What Have I Become Quotes & Sayings

I got out of that immediately was that now, all of a sudden, rock music had become a spectator sport, that corporate labels and their bands were the new establishment, and punk was there to fight them the way the activist hippies must have fought what the establishment must have been ten years before. And it was interesting to see the reactions in different parts of the country. — Jello Biafra

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

Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, Why have you done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. Then they said to him, What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us?; for the sea was growing more tempestuous. And he said to them, Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me." (Jonah 1:10-12) Jonah — Val Waldeck

Can you see it. This is the world of light. Everything has become one in light. I entered the world of light and I found you.
Do you understand? We are the world of light. This is what we have been searching for. I feel a gentle energy that embraces everything. And this energy can be felt anywhere anytime as long as you open yourself to it. — Kyoko Hikawa

Whence all this passion towards conformity anyway? Diversity is the word. Let man keep his many parts and you will have no tyrant states. Why, if they follow this conformity business, they'll end up by forcing me, an invisible man, to become white, which is not a color but the lack of one. Must I strive towards colorlessness? But seriously and without snobbery, think of what the world would lose if that should happen. America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain. — Ralph Ellison

What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ. Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. This is true not merely at the beginning, as though in the course of time something else were to be added to our community; it remains so for all the future and to all eternity. I have community with others and I shall continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, for eternity. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

No duties. I don't have to be profound.
I don't have to be artistically perfect.
Or sublime. Or edifying.
I just wander. I say: 'You were running,
That's fine. It was the thing to do.'
And now the music of the worlds transforms me.
My planet enters a different house.
Trees and lawns become more distinct.
Philosophies one after another go out.
Everything is lighter yet not less odd.
Sauces, wine vintages, dishes of meat.
We talk a little of district fairs,
Of travels in a covered wagon with a cloud of dust behind,
Of how rivers once were, what the scent of calamus is.
That's better than examining one's private dreams.
And meanwhile it has arrived. It's here, invisible.
Who can guess how it got here, everywhere.
Let others take care of it. Time for me to play hooky.
Buena notte. Ciao. Farewell. — Czeslaw Milosz

That's the thing about success and happiness. Every time I fall in love I become absolutely, pathologically obsessed. The moment that you have what you want, and you're not totally ready for it, you become obsessed with the idea that you don't deserve it. — Sara Quin

They are between. Not what they used to be, and not what they have become. In those times, they are nothing. And I am invisible, and I am nothing too. That is the true demimonde, Lucien, and the secret is, it is not always desperate and dark. Sometimes it is just nothing. No burden of potential or regret. There are worse things than being nothing, my friend. — Christopher Moore

Would you want people walking up to you and pointing at your d
k? I can't believe I'm still talking about this. But I've worn underwear every day of my life and the fact that I'm painted as this exhibitionist is a little annoying. It's become a meme, I guess. Being someone who people want to photograph, you have to open yourself up to the positive and negative. It is what it is. If I get mad at it I'll look like a douchebag. But it's silly. — Jon Hamm

If you'd just told me you wanted her for yourself, I wouldn't have opened my mouth. Asshole."
"He doesn't want me for himself," Melanie said. "He isn't looking for a relationship."
"It doesn't matter if he's looking," Richart grumbled. "He's found one. The two of you can't take your eyes off each other. And in the rare moments you do, you usually touch."
"What?" Bastien said the same time Melanie did.
Was she as appalled that her feelings were so transparent as he was?
"Don't worry." Richart drew out a handkerchief and wiped his crimson lips. "I doubt anyone else has noticed. Bastien is usually too busy pissing them all off."
"He doesn't piss you off?" Melanie asked.
"Other than just now" - Richart glared at Bastien - "no. I've spent enough time in his company that I've become immune to his bullshit. — Dianne Duvall

That famous writer's block is a myth as far as I'm concerned. I think bad writers must have a great difficulty writing. They don't want to do it. They have become writers out of reasons of ambition. It must be a great strain to them to make marks on a page when they really have nothing much to say, and don't enjoy doing it. I'm not so sure what I have to say but I certainly enjoy making sentences. — Gore Vidal

