Things Break Down Quotes & Sayings

What the poet does is as ordinary and mysterious as digesting. I question. I break life down. I impose chaos on order. For instance, we think we know how food is ingested, digested, divided into energy and excrement. The neat theory, however, is one thing; control of the process is another; consciousness of the process yet another. Are we aware of protein in the stomach being acted on by pepsin, the appropriate enzyme? Digestion, thinking and breathing are all functions we perform without knowing how we perform them. The body is a dark continent. The mind is another. So I can say very little about what I do. I accept nothing as read. I attack the pretence that we know how things work, whether they happen to be the action of saliva or sexual love from adolescence to old age. — Craig Raine

So why a book? Well, since you've come into my life, you've been a constant source of entertainment while simultaneously driving me insane. I felt I had to write down my observations about you in a book. And also for money, so you could eat and continue to break things. — Jim Gaffigan

Personally, I'm not much for symbolism. I never get it. Why can't things be just as they are? I never thought to psychoanalyze Seymour Glass or sought to break down "Desolation Row." I just wanted to get lost, become one with somewhere else, slip a wreath on a steeple top solely because I wished it. — Patti Smith

There has to be blame and there has to be reasons and there has to be answers and if nobody can adequately accept the blame and give a sufficient reason and provide an answer, the love, no matter how strong it is, the family, no matter how tight it is, the life, no matter how good it is, will always buckle, then snap, then drown completely under the pressure of itself, the reality of the mistrust, and the weight of its own history, because if there are no answers, the blame and the guilt become stronger than the love and those two things together become a force that no amount of love can ever break down and overcome. — Jason Myers

To go back to architecture, what's organic about architecture as a field, unlike product design, is this whole issue of holism and of monumentality is really our realm. Like, we have to design things which are coherent as a single object, but also break down into small rooms and have an identity of both the big scale and the small scale. — Greg Lynn

Phase one, my dear, is find your inner hoochie mama."
"Ahh, I get it." Sally nodded. "It's all about embracing your inner skank."
Jen shook her head. "I think the air is thinner here because you two are clearly not getting enough oxygen to the brain."
"Oh, come on. Give us a break. Out of all of us, you've got inner skank-embracing down to an art form," Sally told her.
"True, very true, Sally. I am expert on all things skank. — Quinn Loftis

We don't do well with infinity and endless possibility, and so we break things down into individual units and into stories. And then we accidentally believe in those stories, and we accidentally start acting them out. Stories about what love is, what happiness is. What men are, what women are. Unable to shape our own stories about the madness that surrounds us, we get infected with other people's stories, trying to ignore the discomfort that comes with an imperfect fit. — Jessa Crispin

Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be. — Charles Jones

Intelligence is not necessarily a good thing, something to value or cultivate. It's more like a fifth wheel - necessary or desirable when things break down. When things go well, it's better to be stupid ... Stupidity is as much a value as intelligence. — Susan Sontag

I guess it's going to have to hurt, I guess I'm going to have to cry, And let go of some things I've loved to get to the other side
I guess it's going to break me down, Like fallin when you try to fly,
Sad but sometimes moving on with the rest of your life starts with goodbye — Carrie Underwood

Humans are great optimizers. We look at everything around us, whether a cow, a house, or a share portfolio, and ask ourselves how we can manage it to get the best return. Our modus operandi is to break the things we're managing down into its component parts and understand how each part functions and what inputs will yield the greatest outputs . . . [but] the more you optimize elements of a complex system of humans and nature for some specific goal, the more you diminish that system's resilience. A drive for efficient optimal state outcome has the effect of making the total system more vulnerable to shocks and disturbances. — Stanley McChrystal

It's only when you look closely that things seem to break down. — David Peak

The third klesha says that even with a healthy self-image we recoil from things that threaten our egos. These threats exist everywhere. I am afraid of being poor, of losing my spouse, of breaking the law. I am afraid to shame myself before anyone whose respect I want to keep. For some people, the thought of their children turning out badly is a deep threat to their own sense of self. "We don't do that in this family" is usually code for "Your behavior threatens who I am." But people don't recognize that they are speaking in code. Once I have identified with my self-image, the fear that it might break down is instinctive. The need to protect myself from what I fear is part of who I am. — Deepak Chopra

