Thought Tough Quotes & Sayings

People thought it was asinine for me to change my swing after I won the Masters by 12 shots ... Why would you want to change that? Well, I thought I could become better. If I play my best, I'm pretty tough to beat. I'd like to play my best more frequently, and that's the whole idea. That's why you make changes. I thought I could become more consistent. — Tiger Woods

I thought marriage was tough. Golf's like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel! It's a psychological game that gets into your blood. — Sylvester Stallone

It was the wife, John thought. And she was giving this tough guy a tongue-lashing. And the man was taking it. "Okay. I love you. Bye." Tohrment flipped the phone closed and put it in his pocket. When he focused on John again, he clearly respected his wife enough not to roll his eyes and make some macho, shithead comment about pesky women. — J.R. Ward

However, if you fail to prepare, you will either go through stress to win your race or you may quit when the battle becomes tougher than you ever imagined. — Israelmore Ayivor

People know that Mr. Ellison had a tough beginning, they are aware of a little boy who strived for acceptance, who wished to be like all the other little boys on the block, but found himself always falling short. Unlike majority of children who are carried in the arms and guidance of a father; that separate the dark skies to let you see the light of encouragement and a future glimpse of what they believe you can be. He rather grew up drawing in the sands his own image of what he thought he should be. People are determined to make him into a motivational speech, but remove the essence that still remains of the tragedy that brought everything into play. — Avra Amar Filion

I never thought of myself as unlucky. When you aim high, it's tough to get there unless something really fortunate happens. — Henry Cavill

Twinkle the Destroyer wasn't alone, it seemed. There were more gnomes than I thought. Pip the Bringer of Pain, Chauncey the Devourer of Souls, Cuddly the Inexplicable, Gnoman Polanski, Pith the Bitey, Gnome ChompSky, Gnomie Malone, Chuck the Norriser- the list went on.
'It's like a mishmash of violent imagery, TV, an political references'
'I told you they like TV. I'm not sure the understand everything they see, though, so they don't fully grasp what they're stealing their names from. Like, I think Gnome ChompSky just thought it sounded tough and Chuck the Norriser came from watching too many episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger. They believe Chuck Norris is a demigod'
'Who doesn't? — Lish McBride

Totally." Lisha beamed at Mercy. "I heard that you were, you know, a sentinel but I never thought I'd see you in action. The boys sometimes say that, like - " "You're probably not as tough as the men," Jen completed. "I'm so going to make them eat their words." Mercy laughed. "You have to excuse them - boys suffer from an incurable disability." "What?" "Testosterone." Both girls cracked up. — Nalini Singh

This was what Dennis had been doing lately: granting everyone permission to feel the way they were going to feel regardless. It was the books. Dennis's relationship to his own feelings had become tender, curatorial. Dismantling. Entomological. Mave couldn't be like that. She treated her emotional life the way she treated her car: She let it go, let it tough it out. To friends she said things like "I know you're thinking this looks like a '79, but it's really an '87." She finally didn't care to understand all that much about her emotional life; she just went ahead and did it. The point, she thought, was to attend the meager theater of it, quietly, and not stand up in the middle and shout, "Oh, my God, you can see the crew backstage!" There was a point at which the study of something became a frightening and naive thing. — Lorrie Moore

If you thought eighth grade was tough, try it with fangs and a fear of garlic. — Heather Brewer

It's tough, it's not the scenario that we wanted for sure. I thought our desperation was there, we worked hard, but it was one game, a lot can happen, they're a good team, and unfortunately we didn't win. We had some bad bounces, and in one game those make a big difference, and unfortunately it didn't go our way. But if we play hard like that, we play desperate like that and control the puck the way we did down low, I like our chances against any team. — Sidney Crosby

I am a very good imitation, but I am not really a good person. I have done many very bad things, and I hope to live long enough to do many more. And to be completely objective, I almost certainly deserve all the things Hood and Doakes wanted to do to me. But while I wait for the long arm of the law to grab me by the neck, I also deserve to breathe air that is not fouled with the stench of unwashed and rotting dental apocalypse. I put a stiff index finger into Hood's sternum and pushed him away. For a moment he thought he was going to tough it out - but I had chosen my spot well, and he had to back off. "You can arrest me," I told Hood, "or you can follow me. Otherwise, get out of my way." I pushed a little harder and he had to take another step back. "And for God's sake, brush your teeth." Hood — Jeff Lindsay

