You Can Never Win Quotes & Sayings

No matter how you total success in the coaching profession it all comes down to a single factor - talent. There may be a hundred great coaches of whom you have never heard in basketball, football, or any sport who will probably never receive the acclaim they deserve simply because they have not been blessed with the talent. Although not every coach can win consistently with talent, no coach can win without it. — John Wooden

You can't win unless you have good people with great attitude. They are the ones who won the games. I didn't win any games. You never saw a coach make a tackle anywhere. My philosophy was to get the best players and then try to do something new with them. — Hank Stram

You can't measure success if you have never failed. My father has taught me that if you really do want to reach your goals, you can't spend any time worrying about whether you're going to win or lose. Focus only on getting better. — Steffi Graf

I had a dual goal in my running that was to win and to achieve excellence, so I was never happy with a slow tactical time. If the race were slow I would get in front and pull it up again. I couldn't stand a slow race. A lot of people seem to get screwed up on tactics. There is only one tactic in a race and that is to always be in a position where you can win it. — Herb Elliott

Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible; and when you strike and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken, and can then be destroyed by half their number. The other rule is, never fight against heavy odds, if by any possible maneuvering you can hurl your own force on only a part, and that the weakest part, of your enemy and crush it. Such tactics will win every time, and a small army may thus destroy a large one in detail, and repeated victory will make it invincible. — Stonewall Jackson

You'll never live up to the standards of what "everyone" wants you to be, so why fight a battle you can never win. Instead focus on being MORE of who you're meant to be and focus less on what THEY think you should be. You might not see your own beauty but if you continue to conceal and hide who you are, the heart that's for you won't be able to find it either. — Trent Shelton

It depends on you, to keep pushing forward until you win or giving in. Always choice the former. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Our goal as a team is to keep playing as a group for as long as we can because you will never have that team again. It is like a dying limb, you have to prune it off and let another one grow in its place. That is the way you have to do it, but it still hurts losing these guys and that team because they and you have put so much effort into building a team. Even if you win that last game (and a national championship), it hurts badly because the players know they will never have that same special group of guys together on the same team again. Somebody always goes and somebody new always comes in. — Don Meyer

You can surrender without a prayer, but never really pray without surrender. You can fight without ever winning, but never ever win without a fight. — Neil Peart

You can't keep doing this," Liam added under his breath, "You've just gotta let it go."
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I wiped them away with backs of my hands.
"I know this isn't easy for you, but Grace wouldn't want you putting yourself at risk for them." He cupped my face in his hands and used his thumbs to wipe away fresh tears before they even had a chance to fall. "You're never going to win this. If you had a chance, they wouldn't bother playing."
"I know." And I did. There was no doubt in my mind that Liam was right. But that didn't make it any easier to give up. — Lisa Roecker

I believe some people are inherently evil.
I believe guilt is a powerful motivator.
I believe redemption is something you can strive for but never fully achieve.
I believe second chances exist only in dreams, never in reality.
I believe you don't have years, or months, or weeks to impact a person's life.
You have seconds.
Seconds to win them over, And seconds to lose them. — K.A. Tucker

All I wanted," Saina thought, "was to make someone feel something." Money can't do that. Just looking at a dollar bill did nothing to your emotions - you have to make money or lose money for it to make you feel anything. You can earn it, win it, lose it, save it, spend it, find it, but you can't sell it because you never really own it. On the other hand, you didn't have to possess a song or a sculpture for it to make you feel something - you only had to experience it. So why did collectors want to collect? What feeling were they pursuing? — Jade Chang

Hoping never done nothing. It wanting that do it. You got to want to win so bad you can taste it. If you want to win bad enough you win. — Leonard Gardner

You can win in multiple ways - A manager
should never restrict himself when it comes to exploring possibilities. — Abhishek Ratna

I really want to do everything I can to try to win a game or win on a play. You get fiery; you get chippy out there, but a lot of respect, I never have anybody, like, talk trash in my career in the league, or I don't talk trash. I think guys respect the fact that I'm coming. — Jon Beason

The fastest runners don't always win the race and the greatest heroes don't always win the battles. But just keep running and fighting if that's all you can do. Never lose faith. And one day, you just might attain all that you hoped for and ... more. — Jose N. Harris

