A Very Good Start Quotes

It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Katagiri Roshi says: "Poor artists. They suffer very much. They finish a masterpiece and they are not satisfied. They want to go on and do another." Yes, but it's better to go on and do another if you have the urge than to start drinking and become alcoholic or eat a pound of good fudge and get fat. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Whenever you give up an apartment in New York and move to another city, New York turns into the worst version of itself. Someone I know once wisely said that the expression "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there" is completely wrong where New York is concerned; the opposite is true. New York is a very livable city. But when you move away and become a vistor, the city seems to turn against you. It's much more expensive (because you need to eat all your meals out and pay for a place to sleep) and much more unfriendly. Things change in New York; things change all the time. You don't mind this when you live here; when you live here, it's part of the caffeinated romance to this city that never sleeps. But when you move away, your experience change as a betrayal. You walk up Third Avenue planning to buy a brownie at a bakery you've always been loyal to, and the bakery's gone. Your dry cleaner move to Florida; your dentist retires; the lady who made the pies on West Fourth Street vanishes; the maitre d' at P.J. Clarke's quits, and you realize you're going to have to start from scratch tipping your way into the heart of the cold, chic young woman now at the down. You've turned your back from only a moment, and suddenly everything's different. You were an insider, a native, a subway traveler, a purveyor of inside tips into the good stuff, and now you're just another frequent flyer, stuck in a taxi on Grand Central Parkway as you wing in and out of La Guardia. M ~ Nora Ephron

Because I grew up around Danny and Phillip, I discovered the truth about the male language very early in life. What I learned is there are three basic responses that most guys will use when shouldered with the major task of having to answer the question, How do I look? by the fairer sex.
Although I have never confirmed it, I am convinced that boys are taken aside in school, probably in fifth grade when the girls watch the film about getting their periods, and are taught the following three responses:

You look like shit. (Translation: You look bad. Just go back to bed and start over tomorrow. I really shouldn't be seen with you like this.)

You look fine. (Translation: You look good enough to be seen with.)

You look hot. (Translation: I want you.)

They also must teach them there is only one acceptable variation to these responses and to use it sparingly. The variation is simple. They just throw a REALLY into the sentence. The following are examples I have witnessed:

JJ, you REALLY look like shit. (Translation: You must be very hung over, or sick, or having an extremely bad hair day. I really don't want to be seen with you.)

REALLY, JJ, your hair looks fine. (Translation: Your hair looks the same to me as it always does, even though you spent an hour fixing it, so stop messing with it and lets go because you look good enough to be seen with.) And…

(Insert cheerleader's name here) looks REALLY Hot. ~ Jillian Dodd

It was baking hot in the square when we came out after lunch with our bags and the rod-case to go to Burguete. People were on top of the bus, and others were climbing up a ladder. Bill went up and Robert sat beside Bill to save a place for me, and I went back in the hotel to get a couple of bottles of wine to take with us. When I came out the bus was crowded. Men and women were sitting on all the baggage and boxes on top, and the women all had their fans going in the sun. It certainly was hot. Robert climbed down and fitted into the place he had saved on the one wooden seat that ran across the top. Robert Cohn stood in the shade of the arcade waiting for us to start. A Basque with a big leather wine-bag in his lap lay across the top of the bus in front of our seat, leaning back against our legs. He offered the wine-skin to Bill and to me, and when I tipped it up to drink he imitated the sound of a klaxon motor-horn so well and so suddenly that spilled some of the wine, and everybody laughed. He apologized and made me take another drink. He made the klaxon again a little later, and it fooled me the second time. He was very good at it. The Basques liked it. The man next to Bill was talking to him in Spanish and Bill was not getting it, so he offered the man one of the bottles of wine. The man waved it away. He said it was too hot and he had drunk too much at lunch. When Bill offered the bottle the second time he took a long drink, and then the bottle went all over that part of ~ Ernest Hemingway

I caddied for a guy who was a very good player, and he gave me a set of clubs, just a starter set: 5-iron, 7-iron, 9-iron, putter and driver. I just loved it. How I developed my swing was to just grab a club and start banging balls. ~ Fred Couples

In the living room Derek sprawled on the floor on a blanket, his eyes closed, his body human, corded with hard muscle, and covered only with a strategically placed towel. Julie knelt by him, long tweezers in her hand.
"What's going on?"
"Quills," she said. "Very thin quills. There was a magic plant and he decided it would be a good idea to give it a hug. Because he is smart that way."
So they had taken Julie with them. Considering where I'd gone and what I did while there, I didn't have room to talk.
Derek didn't bother opening his eyes. "I wasn't giving it a hug. I was shielding Ella."
"Mm-hm." Julie plucked a thin needle from his stomach. "You shielded her really well. Because it's not like we didn't have Carlos with us."
Carlos was a firebug. The plant must've gotten torched.
"We'll need to work on mixed-unit tactics," Curran said. He looked tired. It must've been hell. "So what did you do in Mishmar?"
Umm. Ehh. In my head I had somehow expected Erra to stay in Mishmar.
"I saw my father," I said. Start small.
"How was that?" Curran asked.
"He's a little upset with me."
"Aha."
"I broke Mishmar a little bit."
The three of them looked at me.
"But it was mostly my grandmother who did it."
"How much is a little bit?" Derek asked.
"There might be a crack. About maybe seven feet at the widest point."
Derek laughed.
"And what else?" Curran asked.
Perceptive bastard.
"And this." ~ Ilona Andrews

Once a few Facebook employees put together a promising idea and start a company, that's very exciting to people. I happen to think being a Facebook employee is really correlated with good ideas. ~ Dustin Moskovitz

That was a frustrating race for me. I pushed as hard as possible at the start on the medium tyres whilst everyone around me was on the grippier soft compound rubber. Once I moved to the soft tyres I was able to set the race's then fastest lap so things looked good with our strategy. Unfortunately the engine anti-kill triggered when I came in to make my final pit stop which cost me a lot of time. It's frustrating as we should have finished strongly. My focus is now Barcelona where I've delivered very strongly in the past. ~ Pastor Maldonado

Oh, is my baby's little pussy finally getting wet?" He put his hand on her knee.
She tried to cross her legs. "Yes, and it's a lot. It feels very messy."
He could smell her now. Bending over and presenting her ass had done something for her. So had dirty talk. Yeah, he could talk dirty. "Messy is good. I want that pussy dirty and ripe when I start to eat it. ~ Lexi Blake

It was a dream for me to play in the red shirt - I will keep this shirt with me always. I hope this is the start of a lot of games for United, It wasn't only me in this game though, I think the whole team enjoyed the game and did well. It's the first match and we have done good things. It's a good step and we're very happy. ~ Ander Herrera

I think anyone who has had a fight and who's a very good observer of the situation and people's behavior is capable of writing a fight. But you do start thinking about writing during the fights that you have with your partner. ~ Julie Delpy

Anybody with leisure can do that who is willing to begin where everything ought to be begun
that is, at the beginning. Nothing worth calling good can or ever will be started full grown. The essential of any good is life, and the very body of created life, and essential to it, being its self operant, is growth. The larger start you make, the less room you leave for life to extend itself. You fill with the dead matter of your construction the places where assimilation ought to have its perfect work, building by a life-process, self-extending, and subserving the whole. Small beginnings with slow growings have time to root themselves thoroughly
I do not mean in place nor yet in social regard, but in wisdom. Such even prosper by failures, for their failures are not too great to be rectified without injury to the original idea. ~ George MacDonald

