Things Could Be Worse Quotes & Sayings

What helped him build resilience the most, he told me, was overcoming pervasiveness: "Extreme compartmentalization may be my biggest superpower," he said, laughing. If a project doesn't turn out the way he wanted, Byron remembers that things could always be worse. "I say to myself and to others all the time, 'Is anyone gonna die?' That's the worst - I'm not afraid of failure." Byron — Sheryl Sandberg

What do you know of the Knights?" he asked.

Fin shrugged. "I thought knights were only in children's stories until a few days ago."

Jeannot smiled. "A man could do worse than to live in the stories of a child. There is, perhaps, no better remembrance."

"Until the child grows up and finds out the stories aren't true. You might be knights, but I don't see any shining armor," Fin said.

Jeannot stopped near the gate of the auberge and faced her. "Each time a story is told, the details and accuracies and facts are winnowed away until all that remains is the heart of the tale. If there is truth at the heart of it, a tale may live forever. As a knight, there is no dragon to slay, no maiden to rescue, and no miraculous grail to uncover. A knight seeks the truth beneath these things, seeks the heart. We call this the corso. The path set before us. The race we must run. — A.S. Peterson

There is a pre-existing harmony in everything. The problem is the human being. It may be true that one single Incarnation of God may not he able to bring that peace and harmony in the entire world. It's only because of that harmony that they could create in the world and in people's mind that the world still exists and that there is always a balance. Otherwise, things could be much worse. — Mata Amritanandamayi

An optimist in Canada is someone who think things could be worse — Preston Manning

You'll never meet a happy ungrateful person, or an unhappy grateful person because gratitude and happiness go together. Sometimes happiness precedes gratitude but often gratitude precedes happiness. The latter is achieved by realising things could be worse but aren't and so feeling relieved, grateful and happy. — Zig Ziglar

The pessimist is the man who believes things couldn't possibly be worse, to which the optimist replies: 'Oh yes they could!' — Vladimir Bukovsky

I - honestly, I don't know of a worse lie one could tell other than a lie to take a country to war. To make up things to take people to war. That's just got to be the most obscene, immoral thing to do. — Michael Moore

No matter how bad things are, they could always be worse. Start finding gratitude for what might have happened, but didn't. — Mac Anderson

How does knowing 'things could be worse' than what I already deem awful make me feel any better? You mean I could sink even lower? Oh joy! — Richelle E. Goodrich

There are still countries that deny women basic civil rights. Worldwide, about 4.4 million women and 1 girls are trapped in the sex trade. In places like Afghanistan and Sudan, girls receive little or no education, wives are treated as the property of their husbands, and women who are raped are routinely cast out of their homes for disgracing their families. Some rape victims are even sent to jail for committing a "moral crime."2 We are centuries ahead of the unacceptable treatment of women in these countries. But knowing that things could be worse should not stop us from trying to make them better. — Sheryl Sandberg

Be thankful for even the little things in your life. Be brave & strong to overcome your troubles ... for it could be better but it could always be worse! — Timothy Pina

Three a.m. drunks, all over America, were staring at the walls, having finally give it up. You didn't have to be drunk to get hurt, to be zeroed out by a woman; but you could get hurt and become a drunk. You might think for a while, especially when you were young, that luck was with you, and sometimes it was. But there were all manner of averages and laws working that you know nothing about, even as you imagined things were going well. Some night, some hot summer Thursday, night you became the drunk, you were out there alone in a cheap rented room, and no matter how many times you'd been out there before, it was no help, it was even worse because you had got to thinking you wouldn't face it again. All you could do was light another cigarette, pour another drink, check the peeling walls for lips and eyes. What men and women did to each other was beyond comprehension. — Charles Bukowski

It felt like faith, like revelation: that things went on, that life ground on regardless, and mindless, and produced pain and pleasure and hope and fear and joy and despair, and you dodged some of it and you sought some of it and sometimes you were lucky
and sometimes you weren't, and sometimes you could plan your way ahead and that would be the right thing to have done, but other times all you could do was forget about plans and just be ready to react, and sometimes the obvious was true and sometimes it
wasn't, and sometimes experience helped but not always, and it was all luck, fate, in the end; you lived, and you waited to see what happened, and you would rarely ever be sure that what you had done was really the right thing or the wrong thing, because things can
always be better, and things can always be worse. — Iain Banks