We see Paul's gospel fixation echoed throughout his letter to the Philippians. He is the man who when threatened says, "Well, to die is gain." In response his captors will say, "We'll torture you, then." He says, "I don't count the present suffering as worthy to even compare to the future glory." You can't win with a guy like this. If you want to kill him, he's cool with that because it means he gets to be with Jesus. If you want to make him suffer, he's cool with that, so long as it makes him like Jesus. If you want to let him live, he's fine with that, because to him, "to live is Christ." Paul is, as Richard Sibbes says of everyone united with Christ, a man who "can never be conquered. — Matt Chandler

We will never win this war until we understand the effect that Guantanamo Bay has had on the overall war effort. And we'll never get the support of the American people if we can't prove to them that these folks that we're dealing with are not common criminals. We're going to keep them - keep you safe from them. — Lindsey Graham

You can achieve a shallow local maximum with A/B testing - but you'll never win hearts and minds. — Jeff Atwood

And what can we do to silence these Christian athletes who thank Jesus whenever they win, never mention his name when they lose? Not a word. You never hear them say "Jesus made me drop the ball." "The good lord tripped me up behind the line of scrimmage." According to these guys Jesus is undefeated, meanwhile these assholes are in last place. Must be another one of those "miracles." — George Carlin

It was a battle all day with our M&M's Camry. I don't know why, we just didn't have what we needed. We never seemed to have the ticket we needed today. We got better all day, which was a positive and salvaged something out of nothing
so all things considering it was okay. It's so late in the year, you're just running laps now and getting what you can get and seeing if you can win next weekend at Homestead to finish the year. — Kyle Busch

You can never have enough trophies. If there were ten to be won a year I'd want to win them all! That's not being greedy, it's just a natural thing. — Thierry Henry

Everyone now, they look back and they're like, "What happened to your sweet image that you used to be?" And I'm like, then when you came out you thought I was too provocative. It's like you can never win. No matter what you do, at the end of the day you can't please everybody, you know. I'm not here to please ... — Britney Spears

It is an awful thing to be betrayed by your body. And it's lonely, because you feel you can't talk about it. You feel it's something between you and the body. You feel it's a battle you will never win ... and yet you fight it day after day, and it wears you down. Even if you try to ignore it, the energy it takes to ignore it will exhaust you. — David Levithan

Hard work, determination, and talent are key for any successful venture. But sometimes you need that fourth ingredient: dumb luck. Luck can never replace hard work and talent, but sometimes it can win out over both. — Abby Rosmarin

You never have perfect knowledge in combat, gentlemen. It's what we call the fog of war. You can either sit around worrying what's real and what's not, or you can realize the enemy hasn't got a clue either and fire off a few rounds of psychology. A truly great army is one that only has to rattle its saber to win a war. — Karen Traviss

Then what's the point of trying if you can't even win?"
"You win in lots of different ways," Asher said. "Lots of little wins. The point of this life is not to be good all the time. It's to be as good as you can. No one is perfect. No one does it right all the time. That's not what life is. — Cate Tiernan

When you can't win the fight, you get bigger guns."

- Episode 14, "Better Space Than Never — Ashley Poston

Alternative Anthem.


Put the kettle on
Put the kettle on
It is the British answer
to Armageddon.

Never mind taxes rise
Never mind trains are late
One thing you can be sure of
and that's the kettle, mate.

It's not whether you lose
It's not whether you win
It's whether or not
you've plugged the kettle in.

May the kettle ever hiss
May the kettle ever steam
It is the engine
that drives our nation's dream.

Long live the kettle
that rules over us
May it be limescale free
and may it never rust.

Sing it on the beaches
Sing it from the housetops
The sun may set on empire
but the kettle never stops. — John Agard

But you can make you happy, my father's voice repeats over and over as I stare at my ceiling.
Have I been trying to do that all this time? Has that other part of me been trying to break through because deep down I know I'll never be happy until ... Until what? Until I'm able to freely discuss who I think would win in a battle between Darth Vader and Lord Voldemort? (The answear obviously being Lord Voldemort. He'd Avada Kadavra Vader way before Vader could even think about the force choke move.) — Leah Rae Miller

I never met your likeness. Jane: you please me, and you master me - you seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and while I am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends a thrill up my arm to my heart. I am influenced - conquered; and the influence is sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo has a witchery beyond any triumph _I_ can win. — Charlotte Bronte