Everywhere you are a stranger.' Finished Iskra with seeming carelessness, and quickly and unceremoniously placed a beret with turkey feathers on her head. 'An Outsider everywhere and always different. How shall we call you, little hawk?' Ciri looked into her eyes. 'Gvalch'ca.' The elf laughed. 'Once you start to speak, you speak in multiple languages, little hawk! Very good. You will carry the name from the Elder People, a name that you yourself have chosen. You will be called Falka. ~ Andrzej Sapkowski

Bessie, you must promise not to scold me any more till I go." "Well, I will; but mind you are a very good girl, and don't be afraid of me. Don't start when I chance to speak rather sharply; it's so provoking. ~ Charlotte Bronte

People use the word 'love' a lot of different ways. Take me, for instance. I am often heard saying that I love my mom and dad. I am also often heard saying that I love pizza.
What am I saying when I say I love my mom and dad? I'm saying that I care about them. I'm saying that I love spending time with them and that I talk to them every chance I get. I'm saying that if they needed me, I would do every humanly possible to help them. I'm saying that I always want what's best for them.
What am I saying when I say I love pizza? Am I saying that I care deeply about pizza? Am I saying that I have a relationship with pizza? Am I saying that if pizza had a problem, I would be there for the pizza? (What? Not enough pepperoni? I'll be right there!)
Of course not. When I say I love pizza, I'm just saying that I enjoy eating pizza until I don't want any more pizza. Once I'm tired of the pizza, I don't care what happens to the rest of it. I'll throw it away. I'll feed it to the dog. I'll stick it in the back of the refrigerator until it gets all green and moldy. It doesn't matter to me anymore.
These are two very different definition of the word 'love'.
It gets confusing when people start talking about love, and especially about loving you. Which way do these people love you? Do they want what is best for you, or do they just want you around because it is good for them, and they don't really care what happens to you?
Next time someone looks deeply into y ~ Mary Beth Bonacci

They call this love, she said to herself. I know what it is now. I never thought I would know, but I do now.

But she failed to add: if you can step back and identify it, is it really there? Shouldn't you be unable to know what the whole thing's about? Just blindly clutch and hold and fear that it will get away. But unable to stop, to think, to give it any name.

Just two more people sharing a common human experience. Infinite in its complexity, tricky at times, but almost always successfully surmounted in one of two ways: either blandly content with the results as they are, or else vaguely discontent but chained by habit. Most women don't marry a man, they marry a habit. Even when a habit is good, it can become monotonous; most do. When it is bad in just the average degree it usually becomes no more than a nuisance and an irritant; and most do.

But when it is darkly, starkly evil in the deepest sense of the word, then it can truly become a hell on earth.

Theirs seemed to fall midway between the first two, for just a little while. Then it started veering over slowly toward the last. Very slowly, at the start, but very steadily...

("For The Rest Of Her Life") ~ Cornell Woolrich

Ian's method of dealing with Sir Francis Belhaven - who, his grandfather had discovered, was boasting that Elizabeth had spent several days with him - was less subtle and even more effective. "Belhaven," Ian said after spending a half hour searching for the repulsive knight.
The stout man had whirled around in surprise, leaving his acquaintances straining to hear Ian's low conversation with him. "I find your presence repugnant," Ian had said in a dangerously quiet voice. "I dislike your coat, I dislike your shirt, and I dislike the knot in your neckcloth. In fact, I dislike you. Have I offended you enough yet, or shall I continue?"
Belhaven's mouth dropped open, his pasty face turning a deathly gray. "Are - are you trying to force a - duel?"
"Normally one doesn't bother shooting a repulsive toad, but in this instance I'm prepared to make an exception, since this toad doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut!"
"A duel, with you?" he gasped. "Why, it would be no contest - none at all. Everyone knows what kind of marksman you are. It would be murder."
Ian leaned close, speaking between his clenched teeth. "It's going to be murder, you miserable little opium-eater, unless you suddenly remember very vocally that you've been joking about Elizabeth Cameron's visit."
At the mention of opium the glass slid from his fingers and crashed to the floor. "I have just realized I was joking."
"Good," Ian said, restraining the urge to strangle him. "Now start ~ Judith McNaught

well it's going to be very long and boring i guess so , i am sorry in advance. Now i won't waste anymore time ...so here i go .....
ummm so you saw him/her for the first time and felt something different was that feeling is called love ? was that love at first sight? If you think so you are absolutely whom it was just some sort of attraction the first step towards love /? naah ...it was first step towards infatuation . confused? Let me explain it is the same feeling as love people get so mad that they start saying that they can't live without the person they love , they just give remote of their life to them so that they can do whatever they want to do with you , and if you like that person just because of their looks then its not love. when they talk to someone else or ignore you you get hurt and then depressed and start ruining your life. but you need to know forever is a wrong concept , people change and you need to understand depression won't help you . You need to forget that person and move on , but you say its impossible but do you why you feel like this because you dont ant to forget that person you still hope that they will come back , you need to end that hope for your own good it was their fault not yours, you just think you will never fall in love again with someone else again but this is wrong you can fall in love as many time you want to . don't fall in infatuation fall in love this world is a selfish place no one is going to die for you so why should you ? ~ Rohit Kumar Singh

I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes.

It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say "this is good, this is bad," you have already jumped onto the thought process.

It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher.

And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.

That's the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being. ~ Osho

It is very likely an anxiety dream, brought on by your move out of your childhood home and the comfort of the reach of your family's love and protection." Gideon reached to stroke her hair soothingly. "I am only surprised it has not happened sooner."
"Are you sure?" Her nervousness was clear, but she was truly relaxing already.
"Yes. And so are you. You know everything there is to know about psychology, you tell me what you think."
"But you thought it was this . . . new level of ability."
"And for the first time in a millennium my diagnosis is wrong. I do despise it when such bothersome things occur. Now I shall have to start the 'No Mistakes' clock all over again."
Legna giggled at him, which was of course his intention. She swung her arms around his neck, hugging him warmly.
"You smell so good," he murmured against her ear a long minute later.
"I smell like sex," she argued.
He nodded, making a loud noise of appreciation as he sniffed and nibbled her neck.
"You smell like very good sex," he amended with a voracious growl and an eager mouth moving over her bare skin with bold appetite.
"Gideon!" She squealed as he went straight for her waist, knowing she was ticklish there. The playful flicker of his tongue and the scrape of his teeth drove her mad, and she twisted as she screamed for him to stop.
When he tickled her she absolutely could not use her classic escape method. She could barely catch her breath, never mind her ~ Jacquelyn Frank

Plastics, as a material, are very nasty, but as an alternative to, let's say, a brick, which seems really natural, they start to look pretty good. They're very low energy to produce, very lightweight to transport and construct. That's why they're so popular. ~ Greg Lynn

I have one very basic rule when it comes to "good ideas". A good idea is not an idea that solves a problem cleanly. A good idea is an idea that solves several things at the same time. The mark of good coding is not that the program does what you want, it's that it also does something that you didn't start out wanting. ~ Linus Torvalds

I don't have very many regrets, not because I lived a perfect life but because life is a bunch of rolling hills, not mountains, or speed bumps instead of stop signs, and so you come to a situation and it's neither good or bad, it just is, and what it means to you is what's your take on it. But the second part of the equation is what are you going to do about it. A lot of times I'm completely wrong, but all you do is back up and start over. ~ Bill Russell

