Who Would've Never Thought Quotes & Sayings

Let God begin to rewrite your story. Invite him to show you your past through his eyes. Ask him to surface good memories you have forgotten. He would love to do it. There is healing to be had there. There is a replacing of regret with mercy. Though our past has shaped us, we are not our past. Though our failures and sin have had an effect on who we are, we are not defined by our failures or our sin. Though thought patterns and addictions have overwhelmed us, we are not overcome by them and we will never be overcome by them. Jesus has won our victory. Jesus is our victory. — Stasi Eldredge

It was not my destiny, I kept thinking it would be, waiting for it to happen, but it never did, and I didn't care what people thought ... It was only boring old men who would ask me. And whenever they went, 'What? No children? Well, you'd better get on with it, old girl,' I'd say 'No! F*** off!' — Helen Mirren

Laistrygonians. The monsters in the gym. They're a race of giant cannibals who live in the far north. Odysseus ran into them once, but I've never seen them as far south as New York before." "Laistry - I can't even say that. What would you call them in English?" She thought about it for a moment. "Canadians," she decided. — Rick Riordan

I guess the one-liner kind of comic sounds like a guy who can talk and talk and whatever the subject is, he can pull out a one-liner, but I couldn't do that. I didn't like the association. I mean, I love Steven Wright, but so many people started saying "Steven Wright" to me, and I would get mad, because I never wanted to be thought of as copying anybody. — Mitch Hedberg

The people they had been last summer, the person she had been
Dicey guessed she'd never be afraid again, not the way she
had been all summer. She had taken care of them all, sometimes well, sometimes badly. And they had covered the distances.
For most of the summer, they had been unattached. Nobody knew who they were or what they were doing. It didn't matter
what they did, as long as they all stayed together. Dicey remembered that feeling, of having things pretty much her own way.
And she remembered the feelings of danger. It was a little bit like being a wild animal, she thought to herself.
Dicey missed that wildness. She knew she would never have it again.
And she missed the sense of Dicey Tillerman against the whole world and doing all right. — Cynthia Voigt

He could never know how beautiful he was in these moments, and Devin couldn't bring himself to say anything. What would he say? "I've always noticed you, but never thought I deserved someone like you?"
That wasn't right. It was cheesy and over-the-top, and still somehow inadequate to describe the maelstrom of emotions he felt when he was around Sam. Mike made it seem simple, but it wasn't. This wasn't like hooking up with a hot guy he'd met on the dance floor, it was Sam. The sweet, cerebral, quiet man who'd been his friend for nearly two years and somehow managed to sneak out of the friend box into this no man's land where every word, every gesture was a promise Devin wasn't sure he could keep. — Sara Winters

My heart- dammit
my heart stopped in my chest as I stared at them. He had me by the throat because he had my whole world in his hands. I said one word I thought I'd never utter to the bastard.
"Please." I swallowed hard, but the words came out easier than I could've ever imagined. "Please don't hurt her."
"You'd beg for a human who wouldn't do the same for you?"
"I'd do anything for her."
"And I would do anything for him." Kat gasped out. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I'm an author who likes assignments, who needs suggestions, ideas I would never have thought of otherwise - then something happens inside my alien head. Other people have to decide whether or not I'm a good writer, but I do have the ability to write in different styles. — David Lagercrantz

I smell guilt. There is a stench of guilt upon the air.
I see you all, whole and healthy, with your powers intact - such prompt appearances! - and I ask myself ... why did this band of wizards never come to the aid of their master, to whom they swore eternal loyalty? And I answer myself, they must have believed me broken, they thought I was gone. They slipped back among my enemies, and they pleaded innocence, and ignorance, and bewitchment ...
And then I ask myself, but how could they have believed I would not rise again? They, who knew the steps I took, long ago, to guard myself against mortal death? They, who had seen proofs of the immensity of my power in the times when I was mightier than any wizard living? And I answer myself, perhaps they believed a still greater power could exist, one that could vanquish even Lord Voldemort ... perhaps they now pay allegiance to another ... — J.K. Rowling

I had spent all the years I had been in Lo-Melkhiin's body giving power to men who I thought would use it in ways that might serve me. I had given them great art and great thoughts, and they never guessed that they fed a terrible hunger in me that would require feeding until they died trying to sate it. They had done great things and made great tales, but I had been blind. All of this time, I had had access to more power than I had imagined, and I had missed it because I saw with men's eyes. I had forgotten the girls who scrubbed the floors and spun the yarn. I had forgotten the women who dyed the cloth and worked with henna. I had married three hundred girls, and as much as eaten them all before they were done cooking. — E.K. Johnston

I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts. — Thomas Jefferson

The monster tested her, pulling at her soul and rending her spirit. She clung to life, and in the clinging she might have become a monster too, except she chose the path her story would take. She chose white stone walls and a golden crown. She chose to debate words of law, and to never grind her own grain. She chose to fight men every day, and then fight their sons, who thought they knew better than their fathers. If you listen long enough to the whispers, you will hear the truth. Until then, I will tell you this: the world is made safe by a woman. — E.K. Johnston