I think the best thing to try to do is allow your daughter or your son to know that they can come to you for anything. If you can break down that wall so they don't feel embarrassed by telling you things, that's half the battle. — Channing Tatum

This is Malaya. Everything takes a long, a very long time, in Malaya. Things get done, occasionally, but more often they don't, and the more in a hurry you are, the quicker you break down. — Han Suyin

I think comics is a really good way to talk about skepticism and atheism and things like that ... it was easy to tell those stories and, I think, helpful to some people to tell them in comic form. Using visuals makes it easier to break stuff down and makes it somewhat easier to understand. — Box Brown

I love comedy and I would write things to myself as an exercise in writing. I didn't do well for years, and I quit. I started to break down why I was afraid and started to look at people I admired, like Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Freddie Prinze, George Carlin and all. — George Lopez

In any offense you put me in, when things break down, I'm going to get outside the pocket and move ... West Coast, East Coast. It doesn't matter. I'm taking off if I have to, to make things happen. — Michael Vick

Entropy is one of the laws of thermodynamics. It's a physical law that says everything in nature is moving from order to disorder. In our lives this same principle is at work. As time moves on, things break down as we make mistakes. This is the 'letdown' every person experiences because of sin. For Christians this concept doesn't end there because we realize God's 'beautiful' mercy and grace restores the order in our lives. — Jon Foreman

Sometimes, there aren't any good choices. Sometimes, making the right one is hard ... It's funny, but when you think about it, we're all broken. That's what life does. It knocks you down and breaks you and you either get back up again, or you don't. You either do things on your terms, or you don't. You let the bad things win, or you don't."
"You either let it break you, or you don't. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Procrastination is a common reaction to feeling overwhelmed or fear of failure. Instead of taking on too much at once and overwhelming yourself, break things down and take one small action step at a time. — Lauren Mackler

No one can break me down. I know my worth and its a beautiful thing. — Iggy Azalea

At moments when life is at its worst there are two things you can do:
1.) break down,lose hope and refuse to go on while lying face down on the ground banging your fists and kicking your legs, or 2.) laugh. Bobby and I did the latter. — Cecelia Ahern

As competitive as I am, I want to get the best of a play and make sure to use it's full potential even when things break down. But sometimes you need to just say 'uncle' and let it go and avoid a hit. — Mark Sanchez

Writing is not magic. It's a craft, a process, a set of steps. As with any process, things sometimes break down. Even in a good story, the writer runs into problems. So the act of writing always includes problem solving. — Roy Peter Clark

However, I think that sometimes when shows do, you know, have a good season or a bad season, it comes down to something as simple as the crop of contestants that year, and do they break through in a way that makes the audience excited. Those are the kinds of things that tend to make a difference, more so than tweaks to the format and that sort of stuff, as much as we, obviously, would all like to try to assume that it's in our power. — Dan Cutforth

If we had loads of money as a family, things would be different and they'd come to visit more and I'd get to spend more time here. But I'm laying down roots in America so when I'm there, just being at home, it's harder to break away from that. — Rick Allen

She knew. She knew how quickly things could break. You did the things you could. You tended to the world for the world's sake. You hoped you would be safe. But still she knew. It could come crashing down and there was nothing you could do. — Patrick Rothfuss

There is a huge set of consequences that start stacking up as you approach the end-game. And
even in terms of the ending itself, it continues to break down to
some very large decisions. So it's not like a ****c game ending
where everything is linear and you make a choice between a few things
- it really does layer in many, many different choices, up to the
final moments, where it's going to be different for everyone who
plays it. — Ray Muzyka

Everything starts to break down, however, when a species gains language. What we talk about isn't what we experience - we speak chiefly of interesting things, and those tend to be things that are uncommon. — Brian Christian

Decebel pulled Jen close in a show of gentleness that she was beginning to notice he only displayed to her. "You don't always have to be the strong one."
"That's where you're wring, Dec. I do, for them. Sally, Lilly, and at times even Fane. I have to be the one who believes so strongly that we will get her back that I can be sarcastic. That I have the luxury of bringing humor be it light or dark into this majorly messed up situation. And not that we will just get her back, but that we will get her back whole. There are worse things than death to a woman, Decebel. — Quinn Loftis

