Quotes & Sayings About What's In Front Of You

7. But what kind of love is it, really? Don't fool yourself and call it sublimity. Admit that you have stood in front of a little pile of powdered ultramarine pigment in a glass cup at a museum and felt a stinging desire. But to do what? Liberate it? Purchase it? Ingest it? ... You might want to reach out and disturb the pile of pigment, for example, first staining your fingers with it, then staining the world. You might want to dilute it and swim in it, you might want to rouge your nipples with it, you might want to paint a virgin's robe with it. But still you wouldn't be accessing the blue of it. Not exactly. — Maggie Nelson

Concentrate every minute like a Roman - like a man - on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can - if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered , irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that's all even the gods can ask of you. — Marcus Aurelius

I wish I were a poet. I've never confessed that to anyone, and I'm confessing it to you, because you've given me reason to feel that I can trust you. I've spent my life observing the universe, mostly in my mind's eye. It's been a tremendously rewarding life, a wonderful life. I've been able to explore the origins of time and space with some of the great living thinkers. But I wish I were a poet.
Albert Einstein, a hero of mine, once wrote, 'Our situation is the following. We are standing in front of a closed box which we cannot open.'
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the vast majority of the universe is composed of dark matter. The fragile balance depends on things we'll never be able to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Life itself depends on them. What's real? What isn't real? Maybe those aren't the right questions to be asking. What does life depend on?
I wish I had made things for life to depend on. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Most of the time, particularly with this record, 'The Light of the Sun,' I really just been standing in front of a microphone and blacking out musically, you know. I'd come back a couple hours later and there's six songs from beginning to end, you know? I don't know what I'm going to say. I don't know how I'm going to say it. — Jill Scott

Mutual Criticism required a member of the group to stand up in front of everybody and listen to the enumeration of his or her faults. The bright side of being that night's subject for criticism was the rare treat at Oneida of being the center of attention. The downside was that everyone you knew and loved was allowed, even encouraged, to look into your eyes and ask, You know what your problem is? — Sarah Vowell

What exactly is your job here?'
'So that's what you've dragged yourself out here to ask. See now I'm disappointed, you could have at least come out in that state just because you wanted to see me,' he said with a smirk.
'How do you know that's not another reason?'
'I don't!' he said, walking towards me.
He stopped a few inches in front of me and looked deep into my eyes, while leaning on the car. I swallowed hard. — Lindsay Anne Kendal

I think I'm becoming more relaxed in front of a camera. I suppose I'll always feel slightly more at home on stage. It's more of an actor's medium. You are your own editor, nobody else is choosing what is being seen of you. — Michael Sheen

I do wonder if the modern world creates these desperations for you. It makes you crave products you don't want. It places its imperatives in front of religion, faith. It employs certain people for its cause. Celebrities, singers, musicians. When you conclude that the material world is disappointing you look to these figures for answers, as they sit just beyond the array. You hunt these figures down, like they are wise men. If they vanish from your life you imbue them as symbols with even greater potency. But really it is what you project onto them that's interesting. — Guy Mankowski

I've always had an irrational fear - it's really not an irrational fear, I think - whenever I've been standing at a urinal at a bar, or Giants Stadium or Yankee Stadium. You've got a bunch of drunks behind you, often in a hostile, adrenalized environment like a football game. What's to prevent the guy behind me from slamming my head into the porcelain wall in front of me? — Steve Rushin

We lie with our faces because that's what we've been taught to do since early childhood. "Don't make that face," our parents growl when we honestly react to the food placed in front of us. "At least look happy when your cousins stop by," they instruct, and you learn to force a smile. Our parents - and society - are, in essence, telling us to hide, deceive, and lie with our faces for the sake of social harmony. So it is no surprise that we tend to get pretty good at it, so good, in fact, that when we put on a happy face at a family gathering, we might look as if we love our in-laws when, in reality, we are fantasizing about how to hasten their departure. — Joe Navarro

She was a widow, and he stripped himself naked while she went to fetch some of her husband's clothes. But before he could put them on, the police were hammering on the front door with their billy clubs. So the fugitive hid on top of a rafter. When the woman let in the police, though, his oversize testicles hung down in full view."
Trout paused again.
The police asked the woman where the guy was. The woman said she didn't know what guy they were talking about," said Trout. "One of the cops saw the testicles hanging down from a rafter and asked what they were. She said they were Chinese temple bells. He believed her. He said he 'd always wanted to hear Chinese temple bells. "He gave them a whack with his billy club, but there was no sound. So he hit them again, a lot harder, a whole lot harder. Do you know what the guy on the rafter shrieked?" Trout asked me. I said I didn't. "He shrieked, 'TING-A-LING, YOU SON OF A BITCH! — Kurt Vonnegut

Someone once asked Mother Teresa how she dealt with world poverty. Do you know what she said? 'You do the thing that's in front of you. — Corban Addison