That was the week you learned that the killers of Michael Brown would go free. The men who had left his body in the street like some awesome declaration of their inviolable power would never be punished. It was not my expectation that anyone would ever be punished. But you were young and still believed. You stayed up till 11 P.M. that night, waiting for the announcement of an indictment, and when instead it was announced that there was none you said, "I've got to go," and you went into your room, and I heard you crying. I came in five minutes after, and I didn't hug you, and I didn't comfort you, because I thought it would be wrong to comfort you. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I never thought much about flowers until I made the close acquaintance of a man who knew all about them. You would have thought that the butterflies and flowers were friends of his. 'See how richly they are clad,' he said. 'Even King Solomon did not have such raiment. — Lloyd C. Douglas

Then there are all of those children, the ones who aren't resilient. The ones who slowly, quietly die. I think the difference is that the kids who bounce back learn to bear a little bit more than they thought they could, and they soon understand that the secret to surviving foster care is to accept finite disappointments while never losing infinite hope. I think that was how Donald survived as long as he did, by never losing his faith in the wish that tomorrow would be better. But as time went by, day after day, the tomorrows never got better; they got worse, and he simply gave up. In the way he saw the world, pain was inevitable, but no one ever explained to him that suffering was optional. — John William Tuohy

The realization that friendship is greater than love doesn't come when you have real and honest friends around. You realize it when someone whom you have always thought of as a friend, back stabs you. When a friend breaks your trust it hurts more than a lover abandoning you and then you realize friendship is indeed greater than love... While you are still figuring out the depth of your emotional connectivity, the ones who say they would never leave you, have already left. Unfaithful love does breaks heart but an unworthy friend bruises your soul. — SAMi

Peculiar trait of the western people, thought Grant, that you could sleep with their wives, despoil their daughters, sponge on them, defraud them, do almost anything that would mean at least ostracism in normal society, and they would barely seem to notice it. But refuse to drink with them and you immediately became a mortal enemy. What the hell? He didn't even want to think about the west or its people and their peculiarities. Let them be. Once he was in Sydney, who knew, he might never come back. — Kenneth Cook

I never thought I would write the way that I write for the studios now, which is like, not little novels, but be someone who literally is more like, you know, sometimes I guess we describe, we're more Salieri than Mozart. — Thomas Lennon

Go out and interview people to find a partner whom you can trust. Find somebody who subscribes to the same view that you do. I'm happy to tell you that I practice what I preach. I would have never thought I'd end up in financial services. — Lisa Caputo

Dear friends, he began, there is no timetable for happiness; it moves, I think, according to rules of its own. When I was a boy I thought I'd be happy tomorrow, as a young man I thought it would be next week; last month I thought it would be never. Today, I know it is now. Each of us, I suppose has at least one person who thinks that our manifest faults are worth ignoring; I have found mine, and am content. When we are far from home we think of home; I, who am happy today, think of those in Scotland for whom such happiness might seem elusive; may such powers as listen to what is said by people like me, in olive groves like this, grant to those who want a friendship a friend, attend to the needs of those who have little, hold the hand of those who are lonely, allow Scotland, our place, our country, to sing in the language of her choosing that song she has always wanted to sing, which is of brotherhood, which is of love. — Alexander McCall Smith

Being exposed to those beauty queens and Praying Mantises at the same time made me ask myself some hard questions. Would I have been so radical had I not been so fat? Could I have been one of the women on the other side parading my beauty of which I was so proud? As I stood there holding my JUDGE MEAT NOT WOMEN picket sign, I recalled all the people who had said to me throughout my life, "You've got such a pretty face." But they never finished the thought. The whole phrase is "You've got such a pretty face, too bad you're fat." But what if I weren't fat? Would I still have attacked this "Meat Parade" so fiercely? The truth is, my fat has informed my politics. And while I'd like to think I would have been just as ardent in my opposition to the objectification of women had I been thin, I'll never know for sure. — Camryn Manheim

In somber mood, I re-called my whole life up to this day, and my head spun with the buzzing of a hundred and one ouroboristic worms. I remembered the drinking parties that made us thirsty and the thirst that made us drink; I thought back to Sidonius recounting his endless dream; to the people who worked to be able to eat and who ate to have the strength to work; to the black thoughts I drowned with such sadness in the cask and which were reborn in different hues. Between the vicious circles of the drinking party and those of the delusory paradises, I would never again be able to choose, I could no longer be part of their revolutions, I was from that moment no more than a wasteland. — Rene Daumal

But I have seen many men for whom death truly is the end walk towards their demise for reasons no greater than that it was what they were told to do. On the beaches of Normandy, where the bodies floated in the water beside the falling ramps of the landing craft, I saw men run into machine-gun fire who would say, "Hell, I never thought it would come to this, but now I'm here, what's a guy to do?" With no going back, and no going forward, they went to their deaths with no better plan immediately to hand, having gambled that their choices would not narrow so far, and having been found to be wrong. — Claire North

Will I always remember this day? Tatiana thought, inhaling deeply. I've said that in the past: oh, this day I'll remember, but I have forgotten the days I thought I would never forget. I remember seeing my first tadpole. Who would have thought? I remember tasting the salt water of the Black Sea for the first time. I remember getting lost in the woods by myself the first time. Maybe it's the firsts you remember. I've never been in a real war before, Tatiana thought. Maybe I'll remember this. — Paullina Simons

