Quotes & Sayings About Things Not Going Well

At the end of the day it's really easy to be a great leader when things are going well. The real test, whether or not you believe in being an emotionally intelligent leader, is when things go wrong. — Kevin Allen

I'll tell you something," said Francis,urgent with shoe lace, "if we keep on saying things weren't when we know perfectly well they were, we shall soon dish up any sort of chance of magic we may ever have had. When do you find people in books going on like that? They just say 'This is magic!' and behave as if it was. They don't go pretending they're not sure. Why, no magic would stand it."
Book: Wet Magic, Chapter 2 — E. Nesbit

And she said it was a pity, because my father was so "keen", and what did I care about?
So I said, well, I was not quite sure, but on the whole I thought I liked having everything very tidy and calm all around me, and not being bothered to do things, and laughing at the kind of joke other people didn't think at all funny, and going for country walks, and not being asked to express opinions about things (like love, and isn't so-and-so peculiar?). So then she said, oh, well, didn't I think I could try to be a little less slack, because of Father, and I said no, I was I afraid I couldn't; and after that she left me alone. But all the others still said I was no good. — Stella Gibbons

Well look, it seems as though you do have some experience now at least of threefold bliss, luminosity, and emptiness that is such an important feature of the first yoga. On top of that, you are in an excellent position, having had introduction from myself and having all the things on your side that you have going for you. But look out! Your mind is probably not strong enough yet that you can go wandering into town, as a lot of yogi-types would, drinking liquor and womanizing, and trying to incorporate that into your practice. Instead, and until you have advanced far enough that you can actually take these things onto the path, you should be practicising!

- Gampopa to Phagmo Drupa

(Duff T. Gampopa Teaches Essence Mahamudra: Interviews with His Heart Disciples, Dusum Khyenpa and Others. Padma Karpo Translation Committee, 2012. Pp. xxviii-xxix) — Tony Duff

We've got people in the Republican Party that just believe that if you just cut taxes for corporations, and that you have more trade, and we just bring in more people from abroad, that this is going to help the average guy. Well, it's not. I mean, this is an honest dispute. We're going to have a dispute about it. The American people agree with [Donald] Trump and I agree with Trump on those things. — Jeff Sessions

A good man likes a hard boss. I don't mean a nagging boss or a grouchy boss. I mean a boss who insists on things being done right and on time; a boss who is watching things closely enough so that he knows a good job from a poor one. Nothing is more discouraging to a good man than a boss who is not on the job, and who does not know whether things are going well or badly. — William Feather

Among the admirable achievements of Hannibal is included in this: that although he led a huge army, made up of countless different races, on foreign campaigns, there was never any dissension, either among the troops themselves or against their leader, whether things were going well or badly. For this, inhuman cruelty was wholly responsible. It was this, along with his countless other qualities, which made him feared and respected by his soldiers. If it had not been for his cruelty, his other qualities would not have been enough. The historians, having given little thought to this, on the one hand admire what Hannibal achieved, and on the other condemn what made his achievements possible. — Niccolo Machiavelli

We say, "Well, the only answer is ... " or, "If you would just ... " Whatever follows these two statements narrows the choices right there. It gets the vision right down close to the ground so that you don't see anything happening outside. Humans tend not to see over a long range. Now we are required, in these generations, to have a longer range view of what we inflict on the world around us. This is where, I think, science fiction is helping. I don't think that the mere writing of such a book as Brave New World or 1984 prevents those things which are portrayed in those books from happening. But I do think they alert us to that possibility and make that possibility less likely. They make us aware that we may be going in that direction. — Frank Herbert

Well, I am going on 83 now but not about to quit. There are too many things I know about where I want to see what happens. You, my dear, being one of them, and this new century starting.
Do what you can to make it good. And remember, as we used to say, that life is like a pudding: it takes both the salt and the sugar to make a really good one. — Joan W. Blos

Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry. Sometimes this soundtrack is accompanied by visual images or "mental movies." Even if the voice is relevant to the situation at hand, it will interpret it in terms of the past. This is because the voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which is the result of all your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you inherited. So you see and judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view of it. It is not uncommon for the voice to be a person's own worst enemy. Many people live with a tormentor in their head that continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy. It is the cause of untold misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease. — Eckhart Tolle

She closed her eyes briefly, feeling sick. Olivia had experienced strangulation before. Having to look directly into the face of the person who was killing you made the experience beyond awful. But there were worse things than that. Staring into the void of unresolved memory, living an eternal mystery, waking up night after night seeing the face of someone you desperately wanted to save but having not the slightest clue how to do it - all that was worse. If going through with this experience gave her the answers she needed, if it gave her peace, it would be well worth one-hundred-and-thirty seconds of fear and pain. — Leslie Parrish

You know that things are not going well when you lose the moral high ground to a TMZ reporter, — John Oliver

