Quotes & Sayings About What We Say

Sometimes when people say things, we should actually believe what they say. — Jeb Bush

What we can say for sure is that, at the very least, God calls every Christian to live with a missionary heart. — David Sills

The growth of the American food industry will always bump up against this troublesome biological fact: Try as we might, each of us can only eat about fifteen hundred pounds of food a year. Unlike many other products - CDs, say, or shoes - there's a natural limit to how much food we each can consume without exploding. What this means for the food industry is that its natural rate of growth is somewhere around 1 percent per year - 1 percent being the annual growth rate of American population. The problem is that [the industry] won't tolerate such an anemic rate of growth. — Michael Pollan

People don't talk like this, theytalklikethis. Syllables, words, sentences run together like a watercolor left in the rain. To understand what anyone is saying to us we must separate these noises into words and the words into sentences so that we might in our turn issue a stream of mixed sounds in response. If what we say is suitably apt and amusing, the listener will show his delight by emitting a series of uncontrolled high-pitched noises, accompanied by sharp intakes of breath of the sort normally associated with a seizure or heart failure. And by these means we converse. Talking, when you think about it, is a very strange business indeed. — Bill Bryson

You have a mayor who hates guns. If it was up to me, we wouldn't have any handguns in the District of Columbia. I swear to protect the Constitution and what the courts say, but I will do it in the most restrictive way as possible. — Muriel Bowser

I can't say I know at this moment what all these laws are. But on some level everybody knows that we are all getting exactly what we deserve. — Thaddeus Golas

So I only say, "So what should we do with our last few days?"
"I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you," Peeta replies. — Suzanne Collins

So many people come to church with the genuine desire to hear what we have to say, yet they are always going back home with the uncomfortable feeling that we're making it too difficult for them to come to Jesus. Are we determined to have nothing to do with all these people? They are convinced that it is not the Word Jesus himself that puts them off, but the superstructure of human, institutional, and doctrinal elements in our preaching. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We've been told by the people on the other side who don't like the campus sexual assault movement that these are all "he-said, she-said" cases. Quite rightly, they say campus procedures are often very flawed, the investigation methods are not that good, and we aren't sure what we can trust. [Opponents say that] it seems like a lot to call somebody a rapist if they haven't gone to a criminal trial. — Michele Landis Dauber

Here I come to one of the memoir writer's difficulties
one of the reasons why, though I read so many, so many are failures. They leave out the person to whom things happened. The reason is that it is so difficult to describe any human being. So they say: 'This is what happened'; but they do not say what the person was like to whom it happened. And the events mean very little unless we know first to whom they happened. — Virginia Woolf

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

The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose; and the text of Scripture which he now most commonly quotes is, "The Kingdom of heaven is within you." That text has been the stay and support of more Pharisees and prigs and self-righteous spiritual bullies than all the dogmas in creation; it has served to identify self-satisfaction with the peace that passes all understanding. And the text to be quoted in answer to it is that which declares that no man can receive the kingdom except as a little child. What we are to have inside is a childlike spirit; but the childlike spirit is not entirely concerned about what is inside. It is the first mark of possessing it that one is interested in what is outside. The most childlike thing about a child is his curiosity and his appetite and his power of wonder at the world. We might almost say that the whole advantage of having the kingdom within is that we look for it somewhere else. — G.K. Chesterton

We checked carefully the international law - what does a nation do when terrorists are using civilians to defend their life, as a shelter. And they say you do not have a choice. — Shimon Peres

To say that Reagan teaches us that we should be against amnesty for illegal immigrants is to contradict what Reagan himself stood for - that he was in favor of amnesty. — Eugene Jarecki

[...] if truth be told, evolution hasn't yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn't evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of 'like begets like'. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.
[review of The Evolving World: Evolution in Everyday Life, Nature 442, 983-984 (31 August 2006)] — Jerry A. Coyne