From this experience, I understood the danger of focusing only on what isn't there. What if I came to the end of my life and realized that I'd spent every day watching for a man who would never come to me? What an unbearable sorrow it would be, to realize I'd never really tasted the things I'd eaten, or seen the places I'd been, because I'd thought of nothing but the Chairman even while my life was drifting away from me. And yet if I drew my thoughts back from him, what life would I have? I would be like a dancer who had practiced since childhood for a performance she would never give. — Arthur Golden

Rin thought of the crossbow bolt. Of the whoosh and sting of wind and fire heat and the man who would have killed her. Of pushing in front of Enna. Of almost dying. Of home and Ma and being farther away than the lands in tales, and maybe never going home. Of standing by a strange tree in a faraway wood with girls who spoke the language of fire. Of a queen of Kel who wanted them dead. — Shannon Hale

If you take sales presentations and brokers of commercial real estate and businesses ... I'm 70 years old, I've never seen one I thought was even within hailing distance of objective truth ... 'incentive-caused bias,' causes this terrible abuse. And many of the people who are doing it you would be glad to have married into your family compared to what you're otherwise going to get ... — Charlie Munger

Once the war began, the government could do anything 'necessary' to win it; so it was with the 'final solution of the Jewish problem,' which the Nazis always talked about but never dared undertake, not even the Nazis, until war and its 'necessities' gave them the knowledge that they could get away with it. The people abroad who thought that war against Hitler would help the Jews were wrong. And the people in Germany who, once the war had begun, still thought of complaining, protesting, resisting, were betting on Germany's losing the war. It was a long bet. Not many made it. — Milton Mayer

She thought that heartbreak might just give his character the shadows and corners and angles it needed to make it truly interesting. To deepen and shape it. She was sorry she would be the one to help make him truly interesting. But she'd never apologize for falling in love with a man who already was. — Julie Anne Long

I've known people who had fantastic ideas, but who couldn't get the idea off the ground because they approached everything weakly. They thought that their ideas would somehow take off by themselves, or that just coming up with an idea was enough. Let me tell you something - it's not enough. It will never be enough. You have to put the idea into action. If you don't have the motivation and the enthusiasm, your great idea will simply sit on top of your desk or inside your head and go nowhere. — Donald Trump

I would never ever, ever, ever, ever do it again [All My Children]. It was the scariest thing I've ever done. I have such respect for people who do it, who can do it. What happened was they caught me at a good moment. I could use the money and this came along and it was with Susan and I thought, Susan Lucci. I have to do this. — Richard Masur

And though he continued never to express a single word of love for me, not in any way of his several languages, I could not take a hint. Let the hint be written across the heavens in skywriting done by several planes - I was dense. Even skywriting, well, it wasn't always certain: it might not cover the whole entire sky, or some breeze might smudge it, so who could really say for sure what it said? Even skywriting wouldn't have worked! Several years later, I would wonder why I had thought my feelings for this man were anything but a raw, thrilling, vigilant infatuation. But I still had called them love. I was in love. I had learned the Portuguese and the Arabic for love, but all for naught. — Lorrie Moore

She glanced at Evie, who flashed her a smile, and Annabelle, whose face was reassuringly calm. They would help each other through all the challenges and joys and fears of their lives, Daisy thought, and she was suddenly overwhelmed with love for all of them.
"I will never live away from you," she said. "I want the four of us to be together always. I could never bear to lose any of you."
She felt Annabelle's slippered toe nudge her leg affectionately. "Daisy ... you can never lose a true friend. — Lisa Kleypas

The immediate occasion of this practice was the lowness of wages, which at that time would not allow them to indulge in ale or spirits, and wages rising, it may be thought that this practice would cease; but as I do not readily believe that any man having once tasted the divine luxuries of opium will afterwards descend to the gross and mortal enjoyments of alcohol, I take it for granted,
That those eat now who never ate before;
And those who always ate, now eat the more. — Thomas De Quincey

Enid was meant for him and she had come for him; he would never let her go. She should never know how much he longed for her. She would be slow to feel even a little of what he was feeling; he knew that. It would take a long while. But he would be infinitely patient, infinitely tender of her. It should be he who suffered, not she...When he was with her, he thought how she was to be the one who would put him right with the world and make him fit into the life about him. — Willa Cather

As a result of these news stories, millions of people must have become aware of "niggardly," who otherwise would never have heard it, let alone thought to use it. If this is right, and the word has a new currency, it is probably not the currency I would wish for. The word's new lease of life is probably among manufacturers and retailers of sophomoric humor. I bet that even as I write, some adolescent boys, in the stairwell of some high school somewhere in America, are accusing each other of being niggardly, and sniggering at their own outrageous wit. I bet ... Wait a minute. Sniggering? Oh, my God ... — John Derbyshire

To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else's body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away. — Christopher Hitchens

I sat silent, ambushed by love for my sons. And by regret. Regret for the past, when I didn't or couldn't give them the nurturing they needed, and regret for what they-and I-could never have back. The irony was that now, when my sons no longer needed it, my love for them was unconditional. Sometimes, when either of my children came up against a thorny problem, I found myself worrying: did I give him what he needs to deal with this? Could I have done better? I could do better now, I thought. Now that it's too late.
But when you speak of your sons it is always with admiration. Is it true you would like to return and do things that might change who they are? — Alice Steinbach

