Quotes & Sayings About You Were A Mistake

Three old women were bending in the fields. What use is it to question us? they said. Well it shortly became clear that they knew everything there is to know about the snowy fields and the blue green shoots and the plant called "audacity", which poets mistake for violets. I began to copy out everything that was said ... I will do anything to escape boredom. It is the task of a lifetime. You can never know enough, never work enough, never use the infinitives and participles oddly enough, never impede the movement harshly enough, never leave the mind quickly enough. — Anne Carson

The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, "One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door." The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: "What were you thinking; why didn't you act?" Or they will ask instead: "How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve? — Al Gore

My dear Alicia, of what a mistake were you guilty in marrying a man of his age! Just old enough to be formal, ungovernable, and to have the gout; too old to be agreeable, too young to die. — Jane Austen

Many people who live in big countries like ours thought that we had resources that would work for us for many, many years, but that was a mistake. Our natural wealth corrupted us. In this country, you were among the first to raise environmental issues. In Russia, despite all of its problems today, people are concerned about the environment, and it's become a central issue on the agenda. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Most of us have love in our lives. Most of us love other people are are ourselves loved by others. But make no mistake: you are alone in the world. You were born alone, even if you were born conjoined. And you die alone, unable to bring a single person with you. — Augusten Burroughs

Of all my children, you were always the hardest on yourself. You were always looking for the right way to behave, so concerned you might make a mistake. But, darling, there are no mistakes. There are only our wishes, our actions, and the consequences that follow both. There are only events, how we cope with them, and what we learn from the coping."
"That's too easy," he said.
"On the contrary. It's monumentally difficult. — Elizabeth George

Zooey was in dreamy top form. The announcer had them off on the subject of housing developments, and the little Burke girl said she hated houses that all look alike-meaning a long row of identical 'development' houses. Zooey said they were 'nice.' He said it would be very nice to come home and be in the wrong house. To eat dinner with the wrong people by mistake, sleep in the wrong bed by mistake, and kiss everybody goodbye in the morning thinking they were your own family. He said he even wished everybody in the world looked exactly alike. He said you'd keep thinking everybody you met was your wife or your mother or father, and people would always be throwing their arms around each other wherever they went, and it would look 'very nice. — J.D. Salinger

Congress is thinking about eliminating a federal program under which scientists broadcast signals to Alien beings. This would be a large mistake. Alien beings have atomic blaster death cannons. You cannot cut off their federal programs as if they were merely poor people. — Dave Barry

Lucy could see that love unconfined, love outside convention, might well make a woman an unfit mother; you were one kind of woman or another: you were good or you were bad, as the world saw it, and no stations in between. They allowed you to choose; you could be the maternal or the erotic, but not a bit of both. The latter made you forget the former. Men married the maternal and then longed for the erotic. Or they married the erotic by mistake, and set about making it into the maternal, and then were just as disappointed. — Fay Weldon

I recall that my workshop leaders were tactful in their ways of acquainting me with my shortcomings as a writer. So much so that I hardly realized they were doing it. I want always to keep that sort of thing in mind when I'm teaching. The way you get better in everything in this life is to make mistakes. Otherwise you're probably doing it right by accident. But you have to do everything wrong before you can really start with some authority to do it right. — Tobias Wolff

I've been alone most of my life because I'm the only person in the world I can rely on. For a few days I deluded myself into thinking you were someone I could believe in. That I could trust you and lean on you, that you would never lie to me. What a mistake I made. — Elizabeth Camden

What should you do when you find you have made a mistake like that? Some people never admit that they are wrong and continue to find new, and often mutually inconsistent, arguments to support their case - as Eddington did in opposing black hole theory. Others claim to have never really supported the incorrect view in the first place or, if they did, it was only to show that it was inconsistent. It seems to me much better and less confusing if you admit in print that you were wrong. A good example of this was Einstein, who called the cosmological constant, which he introduced when he was trying to make a static model of the universe, the biggest mistake of his life. — Stephen Hawking

It would be a mistake, however, to think that Connectors are the only people who matter in a social epidemic. Roger Horchow sent out a dozen faxes promoting his daughter's friend's new restaurant. But he didn't discover that restaurant. Someone else did and told him about it. At some point in the rise of Hush Puppies, the shoes were discovered by Connectors, who broadcast the return of Hush Puppies far and wide. but who told the Connectors about Hush Puppies? It's possible that Connectors learn about new information by an entirely random process, that because they know so many people they get access to new things wherever they pop up. If you look closely at social epidemics, however, it becomes clear that just as there are people we rely upon to connect us to other people, there are also people we rely upon to connect us with new information. There are people specialists, and there are information specialists. — Malcolm Gladwell

No man, proclaimed Donne, is an Island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other's tragedies. We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature, and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories. The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived, and then, by some means or another, died. There. You may fill in the details from your own experience. As unoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are snowflakes - forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'd mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection), but still unique. — Neil Gaiman

I think the best war photos I have taken have always been made when a battle was actually taking place - when people were confused and scared and courageous and stupid and showed all these things. When you look at people right at the very moment of truth, everything is quite human. You take a picture at this moment with all the mistakes in it, with everything that might be confusing to the reader, but that's the right combat photo. — Horst Faas

