To The End Quotes & Sayings

Outdoors, we knew, was the real terror of life. The threat of being outdoors surfaced frequently in those days. Every possibility of excess was curtailed with it. If somebody ate too much, he could end up outdoors. If somebody used too much coal, he could end up outdoors. People could gamble themselves outdoors, drink themselves outdoors. Sometimes mothers put their sons outdoors, and when that happened, regardless of what the son had done, all sympathy was with him. He was outdoors, and his own flesh had done it. To be put outdoors by a landlord was one thing - unfortunate, but an aspect of life over which you had no control, since you could not control your income. But to be slack enough to put oneself outdoors, or heartless enough to put one's own kin outdoors - that was criminal. — Toni Morrison

In the coming days and weeks, Laila would scramble frantically to commit it all to memory, what happened next. Like an art lover running out of a burning museum, she would grab whatever she could
a look, a whisper, a moan
to salvage from perishing to preserve. But time is the most unforgiving of fires, and she couldn't, in the end, save it all. — Khaled Hosseini

Had I life to live over, I see now where I could do more; but neighbour, believe me, my highest aspiration is to be a clean, thrifty housekeeper, a bountiful cook, a faithful wife, a sympathetic mother. That is life work for any woman, and to be a good woman is the greatest thing on earth. Never mind about the ladies; if you can honestly say of me, she is a good woman, you have paid me the highest possible tribute ... To be a good wife and mother is the end toward which I aspire. To hold the respect and love of my husband is the greatest object of my life. — Gene Stratton-Porter

I do believe that reality is dreadful and that you are forced to choose it in the end or go crazy, but that it kills you. — Woody Allen

Ah, the dear earth! The beautiful earth! She wants all that we have--the touch of our hands, the song of our hearts.
She wants to draw out from us all that is within, hidden even from ourselves.
This is her sorrow, that she finds out some things only to know that she has not found all. She loses before she attains.
Ah, the dear earth! We shall never deceive you.

(They sing.)
I shall crown you with my garland, before I take leave.
You ever spoke to me in all my joys and sorrows.
And now, at the end of the day, my own heart will break in speech.
Words came to me, but not the tune, and the song that I never sang to you remains hidden behind my tears. — Rabindranath Tagore

Very often it seems that people assume that by cutting the wings of others, it becomes easier to love them. They know so little about love that end up creating a perception of love that is devilish and demoniacal. And I end with no other choice but to remain single and let them go. — Robin Sacredfire

Love does not call us to the dance only to deny us chances . There is consistency in this journey. As in the beginning, so shall it be in the middle and the end. Love does not tempt us to leave what we know, only to leave us without direction, resources, synergy and flow. — Tama J. Kieves

Still, we will let all this be a thing of the past, though it hurts us, and beat down by constraint the anger that rises inside us.
Now I am making an end of my anger. It does not become me, unrelentingly to rage on — Homer

I think a writer's first job is to entertain, even in novels: to tell a compelling story that pulls the reader along toward an end. At the same time, the best stories are character-driven. — Noah Hawley

When we are able to stay present with the internal discomfort created by the idea that somebody else might be mad at us, we end up becoming a bodhisattva with tremendous integrity. We end up building confidence that we can say what we think and mean what we say, more and more often. This kind of integrity and dignity become contagious, and in the end, even if somebody doesn't agree with us, that person at least respects us for our dedication to living by our principles. — Ethan Nichtern

Society can give its young men almost any job and they'll figure how to do it. They'll suffer for it and die for it and watch their friends die for it, but in the end, it will get done. That only means that society should be careful about what it asks for ... Soldiers themselves are reluctant to evaluate the costs of war, but someone must. That evaluation, ongoing and unadulterated by politics, may be the one thing a country absolutely owes the soldiers who defend its borders. — Sebastian Junger

What we experience in dreams - assuming that we experience it often - belongs in the end just as much to the over-all economy of our soul as anything experienced "actually": we are richer or poorer on account of it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

One should always look to the end of everything, how it will finally come out. For the god has shown blessedness to many only to overturn them utterly in the end. — Herodotus