When people say to me, 'Why are you so good at writing at women?' I say, 'Why isn't everybody?' Obviously there are differences between men and women - that's what makes it all fun. But we're all people. There's a lot of good writers who are very humanist, but still manage to kind of skip fifty-five per cent of the race. And I just don't get that. Not to be able to write an entire gender? To me, the question isn't how do you do it? It's how can you possibly avoid doing it? — Joss Whedon

The humans aren't stupid, no matter what the purebloods say; they're just blind, and sometimes, that's worse. They put their fear in stories and songs, where they won't forget it. "Up the airy mountains and down the rushy glen, I dare not go a-hunting for fear of little men." We've given them plenty of reasons to fear us. Even if they've almost forgotten - even if they only remember that we were beautiful and not why they were afraid - the fear was there before anything else. There were reasons for the burning times; there's a reason the fairy tales survive. And there's a reason the human world doesn't want to see the old days come again. — Seanan McGuire

Remember that, so that next time you can just agree with whatever I say and we'll be fine. Though he didn't open his eyes, one corner of his mouth curled, ever so slightly. It was what I was hoping for. For a moment, the barriers had crumbled and we were all right again. — Julie Kagawa

Women must be careful what we say to one another. We are almost all we have. — Andrew Sean Greer

How could this happen? some of our parents asked us near the end. We knew what they were really asking, and some of us found the grace to say, It was nothing you did. — David Levithan

What about you?" I kept my voice carefully indifferent.
He flashed me a cold smile, sharp at the edges. "Worried about me?"
Because I couldn't think of anything snide to say, I stuck my tongue out at him. Jude wagged his head. "More tongue exercises? Would have thought you'd had enough last night."
"Go to hell."
"Sorry, love, but we're already there. — Becca Fitzpatrick

The look he gave me ... My stomach quivered in that exact same way when I watched Before Sunset, yearning for a guy to know me so deeply and truly, we were only really complete when we were together. That I could talk, go on wild tangents, make obtuse references, and he would divine my meaning before I knew what I was trying to say myself. Erik had fallen asleep next to me on the couch, complaining later that the movie was "just people talking." He had no idea that this movie could have been a love letter written for me. — Justina Chen

He always knew what I would have liked to say, and with startling and increasing accuracy as we spent more time together. One time, for example, I was wondering exactly how he had lost that tooth at the back of his mouth when he saw my eyes on his waning grin and replied, "Ran into a fence when I was twelve." And then I wondered how the heck he could have missed the giant fence standing right in front of him and he said, "Shut up. — Rose Christo

It isn't true what they say about mothers. We don't hate our sons'
girlfriends. The sleazy ones - maybe. But we're mostly delighted and a little startled when a wonderful girl loves our son. And relieved the son is smart enough to love her back. I'm grateful,
Beth. — Angela Morrison

And in a democracy, when we say we're mad at what's going on, what we need to be saying is we're mad at ourselves. — Mike Lowry

What does the Christian faith say about Mary's childhood. We do not know much of Mary's childhood. — Deborah Davis

One might say that our words are a movie screen that reveals what we have been thinking and the attitudes we have. — Joyce Meyer

When we say there is a GOD, we mean that there is an intelligent designing cause of what we see in the world around us, and a being who was himself uncaused. — Joseph Priestley

Yes. A language that will at last say what we have to say. For our words no longer correspond to the world. When things were whole, we felt confident that our words could express them. But little by little these things have broken apart, shattered, collapsed into chaos. And yet our words have remained the same. Hence, every time we try to speak of what we see, we speak falsely, distorting the very thing we are trying to represent. [ ... ] Consider a word that refers to a thing- " umbrella", for example. [ ... ] Not only is an umbrella a thing, it is a thing that performs a function. [ ... ] What happens when a thing no longer performs its function? [ ... ] the umbrella ceases to be an umbrella. It has changed into something else. The word, however, has remained the same. Therefore it can no longer express the thing. — Paul Auster

