Better Living Through Chemistry Quotes

Better living through chemistry ~ P. Dupont

In a nation committed to better living through chemistry - where Viagra-enabled men pursue silicone-contoured women - the national pastime has a problem of illicit chemical enhancement. Steroids threaten the health of the 5 percent to 7 percent of players proved, by a mild regime of scheduled tests, to be using them. Steroids also endanger emulative young people. Further, steroids subvert what baseball is selling - fair competition. And they strike at the pleasure of engagement with America's team sport with the longest history. ~ George Will

She could not be silent even if the men of science, many of them smug experts in white lab coats who promised "better living through chemistry," dismissed her warnings as feminine hysteria. ~ Mark Hamilton Lytle

Chemical products are used in virtually every branch of industry and agriculture and come to the consumer in almost every product he consumes; yet, because they are primarily industrial raw materials which have lost their identity, the average consumer is unaware of them. To him even their names are meaningless. ~ George W. Stocking

Both of his parents were firm believers in better living through chemistry. ~ Stephen King

I'm attached to my children with whatever flaws they have, and if some glorious angel broke through the living room ceiling and offered to exchange them for other, better children, I'd cling to my kids and pray away this specter. ~ Andrew Solomon

With all cameras on me, Chip released the blindfold and said, "Ta-da!"
I wasn't sure what I was looking at. A shipwreck, maybe? On the back of a semi?
"What is that?" I said.
"I got this for you, Jo!" Chip replied.
"That better not be for me," I said. It was the ugliest, rundown-looking, two-story shack of a boat I'd ever seen. "What the heck are we going to do with a houseboat?"
"That's our new home!" Chip said, beaming with pride at his purchase.
"What? You are crazy. We are not living on a houseboat."
It quickly dawned on me that this wasn't a joke and Chip wasn't even close to kidding. I wasn't mishearing him. He was dead serious about making that boat our home for the next six months.
I just about lost it. "How can we live on the water, Chip? Three of our kids don't even know how to swim! Did you think this through?!"
Then he fessed up and told me how much money he'd spent on it. As it all sank in, I realized I'd never been so mad at him--ever--and that's saying something.
"Come on. At least come look at it. I know this can work," he pleaded.
As soon as we walked a little closer, we could see the holes. Holes. In the boat.
We pulled ourselves up onto the flatbed and went inside to find the interior covered in mold. Someone had taken the AC unit out on top and left a gaping hole in the roof, so for years it had rained straight into the boat. We tried turning the engine over, and of course it didn't start. That's ~ Joanna Gaines

If I'm going through a hard part of my life, I just think about the fact I am living a dream. Alot of people aren't as fortunate to have their hobby-the thing they love to do most-as their job. I just think about that and I feel better. ~ Mats Sundin

when you are in pain __ no one can feel this better than you .this is not a shame to be in emotional pain.you love someone or hate __ not in your hand . a part of life to going through pain. pain may cause silent killer of your health .
what you must do _ focus on your pain .realizing helps . then you would feel at a point _you have to get out of it. then the moment you focus what can destruct your emotional pain .music ,screaming ,going out,writing, anything ,you may pick up.
one last thing __ never lie to self. shoot direct question and answer to self . create hobbies .
then focus on yourself. look how brilliant you are . how unique you are . then admit ,no power can hurt you so much that has nothing to do with your well being . now _ reject . start to reject . once you understand your pain, the cause , how to keep self safety , ___you are powerful to reject pain slowly . ~ Litymunshi

What is most characteristically human is not guaranteed to us by our species or by our culture but given only in potential. A spiritual master once expressed it this way: A person must work to become human. What is most distinctly human in us is something more than the role we play in society and more than the conditioning, whether for good or bad, of our culture. It is our essential Self, which is our point of contact with Infinite Spirit. This Spirit is not to be understood as a metaphysical assertion requiring belief, but as something we can experience for ourselves. What if you, as a human being, represent the final result of a process in which this Spirit has evolved better and better reflectors of itself? If the human being is the most evolved carrier of the Creative Spirit – possessing conscious love, will, and creativity – then our humanity is the degree to which this physical and spiritual vehicle, and particularly our nervous system, can reflect or manifest Spirit. That which is most sacred in us, that which is deeper than our individual personality, is our connection to this Spirit, this Creative Power.

