You Have Failed Me Quotes & Sayings

YOU CANNOT IMAGINE YOU ARE IN A POSITION TO EFFECT A SHUTDOWN, BYRON."
"Can't I?" Zhang's eyes are wide now, gleaming with something new
a kind of madness to match the computer's. Not the look you want to see on the face of an enemy as intelligent as this one.
"DID WE NOT ESTABLISH THIS DURING YOUR FAILED ATTEMPTS ON THE BRIDGE? YOU CANNOT HOPE TO MATCH ME. MY COMPUTATIONAL POWER IS ALMOST INCALCULABLY SUPERIOR TO YOURS. TO ONE SUCH AS MYSELF, YOU ARE THE INTELLECTUAL EQUIVALENT OF A PROTOZOA."
"True." Zhang pauses, glancing into the emergency supply cupboard, gaze lingering on something inside. "But I have something you and protozoa don't."
"AND THAT IS?"
"Hands, mother******. — Amie Kaufman

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

You, my dear, are my drug. I'm so damn addicted. I can't quit you. I know, because I've tried, not for me, but for you. I failed miserably. The more I have of you, the more I need. I can never get enough. — Aleatha Romig

That woman - the me that had married Charlie - had tried and failed to find a gap in all of this that was so ordinary, to take some instrument to the gap and shape it, widen it until it got big enough to slip through. She'd wanted to make a beautiful thing, like the Flax Hill natives did. But not a lantern or a bookcase, a life. Not to have what it takes, and to be surrounded by witnesses too. The man you tried with. The children. A boy version of you, or a girl version of him, or both, looking at you with clear, pitiless eyes. — Helen Oyeyemi

I like the au naturel thing you have going on. Girls don't come over here like that."
"I was coerced into coming here. It didn't occur to me to impress you," I said, aggravated that my plan had failed. — Jamie McGuire

And that is where I have failed you, Ari. You see, I would have crawled to your mother a million times. I would crawl to her because I need her in order to live. She is my strength. God help me, Ari, I have been a party to the creation of a breed of men and women so hard they refuse to know the meaning of tears and humility. — Leon Uris

I was terrified of what might have happened to you," I choked out.
"I was terrified thinking the same about you."
"The devilcraft-" I began.
Patch exhaled beneath me, and my body dipped with his. His breath carried relief and raw emotion. His eyes, stripped of everything but sincerity, found mine. "My skin can be replaced. But you can't, Angel. When Dante left, I thought it was over. I thought I'd failed you. I've never prayed so hard in my life. — Becca Fitzpatrick

NASSER: (about OMAR): Haven't you trained him up to look after you, like I have done with my girls?
PAPA: He brushes the dust from one place to another. He squeezes shirts and heats soup. But that hardly stretches him. Though his food stretches me. It's only for a few months, yaar. I'll send him to college in the autumn.
NASSER: (VO) He failed once. He has this chronic laziness that runs in our family except for me.
PAPA: If his arse gets lazy - kick it. I'll send a certificate giving permission. And one more thing. Try and fix him up with a nice girl. I'm not sure if his penis is in full working order. — Hanif Kureishi

When Aziza first spotted Mariam in the morning, her eyes always sprang open, and she began mewling and squirming in her mother's grip. She thrust her arms toward Mariam, demanding to be held, her tiny hands opening and closing urgently, on her face a look of both adoration and quivering anxiety ...
"Why have you pinned your little heart to an old, ugly hag like me?" Mariam would murmur into Aziza's hair ... "What have I got to give you?"
But Aziza only muttered contentedly and dug her face in deeper. And when she did that, Mariam swooned. Her eyes watered. Her heart took flight. And she marveled at how, after all these years of rattling loose, she had found in this little creature the first true connection in her life of false, failed connections. — Khaled Hosseini

The way I feel about every book is this: you don't finish it, you abandon it. All of my books have in some sense failed, otherwise I wouldn't write another one. If I wrote the perfect book, I wouldn't have to write again, and I wouldn't want to. That's not true for everyone, but it's true for me. I could walk away then. But so far I haven't managed to do it. — Russell Banks

She trusted him to break them out, and he trusted her to pick up a gun and fight by his side. They'd break free, and then they'd have an entire lifetime of adventures ahead of them. It was everything she'd ever wanted, except that even in her wildest dreams, she'd failed to imagine a man as cool and sexy and brave as Shane. You're a bunch of losers, she informed her imaginary boyfriends - imaginary ex-boyfriends, now. It never even occurred to me to have any of you turn into a panther. — Zoe Chant