Maybe I fear things going wrong so much that I pre-empt them by not getting excited about them when they appear to be. going well. — Jack Dee

Africa's risks are mainly perceived and not real. Unfortunately for us in Africa we are not really very good at telling our own story. But things are changing and people are beginning to understand that things are going very, very well. — Aliko Dangote

My uncle Alex Vonnegut, a Harvard-educated life insurance salesman who lived at 5033 North Pennsylvania Street, taught me something very important.
He said that when things were really going well we should be sure to NOTICE it. He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories: maybe drinking lemonade on a hot afternoon in the shade, or smelling the aroma of a nearby bakery; or fishing, and not caring if we catch anything or not, or hearing somebody all alone playing a piano really well in the house next door.
Uncle Alex urged me to say this out loud during such epiphanies: If this isn't nice, what is? — Kurt Vonnegut

I don't know why I walk through the doors. Maybe I decide that we've come this far, we might as well see what's going on. But I suspect it's more that I know what's true and what's not. I am Divergent, so I am not nobody, there's no such thing as "safe," and I have other things on my mind than playing house with Tobias. And so, apparently, does he. — Veronica Roth

Bonnie persuaded me to focus on the good, just for today: tomorrow I can call back and we will wallow in the total awfulness of Amy's behavior, which will surely lead to permanent estrangement and dead bodies. Just for today, I was supposed to try to remember three things: The baby is not falling off the earth, or headed to Afghanistan. So many things are going well: Everyone has good health. Jax is perfect. Even though I have acid and sewage and grippage in my stomach, which I have had many times before and will have many times again, I can build faith muscles by bearing my feelings of misery and powerlessness - a kind of Nautilus. Rumi said that through love, all pain would turn to medicine. But he never met my family. Or me. — Anne Lamott

Because sometimes when things are going really well, we find the one thing we're pretending we're not looking for. — Susan Mallery

I just don't think there's that many people who think it's wrong to have control on our borders. That's not racism. It's not racism to question some of the political correctness today that's going on, to recognize that things are going as well as - for American workers, as they'd like, because people, their frustration is arising from a deep sense of unease that Washington is fiddling while their house is burning. — Jeff Sessions

Obviously, as you get a little older, you are not going to be quite as quick or quite as strong, and so I might be regarded by some as the underdog ... There is actually a statue of Big Ben and I in Perth, Ont., and I was on a Canadian stamp once, and normally you have to be dead to do either of those things, and, well, here I am, still going. — Ian Millar

So here we go, you and me. Because what else are we going to do? Say no? Say no to an opportunity that may be slightly out of our comfort zone? Quiet our voice because we are worried it is not perfect? I believe great people do things before they are ready. This is America and I am allowed to have healthy self-esteem. This book comes straight from my feisty and freckled fingers. Know it was a battle. Blood was shed. A war raged between my jokey and protective brain and my squishy and tender heart. I have realized that mystery is what keeps people away, and I've grown tired of smoke and mirrors. I yearn for the clean, well-lighted place. So let's peek behind the curtain and hail the others like us. The open-faced sandwiches who take risks and live big and smile with all of their teeth. These are the people I want to be around. This is the honest way I want to live and love and write. — Amy Poehler

Tell your parents the truth."
A knot of fear settled in Ford's stomach.
"Tell them about you, you mean."
"That's one way to do it."
"But what if things don't work out for you and me?"
Dan blew out breath impatiently.
"So? You're still going to be gay, aren't you?"
"I'm not gay. I never said that."
"Well, you may not be, but you sure fooled me a couple of times. — Jim Grimsley

And what about that meadow where we have them? Is it going to, I don't know, poof out of existence as soon as the faeries leave?"
He frowned thoughtfully. "I suppose it will remain as it is. All this will. We created it, but the matter from which it was formed was never ours. I can't see why it would cease to be since we won't do anything to keep the things we make here. Once made, they simply are."
"Are you sure?"
He opened his eyes. "Of course not."
I glared. "Well, thank you. — Kiersten White

I am not going to allow myself not to perform well just because I don't feel well. I am bulletproof to the extent that a lot of things can be thrown at me, but it's about how much I am prepared to let them affect me — Ian Thorpe

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.

