We Could've Been Something Quotes & Sayings

This was the greatest gift that he had, the talent that fitted him for war; that ability not to ignore but to despise whatever bad ending there could be. This quality was destroyed by too much responsibility for others or the necessity of undertaking something ill planned or badly conceived. For in such things the bad ending, failure, could not be ignored. It was not simply a possibility of harm to one's self, which could be ignored. He knew he himself was nothing, and he knew death was nothing. He knew that truly, as truly as he knew anything. In the last few days he had learned that he himself, with another person, could be everything. But inside himself he knew that this was the exception. That we have had, he thought. In that I have been most fortunate. That was given to me, perhaps, because I never asked for it. That cannot be taken away nor lost. But that is over and done with now on this morning and what there is to do now is our work. — Ernest Hemingway,

You see, we were able to give you something, something which even now no one will ever take from you, and we were able to do that principally by sheltering you. Hailsham would not have been Hailsham if we hadn't. Very well, sometimes that meant we kept things from you, lied to you. Yes, in many ways we fooled you, I suppose you could even call it that. But we sheltered you during those years, and we gave you your childhoods. Lucy was well-meaning enough. But if she'd have her way, your happiness at Hailsham would have been shattered. Look at you both now! I'm so proud to see you both. You built your lives on what we gave you. You wouldn't be who you are today if we'd not protected you. You wouldn't have become absorbed in your lessons, you wouldn't have lost yourselves in your art and your writing. Why should you have done, knowing what lay in store for each of you? You would have told us it was all pointless, and how could we have argued with you? So she had to go. — Kazuo Ishiguro

It's always the next pay raise, the next purchase, the next place you move to or go on holiday which will make you happy. The credit crunch could have been a moment to reflect on that. We in the West can do something that no people in history have done: we can show the world that we know when we have enough. As the planet runs out of resources, due mainly to the fact that everyone on it wants to live a lifestyle equivalent to those of us in the West, this lesson would have the potential to save the world. — John Lanchester

We've been chatting about our men and wedding stuff. Terah says, "God, sometimes I look at Jon and think 'how the Hell did I manage to get you?' We're so lucky."
Mom adds, "They are very handsome."
Terah and I scoff. Shaking my head, I say, "Handsome is something. And Nox is handsome most times. But, by God, he is hot. Hotter than Hell, Mom. I never thought I could love someone so much. I can hardly keep my hands off him."
Mom chastises on a gasp, "Lily! That's inappropriate! You're a lady and ladies do not speak that way."
Terah chuckles, "Screw being a lady. I love my special cuddle time with Jon."
Mom covers her ears, but barks out an embarrassed laugh, "I cannot hear this! You girls can clean the rest up while I powder my nose."
Terah and I chuckle, watching her leave. — Belle Aurora

It's important that we attempt to extend life beyond Earth now. It is the first time in the four billion-year history of Earth that it's been possible, and that window could be open for a long time - hopefully it is - or it could be open for a short time. We should err on the side of caution and do something now. — Elon Musk

I've never been good at writing letters, so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not able to make myself clear.
I've been thinking about you constantly since I left, wondering why the journey I'm on seemed to have led through you. I know my journey's not over yet, and that life is a winding path, but I can only hope it somehow circles back to the place I belong.
That's how I think of it now. I belong with you.
It is almost as if a part of you is with me. I want to believe that's true. No, change that - I know it's true. Before we met, I was as lost as a person could be, and yet you saw something in me that somehow gave me direction again. It was you, that I had been looking for all along. And it's you who is with me now.
I realize that I miss you more than I've ever missed anyone. In the short time we spent together, we had what most people can only dream about, and I'm counting the days until I can see you again. Never forget how much I love you. — Unknown

When I first learned of the existence of pi, I knew immediately that we had something in common. We share a parallel path. Certainly there are many times when I too have been considered irrational. Often when alone in my room, I silently ponder the equation for the area of a circle. Area (A) equals R-squared (RR) times the constant pi (C). Then I thought, by assigning the designation (K) and assuming there was an nth or final numeric digit to pi, it all might somehow become rational. The random rolling numbers that could at some point define that ultimate integer, passed through my mind. To me they were like the consecutive series of episodes that define my life. It seemed that it was more than a coincidence that when I took the variables and the constants from the equation and put them all together, A-R-R-C-K, it spells my name. That is why I need to get to the truth. — John Lack

If we're talking about the science fiction or action genres, I've always tried when I could to do them in a way that's not just cookie-cutter - that they bring something fresh or original to it, have some kind of ideas to it. I've been fortunate, in some sense, to do those kinds of movies that are unique. — Keanu Reeves

It was only when we brought Will back home, once the annex was adapted and ready, that I could see a point in making it beautiful again. I needed to give my son something to look at. I needed to tell him, silently, that things might change, grow, or fail, but that life did go on. That we were all part of some great cycle, some pattern that it was only God's purpose to understand. I couldn't say that to him, of course - Will and I have never been able to say much to each other - but I wanted to show him. A silent promise, if you like, that there was a bigger picture, a brighter future. — Jojo Moyes

Being in a relationship, that's something you choose. Being friends, that's just something you are. [But] I do pick you. We've been friends too long to pick, but if we could pick, I'd pick you. — John Green

This process of surrender - this movement full speed astern - is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person - and he would not need it. Remember, — C.S. Lewis

At last she halted at a rotted, mossy stump. "I cannot marry you," she told the clump of toadstools flourishing at its base. "I'm so terribly sorry. I should have told you years ago, but - "
"For God's sake, Cecily." His soft laugh startled her, and she lifted her gaze. "You can't do this, not yet. How can a lady refuse a man, when he hasn't even proposed? I won't stand for it."
"It's not right, Denny. I've known for some time now that we wouldn't ... that I couldn't ... "
He shushed her gently, placing his hands on her shoulders. "The truth is, we know nothing of what could be or would be. We've been delaying this conversation for years now, haven't we? I've been waiting for ... Well, I hardly know what I've been waiting for. Something indefinable, I suppose. And you've been waiting for Luke. — Tessa Dare

