When Things Don't Happen Quotes & Sayings

When someone is searching," said Siddhartha, "then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which are directly in front of your eyes. — Hermann Hesse

Years don't begin and end because everybody gets together at the same time and says they do. Years really start when important things happen to you. When you're born. When you find the human you're going to live with forever. Your life begins when it becomes important. — Gwen Cooper

It's nice to have something else going on when a book comes out so you're not just sitting by the phone, waiting for things to happen. You don't want to be the guy Googling himself all day. — Jonathan Dee

Don't!" cried Jamie. "Don't be bitter, Margaret. We don't know why, we never can know why things happen in this world exactly as they do; but this we know: We know that God is in His Heaven, that He is merciful to the extent of ordaining mercy; we know that if we disobey and take our own way and run contrary to His commandments, we are bitterly punished. And it is the most pitiful of laws that no man or woman can take their punishment alone in this world. It is the law that none of us can suffer without making someone else suffer, but in some way it must be that everything works out for the best, even if we can't possibly see how that could be when things are happening that hurt us so. — Gene Stratton-Porter

People get it wrong when they talk about innocence: they think it's something to do with ignorance about the facts of sex and all the nasty things that happen in the world. But facts don't change people: it's understanding how the facts feel that does. — Alexia Casale

I don't know anyone who has been handed only roses. We all encounter hardships. Some we see coming; others take us by surprise. It can be as tragic as the sudden death of a child, as heartbreaking as a relationship that unravels, or as disappointing as a dream that goes unfulfilled. The question is: When these things happen, what do we do next? I — Sheryl Sandberg

I don't really push myself upon people. I don't have that. When it meets and things fall in line, it's meant to happen. It's happened that way. I just try to do my best and do my work, and then it falls in line. — Jason Momoa

I think there are some things ... that may even be distorted in the practice, such as some affirmative action programs becoming quota systems. And I'm old enough to remember when quotas existed in the United States for the purpose of discrimination, and I don't want to see that happen again. — Ronald Reagan

I almost do. i'd love to live in his musical cartoon world, where witches like maura get vanquished with one heroic word, and all the forest creatures are happy when two gay guys walk hand-in-hand through the meadow, and gideon is the himbo suitor you know the princess can't marry, because her heart belongs to the beast. i'm sure it's a lovely world, where these things happen. a rich, spoiled, colorful world. maybe one day i'll get to visit, but i doubt it. worlds like that don't tend to issue visas to fuckups like me. — John Green

Make big commitments, keep them, and never offer reasons when you don't make things happen. — Brian Klemmer

Bad things don't just grow on one path, they're everywhere. So don't blame yourself when those things happen. Don't let yesterday take up much of today. — Kim Stanley Robinson

I think prayer may be less about asking for the things we are attached to than it is about relinquishing our attachments in some way. It can take us beyond fear, which is an attachment, and beyond hope, which is another form of attachment. It can help us remember the nature of the world and the nature of life, not on an intellectual level but in a deep and experimental way. When we pray, we don't change the world, we change ourselves. We change our consciousness. We move from an individual, isolated making-things-happen kind of consciousness to a connection on the deepest level with the largest possible reality. — Rachel Naomi Remen

When you sleep your eyes move left and right and physical movement takes trauma and moves it from your frontal lobe to the back of your brain or to another part of the brain where you can store it that memory but when you think about those things that happened, you don't associate the feeling that normally comes with it. So the problem is if you have something traumatic happen and you are not getting a good amount of rest, it will stay in your frontal lobe. — Matty Mullins

When I need things to happen, I need them to happen now, you know. I don't want to be having a meeting about a meeting about a meeting, which is what can happen in Britain. — Estelle

I don't know what the future holds, but I know that God holds tomorrow, so it is exciting. Even when I have hard things happen, He loves me so big, so much. I come through it and I grow from it, because He has got me. — Barbara Mandrell