My philosophy of life is that the meek shall inherit nothing but debasement, frustration and ignoble deaths; that there is security in personal strength; that you CAN fight City Hall and WIN; that any action is better than no action, even if it's the wrong action; that you never reach glory or self-fulfillment unless you're willing to risk everything, dare anything, put yourself dead on the line every time; and that once one becomes strong or rich or potent or powerful it is the responsibility of the strong to help the weak BECOME strong. — Harlan Ellison

The more obstacles you encounter, the harder you must fight to meet your destiny. Never let adversity win. Never give up on yourself and the good you can bring to the world. — Ingrid Weir

We see her go through dangerous mood-swings, but I tried never to come right out and say "Annie was depressed and possibly suicidal that day" or "Annie seemed particularly happy that day."If I have to tell you, I lose. If, on the other hand, I can show you a silent, dirty-haired woman who compulsively gobbles cake and candy, then have you draw the conclusion that Annie is in the depressive part of a manic-depressive cycle, I win. — Stephen King

Oh. A bigger studio. It dawns on me, stupid me, that Henry could win the lottery at any time at all; that he has never bothered to do so because it's not normal; that he has decided to set aside his fanatical dedication to living like a normal person so I can have a studio big enough to roller-skate across; that I am being an ingrate.
"Clare? Earth to Clare ... "
"Thank you," I say, too abruptly. — Audrey Niffenegger

One of the things I discovered in Japan was from watching sumo wrestling. At the end you can never tell who has won the fight, and who has lost, because they do not show their emotion because it could embarrass the loser. It is unbelievable. That is why I try to teach my team politeness. It is only here in England that everybody pokes their tongue out when they win. — Arsene Wenger

The ocean humbles you. You can go and win a world title, but you're never going to beat the ocean. — Stephanie Gilmore

Being physically tough is measured by how many fights you win, but mental toughness is measured by how you react when all the chips are stacked against you, how fast you get back on track when life kicks you in the nuts. Any fool can win a fight, but it takes a person with true grit to never give up when all seems lost. — Benjamin Bayani

You can win tournaments when you're mechanical, but golf is a game of emotion and adjustment. If you're not aware of what's happening to your mind and your body when you're playing, you'll never be able to be the very best you can be. — Jack Nicklaus

Make doing your best a habit, and you will never know not doing your best. If you build roads build them Roman-make them last two thousand years. Dig ditches as if you were taking them to the state fair to win another blue ribbon for best ditches. It's never a question of what you do but how well you do it. Do the best work you can, even if your boss never sees it- what matters it that you see it. Because ultimately you're your own boss. Find work you love to do. Because, the greatest devil of them all is to work just for money. I know more miserable souls who, chasing the almighty dollar through some strange loophole logic, believe that the more money you have the happier you'll be ... generally the richer they become the more wretched they become. — Carew Papritz

I'm driving home to change," Win said. "Then I'm dining at Merion." Mainliners never ate; they dined. "Care to join me?" "Sounds good," Myron said. "Wait a second." "What?" "Are you properly attired?" "I don't clash," Myron said. "Will they still let me in?" "My, my, that was very funny, Myron. I must write that one down. As soon as I stop laughing, I plan on locating a pen. However, I am so filled with mirth that I may wrap my precious Jag around an upcoming telephone pole. Alas, at least I will die with jocularity in my heart." Win. "We have a case," Myron said. Silence. Win made this so easy. "I'll tell you about it at dinner." "Until then," Win said, "it'll be all I can do to douse my mounting excitement and anticipation with a snifter of cognac." Click. Gotta love that Win. Myron hadn't driven a mile when the cellular phone rang. Myron switched it on. It was Bucky. "The kidnapper called again. — Harlan Coben

Be so strong that no one can ignore you. By blaming others you never win, but you do lose to your conscience again and again. — Debasish Mridha

I never advise friends to put money in anything,. said Danny. 'It's a no-win situation - if they make a profit they forget that it was you who recommended it, and if they make a loss they never stop reminding you. My only advise would be not to gamble what you can't afford, and never to risk an amount that might cause you to lose a night's sleep — Jeffrey Archer

You can win it in the late innings if you never quit. — Robert Forster

But that's the thing about cancer. They call it the fight, as if the stronger ones win and the weaker ones lose, but that's not what cancer is at all.
Cancer isn't one of the players in the game. Cancer is the game.
It doesn't matter how much endurance you have. It doesn't matter how much you've practiced. Cancer is the be-all and end-all of the sport, and the only thing you can do is show up to the game with your jersey on. Because you never know... you might be forced to sit the bench for the entire game. You may not even be given the chance to compete. — Colleen Hoover