We always look for the signs we missed when something goes wrong. We become like detectives trying to solve a murder, because maybe if we uncover the clues, it gives us some control. Sure, we can't change what happened, but if we can string together enough clues, we can prove that whatever nightmare has befallen us, we could have stopped it, if only we had been smart enough. I suppose it's better to believe in our own stupidity than it is to believe that all the clues in the world wouldn't have changed a thing. — Neal Shusterman

I thought using three cameras was a lot better than one, because you could see where you were going, where you'd been, and all kinds of things - more like life. I think photography has colored our vision. We're now in an area where it might break something. I think this is a time. I feel it. I don't know whether I'll be here long enough to experience it. I've no plans to leave yet. — David Hockney

My hands are heavy and most importantly they are very fast. I have been called the fastest white man alive. I don't work submissions and not because I am trying to prove something I'm just frankly not very good at 'em. I am very good at getting away. I've never fought anybody whether it was in practice or competition who could hold me down. Even if I thought I could get a submission I'm not laying underneath a grown man with my legs spread on worldwide T.V. Some guys subscribe to that theory but I am a Republican and we don't do that — Chael Sonnen

Laughing, I took her hand back in mine. "I don't like seeing someone as hot as you bruised up, but I don't judge you fighting for money. We all do what we can. Look at me and my work. Not exactly a dream job, but I'm big, strong, and don't mind hurting people. Not a lot of jobs for a guy with my skill set. I was never good at school. I hate computers and have no patience with fixing things. I had the choice of being an enforcer or a gigolo."
Raven smacked my hand away. "Stop being charming, you dipshit."
"I'll try, but it just comes so naturally for me."
"Why not a gigolo?"
"I'm too shy."
Raven laughed. "That's too bad. I'd pay to fuck you."
"Of course, you would. I'd totally pay to have you give me a lap dance."
"You couldn't afford me."
"I don't know. I've been saving up for something special. This could be it. — Bijou Hunter

There are things we could do like let Brad Dourif play Charles Lee Ray's brother or father , something like that, but I think any of those options would've been squarely in the horror-comedy realm. — David Kirschner

Are we running away from home?" I asked, giving voice to the question that had been on my mind for two days, ever since the lady at the Wok On restaurant asked where we were from and my mother lied.
My mother had laughed. I couldn't see her face, but her laugh I could always conjure - rich, ringing, like bells calling you to a wedding. "No, silly goose. You can't run away from home. It's not home if you want to run away from it." She paused to brush a strand of hair from my face. "You can only run away from a house. Home is something you run toward. — Michele Jaffe

There is something I've been meaning to ask you," she said as she handed Zack a bratwurst. It was a little awkward, but if Zack was the man she was going to marry, she needed to know what she was getting into. "Yes?" "That story about the fish. Is it true?" Zack's grin was roguish. "I don't know. What have you heard?" "Something about a hundred pounds of fish dumped on a merchant's fancy desk. Is it true?" Zack took a large bite of his sausage and watched her through laughing eyes as he chewed. How could she consort with a man with such a shocking reputation? She was a safety-and-security girl, and Zack was an untamed force of nature. He finished chewing and sent her a wicked grin. "It was trout," he said proudly. "And we've never had substandard fish palmed off on us since. — Elizabeth Camden

And then I remembered something. Holy crap, I'd obviously been without magic for way too long to have forgotten one of the coolest spells I could do.
"Stop!" I yelled.. Archer, Cal, and Jenna all skidded to a halt on the sand. I waved my hands at them to come closer. "Okay, everybody hold hands," I said.
Archer stared at me, one hand pressed to his bleeding chest. "Sophie, this really isn't the time for a friendship circle."
"It's not that," I said. "It's this."
I closed my eyes and channeled all my magic into a transportation spell. There was a rush of icy air, and then we were standing in the grove of trees that housed Hex Hall's very own Itineris.
"Wow," Jenna breathed. "It is awesome to have you back."
Magic and satisfaction rushed through me. "You said it," I agreed. "Now come on."
And with that, the four of us dove into the Itineris. — Rachel Hawkins

Take the stupidest thing you've ever done. At least it's done. It's over. It's gone. We can all learn from our mistakes and heal and move on. But it's harder to learn or heal or move on from something that hasn't happened; something we don't know and is therefore indefinable; something which could very easily have been the best thing in our lives, if only we'd taken the plunge, if only we'd held our breath and stood up and done it, if only we'd said yes. — Danny Wallace

How do you know nonsense isn't a good thing? if human nonsense had been nurtured and developed for centuries, just as intelligence has, then perhaps something extraordinarily previous could have come from it. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Perhaps her shoes would say something; Mma Makutsi had told her once, jokingly - and she must have been joking - told her that her shoes occasionally gave her advice. Well, perhaps they could tell her not to be so bossy. They must have witnessed it after all - shoes see everything; there are no secrets we can keep from our shoes. — Alexander McCall Smith

I wish someone would promise me that nothing is meaningless," he said. "I wish there were promises worth believing in. That after we've been hunted and lonely and anxious and living in fear, there is something else. Considering the way we are living right now, if we were young at the end of our lives instead, then maybe our dreams could come true. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Outcasts, callused from being in exile for too long, learn to thrive on being the hated; the attention and infamy of our actions fuel us to become antiheroes. Too often do we forget: we risk self-destruction if we fail to follow what we know is right; our talents too often become misplaced, misdirected, misguided from what could have been something wonderful. — Mike Norton

Ruby said there were many songs that you could not say anybody in particular had made by himself. A song went around from fiddler to fiddler and each one added something and took something away so that in time the song became a different thing from what it had been, barely recognizable in either tune or lyric. But you could not say the song had been improved, for as was true of all human effort, there was never advancement. Everything added meant something lost, and about as often as not the thing lost was preferable to the thing gained, so that over time we'd be lucky if we just broke even. Any thought otherwise was empty pride. — Charles Frazier