I am pessimistic, I think that's the best way to be, because if you're always expecting the best - the best doesn't always happen. Nine times out of 10 it doesn't. I'm surprised when things go smoothly. I don't know what's wrong with being pessimistic - unless you are such a pessimist that you don't do anything. — Karl Pilkington

Don't ever give up on your dreams. When you finally stop chasing and grab hold, you can make great things happen. Let your determination take over, and you will be amazed at where it takes you. Your dreams are always within reach, as long as you believe. — Tessa Brookfield

If this is a sad story, don't tell it to me tonight.'It is not sad,' she said. 'Only some things happen and are there for always even though you forget why or when. — Jean Rhys

When bad things happen or you don't get your own way, if you can open your heart to compassion instead of shunting it down in anger, you're going to create more light. — Barrie Dolnick

Here are a few of the mantras I commonly received - see if any of them sound familiar: "Make sure you can support yourself; it's a tough world out there!" "You're so smart; you don't want to waste your intelligence [implied: by getting married too soon]." "We're expecting big things from you." "You have your whole life ahead of you - have fun while you can!" "Relax; marriage will happen when it happens." "I wish I'd had all the opportunities you have. — Lisa Anderson

So what if I don't learn algebra?'
'Someday schools will be open again,' Mom said. 'Things will be normal. You need to do your work now for when that happens.'
'That's never going to happen,' Jon said. 'And even if schools do open up somewhere, they're not going to open up here. There aren't enough people left.'
'We don't know how many people are like us, holed up, making do until times get better.'
'I bet whoever they are, they aren't studying algebra,' Jon said. — Susan Beth Pfeffer

The stories teach them valuable life lessons. That good things happen to bad people. That it's possible to make a bad situation even worse if you don't think it through. That parents are clueless except when they're not. That it's good to try new things even when a new thing is kind of disgusting, because new experiences make you a well-rounded person. That art can be transcendent. That lust is all-powerful, that drugs are fun, and that not everyone who does them is a loser. That losing people is part of life. That where comedy goes, tragedy isn't far behind. That everyone has issues with their bodies, but some take it too far, almost to death. That fear can be exhilarating. That boys are assholes. That it's important to look forward and never look back ... — Megan McCafferty

If you think about the world of a preschooler, they are surrounded by stuff they don't understand-things that are novel. So the driving force for a preschooler is not a search for novelty, like it is with older kids, it's a search for understanding and predictability," says Anderson. "For younger kids, repetition is really valuable. They demand it. When they see a show over and over again, the not only are understanding it better, which is a form of power, but just by predicting what is going to happen, I think they feel a real sense of affirmation and self-worth. And Blue's Clues doubles that feeling, because they also feel like they are participating in something. They feel like they are helping Steve. — Malcolm Gladwell

To anyone out there especially young people feeling like they don't fit in and will never be accepted, please know this, great things can happen when you have the courage to be yourself. — Michael Sam

Things will happen that seem to be totally contradictory, but these are God's arrangements. It was a wonderful day when I finally realized I don't have to explained or defend the will of God. My job is simply to obey it. — Charles R. Swindoll

So, look at the world around you, and if you notice things that don't seem right - injustices, inefficiencies, or just oddities - investigate them further. Think about why and how those things might happen and what you could do to change them for the better. Test your ideas by trying new things, making more observations, refining your models, and repeating the process. And when you find something that works to explain or improve your situation, tell everyone about it, so we can all benefit. — Chad Orzel

Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. — Anonymous

Why don't we all just go crazy when we know were going to croak? Because the mind's a monkey. You put things in departments and you go ahead. You go on and plan for the future and assume that the future's going to work out okay. Yet we know that sooner or later we're all going to be eating worms, whether it's fifty years or sixty. It might be tomorrow. It might happen today. — Stephen King

Look, when do the really interesting things happen? Not when you've brushed your teeth and put on your pyjamas and are cozy in bed. They happen when you are cold and uncomfortable and hungry and don't have a roof over your head for the night. — Ellen Potter

