Worse Things In Life Quotes & Sayings

What do you know of the Knights?" he asked.

Fin shrugged. "I thought knights were only in children's stories until a few days ago."

Jeannot smiled. "A man could do worse than to live in the stories of a child. There is, perhaps, no better remembrance."

"Until the child grows up and finds out the stories aren't true. You might be knights, but I don't see any shining armor," Fin said.

Jeannot stopped near the gate of the auberge and faced her. "Each time a story is told, the details and accuracies and facts are winnowed away until all that remains is the heart of the tale. If there is truth at the heart of it, a tale may live forever. As a knight, there is no dragon to slay, no maiden to rescue, and no miraculous grail to uncover. A knight seeks the truth beneath these things, seeks the heart. We call this the corso. The path set before us. The race we must run. — A.S. Peterson

Well, it was really very pleasant to see how things lazily adapted themselves to purposes. Here was this Mr Gridley, a man of a robust will, and surprising energy - intellectually speaking, a sort of inharmonious blacksmith* - and he could easily imagine that there Gridley was, years ago, wandering about in life for something to expend his superfluous combativeness upon - a sort of Young Love among the thorns - when the Court of Chancery came in his way, and accommodated him with the exact thing he wanted. There they were, matched, ever afterwards! Otherwise he might have been a great general, blowing up all sorts of towns, or he might have been a great politician, dealing in all sorts of parliamentary rhetoric; but, as it was, he and the Court of Chancery had fallen upon each other in the pleasantest way, and nobody was much the worse, and Gridley was, so to speak, from that hour provided for. — Charles Dickens

Left to ourselves we lapse into a kind of collusion with entrophy, acquiescing in the general belief that things may be getting worse but that there's nothing much we can do about them. And we are wrong. Our task in the present ... is to live as resurrection people in between Easter and the final day, with our Christian life, corporate and individual, in both worship and mission, as a sign of the first and a foretaste of the second. — N. T. Wright

I wrote Unwind for lots of reasons, and it poses questions about a
lot of subjects. To state it briefly, I wanted to point out how when people
take intractable positions on an issue, and stick to extreme sides,
sometimes the result is a compromise that is worse than either extreme. I
meant it as a wake up call to society
and to point out that sometimes the
problem IS that we take sides on an issue, when a different sort of approach
is needed. It's also to pose questions about what it means to be alive.
Where does life begin, where does it end
and point out that there is no
single answer to these questions. The problem is people who think there are
simple answers. People who see things as simple black-and-white
right-and-wrong are the type of people who will end up with a world like the
world in Unwind. — Neal Shusterman

Never let your fear of the unknown and things being too difficult make your choices for you in life. One of the saddest lessons in life is finding out that your fear made the situation worse than what it was and a braver person stole the dream you gave up on. — Shannon L. Alder

What if there is no dirt on Merjack?
Oh, I can answer this one. (Omari raised his hand like he was in a classroom, then dropped it to his side.) We all die. (Omari)
I just love teenage angst. By the way, chip, there are worse things in life than dying. (Nero)
Like what? (Omari)
Living as a slave. (Alix) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

And one of the things she had learned early in her life
was that if you discovered something that made you tighten inside, you had better try to learn
more about it. If you simply ignored the feeling, you would never know what might happen, and
in many ways that was worse than finding out you were wrong in the first place. Because if you
were wrong, you could go forward in your life without ever looking back over your shoulder and
wondering what might have been — Nicholas Sparks

And I think for a moment, because people don't actually ask that very often. They tell me what they think I feel because they've read it in books, or they say incredible things like "autistic people have no sense of humour or imagination or empathy" when I'm standing right there beside them (and one day I'm going to point out that that is more than a little bit rude, not to mention Not Even True) or they -- even worse -- talk to me like I'm about five, and can't understand.
"It's like living with all your senses turned up to full volume all the time," I say. "And it's like living life in a different language, so you can't ever quite relax because even when you think you're fluent it's still using a different part of your brain so by the end of the day you're exhausted. — Rachael Lucas

I've spent my life wondering when I would earn the right to be a man again. Despite the undeserved good fortune of finding my true love, I always held a kernel of bitterness in my heart that things were not different... I will never be the man that I was. That man is dead - slain - for better or for worse, by my life as the Beast. In your words, the world does not need who I was. — Jack Heckel