I've been challenged by the action-oriented approach to Scripture proposed by Peter Marshall, former chaplain of the United States Senate. I wonder what would happen if we all agreed to read one of the Gospels until we came to a place that told us to do something, then went out to do it, and only after we had done it, began reading again? There are aspects of the Gospel that are puzzling and difficult to understand. But our problems are not centered around the things we don't understand, but rather in the things we do understand, the things we could not possibly misunderstand. Our problem is not so much that we don't know what we should do. We know perfectly well, but we don't want to do it.19 — Mark Batterson

We came through the Ring to stop James Holden from talking to the aliens first. But this is the same man that helped send Eros to Venus instead of letting it destroy the Earth. Why did we assume he'd do a bad job of being the first human the aliens met? And now something has slapped us down, taken all our guns away, but not killed us. This should mean something. Certainly anything this powerful could kill us as easily as it declawed us. But it didn't. Instead of trying to figure out what it means, we're hurting so we call it evil. I feel like we're children who've been punished and we think it's because our parents are mean. — James S.A. Corey

Twenty-six," you said, before I could ask you.Everyone was gathered around, or anyway they were around us, swirling like loud, bad surf. The crowd was low in the mix, a few yelps, a few catcalls."Twenty-six," you said again, to the crowd, and took a step toward me.
"Don't," I said, though I couldn't decide.
"Twenty-six," you said. "One for each day we've been together, Min."Somebody oohed. Somebody shushed them.
"And I hope that someday I'll do another something stupid and I'll have to say it a million times because that's how long it'll be, together with you, Min. With you. — Daniel Handler

I hear my heartbeat. I have been looking at him too long, but then, he has been looking back, and I feel like we are both trying to say something the other can't hear, though I could be imagining it. Too long - and now even longer, my heart even louder, his tranquil eyes swallowing me whole. — Veronica Roth

Sorry to wake you, but we have to be somewhere soon, remember?"
Ash grunted and, to my surprise, shifted to his back and put the pillow over his head. "I don't suppose I could convince you to go without me," he groaned, his voice muffled beneath the fabric. "Tell Mab I've been eaten by a manticore or something? — Julie Kagawa

Why is she kissing me back like she's trying to crawn inside of me?
I hate that her taste quenches something hidden deep in the dark shadows of my soulless being that's been starving for so long. I hate that her warm touch feels like a jagged knife stabbing the pain I've tucked away for the day when I can avenge it.
If we don't stop, she could awaken something that cannot be brought to life. Not ever. — Jewel E. Ann

There had been times when I thought I might be with you indefinitely, something approaching an entire life. But then when there was only a finite amount of time, a thing we could both see the limit of, I wasn't so sure. — Alexandra Kleeman

It's like we learn to think something's ugly. Maybe if we're could all stop being taught that only certain things are right or pretty, or that only certain things are the way that everything else should be, you know, I mean physically, then we could start looking at things through fresh eyes. And then we're wouldn't look at things or people in a way that would make them sad or that would exclude them. It might even stop us from constantly trying to change our own body image, and maybe we'd just learn to enjoy what we have, enjoy what great gifts we've been given and revel in them instead of wishing they'd be different. — John C. Horst

There is something about Christmas that requires a rug rat. Little kids make Christmas fun. I wonder if could rent one for the holidays. When I was tiny we would by a real tree and stay up late drinking hot chocolate and finding just the right place for the special decorations. It seems like my parents gave up the magic when I figured out the Santa lie. Maybe I shouldn't have told them I knew where the presents really came from. It broke their hearts.
I bet they'd be divorced by now if I hadn't been born. I'm sure I was a huge disappointment. I'm not pretty or smart or athletic. I'm just like them- an ordinary drone dressed in secrets and lies. I can't believe we have to keep playacting till I graduate. It's a shame we just can't admit that we have failed at family living, sell the house, split up the money, and get on with our lives. Merry Christmas. — Laurie Halse Anderson

Nice work in their, Herondale, setting the place on fire," Gabriel observed. "Good thing we were there to clean up after you, or the whole plan would have gone down in flames, along with the shreds of your reputation."
"Are you implying that shreds of my reputation remain intact?" Will demanded with mock horror. "Clearly I have been doing somethin wrong. Or no doing something wrong, as the case may be." He banged on the side of the carriage. "Thomas!" We must away from here at once to the nearest brothel! I seek scandal and low companionship."
Thomas snorted and muttered somethin that sounded like "bosh", which Will ignored.
Gabriel's face darkened. "Is there anything that isn't a joke to you?"
Nothing that comes to mind."
"You know," Gabriel said, "there was a time I thought we could be friends, Will"
"There was a time I thought I was a ferret," Will said, "but it turned out to be the opium haze. Did you know it had that effect? Becausen I didn't. — Cassandra Clare

You could have done something with newspapers. We didn't do it. No nation did, because we were all too silly. We liked our newspapers with pictures of beach girls and headlines about cases of indecent assault, and no Government was wise enough to stop us having them that way. But something might have been done with newspapers, if we'd been wise enough. — Nevil Shute

I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister. — J.K. Rowling

Shush, listen to me. I've been thinking this over. I could see this new thing was weighing down on you, but I know you're going to be all right." "I'm not so sure." "That's OK. I can be sure for both of us. We've been together in this house for fifteen years, so I know what I'm talking about. When I first started with you I thought it was only a matter of time before depression would take you over. And there was that one summer when it came close, but it didn't happen. Every day you get up and learn something new. Every day you find something to be happy about. Every single day you have a smile for me. You worry more about your mother than you do about yourself. — Nicola Yoon