In short, we derive support for our preferred conclusions by listening to the words that we put in the mouths of people who have already been preselected for their willingness to say what we want to hear. — Daniel M. Gilbert

wouldn't have agreed if we'd known your mom was there." "Pain in the ass, let me tell ya." "You don't need to tell me," I say. "I know all about what a pain she can be." Dee laughs. "She's like a weapons-grade pain in the ass. We figured out to sic her on the bad guys, and she became a huge asset. — Susan Ee

It felt like some kind of honor, you know? Being asked to be the head of the Council's son-in-law. Plus, you dad, he, uh, told me a lot about you."
My voice was barely above a whisper. "What did he say?"
"That you were smart, and strong. Funny. That you had trouble using your powers, but you were always trying to use them to help people." He shrugged. "I thought we'd be a good match."
The vast dining room suddenly felt very small, like it consisted only of this table and me and Cal. — Rachel Hawkins

What we have to do now is to make the public at large aware that what we're looking at is not a historical event but - and I have to be brutal and I am going to say it - a racket. — Ernst Zundel

But what is our ultimate goal? We want freedom of thought, freedom of action, freedom to fashion our own destiny and build up an India - suited to the genius of her people. We do not wish to make of India a cheap and slavish imitation of the West. We have so far sought to liberalise our government on the Western model. Whether that will satisfy us in the future I cannot say.31 — Savita Narain

Good evening, London. I would introduce myself, but truth to tell, I do not have a name. You can call me "V". Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse. In anarchy, there is another way. With anarchy, from rubble comes new life, hope reinstated. They say anarchy's dead, but see ... reports of my death were ... exaggerated. Tomorrow, Downing Street will be destroyed, the Head reduced to ruins, an end to what has gone before. Tonight, you must choose what comes next. Lives of our own, or a return to chains. Choose carefully. And so, adieu. — Alan Moore

We teach girls shame. Close your legs; cover yourself. We make them feel as though being born female, they're already guilty of something. And so, girls grow up to be women who silence themselves. They grow up to be women who cannot say what they truly think. And they grow up
and this is the worst thing we do to girls
they grow up to be women who have turned pretense into an art form. — Chimamamda Ngozi Adichie

But all of us, in some way, reflect an image of God-of who He is. So who's to say what's right or what's wrong about how we look?
-Twila — Ginny L. Yttrup

We started out on the Internet, so I've been reading what people had to say about stuff since we were getting mean comments on iFilm, before we even had our site going. People are really, really rough on the web - that's their right, that's the whole point of it - but sometimes it can be a little bit brutal. — Andy Samberg

My son is 12 now, and is really getting into girls. A lot. But the thing about twelve year old boys is that they don't possess what I like to call that ... discretionary gene yet. We were walking home from the ballfield the other day and there was a woman walking towards us who was ... gifted. I saw them, and I saw him see them. But she was too close for me to go, "Dude, shut up." She hadn't walked two feet behind us and he goes "God dang, did you see the SIZE of those things?" And all I could say was "Yeah, I did!" — Bill Engvall

I think both freedom of religion and freedom of expression are both fundamental human rights, everyone has not only the freedom and the right but the obligation to say what Pope Francis thinks for the common good ... we have the right to have this freedom openly without offending. — Pope Francis

When we were first together, when you first brought me here to this beautiful place, you used to say you were glad you found a napoletana, remember? You said the northerners were sane and orderly and hardworking and maybe more honest, but that without the south, Italy would have too many brains and not enough heart. It would be like Europe having only Germany and Austria - no Spain, no France, no Italy. It would be a world of scientists without singers. I thought it was romantic. What happened to the man who said those things? — Roland Merullo

Sometimes it takes a partner to say, "What is it you want?" because I think we operate in life and sometimes we don't know. We're all in some kind of maze going after the cheese at the end, and we get it and we go, "What is it that we want?" — Kevin Costner

If what I think is God should come down today and says "I'm God, or the thing you call God, and you're never going to do any more movies. You're never going to do television. You're never going to do theater again in your life," I would just say "What are we doing? What is the next step?" That's how I try to approach it. — Peter Stormare

