Who You Used To Be Quotes & Sayings

That's why we feel so disoriented, irritated even, when these touchstones from our past are altered. We don't like it when our hometown changes, even in small ways. It's unsettling. The playground! It used to be right here, I swear. Mess with our hometown, and you're messing with our past, with who we are. Nobody likes that. — Eric Weiner

Think about a person who typically sees things differently than you do. Consider ways in which those differences might be used as stepping-stones to third alternative solutions. Perhaps you could seek out his or her views on a current project or problem, valuing the different views you are likely to hear. — Stephen R. Covey

It used to be on the Internet no one knew you were a dog. Now not only does
everyone know that you are a dog, they know what kind of a dog you are, who
you run with, where you hide your bones, the accidental piddle behind the
couch, the fight you got into with the boxer, and your thoughts on the hot
poodle down the street. — Nancy Willard

Love can be used to drain people. Through eye contact people send a cord out to drain you long distance. Through sexual manipulation, anyone who can make you like them can drain you. — Frederick Lenz

When I used to be the captain of India, many people literally hated me for being overly expressive.
Once I retired, the same people used to say COME BACK DADA, WE MISS YOU. The same thing will happen in the case of MS Dhoni.
The ones who criticise him right now will understand his importance once he retires. — Sourav Ganguly

These stories at times to be stories of a long-lost world when the city of New York was still filled with a river light, when you heard Benny Goodman quartets from a radio in the corner stationary store, when almost everybody wore a hat. Here is the last of that generation of chain smokers who woke to the world in the morning with their coughing, who used to get stoned at cocktail parties and perform obsolete dance steps like 'the Cleveland Chicken,' sail for Europe on ships, who were nostalgic for love and happiness, and whose gods were as ancient as yours and mine, whoever you are. — John Cheever

That's the New York thing, isn't it. People who seem absolutely crazy going around telling you how crazy they used to be before they had therapy. — Judith Perelman Rossner

It's amazing. TV used to give Americans the reverse fantasy: What if you, normal person, suddenly became a millionaire? Now it's "Oh, who are we kidding? You consider yourself lucky to hold on to your job deep-frying chicken parts, but how'd you like to be briefly introduced to a millionaire? Would you like that? You can even touch his garments!" And people watch this shit and find it inspirational. — Bill Maher

Codfish aristocracy' is what they call us. Men who've made a fortune in business, but are common-born."
"Why codfish?"
"It used to refer to the rich merchants who settled the American colonies and made their money in the cod trade. Now it means any successful businessman."
"Nouveau riche is another term," Helen added. "It's never used as a compliment, of course. But it should be. Being self-made is something to be admired." As she felt his soundless chuckle, she insisted, "It is."
Rhys turned his head to kiss her. "You've no need to flatter my vanity."
"I'm not flattering you. I think you're remarkable. — Lisa Kleypas

The upscale neighborhoods in Blue Sky Hill weren't all lily white anymore, but you could be sure their kids didn't wear our kind of clothes, or get free lunches at the Summer Kitchen, or pick up used books and magazines down at the Book Basket store, or go to the public school. These days it wasn't about what color you were, but how much money you had. The same, only different. It was still people not wanting to be with people who weren't their kind. — Lisa Wingate

I can't go back to being who I used to be!'
Hadley looked down at him sympathetically.
'None of us can, kid.' he said. 'That's the point. You get what you get. Life changes you. Time travel or no, you always have to build on what you live through. — Margaret Peterson Haddix

People say, 'You look like the girl who used to be on that show 'Angel' - they don't actually think I'm her. — Amy Acker

Prusis told me that the fluke's raging in Moscow, and there's nothing to bury people in. All the material's been used up. So I decided to come out and set things straight.'
Ostap, who had been listening curiously to the entire conversation, stepped in. 'Listen, pops. It's Paris where the flu is raging.'
'In Paris?'
'Well, yes. So go to Paris. You'll rake it in there! It's true that you'll have a few difficulties with the visa, but don't get down about it, pops. If Briand takes a shine to you, your life won't be half-bad: you'll be set up as personal coffin-maker to the municipality of Paris. — Ilya Ilf

You mean the one that used to be advertised on late-night television? Where the guy on the commercial uses it to cut through a tin can?" She nodded. "That's the one." "Did you get it?" "It's the knife I'm using now." He smiled. "I've never known anyone who actually admitted to buying one." "Now you do," she said. — Nicholas Sparks

Beauty is an asset, just like physical prowess, charisma, brains or emotional intelligence. The key with any gift is in the way that you use it. It doesn't define you as a person. Rather, it's an asset to be used judiciously and with an understanding of how it is just a small part of who you are. — Dale Archer

