What You Have Done Quotes & Sayings

Still, the logical part of her realized that the hazel-eyed, dark-scruff iteration of This Guy who sat
across from her right then hadn't actually done anything wrong to her. Because of that, she smiled in
an effort to be polite. "That's nice of you to ask. But, unfortunately, I'm going to have to say no."
"Great." He nodded, as if expecting this very answer. Then his brow furrowed, and he cocked his
head. "Wait - what?"
Sidney bit her lip to hold back a laugh. Ah ... when she told this story later to Trish, the perplexed
look on this guy's face would be the highlight. — Julie James

Markus definitely wasn't comfortable. He was sorry about having long legs; as regrets go, it certainly was a useless one.* Not to mention another fact that amped up his torture: there's nothing worse than being seated next to a woman you're dying with desire to look at. The show was to his left, where she was, not on stage. Not only that, but what was he seeing? It was so-so. The fact that it was a Swedish play wasn't exactly helping matters! Had she done it on purpose? As if that weren't enough, the playwright had studied in Uppsala. Might as well have dinner at his parents'. — David Foenkinos

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

Ka-Be is the Lager without the physical discomforts. So that, whoever still has some seeds of conscience, feels his conscience re-awaken; and in the long empty days, one speaks of other things than hunger and work and one begins to consider what they have made us become, how much they have taken away from us, what this life is. In this Ka-Be, an enclosure of relative peace, we have learnt that our personality is fragile, that it is much more in danger than our life; and the old wise ones, instead of warning us 'remember that you must die', would have done much better to remind us of this great danger that threatens us. If from inside the Lager, a message could have seeped out to free men, it would have been this: take care not to suffer in your own homes what is inflicted on us here. — Primo Levi

But it is easy to speak of the past, impossible to go there. I am powerful in ways you can only dream, yet I am still a prisoner of what I have done. I can never escape the cell I have made for myself. Things are what they are. — Joe Abercrombie

Literature is a source of pleasure, he said, it is one of the rare inexhaustible joys in life, but it's not only that. It must not be disassociated from reality. Everything is there. That is why I never use the word fiction. Every subtlety in life is material for a book. He insisted on the fact. Have you noticed, he'd say, that I'm talking about novels? Novels don't contain only exceptional situations, life or death choices, or major ordeals; there are also everyday difficulties, temptations, ordinary disappointments; and, in response, every human attitude, every type of behavior, from the finest to the most wretched. There are books where, as you read, you wonder: What would I have done? It's a question you have to ask yourself. Listen carefully: it is a way to learn to live. There are grown-ups who would say no, that literature is not life, that novels teach you nothing. They are wrong. Literature performs, instructs, it prepares you for life. — Laurence Cosse

As you grow older, Michael, you'll learn an important lesson - that most people spend their entire lives wishing for a second chance to do what they should have done right the first time. — Richard Paul Evans

Poor Traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his head upon the desk, and was relieving himself as usual with a burst of skeletons, said he didn't care. Mr. Mell was ill-used. 'Who has ill-used him, you girl?' said Steerforth. 'Why, you have,' returned Traddles. 'What have I done?' said Steerforth. 'What have you done?' retorted Traddles. 'Hurt his feelings, and lost him his situation. — Charles Dickens

Here I sit with my three old cats, getting closer to eternity all the time, on a twine chair - (Van Gogh) and me too - and it gets very depressing. What can I do? I had high hopes. We all did. Remember just outside the Tangier Consulate: "Have you met the Skipper yet?" Later I did. And now no skipping, no transport anywhere, except to a cut-rate mortuary. Where were you when I wasn't there? "Hound of Hell!!" screamed the Pop Star, and kicked the fink dog in the nuts. "Only decent thing I done." "Forget the whole thing. I have." Great gasp at this point. How much time? have I left? Not much it seems. — William S. Burroughs

It was, just as Kinski had predicted, suicide. He should never have done it. It is widely held by those who knew him, and Kinski himself, that he never recovered from Woyzeck. But what was the ultimate result? If you are the viewer of this film, Kinski's portrayal shocks your feelings out of the vault of intellectualizing or passive observing. He forces you to feel with him, to align yourself with your buried emotions. He outs your sensitivity. Is this not something Christ-like? It is, for my money. Kinski is the pure cure for the 21st-century disease - the numbness unto droning. — Cintra Wilson

When you look for independence and you get what you want, how come you look back thinking what have I done? — Joey Tempest