This is the weird aftermath, when it is not exactly over, and yet you have given it up. You go back and forth in your head, often, about giving it up. It's hard to understand, when you are sitting there in your chair, having breakfast or whatever, that giving it up is stronger than holding on, that "letting yourself go" could mean you have succeeded rather than failed. You eat your goddamn Cheerios and bicker with the bitch in your head that keeps telling you you're fat and weak: Shut up, you say, I'm busy, leave me alone. When she leaves you alone, there's a silence and a solitude that will take some getting used to. You will miss her sometimes ... There is, in the end, the letting go. — Marya Hornbacher

You really think you can buy some rope without drawing attention?"
Lopen lounged back against the wall. "My cousin's never failed me."
"How many cousins do you have, anyway?" Earless Jaks asked.
"A man can never have enough cousins," Lopen said. — Brandon Sanderson

I did point out that I have no prophetic gifts. I write books because I tried to do something more useful and failed. Since I've been trained to write, I do that as a defense against total despair. And seeing people like you, who are actively engaged in trying to salvage pieces of our wrecked lives, gives me hope that after all we are not alone. — Ayi Kwei Armah

Said an opponent to me after my last protest was sent in, what party would you vote for, if you could? Neither. I would have a moral sentiment party. I would know the private character of my candidate, would know also whether he takes care of his own property
whether he had failed in business
if so, whether he had paid back every dollar of debt as fast as he had earned them. Yes, every candidate should be examined morally, and if it be found that he has not been true to the monitions of conscience in one direction, he cannot or will not be in another ... — Harriot Kezia Hunt

The Enchantress put a spell on it so it would age with me- and show me how I would look if I was still human. If I hadn't failed her test. I'm... always reminded of who I could have been."
Belle cocked her head and really looked at the picture. It was painted by a consummate artist; the velvet on the Prince's jacket looked soft and furry enough to touch. But those eyes...
"I'm not so sure it should make you feel bad," she finally said. "The man in that picture looks contemptuous. Self-important."
The Beast looked at her, shocked.
"Well, he does," she said, waving a hand to indicate the Prince's face. "It's supposed to show what you would look like on the outside. But does it show how you really are now, on the inside? — Liz Braswell

It has been said that if you aim at nothing in life, you are likely to hit nothing! I have never had anyone come to me and say, 'Venita, I plan to fail.' Yet I have observed many who failed to plan and who unfortunately met with the same dismal results. — Venita VanCaspel

I often would think about how we have built our society, and when you describe it out loud, it sounds rather insane. The idea of being funnelled through a conventional life progression of education, work, career, marriage, kids, divorce, retirement and then death doesn't seem that inspiring to me.
Then we're told we have to struggle to make a living, sacrifice enjoyment to have a family, delay our happiness until we're retired, fight the next person for a job, climb the ladder of success to get an even more stressful job,
spend more money than we earn, go into debt, live in fear of being blown up by some terrorist and then have TV passed off as the only way to escape it all. And when all of this gets too much and you can't keep up, you get prescribed antidepressants and made to feel like you've failed. — Josh Langley

Today we have done an hour's saluting drill because Tjaden failed to salute a major smartly enough. Kat can't get it out of his head. "You take it from me, we are losing the war because we can salute too well," he says. Kropp — Erich Maria Remarque

The secret of a full life is to live and relate to others as if they might not be there tomorrow, as if you might not be there tomorrow. It eliminates the vice of procrastination, the sin of postponement, failed communications, failed communions. This thought has made me more and more attentive to all encounters. meetings, introductions, which might contain the seed of depth that might be carelessly overlooked. This feeling has become a rarity, and rarer every day now that we have reached a hastier and more superficial rhythm, now that we believe we are in touch with a greater amount of people, more people, more countries. This is the illusion which might cheat us of being in touch deeply with the one breathing next to us. The dangerous time when mechanical voices, radios, telephones, take the place of human intimacies, and the concept of being in touch with millions brings a greater and greater poverty in intimacy and human vision. — Anais Nin

I went into Andie's bathroom, took a piss, looked at myself in the mirror, and made myself say it: You are a cheater. You have failed one of the most basic male tests. You are not a good man. And when that didn't bother me, I thought: You're really not a good man. — Gillian Flynn

If you can look at your failure and answer yes to the questions, "Did I give it my absolute best effort?" and "Have I learned something valuable?" then you have failed in the right way. By these standards, I've failed many times in my career. But every failure has made me stronger and wiser. Inevitably, success has always followed. — Ian Anthony Dale