When someone you love ... when they die, you want it undone. You'd do anything to have them back, and it's easy to believe that if only this had happened or that had happened, everything would be fine. And that's what makes you angry. What makes you hate. You don't want to believe that sometimes bad things happen just because they do. — Elizabeth Scott

And when funny things happen, you just have to go along, don't you? Because they might never happen again and you'll have missed the joke of it, missed the fun, and then when you're old and your kittens ask you what you did when the world had its glad rags on, you won't have nothing to say, will you? — Catherynne M Valente

I don't think that those things [so called common practice] ever truly existed in the way that we like to believe that they do, the way we learn about them in music history class. Those things are defined at least decades after they happen. And even then, it's a fallacy because when you're in the moment, when you're in a thriving scene of musicians, inevitably everyone is going to be doing something completely different from everyone else — Missy Mazzoli

Something that is very hard to learn and accept about real life is that a lot of people, a surprising number of people, don't really care about anyone but themselves. They pretend to care, and they can go through the motions a little bit for a little while, but when real and sad things happen that last longer than a few days, they lose interest fast. It is best to not have these people be your best friends, because they are terrible. Unfortunately, they are everywhere, and, to make things worse, they sometimes procreate. — Katie Heaney

You will always be okay! Money and material things come to you when you dare to trust in life's ability to take you exactly where you need to go. When we live in fear we create tense vibrations that keep the things we long for at a distance. Worrying is praying for what we don't want to happen. Focus on what you want, not what you fear! — Rachel Brathen

If the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is eat a live frog, then nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day!"
Brian Tracy says that your "frog" should be the most difficult item on your things-to-do list, the one you're most likely to procrastinate on; because, if you eat that first, it'll give you energy and momentum for the rest of the day. But, if you don't ... if you let him sit there on the plate and stare at you while you do a hundred unimportant things, it can drain your energy and you won't even know it. — Brian Tracy

I happen to be kind of an inquisitive guy and when I see things I don't like, I start thinking, why do they have to be like this and how can I improve them? — Walt Disney

Kid problems are when you're bummed because girls don't like you or something silly, but then you get older and people start dying and going broke and whatever. People get sick. When you get older these things just happen. — Patrick Stump

Therapy isn't Radio.We don't need to constantly fill the air with sounds. Sometimes, when its quite, surprising things happen. — Mary Pipher

God, I don't know what lies ahead or what will happen next. But you're going to be there, aren't you? Even when the world tricks me into thinking you're not. Things are going to be different. *I'm* going to be different. And I'm going to get it right this time. — Jenny B. Jones

You cannot stop smoking directly because it has many related things, implications. You are tense, and if you stop smoking you will start something else and the other may be more harmful. Don't go on escaping problems, face them. The problem is that you are tense, so the goal should be how to be non-tense, not, smoking or not smoking. Meditate. Relax your tensions without any object into the sky, allow catharsis to happen. When you are non-tense these things will become absurd, foolish, and they will drop. Food will change, your styles of living will change. — Rajneesh

There is nothing in this life that can destroy you but yourself. Bad things happen to everyone, but when they do, you can't just fall apart and die. You have to fight back. If you don't, you're the one who loses in the end. But if you do keep going and fight back, you win. — Alexandra Monir

But the funny thing is, love makes you want more of it. It makes you strive for it even when there's nothing left to begin with, when you're long gone. It makes you stand up and pull yourself together; understand all of those little things about yourself that you normally don't pay attention to. It makes you prone to everything that has ever happened to you or would happen in the near future. — Khaddam Ahmed Khan

I just happen to like ordinary things. When I paint them, I don't try to make them extraordinary. I just try to paint them ordinary-ordinary. — Andy Warhol