The truth is, Rosemary, that you are capable of anything. Good or bad. You always have been, and you always will be. Given the right push, you, too, could do horrible things. That darkness exists within all of us. You think every soldier who picked up a cutter gun was a bad person? No. She was just doing what the soldier next to her was doing, who was doing what the soldier next to her was doing, and so on and so on. And I bet most of them - not all, but most - who made it through the war spent a long time after trying to understand what they'd done. Wondering how they ever could have done it in the first place. Wondering when killing became so comfortable. — Becky Chambers

I've done a few costume dramas, and people say, 'What was it like wearing the costumes? Did they really help you with your character?,' and most of the time it doesn't make any difference. You're wearing something a bit weird, and it's sort of uncomfortable, but it doesn't really have a huge impact on the part that you're playing. — Romola Garai

Time, That Is Pleased to Lengthen out the Day

Time, that is pleased to lengthen out the day
For grieving lovers parted or denied,
And pleased to hurry the sweet hours away
From such as lie enchanted side by side,
Is not my kinsman; nay, my feudal foe
Is he that in my childhood was the thief
Of all my mother's beauty, and in woe
My father bowed, and brought our house to grief.
Thus, though he think to touch with hateful frost
Your treasured curls, and your clear forehead line,
And so persuade me from you, he has lost;
Never shall he inherit what was mine.
When Time and all his tricks have done their worst,
Still will I hold you dear, and him accurst. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

When failure imprisons you for not doing what you should have done, you have no option than to bail yourself on the promise of trying again! Try again! — Israelmore Ayivor

Learn it well in your head, know it well, pick things you know and bring the old you and all the experience you have from singing these various kinds of feelings that are still related to what I have done in the rest of my career. — Al Jarreau

You'll always have to fight for what you want. Definitely crossing over and being able to tackle these grittier parts was a challenge, but I feel like I've done it! It's a whole new chapter. — Vanessa Hudgens

You place too much importance, and you always have done, on the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be! Your — J.K. Rowling

Let's say you would see me in a lot more big movies had I done movies that I'd been asked to do playing bad guys. Now that I have a child on the way, I think that you'll probably be seeing me play more bad guys. If that's what's going to put bread on the table, that's what I'm going to be doing. — Jake Busey

If you are that patient, your mind is more settled, and what you do will be more perfect. If you are unsettled and anxious to get the result, you are already disturbed; nothing done with that disturbed mind will have quality. So, it is not only how long you practice, but with what patience, what earnestness and what quality also. — Swami Satchidananda

Whatever happens, there are always things you could have done better. You score two goals and you usually feel you could have done better. You score two goals and you usually feel you could have scored a third. That's perfectionism. That's what makes you progress in life. — Eric Cantona

'What have you done?' I whispered.
She swallowed, and the guilt in her eyes was extinguished by a flare of defiance.
'This,' she said, 'is my ticket to outer space.' — Kenneth Oppel

Finding and creating your life's work, even if it is entirely different from what you have done most of your life, will bring you more happiness and health than any other action you can take. If your primary responsibility in life is being true to yourself, that can only be accomplished by carrying out what you are called to do - your unique and special vocation ... Your life's work involves doing what you love and loving what you do. — Dennis Kimbro

And there's a cop over there."
"What?" the boy said, glancing at the D.C. police officer that stood at the corner of the street, "You think that guys can do a better job protecting you than I can?"
Actually, I thought Liz could have done a better job "protecting" me than he could, but instead I said, "No, I think if you don't leave me alone, I can scream and that cop will arrest you."
Somehow the boy seemed to know it was a joke ... — Ally Carter

If you attempt to build intimacy with a person before you've done the hard work of becoming a whole and healthy person, every relationship will be an attempt to complete the hole in your heart and the lack of what you don't have. That relationship will end in disaster.[1] — Chip Ingram

Rhyme as an echo not a closing off of sound. Love it. I don't know where the rhymes came from. Or the puns like "no/know" and so on. Just a way my mind start moving toward what seemed urgent to it. I'd like to claim complete rational intent for it all, but it wasn't that way. if you asked me about rhyme thirty years ago, I'd have said: not me, never. And now I done it. — Gregory Orr

