What Do You Have To Lose Quotes & Sayings

Have you thought about retiring early?" "I've thought about it. I would lose a fair amount of my pension if I did. Besides, what would I do with myself?" "You could work for me." "Work ... as a ranch hand?" She laughed, genuinely amused by the image of herself in a cowboy hat cutting cattle that popped into her head. "I can't even walk in the snow without help." He glared at her. "You're a fantastic rider." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you truly offering me a job?" He stopped shoveling, rested on the hay fork, gave her a lopsided grin. "I would if it would keep you around." Something about that felt more romantic to her than a dozen red roses. "Jack West, you are a charming man." "Me?" He shook his head, got back to shoveling. "I think you need to look that word up in the dictionary, angel. — Pamela Clare

Maybe I could love you someday."
If you ever do," he said, "come and let me know. You know where to find me."
Her teeth were chattering harder. "I can't lose you, Simon. I can't."
You never will. I'm not leaving you. But I'd rather have what we have, which is real and true and important, than have you pretend anything else. When I'm with you, I want to know I'm with the real you, the real Clary."
She leaned her head against his, closing her eyes. He still felt like Simon, despite everything; still smelled like him, like his laundry soap. "Maybe I don't know who that is."
But I do. — Cassandra Clare

Be blessed. And just as you are transforming your own life, may you transform the lives of those around you. When they ask, do not forget to give. When they knock at your door, be sure to open it. When they lose something and come to you, do whatever you can to help them find what they have lost. First, though, ask; knock at the door and find what is missing in your life. A hunter always knows what to expect - eat or be eaten. — Paulo Coelho

You haven't gotten the dynamics of our relationship down yet, have you? Let me explain it to you: we're involved, very involved. You're mine, and your problems are also mine. No one messes with what belongs to me. Don't fight me on that, because you'll lose baby. and be aware next time you hide something like that from me, I'll turn you over my knee and spank your ass red. Do we understand each other? — Elle Aycart

Mistakes and miscalculations are human and normal, and viewed in the long run they have not damaged the company. I do not mind taking responsibilty for every managerial decision I have made. But if a person who makes a mistake is branded and kicked off the seniority promotion escalator, he could lose his motivation for the rest of his business life and depreive the company of whaever good things he may have to offer later. If the casues of the mistake are clarified and made public, the person who made the mistake will not forget it and others will not make the same mistake. I tell our people Go ahead and do what you think is right. If you make a mistake, you will learn form it. Just don't make the same mistake twice. — Akio Morita

This reminds me of the place in Genesis 4 where God looks at Cain, who is full of self-pity, and says to him, "Cain, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it." What's important to understand is that the principle of self in your life is crouching at your door! It wants to have you, it wants to pounce on you, it wants to devour you. And it's up to you to do something about it. God asks that you deny yourself, that you lose yourself to find yourself. If you try to do this without the work of the Spirit, and without belief in all Christ has done for you, then simply giving up your rights and desires will be galling and hardening. But in Christ and with the Spirit, it will be liberating. — Timothy Keller

If something inspires you, try and hold on to that inspiration because if you lose that inspiration, what do you have left? If music is your inspiration and it brings you together with friends, family or loved ones and that's the core of it, then always have it. Always draw from it. — Charlie Benante

The entire room turns and stares. There's no doubt what they see - ripped jeans, a black T-shirt, tattoos and earrings. I don't care what they see. All I care about is what she sees: a person unwelcomed or the guy she loves.
A tear flows down her face, and the hand wrapped at her waist tells me she's paralyzed. In a long gold ball gown that's more skirt than dress, Rachel is truly the angel I believe her to be. A man in a tuxedo stands. "Son, I think you have the wrong room."
"No. I don't." I stride between the tables, keeping my eyes locked with hers. The closer I get, the more she straightens. Her hand falls from her stomach, and the tear clears from her face. Rachel gazes at me as if I'm a dream. I extend my hand, palm out. "I need help."
Her blue eyes lose their glaze, and the hue of violet I love so much returns. "So do I." — Katie McGarry

Religions are moral exoskeletons. If you live in a religious community, you are enmeshed in a set of norms, relationships, and institutions that work primarily on the elephant to influence your behavior. But if you are an atheist living in a looser community with a less binding moral matrix, you might have to rely somewhat more on an internal moral compass, read by the rider. That might sound appealing to rationalists, but it is also a recipe for anomie - Durkheim's word for what happens to a society that no longer has a shared moral order.63 (It means, literally, "normlessness.") We evolved to live, trade, and trust within shared moral matrices. When societies lose their grip on individuals, allowing all to do as they please, the result is often a decrease in happiness and an increase in suicide, as Durkheim showed more than a hundred years ago. — Jonathan Haidt

Everyone has a destiny, Gemma, my moms voice fills my thoughts. Yours is just more important. I always knew it would be, since the day you were born. She smiles brightly. My violet-eyed girl. Youre going to do great things, but itll be hard. Youll be tested, more than you already have. But no matter what, you can never lose yourself. You have to fight, no matter what, Gemma. Never, ever give up. — Jessica Sorensen

Basch: So why don't you ask her out?
The Runt: I'm scared she wouldn't like me and say no.
-So what? What have you got to lose?
-The possibility -if she says no- that she might have said yes. Whatever I do, I don't want to lose that possibility. — Samuel Shem