I Don't Even Like Him - How Can I Pray for Him? Have you ever been so mad at your husband that the last thing you wanted to do was pray for him? So have I. It's hard to pray for someone when you're angry or he's hurt you. But that's exactly what God wants us to do. If He asks us to pray for our enemies, how much more should we be praying for the person with whom we have become one and are supposed to love? But how do we get past the unforgiveness and critical attitude? The first thing to do is be completely honest with God. In order to break down the walls in our hearts and smash the barriers that stop communication, we have to be totally up-front with the Lord about our feelings. We don't have to "pretty it up" for Him. He already knows the truth. He just wants to see if we're willing to admit it and confess it as disobedience to His ways. If so, He — Stormie O'martian

Do you know ... what I think is a great pity? It is this: that we have all become such skeptics that we hardly believe what our pious grandmothers told us. — Isak Dinesen

So whatever is experientially real, accept it. You cannot do anything by denying it. By denying it you create the problem, and the problem becomes more complex. It is simple: you feel you are a coward, so what? So, "I am a coward." Just see the point! If you can accept cowardice you have already become brave. Only a brave person can accept the fact of being a coward; no coward can do that. You are already on the way to transformation. So the first thing is that nothing that is experienced as a fact has to be denied reality. Second, — Osho

Start listening to what you say. Are your comments and ideas negative? You aren't going become positive if you always say negative things. Do you hear yourself say"I could never do that","I never have any luck","I never get things right". Wow - that's negative self-talk! Try saying"I am going to do that","I am so lucky""I always try to get things right". Can you hear how much better that sounds? — James Arthur

The worst thing about this illness isn't the things it makes me believe, or what it makes me do. It's not the control that it has over me, or even the control it's allowed other people to take.
Worse than all of that is how I have become selfish. — Nathan Filer

Whatever I decide will not work. It's what people want that will work. So no one decided whether you become a vegetarian or anything else. What determines that is the availability of food. If we run out of vegetation due to floods or natural disasters, people will consume meat and if we run out of meat they will consume vegetables. I have no control over that. That would be up to people. — Jacque Fresco

Last spring, David had offered this crazy solution to our woes, only half in jest: ... "What if we admitted that we make each other nuts, we fight constantly and hardly ever have sex, but we can't live without each other, so we deal with it? And then we could spend our lives together- in misery, but happy to not be apart." Let it be a testimony to how desperately I love this guy that I have spent the last ten months giving that offer serious consideration. The other alternative in the backs of our minds, of course, was that one of us might change. He might become more open and affectionate, not withholding himself from anyone who loves him on the fear that she will eat his soul. Or I might learn how to ... stop trying to eat his soul. — Elizabeth Gilbert

There's a pizza place I want you to try, Ciccio's. You heard of it?"

"We can get good pizza on Fifth."

"No, you have to try this place, Matt. It's phenomenal."

"What's phenomenal, the pizza or the staff?" Since my divorce a few years ago, Scott - boss, friend, and eternal bachelor - had high hopes that I'd become his permanent wingman. It was impossible to talk him out of anything, especially when it involved women and food.

"You got me. You have to see this girl. We'll call it a work meeting. I'll put it on the company card." Scott was the type who talked about women a lot and about porn even more. He was severely out of touch with reality.

"I'm sure this qualifies as sexual harassment somewhere. — Renee Carlino

I had to clear up my messy life. By letting go of the debris and filth, I have come to a deeper, more soulful beauty and clarity like an oasis in the desert. From that place of clarity, a vision of what I could have, what I could do, who I could be has emerged if I allow my heart to become a place of compassion, acceptance and forgiveness. — Sharon E. Rainey

Curiously I was unmoved by my work. Unaffected by the act of murder, I had become entirely numb. I couldn't understand how such detachment was possible-- but I did some digging.

What I discovered would have horrified me... if I was capable of being horrified. My augmentation had included the binding of my DNA to some of history's most notorious assassins.

Are you not getting this? I'll say it in plain English--- I am the perfect killer in every sense of the word--- ---because--- ---I--- ---am--- ---every--- killer.

I'm the act of change possessed in a revolver. I am revolution packed into a suitcase bomb.