I honestly think in order to be a writer, you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here? Let's think of reverence as awe, as presence in and openness to the world. The alternative is that we stultify, we shut down. Think of those times when you've read prose or poetry that is presented in such a way that you have a fleeting sense of being startled by beauty or insight, by a glimpse into someone's soul. All of a sudden everything seems to fit together or at least to have some meaning for a moment. This is our goal as writers, I think; to help others have this sense of
please forgive me
wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in on our small, bordered worlds. — Anne Lamott

Every time he studied this instrument, with its slender, gleaming steel rod that tapered down to such needle-like sharpness, he wondered why it was necessary to have things like this in the world. If it were truly only for chopping ice, you'd think a completely different design might do. The people who produce and sell things like this don't understand, he thought. They don't realize that some of us break out in a cold sweat at just a glimpse of that shiny, pointed tip. — Ryu Murakami

I'm someone that examines culture and tries to break down why things are the way that they are whether its hip-hop music, sex, race, or consumerism. I try to examine it and scrutinize it to the point where I can write a song. — Macklemore

As we grow up we learn that even the person that wasnt supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it gets harder every time. Youll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. Youll fight with your best friend. Youll blame a new love for things an old one did. Youll cry because time is passing too fast, and youll eventually lose someone you love, so take many pictures, laugh too much and love like youve never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is one minute of happiness youll never get back. — Andy Biersack

I do not remember very many things from the inside out. I do not remember what it felt like to touch things, or how bathwater traveled over my skin. I did not like to be touched, but it was a strange dislike. I did not like to be touched because I craved it too much. I wanted to be held very tight so I would not break. Even now, when people lean down to touch me, or hug me, or put a hand on my shoulder, I hold my breath. I turn my face. I want to cry. — Marya Hornbacher

When one's stomach is as fluttery as all that, it is nice to take a short break to lie down and perhaps sip a fizzy beverage, but there was no time for such things. — Lemony Snicket

When you're a young man like yourself, life is full of wonders. Everything new. Everything an adventure. But as the years roll on, things become ordinary. Colors lose their vibrance. Stars lose their glitter. You become less in awe of the world. It loses its magic.

I don't see this as a painful thing. I think it's a mercy. I believe it's all just so it makes it easier to let the whole thing go when it's our time to pass on. But when you've lived as long as I have, the weight of the years and the tarnished luster of the world can break you down. And it's hard to be alive and be so broken. — Eric Powell

He'd wanted to - he didn't know. Break bottles. Break windows, crash cars. Burn down the world. Find solace at the bottom of countless more bottles of wine, this time consumed in solitude. In the end he did none of these things; while he knew the shapes and forms of rage and grief, he had, in truth, nothing more than gentleness inside to sustain him. — Michael Montoure

Revive your inner spirit! Break free from all things weighing you down, grab hold of your strong rope and lift yourself out of hopelessness! — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

We used to write this down by saying, 'move fast and break things.' And the idea was, unless you are breaking some stuff you are not moving fast enough. I think there's probably something in that for other entrepreneurs to learn which is that making mistakes is okay. At the end of the day, the goal of building something is to build something, not to not make mistakes. — Mark Zuckerberg

After my parents divorced, I realized that my father's absence from my life was, sadly, a good thing. There weren't any more violent scenes," I said. "I mean, imagine my life if I'd been raised by my father." "Imagine your life if you'd had a father who loved you as a father should," Vince countered. I tried to imagine such a thing, but my mind could not be forced to do it. I couldn't break it down into a list. I couldn't land on love or security, confidence or a sense of belonging. A father who loved you as a father should was greater than his parts. He was like the whirl of white on the YOU ARE HERE poster behind Vince's head. He was one giant inexplicable thing that contained a million other things, and because I'd never had one, I feared I'd never find myself inside that great white swirl. — Cheryl Strayed

I think the better the show usually it means that you've got a lot of good people, because it's sustaining itself. If there's negative energy, things tend to break down ultimately. — Peter Jacobson

Do you ever have days like that when nothing can go wrong? And then there are the days when can go right, Paula continued. When your hair won't lie down properly, and your stockings develop ladders at the worst possible moment, or your suspender breaks, and buttons fly off your gloves. When you say the wrong things to the wrong people, and spill coffee on your favorite frock, and break your reading glasses, and your cook asks for a raise - you know the kind of thing I mean, said Paula. — D.E. Stevenson