Hunter's dead," Taylor said without preamble. "It was these . . . these things. They came crawling up out of him and were eating him, oh God, I mean, it was like . . . I mean he was crying and Dekka prayed with him and he tried to fry his own brain just like he did with Harry only I guess it didn't work, I guess he couldn't do it, so Sam . . ." She swallowed. "Anyone have some water?"
"What about Sam?" Astrid demanded.
"He did it for him. Sam. I mean, he . . . Hunter was, you know . . . so Sam." She pantomimed raising her hands, like Sam, like he would do when using his power.
Astrid closed her eyes and crossed herself.
"Rest in peace," Edilio said and crossed himself as well.
"Sam burned the boy?" Howard asked. Then, bitterly sarcastic said, "Yeah, you all pray to Jesus. Because Jesus is really providing a lot of help here. Sounds to me like Sam was the one doing what had to be done. — Michael Grant

How easy it is for me to live with you, Lord!
How easy it is for me to believe in You!

When my mind is distraught
and my reason fails,
when the cleverest people do not see further
than this evening and do not know
what must be done tomorrow -
You grant me the clear confidence,
that You exist, and that You will take care
that not all the ways of goodness are stopped.

At the height of earthly fame I gaze
with wonder at that path
through hopelessness -
to this point, from which even I have been able to convey
to men some reflection of the light which comes from You.

And you will enable me to go on doing
as much as needs to be done.
And in so far as I do not manage it -
that means that You have allotted the task to others. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Our beliefs are rooted deep in our earth, no matter what you have done to it and how much of it you have paved over. And if you leave all that concrete unwatched for a year or two, our plants, the native Indian plants, will pierce that concrete and push up through it. — John Fire Lame Deer

What matters is 'Have you done a better job of making our experiences feel like home on Windows?' That's our real goal, and that's what we're going to stay focused on. — Satya Nadella

Movies are collaborative, and that's part of what makes it a great experience. They're different from a lot of other art forms, but also it makes it seem like when you see the final product, you go, 'I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have done this.' — Casey Affleck

Therefore, to you, and to the fifty governors, I have a request. Please, do not send me politicians. We do not have the time to do the things that must be done through that process. I need people who do real things in the real world. I need people who do not want to live in Washington. I need people who will not try to work the system. I need people who will come here at great personal sacrifice to do an important job, and then return home to their normal lives. I want engineers who know how things are built. I want physicians who know how to make sick people well. I want cops who know what it means when your civil rights are violated by a criminal. I want farmers who grow real food on real farms. I want people who know what it's like to have dirty hands, and pay a mortgage bill, and raise kids, and worry about the future. I want people who know they're working for you and not themselves. That's what I want. That's what I need. I think that's what a lot of you want, too. — Tom Clancy

And they just let you enter after their effort?"
"What should they have done, Mr MacRieve?"
"I know exactly what I would have done."
"I know exactly how I would have retaliated. — Kresley Cole

Film is not like a book; it's not a writer's baby at all. So many people have put in their talent, by that time that you feel grateful for what they've done, you don't feel possessive about it in any way. — Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

The necessity of reform mustn't be allowed to become a form of blackmail serving to limit, reduce, or halt the exercise of criticism. Under no circumstances should one pay attention to those who tell one: "Don't criticize, since you're not capable of carrying out a reform." That's ministerial cabinet talk. Critique doesn't have to be the premise of a deduction that concludes, "this, then, is what needs to be done." It should be an instrument for those for who fight, those who resist and refuse what is. Its use should be in processes of conflict and confrontation, essays in refusal. It doesn't have to lay down the law for the law. It isn't a stage in a programming. It is a challenge directed to what is. — Michel Foucault

The biggest tragedy of life is the utter impossibility to change what you have done — John Galsworthy

When you have a bad year, there is this need to package it up and write it off-as I have done in the past. I hope, in 2014, when things go badly-people create themselves a New Years's day the moment they need it. Don't make 12 resolutions in January but one with every breath. Don't wait until December 31st to start anew.You can divide time with months and days and weeks-but each minute is only a minute long and belongs completely to itself. What you do in those tiny moments that seem so inconsequential are what will define not only your year-but your life — S.K. Munt

It's all right."
"It's not. Nothing's right. I've never done a right thing in my life, it seems."
"That makes a pair of us then." Her lips pressed against the spot under his ear. "But I believe we are right together, don't you? People like us ... we have no talent for following rules. We can only follow our hearts. I've wronged people as well, but is it horribly wicked that I can't bring myself to regret it? It brought me to you."
He took one of her hands and kissed it. "You're so young, you can't know the meaning of true regret. It's never what you've done, love, it's what you've left undone. — Tessa Dare