We've heard many people say and have often said ourselves that justice is doing one's own work and not meddling with what isn't one's own ... Then, it turns out that this doing one's own work-provided that it comes to be in a certain way-is justice. — Plato

Like many a Yank before me, I have tried to explain to European friends that Americans actually know soccer quite well, that many of us played it in school and college, but that, well, we just don't find it quite as exciting as, say, what we call football. — Serge Schmemann

Some people think we're made of flesh and blood and bones. Scientists say we're made of atoms. But I think we are made of stories. When we die, that's what people remember, the stories of our lives and the stories that we told. — Ruth Stotter

What we learned quite early on is what was really important to early British pop that we produced-and this is where we were distinct from almost everybody else in this respect-is that it had to reflect exactly what the audience wanted us to say. — Pete Townshend

I don't know what position you're talking about, sir. The Gnomon Society has never questioned the rotundity of the earth. Mr. Jimmerson is himself a skilled topographer."
"Excuse me, Mr. Popper, but I have it right here in Mr. Jimmerson's own words on page twenty-nine of 101 Gnomon Facts."
"No, sir. Excuse me but you don't. Please look again. Read that passage carefully and you'll see what we actually say is that the earth looks flat. We still say that. It's so flat around Brownsville as to be striking to the eye."
"But isn't that just a weasel way of saying that you really believe if to be flat?"
"Not at all. What we're saying is that the curvature of the earth is so gentle, relative to our human scale of things, that we need not bother or take it into account when going for a stroll, say, or laying out our gardens. — Charles Portis

It is sometimes argued that disbelief in a fearful and tempting heavenly despotism makes life into something arid and tedious and cynical: a mere existence without any consolation or any awareness of the numinous or the transcendent. What nonsense this is. In the first place, it commits an obvious error. It seems to say that we ought not to believe that we are an evolved animal species with faulty components and a short lifespan for ourselves and our globe, lest the consequences of the belief be unwelcome or discreditable to us. Could anything show more clearly the bad effects of wish-thinking? There can be no serious ethical position based on denial or a refusal to look the facts squarely in the face. But this does not mean that we must stare into the abyss all the time. (Only religion, oddly enough, has ever required that we obsessively do that.) — Christopher Hitchens

Neither one of us said anything. There was no need for words at the moment, what we'd needed to say to each other had been fully expressed with our bodies, each word communicated artfully with the touch of our fingertips and the slide of our skin against one another's - so for the moment - we were all talked out. — D.T. Dyllin

Maybe we are a little crazy. After all, we believe in things we don't see. The Scriptures say that faith is "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Heb. 11:1). We believe poverty can end even though it is all around us. We believe in peace even though we hear only rumours of wars. And since we are people of expectation, we are so convinced that another world is coming that we start living as if it were already here. — Shane Claiborne

We shouldn't have to be burdened with all the technicalities that come up from time to time with shrewd, smart lawyers interpreting what the laws or what the Constitution may or may not say. — Dan Quayle

When we get together and rehearse, which is always living with each other, we always talk about what would make it better, what would mean more, what would say more. So we're always improving and growing. — Alice Cooper

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have. — Paulo Coelho

All God's revelations are sealed to us until they are opened to us by obedience. You will never get them open by philosophy or thinking. Immediately you obey, a flash of light comes. Let God's truth work in you by soaking in it, not by worrying into it. Obey God in the thing He is at present showing you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. We read tomes on the work of the Holy Spirit when ... five minutes of drastic obedience would make things clear as a sunbeam. We say, "I suppose I shall understand these things some day." You can understand them now: it is not study that does it, but obedience. The tiniest fragment of obedience, and heaven opens up and the profoundest truths of God are yours straight away. God will never reveal more truth about Himself till you obey what you know already. Beware of being wise and prudent. — Oswald Chambers