When you aren't sowing into the soil of the universe, you notice that things in your life just seem to dry up and get worse. But when you sow back into the universe with your time, your passion, and your commitment to others, the world will offer abundant opportunities for you to blossom into the new you. — Steve Harvey

Be thankful for even the little things in your life. Be brave & strong to overcome your troubles ... for it could be better but it could always be worse! — Timothy Pina

It felt like faith, like revelation: that things went on, that life ground on regardless, and mindless, and produced pain and pleasure and hope and fear and joy and despair, and you dodged some of it and you sought some of it and sometimes you were lucky
and sometimes you weren't, and sometimes you could plan your way ahead and that would be the right thing to have done, but other times all you could do was forget about plans and just be ready to react, and sometimes the obvious was true and sometimes it
wasn't, and sometimes experience helped but not always, and it was all luck, fate, in the end; you lived, and you waited to see what happened, and you would rarely ever be sure that what you had done was really the right thing or the wrong thing, because things can
always be better, and things can always be worse. — Iain Banks

Fiction was the only way I stayed sane. But I didn't read romances or fairy tales. Nope. I looked for the gritty, the perverse. The dark. Because those kinds of stories gave me hope that there were far worse things in life than what I was dealing with. — Stevie J. Cole

I want to be awful. I want to do awful things and why not? Dull is dull is dull is my life. Like now, it's night, not yet time for bed but too late to be outside, and the two of them reading reading reading with their eyes moving like the lights inside a copy machine. When I was helping put the dishes in the washer tonight, I broke a plate. I said sorry Ma it slipped. But it didn't slip, that's how I am sometimes, and I want to be worse. — Victor Lodato

When you stopped to think about it, he reflected, there weren't many things in life one truly needed. To want too much was worse than greed: it was stupidity - a waste of precious time and effort. The — Tad Williams

Scientists themselves readily admit that they do not fully understand the consequences of our many-faceted assault upon the interwoven fabric of atmosphere, water, land and life in all its biological diversity. But things could also turn out to be worse than the current scientific best guess. In military affairs, policy has long been based on the dictum that we should be prepared for the worst case. Why should it be so different when the security is that of the planet and our long-term future? — Prince Charles

Well, 'They Live' was a primal scream against Reaganism of the '80s. And the '80s never went away. They're still with us. That's what makes 'They Live' look so fresh - it's a document of greed and insanity. It's about life in the United States then and now. If anything, things have gotten worse. — John Carpenter

The confessional writer will treat her story like a wailing wall. She kneels, and her story spills out, messy, improper. It isn't a protest or even graffiti, but her story is an offering of things that she overlooked or notices that others have overlooked. She is in danger of exposure but she remembers when she lived in hiding and that was worse. She cannot turn back now because this is how life has spun out of her, part vexing passage and part prayer. — Patricia Hickman

Things people say to depressives that they don't say in other life-threatening situations:

'Come on, I know you've got tuberculosis, but it could be worse. At least no one's died.'
'Why do you think you got cancer of the stomach?'
'Yes, I know, colon cancer is hard, but you want to try living with someone who has got it. Sheesh. Nightmare.'
'Oh, Alzheimer's you say? Oh, tell me about it, I get that all the time.'
'Ah, meningitis. Come on, mind over matter.'
'Yes, yes, your leg is on fire, but talking about it all the time isn't going to help things, is it?'
'Okay. Yes. Yes. Maybe your parachute has failed. But chin up. — Matt Haig

How is it that one day life is orderly and you are content, a little cynical perhaps but on the whole just so, and then without warning you find the solid floor is a trapdor and you are now in another place whose geography is uncertain and whose customs are strange?
Travellers at least have a chose. Those who set sail know know that things will not be the same as at home. Explorers are perpared. But for us, who travel to cities of the interior by chance, there is no preparaton. We who are fluent find liffe is a foreign language. Somewhere beween the swamp and the mountains. Somewhere beween fear and sex. Somewere beween God and the Devil passion is and the way there is sudden and the way back worse. — Jeanette Winterson

Mr. Llewellyn, on the other hand, said there were worse things in life than a temper, that it only proved one had an opinion. — Kate Morton