It's what I call common sense, properly understood,' replied Father Brown. 'It really is more natural to believe a preternatural story, that deals with things we don't understand, than a natural story that contradicts things we do understand. Tell me that the great Mr Gladstone, in his last hours, was haunted by the ghost of Parnell, and I will be agnostic about it. But tell me that Mr Gladstone, when first presented to Queen Victoria, wore his hat in her drawing-room and slapped her on the back and offered her a cigar, and I am not agnostic at all. That is not impossible; it's only incredible. But I'm much more certain it didn't happen than that Parnell's ghost didn't appear; because it violates the laws of the world I do understand. So it is with that tale of the curse. It isn't the legend that I disbelieve - it's the history. — G.K. Chesterton

Sometimes when things happen, it's best to run. Solve the problem later, don't think about it then, just run.

Statement from my character, Brian Cain, in the upcoming book, The Final Inning, Dark Days Ahead. — Ernest Grant

Maybe it's because we innately know that everything is impermanent that we so desperately cling to it.
But cling we do.
We know that our youth vanishes that we and our loved one will die one day, that whatever we have accumulated can easily be taken away from us, that one day our skills might not be wanted, that a day may come when our love might not be reciprocated. But we go on clinging.
Everywhere we turn we are faced with impermanence. (..)
The more we cling - of course - the more pain we feel as things fade, disappear, die around us.
And sometimes the more we cling, the more these things happen. (..)
The key to being able to let go of all the stuff you're holding on to is knowing that you'll be okay if you don't have it.
And that's the truth.
You can survive with very little. And though the passing of people and things can be painful, you will survive. — John C. Parkin

When things don't happen, people get Sick. They see time Tick and they want it Quick. They forget that Success happens brick by brick. — R.v.m.

I don't know what's going to happen in the future but right now, my feelings are 100% true. I can say that with confidence. For me, as long as it's you saying it, it doesn't matter how slowly you say it, I'll still listen. If you can't talk on the phone, then I'll come to see you, just like this. I'm not a dolphin, you're also not a dolphin. If you want to walk, no matter how slow it'll be, I'll walk with you. Right now, I might not be that reliable. One day, maybe I'll be able to help. Things can't be the same as before but there's this kind of feeling that's linking us together. I don't think we're living on different worlds. I, when it comes to you, I like you, maybe. I like you, probably.
Asou Haruto, 1 Litre of Tears — Aya Kito

The thing is, all memory is fiction. You have to remember that. Of course, there are things that actually, certifiably happened, things you can pinpoint the day, the hour, the minute. When you think about it, though, those things, mostly seem to happen to other people.
This story actually happened, and it happened pretty much the way I am going to tell it to you. It's a true story as much as six decades or telling and remembering can allow it to be true. Time changes things, and you don't always get everything right. You remember a little thing clear as a bell, the weather, say, or the splash of light on the river's ripples as the sun was going down into the black pines. things not even connected to anything in particular, while other things, big things even, come completely disconnected and no longer have any shape or sound. The little things seem more real than the big things. — Robert Goolrick

When you start thinking about what your life was like 10 years ago
and not in general terms, but in highly specific detail
it's disturbing to realize how certain elements of your being are completely dead. They die long before you do. It's astonishing to consider all the things from your past that used to happen all the time but (a) never happen anymore, and (b) never even cross your mind. It's almost like those things didn't happen. Or maybe it seems like they just happened to someone else. To someone you don't really know. To someone you just hung out with for one night, and now you can't even remember her name. — Chuck Klosterman

I can't put a number on what I need babe..The perfect man doesn't just come out of a catalog. I can't just request him with a checklist and pay for him at the checkout line. Things don't just happen like that, at least not in my world. I want a real father for my daughter, not just some sperm donor that has never seen her. I want a man in my life to teach my daughter to ride a bicycle, to be cleaning that shot gun on her first date, to be her crying shoulder when she has a bad breakup. I need that man in my life and no amount of money can bring him to me" Truthfully — Anne Walker