You never know what the way will bring. Sometimes we have to lose the connection to someone in order to regain the connection to someone. That makes things more interesting anyway, since each someone will not be the same, and the connection will also not be the same. Actually, we can do this with all aspects of our life. — Art Hochberg

Do you really want to be converted? Are you willing to be transformed? Or do you keep clutching your old ways of life with one hand while with the other you beg people to for help you change?
Conversion is certainly not something you can bring about yourself. It is not a question of willpower. You have to trust the inner voice that shows the way. You know that inner voice. You turn to it often. But after you have heard with clarity what you are asked to do, you start raising questions, fabricating objections,, and seeking everyone else's opinion. Thus you become entangles in countless often contradictory thoughts, feelings, and ideas and lose touch with the God in you. And you end up dependent on all the people you have gathered around you.
Excerpt from:The Inner Voice of Love From Anguish to Freedom by Henry Nouwen — Henri J.M. Nouwen

I do not want to say anything which is too severe because it is not strictly true - let your own consciences speak, but still, I make bold to enquire, - Do not many of you read the Bible m a very hurried way - just a little bit, and off you go? Do you not soon forget what you have read, and lose what little effect it seemed to have? How few of you are resolved to get at its soul, its juice, its life, its essence, and to drink in its meaning. Well, if you do not do that, I tell you again your reading is miserable reading, dead reading, unprofitable reading; it is not reading at all, the name would be misapplied. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

When a new company is formed, its founders must have a startup mentality - a beginner's mind, open to everything because, well, what do they have to lose? (This is often something they later look back upon wistfully.) But when that company becomes successful, its leaders often cast off that startup mentality because, they tell themselves, they have figured out what to do. They don't want to be beginners anymore. That may be human nature, but I believe it is a part of our nature that should be resisted. By resisting the beginner's mind, you make yourself more prone to repeat yourself than to create something new. The attempt to avoid failure, in other words, makes failure more likely. — Ed Catmull

How do you react when you think you need people's love? Do you become a slave for their approval? Do you live an inauthentic life because you can't bear the thought that they might disapprove of you? Do you try to figure out how they would like you to be, and then try to become that, like a chameleon? In fact, you never really get their love. You turn into someone you aren't, and then when they say "I love you," you can't believe it, because they're loving a facade. They're loving someone who doesn't even exist, the person you're pretending to be. It's difficult to seek other people's love. It's deadly. In seeking it, you lose what is genuine. This is the prison we create for ourselves as we seek what we already have. — Byron Katie

It is not as if an 'I' exists independently over here and then simply loses a 'you' over there, especially if the attachment to 'you' is part of what composes who 'I' am. If I lose you, under these conditions, then I not only mourn the loss, but I become inscrutable to myself. Who 'am' I, without you? When we lose some of these ties by which we are constituted, we do not know who we are or what to do. On one level, I think I have lost 'you' only to discover that 'I' have gone missing as well. At another level, perhaps what I have lost 'in' you, that for which I have no vocabulary, is a relationality that is composed neither exclusively of myself nor you, but is to be conceived as *the tie* by which those terms are differentiated and related. — Judith Butler

Because really, what do you have to lose? Your life? That's no big deal, I promise you. When you find out you might die, you're finally allowed to live like you never have before. If you lose your life while living the shit out of it, then you've done the best you could, and you shouldn't worry about death. When you're dead, you can't screw up. But while you're here, all you have are a few things to call your own. You have your integrity, your family, and your hope for the future. These are important and you should keep them somewhere safe where you'll remember them. — Kevin Lankes

Do not allow fear to bind you up, dear one. You will only lose what you already have. — Ted Dekker

The cinema industry is competing against everything else people can do on a Friday or Saturday night. If they don't have a good time, you're going to lose them to something else. So much of what we do is trying to make the Alamo experience special. — Tim League

I definitely think there's a lot of pressure for teenaged girls and guys to hook up on prom. I think it comes with the belief that you have to lose your virginity before you go to college. It's a coming of age thing. I think it's really sad because it has nothing to do with what you want and everything to do with peer pressure. But it comes with the territory of prom. Thankfully more and more kids are knowing their limits, and I think we're raising kids to be really good people, and they're realizing that they don't need to do it just because. — Brittany Snow

Long voyages often lose themselves.
Mam?
You will see. It is difficult even for brothers to travel together on such a voyage. The road has its own reasons and no two travelers will have the same understanding of those reasons. If indeed they come to an understanding of them at all. Listen to the corridos of the country. They will tell you. Then you will see in your own life what is the cost of things. Perhaps it is true that nothing is hidden. Yet many do not wish to see what lies before them in plain sight. You will see. The shape of the road is the road. There is not some other road that wears the shape but only the one. And every voyage begun upon it will be completed. Whether horses are found or not. — Cormac McCarthy