You're a smart girl. You're going to replay everything we've done, and you're going to reach the same conclusion I have." He moved in close, leaning down to kiss my jawline and lower.
"And wh- what conclusion is that?" When had he discovered how sensitive my neck was? With one spot in particular ...
He pressed his lips directly to my pulse point, making my knees weak. "Eto ne izbezhno dlya nas." You and I are inevitable. — Kresley Cole

You see, Risa, survival is a dance between our needs and our consciences. When the need is great enough, and the music loud enough, we can stomp conscience into the ground.'
Risa closes her eyes. She knows the dance ...
'It's the way of the world,' Divan continues. 'Look at unwinding, society's grand gavotte of denial. There will, no doubt, come a time when people look to one another and say, 'My God, what have we done?' But I don't believe it will happen any time soon. Until then, the dance must have music; the chorus must have its voice. Give it that voice, Risa. Play for me.'
But Risa's fingers offer him nothing, and the Orgao Organico holds the obdurate, unyielding silence of the grave. — Neal Shusterman

Why don't you want a boyfriend?"
"I don't know. Maybe I do. I'd just have to meet the right guy. Someone who isn't ordinary. Someone who get someone I fit perfectly with. I want heat, chemistry, an undeniable connection. You know what I mean? I want it all. I'm done with ordinary and mediocre. — Jessica Park

I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world. — Charles Darwin

What's gratifying about West Wing is that everybody told us that it couldn't be done - that the man or woman on the street didn't care about politics. But if you set things up correctly, people don't have a problem with it. — Rob Lowe

The secret of being a writer: not to expect others to value what you've done as you value it. Not to expect anyone else to perceive in it the emotions you have invested in it. Once this is understood, all will be well. — Joyce Carol Oates

O, the perfidy of men." "What have I done?" he protested. "Nothing at present, but you are the only representative of your sex I have at hand to abuse. Take your lumps for your brothers. — Deanna Raybourn

I always use the Jeff Beck model. Jeff Beck is just a genius, and he keeps getting better ... If there's anybody in your field you want to aspire to be like, it is a guy who does what he wants to do. Every record at least he comes out with one thing that makes everybodys' jaw drop ... I would hope that Jimi Hendrix would have done that, although, man, the odds are against him because he did so much in such a short amount of time ... — Joe Satriani

Make us love and obey you so that the works of our hands may always display what your hands have done, until we gaze upon the beauty of your face. — The Catholic Church

How do you know? You've done nothing, been nowhere. How do you have the faintest idea what kind of person you are?" How could someone like him have the slightest clue what it felt like to be me? I felt almost cross with him for willfully not getting it. "Go on. Open — Jojo Moyes

There's no point running anyway. In t-minus ten minutes, you will have no where to run to."

Quinn tensed at the triumphant look in his eyes. ". . .what have you done?"

"I have entered launch codes in the computer. In exactly ten minutes, Alpha Star 9 will be a black stain in the middle of Utah."

Quinn's lips part in shock.

"Yes," said. Dr. Zorgone in amusement. "Dramatic gasp! — Ash Gray

But if you have derived any benefit from the reproaches and wrongs which you have received, if they have put you upon examining your own heart, if they have made you more careful how you conduct, if they have convinced you of the value of a sanctified temper; will you not forgive them? Will you not forgive one who has been instrumental of so much good to you? What though he meant it for evil? If through the Divine blessing your happiness has been promoted by what he has done, why should you even have a hard thought of him? — John Flavel

DEAR MISS MANNERS:
I a tired of being treated like a child. My father says it's because I am a child
I am twelve-and-a-half years old
but it still isn't fair. If I go into a store to buy something, nobody pays any attention to me, or if they do, it's to say, "Leave that alone," "Don't touch that," although I haven't done anything. My money is as good as anybody's, but because I am younger, they feel they can be mean to me. It happens to me at home, too. My mother's friend who comes over after dinner sometimes, who doesn't have any children of her own and doesn't know what's what, likes to say to me, "Shouldn't you be in bed by now,dear?" when she doesn't even know what my bedtime is supposed to be. Is there any way I can make these people stop?
GENTLE READER:
Growing up is the best revenge. — Judith Martin

I've done what I've always wanted to do. But as one Senator said, just because you're doing what you've always wanted to do, it doesn't mean you have to do it forever. And it's very taxing in terms of the travel, the running around. — Russ Feingold