When I think about little girls in the moment of turning into big girls (it is no slow timid development but something strangely sudden), I always have to imagine an ocean behind them, or a grave eternal plain, or something else you don't actually see with your eyes but can only sense, and that only in the deep and silent hours. Then I see the big girls as being exactly as big as I was used to the little childlike girls being small
and Heaven above knows why, that's just how I want to see them. There is a reason for everything. But the best things that happen, after all, are the ones which hide their deeper reason with both hands, whether out of modesty or because they don't want to be betrayed. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I would have been happy to have waited till I was in my mid- to late-30s before I got married, but you don't choose when these things happen, and when they do, there's no doubt in your mind. — Natalie Imbruglia

And I told him, I said: One day you're going to miss the subway because it's not going to come. One of these days, it's going to break down and it's not going to come around and everyone else will just wait for the next one or will take the bus, or walk, or run to the next station: they will go on with their lives. And you're not going to be able to go on with your life! You'll be standing there, in the subway station, staring at the tube. Why? Because you think that everything has to happen perfectly and on time and when you think it's going to happen! Well guess what! That's not how things happen! And you'll be the only one who's not going to be able to go on with life, just because your subway broke down. So you know what, you've got to let go, you've got to know that things don't happen the way you think they're going to happen, but that's okay, because there's always the bus, there's always the next station ... you can always take a cab. — C. JoyBell C.

Strange things happen when we stand face to face with our enemy, don't they, Phaedra of Alonso? — Melina Marchetta

Appalling things can happen to children. And even a happy childhood is filled with sadnesses. Is there any other period in your life when you hate your best friend on Monday and love them again on Tuesday? But at eight, 10, 12, you don't realise you're going to die. There is always the possibility of escape. There is always somewhere else and far away, a fact I had never really appreciated until I read Gitta Sereny's profoundly unsettling Cries Unheard about child-killer Mary Bell.
At 20, 25, 30, we begin to realise that the possibilities of escape are getting fewer. We begin to picture a time when there will no longer be somewhere else and far away. We have jobs, children, partners, debts, responsibilities. And if many of these things enrich our lives immeasurably, those shrinking limits are something we all have to come to terms with.
This, I think, is the part of us to which literary fiction speaks. — Mark Haddon

Delilah, pretend that it doesn't bother you. Move on
with your life, as if nothing ever happened. Nothing moves
a man, more than a woman who acts as if he didn't mean a
thing to her when he left. It bothers them, and they often
try to make sense of it. Meanwhile, you're putting
everything you have into yourself, and well, sometimes you
just don't know why things happen until later. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

If we don't allow ourselves to experience joy and love, we will definitely miss out on filling our reservoir with what we need when ... hard things happen. — Brene Brown

The Divine Comedy is a political poem and when you say poetry is not about - he's always quoted out of context, that "poetry makes nothing happen," that doesn't mean you shrug your shoulders and don't try to make anything happen. And Dante felt that poetry was engaged, there was a point of view; it's not my point of view, it's orthodox medieval Christianity, and I have my troubles with that. He didn't feel that you could just rule out so important a section of life - we care about these things, and it's out of caring about them that we write poetry. — W.S. Merwin

When you start out in comedy, or probably in a lot of things, you want it to happen fast. You don't want to see yourself having to do this for seven years before you start to get some feedback. — Mitch Hedberg

It's more fun to experience things when you don't know what's going to happen. — Louis C.K.