But then, Phillip reminded me of something that happened so long ago, I had completely forgotten it. He reminded of when we were ten, and he gave me my first kiss. We were on the swings out behind school, and right after he kissed me, he got up and ran away. Then all of a sudden, he stopped, turned around and yelled back, Will you marry me someday? And I yelled back to him, YES! And so he said that if people ask, I could tell them that we've been secretly engaged for the past twelve years. And so,.. you will probably all think I am very crazy, but I had to say YES again tonight! — Jillian Dodd

I get so tired of painting. I've been trying to give it up all the time, if we could just make a living out of movies or the newspaper business or something. It's so boring, painting the same picture over and over. — Andy Warhol

I've always been super aware that we could all die at any moment. This ceiling could fall. I could trip and land on this pen I'm holding. I could choke on my cold pasta lunch. I could be attacked by that pigeon eying me from my window sill. I could be shot ... by a stranger ... who lost something in their heart. Remember death is real. It's not scary. Living is the thing to care about. Don't hold grudges. Smile and make others smile as often as possible. Don't let jerks run the world. — Colleen A.F. Venable

Later that night, when we left the prayer room, we felt something in Upper Room shift. Couldn't explain it, something just felt different. We knew the walls of Upper Room like the walls of our own homes. We'd soft-stepped down hallways as the choir practiced, noticing that corner in front of the instrument closet where the paint had chipped, or the tile in the ladies' room that had been laid crooked. We'd spend decades studying the splotch that looked like an elephant's ear on the ceiling above the water fountain. And we knew the exact spot on the sanctuary carpet where Elise Turner had knelt the night before she killed herself. (The more spiritual of us even swore they could still see the indented curve from her knees.) Sometimes we joked that when we died, we'd all become part of these walls, pressed down flat like wallpaper. — Brit Bennett

Ratbert (as lab rat, to scientist): Doc, we have to talk. Every day you feed me over a hundred pounds of macaroni and cheese. At first I thought you were just being a good host. But lately I've been thinking it could be something far more sinister. — Scott Adams

What is infinity? I haven't a clue.
But maybe that's the whole point I've been attempting to explain to you.
The fact that it's not known
Or seen
Or heard.
Infinity is every person, every being, every bird.
Infinity is a simple mystery.
It looks like a mystery.
Tastes mysterious.
Feels like something completely delirious.
We cannot imagine what this sound could be.
All we can imagine is infinity. — F.K. Preston

Hope and faith are loaded guns. Everything I had ever been taught told me things that were too good to be true usually are. It was a silly thought to think that I could get out of these hills. It was a silly thought to think that the life I was born into was something that could be so easily left behind. Some were destined for bigger things, far off places and such. But some of us were glued to this place and we live out what little bit of life we were given until we were just another body buried on uneven ground. — David Joy

It could have been so beautiful.
The way our elbows always collide and not a single word was needed to make each other laugh. I laughed at your existence, I said, and you laughed even harder and that's how we spent our time.
It could have been so beautiful
the way the first hit felt good and something to deserve
because I've read every psychology book you can find on human behaviour and know for a fact that anger grows from caring
too much
and so it was a privilege to be in the war zone with someone like you.
How much you must have cared to hit that well
and that hard
and I remember saying thank you
and I'm sorry
at the same time
because what else is there to say. — Charlotte Eriksson

We came around the corner and stood in the doorway of what looked like a paint-testing ground. This was where we proved once and for all that we were good loving parents. We decided to let him live.
"What is painting doing in my best Tupperware bowl?" I yelled.
"Well, I needed something lightweight I could carry around with me," he began.
"You've been carrying around a brain for year," the boy's father said. — Sylvia Harney

Well, for over a year now at my desk, a prototype program of Luigi and Mario has been running on my monitor. We've been thinking about the game, and it may be something that could work on a completely new game system. — Shigeru Miyamoto

Vince and I had reached the point where there was nothing else we could think of to do with the taco wrapper, and since he refused to draw straws for the privilege of telling Deborah, I'd been forced to make the call to give her the news that we'd come up blank. And three minutes later, here she was, striding into our lab like avenging fury.
"Goddamn it," she said before she was even all the way in the room, "I need something from you!"
"Maybe a sedative?" Vince suggested, and for once I thought he was right on the money. — Jeff Lindsay

I turned in my seat. Will's face was in shadow and I couldn't quite make it out.
'Just hold on. Just for a minute.'
'Are you all right?' I found my gaze dropping towards his chair, afraid some part of him was pinched, or trapped, that I had got something wrong.
'I'm fine. I just . . . '
I could see his pale collar, his dark suit jacket a contrast against it.
'I don't want to go in just yet. I just want to sit and not have to think about . . . ' He swallowed.
Even in the half-dark it seemed effortful.
'I just . . . want to be a man who has been to a concert with a girl in a red dress. Just for a few minutes more.'
I released the door handle.
'Sure.'
I closed my eyes and lay my head against the headrest, and we sat there together for a while longer, two people lost in remembered music, half hidden in the shadow of a castle on a moonlit hill. — Jojo Moyes

I remember all of these things happening and the places we lived in and the fine times and the bad times we had in that year. But much more vividly I remember living in the book and making up what happened in it every day. Making the country and the people and the things that happened I was happier than I had ever been. Each day I read the book through from the beginning to the point where I went on writing and each day I stopped when I was still going good and when I knew what would happen next. The fact the book was a tragic one did not make me unhappy since I believed that life was a tragedy and knew it could have only one end. But finding you were able to make something up; to create truly enough so that it made you happy to read it; and to do this every day you worked was something that gave a greater pleasure than any I had ever known. Beside it nothing else mattered. — Ernest Hemingway,