Pittsburgh. I'd been there. One of the most underrated cities in North America. People who'd never been there thought of it as a graveyard of abandoned steel mills, but it was a beautiful city, and it would be good to have it back. — Steven Brust

I don't have many friends, not the living, breathing sort at any rate. And I don't mean that in a sad and lonely way; I'm just not the type of person who accumulates friends or enjoys crowds. I'm good with words, but not spoken kind; I've often thought what a marvelous thing it would be if I could only conduct relationships on paper. And I suppose, in a sense, that's what I do, for I've hundreds of the other sort, the friends contained within bindings, pages after glorious pages of ink, stories that unfold the same way every time but never lose their joy, that take me by the hand and lead me through doorways into worlds of great terror and rapturous delight. Exciting, worthy, reliable companions - full of wise counsel, some of them - but sadly ill-equipped to offer the use of a spare bedroom for a month or two. — Kate Morton

I am afraid. I've never touched a married woman. You might not believe me, but this has been hard for me too because it goes against all of my beliefs. My parents, who are my world, have been happily married for thirty-seven years. I would kill anyone who tried to come between them. But it's nothing compared to keeping it inside. I can't hide it like you. And if I honestly thought he was the right person for you, I would walk away right now. — Jessica Hawkins

Maeve went as still as death while Celaena lifted the ring between two fingers.
'I think you've been looking for this for a long time,' Celaena said.
'That does not belong to you.'
'Doesn't it? I found it, after all. in Goldryn's scabbard, where Brannon left it after grabbing it of Athril's corpse-the family ring Athril would have given you someday. And in the thousands of years since than, you never found it so ... I suppose it's mine by chance.' Celaena closed her fist around the ring. 'but who would have thought you were so sentimental?'
So Celaena said, ' I'll make a trade with you though.' Maeve's browns narrowed. Celaena jerked her chin. 'Your beloved's ring-for Rowan's freedom from his blood oath. — Sarah J. Maas

This world is a funny world indeed,
And people are hard to suit.
The man who plays the piccolo,
Is a bore to the man with the flute.
And often to myself I've thought how lovely it would be,
If every person I ever met would simply agree with me.

But since they won't,
I think the way to make the whole world bright
Is never to mind what others say,
And do what I think is right. — Walter Learned

I don't care any more about the handsome wealthy boys who come gingerly into the living room to take out the girl they thought would look nice in an evening cocktail dress ... I said I wanted to go out with them to meet new people. I ask you, what logic is there in that? What guy you would like, would see the depths in a girl outwardly like all the other physical american queenies? So why go places with guys you can't talk to? You'll never meet a soul that way - - - not the sort you want to meet. Better to stay in your garret reading than to go from one party to another. Face it, kid: unless you can be yourself, you won't stay with anyone for long. You've got to be able to talk. That's tough. But spend your nights learning, so you'll have something to say. Something the "attractive intelligent man" will want to listen to. — Sylvia Plath

My dad was an actor, and my older sister is an actress, and so I very much remember thinking, "Well, of course I'll do that as well." But I never imagined myself as an actor who would be in films. I always only thought of myself being in a play or a musical and maybe the odd episode of [U.K. '80s TV drama] Casualty. My backup plan was to do something with children, to start a nursery school or work with underprivileged kids. And I still dream of maybe doing that in some way. I've always got children in my house, always. — Kate Winslet

So the captain, the first officer and the ship's doctor and sometimes the engineer all beam down to a planet. Together."
"The entire complement of the senior officers?"
Billy nodded
"And who has the command of the ship?"
"I don't know. Junior officers I guess."
"If they worked for me I would have them court-martialed. That sounds like a dereliction of duty."
"I know. I know. I always thought it odd myself. But that's not the point."
"What is the point?"
"They're usually accompanied by a guy in the red shirt. Always a crew member you've never seen before. And as soon as you see the shirt, you know he's going to die. — Michael Scott

Regardless of what happens with the men, you'll have a baby. An amazing little being who will blow your mind and expand your heart and make you think things you never thought and remember things you believed you forgot and heal things you imagined would never heal and forgive people you've begrudged for too long and understand things you didn't understand before you fell madly in love with a tiny tyrant who doesn't give a crap whether you need to pee. You will sing again if you stopped singing. You will dance again if you stopped dancing. You will crawl around on the floor and play chase and tickle and peek-a-boo. You'll make towers of teetering blocks and snakes and rabbits with clay. — Cheryl Strayed

I'm a guy who has always been a late bloomer on every level. I've always wanted to get into the league as a kid. Who would have thought during my senior year at college that I would be where I am now? It's been a lot of hard work and never stopping. — Kevin Martin

