Wrong To Pick Quotes & Sayings

GENERAL RAGINSKY: Mr. President, in order to exhaust fully the presentation of evidence in regard to the subject-matter of my report, I ask your permission to examine witness Josif Abgarovitch Orbeli - Tatiana dropped the cup of tea she was drinking, and it fell on the tile floor and broke, and Tatiana fell on the floor, too, on her knees, and began to pick up the pieces, every moment or so emitting cries of such distress that Vikki, who was nearby, jumped up, backed away and said in a stunned voice, "What's wrong with you?" Tatiana waved her off with one hand, her other hand holding a ceramic shard which covered her mouth as she continued to listen to the bare echo that was the radio broadcast as it ceaselessly continued. A crash on the road, but the radio still plays music, still transmits sounds no matter how incongruous it is that the ear can somehow hear, that the brain can somehow listen - — Paullina Simons

I try to wait until things set up just right before I take a trade. Then, when I'm ready to take the trade, I slowly count to ten before I pick up the phone. It's better to have the wrong idea and good timing than the right idea and bad timing. — Linda Bradford Raschke

Left to ourselves, we might pick the wrong health insurance, the wrong mortgage, the wrong school for our kids; why, unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb. — Mitch Daniels

William pondered over his argument with Annie. How did a simple statement turn into a full-scale fight? He didn't understand why it was wrong of him to assume Annie would run a simple errand for him. Sara had done all of it without complaint. All he'd asked Annie to do was pick up a suit from the dry cleaners. — Deanna Lynn Sletten

Hannah returns to our booth carrying our drink orders. Or rather, Allie and Dex's drink orders. Logan and I asked for sodas, but what we get is water.

"Where's my Dr. Pepper, Wellsy?" Logan whines.

She levels him with a stern look. "Do you know how much sugar is in a soft drink?"

"A perfectly acceptable amount and therefore I should drink it?" supplies Logan.

"Wrong. The answer is too damn much. You're playing Michigan in an hour - you can't get all hopped up on sugar before a game. You'll get a five-minute energy boost and then crash halfway through the first period."

Logan sighs. "G, why is your girl our nutritionist now?"

I pick up my water glass and take a sip of defeat. "Do you want to argue with her?"

Logan looks at Hannah, whose expression clearly conveys: you'll get a soda over my dead body. Then he looks back at me. "No," he says glumly. — Elle Kennedy

Young people are not tabulae rasae. They have a sense of right and wrong. But if they're repeatedly exposed to certain themes, they are more likely to pick them up, to internalize them and have them become part of their sexual scripts. — Peggy Orenstein

As I mentioned briefly on the phone, the best thing about the Air Chrysalis is that it's not an imitation of anyone. It has absolutely none of the usual new writer's sense of 'I want to be another so-and-so'. the syle, for sure, is rough,and the writing is clumsy. She even gets the title wrong: she's confusing 'chrysalis' and 'cocoon'. You could pick it apart completely if you wanted to. But the story itself has real power: it draws you in. the overall plots is a fantasy, but the descriptive details is incredibly real.The balance between the two is excellent. I don't know if words like 'originality' or Inevitability' fit here, and I suppose I might agree if someone insisted it's not at that level, but finally, after you work your way through the thing, with all its faults, it leaves a real impression- it gets to you in some strange, inexplicable way that may be a little disturbing. — Haruki Murakami

A Christian is not someone who never goes wrong, but one who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin again, because the Christ-life is inside him. — C.S. Lewis

I poke myself in the eye. "Would you stop touching yourself?" I drop the mascara tube on the table and pick up a tissue to wipe the smear of black I just made at the inside corner of my eyelid because I can't keep my fricking eyes off Dean.

"What's wrong, baby? You jealous? I was thinking of how hot you look." He rolls to his side. "You make a little circle with your mouth when you put your eye makeup on. It's basically begging me to stick my dick in there."

Nope, there's nothing warm and squishy about my relationship with this guy. I shoot him a disbelieving glance. "We just got done having morning sex," I remind him. I apply two quick swipes of the mascara before Dean's hand can do more damage under the bed sheets.