The woman was a menace. He would hate it if she were his. Only a man very strong and able to do without any malefriends could have a siren like her. She was more than a handful; she was a disaster waiting to happen.
Are you reading the human's thoughts, ma petite femme? Gregori's satisfied voice whispered in her mind. Even one such as he knows you are wild like the winds. With great reluctance he loosened his hold on her. Go inside the house.
Her eyes widened in mock surprise. You mean he might think we were making love? We would have been if he hadn't wandered out and interrupted us.
Push me further, cherie, and I may do something you will not like.
She laughed out loud, totally unafraid as she sashayed through the courtyard. As she passed Gary, she leaned over and blew warm air into his ear.
Savannah! Gregori roared her name, a distanct threat.
I'm going, I'm going, she said, completely unrepentant. — Christine Feehan

Physical hunger and physical poverty is something I could only imagine. I've been poor when I was in China ... As kids we never had to starve, but just didn't have enough meat, enough rice. — Joan Chen

Starling tries to seduce Fitz.
"Be with me" she said simply "Just for here. Just for now. With gentleness and friendship. To take ... the other away. Give me that much of yourself."
I wanted her. I wanted her with a desperation that had nothing to do with love, and even, I believe, little to do with lust. She was warm and alive and it would have been sweet and simple human comfort. If I could have been with her and arisen from it unchanged in how I thought of myself and what I felt for Molly, I would have done so. But what I felt for Molly was not something that was only for when we were together. I had given Molly that claim to me; I could not resend it just because we were apart for while. — Robin Hobb

I'd love to do a safari holiday somewhere in Africa - maybe Kenya or Tanzania. I have never been, and we've deliberately waited until the children are older so that they could appreciate it, learn something and come back with stories. — Louise Nurding

I've tried very hard since then, not to hold everything up against what we had, but it's impossible. There has been something missing in my life ever since that day and last week, for the first time in twelve years, something changed. The missing piece came into view and I had to come see if I could put myself back together. — Kerry Heavens

You've been quiet, lass. Are you alive back there?'
All she could do was grunt with exasperation through the tight gag that was pressing down on her tongue.
'Aye, I know.' He nodded, as if he had understood every word. 'I was thinking about removing it, but something tells me you've been working up a mountain of complaints, so if it's all the same to you, I'll wait till we're somewhere more remote before I release that mouth of yours, so no one will hear your screeching.'
'I won't screech,' she tried to say, but it came out as a muffled grumble.
'What was that? You think I'm very wise? Aye, I think so, too. — Julianne MacLean

It must be very tiring for the Consort," Lorelei said next to me.
[ ... ]
"Perhaps a mount could be brought ... ?" Lorelei suggested.
Out of a corner I saw both Barabas and George freeze. Yes, I know I've been insulted. Settle down. "Thank you for your concern. I can manage."
"Please, it's no trouble at all. You could hurt yourself. I know that even something minor like a twisted ankle would present a big problem for a human ... "
Do not punch the pack princess; do not punch the pack princess ...
"We wouldn't want you to struggle to keep up."
Okay, she went too far. I gave her a nice big smile.
Curran's face snapped into a neutral expression. "We just got here, baby. It's too early for you to start killing people. — Ilona Andrews

Are wild strawberries really wild? Will they scratch an adult, will they snap at a child? Should you pet them, or let them run free where they roam? Could they ever relax in a steam-heated home? Can they be trained to not growl at the guests? Will a litterbox work or would they make a mess? Can we make them a Cowberry, herding the cows, or maybe a Muleberry pulling the plows, or maybe a Huntberry chasing the grouse, or maybe a Watchberry guarding the house, and though they may curl up at your feet oh so sweetly can you ever feel that you trust them completely? Or should we make a pet out of something less scary, like the Domestic Prune or the Imported Cherry, Anyhow, you've been warned and I will not be blamed if your Wild Strawberries cannot be tamed. — Shel Silverstein

These coupling certainly do not fit with the mainstream idea that genes, or at least organisms, are hell-bent on reproducing themselves. They do fit, however, with the idea of a social role for sex, and they fit with the idea that sexual reproduction is a spandrel, a by-product of some other phenomenon. If Roughgarden is on to something, she believes it could have cultural as well as scientific implications. The orthodoxy of biology has corroded our culture like battery acid, she says, In general, we play out the roles prescribed for us by that culture - aggressive male and coy female - because deviation from its "norm" results in emotional and physical violence, bigotry, personal guilt, and criminalized behaviors. If biology has been getting it wrong though, the new orthodoxy could trigger an infusion of tolerance; perhaps the anomalous prevalence of sexual reproduction will end up having deeper repercussions outside of science than within it. — Michael Brooks

It had always struck her as wrong that we should judge ourselves-or, more usually, others-by single acts, as if a single snapshot said anything about what a person had been like over the whole course of his life. It could say something, of course, but only if it was typical of how that person behaved; otherwise, no, all it said that at that moment, in those particular circumstances, temptation won a local victory. — Alexander McCall Smith

I expected Dad to do his usual brisk thing and say something like, "Excellent. I will anxiously await your pronouncement on this significant matter." Instead, he just looked relieved and said, "Good."
Thinking we were done, I moved toward the door, but Dad stepped in front of it. "We're not quite finised yet."
I blinked at him, surprised. "I could try to break some more mirrors if you really want me to, Dad, but I'm kind of wiped out. Between last night and today, there's been an awful lot of magin flyin' around for me,and-"
He shook his head. "No,not that. We have one more matter to discuss."
I didn't need my new psychic senses to tell me something bad was coming. "What?"
Dad took a deep breath and folded his arms. "I want you to tell me about Archer Cross. — Rachel Hawkins

I put my hand on him. Touching him has always been important to me, it was something I lived for. I never could explain why. Little, nothing touches, my fingers against his shoulder, the outsides of our thighs touching as we squeeled together on the bus. I couldnt explain it, but I needed it. Sometimes I imagined stiching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love? — Jonathan Safran Foer

That night, when you kissed me, I thought you did it because you were drinking. All I could focus on was getting you home before you did something you'd regret in the morning. I didn't want to be your regret, Serenity. My heart couldn't handle it. Shit, it's been two years and my heart still can't handle the fact that we don't talk anymore. — Melyssa Winchester