Sister, why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Cage the animals at night?"
"Well ... " She looked up and out through the barred window before answering me."We don't want to, Jennings, but we have to. You see, the animals that are given to us we have to take care of. If we didn't cage them up in one place, we might lose them, they might get hurt or damaged. It's not the best thing, but it's the only way we have to take care of them."
"But if somebody loved one them," I asked, "wouldn't it be a good idea to let them have one? To keep, I mean?"
"Yes, it would be. But not everyone would love them and take care of them as you would. I wish I could give them all away tomorrow." She looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. "But I can't. My heart would break if I saw just one of those animals lying by the wayside uncared for, unloved. No, Jennings. It's better if we keep them together. — Jennings Michael Burch

but a man of pleasure like yourself ought to know that all who are in the flower of youth do somehow or other raise a pang or emotion in a lover's breast, and are thought by him to be worthy of his affectionate regards. Is not this a way which you have with the fair: one has a snub nose, and you praise his charming face; the hook-nose of another has, you say, a royal look; while he who is neither snub nor hooked has the grace of regularity: the dark visage is manly, the fair are children of the gods; and as to the sweet 'honey pale,' as they are called, what is the very name but the invention of a lover who talks in diminutives, and is not averse to paleness if appearing on the cheek of youth? In a word, there is no excuse which you will not make, and nothing which you will not say, in order not to lose a single flower that blooms in the spring-time of youth. If — Plato

We can't lose you," she said after a few moments of awkward as hell silence. "You have to understand that we aren't doing this because we don't care about Kat. We're doing this because we love you."
"But I love her," I said without hesitation.
Dee's eyes widened, probably since it was the first time she'd herd me say it out loud, well, about anyone other than my family. I wished I had said it more often, especially to Kat. Funny how that kind of shit always turns out in the end. While you're deep in something, you never say or do what you need to. It's always after the fact, when it's too late that you realize what you've should've said or done/
It couldn't be too late. I knew that. The fact that I was still alive was testament to that. Like Dee said, though, there were worse things than death. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

As it was before, so it was now; I need only be aware of God to live; I need only forget Him, or disbelieve Him, and I died.
What is this animation and dying? I do not live when I lose belief in the existence of God. I should long ago have killed myself had I not had a dim hope of finding Him. I live, really live, only when I feel Him and seek Him. "What more do you seek?" exclaimed a voice within me. "This is He. He is that without which one cannot live. To know God and to live is one and the same thing. God is life."
"Live seeking God, and then you will not live without God." And more than ever before, all within me and around me lit up, and the light did not again abandon me. — Leo Tolstoy

If you squeeze and squeeze, and you don't allow the Iranians to sell any oil, then what do they have to lose by shutting the Strait of Hormuz down? And if they do that, that's 35% of all the world's oil that comes through the strait and 20% of the liquefied natural gas in the world. — Steve Hanke

In our twenties we have conflicts. We think everything is either-or, black or white: we are caught between them and we lose all our energy in the conflicts. My answer, later on in maturity, was to do them all. Not to exclude any, not to make a choice. I wanted to be everything. And I took everything in, and the more you take in, the more strength you find waiting to accomplish things and to expand your life, instead of the other (which is what we have been taught to do) which is to look for structure and to fear change, above all to fear change. Now I didn't fear change. — Anais Nin

You are thinking about where your brain is at any time. It's very tricky but it's why women are very well suited to rule the world in the future, because of the multi-tasking they do and their ability to be moving in 15 directions at once. It's the women who behave like men, who focus in that singular way with the blinkers on, who have problems. You get a lot more done that way maybe, but you also lose the perception of who's behind you, what's going on, the 360 degrees of it, the whole picture of life that we do have as women. — Meryl Streep

It is my job in life, apparently, to teach gawking, laughing girls lessons about kindness. If you had told me when I was seven or eight that this was something I'd be taking on, that I would never get a break from it no matter how good I felt about myself, I would have said Thank you, but if it's all the same I'll take another job, please. What else do you have for me?

I know what you're thinking - if you hate it so much and it's such a burden, just lose the weight, and then that job will go away. But I'm comfortable where I am. I may lose more weight. I may not. But why should what I weigh affect other people? I mean, unless I'm sitting on them, who cares? — Jennifer Niven

If you keep focusing on what people have to say or will say about you, you will lose focus of what God has called you to do. Never let distractions bother you...if you do, you will only be giving your energy to an unworthy cause. — Kemi Sogunle

So what I want to know is why it is that I can no longer find you, in my mind. You are still there, just, but you are there like a ghost, a will o' the wisp. Not long ago you burned
your heart burned
in my mind like silver fire. But after that night in the inn it became patchy and dim, and now it is not there at all."
"Could it be that the heart that you seek is no longer my own? I have given my heart to another."
"The boy? The one in the inn? With the unicorn?"
"Yes."
"You should have let me take it back then, for my sisters and me. We could have been young again, well into the next age of the world. Your boy will break it, or waste it, or lose it. They all do."
"Nonetheless, he has my heart. I hope your sisters will not be too hard on you, when you return to them without it. — Neil Gaiman

The rules of the game of life are quite simple. Always tell the truth. Never live in fear of anything or anyone. Be conscious of what you are thinking so you can always think positively. Do everything that you do for the love of doing it. If you devote yourself, your time and your energy to following these rules, have no doubt - you cannot lose! — Iyanla Vanzant

Too many companies - and individuals - are befuddled by delusion when it comes to identifying their authentic strengths and projecting those strengths through their brand. It's as if they live in Opposite Land. If their service is wretched, they tell people that they are great at service. If they are selling a mediocre car, they expound on its hip sportiness. Claiming that you are what you are not will obscure the strengths you do have while destroying your credibility. It's a lose-lose proposition. In order to hunt down and accurately tag authenticity, we must first pop the balloon of self-delusion. — Tom Hayes