When we come close to those things that break us down, we touch those things that also break us open. And in that breaking open, we uncover our true nature. — Wayne Muller

I see lines of space. I break things down into lines and space, and I balance. — Michael Moschen

I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can't imagine someone else's point of view. — Sonia Sotomayor

What compels any of us to do the things we do when deep down a part of us just wants to break free from it all? — J.A. Redmerski

Boy, you really break things down, don't you?'
Some say it is an illness.'
We should all be so ill. — Francisco X Stork

Doesn't it feel great to have eight ideas you love written down and spread out on the table before you? I'll forgive you if you took a quick break from reading to do a little freestyle writing, but we really need to get back to business so you can discover your brand and move on to writing even bigger and better things. — Emlyn Chand

I think religion is a funny thing because, when you see somebody who can really break it down, sometimes it feels foolish what you believe. — Kevin Costner

The prejudice is still there, but it's breaking down. You have writers like Michael Chabon and The Yiddish Policemen's Union. He's a writer who's determined to break down genre barriers. He's done amazing things. — George R R Martin

When you feel that you are at the end of your path and there is a ten foot high brick wall right there in front of you, and you have nowhere to go but backwards, break down that wall and move forward. There are great and wonderful things on the other side of that wall ... and, they have always been there. Let nothing divide you from what you need to do in life, and see the solutions that are right in front of you. The key is, you must break down what separates you from them and choose to find them. — Rich Barnes

One of my favorite things about basketball is that you can't break it down into some sort of science that makes total sense. — Bill Simmons

People always say that digital cameras are much more stable than film cameras, but the truth is that digital cameras, or any kind of digital technology, is one of the most unstable things in the world. A film camera can last decades if you know how to look after it, but digital things can break down instantly. A violent storm, a nuclear bomb, even something as minor as a cracked screen or the releasing of newer models, can make a digital product just a block of useless metal. — Rebecca McNutt

... what kind of life do we live if we let fear break us down? The truth is there will be tough times, we've certainly been through them before; but good things happen everyday. Great things. We just have to open our eyes and see them. — Christene Houston

One of the things that cause stress and strain in human social life is that it is possible, up to a point, to become aware of rational grounds for a behaviour not prompted by natural instinct. But when such behaviour strains natural instinct too severely nature takes her revenge by producing either listlessness or destructiveness, either of which may cause a structure imposed by reason to break down. — Bertrand Russell

Poetry is something that disturbs the mainstream with minor things and it is something that breaks down active discrimination with passive things, and it can break down something that polishes the filthy things with filthy things. — Kim Hyesoon

That was a dhlang!" he said. "An evil spirit! The peasants down in the valleys hang up charms against them! But I thought they were just a superstition!"
"No, they're a substition," said Susan. "I mean they're real, but hardly anyone really believes them. Mostly everyone believes in things that aren't real. Something very strange is going on. Those things are all over the place, and they've got bodies. That's not right. We've got to find the person who built the clock - "
"And, er, what are you, Miss Susan?"
"Me? I'm ... a schoolteacher."
She followed his gaze to the wrench that she still carried in her hand, and shrugged.
"It can get pretty rough at break time, can it?" said Lobsang. — Terry Pratchett

Everything was so designed by Hannibal to break down Will in the first season, until Will's sanity became questionable. It's so much easier to believe that somebody losing their mind is capable of terrible things than it is to consider Frasier Crane, a charming, fun doctor who invites you to dinner. If you put those two in a police lineup, you're going to pick the guy who's melting down. — Bryan Fuller

Is the peace of God in the soul disturbed by things down here? No, never! If waters break in stormy currents against a rock, the rock is unmoved; it is only the waters that are disturbed. — George Wigram

I'm very domestic; I love cleaning. I love cooking. I like waiting on people. I just like to make things. I don't break that down to be weakness, or the only things women can do, or putting me back 20 years. — Amy Sedaris

The word "knowledge" itself, we like to break it down into two different words, "know" and "ledge." You've got to know the ledge. Know the limitation of things. Know where they go, know where they start from. We say knowledge is the basic foundation of the universe. But everything is first based on something being known. Then, when it's known, then it can be manifested. — RZA