"That was thirty minutes ago. Since then, you've showered, waved your tits and bare ass in front of me getting dressed, and then made little blowjob circles with your mouth. So yeah, I'm horny again. Sue me. — Elle Kennedy

We have to start thinking of America as a family. We have to stop screeching screeching at each other, stop hurting each other, and instead start caring for, sacrificing for and sharing with each other ... We cannot move forward if cynics and critics swoop down and pick apart anything that goes wrong, to a point where we lose sight of what is right, decent and uniquely good about America. — Colin Powell

We shouldn't have left." Keeley paced the kitchen, stopping at the windows on each pass. Why weren't they back?
"Darling, you're shaking. Come on now, sit and drink your tea."
"I can't.What's wrong with men? They'd have beaten that idiot to a pulp.I'm not that surprised at Brian,I suppose, but I expected more restraint from Dad."
Genuinely surprised, Adelia glanced over. "Why?"
As worry ate through her she raked her hands through her hair. "He's contained. Now you,I could see you taking a few swings ... " SHe winced. "No offense," she said, then saw that her mother was grinning.
"None taken.My temper might be a bit, we'll say, more colorful than your father's. His tends to be cold and deliberate when it's called for.And it was.The man hurt and frightened his little girl."
"His little girl was about to attempt to gut the man with a hoof pick." Keeley blew out a breath. "I've never seen Dad hit anyone, or look like he wanted to keep right on with it. — Nora Roberts

Sometimes, making the wrong choice is better than making no choice. You have the courage to go forward, that is rare. A person who stands at the fork, unable to pick, will never get anywhere. — Terry Goodkind

It always hurts a bit to pick the 'wrong one' in a race as big as the Champion Hurdle, and then, to make matters worse, you go and get beat by the horse you rejected. — Tony McCoy

Bodies like this give sexual desire its meaning! It's for this that penises rise like drawbridges and vaginas become engorged with blood! It's for this that people throw snot-nosed kids into ravines, cross raging rivers, or ice-pick up the wrong side of frozen waterfalls! It's for this that politicians undo their flies in election season, porn magazines with their pages stuck together are found stacked in church basements, people chop off body parts and mail them to ex-lovers, risk hair on palms, stolen wallets, planes flying into buildings, and lice that hop like chess figurines on a board whose players are ever changing. — Barry Webster

Family," she announced. "They're the people in your life you don't get to pick. The ones that are given to you,as opposed to those you get to choose."
"You're bound to them by blood," she continued, her voice flat. "Which, you know, gives you that much more in common. Diseases, genetics, hair, and eye color. It's like they're part of your blueprint. If something's wrong with you, you can usually trace it back to them."
I nodded and kept writing.
"But," she said, "even though you're stuck with them, at the same time, they're also stuck with you. So that's why they always get the front rows at christenings and funerals. Because they're the ones that are there, you know, from the beginning to the end. Like it or not. — Sarah Dessen

I'm all for cafeteria religion. I think there's nothing wrong with cafeterias - I've had some great meals at cafeterias. I've also had some horrible meals, so it's important to pick the right things. Take a heaping helping of compassion and mercy, and leave the intolerance on the table. — A. J. Jacobs

Unlike any other mental disorder, psychopaths are keenly aware of the impact that their behavior has on others. That's half the fun for them - watching you suffer. They pick up on insecurities and vulnerabilities in a heartbeat, and then make the conscious choice to exploit those qualities. They know right from wrong, and simply choose to steamroll straight through it. — Peace

Many people - particularly the young - have been persuaded that such a search is futile. They have been told from their preschool days on that one person's opinion is as good as another's, that each person can pick his or her own truth from a multicultural smorgasbord. If one choice proves unsavory, pick another, and so on, until, in a consumerist fashion, we pick the truth we like best. I think the despair of Generations X, Y, and now E comes from this fundamental notion that there's no such thing as reality or the capital-T truth. Almost every new movie I see these days features a bright, good-looking, talented young man who is so downright sad, he can barely lift his head. I want to scream, "What's wrong with this guy?" Then I feel a profound compassion because his generation has been forbidden the one thing that makes life such a breathtaking challenge: truth. — Charles W. Colson