I am incensed that reality has the audacity to do some of the things it does when I CLEARLY don't want those things to happen. — Allie Brosh

Nobody ever wrote down a plan to be broke, fat, lazy, or stupid. Those things are what happen when you don't have a plan. — Larry Winget

I think it's human nature to blame yourself. When things fuck up in life, you always want to find a reason for it. There has to be a reason, right? Bad things don't just happen, especially to good people. So we sit around and try to make sense of it all, and the only sense we can make is that we probably deserved it, so we make up these ideas in our heads. — Jay McLean

Now look", my mother said. "When I feel myself starting to worry, I just tell myself, I will not worry about something that will never happen, and that always calms me, because most of the things we worry about will never happen. Why don't you give that a try? — J.R. Moehringer

When I was a little kid it was my dream to go to drama school, but it was never something I thought would happen to me. I was a Jewish girl from North London and things like that don't happen to Jewish girls from North London called Amy Winehouse. — Amy Winehouse

That's something that seems to happen when I'm writing, where maybe things that don't necessarily make a lot of logical sense are put together, and yet we struggle to make sense of these things somehow. I'm not quite sure why that is; it's something about human nature, I guess. — Kurt Wagner

When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego,
and when we escape like squirrels turning in the
cages of our personality
and get into the forests again,
we shall shiver with cold and fright
but things will happen to us
so that we don't know ourselves.
Cool, unlying life will rush in,
and passion will make our bodies taut with power,
we shall stamp our feet with new power
and old things will fall down,
we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like
burnt paper. — D.H. Lawrence

I totally don't believe that things have to be expensive for beauty. In fact, I'm always a little bit wary if they are ... because I'm like, 'What kind of chemicals are in there? What's going to happen in ten years, when we find out what the side effects are?' — Liz Goldwyn

Out there things can happen, and frequently do, To people as brainy and footsy as you. And when things start to happen, don't worry, don't stew. Just go right along, you'll start happening too! — Dr. Seuss

The problem with the word "vagina" is that vaginas seem to be just straight-out bad luck. Only a masochist would want one, because only awful things happen to them. Vaginas get torn. Vaginas get "examined.".. No. Let's clear this up right now - I don't actually have a vagina. I never have. I, personally, have a cunt. Cunt is a proper, old, historic, strong word, and it doubles up as the most potent swear word in the English language. Yeah. That's how powerful it is, guys. If I tell you what I've got down there, old ladies and clerics might faint. I like how shocked people are when you say "cunt." Compared to this, the most powerful swear word men have got out of their privates is "dick," which is frankly vanilla. In a culture where nearly everything female is still seen as squeam-inducing and/or weak - menstruation, menopause, just the sheer, simple act of calling someone "a girl" - I love that "cunt" stands on its own, as the supreme, unvanquishable word. — Caitlin Moran

Why are you afraid of death? Is it perhaps because you do not know how to live? If you knew how to live fully, would you be afraid of death? If you loved the trees, the sunset, the birds, the falling leaf; if you were aware of men and women in tears, of poor people, and really felt love in your heart, would you be afraid of death? Would you? Don't be persuaded by me. Let us think about it together. You do not live with joy, you are not happy, you are not vitally sensitive to things; and is that why you ask what is going to happen when you die? Life for you is sorrow, and so you are much more interested in death. You feel that perhaps there will be happiness after death. But that is a tremendous problem, and I do not know if you want to go into it. After all, fear is at the bottom of all this - fear of dying, fear of living, fear of suffering. If you cannot understand what it is that causes fear and be free of it, then it does not matter very much whether yo u are living or dead. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

I don't look for signs. But when things happen, I say, 'OK, something must be right.' Or 'OK, something must be wrong.' — Lil' Wayne

When things don't happen right away, just remember: it takes 6 months to build a Rolls-Royce and just 13 hours to build a Toyota. — Anonymous

Don't depend on a guy for your happiness. You have to live your own life and do your own thing. That's when good things come around - when you do your own thing and you're not worried about a man. It will happen in due time. — Keke Palmer

Listen to John Coltrane enough and after two bars, just two bars at any place, and you know that's him. We all have signature things that happen to be similar that you can predict and you try to stay away from that except the rhythms: those pauses, they're part of my signature, the part where I know when I say nothing, I already painted enough, led enough and I don't even have to say anything. But those pauses don't belong to me. Jack Benny was one of the first guys in comedy to make the anticipation so great that during the pause people start to laugh before the execution. — Bill Cosby