I am ever Mark David Chapman and every Charlotte Corday. I am Luigi Lucheni slow-dancing with Balthasar to the tune of semi-automatics, while Gavrilo Princip masturbates in the corner with bath-tub napalm. I am all of them and so much more... because I am going to live forever." Number Five — Gerard Way

I can find no words for what I feel. My consciousness is withdrawn into itself; I hear my heart beating, and my life passing. It seems to me that I have become a statue on the banks of the river of time, that I am the spectator of some mystery, and shall issue from it old, or no longer capable of age. — Henri Frederic Amiel

If ever we are going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed; you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed. I wonder what kind of finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you, and you have been like a marble and escaped? — Oswald Chambers

Before the season begins, I had even damaged some frames, but Ken did not hold it against me and kept all his confidence. He was the one who incontestably changed my life, because without his help, I do not know what I will have become. — Jacky Ickx

You have to start at the very bottom and you've got to do every job. I did that so I could understand what everybody does. I didn't become this huge producer overnight. It took many, many years. — Jerry Bruckheimer

Yesterday you asked me what the purpose of life is. I've thought about that ever since. I think it's to do good no matter what life throws at you, to not let the pain turn you bitter. It's something we have to learn, something we have to make ourselves become ... Little kids don't have to learn it. They already know. — Janette Rallison

A protector - that's who he was, and would always be. What I had wanted when I was cold and hard and joyless; what I had needed to melt the ice of bitter years on the cusp of starvation. I didn't have the nerve to wonder what I wanted or needed now. Who I had become. — Sarah J. Maas

But I also said it was up to you to decide what kind of monster you wanted to become. And what I saw that night in the dungeon, at the refugee camp, facing down Sarren ... it gave me something I have not felt in a long time. It gave me hope. — Julie Kagawa

Shortcoming - another one of my shortcomings. I rubbed my brows with my thumb and forefinger. I'd been equally foolish for feeling a shred of pity for him - for the lone, brooding faerie, for someone I had so stupidly thought would really care if he met someone who perhaps felt the same, perhaps understood - in my ignorant, insignificant human way - what it was like to bear the weight of caring for others. I should have let his hand bleed that night, should have known better than to think that maybe - maybe there would be someone, human or faerie or whatever, who could understand what my life - what I - had become these past few years. — Sarah J. Maas

Reed, I know that you think that it's better to wait until I evolve fully, but I don't think I can wait any longer ... You are my blood now and I'm yours. We are bound to each other in every way possible but one and I.. I don't know where I'm going, I don't even know what I've become, but I know that if I am with you, then I'm free ... I'm home. Let me show you what you mean to me. Let me pull you into my world, as you have pulled me into yours. — Amy A. Bartol

She speculates for the first time on what Melanie could have been, could have become, if she'd lived before the Breakdown. If she'd never been bitten and infected. Because this is a child here, whatever else she is, and she's never lost that sense of her own centre before except when she smelled blood and turned, briefly into an animal. And look at how pragmatically, how ruthlessly, she's coped with that. But Justineau only pursues this train of thought for a moment. When Melanie starts to speak, she commands their full attention. "I — M.R. Carey

I know what I like when I see it, but no way have I ever become interested in learning about it. — Timothy Spall

I think the lie we've told people in the marketplace is that a degree gets you a job. A degree doesn't get you a job. What gets you a job is the ability to carry yourself into that room and shake a hand and look someone in the eye and have people skills. These are the things that cause people to become successful. — Dave Ramsey

You are always here with me when I do so, at least in my heart, and it is impossible for me to remember a time when you were not a part of me. I do not know who I would have become had you never come back.
I love you, Allie. I am who I am because of you. You are every reason, every hope and every dream I've ever had, and no matter what happens to us in the future, every day we are together is the greatest day of my life. I will always be yours.
And, my darling, you will always be mine.
Noah — Nicholas Sparks

I think the biggest shift is the way people look at and have access to fashion. It's already old the minute you've seen it, and we've already moved on. Fashion has become very in and out. Back in the days when I started, you would wait for Vogue to come out, and that is where you would see what people wore that month. Now we are looking at what someone is wearing this second. — Matthew Williamson

What worries me is that, because of the amount of media coverage of food, Britain seems to have become a foodie nation - but I'm not sure it actually has. I'm not sure there's been a huge change in the pantry at home or what we cook for supper. — Fergus Henderson

Do you know the real secret of how Presidents become Presidents?" Before I can answer, he explains, "It's because they're good at getting people to do things for them. In fact, they're not just good at it. They're maestros. Virtuosos. To get that title of President, you need thousands of people doing thousands of different things, all for your benefit. It's a massive churning machine. And y'know what feeds that machine?" he asks. "People like you, Beecher. It's fed with your life, and your family, and your reputation. Because when things go wrong ... and they always go wrong ... the President isn't allowed to have that skunk smell around him. So when that happens, he doesn't just replace you. He crumples you up, tosses you out back, and ... chomp goes the woodchipper. — Brad Meltzer