You've got a lot of responsibility now," Jace said to Julian. "You'll have to make sure Emma winds up with a guy who deserves her."
Julian was strangely white-faced. Maybe he was feeling the effects of the ceremony, Emma thought. It had been strong magic; she still felt it sizzling through her blood like champagne bubbles. But Jules looked as if he'd been slapped.
"What about me?" Emma said, quickly. "Don't I have to make sure Jules winds up with someone who deserves him?"
"Absolutely. I did it for Alec, Alec did it for me - well, actually, he hated Clary at first, but he came around."
"I BET you didn't like Magnus much, either," said Julian, still with the same odd, stiff look on his face.
"Maybe not," said Jace, "but I never would have said so."
"Because it would have hurt Alec's feelings?" Emma asked.
"No," said Jace, "because Magnus would have turned me into a hat rack. — Cassandra Clare

It's a stupid question, really, as we've all got an expiration date. I guess the real question is not if, but when. As I was walking through the South Dakota Badlands - before I knew something was wrong with me - I had this thought: What if we all carried little timers that counted down the days of our lives? Maybe the timer's a bit dramatic. Just the date would do. It could be tattooed on our foreheads like the expiration date on a milk bottle. It might be a good thing. Maybe we'd stop wasting our lives worrying about things that never happen, or collecting things that we can't take with us. We'd probably treat people better. We certainly wouldn't be screaming at someone who had a day left. Maybe people would finally stop living like they're immortal. Maybe we would finally learn how to live. I've wondered — Richard Paul Evans

The girl who never thought she would fall in love falls for the guy who can never love her back. — Abbi Glines

You've changed my life, Eva. And you did the impossible: you transformed me. I like who I am now. I never thought that would happen. — Sylvia Day

I've known people who thought that reaching their potential would come from shoring up their weaknesses. But do you know what happens when you spend all your time working on your weaknesses and never developing your strengths? If you work really hard, you might claw your way all the way to mediocrity! But you'll never get beyond it. — John C. Maxwell

I could tell he wanted the best for me. Of course, he assumed that would be getting out. Everyone always thought that, not of what we had to go back to, at home. Maybe our parents had thrown away our mattresses. Maybe they'd told our siblings we'd been run over by trains, to make our absence fonder.
Not everyone had a parent. It could be that nothing was waiting for us. Our keys would no longer fit the locks. We'd resort to ringing the bell, saying we've come home, can't we come in?
The eye in the peephole would show itself, and that eye could belong to a stranger, as our family had moved halfway across the country and never informed us. Or that eye could belong to the woman who carried us for nine months, who labored for fourteen hours, who was sliced open with a C-section to give us life, and now wished she never did.
The juvenile correctional system could let us out into the world, but it could not control who would be out there, willing to claim us. — Nova Ren Suma

A disturbing thought hits me,"but then our only neighbor would be Haymich!"
"Ah, that'll be nice,"says Peeta, tightening his arms around me."You and me and Haymich. Very cozy. Picnics, birthdays. long winters around the campfire retelling old Hunger Games tales."
"I told you he hates me!" I say, but I can't help laughing at the image of Haymich becoming my new pal.
"Only sometimes. When he's sober, I've never heard him say one negative thing about you," says Peeta.
He's never sober!" I protest.
That's right. Who am I thinking of? Oh, I know. It's Cinna who likes you. But that's mainly because you didn't try to run when he set you in fire," says Peeta. "On the other hand, Haymich ... well, if I were you, I'd avoid Haymich completely. He Hates you."
" I thought that you said I was his favorite," I say.
"He hates me more," says Peeta, "I don't think people in general are his sort of thing. — Suzanne Collins

I never thought of myself as a wealthy person. I've thought of myself as a person who has had a lot of luck. I don't have the same stress that other people have, but there are too many things I could have done differently if wealth was what I was after. If I was all about money, I would have lived in L.A. — Alec Baldwin

I've got to get Brittany alone if I'm gonna have any chance of saving face and saving my Honda. Does her freakout session mean she really doesn't hate me? I've never seen that girl do anything not scripted or 100 percent intentional. She's a robot. Or so I thought. She's always looked and acted like a princess on camera every time I've seen her. Who knew it'd be my bloody arm that would crack her.
I look over at Brittany. She's focused on my arm and Miss Koto's ministrations. I wish we were back in the library. I could swear back there she was thinking about getting it on with me.
I'm sporting la tengo dura right here in front of Miss Koto just thinking about it. Gracias a Dios the nurse walks over to the medicine cabinet. Where's a large chem book when you need one? — Simone Elkeles

There was very little drama and performance at my school, so I've never forgotten the people who did encourage me and I've thought whether it would be a good idea to even get in touch with them and just say thanks, because they really opened a door for me mentally and emotionally - that's really important. — Martin Freeman

I wonder, what kind of life would I have had if it hadn't been for my mother's tea-and-cookie parties? Perhaps it's because of them that I've never thought of women as my enemies, as territories I have to conquer, but always as allies and friends - which I believe is the reason why they were friendly to me in turn. I've never met those she-devils you hear about: they must be too busy with those men who look upon women as a fortress they have to attack, lay waste and left in ruins. — Stephen Vizinczey

Some of his colleagues and a few of his students claimed to have been moved so by a book that they had read it again and again. Who were they? Of what were they made? Were they dissembling? Perhaps he was a fool, but he thought that if a work were truly great you would only have to read it once and you would be stolen from yourself, desperately moved, changed forever. It would become part of you and never leave, and you would love the characters as if they were your own. Who would want to plough over ground that has been perfectly ploughed? Would it not be, like living one's life again, infinitely painful and dissonant? — Mark Helprin

