Trying To Have It Both Ways Quotes & Sayings

I was trying so hard to find the single pivotal moment that set my life on its path. The moment that answered the question, 'How did I get here?'

But it's never just one moment. It's a series of them. And your life can branch out from each one in a thousand different ways. Maybe there's a version of your life for all the choices you make and all the choices you don't. — Nicola Yoon

That, in brief, is the problem - criticism as the first step in a discussion stops the discussion and is therefore, generally the last step as well. It is an entirely different matter if I hear the other person first, understand what she is trying to do, then talk with her about better ways to do it. — R. Brian Stanfield

We look for this security by fortifying and enclosing ourselves in innumerable ways. We want the protection of being "exclusive" and "special," seeking to belong to the safest church, the best nation, the highest class, the right set, and the "nice" people. These defenses lead to divisions between us, and so to more insecurity demanding more defenses. Of course it is all done in the sincere belief that we are trying to do the right things and live in the best way; but this, too, is a contradiction. — Alan W. Watts

I take Charb's point, but at some point has Charlie Hebdo been trying to have it both ways because some of what they do is not funny. — Scott Simon

What I'm trying to do is make impressions. I think of myself as a colourist, adding different colours and shades by using different techniques and touching the guitar in different ways. I'd like to play sounds you can see if you've got your eyes closed. — Lenny Breau

When I'm writing a score, I'm constantly looking for ways to improve on it, even when I think it's working well. I don't give up on things, and am always trying to make incremental improvements, which means I never finish writing a score early! — Geoff Zanelli

He turned his head to look at her, trying to think of ways to plead his case. Some way to dazzle and beguile her and make her glad that it was him she was here with. Something witty and persuasive, but she turned at precisely the same moment he did, with invitation in her eyes, and all he could come up with was, "Damn, I really want to kiss you."

Her hesitation was a mere fraction of a second. "Me too," she whispered.

It was all he needed to hear, and in an instant she was in his arms. He kissed her, hard, with no prelude, no artful negotiations or seductive machinations. Just hungry kisses that sent his mind spinning and his body following. She kissed him back with equal enthusiasm, with one hand on his chest and the other wrapped tightly around the back of his neck, pulling him closer. Her mouth was sweet, as sweet as he'd imagined, with lips so soft he could have fallen over the edge of that lighthouse and thought the sensation was just from her touch. — Tracy Brogan

It's peculiar to me,' she said, 'that everybody pays so much attention to living and so little to dying. Why are these high-powered scientists always screwing around trying to prolong life instead of finding pleasant ways to end it? There must be a hell of a lot of people in the world like me--who want to die but haven't got the guts. — Horace McCoy

Trying to express implicit and fuzzy relationships in ways that are explicit and sharp doesn't clarify the meaning, it destroys it. — Clay Shirky

There are worse ways to die than trying. — Nicole Kornher-Stace

I knew that if I wanted to survive, it wasn't about healing or trying to forget. It was about how I could use my life to answer what had happened to us. In many ways, it saved my life. — Mariane Pearl

The best stories are universal stories that have been told for as long as humanity has existed it's just figuring out new ways to do it, with language, with structure. And so I'm always trying to do that. — James Frey

Motherhood is exactly the kind of "special circumstance" that lends itself to memoir. It is a time of transition and sometimes a period of intense identity struggle: Who am I if I spend all day shirtless, trying to nurse a colicky baby? What happened to my former life, my former self? How do I balance my own needs with those of my family? I am drawn to all kinds of motherhood memoirs because I am interested in the different ways that women process the challenges and joys of motherhood, and how they write about life in general through their mother eyes. — Kate Hopper

The Blu-ray is the real cinematech of world cinema. That's how it's being preserved. All of these guys that are trying to preserve 35mm negatives? They are wasting their time. There are better ways to see and project this stuff. It's called digital. — William Friedkin

The rest of us are still trying to find ways to live in the world with spirit-ual values. Myself included. We've learned certain skills, we've learned to prevail somewhat, but we've not made it over the mountain. — Olympia Dukakis

Now, with regard to the people who have done things we call "terrorism," I'm confident they have been expressing their pain in many different ways for thirty years or more. Instead of our empathically receiving it when they expressed it in much gentler ways
they were trying to tell us how hurt they felt that some of their most sacred needs were not being respected by the way we were trying to meet our economic and military needs
they got progressively more agitated. Finally, they got so agitated that it took horrible form. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

States is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build creative digital-age economies, Jobs — Walter Isaacson

What does it matter, if we tell the same old stories? ... Stories tell us who we are. What we're capable of. When we go out looking for stories we are, I think, in many ways going in search of ourselves, trying to find understanding of our lives, and the people around us. Stories, and language tell us what's important. — Kameron Hurley