And you can't get away from a mirror if you stand in front of it all the time, right. But if you step away from it, you don't notice it any more. And that's what the stage is like for me. See, an image becomes meaningless in as much as it's always temporary. — Neil Young

Fat people already are ashamed. It's taken care of. No further manpower needed on the shame front, thx. I am not concerned with whether or not fat people can change their bodies through self-discipline and "choices." Pretty much all of them have tried already. A couple of them have succeeded. Whatever. My question is, what if they try and try and try and still fail? What if they are still fat? What if they are fat forever? What do you do with them then? Do you really want millions of teenage girls to feel like they're trapped in unsightly lard prisons that are ruining their lives, and on top of that it's because of their own moral failure, and on top of that they are ruining America with the terribly expensive diabetes that they don't even have yet? You know what's shameful? A complete lack of empathy. — Lindy West

Don't judge yourself; simply return your attention to what's in front of you right now. — Deepak Chopra

In all honesty, if somebody asked me the secret of auditioning for Americans, I don't know. Often, I do what's called self-taping for America. I go over there quite a lot to sit in a room and do stuff in front of people. You feel like a performing monkey. It's bizarre. — David Wenham

Helen's modest. She wanted to dress herself," Ariadne said, drizzling honey over a bowl of oatmeal and putting it down in front of Helen.
"Modest? Sure she is," Hector said sarcastically as he passed Lucas the bacon.
"That was YOUR SISTER'S nightgown, wasn't it?" Lucas asked without skipping a beat as he served Helen and himself.
Hector wisely shut his mouth.
"Yeah," Ariadne replied for him, not getting it. "So comfortable! What? What are you all laughing at? — Josephine Angelini

The older you get, the more power you have with language as a writer, which means that you have to be extra responsible for what you say, whether it's in print or in front of a microphone, because those words can go out and kill or go out and plant seeds for peace. — Sandra Cisneros

If you keep thinking ahead, you'll never appreciate what's in front of your face. We have more time together; that's all that counts." "She's — Dannika Dark

Mori made an unwilling sound. 'I don't like Western art.'

'No look at this.' He lifted it from its package. It wasn't heavy. 'It's clever, it looks like busy Mozart.'

'What?'

'I . . .' Thaniel sighed. 'I see sound. Mozart looks like this. You know. Fast strings.'

'See? In front of you?'

'Yes. I'm not mad.'

'I didn't think so. All sounds?'

'Yes. — Natasha Pulley

I've seen it personally that people have a natural sensibility to Arabic script. I don't know it if it's because of the shape, I don't know what it is in this script that makes it so universal. But even if you don't understand it, you still have this feeling; you can feel the piece of art in front of you — EL Seed

With non-professionals, there's a lot of time you have to allocate to getting what you want with them, but also you cast based on who they are, to bring out their real personalities. So it's less about working on character and more about just getting them comfortable in front of the camera to be themselves, and understanding the process. — Charles Burnett

It's not how you look in the mirror that's important, what's important is how you are reflected in the eyes of the people who love you. --T. Hammond (Red Rover) — T. Hammond

Two uniformed trolls were standing in front of Sergeant Colon's high desk, with a slightly smaller troll between them. This troll was wearing a slightly downcast expression. It was also wearing a tutu and had a small pair of gauzed wings glued to its back.
" - happen to know that trolls don't have any tradition of a Tooth Fairy," Colon was saying. "Especially not one called' - he looked down - "Clinkerbell. So how about we just call it breaking and entering without a Thieves' Guild license?"
"Is racial prejudice, not letting trolls have a Tooth Fairy," Clinkerbell muttered.
One of the troll guards upended a sack on the desk. Various items of silverwear cascaded over the paperwork.
"And this is what you found under their pillows, was it?" said Colon.
"Bless dere little hearts," said Clinkerbell. — Terry Pratchett

Ren exhaled heavily. "God, you're so annoying."
"So?" Tink hovered in front of the couch, his wings furiously beating the air. "I'm rubber and you're glue!"
Ren turned to face the little guy. "What?"
"Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you!"
Ren stared at him and then slowly shook his head as he turned back to me. "It's like living with a two-year-old with the mental capacity of a fifteen-year-old boy. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

She waved, laughing, waiting for him to go zooming past her. Instead he slowed, then came to a stop right in front of her.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, as he put his foot on the asphalt. She pointed to the finish line, a scant hundred yards away. "Go."
People around them started screaming. Josh ignored them all.
He pulled off his glasses. "How you doing?"
"Josh! This isn't funny. Move." She glanced over his shoulder, knowing the other racers would appear at any second. "Just finish. You can win. Then we'll talk."
"We can talk now."
She shrieked. "No! I said I was wrong. I said I loved you. What more do you want?"
"You," he said. "For always."
"Yes, yes. You can have that. Now go. Cross the finish line. It's right there. Can't see it? Hurry."
"You'll marry me?"
The man next to her turned. "For God's sake, lady. Marry him already. — Susan Mallery