The strongest people are people who faced the toughest situations in life. People who are defeated by the toughest battles are stronger than those who have won by using the escape route! — Israelmore Ayivor

I definitely learned a lesson this time. I know that I can be broken. I am not as tough as I thought. I see it now. At this point, it's the only thing good that came out of all of this. I know myself better now and know what I have to do. — Henry Rollins

I had a really tough time for a few years. My show was gone. My phone wasn't ringing. There wasn't one job offer. And at that point, I thought I knew for sure that I wouldn't work in Hollywood again. — Ellen DeGeneres

Well, Freddie Mercury is a really huge rock star in my head. I've always thought he was just so tough and such an amazing entertainer, really a contradiction in many ways as well. So he was incredible. — Karen O

One night I went over to get some dope from some Hollywood tough guy. After I left, my son Scott, who was only fifteen, went over with a baseball bat to kill him. I was laughing out of one eye and crying out of the other. I thought, Who am I kidding? — James Caan

Is he any good?" Susan said. "DeSpain. Yeah. He's a good cop. Very tough cop." "Too tough?" "Some people thought so," I said. "Tougher than you?" "Never a horse that couldn't be rode, little lady. Never a rider that couldn't be throwed." "Good heavens," Susan said. "Does that mean he might be?" "Means maybe we'll find out some day," I said. — Robert B. Parker

Politics is terrifying, very masculine, and not particularly encouraging to young blonde women - as a career, that is - and it was only when I was working in parliament that I thought to myself, 'Well, this is a tough industry; can an acting career be any more intimidating?' and I applied to drama school. — Emily Berrington

In my early years of iterative development, I thought timeboxes were actually about time. What I came to realize is that timeboxes are actually about forcing tough decisions. — Jim Highsmith

When an executive walked on our floor, it was at their own risk. As far as what others thought of working for me, I know I was very tough at times, and would storm down the hall after watching some bad animation from Korea. But overall, I feel we had a good time. — Joe Murray

Well, there is rough old Albert, as ornery as any big brother a girl could have, putting his arm around Savannah and cooing to her like a repenting hound dog, and promising her she is not common nor shameful. I watched all this and thought you just never know sometimes what's in a man's heart. When you think he is all tough nails and boards he can be different on the inside. It makes me wonder about other men I know, too. — Nancy E. Turner

I went to the beach a couple of times in New York City. Tough summer out there, but I was pretty excited. I found what I thought at the time was a very rare seashell. And I took it to a friend of mine who works in a museum. And I was really disappointed. It turned out to be just a human ear. — David Letterman

I saw so many kids 22, 19, with holes the size of a dime and they're dead. It's a gunshot and of course those kids thought they were as tough as nails, they never expected to be dead but they're gone. It's kinda nice to walk out of the County Coroner's Office with a couple of sayings, you know? "You're not so tough being dead on a morgue table." — Milo Ventimiglia

I'm thought to be a tough writer, but I'm really a softie. — V.S. Naipaul

Notoriously outspoken, his sentences always punctuated with profanities, General George S. Patton was the epitome of what a leader should be like - or so he thought. Patton believed a leader should look and act tough, so he cultivated his image and his personality to match his philosophy. — Simon Sinek

As a kid I decided that a Canadian accent doesn't sound tough. I thought guys should sound like Marlon Brando. So now I have a phony accent that I can't shake, so it's not phony anymore. — Ryan Gosling

I like Thomas Jefferson, though he intimidated me. I thought he would have been very tough to be around. I don't know if he had such a sense of humor. — Maira Kalman

I believe you're as silly as I am," said Mrs. Millard smiling rather sadly. "You're a sentimental young woman, I'm afraid. You mustn't be sentimental; it's a sure road to a broken heart. It's ever so much better to be tough and callous - and a little bit selfish." I thought of Helen - it was dreadful of me to think of Helen but I could not help it - Helen was like that: tough and callous and a little bit selfish and she sailed through life very comfortably. "What shall I do with — D.E. Stevenson