She kept her looks very well and continued, in a rather severe way, to pay attention to her dress. There were moments now when her laugh sounded a little hollow and brittle, the laughter of nerves not of mirth or good spirits. Occasionally in a conversation she seemed to lose track and fall into a self-absorption, to start up overwhelmed by embarrassment and unspoken remorse ... She was pushing thirty-five. But she could still be good company. ~ Robert Penn Warren

You're lying to yourself. Voron made us into serial killers. We can be okay without violence for a few weeks, but after a couple of months, the hand starts itching for the sword. You start looking for that rush. You get irritable, life turns stale, and then one day some fool crosses your path, attacks, and as you cut him down, you feel that short moment of struggle when he leverages his life against yours. If you're lucky, he's very good and the fight lasts a few seconds. But even if it doesn't, that short moment of triumph is like getting an adrenaline shot. Suddenly color comes back into life, food tastes better, sleep is deeper, and sex is rapture.
I knew exactly what he was talking about. I lived it and I felt it. ~ Ilona Andrews

I had been wanting to work out with a trainer for a very long time. I always had a good cardio regimen, but I didn't know how to tone up or use weights properly - and I wasn't sure where to start. ~ Jenna Ushkowitz

I'm very lucky to have a husband who cooks, for a start. It's a good partnership. I met him through a friend, and we just hit it off. ~ Lesley Nicol

And so you ask a very good question. Why go on? Why even start off on such a path? What is to be gained from embarking on such a journey? Where is the incentive? What is the reason? The reason is ridiculously simple. There is nothing else to do. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

CUSTOMER: Which was the first Harry Potter book?
BOOKSELLER: The Philosopher's Stone.
CUSTOMER: And the second?
BOOKSELLER: The Chamber of Secrets.
CUSTOMER: I'l take The Chamber of Secrets. I don't want The Philosopher's Stone.
BOOKSELLER: Have you already read that one?
CUSTOMER: No, but with series of books I always find they take a while to really get going. I don't want to waste my time with the useless introductory stuff at the beginning.
BOOKSELLER: The story in Harry Potter actually starts right away. Personally, I do recommend that you start with the first book – and it's very good.
CUSTOMER: Are you working on commission?
BOOKSELLER: No.
CUSTOMER: Right. How many books are there in total?
BOOKSELLER: Seven.
CUSTOMER: Exactly. I'm not going to waste my money on the first book when there are so many others to buy. I'l take the second one.
BOOKSELLER: . . . If you're sure.
(One week later, the customer returns)
BOOKSELLER: Hi, did you want to buy a copy of The Prisoner of Azkaban?
CUSTOMER: What's that?
BOOKSELLER: It's the book after The Chamber of Secrets.
CUSTOMER: Oh, no, definitely not. I found that book far too confusing. I ask you, how on earth are children supposed to understand it if I can't? I mean, who the heck is that Voldemort guy anyway? No. I'm not going to bother with the rest.
BOOKSELLER: . . . ~ Jen Campbell

If I had my life to live over, I'd try and make more mistakes next time. I would relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I know of very few things I would take seriously. I would be crazier. I would be less hygienic. I would take more chances. I would take more trips. I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers and watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. You see, I am one of those people who live prophylactically and sanely and sensibly, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I have had my moments and, if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead each day. I have been one of those people who never go anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a gargle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had to do it over again, I would go places and do things and travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start bare-footed earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would play hooky more. I wouldn't make such good grades except by accident. I would ride on more merry-go-rounds. I'd pick more daisies. ~ Sabrina Ward Harrison

We spend a lot of time and effort trying to figure out who's going to be a good NFL quarterback, and we do a very bad job of it. We don't really know. And we also spend a lot of time trying to figure out who will be a good teacher, and we're really bad at that too. We don't know if someone is going to be a good teacher when they start teaching. So what should we do in those situations in which predictions are useless? ~ Malcolm Gladwell

I strongly believe that a very good way to start on the Warrior Diet is by following the diet elements first. This alone will probably do the job. Moreover, it may stimulate even sedentary people to begin some kind of physical activity, due to all the extra energy people generally feel when they become warriors. ~ Ori Hofmekler

As you consider how to take your next step toward a Liberation-Based Livelihood, often the first decision you need to consider is: Can I transform my current job into a vehicle for expressing my Core Intention? Or do I need to let go of it altogether?

This crossroads place is full of potential, and it can go in so many directions - not all of them positive! Bringing mindful awareness into the process greatly increases the possibility that you'll make a healthy decision rather than a reactive one. As I shared in my own story, for many years I tended to leap out of unsatisfactory work situations very quickly. My unhappiness usually followed me into the next job, only to manifest there in new ways.

A good starting point to figure out if it's time to leave your job is to consider if it's harmful to yourself and/or to others. If the answer is "yes," start planning your exit strategy as soon as possible. ~ Maia Duerr

Better to work for one's self alone. The public is so stupid. Who reads? And what do they read?
And what do they admire? Ah, blessed peaceful times of the past, blessed eras of powdered wigs! You lived with complete assurance, poised on your high heels, twirling your silver-headed canes! Beneath us the earth is trembling. Where can we place our fulcrum, even admitting that we possess the lever? The thing we all lack is not style, nor that dexterity of finger and bow known as talent. We have a large orchestra, a rich palette, a variety of resources. We know many more tricks and dodges, probably, than were ever known before. No; what we lack is the intrinsic principle, the soul of the thing, the very idea of the subject.We take notes, we make journeys: emptiness! Emptiness! We become scholars, archaeologists, historians, doctors, cobblers, connoisseurs. What good is all that? Where is the heart, the verve, the sap? Where to start out from? Where to go to? ~ Gustave Flaubert

Obama!" the President said, shaking my hand. "Come here and meet Laura. Laura, you remember Obama. We saw him on TV during election night. Beautiful family. And that wife of yours - that's one impressive lady."

"We both got better than we deserve, Mr. President," I said, shaking the First Lady's hand and hoping that I'd wiped any crumbs off my face. The President turned to an aide nearby, who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the President's hand.

"Want some?" the President asked. "Good stuff. Keeps you from getting colds."
Not wanting to seem unhygienic, I took a squirt.

"Come over here for a second," he said, leading me off to one side of the room. "You know," he said quietly, "I hope you don't mind me giving you a piece of advice."

"Not at all, Mr. President."

"He nodded. "You've got a bright future," he said. "Very bright. But I've been in this town awhile and, let me tell you, it can be tough. When you get a lot of attention like you've been getting, people start gunnin' for ya. And it won't necessarily just be coming from my side, you understand. From yours, too. Everybody'll be waiting for you to slip, know what I mean? So watch yourself."

"Thanks for the advice, Mr. President."

"All right. I gotta get going. You know, me and you got something in common."

"What's that?"

"We both had to debate Alan Keyes. That guy's a piece of work, isn't he?"