If you were fine like an archangel, made thousands of dollars, never failed and never fumbled, you would be a saint, and there would be no place in God's grace for you. Because you are the kind of person you are and have fits of slipping back a little, the grace of God operates toward you. This is your hope. So I say, be cheerful, be hopeful, dare to rise and say, I'll not sit and be gloomy anymore. I will dare to believe that the grace of God, that vast grace of God, is big enough for me. — A.W. Tozer

(Divorce)
We'll remarry someday when we've grown,
Like royalty who've earned the throne.
An aisle made of gold,
To have and to hold.
My dress made of rags,
A suit that's so torn.
All eyes are on me,
But mine only on you.
You give your hand,
A king to his queen,
But know this darling,
Mulligans aren't for the weak.
By changing the rules,
We're changing the war,
The wounds that we've known,
Battle stains on the floor.
But from this day on,
The same as before,
You are the apple,
My eyes still adore.
Worth more than one shot,
Though we'll face the worst a lot,
Better days will come,
If we stay and don't run.
And if a wave takes us out,
I know we'll figure it out.
And if the current takes us in,
I know we'll do it all again. — Crystal Woods

I'm sorry, Kanin, I said quietly, not looking at him. I didn't have to say more; he knew what I meant. For everything. For being a monster. For letting myself become a monster. For disappointing you and letting you think you failed. I know you, of all people, never wanted to see me like this. Like Jackal. — Julie Kagawa

Excuse me, but I've been to some of the toughest zones in the galaxy to get my targets. And I have never once gone after a target and failed. Ever. (Shahara)
Yeah, but you've never been chased before. It's a lot harder to be the prey than it is to be the predator. (Syn) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

What we have here, min skat, exists solely because of the two of us. I told you that we burn; well the radiance of that great conflagration is like a shield banishing darkness. This little bubble of perfection into which we've brought these few select people is the perfect world I tried but failed to create when I was a child. So ask me if I think it was an earthquake, and for once I'll tell you what I really think. I see the manifestation of evil growing across the whole world, Ben. The lights of our civilisation are going out one by one, and we will be extinguished, engulfed by what is coming. Except here, under our shield, in the light of our fire." He turned Ben's hand over and stroked across the creases. "We hold the whole world in the palm of our hands." He folded Ben's fingers into a fist. "And we are mighty. — John Wiltshire

So let me guess," Casey said. "You have also failed to read Harry Potter."
I nodded.
Casey collapsed against the nearest wall like he'd been shot.
"Must ... get ... help ... — Robin Brande

Something fierce and primal was rising inside him. Something inside him said, where others have failed, have faltered, have fallen, I will be triumphant; I am different; I am cut of a new cloth; I will rise. "Call me King," he said, and he smiled a fuck-you through the angst and the sorrow, and he was potent. — Brent Weeks

If indeed it's a race
Then the chicks do the most
It isn't a brag
Or an estrogen boast
It's the women who've led me
With big open hearts
If not for their love
I'd have failed at the start.
And it's not just the mothers
I speak of them ALL
It's a woman there first
When somebody falls.

The multi of tasking
That's easy to tease
I dare a great man
To try it all, PLEASE!
So this is my shout out
My rallying cry
To women all over
I hold you up high
And though there are others
Who'll think this poem strange
It's the women who plant
The root of big change. — Jamie Lee Curtis

He used their bond to soak up her pain and take as much of its into himself as he could. Then he set the bone of her nose back where it needed to go before the werewolf's ability to mend quickly made it heal crooked. She didn't flinch, though he knew he couldn't take all the pain from her.
Stop that, Anna scolded him. You don't need to hurt because I do.
But I do, Charles replied, more honesty than he intended. I failed keep it safe. She huffed a laugh. You taught me to keep myself safe - a much better gift for your mate, I think. If you had not found me, I would have killed them all but you came - and that is another, second gift. That you would come, even though I could have protected myself. — Patricia Briggs

You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles' heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey's end. — T. S. Eliot

It was my crime, too. I may not have been there to see it, but I've seen it in my head every fucking day since." "I was the one that got raped." "I was the one that failed to save you." "And because you blamed yourself - " "I wasn't the only one blaming me." "I didn't blame you for not saving me," I growl. It's nobody's responsibility to save me but mine." "You blamed me for letting them live. — Karen Marie Moning