It was a huge misconception that my father created all the chaos and evil on Earth. Mortals were given free will by my Uncle God, and they created evil all by their lonesome. My dad got to punish the you know what out of those idiots who choose to be heinously bad. And quite honestly some of them deserved my dad's wrath. He loved his job. Another misconception is that Hell is below and Heaven is above. What does that even mean? Nothing is up or down, that's just human mythology. Most likely the mistake was made because Hell was occasionally called the Underworld. Hell and Heaven are simply on different planes, accessible through portals. Earth was modeled after a combination of the seasons, climates and terrains of Heaven and Hell. We all shared the same moon and sun and stars. — Robyn Peterman

Romney had tried to explain his reasoning to this chorus of confidants, but they were still urging him not to shut the door. They contended that even if he didn't want to launch a formal campaign right now, it would be a mistake to take himself entirely out of the running. They laid out a vivid, detailed scenario in which a fractured Republican Party - divided by a wide field of niche presidential candidates - fails to unite behind a single nominee in 2016, and ends up with a chaotic, historic floor fight at the national convention. Facing a televised descent into disarray, the GOP delegates would naturally turn to Romney - the fully vetted, steady-handed Republican statesman - for salvation. Your party might still need you, Mitt's loyalists insisted. The country might still need you! — McKay Coppins

You were my beautiful mistake and I don't regret anything. I would do it all again in a heartbeat. — Michael Faudet

When I was much younger and lived in Claybourne's residence, Luke's
grandfather arranged an afternoon tea in the garden with a few of the
girls my age. They arrived in coaches and carriages and they were so
beautiful. Their laughter was soft and sweet, so very different from the
harsh laugher in the rookeries. I thought, 'Oh my goodness, I'm going to
be like them.'
"They hurt me that day without touching me. They taught me that
words can slice like a knife. They wanted to know about life in the
rookeries, and I made the mistake of telling them that I slept with Luke
and Jack and Jim. And sometimes at night, I still slept with Luke. They
made it into something ugly. It was really rather innocent. To lie in the
circle of someone's arms while you sleep can be very, very nice. But I
never slept with them again. Never told them why. Those girls took that
from me. And I let them. — Lorraine Heath

You told me it was a mistake to fight the scarred warriors. They were the survivors. — Michael Scott

Kaz rapped his cane on the stone floor. He was standing in the doorway to the tomb. "If everyone is done cuddling, we have a job to do."
"Hold up," said Jesper, arm still slung around Inej. "We're not talking about the job until we figure out what those things were on the Stave."
"What things?" asked Inej.
"Did you miss half the Stave blowing up?"
"We saw the bomb at the White Rose go off," said Inej, "and then we heard another explosion."
"At the Anvil," said Nina.
"After that," Inej said, "we ran."
Jesper nodded sagely. "That was your big mistake. If you'd stuck around, you could have nearly been killed by a Shu guy with wings. — Leigh Bardugo

O Josephine, face more than irregular, you would be charming were you not all askew. You have the air of a pretty face upon which some one has sat down by mistake. — Victor Hugo

AFTER BEING IN LOVE, THE NEXT RESPONSIBILITY
Turn me like a waterwheel turning a millstone.
Plenty of water, a Living River.
Keep me in one place and scatter the love.
Leaf-moves in wind, straw drawn toward amber,
all parts of the world are in love,
but they do not tell their secrets. Cows grazing
on a sacramental table, ants whispering in Solomon's ear.
Mountains mumbling an echo. Sky, calm.
If the sun were not in love, he would have no brightness,
the side of the hill no grass on it.
The ocean would come to rest somewhere.
Be a lover as they are, that you come to know
you Beloved. Be faithful that you may know
Faith. The other parts of the universe did not accept
the next responsibility of love as you can.
They were afraid they might make a mistake
with it, the inspired knowing
that springs from being in love — Rumi

Curious," it said. "What you call your decent self doesn't dare look me in the eye! What a mistake people make who say that the man who won't look you in the eye is not to be trusted! As if mere brazenness were a sign of honesty; really, the theory of decency is the most amusing thing in the world. — John Kendrick Bangs

Nobody likes to admit that they made a mistake, but if you do, you have to stand up and take responsibility and you have to say that you were wrong. — Lara Logan

He reached over and took Taylor's hand. She did not pull her hand away.
He moved his hand up her arm. She stiffened a little and glanced around, making sure they weren't seen. Or, maybe, hoping they were.
His hand reached her neck. He leaned toward her and pulled her to him.
He kissed her.
She kissed him back.
He kissed her harder. And she slid her hand under his shirt, fingers stroking his bare flesh.
Then he pulled away, fast.
"Sorry, I . . ." He hesitated, his wallowing brain arguing against a body that was suddenly aflame.
Sam stood up very suddenly and walked away.
Taylor laughed gaily at his back. "Come see me when you get tired of mooning over the ice princess, Sam. — Michael Grant