How could she have gotten herself here? To this place where she stood by while the man she adored checked out things to share with his wife?
You knew what you were getting into.
But that wasn't really true. One never knew, not entirely, not until in really deep. She screamed and seethed in raw silence. Damien came in then, and spooned her. He hadn't a clue she was an impulse away from getting up, dressing, and leaving.
How shocked he would be, if she did that.
And he'd conclude that she wasn't the well-matched true lover that he thought he had finally, at long last, discovered.
That thought ploughed a spike deeply through her. It gouged her so much that her breath stopped. It hurt her even more than did the wife. And she knew in that moment while he settled into bliss that she wasn't going to leave, that leaving hadn't had the slightest chance. — Aphrodite Phoenix

The path to true happiness is one of integrating and fully accepting all aspects of our experience. This integration is represented in the Taoist symbol of yin/yang, a circle which is half dark and half light. In the midst of the dark area is a spot of light, and in the midst of the light area is a spot of darkness. Even in the depths of darkness, the light is implicit. Even in the heart of light, the dark is understood, acknowledged, and absorbed. If things are not going well for us in life and we are suffering, we are not defeated by the pain or closed off to the light. If things are going well and we are happy, we are not defensively trying to deny the possibility of suffering. This unity, this integration, comes from deeply accepting darkness and light, and therefore being able to be in both simultaneously. — Sharon Salzberg

One day I saw something very strange, people walking around who looked like they had come directly from the grave, their skin was so pale. Mzungus. They carried a black machine that flashed bright when they pointed it at me. I screamed. I thought the machine was going to harm me, and so I fled. Later I learned it was a camera. Its flash and their voices terrified me. We didn't see them often, less than once in a year. But whenever I saw them, I ran and hid.
I had many ideas about them; first, I did not expect them to be smart, because they loved to take pictures of silly things like chickens on the street, shanties, and other things that were not interesting. Second, since I had seen a kid touching their skin and shouting, "How are you?," for many years I believed the name for all white people was "How are you?" I touched their skin as well and found it soft, but I was surprised and a bit disappointed because I thought touching it would leave a mark on my skin too. — Kennedy Odede

What are you going to do with your life?" In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer ... "Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance. — David Nicholls

Well sometimes I do not listen to music. But when I do it could range from Frank Sinatra to Copeland. I spend a great deal of time playing the piano because it really is my salvation at times. But I am perfectly happy just going on a long bike ride that takes many days to complete and staying away from music for a bit. It always feels so fresh when you return to the instrument with a different observation of things than when you were last there. — Tony MacAlpine

As an author, you spend a lot of time by yourself in a room making clicky noises. It gets pretty insulated. You realize pretty early on in your career that even if this goes well, you could spend all your life in a room alone. Unless you pick projects that are going to get you out doing things, you're not going to actually live your life. — Christopher Moore

Know what it's like to feel like something's eating away at your mind?" I'd been about to tell him I needed to leave, but his words left me cold. I remembered Jill saying something similar when she was telling me about him and spirit. "No," I said honestly. "I don't know what it's like ... but to me, well, it's pretty much one of the most terrifying things I can imagine. My mind, it ... it's who I am. I think I'd rather suffer any other injury in the world than have my mind tampered with." I couldn't leave Adrian right now. I just couldn't. I texted to Brayden: Going to be a little longer than I thought. "It is terrifying," said Adrian. "And weird, for lack of a better word. And part of you knows ... well, part of you knows something's not right. That your thinking's not right. But what do you — Richelle Mead

I know it, but I'm going to let it go, because i'm the bigger person. Not literally but metaphorically as well. Because I believe what you put into the universe comes back at you times three, which is why I always try only to put good things, not horrible skinny bitch things, into the universe. — Meg Cabot

These chaps everyone's been shouting at to change things, they're the very chaps that do so well as things are. Think they're going to make new rules for a game they always win? Not ruddy likely. — Gene Wolfe

Believing in the second coming itself is anything but arrogant. The whole point of it is to insist, over against not only the wider pagan world, but against all self-delusion or pretension within the church, that Jesus remains sovereign and will return at last to put everything right. This putting right (the biblical word for it is "justice") is the sort of sigh-of-relief event that the whole world, at its best and at many other times too, longs for most deeply. All sorts of things are out of joint, both on a large and a small scale, in the world; and God the creator will put them straight. All sorts of things are still going wrong, corrupting the lives of human beings and the larger life of the environment, the planet itself; God the creator will put them right. All sorts of things are still wrong with us, Jesus's followers; Jesus, when he comes, will put us right as well. That may not be comfortable, but it's what we need. — N. T. Wright

We don't have a whole lot of people living hand-to-mouth in the Writers Guild, we get paid really well, and a lot of the things we fought for, in my case, I can negotiate. I can negotiate higher DVD rates or anything I want, it's not going to be a minimum basic agreement. But I do think it was important to stand up to them. I do think that we got things in the deal that we wouldn't have gotten had we not stood up to them. — Edward Allen Bernero

I could give you absolutely sterling advice on how to avoid writing, how when you run out of things to do other than going to your desk and writing, when every closet is reorganized and you've called your oldest living relative twice in one day to see what she's up to and there isn't an unanswered e-mail left on your computer or you simply can't bear to answer another one and there is no dignity, not a drop left, in any further evasion of the task at hand, namely writing, well, you can always ask your dentist for a root canal or have an accident in the bathtub instead. — Tony Kushner