I la ~ Barack Obama

I put on my sunglasses and start to sing "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" from The Sound of Music. "You need someone older and wiser, telling you what to do." I tap him on the nose for emphasis.
"Hey, I'm older than you," he objects.
I run my hand along Peter's cheek and sing, "I am seventeen going on eighteen, I-I-I'll take care of you."
"Promise?" he says.
"Sing it just once for me," I prompt. Peter gives me a look. "Please? I love it when you sing. Your voice is so clean."
He can't help but smile. Peter never met a compliment he didn't smile at. "I don't know the words," he protests.
"Yes you do." I pretend to wave a wand in his face. "Imperio! Wait--do you know what that means?"
"It's…an unforgivable curse?"
"Yes. Very impressive, Peter K. And what does it do?"
"It makes you do things you don't want to do."
"Very good, young wizard. There's hope for you yet. Now sing!"
"You little witch." He looks around to see if anyone is listening, and then he softly sings, "I need someone older and wiser telling me what to do…You are seventeen going on eighteen…I'll depend on you."
I clap my hands in delight. Is there anything more intoxicating than making a boy bend to your will? I roll closer to him and throw my arms around his neck.
"Now you're the one making PDAs!" he says. ~ Jenny Han

It was Kellanved – all of this. Him and Dancer. They used Tavore Paran from the very start. They used all of us, Hedge.'
'That's what gods do, aye. So you don't like it? Fine, but listen to me. Sometimes, what they want – what they need us to do – sometimes it's all right. I mean, it's the right thing to do. Sometimes, it makes us better people.'
'You really believe that?'
'And when we're better people, we make better gods.'
Fiddler looked away. 'It's hopeless, then. We can stuff a god with every virtue we got, it still won't make us any better, will it? Because we're not good with virtues, Hedge.'
'Most of the time, aye, we're not. But maybe then, at our worst, we might look up, we might see that god we made out of the best in us. Not vicious, not vengeful, not arrogant or spiteful. Not selfish, not greedy. Just clear-eyed, with no time for all our rubbish. The kind of god to give us a slap in the face for being such shits. ~ Steven Erikson

It's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept. And then you start to hurry. You work faster and faster and every time you look up there seems to be just as much left to sweep as before, and you try even harder, and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop
and still the street stretches away in front of you. That's not the way to do it.
You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.
That way you enjoy your work, which is important, because then you make a good job of it. And that's how it ought to be.
And all at once, before you know it, you find you've swept the whole street clean, bit by bit. what's more, you aren't out of breath. That's important, too ... (28-29) ~ Michael Ende

For me, it works best to plan just enough to come up with a good direction to head out in. Then I start down the path as soon as I can, without a very clear idea of what exactly I'm going to end up with. I try to leave a lot of time for flexibility and play and changing direction. ~ Damian Kulash

I was thinking we could get a picture of you holding a pitchfork or something. Maybe a big wooden cross? Sound good?"(Brian)
She stared at him. He lifted his hands and leaned back in his seat, as if he was afraid she might start spitting on him. "Hey, only joking."
"Very funny."
"Oh, I do love jokes." Greyson Dante stood by her side.
"Hello, Mr. Dante. I'm afraid this is a private conversation, so you will, of course, be going now."
His grin widened. Was there no way to insult the man? ~ Stacia Kane

For some reason there's this myth that creativity - [especially] in terms of creative writing - is a gift you either have, or you don't. So when people first start writing, if they write something that's not very good, or if they try and it's difficult, they go, "Oh, I guess I don't have it." That doesn't seem very fair, you have to try and you have to work at it. If we get scared of one bad poem and quit, that's not doing anybody any good. ~ Sarah Kay

But you know, one of the weird things about being in a psych hospital is you gradually start to feel like you have permission to say whatever you're thinking. You feel like it's OK or maybe even in some way expected to act crazy or uninhibited, which at first feels kind of liberating and good; there's this feeling like no more smiley masks, no more pretending, which feels good, except it gets kind of seductive and dangerous, and actually it can make people worse in there - some inhibitions are good, they're normal, he said, and part of the syndrome they call some people eventually getting institutionalized is that they get put in a nut ward at a young age or a fragile time when their sense of themselves is not really very fixed or resilient, and they start acting the way they think people in nut wards are expected to act, and after a while they really are that way, and they get caught in the system, the mental-health system, and they never really get out. ~ David Foster Wallace

I don't think immediate tragedy is a very good source of art. It can be, but too often it's raw and painful and un-dealt-with. Sometimes art can be a really good escape from the intolerable, and a good place to go when things are bad, but that doesn't mean you have to write directly about the bad thing; sometimes you need to let time pass, and allow the thing that hurts to get covered with layers, and then you take it out, like a pearl, and you make art out of it.
When my father died, on the plane from his funeral in the UK back to New York, still in shock, I got out my notebook and wrote a script. It was a good place to go, the place that script was, and I went there so deeply and so far that when we landed Maddy had to tap me on the arm to remind me that I had to get off the plane now. (She says I looked up at her, puzzled, and said "But I want to find out what happens next.") It was where I went and what I did to cope, and I was amazed, some weeks later when I pulled out that notebook to start typing, to find that I'd written pretty much the entire script in that six hour journey. ~ Neil Gaiman

You're the good kind of faranji, I suppose."

"Oh yes," she said. "Very good. I even taste good, or so I'm told."

He was focused on not falling to his death, and so he missed the mischief in her voice.

"Taste," he scoffed. "I suppose they're cannibals. Who's calling them barbarians now?"

Calixte laughed with delighted disbelief, and it was only then, too late, that Thyon

took her meaning. Oh gods. Taste. He flung back his head to look up at her, nearly losing his balance in the process.

She laughed harder at the shock on his face. "Cannibals!" she repeated. "That's good.

I'm going to start calling Tzara that. My sweet cannibal. Can I tell you a secret?" She whispered the rest, wide-eyed and zestful: "I'm a cannibal, too. ~ Laini Taylor

She might come in to bride-bed: and he laughed,
As one that wist not well of wise love's craft,
And bade all bridal things be as she would.
Yet of his gentleness he gat not good;
For clothed and covered with the nuptial dark
Soft like a bride came Brangwain to King Mark,
And to the queen came Tristram; and the night
Fled, and ere danger of detective light
From the king sleeping Brangwain slid away,
And where had lain her handmaid Iseult lay.
And the king waking saw beside his head
That face yet passion-coloured, amorous red
From lips not his, and all that strange hair shed
Across the tissued pillows, fold on fold,
Innumerable, incomparable, all gold,
To fire men's eyes with wonder, and with love
Men's hearts; so shone its flowering crown above
The brows enwound with that imperial wreath,
And framed with fragrant radiance round the face beneath.
And the king marvelled, seeing with sudden start
Her very glory, and said out of his heart;
"What have I done of good for God to bless
That all this he should give me, tress on tress,
All this great wealth and wondrous? Was it this
That in mine arms I had all night to kiss,
And mix with me this beauty? this that seems
More fair than heaven doth in some tired saint's dreams,
Being part of that same heaven? yea, more, for he,
Though loved of God so, yet but seems to see,
But to me sinful such g ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

For what it's worth, I know how you feel," Conner told him. "I used to doubt myself a lot. When people told me I wasn't good enough, I believed them. It's hard not to when you're young."
"Tell me about it," Bold said. "Does it get better when you're older?"
"It did for me," Conner said.
"How?" Bolt asked.
"Someone else believed in me," Conner said. "All it took was one person's approval and suddenly I believed myself, too. It gave me a shield to block out all the doubt and negativity. It made me realize I was just as capable and deserving as the people I compared myself to. But you know what? I was wrong."
"You were?" Bolt asked.
"Totally," Conner said. "I didn't need someone else. I had confidence in myself, deep down inside, the whole time. Approval is just a shortcut to self-worth, but sometimes we have to find things out on your own. Sometimes if we want something bad enough, we have to inspire ourselves to get it. Sometimes we have to be our own superhero."
Out of everything Conner said, he could tell this resonated with the boy the most. If he wanted to help people, maybe he had to start with himself.
"But what if I fail?" Bolt asked. "What if the Snake Lord wins and I don't save anyone? Then I'll never be a superhero."
"A very wise man once told me that 'courage is what makes a superhero super,'" Conner said. "He never sad anything about succeeding. ~ Chris Colfer