I haven't fought with anyone else in over two thousand years. (Kyrian)
Well, you're never too old to learn. (Amanda)
You can't teach an old dog new tricks. (Kyrian)
There's no time like the present. (Amanda)
Time is of the essence. (Kyrian)
God helps those who help themselves. (Amanda)
You're not going to let me win this, are you? (Kyrian) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I'm over it. You strive to win a Super Bowl and you do everything you can to get there. But being in the Hall of Fame, you never play for that honor. It's incredible. — Dan Fouts

Gortrek gave him a look. 'Never get into a war of words with a poet, Ironbreaker. You can't win. — Nathan Long

There is, it seems, a law in things that if a man is compelled to choose between two good actions, mutually exclusive, the one which he chooses to neglect will in course of time avenge itself on him. Rightly considered, this is a comfortable if chastening thought, for it implies that the nature of good is such that it can never, not even for some other mode of itself, be neglected. If ever it is, for whatever admirable reasons, set on one side it will certainly return. — Charles Williams

Outrun the people who quit when they feel discomfort, outrun the people who stop because of despair, outrun the people who are delayed because of prejudice, outrun the people who surrender to failure, and outrun the opponent who loses sight of the goal. Because if you want to win, the will can never retire, the race can never stop, and faith can never weaken. — Muhammad Ali

No empire or force for "good" has ever successfully eliminated a population of "evildoers." The populations we claim to have vanquished are still with us today and contributing to our society in ways that are usually unacknowledged. Perhaps the real "hell" of war is that you can never really win one. — Greg Graffin

Strive for perfection - never be content with mediocrity. You don't win until you conquer the little flaws. You don't beat these great ones until your form is perfect. This is true in all of life. A flaw in a product can ruin a business. A personal failing, a little one, can ruin a person's life. Don't be content with mediocrity - strive to live up to the greatest within you. — Bob Richards

I'm sure you're just dying to tell me all the campus gossip about me. Right?"
"I do have a life. Maybe I've been too busy to listen to rumors," he huffed, pretending to have hurt feelings.
I looked at him.
He sighed. "Okay, you win. I'm bored out of my skull. Second Magician is busy playing detective, and Gelsi is neck-deep in some project and I never see her anymore." Dax paused dramatically. "My life is so boring that I have to live vicariously through your adventures."
"And since the rumors are so accurate - "
"Your adventures have turned into legends." He swept his arms wide, laughing. "So where are you off to now? Going to slay a dragon? Can Itag along as your lowly squire? I'll polish your staff of power every night with my shirt. I promise."
"I'm glad my problems are keeping you entertained, — Maria V. Snyder

The way Lillian says it is hungry, like she's waiting for something to be revealed, and I wonder if maybe that's the real difference between us - that when she pulls back the curtain and stares into the blackness behind it, it's just one more way of testing herself. Like some game you can never win, because even if you face all the shocking realities and the horrors of the world, once you've seen that kind of awfulness, you can never un-see it. You have to carry it around with you forever. — Brenna Yovanoff

Talent is one thing, it is how you nurture and develop it, and never walk away from it. You can be rich, successful, you win awards, but it can always be better. — Kevin Spacey

If I win... do you know what I would wish for?" Don't say it, don't say it. Don't say the thing you can't take back. I'd wish we never started any of this." The words echo in my head, in the air. — Jenny Han

May the good Lord be with you down every road you roam, and may sunshine and happiness surround you when you're far from home. And may you grow to be proud, dignified and true; and do unto others as you'd have done to you. Be courageous and be brave and in my heart you'll always stay forever young.
May good fortune be with you, may your guiding light be strong; build a stairway to heaven with a prince or a vagabond. And may you never love in vain and in my heart you will remain forever young.
And when you finally fly away I'll be hoping that I served you well, for all the wisdom of a lifetime no one can ever tell. But whatever road you choose, I'm right behind you, win or lose, forever young. — Rod Stewart