He never hurries. He never shows his cards. He always hangs up first ... Like when we first started talking on the phone, he would always be the one who got off first. When we kissed, he always pulled away first. He always kept me just on the edge of crazy. Feeling like I wanted him too much, which just made me want him more ... [It was] excruciating and wonderful. It feels good to want something that bad. I thought about him the way you think about dinner when you haven't eaten for a day and a half. Like you'd sell your soul for it. — Rainbow Rowell

It is the very thing I thought I could never be that the real me has settled into like a puzzle. Who would have thought I could be me? — Malebo Sephodi

If only religion could be brought to take an interest in this earthly future, what a help it would be! ... Think of the appeal to the less spiritual of us, to those who never did get enthusiastic about eternity, or care so tenderly about their own souls, yet who could rise to the thought of improving this world for the children they love, and their children after them. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

He'd never be able to touch her, and as passionate as she was, she would eventually need a man who could. He'd never had to worry about these things before because he'd never been with a woman. Not even before his possession. He'd been too busy then, too involved in his job. Maybe he needed to join Workaholics Anonymous, he thought dryly. He had to be the only millennia-old virgin in history. — Gena Showalter

We shall never know what Rubens' children "really looked like," but this need not mean we are forever barred from examining the influence which acquired patterns or schema have on the organization of our perception. It would be interesting to examine this question in an experimental setting. but every student of art who has intensely occupied himself with a family of forms has experienced examples of such influence. In fact I vividly remember the shock I had while I was studying these formulas for chubby children: I never thought they could exist, but all of a sudden I saw such children everywhere. — E.H. Gombrich

White people found that freedom was indeed indivisible. We had kept saying in the dark days of apartheid's oppression that white South Africans would never be truly free until we blacks were free as well. Many thought it was just another Tutu slogan, irresponsible as all his others had been. Today they were experiencing it as a reality. I used to refer to an intriguing old film The Defiant Ones, in which Sidney Poitier was one of the stars. Two convicts escape from a chain gang. They are manacled together, the one white, the other black. They fall into a ditch with slippery sides. The one convict claws his way nearly to the top and out of the ditch but cannot make it because he is bound to his mate, who has been left at the bottom in the ditch. The only way they can make it is together as they strive up and up and up together and eventually make their way over the side wall and out. — Desmond Tutu

But the thought arrived inside her like a train: Marya Morevna, all in black, here and now, was a point at which all the women she had been met - the Yaichkan and the Leningrader and the chyerti maiden; the girl who saw the birds, and the girl who never did - the woman she was and the woman she might have been and the woman she would always be, forever intersecting and colliding, a thousand birds falling from a thousand oaks, over and over. — Catherynne M Valente

I remember being influenced by great artists when I was a kid - not to call myself a great artist - but people who I thought were great enough that they really made a difference. And so I would never want to be disappointed by them, and I want to make sure I never disappoint audience. — Sarah Jones

There was still one response, the greatest, that she had missed. She thought: To find a feeling that would hold, as their sum, as their final expression, the purpose of all the things she loved on earth ... To find a consciousness like her own, who would be the meaning of her world, as she would be of his ... No, not Francisco d'Anconia, not Hank Rearden, not any man she had ever met or admired ... A man who existed only in her knowledge of her capacity for an emotion she had never felt, but would have given her life to experience. — Ayn Rand

The heartbreak that it might not happen wasn't something that I wanted to face with any more weight. Then, when I got the call to go ahead I never thought for a second as I was approaching it who I would get - that would come later. Again, I think the idea was that I now had the rights to make the movie and I can start writing it but if I have to wait another 10 years before I find an actor that's right for it, I'd be very happy to do that. — Sean Penn

For you see, Captain Flint, I, too, never settle for less than what I want. Or never thought I possibly could. I'm a Redmond. If only you truly understood what this means. So I set out to reorder the world in a way I thought would make me worthy of her love. But my quest has changed me in ways I never anticipated, and I'm not the man who once loved that girl. There's much more to my journey yet. And here's a bitter irony: I've found in becoming heroic, in becoming worthy of her, I've painted myself into an untenable corner. I've more work to do to prove someone's innocence or guilt. — Julie Anne Long

I think it would have been a lot better for him to say, I did it and I'm sorry, McGwire was never one to show a lot of emotion on the field, not a player who sought attention and craved to be thought of as a nice guy. — Fay Vincent

I was such a tomboy - goofy and, in my eyes, nerdy - and I never thought I would end up in modeling. I mean, you see pictures of these girls in magazines who have this incredible talent, and no one ever really thinks you can make it to that level. At least I didn't! — Erin Heatherton

Now then, don't give it another thought, today it's your turn, tomorrow it will be mine, we never know what might lie in store for us, You're right, who would have thought, when I left the house this morning, that something as dreadful as this was about to happen. He was puzzled that they should still be at a standstill, Why aren't we moving, he asked, The light is on red, replied the other. From now on he would no longer know when the light was red. — Jose Saramago

Have you ever wronged a man . . . just to do him harm? Or have you always had a reason?'