You see, Momo,' he [Beppo Roadsweeper] told her one day, 'it's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept.'
He gazed silently into space before continuing. 'And then you start to hurry,' he went on. 'You work faster and faster, and every time you look up there seems to be just as much left to sweep as before, and you try even harder, and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop - and still the street stretches away in front of you. That's not the way to do it.'
He pondered a while. Then he said, 'You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.'
Again he paused for thought before adding, 'That way you enjoy your work, which is important, because then you make a good job of it. And that's how it ought to be.'
There was another long silence. At last he went on, 'And all at once, before you know it, you find you've swept the whole street clean, bit by bit. What's more, you aren't out of breath.' He nodded to himself. 'That's important, too,' he concluded. ~ Michael Ende

I still had moments when my nerves got to me, but whenever I'd start to get anxious, Kyla Ross would remind me, "Simone, just do what you do in practice." And before I went out for each event, she'd high-five me and say, "Just like practice, Simone!" I'd say the same thing to her when it was her turn to go up. "Just like practice" became our catchphrase.
As I walked onto the mat to do my floor exercise, I held on to that phrase like it was a lifeline, because I was about to perform a difficult move I'd come up with in practice - a double flip in the layout position with a half twist out. The way it happened was, I'd landed short on a double layout full out earlier that year during training, and I'd strained my calf muscle on the backward landing. Aimee didn't want me to risk a more severe injury, so she suggested I do the double layout - body straight with legs together and fully extended as I flipped twice in the air - then add a half twist at the end. That extra half twist meant I'd have to master a very tricky blind forward landing, but it would put less stress on my calves.
I thought the new combination sounded incredibly cool, so I started playing around with it until I was landing the skill 95 percent of the time. At the next Nationals Camp, I demonstrated the move for Martha and she thought it looked really good, so we went ahead and added it to the second tumbling pass of my floor routine. I'd already performed the combination at national meets that year, bu ~ Simone Biles

Somewhere among the commotion I grew rather depressed. The depression stayed with me for over a year; it was like an animal, a well-defined, spatially localizable thing. I would wake up, open my eyes, listen-is it here or isn't it? No sign of it. Perhaps it's asleep. Perhaps it will leave me alone today. Carefully, very carefully, I get out of bed. All is quiet. I go to the kitchen, start breakfast. Not a sound. TV-Good Morning America, David what's-his-name, a guy I can't stand. I eat and watch the guests. Slowly the food fills my stomach and gives me strength. Now a quick excursion to the bathroom, and out for my morning walk-and here she is, my faithful depression: "Did you think you could leave without me?" I had often warned my students not to identify with their work. I told them, "if you want to achieve something, if you want to write a book, paint a picture, be sure that the center of your existence if somewhere else and that it's solidly grounded; only then will you be able to keep your cool and laugh at the attacks that are bound to come." I myself had followed this advice in the past, but now I was alone, sick with some unknown affliction; my private life was in a mess, and I was without a defense. I often wished I had never written that fucking book. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

It was cold. Really cold. And there was an awful scurrying noise that definitely belong to a small, four-legged creature.Or even worse, a large, four-legged creature. Or to be more precise, a large version of a small, four-legged creature.
Rats.
"Oh,God," Sophie moaned. She didn't often take the Lord's name in vain, but now seemed as good a time as any to start. Maybe He would hear, and maybe He would smite the rats. Yes, that would do very nicely.A big jolt of lightning. Huge. Of biblical proportions. It could hit the earth, spread little electrical tentacles around the globe, and sizzle all the rats dead.
It was a lovely dream. Right up there with the ones in which she found herself living happily ever after as Mrs. Benedict Bridgerton.
Sophie took a quick gasp as a sudden stab of pain pierced her heart. Of the two dreams, she feared that the genocide of the rats might be the more likely to come true. ~ Julia Quinn

There's a para-phrase about Orson Welles saying: "Great films are made by great directors and the rest are made by everyone else." I've been very lucky ... before I start insulting the profession of directing, but I think a good director is everything and a bad director really is nothing at all. ~ Colin Firth

To say that Richard Mayhew was not very good at heights would be perfectly accurate, but would fail to give the full picture; it would be like describing the planet Jupiter as bigger than a duck. Richard hated clifftops, and high buildings; somewhere not far inside of him was the fear – the start, utter, silently screaming terror – that if he got too close to the edge, then something would take over, and he would find himself walking to the edge of a clifftop and then he would just step off into space. It was as if he could not entirely trust himsels, and that scared Richard more than the simple fear of falling ever could. So he called it vertigo, and hated it and himself, and kept away from high places. ~ Neil Gaiman

Can I cuddle up with you when you sleep?"

Sma stopped, detached the creature from her shoulder with one hand and stared it in the face. "What?"

"Just for chumminess' sake," the little thing said, yawning wide and blinking. "I'm not being rude; it's a good bonding procedure."

Sma was aware of Skaffen-Amtiskaw glowing red just behind her. She brought the yellow and brown device closer to her face. "Listen, Xenophobe - "

"Xeny."

"Xeny. You are a million-ton starship. A Torturer class Rapid Offensive Unit. Even - "

"But I'm demilitarized!"

"Even without your principle armament, I bet you could waste planets if you wanted to - "

"Aw, come on; any silly GCU can do that!"

"So what's all this shit for?" She shook the furry little remote drone, quite hard. Its teeth chattered.

"It's for a laugh!" it cried. "Sma, don't you appreciate a joke?"

"I don't know. Do you appreciate being drop-kicked back to the accommodation area?"

"Ooh! What's your problem, lady? Have you got something against small furry animals, or what?" Look Ms. Sma, I know very well I'm a ship, and I do everything I'm asked to do - including taking you to this frankly rather fuzzily specified destination - and do it very efficiently, too. If there was the slightest sniff of any real action, and I had to start acting like a warship, this construct in your hands would go lifeless ~ Iain M. Banks

As soon as you start to think of that thing that you want to convey or say, you can always just say it much better than you can actually rhyme it or stuff it into a song. It's very, very difficult to just kind of get your point across without going the back way. And you have to be good at that, to not think about things so hard. Let the pen take over, so that it's somebody else's job to dissect the lyrics and tell you what you're all about. ~ Ariel Pink

I wanted to start with a very small role, to get my feet wet. I'm sure I'm not as good or as experienced as other actresses, but everybody has to start somewhere. ~ Claudia Schiffer

Have patience . . .

We are not the masters of our own feelings of attraction or revulsion; these come from places in ourselves over which we have little or no control. All we can do is try not to follow inclinations which make for barriers within the community. We have to hope that the Holy Spirit will come to forgive, purify and trim the rather twisted branches of our being. Our emotional makeup has grown from a thousand fears and egoisms since our infancy, as well as from signs of love and the gift of God. It is a mixture of shadow and light. And so it will not be straightened out in a day, but will take a thousand purifications and pardons, daily efforts and above all a gift of the Holy Spirit which renews us from within.