What we also have to recognize is that the deficit levels that I'm inheriting, over a trillion dollars, coming out of last year, that that is unsustainable. At a certain point, other countries stop buying our debt, at a certain point, we'd end up having to raise interest rates, and it would end up creating more economic chaos and potentially inflation. — Barack Obama

Mindi Scott has a real talent for getting inside her protagonist's head. She sketches out Coley's story in grand swathes, and then paints in all the little details, so that you feel as though you are enmeshed in Coley's brain: thinking her thoughts, feeling her confusion, anger, and, in the end, pain. I just don't think it's possible to read this book and not identify with Coley in some way. — Amber Benson

Together we can remind them there are no excuses to sit back and watch the cycle of extreme poverty continue. — Auliq Ice

I've come to realize that I'm a image maker, not an object maker. Images come to me as photographs because I don't have any other way of express them. I have to translate everything into still or moving pictures. I've learned that reality is not important to me. In the end it is the representation of reality that I'm striving to capture. — Gerardo Suter

It just makes it even harder for people to even approach the (open source) side, when they then end up having to worry about public humiliation. — Linus Torvalds

I don't think too much about the future. Not because I'm hiding my head in the sand but because I figured out that whatever the future was going to be, the thing I had to do was to quiet my mind and open my heart and do what I could to end suffering. — Ram Dass

Their song reminds me of a child's neighborhood rallying cry - ee-ock-ee - with a heartfelt warble at the end. But it is their call that is especially endearing. The towhee has the brass and grace to call, simply and clearly, "tweet". I know of no other bird that stoops to literal tweeting. — Annie Dillard

Conversion is not merely a ticket out of hell. It is the beginning of a whole new life, not just an end to the old one. — Aimee Byrd

Not even the dead know the end to war.
-Iskar Jarak — Steven Erikson

In the acquisition of Sacred knowledge, scholarship and reason are not alternatives to revelation. They are a means to an end, and the end is revelation from God. — Dallin H. Oaks

She described how Camus's aphorism "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" helps her fight back against unproductive feelings of meaninglessness.
If we consider, like Camus, Sisyphus at the foot of his mountain, we can see that he is smiling. He is content in his task of defying the Gods, the journey more important than the goal. To achieve a beginning, a middle, an end, a meaning to the chaos of creation - that's more than any deity seems to manage: But it's what writers do. So I tidy the desk, even polish it up a bit, stick some flowers in a vase and start.
As I begin a novel I remind myself as ever of Camus's admonition that the purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. And even while thinking, well, fat chance! I find courage, reach for the heights, and if the rock keeps rolling down again so it does. What the hell, start again. Rewrite. Be of good cheer. Smile on, Sisyphus! — Fay Weldon

Something in me whispered that I needed to stop thinking, that I should above all not go too far
with thinking. But that never worked; I always thought things through to the end, to their most
extreme consequence. — Herman Koch

Films in the start you can't really say who will be the killer, who won't be, most times what you say is wrong (Of course if you have watched the film before that and now saying that you haven't it's a great lie, but I don't lie I just have the gift to predict!), the middle is messy because comes stuff which you won't ever thought, sometimes the quite people are the killers. The people which are suspected or investigated aren't the true killers they are the victims or in more cases just a wrong choice!
The end is something which says a lot of for one film, if the killer wins it's show a new place in the films, if there is happy end it's something which is often. — Deyth Banger

Now I just want it to end. I've always wanted the happy ending, but now I'll just settle for the ending. — David Levithan

The fact is most computer roleplaying games that offer a zillion highly specialized skills end up with nine-tenths of a zillion skills that every player quickly realizes aren't worth the experience points to buy. — Warren Spector

There is no great religion without a great schism. All of them have it. And that's because you're dealing with something called faith. And faith is not something you can prove; faith is personal opinion. Uh, when you're dealing with something with certainty, like, y'know, science or logic, you don't have the
there's no wiggle room; that's why history is not filled with warring math cults, y'know, because you can settle the issue; you can prove something to be right or wrong, and that's the end of the argument: next case. Whereas, when you're dealing with faith, you can forever argue your point, or another point, because you're dealing with intangibles. Personally, I think, faith is what you ask of somebody when you don't have the goods to prove your point. — Tom Quinn