For me the poem and the poetry open mic isn't about competition and it never will be. Honestly? It's wrong. The open mic is about 1 poet, one fellow human being up on a stage or behind a podium sharing their work regardless of what form or style they bring to it. In other words? The guy with the low slam score is more than likely a far better poet-writer than the guy who actually won. But who are you? I ? Or really anyone else to judge them? The Poetry Slam has become an overgrown, over used monopoly on American literature and poetry and is now over utilized by the academic & public school establishments. And over the years has sadly become the "McDonalds Of Poetry". We can only hope that the same old stale atmosphere of it all eventually becomes or evolves into something new that translates to and from the written page and that gives new poets with different styles & authentic voices a chance to share their work too. — R.M. Engelhardt

34. Not equal are the good and the bad response. You shall resort to the one which is better. Thus, the one who used to be your enemy, may become your best friend. — The Monotheist Group

To be a light to others you will need a good dose of the spiritual life. Because as my mother used to say, if you are in a good place, then you can help others; but if you're not well, then go look for somebody who is in a good place who can help you. — Rigoberta Menchu

When you develop software, the people who write the software, the developers are the key group but the testers also play an absolutely critical role. They're the ones who ah, write thousands and thousands of examples and make sure that it's going to work on all the different computers and printers and the different amounts of memory or networks that the software'11 be used in. That's a very hard job. — Bill Gates

When you are this hungry, you cannot even remember who you used to be, she whispered. Who you might have been, if not for the hunger. — Catherynne M Valente

Leo glanced back, his face streaked with soot. "Apollo, you sense anything?"
"Why is it my job to sense things? Just because I used to be a god of prophecy-"
"You're the one who's been having visions," Calypso reminded me. "You said your friend Meg would be here."
Just hearing Meg's name gave me a twinge of pain. "That doesn't mean I can pinpoint her location with my mind!" Zeus has revoked my access to GPS!"
"GPS?" Calypso asked.
"Godly positioning system."
"That's not a real thing! — Rick Riordan

That's for the best. Otherwise they might realize they're in prison. It can't be helped. You women are used to harems and prisons. A person can spend his whole life between four walls. If he doesn't think or feel that he's a prisoner, then he's not a prisoner. But then there are people for whom the whole planet is a prison, who see the infinite expanse of the universe, the millions of stars and galaxies that remain forever inaccessible to them. And that awareness makes them the greatest prisoners of time and space. — Vladimir Bartol

I don't know," [my father] said, after clearing his throat. "But I know that he loves you." ... Twenty years later, I'm convinced it is the most important thing my father ever told me ... I used to think that the measure of true faith is certainty. Doubt, ambiguity, nuance, uncertainty - these represented a lack of conviction, a dangerous weakness in the armor of the Christian soldier who should "always be ready with an answer." ... Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God. The former has the potential to destroy faith; the latter has the power to enrich and refine it. — Rachel Held Evans

There's danger in just shoveling out money to people who say, 'My life is a little harder than it used to be.' At a certain place you've got to say to the people, 'Suck it in and cope, buddy. Suck it in and cope.' — Charlie Munger

I wanted to deny him, but that's the terrible power of a diary: it not only calls forth the person you used to be but rubs your nose in him, reminding you that not all change is evolutionary. More often than not, you didn't learn from your mistakes. You didn't get wiser, but simply older, growing from the twenty-five-year-old who got stoned and accidentally peed on his friend Katherine's kitten to the thirty-five-year-old who got drunk and peed in the sandbox at his old elementary school. "The sandbox!" my sister Amy said at the time. "Don't you realize that children have to pee in there? — David Sedaris

One of the things that was really influential early on was Ezra Pound's Cantos, one poem he worked on for 50 years. It's epic. I had a great deal of difficulty understanding it. One of the problems was you'd be reading along in English and he would move to a Chinese ideogram or French-he actually used seven different languages in a given poem. And for somebody who's not fluent in different languages it has the impact of rupturing your way of understanding something. — Richard Misrach

I'd almost say hope isn't what it used to be. It's very difficult today to be a teacher. I speak to children. And tell them, look, no matter what, you must have hope. You must. When I invoke Camus, who said when there is no hope, you must invent hope ... hope is something that is not what God gives us. It's like peace. It's a gift that one can give to one another. Only another person can push me to despair. And only another person can push me to hope. Its my choice. — Elie Wiesel

I wish you had a 'little missus' who could pet you as I used to pet papa when he had a headache. I should like to be your 'little missus' myself, poor dear! Good night-good night. God bless you! — Frances Hodgson Burnett

The problem with Christian culture is we think of love as a commodity. We use it like money. [ ... ] If something is doing something for us, offering us something, be it gifts, time, popularity, or what have you, we feel they have value, we feel they are worth something to us. I could see it so clearly, and I could see it in the pages of my life. This was the thing that had smelled so rotten all these years. I used love like money. The church used love like money. With love, we withheld affirmation from the people who did not agree with us, but we lavishly financed the ones who did. — Donald Miller