In all those stories about people who sold their souls to the devil, I never quite understood why the devil was the bad guy, or why it was okay to screw him out of his soul. They got what they wanted: fame, money, love, whatever - though usually it turned out not to be what they really wanted or expected. Was that the devil's fault? I never thought so. Like John Wayne said, "Life's tough. It's even tougher when you're stupid. — James Anderson

I play tough guys in movies and behaved like one in front of the press because I thought that was what a man did. — Tom Sizemore

A lot of people heard 'Murda Business' and thought it was about killing people, trying to be tough and hardcore. If you actually listen to the lyrics, it's kind of silly and playful. — Iggy Azalea

When I was a kid, I thought it was tough. — Idris Elba

I've been wanting to go into music ever since I can remember. I mean even before I became an actor. I just thought it would be a tough field to break into, so I became an actor instead. — River Phoenix

For years, I never thought I needed a short game. Finally I just decided to do something about it. I needed to get up and down from tough spots on the par-5s for my birdies. So I went to Phil [Rogers]. He's the best. For the last couple weeks, Phil has been staying at my house and we've been practicing in the evening. — Jack Nicklaus

I always thought I had a problem socially, because I was pulled out of school so early. I had a tough time talking to other kids and being comfortable with them. — Ricky Schroder

We were on a tour, and there were some chord formations that were tough for me to play when I was a kid ... it had become apparent that there was some stuff I wanted to do that [would require me] to learn how to do that. So I wrote the song and used some of these chord formations so I would have to play them. I thought it would be a great teaching vehicle for a while, and it was, but it ended up as a performance song. — Jorma Kaukonen

A guy's who has all the money he needs and never faced any hard times, he won't have any character. But when you've had it tough and you've had it rough and you thought you were at the end of the rope and you work your way out of it, that's the way you build character. — Bobby Bowden

Christ, how did you ever get this screwed up! his mind demanded of
him. He knew the answer, but even that was not a full explanation.
Different segments of the organism called John Terrance Kelly knew
different parts of the whole story,
but somehow they'd never all come together, leaving the separate
fragments of what had ... once been a tough, smart, decisive and to blunder
about in confusion - and despair! There was a happy thought. — Tom Clancy

Royce turned to Hadrian. "It's supposed to make them look tough, but all it really does is make it easy to identify them as thieves for the rest of their lives. Painting a red hand on everyone is pretty stupid when you think about it."
"That tattoo is supposed to be a hand?" Hadrian asked. "I thought it was a little red chicken. But now that you mention it, a hand does make more sense."
Royce looked back at Will and tilted his head to one side. "Does kinda look like a chicken. — Michael J. Sullivan

I always thought I was thought and independent, that I could do everything alone. Turns out I'm not as tough as I'd like to think I am. — Jaci Burton

Encourage yourself and do it bit by bit. It may appear tough, but every single bite of it every day is an endorsement that all will be chopped off sooner. Nothing is too difficult! — Israelmore Ayivor

When I was leaving Yemen to come to America, things were tough. My dad had just been laid off, and it was a challenge. When I lived in Yemen, I thought America was a perfect place. Everything was bigger and better. I dreamed big. The American dream, you know? You have to work hard for your dream to come true. — Barkhad Abdi

The story of Judith. But one of the reasons I'm doing it is because the roles I've been writing for myself over the past few years have gotten older and older. And I thought, You know, before it's too late, I want to play a sexy, tough young gal again. And I always wanted to do a Biblical epic. So, I'll play a beautiful young widow who saves her people from the Assyrians. — Charles Busch

The way I survived growing up in Jersey City was by being funny. It wasn't by being tough. Nobody thought of me as a tough kid, except for the kids I beat up. — Michelle Rodriguez