I like to get up and get out. Otherwise you end up kicking about, and it's easy to flick the telly on; then before you know it, it is 11 A.M. and you haven't done anything. — Anton Du Beke

That would be getting up at 5 am ... I don't understand why film's shoot such brutal hours. I think it'd be worth it to not be so strictly cost-effective and have an 8 hour day. The film's would benefit in the end. — Terry Zwigoff

Be yourself! Don't be somebody! Be humble to authority, but be assertive! Mind your solemn duty and responsibility to the Supreme God, for you shall give account to Him in the end! You were created uniquely, mind your mind! Mind the things that can change your mindset, and mind people! People are always alert to do all things possible to change your mind set. They wish you become the reason for their joy even if it causes you an inner pain! They wish you halt a purposeful journey. They wish you look and see, hear and listen, think and act, as they do! Their joy is to see you being like them, and their sorrow and envy is to see you living your true you! Be yourself! If only you living your true you please God, no problem exists! Just be yourself and mind your mind! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

This homicide proves only the beginning of his murderous spree. In just the first year of his existence Batman will send some twenty-four men, two vampires, a pack of werewolves, and several giant mutants to their ultimate ends, occasionally at the business end of a gun. — Glen Weldon

But when you walk through yonder gate," Churchill said, pointing toward the Middle Tower at the end of the causeway, which was visible only as a crenellated cutout in the orange sky, "you'll find yourself in a London you no longer know. The changes wrought by the Fire were nothing. In that London, loyalty and allegiance are subtle and fluxional. 'Tis a chessboard with not only black and white pieces, but others as well, in diverse shades. You're a Bishop, and I'm a Knight, I can tell that much by our shapes, and the changes we have wrought on the board; but by fire-light 'Tis difficult to make out your true shade. — Neal Stephenson

A man can love too.'
'No; -- hardly. He can admire, and he can like, and he can fondle and be fond. He can admire and approve, and perhaps worship. He can know of a woman that she is part of himself, the most sacred part, and therefore will protect her from the very winds. But all that will not make love. It does not come to a man that to be separated from a woman is to be dislocated from his very self. A man has but one centre, and that is himself. A woman has two. Though the second may never been seen by her, may live in the arms of another, may do all for that other that man can do for woman, -- still, still, though he be half the globe asunder from her, still he is to her the half of her existence. If she really love, there is, I fancy no end of it. — Anthony Trollope

Life is nothing but a bet that in the end everyone is doomed to lose. So you'd better get used! — William C. Brown

We've been very lonely, but we had it easy. Because death is so heavy - we, too young to know about it, couldn't handle it. After this you and I may end up seeing nothing but suffering, difficulty and ugliness, but if only you'll agree to it, I want for us to go on to more difficult places, happier places, what ever comes, together. I want you to make the decision after you're completely better, so take your time thinking about it. In the mean time, though, don't disappear on me. — Banana Yoshimoto

We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you're dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played. — Alan Watts

The acrobat practices: He steps on the edge of a chair and leaps to the floor, feeling the rush as the air flares up his face as he falls. Then he sets himself on something higher, like a table then jumps. He scales a ladder to the ceiling, climbs a tree, pole, watchtower. He keeps increasing the height until no one sees him and the fear to jump leaves him completely, layer by layer [. . .] The acrobat imagines there is a highest possible point in the sky where if he were to fall from it the fall would never end. — Wataru Tsurumi

I found myself speaking softly as if I were telling an old tale to a young child. And giving it a happy ending, when all know that tales never end, and the happy ending is but a moment to catch one's breath before the next disaster. — Robin Hobb

In business, I believe that if you focus only on the journey, you'll miss the whole point of the enterprise. There has to be a goal, an end game of some kind; otherwise, you're just spinning your wheels. Yes, the journey is important, but the destination is important, too. — Ivanka Trump

It always sounds more right to me when it's detuned. When it's right in tune, it's like there's something slightly off. But at the end of the day, it's all about frequencies and what they do to you. That's the real core. — Aphex Twin

Prose is when all the lines except the last go on to the end. Poetry is when some of them fall short of it. — Jeremy Bentham