Talking of being eaten by dogs, there's a dachshund at Brinkley who when you first meet him will give you the impression that he plans to convert you into a light snack between his regular meals. Pay no attention. It's all eyewash. His belligerent attitude is simply - "
Sound and fury signifying nothing, sir?"
That's it. Pure swank. A few civil words, and he will be grappling you ... What's the expression I've heard you use?"
Grappling me to his soul with hoops of steel, sir?"
In the first two minutes. He wouldn't hurt a fly, but he has to put up a front because his name's Poppet. One can readily appreciate that when a dog hears himself addressed day in and day out as Poppet, he feels he must throw his weight about. Is self-respect demands it."
Precisely, sir."
You'll like Poppet. Nice dog. Wears his ears inside out. Why do dachshunds wear their ears inside out?"
I could not say, sir."
Nor me. I've often wondered. — P.G. Wodehouse

I was actually pretty shy in school. My defense mechanism was to be the class clown. I remember getting into a lot of trouble for being disruptive, and I was brought in front of the headteacher, who said: 'What's going to happen to you; what are you going to do when you grow up?' and I said: 'Well, I'm obviously going to be a comedian.' — Adam Clayton

In other words, children's choices are their responsibility, and result from how they decide to meet their own needs. Once you understand this, you can learn to stop interpreting their choices as statements about you. When your kids act weird in front of the in-laws, it is about their choices, not about your value as a person. Grace-full in-laws will already know that. You need to know that too. Otherwise, you will parent to fix your kids, so that when they are fixed, you are fixed. You will parent to control, not to serve. How things look and what people think will become more important than what is real. — Jeff VanVonderen

Let me ask you something, in all the years that you have ... undressed in front of a gentleman has he ever asked you to leave? Has he ever walked out and left? No? It's because he doesn't care! He's in a room with a naked girl, he just won the lottery. I am so tired of saying no, waking up in the morning and recalling every single thing I ate the day before, counting every calorie I consumed so I know just how much self loathing to take into the shower. I'm going for it. I have no interest in being obese, I'm just through with the guilt. So this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to finish this pizza, and then we are going to go watch the soccer game, and tomorrow we are going to go on a little date and buy ourselves some bigger jeans. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Be careful not to look so far ahead, that you miss what's in front of you — Jeremy Aldana

Who are you anyway? What are you even doing here?"
"Haven," she said quietly, peeking at him.
He gazed at her peculiarly. "Heaven? No, this definitely isn't Heaven. But I get why you're confused, since I'm standing in front of you." She stared at him, and he
cracked a smile. "I'm kidding. Well, kinda ... I have been told I've taken a girl to Heaven a time or two."
"Haven, not Heaven," she said, louder than before. Nothing about the conversation made sense to her. "My name's Haven. — J.M. Darhower

I'm the best," Elena muttered to herself the next morning s she got out of the taxi in front of the magnificient creation that was Archangel Tower.
"Hey, lady, you gonna pay me or just talk to yourself?"
"What? Oh ... Keep the change."
... " ... you got a big hunt coming on?"
Elena didn't ask how he'd pegged her for a hunter. "No. But I do have a high chance of meeting a horrible death within the next few hours. Might as well do something good as up my shot at getting into heaven. — Nalini Singh

Okay. The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air-until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore. "My God, this is terrible," the wave says. "Look what's going to happen to me!"
Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, "Why do you look so sad?"
The first wave says, "You don't understand! We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn't it terrible?"
The second wave says, "No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you're part of the ocean. — Morrie Schwartz.

There's a lot of criticism in this job and what we do. It's in front of everybody and for everybody to have their own opinion about what we do. Don't be in this position if you can't handle that criticism. — Holly Holm

You're going to mess this up, do you know that? You don't even see what's in front of you. You're like everybody else.
No, I'm not.
You're dreaming backward. — Kent Haruf

You don't really get Jesus saying very often there'll be pie in the sky when you die. He's really talking about now and today, and it's supposed to be like that. You're supposed to delight in what's right in front of you. — Greg Boyle

You can look at the Emmys two ways in you're nominated. It's either win-win or lose-lose. If things go very well and I win, you still have to get up in front of a group of people and risk having God knows what come out of your mouth. If you won't win, you have to breathe deeply and smile and clap with a camera in your face. — Jim Parsons

No. You got home and changed into a shirt that had more ruffles on it than anything I've ever seen." "It's cute," I retorted, worried he didn't think the same. "It is. So are you. It is you. My Butterfly in her wings. What it isn't is what a floozy would wear to lure her man to fuck her on her couch in front of the news. — Kristen Ashley

Most people would probably call me a ghost. I am, after all, dead. But I don't think of myself that way. It wasn't so long ago that I was alive, you see. I was only eighteen. I had my whole life in front of me. Now I suppose you could say I have all of eternity before me. I'm not sure exactly what that means yet. I'm told everything's going to be fine. But I have to wonder what I would have done with my life, who I might have been. That's what saddens me most about dying--that I'll never know. — Christopher Pike