Whatever you do, do not feel sorry for yourself - things could always be worse and they are for someone else! — Richard L. Evans

There are worse things than getting a call for a wrong number at 4 am. It could be a right number. — Doug Larson

Jules: Why didn't you tell me any of this?
Emma: Because of what Jem said. That finding out that what we had was forbiddne for good reason would just make it worse. Belive me, knowing what I know hasn't mae me love you any less.
Jules: So you decided to make you hate you.
Emma: I tried. I didn't know what else to do.
Jules: But I could never hat you. Hating you would be like hating the idea of good things ever happening in the world. It would be like death. I thought you didn't love me, Emma. But I never hated you. — Cassandra Clare

2. "HOW COULD anything originate out of its opposite? For example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or the generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the wise man out of covetousness? Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool; things of the highest value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own - in this transitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in the lap of Being, in the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the 'Thing-in-itself - THERE must be their source, and nowhere else!" - — Friedrich Nietzsche

I went after Beau Sunday. I knew I'd find him at the bar shooting pool. It's where he always goes to unwind. When I got there we said a few things and threw a few punches." Sawyer glanced over at me and smirked. "I'd like to say Beau looked worse but we both know I'd be lying. I might have the throwing arm when it comes to football, but he has me beat when it comes to throwing punches. Fact is, he could have really put a hurting on me. He spent most of the time blocking my punches." Sawyer stopped and let out a frustrated sigh. — Abbi Glines

There's always something we can complain about. We're all one. Things could always be better, but things could always be worse. — Marla Gibbs

Scientists themselves readily admit that they do not fully understand the consequences of our many-faceted assault upon the interwoven fabric of atmosphere, water, land and life in all its biological diversity. But things could also turn out to be worse than the current scientific best guess. In military affairs, policy has long been based on the dictum that we should be prepared for the worst case. Why should it be so different when the security is that of the planet and our long-term future? — Prince Charles

When Olivier had been taken away Gamache had sat back down and stared at the sack. what could be worse than Chaos, Despair, War?
What would even the Mountain flee from? Gamache had given it a lot of thought.
What haunted people even, perhaps especially, on their deathbed? What chased them, tortured them and brought some of them to their knees? And Gamache thought he had the answer.
Regret.
Regret for things said, for things done, and not done. Regret for the people they might have been. And failed to be.
Finally, when he was alone, the Chief Inspector had opened the sack and looking inside had realize he'd been wrong. The worst thing of all wasn't regret. — Louise Penny

Things people say to depressives that they don't say in other life-threatening situations:

'Come on, I know you've got tuberculosis, but it could be worse. At least no one's died.'
'Why do you think you got cancer of the stomach?'
'Yes, I know, colon cancer is hard, but you want to try living with someone who has got it. Sheesh. Nightmare.'
'Oh, Alzheimer's you say? Oh, tell me about it, I get that all the time.'
'Ah, meningitis. Come on, mind over matter.'
'Yes, yes, your leg is on fire, but talking about it all the time isn't going to help things, is it?'
'Okay. Yes. Yes. Maybe your parachute has failed. But chin up. — Matt Haig

But now that so much is changing, is it not up to us to change? Could we not try to evolve just a little, and gradually take upon ourselves our share in the labour of love? We have been spared all of its toil, and so it has slipped in among our amusements, as a scrap of genuine lace will occasionally fall into a child's toy-box, and give pleasure, and cease to give pleasure, and at lengthe lie there among broken and dismembered things, worse than all the rest. We have been spoiled by easy gratification, like all dilettantes, and are held to be masters. But what if we despised out successes? What if we began to learn, from the very start, the labour of love that has always been done for us? What if we were to go and become beginners, now that so much is changing? — Rainer Maria Rilke

Japanese gardeners, over many centuries, have learned to do things to trees, to clip their roots or trim their branches, to limit their supply of water, air, or sun, so that they live, and for a long time, but only in tiny, shrunken, twisted shapes. Such trees may please us, or they may not. But what could they tell us about the nature of trees? If a tree can be deformed and shrunk, is this, then, its nature? The nature of these trees, given enough of the sun, air, water, soil, and food they need, is to grow like trees, tall and straight. People can be more easily deformed, and worse deformed, even than trees - and more than trees, they feel it, it hurts. But — John Holt