Notes and chords have become my second language and, more often than not, that vocabulary expresses what I feel when language fails me. The guitar is my conscience, too - whenever I've lost my way, it's brought me back to center; whenever I forget, it reminds me why I'm here. — Slash, Anthony Bozza

I had a cup of tea, thought about my day and mostly about the horse whom, though I'd only known him a short time, I called my friend. I have few friends and am glad to have a horse for a friend. After the meal I smoked a cigarette and mused on the luxury it would be to go out, instead of talking to myself and boring myself to death with the same endless stories I'm forever telling myself. I am a very boring person, despite my enormous intelligence and distinguished appearance, and nobody knows this better than I. I've often told myself that if only I were given the opportunity, I'd perhaps become the centre of intellectual society. But by dint of talking to myself so much, I tend to repeat the same things all the time. But what can you expect? I'm a recluse. — Leonora Carrington

I don't have a problem with green screen at all. I think children invented CGI. We invent worlds. A stick can become a sword. Or a bowl of stones can become a bowl of tomatoes. That's what children do, and that's what CGI enables us to do. — Rhys Ifans

Reiko set the ball on the ground and patted my knee. "Look," she said, "I'm not telling you to stop sleeping with girls. If you're O.K. with that, then it's OK. It's your life after all, it's something you have to decide. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't use yourself up in some unnatural form. Do you see what I'm getting at? It would be such a waste. The years nineteen and twenty are a crucial stage in the maturation of character, and if you allow yourself to become warped when you're that age, it will cause you pain when you're older. It's true. So think carefully. If you want to take care of Naoko, take care of yourself too."
I said I would think about it. — Haruki Murakami

See what has become of us. As far as I know, only the old Greeks had gods of drinking and the joy of life: Bacchus and Dionysus. Instead of that we have Freud, inferiority complexes and the psychoanalysis. We're afraid of the too great words in love and not afraid of much too great words in politics. A sorry generation! — Erich Maria Remarque

The big question of vampires, the question that hunts governments and individuals alike, the question that bug me every night when I see their red eyes watching citizens of Coldtown the ways hungry cats watch fishin a bucket is: what are they? Are they diseased or demonic? Are they humans who have become ill, deserving hospitals and care, as some have argued? Or are they the bodies of our loved ones animated by some dark force that we ought to seek to destroy? — Holly Black

So I'd much rather get across the concept of freedom. It's what's important to Indian children. The only way you can be free is to know is that you are worthwhile as a distinct human being. Otherwise you become what the colonizers have designed, and that is a lemming. Get in line, punch all the right keys, and die. — Russell Means

The biggest thing that will define my legacy is how I've done it, and what I've done, and who I am. I'm a weird big guy. Doing rapping, doing movies. Do a lot of stuff. But always do things the right way. Went to the police academy to become a police officer. Get his master's in criminal justice, stayed out of trouble. Played for three different teams. Changed three different franchises around. This is a guy who they would have secret meetings about to change the rules. So, that's going to be my legacy: the most dominant player ever. — Shaquille O'Neal

That is the nature of our beasts and plagues. They are not dumb machines to be driven about. They have their own needs and hungers. Their own evolutionary demands. They must mutate and adapt, and so you will never be done with me, and when I am gone, what will you do then? We have released demons upon the world, and your walls are only as good as my intellect. Nature has become something new. It is ours now, truly. And if our creation devours us, how poetic will that be? — Paolo Bacigalupi

I think US/UK genre has become more open to "diverse" writers and writing; there's a genuine interest in reading work from countries outside the US/UK and hearing voices that have been historically shut out, but at the same time, people are quite lazy. That sounds harsh, but I include myself in it - your tastes are shaped by what you've read and watched before, and it takes a little effort to understand stories that use a different voice, that follow different storytelling conventions, that are trying to subvert the dominant paradigm. There's a quite large group of people who are "yay diversity" in theory, but I think the number of people who have then said to themselves, "OK, if I'm committed to this, I need to start reading outside my comfort zone and making an effort" is maybe a little smaller. — Zen Cho