Only God was able to create a free creature, and freedom could only arise by the act of creation. Freedom is not the result or product of evolution. Freedom and product are disparate ideas. God does not produce or construct. He creates. We used to say the same for artists, for the artist who constructs does not create a personality but rather a poster of man. A personality cannot be constructed. Maybe sooner or later, during this century or after a million years of continued civilization, man will succeed in constructing an imitation of himself, a kind of robot or monster, something similar to its constructor. This human-looking monster may look very much like man, but one thing is certain: it will never have freedom. Without a divine touch, the result of evolution would not have been man, but rather a developed animal, a super-animal, a creature with a human body and intelligence but without a heart and personality. — Alija Izetbegovic

Yong is the outer manifestation of something. Ti is the underlying essence. Technology is a yong associated with a particular ti that is ... Western, and completely alien to us [the Chinese]. For centuries, since the time of the Opium Wars, we have struggled to absorb the yong of technology without importing the Western ti. But it has been impossible. Just as our ancestors could not open our ports to the West without accepting the poison of opium, we could not open our lives to Western technology without taking in the Western ideas, which have been as a plague on our society. The result has been centuries of chaos. — Neal Stephenson

Livingston: Why did users like Viaweb? Graham: I think the main thing was that it was easy. Practically all the software in the world is either broken or very difficult to use. So users dread software. They've been trained that whenever they try to install something, or even fill out a form online, it's not going to work. I dread installing stuff, and I have a PhD in computer science. So if you're writing applications for end users, you have to remember that you're writing for an audience that has been traumatized by bad experiences. We worked hard to make Viaweb as easy as it could possibly be, and we had this confidence-building online demo where we walked people through using the software. That was what got us all the users. — Jessica Livingston

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

It is something that cannot be explained or even understood until you've lived it; a man can't know or fully appreciate his life until he's been close enough to taste the end of it, and the bonds forged in battle are some of the strongest a man could ever have. We are brothers, the men of ODA 022, and though we didn't have the same blood running through our veins, we had all shed the blood of others together, and knew that none of us would hesitate to step in the way of fate and take a round or jump on a grenade to save one another. — Robert Patrick Lewis

I lay on her bed with my arms wrapped around her, wondering how on earth we'd managed to end up like this. I'm not sure what'd been on my mind when I came to see her, but this wasn't it! Strange the way things turn out. When I'd come into her room I'd been burning up with desire to smash her and everything around her. And yet here she was, asleep and still holding on to my arms like I was a life-raft or something. There's not a single millimetre between her body and mine. I could move my hands and, and, anything I liked. Caress or strangle. Kill or cure. Her or me. Me or her. — Malorie Blackman

I'm not sure anyone's ever experienced enlightenment, been born again, been called to repentance or decided to sell their belongings on account of a system. The voice, the tale, the image, the parable that gets through to you
that wins your heart
religiously is the one that makes it past your defenses. You've been won over, and you probably didn't see it coming. You've been enlisted into a drama, whether positively or negatively, and it shouldn't be controversial to note that it happens all the time. When you really think about it, there's one waiting around every corner. It's as near as the story, song or image you can't get out of your head. Religion happens when we get pulled in, moved, called out or compelled by something outside ourselves. It could be a car commercial, a lyric, a painting, a theatrical performance or the magnetic pull of an Apple store. The calls to worship are everywhere. — David Dark

If it had been a heart attack, the newspaper
might have used the word massive,
as if a mountain range had opened
inside her, but instead
it used the word suddenly, a light coming on
in an empty room. The telephone
fell from my shoulder, a black parrot repeating
something happened, something awful
a sunday, dusky. If it had been
terminal, we could have cradled her
as she grew smaller, wiped her mouth,
said good-bye. But it was sudden,
how overnight we could be orphaned
& the world became a bell we'd crawl inside
& the ringing all we'd eat. — Nick Flynn

Don't make me out to be something worth saving. We both know I'm a waste." His voice was so quiet. "I wish I was better at telling you why you have to stay here. I wish I could put into words the part of my heart that has your name written on it. That part hurts right now. You have to be here. You love life too much. You're so important. I wish I could make you understand this." He tried to smile at her valiant efforts. "I would keep you if I could. You can sleep here, right on this couch. Beckett, I will let you hold this baby when it comes." She touched her stomach. "Does that tell you how much you mean to me? It's the only thing I can come up with." He shrugged. "Mouse would be disappointed. He'd feel like he didn't do his job if you died ... Eve loves you. Wherever she is - in this strip club - is that what you've been wishing for?" Beckett shook his head. "No, right? She loves you. You can't kill someone she loves. You just can't. — Debra Anastasia

All my life I've been harassed by questions: Why is something this way and not another? How do you account for that? This rage to understand, to fill in the blanks, only makes life more banal. If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence. — Luis Bunuel

Alan had never been stabbed or shot or punctured or broken. Were scars the best evidence of living? If we have not survived something, and thus were certain that we'd lived, we could scar ourselves, couldn't we? — Dave Eggers

I wanted to tell her everything, maybe if I'd been able to, we could have lived differently, maybe I'd be there with you now instead of here. Maybe... if I'd said, 'I'm so afraid of losing something I love that I refuse to love anything,' maybe that would have made the impossible possible. Maybe, but I couldn't do it, I had buried too much too deeply inside me. And here I am, instead of there. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I had grown up in a house with a fence around it, and in this fence was a white smooth wooden gate, two holes bored round and low together so the dog could see through. One night, the moon high, late for me home from the school dance, I remember that I stopped, hand on the gate, and spoke so quietly to myself and to the woman that I would love that not even the dog could have heard.
I don't know where you are, but you're living right now, somewhere on this earth. And one day you and I are going to touch this gate where I'm touching it now. Your hand will touch this very wood, here! Then we'll walk through and we'll be full of a future and of a past and we'll be to each other like no one else has ever been. We can't meet now, I don't know why. But some day our questions will be answers and we'll be caught in something so bright ... and every step I take is one step closer on a bridge we must cross to meet. — Richard Bach