You take on what's right in front of you. You want to do the best you can with the opportunities that you have. — Don Shula

Apart from the most obvious cases, like the Oriental Bittersweet vine, escaped from private gardens and smothering the mountains one acre at a time, the most painful proof of man's destruction is not what you can see right in front of you; it's what you will never see again. — Wil S. Hylton

At some point, you have to decide not merely what you're going to believe, but how you're going to believe. Are you going to believe in people, or in ideas or in Orcholam? With your heart, or with your head? Will you believe what's in front of you, or in what you think you know? There are some things you think you know that are lies. I can't tell you what those are, and I'm sorry for that. — Brent Weeks

You have what is right in front of you. You survive and you have your family. That's the whole world. — Elizabeth Mitchell

I'm so sorry. God, baby. What were you doing? You ... God." He took a shaky breath. "You couldn't breathe. He hit you so hard and you went down and fuck, sweetheart. I've never been that scared in my life."
I was able to breathe again without pain and I had to fix this. This wasn't Green's fault. I didn't know he wasn't going to be able to stop. I thought he would stop from hitting Krit if I was in front of him. "He was gonna hit you," I said, wincing from the pain in my throat.
Krit went still a minute, and then his hold on me tightened. — Abbi Glines

It seems like you're reading, I said, from the pink Princess telephone in my room, which came from my grandmother's house in St. Louis. It still had her old exchange phone number on the front, that Hitchcockian combination of words and letters. I loved it, not because I liked pink or irony, or was sentimental, but because the ringer was broken. I could call out but was never disturbed by incoming calls in my bedroom. The perfect form of communication in my mind, a model for what I fantasized about in a romantic relationship. — Jeanne Darst

I think we've become a TV culture where we forget the live performer in front of us can see us. I think there is a self-centeredness that happens. There's nothing more important than what you are doing in that moment. So, unless it's an emergency, put your phone away. — Laura Benanti

Didn't you just turn eighteen, Jen?" Vasile asked her.
Jen looked a little confused at his choice of response. "Umm, yes. I believe that loud racket you heard a couple of weeks ago was Sally and Jacque's idea of a birthday party. What does that have to do with me leaving?"
"If you are eighteen, Jen, you are an adult. I can't make you stay here. If you want to leave, if you really think that is the best thing for you, then you can go. I will allow you to use the pack plane to get back to the U.S. if that is truly what you want," Vasile explained.
Jen cocked her head to the side, eyes narrowed at the Alpha sitting calmly in front of her. "Just like that? No trying to convince me to stay, or telling me not to give up, or yada yada yada bull crap?"
"No 'yada yada yada bull crap'," he agreed.
"Huh, okay then. — Quinn Loftis

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

You learn it when you become a doctor. Not in school - that isn't where you learn, in any case - but when you lay your hands on people and presume to heal them. There are so many there, beyond your reach. So many you can never touch, so many whose essence you can't find, so many who slip through your fingers. But you can't think about them. The only thing you can do - the only thing - is to try for the one who's in front of you. Act as though this one patient is the only person in the world - because to do otherwise is to lose that one, too. One at a time, that's all you can do. And you learn not to despair over all the ones you can't help, but only to do what you can." She — Diana Gabaldon

This takes me a couple minutes to absorb. He lets me have them. He picks up one of the computer printouts and holds it in front of me. There's a lot of numbers and squiggly lines and strange symbols that mean absolutely nothing to me. "I don't expect you to be able to read it," he says. "But would you like to guess what this is?" "That's all it would be, sir," I answer. "A guess. — Rick Yancey

Karrin."
She looked up at me. She looked very young somehow.
"Remember what I said yesterday," I said. "You're hurt. But you'll get through it. You'll be okay."
She closed her eyes tightly. "I'm scared. So scared I'm sick."
"You'll get through it."
"What if I don't?"
I squeezed her fingers. "Then I will personally make fun of you every day for the rest of your life," I said. "I will call you a sissy girl in front of everyone you know, tie frilly aprons on your car, and lurk in the parking lot at CPD and whistle and tell you to shake it, baby. Every. Single. Day."
Murphy's breath escaped in something like a hiccup. She opened her eyes, a mix of anger and wary amusement easing into them in place of fear. "You do realize I'm holding a gun, right? — Jim Butcher

Of course, everyone's going to freak out when you show up at school."
"Freak out? Why?"
"Because you're so much hotter now than when you left." She shrugged. "It's true. Must be a vampire thing."
Simon looked baffled. "I'm hotter now?"
"Sure you are. I mean, look at those two. They're both totally into you." She pointed to a few feet in front of them, where Isabelle and Maia had moved to walk side by side, their head bent together.
Simon looked up ahead at the girls. Clary could almost swear he was blushing. "Are they? Sometimes they get together and whisper and stare at me. I have no idea what it's about."
"Sure you don't." Clary grinned. "Poor you, you have two cute girls vying for your love. Your life is hard. — Cassandra Clare