By the age of twenty, you know you're not going to be a rock star. By twenty-five, you know you're not going to be a dentist or any kind of professional. And by thirty, darkness starts moving in- you wonder if you're ever going to be fulfilled, let alone wealthy and successful. By thirty-five, you know, basically, what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life, and you become resigned to your fate ...
... I mean, why do people live so long? What could be the difference between death at fifty-five and death at sixty-five or seventy-five or eighty-five? Those extra years ... what benefit could they possibly have? Why do we go on living even though nothing new happens, nothing new is learned, and nothing new is transmitted? At fifty-five, your story's pretty much over. — Douglas Coupland

People get famous now for I-don't-know-what. People have reality shows because they're a Hollywood socialite, and these things become very successful and they generate a shitload of money for the company. And it's multiplying, to where you're literally looking into your next door neighbor's bathroom with reckless abandon. It is like watching a fire. You can't take your eyes off of it. — Johnny Depp

I mean can you walk to school on your own? Can you study science? Can you study math? Can you go to a normal school? Do you need to go to a special school? What is going to become of you when you grow up? Are you going to have to live on social security and SSI? — Sheena Iyengar

Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it's who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment. So maybe the key question you and I need to ask is, "What kind of person will I have to become in order to achieve all that I want?" This may be the most important question that you can ask yourself, for its answer will determine the direction you need to head personally. — Anthony Robbins

Beholding the flash drive that may contain so many keys, intuition dawns: I've always been a butterfly trapped in Donovan's net. My heart knows Donovan and I traveled together before, yet I've never allowed myself to think of the logistics. If the more I pull back, the more I crave his enclosure, what happens if I learn my deprivation has been for centuries, or even millenniums? Is being an old soul why I have always felt and sounded older than my years? Why do
I have the passions I do? How did I become me? — Diane Rinella

What is the next step, the practical application?
- I will answer that the
absolutely vital thing is to consolidate your understanding, to become
capable of enjoyment, of living in the present, and of the discipline
which this involves. Without this you have nothing to give. — Alan W. Watts

No matter how shitty it got, I could always look back and say, "At least I don't have my arm stuck up a cow's vagina." In fact, that's kind of become my life's motto. It's also what I say when I'm at a loss for words when talking to people who are grieving the loss of their grandparents. — Jenny Lawson

But what a path it has been! I have had to pass through so much foolishness, so much vice, so much error, so much nausea and disillusionment and wretchedness, merely in order to become a child again and be able to start over. But all of this was just and proper. — Hermann Hesse

If that had indeed been ecstasy, I would have to agree. I would also have to say that either we had taken far too much, or it was a very powerful drug. I could nearly blush myself when I remembered what I had said and done. Trying to become a little more human was one thing - but this had been far over the edge into the sludge of dumb, yammer-headed personhood. Perhaps the stuff should be called excess-tasy. In retrospect, I was very glad there was a drug to blame. I did not like to think of myself as behaving like a cartoon. — Jeff Lindsay

While watching the current state of America, I have concluded we should welcome the truth no matter how it arrives and justice no matter who or what it affects. When we don't, we become a vessel of mendacity and hypocrisy. — Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr.

I don't know what I would have done if they had hugged me. I probably would have frozen in place, become stiff. It took most of my life to overcome my distaste for physical contact and not to stiffen when I was touched, or flinch, twitch, fidget, and eventually figure out how to move away. I learned to accept being hugged by my children when they were infants. Their joy at seeing me enter a room was real and filled with true love and affection and it showed in their embraces. Like a convert, when I learned the joy and comfort of being hugged by and hugging those I loved, I became a regular practitioner. — John William Tuohy

Because I am a horrible flincher, contact lenses are not an option. I'm always envious of contact-wearers. There are endless reasons to take off one's glasses during the day and, as I have grown older, what I don't see has become increasingly pronounced. — Sloane Crosley

I tilt my head sideways so I can look him straight on. "What firsts have we already passed?" "The easy ones. First hug, first date, first fight, first time we slept together, although I wasn't the one sleeping . Now we barely have any left. First kiss. First time to sleep together when we're both actually awake. First marriage. First kid. We're done after that. Our lives will become mundane and boring and I'll have to divorce you and marry a wife who's twenty years younger than me so I can have a lot more firsts and you'll be stuck raising the kids." He cups my cheek in his hand and smiles at me. "So you see, babe? I'm only doing this for your benefit. The longer I wait to kiss you, the longer it'll be before I'm forced to leave you high and dry."
Hoover, Colleen (2012-12-18). Hopeless (pp. 165-166). Colleen Hoover. Kindle Edition. — Colleen Hoover