You know how you're at a party and you pick up the wrong beer, and you know after one sip that it's not yours? But then, when you find the right one, you know it right away? Why? What is it? The temperature, or the taste of your own spit that you somehow recognize? Or the weight and moistness of the can? Or maybe everything, all together. But it's all so subtle and complex you can't explain it. If someone asked, How do you know that's your beer? well, you wouldn't know what to say. You just know. — Rebecca Flowers

I got into a fight with Walt Disney: I always pick the wrong people to fight with. — Frank Tashlin

I don't dress this way because I like it so much or because I want people to stare at me in general. But people are going to stare at me for the wrong reasons anyway, and if they are going to stare at me for the wrong reasons, then at least I should get to pick them. — Katja Millay

One theme that runs through many [job hunting books] is just plain harmful: the advice to "just be yourself." Wrong. Remember that first day on your first job, when you went to get your first cup of coffee? You found the coffee machine, and there, stuck on the wall behind it, was a handwritten sign reading:
YOUR MOTHER DOESN'T WORK HERE
PICK UP AFTER YOURSELF
You thought, "Pick up after myself? Gee, I guess I've got to develop a new way of doing things." And so you started to observe and emulate the more successful professionals around you. You weren't born this way. You developed new skills and ways of conducting yourself, in effect creating a professional persona that enabled you to survive in the professional world. — Martin Yate

I've read, Monsieur Boustouler, that if an avalanche buries you and you're lying there underneath all that snow, you can't tell which way is up or down. You want to dig yourself out but pick the wrong way, and you dig yourself to your own demise. That was how I felt, disoriented, suspended in confusion, stripped of my compass. — Khaled Hosseini

I've read that if an avalanche buries you and you're lying there underneath all that snow, you can't tell which way is up or down. You want to dig yourself out but pick the wrong way, and you dig yourself to your own demise. — Khaled Hosseini

I scanned through another section finding yet another thing I wasn't about to let happen.
"You want to pick my clothes? What the hell is wrong with my clothes?"
His eyes took in my sleeveless top and sank lower as if he was sneering with disdain at my jeans. They were jeans for monkey butt's sake!
"I have a certain reputation Synthia. I won't have it smeared with being shadowed by a child who wears the clothes of an immature teenager."
"I'm wearing jeans, half the country wears them! — Amelia Hutchins

Because of my job, I learned to be confident a little earlier than most. People pick you apart when you're in the public eye - you're wearing the wrong shoes or you have ugly nail polish on or they're wondering if you got your boobs done - so you have to be a strong person right away. — Heidi Klum

Investors ... can't pick stocks that are better than average. Stocks are a good thing to own over time. There's only two things you can do wrong: You can buy the wrong ones, and you can buy or sell them at the wrong time. And the truth is you never need to sell them. — Warren Buffett

'Not again!' I thought to myself this morning, as news trickled out that John McCain was set to pick Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Not again, because too often women are promoted for the wrong reasons, and then blamed when things don't go right. — Dee Dee Myers

Society has put up so many boundaries, so many limitations on what's right and wrong that it's almost impossible to get a pure thought out. It's like a little kid, a little boy, looking at colors, and no one told him what colors are good, before somebody tells you you shouldn't like pink because that's for girls, or you'd instantly become a gay two-year-old. Why would anyone pick blue over pink? Pink is obviously a better color. Everyone's born confident, and everything's taken away from you — Kanye West

I can pick up the city feeds on my antenna. It said they were going to change you all. Turn you into something less dangerous. Are you still ... ?"
She gazed at him. "What do you think, David?"
He peered into her eyes for a long moment, then sighed and shook his head. "You just look like Tally to me."
She looked down, her vision blurring.
What's the matter?"
Nothing, David." She shook her head. "You just took on five million years of evolution again."
I what? Did I say something wrong?"
No." She smiled. "You said something right. — Scott Westerfeld

As I said there is nothing wrong with failing. Pick yourself up and try it again. You never are going to know how good you really are until you go out and face failure. — Henry Kravis

We fail to open the right doors because we fail to pick the right keys! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

In the same way a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble
because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time, enabling him to repeat (in some degree) the kind of voluntary death which Christ Himself carried out. - Mere Christianity — C.S. Lewis

