They Take Turns Quotes & Sayings

I heard on public radio recently, there's a thing called Weed Dating. Singles get together in a garden and weed and then they take turns, they keep matching up with other people. Two people will weed down one row and switch over with two other people. It's in Vermont. I don't think I'd be very good at Weed Dating. — Roy Blount Jr.

A Mystic And A Drunk

The Universe turns on an axis.
Let my soul circle around a table
like a beggar, like a planet
rolling in the vast, totally helpless and free.

The knight and the castle move jaggedly
about the chessboard, but they're actually
centered on the king. They circle.

If love is your center, a ring
gets put on your finger.

Something inside the moth
is made of fire.

A mystic touches the annihilating tip
of pure nothing.

A drunkard thinks peeing is absolution.
Lord, take these impurities from me.

The lord replies, First, understand
the nature of impurity. If your key is bent,
the lock will not open.

I fall silent.
King Shams has come.
Always when I close, he opens. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Life turns on small choices.
A last-minute decision to take a shortcut over a snowy pass.
A shrugging dismissal of the odd-looking man in the long coat standing off to one side.
A decision to postpone a physical exam till a less busy time.
A word spoken with the best intentions.
Looking back, after the lives are destroyed, the blood spilt, the families shattered, and even the courses of nations changed forever, the mistakes that started the doomsday clock ticking down often seem minor, even innocent-even virtuous. So easy to make.
David Eller would give anything-no, everything-to go back and undo those mistakes. But life does not give us that chance. Like everyone else, he has no choice but to dangle from the hand of that clock, trying in vain to pull them backward as they tick inexorably toward zero. — William Carmichael

When a power elite wants to destroy an enemy nation, it turns to propaganda experts to fashion a program of hate. What does it take for the citizens of one society to hate the citizens of another society to the degree that they want to segregate them, torment them, even kill them? It requires a "hostile imagination," a psychological construction embedded deeply in their minds by propaganda that transforms those others into "The Enemy." That image is a soldier's most powerful motive, one that loads his rifle with ammunition of hate and fear. The image of a dreaded enemy threatening one's personal well-being and the society's national security emboldens mothers and fathers to send sons to war and empowers governments to rearrange priorities to turn plowshares into swords of destruction. — Philip G. Zimbardo

They had wanted to go to the barn and brush the horses. If they brushed the horses and mucked out a few of the stalls then usually Ned would let them take turns riding the mare for the afternoon. But Albie was driving them crazy. What was he doing that was so intolerable? Standing here in front of him now, Franny couldn't remember. Or maybe he wasn't doing anything wrong. Maybe it was just that someone had to watch him around the horses and none of them wanted to do it. He wasn't the monster they told him he was, in fact there wasn't anything so awful about him. It was only that he was a little kid. — Ann Patchett

Lily has never gotton used to being alone. They turn in the water and turn again, then Ambrose lifts her above the surface once more and the creek rains down from her. He lays her gently on her back and her heart breaks. Her tears begin to flow because he is leaving - don't go! He sinks into the water on his back - take me with you! His body turns white again and shimmers into segments until all the pieces disappear. Lily lies face down at right angles to the creek, her head hanging over the edge, arms outstretched towards the spot where she last saw her brother. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

Cards and boards, [Johnny] thought. And the dead. That's not dark forces. Making a fuss about cards and heavy metal and going on about Dungeons and Dragons stuff because it's got demon gods in it is like guarding to door when it is really coming up through the floorboards. Real dark forces ... aren't dark. They're sort of gray, like Mr. Grimm. They take all the color out of life; they take a town like Blackbury and turn it into frightened streets and plastic signs and Bright New Futures and towers where no one wants to live and no one really does live. The dead seem more alive than us. And everyone becomes gray and turns into numbers and then, somewhere, someone starts to do arithmetic ... — Terry Pratchett