The penalty for success is to be bored by the people who used to snub you. — Nancy Astor The Viscountess Astor

You must have goals in your life, or otherwise be prepared to be used by those who do have them. — Herb Brooks

Maybe I'm getting to the age when I'm starting to be senile or nostalgic or both, but people are so angry now. You used to be able to disagree with people and still be friends. Now you hear these talk shows, and everyone who believes differently from you is a moron and an idiot - both on the Right and the Left. — Clint Eastwood

Don't you want to take a last look at the place?" he asked Hedwig, who was still sulking with her head under her wing. "We'll never be here again. Don't you want to remember all the good times? I mean, look at this doormat. What memories . . . Dudley puked on it after I saved him from the dementors . . . Turns out he was grateful after all, can you believe it? . . . And last summer, Dumbledore walked through that front door . . . ."
Harry lost the thread of his thoughts for a moment and Hedwig did nothing to help him retrieve it, but continued to sit with her head under her wing. Harry turned his back on the front door.
"And under here, Hedwig" - Harry pulled open a door under the stairs - "is where I used to sleep! You never knew me then - Blimey, it's small, I'd forgotten . . . . — J.K. Rowling

What does anyone say to anybody who used to be so important in her life, whom she's not seen in such a long time? It seems to me that in situations like this, we're all wondering the same thing: I'm still me; are you still you? A — Elizabeth Berg

The next day round about ten o'clock I was walking down Welbeck Street. I was in a bad temper. By daylight the whole project seemed very much less attractive. I felt that to be snubbed by a film star would put me in a bad state of mind for months. But I regarded the matter as something which had been decided and which now simply had to be carried out. I often used this method for deciding difficult cases. In stage one I entertain the thing purely as a hypothesis, and in stage two I count my stage one thinking as a fixed decision on which there is no going back. I recommend this technique to any of you who are not good at making decisions. — Iris Murdoch

Being meek does not make you weak. You're not someone who sways with changing circumstances. You don't allow yourself to be used. You're not passive or spineless. Your faith is in the Almighty, so you know that you are mighty. — Toni Sorenson

So once the zookeeper realized it was the monkeys who stole the bananas, he knew there was only one way he'd be able to get them back."
"How?" I whispered. My throat was so sore.
"Don't talk. He had to beat them in shuffleboard, of course."
"What?"
"I said don't talk. Monkeys love shuffleboard."
He used a page from a homework assignment he'd failed and a stack of quarters to make a shuffleboard court. I watched the monkeys and the zookeepers have their showdown while I sipped the last of my applejuice.
"Need more?" Graham asked me without looking up, when my straw skidded against the dry bottom of the box.
"Uh uh."
"You're supposed to drink juice."
"I just drank some."
"More, though."
I shook my head.
"Drink more juice or the monkeys are going to kill you. The only thing they love more than shuffleboard is beating up dehydrated sick boys. — Hannah Moskowitz

4For God said : Do your duty fob your father and mother and : Anyone who curses father or mother must be put to death." 5But you say, 'If anyone says to his father or mother: Anything I have that I might have used to help you is dedicated to God,' 6he is rid of his duty to father or mother. In this way you have made God's word null and void by means of your tradition. 7Hypocrites! It was you Isaiah meant when he so rightly prophesied: 8This people honors me only with lip service, while their hearts are far from me. — Anonymous

I would never change having loved your mother. In fact, I should have never hidden it, because it's only when things remain in the shadows that they have the power to be used against one. The lesson I learned far too late is one I hope you'll embrace - live your life as if everyone will discover what you do and who you are. If no one holds your secrets, there's nothing to compel you to make choices that are not your own. - Will Shaw — April White

He [D'Artangnan] succumbs to her [Miledy Winter] level of seduction and gives into it. It's only when the series starts to progress that he realizes what she's doing, and the tables turn slightly. But that relationship really pays homage to how D'Artagnan can be easily swayed. You see him grow into somebody who can actually make a decision where he's not being used and forced into doing something that he doesn't want to do. — Luke Pasqualino

I used to think I was that girl you remember. And maybe I was, maybe those memories are real, maybe that girl who looked like me really was an angel. But maybe angels fall, maybe the wind blows and just like that they can be twisted into something unrecognizable. — Amy Reed

So I put it out of its misery, if it really was miserable, and tried not to think about it. That was another thing they taught us at Willow Creek: don't write their eulogy, don't try to imagine who they used to be, how they came to be here, how they came to be this. I know, who doesn't do that, right? Who doesn't look at one of those things and just naturally start to wonder? It's like reading the last page of a book ... your imagination just naturally spinning. And that's when you get distracted, get sloppy, let your guard down and end up leaving someone else to wonder what happened to you. — Max Brooks