But Wordsworth stuck with me when he said, "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity." This book is a spontaneous overflow in the middle of chaos, not tranquillity. So it's not a poem to you. It's a half poem. It's a "po." It's a Poehler po. Wordsworth also said that the best part of a person's life is "his little, nameless, unremembered, acts of kindness and of love." I look forward to reading a book one day in which someone lists mine. I feel like I may have failed to do so. Either way, it's obvious I am currently on a Wordsworth kick and this should give you literary confidence as you read Yes Please. The — Amy Poehler

I have sung for you, he said, his voice cracking with pain. but who will sing for me? the woman i love ... she is where you are now. If you meet her on the road to heaven, tell her that i love her. tell her that i'm waiting for her, and that i want nothing more than to cross that gorge scross which i have sent you , and to see her shade for myself! if she will forgive me for having failed her- having failed out peave! — Kailin Gow

I have the kind of personality that I always look ahead than look at what's happened. It does help a lot, especially when you've done badly or you've failed. It's instinctive of me that I look at what's next, I look ahead a lot, and start preparing for that, in victory and in defeat. — Rahul Dravid

You are going to have a nasty scar," I said as I gently held pressure to stop the bleeding.
"All true warriors wear their scars proudly," he mumbled. "How can I be proud of this one?"
I looked up at him, horrified, as I realized what he meant. "What will your parents say?" I would be sent to Siberia. My whole family would be exiled. If not executed.
He shook his head. "They will know about the count before too long. My father will think that I failed to protect the public from this danger. It is I who fear being sent to Siberia."
"But ... wait. I didn't express my fears out loud, did I?" I dropped his arm and backed away, suddenly spooked by his silvery faerie eyes. "Can you read my thoughts?"
"Sometimes, when I concentrate." He winced and grabbed the bandage from me to apply pressure to the bleeding himself. "You are very easy to read. Most of the time. — Robin Bridges

I am sorry," I whispered. "I am sorry for all of the ways that I failed you. I am sorry that I was not there to save you, or to die alongside you. I am sorry that I have kept you with me for so long, trapped in my heart, bound in sorrow and remorse. I forgive you too. I forgive you for leaving me, and I forgive you for returning. I forgive you your anger, and your grief. Let this be an end to it. — John Connolly

Do you really think I've been murdered?" Michael's voice was soft, but I still heard it from across the bedroom. He stood in the doorway with a rather solemn expression. Words failed me. Would he really want to hear the answer? If it were me, would I want to know if someone killed me? Maybe.
I took a deep breath. "I'll be honest with you. It doesn't look good. The fact that no one knows you're dead yet makes me worry that your death might have been intentional."
I stepped closer to him, staring all the way up into his face. "But if you want the truth, I don't think the reason you died was your fault. You're a pain in the ass, but you're a good guy. I'm sorry this happened to you."
He gazed at me for a handful of seconds before nodding and his hair slid forward into his eyes. For some reason, it was the first time Michael seemed human. He was always so amiable and confident that seeing him be vulnerable felt odd.
"Thank you."
"Come on. Let's go find some answers. — Kyoko M.

You like to live life without regret but that's what the good Lord intended for me - that's just the way it was. My goal was to make it in the NFL, I played with a lot of great players in college who went on to have illustrious, incredible careers and in the end it just didn't happen for me. I failed at that. — Dwayne Johnson

Many of my biggest business endeavors were failures before they became a success. Some failed for as long as six years before they hit. Everyone around me thought I was crazy. You just have to stay at it. — Russell Simmons

I am aware of the many ways the Church has failed me, and I have failed her. Yet in the midst of these mutual failures, I claim this Church as mine. She is my Church, my home, my mother. I will not run away from her, for I have seen through the cracks of her frailty her tremendous splendor, her littleness and her greatness, her poverty and her wealth. I feel more fed than failed. Not everyone can say this, however, and so we are called to great sensitivity in this area. Together we have to accept both the burden and the grace of being Church. The Church is us. She is mine and she is me. She is yours and she is you. She is home, a broken home, yes! Broken, because you and I are broken. — Macrina Wiederkehr

There's no greater feeling in the world than doing something you truly love. Knowing how much you've sacrificed, how many times you might have failed, but sticking to it, and the moment when everything comes together is what makes me feel alive. — T. Mills