She glanced up with a cheerful grin. "We'll be like a Rounders team."
Annabelle regarded her skeptically. "You're referring to the game in which gentlemen take turns whacking a leather ball with a flat-sided bat?"
"Not only gentlemen," Lillian replied. "In New York, ladies may play also, as long as they don't forget themselves in the excitement."
Daisy smiled slyly. "Such as the time Lillian became so incensed by a bad call that she pulled a sanctuary post out of the ground."
"It was already loose," Lillian protested. "A loose post could have presented a danger to one of the runners."
"Particularly while you were hurling it at them," Daisy said, meeting her older sister's frown with a sweet smirk. — Lisa Kleypas

The rest of the letters were pretty much the same as I got every day now. Two hundred and forty-six proposals, a number of them for marriage. Almost five hundred photographs taken in various stages of undress, the majority in the last. Several invitations to strange places where they wring the necks of chickens and take turns beating each other with whips, etc. (In case any of these correspondents may chance to read my book, I'd like to just say this to them: Doubtless you are sincere in what you do, but it does strike me that more useful pursuits could be found for grown people to spend their time at.) — Kenneth Patchen

If leaders don't know how to put their words into action, if they follow the wrong paths and take the wrong turns, then their sense of moral purpose can quickly give way to cynicism, frustration, and fading commitment. — Viviane Robinson

At the rate the Kings were finding mates, they were going to have to take turns eating supper because not everyone would fit at the table. — Donna Grant

Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?" I tease.

His joking manner stops suddenly and turns serious. "Charlie, I'm not worried because when you want to be with someone, you will do everything in your power to make it happen. I will have dinner with your parents tomorrow night, and they will love me. Do you know why?"

All I could do was shake my head.

"Because all it will take is to have dinner with me for one evening, to see that I am completely and utterly lost and crazy about their daughter, and that I would never, ever do anything to hurt her. — Heather Gunter

Hand in hand, we head for the kiss and cry. Today, we're going to kiss. Sometimes, we'll cry. There'll be broken tree branches. Misunderstandings and crash landings. It turns out all relationships are like Axels. They take a leap of faith and they have their ups and downs.
But it's not about falling, it's about what you do after the fall. Whatever happens, we'll pick ourselves u. Brush ourselves off. And circle around for another attempt. — Katie Van Ark

Vadim smiled. "I'm not meeting him. We'll be friends."
Dan still didn't say anything, just nodded, the smile still there, then turned and walked through the living room and onto the patio, all the way through the French windows. Looking out over the old orchard and the mountains when Vadim got to his side, reaching over to take Dan's hand. Worth it. A thousand times. Any sacrifice, from the small ones to the big ones, and Dan turns his head, looking fully at him, while the smile grew. He didn't need to say anything, didn't have to voice the "I love you". It was there, unsaid, yet outspoken.
Fourteen years, they didn't come cheap. — Aleksandr Voinov

There is a belief that children drop out of school because they're needed by their families to work, or the little girls are needed to take care of younger siblings. It turns out that's not really true. — Nicholas Negroponte

On un-being in an imaginary real 'lationship:

When you relive, the past, unkind,
you cannot see - you're simply blind.
Emotions - ages take to settle,
and love is fiercer than a kettle.

And in the desert, late at night
Your friends, you get to bite
The laws - they force you to a fight
The stone to glass turns - what a sight

At times I sit, and sit, and think.
What could be better than a drink?
The answer, I think, is a link...
To just one woman - just her wink.

It hurts when it hurts,
but the aching will pass.
At some point, it deserts,
all the hearts, of bent glass. — Will Advise

I think it was this: like most of us, he was carrying a misery in his soul. I don't say it to forgive what he done, [sic] only to say it as true as I can. He was a wrong-minded man, but inside- I swear this is true- he was always that little boy eating that fried-egg sandwich in that dark hallway while the steam pipe dripped water on his head. I don't ask you to excuse him, only to understand that there's people who don't have what others do, and sometimes they get hurtful in their hearts, and they puff themselves up and try all sorts of schemes to level the ground- to get the bricks and joints all plumb, Ray used to say. They take wrong turns, hit dead ends, and sometimes they never make their way back. ~Clare — Lee Martin

Look, I like gritty. I write gritty. There is a time and a place for gritty. I'll take my Batman gritty, thank you, and I will acknowledge that such a portrayal means that my 11-year-old has to wait before he sees The Dark Knight. But if Hollywood turns out a Superman movie that I can't take him to? They've done something wrong. — Greg Rucka