I contemplate the idea of being better and it brings to mind my favorite quote from Wayne Dyer, our friend and the man who is about to marry me to the woman of my dreams. "True nobility isn't about being better than anyone else; it's about being better than you used to be." "Yes, Ma. I am better." I am better than I used to be. — Portia De Rossi

1973 Fair Information Practices:
- You should know who has your personal data, what data they have, and how it is used.
- You should be able to prevent information collected about you for one purpose from being used for others.
- You should be able to correct inaccurate information about you.
- Your data should be secure.
..while it's illegal to use Brad Pitt's image to sell a watch without his permission, Facebook is free to use your name to sell one to your friends. — Eli Pariser

If your spirit is persistently harmless or if it has shown itself to you, in a non-threatening way, then you most definitely have a ghost. The ghost can be frightening, by its very nature. But the ghost will never intentionally frighten you. They will be there for three reasons: 1. They used to live there and are attached to the location 2. They are trying to communicate something to the living or 3. They are protective of somebody who lives in the house and so they are "standing guard" so to speak, over the loved one. — Alexei Maxim Russell

Harwin's eyes went from her face to the flayed man on her doublet. "How do you know me?" he said, frowning suspiciously. "The flayed man ... who are you, some serving boy to Lord Leech?"
For a moment she did not know how to answer. She'd had so many names. Had she only dreamed Arya Stark? "I'm a girl," she sniffed. "I was Lord Bolton's cupbearer but he was going to leave me for the goat, so I ran off with Gendry and Hot Pie. You have to know me! You used to lead my pony, when I was little."
His eyes went wide. "Gods be good," he said in a choked voice. "Arya Underfoot? Lem, let go of her."
"She broke my nose." Lem dumped her unceremoniously to the floor. "Who in seven hells is she supposed to be?"
"The Hand's daughter." Harwin went to one knee before her. "Arya Stark, of Winterfell. — George R R Martin

Mr. Lawrence drank from his beer. Do you know how I figure out what to do? I look under rocks for slime. I lick the slime with my own tongue. I see the problem for what it is, not what a consultant's methodology says it should be. I find people who are working on something that no one told them to work on, who solve a problem because they can't let it stay unsolved, who don't eat or bathe because it takes too much time. I find the ones selling their ideas to customers without going through the marketing department first. I've gotten good at picking molds off cheeses and turning them into penicillin. People used to wonder where my ideas came from. It was simple: I looked for slimy rocks and moldy cheese, and I watched the bank account like a hawk. It worked well for this company for a long time. — Charlie Close

"We're your official search party," Tori said. Complete with bloodhound."
She waved at Derek, who was brushing off his jeans.
"I left a note," I said to Derek. "I told you whee I was going and what was doing."
"He got it," Simon said. "Didn't matter."
Derek glowered. "You think leaving a note makes it okay to do something - "
"Don't say stupid," I warned.
"Why not? It was stupid."
Simon winced and murmured, "Ease off, bro."
"That's okay," I said. "I'm used to it."
I looked up at Derek. He wavered for a second, then crossed his arms, jaw setting.
"It was stupid," he said. Risky and dangerous. Those guys could be out here with guns - " — Kelley Armstrong

Papa wants you to marry some decrepit old wigsby?" She gave him a charmingly rueful smile, all tousled golden curls like some angel who had rolled off a cloud in her sleep, he thought, and had fallen to earth with a thud. "Something like that," she said in vague amusement. "I see. Well, surely we can find a solution." He snapped his fingers and gave her a grin. "Shall I ruin you? That should solve your problem. The old wigsby won't want you if you're used goods, and I assure you, I'd be happy to oblige. — Gaelen Foley

We all live on the same planet, it is our only home, so ... we used to rotate crops back in the day and, you know, who cares if you're going to make a profit if everybody's too dead or glowing in the dark to be able to purchase anything. — Michael Berryman

Accordingly, the word "Facebook" appeared in a full one-third of divorce filings in 2011. All of this provides excellent fodder for the 81 percent of divorce attorneys who admit searching social media sites for evidence that can be used against their clients' spouses. For instance, all the data shared on Facebook and Twitter and all the cell-phone call records and GPS locational data that neatly recorded whose cell phone was next to whose and when become fair game in the battle royal that can be divorce proceedings. The pictures innocently taken of you at all those parties over the years, blurry-eyed with drink in hand, now become evidence of unfit parenting, a nugget of gold for opposing counsel during cross-examination. — Marc Goodman

[Jack Nicklaus] was the first to bring in course management. He could go to a course and tell you within one stroke what was going to win. He used to set his sights on that because he could shoot it. He was the only player I know who, if he decided he wanted to win a tournament, could go out and do it. No one will ever be as popular as Arnold Palmer and no one will ever come close to Jack as a player. — Lee Trevino