What?" he asked.
"I don't know. Just thinking about flowers. And impressing people. I mean, how strange is it that we bring plant sex organs to people we're attracted to? What's up with that? It's a weird sign of affection."
His dark eyes lit up, like he'd just discovered something surprising and delightful. "Is it any weirder than giving chocolate, which is supposed to be an aphrodisiac? Or what about wine? A 'romantic' drink that really just succeeds in lowering the other person's inhibitions."
"Hmmm, It's like people are trying to be both subtle and blatant at the same time. Like, they won't actually go up and say, 'Hey, I like you, lets get together.' Instead, they're like, 'Here, have some plant genitalia and aphrodisiacs. — Richelle Mead

To worry is to acknowledge that the world is unpredictable, and there is power in understanding one's own powerlessness at times. But too often worry takes on life of its own. Men are quite prone to this. They'll plague themselves with so many 'what if's and 'if only's that they soon forget to ponder the true possibilities before them. Which inevitably lead to poor decisions. Whatever happens will happen. Sometimes we have say over the future. Sometimes we don't. Either way, worrying alone never accomplishes anything. — A. Lee Martinez

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

Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Mt 5:17). Yet Paul could say, "Christ is the end of the law" (Rom 10:4); "you also died to the law through the body of Christ" (Rom 7:4); and "Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law" (Gal 3:25). Hebrews states, "By calling this covenant 'new,' he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear" (Heb 8:13), and "The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming" (Heb 10:1). The Matthew text is the key one, for Jesus is asserting that the Torah has not been abrogated and in fact is intact in him. — Grant R. Osborne

Annabhau Sathe's Akalechi Gosht (The Dimwit's Tale) performed in front of the temple. This had also been banned. We did not know when the police would arrive and arrest the performers. This satire was like no other we had seen; it had no kings and queens. It spoke of the exploitation we saw around us, offering an aesthetic analysis of our situation. It played all night and we learned some new songs. 'Daulatichya raja, utoon Sarjya, haak de shejaaryaala re, shivari chalaa' ('Oh kings of wealth, Sarjya, wake up, listen to what your neighbours say, let's go back to the fields') and 'Aamhi dhartichya lekra bhaagyavaan' ('We are the fortunate sons of the earth'). — Daya Pawar

Someone has to stay on the line and say, no, we can do this by cutting spending and reducing the size of government. That's what I was committed to doing. — Chris Christie

We realize we can't go around saying and doing what we're actually thinking and feeling. If we all did that, life would be a lunatic asylum. Indeed, that's how you know you're talking to a lunatic. Lunatics are those poor souls who have lost their inner communication and so they allow themselves to say and do exactly what they are thinking and feeling and that's why they're mad. — Robert McKee

Self-growth does not always mean that we've changed. It means that we've stopped listening to what others say we 'ought' to be doing and finally live our lives according to our own values. — Anthea Syrokou

Simon: You're in a dangerous line of work, Jayne. Odds are you'll be under my knife again, often. So I want you to understand one thing very clearly: No matter what you do or say or plot, no matter how you come down on us, I will never, ever harm you. You're on this table, you're safe ... 'cause I'm your medic. And however little we may like or trust each other, we're on the same crew. Got the same troubles, same enemies, and more than enough of both. Now, we could circle each other and growl, sleep with one eye open, but that thought wearies me. I don't care what you've done, I don't know what you're planning on doing, but I'm trusting you. I think you should do the same. 'Cause I don't see this working any other way.
River: Also, I can kill you with my brain. — Ben Edlund

I'm going to keep seeing him as much as I can. We'll see what happens," I say, realizing that just "seeing what happens" is my version of "going for it. — Emily Giffin

He says he had to go help someone in a desperate situation. Who, exactly, he refuses to say. He doesn't know when he's going to be back, but suggests we put off the wedding for a few days. The rotter! How dare he just zoom off and not tell me where he's going, or who he's going to help, or what exactly he's up to! Yeah, how dare he go out and be all heroic and stuff when you want him here slobbering over your big boobs. — Katie MacAlister