Not today. Instead of Wendy, I found myself thinking of Annie Ross and realizing I'd developed a small but powerful crush on her. The fact that nothing could come of it - she had to be ten years older than me, maybe twelve - only seemed to make things worse. Or maybe I mean better, because unrequited love does have its attractions for young men. — Stephen King

When things are at their blackest, I say to myself, 'Cheer up, things could be worse.' And sure enough, they get worse. — Robert Asprin

The damned had been given that insight which makes hardship so easy to bear - the absolute and certain knowledge that things could be worse. — Terry Pratchett

How little has situation to do with happiness. The happy individual uses their intelligence to realise things could be worse and therefore is grateful and happy. The unhappy individual does the opposite! — Fanny Burney

Everything in New York is a photograph. All the things that are supposed to be dirty or rough or unrefined are the most beautiful things. Garbage cans at the ends of alleyways look like they've been up all night talking with each other. Doorways with peeling paint look like the wise lines around an old feller's eyes. I stop and stare but can't stay because men always think I'm selling something. Or worse, giving something away. I wish I could be invisible. Or at least I wish I didn't look like someone they want to look at. They stop being part of the picture, they get up from their chess game and come out of the frame at me, blocking my view. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

Would it be better to have a president who cries easily? Well, that depends on what he cried about. I would not like the thought of a president who could not cry. That would be worse than one who cried over the right things. Which, in this case, would be the things I would cry over. — Walter Cronkite

Her maternal feelings were unlikely to be assuaged by hearing that the marriage had been performed in the middle of the night on a West Indian beach by a disgraced - if not actually defrocked - priest, witnessed by twenty-five seamen, ten French horses, a small flock of sheep - all gaily beribboned in honor of the occasion - and a King Charles spaniel, who added to the generally festive feeling by attempting to copulate with Murphy's wooden leg at every opportunity. The only thing that could make things worse, in Laoghaire's view, would be to hear that I had participated in the ceremony. — Diana Gabaldon

An important decision I made was to resist playing the Blame Game. The day I realized that I am in charge of how I will approach problems in my life, that things will turn out better or worse because of me and nobody else, that was the day I knew I would be a happier and healthier person. And that was the day I knew I could truly build a life that matters. — Steve Goodier

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

I heard about this man who fell into a pit, and while he was down there several people came by and offered their opinions. The Pharisee said, "You deserve to be in the pit." The Catholic said, "You need to suffer while you're in the pit." The Baptist said, "If you'd been saved, you wouldn't have fallen into the pit." The charismatic said, "Just confess I'm not in the pit." The mathematician said, "Let me calculate how you fell into the pit." The IRS agent said, "Have you paid taxes on that pit?" The optimist said, "Things could be worse." The pessimist said, "Things will get worse. — Joel Osteen

There were worse things to be than sexist. For example, you could be the sort of person who pinched your fingers together while using the words teeny weeny. — Liane Moriarty

We don't want to lose you Lord Rahl. We don't want to go back to way things were." She sounded on the verge of tears. "We like being able to do simple things, like make a joke, and laugh. We could never do such things before. We always lived in fear that if we said the wrong thing we would be beaten, or worse. Now that we have seen another way, we don't want to go back to that. If you throw your life away for the Midlands, then we will.- Cara — Terry Goodkind

But knowing that things could be worse should not stop us from trying to make them better. When the suffragettes marched in the streets, they envisioned a century later, men and women would be truly equal. A century later, we are still squinting, trying to bring that vision into focus. — Sheryl Sandberg

In a globalized economy, it's very difficult for the U.K. to go it alone. Don't listen to politicians. Politicians say if the U.K. leaves, things will be better. I'm telling you, leaving could make things worse. — Wang Jianlin

Conor's grandma wasn't like other grandmas. He'd met Lily's grandma loads of times, and she was how grandmas were supposed to be: crinkly and smiley, with white hair and the whole lot. She cooked meals where she made three separate eternally boiled vegetable portions for everybody and would giggle in the corner at Christmas with a small glass of sherry and a paper crown on her head.