I used to wish I had an easier life," he mused. "Some families sail through years with nothing touching them. They have no tragedies. They go on about how lucky they are. Yet sometimes it seems to me they're half alive. When something goes wrong for them, and it does for everyone sooner or later, their trauma is much worse. They've had nothing bad happen to them before. In the meantime, they think little problems, like losing a wallet, are big deals. They think it's ruined their day. They have no idea what a hard day's like. It's going to be incredibly tough for them when they find out."
He'd also developed his own version of making the most of every minute. "Through Sam I found out how quickly things can change. Because of him I've learned to appreciate each moment and try not to hold on to things. Life's more exciting and intense that way. It's like the yogurt that goes off after three days. It tastes so much better than the stuff that lasts three weeks. — Helen Brown

The more it changes, the more it's the same thing. But overall, things have changed. I say changed and not "changed for the better" because I am no fool. Fate is a total drama queen. The second you say things are better than they were, she'll come stumbling toward you on her six-inch heels, nasty-ass wig crooked and on sideways. You'll wonder exactly how she got all that makeup slathered onto her face. One nicotine-caked fake fingernail will point at you, and she will make sure that things are anything but better from there on out. So no, thank you. Things are different but not better and, in fact, could get much much worse, so fuck off, Fate! Is she gone? Whew. Things had changed at school and not in a bad way(crosses fingers and hope that doesn't count as pissing Fate off). — John Goode

You have to ask yourself, what are the things that matter to you most in your life? If you have to have a latte every day that'snice to have right now, but if you take that latte every day right now, you may wind up eating cat food when you are 70. And you have to decide which is worse. — William J. Bernstein

Pornographic or erotic stories and pictures are worse than filthy or polluted food. The body has defenses to rid itself of unwholesome food. With a few fatal exceptions, bad food will only make you sick but do no permanent harm. In contrast, a person who feasts upon filthy stories or pornographic or erotic pictures and literature records them in this marvelous retrieval system we call a brain. The brain won't vomit back filth. Once recorded, it will always remain subject to recall, flashing its perverted images across your mind and drawing you away from the wholesome things in life. — Dallin H. Oaks

Because ... most of us think that the point is something to do with work, or kids, or family, or whatever. But you don't have any of that. There's nothing between you and despair, and you don't seem a very desperate person.'
'Too stupid.'
'You're not stupid. So why don't you ever put your head in the oven?'
'I don't know. There's always a new Nirvana album to look forward to, or something happening in NYPD Blue to make you want to watch the next episode.'
'Exactly.'
'That's the point? NYPD Blue? Jesus.' It was worse than he thought.
'No, no. The point is you keep going. You want to. So all the things that make you want to are the point. I don't know if you even realize it, but on the quiet you don't think life's too bad. You love things. Telly. Music. Food. — Nick Hornby

But leaving is just something that happens in life. We all do it someday, one way or another. There's worse things than going away with the taste of love still fresh in our mouths. — Jenny Wingfield

But I have never had the privilege of unhappiness in Happy Valley. California is about the good life. So a bad life there seems so much worse than a bad life anywhere else. Quality is an obsession there - good food, good wine, good movies, music, weather, cars. Those sound like the right things to shoot for, but the never-ending quality quest is a lot of pressure when you're uncertain and disorganized and, not least, broker than broke. Some afternoons a person just wants to rent Die Hard, close the curtains, and have Cheerios for lunch. — Sarah Vowell

An important decision I made was to resist playing the Blame Game. The day I realized that I am in charge of how I will approach problems in my life, that things will turn out better or worse because of me and nobody else, that was the day I knew I would be a happier and healthier person. And that was the day I knew I could truly build a life that matters. — Steve Goodier

Because we live in a world under siege," I say. "Life sucks for mages and magicians- you taught me that. Bad things happen to those of us who get involved, but if we didn't fight, we'd be in an even worse state. None of it it's your fault, any more than it's the fault of the moon or the stars."
Dervish nods slowly, then arches an eyebrow "The moon or the stars?"
"I always get poetic when I'm dealing with self-pitying simpletons. — Darren Shan

Life is not always what we want it to be, but we can color it any way we like, in order to make it the perfect painting, even when things look rough, there is someone out there who has it worse than us. — Gia Russell

Life's very difficult and full of surprises. At all events, I've got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go straight ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the submerged
well, one can't do all these things at once, worse luck, because they're so contradictory. It's then that proportion comes in
to live by proportion. Don't begin with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed ... — E. M. Forster

Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches, when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed to do things that required pants. Aunt Alexandra's vision of my deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray of sunshine in my father's life. I suggested that one could be a ray of sunshine in pants as well, but Aunty said that one had to behave like a sunbeam, that I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. — Harper Lee

Cheap jewelry, however, is worse than no jewelry at all, and there are very few things in life than are worse than no jewelry at all. — Jill Conner Browne

Next to the day when I was almost shot by that arrow, the worst day of my life was when I was almost eaten. — Jennifer Frick-Ruppert

Perspective basically guarantees that there's no such thing as a pure emotion. Every emotion is based on how sucky (or not) something is in relation to something else that has already happened. I realized that Hy and Marcus and my ankle wouldn't be so huge if I had experienced a Hiroshima-size disaster.It kind of makes me wish that the worst thing that will ever happen to me will just hurry up and happen already. That way I could live the rest of my life in bliss, if only because I
know how much worse things could be. — Megan McCafferty

Worrying does not accomplish anything. Even if you worry twenty times more, it will not change the situation of the world. In fact, your anxiety will only make things worse. Even though things are not as we would like, we can still be content, knowing we are trying our best and will continue to do so. If we don't know how to breathe, smile,and live every moment of our life deeply, we will never be able to help anyone. I am happy in the present moment. I do not ask for anything else. I do not expect any additional happiness or conditions that will bring about more happiness. The most important practice is aimlessness, not running after things, not grasping. — Thich Nhat Hanh

When you are young, you think that the old lament the deterioration of life because this makes it easier for them to die without regret. When you are old, you become impatient with the way in which the young applaud the most insignificant improvements ... while remaining heedless of the world's barbarism. I don't say things have got worse; I merely say the young wouldn't notice if they had. The old times were good because then we were young, and ignorant of how ignorant the young can be. — Julian Barnes

He already knew that life was largely illusion, that though wonderful things could happen, nevertheless as many disappointments came in compensation: and he knew, too, that life could offer a quality even worse - the probability that nothing would happen at all. — William Sansom

I admit I do get a bit protective of my big brother. he always protects me.
"The truth is, I don't have to threaten you with anything worse than you've already done to yourself.
"Alec is brave, and he's good, and he's loyal, and like all Lightwoods he has cheekbones you could use to slice salami. You're never going to find anyone as great as my brother or anyone who loves you as much.
"He's one of the best things in my life, and I'm prepared to bet he's one of the best things in yours. You're going to be sorry when you wake up and realize what you threw away. — Cassandra Clare

But that can't work, can it?" Said Richard. "If we do that, then this won't have happened. Don't we generate all sorts of paradoxes?"
Reg stirred himself from thought. "No worse than many that exist already," he said. "If the universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don't. It's like a human body, you see. A few cuts and bruises here and there don't hurt it. Not even major surgery if its done properly. Paradoxes are just the scar tissue. Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make. That isn't to say if you get involved in a paradox a few things won't strike you as being very odd, but if you've got through life without that already happening to you, then I don't know which universe you've been living in, but it isn't this one — Douglas Adams

It's a Fox thing, the bad-boy image. They're trying to type me out. There are worse things in life, you know. I'm just really excited about the opportunity. — Ben McKenzie

I have always enjoyed watching women dress. The appeal isn't sexual. Most girls' first glimpse of private female life is watching their mothers dress and put makeup on. It makes sense that we'd find it comforting. Childhood fascinations often crystallize this way. Isn't beauty forever defined, in a sense, by the first things we found beautiful? Surely part of my pleasure results from the inundation of images that we all experience. But I also love ritual, and it is a mesmerizing one. I enjoy the ritual of dressing myself, too. It is a form of basking in a kind of femininity that I am opposed to as an ideal, but for better or worse, I think we all fetishize the female body, and intellectualization doesn't spare anyone the obsession. — Melissa Febos

And then it arose and struck Vimes that, in her own special category, she was quite beautiful; this was the category of all the women, in his entire life, who had ever thought he was worth smiling at. She couldn't do worse, but then, he couldn't do better. So maybe it balanced out. She wasn't getting any younger but then, who was? And she had style and money and common-sense and self-assurance and all the things that he didn't, and she had opened her heart, and if you let her she could engulf you; the woman was a city. — Terry Pratchett