I bow to all the seekers of truth. At the very outset, I have to say that truth is what it is. We cannot change it, we cannot transform it. We cannot compromise with it. It is what it is, it has been what it has been, and it will be what it has been. So it doesn't change. What is needed is that we have to change. So, what is the truth? Truth is that you are not this body, this mind; you are not these emotions, intellect or conditionings. Nor you are ego. So what are you ? You are the pure Spirit. — Nirmala Srivastava

Whether or not we are aware of it, there is nothing of which we are more ashamed than of not being ourselves, and there is nothing that gives us greater pride and happiness than to think, to feel, and to say what is ours. — Erich Fromm

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

When people say right person, wrong time, or wrong person, right time, it's usually a cop-out. They think that fate is playing with them. That we're all just participants in this romantic reality show that God gets a kick out of watching. But the universe doesn't decide what's right or not right. You do. Yes, you can theorize until you're blue in the face whether something might have worked at another time, or with someone else. But you know what that leaves you?" "Blue in the face?" I asked. "Yup. — Rachel Cohn

Don't make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life. - MIGUEL ANGEL RUIZ It's better to take the time to ask questions and to find the words to say what you really feel. Often we leave so much room for interpretation either because we are rushing or because we are afraid to speak the whole truth, but this is where miscommunications start. So even if you aren't sure about what someone means or how they feel, just ask them. Goal: When was the last time you assumed something and were wrong? Make a point to know the truth and not assume it. — Demi Lovato

The ego keeps you almost in a drunken state. You don't know who you are because you believe what others say about you. And you don't know who others are because you believe what others say about others. This is the make-believe, illusory world in which we live. Wake up, become more conscious. By becoming conscious you will become a master of your own being. Mastery knows nothing of self, and the self knows nothing of mastery. Let that be absolutely clear to you. My — Osho

I didn't know what to say. What to do. I didn't feel strong anymore. I felt like I couldn't go on without him. He loved me fiercely. Obsessively. Rivalled only by the intensity which I felt for him. So why couldn't we be together? — A. Zavarelli

I think, as a woman and as somebody in the entertainment industry, we have to be careful what we're putting out there and what we're trying to say. — Jenny Mollen

Lacking strength beauty hates the understanding for asking of her what it cannot do but the life of spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself. It is this power, not as something positive, which closes its eyes to the negative as when we say of something that it is nothing or is false, and then having done with it, turn away and pass on to something else; on the contrary, spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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.

It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we say about Nature. — Niels Bohr

Thomas Jefferson had rather serious concerns about the fate of the democratic experiment.28 He feared the rise of a new form of absolutism that was more ominous than the British rule overthrown in the American Revolution. He distinguished in his later years between what he called "aristocrats and democrats."29 And then he went on to say, "I hope we shall ... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial and bid defiance to the laws of our country."30 He also wrote, "I sincerely believe ... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."31 That's the kind of quote from a Founding Father you don't see too much. — Noam Chomsky

[T]he more we do this, the more I learn about what I think Chains was really training us for. And this is it. He wasn't training us for a calm and orderly world where we could pick and choose when we need to be clever. He was training us for a situation that was fucked up on all sides. Well, we're in it, and I say we're equal to it. I don't need to be reminded that we're up to our heads in dark water. I just want you boys to remember that we're the gods-damned sharks."
"Right on," cried Bug. "I knew there was a reason I let you lead this gang! — Scott Lynch

Astronomers still can't decide what the shape of our universe is. Is it closed and finite, which is to say, is there a countable tally of all the galaxies that exist, even beyond the ones we can see? Or is it infinite? The latter possibility is still on the table. — Seth Shostak

These women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by loving parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by 'their happiness' is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That's not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, leaning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life - my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing. — Banana Yoshimoto

