Better Off Dead Quotes

Flea brain, got a hole in her head. If she wasn't good looking, she'd be better off dead. ~ Gene Vincent

When we see celebrities who fall victim to depression's lies we think to ourselves, "How in the world could they have killed themselves? They had everything." But they didn't. They didn't have a cure for an illness that convinced them they were better off dead. ~ Jenny Lawson

Now it was every guilty breath sucked in after a sort-of-lie. It was the drop of the stomach after finding a body. It was the gnawing suspicion that you were leasable, that you were too much trouble, that you were better off dead. It was the shame of wanting something that you shouldn't; it was the ugly thrill of nearly being dead. It was all of those things, all at once. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Am I better off dead

Am G
Am I better off a quitter

Cadd9 C
They say I'm better off now

Am G
Than i ever was with her

F Am G
As they take me to my local down the street

Em F Am G
I'm smiling but I'm dying trying not to drag my feet

Cadd9 C Am G
They say a few drinks will help me to forget her

Cadd9 C Am G
But after one too many I know that I'm never

F Am G
Only they can see where this is gonna end

Em F Am G
But they all think I'm crazy but to me it's perfect sense

[Chorus]

C
And my mates are all there trying to calm me down

G
'Cause I'm shouting your name all over town

Am
I'm swearing if i go there now

F
I can change your mind turn it all around

C
And I know that I'm drunk but I'll say the words

G
And she'll listen this time even though

Am
Dial her number and confess to her

F
I'm still in love but all i heard was nothing ~ The Script

I was beginning to agree with the thesis that some truths were better off dead.
And buried. ~ Simona Panova

She discovered that women don't own their bodies: their wombs and genitals are battle zones over which their husbands and the state fight for control - territories their husbands invade for sexual gratification and to produce male heirs, and which the state probes, monitors, guards and scrapes so as to assert its power and spread fear. These continual intrusions into her bodu's most intimate parts have made her lose her sense of who she is. All she is certain of is that she is a legal wife and an illegal mother.

I'd be better off dead. ~ Ma Jian

Never ask an elf for help; they might decide your better off dead, eh? (Orik) (Eldest) (Page 207) ~ Christopher Paolini

I'm sorry, Abby. I panicked."

I shook my head. "I'm just glad you're okay."

"Me? I would have been better off dead if Travis had seen me come out of that building without you. I tried to find you after you ran off, but then I got lost and had to find another way. I walked along the building looking for that window, but I ran into some cops and they made me leave. I've been flippin' the fuck OUT over here!" he said, running his hand over his short hair. ~ Jamie McGuire

Life's for the living, so live it, or you're better off dead. ~ Passenger

If a man must make excuses for himself, continually argue with himself that he is a man, then he is better off dead. ~ Elmore Leonard

We all have things inside ourselves we can't kill,' I say, not sure which part of me would be better off dead: this monster self, or the normal one who wants nothing more than a little place on a little planet with his friends, the one who will have to live with being a killer. ~ Holly Black

Beautiful

I am beautiful inside and out
I am beautiful without a doubt
So I'll stop listening to the voices in my head
The ones telling me I'm better off dead
I am smart and will make it far
I will be someone I will be a star
I will make it just to prove you wrong
I will let my life go on
I will not dwell on what you said
I will forget what you did
I am thin I am not fat
I will no longer tell myself that
I am kind and loving to those who need it the most
I will see you simply as only a ghost
I am courageous I will let nothing get in my way
I am all these wonderful things each and every day ~ Various

Cory wondered if maybe some people were better off dead. When you're dead you don't have to face the horrors of life, whether it's striving to be the best, dealing with something bad you or somebody else did, dealing with someone's death or anything. Most people, if not everyone, had a reason to die. Dead people can't even be upset about dying because they're dead. ~ Jesse Haubert