Conor's grandma wore tailored trouser suits, dyed her hair to keep out the grey, and said things that made no sense at all, like "Sixty is the new fifty" or "Classic cars need the most expensive polish." What did that even mean? She emailed birthday cards, would argue with waiters over wine, and still had a job. Her house was even worse, filled with expensive old things you could never touch, like a clock she wouldn't even let the cleaning lady dust. Which was another thing. What kind of grandma had a cleaning lady? — Patrick Ness

If a rumor comes out that I'm gay, I could care less. There are so many worse things that they could be saying. — James Van Der Beek

That's the great thing about being a wizard. I can always tell myself, honestly, that things could be worse. — Jim Butcher

After Connie and I broke up, I played a little game with myself out on the streets of Manhattan. It was called Things Could Be Worse. Things could be worse, I said to myself, I could be that guy. — Joshua Ferris

Perspective basically guarantees that there's no such thing as a pure emotion. Every emotion is based on how sucky (or not) something is in relation to something else that has already happened. I realized that Hy and Marcus and my ankle wouldn't be so huge if I had experienced a Hiroshima-size disaster.It kind of makes me wish that the worst thing that will ever happen to me will just hurry up and happen already. That way I could live the rest of my life in bliss, if only because I
know how much worse things could be. — Megan McCafferty

If you can't feel grateful, if you're discouraged or depressed, then think of the fact that things could be a lot worse than they are. — Frederick Lenz

Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches, when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed to do things that required pants. Aunt Alexandra's vision of my deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray of sunshine in my father's life. I suggested that one could be a ray of sunshine in pants as well, but Aunty said that one had to behave like a sunbeam, that I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. — Harper Lee

Just as We never taste happiness in perfection, our most fortunate successes are mixed with sadness. So too we never taste sadness completely, as things could always be worse in some way and for this we can be grateful. — Pierre Corneille

One day as I sat musing, sad and lonely without a friend, a voice came to me from out of the gloom saying, 'Cheer up. Things could be worse.' So I cheered up and sure enough - things got worse. — Joan Howard Maurer

I admit I do get a bit protective of my big brother. he always protects me.
"The truth is, I don't have to threaten you with anything worse than you've already done to yourself.
"Alec is brave, and he's good, and he's loyal, and like all Lightwoods he has cheekbones you could use to slice salami. You're never going to find anyone as great as my brother or anyone who loves you as much.
"He's one of the best things in my life, and I'm prepared to bet he's one of the best things in yours. You're going to be sorry when you wake up and realize what you threw away. — Cassandra Clare

Things Could Be Worse And Things Could Be So Much Better - that became the game, my running commentary on the streets of Manhattan, and I played it as well as the other slobs just trying to get by. — Joshua Ferris

He was one of the first people to complain about the increasing encroachment of the state into personal lives, but, actually, shouldn't there be a little more encroachment, when it came to things like this? Where was the protective fence, or the safety net? They made it hard for you to jump off bridges, or to smoke, to own a gun, to become a gynecologist. So how come they let you walk out on a stable, functioning relationship? They shouldn't. If this didn't work out, he could see himself become a homeless, jobless alcoholic within a year. And that would be worse for his health than a packet of Malboros. — Nick Hornby

Things could be worse. Suppose your errors were counted and published everyday, like those of a baseball player. — William Alexander

No, it really isn't, but trust me, getting divorced and having to start over is the least in life that isn't fair. I had to watch the parents of a way too young girl realize that their daughter died for no other reason than people can't figure out how to be nice to each other. It isn't that hard, just be nice and people might not have to suffer needlessly, but that isn't the world we live in, so young girls die. That isn't fair, Mom. People falling out of love is vicious and it sucks, but there are far worse things you could be going through. I know that sounds harsh but it's very true. — Jay Crownover

It would be much better if I could only stop thinking. Thoughts are the dullest things. Duller than flesh. They stretch out and there's no end to them and they leave a funny taste in the mouth. Then there are words, inside the thoughts, unfinished words, a sketchy sentence which constantly returns
...
It goes, it goes ... and there's no end to it. It's worse than the rest because I feel responsible and have complicity in it. For example, this sort of painful rumination: I exist, I am the one who keeps it up. I. — Jean-Paul Sartre

Rejection isn't a big deal. There are a lot worse things that could happen to me. I could be a homeless war veteran without any legs or I could be blind. — Roosh V