Stocks are the things to own over time. Productivity will increase and stocks will increase with it. There are only a few things you can do wrong. One is to buy or sell at the wrong time. Paying high fees is the other way to get killed. The best way to avoid both of these is to buy a low-cost index fund, and buy it over time. Be greedy when others are fearful, and fearful when others are greedy, but don't think you can outsmart the market. If a cross-section of American industry is going to do well over time, then why try to pick the little beauties and think you can do better? Very few people should be active investors. — Alice Schroeder

Sometimes I just get so frustrated with games of human attraction." "How so?" "It's all masked in posturing and ploys. There's no honesty. People can't just come up and express their attraction. It's got to be cleverly obscured with some stupid pick-up line or not-so-subtle gift, and I don't really know how to play those games so well. We're taught that it's wrong to be honest, like there's some kind of social stigma with it. — Richelle Mead

Basically I wake up in the morning and I think everything's going to be great. I'm really kind of optimistic, and I look forward to a new day. I pick up 'The New York Times,' and I look at the front page and realize that once again I'm wrong. I start to fixate on stuff. — Lewis Black

He actually does the opposite. He says, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it."1 If Jesus wanted to grow a church, didn't he know telling people they need to daily pick up an instrument of torture, death, and shame wasn't the way to do it? Jesus opposed the pharisaical legalism of his time, but he also opposed the watered-down, flimsy, cultural religion. He was essentially saying, "I know my miracles are awesome. I know I have immense power. But don't follow me for the wrong reason. The cost is high. The road to follow me is tough, it's painful, it hurts, and you might even face death, but I promise there is joy on the other side. Do you want in? — Jefferson Bethke

You come to work knowing you're going to do good work without any doubt. You can go where you need to go and nothing is wrong and you pick the rightnesses out. If something doesn't work, you let them go, but you don't hold onto those wrongnesses. You just hold onto the rightnesses, so it's a playing field that anyone would want and feel much more comfortable with. — John Travolta

If I had to pick favourite parts of Interlagos, I would say the first and last corners. The first corner is really technical and punishes you if you get it wrong, while the last corner is so fast and really puts quite a strain on your body. As a driver, I really enjoy these corners. — Romain Grosjean

The year showed me beyond a doubt that everyone practices cafeteria religion ... But the important lesson was this: there's nothing wrong with choosing. Cafeterias aren't bad per se ... the key is in choosing the right dishes. You need to pick the nurturing ones (compassion), the healthy ones (love thy neighbor), not the bitter ones. — A. J. Jacobs

And all this business about what knife and fork you eat from, it's a deliberate puzzle set out to make a simple bloke like me feel like a stranger. Whatever you pick up isn't going to change what the food tastes like, but Effie presses my knee hard if I gets it wrong. — Terry Pratchett

As a professional, you can afford to pick some stocks and be wrong about a few of them. To keep your job, you cannot take the risk of being seen to be wrong about the 'big picture' for very long. — Jeremy Grantham

A lot of my friends they call me 'the therapist'. They come to me looking for advice. I must be doing something right because they keep coming back. But I'm not very good at kind of looking into my own world and trying to pick apart what is really wrong and fix those things. I like to kind of shy away from certain issues and turn away. — Janet Jackson

Sometimes, marriages fail because people are immature, or because expectations are unrealistic on both sides. Sometimes people die because they have incurable diseases, not because their families turned to the wrong doctor or waited too long to go to the hospital. Sometimes business fail because economic conditions or powerful competition doom them, not because one person in charge made a wrong decision in a crucial moment. If we want to be able to pick up the pieces of our lives and go on living, we have to get over the irrational feeling that every misfortune is our fault, the direct result of our mistakes or misbehaviour. We are really not that powerful. Not everything that happens in the world is our doing. — Harold S. Kushner

A man--Buck--wrote a vindication in the seventeenth-century, and Horace Walpole in the eighteenth, and someone named Markham in the nineteenth ... "

"And who in the twentieth?"

"No one that I know of."

"Then what's wrong with your doing it?"

"But it wont' be the same, don't you see? It won't be a great discovery."

He said it in capitals. A GREAT DISCOVERY.

