkins

Health and happiness improvements can be made by making tiny little adjustments over time. They don't need to be massive big shifts especially if they are unlikely to stay, and you don't have to wait for the start of a new year, new month, new week or even new day to make the change. — Julie Creffield

These are the best reasons to do anything in life. People who say things like this are the kind of people who change the world. Who prevent the world from ending. Or at least they can change the inner world of a reader and that is a sacred power. — Martine Leavitt

People are always dying. Its a terrible habit they have and nothing you can do will change that. — Sally Green

We don't often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes but I can see that that they are and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence. — Emma Watson

In any society, the artist has a responsibility. His effectiveness is certainly limited and a painter or writer cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of non-conformity alive. Thanks to them the powerful can never affirm that everyone agrees with their acts. That small difference is important. — Luis Bunuel

People are going to say what they want to say and think what they want to think, and I can't change their minds. — Hilary Duff

The reason I like incorporating the Yakuza into my movies - all their actions, everything they do, you can say 'It's ok because he's a Yakuza'. Changes happen very quickly in their world. If you were trying to make a movie about politicians, it would takes years and years for something to change; whereas for Yakuzas, it could only take one night and things can change dramatically. — Takashi Miike

Looking back, if I had to live my life over, there are things I would do differently, but the one thing I would not change is my charitable giving. I'm particularly thankful for my father's advice to set goals so high that they can't possibly be achieved during a lifetime and to give help where help is needed most. That inspiration keeps me energized and eager to keep working hard every day on giving back and making the world a better place for generations to come. — Ted Turner

Nothing is the universe's great storehouse and power plant. Laws give the universe order and stability, while possibilities give the universe dynamic creativity and change. Through the balance of these, the universe maintains its eternal dynamic harmony that provides all beings with the environment in which they can realize their potential value. — Ilchi Lee

If I had to wish for something, just one thing, it would be that Hannah would never see Tate the way I did. Never see Tate's beautiful, lush hair turn brittle, her skin sallow, her teeth ruined by anything she could get her hands on that would make her forget. That Hannah would never count how many men there were, or how vile humans can be to one another. That she would never see the moments in my life that were full of neglect, and fear, and revulsion, moments I can never go back to because I know they will slow me down for the rest of my life if I let myself remember them for one moment. Tate, who had kept Hannah alive that night, reading her the story of Jem Finch and Mrs. Dubose. And suddenly I know I have to go. But this time without being chased by the Brigadier, without experiencing the kindness of a postman from Yass, and without taking along a Cadet who will change the way I breath for the rest of my life. — Melina Marchetta

Anyone can complain, and they should have the right to, but if you want to see change you must act. Actions speak louder than words. Don't complain about things, change things. — Benjamin Franklin

The trouble with this country," he said, "is that the women have no guts.They'd rather slink off and have a dangerous, illegal operation performed than change the laws. The legislators are all men, and men don't bear babies; they can afford to be moralistic. — Michael Crichton

They did not know what we can now sense as we contemplate the course of history: that change begins in the soul before it shows in our lives ... — Franz Kafka

Typical comments from younger and "top talent" employees: "I want to know immediately if I need to change what I'm doing. I prefer managers who just walk in and tell what I need to do differently." "I can't believe that some managers wait for performance review to let people know they aren't good in a particular area. What's the holdup?" "Just lay it on me. I don't want to wait for feedback. And I want a manager who's open to my feedback, too." "I was hired in as a manager, a role I'd never had before. I'm lucky my boss pushes us to give more feedback to everyone - I get feedback on my feedback. My team is like a hungry beast. I feed them and they keep asking for more! — Anna Carroll

Because people like to hold onto their ideas of what you are and who you are. They put you in a box and no matter how hard you try to show them what you're really like, they can't wrap their heads around it. They won't. They only want you to be a certain way, the way they see you. To change that messes with their heads. — Karina Halle

Plans could change in a heartbeat, though, couldn't they? The wind shifts and the clouds rush in. The air sparks and hums, and before you can even think about running, you're standing in the middle of a storm. — Anne Francis Scott

...the experience of reading a novel has certain qualities that remind us of the traditional apprehension of mythology. It can be seen as a form of meditation. Readers have to live with a novel for days or even weeks. It projects them into another world, parallel to but apart from their ordinary lives. They know perfectly well that this fictional realm is not 'real' and yet while they are reading it becomes compelling. A powerful novel becomes part of the backdrop of our lives, long after we have laid the book asie. It is an exercise of make-believe that, like yoga or a religious festival, breaks down barriers of space and time and extends our sympathies, so that we are able to empathise with others lives and sorrows. It teaches compassion, the ability to 'feel with' others. And, like mythology, an important novel is transformative. If we allow it to do so, it can change us forever. — Karen Armstrong

The lyrics stand today (1980). They're still my feeling about politics. I want to see the plan. I want to know what you're going to do after you've knocked it all down. I mean, can't we use some of it? What's the point of bombing Wall Street? If you want to change the system, change the system. It's no good shooting people. — John Lennon

You can't rush the progression of a person. It has to be done in their own time. You can push a person to change, but the only time the change will stick is when it's something they want to achieve on their own. — Belle Aurora

Like Nadia, I wrestled with the evangelical tradition in which I was raised, often ungracefully. At times I've tried to wring the waters of my first baptism out of my clothes, shake them out of my hair, and ask for a do-over in some other community where they ordain women, vote for Democrats, and believe in evolution. But Jesus has this odd habit of allowing ordinary, screwed-up people to introduce him, and so it was ordinary, screwed-up people who first told me I was a beloved child of God, who first called me a Christian. I don't know where my story of faith will take me, but it will always begin here. That much can never change. — Rachel Held Evans