Better off dead than giving in; not taking what you want. ~ Carol Ann Duffy

I can't - Kestrel, you must understand that I would never claim you. Calling you a prize - my prize - it was only words. But it worked. Cheat won't harm you, I swear that he won't, but you must ... hide yourself a little. Help a little. Just tell us how much time we have before the battle. Give him a reason to decide you're not better off dead. Swallow your pride."
"Maybe it's not as easy for me as it is for you."
He wheeled on her. "It's not easy for me," "You know that it's not. What do you think I have had to swallow these past ten years? What do you think I have had to do to survive?"
"Truly," she said, "I haven't the faintest interest. You may tell your sad story to someone else."
He flinched as if slapped. His voice came low: "You can make people feel so small. ~ Marie Rutkoski

This is pure snow! Do you have any idea what the street value of this mountain is? ~ Curtis Armstrong

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

If the leader is a good man he will be liked and if he's not, he won't, and if he is a good man and a bad leader then he is better off dead. ~ Bernard Cornwell

There's a lot of people saying we'd be better off dead. I don't feel like a satan but I guess I am ... keep on rockin' the free world. ~ Neil Young

Don't provoke Cheat," Arin said as they stepped out of the carriage and onto the dusky path that led to the governor's palace, which looked eerie to Kestrel because its impressive façade was the same as the night before, but the lights burning in the windows were now few.
"Kestrel, do you hear me? You can't toy with him."
"He started it."
"That's not the point." Gravel crunched under Arin's heavy boots as he stalked up the path. "Don't you understand that he wants you dead? He'd leap at the chance," Arin said, hands in pockets, head down, almost talking to himself. He strode ahead, his long legs quicker than hers. "I can't--Kestrel, you must understand that I would never claim you. Calling you a prize--my prize--it was only words. But it worked. Cheat won't harm you, I swear that he won't, but you must…hide yourself a little. Help a little. Just tell us how much time we have before the battle. Give him a reason to decide you're not better off dead. Swallow your pride."
"Maybe that's not as easy for me as it is for you."
He wheeled on her. "It's not easy for me," he said through his teeth. "You know that it's not. What do you think I have had to swallow, these past ten years? What do you think I have had to do to survive?"
They stood before the palace door. "Truly," she said, "I haven't the faintest interest. You may tell your sad story to someone else."
He flinched as if slapped. His voice came low: "You can make people feel so small."
~ Marie Rutkoski

Even the suicide desires his own good: he wrongly imagines that he would be better off dead. The moral problem is not that we love ourselves but that we love ourselves the wrong way. ~ J. Budziszewski

If this was the best wine that Jim and Nora could afford or, worse, if this was their idea of a good wine - well, sadly, then they were better off dead. ~ Dean Koontz

It was difficult for Rumfoord to take Billy seriously, since Rumfoord had so long considered Billy a repulsive non-person who would be much better off dead. Now, with Billy speaking clearly and to the point, Rumfoord's ears wanted to treat the words as a foreign language that was not worth learning. "What did he say?" said Rumfoord. Lily had to serve as an interpreter. "He said he was there," she explained. "He was where?" "I don't know," said Lily. "Where were you?" she asked Billy. "Dresden," said Billy. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Vadim swallowed, felt his throat too tight to move, then, still staring at the bottle, smelling the desert and Dan, and himself, his hand reached to his side, opened the holster of the pistol. Took out the mag, took the bullet from the chamber, clicked the mag in place again, rolled the bullet between his fingers.
He looked at Dan, sideways, saw the man stare at him, all eyes, dark eyes, and the way the pale desert moon made his face a place of shadows.
He reached for Dan's hand, opened the fingers and placed the bullet into the palm.
"This is the bullet you'll use to kill me if I walk away again." Because if I walk away again, I'll be in so much pain I'm better off dead anyway. ~ Aleksandr Voinov

You ask Why to a lot of things and you wind up very unhappy indeed, if you keep at it. The poor girl's better off dead ~ Ray Bradbury

Love's more than holding hands and going to dances. It's two people who struggle to live, even when they should maybe both be dead. When one of them would be better off dead. ~ Shaun Hutchinson