A sad fact, of course, about adult life is that you see the very things you'll never adapt to coming toward you on the horizon. You see them as the problems they are, you worry like hell about them, you make provisions, take precautions, fashion adjustments; you tell yourself you'll have to change your way of doing things. Only you don't. You can't. Somehow it's already too late. And maybe it's even worse than that: maybe the thing you see coming from far away is not the real thing, the thing that scares you, but its aftermath. And what you've feared will happen has already taken place. This is similar in spirit to the realization that all the great new advances of medical science will have no benefit for us at all, thought we cheer them on, hope a vaccine might be ready in time, think things could still get better. Only it's too late there too. And in that very way our life gets over before we know it. We miss it. And like the poet said: The ways we miss our lives are life. — Richard Ford

So, the women he's loved. Who knew nothing of satisfaction. Who having gotten what they wanted always promptly wanted more. Not greedy. Never greedy ... They were doers and thinkers and lovers and seekers and givers, but dreamers, most dangerously of all.
They were dreamer-women.
Very dangerous women.
Who looked at the world through their wide dreamer-eyes and saw it not as it was, "brutal, senseless," etc., but worse, as it might be or might yet become.
So, insatiable women.
Un-pleasable women.
Who wanted above all things that could not be had. Not what THEY could not have
no such thing for such women
but what wasn't there to be had in the first place. — Taiye Selasi

Anyone working in the media can tell you that there seems to be an always-ready-to-explode segment of the populace for whom offense is a fate worse than anything imaginable. You'd think offense is one of the most calamitous things that could happen to a human being; right up there with the loss of a limb, or just missing a parking space. — Dick Cavett

Life's pleasures were so simple, really. It was all a matter of appreciating what you had - and knowing that things could always be worse. — Meg Rosoff

There are worse things than being robbed ... " I could smell the sick old-meat stench on his breath, like he really had eaten my grandmother. " ... worse things than dyin' even. You be a good boy, Little Red, and maybe you'll get to live awhile. Maybe you'll get to die in your own natural time. — Neal Shusterman

Things could be worse. You remember that, and you go on with your life. — Kevin Bacon

There is something to be said for people who have to work hard, be creative, produce what they have with little - or no - means. Those of us from poor homes have the advantage of thinking for ourselves and of knowing that when times get hard, things could always be worse. — Beth Ditto

In actuality, no one ever sank so deep that he could not sink deeper, and there may be one or many who sank deeper. So it is always possible to be happy and grateful that things are not worse! — Soren Kierkegaard

A witch didn't do things because they seemed a good idea at the time! That was practically cackling. You had to deal every day with people who were foolish and lazy and untruthful and downright unpleasant, and you could certainly end up thinking that the world would be considerably improved if you gave them a slap. But you didn't because, as Miss Tick had once explained:
a) it would make the world a better place for only a very short time;
b) it would then make the world a slightly worse place; and
c) you're not supposed to be as stupid as they are. — Terry Pratchett

There are worse things than killing men, Bayard. There are worse things than being killed. Sometimes I think the finest thing that can happen to a man is to love something, a woman preferably, well, hard hard hard, then to die young because he believed what he could not help but believe and was what he could not (could not? would not) help but be. — William Faulkner

When things are bad, we take a bit of comfort in the thought that they could always be WORSE. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get BETTER.' - Malcolm S. Forbes. — Rachel Renee Russell

Death was a release, in so many ways. An end to suffering. An escape to something else. What that something else was, I didn't know. Maybe heaven. Maybe hell. Maybe nothing at all. But I doubted it could be any worse than some of the things I'd seen and done in my lifetime. — Jennifer Estep

I'm going to live my life. It's nobody else's decision, but mine. I think there are a lot worse things I could be doing with my life than what I choose to do ... — Tony Stewart

I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its meat from God. But now I really was happy, for I had learnt that man is a monstrosity. I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better than all things. The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out and illuminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now why grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a giant, and why I could feel homesick at home. — G.K. Chesterton

Could things get any worse? Why, yes, little one. Be patient. — Morrissey

However bad your life appears, things could be far, far worse — Justin Somper

As I move to the front office, I bring the warm copies to my face and breathe them in. This is a weird habit of mine - sniffing copies. I do the same thing when I get a new book. What can I say? I have a paper sniffing problem. Things could be worse. — Autumn Doughton