My face, my self, what would they mean to anybody? Just another stiff. So this self of mine passes some other's self on the street - what do we have to say to each other? Hey there! Hi ya!
That's about it. Nobody raises a hand. No one turns around to take another look. — Haruki Murakami

Growing up the son of a director has made me very aware of the various turns that a directing career can take. Sometimes your films turn out exactly as you want. Sometimes they don't. I spent a lot of my childhood on sets. I think as a joke, my father gave me a line of dialogue in each of his films during the worst moments of my puberty. — Jason Reitman

It's like this old patchwork quilt my momma used to have ... Each piece on that quilt meant something. And some of those pieces were the damn ugliest things you've ever seen ... But some of the pieces were so beautiful they almost hurt my eyes to look at when I was a kid ... That's the best you can hope for, Danny. That your life turns out like that patchwork quilt. That you can add some bright, sparkling pieces to the dirty, stained ones you have so far. That in the end, the bright patches might take up more space on your quilt than the dark ones. — Brooke McKinley

She turns on her laptop, raises her spectacles to her face. She reads the day's headlines. But they might be from any day. A click can take her from breaking news to articles archived years ago. At every moment the past is there, appended to the present. It's a version of Bela's definition, in childhood, of yesterday. — Jhumpa Lahiri

It turns out that it's a waste of absolute political power to simply throw undocumented aliens over the border. When you have a group of people who have no rights at all, the more inspired corporate solution is to extract as much value from them as possible. That can be money, that can be property, and if they don't have either of those things left, you take their time and labor. — Matt Taibbi

As it turns out, people who cut their work hours often take a smaller hit financially than they expect. That is because spending less time on the job means spending less money on the things that allow us to work: transport, parking, eating out, coffee, convenience food, childcare, laundry, retail therapy. A smaller income also translates into a smaller tax bill. In one Canadian study, some workers who took a pay cut in return for shorter hours actually ended up with more money in the bank at the end of the month. — Carl Honore

Take faith, for example. For many people in our world, the opposite of faith is doubt. The goal, then, within this understanding, is to eliminate doubt. But faith and doubt aren't opposites. Doubt is often a sign that your faith has a pulse, that it's alive and well and exploring and searching. Faith and doubt aren't opposites, they are, it turns out, excellent dance partners. — Rob Bell

Who knew there were still people like that in this world, though? Everybody wants to talk about themselves, and everybody wants to hear everybody else's story, so we take turns playing reporter and celebrity. 'It must have made you very sad when your own father raped you - can you describe some of your feelings at the time? Yes, I wept and wept, wonder why something like this had to happen to me'. It's like that. Everyone's running around comparing wounds, like bodybuilders showing off their muscles. And what's really unbelievable is that they really believe they can heal the wounds like that, just by putting them on display. — Ryu Murakami

I was always amazed at Cambridge how quickly people appeared to take offence at everything I said, but now I see plainly that it was not my words they hated - it was this fairy face. The dark alchemy of this face turns all my gentle human emotions into fierce fairy vices. Inside I am all despair, but this face shows only fairy scorn. My remorse becomes fairy fury and my pensiveness is turned to fairy cunning. — Susanna Clarke

They won't take the time to see that Gem's claws aren't extended, that his arms are gentle around me, or that my fingers linger over his. They won't notice that I lean into him, not away, or that my head turns to look over my shoulder, bringing my cheek so near his mouth that his silent breath warms my skin. They would never in a thousand years imagine that my eyes slide closed and a shiver runs through me not because I fear for my life but because Gem's body is pressed against mine, because his hand on my belly makes it ache, because the longing to taste him is stronger than it was before ...
I would kiss him until I was breathless. — Stacey Jay