I never asked you to take care of me! This? This is exactly what I didn't want. You promised me ... " I shook my head, my eyes burning as I turned my attention back to packing. I jerked the zipper of my suitcase so hard I'm surprised I didn't pull the damn tab off. "Let's be honest, hm? You're not trying to take care of me, you're trying to take care of you. You want to have your respectable, white-bread, married, straight family life as well as your faggy brown boy toy on the side, and seriously? Fuck that shit. I trusted you, Brendan! I trusted you to respect me enough not to pull something like this, not to try to keep me dangling along so you could have it both ways without giving up anything. — Amelia C. Gormley

Can you have more than one major MISSION pervading your life? NO. That would be like coming to a fork in the road and trying to go both ways by straddling it. — Charles Garfield

By exclaiming that "there are no absolute truths" the postmodern stance is also claiming that the statement it just made is an absolute truth - trying to have it both ways, rejecting absolutism with absolutism. — Gudjon Bergmann

The more contact people have with each other, the more opportunities both have to do things in their own way and be misunderstood. The only way they know of to solve problems is to talk things out, but if different ways of talking are causing a problem, talking more isn't likely to solve it. Instead, trying harder usually means doing more of whatever you're doing - intensifying the style that is causing the other to react. So each unintentionally drives the other to do more and more of the opposing behavior, in a spiral that drives them both up the wall. — Deborah Tannen

Today, many of us are trying to understand just what male and female energies are, since we are calling old rigid stereotypes into questions. There is a risk of replacing such stereotypes with even more politically correct rigid stereotypes. The destructive aspect of the masculine has been emphasized in recent years, but both the feminine and the masculine have destructive sides. (The evil witch in fairy tales is an example of the destructive feminine.) Love is the ultimate nature of everything; it is not just the feminine that is loving. We tend to think of female energy as nurturing because it is undirected - it includes everything - but perhaps one could say that the feminine loves and nurtures in a being way, and the masculine does so in a doing way. We are each capable of loving in both ways. — Shepherd Hoodwin

We are, in many ways, the bastard children of Reason and Mysticism. Both have been banging away like libertines during the last 200 years, and we are, in many ways, their offspring. Without Reason, we would simply be mad savants, dancing to an aimless tune. Without Mysticism, we would be poseurs, desperately trying to be rebellious without the wisdom to pull it off. Magick, you see, is the ultimate rebellion, and we are its best chance for the future. — Justin R. Achilli

It was very important that it be done in such a way that it be executed with complete conviction. If I had done it both ways, if I was trying to cover myself in case it didn't work, then it would have been to no purpose. — Atom Egoyan

People think that if you're sexy you have no brains, and if you have brains you aren't in touch with your sexual side. I'm trying to tell people, 'You can have it both ways.' — Erica Durance

You're like everyone else, Strike; you want your civil liberties when you've told the missus you're at the office and you're at a lap-dancing club, but you want twenty-four-hour surveillance on your house when someone's trying to force your bathroom window open. Can't have it both ways. — Robert Galbraith

I try to think about items that can be worn in different ways so they can be worn more than once. — Joseph Altuzarra

At this moment, life is trying to love you and give to you in a million wonderful ways. When you say Yes, you allow love to flow, which is the greatest gift you can give yourself and the universe ... What do you want that you could be more open to receiving? — Alan Cohen

Society tried to teach me that children are by nature selfish, out-of-control, and demanding, that their goal is power and that they are always trying to see how much they can get away with, that you can't let children manipulate you or become too dependant, and that disobedience equals disrespect. As a mother, I have come to believe strongly that my child's primary goals are having his needs met, feeling connected to others, and feeling self-worth. His misbehavior is an attempt to get a need met or to feel significance and connection, done in an appropriate way ... my job as a parent is to help my child identify and meet those needs in appropriate ways. - Lisa S. — Hilary Flower

Noomi [Rapace] felt fresh. And she's passionate and ambitious in all the right ways. She's a tour de force. Every time I was trying to have a discussion with the actors, she'd be pulling out a blade out from underneath her gypsy skirt and menace someone saying, "Maybe I should slit your throat." — Kam Williams

The third kind of loneliness is avoiding unnecesssary activities. When we're lonely in a "hot" way, we look for something to save us; we look for a way out. We get this queasy feeling that we call loneliness, and our minds just go wild trying to come up with companions to save us from despair. That's called unnecessary activity. It's a way of keeping ourselves busy so we don't have to feel any pain. It could take the form of obsessively daydreaming of true romance, or turning a tidbit of gossip into the six o'clock news, or even going off by ourselves into the wilderness. The point is that in all these activities, we are seeking companionship in our usual, habitual way, using our same old repetitive ways of distancing ourselves from the demon loneliness. Could we just settle down and have some — Pema Chodron