There are certain children who are told they are too sensitive, and there are certain adults who believe sensitivity is a problem that can be fixed in the way that crooked teeth can be fixed and made straight. And when these two come together you get a fairytale, a kind of story with hopelessness in it.
I believe there is something in these old stories that does what singing does to words. They have transformational capabilities, in the way melody can transform mood.
They can't transform your actual situation, but they can transform your experience of it. We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay. I believe we have always done this, used images to stand and understand what otherwise would be intolerable. — Lynda Barry

I gave myself to you sooner than I ever did to any man, I swear to you; and do you know why? Because when you saw me spitting blood you took my hand; because you wept; because you are the only human being who has ever pitied me. I am going to say a mad thing to you: I once had a little dog who looked at me with a sad look when I coughed; that is the only creature I ever loved. When he died I cried more than when my mother died. It is true that for twelve years of her life she used to beat me. Well, I loved you all at once, as much as my dog. If men knew what they can have for a tear, they would be better loved and we should be less ruinous to them. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Then why don't you know about the dead men who wandered into Bamboo House of Dolls for human sushi?" "Never. I'd have heard and we'd be on alert." "I guess omnipotence isn't what it used to be. But I can fix that for you. I've already killed three Drifters. Give me a contract and I'll get the rest. There's probably a lot of them, so I ought to get time and a half on this one." Wells scowls. He looks around like he's expecting someone. "If — Richard Kadrey

No doubt your sword is indeed a beautiful thing. It is a tribute to whoever forged it in bygone ages. There are very few such swords as this one left in the world, but remember, it is only a sword, Matthias! It contains no secret spell, nor holds within its blade any magical power. This sword is made for only one purpose, to kill. It will only be as good or evil as the one who wields it. I know that you intend to use it only for the good of your Abbey, Matthias; do so, but never allow yourself to be tempted into using it in a careless or idle way. It would inevitably cost you your life, or that of your dear ones. Martin the Warrior used the sword only for right and good. This is why it has become a symbol of power to Redwall. Knowledge is gained through wisdom, my friend. Use the sword wisely. — Brian Jacques

I vaguely remember having a waist," Lark said, waddling into the room. "I could see my feet too. They weren't great feet, but I liked looking at them."
"You'll see them soon then you won't appreciate it. All the stuff that bothers you now will become a faint memory once you have the babies."
"How do you know?" she said, teasing me. "You read that in a book? I get enough know-it-all crap from Raven who watched a TV show and is therefore an expert."
I brought her a glass of low fat milk and English muffins with low fat cream. Lark frowned at the food then smiled up at me. "If I sound bitchy, blame the hormones. You didn't know me before I was preggers, but I was a saint."
Grinning, I handed her the remote and placed a pillow under her feet. — Bijou Hunter

I hate that I've become one of those old men who visits a cemetery to be with his dead wife. When I was (much) younger I used to ask Kathy what the point would be. A pile of rotting meat and bones that used to be a person isn't a person anymore; it's just a pile of rotting meat and bones. The person is gone - off to heaven or hell or wherever or nowhere. You might as well visit a side of beef. When you get older you realize this is still the case. You just don't care. It's what you have. — John Scalzi

We're so used to it that we don't think twice about it. For somebody who's starting out in ice hockey it would be heavy, but it's protection. It's everything you need so you do have to get used to it. — Gerad Adams

Bob wasn't precisely a friend to me but ... I was used to him. In a way he was family, the mouthy, annoying, irritable cousin who was always insulting you but who was definitely at Thanksgiving dinner. I had never considered the possibility that one day he might be something else. — Jim Butcher

The problem is that tolerant has changed its meaning. It used to mean 'I may disagree with you completely, but I will treat you with respect. Today, tolerant means - 'you must approve of everything I do.' There's a difference between tolerance and approval. Jesus accepted everyone no matter who they were. He doesn't approve of everything I do, or you do, or anybody else does either. You can be accepting without being approving. — Rick Warren

I used to go red when anybody spoke to me. It's awful because you absolutely cannot control it. If you are a child that blushes, or is shy, the one thing you want in the world is to be the child who comes in and says, 'Hi,' to everyone and goes up and makes friends. — Catherine Tate

Jamie Randall: [Last lines] I used to worry a lot about who I'd be when I grew up. You know, like how much money I'd make or, umm, like some day I'd become some big deal. Sometimes, the thing you want most doesn't happen. And sometimes, the thing you never expect does. Like giving up my job in Chicago and everything and deciding to stay and apply to med school. I don't know. You meet thousands of people and none of them really touch you. And then you meet one person and your life is changed... forever. — Margaret Watson

Used"

You don't see me
Blind to the real me
I'm not who you think I should be
But I can't be someone I'm not
I'll try to be who you need,
what you need,
I fail again
tear me, cut me make me bleed
If it opens your heart to me
Just don't leave me with nothing
less than nothing
Like the last time
use me
It's better than existing without you