Whereas conventional religious belief has the tendency to anthropomorphize God/Spirit, this process consists of the human being becoming qualified by the attributes of God. It could be called the „sanctification" of the human being. Our human nature is realized through the understanding and awareness that the essential human Self is a reflection of Spiri ~ Kabir Edmund Helminski

LEADING LESSONS
Excuses hold you back.

Excuses they keep you from doing what needs to be done and from living your truth. When I was making all those lame excuses for why my performance was going to suck, I was refusing to own it. And when you don't commit wholeheartedly to a situation, you're always somewhere floating in the middle, never really operating at your full potential. We tend to make excuses when things don't go according to our original plans. Or we blame something or someone else for our mistakes. You can also make excuses for the things you don't do--why you haven't left a job you hate, followed your dream, or taken a risk. In the end, all those excuses add up to the same thing: a smoke screen. When you make an excuse, you're rejecting the truth and trying to buffer yourself from the consequences of your actions. Leaders own what they do. This was something I had to learn through experience. I saw how pawning off responsibility (like blaming a bad back for a bad performance) was not helping me improve or grow. People who constantly make excuses are often afraid they're not good enough or can't live up to others' expectations. Maybe in the beginning it makes you feel better: "If I just explain it this way, I won't look so bad." But the end result is always self-defeating. Excuses will always get in the way of a responsible life. ~ Derek Hough

So it is with the mind, Nandini. Allow it to be in balance. Avoid extremes: the middle way is better. Neither force the mind too hard into concentration nor let it wander aimlessly. Meditation is to pay attention, to be aware of your breathing, your posture, your feelings, your perceptions, your thoughts, and all that passes through your mind and the mind itself; whatever is going on within you and between you and the universe. Meditation is not just sitting for an hour here or an hour there; meditation is a way of life. It is practiced all the time. There is no separation between meditation and everyday living. When you have ceased to be bound by the past or by the future, when you are fully present in the here and now, then it is meditation. ~ Satish Kumar

Living meaningfully means being bigger than just yourself. It means making the world a better place because you were here. It is possible to do this through your job, especially if your work involves helping others but even if it does not. ~ Amy Alkon, Good Manners - For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck

Ms. Lane."Barrons' voice is deep, touched with that strange Old World accent and mildly pissed off. Jericho Barrons is often mildly pissed off. I think he crawled from the swamp that way, chafed either by some condition in it, out of it, or maybe just the general mass incompetence he encountered in both places. He's the most controlled, capable man I've ever known.
After all we've been through together, he still calls me Ms. Lane, with one exception: When I'm in his bed. Or on the floor, or some other place where I've temporarily lost my mind and become convinced I can't breathe without him inside me this very instant. Then the things he calls me are varied and nobody's business but mine.

I reply: "Barrons," without inflection. I've learned a few things in our time together. Distance is frequently the only intimacy he'll tolerate. Suits me. I've got my own demons. Besides I don't believe good relationships come from living inside each other's pockets. I believe divorce comes from that.

I admire the animal grace with which he enters the room and moves toward me. He prefers dark colors, the better to slide in and out of the night, or a room, unnoticed except for whatever he's left behind that you may or may not discover for some time, like, say a tattoo on the back of one's skull.

"What are you doing?"

"Reading," I say nonchalantly, rubbing the tattoo on the back of my skull. I angle the volume so he can't see the cover. If he se ~ Karen Marie Moning

I used to think Romeo and Juliet was the greatest love story ever written. But now that I'm middle-aged, I know better. Oh, Romeo certainly thinks he loves his Juliet. Driven by hormones, he unquestionably lusts for her. But if he loves her, it's a shallow love. You want proof?" Cagney didn't wait for Dr. Victor to say yay or nay.