In the beginning of a relationship, you see what you want to see. You fall in love with qualities you want in partner, not necessarily qualities your partner actually has. Then, over time, you begin to realise that no, the man in front of you is not the same person you felt in love with, because the person you felt in love with was a spectre, something of your own invention. Now you're left with a real flesh-and-blood human, and he isn't perfect, and now you have to deal with that. It's a stark time. It's not easy to come to grips with these things, but you can't go your whole life pretending this man is everything you built him up to be in your mind. — G.R. Richards

Blindly, I ran to Archer, who was sitting on one of the thick mats we'd used in Defense. His elbows rested on his raised knees, and he had his head in his hands. I knelt in front of him, awkwardly wrapping my arms around his neck. He uncurled himself, pulling me to him. For a long time, we held each other, my hands fisted in his hair; his, stroking my back.
"I'm okay," he said at last. "I know that's hard to believe, but nothing hurts. I mean, except for my mind and soul, but those were always a little broken." Gently, we disentangled ourselves and rose to our feet. "Your magic is awesome, man," he said to Cal, who I just realized was standing at the edge of the mat, next to Jenna. "Although I have to say, now that you've brought me back from the edge of death-what, like, hundreds of times?-I'm starting to feel like our relationship is a little unbalanced."
"You can buy me a burger when we get out of here," Cal said, and as usual, I had no idea if he was joking or not. — Rachel Hawkins

You have heard about the reindeer that pull old Santa's sled.
But mostly I hate Rudolph and wish that he were dead.
With his nose of red which we all know just can't be true.
I wish someone would just kill him, that someone could be you.
He is Santa's favorite and to the front he can be found.
Instead of his red nose, "I" think it should be brown.
He believes that Santa likes him and thinks that he's a winner.
But Santa Claus has other plans he wants Rudolph for his dinner.
Old Saint Nick is greedy this I know without a doubt.
What else do you think happens to all the great toys we go without?
He takes them and he breaks them be cause he doesn't care a bit.
To me it doesn't matter, Why, he can keep his "Schict".
Yes' it's true that I hate Santa too, dressed in his suit of silk.
That's why this year with the homemade cookies,
I'm going to leave some poison milk. — Mark W. Boyer

What do you think?" I asked.
"You called me."
"Yeah."
"You told me this stuff."
I wasn't sure if these were questions, but I nodded again, just going with it. "I sure did."
"And you know I'm not a bullshitter."
"It's part of your intrigue." I waved a hand at him. "It completes the whole intimidation factor. Also makes girls wet their pants for you."
That didn't even faze him. He didn't blink. "So I'm going to give you my honest opinion."
"Oh." Now I could see where this was leading. "Okay. Yeah. Give it to me straight."
"What the fuck are you doing?"
"What?"
He got up for a beer, placing one in front of me as well when he returned. "That's why you came to me. You know you're being an idiot, so stop being an idiot. — Tijan

Tony turned to him. "Rude much? We're in the middle of something here." Logan glared at him, then lifted his index finger in the air, twirling it around. "You see this?" he asked, his chin lifting. Tony looked around the kitchen, confusion all over his face. "See what, Asshole? There's nothing." "Exactly." Logan smirked, moving so he was in front of me. "That's all the fucks I give. — Jay McLean

At times, it's better to think of exactly what is happening right in front of you every second, rather than going through things from the past in your mind. — Nancy E. Turner

In middle school I played against you once. And lost. I was so frustrated that I continued practicing even after I retired... And then when I entered high school, hell yeah, I laughed. The guy I vowed to defeat no matter what was standing right in front of me as one of my own teammates. But now it's pointless to hold a grudge. Rather, I wanted to make you recognize me. (Takao Kazunari) — Tadatoshi Fujimaki

Every day you choose your own reality with the thoughts in your head and the actions you take or don't take. We are all born with the same opportunity to live a full and happy life. Don't blame your circumstances. An effective mindset is one that makes the best use of available resources that are in front of you and within you. This includes your time, energy and efforts and uses them to create positive change. It's not about trying to do everything and be everything, it's making the very best of what you have while enjoying the process of living. — John Geiger

There's a man masturbating in your bathroom!" She grabbed an umbrella from the foyer and held it in front of her like a weapon, poised for battle. "Ashlyn! Did you hear what I said? Call the police! — Kendall Ryan

As a goalkeeper you need to be good at organising the people in front of you and motivating them. You need to see what's going on and react to the threats. Just like a good manager in business. — Peter Shilton

It's been a long, hard day, and bit by bit you have been transformed into a single, vertical, barely ambulatory ache. All that awaits you now is another long, lonely night on the hard, cold ground. "What am I doing out here?" you ask yourself. "I must be mad!" Indeed, you are mad. Otherwise right now you could be warm and cozy and stretched out in front of your beloved TV, munching popcorn and swigging down ice-cold brew, just like a civilized person. "Oh well," you sigh to yourself. "I'd better stop and get a fire going. — Patrick F. McManus