Aren't you afraid one of them will betray you? Take it all away? (Shahara) I'm sure one will eventually, but that's the least of what keeps me up at night. Trust me, there are a lot worse things in life than loosing a few credits. (Syn) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

But sometimes you simply can't make yourself feel like acting. And in those situations, motivational advice risks making things worse, by surreptitiously strengthening your belief that you need to feel motivated before you act. By encouraging an attachment to a particular emotional state, it actually inserts an additional hurdle between you and your goal. The subtext is that if you can't make yourself feel excited and pleased about getting down to work, then you can't get down to work. — Oliver Burkeman

He regretted his surliness when she had refused. She was the only person he'd met in his adult life who had any understanding of his past, the only woman he wanted to remain connected to. He didn't want to leave it up to chance to find her again, didn't want to share her with another man. That last day in Volterra he had searched for a way to tell her these things. She had not accused him, as Franca had, of his own cowardice, of his inability to form attachments. But Hema's refusal to accuse him made him feel worse, and without her he was lost. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Where you are in life is temporary. But where you end up in life is permanent. And how you get from here to there is entirely up to you. So don't give up. Sometimes when things go wrong it's because they would have turned out worse if they would have gone right. So don't let unexpected stymies prevent you from moving forward. Accept them as lessons that are helping you to reach your goals. There is opportunity within every difficulty. — Anonymous

In life two negatives don't make a positive. Double negatives turn positive only in math and formal logic. In life things just get worse and worse and worse. — Robert McKee

There is no better mirror in which to see your need than simply the Ten Commandments, in which you will find what you lack and what you should seek. If, therefore, you find in yourself a weak faith, small hope and little love toward God; and that you do not praise and honor God, but love your own honor and fame, think much of the favor of men, do not gladly hear mass and sermon, are indolent in prayer, in which things every one has faults, then you shall think more of these faults than of all bodily harm to goods, honor and life, and believe that they are worse than death and all mortal sickness. These you shall earnestly before God, lament and ask for help, and with all confidence expect help, and believe that you are heard and shall obtain help and mercy. — Martin Luther

I've had shows as a painter, as a photographer, I've done shows as a sculptor. I've done a lot of different things and it all comes from experiences that you have in your life, in your creative environment. They all help - I don't even know if they help; maybe they make it worse but they all influence each other, for sure. — Norman Reedus

There's actually a sort of comfort in the belief that things can only get worse. It gives one an appreciation for the here-and-now, knowing that each and every moment may be as good as its ever going to get. Anyways, I can't imagine living too happy a life - so much to lose. It only figures that the more miserable your life is, the easier it is to lose it. And, when you can lose it at any moment, any time un-enjoyed must be time well spent.
(attrib: F.L. Vanderson) — Mort W. Lumsden

I know all the swear words. I just don't use them. There are worse things in life than being called a Lady. — Irene Dunne

In life there are worse things (then being fired by the Miami Marlins) and I have experienced them. I have lived through bad moments and I will get through this with support. — Ozzie Guillen

If you utter it, who will think of opposing you? The great choir of dogdom will join in as if it had been waiting for you. Then you will have clarity, truth, avowal, as much of them as you desire. The roof of this wretched life, of which you say so many hard things, will burst open, and all of us, shoulder to shoulder, will ascend into the lofty realm of freedom. And if we should not achieve the final consummation, if things should become worse than before, if the whole truth should be more insupportable than the half-truth, if it should be proved that the silent are the guardians of existence, if the faint hope that we still possess should give way to complete hopelessness, the attempt is still worth the trial, since you do not desire to live as you are compelled to live. — Franz Kafka

A sad fact, of course, about adult life is that you see the very things you'll never adapt to coming toward you on the horizon. You see them as the problems they are, you worry like hell about them, you make provisions, take precautions, fashion adjustments; you tell yourself you'll have to change your way of doing things. Only you don't. You can't. Somehow it's already too late. And maybe it's even worse than that: maybe the thing you see coming from far away is not the real thing, the thing that scares you, but its aftermath. And what you've feared will happen has already taken place. This is similar in spirit to the realization that all the great new advances of medical science will have no benefit for us at all, thought we cheer them on, hope a vaccine might be ready in time, think things could still get better. Only it's too late there too. And in that very way our life gets over before we know it. We miss it. And like the poet said: The ways we miss our lives are life. — Richard Ford