I don't care any more about the handsome wealthy boys who come gingerly into the living room to take out the girl they thought would look nice in an evening cocktail dress ... I said I wanted to go out with them to meet new people. I ask you, what logic is there in that? What guy you would like, would see the depths in a girl outwardly like all the other physical american queenies? So why go places with guys you can't talk to? You'll never meet a soul that way - - - not the sort you want to meet. Better to stay in your garret reading than to go from one party to another. Face it, kid: unless you can be yourself, you won't stay with anyone for long. You've got to be able to talk. That's tough. But spend your nights learning, so you'll have something to say. Something the "attractive intelligent man" will want to listen to. — Sylvia Plath

I had always thought of myself as fairly tough and fairly strong and fairly able to cope with anything. And then I had a series of personal losses. My mother died. A relationship that I was in came to end, and a variety of other things went awry. — Andrew Solomon

She was a river, not a stone, and every day was another curve in tomorrow's plain. She was pulled from a family she loved, and that loved her, she thought, until they took the word of a man, a friend and neighbour, who raped her. Years later, when she killed the rapist and went on the run, she severed every connection to her own life. She was runaway tough, a dancing cat, a green witch, and safe from everything but herself, like me. — Gregory David Roberts

You don't speak much, do you?" ter Borcht said, circling him slowly.
Fittingly, Fang said nothing.
Vhy do you let a girl be de leader?" ter Borcht asked, a calculating look in his eye.
She's the tough one," Fang said.
Dang right, I thought proudly.
Is dere anysing special about you?" asked ter Borcht. "Anysing vorth saving?"
Fang pretended to think, gazing up at the ceiling. "Besides my fashion sense? I play a mean harmonica. — James Patterson

'I think that's why his asking me to pull the plug hurt so much. He kept saying if I really loved him, I should have been able to do it. And I thought, if he really loved me, he would never have asked.' — Barbara Elsborg

I thought it was time for a tough, smart, likable female private investigator, and that's how VI came to life. — Sara Paretsky

Holding his own in this difficult environment. That perhaps he was learning he was not as tough as he'd previously thought. And that the situation was making him sullen. But Nat didn't seem to care to discuss the matter. And Nathan remained unwilling to pry. — Catherine Ryan Hyde

You haven't lived a full life until you have been in a very tough situation when you thought you were going to die. War does that to you. — William E. Peterson

Um," Arthur says. He's looking at me dead-on, like he's forcing himself to do it. God, I wish he would knock it off. I also wish he'd lose his eyelashes in a freak eyelash fire incident. And his lips, too, because all of a sudden I'm looking at them, what is that. "Yes. I thought we should discuss - "

"You mouth-mauling me?" I ask loudly, indignantly, like a tough sonuvabitch who doesn't want to be mouth-mauled. I make myself meet his eyes. They're green; I never paid attention before. This really light, interesting, intelligent green -

FUCK, this guy needs to STOP HAVING A FACE. — Hannah Johnson

I always thought I'm kind of a tough girl. — Rene Russo

I should be grateful for the tough times because Allah chose me, thought I was good enough to go through it. — Nouman Ali Khan

Don't quench the courageous spirit you begun with; you'll still need it when the going gets tough and all things seem impossible on your journey! — Israelmore Ayivor

I think when you start to do well and get your confidence back, everything becomes more fun. When you're playing with not your full capacity of confidence, I think things get a little tough. I knew I could be doing better than what I was doing. Even though I was ranked 5 or 4 or whatever it was, I wanted to get back to the level I thought I could play at. — Lindsay Davenport

My father was a successful real estate developer, and he was a very tough man but a good man. My father would always praise me. He always thought I was the smartest person. — Donald Trump

It's tough being a dictator, but I've always thought it must be tougher being a hanger-on to a dictator. The late nights spent listening to his crazed ranting, the weary rictus grin from smiling at bad jokes, the draining knowledge that one misjudged comment could land you on the chopping block. — John Niven

I got a bike when I was little, a BMX. I called it 'Fido Dido' after the tough little cartoon guy with spiked hair. I thought he was the coolest thing ever. — Zlatan Ibrahimovic

The first thing I did was commit to my success and playing to win. I swore I would focus and not even consider leaving this business until I was a millionaire or more. This was radically different from my previous efforts, where, because I always thought short-term, I would constantly get side-tracked by either good opportunities or when things got tough. — T. Harv Eker