Excerpt from the Marquis's Mistake by myself.
"So what am I my Lord, an antidote, a bluestocking or on the shelf? I assume it is the last because I should have come out three years ago and am all of twenty and one."
"But you were not out so that doesn't count and I find you extremely desirable so you are far from an antidote. I think you very pretty and my taste has always been considered excellent. You are well educated but have other interests and ride well, so you fail to fit the criteria of a bluestocking. It might interest you to know my grandmother put you top of the girls she invited to her dinner party. Her opinion only confirmed what I had already concluded from examining your notebook and sketches. You eavesdrop and I sneak a peek at other people's private notebooks. You see I think we would be well-matched. — Giselle Marks

I recalled a sermon Burke had delivered months ago, when everything from the Jew hole was still safely abstract, wisdom I could enjoy in the unactionable pit of my mind. They will sniff at your legs, went Burke's sermon. They will wish they were you. Beware the man on his knees, the display of weakness. But the sermon had not passed through the radio coherently that day; static cloaked the transmission. Every other word was weakness, as if the broadcast were looping by mistake. We were to fear weakness not in oneself, where it should be cherished, but in others. Or not fear it, but mistrust it. We too easily believe in the trouble of others, erect a machinery of caring. Look through the story at the teller's need, was the caution. Share not your full story, went the warning. — Ben Marcus

You can stay on the porch. Like how you left me on the floor outside our room."
"I didn't know what else to do. You found the check, and I panicked."
"That isn't an excuse."
"I know. And I'm not saying that this is going to make up for it. I'm going to try, really try, to make you trust me again. I want you to trust me. I just ... I couldn't sleep last night without you. It was the strangest thing, being in the room alone without you. I couldn't hear you breathing, and your laughter was gone and you were gone, and it was like a part of my life was missing. A big part. I tripped going to the bathroom and banged my head. See?" He pointed to a lovely gash on his forehead.
"And then I burned my hand on the toaster oven. And then my car wouldn't start. Again. I've never had such bad luck in my life. — Chelsea M. Cameron

About a hundred or so years before you were born, a Dark-Hunter made the mistake of falling in love with his Talpina. Unfortunately for the rest of us, she didn't pass Artemis's test. Artemis was so angry, she stepped in and banished the Talpinas from us, and implemented the oh so wonderful you're-only-supposed-to-sleep-with-them-once rule. As further backlash, Acheron came up with the never-touch-your-Squire law. I tell you, you haven't lived until you've tried to find a decent one-night stand in seventh-century Britain. (Talon) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The life and friends are two connected things. As life is one we get friends for once too. There could be so many things between friends sometime we get angry on. But If you don't solve and remain angry then that will be your big mistake and it could be just because of your ego. One side can take step to solve it but your ego (that is not fully ego but a kind of ego for that you think you were right at that moment and another one should take step first to feel apologize) never let you to do so. You should be apologize to be a good friend. Now you may think why to apologize if another one doesn't care at all. Then whats the difference between you and that one. You may leave it by thinking you dont need or you may proceed to solve it. It shouldn't be difficult to apologize with friends. — Pawan Mehra

If you can look at somebody and say, 'I never loved you, you were a mistake,' that's one thing. But if you look at him and say, 'You were everything and I poisoned it because I wouldn't stand up for myself,' that's hard. That's too hard ... — Jennifer Crusie

I'm about to take a shower because I smell like an all-nighter, then I think I'll take a bath so I can have a faucet orgasm. After all, I didn't get any last night. A faucet orgasm is pretty much the same principle as a bidet orgasm except upside-down. When we were growing up we had bidets in all the bathrooms and when I was about ten I accidentally discovered one of the things they were good for. After that I used to spend hours on the damn thing. This dump we rent doesn't have a bidet so I have to get in the tub and slide up toward the front, running my legs up the wall on either side of the faucet. Turn on the warm water and smile. Actually, you've got to get the water temperature just right first or you could really be in for a nasty shock. I've made that mistake a few times. This time I get it just right and I come three times before I get around to actually taking a bath. — Jay McInerney

The two big mistakes were the belief in a sky god - that there's a man in the sky with 10 things he doesn't want you to do and you'll burn for a long time if you do them - and private property, which I think is at the core of our failure as a species. That's the source of my indignations, my dissatisfactions, however it comes out on the stage. I feel betrayed by the people I'm part of, these creatures, these magnificent creatures. — George Carlin

God! I hated this business of being grown-up. I hated having to make decisions where I didn't know what was behind the door. I wanted a world where heroes and villains were clearly labeled. Where ominous music comes on-screen so you can't possibly mistake him. Where someone asks you to choose between playing with the beautiful princess in the fragrant garden and being eaten by the hideous monster in the foul-smelling pit. Not exactly a difficult one, now is it? Not something that you would agonize over, or that would make you lose a night's sleep? — Marian Keyes

I told them a thousand times if I told them once:
Stop fooling around, I said, with straw and sticks;
They won't hold up; you're taking an awful chance.
Brick is the stuff to build with, solid bricks.
You want to be impractical, go ahead.
But just remember, I told them; wait and see.
You're making a big mistake. Awright, I said,
But when the wolf comes, don't come running to me.
The funny thing is, they didn't. There they sat,
One in his crummy yellow shack, and one
Under his roof of twigs, and the wolf ate
Them, hair and hide. Well, what is done is done.
But I'd been willing to help them, all along,
If only they'd once admitted they were wrong. — Sarah Henderson Hay