What we have in life that we can count on is who we are and where we come from, she thought absently. For better or worse, that is what we have to sustain us in our endevors, to buttress us in our darker moments, and to remind us of our identity. Without those things, we are adrift. — Terry Brooks

And I've fallen.
So hard.
I've hit the ground. Gone right through it. Never in my life have I felt this. Nothing like this. I've felt shame and cowardice, weakness and strength. I've known terror and indifference, self-hate and general disgust. I've seen things that cannot be unseen.
And yet I've known nothing like this terrible, horrible, paralyzing feeling. I feel crippled. Desperate and out of control. And it keeps getting worse. Every day I feel sick. Empty and somehow aching.
Love is a heartless bastard. — Tahereh Mafi

This is our world and we need the same things to survive. If I'm making my life better and the circumstances of your life worse, that's terrible because in the end it will affect me, too. — Gisele Bundchen

No, it really isn't, but trust me, getting divorced and having to start over is the least in life that isn't fair. I had to watch the parents of a way too young girl realize that their daughter died for no other reason than people can't figure out how to be nice to each other. It isn't that hard, just be nice and people might not have to suffer needlessly, but that isn't the world we live in, so young girls die. That isn't fair, Mom. People falling out of love is vicious and it sucks, but there are far worse things you could be going through. I know that sounds harsh but it's very true. — Jay Crownover

In the darkened recesses of the Suburban, my opinion of the vampire rose considerably. There were far worse things than having to drink blood to survive. I could tolerate him, so long as he didn't try to make me his next meal. — Rose Wynters

Sometimes we don't need to eat or drink as much as we do, but it has become a kind of addiction. We feel so lonely. Loneliness is one of the afflictions of modern life. It is similar to the Third and Fourth Precpets
we feel lonely, so we engage in conversation, or even in a sexual relationship, hoping that the feeling of loneliness will go away. Drinking and eating can also be the result of loneliness. You want to drink or overeat in order to forget your loneliness, but what you eat may bring toxins into your body. When you are lonely, you open the refrigerator, watch TV, read magazines or novels, or pick up the telephone to talk. But unmindful consumption always makes things worse (68). — Thich Nhat Hanh

We don't want to lose you Lord Rahl. We don't want to go back to way things were." She sounded on the verge of tears. "We like being able to do simple things, like make a joke, and laugh. We could never do such things before. We always lived in fear that if we said the wrong thing we would be beaten, or worse. Now that we have seen another way, we don't want to go back to that. If you throw your life away for the Midlands, then we will.- Cara — Terry Goodkind

The best life is the one in which the creative impulses play the largest part and the possessive impulses the smallest. This is no new discovery. The Gospel says: "Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" The thought we give to these things is taken away from matters of more importance. And what is worse, the habit of mind engendered by thinking of these things is a bad one; it leads to competition, envy, domination, cruelty, and almost all the moral evils that infest the world. In particular, it leads to the predatory use of force. Material possessions can be taken by force and enjoyed by the robber. Spiritual possessions cannot be taken in this way. — Bertrand Russell

You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. — J. Michael Straczynski

If I have learned one thing in my life, it is that lamentation and regrets only make things worse. A person must move on, move forward but never forget the past, but learn from it. If you ponder the 'if onlys' of life, they will drive you mad. — Lorraine Heath

There are only things that could have turned out different. You don't have any should or woulds in your life, see? You only have things that could have gone a different way. [ ... ] You never know what truly would have happened if you had done your shoulds and woulds. You life might have turned out worse, isn't that possible? — Ned Vizzini

It is a terrible moment when you realise you'll never do all the best things this world can offer; that you'll never have a superlative experience. You'll go to a Gala Bingo rather than Vegas; get your own office, but not be a CEO; and get a gravestone, but not in Poet's Corner. You'll never sleep with the girls on the TV. And all of this mediocrity was made worse by the fact of its inescapable prevalence. — Django Wylie

There are two things in life you cannot choose. The first is your enemies; the second your family. Sometimes the difference between them is hard to see, but in the end time will show you that the cards you have been dealt could always have been worse. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Days and months of holding back. Being diplomatic. Trying to figure out which way was up, and how to right a series of mistakes that weren't meant to hurt anyone. At work and in my personal life. It was all a mess, and every time I tried to make things right, I made them worse. So maybe the answer was to stop trying so hard. — Allyson Lindt