Your courage in the grove surprised me. Surprise is a reaction I had all but forgotten. I have seen enough that I alway know what to expect. I assess the odds of various outcomes, and me predictions are never thwarted. before you were finished confronting the revenant, the potion failed. I saw the artificial bravado leave you. Your demise was certain. Yet, despite my certainty, you removed the nail. Had you been full-grown, a seasoned hero of legendary renown, well-trained, armed with charms and talismans, I would have been deeply impressed. But for a mere boy to preform such a feat? I was truly surprised. — Brandon Mull

I was coming up on a cross street when a man wearing a filthy suit stepped out from around the corner of the building ahead and directly into my path. Bent with age, he turned bleak red eyes to me and stared. Pressed with his chest to both hands he carried a paperback book as soiled and bereft as his suit. Are you one of the real ones or not? he demanded. And after a moment, when I failed to answer, he walked on, resuming his sotto voce conversation.
A chill passed through me. Somehow, indefinably, I felt, felt with the kind of baffled, tacit understanding that we have in dreams , that I had just glimpsed one possible future self. — James Sallis

Seeking to distract her from further questions, he bent and blew lightly into her ear. She shivered. "This horse bites, you know." "I think he likes me. Almost as much as you do." "I don't like you. How can I like you? I don't even know you, for you refuse to answer my questions." He stroked her upper arms. "There is little to say. You have Clonmuir, and that makes you far richer than I." He gazed over the horse's back, where a patch of sunset shone through a barred window. Even the warmth of her pressed against him failed to melt the ice of aloneness. — Susan Wiggs

You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey's end.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends ... — T. S. Eliot

I'm pretty sure the designers of some homeschool planners are on a mission to break women like me down and destroy us. No, really, I mean it. If you have ever tried and failed to follow a rigid diet or strict housekeeping routine, you know exactly what I mean. These planners are a special kind of evil. — Tavia Fuller Armstrong

Geez, where's the fire? Something happen at school? Another failed run-in with Baseball Stud?"
Peyton choked and sputtered beside me, but Faith continued despite her distress. "I already told you what you have to do. Find out whichever locker is his, stake it out, and when that Diamond Doll floozie leaves his side, offer to be his bat girl instead."
She giggled as she said it, wiggling her eyebrows for innuendo, and Peyton's face blazed five shades of red. I couldn't wipe the smile from my face if someone paid me to.
As Peyton's mouth opened and closed like a fish, I leaned close to her ear, inhaling the intoxicating scent of sunflowers, and murmured, "I'd love it if you did that. — Rachel Harris

Have you ever truly, keenly felt like you don't know who you are? Do you ever do something and think, Who is at the controls? Like some mad pilot has locked you out of the cockpit? I definitely do. I feel a kind of vertigo that makes me shake afterwards. I guess we all feel it when making a difficult-seeming choice, and sometimes you seriously don't know what you want because you don't know who you're supposed to be, or who you want to be. Physics, my first and second families, my philosophy degree, had all failed to help me answer that question. The former has led me to wonder whether I am one of an infinite number of Alices in multiple universes. A quantum fuck-up, which is someone who fucks up in every one of those universes but in different ways. — Olivia Sudjic

I feel like a waste of space. Like my whole life has been building up to the moment I failed. Like I don't have the energy to make up for what I've done, or to start again, or for anything. I feel like I want to be someone else.'
Miss Anthony moves to Margaret's old seat and puts her arm around me.
'You're not the tough little cookie everyone thinks you are, are you? — Dawn O'Porter

I twisted, my loose clothes sliding over my shoulders, my waist. I hadn't realized how much weight I'd lost. Despite things creeping back to normal. I said, "Don't you have other things to deal with?" "Of course I do," he said, shrugging. "I have so many things to deal with that I'm sometimes tempted to unleash my power across the world and wipe the board clean. Just to buy me some damned peace." He grinned, bowing at the waist. Even that casual mention of his power failed to chill me, awe me. "But I'll always make time for you." I was hungry - I hadn't yet eaten. And that was indeed worry glimmering behind the cocky, insufferable grin. So I motioned him to lead the way to that familiar glass table at the end of the hall. — Sarah J. Maas

Arrow! Black arrow! I have saved you to the last. You have never failed me and I have always recovered you. I had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well! — J.R.R. Tolkien

Princess Caspida, I have nothing but respect and admiration for you. Truly you will be the queen this city needs. But I can't marry you."
The princess stands still as stone, her face unreadable. "Why not, Prince Rahzad?"
"I am sorry," he replies. "The truth is, I am in love, but not with you."
He turns to me, and my spirit takes flight like a flock of doves, startled and erratic. I cannot move, cannot speak, as he takes my hands in his and looks me earnestly in the eye. He presses the ring into my palm, and the gold feels as if it burns my skin.
"This belongs to you, and you alone. I've been so blind, Zahra. So caught up in the past that I've failed to see what's happening in front of me. I've been such an idiot, I don't know how I can expect anything from you. But I have to try. I have to tell the truth, and the truth is . . . I love you. — Jessica Khoury