I cannot really play. Either at piano or at life; never, never have I been able to. I have always been too hasty, too impatient; something always intervenes and breaks it up. But who really knows how to play, and if he does know, what good is it to him? Is the great dark less dark for that, are the unanswerable questions less inscrutable, does the pain of despair at eternal inadequacy burn less fiercely, and can life ever be explained and seized and ridden like a tamed horse or is it always a mighty sail that carries us in the storm and, when we try to seize it, sweep us into the deep? Sometimes there is a hole in me that seems to extend to the center of the earth. What could fill it? Yearning? Dispair? Happiness? What happiness? Fatigue? Resignation? Death? What am I alive for? Yes, for what am I alive? — Erich Maria Remarque

Oh, I thought that I was giving him so much!
And he to me - and the giving and the taking
Seemed so right: not in terms of calculation
Of what was good for the persons we had been
But for the new person, us. If I could feel
As I did then, even now it would seem right.
And then I found we were only strangers
And that there had been neither giving nor taking
But that we had merely made use of each other
Each for his purpose. That's horrible. Can we only love
Something created by our own imagination?
Are we all in fact unloving and unlovable?
The one is alone, and if one is alone
Then lover and beloved are equally unreal
And the dreamer is no more real than his dreams. — T. S. Eliot

Lost in thought, it took her several moments to realize that Jace had been saying something to her. When she blinked at him, she saw a wry grin spread across his face. "What?" she asked, ungraciously.
"I wish you'd stop desperately trying to get my attention like this," he said. "It's become embarrassing."
"Sarcasm is the last refuge of the imaginatively bankrupt," she told him.
"I can't help it. I use my rapier wit to hide my inner pain."
"Your pain will be outer soon if you don't get out of traffic. Are you trying to get run over by a cab?"
"Don't be ridiculous," he said. "We could never get a cab that easily in this neighborhood. — Cassandra Clare

For the fact is that neuroscientists who study memory remain unclear on the question of whether each time we remember something we are accessing a stable "memory fragment" - often called a "trace" or an "engram" - or whether each time we remember something we are literally creating a new "trace" to house the thought. And since no one has yet been able to discern the material of these traces, nor to locate them in the brain, how one thinks of them remains mostly a matter of metaphor: they could be "scribbles," "holograms," or "imprints"; they could live in "spirals," "rooms," or "storage units." Personally, when I imagine my mind in the act of remembering, I see Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, roving about in a milky, navy-blue galaxy shot through with twinkling cartoon stars. — Maggie Nelson

Of course, once I'd wrapped my mind around the fact that it was Cal and not Archer standing in my bedroom, it dawned on me that Cal was standing in my bedroom.
"Hey," I breathed, hoping my hair wasn't a huge tangled mess, even though I was ninety-nine percent sure that it was. I mean, I could see it out of my peripheral vision.
"Hey."
"You're,um,in my room."
"I am."
"Is that allowed?"
"Well,we are engaged," Cal deadpanned.
I squinted at him, shoving big handfuls of my hair away from my face. I had no idea if that was supposed to be a joke or not. You could never tell with Cal.
"Did you want to watch me sleep or something? Because if that's the case, this engagement is so broken."
Cal's lips quirked in what might have been a smile. "Do you have a smart-ass reply for everything?
"If at all possible,yeah. — Rachel Hawkins

They lacked something that could have been given to them if we'd only known they needed it: a community around them that prepared them properly for the world. — Malcolm Gladwell

That a lie can exist reveals a very precarious slope on which human life trundles. What is a lie in its essence?
Is it the possibility of creating another form of truth, which is to say another possibility of an event which if true could have been as fair; or so to speak in a very pessimistic tone, an act of subversion or perversion or inversion or reversion of a kind. Or is it that a lie alters the very nature of human psychological tendencies - which somehow desire a harmony, albeit sometimes in a violent manner.
That a lie exists reveals that there are possibilities beyond what exists; that existence sometimes is a mere human creation; that ideal is not what is desirable, it is something of a promise which veils itself in categories new each time the real is undesirable; that non-existence is a farce until we are not in a position to unexist. — Ashfaq Saraf

In a poem, melody, or picture, we are forced with a mystery: quality in the metaphysical sense of the word. How could the difference between an original painting and its copy be explained by means of quantity? The original possesses the quality of beauty and 'every copy is ugly'. The difference does not arise from the fact that something has been added or taken away from the copy in the quantitative sense of the word; it lies in the personal touch between the artist and the work of art. Quality can only be 'in touch' with a personality. — Alija Izetbegovic

I feel that we are often taken out of our comfort zones, pushed and shoved out of our nests, because if not, we would never know what we could do with our wings, we would never see the horizon and the sun setting on it, we would never know that there's something far better beyond where we are at the moment. It can hurt, but then later you say "thank you." I have been pushed and shoved and have fallen out and away, so very, very, many, many times! And others around me have not! But then, the others haven't seen what I have seen or felt what I have felt or been who I have been, they can't become what I have become. I am me. — C. JoyBell C.