It is a long haul to transform our emotional makeup so that we can really start loving our enemy. We have to be patient with our feelings and fears; we have to be merciful to ourselves. If we are to make the passage to acceptance and love of the other - all the others - we must start very simply, by recognizing our own blocks, jealousies, ways of comparing ourselves to others, prejudices and hatreds. We have to recognize that we are poor creatures, that we are what we are. And we have to ask our Father to forgive and purify us. It is good, then, to speak to a spiritual guide, who perhaps can help us to understand what is happening, strengthen us in our efforts and help us discover God's pardon. ~ Jean Vanier

The infant-inconvenience kicked in response, and Conall twitched at the sensation.
"Active little pup, isn't he?"
"She," corrected his wife. "As if any child of mine would dare be a boy."
It was a long-standing argument.
"Boy," replied Conall. "Any child as difficult as this one has been from the start must, perforce, be male."
Alexia snorted.
"As if my daughter would be calm and biddable."
Conall grinned, catching one of her hands and bringing it in for a kiss, all prickly whiskers and soft lips.
"Very good point, wife. Very good point. ~ Gail Carriger

People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things. You don't necessarily even have to be afraid of punishment after death; purgatory, hell, and heaven are things that a lot of people can't accept, but still a religion, it doesn't matter which, keeps a person on the right path. It isn't the fear of God but the upholding of one's own honor and conscience. How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the while day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then, without realizing it you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that: A quiet conscience mades one strong! ~ Anne Frank

I know you," he added, helping to arrange the blanket over my shoulders. "You won't drop the subject until I agree to check on your cousin, so I'll do it. But only under one condition."
"John," I said, whirling around to clutch his arm again.
"Don't get too excited," he warned. "You haven't heard the condition."
"Oh," I said, eagerly. "Whatever it is, I'll do it. Thank you. Alex has never had a very good life-his mother ran away when he was a baby, and his dad spent most of his life in jail…But, John, what is all this?" I swept my free hand out to indicate the people remaining on the dock, waiting for the boat John had said was arriving soon. I'd noticed some of them had blankets like the one he'd wrapped around me. "A new customer service initiative?"
John looked surprised at my change of topic…then uncomfortable. He stooped to reach for the driftwood Typhon had dashed up to drop at his feet. "I don't know what you mean," he said, stiffly.
"You're giving blankets away to keep them warm while they wait. When did this start happening?"
"You mentioned some things when you were here the last time…." He avoided meeting my gaze by tossing the stick for his dog. "They stayed with me."
My eyes widened. "Things I said?"
"About how I should treat the people who end up here." He paused at the approach of a wave-though it was yards off-and made quite a production of moving me, and my delicate slippers, out of its path. "So I decided to make a few ~ Meg Cabot

My advice to women who habitually gravitate toward musicians is that they learn how to play an instrument and start making music themselves. Not only will they see that it's not that hard, but sometimes I think women just want to be the very thing they think they want to sleep with. Because if you're bright enough
no offense, Tawny Kitaen
sleeping with a musician probably won't be enough for you to feel good about yourself. Even if he writes you a song for your birthday. Don't you know that a musician who writes a song for you is like a baker you're dating making you a cake? Aim higher. ~ Julie Klausner

Julia had been very very good for a very long time, and the funny thing about that was, if you're too good too much of the time, people start to forget about you. You're not a problem, so people can strike you off their list of things to worry about. Nobody makes a fuss over you. They make a fuss over the bad girls. ~ Lev Grossman

Not that I wouldn't have been equally happy to see the old buddies and see it all start up again that way. But this was more of a work situation, and a very good one. ~ Andreas Katsulas

So let's start at the very begining (a very good place to start ... ) ~ James St. James

As a minister of the Lord in whatever way the Lord decides to use you and with the gifts he gives you for the work, there is the tendency to start idolizing the work itself or the gifts that you forget it is the father who gave it to you. Who picked you up and dusted you from nothing and adorned you. You forget and make the work a god before him. Exodus 20:3 "You shall have no other gods before me".
-----
This can be very subtle especially for social media ministry. You begin to love your social image over the word of God. You begin to dampen and tweak the word of God to appeal to a wider audience. You're suddenly no longer about the raw truth of the gospel. As the followers and likes increase you begin to get more and more addicted to the fruit of the works and the response to YOUR messages and posts. If a post doesn't do too well and get many likes and comments you are not happy. It hurts you deeply. That is how you know It has become about you.
------
If this is you and this message has touched your heart, if this post is like a mirror to your face, go back to God and ask for forgiveness. Ask God to forgive you for elevating yourself and your work as a god before him and return back to when it was just about loving him and preaching the good news. You probably may have noticed you lost the fire of inspiration you used to have at the beginning. This is why. ~ Daniel Friday Danzor

But Max said: "Last summer I spent working these peace booths at state fairs. We'd go around in this bigole pickup with this knocked-down booth in the back and boxes of literature. People'd come up to me and hear me talking about colonialism or the bomb or who was responsible for the Cold War, and they'd start railing on Communists. Communists, these damn Communists. And I'd say hey, hold on now, you're talkin' about my mother. They'd look at me like I'd turned into a Russky before their very eyes. It certainly shut 'em up." He smiled to remember, delighted. "They were good people. Country people. Didn't want to say anything bad about a fellow's mom." Saul ~ John Crowley

My grandmother had never been very political, and she sure didn't follow high finance. But decades later, she was still repeating her line that she knew two things about Franklin Roosevelt: He made it safe to put money in banks and---she always paused here and smiled---he did a lot of other good things.

And that was my pitch to Congressman Frank. Start with something that people understand, something that solves a problem they can see. Do that, and then they'll have confidence in the work you do to fix the parts they can't see...

Start simple. Fix something people can see. ~ Elizabeth Warren

I've learned that your intuition about things you don't know that much about isn't very good," Page said. "The way Elon talks about this is that you always need to start with the first principles of a problem. What are the physics of it? How much time will it take? How much will it cost? How much cheaper can I make it? There's this level of engineering and physics that you need to make judgments about what's possible and interesting. Elon is unusual in that he knows that, and he also knows business and organization and leadership and governmental issues. ~ Ashlee Vance

If your breath is very deep in the lungs, it will give you a good red blood. Good red blood, with the oxygen, is quite sufficiently empowered to take away impurities. When the lungs start clearing the blood, then the liver, spleen, and kidneys have much less work to do. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi

Fame can be very dangerous, because you can start to enjoy that part of it. And that's not the good part of what I do for a living. The good part is the making of films. The unpleasant part is the fame part, if you're not careful. ~ George Clooney

You simply pour, it will come. And if it is not coming, nothing to be worried about - because a lover knows that to love is to be happy. If it comes, good; then the happiness is multiplied. But even if it never comes back, in the very act of loving you become so happy, so ecstatic, who bothers whether it comes or not? Love has its own intrinsic happiness. It happens when you love. There is no need to wait for the result. Just start loving. By and by you will see much more love is coming back to you. One loves and comes to know what love is only by loving. ~ Rajneesh

I was reasonably interested in mathematics in school. Typically what happens is ... when you start playing chess, it takes up a lot of your attention. But about 10 years ago, I found that the Internet is very good to start learning about a lot of subjects. ~ Viswanathan Anand

The conventional wisdom in our business is that you have to grow and keep moving to survive. We never grew, always stayed tiny, and it serves us very well over the years, allowing us to pick and choose projects, and keeping our financial independence from our clients. We actually have a rather good track record, because we do select projects carefully. Most of our ideas don't eat dust but glimpse the light of day because we find it much more helpful to spend some serious time and effort before we start working on a project, rather than suffer through it afterwards. ~ Stefan Sagmeister

There's a lot of pointing. A festival of pointing and at very close range to other people's eyes, given the width of the space. Also detracting from the exhibit's potential tranquility is the display cabinet of pinned specimens along one wall. I found this disturbing from the start. You don't see a whole lot of stuffed polar bears in the polar bear exhibit at the zoo, for instance. And butterflies have phenomenal vision so it's not like they can't see the mass crucifixion in their midst. I was offended on behalf of the butterflies and thus pleased with my offense. Let the empathizing begin! This volunteering thing was working already. I am a good person, hear me give! ~ Sloane Crosley

. . . I bet I'm beginning to make some parents nervous - here I am, bragging of being a dropout, and unemployable, and about to make a pitch for you to follow your creative dreams, when what parents want is for their children to do well in their field, to make them look good, and maybe also to assemble a tasteful fortune . . .