~Sed's lyrics — Olivia Cunning

You can't be who you are going to be and who you used to be at the same time. — T.D. Jakes

It used to be irritating just because someone can meet you and before they would get a chance to get to know you, they'll go find someone else's story about who I am. For me personally, I just always think it's more interesting to get to know the person myself. — Ricky Williams

It used to be that you came out of school, and you got married - those who were going to get married. But my peers are getting married in their early 30s, so now there's like this extra 10 years of that angst. — Zach Braff

Who are you all going to gossip about once the
celebrities leave town? You'll need to find someone else to talk about." I couldn't help but laugh.
"We'll just talk about you, Tar. We'll sit around and reminisce about how much fun you used to be
while using the cobwebs growing between your legs to knit hats for the poor! — Tina Reber

Simon told me I should take you home and start making kits. What do you think?" Max looked down at her, love and lust glowing equally in his brilliant smile. "Max?" "What?" His tone was wary; he'd come to expect the unexpected when she used that particular tone of voice. "Will I give birth to a baby or a litter?" "Emma," he groaned. "I mean, will we be feeding them baby formula or Kitten Chow?" "Emma!" "If they get stuck in a tree, who do we call? Does the fire department do kitten rescues anymore? This is important stuff to know, Lion-O!" "God save me. — Dana Marie Bell

When God creates Eve, he calls her an ezer kenegdo. 'It is not good for the man to be alone, I shall make him [an ezer kenegdo]' (Gen. 2:18 Alter). Hebrew scholar Robert Alter, who has spent years translating the book of Genesis, says that this phrase is 'notoriously difficult to translate.' The various attempts we have in English are "helper" or "companion" or the notorious "help meet." Why are these translations so incredibly wimpy, boring, flat ... disappointing? What is a help meet, anyway? What little girl dances through the house singing "One day I shall be a help meet?" Companion? A dog can be a companion. Helper? Sounds like Hamburger Helper. Alter is getting close when he translates it "sustainer beside him"
The word ezer is used only twenty other places in the entire Old Testament. And in every other instance the person being described is God himself, when you need him to come through for you desperately. — Stasi Eldredge

To search for power within myself means I must be willing to move through being afraid to whatever lies beyond. If I look at my most vulnerable places and acknowledge the pain I have felt, I can remove the source of that pain from my enemies' arsenals. My history cannot be used to feather my enemies' arrows then, and that lessens their power over me. Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me. I am who I am, doing what I came to do, acting upon you like a drug or a chisel to remind you of your me-ness, as I discover you in myself. — Audre Lorde

Thoughtless people are not unusual," observed the Scarecrow, "but I consider them more fortunate than those who have useless or wicked thoughts and do not try to curb them. Your oil can, friend Woodman, is filled with oil, but you only apply the oil to your joints, drop by drop, as you need it, and do not keep spilling it where it will do no good. Thoughts should be restrained in the same way as your oil, and only applied when necessary, and for a good purpose. If used carefully, thoughts are good things to have. — L. Frank Baum

Exactly the same technology can be used for good and for evil. It is as if there were a God who said to us, I set before you two ways: You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars. It's up to you — Carl Sagan

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

That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretence. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you're trying to steal their most precious possession. — Jim Morrison

[There's] a joke that I've done forever: 'Nowadays they say that the largest majority of people will be Latino and you'll tell scary stories to your grandkids: "A long time ago when I was growing up, there used to be people who were white," and the kid says, "Really?" and you say, "Yeah, like the man who cuts our grass."' I've had that line forever and I love it. — George Lopez

Never trust the occultist who tells you that he is the head of a tradition, because if he were, in the first place, he would not tell the fact to the uninitiated, and in the second place he would in all probability be living in great seclusion and inaccessible to all but his immediate subordinates. If a man is a great artist he does not need to inform us of the fact; we shall know him by his pictures that are hung in the galleries of the nation, and we shall, moreover, find that he guards himself from casual acquaintances because of the inroads on his time to which his fame renders him liable. The more eminent a person, the harder he is to approach, not out of any spirit of pride and exclusiveness, but because so many people want to see him that discrimination has to be used in admitting them. — Dion Fortune

What you really are afraid of is that you're competing against somebody who is rich and irrational. I mean, it used to be a given, a saying in the industry: Don't ever bid against Rupert Murdoch for anything Rupert wants, because if you win you lose. You will have paid way too much. — John C. Malone

I don't want you to change, Bridgette. I'm not in love with who you could be, or who you used to be, or who the world says you should be. I'm in love with you. Right now. Just like this. — Colleen Hoover