The students we saw were all bright, attractive, and polite, and the teachers all seemed to be smart and dedicated, and I began to appreciate the benefits of a private school education. If only I'd had the opportunity to attend a place like this, who knows what I might have become? Perhaps instead of a mere blood-spatter analyst who slunk away at night to kill without conscience, I could have become a doctor, or a physicist, or even a senator who slunk away at night to kill without conscience. It was terribly sad to think of all my wasted potential. — Jeff Lindsay

I decide what character I am. I allow myself to become another person. Because if I'm just Stephanie, I'm not comfortable. When I have to jump and do all these things, I feel so silly, but if you become someone else, it's okay. — Stephanie Seymour

I have now come to know that what one believes often becomes permanent, and what become permanent can be indestructible. — Chigozie Obioma

This is what I thought: for the most banal even to become an adventure, you must (and this is enough) begin to recount it. This is what fools people: a man is always a teller of tales, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story.
But you have to choose: live or tell. — Jean-Paul Sartre

That's what I want, a mental evidence I can feel. I don't want physical evidence, proof you have to go out and drag in. I want evidence that you can carry in your mind and always touch and smell and feel. But there's no way to do that. In order to believe in a thing you've got to carry it with you. You can't carry the Earth, or a man, in your pocket. I want a way to do that, carry things with me always, so I can believe in them. How clumsy to have to go to all the trouble of going out and bringing in something terribly physical to prove something. I hate physical things because they can be left behind and become impossible to believe in them. — Ray Bradbury

Advice to explorers everywhere: if you would like to recieve due credit for your discoveries, keep a detailed account of your journeys as Columbus did. On Septemeber 28, 1492, after four weeks at sea, he writes: Dear diary ... I means journal. Yes, dear journal. That's what I meant to say. Whew. Anyway, we have yet to discover America, and the crew has become increasingly rebellious. I have decided to turn back if we have not spotted it by Columbus Day. Will write again later if not killed by crew. P.S. Last night's buffet was fabulous, the ice sculptures magnificent. — Cuthbert Soup

I never see myself as the famous person. It never was a part of my life, and I hope this doesn't become the most eminent thing about what I do. I just hope that I'll do things that have meaning for me and for others somehow. — Ayelet Zurer

Somewhere out there is a true and living prophet of destruction and I dont want to confront him. I know he's real. I have seen his work. I walked in front of those eyes once. I wont do it again. I wont push my chips forward and stand up and go out to meet him. It aint just bein older. I wish that it was. I cant say that it's even what you are willin to do. Because I always knew that you had to be willin to die to even do this job. That was always true. Not to sound glorious about it or nothin but you do. If you aint they'll know it. They'll see it in a heartbeat. I think it is more like what you are willin to become. And I think a man would have to put his soul at hazard. And I wont do that. — Cormac McCarthy

I have nothing to make me miserable," she said, getting calmer; "but can you understand that everything has become hateful, loathsome, coarse to me, and I myself most of all? You can't imagine what loathsome thoughts I have about everything."
"Why, whatever loathsome thoughts can you have?" asked Dolly, smiling.
"The most utterly loathsome and coarse; I can't tell you. It's not unhappiness, or low spirits, but much worse. As though everything that was good in me was all hidden away, and nothing was left but the most loathsome. — Leo Tolstoy

I think long and carefully about what novels ought to do. They should clarify the roles that have become obscured; they ought to identify those things in the past that are useful and those things that are not; and they ought to give nourishment. — Toni Morrison

And what a story. The first thing that drew me in was disbelief. What? Humanity sins but it's God's Son who pays the price? I tried to imagine Father saying to me, 'Piscine, a lion slipped into the llama pen today and killed two llamas. Yesterday another one killed a black buck. Last week two of them ate a camel. The situation has become intolerable. Something must be done. I have decided that the only way the lions can atone for their sins is if I feed them you.' ... 'Yes, Father, that would be the right and logical thing to do. Give me a moment to wash up'. What a downright weird story. What a peculiar psychology. — Yann Martel

Some people are known, they have the platform and presence, but still remain irrelevant. They know you and what you do, but they don't need you or your offering. I see too many people with a platform but without substance, again this is not sustainable. Lack of substance can only relegate your talent or skill towards the league of the mediocre, if at all you become much by superficial branding then you will become the best of the worst. You don't have what it takes but you depend on your ability to sell substandard offerings to the market. It will not last for long, but quickly become irrelevant. — Archibald Marwizi