Go to hell. I'm not playing this game with you."
"Who's playing? I'm just giving you what you want even if you won't say it. That's why you like me, right?" He ground harder. "'Cause I'll touch you when I want, without asking, and I'll do it right. But he treats you like you'll break. Doesn't like to get messy."
I flinched. "Don't use things I told you against me."
"So admit it," Raymond said, pushing my pants down. "You like me because I'm not scared to get nasty. — Santino Hassell

I think what's happened, Marlee, is that you've realized the world isn't an addition problem. We tell kids that sometimes. We pretend the world is straightforward, simple, easy. You do this, you get that. You're a good person and try your best, and nothing bad will happen. But the truth is, the world is much more like an algebraic equation. With variables and changes, complicated and messy. Sometimes there's more than one answer, and sometimes there is none. Sometimes we don't even know how to solve the problem. But usually, if we take things step by step, we can figure things out. You just have to remember to factor the equation, break it down into smaller parts. — Kristin Levine

My work makes people understand things in a visual way that I could never understand in a literal way - like the way you deal with and break down problems, and don't come up with answers, but [find] a pathway that becomes clearer. — Ali Banisadr

It was only after the illness that I understood how important it is to affirm one's own destiny. In this way we forge an ego that does not break down when incomprehensible things happen; an ego that endures, that endures the truth, and that is capable of coping with the world and with fate. Then, to experience defeat is also to experience victory. Nothing is disturbed - neither inwardly nor outwardly, for one's own continuity has withstood the current of life and of time. But that can come to pass only when one does not meddle inquisitively with the workings of fate. I — C. G. Jung

I thought Big Sur would be a great break after the tour. You'd walk down this rickety ladder to this not-very-pretty beach scene; crashing waves, moss-covered rocks, weird ocean life. It was scary. It summed up alot of things in my life, like 'I should be enjoying this, but I'm not. — Trent Reznor

I'm a pragmatist. I think, as a woman, you have to be more careful. You have to be more communal, you have to say yes to more things than men, you have to worry about things that men don't have to worry about. But once we get enough women into leadership, we can break stereotypes down. If you lead, you get to decide. — Sheryl Sandberg

You will make sacrifices and compromises, get let down and let other people down, fail and start over, break some hearts, take some names, and learn to pick up and continue when your own heart gets broken. But difficult doesn't mean impossible, and out of the bajillions of things in this universe that you can't control, what you can control is how hard you try, and if or when to pack it in. Paul — Sophia Amoruso

A thing I do with all my characters is I break them down into one of three things: mind, heart, and groin. I figure out where they come from and what they utilize most. — Jack Falahee

Not all things that fall down break. Some develop wings. — Neelam Saxena Chandra

Walter Mittys with Everest dreams need to bear in mind that when things go wrong up in the Death Zone--and sooner or later they always do--the strongest guides in the world may be powerless to save a client's life; indeed, as the events of 1996 demonstrated, the strongest guides in the world are sometimes powerless to save even their own lives. Four of my teammates died not so much because Rob Hall's systems were faulty--indeed, nobody's were better--but because on Everest it is the nature of systems to break down with a vengeance. — Jon Krakauer

[Internet] technology, like anything else that mankind creates is a tool and that tool can be used for good or for evil, like a light saber. Technology is supposed to bring people together, streamline things and make life easier and in a lot of ways it does that. However, technology can also disconnect you from other people and break down the social network, the real social network of family and friends and interpersonal communication, and isolate people, make them feel alone, make them feel small. So it's a tool that needs to be used correctly. — Rainn Wilson

There are so many things that can go wrong while performing. I've had violin strings break; I've had pants that were slowly falling down, and I'd have to pull them up in between every song; my hairpiece was falling out, so a big chunk of hair was just flapping around as I danced, and I've completely fallen on my butt. — Lindsey Stirling