I think about how many people I know who try to brush off the fact that their 'agenda' might be something that exists. That it might be to tell a story that isn't just the same as everyone else's. The very idea of being accused of an agenda in itself: what a horrifying prospect. The idea that people might want to be heard! It was as if Karla, right there, had screamed at the top of her voice over almost everyone in the games industry. I have an agenda. I have a fucking agenda. I imagine her standing in front of an audience made up of everyone in attendance at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and pointing at people: 'YOU have an agenda. And YOU have an agenda. And YOU have one too. I HAVE A FUCKING AGENDA. — Cara Ellison

Since I am a loyal American, I am not supposed to tell you why this has taken place, but then it is not usual for us to examine why anything happens; we simply accuse others of motiveless malignity. "We are good," G.W. proclaims, "They are evil," which wraps that one up in a neat package. Later, Bush himself put, as it were, the bow on the package in an address to a joint session of Congress where he shared with them - as well as with the rest of us somewhere over the Beltway - his profound knowledge of Islam's wiles and ways: "They hate what they see right here in this Chamber." I suspect a million Americans nodded sadly in front of their TV sets. "Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." At this plangent moment what American's gorge did not rise like a Florida chad to the bait? — Gore Vidal

pull a string, a puppet moves ...

each man must realize
that it can all disappear very
quickly:
the cat, the woman, the job,
the front tire,
the bed, the walls, the
room; all our necessities
including love,
rest on foundations of sand --
and any given cause,
no matter how unrelated:
the death of a boy in Hong Kong
or a blizzard in Omaha ...
can serve as your undoing.
all your chinaware crashing to the
kitchen floor, your girl will enter
and you'll be standing, drunk,
in the center of it and she'll ask:
my god, what's the matter?
and you'll answer: I don't know,
I don't know ... — Charles Bukowski

You stand in front of a great painting and your heart just opens and your mind expands about what's possible. That, to me, is a connection to what God is. — Rosanne Cash

Shopping for clothes is a Boyfriend Thing. You stand around and look blankly at a bunch of pieces of fabric and you look at the price tags and you wonder how something that'd barely cover your right nut can cost the price of a kidney and you watch the shop assistants check you out and wonder what you're doing with her because she's cute and you're kind of funny-looking and she tries clothes on and you look at her ass in a dozen different items that all look exactly the same and let's face it you're just looking at her ass anyway and it all blurs together and then someone sticks a vacuum cleaner in your wallet and vacuums out all the cash and you leave the store with one bag so small that mice couldn't fuck in it. Repeat a dozen times or until the front of your brain dies. — Warren Ellis

Mike Morrison, vice president and dean of the University of Toyota, likes to ask employees: "What's on the other side of your card?" In other words, the front of your business card may read "Managing Director," but you may better identify with "big picture thinker" or "educator" or "calm under fire." This kind of information - or even a few simple details like where a person lives, what his or her favorite hobby is - cuts through the red tape to get somewhere more meaningful, and it can more immediately and effectively forge a connection between two people. — Shawn Achor

I would mimic what I saw in Grease and Guys and Dolls in front of my mom's mirror and I would practice voices and songs. When you put me alone in a room, that's what I would do. — Elizabeth Olsen

Maholtz asked me, "Why do you hate me?"
I said, Everyone hates you.
"I know," he said. "I know that," he said, "but they hate me cause I scared them or had what they wanted. You weren't ever scarend of me. You never wanted what I had. Except for the sap. And then you took it, and now I don't have it, so why do you hate me?"
Maybe it's your accent.
"I'm from Pinttsburgh," he said.
Maybe you shouldn't be.
"I can't help where I'm from."
We turned at Main Hall. Feld was talking to Forrest Kenilworth and Cody. The chair sat dripping in front of the door.
So maybe it's your face. The way you look at girls like you're scheming to corner them.
"I was borng this way, though. I can't help how my face loonks."
So maybe it's all the banced thing that you say.
"They just come out of me. I'm hated, I feel it. I say those things without thinking, from hurnt. I can't help that either. It's not my faulnt."
I guess, then, I hate you for being so helpless. — Adam Levin

All of a sudden from one of the doors I heard a woman scream out, "Michael Shawn Hickenbottom! What are you doing?!" It was Carol, Shawn's mom, and she gave him an earful in front of all of us for going against doctors' orders. Instantly he stopped being the Superstar wrestler Shawn Michaels and turned into a son being scolded by his mother. — Daniel Bryan

How to identify love by knowing what it's not: love doesn't use a fist. Love never calls you fat or lazy or ugly. Love doesn't laugh at you in front of friends. It is not in Love's interest for your self-esteem to be low. Love is a helium-based emotion; Love always takes the high road. Love does not make you beg. Love does not make you deposit your paycheck into its bank account. Love certainly never, never, never brings the children into it. Love does not ask or even want you to change. But if you change, Love is as excited about this change as you are, if not more so. And if you go back to the way you were before you changed, Love will go back with you. Love does not maintain a list of your flaws and weaknesses. Love believes you. — Augusten Burroughs