I hadn't realized until this week that in [Moses'] youth he killed a man, an Egyptian, and buried him under some sandI used to worry that I wasn't enough like Jesus, but yesterday I remembered who was my king; a man who, when God addressed him and told him to lead the people out of Egypt, said, 'But I'm not a good talker! Couldn't you ask my brother instead?' So it should not be so hard to come at this life with a bit of honesty. I don't need to be great like the leader of the Christian people. I can be a bumbling, murderous coward like the King of the Jews. — Sheila Heti

But the process should not be confused with science. When tests are used as selections devices, they're not a neutral tool; they become a large factor int he very equation they purport to measure. For one thing, the tests tend to screen out - or repel - those who would upset the correlation. If a man can't get into the company in the first place because he isn't the company type, he can't very well get to be an executive and be tested in a study to find out what kind if profile subsequent executives should match. Long before personality tests were invented, of course, plenty of companies proved that if you only hire people of a certain type, then all your successful men will be people of that type. But no one confused this with the immutable laws of science. — William H. Whyte

God forbid I should bleed to death, eh? Then you'd have to cart around my rotting corpse. (Kyrian)
Could you be any more morbid? Jeez, who was your idol growing up? Boris Karloff? (Amanda)
Hannibal, actually. (Kyrian)
You're trying to scare me, aren't you? Well, it won't work. I grew up in a house with an angry poltergeist and two sisters who used to conjure demons just to fight them. Buster, I've seen it all and your gallows humor isn't working on me. (Amanda) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

My eyes fix on my reflection in the mirror as the water warms up for my shower.
I'm not sure if it's just my perception, but I look older than my thirty-eight years.
I certainly feel older, too.
I feel like I've lived more than one lifetime, each of them lasting an eternity. An eternity of rage, and resentment, and wrongdoing ... it takes its toll on a man, that's for certain. But none of it had half as much effect on me as this past year. Something I learned was sentiment can take it out of you. I used to have no regard for myself - or anybody, for that matter. I had no reason to live anymore. But now that I care about what happens to her - and for her sake, me - I'm growing exhausted from the constant worry.
Worry my past will catch up to us.
Worry that she'll be the one to pay for those sins.
It's the consequence, I think, of loving me.
The consequence of being with someone who lived so carelessly. — J.M. Darhower

No one likes to feel used. When the perceived focus becomes the content over the person, people feel used. When teachers are valued only for the test scores of their students, they feel used. When administrators are "successful" only when they achieve "highly effective school" status, they feel used. Eventually, "used" people lose joy in learning and teaching. Curriculum does not teach; teachers do. Standards don't encourage; administrators do. Peaceable schools value personnel and students for who they are as worthy human beings. ... If your mission statement says you care, then specific practices of care should be habits within your school. — Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz

Look out! Oh, you chump and weak fool, you are one of a humanity that can't be numbered and not more than the dust of metals scattered in a magnetic field and clinging to the lines of force, determined by laws, eating, sleeping, employed, conveyed, obedient, and subject. So why hunt for still more ways to lose liberty? Why go toward, and not instead run from, the huge drag that threatens to wear out your ribs, rub away your face, splinter your teeth? No, stay away!
Be the wiser person who crawls, rides, runs, walks to his solitary ends used to solitary effort, who procures for himself and heeds the fears that are the kings of this world. Ah, they don't give you much of a break, these kings! Many a dead or dying face lies or drifts under them. — Saul Bellow

the Eight Percent Rule to McCann. "It's really very simple," he said, using the same melodic voice he used to pet and stroke the jury. "I have to convince one juror out of twelve to vote with us. One of twelve is eight percent, give or take. Not that I need to convince him our client is innocent, understand. I just need to establish an intimate partnership with that one fellow or lady in a crowd who is contrary. The man or woman who has an ax to grind. My theory, and you saw it happen twice, is that in any group of people forced to be together, at least eight percent of them will go against the majority if for no other reason than to shove it up their ass - if they have an authority figure they can trust to be on their side. I am that leader in the courtroom. — C.J. Box

If there's a lot of fear that's going on, if there's a lot of anxiety, it's manifesting itself in your nocturnal world so that analyzing it can help open up basically thoughts about what you need to do during the day. So a lot of people who subscribe to the psychoanalysis, the Jungian thought will really focus a lot on dreams, the meaning, and how it can be used to help you during the day. — Shelby Harris

He would be laughed at, that should go about to make a fine dancer out of a country hedger, at past fifty. And he will not have much better success, who shall endeavour, at that age, to make a man reason well, or speak handsomely, who has never been used to it, though you should lay before him a collection of all the best precepts of logic or oratory. — John Locke