Why am I so interested in politics? But if I were to answer you very simply, I would say this: why shouldn't I be interested? That is to say, what blindness, what deafness, what density of ideology would have to weigh me down to prevent me from being interested in what is probably the most crucial subject to our existence, that is to say the society in which we live, the economic relations within which it functions, and the system of power which defines the regular forms and the regular permissions and prohibitions of our conduct. The essence of our life consists, after all, of the political functioning of the society in which we find ourselves.
So I can't answer the question of why I should be interested; I could only answer it by asking why shouldn't I be interested? — Michel Foucault

It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do. — Jane Austen

It's in our nature, Julian would say. We destroy. It's the constant of our kind. No matter the color of blood, man will always fall.
I didn't understand that lesson a few days ago, but now, with Cal's hands in mine, guiding me with the lightest touch, I'm beginning to see what he meant.
I can feel myself falling. — Victoria Aveyard

Scientific knowledge has taught [humans] much since the days of the Deluge, and it will increase their power still further. And, as for the great necessities of Fate, against which there is no help, they will learn to endure them with resignation. Of what use to them is the mirage of wide acres in the moon, whose harvest no one has ever yet seen? As honest smallholders on this earth they will know how to cultivate their plot in such a way that it supports them. By withdrawing their expectations from the other world and concentrating all their liberated energies into their life on earth, they will probably succeed in achieving a state of things in which life will become tolerable for everyone and civilization no longer oppressive to anyone. Then, with one of our fellow-unbelievers, they will be able to say without regret: 'We leave Heaven to the angels and the sparrows. — Sigmund Freud

It's [Into the Badlands] something that's very, very different and I think that's why it divided critics initially because they didn't understand it or get it. They didn't understand or have a knowledge of what we were trying to do. Bringing in the Asian martial arts aesthetic to American television. For us, these are the people who will make the show a hit or a failure in future seasons. So it's for us to respect them and interact and see what they have to say. — Miles Millar

Unseen hands delay The coming of what oft seems close in ken, And, contrary, the moment, when we say "'Twill never come!" comes on us even then. — Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl Of Lytton

I've been married to the same woman for forty years, and whenever people ask us how we managed to stay married for so long, we usually say as one voice, 'What's the secret? Don't get divorced!' — Wavy Gravy

Daniel is asleep. A care assistant, a different one today is swishingaroundthe room with a mop that smells of pine cleaner.

Elisabeth wonders what's doing to happen to all the care assistants. She realizes she hasn't so far encountered a single care assistant here who isn't from somewhere else in the world. That morning on the radio she;d heard a spokesperson say, but it's not just that we;ve been rhetorically and practically encouraging the opposite of integration for immigrants to this country. It's that we've been rhetorically and practically encouraging ourselves not to integrate. We've been doing this as a matter of self-policing since Thatcher taught us to be selfish and not just to think but to believe that there's no such thing as society.

Then the other spokesperson in the dialogue said, well, you would say that. Get over it. Grow up. Your time's over. Democracy. You lost. — Ali Smith

If there is anything certain in life, it is this. Time doesn't always heal. Not really. I know they say it does, but that is not true. What time does is to trick you into believing that you have healed, that the hurt of a great loss has lessened. But a single word, a note of a song, a fragrance, a knife point of dawn light across an empty room, any one of these things will take you back to that one moment you have never truly forgotten. These small things are the agents of memory. They are the sharp needle points piercing the living fabric of your life.

Life, my children, isn't linear where the heart is concerned. It is filled with invisible threads that reach out from your past and into your future. These threads connect every second we have lived and breathed. As your own lives move forward and as the decades pass, the more of these threads are cast. Your task is to weave them into a tapestry, one that tells the story of the time we shared. — Stephen Lee