And everyone drank too much coffee too, at the wrong times and for the wrong reasons. They drank it when they came in every morning to get going, and then again in the afternoon to keep going. They ran on caffeine fumes all day and never fucking got anywhere. Then they went home spent and empty and crashed in front of the TV every night and slept away the few hours they had for themselves. All these motherfuckers are always talking about the best ways to manage your time. The fact is any time spent at work not sleeping in the bathroom is wasted time, and it's hard to sleep when you're pumped full of caffeine. Everyone's awake for the wrong part of their lives. And by the weekend they're too exhausted from all the frantic, useless activity to even care, and it's only fucking two days off anyway. Nobody has the time or the energy to do what they really want, or to even figure out what that is. — Paul Neilan

What I love in working on film is just working with actors. It's one thing to write scenes alone over a keyboard and to imagine the actions and reactions in your head, but it's a completely other thing to hear actors speaking your words, to see their bodies bringing the fullness of emotion, need, desire and pain to life right in front of you. It's amazing. — Dee Rees

But the thing is if you've got an hour to sit down in front of a television, then the likelihood is that you've probably got two hours. So why wouldn't you, if you're enjoying it not want to watch the other one? And so, this is the future. Ten episodes at once is what everyone wants, and then it's up to you how you spread those out — Christian Cooke

All thought is a feat of association; having what's in front of you bring up something in your mind that you almost didn't know you knew — Robert Frost

Having been in front of the camera just a couple of times, I'm empathetic, because it's very disconcerting. Someone shuffles you off to the trailer; you sit there for eleven hours wondering what the hell's going on. — Kurt Voss

I enjoy fame except when I'm with my daughter. Kids stop me all the time and I don't want her to be jealous of the attention. Also, sometimes I just want to be left alone and I refuse to make rubber faces. That's when they start asking, What's the matter, man, don't you like your job? I say, Yeah, I like my job. But I also like having sex, and I'm not going to do that in front of you either. — Jim Carrey

I went to say no, but I winced as I pulled my tooth out of my lip.
I was absolutely hopeless. In a two minute period my front curls had
started to go straight due to my constant brushing them behind my ears
and I was pretty sure my lip was bleeding. Frustrated I pushed myself off of
the couch with a huff and walked around the glass coffee table to head for
the kitchen.
"I've made you angry."
"No."
Darren got up and cut me off in the middle of the room. "Yes, I did.
You're angry with me."
"No, not with you."
"Then what's wrong?"
"I'm angry with myself. — Kaitlin Scott

What's happening?" he asked.
The Marquis spared him a glance, and then returned his gaze to the action in front of them. "You," he said, "are out of your depth, in deep shit, and, I would imagine, a few hours away from an untimely and undoubtedly messy end. We on the other hand are auditioning bodyguards. — Neil Gaiman

When you're driving, you don't focus on everything at once, but you have peripheral awareness of it, right? You focus on what you need to at any given moment, whether it's the car in front of you, the jackass in the lifted truck passing you, or the sirens behind you, whatever. Everything exists, everything is there, but you don't have to see it all at once. Does that help? You don't have to see all the bindings you're seeing right now. Just focus on the outlines of the physical stuff you saw before. — Kevin Hearne

You want to change things, Joe, but you can't. Not like this. You can't save what's been left behind. Only what's in front of you. — Maria Rachel Hooley

Augustine's feeling of fragmentation has its modern corollary in the way many contemporary young people are plague by a frantic fear of missing out. The world has provided them with a superabundance of neat things to do. Naturally, they hunger to size every opportunity and taste every experience. They want to grab all the goodies in front of them. They want to say yes to every product in the grocery store. They are terrified of missing out on anything that looks exciting. But by not renouncing any of them they spread themselves thin. What's worse, they turn themselves into goodie seekers, greedy for every experience and exclusively focused on self. If you live in this way, you turn into a shrewd tactician, making a series of cautious semicommitments without really surrendering to some larger purpose. You lose the ability to sau a hundred noes for the sake of one overwhelming and fulfilling yes. — David Brooks

What would shopping this way mean in the supermarket? Well, imagine your great grandmother at your side as you roll down the aisles. You're standing together in front of the dairy case. She picks up a package of Go-Gurt Portable Yogurt tubes - and has no idea what this could possibly be. Is it a food or a toothpaste? And how, exactly, do you introduce it into your body? You could tell her it's just yogurt in a squirtable form, yet if she read the ingredients label she would have every reason to doubt that that was in fact the case. Sure, there's some yogurt in there, but there are also a dozen other things that aren't remotely yogurtlike, ingredients she would probably fail to recognize as foods of any kind, including high-fructose corn syrup, modified corn starch, kosher gelatin, carrageenan, tricalcium phosphate, natural and artificial flavors, vitamins, and so forth. — Michael Pollan