Now put down only what you actually had to do in the event." "What I had to do?" "Right. Because there are no such things as shoulds and woulds in the universe." "There aren't?" I'm starting to suspect Keith a bit. For someone in Anxiety Management, he's giving me an exercise that is fairly confusing and anxiety-provoking. "No," he says. "There are only things that could have turned out differently. You don't have any shoulds or woulds in your life, see? You only have things that could have gone a different way." "Ah." "You never know what truly would have happened if you had done your shoulds and woulds. Your life might have turned out worse, isn't that possible?" "I don't see how it's really possible, seeing as I'm on the phone with you. — Ned Vizzini

We know in Life have always people that can do or knowing things better but the Truth is never better or worse, but a Fact of the True. — Jan Jansen

This is a terrible place to spend your life in. Nobody in Hollywood is normal. Absolutely nobody. And they have such a vicious attitude toward one another. They say much worse things about each other than outsiders say about them, and nobody has any real friends. — Gary Cooper

The important thing, I think, is not to be bitter. You know, if it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. I think that the worst thing you could say about him is that basically he's an underachiever. After all, you know, there are worse things in life than death. — Woody Allen

There are worse things in life to be than fat, and one of them is ignorant. Another is prejudiced. Another is deliberately cruel. — Laura Wiess

Fight hard and don't fear death. There are far worse things in life - one being living a life you aren't proud of. — A.G. Riddle

It is often to the wary that the events in life are unexpected. Looser types-people who are not busy weighing and measuring every little thing-are used to accidents, coincidences, chance, things getting out of hand, things sneaking up on them. They are the happy children of life, to whom life happens for better or worse. — Laurie Colwin

there are worse things than death or murder." "Like what?" I asked. "Though it's hard to comprehend," he said, "the worst thing is to say to God that you don't need him. Why? Because a dead person can be restored to life by God; a bereaved person can find peace from God; a person who has been violated can find God's sustenance and strength and even see God conquer through the dark mystery of evil. In other words, there is recourse through these atrocities and tragedies. But to a person who says he or she doesn't need God, what is the recourse? There is none. — Lee Strobel

Victor wondered about lots of things. He wondered about himself (whether he was broken, or special, or better, or worse) and about other people (whether they were all really as stupid as they seemed). He wondered about Angie - what would happen if he told her how he felt, what it would be like if she chose him. He wondered about life, and people, and science, and magic, and God, and whether he believed in any of them. — Victoria Schwab

The more I thought to myself, 'Are my thoughts right, am I being obedient enough?' the worse it was ... one of the most painful things you can experience in life is not so much physical pain, but being self-occupied. Because to the extent you are self-occupied, that's the extent you will be in pain. — Joseph Prince

Some days you wake up changed. This was one for Starling, she could tell. What she had seen yesterday at the Potter Funeral Home had caused in her a small tectonic shift. Starling had studied psychology and criminology in a good school. In her life she had seen some of the hideously offhand ways in which the world breaks things. But she hadn't really known, and now she knew: sometimes the family of man produces, behind a human face, a mind whose pleasure is what lay on the porcelain table at Potter, West Virginia, in the room with the cabbage roses. Starling's first apprehension of that mind was worse than anything she could see on the autopsy scales. The knowledge would lie against her skin forever, — Thomas Harris

It was making me think about human life in a way I didn't want to think about it. Human life, I realized, got progressively worse as you got older, by the sound of things. — Matt Haig

There are few things in life worse than a long-winded lawyer. — John Grisham

Some people believe that if they keep their heads down and stick to their safe routine and trust that nothing bad will befall them, then it won't. They see things happening to others, but they think they're different; they're special; it could never happen to them. They believe that nothing can get better, but also that nothing can get worse. They're cowards, in one way, because they won't fight, but they're also brave, because they're willing to accept their lot in life. Glupava smelost, we called it. Foolish courage. — Samantha Shannon

Many people feel confused and depressed in their early twenties. Life seemed so much more fun in college. Well, of course it was. Don't be fooled by the surface similarities. You've gone from guest to servant. It's possible to have fun in this new world. Among other things, you now get to go behind the doors that say "authorized personnel only." But the change is a shock at first, and all the worse if you are not consciously aware of it. — Paul Graham