And I recognized then the process by which I had always attempted difficult things. I had simply not allowed myself to think of the consequences, but had closed my eyes, jumped in, and before I knew where I was, it was impossible to renege. I was basically a dreadful coward, I knew that about myself. The only way I could overcome this was to trick myself with that other self, who lived in dream and fantasy and who was annoyingly lackadaisical and unpractical. All passion, no sense, no order, no instinct for self-preservation. That's what I had done, and now that cowardly self had discovered an unburnt bridge by which to return to the past. As Renata Adler writes in Speedboat: I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray. It is the momentum of last resort. — Robyn Davidson

What is the greatest surprise you have found about life?" a university student asked me several years ago. "The brevity of it," I replied without hesitation ... Time moves so quickly, and no matter who we are or what we have done, the time will come when our lives will be over. As Jesus said, "As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work" (John 9:4). — Billy Graham

What I do as a director is really create a safe environment that everyone can feel very comfortable in and experiment within so that they don't hold back anything. You never ever want someone to go, 'Oh I shouldn't have done that.' There isn't anything you shouldn't try. If it's terrible, who cares? — Paul Feig

Those who understood, in fact, say: 'I mustn't do this, I mustn't do that,' so as not to commit some stupidity or other! Splendid! But at a certain point we realize that all life is stupidity; so tell me yourself what it means never to have done anything foolish. At the very least it means you have never lived. — Luigi Pirandello

What's so fun when you shoot in a car is you get to research all the other road movies that have ever been done, and you try to figure out where do they place the cameras and how many shots can you get with your people in the car. So just doing the research on the films is so fun. — Tamra Davis

If you are an [American] politician it's very hard to imagine "now we are going to treat these guys as our equals? That's ridiculous. What have they ever done to deserve that?" — Hooman Majd

The next time someone uses denial of citizenship as a weapon or brandishes the special status conferred upon him by the accident of birth, ask him this: What have you done lately to earn it? — Eric Liu

What I teach you to do is how to bring the light of the supraconscious throughout your being, because once you have done that, the chakras will open up by themselves. — Frederick Lenz

It took a lot of guts to change it and say 'I don't like the life that I'm living and I don't like the swimmer I am', so let's change it completely and say 'Look, I've got to learn to love myself'. And that's been a really hard thing to do because when you've done a performance that you're not proud of and the public and the media have criticized you ... people are really quick to make judgements so it was tough to say 'Well I don't care what you have to say. I'm going to do this for myself and if you don't like me after this, well then, it's too bad'. — Leisel Jones

the former; "our arrangement thus made, you have nothing to fear from me." He sat down in a chair on the hearth, over against Mr. Lorry. When they were alone, Mr. Lorry asked him what he had done? "Not much. If it should go ill with the prisoner, I have ensured access to him, once." Mr. Lorry's countenance fell. "It is all I could do," said Carton. "To propose too much, would be to put this man's head under the axe, and, as he himself said, nothing worse could happen to him if he were denounced. It was obviously the weakness of the position. There is no help for it. — Charles Dickens

Since your father has escaped my justice, it is you who must hear my words."
"Words. You keep saying ... "
"Because that was the gift your father gave to me. And the curse that ruined me as well, changed my life to wretched misery. There are hours yet before the guard comes - nay, eons. An eternity, in fact. This is my time, Miranda. Now you will have your words back: before I kill you, you will hear my tale ... and you will know what you have done. — Tad Williams

Everybody would love to be mayor of Chicago. If you look at what we have done over many, many years and where we are today and the commitment by the business community, the commitment by the not-for-profit community - all this coming together - this is a wonderful city. — Richard M. Daley

Whenever anything is spoken against you that is not true, do not pass by or despise it because it is false; but forthwith examine yourself, and consider what you have said or done that may administer a just occasion of reproof. — Plutarch

One of the things I love about translation is it obliterates the self. When I'm trying to figure out what Tu Fu has to say, I have to kind of impersonate Tu Fu. I have to take on, if you will, his voice and his skin in English, and I have to try to get as deeply into the poem as possible. I'm not trying to make an equivalent poem in English, which can't be done because our language can't accommodate the kind of metaphors within metaphors the Chinese written language can, and often does, contain. — Sam Hamill

To have what you have never had, you have to do what you have never done. — Roy Bennett