For being book smart, I thought he (A. Barlett Giamatti) had a lot of street smarts, which is tough to find sometimes. — Whitey Herzog

Not hope that he would be rescued
that was gone. But hope in his knowledge. Hope in the fact that he could learn and survive and take care of himself. Tough hope, he thought that night. I am full of though hope. — Gary Paulsen

Cameron found himself smiling as he thought about the two tough, acerbic FBI agents. "It's so cute. They're in love."
"It's like watching two kittens fight with machetes," Julian muttered.
"Julian."
"What? Its weird!"
"No its not. They're perfect for each other. Poor Zane though," Cameron murmured. "In love with Ty Grady." He couldn't imagine how frustrating that would be. Then Julian inhaled, and Cameron chuckled slightly. Yeah, he could actually. — Abigail Roux

A small hole in his shirt revealed a gooey red blob right in the meaty part above his armpit, blood pouring from the wound. It hurt. It hurt bad. If he'd thought his headache downstairs had been tough, this was like three or four of those, all smashed into a coil of pain right there in his shoulder. And spreading through the rest of his body.
Newt was at his side, looking down with worried eyes.
"He shot me." It just came out, a new number one on the list of the dumbest things he'd ever said. The pain, like living metal staples running through his insides, pricking and scratching with their little sharp points. He felt his mind going dark for the second time that day. — James Dashner

I didn't just foster the delusions. I lived them. Even after the world crashed, I clung to them. But after he died, I told myself no more. No more brave fronts or false hopes or pretending everything's okay when nothing is. I thought I was being tough by pretending, calling it being optimistic, brave, keeping my head up or whatever bullshit seemed to fit the moment. That's not tough. That's the very definition of soft. — Rick Yancey

I don't think the American people had a clear picture of either Nixon or me. I think they thought that Nixon was a strong, decisive, tough-minded guy and that I was an idealist and antiwar guy who might not attach enough significance to the security of the country. The truth is, I was the guy with the war record, and my opposition to Vietnam was because I was interested in the nation's well-being. — George McGovern

Life was tough for me. When I was a kid, nobody played with me because they thought I looked ugly with my extra thumb. It pained me. So once I thought of getting it surgically removed. But I didn't. Slowly, I realized that the exterior is not the criterion for love and success. — Hrithik Roshan

Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication, and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us
and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along. — Carl Sagan

Bags were shoved on all of our heads once more. Hands grabbed me and spurred me forward. "Rick," Zach said behind us. The hands guiding me stopped. The bag was ripped off my head again, and I found myself looking into Zach's eyes. "Bring the girl tomorrow night," he said.
The last thing I wanted to do was bring Rimmel into a room full of these assholes. "What the fuck for?"
He smiled. It looked more like a sneer. "I'd like to meet the nerd. I hear you've become quite smitten."
The more he talked about her, the more he implied he knew her, the more pissed off I got. I lunged forward and shoved my face right up in his. Satisfaction speared me when his eyes widened just a fraction. He wasn't as tough as he thought he was.
"Well, since you seem to know everything," I said, dead calm, "then you must also know that I take care of what's mine. You might be president of this frat, but I own the campus. Do. Not. Push. Me."
- Zach & Romeo — Cambria Hebert

Everyone said I had a boyish look about me. The Thunderdome manager Axel mentioned the same thing when I arrived for my first fight. Why does a sweet boy like you want to get your ass kicked? I just smiled at his comment since I never had a talent for the kind of trash talking that made so many men scary. As a teenager, I practiced acting tough in front of the mirror. I always ended up laughing because even I didn't believe the bullshit coming out of my mouth. Though tall and strong, I'd never be scary.
Every guy I'd fought over the years thought he could take me in less than a minute. Even now as Dragon, I never scared anyone. Their lack of fear was what made the first punch so perfect. The moment my opponents realized they were fucked. — Bijou Hunter