In a way, no matter who's in charge of the corporation that the United States is, the direction in which it is taken seems to be inexorable. So, you just get the job of being the front man for four or eight years. Now, most people realize that's what you are. — Alice Walker

He was having an odd paternal rush, a blood surge that was also about blood and was presently hunting through Howard's expansive intelligence to find words that would more effectively express something like don't walk in front of cars take care and be good and don't hurt or be hurt and don't live in a way that makes you feel dead and don't betray anybody or yourself and take care of what matters and please don't and please remember and make sure — Zadie Smith

Never give up on your dreams, and never let anyone tell you that what you love is inconsequential or useless or a waste of time. Because if you love it? If that OTP or children's card game or abridged series or YA book or animated series makes you happy?
That is never a waste of time. Because in the end we're all just a bunch of weirdos standing in front of other weirdos, asking for their username. — Ashley Poston

When I open the door in front of the bus station, he says, "Take care, Cody," in a quiet voice.
... As much as I want to put miles between me and Ben McCallister, now that I'm doing just that, I understand what a relief it's been to share this weight with someone.
"Yeah. You too," I tell him. "Have a good life."
It's not what I meant to say. It sounds too flippant. But maybe it's the most you can hope for someone. — Gayle Forman

It's a great idea to analyze how screen time has changed your life and how it alters your behavior. If you don't like what you see, implement changes. Get comfortable again with real human connection and don't give so much power to the screen and what is behind it. Real life is in the present moment, happening right now. We never know how many days we have in front of us. Let's live them fully, not virtually. — Jennifer L. Scott

You can feel people staring: it's like heat that rise from the pavement during summer, like a poker in the small of your back. You don't have to hear a whisper, either, to know that it's about you.
I use to stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom to see what they are staring at. I wanted to know what made their heads turn, what it was about me that was so incredibly different. At first I couldn't tell. I mean, I was just me.
Then one day. When I looked in the mirror, I understood. I looked into my own eyes and I hated myself, maybe as much as all of them did.
That was the day I started to believe they might be right.
jodi picoult — Jodi Picoult

Leading up to a live event you need to do your homework and go to bed early. Sometimes it's very tempting to go out with everybody else, They're all going to a party or going out for a nice meal and you think 'oh well I'd like to go', but sometimes you think 'no, if I'm going to be sitting in front of a camera under a light in everybody's home tomorrow I don't want big bags under my eyes and not really know what I'm talking about'. — Jill Douglas

SEEING BELIEVING what's in front of you is not necessarily the entire story — Susane Colasanti

Maybe that's what Hell is, in the end. All of your wrongful shit played out there in front of you while you're being pumped from behind by someone you've hurt. That you've screwed over in life. Or worse, worse still...some person who doesn't really love you anymore. No one to ever look at again, make contact with. Just you being fucked as your life splashes out across this big headboard in the Devil's bedroom. Maybe. Even if that's not it, even if Hell is all fire and sulfur and that sort of thing, it couldn't be much worse than that. — Neil LaBute

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.

You don't have to just do what's planned, you can take what's immediately in front of you and use that. — Dexter Fletcher

Sometimes the problem is recognizing what's right in front of you, because what might look like a huge stone, blocking your way, is realy a ladder leading to all new heights, you just have to find the right hand holds. — S.L. Rogers

My name is Lev," said Lev.
"My name is Lydia," said the woman. And they shook hands, Lev's hand holding the scrunched-up kerchief and Lydia's hand rough with salt and smelling of egg, and then Lev asked, "What are you planning to do in En gland?" and Lydia said, "I have some interviews in London for jobs as a translator."
"That sounds promising."
"I hope so. I was a teacher of English at School 237 in Yarbl, so my language is very colloquial."
Lev looked at Lydia. It wasn't difficult to imagine her standing in front of a class and writing words on a blackboard. He said, "I wonder why you're leaving our country when you had a good job at School 237 in Yarbl?"
"Well," said Lydia, "I became very tired of the view from my window. Every day, summer and winter, I looked out at the schoolyard and the high fence and the apartment block beyond, and I began to imagine I would die seeing these things, and I didn't want this. I expect you understand what I mean? — Rose Tremain

Princess Caspida, I have nothing but respect and admiration for you. Truly you will be the queen this city needs. But I can't marry you."
The princess stands still as stone, her face unreadable. "Why not, Prince Rahzad?"
"I am sorry," he replies. "The truth is, I am in love, but not with you."
He turns to me, and my spirit takes flight like a flock of doves, startled and erratic. I cannot move, cannot speak, as he takes my hands in his and looks me earnestly in the eye. He presses the ring into my palm, and the gold feels as if it burns my skin.
"This belongs to you, and you alone. I've been so blind, Zahra. So caught up in the past that I've failed to see what's happening in front of me. I've been such an idiot, I don't know how I can expect anything from you. But I have to try. I have to tell the truth, and the truth is . . . I love you. — Jessica Khoury