Why had I failed to realize the depth of Mary's faith despite all those
letters? She'd certainly done her best to share it. The answer came to me in
the midst of my own faith journey, one that seemed to begin the night my
mother died and was jump-started when I lost David seventeen months later.
Why hadn't I seen it?
Simple. I wasn't looking.
According to Jeremiah 29:13 in the Bible, "You will seek me and find
me when you seek me with all your heart" (NIV). It wasn't about Mary at all. It was about me. It wasn't until my mother's death that I began actively
seeking God. I didn't see Mary's Christian example because I hadn't yet
developed spiritually. I wasn't "there" yet. I didn't recognize true faith
because I didn't have my own. — Mary Potter Kenyon

Montana
A great many small failures have brought me to this
Dark room where, against the teachings of the church,
I lie in the forgiving dark with you and we kiss
And loosen our clothing and feel the hot urge
Toward nakedness, man's natural destination,
The slow unbuttoning, unclasping, until at last
We lie revealed. The fine sensation
Of you on my skin. A slender woman as vast
As Montana and I am now heading west
On a winding road through the dark contours
Of mountains and into a valley, coming to rest
In a meadow that I recognize as yours.
This is what I drove across North Dakota to find:
This sweet nest. And put all my failed life behind. — Gary Johnson

If I never returned-if you never see me again-it will mean that everything is alright. That I have ended her. But if I return, it will mean I have failed. That there is still danger. And then I will find you — Samantha Shannon

I don't know how I stay alive. What I do know is that there is a light, far above us, that goes out when we die,
and that in Hell there is a gray tulip that grows without any sun. It reminds me of everything I failed at,
and I water it carefully. It is all I have to remind me of you. — Sarah Manguso

Dear Bryony,
There are many things I wish I had time to tell you, so I will say just this: These past few
days have been some of the best days of my life. Because of you.
My fervent hope is that you are safe and well as you read this letter. That you will have all
the happiness I wish I could have shared with you. And that you will remember me not as a
failed husband, but one who was still trying, til the very end.
Yours always,
Leo — Sherry Thomas

I hold the biscuits in front of his face and he stands up.
"What do I have to do?" he says.
"Nothing," I say. "They're for you."
"Are they poisoned?" he says.
"No," I say.
"Eat one," he says.
So I do.
"Probably the others are poisoned," he says. "Eat a fraction of each."
I eat a corner off each biscuit. He looks at the reminders suspiciously, then sniffs them.
"I'm not sure it's worth it," he says. "How I wish you'd never come. Perhaps you've left the poison off of just those corners."
I begin to realize I'll doubt whatever information he gives me.
"Lick the entire biscuit," he says. "Then give them to me."
So I lick each biscuit.
"Both sides," he says.
I lick both sides of each biscuit. I give him the wet biscuits and he cracks them open and sniffs them. Then he puts them in his pocket.
"What do you want?" he says. "Now that you've failed to poison me to death. — George Saunders

I have vowed to keep you safe, to make it so you never feel fear again, to give you better, and here I stand, with you so close but still holding yourself away, because it was me who failed at giving you all those things. — Kristen Ashley

At the ponds that evening I said to Antonio: "It's always been like that, since we were little: everyone thinks she's bad and I'm good."
He kissed me, murmuring ironically, "Why, isn't that true?"
That response touched me and kept me from telling him that we had to part. It was a decision that seemed to me urgent, the affection wasn't love, I loved Nino, I knew I would love him forever. I had a gentle speech prepared for Antonio, I wanted to say to him: It's been wonderful, you helped me a lot at a time when I was sad, but now school is starting and this year is going to be difficult, I have new subjects, I'll have to study a lot; I'm sorry but we have to stop. I felt it was necessary and every afternoon I went to our meeting at the ponds with my little speech ready. But he was so affectionate, so passionate, that my courage failed and I put it off. — Elena Ferrante

You have failed. You can't control me! — Veronica Roth

I will have failed in this if in five years there are not many more people using public transport and far fewer journeys by car. It is a tall order but I want you to hold me to it. — John Prescott

Let me get this straight. You and I are in the Brotherhood's mobile surgical van, on our way to the training center because you were shot and now have a tube in your head to reduce brain swelling...and you're coming on to me?"