I think I became a better writer after I started writing for the New Yorker. Well, I know I did. And part of it was having my New Yorker editor and part of it is that was when I started really going on tour and reading things in front of an audience 30 times and then going back in the room and rewriting it and reading it and rewriting it. So you really get the rhythm of the sentences down and you really get the flow down and you get rid of stuff that's not important. — David Sedaris

You draw the best things from your parents and family. You're going to pick up some of the bad things as well - there's a temper that runs through my dad's side of the family that I'm not especially keen on picking up a giant block of. — Mark Ronson

This is so much harder than I ever thought it would be ... because the thing is, even if you're just working part-time, your boss is going to expect a full week's worth of work, no matter how understanding she is. That's just the nature of the working world-things have to get done, babies or not. And if you're like me-if you're like any woman who ever did well in school and did well at her job-you don't want to disappoint a boss. And you want to do a good job raising your baby ... It's not like you think it's going to be — Jennifer Weiner

A happy mood loosens the control of System 2 over performance: when in a good mood, people become more intuitive and more creative but also less vigilant and more prone to logical errors. Here again, as in the mere exposure effect, the connection makes biological sense. A good mood is a signal that things are generally going well, the environment is safe, and it is all right to let one's guard down. A bad mood indicates that things are not going very well, there may be a threat, and vigilance is required. — Daniel Kahneman

Perrin told me about his people before I ever came here," she said. He was not a man to brag, but things had a way of coming out. "When hail flattens your crops, when the winter kills half your sheep, you buckle down and keep going. When Trollocs devastated the Two Rivers, you fought back, and when you were done with them, you set about rebuilding without missing a step." She would not have believed that without seeing for herself, not of southerners. These people would have done very well in Saldaea, where Trolloc raids were a matter of course, in the northern parts at least. "I cannot tell you the weather will be what it should tomorrow. I can tell you that Perrin and I will do what needs to be done, whatever can be done. And I don't need to tell you that you will take what each day brings, whatever it is, and be ready to face the next. That is the kind of people the Two Rivers breeds. That is who you are. — Robert Jordan

Now you can introduce me to the hunk." Mo fell into step beside Keeley.
"I will if you can behave like you have a brain as well as glands."
"It had nothing to do with glands, I'm just curious. Don't worry, I'm taking a page out of your book there when it comes to men."
Keeley stopped at the door to the stables. "Excuse me?"
"You know, guys are fne to look at, or to hang around with occasionally. But there are lots more important things. I'm not going to get involved with one until I'm thirty,soonest."
Keeley wasn't certain whether to be amused or appalled.Then she heard Brian's voice, the lilt of it. And he forgot everything else. — Nora Roberts

I pray every day. In the mornings and, before I go to bed. I think it's important to pray not just when things are going bad. When things are going bad, it's easy to pray and ask God to help you out, but it's also important to pray when things are going well and show your appreciation. — Jermain Defoe

When it comes to staying myself - my career isn't my life, it doesn't come home with me. So it's a piece of piss staying grounded and not being changed by it. The same things I've always liked still satisfy me. My team's the same and my group of friends are the same. Of course I'm bowled over by people's response to 21, and when I meet artists I love, it blows my mind. But it baffles me as well. I go home and my best friend laughs at me, rather than going to a celebrity-studded party to rub shoulders with people who know me but who I don't know. I'm Z-list when it comes to that sh**. — Adele

My daughter, Grace, was not killed by a gun. She died suddenly at age 5 from a virulent form of strep. As I stood stunned in a church at her memorial, one of the hardest things I heard someone say was, 'I'm going to go home and hug my child a little tighter.' 'Well, good for you,' I thought. 'I'm going to go home and scream.' — Ann Hood

After all, this was a Traditional Ceremony. If you took the view that you were not going to do things because they were apparently ridiculous, you might as well go home — Terry Pratchett

Just for today, i'll allow many things to be out of my control ... This can be very difficult for many of us. When someone tells us about something bad going on, we tend to want to solve the problem, to exercise some level of control over it. If someone is misbehaving, we often feel obligated to make that person change his or her behavior. But many, many things in this life are not under our control, nor should they be - and we shouldn't try to exert our influence trying to control them. Sometimes we need to accept that this is someone else's problem, and that person is able to deal with it, or that this is an issue that's going to take some time to resolve, or that this really, truly is none of my business. There are plenty of things in life that go on quite well without our involvement, and when we try to push ourselves in, we can add stress to our own lives and complicate the situations. So today, I'm going to let some things go, for they aren't my affair. — Tom Walsh

I guess because you study the character and you do all those things. But when it comes down to it, it's still my performance, it's still my interpretation. I'm not going to, you know, be a clone - well, I was a clone of Richard Dean Anderson! — Michael Welch

No one survives beyond the fence. At least that's what my father always told me when I was a child. But I'm not a little girl anymore, and I no longer believe in the words of my father. He told me the Lattimers were cruel and deserved to die. He told me my only choice was to kill the boy I loved. He has been wrong about so many things. And I'm determined that he's going to be wrong about my survival as well. — Amy Engel