Even if you look at the 'Paranormal Activity' movies, at the end of the movie things get really crazy and nutty, but they all start in a very mundane situation that people can relate to, and that's also to some degree what we tried to do in 'Chernobyl Diaries.' — Oren Peli

And the thing about trying to cheat death is that, in the end, you still lose. — Robyn Schneider

So street-level FBI agents turned secrets into information, and senior FBI leaders brought that information to reporters, to prosecutors, to federal grand juries, and into the public realm. That was the beginning of the end of Richard Nixon's presidency. Without the FBI, the reporters would have been lost. — Tim Weiner

Run towards the roar,' the old people used to tell the young ones. When faced with great danger and when people panic and seek a false sense of safety, run towards the roaring and go where you fear to go. For only in facing your fears can you find some safety and a way through. When the world rattles and the end seems near, go towards the roar. — Michael Meade

Yes, this is an age of moral crisis. Yes, you are bearing punishment for your evil. But it is not man who is now on trial and it is not human nature that will take the blame. It is your moral code that's through, this time. Your moral code has reached its climax, the blind alley at the end of its course. And if you wish to go on living, what you now need is not to return to morality - you who have never known any - but to discover it. — Ayn Rand

I'm not in the business of becoming famous. And that's the advice I give to younger aspiring actors. Work onstage and do the little roles. In the end it's not important to be seen. It's important to do. There's a lot of disappointment in this business, but my family keeps me grounded. — Kristen Bell

Nutt was technically an expert on love poetry throughout the ages and had discussed it at length with Miss Healstether, the castle librarian. He had also tried to discuss it with Ladyship, but she had laughed and said it was frivolity, although quite helpful as a tutorial on the use of vocabulary, scansion, rhythm and affect as a means to an end, to wit getting a young lady to take all her clothes off. At that particular point, Nutt had not really understood what she meant. It sounded like some sort of conjuring trick. — Terry Pratchett

I do not know what, in the end, makes a person who they are. If we're all born one way, or if we only arrive there after as series of chioces. The bible claims that the wicked act on their own desires and impulses, because God is good, only good, and He would never compel a soul to wickedness. That I'm supposed to count on justice in the next life, even if I can't have it in this one. — Alexandra Bracken

Happiness increases and decreases depending on the level of power one has. When you have more power, more control on your life, you feel more happy and self-confident, as your power decreases and the control of your life slips away, you get less and less happy and when you no longer have any power to rely on you reach depression and despair. This is the point where your power meter has hit 0. You now need to rely on the good favors of others to live. For those who believe in the power of god, it sustains them through this dark hour. For those who do not believe, they think they have reached the end and may take their lives. That's why all conflict in life is about power and many lose life in its pursuit. Power is life itself. — Bangambiki Habyarimana

A cook she certainly was, in the very bone and centre of her soul. Not a ... turkey ... in the barn-yard but looked grave when they saw her approaching, and seemed evidently to be reflecting on their latter end; and certain it was that she was always meditating on trussing, stuffing and roasting, to a degree that was calculated to inspire terror in any reflecting fowl living. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

It's a lot easier to say when something ended rather than when it began. Most of us can recognize the end from a mile away, but the beginning always slips up on us, lulling us into thinking what we're living through is yet another moment, in yet another day. — Steve Yarbrough

How deceitful hope may be, yet she carries us on pleasantly to the end of life. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

I guessed that one day the restrictions I imposed on myself would end. But first, it seemed that my range of possible activities would have to iris down to zero before I could turn myself around. Then, when I was static and immobile, I could weigh and measure every exterior force and, slowly and incrementally, once again allow the outside in. And that would be my life. — Steve Martin

I was just disciplined. I knew I had to get back into shape after six weeks for the film Goal II, but I cheated in the end - I wore a corset. I loved my pregnancy, I blossomed. I felt goddess-like and very secure. I found it comforting to have a little thing growing inside me, and very calming. — Anna Friel

The best way to end a war is to make certain that it never happens. The best way to win a war is to change the shape of the battles to suit your needs. — James A. Moore