Kaspar answered quickly. 'There was always a reason.'

'There you have it,' said Samas as he sat down. He motioned for Kaspar to fetch over a cup of water for him. 'You would never look at yourself as "evil" no matter what the other fellow thought of what you did. It's in our nature. And that's the great secret of evil. It is never viewed as evil by those who perpetrate the evil. — Raymond E. Feist

I never ever would have thought initially it would have been someone like Pierce playing Charles. I think he has an innate likeability to him, as soon as you meet him he's very, very charismatic. Charles, on the page, was someone who's very domineering and quite a negative character, and Pierce just by being Pierce can change the whole dynamic of it, which made for a much for interesting relationship. He's a really nice guy. — Robert Pattinson

There is a new face to hunger today. Many of the people who come to food pantries and soup kitchens are people who never thought they would need help - people who were once part of the middle class and are now unemployed or underemployed - people who are struggling to get by from day to day and week to week. — Vicki Escarra

But I shall choose to remember you, and it would be nice if it went both ways. That's how it generally goes in my country. But does it? September thought. If a body is hurt, they try to forget the person who hurt them and never think about the pain again. — Catherynne M Valente

Human nature presents human minds with a puzzle which they have not yet solved and may never succeed in solving, for all that we can tell. The dichotomy of a human being into 'soul' and 'body' is not a datum of experience. No one has ever been, or ever met, a living human soul without a body ... Someone who accepts - as I myself do, taking it on trust - the present-day scientific account of the Universe may find it impossible to believe that a living creature, once dead, can come to life again; but, if he did entertain this belief, he would be thinking more 'scientifically' if he thought in the Christian terms of a psychosomatic resurrection than if he thought in the shamanistic terms of a disembodied spirit. — Arnold Joseph Toynbee

As a devout Baptist, she believed it was a sin to pray for anything for yourself. You ought to pray only for strength to bear whatever the Lord saw fit to send you, she thought. I was never able to follow this advice, for although I would often feel a sense of uneasiness over the tone of my prayers, I was the kind of person who prayed frantically-Please, God, please, please, PLEASE let Ross MacVey like me better than Mavis. — Margaret Laurence

I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream. I never thought this would ever happen. — Hilary Swank

I never thought about my image. It interests me that there are people who do, that they seem to be methodical about it. Maybe things would have gone differently for me in some ways if I had. — Alan Alda

I love all the girls who have my song on their myspaces. I love the people who come to my shows and put the pictures on here. I love the people at those shows who sing along with me. I love reading your stories in emails, some so touching they've given me chills. I love every single person who has wanted my autograph, because for the life of me I never really thought it would mean something to someone for me to write my name down. I love the little girls who stand in line with their mothers like I used to do. That was me. I love the couple who danced to my song at their wedding. Every comment, letter, and message. I love people who listen to the radio. I love every single person who is reading this, because you've let me into your life.
I love you all so much, I just wanted you to know. — Taylor Swift

Two days later, he left for Yorkshire, and I prepared for what I'd come to think of as my "field trip" with Archer. Calling it that seemed safer and more business-like than "meeting" or, God forbid, "assignation." Still, I spent most of the day in my room by myself because I was afraid Jenna or Cal would be able to tell something was up with me. I was so nervous that I was shooting off tiny flashes of magic like a sparkler.
I didn't even attempt to sleep, and I thought three a.m. would never come. Finally, at 2:30, I threw on a black T-shirt and some cargo pants, hoping that was an appropriate ensemble for meeting one's former crush who had turned out to be one's mortal enemy. — Rachel Hawkins

When I was at the University I knew a law student named Yamada Uruu. Later he worked for the Osaka Municipal Office; he's been dead for years. This man's father was an old-time lawyer, or "advocate," who in early Meiji defended the notorious murderess Takahashi Oden. It seems he often talked to his son about Oden's beauty. Apparently he would corner him and go on and on about her, as if deeply moved. "You might call her alluring, or bewitching," he would say. "I've never known such a fascinating woman, she's a real vampire. When I saw her I thought I wouldn't mind dying at the hands of a woman like that!"

Since I have no particular reason to keep on living, sometimes I think I would be happier if a woman like Oden turned up to kill me. Rather than endure the pain of these half-dead arms and legs of mine, maybe I could get it over and at the same time see how it feels to be brutally murdered. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

I'm very at ease, and I like it. I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn't think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that's happening to me. I'm rather surprised at who I am, because I'm actually like my dad!
David Bowie — David Bowie

It seemed to us that we'd never thought of him before as a man who would die. He never had thought of himself in that way. Until that year, although he'd cursed his weakness and his age, he'd either ignored the idea of his death or had refused to believe in it. He'd only thought of himself as living. — Wendell Berry

The idea of gas engines was by no means new, but this was the first time that a really serious effort had been made to put them on the market. They were received with interest rather than enthusiasm and I do not recall any one who thought that the internal combustion engine could ever have more than a limited use. All the wise people demonstrated conclusively that the engine could not compete with steam. They never thought that it might carve out a career for itself. That is the way with wise people
they are so wise and practical that they always know to a dot just why something cannot be done; they always know the limitations. That is why I never employ an expert in full bloom. If ever I wanted to kill opposition by unfair means I would endow the opposition with experts. They would have so much good advice that I could be sure they would do little work. — Henry Ford