But that is not your problem. Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to live it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it, and find out the truth about who you are . . .

I do know you are not what you look like, or how much you weigh, or how you did in school, or whether you start a job next Monday or not. Spirit isn't what you do, it's . . . well, again, I don't actually know. They probably taught this junior year at Goucher; I should've stuck around. But I know that you feel best when you're not doing much - when you're in nature, when you're very quiet or, paradoxically, listening to music . . .

We can see Spirit made visible when people are kind to one another, especially when it's a really busy person, like you, taking care of the needy, annoying, neurotic person, like you. In fact, that's often when we see Spirit most brightly . . .

In my twenties I devised a school of relaxation that has unfortunately fallen out of favor in t ~ Anne Lamott

I do a squat to demonstrate. Generally I do squats with weight – lots of it – but since the most physical exercise Chloe seems accustomed to is running her mouth. I figure I'd better start at the beginning. The very beginning.
"Okay?" I say, doing another since she didn't mimic my motion the second time.
She watches my movement in the mirror. "One more time," she says.
I comply, and then mutter a string of curses because Chloe Bellamy has just reached out in the middle of a busy gym and patted my ass.
"Very nice," she says, sounding surprised.
"Chloe!"
She shrugs. "You just got so upset when I was ogling that other guy instead of you, so I wanted to make you feel good. ~ Lauren Layne

But you're stuck filming crap now." Hal snorted. "Chased by monsters? Better be damn good
at running."
"And exactly how do you get hurt filming a landscaping show?" Taggart retorted.
"If it can't kill us, we don't film it," Jane said, to stop the fighting before it could start. "There's
a lot of dangerous flora and fauna in Pittsburgh and it doesn't stay beyond the Rim. It comes into
people's backyards and sets up shop. We teach our viewers how to deal with it, but it means we
have to actually get close enough to get hurt."
"Deal with, as in kill?" Nigel seemed flabbergasted.
"This isn't Earth. These aren't endangered species. This morning we were dealing with a very
large strangler vine in a neighborhood with lots of children. There's no way to 'move' it to
someplace where it isn't a danger, especially while it's actively trying to kill anything that
stumbles into its path. Pets. Children. Automated lawnmowers."
"That one is always amusing to watch but it always ends badly for the lawnmower," Hal said. ~ Wen Spencer

I feel very confident in my skiing. I know I have a good chance to win any race I start. ~ Ted Ligety

If you've as many films as I have, and missed as many opportunities as I have to do good work and been pissed off about it, you say, "Well, now you've got to start getting it right". If you get a chance, you really want to cook. And the tragedy is, when you finally feel that way about yourself, about your work, nobody wants to give you a chance. And that happens to a lot of actors. But I'm feeling very wanted these days, so there must be something in the air. ~ Burt Reynolds

Very often, or perhaps more often, and even in very good collections - even in some of the best collections ever written, I would argue - it's because our "voicier" writers hew so closely to one given set of dictional tics that we as readers can't read the books all the way through in a single sitting, because if we did, the stories and their narrators would all start to bleed together. ~ Roy Kesey

That reminds me to remark, in passing, that the very first official thing I did, in my administration-and it was on the first day of it, too-was to start a patent office; for I knew that a country without a patent office and good patent laws was just a crab, and couldn't travel any way but sideways or backways. ~ Mark Twain

You can begin a story in the middle and create confusion by striking out boldly, backward and forward. You can be modern, put aside all mention of time and distance and, when the whole thing is done, proclaim, or let someone else proclaim, that you have finally, at the last moment, solved the space-time problem. Or you can declare at the very start that it is impossible to write a novel nowadays, but then, behind your own back so to speak, give birth to a whopper, a novel to end all novels. I have also been told that it makes a good impression, an impression of modesty so to speak, if you begin by saying that a novel can't have a hero anymore because there are no more individualists, because individuality is a thing of the past, because man- each men and all men together- is alone in his loneliness and no one is entitled to individual loneliness, and all men lumped together make up a "lonely mass" without names and without heroes. (...) I shall begin far away from me, for no one ought to tell the story of his life who hasn't the patience to say a word or two at least half of his grandparents before plunging into his own existence. And so to you personally, dear reader, who are no doubt leading a muddled life outside this institution, to you my friends and weekly visitors, I introduce Oskar's maternal grandmother ~ Gunter Grass

Surely there is the handful of nursery marchen that start, 'Once in the middle of a forest lived an old witch' or 'The devil was out walking one day and met a child,' " Said Oatsie, who was showing that she had some education as well as grit. "To the grim poor there need be no pour quoi tale about where evil arises; it always is. One never learns how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her - is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not the devil? It is at the very least a question of definitions. ~ Gregory Maguire

When I joined Granada - which, you don't want to start crying about these things, but Granada was a very, very hot place to be, it was my good fortune to be there at that time - the BBC was firmly asleep. ~ Michael Apted

Why kid ourselves, people have nothing to say to one another, they all talk about their own troubles and nothing else. Each man for himself, the earth for us all. They try to unload their unhappiness on someone else when making love, they do their damnedest, but it doesn't work, they keep it all, and then they start all over again, trying to find a place for it. "Your pretty, Mademoiselle," they say. And life takes hold of them again until the next time, and then they try the same little gimmick. "You're very pretty, Mademoiselle..."

And in between they boast that they've succeeded in getting rid of their unhappiness, but everyone knows it's not true and they've simply kept it all to themselves. Since at the little game you get uglier and more repulsive as you grow older, you can't hope to hide your unhappiness, your bankruptcy, any longer. In the end your features are marked with that hideous grimace that takes twenty, thrity years or more to climb form your belly to your face. That's all a man is good for, that and no more, a grimace that he takes a whole lifetime to compose. The grimace a man would need to express his true soul without losing any of it is so heavy and complicated that he doesn't always succeed in completing it. ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine

I am not the kind of person who becomes so invested in a book or movie or television show that my interest becomes a hobby or intense obsession, one where I start to declare allegiances or otherwise demonstrate a serious level of commitment to something fictional I had no hand in creating.

Or, I didn't used to be that kind of person.