What use to me are your nature, your Pavlovsk Park, your sunrises and sunsets, your blue sky and your all-satisfied faces, when the whole of this feast, which has no end, began by considering me alone superfluous? What is there for me in all this beauty, when at each minute, each second, I'm now compelled to be aware that even this tiny housefly buzzing around me in the sunbeam now, even it is a participant in all this feast and chorus, knows its place, loves it and is happy, while I alone am an outcast, — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There is never a reason to lose hope. Jesus says: I am with you until the end of the world. — Pope Francis

I'm extremely humbled, I'm happy and I'm blessed, because at the end of the day, I'm doing what I love to do. — La'el Collins

Just to warn you, I die at the end of all of this. So don't get too attached to me or anything. — Ainslie Hogarth

For all my years in public life, I have believed that America must sail toward the shores of liberty and justice for all. There is no end to that journey, only the next great voyage. We know the future will outlast all of us, but I believe that all of us will live on in the future we make. — Edward Kennedy

My identity is mostly as a songwriter and lyricist and singer. I also have a lot of production ideas but I have my own limitations in terms of what instruments I'm actually proficient at and what I can do myself, so I really love working with people on the production end; just really going for it with orchestration and instrumentation and production. That's where I see myself going: maintaining my integrity and abilities as a songwriter, but applying it to different contexts, to where I can put on a huge feathered costume and roll around in the ocean. — Mirah

If you try to avoid every instance of peer pressure you will end up without any peers whatsoever, and the trick is to succumb to enough pressure that you do not drive your peers away, but not so much that you end up in a situation in which you are dead or otherwise uncomfortable. This is a difficult trick, and most people never master it, and end up dead or uncomfortable at least once during their lives. — Lemony Snicket

If you're the kind of person who wants to know what's at the end of the universe, what's at the edge of being ... and comprehension settles on you that you'll never know, despair can well up. — Lydia Millet

Given that we desire long life, should we not take eternal life into account? If we long for a kingdom which, however enduring, has an end, and glory and joy which, great as they are, will fade, and wealth that will perish with this present life, and we labour for the sake of such things; ought we not to seek the kingdom, glory, joy and riches which, as well as being all-surpassing, are unfading and endless, and ought we not to endure a little constraint in order to inherit it? — Gregory Palamas

Criminal justice is what happens after a complicated series of events has gone bad. It is the end result of failure
the failure of a group of people that sometimes includes, but is never limited to, the accused person. — Paul Delano Butler

I was in the gym working on my triceps, and I was thinking, just as I did the 50-pound pulldown, I am going to be in better shape by the end of the year [2016] than I've ever been in my life. I really just smiled at the notion: Wow, what a thing. — Oprah Winfrey

I know not where we go from here. I do not think this is the end, but a new beginning, a new chapter in our tale. Told by minstrels who reveal not their sources. I know not if we have achieved victory this day. But I will forever know that I was honored to call each and everyone of you my brother. — Guy T. Simpson Jr.

Even if they don't know it consciously, people can feel when you are making them into a means to an end only. And people are much less likely to do what you want them to do - for example, to buy the car - when they feel you are reducing them into a means to an end. — Eckhart Tolle

Saturn takes twenty-nine years to return to the point in the sky where it was at the moment we were born. Until that happens, everything seems possible, our dreams can come true, and any walls hemming us in can still be broken down. When Saturn completes this cycle, it puts an end to any romanticism. Choices become definitive and it's nearly impossible to change direction. — Paulo Coelho

When we focus on winning the battle for material gains,we end up losing spiritual war.If we had a better self of ethics we would be better prepared to deal with the complicated world in which we find ourselves. — David V. Gaggin

See you just don't understand women the way I do J.D. They want it all: a career apple martinis financial independence great shoes but at the same time - and this they'll never admit - they are drawn to patriarchal men who are dominant and controlling. That's the essence of the Darcy complex. He may be an asshole but he's an asshole that gets the girl in the end. — Julie James

Science for me is very close to art. Scientific discovery is an irrational act. It's an intuition which turns out to be reality at the end of it-and I see no difference between a scientist developing a marvellous discovery and an artist making a painting. — Carlo Rubbia

Your actions are catalysts to another's actions. One could last a second, another could last to the end of mankind. Share kindness, plant the seed, help humanity overcome their greed. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