I've always been interested in history, but they never taught Negro history in the public schools ... I don't see how a history of the United States can be written honestly without including the Negro. I didn't [paint] just as a historical thing, but because I believe these things tie up with the Negro today. We don't have a physical slavery, but an economic slavery. If these people, who were so much worse off than the people today, could conquer their slavery, we can certainly do the same thing ... I am not a politician. I'm an artist, just trying to do my part to bring this thing about ... — Jacob Lawrence

It was Yuki. What was I up to? My response: Chewing on a stalk of celery and having a beer. Hers: Yuck. Mine: It's not so bad. She wasn't old enough to know things could be a lot worse. — Haruki Murakami

It would be hard to get statistics on violent death
what do you count as murder? When people starve to death because of policies of governments and corporations, is that murder? Nature does a fair amount of murdering itself, which is why this whole notion of dominating nature arose: it was one of those things that seemed a good idea at the time. No one ever believes a cure will prove worse than the disease. And maybe it isn't. An invasion of microbes that destroys a body could also be called murder. All deaths are violent deaths, I suppose. — Marilyn French

Keep everything in perspective if you wish to be happy. For example ... Losing an arm is more an inconvenience than a catastrophe. Things could be a lot worse so why not be grateful they aren't and thereby happy rather than sad? — Eric Allin Cornell

The important thing, I think, is not to be bitter. You know, if it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. I think that the worst thing you could say about him is that basically he's an underachiever. After all, you know, there are worse things in life than death. — Woody Allen

Advertising prods people into wanting more and better things. Of course advertising makes people dissatisfied with what they have - makes them raise their sights. Mighty good thing it does. Nothing could be worse for the United States than 200,000,000 satisfied Americans. — Bernice Fitz-Gibbon

Think about the farmer," Akil tells me. "The farmer can't control and predict very much either. So why is that any better or worse than being on Wall Street? As a farmer, if there was a freeze that destroyed your crops, that might've stressed you, but it wasn't your fault. But as a knowledge worker, you're expected to be in charge of everything. And when things go wrong, it is your fault. The thinking is, you could have planned more, or you should have anticipated what went wrong. That combination of having a lot coming at you and of shifting away from physical work - which does help cope with stress - and not even being able to say, 'It's not my fault, I surrender to higher forces,' whether you believe it's weather or God - that's been taken away." * — Brigid Schulte

The range of the human mind, the scale and depth of the metaphors the mind is capable of manufacturing as it grapples with the universe, stand in stunning contrast to the belief that there is only one reality, which is man's, or worse, that only one culture among the many on earth possesses the truth.
To allow mystery, which is to say to yourself, "There could be more, there could be things we don't understand," is not to damn knowledge. It is to take a wider view. It is to permit yourself an extraordinary freedom: someone else does not have to be wrong in order that you may be right. — Barry Lopez

In his mind, Inman likened the swirling paths of vulture flight to the coffee grounds seeking pattern in his cup. Anyone could be oracle for the random ways things fall against each other. It was simple enough to tell fortunes if a man dedicated himself to the idea that the future will inevitably be worse than the past and that time is a path leading nowhere but a place of deep and persistent threat. The way Inman saw it, if a thing like Fredericksburg was to be used as a marker of current position, then many years hence, at the rate we're going, we'll be eating one another raw. — Charles Frazier

Annabeth:My fatal flaw. That's what the Sirens showed me. My fatal flaw is hubris.
Percy: the brown stuff they spread on veggie sandwiches?
Annabeth:No, Seaweed Brain. That's HUMMUS. hubris is worse.
Percy: what could be worse than hummus?
Annabeth: Hubris means deadly pride, Percy. Thinking you can do things better than anyone else ... Even the gods. — Rick Riordan

Smile! Things could be worse at least you have eyes to read this quote! — Victoria Mone't

Sometimes knowing is torture. You wish you could hide your secret away in a dark, cobwebby shed, shut the door, and break the key in the lock, so no one can ever get in again. You wish that you could go to sleep and have your last thought be anything but the buttery light of the New Mexico moon sneaking in through the cracks of an old barn's walls. But you can't erase the knowing, and you can never tell your secret. If there is one thing this world as taught me, it's that no matter how bad things get, they can always get worse. Secrets should stay secrets. It keeps them tolerable. Telling secrets turn them into full-on hell. — Tawni Waters