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

Was Du erlebst, kann keine Macht der Welt Dir rauben. (What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.) Not only our experiences, but all we have done, whatever great thoughts we may have had and all we have suffered, all this is not lost, though it is past; we have brought it into being. Having been is a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind. — Viktor E. Frankl

I started by looking at what others had done before me. You see, over the years there have been attempts by many different people to reconstruct the chariot. — Kit Williams

While there is widespread recognition that the War on Drugs is racist and that politicians have refused to invest in jobs or schools in their communities, parents of offenders and ex-offenders still feel intense shame - shame that their children have turned to crime despite the lack of obvious alternatives. One mother of an incarcerated teen, Constance, described her angst this way: "Regardless of what you feel like you've done for your kid, it still comes back on you, and you feel like, 'Well, maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I messed up. You know, maybe if I had a did it this way, then it wouldn't a happened that way.'" After her son's arrest, she could not bring herself to tell friends and relatives and kept the family's suffering private. Constance is not alone. — Michelle Alexander

You are out of control, Rand al'Thor,' she declared.
I do what must be done,' he said, speaking now from the shadows. He sounded exhausted ...
I hate what you just did, Rand,' Nynaeve snarled. 'No, "Hate" isn't strong enough. I loathe what you've done. What has happened to you?'
Test him!' Rand whispered, voice dangerous. 'Before condemning me, let us first determine if my sins have achieved anything beyond my own damnation. — Brandon Sanderson

You think that I am angry, but I am not. You think I do not know why you have done what you have done, but I do. You think you have put all your heart into that writing and that every one in England now understands you. What do they understand? Nothing. I understood you before you wrote a word. What you wrote, you wrote for me. For me alone. — Susanna Clarke

Oh, my little sister. What have you done?" "What?" I asked innocently. "It seems that something of great value to the Scholar has disappeared. At exactly the same time you did. He and the Chancellor have turned the citadelle upside down looking for it. All surreptitiously of course, because whatever was taken apparently isn't a catalogued piece of the royal collection. At least that's the rumor among the servants." I pressed my hands together and grinned. I couldn't hide my glee. Oh, how I wish I had seen the Scholar's face when he opened what he thought was his secret drawer and found it empty. Almost empty, that is. I'd left a little something for him. — Mary E. Pearson

The other night I took her on-out of pity-and what do you think the crazy bitch had done to herself? She had shaved it clean ... not a speck of hair on it. Did you ever have a woman who shaved her twat? It's repulsive, ain't it? And it's funny, too. Sort of mad like. It doesn't look like a twat any more: it's like a dead clam or something." He describes to me how, his curiosity aroused, he got out of bed and searched for his flashlight. "I made her hold it open and I trained the flashlight on it. You should have seen me ... it was comical. I got so worked up about it that I forgot all about her. I never in my life looked at a cunt so seriously. — Henry Miller

Oh, man," Xavier groaned. "See what you've done
now I'm stressing."
"You can't! You're the stable one!"
Xavier laughed and I realized his distress had been feigned to illustrate a point. He wasn't worried in the slightest.
"Just relax. Go and run a bath or have a shot of brandy."
"Okay."
"That second bit was a joke. We both know you can't hold your liquor. — Alexandra Adornetto

For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all of the people on this earth are truly one. One in their pride at what you have done, one in our prayers that you will return safely to earth. — Richard M. Nixon

I feel so blessed to just have done what I had done. To be able to just use what God has given me is a blessing. You know, never mind the Grammys, never mind the records, never mind all of that. Just to be able to sing. — Whitney Houston

And So This Is Christmas; And What Have We Done? Another Year Over; A New One Just Begun; And So Happy Christmas; I Hope You Have Fun; The Near And The Dear Ones; The Old And The Young. — John Lennon

When we walk around thinking we have a greater right to eat an animal than the animal has a right to live without suffering, it's corrupting. I'm not speculating. This is our reality. Look at what factory farming is. Look at what we as a society have done to animals as soon as we had the technological power. Look at what we actually do in the name of "animal welfare" and "humaneness," then decide if you still believe in eating meat. — Jonathan Safran Foer

What I need first of all is not exhortation, but a gospel, not directions for saving myself but knowledge of how God has saved me. Have you any good news? That is the question that I ask of you. I know your exhortations will not help me. But if anything has been done to save me, will you not tell me the facts? — J. Gresham Machen