Shirogane: "This is a brand-new show called 'Naze? Naze? Neeze!' " I'm Shirogane, the teacher of course.♥" " We're covering Arithmethic!" "Here we have Akira-kun and Kengo-kun, who will tackle the questions with us!"
Kengo: "Hello there!" ^_^
Akira: "I'm a high school student, by the way!" "Why do I have to do arithmethic?!"
Shirogane: "And here's my assistant, kokuchi!"
Kokuchi: "HISS!"
Akira: "HEY! I don't get why a kokuchi is here...Besides, does it even remotely understand our language."
Shirogane:"Here's the first question" "Akira-kun, what's three times four?"
Akira: "Twelve..."
Shirogane: "CORRECT!!!" "Wonderful Akira-kun! Fantastic Job!" "You're so smart. Can I call you genius from now on?"
Akira: "Only if you want a pencil shoved in your eye!" "Stop making fun of me right now!"
Shirogane: "Let's move on to the next question.♥
(Shirogane spinning)
Akira: "Why are you so hyper today?" "You're acting like a different person!"
Shirogane: "Kengo-kun what is 23 minus 15?"
Kengo: "Twe--"
Shirogane: "WRONG." " If you can't solve a simple problem like this, you don't even deserve to be considered human. You'd be better off dead. SO JUST DIE."
Kengo: "I made a small mistake! No need to walk all over me like that!!"
Shirogane: "Let me explain this problem so that stupid Kengo-kun can understand."
Kengo: "I...I am not stupid!"
Shirogane: "First, you have 23 kokuchi..." "...You take 15 ~ Kairi Sorano

Or can it be thought that they who heap up an useless mass of wealth, not for any use that it is to bring them, but merely to please themselves with the contemplation of it, enjoy any true pleasure in it? The delight they find is only a false shadow of joy. Those are no better whose error is somewhat different from the former, and who hide it, out of their fear of losing it; for what other name can fit the hiding it in the earth, or rather the restoring to it again, it being thus cut off from being useful, either to its owner or to the rest of mankind? And yet the owner having hid it carefully, is glad, because he thinks he is now sure of it. It if should be stole, the owner, though he might live perhaps ten years after the theft, of which he knew nothing, would find no difference between his having or losing it; for both ways it was equally useless to him. ~ Thomas More

Society is better off with me in a gym. ~ K.A. Tucker

I read somewhere that when I go on stage, people realize that they're not me and they feel better. When I walk off the stage, people know who I really am. I'm not saying it's great comedy, cool comedy or better comedy - but that's what I do, and I do it first for myself. ~ Richard Lewis

Crossing the small wooden bridge, just past the rubble, Gabe ducked off to the left and swooped underneath into hiding. Once sure he was secure, and could not be seen by those that passed overhead, Gabe collapsed on to the dirt and grass. Turning on his side, his body convulsed, and relieved itself of any food that had been in his belly. Rachel was right. He was a liability. Anyone who tried to protect him ended up paying a high price. He didn't know if his old friends were dead, but he was certain whatever fate had found them must have been bad. ~ Wendy Owens

I can't say for sure if I'm better off, since I have no way of knowing what would have been. I could have traveled to exotic places and kissed exotic men in the moonlight. Or I could have ended living alone in a dumpy apartment with the flesh eating virus I contracted from a public toilet. Could haves are always a great unknown. ~ Anna White

I am a man determined to leave the world better off for all people and future generations to come. ~ Alan Schultz

John McCain is a personal friend, a great friend, and I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off, be well off no matter who ... ~ Joe Biden

If I were your mother, I would also warn you to beware of buildings that claim to be the houses of God. If heard it said once, jokingly, that on their days off, when they are not actively intervening in human affairs or shoring up the sweetness of the earth, the orishas get together in a little apartment in a poor section of Havana around a very big screen television and laugh themselves silly a the unceasing soap opera that is our lives, all the while puffing on good Cuban cigars and swigging cheap rum. And, darling, whether you imagine one big white distant god or many more particular brown ones who like their little pleasures, I would tell you to get off your butt and out of the house if you want to make contact. If you go to a mausoleum, you'll find dead bodies. Living gods inhabit a living world. ~ Joyce Thompson