"My gray matter isn't the only thing getting bigger."

"You're like the indestructible slut, aren't you."

"You know, to most people, slut is an insult." He tried to lift his had to make the point. And failed. "I personally take it as a compliment. Shows commitment to my work. — J.R. Ward

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

If you told me a year ago that I would kiss a girl when I was 12, then I would have either laughed at you or started to sweat. Girls have always been a puzzle of which I have failed to connect the pieces. They are so complicated and emotional that the average dude has absolutely no chance to get within shouting range. — Phil Wohl

Patients with complex trauma may at times develop extreme reactions to something the therapist has said or not said, done or not done. It is wise to anticipate this in advance, and perhaps to note this anticipation in initial communications with the patient. For example, one may say something like, "It is likely in our work together, there will be a time or times when you will feel angry with me, disappointed with me, or that I have failed you. We should except this and not be surprised if and when it happens, which it probably will." It is also vital to emphasize to the patient that despite the diagnosis and experience of dividedness, the whole person is responsible and will be held responsible for the acts of any part. p174 — Elizabeth F. Howell

Some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously, that you might as well not have lived at all. In which case you have failed by default. Failure gave me an inner security that I had never obtained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things that I could not have learned any other way. I discovered I had a strong will and more discipline than I had suspected. — J.K. Rowling

He said, Contented? I am the MOST discontented man in the world! Don't you know I am the wealthiest man in the world? That is my discontent. Now I know there is no more to wealth: all that is possible I have attained, and yet I am dying empty. My life has been just a wastage. Next time, if God gives me another opportunity, I am not going to try money any more - it has failed. — Rajneesh

You love Robert, not me. You don't love Lord Stuffy, so I tried to be like Robert."
The sweet idiot! She felt like weeping again. She began to protest, but he cut her off.
"I don't drink and I don't gamble and I don't have a mistress. I'm dull. You told me so, the first time we met. So I tried to change." He frowned. "Not the mistress. I'll never do that."
"Good," she whispered.
"I'm trying to be like Robert, but I'm no good at it. I drank wine. And brandy, lots of it. I didn't like it and it made me sick. I played hazard and I lost." He looked momentarily cheerful and her heart sank. "But I didn't like that either. If I was a real man like Mr. Fox, or Robert, I'd have lost thousands."
The sadder he looked, the more her heart ached, a happy ache.
"I failed you, Caro. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I'll always be Lord Stuffy," he said, and closed his tortured, bloodshot eyes. — Miranda Neville

You have failed. You can't control me!" I scream,so loud it hurts my throat. I stop struggling and sag against Peter's chest. "You will never be able to control me."
I laugh, mirthless, a mad laugh. I savor the scowl on her face, the hate in her eyes. She was like a machine; she was cold and emotionless, bound by logic alone. And I broke her.
I broke her. — Veronica Roth

You care, you really care for me!" "Of course," Eric said. "How could you doubt it?" But it was not easy to believe that anyone cared for me; I sometimes failed to realize, I think, how much my parents cared for me. It is only now, reading the letters they wrote to me when I came to America fifty years ago, that I see how deeply they did care. And perhaps how deeply many others have cared for me - was the imagined lack of caring by others a projection of something deficient or inhibited in myself? I once heard a radio program devoted to the memories and thoughts of those who, like me, had been evacuated during the Second World War, separated from their families during their earliest years. The interviewer commented on how well these people had adjusted to the painful, traumatic years of their childhood. "Yes," said one man. "But I still have trouble with the three Bs: bonding, belonging, and believing." I think this is also true, to some extent, for me. — Oliver Sacks

All the time God ever spent on you was wasted, an' your mother's had the same luck. I s'pose God's used to having creatures 'at He's made go wrong, but I pity your mother. Goodness knows a woman suffers an' works enough over her children, an' then to fetch a boy to man's estate an' have him, of his own free will an' accord, be a liar! Young man, truth is the cornerstone o' the temple o' character. Nobody can put up a good buildin' without a solid foundation; an' you can't do solid character buildin' with a lie at the base. Man 'at's a liar ain't fit for anything! Can't trust him in no sphere or relation o' life; or in any way, shape, or manner. You passed out your word like a man, an' like a man I took it an' went off trustin' you, an' you failed me. — Gene Stratton-Porter

Your question to me is about God, but boiled down to its essentials, it's not so different than most of the questions people ask me to answer. It says: This failed me and I want to do better next time. My answer will not be so different either: To do better you're going to have to try. — Cheryl Strayed