There is something you have to know. I kept my arms at my sides, and held them tight against my body while I summoned the words to tell him my disgusting secret. I had to get it out before my shift took hold, protecting me from the guilt. I didn't know where to begin, how to begin, or if there was even a nice way of telling him what I had done — Carlyle Labuschagne

Jack laughed at my attempts to avoid being felt up by a mythical beast. "Apparently you're a virgin."
"Shut up!Like that's any of your business!"
He shrugged,the motion less effective upside down."Unicorns love maidens. Haven't you done any research at all?"
"What,you have?"
He flipped off the branch,startling the unicorn so badly it bolted from the meadow. Thank heavens. — Kiersten White

Ask not what you have done for Lyndon Johnson, but what you have done for him lately. — Robert A. Caro

The beauty of ideas is that they are like waves in the ocean and they connect with things that came before them, and I think it is very important to embrace things that interest you and influence you, and incorporate them into what you do, as all artists have always done. The ones that say they don't, are lying. Or are afraid that their work won't be seen as being original, somehow. — Jim Jarmusch

It's about that applause I want to speak to you. I want you to remember that when you've done a little dance or a song or sketch, the applause which you get is not only because you yourself have done your best, but because each of those men is seeing in you someone he loves at home, and because of you is able to forget for a little while the unhappiness of not being in his home, and in some cases the great tragedy of not knowing what has happened to the children in his family. — Noel Streatfeild

There's no point in using someone else's characters if you're going to turn them into your own vision. You have to be loyal to that person's worldview and sensitive to what they would and wouldn't have done with their characters, and how explicit or inexplicit they would've been. — Jill Paton Walsh

If you're holding on to an offense, then you haven't forgiven the person who hurt you. Unforgiveness finds excuses to talk about what people have done to us, and we'll tell anyone who will listen. There's a difference between sharing your testimony to help someone and talking about what's been done to you because you are angry about it. — Joyce Meyer

I was completely unqualified to get into Harvard. But then I went to my interview for Harvard, and the woman asked, 'Why do you want to go here?' And I took out all of my comedy writing samples that I had done. I couldn't have been more delusional in terms of what I thought they wanted in a candidate for college. — Mike Birbiglia

It's not what you have, it's what you've done with it. — BookOwl

Illegal drugs are better for you than the legal stuff. How many artists have created while drunk, high on laudanum, opium, chloral, or amphetamines? What have antidepressants ever done for culture? — Hanif Kureishi

How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have you done, oh, Father, What have you done with the garden that should have bloomed once, in this great wilderness here? Said louisa as she touched her heart. — Charles Dickens

So for me the creative world isn't what you do after your day job, though many professional musicians do this to make ends meet, but it's something that IS a job. Perhaps that's why I'm not as disheartened by the more cold blooded aspects of the industry. Over the course of watching my mother navigate the creative world I've seen just about every trick pulled that could have been and I've seen her deposit the checks received for a job well done. When I recently asked her why she chose the creative world she said: "Early on I decided that if I had to work I was going to work at something that I loved."

I'm glad she did. As difficult, chaotic, dysfunctional and crazy as the world in music and the arts can be I always knew that they mattered deeply to her, as they do to me. — Jamie Freveletti

You have time to do what needs to be done. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Why is it so hard to be human being? I wonder. Why do we have to surrender? And to what? What if you refused to believe in a higher power? What if you thought you were the only trustworthy higher power? I have done that all my life and I know it doesn't work. You are not enough. Your will is not enough. But God? God is a pagan dream, conjured out of neediness. — Erica Jong

If you're constantly ruminating about what you just did- or what you should have done- or what you would have done if you only had the chance, you will miss your life. Ok, you will fail to connect with it. You will fail to connect with other people. — Sam Harris

Rarely do you regret what you have done nearly as much as what you have failed to do. — Jeffrey Fry

What do you mean by praying that God will have mercy upon all men, and save them with an everlasting salvation, and then tell the congregation that God has done all He can to save them, and the matter rests with them, whether they will be saved or not? ... if God has done all He can, why pray for Him do more? And if He has not done all He can, why tell the people He has? — William Gadsby

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

A man is an island, but the water is deep
And the shore on the other side is ragged and steep
To look for perfection is a lonely old ride
It takes a whole lot of courage and a whole lot of pride
When you look for independence and you get what you want
How come you look back, thinking what have I done?
But time and again, it dawns on me
It's the price we pay for liberty
I should have know, we all need a place to call home — Joey Tempest