And we need this. It could save us a year. Without it all we got is a regular manhunt. For a guy already four months AWOL, with a brand-new foreign passport. Instead of that we could have a Saudi kid in a pink shirt and pointed shoes lead us directly to him. Right here and now. Who wouldn't take that deal? The future means nothing if we don't live to see it." "So you broke the law, but only because you thought you had a good reason. You and everyone else. There are lots of good reasons. Too many good reasons. Which is why we have a special structure, to decide between them, when they compete one against the other. That structure is called the National Security Council. We weigh things up and we judge priorities. You just blew a year's hard work, major. You should resign. Before the after-action report comes out. You'll get a better deal that way." "OK," Reacher said. "I will, if it turns out bad. — Lee Child

Ali and the woman whose baby crawled out on the roof


A woman comes to Ali. My baby has crawled out on the roof near

the water drain, where I cannot go. He won't listen to me. I talk, but he doesn't understand

language. I make gestures. I show him my breast, but he turns away. What can I do?

Take another baby his age up to the roof. The woman does, and the child sees his friend and

crawls away from the edge. The prophets are human for this reason, that we may see them

and delight in their friendly presence, and crawl away from the downspout. Muhammad calls himself

a man like you. Likeness is a great drawing force. Those of mean dispositions learn hatred

from each other, and they try to draw others in. Anyone whose haystack has burned

does not enjoy seeing someone else's candle lit. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Admittedly they had a lot to take in, between the whole Jack-is-a-psychopath-who-wanted-me-to-destroy-a-species thing, and also the turns-out-I'm-less-human-than-we-thought thing. — Kiersten White

They say there are no stupid questions. That's obviously wrong; I think my question about hard and soft things, for example, is pretty stupid. But it turns out that trying to thoroughly answer a stupid question can take you to some pretty interesting places. — Randall Munroe

What the creeping crud is that?" [Percy] demanded. "You're inside a giant glowing chicken-man!"
"Hawk!" I yelled.
I decided that if I survived this day I would have to make sure this guy never met Sadie. They'd probably take turns insulting me for the rest of eternity. — Rick Riordan

That Bhagavad Gita instruction to be unattached to the fruits of your actions is the key. If you are a parent raising a child, don't get attached to the act of raising the child. That doesn't mean you're not a loving, active parent. Your job is to love and nurture, feed and clothe, take care and guard the safety of the child, and guide him or her with your moral compass. But how the child turns out is how the child turns out. Ultimately he or she is not your child; who they turn out to be is up to God and their own karma. Your — Ram Dass

People change for each other all the time. Take any love story, any great love story at all, and you'll see that people have to be willing to change if they're going to make things work out. Like Shrek, when Fiona tells Shrek that she's sick of his burping and farting and everything. And Shrek's like, 'I'm an ogre. Deal with it.' And Fiona says, 'What if I can't?' So Shrek takes that potion that turns him into a hunky prince. He does it out of love for Fiona. — Lauren Myracle

Music is important. It says things you heart can't say any other way, and in a language everyone speaks. Music crosses borders, turns smiles into frowns, and vice versa. These observations are shared with a hope: that, when schools cut back on music classes, they really think about what they're doing - and don't take music for granted. — Dan Rather

John glances at me. "We're not going to make it." Between us, Day has faded into a semiconscious state. If the brothers continue on and I run back to fight the soldiers, I'll probably only take down a few before they overwhelm me. They'll still reach John and Day.
John stops walking, and I feel Day's weight shift over to me. "What - " I begin to say, until I see John pull the blindfold off of Day's neck. Then he turns around. My eyes widen. I know what he's going to do. "No, stay with us!"
"You need more time," John says. "They want an execution? They'll get one." He starts running away from us. Back down the hall. — Marie Lu

Would have to make sure this guy never met Sadie. They'd probably take turns insulting me for the rest of eternity. A little help here? — Rick Riordan

Each February/March the entire country takes a "ski week". The schools shut down, parents take off work, dogs go to the in-laws, and Finland's middle and upper classes go on holiday. But not all at once. They can't have the entire country gandala-ing up to Lapland at one time (AVALANCHES!). So the country takes turns. The best region goes first: Southern Finland. Then the second best: Central Finland. Then the reindeer herders and forest people take a week off from unemployment and go last: Northern Finland. — Phil Schwarzmann