Lord, you will have to be our teacher, because the dignity has been drained out of us in so many ways. We have been treated like dirt, and that has stuck on us. We've put ourselves against standards of our own making, because we thought it would give us worth. Please touch each person with how unique they are in your eyes and how their dignity in your eyes is so great that you will not even override them; you will woo them and pursue them and help them to accept that you are seeking them and you will allow yourself to be found by them if they simply cry out for help. I pray that great freedom will come across them because of their awareness of where they stand in your kingdom. That will make Jesus very happy, and the angels in heaven will jump up and down. And so we say, Let it be so, and that's what we mean by amen. Amen. Dallas Willard — Dallas Willard

If educators were really understanding of that, they'd say, "You know what? Forget about bilingual, we're going to do multilingual education." So children are ready for the new millennium. We're way behind compared to countries in Europe. If we were multilingual, imagine how much you would learn about your own culture, about the sensibilities of what's important in your own culture. — Sandra Cisneros

It's a funny thing. I'll be in my home town of Columbus at a restaurant or something, and the waiter maybe asks, 'What do you do?' and I say, 'Oh, I'm in a band ... Twenty One Pilots,' and he'll say, 'Cool, I'll check it out. I never heard of them.' And then I say, 'In September we're playing the Schottenstein Center,' and it's like, 'What?!' — Tyler Joseph

Someday, if we won, if humanity survived, we'd be in the history books. Me and Jake and Rachel and Cassie and Tobias and Ax. They'd be household names, like generals from World War II or the Civil War. Patton and Eisenhower, Ulysses Grant and Robert E. Lee. Kids would study us in school. Bored, probably.
And then the teacher would tell the story of Marco. I'd be a part of history. What I was about to do. Some kid would laugh. Some kid would say, "Cold, man. That was really cold."
I had to do it, kid. It was a war. It's the whole point, you stupid, smug, smirking little jerk! Don't you get it?
It was the whole point. We hurt the innocent in order to stop the evil. Innocent Hork-Bajir. Innocent Taxxons. Innocent human-Controllers. How else to stop the Yeerks? How else to win?
No choice, you punk. We did what we had to do.
"Cold, man. The Marco dude? He was just cold. — Katherine Applegate

It is when we think we can act like God, that all respect is lost, and I think this is the downfall of peace. We lie if we say we do not see color and culture and difference. We fool ourselves and cheat ourselves when we say that all of us are the same. We should not want to be the same as others and we should not want others to be the same as us. Rather, we ought to glory and shine in all of our differences, flaunting them fabulously for all to see! It is never a conformity that we need! We need not to conform! What we need is to burst out into all these beautiful colors! — C. JoyBell C.

It's one thing getting the job of Doctor Who, which is wonderful. And then the next thing they say to you is, 'We're going to announce it live on television!' And you think, 'That's not exactly what I thought I was signing up for!' — Peter Capaldi

Everyone agrees that a secret should be kept intact, but everyone does not agree as to the nature and importance of secrecy. Too often we consult ourselves as to what we should say, what we should leave unsaid. There are few permanent secrets, and the scruple against revealing them will not last forever. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Jesper jabbed an accusing finger at Kuwei. "You should have said something!"
Kuwei shrugged. "You were very brave on Black Veil. Since we're all probably going to die - "
"Damn it," Jesper cursed, stalking toward the door.
"You're a very good kisser," called Kuwei after him.
Jesper turned. "How good is your Kerch really?"
"Fairly good."
"Okay, then I hope you understand exactly what I mean when I say you are definitely more trouble than you're worth."
Kuwei beamed, looking entirely too pleased with himself. "Kaz seems to think I'm worth a great deal now."
Jesper rolled his eyes skyward. "You fit right in here. — Leigh Bardugo

Well, if a horse refuses, you've phrased your question wrongly. It's the same with women. Don't ask them, 'Shall we go out to dinner?' Ask: 'What can I cook for you?' Can she say not to that? No, she can't. — Nina George

What would I say about "Heaven Without a Gun"? For me, to have this man, and our friendship [ with Andy Kim] grew really slowly and very consistently throughout the years before we decided to get into a studio together, I wasn't sure if he wanted to do songs that were pre-written or what. We didn't know what we were getting into. — Kevin Drew