Can you make it past me, thief-catcher?" Mat called, careful not to take his eyes off the man waiting for him with blade poised to strike. Sandar had insisted irritably on "thief-catcher," not "thief-taker," though Mat could not see any difference.
"I cannot," Sandar called from behind him. "If you move to let me by, you will lose room to swing that oar you call a staff, and he will spit you like a grunt."
Like a what? "Well, think of something, Tairen. This ragamuffin is grating my nerves."
The man in the gold-striped coat sneered. "You will be honored to die on the blade of the High Lord Darlin, peasant, if I allow it so." It was the first time he had deigned to speak. "Instead, I think I will have the pair of you hung by the heels, and watch while the skin is stripped from your bodies - "
"I do not think I'd like that," Mat said. — Robert Jordan

There was another pause and then Bastien clucked and snapped, "Dammit, Thomas! Inez is one of my best employees."
He pulled the phone away from his ear to peer at it with disbelief, and then slapped it back to his head. "What the hell has that got to do with anything?"
"Well, if you had to find your lifemate, couldn't it have been someone else's employee. I'm going to lose her now. She'll want to be with you and come to Canada and
— Lynsay Sands

Sade jolted with Mercy's embrace from behind. "Sade!" she cried. "You have it! You have my love, I do love you, look at me." She got in front of him and held his face. "I'm scared of you because I'll die if I lose you. I'm scared I'll never be enough, or what you need. I'm scared you'll send me away," she sobbed, hitting him in the chest. "I can't lose you! I love you! I just want to be good enough for you!" Sade pulled her into his arms at hearing those words. "Mercy," he gasped. "Say it again." "I love you," she cried holding him tight. "I love you so much. I never want to be apart from you." "I'm too fucking broken for you Mercy." She shook her head and cried, "No! Don't say that! I can fix it! We can fix it, and if we can't," she gasped, "we can be broken together, — Lucian Bane

It is very important that you only do what you love to do. you may be poor, you may go hungry, you may lose your car, you may have to move into a shabby place to live, but you will totally live. And at the end of your days you will bless your life because you have done what you came here to do. Otherwise, you will live your life as a prostitute, you will do things only for a reason, to please other people, and you will never have lived. and you will not have a pleasant death. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

With a defeat, when you lose, you get up, you make it better, you try again. That's what I do in life, when I get down, when I get sick, I don't want to just stop. I keep going and I try to do more. Everyone always says never give up but you really have to take that to heart and really do never definitely give up. Keep trying. — Serena Williams

1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. 2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. 4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. 5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing. 6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you... — Benjamin Franklin

Either the gods have power or they don't. If they don't,
why pray? If they do, then why not pray for something else
instead of for things to happen or not to happen? Pray not to
feel fear. Or desire, or grief. If the gods can do anything, they
can surely do that for us. - But those are things the gods left up to me.
Then isn't it better to do what's up to you - like a free man
- than to be passively controlled by what isn't, like a slave
or beggar? And what makes you think the gods don't care
about what's up to us?
Start praying like this and you'll see.
Not "some way to sleep with her" - but a way to stop
wanting to.
Not "some way to get rid of him" - but a way to stop
trying.
Not "some way to save my child" - but a way to lose your
fear.
Redirect your prayers like that, and watch what happens. — Marcus Aurelius

Do not lose hope - what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story. (from 'Instructions') — Neil Gaiman

Even if I had expected it, even if I had known what I was going to do with my life, it would have knocked the wind out of me.
When something that violent hits you, you can't help but lose your balance and fall. And after you pick yourself up, you realize you can't trust anybody to save you- not your husband, not your mother, not God. So what can you do to stop yourself from tilting and falling all over again? — Amy Tan

I will never be through with you, ever. I don't know what I have to do to get you to realize that you're my
everything. I exist to love you, you're my meaning of life, my reason to be, you were made for me and I was made to make you mine. What we have
is too important to me to just throw away because of a picture and an incorrect quote. But you have got to have some faith in me Layla. I would
never hurt you, you have to know that. I may get angry, lose my temper and storm away but I will always calm down and I will always come back. I
could never leave you behind. I'd be lost without you. — Marie Coulson

When someone takes your car, they have the car and you do not. When, because of some new technology, someone is able to get access to the MP3 file of your new song, they have the file and so do you. You did not lose the song. What you may have lost is the opportunity to sell the song to that person or to the people with whom they "share" the file. — Anonymous

You don't have to cheat to lose your girl or your woman. You can lose her from lack of communication, attention and disrespect. It's not all about what you do, sometimes it's about what you don't do. — Chris Sain Jr.