Let me be clear: Team Peeta. I cannot fathom how one could be on any other team. Gale? I can barely acknowledge him. Peeta, on the other hand, is everything. He frosts things and bakes bread and is unconditional and unwavering in his love, and also he is very, very strong. He can throw a sack of four, is what I'm saying. Peeta is a place of solace and hope, and he is a good kisser. ~ Roxane Gay

I say to my students that I can't teach them how to write a good song, but I can teach you how to write a better song. Talking about this idea of it being a process. By going back and not settling for something and find a way to step back from your songs-which is a very hard thing to do-but when you're stuck or you can't move forward, start doing some polishing. ~ Andy Wilkinson

When you feel angry or frustrated at a brother for using a particular defense -- being controlling or whatever it is -- you are failing to forgive yourself for the very same attempt; you still believe that the defense has a reality. You are seeing it out there but when you start to pull it back to your mind, you start to see the control in yourself. The guilt from transferring it from one seeming person/body to another seeming person/body is enormous. Instead of blaming your brother, the blame gets turned onto your own seeming body, but it is still the same error. We have to see that I am mind; this identity that I took off of my brother but still saw in myself is also just a construct in my mind. Otherwise, what good is the transfer? ~ David Hoffmeister

We all learned in kindergarten that the beginning is a very good place to start. As we have this debate on illegal immigration and illegal entry into this country, let's begin at the very beginning by sealing the borders to this great Nation. ~ Marsha Blackburn

You're back," I said, refusing to embarrass myself further by getting angry.
"I took Tag home. He had big plans to train for his next fight old school, like Rocky, but discovered that it's a little more appealing in the movies. Plus, I don't do a very good Apollo Creed."
"Tag's a fighter?"
"Yeah. Mixed martial arts stuff. He's pretty good."
"Huh." I didn't know what else to say. I didn't know anything about the sport. "Didn't Apollo Creed die in one of the movies?"
"Yeah. The black guy always dies at the hands of the white man."
I rolled my eyes, and he grinned, making me grin with him before I remembered that I was embarrassed and ticked off that he had kissed me and left town. It felt a little too much like the past. The grin slipped from my face and I turned away, busying myself shaking out the saddle blankets.
"So why did you come back?" I kept my eyes averted. He was quiet for a minute, and I bit my lips so I wouldn't start to babble into the awkward silence.
"The house needs more work," he replied at last. "And I'm thinking of changing my name."
My head shot up, and I met his smirk with confusion.
"Huh?"
"I heard there was this new law in Georgia. Nobody named Moses can even visit. So I'm thinking a name change is in order."
I just shook my head and laughed, both embarrassed and pleased at his underlying meaning. "Shut up, Apollo," I said, and it was his turn to laugh. ~ Amy Harmon

I haven't been a good guest in Hugo's life. I access his memories and discover that he and Austin first became boyfriends at this very celebration, a year ago this weekend. They'd been friends for a little while, but they'd never talked about how they felt. They were each afraid of ruining the friendship, and instead of making it better, their caution made everything awkward. So finally, as a pair of twentysomething men passed by holding hands, Austin said, "Hey, that could be us in ten years."
And Hugo said, "Or ten months."
And Austin said, "Or ten days."
And Hugo said, "Or ten minutes."
And Austin said, "Or ten seconds."
Then they each counted to ten, and held hands for the rest of the day.
The start of it.
Hugo would have remembered this.
But I didn't. ~ David Levithan

When you're bouncing around from pin to pin, it is probably very difficult to know that outside the game there's a room and outside the room there's a town and outside the town there's a country and outside the country there's a world and outside the world there's a billion trillion stars and that's only the start of it ... but it's there, d'you see? Once you know about it, you can stop worrying about the slot at the bottom. And you might bounce around a good deal longer. ~ Terry Pratchett

Writing on role of victim, how we chose to be one in life , why we do it and how we can be free of that.
Victim is a role we take very early in our life for many reasons. Like to protect ourselves, to be visible, to be listened, by fear, for approval and many others.
It's the armour we create around us because we do not have any choices other then this. Slowly it become in our subconscious nature. We attract people in our life who are victimiser and we become victim again.
We are used by them, we feel weak and overpowered by them.
How do we know that we are in this role?
It's very important for us to know that we are victim and its not doing good or serving us anymore. When we are victim we feel helpless, no power within, we physically too are unhealthy and our grounding is not stable.
Find hard to make decision about anything, some of us find comfort in when other shows sympathy or pity towards us.
We clearly need to know and accept that we have armour this role so far because there was no option or alternatives for us.
Then slowly we can start choosing things, people which can bring us in our own body where we can tap that hidden power in us.
Ask for help, engage in activity which will help you to break free of this mindset. We need to change our own energy frequency to attract people who are warrior, who are courageous and brave. Who can show us what does it feel to have courage and power within.
Mantra is
I do not nee ~ Archna Mohan

There's sort of a very symbiotic thing that happens on good TV shows with great writers, which is that they start to sort of embrace who the actors are and try to make the roles more specific to what they bring and what they can do. ~ Lucas Neff

Margaret [Hodge] is obviously entitled to do what she wishes to do. I would ask her to think for a moment, a Tory prime minister resigned, Britain's voted to leave the European Union, there are massive political issues to be addressed, is it really a good idea to start a big debate in the Labour Party when I was elected less than a year ago with a very large mandate not from MPs, I fully concede and understand that, but from the party members as a whole. ~ Jeremy Corbyn

-I will bathe in vinegar, down some raw eggs, and start looking for a wasp nest ASAP to put on my head.
-I do not understand this.
-To reverse the leanings of the heart. Ancient family wisdom.
-Ah. Very good. In my family, we just suffer. ~ Jandy Nelson

For a while I wanted to be a professional baseball pitcher, and then I wanted to be a musician and then sometimes I think I'd like to start a store for gift-wrapping Christmas presents ... But I feel I could do most things I set my mind to, except mechanical things, I'm not very good at that. ~ John Malkovich

Peeing is like a good book in that it is very, very hard to stop once you start. ~ John Green

..:Seek wisdom about the good life, yet, remain innocent when it comes to evil… Pursue a life that creates peace and builds up our brothers and sisters…
Seek not your own rewards nor benefits by doing so… For what good would there be in doing this???
Welcome all people, whether weak in faith or spirit without debaiting and disputing their opinions… Build them up…
Get rid off umpleasant old memories and negative habits… It's time to clean up and renew your mind set… It's time to start flying high once again or for the very first time…
The view at the top its a lot better, yet, the in between process is what makes it sweeter and a lot better if we truly learn while at it…
Remember, what you are constantly thinking of, that, you will eventually will become… Have a great and awesome day…
<> Preach and reach where no one else has before nor dares to go… Make the difference today… But most importantly, live what you preach and preach what you live:.. ~ Rafael Garcia

It is Never Too Late to Mend."

Since it can never be too late
To change your life, or else renew it,
Let the unpleasant process wait
Until you are compelled to do it.
The State provides (and gratis too)
Establishments for such as you.

Remember this, and pluck up heart,
That, be you publican or parson,
Your ev'ry art must have a start,
From petty larceny to arson;
And even in the burglar's trade,
The cracksman is not born, but made.

So, if in your career of crime,
You fail to carry out some "coup",
Then try again a second time,
And yet again, until you do;
And don't despair, or fear the worst,
Because you get found out at first.

Perhaps the battle will not go,
On all occasions, to the strongest;
You may be fairly certain tho'
That He Laughs Last who laughs the Longest.
So keep a good reserve of laughter,
Which may be found of use hereafter.

Believe me that, howe'er well meant,
A Good Resolve is always brief;
Don't let your precious hours be spent
In turning over a new leaf.
Such leaves, like Nature's, soon decay,
And then are only in the way.

The Road to - -well, a certain spot,
(A Road of very fair dimensions),
Has, so the proverb tells us, got
A parquet-floor of Good Intentions.
Take care, in your desire to please,
You do not add a brick to these.

Harry Graham