Coming forward with a placating smile, Win handed him a piece of paper. "Of course we would never want to force you into a loveless marriage, dear. But we have put together a list of prospective brides, all of them lovely girls. Won't you take a glance and see if any of them appeals to you?"
Deciding to humor her, Leo looked down at the list. "Marietta Newbury?"
"Yes," Amelia said. "What's wrong with her?"
"I don't like her teeth."
"What about Isabella Charrington?"
"I don't like her mother."
"Lady Blossom Tremaine?"
"I don't like her name."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Leo, that's not her fault."
"I don't care. I can't have a wife named Blossom. Every night I would feel as if I were calling in one of the cows." Leo lifted his gaze heavenward. "I might as well marry the first woman off the street. Why, I'd be better off with Marks."
Everyone was silent. — Lisa Kleypas

In any case, in general, I prefer to avoid conflict when I can. Not because I'm afraid or because I'm too weak to fight back. But because conflict eats up your time. It is exhaustive in terms of energy you have to expend to be involved in it. More if you mean to win, and I'd never do it if I didn't mean to win. I'd rather spend my time on other things and in general, most people aren't worth that much of my time and energy. — Lauren Dane

Never take a path that has no heart in it. You can't lose if your heart is in your work, but you can't win if your heart is not in it. — Carlos Castaneda

I never did say that you can't be a nice guy and win. I said that if I was playing third base and my mother rounded third with the winning run, I'd trip her up. — Leo Durocher

You can never know the odds. If you don't play, you'll never win — Richard Bedford

Be in it to win it. As long as the sun shine's so can you. Your best days are foreword ahead and never behind! — Timothy Pina

Osama, baah!" Bashir roared.
"Osama is not a product of Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is a creation of America. Thanks to America, Osama is in every home. As a military man, I know you can never fight and win against someone who can shoot at you once and then run off and hide while you have to remain eternally on guard. You have to attack the source of your enemy's strength. In America's case, that's not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. That only way to defeat it is to build relationships with these people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever. — Greg Mortenson

You can always argue you're never good enough until you win the Super Bowl. And even then, you're going to lose players, and you're not good enough then, either. — Jeffrey Lurie

I learned that you can go after things before you are ready and so if you are going after it, you need to make sure that your spirit is ready. I learned also how to surrender to His will and not mine. Sometimes when you are going through something - and I am a guy who runs campaigns - I can make this happen. There has never been a campaign where I was picked to win.. I was always coming from behind. — Kwame Kilpatrick

Have you ever sat on a window seat, in the train of your memories while it's raining heavily? Rain has this ridiculous power of waking up all the angels and demons inside us at once, doesn't it? All of a sudden there is a war inside us, between both the sides. We can do nothing but clench our fists and watch our train derail and take a path we have never come across before. All we know at that point of time is that we are going to crash somewhere. Either our demons win or the angels, we are going to get wounded somewhere. — Akshay Vasu

But I still serve pretty big and that's one of my biggest weapons, so if my shoulder holds up and I can count on it, I can win a few matches and then you never know how the other guys are going to react to the fatigue and the length of the matches. — Guy Forget

You can do as much as you think you can,
But you'll never accomplish more;
If you're afraid of yourself, young man,
There's little for you in store.
For failure comes from the inside first,
It's there, if we only knew it,
And you can win, though you face the worst,
If you feel that you're going to do it. — Edgar A. Guest

Life is just like the game of poker, you never know what cards you will get. Sitting against the people, you can either win with the king or live on a joker. Many times in life you are forced to play the blind bet, and achieve overwhelming success, with loads of cash in your pocket or you may reach disastrous conclusions, losing everything you have got.
That's the reason I love playing poker. — Prerna Varma

You can never win when you wear the ugly cloak of self-pity and the sour sound of whining. — Og Mandino

You can never win resentment with an argument - only love can do that. — Debasish Mridha

Deluded beings think that if they get in a battle with a Zen Master or with a Don Juan, that it's going enhance their life if they win. You can never take power from someone else any more than you can take sunlight. — Frederick Lenz

Never let up. The more you can win by, the more doubts you put in the other players' minds the next time out. — Sam Snead

... And here it is: You don't win races by wishing, you win them by running faster than everyone else. And to do that you have to train hard and strive your utmost, and sometimes even that isn't enough, because another runner just might be more talented than you are. Here's the truth: If you want something, you can have it, but only if you want everything that goes with it, including all the hard work and the despair, and only if you're willing to risk failure. That's the problem with Karl: He was afraid of failing, so he never really tried. — Philip Pullman