By the time Kevin picks me up and we get seated at the restaurant, I'm so famished I'm ready to eat my napkin. Instead, I point across the room and say, "Look, doesn't that girl look like Becky Brady from high school?" And as he turns to take a gander, I grab a roll and stuff it into my purse. I try the trick once more and by the time I have secreted away two rolls with pats of butter, I excuse myself to use the ladies room. I sit on the toilet and devour them both in seconds. They are the best thing I've ever eaten and I would kill to have the remaining two here in the bathroom with me. Yet once the initial euphoria of my crime wears off, I immediately feel guilty. — Whitney Dineen

One of my goals is to inspire people to be all that they can be and, hopefully, be a good example and teach some useful, interesting principles. Perhaps I can be the key that turns on the engine in their life, and then they can take their car where they want. — Mark Victor Hansen

Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out. You're curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go. — Randall Munroe

Take the sailor," he said. "he signs on to a new ship. He's surrounded by nothing but strangers. Not only do they come from other towns and parts of his own country, but often from completely different nations. He has to learn to work with them. His vocabulary's broadened, he learns new words and grammar, and he comes across new ways of thinking. he turns into a different man, unlike the one who spends his life plowing the same old furrow. These are the men the world needs, not nationalists and warmongers. — Carsten Jensen

Today, free agency takes away a lot of your heroes, they go somewhere else. Some of them don't but a lot of them do-take the higher offer to go somewhere else. And, it turns the fans off because they get attached to the players. — Bob Lilly

SEA OF LIFE

This is not the end, my friend.
Just as the ocean sings songs to infinity
Our friendship too will flow onward
Until the day one of us
Turns and leaves
And the seasons will turn too
As our shells
As they return back to sand
And the tides that brought us
Forth
Will take us back
Again.

I will never leave you, my friend.
Every time you see a wave rushing to
Meet another,
Two friends unite.
Every time you see a wave crashing,
Two friends depart.
The journey will go on, my friend.
Our memories are recorded
In seashells
To show and tell
The lessons learned
In these heavens and hells
Part of this sea of life -
And when the tide is right,
We shall cross paths again
When the ocean sings our song.

Poetry by Suzy Kassem — Suzy Kassem

Some people just come in, do it and they know it's right. It turns out better than you imagined it was going to sound. When that happens, you take it as a gift. — Jules Shear

You do the easy thing, the appealing thing, the peaceful thing, mostly it turns sour in the end. But if you take the hard path - ah, that's how you reap the sweet rewards. Duty. Sacrifice. They mean something. — Rick Riordan

Love and hatred don't take turns; they exist side by side at the same time. And one's duty, one's obligation every day, is to choose to follow the nobler one. — Jamaica Kincaid

I sit by the window and watch the rain and the leaves and the snow collide. They take turns dancing in the wind, performing choreographed routines for unsuspecting masses. The soldiers stomp stomp stomp through the rain, crushing leaves and fallen snow under their feet. Their hands are wrapped in gloves wrapped around guns that could put a bullet through a million possibilities. They don't bother to be bothered by the beauty that falls from the sky. They don't understand the freedom in feeling the universe on their skin. They don't care. — Tahereh Mafi

Talk to strangers
when the family fails and friends lead you astray
when Buddha laughs and Jesus weeps and it turns out God is gay.
'Cause angels and messiahs love can come in many forms:
in the hallways of your projects, or the fat girl in your dorm,
and when you finally take the time to see what they're about
perhaps you find them lonely or their wisdom trips you out. — Saul Williams

What's happened now, in this new era of settlements and nonprosecutions, is that the state has formally surrendered to its own excuses. It has decided just to punt from the start and take the money, which doesn't become really wrong until it turns around the next day and decides to double down on the less-defended, flooring it all the way to trial against a welfare mom or some joker who sold a brick of dope in the projects. Repeat the same process a few million times, and that's how the jails in America get the population they have. Even if every single person they sent to jail were guilty, the system would still be an epic fail - it's the jurisprudential version of Pravda, where the facts in the paper might have all been true on any given day, but the lie was all in what was not said. — Matt Taibbi