He made my life hell. Him and Tonto over there." Daniel glared toward Nick. "Poor little Clay. He has problems. He's had a tough life. You should be nice to him. You should make friends with him. That's all I ever heard. All they saw was a cute little runt of a wolf cub. He bared his teeth and they
thought it was cute. He ordered us around like a miniature Napoleon and they thought it was cute. Well, it wasn't cute from where I was standing. It was - "
I held up my hand. "You're ranting."
"What?"
"Just wanted to let you know. You're ranting. It's kinda ugly. Next thing you know, you'll be laying out your plans for world domination. That's what all villains do after they rant about their motivation. I was hoping you'd be different. — Kelley Armstrong

He couldn't think of a good place. At first he thought she hated all living beings equally. Lately he had come to believe he held a special place in her heart, just below rattlesnakes, pederasts, and spirochetes. Definitely a tough place to start from, but determination had always been Conal's strong point. — John Varley

Bruno opened his eyes in wonder at the things he saw. In his imagination he had tough that all the huts were full of happy families, some of whom sat outside on rocking chairs in the evening and told stories about how things were so much better when they were children and they'd had nowadays. He thought that all the boys and girls who lived there would be in different groups, playing tennis or football, skipping and drawing out squares for hopscotch on the ground.
As it turned out, all the things he thought might be there-wern't.' -The boy in the striped Pajamas — John Boyne

English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though. — Anonymous

Finally, though, I'd leave the room without even taking a sock at him. I'd probably go down to the can and sneak a cigarette and watch myself getting tough in the mirror. Anyway, that's what I thought about the whole way back to the hotel. It's no fun to be yellow. Maybe I'm not all yellow. I don't know. i think maybe I'm just partly yellow and partly the type that doesn't give much of a damn if they lose their gloves. — J.D. Salinger

This boy," he said, indicating the paintings with one sweep of his arms, "was romantic. He thought that it was beauty that bound everything together. And for him it was true. Life had been beautiful for him. He was very young. He knew very little of life. He saw beauty but he did not feel any true passion. How could he? He did not know. He had not really encountered the force of beauty's opposite."
"Are you more cynical now, then?" she asked him.
"Cynical," he frowned, "No, not that. I know that there is an ugly side of life-and not just human life. I know that everything is not simply beautiful. I am not a romantic as this boy was. But I am not a cynic either. There is something enduring in all of life, Anne, something tough. Something. Something terribly weak yet incredibly powerful ... — Mary Balogh

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

It was going to be really tough to juggle the two as far as rehab and strength training, getting the shoulder back to where it needed to be and also worrying about the weight cut. We thought as a team that the best option for me right now with the recovery was to stay at middleweight, for this fight at least. We'll see what happens after this. — Dylan Andrews

In tough times, some of us see protecting the climate as a luxury, but that's an outdated 20th-century worldview from a time when we thought industrialization was the end goal, waste was growth, and wealth meant a thick haze of air pollution. — Alex Steffen

I used to think i was tough, but then i realized i wasn't. i was fragile and i wore thick fucking armor. and i hurt people so they couldn't hurt me. and i thought that was what being tough was, but it isn't. — James Frey

Give me your time, your honesty, your respect, kindness, patience, fidelity. Give me comfort when things are tough ... I give off an air of being self-sufficient and instead of expressing and demanding the right kind of love for myself, I always wanted to appear like I was fine, in fact, I thought I was fine - and so did they. But it wasn't true. Just because you're a strong girl doesn't mean you don't need to be loved and cared for like anybody else. And it doesn't matter where you sit in this world, poor or rich, famous or not, we all need to be loved in the right way. — Jennifer Lopez

Why does a father have to protect his son?" I thought for a moment before answering. "Look," I said as I stroked his cheek, "the world we live in can sometimes be very tough. And it's only fair that everyone who's born into it should have at least one person who'll be there to protect him. — Etgar Keret

Be tough minded but tenderhearted. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