Sometimes," he said, summing up the discussion with an aphorism I have never forgotten, "if you find yourself stuck in politics, the thing to do is start a fight--start a fight, even if you do not know how you are going to win it, because it is only when a fight is on, and everything is in motion, that you can hope to see your way through. — Robert Harris

And when you came right down to it, the only purpose to life that I have ever been able to find is not to die. You couldn't let them push you out the door to go gentle into that good night. You had to rage, rage, and slam that door on the bastards' fingers. That was the contest - to delay the end of your personal match as long as you could. The point was not to win; you never did. Nobody can win in a game that ends with everybody dying - always, without exception. No, the only real point was to fight back and enjoy the combat. And by gum, I would. — Jeff Lindsay

When we got to the Lock-Horne Building on Park Avenue - again Win's full name is Windsor Horne Lockwood III, so you do the math - Dad said, "You want me to just drop you off?" Sometimes my father leaves me awestruck. Fatherhood is about balance, but how can one man do it so well, so effortlessly? Throughout my life he pushed me to excel without ever crossing the line. He reveled in my accomplishments yet never made them seem to be all that important. He loved without condition, yet he still made me want to please him. He knew, like now, when to be there, and when it was time to back off. "I'll be okay." He — Harlan Coben

This pool is a triumph of imagination. That's how you win at life, Gin. You have to imagine your way through. Never say something can't be done. There's always a solution, even if it's weird. — Maureen Johnson

Well, here we are. Let's change. Let's change the world. Together." "You sound like my father." "Your father wants the gods back on their pedestals. I want us working as one: humans with Craft, gods with divine power, priests with Applied Theology. But we need space to build that society. We need the time and the power to change, and we'll never have that time or power with Craftsmen crushing us. We need freedom, and I can win that freedom. Not in a decade or three. Today. In one stroke." "You want a moderate revolution. You just need to kill a few people first." "A few people. Yes. To free a city. To save a planet. Dresediel Lex will be a model for the world." "I kind of like it the way it is. — Max Gladstone

Women are always told, 'You're not going to make it, its too difficult, you can't do that, don't enter this competition, you'll never win it,' - they need confidence in themselves and people around them to help them to get on. — Zaha Hadid

They may be smarter than you. They may have more money than you. They may come from a different city or a better family. But they can NEVER outwork you. And they can NEVER outprepare you. And they just can't outpractice you. And that's why you'll win. — Robin Sharma

Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You'll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you'll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press'll think you're colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you are a slob. — Crash Davis

And what can a simple girl do? (Henry)
I was told, by my father, of St. Mary of Aragon who single-handedly brought down an entire Saracen army with nothing more than her faith in God. He also spoke of an ancient Celtic queen named Boudicca who brought Rome to her knees and burned London to the ground. He oft said that a woman was far more deadly as an enemy than a man, because men lead with their heads and women with their hearts. You can argue and win against another's head, but never against her heart. (Callie) — Kinley MacGregor

Always keep your mouth shut with a drunk. You can never win with piss tanks. The most you can hope for is to break even. — Douglas Coupland

One thing that gets lost in all the aggregation throughout this book: on an individual level, the personal affects of these broad social forces are often very subtle... when you go person by person, any individual's experience is too small and too varied to conclusively say anything racial has happened. It could be your skin or it could be just you. On the other side of it, it's laughable to think of one red-faced guy searching for n****r jokes because Barak Obama got elected, but it's a lot less funny when you can see that he's one of thousands and thousands making the same search. And it's less funny still when you see the large affects these private attitudes can still have, even in public life. Thus the story of just one of us versus the story of us all. That's why data like this is necessary; it ends arguments that anecdotes could never win. It provides facts that need facing. — Christian Rudder

Never bring a lot of money to where a poor man lives. He can only lose what little he has. On the other hand it is mathematically possible that he might win whatever you bring with you. What you must do, with money and the poor, is never let them get too close to one another. — Charles Bukowski

I've been watching politics for 35 or 40 years and you just never know. You can have one person win the Iowa caucus and then the whole picture changes ten minutes later. The same thing can happen again after New Hampshire. I have no idea what's going to happen with our country in the future. — Jackie Mason