The Ukraine is still under Russian influence, even if they did give us independence. Ethnic Russians number 22% of our population. The facts remain they will control us economically. We will continue to owe them monetarily for the natural gas, the petroleum and all other industrial tools we need. After they've exhausted our scant resources and we have run up large bills, they will just walk right back in and take us over again. Monitor it closely in the years to come, Nicholas, you will see I am right. It could be easy to disregard this movement of mine, if it weren't for the queer twists and turns history takes from time to time. — Nicholas Anderson

He's made himself a rabbit-skin cap, Jim, and a rabbit-skin collar that he buttons on outside his coat. They ain't got but one overcoat among 'em over there, and they take turns wearing it. They seem awful scared of cold, and stick in that hole in the bank like badgers. — Willa Cather

They Take Turns Using a Word They Like "It's extraordinary," says one woman. — Lydia Davis

Going by my past journey, I am not certain where life will take me, what turns and twists will happen; nobody knows where they will end up. As life changes direction, I'll flow with it. — Katrina Kaif

We are three quarters of a mile in the depths of the earth, and the great river shrinks into insignificance, as it dashes its angry waves against the walls and cliffs, that rise to the world above; they are but puny ripples, and we but pigmies, running up and down the sands, or lost among the boulders. We have an unknown distance yet to run; an unknown river yet to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls rise over the river, we know not. Powell wasn't overstating their ignorance. At this point, they had no clear idea how far they had come or how much canyon lay ahead of them. They did not know how many turns the river would make, how many rapids there might be, or whether their supplies would sustain them through the time it would take to negotiate these obstacles. And they had no way of knowing that their most serious challenges lay ahead. Just — Kevin Fedarko

There are three things you must remember about a woman. Never take her for granted. Never think you know what she is thinking. And never think you know what she will do in a given situation. A woman is like smoke. She will curl seductively around you one moment, burn your eyes the next, tickle your throat until you cough, and then poof! She is gone. She is a mirage. She is a thunderstorm. She is a sailboat on a sunny mirrored lake. She will run when you reach for her, and come to you when you wish her away. You can solve a problem. You can analyze logic. You can explain how vapor turns into water. But you cannot understand the mind of a woman. And do you know why? Because she does not understand herself."
"Then what do you do?"
"You love her and deal with her in all honesty. You earn her trust. And then you trust the Almighty, who made women the way they are, believing that He knew what He was doing."
"What if that doesn't help?"
"Blame Him. — Elaine Coffman

I like Saturdays. They are my best thinking days. It is my day to try to find that one special thought that turns into an idea that I remember forever and becomes a part of who I am, like a freckle or a finger or an ear. Even before I open my eyes I take a deep breath and try to picture something, anything, as if my brain were a keyhole where I can spy on my future. So each Saturday morning I try to find a little piece of a thought, and then I keep turning it over in my mind until it turns into a complete idea and at the end of the day when I'm lying in bed I put the whole thought into a little room in my head so I can remember it. — Jack Gantos

Here is Thomas Kuhn, the philosopher of science, describing the way scientists react when their pet theories are unraveling: "What scientists never do when confronted by even severe and prolonged anomalies," Kuhn wrote, " ... . [is] renounce the paradigm that led them into crisis." Instead, he concluded, "A scientific theory is declared invalid only if an alternate candidate is available to take its place." That is, scientific theories very seldom collapse under the weight of their own inadequacy. They topple only when a new and seemingly better belief turns up to replace it. — Kathryn Schulz

People do that - cling to their past because it's the only thing they consider safe. Trying something new or just accepting it turns their livers into jelly. But that's a load of bollocks. Ye take the new and appreciate it if it's good, like whiskey or poutine or girlfriends who bite, or ye dismiss it as shite if it's bad, like cell phones and cars, and move on. O — Kevin Hearne

Dad had this story. A Marine and a Navy guy walk into a bathroom together. They both take a piss, and then sailor goes to the sink. The Marine heads for the door, and the sailor says, "Hey- in the Navy they teach us to wash up after we take a leak." And the Marine turns around and says, "Yeah? Well, in the Marines they teach us not to piss on our hands. — Keith R.A. DeCandido