Don't ever think that what my Son chose to do didn't cost us dearly. Love always leaves a significant mark," she stated softly and gently. "We were there together."
Mack was surprised. "At the cross? Now wait. I thought you left him - you know - 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'" It was a Scripture that had often haunted Mack in The Great Sadness.
"You misunderstand the mystery there. Regardless of what he felt at that moment, I never left him."
"How can you say that? You abandonded him just like you abandoned me!"
"Mackenzie, I never left him, and I have never left you."
"That makes no sense to me," he snapped.
"I know it doesn't, at least not yet. Will you at least consider this: when all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of me? — Wm. Paul Young

It is important to have determination and optimism and patience. If you lack patience, even when you face some small obstacle, you lose courage. There is a Tibetan saying, "Even if you have failed at something nine times, you have still given it effort nine times." I think that's important. Use your brain to analyze the situation. Do not rush through it, but think. Once you decide what to do about that obstacle, then there's a possibility that you will achieve your goal. — Dalai Lama

As an artist, you are always striving toward an ultimate achievement but never seem to reach it. You shoot a film, and the result could have always been better. You try again, and fail once more. In some ways I find it enjoyable. You never lose sight of your goal. I don't do my job to make money or to break box office records, I simply try things out. What would happen if I were to achieve perfection at some point? What would I do then? — Woody Allen

At times one wanders, doubting the facts, even when one has discovered the secrets of the good life. To be sure, my solution is not the ideal.
But when you don't like your own life, when you know that you must change lives, you don't have any choice, do you? What can one do to become
another?Impossible. One would have to cease being anyone, forget oneself for someone else, at least once.But how? Don't bear down too hard on me.
I am like that old beggar who wouldn't let go of my hand one day on a cafe terrace: Oh, sir,he said, its not just that I am no good, but you lose
track of the light.Yes, we have lost track of the light, the mornings, the holy innocence of those who forgive themselves. — Albert Camus

Fear holds us back from living the lives we want. Use your 20s to make bold decisions, follow different paths, learn from heartbreak, and figure out who you are. When you're 30, do you want to look back at the same boring job, the stale relationship that isn't working, and no stamps in your passport? If you want something different, if you want a life that is filled with experiences, if you want to learn and grow, if you want to make a difference ... conquer the fears, believe in yourself, and just do it. You may be questioning something right now. You may be battling thoughts in your mind about taking a leap. Ask yourself what you have to lose if you leap. Ask yourself what kind of stories you want to have. Ask yourself if you're worth it, if you deserve it. — Katie Robinson

Personally, I just want to work on stuff that challenges me, that excites me, and that I think is original. You want to do something that does to other people what films do to you. It's the most wonderful thing in the world when you can lose yourself from reality and go into a story, and believe it and go on that journey with people, and you have to work that will somehow do that. It won't always, but hopefully sometimes. — Harry Treadaway

There is nothing like losing all you have in the world for teaching you what not to do. And when you know what not to do in order not to lose money, you begin to learn what to do in order to win. Did you get that? You begin to learn! — Edwin Lefevre

The first step on the path to positive change is acknowledgement that change is necessary and possible. Open yourself to the possibility of seeing the world in a new way. What do you have to lose? — Alex Blackwell

Everybody has talent and it's just a matter of moving around until you've discovered what it is. A talent is a combination of something you love a great deal and something you can lose yourself in - something that you can start at 9 o'clock, look up from your work and it's 10 o'clock at night - and also something that you have a talent, not a talent for, but skills that you have a natural ability to do very well. And usually those two things go together. — George Lucas

Great negotiators never lose sight of what they are aiming at, which is not an agreement per se, but a desired outcome ... Getting to yes is easy, all you have to do is roll over. It's getting what you want that's hard. — Robert Gallucci

So try not to see something in particular; try not to achieve anything special. You already have everything in your own pure quality. If you understand this ultimate fact, there is no fear. There may be some difficulty, of course, but there is no fear. If people have difficulty without being aware of the difficulty, that is true difficulty. They may appear very confident, they may think they are making a big effort in the right direction, but without knowing it, what they do comes out of fear. Something may vanish for them. But if your effort is in the right direction, then there is no fear of losing anything. Even if it is in the wrong direction, if you are aware of that, you will not be deluded. There is nothing to lose. There is only the constant pure quality of right practice. — Shunryu Suzuki

What I mean, King, is this. We are the true Renouncers, because change is our very secret. We lose, in order to find. We have no faith in the never-changing.

What do you mean?

Haven't you noticed the detachment of the rushing river, as it runs splashing from its mountain cave? It gives itself away so swiftly, and only thus it finds itself. What is never changing, for the river, is the desert sand, where it loses its course. — Rabindranath Tagore

If I'd chosen never to the foot inside the great fairytale, I'd never have known what I've lost. Do you see what I'm getting at? Sometimes it's worse for us human beings to lose something dear to us than never to have had it at all. — Jostein Gaarder

There are some conversations that are undeniably improved when the rule going in is that you have to stand behind what you say and have to wear a name tag when you do it. But that's certainly not all conversations. People might be prepared to ethically stand behind what they say, but might be in a position that they can't afford to lose their house over it. Speech shouldn't just be for people with lawyers. — Jonathan Zittrain

Okay. This guy came to the bar and flirted with you, then he pummels some guy for hitting you." Doug counts off each attribute on his fingers. "Then he chases after you to make sure you're okay. But you blow him off because he's a cop." Doug shook his head. "I'm sorry, but what exactly is the problem?"

Furi's head was spinning at his screwed-up emotions. "I told you how Patrick started hitting me after I gave him what he asked for in bed. Whenever we'd fuck a certain way, he'd love it, but would always freak out later. I can see the same shit in Syn. As soon as men like that fuck, they lose their shit and immediately feel like they have to reclaim their lost manhood, on my face. Mark my words. Syn would snap just like Pat did."

"How the hell do you know that?"