The thing is, you make choices. You do some things and you don't do others and in the end there's not much point in asking what different choices might have gained you, and lost you, unless you have a time machine. You become those choices, you embody them ...
I'd known I couldn't stay, just as I'd known years before I couldn't be with him, even as I'd gone on pretending I had a choice. I was who I was, and I wanted what I already had. — Leah Stewart

I know what it's like to have a broken heart. I know what it's like to feel pain: When my songs don't become hits, it breaks my heart. There are a million ways to break a heart. I can relate. — Diane Warren

If we start worrying whether our nose is too big or too small, we should think, "What if I had no head? - now that would be a problem!" As long as we have life, we should rejoice. If everything doesn't go exactly as we'd like, we can accept it. If we contemplate impermanence deeply, patience and compassion will arise. We will hold less to the apparent truth of our experience, and the mind will become more flexible. Realizing that one day this body will be buried or burned, we will rejoice in every moment we have rather than make ourselves or others unhappy. — Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche

What did that say about me? Had I become one of the monsters I thought I was fighting?
"Things didn't have to be like this," I commented. "He could've made different choices. — J.M. Northup

Alone, her soul destroyed and her heart bereft and empty, the Lady Ninnia touched her amulet and closed her eyes. "No," she breathed, "I was wrong. This time, my wisdom has failed me. Our daughter is not ready. To become the Handmaiden of Orion, one must know terrible grief in order to learn compassion." She gazed after her husband and shook her head sorrowfully. "Even the deaths of us, her parents, are not, I fear, enough. May she find what she needs upon that dark and deadly road upon which I have sent her. My poor, poor child - farewell. — Robin Jarvis

Journeys become very good metaphors. They always have the character put into circumstances that reveal him. If I had based my characters in New York and had them just sitting and thinking about life, it would be like what contemporary U.S. fiction is about. That is very heavy, literally, for me. It doesn't become mainstream enough because the pages don't turn themselves. — Karan Bajaj

In the present moment, no past achievement has any bearing, but we perpetually bring ourselves into the here and now; we are our constant companion. By carving the ineffable nature of my soul, rather than simply pursuing the "W," I am able to bring all of my past accomplishments with me into the present. They do hold bearing on today, not because of what I have done, but because of who I have become. This is what matters. — Chris Matakas

That's certainly a problem. But that's not what I was thinking of. It's just that you are so soft, so fragile. I have to mind my actions every moment that we're together so that I don't hurt you. I could kill you quite easily, Bella, simply by accident." His voice had become just a soft murmur. He moved his icy palm to rest it against my cheek. "If I was too hasty ... if for one second I wasn't paying enough attention, I could reach out, meaning to touch your face, and crush your skull by mistake. You don't realize how
incredibly breakable you are. I can never, never afford to lose any kind of control when I'm with you. — Stephenie Meyer

Knowledge is unsettled by the idea of power. We see how it works in the worlds of business and politics, and we suspect that it works the same in the spiritual world. We presume it's a gift for the exceptional and the few. She can do it, but we cannot, people might say to themselves. He is the chosen one; I am not. He's a master, but I can never be. We have become masters of what we are not. We have made ourselves vulnerable to the belief that others have greater power than we do, because we won't acknowledge the power of us - the truth of us. Power, to the world-dream, is something small and self-serving. Power, from the point of view of creation, is infinite and selfless. — Miguel Ruiz

But perhaps there is another, more personal reason for my disagreement with Ramin: I cannot imagine myself feeling at home in a place that is indifferent to what has become my true home, a land with no borders and few restrictions, which I have taken to calling "the Republic of Imagination." I think of it as Nabokov's "somehow, somewhere" or Alice's backyard, a world that runs parallel to the real one, whose occupants need no passport or documentation. The only requirements for entry are an open mind, a restless desire to know and an indefinable urge to escape the mundane. — Azar Nafisi

Diamonds are held under tons and tons of pressure, extremely high temperatures of fire and shuffled under shifting of tectonic plates, for a long, long time! Yet when they come out from there and are put on display for their beauty; does anybody stop to evaluate the diamond based upon all the shit it's been through and say "Remember that disgusting hole it used to be in? I bet it was hell in there!" No, people don't remember where a diamond has come from; they just see the beauty of it now. But it wouldn't have become so beautiful, you know, if not for all of that! So why should we look at other people, or at ourselves and evaluate them/ourselves based upon their/our pasts? Shouldn't we forget that? And only see the beauty that is in front of our eyes? Whatever it was, it made you beautiful! And that is what matters! — C. JoyBell C.