Don't worry, Ian. I totally protected your anonymity. I told her you were my brother."
"Great," he pouted."Now she's going to ask me about you. And I told you
I'm friendly and pleasant and then I move on."
"You can do that. She'll find you perfectly understandable."
"Oh? And why's that?"
"Well, she wondered about you. Said you ask for some heavy reading sometimes, but that you didn't make much conversation."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes," Marcie explained. "I said you were brilliant, but not a very social animal. I said she shouldn't expect a lot of chitchat from you, but you were perfectly nice and there was no reason to be shy around you
you're safer than you look."
"Is that so? And how did you convince her of that?"
"Easy. I said you were an idiot savant
brilliant in literature and many other things, but socially you weren't on your game."
"Oh, Jesus Christ!"
-Ian and Marcie — Robyn Carr

Sometimes we are particularly worried about things that are not going well around us, in our community, our family, or our church circle. We are tempted to get discouraged and give up. That is when we have to tell ourselves: whatever happens, whatever mistakes and faults are committed by this person or that, it robs us of exactly nothing. Even though we lived among people who were committing mortal sins from morning till night, that could not prevent us from loving God and serving our neighbor, or deprive us of any spiritual gift, or stop us from tending toward the fullness of love. The world could collapse around us, but it wouldn't rob us of the possibility of praying, placing all our trust in God, and loving. — Jacques Philippe

If things are not going well with you, begin your effort at correcting the situation by carefully examining the service you are rendering, and especially the spirit in which you are rendering it. — Roger Babson

Every time you observe that more of a good thing is not always better; or you remember that improbable things happen a lot, given enough chances, and resist the lure of the Baltimore stockbroker; or you make a decision based not just on the most likely future, but on the cloud of all possible futures, with attention to which ones are likely and which ones are not; or you let go of the idea that the beliefs of groups should be subject to the same rules as beliefs of individuals; or, simply, you find that cognitive sweet spot where you can let your intuition run wild on the network of tracks formal reasoning makes for it; without writing down an equation or drawing a graph, you are doing mathematics, the extension of common sense by other means. When are you going to use it? You've been using mathematics since you were born and you'll probably never stop. Use it well. — Jordan Ellenberg

For all my good intentions, there are days when things go wrong or I fall into old habits. When things are not going well, when I'm grumpy or mad, I'll realize that I've not been paying attention to my soul and I've not been following my best routine. — Robert Fulghum

I've always been a workout type guy. So if I'm feeling down or I'm not happy with something, I go to the gym and I get a shot of energy. If things don't go well in any aspect of my life, I'm going to the gym and I'm going to shoot. That's my one type of place that's a safe haven where I go and it's just me, the basketball and the hoop, and I'm just doing something I love to do. — LaMarcus Aldridge

I may not know the weight of those things, but I could feel the weight of that one, so I kept it to myself. You know that things aren't going well for you when you can't even tell people the simplest fact about your life, just because they'll presume you're asking them to feel sorry for you. I suppose it's why you feel so far away from everyone, in the end; anything you can think of to tell them just ends up making them feel terrible. — Nick Hornby

Things are going so well. We're volleying words back and forth. Everything she says, I have something I can say back. We're sparking, and part of me just wants to sit back and watch. We're clicking. Not because a part of me is fitting into a part of her. But because our words are clicking into each other to form sentences and our sentences are clicking into each other to form dialogue and our dialogue is clicking together to form this scene from this ongoing movie that's as comfortable as it is unrehearsed. — David Levithan

You may think this a strange story, but it is not. There are people whose lives are every bit as unusual as Bobby Box's
I can promise you that. Not all of them end as well, of course. For many people, the world is a place of sadness and sorrow, which is a great pity, as we have only one chance at life, and it is very bad luck if things do not go well.
But even if you think they are not going well, you can still wish, as Bobby Box did. And sometimes those wishes will come true, as his did, and the world will seem filled with light and happiness. That can happen, you know. So never give up hope; never think things are so bad that they can never get better. They can get better, and they do. And if you have the chance to make things easier for another person, never miss it. Stretch out your hand to help them, to cheer them up, to wipe away their tears. Stretch out your hand as that man and that woman did to Bobby Box. Stretch out your hand and see what happens. — Alexander McCall Smith

You know, Mo, I've been thinking of the Elephantarium lately. You remember Atoul, the white elephant? Well, he taught me that all things need to change form to live. When we die, we change into ashes, gases, things like that. They carry on until they change. The ashes may help a tree grow, the gases could mingle with others and become ... something else! That means you and I are going to change and ... ah ... well ... " His voice stuck in his throat. He stopped, cleared his throat, turned, and walked to Mo. He rubbed the soft leathery skin on the underside of her ear. "and you ... You will become something greater and more wonderful than you can imagine! You will soar in the cosmos, become part of all things, you will sit at HIS side and help rule all of nature." Bram's whole being felt the impact ... The thought of not being with her. "I will be waiting for you, okay? I'll meet you there." pg 317 — Ralph Helfer