Take an old man's word; there's nothing worse than a muddle in all the world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror - on the things that I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. I used to think I could teach young people the whole of life, but I know better now, and all my teaching of George has come down to this: beware of muddle. — E. M. Forster

No one who lives in the sunlight of gratitude that things aren't worse makes a failure of his or her life. — Albert Camus

Poor Willie - running out - ah well - can't be helped - just one of those old things - another of those old things - just can't be cured - cannot be cured - ah yes - poor dear Willie - good Lord! - good God! - ah well - no worse - no better, no worse - no change - no pain - hardly any - great thing that - nothing like it - pure ... what? - what? - ah yes - poor Willie - no zest - for anything - no interest - in life - poor dear Willie - sleep for ever - marvellous gift - in my opinion - always said so - wish I had it — Samuel Beckett

There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman? — Woody Allen

Simplifying your life is meant to make things better, not worse. It's about choices - about saying no to the things in your life that aren't the best so that you are free and available to say yes to those things you truly want. — Tsh Oxenreider

Life is arranged against us, Sarah. And it's brutally worse for Handful and her mother and sister. We're all yearning for a wedge of sky, aren't we? I suspect God plants these yearnings in us so we'll at least try and change the course of things. We must try, that's all. — Sue Monk Kidd

Is life worth keeping on with, whatever happens?" Was she talking about living broken, living with loss? Did she count his loss a real one, and did she really want to know or was there a barb in this somewhere? Sometimes, Akiva felt like he didn't know his sister at all. "Yes," he said, wary, thinking of the thurible, and Karou. "As long as you're alive, there's always a chance things will get better."
"Or worse," said Liraz.
"Yes," he conceded. "Usually worse. — Laini Taylor

The lessons she'd been forced to learn were dry spare things, the facts without the sense of them, given in the simplest of language, as if words might disguise the truth or (worse) bring it to life. — Robin McKinley

Few things can mess you up as badly as trying to do your best. For the tender heart, the earnest heart, it is so discouraging to give all you have trying to do what you think Jesus would have you do, and find yourself falling short, sabotaging your own efforts at every turn. Discouragement and shame settle in like a long Seattle rain.
And this is what most Christians experience as the Christian life: Try harder; feel worse. — John Eldredge

I was driving my car, I crashed and broke my spine. So yes there are things worse in life than never being someone's sweetie. — Morrissey

Things can't get any worse. It's a stupid expression.

Things can always get worse. And in my experience, they usually do. — Kami Garcia

In one of the extras that come with the DVD version of the movie (Groundhog Day), Danny Rubin, who came up with the original idea and then wrote the script, says that the movie is about "doing what you can do in the moment to make things better instead of making them worse." Which might not sound like very much, but it's just about all you can do in life.

Which only proves that the world itself runs on Yiddish-speaking principles: the best way to get what you want and make all those bastards out there so jealous that they'll want to poke their own eyes out is to go out of your way to be nice to those bastards. That's the way to show them. That's how a mentsh gets revenge. — Michael Wex

I woke up today in a good mood. I was feeling like I could do this. Like life isn't that perfect and it even kind of sucks sometimes, obviously, but things could suck a lot worse. — Sandy Hall

You were the biggest mistake of my life, Kellan. You were right - we're not friends, never were. I wish you would just go away.
I felt like she'd just reached into my chest and squeezed my heart until it burst open in her hands. Her words hurt me more than anything I'd ever heard before, and I'd heard some pretty shitty things in my lifetime. This was worse than anything my father had ever said or done to me. It was worse than hearing her have sex with Denny five seconds after me. This ... destroyed me. — S.C. Stephens

All the best and worse things in us are bound up in the legacy of our family. As children we ardently trust in the stability or, in some cases, the instability we were born into. No matter which...we embraced what was decent while simultaneously suppressing what was deficient yet both traits weaved roots of faithfulness and consternation into the very fabric of who we've become. This now plays significantly into how we nurture our own families and how we relate to others. Our love, our fears, our insecurities, and our loyalties all draw from how we were raised as well as our inherent desire to shift its paradigm to optimistically better the life of not just our children...but our children's children. That's the gift and or the curse of a legacy. Which will you leave behind? — Jason Versey