Open the "book of life" and you will see a "text" of about 3 billion letters, filling about 10,000 copies of the new York Times Sunday edition. Each line looks something like this:
TCTAGAAACA ATTGCCATTG TTTCTTCTCA TTTTCTTTTC ACGGGCAGCC
These letters, abbreviations of the molecules making up the DNA, could easily mean that the anonymous donor whose genome has been sequenced will be bald by the age of fifty. Or they could reveal that he will develop Alzheimer's disease by seventy. We are repeatedly told that everything from our personality to future medical history is encoded in this book. Can you read it? I doubt it. Let me share a secret with you: Neither can biologists or doctors. — Albert-Laszlo Barabasi

In idyllic small towns I sometimes see teenagers looking out of place in their garb of desperation, the leftover tatters and stains and slashes of the fashion of my youth. For this phase of their life, the underworld is their true home, and in the grit and underbelly of a city they could find something that approximates it. Even the internal clock of adolescents changes, making them nocturnal creatures for at least a few years. All through childhood you grow toward life and then in adolescence, at the height of life, you begin to grow toward death. This fatality is felt as an enlargement to be welcomed and embraced, for the young in this culture enter adulthood as a prison, and death reassures them that there are exits. "I have been half in love with easeful death," said Keats who died at twenty-six and so were we, though the death we were in love with was only an idea then. — Rebecca Solnit

Antonia had always been one to leave images in the mind that did not fade - that grew stronger with time. In my memory there was a succession of such pictures, fixed there like the old woodcuts of one's first primer ... She lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true ... She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl; but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture ... All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions. — Willa Cather

These people, they were different to anyone I'd met. They'd offered their friendship, their trust, without a second thought. I'd always been wary about new people in my life. That same old barrier I put up to protect myself. I didn't let anyone close enough to be able to hurt me. My father had left, as though I was as insubstantial as air. As a child, I'd struggled to come to terms with it. He'd been there every single day, and then he wasn't. So what were we to him? A stopgap until something he determined as better came along? With the Aunt Margot feud, and subsequent alienation of the family, it felt as though people abandoned us like we were yesterday's newspaper. Could I fall into friendships with these girls, and then leave? Maybe it was time for me to stop worrying about anything other than living in the moment. I was missing out on so much, standing on the edge of life, waiting for something that might never happen. — Rebecca Raisin

The only contact we could have with the void was through this little the void had produced as quintessence of its own emptiness; the only image we had of the void was our own poor universe. All the void we would ever know was there, in the relativity of what is, for even the void had been no more than a relative void,a void secretly shot with veins and temptations to be something, given that in a moment of crisis at its own nothingness it had been able to give rise to the universe. — Italo Calvino

She said to me, "How is it going, Mitch?" I said, "Okay." But this is not really true, because she did not specify what "it" was and I did not immediately assume "it" referred to any preexisting situation in my life. I'm sure she didn't have any idea what "it" was either. She just said, "How is it going, Mitch," because she wanted to say something aloud in public. Basically, she asked a question she didn't understand, and I gave an affirmative response to that question, even though I did not know what I was responding to. Neither of us cared about what the other person was talking about or how the other person felt. We expressed two ideas that seemed to be interconnected, but neither of them was true. They were just words. They were neither good nor bad. They could have been any words, really.] — Chuck Klosterman

In any case, our love is not a typical love, as is typically felt between men and women. We share something else between us - something more immediate, more cherishing. That has been evident to me from the beginning, and I pray it has been evident to you. My wish is that we two could live together as one, both contented and elevated, and ever-seeking. — Elizabeth Gilbert

You marvel that this matter, shuffled pell-mell at the whim of Chance, could have made a man, seeing that so much was needed for the construction of his being. But you must realize that a hundred million time this matter, on the way to human shape, has been stopped to form now a stone, now lead, now coral, now a flower, now a comet; and all because of more or fewer elements that were or were not necessary for designing a man. Little wonder if, within an infinite quantity of matter that ceaselessly changes and stirs, the few animals, vegetables, and minerals we see should happen to be made; no more wonder than getting a royal pair in a hundred casts of the dice. Indeed it is equally impossible for all this stirring not to lead to something; and yet this something will always be wondered at by some blockhead who will never realize how small a change would have made it into something else. — Cyrano De Bergerac

There's something pitiable and terrifying about the unconscious bully. His crumpled nose and hat.
... This is the first true thing that Brauser and I have ever shared, this fear, besides dog-eared songbooks and cafeteria noodles.
I wonder, briefly, if I could eat Brauser if it came to that.
At this point, we have been alone on the glacier for fourteen minutes. — Karen Russell

What we all need most urgently now: to realize that transience is not separation - for we, transient as we are, have it in common with those who have passed from us, and they and we exist together in one being where separation is just as unthinkable. Could we otherwise understand such poems if they had been nothing but the utterance of someone who was going to be dead in the future? Don't such poems continually address inside of us, in addition to what is found there now, also something unlimited and unrecognizable? I do not think that the spirit can make itself anywhere so small that it would concern only our temporal existence and our here and now: where it surges toward us there we are the dead and the living all at once. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Well the only reason to go back, for me and I think for anyone involved would be if we could do something truly spectacular. We've been talking about it for a couple years and there's always been this idea, a big idea, in the back of my head that we've been talking about. — Joseph Kosinski

Luce is different now. She's-" He could almost smell her.Clean, pure light, like sunshine. "Something fundamental has shifted.We finally have a real chance. And I-I have never been more elated ... nor more sick with terror." He opened his eyes and was surprised to see Daniil nod.
"Daniel?"
"Yes?"
"What are you waiting for?" Daniil asked with a smile. "Go get her."
And with that,Daniel teased open a shadow along the roof ledge-an Announcer-and stepped inside. — Lauren Kate

It was easy to find things she would like. Our taste was the same, it had been from the first. It would be impossible to live with someone otherwise. I've always thought it was the most important single thing, though people may not realize it. Perhaps it's transmitted to them in the way someone dresses or, for that matter, undresses, but taste is a thing no one is born with, it's learned, and at a certain point it can't be altered. We sometimes talked about that, what could and couldn't be altered. People were always saying something had completely changed them, some experience or book or man, but if you knew how they had been before, nothing much really had changed. When you found someone who was tremendously appealing but not quite perfect, you might believe you could change them after marriage, not everything, just a few things, but in truth the most you could expect was to change perhaps one thing and even that would eventually go back to what it had been. — James Salter