The kind of trust that is necessary to build a great team is what I call vulnerability-based trust. This is what happens when members get to a point where they are completely comfortable being transparent, honest, and naked with one another, where they say and genuinely mean things like "I screwed up," "I need help," "Your idea is better than mine," "I wish I could learn to do that as well as you do," and even, "I'm sorry." When everyone on a team knows that everyone else is vulnerable enough to say and mean those things, and that no one is going to hide his or her weaknesses or mistakes, they develop a deep and uncommon sense of trust. They speak more freely and fearlessly with one another and don't waste time and energy putting on airs or pretending to be someone they're not. Over time, this creates a bond that exceeds what many people ever experience in their lives and, — Patrick Lencioni

If I was being perfectly honest, which I'm not going to be, I think the movie touches on a lot of things that we all went through ... the first kiss, which was more than a first kiss for Harry [Eden], and those electrifying moments when you're a teenager that form who you are as a human being. I think those, for me, are what Baillie captured so well. — Daniel Craig

If things are going well I can easily spend twelve hours a day writing, but not writing writing, just thinking and revising and taking a comma out and putting it back in. — Francine Prose

There were two things Chris knew well: his rifle and a woman's body. With either, he could spend hours studying their intracacies, their individual quirks and hots spots ... their flaws.
He knew when one of them was going to jam up and let him down or to give him the shot of his life. Rifles and women - he loved them both, but not necessarily in that order. — Stephanie Tyler

Well, if I were you, I'd leave him. I'd find someone with a more normal way of looking at things and live happily ever after. There's no way in hell you can be happy with him. The way he lives, it never crosses his mind to try to make himself happy or to make others happy. Staying with him will only wreck your nervous system. To me, it's already a miracle that you've been with him three years. Of course, I'm very fond of him in my own way. He's fun, and he has lots of great qualities.
He has strengths and abilities that I could never hope to match. But in the end, his ideas about things and the way he lives his life are not normal. Sometimes, when I'm talking to him, I feel as if I'm going
around and around in circles. The same process that takes him higher and higher leaves me going around in circles. It makes me feel so empty! Finally, our very systems are totally different. Do you see what I'm saying? — Haruki Murakami

Not the way things typically went when he hit on a woman - not to toot his own horn, but women really dug the FBI thing - but, oh well. It wasn't like he was ever going to see her again. — Julie James

And when things are not going well in Toronto, you're going to hear about it. And you're going to say things are not good at all, where it's really not that bad. — Mats Sundin

Since 1978 the record pretty well shows that no start-up airline ... has really been successful, so the odds of JetBlue having long-term success are remote. I'm not going to say it can't happen because stranger things have happened, but I personally believe P.T. Barnum was, in that respect, correct. — Gordon Bethune

She stepped out of the box, smiled sweetly. "You know, Brian, just because you can make a fifteen hundred pound horse do what you want, doesn't mean you can budge me one inch.I'm going to go bet on our horse.To win."
"It's not our-" He broke off, swore, as she'd already flounced out. "And you don't bet to win," he muttered. "It's nothing personal," he said to Finnegan who was watching him with soft, sad eyes. "I just can't be owning things.It's not that I don't have great affection and respect for you,for I do. But what happens in a year or two down the road I move on? Even if I don't-as it's feeling more and more that I'd wonder why I would-I can't have the wman give me a horse.Even a half a horse. Well, not to worry.We'll straighten it all out later. — Nora Roberts

She looked like the well put-together mom I would never be. Of course, she wasn't a full-time, single mom and therefore had time for things like hair appointments and manicures. Also, her body had not pushed four bowling balls out her vagina, so she had that going for her too. — Rachel Higginson

If you know you have to wait anyway, why not make a decision to enjoy your life while you're waiting? Why not be happy while God is in the process of changing things? After all, there's nothing we can really do to make it happen any faster. We might as well relax and enjoy our lives, knowing that at the appointed time God is going to bring his plan to pass. — Joel Osteen

Thanks to demographics, that conservative push is not going to work-the United States is not going to be a mostly white country again- and because genies don't go back into bottles and queer people are not going back into the closet and women aren't going to surrender. It's a war, but I don't believe we're losing it, even if we won't win it anytime soon either; rather, some battles are won, some are engaged, and some women are doing really well while others suffer. And things continue to change in interesting and sometimes even auspicious ways. — Rebecca Solnit

But look, you did not have to be well versed in politics to know that some stupid things were going on. It is the counsel's job to stop them, and instead the coverup was created. — Fred F. Fielding

I'm very patient and always willing to try things but I have some resistance as well because I have my own vision. I have resistance sometimes because I see a director who's freaking out and wants to have control and they sometimes anticipate about what I'm going to be doing or not. — Juliette Binoche