As you search for a person, place, or thing, be prepared to continue your quest, should the end result not yield your desired outcome. Enjoy the process and you'll avoid disappointment ... ! — James A. Murphy

They just change. Their body changes. Their abilities - the things they do that make them who they are - leave, sometimes temporarily, sometimes forever. Every day they wake up with that big what if?
And nothing is scarier than a life filled with what ifs - living by day without predictability and control. Some people end up losing feeling. Some have uncontrollable spasms. Some can't function. Some end up blind or in a wheelchair. Some end up bedridden and paralyzed.
It's hard to know who "some people" will be. — Lindsey Leavitt

We find the general work of mankind is being carried on from day to day by the mass of people acting in harmony as if by instinct. If they were instinctively violent, the world would end in no time. — Mahatma Gandhi

I didn't say, "I'll call you." I didn't hug her because of the wet clothes. Just a quick kiss. Then I turned and left. I made my way quietly down the hallway to the stairwell. I could tell she thought she wasn't going to see me again. I had to admit she might be right. The knowledge was as damp and dispiriting as my sodden clothes. I came to the first floor and looked out at the entranceway of the building. For a second I pictured the way she had hugged me here. It already seemed like a long time ago. I felt an unpleasant mixture of gratitude and longing, streaked with guilt and regret. And in a flash of insight, cutting with cold clarity through the fog of my fatigue, I realized what I hadn't been able to articulate earlier, not even to myself, when she'd asked me what I was afraid of. It had been this, the moment after, when I would come face to face with knowing that it would all end badly, if not this morning, then the next one. Or the one after that. — Barry Eisler

I tell myself that, regardless of what source I draw on, I'm writing a new work for reasons peculiar to me and not an adaptation, and so feel, in the end, justified in singing it my way. — Norman Lock

There is no action of man in this life that is not the beginning of so long a chain of consequences as no human providence is high enough to give a man a prospect in the end. And in this chain, there are linked together both pleasing and unpleasing events in such manner as he that will do anything for his pleasure must engage himself to suffer all the pains annexed to it. — Thomas Hobbes

Sometimes, they wait. Sometimes, you see the dead come in to the harbor, and their old dogs are all along the docks, wagging their tails, for they have waited for their masters and mistresses for many years. You see mothers who have missed their sons. Fathers who had never spoken of love to their children, ready to embrace them as they voyage from the end of life. It shows the lies of this world, you see. We are wrong about so many things here. Mankind has done terrible things, yet we are forgiven. — Douglas Clegg

Sitting there, watching the shades of evening settle slowly on the drab little town, it seemed to me that nothing but blind blundering vengeance, howsoever camouflaged, awaits all those who dare to step out of its stifling confines. It is a confrontation whose outcome is as certain as the end of solitary boats beating against a maelstrom. — Arun Joshi

One day, Buckley came home from the second grade with a story he'd written: Once upon a time there was a kid named Billy. He liked to explore. He saw a hole and went inside but he never came out. The End. — Alice Sebold

Once there was a man who filmed his vacation./He went flying down the river in his boat/with his video camera to his eye, making/a moving picture of the moving river/ ... [At the end of his vacation,]/With a flick of the switch, there it would be./But he would not be in it. He would never be in it. — Wendell Berry

I've got lots of good friends. I could have affairs. I can read a book all night, put the cat on the end of the bed. I can pick up my passport and go to France. I don't have to ask anybody. — Joanna Lumley

I have never met a simple man. Not even in the confessional, though I used to sit there for hours on end. Man was not created simple. When I was a young priest, I used to try to unravel what motives a man or woman had, what temptations and self-delusions. But I soon learned to give all that up, because there was never a straight answer. No one was simple enough for me to understand. In the end I would just say, 'Three Our Fathers, Three Hail Marys. Go in peace. — Graham Greene

And she wanted to be free. It wasn't Mr. Brumley she wanted; he was but a means - if indeed he was a means - to an end. The person she wanted, the person she had always wanted - was herself. Could Mr. Brumley give her that? Would Mr. Brumley give her that? Was it conceivable he would carry sacrifice to such a pitch as that?... — H.G.Wells

Hmm," Tate said. "That's it. I love how insatiable you are. You can't help yourself from taking what you want, even when you know you shouldn't. Like when you take me. I love how you hold me down and go fucking wild. Greedy to the very end." "Jesus, — Ella Frank