Grant smiled at him.

"Oh, come, you can't expect to pick GREAT DISCOVERIES off bushes. If you can't be a pioneer what's wrong with leading a crusade?"

"A crusade?

"Certainly."

"Against what?"

"Tonypandy. — Josephine Tey

COMMUNICATION: If I had to pick a first rule of communication-the one practice above all others that opens the door to connecting with others-it would be to look for common ground. Too often people see communication as the process of transmitting massive amounts of information to other people. But that's the wrong picture. Communication is a journey. The more that people have in common, the better the chance that they can take that journey together. — John C. Maxwell

Whatever is necessary to do, you do it. When somebody needs to be killed, there's no wrong. You do it, and then you move on. And you pick up a child and you move him to the desert. You pick up as many children as you can, and you kill whoever gets in your way. That is us. — Sandra Good

But don't you understand, Amy? You're wrong. Relationships never provide you with everything. They provide you with some things. You take all the things you want from a person - sexual chemistry, let's say, or good conversation, or financial support, or intellectual compatibility, or niceness, or loyalty - and you get to pick three of those things. Three- That's it. Maybe four, if you're very lucky. The rest you have to look for elsewhere. It's only in the movies that you find someone who gives you all of those things. But this isn't the movies. In the real world, you have to identify which there qualities you want to spend the rest of your life with, and then you look for those qualities in another person. That's real life. Don't you see it's a trap? If you keep trying to find everything, you'll end up with nothing. — Hanya Yanagihara

It isn't enough to pick a path - you must go down it. By doing so, you see things you couldn't possibly see when you started out; you may not like what you see, some of it may be confusing, but at least you will have, as we like to say, "explored the neighborhood." The key point here is that even if you decide you're in the wrong place, there is still time to head toward the right place. — Ed Catmull

I've had a lot of practice. The Pack contains thirty-two species in seven tribes, each with their own hang-up. Jackals and coyotes pick fights with wolves, because they have an inferiority complex and think they've got something to prove.
Wolves believe themselves to be superior, marry the wrong people, and then refuse to divorce them because they cling to their 'mating for life' idiocy.
Hyenas listen to nobody, screw everything, and break out in berserk rages at some perceived slight against one of their own.
Cats randomly refuse to follow orders to prove they can.
That's my life. I've been at this for fifteen years now.
You're easy by comparison. — Ilona Andrews

Keep your vocabulary as wide as you can. I have some difficulty with the word 'cool', and I'm not too bothered about the word 'awesome'. People like me are looking to people like you guys of the next generation to deal with this shit. It's like seeing a rock guitarist pick up a Fender Stratocaster and hold it the wrong way. — Terry Pratchett

The last sort I shall mention are verbal critics - mere word-catchers, fellows that pick out a word in a sentence and a sentence in a volume, and tell you it is wrong. The title of Ultra-Crepidarian critics has been given to a variety of this species. — William Hazlitt

You're asking yourself, Can I give this child the best possible upbringing and keep her out of harm's way her whole life long? The answer is no, you can't. But nobody else can either. Not a state home, that's for sure. For heaven's sake, the best they can do is turn their heads while the kids learn to pick locks and snort hootch, and then try to keep them out of jail. Nobody can protect a child from the world. That's why it's the wrong thing to ask, if you're really trying to make a decision."
So what's the right thing to ask?"
Do I want to try? Do I think it would be interesting, maybe even enjoyable in the long run, to share my life with this kid and give her my best effort and maybe, when all's said and done, end up with a good friend. — Barbara Kingsolver

Quinn would have closed the bar down if needed. There was nothing in this world that was more important to him than his family. He would always come when any of them, even Avalon, who barely ever came home, needed him. He would stand up for them, whether they were right or wrong. He would pick them up if they fell and he would always be proud of them - no matter how small their accomplishments. He was, and always would be, their elder brother, father figure, friend, or whatever role they needed him to be. — Alex Morgan

Helplessness, hopelessness, despair, anger and hatred are all symptoms of a fundamental delusion that has occurred within the depth of the mind. It has occurred because there has been a long history of having cultivated the skill of listening to the wrong voice. The wrong voice is the voice of ego. It has taught you to judge, to pick, to select what you will be responsible for. — Shanti Christo Foundation