We can take our parenting fears to Christ. In fact, if we don't, we'll take our fears out on our kids. Fear turns some parents into paranoid prison guards who monitor every minute, check the background of every friend. They stifle growth and communicate distrust. A family with no breathing room suffocates a child. On the other hand, fear can also create permissive parents. For fear that their child will feel too confined or fenced in, they lower all boundaries. High on hugs and low on discipline. They don't realize that appropriate discipline is an expression of love. Permissive parents. Paranoid parents. How can we avoid the extremes? We pray. — Max Lucado

When the subject turns to abortion, cosmetic intervention, birth, motherhood, sex, love, work, misogyny, fear, or just how you feel in your own skin, women still won't often tell the truth to each other unless they are very, very drunk. Perhaps the endlessly reported rise in female binge-drinking is simply modern women's attempt to communicate with each other. Or maybe it is because Sancerre is so very delicious. To be honest, I'll take bets on either. — Caitlin Moran

Bad guys are selfish and cruel. All they do is take and take until you're left empty. But a bad boy is different. He can be reckless and a little dangerous, but he challenges you and gets you to take risks. He pushes you beyond what's comfortable and safe, into something exciting and new. It forces you to truly embrace life instead of settling. And sometimes, just sometimes, that bad boy turns out to be a real good man. — Stephanie Hoffman McManus

Libraries' most powerful asset is the conversation they provide - between books and readers, between children and parents, between individuals and the collective world. Take them away and those voices turn inwards or vanish. Turns out that libraries have nothing at all to do with silence. — Bella Bathurst

All time is mean young man. It takes and does not give, it rushes when you wish it would linger and drags when you wish is would fly. It flows sullenly, only in one direction, when it might take a thousand turns. You cannot get anything back once time has taken it. Time cheats and steals and lies and kills. If anyone could arrest it, they would have time behind bars faster than you can check your watch. — Catherynne M Valente

You know, you take a little infant and you turn on the music mobile on their crib and you find that if you give them a music mobile which turns on automatically versus a music mobile in which - if by chance their little legs or their little hands accidentally touches it - turns on they're so much more excited if by chance it turns on because they touched it, so that desire for control over their environment is ... really appears from very early on and if you look at children's first words, "no, yes." — Sheena Iyengar

Everyone is wondering where the Royal twins are, since they happened to miss Grom's kingship ceremony. At least I had the good sense to hold a private mating ceremony-in view of Rayna's absence and all."
Galen scowls. "He's right. We need to go home for a few days. Our father isn't as protective as your mother, but he likes to see us once in a while. Especially Rayna. She's spoiled."
Rayna nods. "It's true. I am. Besides, I need to get our mating-seal overturned."
"Aw, princess, I thought we had a good time today. You know I'll make sure you're still spoiled. Why would you want to unseal us?" Toraf says. She lets him take some of her load but turns up her nose at his attempt to kiss her cheek.
Galen ignores their marriage meltdown. — Anna Banks

My Mother

My mother was not educated but she was the best teacher I've ever had in my entire life. She had what it's called natural wisdom, bless her precious soul. Here some of her teachings: Human Values:
Love: Learn to love because everything that's based on love has a deep rooted foundation.
Kindness: Be kind all the time but never let anyone take advantage of your kindness.
Peace: Learn to have peace with yourself when the world turns against you because it starts with you.
Honesty: Be honest to yourself and then to the others.
Respect: Respect others and they will respect you.
Openness: Be always transparent especially when you are hurting. Never pretend that it's all okay.
Loyalty: Always be loyal to your family and make sure your family comes before anything else.
She taught me to learn to compose myself when life gets tough and unfair to me.

I love you mama & Happy Mothers Day — Euginia Herlihy

To make the quickest progress, you don't have to take huge leaps. You just have to take baby steps-and keep on taking them. In Japan, they call this approach kaizen, which literally translates as 'continual improvement.' Using kaizen, great and lasting success is achieved through small, consistent steps. It turns out that slow and steady is the best way to overcome your resistance to change. — Marci Shimoff