My vagina's angry. It is. It's pissed off. My vagina's furious and it needs to talk. It needs to talk about all
this shit. It needs to talk to you. I mean what's the deal - an army of people out there thinking up ways to
torture my poor-ass, gentle, loving vagina. Spending their days constructing psycho products, and nasty
ideas to undermine my pussy. Vagina Motherfuckers.
All this shit they're constantly trying to shove up us, clean us up - stuff us up, make it go away. Well, my
vagina's not going away. It's pissed off and it's staying right here. Like tampons - what the hell is that? — Eve Ensler

I am not saying I will vote against John Ashcroft because he is pro-life, .. But let me say if someone was nominated for attorney general who was vehemently pro choice
who in his or her career spent decades trying to find ways to expand the law abortion at nine months would be perfectly legal
wouldn't you be more upset and raise more of a voice than against a nominee who was simply pro-choice?. — Charles Schumer

Being loved continuously when you believe that you're unlovable is like throwing salt on a wound. It stings like acid. You want it desperately, instinctively knowing deep down you were wired to need it. But the more love given, the more unworthy of love you behave, constantly trying to find ways to make up for the void and pain that reside like a monster inside your heart. — Christa Black

On various occasions, especially in trying to think of western American history in the context of the worldwide history of colonialism, it has struck me that much of the mental behavior that we sometimes denounce as ethnocentrism and cultural insensitivity actually derives less from our indifference or hostility than from our clumsiness and awkwardness when we leave the comfort of the English language behind ... [V]enturing outside the bounds of the English language exercises and stretches our minds in ways that are essential for getting as close as we can to the act of seeing the world from what would otherwise remain unfamiliar and alien perspectives. — Patricia Nelson Limerick

I became friends on a social basis with a music professor (Dr. Alan Stein) who took a real interest in my work.He encouraged me in countless different ways, urged me to try different arranging styles, etc. — John Keltonic

Goal: The next time you go through a trying time, find the ways in which you can grow and learn instead of dwelling on your suffering. — Demi Lovato

He saw her right after the seventh-period bell rang. She seemed dressed for the sole purpose of blending in with the lockers, but she stood out, anyway. It didn't matter that her wide blue eyes were narrowed or that her pretty mouth was twisted into a near snarl - she was blatantly beautiful. It was kind of sick the way Ed was preoccupied with beautiful girls these days.
He felt a little sorry for her. (He was also preoccupied with finding ways of feeling sorry for people.) She was new and trying hard not to look it. She was confused and trying to look tough. It was endearing is what it was. — Francine Pascal

There is very little point in trying to urge the world to mend its ways as long as that world is still convinced that its ways are perfectly adequate. — Edsger Dijkstra

I think it took me a little while to be true to myself as a designer, and in some ways I'm still trying to do that. I have to choose things that come naturally to me. Whenever I challenge something too much or try too hard, it never quite works out. — Stella McCartney

I view myself as someone who is always trying to make life better in practical ways and putting the pieces together to do that. — Marcy Kaptur

I understand that not everyone agrees with my perspective on Ray Kelly. But what you gotta look at here is somebody like Bill de Blasio talking out of both sides of his mouth and trying to have it both ways on a really critical issue like stop-and-frisk. — Christine Quinn

When your practice has led you to experiences that you can't understand, you need a better theory. Otherwise, if you try to understand these transcendent experiences with 'profane' or, we might say, 'materialistic' ways of thinking, your cultivation will be set back. — Betty Sue Flowers

Problems can only be solved by the people who have them. You have to try and coax them and love them into seeing ways in which they can help themselves. — John Harvey-Jones

It will not be possible for me to escape the past. But if I go back there, it will only be to find ways to make rich my present. To accept that there are no villains in my life, just broken people, trying to heal, stumbling in darkness and breaking each other...To stop living what has been, until now, this pale imitation of life. — Petina Gappah

You know you're on stage being the life of the party and trying to get laughs, and then, in a lot of ways, you don't have anything to give once you give it to the people. — Artie Lange

I write poems from dreams pretty frequently. It's limiting to think the poem has to come from a sensical lyric "I" stating things clearly or dramatically. This whole course is trying to say there are millions of ways to approach writing a poem. — Matthea Harvey

Bigger-budgeted films have more restrictions and less freedom to create. Because of this, I try to find freedom in the people I work with. I often work in ways I don't want to. It's more about controlling the situation. Lower-budget films are freer. — Takashi Miike

After trying out a number of ways to reduce inequalities and failing, I was gradually forced to conclude that the decisive factors were the people, their natural abilities, education and training. Knowledge and the possession of technology were vital for the creation of wealth. — Lee Kuan Yew

Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them. — Noam Chomsky

But even though I know my flaws are many (many many many), and there are always ways I could be better, and I should never stop working for that - I also need to give myself a break. I can cut myself some slack sometimes. Because I'm a work in progress. Because nobody is perfect. At least I acknowledge the mistakes I've made, and am making. At least I'm trying. That means something, doesn't it?
And just because I have room for improvement doesn't mean I'm worthless, or that I have nothing to offer to, like, the world. — Hannah Harrington