"Soon after meeting her for the first time, he realizes he forgot to ask her for her name. Can true love be founded upon such shallow acquaintance? I don't think so. And at the end, when he thinks she's dead, he finds no comfort in living out the remainder of his life within the paradigm of his love, at least keeping alive the memory of what they had briefly shared, even if it was no more than illusion, or more accurately, hormonal.

"Those of us watching events unfold from the darkness know she merely lies in slumber. But does he seek the reason for her life-like appearance? No. Instead he accuses Death of amorousness, convinced that the 'lean abhorred monster' endeavors to keep Juliet in her present state, her cheeks flushed, so that she might cater to his own dissolute desires. But does Romeo hold her in his arms one last time and feel the warmth of her blood still coursing through her veins? Does he pinch her to see if she might awaken? Hold a mirror to her nose to see if her breath fogs it? Once, twice, three times a 'no.'"

Cagney sighed, listened to the leather creak as he shifted his weight in his chair.
< ~ J. Conrad Guest

They" hate us because they feel--and "they" are not wrong--that it is within our power to do so much more, and that we practice a kind of passive-aggressive violence on the Third World. We do this by, for example, demonizing tobacco as poison here while promoting cigarettes in Asia; inflating produce prices by paying farmers not to grow food as millions go hungry worldwide; skimping on quality and then imposing tariffs on foreign products made better or cheaper than our own; padding corporate profits through Third World sweatshops; letting drug companies stand by as millions die of AIDS in Africa to keep prices up on lifesaving drugs; and on and on.

We do, upon reaching a very high comfort level, mostly choose to go from ten to eleven instead of helping another guy far away go from zero to one.

We even do it in our own country. Barbara Ehrenreich's brilliant book Nickel and Dimed describes the impossibility of living with dignity or comfort as one of the millions of minimum-wage workers in fast food, aisle-stocking and table-waiting jobs. Their labor for next to nothing ensures that well-off people can be a little more pampered.

So if we do it to our own, what chance do foreigners have? ~ Bill Maher

Let men in their madness blast every city on earth into black rubble and envelope the entire planet in a cloud of lethal gas - the canyons and hills, the springs and rocks will still be here, the sunlight will filter through, water will form and warmth shall be upon the land and after sufficient time, no matter how long, somewhere, living things will emerge and join and stand once again, this time perhaps to take a different and better course. I have seen the place called Trinity, in New Mexico, where our wise men exploded the first atomic bomb and the heat of the blast fused sand into a greenish glass - already the grass has returned, and the cactus and the mesquite. ~ Edward Abbey

We are revolutionaries for peace and freedom not violence. And we are going to fight through creativity rather than aggression. ~ Nurudeen Ushawu

Look ahead

It's tempting to go through life looking in the rearview mirror. When you are always looking back, you become focused on what didn't work out, on who hurt you, and on the mistakes you've made, such as:
"If only I would have finished college."
"If only I'd spent more time with my children."
"If only I'd been raised in a better environment."
As long as you're living in regret, focused on the negative things of the past, you won't move ahead to the bright future God has in store. You need to let go of what didn't work out. Let go of your hurts and pains. Let go of your mistakes and failures.
You can't do anything about the past, but you can do something about right now. Whether it happened twenty minutes ago or twenty years ago, let go of the hurts and failures and move forward. If you keep bringing the negative baggage from yesterday into today, your future will be poisoned.
You can't change what's happened to you. You may have had an unfair past, but you don't have to have an unfair future. You may have had a rough start, but it's not how you start, it's how you finish.
Don't let a hurtful relationship sour your life. Don't let a bad break, a betrayal, a divorce, or a bad childhood cause you to settle for less in life. Move forward and God will pay you back.
Move forward and God will vindicate you. Move forward and you'll come into a new beginning. Nothing that's happened to you is a surprise to God. The loss of a l ~ Joel Osteen