It's wrong because if you pick up a rifle, the Man picks up a machine gun, by the time you find some machine gun he's all set up to shoot rockets, begin to see a pattern? — Thomas Pynchon

It's good to let God pick a man for you. We don't do so well when we pick them ourselves. They end up lipsticks in a drawer, all those wrong colors you thought looked so good in the package. — Deb Caletti

He was developing a sneaking feeling he had found his way onto the wrong side. Again. But it's not always easy to tell when you're picking. Perhaps, as Kahdia once told him, you are on the wrong side as soon as you pick one. — Joe Abercrombie

SETH: But don't you understand, Amy? You're wrong. Relationships never provide you with everything. They provide you with some things. You take all the things you want from a person - sexual chemistry, let's say, or good conversation, or financial support, or intellectual compatibility, or niceness, or loyalty - and you get to pick three of those things. Three - that's it. Maybe four, if you're very lucky. The rest you have to look for elsewhere. It's only in the movies that you find someone who gives you all of those things. But this isn't the movies. In the real world, you have to identify which three qualities you want to spend the rest of your life with, and then you look for those qualities in another person. That's real life. Don't you see it's a trap? If you keep trying to find everything, you'll wind up with nothing. — Hanya Yanagihara

She eyes me. 'What is this all about?'
It's my turn to shrug, upsetting the rocks on my back. 'I don't know. Girl talk. I mean, you can have any guy you want, so why don't you just pick one?'
Priscilla doesn't answer at first. I'm glad I chose this moment: she's actually pinned down and cannot run away. Finally, she says, 'If I can have any guy I want, I'd like to have every guy I want.'
'What do you mean?
She gives me an exasperated look. 'I'm only seventeen, Skye. I'm not looking to settle down just yet.' She probably misunderstands my shocked expression, because she adds, 'I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, but it's just not me, you know? — Fabio Bueno

I'm a really smart player. If you tell me something, I get it quickly. If there is something wrong with my hitting, tell me what's wrong and I'll pick it up right away. That's the best thing I have going for me, my ability to listen to a coach and fix what I'm doing wrong. — Albert Pujols

If you were to try and pick him out of a group of boys, you'd be wrong. He'd be the other one. Over at the side. The one your eye slipped over. — Neil Gaiman

The Crown doesna always pick the wrong man to hang, Sassenach," he said. "More often than not, the man on the end of a rope deserves to be there. And I shouldna like to think I've helped a villain to go free. — Diana Gabaldon

Whether it's New York or somewhere else, the metaphor of 'Avenue Q,' which is the place you live when you can't afford to live anywhere else - and we've all been through that in our journey. As I always say, at any moment I could be back on Avenue Q if I pick the wrong show. — Kevin McCollum

We approach people the same way we approach our cars. We take the poor kid to a doctor and ask, What's wrong with him, how much will it cost, and when can I pick him up? — James Hillman

but I want to tell them
that all of this shit
is just debris
leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
we used to be
and if you can't see anything beautiful about yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there's something inside you
that made you keep trying
despite everyone who told you to quit
you built a cast around your broken heart
and signed it yourself
you signed it
"they were wrong"
because maybe you didn't belong to a group or a click
maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth
to show and tell but never told
because how can you hold your ground
if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
you have to believe that they were wrong

they have to be wrong — Shane L. Koyczan

That the West thinks that seven is lucky and the Chinese think eight is shows both that numerology is wrong and that it's popular across the world. Numbers feel mysterious and significant. So all you need to do to sound mysterious and significant is to pick a number, any number. — Mark Forsyth

Dear five-year-old, What the fuck is wrong with you? Normal children don't have dead imaginary friends. Normal children don't pick open every single one of their chicken pox scabs and then stand naked and bleeding in the darkened doorway to their bedroom until someone walks past and asks what they are doing. Furthermore, normal children don't respond by saying, "I wanted to know what all my blood would look like." Normal children also don't watch their parents sleep from the corner of the room. Mom was really scarred by The Exorcist when she was younger, and she doesn't know how to cope with your increasingly creepy behavior. Please stop. Please, please stop. — Allie Brosh