He had slowed up to avoid the inevitable end of his thought:
"
the frontiers of consciousness." The frontiers that artists must explore were not for her, ever. She was fine-spun, inbred
eventually she might find rest in some quiet mysticism. Exploration was for those with a measure of peasant blood, those with big thighs and thick ankles who could take punishment as they took bread and salt, on every inch of flesh and spirit.
Not for you, he almost said. It's too tough a game for you. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Take it for all in all, a representative gathering of Twing life and thought. The Nibs were whispering in a pleased manner to each other, the Lower Middles were sitting up very straight, as if they'd been bleached, and the Tough Eggs whiled away the time by cracking nuts and exchanging low rustic wheezes. — P.G. Wodehouse

I put my energy into writing songs. I have to carve out a living somehow doing this, and licensing is one way. It's hard to register what's "too much" for other people. I don't watch TV, so it's tough for me to gauge. I just take it as it comes, and don't put a whole lot of thought into it. — Iron & Wine

Seize the opportunities life has to offer you. Embrace the changes, and have the courage to travel on roads less travelled, even though what is in front of you could be tough, make it successful. Have determination and courage to kick down the brick walls in front of you, and to go on and achieve bigger success than you ever thought possible. — Li Cunxin

I loved the terrier quality Stuart had. He thought he was such a tough guy. — Jacquelyn Mitchard

Thoughts are things. Negativity is what kills you ... It's tough to do, but you've got to work at living, you know? Most people work at dying, but anybody can die; the easiest thing on this earth is to die. But to live takes guts; it takes energy, vitality, it takes thought ... We have so many negative influences out there that are pulling us down ... You've got to be strong to overcome these adversities ... that's why I never stop. — Jack LaLanne

JAMES HALE sat at a side-street noodle-stall. The stall was set-up underneath the shade of a row of fruit trees. He watched a pair of pigeons courting beneath a fig tree. The male's tail feathers were pushed up in self-promotion and his plumage was arrogantly puffed up. He danced his elaborate dance of love. The female didn't look impressed. She turned her back to him. Birds were like gangster rappers, Hale thought. They sang songs about how tough they were and how many other birds they'd nested. They were egomaniacs with inferiority complexes. Posers in a leafy street. The bastards flew at the first sign of danger. They couldn't make it on the ground. Hale hated birds with their merry chirps and their flimsy nests. Tweet. Tweet. Fucking. Tweet. The only thing Hale admired about them was the fact that they could fly. That would be cool. Right now, flying would be good. — James A. Newman

I think the job of movie reviewing can be really tough. If a film has layers that need to be thought about, it's easy to get missed the first time around. — Roland Joffe

It was about everything. About life and death, and white and black and gray. It was about having to be tough when you weren't used to it. About having to grow when you'd thought you were done growing. In the back of my head, I knew what I'd said didn't make any damn sense. But how could I explain? How could I begin to tell him that I had lost a part of myself with my brother's death, and I was trying so hard to keep what I had left together with duct tape and paper clips? — Mariana Zapata

My first year of college was tough. I thought that just being an athlete I could get by. I thought I was okay until I got kicked out, which happened twice. — Victor Cruz

I thought: to be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce. — Gretel Ehrlich

the invention of beer. Picture a bucket of barley left to soak overnight to soften the tough outer husk. Wild yeast would have found its way into the bucket, and someone would have thought to taste the strange, foamy mixture that resulted from the yeast going to work on all those sugars. There it was: beer! Yeasty, bubbly, mildly intoxicating beer. The priorities of people in the waning years of the Stone Age must have undergone a rapid reshuffling as society organized itself around the need to reproduce this glorious mishap on a larger scale. — Amy Stewart

She's tough for a blueblood, he'd thought, a lifetime ago. Maybe tough enough to be with him. He hadn't considered that he might not be tough enough to be with her. — Cinda Williams Chima

Jaz immediately thought of a scene from a prison gym. Even the women looked tough and intimidating; lifting weights that she could never imagine lifting. — A.Z. Green

Parker, who was six feet four with nothing to protect his bones from exposure to the weather but tough-looking leathery skin, was so skeptical that at one point I thought he was going to pass, but he finally conceded that the move might be undertaken without undue risk to juridical virtue, to his own reputation, or to his client's life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. When all details had been settled and money passed - a dollar bill from Sarah to Parker as a token retainer - I got at the phone and dialed a number. — Rex Stout