I do sometimes strongly hope that in a past life, my most recent life before this, I was absolutely horrible, evil, hideous. Because otherwise - well, hell, to even things up next time around, I'm going to have to pay for this one, am I not? — Vanessa Paradis

Our purpose (in relationship) is to get what we want but God's purpose is to give us what we really need. We think things are going well only if we are getting along with others. But God says that it is also when we are not getting along with others that he is accomplishing his purpose.
God has designed our relationship to function as both a diagnosis and a cure. — Paul David Tripp

I have a notebook with me all the time, and I begin scribbling a few words. When things are going well, the walk does not get anywhere; I finally just stop and write. — Mary Oliver

The mysterious thing about writing poetry is that when you're - when things are going poorly, when you're not thinking well, even making two sentences together is extremely hard and I just can't make the connections. — Edward Hirsch

The trouble with being a daydreamer who doesn't say much is that the teachers at school, especially those who don't know you very well, are likely to think you're rather stupid. Or, if not stupid, then dull. No one can see the amazing things that are going on in your head. — Ian McEwan

I gather," he added, "that you've never had much time to study the classics?"
"That is so."
"Pity. Pity. You've missed a lot. Everyone should be made to study the classics, if I had my way."
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
"Eh bien, I have got on very well without them."
"Got on! Got on? It's not a question of getting on. That's the wrong view all together. The classics aren't a ladder leading to quick success, like a modern correspondence course! It's not a man's working hours that are important
it's his leisure hours. That's the mistake we all make. Take yourself now, you're getting on, you'll be wanting to get out of things, to take things easy
what are you going to do then with your leisure hours? — Agatha Christie

It marked, further, the decay or going to pieces of his moral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence. It was all well enough in the Southland, under the law of love and fellowship, to respect private property and personal feelings; but in the Northland, under the law of club and fang, whoso took such things into account was a fool, and in so far as he observed them he would fail to prosper. Not — Jack London

I do say things that I think will shock people. But I don't do things to shock people. I'm not trying to be the next Tupac, but I don't know how long I'm going to be on this planet. So while I'm here, I might as well make the most of it. — Eminem

That which interests most people leaves me without any interest at all. This includes a list of things such as: social dancing, riding roller coasters, going to zoos, picnics, movies, planetariums, watching tv, baseball games; going to funerals, weddings, parties, basketball games, auto races, poetry readings, museums, rallies, demonstrations, protests, children's plays, adult plays ... I am not interested in beaches, swimming, skiing, Christmas, New Year's, the 4th of July, rock music, world history, space exploration, pet dogs, soccer, cathedrals and great works of Art. How can a man who is interested in almost nothing write about anything? Well, I do. I write and I write about what's left over: a stray dog walking down the street, a wife murdering her husband, the thoughts and feelings of a rapist as he bites into a hamburger sandwich; life in the factory, life in the streets and rooms of the poor and mutilated and the insane, crap like that, I write a lot of crap like that — Charles Bukowski

Where I come from, you don't really talk about how much you're earning. Those things are private. My dad never told my mum how much he was earning. I'm certainly not going to tell the world. I'm doing well. — Paul McCartney

People are tied together and yet isolated from each other by invisible threads of rhythm and hidden walls of time. Time is ... a primary organizer of all activities, a synthesizer and integrator, a way of handling priorities and categorizing experience, a feedback mechanism for how things are going, a measuring rod against which competence, effort, and achievement are judged as well as a special message system revealing how people really feel about each other and whether or not they can get along ... — Edward T. Hall

Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good. — Vaclav Havel

Can I be honest with you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? I mean, really, really, really honest? Sometimes I get sooo scared! I'll wake up in the middle of the night all alone, hundreds of miles away from anybody, and it's pitch dark, and I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen to me in the future, and I get so scared I want to scream. Does that happen to you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? When it happens, I try to remind myself that I am connected to others - other things and other people. I work as hard as I can to list their names in my head. On that list, of course, is you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. And the alley, and the well, and the persimmon tree, and that kind of thing. And the wigs that I've made here with my own hands. And the little bits and pieces I remember about the boy. All these little things (though you're not just another one of those little things, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, but anyhow ... ) help me to come back "here" little by little. — Haruki Murakami

I'm capable offstage of having some dark, twisted thoughts but the kind of things I like to do onstage are just more conceptual and I don't even think of them as being clean. I don't sit down and think, "Man, I'm going to come up with some lily-white comedy!" They're just things that I like to talk about, and then at the end of the day you think, "Well, I guess that was clean" but it's not the focus. — Brian Regan