I tried to imagine how things could get much worse. The gods were in the Midwest fighting a huge monster that had almost defeated them once before. Poseidon was under siege and losing a war against the sea Titan Oceanus.
Kronos was still out there somewhere. Olympus was virtually undefended. The demigods of Camp Half-Blood were on our own with a spy in our midst.
Oh, and according to the ancient prophecy, I was going to die when I turned sixteen - which happened to be in five days, the exact same time Typhon was supposed to hit New York. Almost forgot that. — Rick Riordan

Isn't it weird," I said, "the way you remember things, when someone's gone?"
What do you mean?"
I ate another piece of waffle. "When my dad first died, all I could think about was that day. It's taken me so long to be able to think back to before that, to everything else."
Wes was nodding before I even finished. "It's even worse when someone's sick for a long time," he said. "You forget they were ever healthy, ever okay. It's like there was never a time when you weren't waiting for something awful to happen."
But there was," I said. "I mean, it's only been in the last few months that I've started remembering all this good stuff, funny stuff about my dad. I can't believe I ever forgot it in the first place."
You didn't forget," Wes said, taking a sip of his water. "You just couldn't remember right then. But now you're ready to, so you can."
I thought about this as I finished off my waffle. — Sarah Dessen

If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there's room to hear more subtle things - that's when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before. It's a discipline; you have to practice it. — Walter Isaacson

I used to think I couldn't go a day without your smile. Without telling you things and hearing your voice back.
Then, that day arrived and it was so damn hard but the next was harder. I knew with a sinking feeling it was going to get worse, and I wasn't going to be okay for a very long time.
Because losing someone isn't an occasion or an event. It doesn't just happen once. It happens over and over again. I lose you every time I pick up your favorite coffee mug; whenever that one song plays on the radio, or when I discover your old t-shirt at the bottom of my laundry pile.
I lose you every time I think of kissing you, holding you, or wanting you. I go to bed at night and lose you, when I wish could tell you about my day. And in the morning, when I wake and reach for the empty space across the sheets, begin to lose you all over again. — Lang Leav

I'll tell them how I survive it. I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in things because I'm afraid it could be taken away. That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've seen someone do. It's like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.
But there are much worse games to play. — Suzanne Collins

The fire of my tribulations had not simply been pain to be endured. It had been an agent of transformation. After all that I'd been through, I'd changed. Not for the worse, I was pretty sure
at least not yet. But only a moron or a freaking lunatic could have faced the things I had and remained unfazed by them. — Jim Butcher

There's nothing wild about me. I'm a solid middle-aged man."
"Except that once a month you turn into a wolf and go tearing around slaughtering things," Clary said.
"It could be worse," Luke said. "Men my age have been known to purchase expensive sports cars and sleep with supermodels. — Cassandra Clare

There is no need to overreact. I'm certain there are worse things that could happen to a young lady than to be denied a voucher to Almack's." With a small smile, Amelia Bouchard folded up the letter that had delivered the bad news and tossed it into the fireplace. — Rachel Pierson

Everything could always be worse,' she would say, 'and so be grateful that things are only as bad as they are.' She — Alexander McCall Smith

Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse--hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life. — George Orwell

Sadness was, she well knew, not something that could be cured. It was not, in fact, a failing, not a flaw, not an illness of spirit. Sadness was never without reason, and to assert that it marked some kind of dysfunction did little more than prove ignorance or, worse, cowardly evasiveness in the one making the assertion. As if happiness was the only legitimate way of being. As if those failing at it needed to be locked away, made soporific with medications; as if the causes of sadness were merely traps and pitfalls in the proper climb to blissful contentment, things to be edged round or bridged, or leapt across on wings of false elation. — Steven Erikson

It was [John Gardner's] conviction that if the words in the story were blurred because of the author's insensitivity, carelessness, or sentimentality, then the story suffered from a tremendous handicap. But there was something even worse and something that must be avoided at all costs: if the words and the sentiments were dishonest, the author was faking it, writing about things he didn't care about or believe in, then nobody could ever care anything about it. — Raymond Carver

That's how luck works, lad.
You can bitch all you like about how things could have been more favorable for you, but rest assured things can always be worse.
Always. — Scott Lynch