I try not to get too low. I fight adversity as hard as I can fight it, not to get too low. When good things happen, I don't really embrace it. I just say it's a lucky day. — Rick Pitino

You reach a certain age when reality grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shouts in your face:"Hey, look, this is what life is." And you have to open your eyes and look at it, listen to it, smell it: people who don't like you, things you don't want to do, things that hurt, things that scare you, questions without answers, feelings you don't understand, feelings you don't want but have no control over.
Reality.
When you gradually come to realise that all that stuff in books, films, television, magazines, newspapers, comics - it's all rubbish. It's got nothing to do with anything. It's all made up. It doesn't happen like that. It's not real. It means nothing. Reality is what you see when you look out of the window of a bus: dour faces, sad and temporary lives, millions of cars, metal, bricks, glass, rain, cruel laughter, ugliness, dirt, bad teeth, crippled pigeons, little kids in pushchairs who've already forgotten how to smile ... — Kevin Brooks

it takes just as much training to get along with people. Only, training by yourself in the mountains won't do you any good. You need to surround yourself with others. As you get to know them, of course you take the chance that you'll end up hurting them, or they'll end up hurting you. One of those things might very well happen. That's the only way we learn... about others, and about ourselves. You're a black-belt in martial arts, but I'd guess you still a white-belt in social skills. Someday, you're going to meet someone that truly wants to be your friend, and you, theirs. But it if you don't keep training, you won't be ready when that happens." ~Shigure Sohma — Natsuki Takaya

Lord, I know You don't want me to live in fear, because fear doesn't come from You. You want me to trust You instead. When I see things that are happening in the world it makes me afraid of what could happen to me or the people close to me. Too often I am afraid of what people think, and I know that "The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe" (Proverbs 29:25 NKJV). Thank You that Your perfect love casts out all fear. I open my heart and ask for a fresh flow of Your perfect love in me. Help me to stay close to You so I can always feel Your love flowing through me and erasing all fear (2 Timothy 1:7). Keep me protected and away from every frightening threat. I know that the closer I am to You, the farther fear is from me. In Jesus' name I pray. — Stormie O'martian

If I'm reading something I happen to know and gets it wrong, I just don't trust the book any more. What I ask of a novel I'm reading is that it should know a fraction more about the things I know than I do. When I'm writing ... I ask myself: would I be convinced by this if I read it? If I knocked against this bit of scenery, would it feel solid? — Philip Pullman

The Work reveals that what you think shouldn't have happened should have happened. It should happened because it did, and no thinking in the world can change it. This doesn't mean that you condone it or approve of it. It just means that you can see things without resistance and without the confusion of your inner struggle. No one wants their children to get sick, no one wants to be in a car accident; but when these things happen, how can it be helpful to mentally argue with them? We know better than to do that, yet we do it, because we don't know how to stop. — Byron Katie

I'm fearless, I don't complain. Even when horrible things happen to me, I go on. — Sofia Vergara

I know it's hard when things like this happen. It's painful. Sometimes we make sacrifices. Sometimes we lose dear friends whom we love deeply, and that makes us want to hold our other loved ones closer so we don't lose them, too. — Lisa McMann

I don't have time to celebrate accomplishments. When good things happen, it's great, and obviously I get excited inside. But soon I gotta do something else; I gotta keep doing more stuff. The whole world will never be familiar, so I'm constantly going to be on a quest to get familiar. — Clinton Sparks

Feelings are feelings, no matter when they happen. Our bodies don't stop being ours just because worse things happen to other people. — Foz Meadows

Even though I complain sometimes," it said, "it's because I'm the heart of a person, and people's hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren't, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly." "My — Paulo Coelho

Be careful. People like to be told what they already know. Remember that. They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things ... well, new things aren't what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don't want to know that a man bites a dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. In short, what people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds. I can see you've got the hang of it already. — Terry Pratchett