"Call it my gay man's intuition. — A.E. Via

I shall be your poet! I do not want to be a poet for others; make your appearance, and I shall be your poet. I shall eat my own poem, and that will be my food. Or do you find me unworthy? Just as a temple dancer dances to the honor of the god Gudutl, so I have consecrated myself to your service; light, thinly clad, limber, unarmed, I renounce everything. I own nothing; I desire to own nothing; I love nothing; I have nothing to lose-but have I not thereby become more worthy of you, you who long ago must have been tired of depriving people of what they love, tired of their craven sniveling and craven pleading. Surprise me-I am ready — Soren Kierkegaard

Son, a real battlefield lacks dignity and honor. When lives are being spent - actual human lives - those high-minded concepts lose their meaning. All that matters is victory. If you have blades, you'll use blades. If you have rocks, you'll use rocks. If there's nothing but sand, you'll throw the damn sand. A true war is only waged when men don't want to live to see what failure looks like. You do what it takes to win. You go wherever necessity takes you. — B. Justin Shier

You're not getting the joy out of literature that it gave you. This is the danger of what we do. Look at Hemingway and so many others. You devote your life to one thing, that is what you are. It's artificial but it's all you have. If you lose it, then you're nothing and there's no point in going on. — T.C. Boyle

On the Way of the Cross, you see, my children, only the first step is painful. Our greatest cross is the fear of crosses ... We have not the courage to carry our cross, and we are very much mistaken; for, whatever we do, the cross holds us tight - we cannot escape from it. What, then, have we to lose? Why not love our crosses, and make use of them to take us to heaven? — John Vianney

He still went out nearly every night. I thought, is this what he's going to do when we have the baby? Have I made another terrible mistake with a man? You don't really know a man until you have a child with him. Then you see so much. Is he kind? Is he tolerant? Is he loving? Or is he immature and egotistical and selfish? When you have a child, it can go two ways with your husband: You love him even more, or you lose all respect for him. And if you lose respect, there's no way to get it back ... — Candace Bushnell

I think he'll have to lose you Lucy. He won't know what he can do without you until he's without you. — Ka Hancock

Once you don't have freedom and you're obliged to do many things you don't want, and it becomes a routine, then your identity is at stake because you can feel that you are not anymore yourself, that you are what they want you to be - and you can lose yourself. — Ingrid Betancourt

Reth reached out and took my fingers in his own, his touch light but comforting. "I've found that sacrifice is called that for a reason. We have all lost much of what we were or could have been because of the mistakes of my people. We'll yet lose some things to set it right. But when you join eternity, you will not feel the sting of this life with such intensity."
"You mean I wouldn't feel at all?"
"I feel, my love. Simply not in the same way you do. And thank heavens for that, because you are quite an embarrassment at times. Your inconsistent and flailing passions will no longer be a concern."
Leave it to Reth to go from comforting me to insulting me in the course of one short conversation. — Kiersten White

Eternal Love,
Distance is the salvation of my life, it is the magic of our love, thanks to that magic, I have finally learned to love you, from a distance. Go, but go far from me, I have a fear of losing you. Don't come close, please, do not destroy our love. I don't want to lose you. Distance has returned the love that was no longer there. Please don't ever return, because we've both discovered the essence of what we have. Distance will carry our love through eternity! Eternal love that only distance can keep alive. — Sergio Figueira Correia

Rhys brushed the hair from my face. "It's all part of the game, Feyre darling. Who to trust, when to trust them - what information to barter." "Do you enjoy it?" "Sometimes. Right now, I don't. Not when the risks are this high." His fingers grazed my brow. "When I have so much to lose." I — Sarah J. Maas

To break up the superstition and worship of legality should be our aim. Nothing would please me more than to see Inspector Heat and his likes take to shooting us down in broad daylight with the approval of the public. Half our battle would be won then; the desintegration of the old morality would have set in in its very temple. That is what you ought to aim at. But you revolutionists will never understand that. You plan the future, you lose yourselves in reveries of economical systems derived from what is; where as what's wanted is a clean sweep and a clear start for a new conception of life. That sort of future will take care of itself if you will only make room for it. Therefore I would shovel my stuff in heaps at the corners of the streets if I had enough for that; and as I haven't, I do my best by perfecting a really dependable detonator. — Joseph Conrad

What if I mess up?"
"Oh, you will. You'll mess up, you'll make mistakes, you'll break things. Some you'll be able to piece together, and others you'll lose. That's all a given. But there's only one thing you have to do for me."
"What's that?"
"Stay alive long enough to mess up again. — Victoria Schwab

Do you ever think that people who find it tougher to say what they're feeling are the ones who feel things more intensely? As if they're the ones who really understand what it means to love someone? As if they have to keep their defenses high, because they care too much and have too much to lose? — Claire Cross

You can lose people without them dying, and I have, from moving, from traveling. The emotion is real, it just doesn't actually have to do with death. I'm singing about what I know, and it's a song about longing for somebody who's disappeared in your life. — Jon Crosby

If you are trying to please, how do you take responsibility for your own needs? How do you even know what your own needs are? What do you have to cut off in yourself in order to please others? I think the act of pleasing makes everything murky. We lose track of ourselves. We stop uttering declaratory sentences. We stop directing our lives. We wait to be rescued. We forget what we know. We make everything okay rather than real. — Eve Ensler

The problem with success is that you lose the capacity to fail and the capacity to surprise people. So, if I'm able to surprise myself every day, I can surprise you as well. If I enjoy someone's work and they offer me their project, I do it. So what's the point of the supposed creativity? If Mona Lisa could be made by anyone, then it wouldn't have been the most beautiful painting in the world. The knowledge that you can fail can make you come first. — Shahrukh Khan

Do not lose that hunger. You will always have to fight for everything. Even when you already have it, you will have to keep fighting to maintain it. You will have to be more ruthless, more brutal, more everything. Any weakness will undo everything you have accomplished. They will see any crack as evidence that they were right that a woman cannot do what you do.