What critics might call eclectic, and Eastern folks quirky, we Southerners call cussedness-and it's the cornerstone of the American genius. As in: 'There's a right way, a wrong way, and my way.' You want to see how that looks on the page, pick up any of Craig McDonald's novels. He's built him a nice little shack out there way off all the reg'lar roads, and he's brewing some fine, heady stuff. Leave your money under the rock and come back in an hour. — James Sallis

For me, anything goes when I pick up a mike. I'm not trying to hurt people - I try not to get too personal but I look at myself as a reporter. If you can report on anything that has to do with pop culture, then why can't I make jokes about it? Yes, it hurts. But I figure that laughter sometimes starts from pain. You might wince, but then I know that I'm doing my job. The only thing I can do wrong is not be funny. — Chris Rock

We know that every father has a personal responsibility to do right by their kids - to encourage them to turn off the video games and pick up a book; to teach them the difference between right and wrong; to show them through our own example the value in treating one another as we wish to be treated. And most of all, to play an active and engaged role in their lives. — Barack Obama

The question about the page is: what is beneath it? It seems to have only two dimensions, you can pick it up and turn it over and the back is the same as the front. Nothing, you say, disappointed.
But you were looking in the wrong place, you were looking on the back instead of beneath. Beneath the page is another story. Beneath the page is a story. Beneath the page is everything that has ever happened, most of which you would rather not hear about.
The page is not a pool but a skin, a skin is there to hold in and it can feel you touching it. Did you really think it would just lie there and do nothing?
Touch the page at your peril: it is you who are blank and innocent, not the page. Nevertheless you want to know, nothing will stop you. You touch the page, it's as if you've drawn a knife across it, the page has been hurt now, a sinuous wound opens, a thin incision. Darkness wells through. — Margaret Atwood

She and Neal had decorated that house together. They'd gone to the hardware store every weekend for a year to argue about paint. Georgie would always choose the most saturated color on the card.
"You can't always pick the bottom color," Neal would say.
"But the bottom color makes all the other colors look dull."
"You're looking at them wrong."
"How is that possible? — Rainbow Rowell

You know what? I was wrong. You are an idiot. My life happens to, on occasion, suck beyond the telling of it. Sometimes more than I can handle. And it's not just mine. Every single person down there is ignoring your pain because they're too busy with their own. The beautiful ones. The popular ones. The guys that pick on you. Everyone. If you could hear what they were feeling. The loneliness. The confusion. It looks quiet down there. It's not. It's deafening. — Joss Whedon

I'd be at work, where people respected my opinions," said Nick. "And then I'd come home and it was like I was the village idiot. I'd pack the dishwasher the wrong way. I'd pick the wrong clothes for the children. I stopped offering to help. It wasn't worth the criticism. — Liane Moriarty

All of that will be gone by morning. Instead, they will dissect this last evening for years to come. What had they missed that they should have seen? What small gesture, forgotten, might have changed everything? They will pick it down to the bones, wondering how this had all gone so wrong, and they will never be sure. — Celeste Ng

[T]he tax code has been piling up, year after year, a symbol of everything gone wrong in America, of arrogant rulers and lost freedom, just waiting for us to pick the whole thing up and heave it away. It has to happen. Free people can put up with such laws only for so long. — Dick Armey

No business can do everything. Even if it has the money, it will never have enough good people. It has to set priorities. The worst thing to do is a little bit of everything. This makes sure that nothing is being accomplished. It is better to pick the wrong priority than none at all. — Peter Drucker

If you want to make more money by closing online leads, you have to pick up the damn phone. If you have more usernames and passwords than customers you are doing it wrong. — Chris Smith

Sometimes it's hard to pick right from wrong. The best thing we can do is go with our heart and hope it all goes well. — Mac Miller

I realised when it came to men, I did not pick the beautiful or the correct. I picked the wrong one. — Rabih Alameddine

I've had failures, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't beneath me to pick up the phone and introduce myself to Bernard Malamud and say, "I'd like to introduce myself to you and to come meet you. I think I might have something that's worthy of your skills as a writer." — Lawrence Schiller