Lily ... " "I thought we were friends." He rose in one movement. "I thought we were more than friends." Her eyes widened and she backed up a step, seemingly without conscious thought, as he advanced on her, until her bottom hit the door. He should be gentler, should approach her with caution. Even now she might be afraid of what had been said about him. But he was weary - so very, very weary - of things being taken from him. He wasn't going to lose her as well. Not if he could help it. He halted inches from her. "Weren't we, Lily? More than friends?" Her lips parted as her breath quickened, but she showed no fear of him. "You know we were." "Then that hasn't changed." She laughed, incredulous. "Are you insane? — Elizabeth Hoyt

I have won important things for myself, but I'm going to destroy them, because I tell myself they have lost their meaning. I know that is not true. I know they are important, and that if I destroy them, I'll be destroying myself, as well. — Paulo Coelho

There is a bit [in Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal?] where I talk about 'keeping the heart awake to love and beauty.' That's very difficult in our world, even when things are going well. It's not a world with much room for love and beauty. The daily news is [filled with] everything that goes wrong in our world, and everything horrible and unpleasant. I think that saturates your mind with negativity. I really think we need something to counteract that. I don't think it's Pollyanna or sentimental to focus on the ways we support one another on the micro level.
(from "It is the Imagination that Counts") — Jeanette Winterson

The functionaries of public power rarely strengthen in their dispositions to abridge it, and an unorganized call for timely amendment is not likely to prevail against an organized opposition to it. We are always told that things are going on well; Why change them? 'Chi sta bene, no si mueve,' said the Italian, 'let him who stands well, stand still.' This is true; and I verily believe they would go on well with us under an absolute monarch, while our present character remains, of order, industry and love of peace, and restrained as he would be, by the proper spirit of the people. — Thomas Jefferson

What's it gonna be like, dying? To go to sleep and never, never, never wake up.

Well, a lot of things it's not gonna be like. It's not going to be like being buried alive. It's not going to be like being in the darkness forever.

I tell you what - it's going to be as if you never had existed at all. Not only you, but everything else as well. That just there was never anything, there's no one to regret it - and there's no problem.

Well, think about that for a while - it's kind of a weird feeling when you really think about it, when you really imagine.

[The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are ] — Alan W. Watts

I am glad you think I am all those things, and I believe you. But I'm not going to magically think I'm beautiful or perfect or talented just because you do. I have to get there for myself. I have to believe those things for myself - not because I have a boyfriend who values me and thinks I invented airplane neck pillows. If I base my self-worth on someone else's opinion or view of me, then I will also base my lack of worth on that person's opinion as well. And that has the potential of tearing me to pieces. — Penny Reid

First commandment: there ain't no such thing as "one true way" and the way you find is only good for you, not anybody else, because your interpretation of what you see and feel and understand as the truth is never going to be the same as anyone else's.
Second commandment: the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself.
Third commandment: leave the world better than you found it.
Fourth commandment: if it isn't true, going to do some good, or spread a little love around, don't say it, do it, or think it.
Fifth commandment: there are only three things worth living for; love in all it's manifestations, freedom, and the chance to keep humanity going a little while longer. They're the same things worth dying for. And if you aren't willing to die for the things worth living for, you might as well turn in your membership in the human race. — Mercedes Lackey

Picture the poor Arab private. He knows no one in his unit gives a shit about him; after all, he doesn't give a shit about any of them, either. They're not family. What happens when that private is placed in the loneliest position in the world, the modern battlefield? He runs at the first sign things are going badly. (He'll be fine as long as they are going well, though. Note: things rarely go well.) — Tom Kratman

When you keep asserting that things are going to work out well, that you can do the job, that you will not have a flat tire, that you will get there on time, by talking up good results you invoke the law of positive effects and good results occur. Things do turn out well. — Norman Vincent Peale

You've got this world, these pathologists that are, day in and day out, taking apart bodies, coming up with theories about how they died and how to better serve the community. At the same time these people have lives outside and families and my character in particular, he has a fiance and things are going well for him, so you've got to show that nice warm compassionate side at the same time you've got to show the steely, icy cool of a doctor. Not only that, but a doctor who gets a bit of a God complex and starts killing people for sport. — Milo Ventimiglia

We're still going to Loggerhead this afternoon, right?" Hi glanced around, then dropped his voice. "For that ... home movie thing?"
I nodded. "We might as well deal with what we can. Let's take the afternoon shuttle. I'll think of an excuse for Kit, thought I'm open to suggestions."
"Ben?" Shelton asked.
"Not today. I think the two of us need a little distance."
The bell rang. We gathered our things and headed for the door.
"Tell Kit we're cutting a music video," Hi suggested as we walked. "Something real gangster, so we need to smash-cut our dance routines. Lay down some visuals. We could offer to let him rap over the second verse."
I gave him a thumbs-up. "Foolproof. Anyone need a locker stop? — Kathy Reichs

We're not going to get carried away. If anything, you're in trouble with me."

"Am I?" he asked.

"I've warned you a bunch of times to stop doing things to make me fall more in love with you, but you just don't listen."

He smiled. "Yeah, me treating you well, it's a problem. — Kimberly Frost