My goals may seem impossibly far-fetched when really they're not.
Break them down into steps and see how I accomplish great things.
I can easily reach from A to B.
I can manage from B to C.
I can then make it from C to D.
And so eventually, I will find my way from A to Z. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The future rushes in and all we can do is take our memories and move forward with them. Memory keeps only what it wants. Images from memories are sprinkled throughout our lives, but that does not mean we must believe that our own or other people's memories are of things that really happened. When someone stubbornly insists that they saw something with their own eyes, I take it as a statement mixed with wishful thinking. As what they want to believe. Yet as imperfect as memories are, whenever I am faced with one, I cannot help getting lost in thought. Especially when that memory reminds me of what it felt like to be always out of place and always a step behind. Why was it so hard for me to open my eyes every morning, why was I so afraid to form a relationship with anyone, and why was I nevertheless able to break down my walls and find him? — Kyung-Sook Shin

Things whose enormity nobody could have imagined in the idyllic harmlessness of the first decade of our country have happened and have turned our world upside down. Ever since, the world has remained in a state of schizophrenia. Not only has civilized Germany disgorged its terrible primitivity, but Russia is also ruled by it, and Africa has been set on fire. No wonder that the Western world feels uneasy.
Modern man does not understand how much his "rationalism" (which has destroyed his capacity to respond to numinous symbols and ideas) has put him at the mercy of the psychic "underworld." He has freed himself from "superstition" (or so he believes), but in the process he has lost his spiritual values to a positively dangerous degree. His moral and spiritual tradition has disintegrated, and he is now paying the price for this break-up in world-wide disorientation and dissociation. — C. G. Jung

I remember little things that break my heart. We were coming out of Michael's house one day, and he noticed my shoelaces were undone. He bent down and tied them. I almost cried. To me, it was such a gesture of love. — Kirk Douglas

After a break-up people always claim that things will get better, and in fact they do. ( but not because we in fact ARE better but that the pain, has beaten every last ounce of feeling from us. after we are wasted away, because food and drink seems to be like sand being choked down, and sleep is no comfort because you know you'll dream of them, and have to wake with knowing they'll not be there. after all this is accepted, we are what people claim is 'better'. — Gabriel Macht

Over the decades, you got various companies involved in making escalators and you've got Metro varying between internal repair crews and contractors. They're dealing with old equipment, which of course is prone to break down, and the repair crews don't even know what's busted or who made the busted parts till they tear the things open. Then sometimes they have to go back to the shop and manufacture parts, because the original maker has gone out of business. — Robert James Thomson

The dissemination of pseudoscience, including such things as the fascination with near-death experiences and the growing belief by Americans
34 percent of them
in reincarnation are dangerous. They help to break down the standards of reason. — Wendy Kaminer

If you do not accuse each other, God will not accuse you. If you have no accuser you will enter heaven. What many people call sin is not sin; I do many things to break down superstition, and I will break it down. — Joseph Smith Jr.

How are things out on the Circle L?" Big John shrugged shoulders the size of a grizzly bear's. "We're shorthanded, as always, and Joellen's a handful. I sure wish Chloe would break down and marry me, so that girl could have a mother." Emma smiled to think of Chloe as Joellen's stepmother. The girl's career as a brat would end in short order. "You know how Chloe is, Big John." He nodded ruefully and tucked the slip of paper Emma had written the book title on into the pocket of his buckskin vest. "There ain't a stubborner woman in the territory, but I'll rope that filly if it's the last thing I ever do." "It just might be," Emma warned, waggling a finger, and she and Big John laughed together. — Linda Lael Miller

I like Billy Beane for his idiosyncrasies - that he can't watch the games without getting too emotional, that he often has food down his shirt, that he tends to break a few chairs now and then.These things make him human. — Brad Pitt

This is our goal as writers, I think; to help others have this sense of
please forgive me
wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in on our small, bordered worlds. When this happens, everything feels more spacious. Try walking around with a child who's going, "Wow, wow! Look at that dirty dog! Look at that burned-down house! Look at that red sky!" And the child points and you look, and you see, and you start going, "Wow! Look at that huge crazy hedge! Look at that teeny little baby! Look at the scary dark cloud!" I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world
present and in awe. — Anne Lamott

And I told him, I said: One day you're going to miss the subway because it's not going to come. One of these days, it's going to break down and it's not going to come around and everyone else will just wait for the next one or will take the bus, or walk, or run to the next station: they will go on with their lives. And you're not going to be able to go on with your life! You'll be standing there, in the subway station, staring at the tube. Why? Because you think that everything has to happen perfectly and on time and when you think it's going to happen! Well guess what! That's not how things happen! And you'll be the only one who's not going to be able to go on with life, just because your subway broke down. So you know what, you've got to let go, you've got to know that things don't happen the way you think they're going to happen, but that's okay, because there's always the bus, there's always the next station ... you can always take a cab. — C. JoyBell C.