Hunyadi knew what he spoke of. Her merits, her accomplishments, her strength would never speak for themselves. She would have to cut her way through the world, uphill, for the rest of her life. — Kiersten White

Unlike most of life, what you do really matters. Your actions have real consequences. You have to pay attention and focus, and that's very satisfying. It forces you to pay great attention and you lose yourself in the task at hand. Without the risk, that wouldn't happen, so the risk is an essential part of climbing, and that's hard for some people to grasp. You can't justify the risk when things go wrong and people die. The greater the risk, the greater the reward in most aspects of life, and in climbing that's certainly true, too. It's very physical, you use your mind and your body. — Jon Krakauer

You remember how he used to be girl on either arm? You really don't see that guy too much anymore. Why do you think that is? He's waiting for you. I know you're dealing with stuff but you cannot ask him to wait forever! Unless of course, you're okay with him pulling away."
"What if it doesn't work out? What if it ends up like you and Javier?"
"Well at least we gave it a shot. And so it didn't work out, so what? Now, we can move on give or take the occasional booty call."
"I just don't wanna lose what we have, you know?"
"Girl please! What exactly do you have, really?"
"A friendship."
"No. What you and I have is a friendship. What you and castle have is a holding pattern. How long can you circle before the fuel runs out? — Richard Castle

The song that was playing above us was You And Me by Lifehouse and he pressed his face into my hair and softly sang the words to me.
What day is it? And in what month?
This clock never seemed so alive
I can't keep up I can't back down
I'm losing so much time
'Cause it's you and me, and all of the people
with nothing to do, nothing to lose
And it's you and me, and all of the people
And I don't know why I can't keep my eyes off of you
I could have died ... or cried ... or sighed. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do more. — Shelly Crane

All of us face hard choices in our lives. Some face more than their share. We have to decide how to balance the demands of work and family. Caring for a sick child or an aging parent. Figuring out how to pay for college. Finding a good job, and what to do if you lose it. Whether to get married - or stay married. How to give our kids the opportunities they dream about and deserve. Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become. For leaders and nations, they can mean the difference between war and peace, poverty and prosperity. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

My heart is a traitor," the boy said to the alchemist, when they had paused to rest the horses. "It doesn't want me to go on." "That makes sense," the alchemist answered. "Naturally it's afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you've won." "Well, then, why should I listen to my heart?" "Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you're thinking about life and about the world." "You mean I should listen, even if it's treasonous?" "Treason is a blow that comes unexpectedly. If you know your heart well, it will never be able to do that to you. Because you'll know its dreams and wishes, and will know how to deal with them. "You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it's better to listen to what it has to say. That way, you'll never have to fear an unanticipated blow. — Paulo Coelho

The dancing and the faggotry of the Bon Soir is 'kiss my ass if you don't like it. I've got nothing to hide or lose' style. Much like what you see uptown and with a strong Spanerican flavor. This can be a make-out bar, but in truth this place belongs to the people who are already making it. This is where they come to have a good time, to 'go out.' It's yeastier. It's lower-class. It's a fun bar. It's the kind of place where on the slow ones you can belly-rub and grind your interforked aching bodies together and know that since it's your own thing, you can damn well do it without interference or apology. — Angelo D'Arcangelo

I've always been skeptical of people who say they lose themselves in a part. Someone once came up to Spencer Tracy and asked, "Aren't you tired of always playing Tracy?" Tracy replied, "What am I supposed to do, play Bogart?" You have to develop a style that suits you and pursue it, not just develop a bag of tricks. — LeBron James

system. I mustn't look to individuals. It's the system. I mustn't go into court and say, 'My Lord, I beg to know this from you - is this right or wrong? Have you the face to tell me I have received justice and therefore am dismissed?' My Lord knows nothing of it. He sits there to administer the system. I mustn't go to Mr. Tulkinghorn, the solicitor in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and say to him when he makes me furious by being so cool and satisfied - as they all do, for I know they gain by it while I lose, don't I? - I mustn't say to him, 'I will have something out of some one for my ruin, by fair means or foul!' HE is not responsible. It's the system. But, if I do no violence to any of them, here - I may! I don't know what may happen if I am carried beyond myself at last! I will accuse the individual workers of that system against me, face to face, before the great eternal bar! — Charles Dickens

What will you do if you lose your real estate license?"
"I've been trying to figure that out. I need to have a plan. So far, nothing's been coming to me. I was talking to Manny about it and--" She broke off. "Just so you know, Manny doesn't answer."
"Good thing. If he did, I'd worry about you both."
"I would hope so. Anyway, I don't have a plan yet. I always thought I'd stay in LA, but having been out here has shown me that maybe I'd like something different. Fool's Gold seems like a special place." She smiled. "Think I could get a job rustling cattle?"
"Rustling? That's stealing."
"Oh. I mean taking care of them."
"You'd better learn your terms before you apply. — Susan Mallery