From the Basement tapes
Eric outdid Dylan with the apologies. To the untrained eye, he seemed sincere. The psychologists on the case found Eric less convincing. They saw a psychopath. Classic. He even pulled the stunt of self-diagnosing to dismiss it. "I wish I was a fucking sociopath so I didn't have any remorse," Eric said. "But I do."
Watching that made Dr. Fuselier angry. Remorse meant a deep desire to correct a mistake. Eric hadn't done it yet. He excused his actions several times on the tapes. Fuselier was tough to rattle, but that got to him.
"Those are the most worthless apologies I've ever heard in my life," he said. It got more ludicrous later, when Eric willed some of his stuff to two buddies, "if you guys live."
"If you live?" Fuselier repeated. "They are going to go in there and quite possibly kill their friends. If they were the least bit sorry they would not do it! — Dave Cullen

Everything stopped that day, literally. I even stopped growing....Injured and traumatized children--they quite often fail to grow to normal height....Resources are diverted. The growth system shuts down....Accidents, catastrophes--something like seventy-five percent of disaster victims are convinced there were warning signs they brushed off....If you trace it back, you can see the mistake--the point you would have had a different outcome....To see the mistake, the place where you went wrong, and not be able to go back and fix it? Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch, p. 615 — Donna Tartt

Fallible, adj.
I was hurt. Of course I was hurt. But in a perverse way, I was relieved that you were the one who mad the mistake. It made me worry less about myself. — David Levithan

It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened when you let yourself get close to someone, when you started to believe they loved you: you'd be disappointed. Depend on someone, and you might as well admit you're going to be crushed, because when you really needed them, they wouldn't be there. Either that, or you'd confide in them and you added to their problems. All you ever really had was yourself, and that sort of sucked if you were less than reliable. — Jodi Picoult

That was your moment. All you needed to do was climb those steps, and sit. Such a sad mistake." "I have made more mistakes than you can possibly imagine," Ned said, "but that was not one of them." "Oh, but it was, my lord," Cersei insisted. "When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground." She turned up her hood to hide her swollen face and left him there in the dark beneath the oak, amidst the quiet of the godswood, under a blue-black sky. The stars were coming out. — George R R Martin

Standing there, the doctor's wife watched the two blind men who were arguing, she noticed they made no gestures, that they barely moved their bodies, having quickly learned that only their voice and hearing now served any purpose, true, they had their arms, that they could fight, grapple, come to blows, as the saying goes, but a bed swapped by mistake was not worth so much fuss, if only all life's deceptions were like this one, and all they had to do was to come to some agreement, Number two is mine, yours is number three, let that be understood once and for all, Were it not for the fact that we're blind this mix-up would never had happened, You're right, our problem is that we're blind. The doctor's wife said to her husband, The whole world is right here. — Jose Saramago

Another great mistake is this; another understandable error is this: living to live the footprints of others when you have your own foot! Live your footprints! You were born unique! If possible, put the shoes of others, (they must fit you however) but don't walk as they walked and as much as possible, don't leave the same footprints they left except you were born to be like them or you can change the face of their footprints into a unique artifact! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

didn't get it back then. I thought . . . I thought choosing him meant you didn't love me. I thought because we didn't work out, it meant we were a failure or a mistake. But I understand it now. Because I love her. I love her so much I can't see straight. But it doesn't change how I felt about you or how thankful I am to have loved you once. It's just . . ." "I'm the past. And she's the present." "Yeah," he says, relieved that I've put it into words for him, that he doesn't have to try to find them himself. "That's exactly it." I — Taylor Jenkins Reid

You can and should use logic and reason all you want. But it would be a great mistake to ignore the stray bit of data that doesn't fit into your preconceived theories, that may even confound everything you thought you were sure of. — Barbara Ehrenreich

Perhaps part of your problem is that you've been reading the commentators and not the people they were commenting on. A common mistake but fatal when you're trying to learn something. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Not Afraid. I knew you were a person who ... wouldn't be forced ... Well, yes, I was afraid. I was afraid of you. Not of making a mistake. I knew it wasn't a mistake. But you were-yourself. You aren't like most people, you know. I was afraid of you because I knew you were my equal. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Nothing is so sad, in my opinion, as the devastation wrought by age.
My poor friend. I have described him many times. Now to convey to you the difference. Crippled with arthritis, he propelled himself about in a wheelchair. His once plump frame had fallen in. He was a thin little man now. His face was lined and wrinkled. His moustache and hair, and hair, it is true, were still of a jet black colour, but candidly, though I would not for the world have hurt his feelings by saying so to him, this was a mistake. There comes a moment when hair dye is only too painfully obvious. There had been a time when I had been surprised to learn that the blackness of Poirot's hair came out of a bottle. But now the theatricality was apparent and merely created the impression that he wore a wig and had adorned his upper lip to amuse children! — Agatha Christie