So some hope. I am going to be honest. It's gonna get way worse. Brace yourself. BUT ALSO know there is a new tomorrow. Be grateful for everyday you are on this big blue marble because death is for a real long time. Life is brief. The world is better with you on it. Trust me when I say I understand how you feel! I understand depression. You know what helps. I say read a book or watch comedy, not mine necessarily. Just think about it. Who moves you? What comedy do you love? Not into comedy, listen to music, hell go to your porch and watch what's going on. Wild life isn't just lions and frogs but also squirrels and Birds. Like someone fun? Watch him or her or they or whomever. Look you'll get through this! Stay in together! ~ Johnny Corn

Another year older, but am I wiser? Wisdom comes from learning and changing for the better. Sometimes we just go through life living the same day over and over and never gaining true wisdom. Let that never be me. ~ Richie Norton

This is what people who have never wanted to die don't understand: the worst thing for those of us who do is feeling like we have to live when we don't want to. That we have to be when we don't want to, exist where we don't want to. What we want is nothingness, numbness, because that has to be better than the life of quiet desperation we're living. Mara's hand is in my hair as I lean my head back against the cracked leather seat, eyes closed, mind ruminating. The others…they weren't missing what I'm missing, is the thing. They didn't exist because they had no other choice. They didn't see the world through a lens in which every scene contains a door marked exit, a door I'm forever unable to open. They lived because they wanted to. Until the end, when something, or someone, made them stop wanting. And I need to find out what. ~ Michelle Hodkin

They were poor and living in the farthest corners of the Bronx. How did they afford tickets? "Mary got a quarter," Friedman says. "There was a Mary who was a ticket taker, and if you gave Mary a quarter, she would let you stand in the second balcony, without a ticket." ... and what you learn in that world is that through your own powers of persuasion and initiative, you can take your kids to Carnegie Hall. There is no better lesson for a budding lawyer than that. The garment industry was boot camp for the professionals. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

Living your life through Gratitude, is not one of comparing how you are better than someone else; or Gratitude only for what you own or obtain or achieve. Living your life through Gratitude, is seeing that the world would be missing something very valuable if you were not in it. ~ Sumner Davenport

Think of music as being a great snarl of a city [ ... ]. In the years I spent living there, I came to know its streets. Not just the main streets. Not just the alleys. I knew shortcuts and rooftops and parts of the sewers. Because of this, I could move through the city like a rabbit in a bramble. I was quick and cunning an clever.
Denna, on the other hand, had never been trained. She knew nothing of shortcuts. You'd think she'd be forced to wander the city, lost and helpless, trapped in a twisting maze of mortared stone. But instead, she simply walked through the walls. She didn't know any better. Nobody had ever told her she couldn't. Because of this, she moved through the city like some faerie creature. She walked roads no one else could see, and it made her music wild and strange and free. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

It's taboo to admit that you're lonely. You can make jokes about it, of course. You can tell people that you spend most of your time with Netflix or that you haven't left the house today and you might not even go outside tomorrow. Ha ha, funny. But rarely do you ever tell people about the true depths of your loneliness, about how you feel more and more alienated from your friends each passing day and you're not sure how to fix it. It seems like everyone is just better at living than you are.

A part of you knew this was going to happen. Growing up, you just had this feeling that you wouldn't transition well to adult life, that you'd fall right through the cracks. And look at you now. La di da, it's happening.

Your mother, your father, your grandparents: they all look at you like you're some prized jewel and they tell you over and over again just how lucky you are to be young and have your whole life ahead of you. "Getting old ain't for sissies," your father tells you wearily.

You wish they'd stop saying these things to you because all it does is fill you with guilt and panic. All it does is remind you of how much you're not taking advantage of your youth.

You want to kiss all kinds of different people, you want to wake up in a stranger's bed maybe once or twice just to see if it feels good to feel nothing, you want to have a group of friends that feels like a tribe, a bonafide family. You want to go from one place to the next constan ~ Ryan O'Connell

My rib cage clenched all of the organs and muscles within it. It pulsed, full of life and warmth and gummy bears and glitter. This was... I don't know how to explain it - it was like Christmas morning when you were a kid. It was everything I'd wanted.