Allison, how you live your life is up to you. I can only give you the skills you need to survive. But eventually, you will have to make your own decisions, come to your own terms about what you are. You are Vampire, but what kind of monster you become is out of my hands. — Julie Kagawa

I'll never worry about what'll become of you, son, you'll always have an idea. Jem's — Harper Lee

I've become President of the Author's Guild, and, in part because they thought I had to know what I was talking about and also as a sort of coronation present, they got me an iPad. And I have to tell you, I'm crazy about it. It's got some bugs, but it's basically replaced my laptop. I'm very happy with it. — Scott Turow

When I was teaching basketball, I urged my players to try their hardest to improve on that very day, to make that practice a masterpiece.
Too often we get distracted by what is outside our control. You can't do anything about yesterday. The door to the past has been shut and the key thrown away. You can do nothing about tomorrow. It is yet to come. However, tomorrow is in large part determined by what you do today. So make today a masterpiece. You have control over that.
This rule is even more important in life than basketball. You have to apply yourself each day to become a little better. By applying yourself to the task of becoming a little better each and every day over a period of time, you will become a lot better. Only then will you will be able to approach being the best you can be. It begins by trying to make each day count and knowing you can never make up for a lost day. — John Wooden

Luce: "But what about all those other times, when I die before we kiss, before
"
Bill: "Before you even have a chance to see how toxic your relationship might become? — Lauren Kate

What is difficult is the promotion, balancing the public side of a writer's life with the writing. I think that's something a lot of writers are having to face. Writers have become much more public now. — Kazuo Ishiguro

I kept seeing you as you were. I couldn't forget it. And that you should have become what you are - that does not belong in a rational universe." "No? And the world as you see it around you does?" "You were not the kind of man who gets broken by any kind of world. — Ayn Rand

In retrospect I must confess that I do not know, or no longer know, what I wanted to achieve with my words. I only know that without this testimony, my life as a writer - or my life, period - would not have become what it is: that of a witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory. — Elie Wiesel

People trust too much in themselves. What they take for truth, they let rule their lives, and if I set out to find a way to live so I will be in control of my life, then I actually lose control, because the thing I have decided on, my truth, becomes the ruler and I become it's servant. And how can I be free to evolve if I'm submitting myself to a ruler, any ruler, even if that ruler is me? — Steve Toltz

Kanin peered down at me, his impassive gaze softening just a touch. "I am no longer your teacher, Allison," he said quietly. "You have been one of us for a while now. You have hunted, and you have killed. It is not my responsibility to curb you demon." He glanced past me to the place Stick and the men had stood moments before. "And I wanted to see what type of monster you had become. — Julie Kagawa

To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking - and since it cannot, in order to become its echo I have, in a way, to silence it. I bring to this incessant speech the decisiveness, the authority of my own silence. — Maurice Blanchot

What we experience in various and specific milieux, I have noted, is often caused by structural changes. Accordingly, to understand the changes of many personal milieux we are required to look beyond them. And the number and variety of such structural changes increase as the institutions within which we live become more embracing and more intricately connected with one another. To be aware of the idea of social structure and to use it with sensibility is to be capable of tracing such linkages among a great variety of milieux. To be able to do that is to possess the sociological imagination — C. Wright Mills

I see I have made myself a slave to Philosophy, but if I get free of Mr. Linus's business I will resolutely bid adew to it eternally, excepting for what I do for my private satisfaction or leave to come out after me. For I see a man must either resolve to put out nothing new or to become a slave to defend it. — Isaac Newton

What has become clear to me is that it is not the inherent nature of being gay that causes such a reduced life; it is, rather, the social circumstances around being gay: the perceptions of it and the cultural norms that it is said to violate. As some of those norms have changed, I have been able to be gay, to have a marriage, to have a family, and to have - if there is wood to knock on - a fortunate and happy life. — Andrew Solomon

I am no longer what I was. I will remain what I have become. — Coco Chanel

I was really young when I was working on 'Freaks and Geeks.' In a lot of ways, that was the experience that informed a lot of what I've become, and I feel like every experience I have is in some way or another an extension of something that started there. — Jake Kasdan