I once got a huge, expensive flower arrangement from a person I didn't like, who sent it out of pure guilt. It had a hideous bird-of-paradise in the middle, and I thought it would never fade and die. I hated it. — Maeve Binchy

Why do you continue your... charade? Your current position would seem to be a good one for revealing the truth'.
'A few people know, sir. Bobby, Jane, some of the Leatherbacks. For the rest... it just seems easier to keep things as they are.' Winter thought of Novus and his tirade. 'It would be one thing if I had just joined up, but it's been so long. People might be upset that they'd been fooled. And...'
Janus raised an eyebrow. Winter hesitated.
'It's all right for the Girl's Own,' she said. 'They joined up because Vordan needs them, and when the war's over they'll go home. I... I haven't anywhere to go.' She tugged the collar of her uniform. 'This is who I am now, for better or worse. This is my home. After the war, maybe it will be all right for a woman to keep this on, but... maybe not.'
Winter found her throat getting thick. She'd never put it that way before, never even thought it so bluntly. This is my home. — Django Wexler

I liked Latin, I like languages, I liked all the myths, and the Roman tales that we were required to translate in Latin, and all these interesting people who were never quite what they thought they would be or seemed to be. — Suzanne Farrell

And I decided that there might be things I would never understand, no matter how hard I tried. Though try I would.

And that there would be people who would never hear my one small voice, no matter what I had to say.

But then a better thought occurred, and this was the one I carried away with me that day: If my life was to be just a single note in an endless symphony, how could I not sound it out for as long and as loudly as I could? (p228) — Lauren Wolk

We were so busy thinking about protecting ourselves that we didn't think about the happiness of anyone else who might become involved with us. As a result, our rules focused on our own relationship. We thought that if we preserved the relationship between the two of us, the "core relationship," we were doing the right thing. We never considered that rules that worked for us might not work for the other people we would come to love, and we certainly never looked at our relationship from their perspective. — Franklin Veaux

And then I went back into my room, locked into a sequence as perfect as a pattern, and I sat down on my great rock throne, invisible to the outside world but palpable beneath me, and from how my face felt I thought maybe I was crying, either because I didn't want to do this or because I did, it was hard to tell and anyway I never would, who would believe me in either case and who would be there to believe me in all cases, it was a puzzle, I had yet to learn the way of the jigsaw, and so I positioned the rifle beneath my chin, it feels cold, like an actual thing in the actual present physical world, OK, there it is, I am here now, and then I lay down on my belly and listened to the rising squall beyond the door. — John Darnielle

She'd seen them on the news, compassionate Americans talking about how the United States should be more welcoming to people who came in peace. She believed these kindhearted people, like Natasha, would never betray them, and she wanted to tell Jende this, that the people of Judson Memorial Church loved immigrants, that their secret was safe with Natasha. But she also knew it would be futile reasoning with a raging man, so she decided to sit quietly with her head bowed as he unleashed a verbal lashing, as he called her a stupid idiot and a bloody fool. The man who had promised to always take care of her was standing above her vomiting a parade of insults, spewing out venom she never thought he had inside him. For the first time in a long love affair, she was afraid he would beat her. She was almost certain he would beat her. And if he had, she would have known that it was not her Jende who was beating her but a grotesque being created by the sufferings of an American immigrant life. — Imbolo Mbue

It was not only for Americans that he was concerned, or primarily the older generation of any land. The thought that disturbed him the most, and that made the prospect of war much more fearful than it would otherwise have been, was the specter of the death of the children of this country and all the world - the young people who had no role, who had no say, who knew nothing even of the confrontation, but whose lives would be snuffed out like everyone else's. They would never have a chance to make a decision, to vote in an election, to run for office, to lead a revolution, to determine their own destinies. Our generation had. But the great tragedy was that, if we erred, we erred not only for ourselves, our futures, our hopes, and our country, but for the lives, futures, hopes, and countries of those who had never been given an opportunity to play a role, to vote aye or nay, to make themselves felt. — Robert F. Kennedy

I never thought I'd be a person who would want to write books ... I promise you not a single English teacher I've ever had would have thought that this would be going on right now. — Gary Vaynerchuk

If every life is a river, then it's little wonder that we do not even notice the changes that occur until we are far out in the darkest sea. One day you look around and nothing is familiar, not even your own face.
My name once meant daughter, grandaughter, friend, sister, beloved. Now those words mean only what their letters spell out; Star in the night sky. Truth in the darkness.
I have crossed over to a place where I never thought I'd be. I am someone I would have never imagined. A secret. A dream. I am this, body and soul. Burn me. Drown me. Tell me lies. I will still be who I am. — Alice Hoffman

On played the Mayor's daughters in Horton Hears a Who: I had never done animation, so I thought it would be cool to try something different. — Selena Gomez

We never know when we too will be called into eternity. I doubt if even one of those people who got on those planes or walked into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon last Tuesday morning thought it would be the last day of their lives. They didn't - it didn't occur to them. And that's why each of us needs to face our own spiritual need and commit ourselves to God and his will now. — Billy Graham