Google's architectural model around broadband and services and so forth plays very well to the powerful devices and services Apple is doing. We're a perfect back end to the problems that they're trying to solve. — Eric Schmidt

I need to give you one last bit of advice in the off chance this rather extraordinary and enviable situation in which you find yourself is actually true- that somehow you've fallen deep down into a Cordova story. I stared back at him. Be the good guy, he said. How do I know I'm the good guy? He pointed at me, nodding. A very wise question. You don't. Most bad guys think they're good. But there are a few signifiers. You'll be miserable. You'll be hated. You'll fumble around in the dark, alone and confused. You'll have little insight as to the true nature of things, not until the very last minute, and only if you have the stamina and the madness to go to the very, very end. But most importantly- and critically- you will act without regard for yourself. You'll be motivated by something that has nothing to do with the ego. You'll do it for justice. For grace. For love. Those large rather heroic qualities only the good have the strength to carry on their shoulders. And you'll listen. — Marisha Pessl

In the Spring of 1962, a white postal worker from Baltimore, William Moore, decided to use his ten-day vacation to showcase his passion for Civil Rights. Moore planned a "Freedom Walk" from Chattanooga, Tennessee, across Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi, where he would confront Governor Ross Barnett about the injustice of racial segregation. Moore, who had a history of psychiatric illness, entered Alabama wearing signs that read MISSISSIPPI OR BUST, END SEGREGATION IN AMERICA, and EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL MEN. The much-publicized march ended tragically, when Moore's body was found on a roadside near Gadsen, Alabama - he had been shot to death. — Jeffrey K. Smith

But does it make any sense at all to know that it ends badly for all of us, even the happiest of us, and that we all lose everything that matters in the end-and yet to know as well, despite all this, as cruelly as the game is stacked, that it's possible to play it with a kind of joy?
To try to make some meaning out of all this seems unbelievably quaint. Maybe I only see a pattern because I've been staring too long. But then again, to paraphrase Boris, maybe I see a pattern because it's there. — Donna Tartt

Who will you be when faced with the end?
The end of a kingdom,
The end of good men,
Will you run?
Will you hide?
Or will you hunt down evil with a venomous pride?

Rise to the ashes,
Rise to the winter sky,
Rise to the calling,
Make heard the battle cry.
Let it scream from the mountains
From the forest to the chapel,
Because death is a hungry mouth
And you are the apple.

So who will you be when faced with the end?
When the vultures are circling
And the shadows descend
Will you cower?
Or will you fight?
Is your heart made of glass?
Or a pure Snow White? — Lily Blake

But from the errors of other nations let us learn wisdom, and lay hold of the present opportunity - to begin government at the right end. — Thomas Paine

I spent my whole life just killing time- waiting and waiting-waiting for something to change, even though I had absolutely no idea what that might be. I waited for the day to end. I waited in fear for the next day to begin. I waited and waited and waited and lied to myself that magically it would be all right. — Amy Hatvany

I knew that Clara kept Carax's book in a glass cabinet by the arch of the balcony. I crept up to it. My plan, or my lack of it, was to lay my hands on the book, take it out of there, give it to that lunatic, and lose sight of him forever after. Nobody would notice the book's absence, except me. Carax's book was waiting for me, as it always did, its spine just visible at the end of a shelf. I took it in my hands and pressed it against my chest, as if embracing an old friend whom I was about to betray. Judas, I thought. I decided to leave the place without making Clara aware of my presence. I would take the book and disappear from Clara's life forever. Quietly, I stepped out of the library. The door of her bedroom was just visible at the end of the corridor ... I walked slowly up to the door. I put my fingers on the doorknob. My fingers trembled. I had arrived too late. I swallowed hard and opened the door. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Seven years into writing a novel, I started to lose my mind. My thirty-seventh birthday had just come and gone, the end of 2008 was approaching, and I was constantly aware of how little I had managed to accomplish. — Akhil Sharma

That's an incredibly depressing thought," I said "that if you're in a room and at one end lies madness and at the other end lies sanity it is human nature to veer towards the madness end. — Jon Ronson