Maybe the God we see, the God who calls the daily shots, is merely a subGod. Maybe there's a God above this subGod who's busy for a few God minutes with something else, and will be right back; and when he gets back will take the subGod by the ear and say: Now look. Look at that fat man. What did he ever do to you? Wasn't he humble enough? Didn't he endure enough abuse for a thousand men? Weren't the simplest tasks hard? Didn't you sense him craving affection? Were you unaware that his days unraveled as one long bad dream? And maybe as the subGod slinks away, the true God will sweep me up in his arms, saying: My sincere apologies, a mistake has been made. Accept a new birth, as token of my esteem. — George Saunders

They lost Olivia at Newport Beach. The panic made Alice hyperventilate. You were meant to be watching her, Nick kept saying. As if that were the point. That Alice had made a mistake. Not that Olivia was missing, but that it was Alice's fault. — Liane Moriarty

You've walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You've traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don't bother remembering
any of it. Let's stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by. — Dorianne Laux

If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should mistake it for sense. Do you never laugh, Miss Eyre? Don't trouble yourself to answer - I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am naturally vicious. The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother - or father, or master, or what you will - to smile too gaily, speak too freely, or move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now. I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high. You are still bent on going? — Charlotte Bronte

To be yourself and to learn from your mistakes. If you have a problem, try to get help, you can get through it if you get help. When we were on the show, there was no paparazzi, none of that. I was really lucky that I got to avoid all that. — Maureen McCormick

Your relationship may be "Breaking Up," but you won't be "Breaking Down." If anything your correcting a mistake that was hurting four people, you and the person your with, not to mention the two people who you were destined to meet. — D. Ivan Young

It is as heroic as he makes it sound. "Why have I never heard anything about all this - and not just from you? Sophie never said a word. Hell, I didn't even know that people escaped over the mountains or that there was a concentration camp just for women who resisted the Nazis." "Men tell stories," I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. "Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over. Your sister was as desperate to forget it as I was. Maybe that was another mistake I made - letting her forget. Maybe we should have talked about it. — Kristin Hannah

We were having the best time working together, too, except when he'd make a mistake on an order and I'd have to be an advocate for my customer. I always mentioned it sweetly.
"You didn't say hold the bacon, Hope."
"Barverman, I said it twice."
"You must have said it to someone else."
"I said it to you."
Clang.
"Don't clang pots at me. — Joan Bauer

Your expectation of something unique and dramatic, of some wonderful explosion, is merely hindering and delaying your Self Realization. You are not to expect an explosion, for the explosion has already happened - at the moment when you were born, when you realized yourself as Being-Knowing-Feeling. There is only one mistake you are making: you take the inner for the outer and the outer for the inner. What is in you, you take to be outside you and what is outside, you take to be in you. The mind and feelings are external, but you take them to be intimate. You believe the world to be objective, while it is entirely a projection of your psyche. That is the basic confusion and no new explosion will set it right! You have to think yourself out of it. There is no other way. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

I'd like to say is that we shouldn't have an idea that the goal of spiritual practice is to annihilate ones ego, that would be a mistake. In the early years of enlightenment, psychologists were afraid of Hindus and Buddhists meditating because they thought they were going to shatter their egos and then they'd have to wear diapers or something, like they'd lose their toilet training or what have you. They were really afraid of it. — Robert Thurman

Anchor Your Stories in Redemptive Themes So We Are Moved to Live Up to Them: Rather than making yourself the victim or the hero in the stories you tell, describe a daunting time of loss, crisis, or criticism or where you made a mistake or acted badly, yet you were eventually able to learn from it. Such stories show vulnerability and a desire to grow and live fully rather than in fear. Then that facet of you can be the place where others can positively and productively connect with you, hard-earned strengths firmly attached together. You can support each other in reinforcing redemptive characterizations and action. — Kare Anderson

Were passing by. Once I heard him making fun of Jules. Jules was walking down the street carrying a lamp in his hand that he'd obviously just pulled out of some garbage heap. "Look at the garbage picker man!" Alphonse said. "That motherfucker is sad. He tried to sell me a comforter once! I said get the hell away from me. He's out all night looking for rags and bones. What year we living in, man? Get a real job, motherfucker." Jules couldn't stand Alphonse either. He said Alphonse was a pimp. I didn't know what a pimp did exactly. I was almost certain that it meant he had prostitutes working for him, but I wasn't sure. I told a kid at school that I knew a pimp and he said, "Bullshit. It's not fucking possible. You're making it up." So I guessed I'd made a mistake. Or maybe the word "pimp" had two different meanings. I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING to make older guys want to treat me like I was one of them, — Heather O'Neill

That it may be, but we could not have a dozen Apollyons running around." He looked over his shoulder at me. "Two are considered bad enough. Can you imagine if there were a dozen? No. You cannot. And besides, one slipped through every generation as planned. Though, we do make mistakes every once in awhile."

I was really beginning to dislike Apollo. "So I'm a monster and a mistake?"

He winked. "The perfect kind of mistake."