Things like this don't happen all that often in one lifetime. This is the magnificent world of a picaresque novel. Just brace yourself and enjoy the smell of evil. We're shooting the rapids. And when we go over the falls, let's do it together in grand style! — Haruki Murakami

Sometimes things happen. Things happen even when you don't intend them to happen. Maybe at the beginning you had good intentions, or intentions you thought were harmlessm but before you knew it things got out of your control. — Dana Reinhardt

Everything happens for a reason? I don't see it that way at all. To me, only the first part is clear: Everything happens. Then other things happen, and other things, still. Out of each of these moments, we make something. Any number of somethings, in fact.

What comes of our own actions becomes the "reason." It is no predestined thing. We may arrive where we are by way of a specific path - we can take just one at a time - but it's never the only one that could have led us to our destination. Nor does a single event, even a string of them, point decisively to a single landing spot. There are infinite possible versions of our lives. Meaning is not what happens, but what we do with what happens when it does. — Jessica Fechtor

Saying something is "meant to be" is a cop out. It's a way for people to deal when they screw up or when life hands them a bowl of shit stew. The things that are meant to be are the things we can't control, the things we don't cause, the things that happen regardless of who or what we are. Like sunsets and snow-fall and natural disasters. I've never believed hardship or suffering was meant to be. I've never believed relationships were meant to be. We choose. In large part, we choose. We create, we make mistakes, we burn bridges, we build new ones. — Amy Harmon

There are many times when God's purpose and plan aren't clear. I may never know why some bad things happen, but I trust God does. That allows me to accept the bad as well as the good, even when I don't understand it. — Irene Hannon

I don't want people mistreating me. I found out when you're vulnerable and your heart's open, then people step on you. You're really stupid for letting that happen. And the only way to counteract that is to be like Wolfman Jack. Because if you do nice, kind things for people, then how are they going to mess you over? — Wolfman Jack

I think my first general rule is that most of my experiences are not that interesting. It's usually other people's experiences. It's not that entirely conscious. Somebody tells me a story or, you know, repeats an anecdote that somebody else told them and I just feel like I have to write it down so I don't forget - that means for me, something made it fiction-worthy. Interesting things never happen to me, so maybe two or three times when they do, I have to use them, so I write them down. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In reality, the most important things happen when you don't look for them. — Phil Donahue

Don't try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you're good, bad things can still happen. And if you're bad, you can still be lucky. — Barbara Kingsolver

Sometimes I don't tell the truth, which is telling the truth about not telling the truth. I think people don't tell the truth when they're afraid that something bad's going to happen if they tell the truth. I say things all the time that I could really get into trouble for, but they kind of blow over. — Cher

26. The will of nature may be learned from those things in which we don't distinguish from each other. For example, when our neighbor's boy breaks a cup, or the like, we are presently ready to say, "These things will happen." Be assured, then, that when your own cup likewise is broken, you ought to be affected just as when another's cup was broken. Apply this in like manner to greater things. Is the child or wife of another dead? There is no one who would not say, "This is a human accident." but if anyone's own child happens to die, it is presently, "Alas I how wretched am I!" But it should be remembered how we are affected in hearing the same thing concerning others. — Epictetus

Look, I say. You can't just let your thoughts float around in the ether and hope eventually they'll connect with something. It's absurd.
No, it's not, Gil says. Lots of good things happen that way. Penicillin. Teflon. Smart dust. Something happens that you weren't expecting and it shifts the outcome completely. You have to be open to it.
When I open my brain, I tell him, things bounce around and fall out. They don't connect with anything. Maybe I haven't got enough points of reference stored up yet.
You're young, he says, that's probably it. When I let my thoughts float around, I trust that they'll latch on to something useful in the end or make an association I wouldn't necessarily have predicted. I'm trusting that they'll find the right thought to complete, all by themselves. The right bit of fact to ping. You have to trust your brain sometimes. — Meg Rosoff