There is much asked and only so much I think I can or should answer, and so, in this post I would like to give a few thoughts on what seemed to be the overwhelming question: "WHY?"
And here is the best answer I can give: Because.
Because sometimes, life is damned unfair.
Because sometimes, we lose people we love and it hurts deeply.
Because sometimes, as the writer, you have to put your characters in harm's way and be willing to go there if it is the right thing for your book, even if it grieves you to do it.
Because sometimes there aren't really answers to our questions except for what we discover, the meaning we assign them over time.
Because acceptance is yet another of life's "here's a side of hurt" lessons and it is never truly acceptance unless it has cost us something to arrive there.
Why, you ask? Because, I answer.
Inadequate yet true. — Libba Bray

- If it helps, I used to have a hard time knowing what to do around other people so I watched them and learned to mimic them. If you don't have to be on point, I would interact the minimal amount. If you don't interact at all, people notice and you stand out, and if you're socially awkward and interact too much, people notice too much, people notice that too. But if you speak up now and then in a conversation, of infrequently agree to hang out, poeple will lose interest. It might be harder for you, but that's one thing that works for me."
"- Lfe was easier when I was just expected to shoot people. — Santino Hassell

Well, do you do that consciously?" Daily Alice asked, only partly of Cloud.
"Do what?" Cloud said. "Grow up? No. Well. In a sense. You see it's inevitable, or refuse to. You greet it or don't
take it in trade, maybe, for all you're going to lose anyway. Or you can refuse, and have what you've got to lose snatched from you, and never take payment
never see a trade is possible. — John Crowley

If God seems slow in responding, it is because He is preparing a better gift. He will not deny us. God withholds what you are not yet ready for. He wants you to have a lively desire for His greatest gifts. All of which is to say, pray always and do not lose heart. — Saint Augustine

IF YOUR OVERALL SITUATION IS UNSATISFACTORY or unpleasant, separate out this instant and surrender to what is. That's the flashlight cutting through the fog. Your state of consciousness then ceases to be controlled by external conditions. You are no longer coming from reaction and resistance. Then look at the specifics of the situation. Ask yourself, "Is there anything I can do to change the situation, improve it, or remove myself from it?" If so, take appropriate action. Focus not on the hundred things that you will or may have to do at some future time but on the one thing that you can do now. This doesn't mean you should not do any planning. It may well be that planning is the one thing you can do now. But make sure you don't keep running "mental movies" that continually project yourself into the future, and so lose the Now. Any action you take may not bear fruit immediately. Until it does - do not resist what is. — Eckhart Tolle

When feeling came back, in a storm of color and force and sensation, the most you could do was hold on to the person beside you and hope you could weather it. Alex closed her eyes and expected the worst-but it wasn't a bad thing; it was just a different thing. A messier one, more complicated one. She hesitated, and then she kissed Patrick back, willing to concede that you might have to lose control before you could find what you'd been missing. — Jodi Picoult

When you sit there and wish things had happened differently, you can't just wish away the bad stuff. You have to think about all the good stuff you might lose, too. Better just to stay in the now and focus on what you can do better in the future. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I love the acting process. What I don't like is what's around it. The auditions and being rejected every other day. The look thing. That you have to lose weight, that you have to do Botox. — Julie Delpy

I am completely in charge of the choices I make about what I am doing to lose weight and get healthy. And you know what? We all have this power. Don't be angry with me for something good I've done for myself. Be angry with yourself for not having the courage to do the same in your own life. — Jennifer Hudson

I like to have fulsome discussions on every topic. What happens if you lose this show? What would you do? We have to look at every hypothesis. — Philippe Dauman

You want your agony to have a certain sophistication, no? You don't want people to think you're some simpleton who just suddenly realized life is hard, do you? Well, then, first you need to build a solid foundation, and that is what the following chapters are all about: bringing out the little turtlenecked French nihilist in you as a child. You need to cultivate your neuroses. Even if you only have one mental breakdown later in life, this early work will make it easier for you to "lose it" with gusto when the time is right. — Jacqueline Novak

What do you do when you don't know what to do about something?
I talk to Mr. Sugar and my friends. I make lists. I attempt to analyze the situation from the perspective of my "best self" - the one that's generous, reasonable, forgiving, loving, bighearted, and grateful. I think really hard about what I'll wish I did a year from now. I map out the consequences of the various actions I could take. I ask what my motivations are, what my desires are, what my fears are, what I have to lose, and what I have to gain. I move toward the light, even if it's a hard direction in which to move. I trust myself. I keep the faith. I mess up sometimes. — Cheryl Strayed

You see, I am a very prosaic, unromantic, sensible sort of fellow myself; and I have always had my heart set on finding the most sensible, prudent, level-headed wife in the world. But, on the other hand, it is very important to me that she possess one very particular flaw: she must have no sense whatsoever where I myself am concerned. She would only have to take one look at me and - no matter what her steadiness of mind - she would lose it in the space of seconds ... Just lately, I have sometimes thought I may have found what I have always wanted. But just lately I have also noticed she has developed a most irritating habit of looking at the ground whenever we are together. Do you think she could try to overcome it? Well, Charlotte, are you going to look at me now? — Jane Austen