I scooted away from him a little. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

The letter from Dan Gilbert, the booing of the Cleveland fans, the jerseys being burned
seeing all that was hard for them. My emotions were more mixed. It was easy to say, 'OK, I don't want to deal with these people ever again.' But then you think about the other side. What if I were a kid who looked up to an athlete, and that athlete made me want to do better in my own life, and then he left? How would I react? I've met with Dan, face-to-face, man-to-man. We've talked it out. Everybody makes mistakes. I've made mistakes as well. Who am I to hold a grudge? — LeBron James

Domingo, your family needs you. Let me explain why I feel strongly that you must stay with them. I had a family once too that loved me. But I made a mistake. I was lured away by other things. When I realized they were what mattered, it was already too late. — Tess Uriza Holthe

It was always a mistake to choose a pillow-friend who did not wear the shawl. Especially if you were fool enough to let her take the lead. — Robert Jordan

Almost invariably people expected that if you were a good person you shouldn't meet a bad end, that only the deserving are killed and certainly only the deserving are murdered. However well hidden and subtle, there was a sense that a murdered person had somehow asked for it. That's why the shock when someone they knew to be kind and good was a victim. There was a feeling that surely there had been a mistake. — Louise Penny

This poem by Russell Kelfer sums it up: You are who you are for a reason. You're part of an intricate plan. You're a precious and perfect unique design, Called God's special woman or man. You look like you look for a reason. Our God made no mistake. He knit you together within the womb, You're just what he wanted to make. The parents you had were the ones he chose, And no matter how you may feel, They were custom-designed with God's plan in mind, And they bear the Master's seal. No, that trauma you faced was not easy. And God wept that it hurt you so; But it was allowed to shape your heart So that into his likeness you'd grow. You are who you are for a reason, You've been formed by the Master's rod. You are who you are, beloved, Because there is a God! — Rick Warren

When a family is broken by death, there is no clear way forward out of despair. It is easy to mistake grief for proof of love, and so refuse to relinquish it. For the first year or longer, there is a constant, grinding question that hands over you: Stay or go? You fixate on the fantasy of willing time to roll backward. You find the precise moment before they were taken, and plant your flag there. Death becomes the territory where our love lives, a dangerous place for the living to stay for very long. — Galadrielle Allman

Were only trying to help, but you need to punish them. In a strange way, it will make them feel better. That's the way of society, you make a mistake, make restitution, learn from it, and move on. If there's no restitution, there's no learning. No consequences equals spoiled brats. — Katie Graykowski

You're carrying on as if I am being chased by hordes of men, when that is obviously not the case. At Stony Cross Park, men went out of their way to avoid my company - and you were one of them!"
The charge, though true, seemed to startle Sebastian. His face became taut, and he stared at her in stony silence. "You hardly made it easy for anyone to approach you," he said after a moment. "A man's vanity is more fragile than you might think. It's easy for us to mistake shyness for coldness, and silence for indifference. You could have exerted yourself a bit, you know. One brief meeting between the two of us ... one smile from you ... was all the encouragement I would have needed to jump on you like a grouse on laurel. — Lisa Kleypas

As a child there's a horror in discovering the limitations of the ones you love. The time you find that your mother cannot keep you safe, that your tutor makes a mistake, that the wrong path must be taken because the grown-ups lack the strength to take the right one ... each of those moments is the theft of your childhood, each of them a blow that kills some part of the child you were, leaving another part of the man exposed, a new creature, tougher but tempered with bitterness and disappointment. — Mark Lawrence

The arrow is the intention. It is what unites the strength of the bow with the centre of the target. The intention must be crystal-clear, straight and balanced. Once the arrow has gone, it will not come back, so it is better to interrupt a shot, because the movements that led up to it were not sufficiently precise and correct, than to act carelessly, simply because the bow was fully drawn and the target was waiting. But never hold back from firing the arrow if all that paralyses you is fear of making a mistake. If you have made the right movements, open your hand and release the string. Even if the arrow fails to hit the target, you will learn how to improve your aim next time. If you never take a risk, you will never know what changes you need to make. Each arrow leaves a memory in your heart, and it is the sum of those memories that will make you shoot better and better. — Paulo Coelho

How can you claim infallibility and claim that in these 114 [drone] strikes there was just one mistake
one person killed that was a civilian
and at the same time say, 'Well, we don't really know how many people were killed or who they were, but we know they weren't civilians'? I don't know how you can do that. — Richard Engel

I have a new nickname. A few of the guys have noticed that I am reading the bible on my free time. I am now 'preacher.' Not very fitting, if you ask me. Don't preachers have to stand up and teach people? I guess it could be worse. Some of the guys were talking about their favorite kind of music. Nobody said classical. I wasn't surprised, and I didn't volunteer my preference. Later on, I was talking to Tyler Young, and he asked me what I liked to listen to, so I told him about Beethoven. He asked me what songs I liked. I told him I especially liked Air on a G String - big mistake!! He thought I was talking about women's underwear. He's calling me 'G' now. I think I prefer Preacher. Tyler has a big mouth, especially when he thinks he's going to get laughs, and before I knew it, he'd told everyone about Air on a G String. Now I'm 'Preacher G. — Amy Harmon