I stand four-square for reason, and object to what seems to me to be irrationality, whatever the source.
If you are on my side in this, I must warn you that the army of the night has the advantage of overwhelming numbers, and, by its very nature, is immune to reason, so that it is entirely unlikely that you and I can win out.
We will always remain a tiny and probably hopeless minority, but let us never tire of presenting our view, and of fighting the good fight for the right. — Isaac Asimov

What you don't know going in is that when you come out, you will be scarred for life. Whether you were in for a week, a month, or a year - even if you come home without a scratch - you are never, ever going to be the same.
When I went in, I was eighteen. I thought it was all glory and you win lots of medals. You think you're going to be the guy. Then you find out the cost is very great. Especially when you don't see the kids you were with when you went in. Living with it can be hell. It's like the devil presides in you. I knew what I sighed up for, yes, and I would do it again. But the reality of war - words can't begin to describe it. — William Guarnere

We can only be ourselves in the long run. Everyone can be someone else for a time. Actors have jobs for a reason. But eventually, our true natures win out. You never could have been someone else for long, even if you tried. It would have broken you — Jeanette Murray

How many different ways there are of knowing a person - and even so there are all these different ways of knowing Christ; so that you may keep on all your lifetime, still wishing to get into another room, and another room, nearer and nearer to the great secret, still panting to "know him." Good Rutherford says, "I urge upon you a nearer communion with Christ, and a growing communion. There are curtains to be drawn by, in Christ, that we never shut, and new foldings in love with him. I despair that ever I shall shall win to the far end of that love; there are so many plies in it. Therefore, dig deep, and set by as much time in the day for him as you can, he will be won by labor. — Spurgeon, Charles H.

Winning is an abstract concept. There is no winning in real life. Winning is just a device for storytellers to conveniently end a tale, but everyone knows that real stories - real lives - only end in death. But the dead don't win anything except the release from the never-ending game, the never-ending race. There is no winning, but that doesn't mean you have to lose. You can't lose if you refuse to play, if you refuse to fight, if you refuse the race the sun day after day. Don't surrender, because to surrender is to lose. Don't give up, because to give up is to lose. When you refuse to fight, there is no surrender. When you refuse to race the sun, you can finally stop to appreciate the light it brings to the earth each and every day. — Ilia Bera

Once you best a man, never gloat. Be generous and find something in his actions to praise. He won't enjoy being bested but he'll make a good face about it. Show him you appreciate it. Praise can win you a friend. Gloating will only ever make enemies. — John Flanagan

As long as you fight, you cannot lose ... if you leave everything out there, it doesn't matter if you win or lose. To me you can never lose. — Bas Rutten

-NONREADING-


Bookstores don't provide
a remote control for Proust,
you can't switch
to a soccer match,
or a quiz show, win a Cadillac.


We live longer
but less precisely
and in shorter sentences.


We travel faster, farther, more often,
but bring back slides instead of memories.
Here I am with some guy.
There I guess that's my ex.
Here everyone's naked
so this must be a beach.


Seven volumes - mercy.
Couldn't it be cut or summarized,
or better yet put into pictures.
There was that series called "The Doll,"
but my sister-in-law says that's some other P.*


And by the way, who was he anyway.
They say he wrote in bed for years on end.
Page after page
at a snail's pace.
But we're still going in fifth gear
and, knock on wood, never better. — Wislawa Szymborska

Fight all you want, but you will never win. You can change a system only by being part of that system, by being part of the change. — Anand Neelakantan

Advertising signs: they con you into thinking you're the one That can do what's never been done That can win what's never been won Meantime life outside goes on all around you — Bob Dylan

Absurdly, I haven't yet got around to saying that football is a wonderful sport, but of course it is. Goals have a rarity value that points and runs and sets do not, and so there will always be that thrill, the thrill of seeing someone do something that can only be done three or four times in a whole game if you are lucky, not at all if you are not. And I love the pace of it, its lack of formula; and I love the way that small men can destroy big men ... in a way that they can't in other contact sports, and the way that t he best team does not necessarily win. And there's the athleticism ... , and the way that strength and intelligence have to combine. It allows players to look beautiful and balletic in a way that some sports do not: a perfectly-timed diving header, or a perfectly-struck volley, allow the body to achieve a poise and grace that some sportsmen can never exhibit. — Nick Hornby

Italians can never win from you, but you can lose to them.
(when asked about Ajax's chances in the 1995 Champs League final against AC Milan) — Johan Cruijff