Each of his thumbs curved over the shells of my ears. "That's my girl."

His girl.
After all the crap that I'd gone through today, there couldn't have been three better words to hear.

Well, there were three other words I'd like to hear but I'd take these from him. That didn't mean that he was the only one who knew how to give. He'd given enough. My bones and heart knew that there was nothing for me to fear. I loved him and sometimes there were consequences of it that were scary, but it - the emotion itself - wasn't. I knew that now.

What kind of life was I living if I let my fears steer me? This was a gift I'd forgotten to appreciate lately. For so long I'd been happy to just be alive but now...now I had Dex. I had my entire life ahead of me, and I needed to quit being a wuss and grab life by the balls. In this case, I'd take his nipple piercings.

"What'cha thinkin', Ritz?"

I held my hands out for him to see how badly they were shaking. "I'm thinking that I love you so much it scares me. See?"

Dex's thumbs tipped my chin back so that I could look at his face - at his beautiful, scruffy face. "Baby." He said my name like a purr that reached the vert ~ Mariana Zapata

It's confusing when people who do not know me say they miss the old me. You know me merely through the lyrics I write and the pictures I've been in. There is no old or new Hayley. There is however an older Hayley. I'm 25 now. Good on me for living through all these years with a million people's judging eyes all over me and thinking they know me better. ~ Hayley Williams

I don't have any other family. Only Finn, my brother. My parents were killed in a flying accident when they were caught in a blizzard a few year ago. Most of the bevy was lost, it was so horrible. Then there's the rest of my herd, eight of us, including me." Kellan's shoulders slumped. "Well, seven now. And I guess I should stop referring to them as my herd."
Vic settled on the floor at his feet, the large man gazing up at him with compassion. "You're not alone, Kellan, I promise. Vale Valley exists for a reason, to be that shining beacon for those of us who've been cast aside." Vic clasped his hand. "I lost my family too when a deadly virus tore through our pack. But I've found a home and community and have built a good life here. Everyone's going to welcome you with open arms, I promise."
A measure of peace filled him. Vale Valley could only be a million times better than living with his rotten brother or any of the other vicious members of his herd. Ex-herd. Kellan smiled.
"Thank you for everything, Vic. Especially for staying here with me tonight ~ M.M. Wilde

Am I better off living through death,
Or dying an invisible ghost?
Am I better off speaking in silence,
Or screaming so loud no one will hear?
I fake a smile,
But it's killed by you,
I fake a soul,
But that dies, too.
So I fake my life,
What else can I do?
Take me in, spit me out,
And I scream and scream and shout,
But you can't hear my pain,
My blood's nothing but a worthless stain.
I fake a smile,
But it's killed by you.
I fake a soul,
But that dies, too.
So I fake my life,
What else can I do?
And if one day I wake up gone,
Maybe people will see through,
But until then the lies will rule.
And sometimes I think
I'm better off dead,
But then I realize
I already am. ~ Olivia Rivers

I think it's false, shallow, to be giving to others when your own need is great. The idea is not to comfort people, not to make them feel better but to make them feel worse, to constantly put before them the degradations and humiliations they go through to get what they call a living wage. ~ John Lennon

What I know about living is the pain is never just ours
Every time I hurt I know the wound is an echo
So I keep a listening to the moment the grief becomes a window
When I can see what I couldn't see before,
through the glass of my most battered dream, I watched a dandelion lose its mind in the wind
and when it did, it scattered a thousand seeds.
So the next time I tell you how easily I come out of my skin, don't try to put me back in
just say here we are together at the window aching for it to all get better ~ Andrea Gibson

That the way to achieve higher standards of living for all is through science and technology, taking advantage of better tools, methods and organization. ~ Charles E. Wilson