Independence is the luxury of all those people who are too confident, and busy, and popular, and attractive to be just plain old lonely. And make no mistake, lonely is absolutely the worst thing to be. Tell someone that you've got a drink problem, or an eating disorder, or your dad died when you were a kid even, and you can almost see their eyes light up with the sheer fascinating drama and pathos of it all, because you've got an issue, something for them to get involved in, to talk about and analyse and discuss and maybe even cure. But tell someone you're lonely and of course they'll seem sympathetic, but look very carefully and you'll see one hand snaking behind their back, groping for the door handle, ready to make a run for it, as if loneliness itself were contagious. Because being lonely is just so banal, so shaming, so plain and dull and ugly. — David Nicholls

And he got going from there to America. Worked his passage, I s'pose, like a lot more. And I heard he did well in America, too. Got married there. Had a family. But never came back. And you know why? 'Cause if he did, if he ever set foot in Ireland again, you know who'd be waiting for him, don't you?
That's right. The three of 'em. And their box. And the second time they'd make no mistake.
It is a much-overlooked fact that not all of the thousands who fled Ireland in former times did so to escape hunger, deprivation, and persecution. There were also those who went to escape the wrath of the Good People. Many stories illustrated this, the one here being typical. — Eddie Lenihan

Pray don't go into similes, Margaret; you have led us off once already,' said her father, smiling, yet uneasy at the thought that they were detaining Mr. Thornton against his will, which was a mistake; for he rather liked it, as long as Margaret would talk, although what she said only irritated him. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Suppose you were working at your job one day, and you made a little mistake. Then all of a sudden a red light went on over your desk, and fifteen thousand people stood up and yelled at you that you sucked? — Jacques Plante

How could you turn your back and walk off when there was so much left to say,
How could you give up on me when it was nothing but just a evil phase,
Why would you build boundaries when you knew they were going to break,
Why wouldn't you come back as you know i will always cross your way cause this is real and not a mistake. — Khushboo Suneja

You're not a mistake. You were fearfully and wonderfully. Be grateful for what you are and for what you have. Have a Tremendous Day Ahead<3<3 — Reason Nkosinathi Makhubela

How do you let go of anger? How do you release a fury you've been standing on for so long, you would stumble if it were yanked away? As Sully sat in his old room, holding the letter, he felt himself lifting off from his bitterness, the way one lifts off in a dream. Elliot Gray, an enemy for so long, was now seen differently, a man forgivable for his mistake. — Mitch Albom

and sure enough, emmett's voice rose above the din. at some point, though, a mistake becomes a decision, whether you like it or not. in this, my husband and i were fundamentally different. in my opinion, a mistake required a getaway. — Amanda Eyre Ward

Some Christians make the mistake of pitting love against law, as if the two were mutually exclusive. You either have a religion of love or a religion of law. But such an equation is profoundly unbiblical. — Kevin DeYoung

What trunk?" Velkan
"My trunk. I'm moving in" Esperetta
"In where?" Velkan
"My room. Here." Esperetta
Completely stunned and flabbgausted, he opened and closed his mouth, unable to speak.
Esperetta walked over to him and placed her finger on his chin before she closed his mouth. "I know you dont trust me, but tough shit."
"This is my home and you're my husband. I made a mistake and for that I'm sorry, but I'm through being an idiot." Esperetta
"Dark-Hunters can't be married." Velkan
"Well then, someone should have told Artemis before she made her bargain with you and brought me back to life, huh? You were created as a married Dark-Hunter. I hardly think they can complain now." Esperetta
She did have a point about that
"But
" Velkan
She ended his words with a kiss. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

They were ghosts, I suppose, the procession of the dead. They weren't pale kings and pale maidens, they were work-worn men and women - perfectly ordinary people, except for being dead. You'd never mistake them for living people. You couldn't quite see through them, but they were even more drained of colour than everything else, and they weren't quite as solid as they ought to be. One of the men I recognised. He had been sitting in Fedw Hir near Grampar making blubbing sounds with his mouth. Now he strode along easily with a spring in his step. His face was grave and composed, he was a man with dignity and purpose. He bent and picked up one of my oak leaves from the path and offered it like a ticket at the cinema as he passed between the two trees. I didn't see anyone take it. I couldn't see into the darkness at all. — Jo Walton

There is such a thing as the poetry of a mistake, and when you say, "Mistakes were made," you deprive an action of its poetry, and you sound like a weasel. — Charles Baxter

But I can tell you I myself have made many mistakes. Things sometimes I would be ashamed to admit. But if it weren't for those mistakes I wouldn't have seen the beauty in me. I wouldn't have awoken the goddess that lives in me. You see, goddesses although immortal were all flawed. They were all a bit extreme at their calling, and they were all betrayed and hurt at some point. They were even considered devious but what made them unique was their strength. — Mirtha Michelle

The engineers of human souls'. There were two main problems. The first was that many people did not want their souls to be egineered, thank you very much. They were content with their souls being left as they were when they had come into this world; and when you tried to lead them, they resisted. Come to this free open-air concert, comrade. Oh, we really think you should attend. Yes, of course, it is voluntary, but it might be a mistake if you didn't show your face...
And the second problem with engineering human souls was more basic. It was this: who engineers the engineers? — Julian Barnes