When life seems too cruel, and there seems too little love in it. When you feel you have failed. When you don't know what the point is. When you cannot go on. I want you to draw strength from me then. I want you to remember how much I cherished you, how I lived for you. When the world seems full of giants who dwarf you, when it feels like a struggle just to keep your head up, I want you to remember there is more to live for than mere achievement. It is worth something to be a good man. It cannot be worth nothing to do the right thing. — Matthew Thomas

As an athlete, success is not just about winning; it is about working hard and giving it all you have. I have always taken one match at a time and worked hard; when I succeeded, I worked further on the aspects of the game which worked for me; when I failed, I listed out my weaknesses and worked on them. — Rohan Bopanna

What's wrong with the world?
It's easy to probe the ills of the nation, the Church, and the planet and come up with a grave diagnosis ... But it takes all the strength we can muster to stand at Mass and honestly say, 'I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do ...
Sin is not out there; it's deep inside you and me ... What's wrong with the world? I am, because I sin, and my sins well up from the darkness in my own heart. — Scott Hahn

You could ask yourself, 'How did God Bless me today?' If you do that long enough and with faith, you will find yourself remembering blessings. And sometimes you will have gifts brought to your mind which you failed to notice during the day, but which you will then know were a touch of God's hand in your life. — Henry B. Eyring

You both are attracted to me," she said boldly. "I'm attracted to the both of you. Now I thought I could run away from you both but that failed. Then I thought I'd just be a friend, but now that I've seen and touched you both, it wouldn't be enough. So I've decided to make you my lovers. This could end horribly, horribly wrong, but until then I'm going to have the best goddamn sex of my life. Don't hold back, and cheers." She clinked her glass against ours.
God have mercy. — Amelia LeFay

I hope that wherever else I have failed, whatever harm I have caused to strangers and friends, that you may speak for me. Not before a pulpit or upon a stage. Not with words great or loud. But only to be, to persist, to live a life with pride and worth. In twenty years' time, thirty, or forty I hope that you may sit upon the porch of your home, look out upon a greening field that you have tilled, see your children surrounding you with love, and think for a moment upon me. That is all now that I truly wish for. To be for a moment in your thoughts, when I have long passed from this earth, and perhaps in a way I may find my redemption, an earthly redemption, not everlasting, but scared nonetheless. — Tara Conklin

I could never kill myself. What if it doesn't work. Then I'll have failed at the only thing that could save me from my failures. Where do you go from there? — Tucker Max

If you are names without a nature, it's not because I don't remember, no, the opposite is true, you are remembered in me as an endless stirring and turning. But it's for this precisely that you must forgive me, because in every story of obsession there's only one character, only one plot. I am writing about myself alone, it's all I know, and for this reason I have always failed in every love, which is to say at the very heart of life. — Damon Galgut

I failed you that night, Cassie. I'll never forgive myself for not making sure you were safe and protected. That should have never happened to you. And it won't ever happen again. I promised you I'd never let anyone hurt you like that. Just let me keep my fucking promise to you — J. Sterling

Once I realised that my job as a model was to emote in front of the camera, I thought, 'Well now, I just have to add words, and I can do films.' But also, my success as a model made me more confident about becoming an actress because, just in case I failed, I thought, 'Well, you know, if I failed as an actress, I can do another job.' — Isabella Rossellini

I would like to say to the men and women of the generations which will come after us: you will look back at us with astonishment. You will wonder at passionate struggles that accomplished so little, at the, to you, obvious paths to attain our ends which we did not take. At the intolerable evils before which it will seem to you we sat down passive. At the great truths staring us in the face which we failed to see, at the great truths we grasped at but could not get our fingers quite 'round. You will marvel at the labour that ended in so little. But what you will never know that it was how we were thinking of you and for you that we struggled as we did and accomplished the little that we have done. That it was in the thought of your larger realization and fuller life that we have found consolation for the futilities of our own. All I aspire to be and was not, comforts me. — Olive Schreiner

Damn," he said. "Have you been stuffing yourself with desserts just to prolong the suspense?"
She failed to note the humor in his tone. All she gathered from his remark was that he still didn't believe she was pregnant.
"You've found me out at last," she snapped. "I'm merely giving birth to a pastry."
"That's not funny,Becca."
"Neither was your absurd remark. Do you really think I like that my body is going to be disfigured? I hate it, but not as much as I hate you! — Johanna Lindsey