I learned there that the key was first to prioritize all the individual stressors and then act. I break it all down into the little things I can manage. The stressors that I can't affect, I don't worry about. The ones I can affect, I simply deal with one at a time. — Mark Owen

They will tremble with awe because of all the good and all the peace I will bring about for them. Jeremiah 33:9 God does not minimize the things that break our hearts. He is not looking down on us, thinking how petty we are because things have hurt us. If we are so "heavenly minded" that we grow out of touch with earthly hardships, we've missed an important priority of Christ. God left our bare feet on the hot pavement of earth so we could grow through our hurts, not ignore and refuse to feel our way through them. So surrender your hurt to Him, withholding nothing, and invite Him to work miracles from your misery. Be patient and get to know Him through the process of healing. — Beth Moore

May you be tired and afraid
overwhelmed and ready to quit.
Quit!
Start over, over
ten thousand times over
roll out, get up, fall down
break into tears
open in laughter
sing and dance
be silly, be glad.
May you forget most things,
remember everything,
come to know in your bones
with your blood
through your eyes
from your lips
out of earth
deep below, well beyond
you are love.
You are just love.
Amen. — Karen Maezen Miller

What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that's really the essence of programming. By the time you've sorted out a complicated idea
into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you've certainly learned something about it yourself. The teacher usually learns more than the pupil. Isn't that true? — Douglas Adams

I can make things happen when plays break down. — Vince Young

I know a life can be destroyed in an instant: a car spins out of control on a busy road, a doctor sits down to break bad news, or a love letter is discovered hidden in a place where its owner thought it never would be found. All these things can shatter a world in just a few moments. But is it possible for the opposite to happen - for a life to be created in a moment instead of destroyed? For a man to see a face and know it belongs to the woman he will spend the rest of his life with? — Martin Pistorius

It's not enough to be aware of the domain you're working in, you need to understand it. Noticing things and being curious about how they work is the single most common trait I see in creative people. Once you can break the components down, you can put them back together into something brand new. — Seth

Men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition, by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude, wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden, and to desire what is denied us. — Francois Rabelais

A great tide of civilization governs how humans do things. When that tide goes out, we centralize, establish command and control structures, and attempt to find efficiencies in large batches and long queues. When the water starts to come back in, we break down those structures, start to drive control down into the hands of 'common' folk, and attempt to find efficiencies in the quick decisions that get made by people closest to the problem. The tide is coming back in and will probably continue to ebb that direction for the lifespan of anyone alive at the time of this writing. — Max Guernsey III

And perhaps the great day will come when a people, distinguished by wars and victories and by the highest development of a military order and intelligence, and accustomed to make the heaviest sacrifices for these things, will exclaim of its own free will, "We break the sword," and will smash its entire military establishment down to its lowest foundations. Rendering oneself unarmed when one has been the best-armed, out of a height of feeling - that is the means to real peace, which must always rest on a peace of mind; whereas the so-called armed peace, as it now exists in all countries, is the absence of peace of mind. One trusts neither oneself nor one's neighbor and, half from hatred, half from fear, does not lay down arms. Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared - this must some day become the highest maxim for every single commonwealth, too. — Friedrich Nietzsche

He knew then what it was that Liz had given him; the thing that he would have to go back and find if ever he got home to England; it was the caring about little things - the faith in ordinary life; the simplicity that made you break up a bit of bread into a paper bag, walk down to the beach and throw it to the gulls. It was this respect for triviality which he had never been allowed to possess; whether it was bread of the seagulls or love — John Le Carre

Things work well when a group of people know each other, and things break down when it's a bunch of random people interacting. — Jimmy Wales

She felt the panic rising in her then. She knew. She knew how quickly things could break. You did the things you could. You tended to the world for the world's sake. You hoped you would be safe. But still she knew. It could come crashing down and there was nothing you could do. And yes, she knew she wasn't right. She knew her everything was canted wrong. She knew her head was all unkilter. She knew she wasn't true inside. She knew. — Patrick Rothfuss