What's recommended is that if you have a good experience, don't get too excited. And if you have a bad experience, don't mistake it for a serious deviation or a sidetrack that you have to find your way back from. If you have a bad experience, just continue practicing as you were. In other words, whatever happens, just keep looking at your mind. — Thrangu Rinpoche

Don't you do that.
Don't you look at what I had for you and call it weak.
Not when you were the one afraid of it.
I stood there with my hands open,
my mouth bruised tender with supplication.
Don't you dare treat me like a victim of my own emotions,
like being moved to my knees by love
was a mistake that I regret.
I will go to my grave with the memory of the bravery in my bones. — Caitlyn Siehl

You make the mistake of considering Christianity as something that developed over the course of a few years, from the death of Jesus to the time the gospels were written. But Christianity wasn't new. Only the name was new. Christianity was merely a stage in the meeting, cross-fertilization, metamorphosis of Western logic and Eastern mysticism. Look how the religion itself changed over the centuries, reinterpreting itself to meet changing times. Christianity is just a new name for a conglomeration of old myths and philosophies. All the gospels do is retell the sun myth and garble some of the ideas from the Greeks and Romans. — Michael Moorcock

You are who you are for a reason. You're part of an intricate plan. You're a precious and perfect unique design, Called God's special woman or man. You look like you look for a reason. Our God made no mistake. He knit you together within the womb, You're just what he wanted to make. The parents you had were the ones he chose, And no matter how you may feel, They were custom-designed with God's plan in mind, And they bear the Master's seal. No, that trauma you faced was not easy. And God wept that it hurt you so; But it was allowed to shape your heart So that into his likeness you'd grow. You are who you are for a reason, You've been formed by the Master's rod. You are who you are, beloved, Because there is a God!11 — Rick Warren

We seemed to share certain ideas about what happens in childhood, when you have to place yourself under the sign of your own name, your face, your voice, your outward reality. When you become a fixed position, a thing to others and to yourself. There were times, I told him, at the age of five, six, seven, when it was a shock to me that I was trapped in my own body. Suddenly I would feel locked into an identity, trapped inside myself, as if the container of my person were some kind of terrible mistake. My own voice and arms, my name, seemed wrong. As if I were a dispersed set of nodes that had been falsely organized into a form, and I was living in a nightmare, forced to see from out of this limited and unreal "me." I wasn't so sure I occupied one place, one person, and Sandro said this made sense, this instinct of a child, to question the artificial confines of personhood. — Rachel Kushner

It is a burden ... (M)ake no mistake about that. Any great gift or power or talent is a burden and this more than any, and you will long to be free of it. But there is nothing to be done. If you were born with the gift, then you must serve it, and nothing in this world or out of it may stand in the way of that service, because that is why you were born and that is the Law."
- Susan Cooper ("Merriman" The Dark is Rising) — Susan Cooper

The main question to a novel is
did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not
story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing. — Sydney Smith

Make no mistake:
Your salary is held to the same standards your grades were held to in the educational system, where you couldn't surpass a 100 no matter how hard you worked or how intelligent you were. — Carlos Roche

The person who is afraid to risk failure seldom has to face success. I expected my players to make mistakes, as long as they were mistakes of commission. A mistake of commission happens when you are doing what should be done but don't get the results you want. — John Wooden

Well, if you sat eating as though nothing mattered save your dinner I'm not surprised," said Juliana
viciously. "If I were not so angry with her, the deceitful, sly wretch, I could pity her for all she must
have undergone at your hands."
"Seeing me eat was the least of her sufferings," answered the Marquis. "She underwent much, but it
may interest you to know, Juliana, that she never treated me to the vapours, as you seem like to do."
"Then I can only say, Vidal, that either she had no notion what a horrid brutal man you are, or that she
is just a dull creature with no nerves at all."
For a moment Vidal did not answer. Then he said in a level voice: "She knew." His lip curled. He
glanced scornfully at his cousin. "Had I carried you off as I carried her you would have died of fright
or hysterics, Juliana. Make no mistake, my dear; Mary was so desperately afraid she tried to put a
bullet through me. — Georgette Heyer

There's some that came here never believing they were dead. They insisted all the way that they were alive, it was a mistake, someone would have to pay; made no difference. There's others who longed to be dead when they were alive, poor souls; lives full of pain or misery; killed themselves for a chance of a blessed rest, and found that nothing had changed except for the worse, and this time there was no escape; you can't make yourself alive again. — Philip Pullman

The independents who were our fiercest competitors all succumbed to the one-hit-makes-you-a-genius philosophy. It is a mistake to think you have the magic touch. Show business is roulette. If you start to play for stakes you can't afford, there's no way you can survive. — Samuel Goldwyn

What are we doing?" Asher helped himself to a seat at my table.
"We aren't doing anything," I told him bluntly.
"My mistake. I thought we were brooding in Henry's general direction. Like so." He adopted stormy countenance, then gestured to me. "Yours is better."
"Go away, Asher."
"You say go away, I hear be my bosom buddy." He gave an elaborate shrug. "Seriously, though: friendship bracelets - yea or nay? — Jennifer Lynn Barnes