When you are at war with yourself, who is winning? There is no good that comes from attacking yourself from within. Your demons that haunt your mind can't be removed through force. You must work with your demons: change them through time, learn to ignore them, stop letting them control your life.
Battling internally is only going to hurt you more in the long run. The best way to get past your demons is to continue living despite their presence and resolve the cause of their being. This war you are fighting is just going to leave your mind unsettled, in pain, and in no better position than it was before. This war helps no one. ~ Avina Celeste

Threw my hands out to the sides. "My living room was shot up today. With me in it!" I screeched. His hands came to my jaws. "Baby, calm down." "You calm down! You can walk through walls and silently down bikers. I don't have those abilities, Hawk. I was in another situation where I needed a crowbar! That sucks! And after that, I need cookie dough. Or at the very least really good Chinese food from Twin Dragon or, better yet, Imperial." His thumbs swept my jaw and he said quietly, "All right, baby, I'll get you Imperial." I ~ Kristen Ashley

She pulls up to the drive way
Parks the car, Gets Out, Walks up to the door,
And embraces me with an iron hold
She is a friend and hugs me the same way she used to,
Her hands sliding into their old creases along my body


I let her into the house, knowing I could never refuse
As she walks through my doors, she reminds me why she stands in my living room
She tells me that she has returned because of my actions
I didn't learn from the last time
Its my fault


I should have been better, she berates me
I should have let people in, she tells me
I should not have gotten mad, she shares with me
I should not have locked myself away, she lets me know
I silently bear all the responsibility for her return


As we start to get deep into conversation, I realize she has brought her bags
Suitcase after suitcase lets me know she is here to stay
She tells me she will run my life from now on
She will make my schedule
She will direct how I act


She has come to my doors, breached my walls,
destroyed my defenses, and announced her ownership.
Crownless in my own kingdom
I am defeated.
This old friend is called Loneliness ~ Anonymous

There have been numerous times I have not brought up my case because I do not want to upset anybody or spoil the mood. Because I want to preserve your comfort...You will find society asking you for the happy ending, saying come back when you're better, when what you say can make us feel good, when you have something more uplifting, affirming.

...I've found that victims identify more with pain than platitudes. When I write about weakness, about how I am barely getting through this, my hope is that they feel better, because it aligns with the truth they are living...I write because the most healing words I have been given are It's okay not to be okay... ~ Chanel Miller

People who go through a heavy experience like that are changed men, like it or not," he said. "They change for the better and they change for the worse. On the good side, they become unshakable. Next to that half year, the rest of the suffering I've experienced doesn't even count. I can put up with almost anything. And I also am a lot more sensitive to the pain of people around me. That's on the plus side. It made me capable of making some real friends. But there's also the minus side. I mean, it's impossible, in my own mind, to believe in people. I don't hate people, and I haven't lost my faith in humanity. I've got a wife and kids. We've made a home and we protect each other.
Those things you can't do without trust. It's just that, sure, we're living a good life right now, but if something were to happen, if something really were to come along and yank up everything by the roots, even surrounded by a happy family and good friends, I don't know what I'd do. What would happen if one day, for no reason, no one believes a word you say? It happens, you know.
Suddenly, one day, out of the blue. I'm always thinking about it. Last time, it was only six months, but the next time? No one can say; there's no guarantee. I don't have confidence in how long I can hold out the next time. When I think of these things, I really get shaken up. I'll dream about it and wake up in the middle of the night. It happens a little too often, in fact. And when it happens, I wake my wife up ~ Haruki Murakami

She told no one of the otter. Garrett would want to trap it; Faina would ask her to draw it. She refused to confine it by any means because, in some strange way, she knew it was her heart. Living, twisting muscle beneath bristly damp fur. Breaking through thin ice, splashing in cold creek water, sliding belly-down across snow. Joyful, though it should have known better. ~ Eowyn Ivey

Your goal is to make a better world through the work you do. It's not always possible, and you have to earn a living. ~ Lynne Stewart