At one time, a freethinker was a man who had been brought up in the conceptions of religion, law and morality, who reached freethought only after conflict and difficulty. But now a new type of born freethinkers has appeared, who grow up without so much as hearing that there used to be laws of morality, or religion, that authorities existed ... In the old days, you see, if a man - a Frenchman, for instance- wished to get an education, he would have set to work to study the classics, the theologians, the tragedians, historians and philosophers- and you can realize all the intellectual labour involved. But nowadays he goes straight for the literature of negation, rapidly assimilates the essence of the science of negation, and thinks he's finished. — Leo Tolstoy

Because the end of a friendship isn't even formally acknowledged - no Little Talk, no papers served - you walk around effectively heartbroken but embarrassed to admit it, even to yourself. It's a special, open-ended kind of pain, like having a disease that doesn't even have a name. You worry you must be pathetically oversensitive to feel so wounded over such a thing. You can't tell people, "My friend broke up with me," without sounding like a nine-year-old. The only phrase I can think of that even recognizes this kind of hurt - "You look like you just lost your best friend" - is only ever spoken by adults to children. You can give yourself the same ineffectual lecture your parents used to give you as a kid: anyone who'd treat you this way isn't a very good friend and doesn't deserve your friendship anyway. But the nine-year-old in you knows that the reason they've ditched you is that you suck. — Tim Kreider

Working with Jean-Claude is a lot of fun. Because he's a great actor who also happens to be a fighter. That combination doesn't usually come together anymore. Usually, you have to fight the stunt double and then act against the actor. In his case, you are fighting with a real guy. It takes a minute to get used to that. Because it doesn't happen any more. — Dolph Lundgren

This was a respect in which he paid due homage to the wise old spirit of the late Emiel Kroger, that romantically practical Teuton who used to murmur to Pablo, between sleeping and waking, a sort of incantation that went like his: Sometimes you will find it and other times you won't find it and the times you don't find it are the times when you have got to be careful. Those are the times when you have got to remember that other times you will find it, not this time but the next time, or the time after that, and then you've got to be able to go home without it, yes, those times are the times when you have got to be able to go home without it, go home alone without it ... — Tennessee Williams

You can not become who you want to be until you have changed who you used to be — Orrin Woodward

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose
because it contains all the distinctions of the others
the fact that they were the people who created the phrase "to make money". No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity
to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality. — Ayn Rand

And when your wife is not the same person you fell in love with eight years ago, where exactly does that leave you? Do you try to get to know who she has become, and hope for the best? Or do you keep deceiving yourself in the hope that she might wake up one morning and have gone back to the woman she used to be? — Jodi Picoult

Not many years ago, nearly 100 percent of people who thought they were being constantly watched were certifiable paranoids. But recently it was revealed that, in the name of public safety, Homeland Security and more than a hundred other local, state, and federal agencies are operating aerial surveillance drones of the kind previously used only on foreign battlefields - at low altitudes outside the authority of air-traffic control. Soon, the bigger worry will not be that, as you walk your dog, you are secretly being watched but that the rapidly proliferating drones will begin colliding with one another and with passenger aircraft, and that you'll be killed by the plummeting drone that was monitoring you to be sure that you picked up Fido's poop in a federally approved pet-waste bag. — Dean Koontz

I love you so much, so incredibly much," he went on, "and I forget when you're close to me, I forget who you are. I forget that you're Jem's. I'd have to be the worst sort of person to think what I'm thinking right now. But I am thinking it. — Cassandra Clare

When I heard about these lessons, I thought they would be a dreadful waste of my time. I pictured two very silly girls uninterested in any sort of instruction. But that describes neither Miss Gray nor yourself. I should tell you, I used to train younger Shadowhunters in Madrid. And there were quite a few of them who didn't have the same native ability that you do. You're a talented student, and it is my pleasure to teach you."
Sophie felt herself flush scarlet. "You cannot be serious."
"I am. I was pleasantly surprised the first time I came here and again so the next time and the next. I found that I was looking forward to it. In fact, it would be fair to say that since my return home, I have hated everything in London except these hours with you. — Cassandra Clare

He went into the Gray Joy, drank a glass of Arkanarian brew, patted the hostess's cheek, and deftly used one of his swords to flip the table of the usual informer, who was gawking at him with empty eyes. Then he walked over to a far corner and tracked down a shabby bearded man with an inkwell around his neck. "Hello, Brother Nanin," he said. "How many petitions have you written today?"
Brother Nanin smiled shyly, showing small, decayed teeth. "There aren't many petitions written nowadays, noble don," he said. "Some people think that asking is pointless, while others expect that in the near future they'll be able to take without asking. — Arkady Strugatsky

Every year after Jeannie has her annual baby, I receive congratulations from friends and family. There's always one person who says, "Oh, you just had a baby. Yeah, we just got a puppy." What? In no other situation could you compare a human to an animal and people would actually be okay with it. You could never say, "Oh, you just got married? Yeah, I used to have a pig. Does your new wife like to roll around in mud, too? My pig loved that. — Jim Gaffigan