He pulled me toward him so that I was resting on my side. I coughed up some more water. He took off his wet shirt and folded it. Then he gently lifted me and placed it under my sore head, which hurt too much to appreciate his…bronzed…sculpted…muscular…bare chest.
Well I guess I must be okay if I can appreciate the view, I thought. Sheesh, I'd have to be dead not to appreciate it.
I winced as Ren's hand brushed against my head, shaking me from my reverie.
"You've got a major bump here."
I reached up to feel the giant lump on the back of my skull. I gingerly touched it and recalled the source of my headache. I must have lost consciousness when the rock hit me. Ren saved my life. Again.
I looked up at him. He was kneeling next to me with a look of desperation on his face, and his body was shaking. I realized that he must have changed to a man, dragged me out of the pool, and then remained by my side until I woke up. Who knows how long I've been laying here unconscious.
"Ren, you're in pain. You've been in this form too long today."
He shook his head in denial, but I saw him grit his teeth.
I pressed my hand on his arm. "I'll be okay. It's just a bump on the head. Don't worry about me. I'm sure Mr. Kadam has some aspirin tucked away in the backpack. I'll just take that and lie down to rest for a while. I'll be alright."
He trailed his finger slowly from my temple to my cheek and smiled softly. When he pulled back, his whole arm shook a ~ Colleen Houck

Societies would _not_ be better off if everyone were like Mr Spock, all rationality and no emotion. Instead, a balance - a teaming up of the internal rivals - is optimal for brains ... Some balance of the emotional and rational systems is needed, and that balance may already be optimized by natural selection in human brains. ~ David Eagleman

Ronan pointed at the cart. "Get in there."
"What?"
He just continued pointing.
Adam said, "Give me a break. This is a public parking lot."
"Don't make this ugly, Parrish."
As an old lady headed past them, Adam sighed and climbed into the basket of the shopping cart. He drew his knees up so that he would fit. He was full of the knowledge that this was probably going to end with scabs.
Ronan gripped the handle with the skittish concentration of a motorcycle racer and eyed the line between them and the BMW parked on the far side of the lot. "What do you think the grade is on this parking lot?"
"C plus, maybe a B. Oh. I don't know. Ten degrees?" Adam held the sides of the cart and then thought better of it. He held himself instead.
With a savage smile, Ronan shoved the cart off the curb and belted towards the BMW. As they picked up speed, Ronan called out a joyful and awful swear and then jumped on to the back of the cart himself. As they hurtled towards the BMW, Adam realised that Ronan, as usual, had no intention of stopping before something bad happened. He cupped a hand over his nose just as they glanced off the side of the BMW. The unseated cart wobbled once, twice, and then tipped catastrophically on to its side. It kept skidding, the boys skidding along with it.
The three of them came to a stop.
"Oh, God," Adam said, touching the road burn on his elbow. It wasn't that bad, really. "God, God. I can feel my teeth."
~ Maggie Stiefvater

You got great hair, babe." "Tate - ""Thick.""Tate - ""Soft.""Tate," I whispered. "Shame it gets hacked off with a knife after some guy rapes you with that knife!" he finished on a roar. My body jolted. "Tate!""There's bad guys out there, Ace. Bad. Do things to you that'll make you glad you end up dead. You don't open a goddamned door not knowin' who's behind it." "I thought it was you." "Well it wasn't." "Tate - ""He fuck you?" Tate asked suddenly and my head jerked again. "Brad?" I asked back, confused. Tate leaned in and bellowed, "Wood!""No!" I shouted back. Then I was flying through the air. Literally, flying through the air. I bounced once on the bed and then Tate was on top of me. ~ Kristen Ashley

Learn what not to expect. Irish catholic they get sh**** little rings. Irish women get crappy rings. Baptist get the worst because they get the rings under water. When it comes up, it's garbage. Jewish, big rings. Episcopalian big rings. Italians-the best, because they get them off of dead people, and second wives get the biggest rings of all. ~ Joan Rivers

Owllwin was easiest the most contrary person Cricket had ever known. He was arrogant but humble, cowardly but brave, foolish but wise. He was funny, but sometimes she caught him crying when he was off on his own. It were as if he pushed himself to be a better person in spite of himself, in spite of his own failings, and Cricket secretly admired the fact: not many people were willing to admit they had faults in the first place. ~ Ash Gray

As the year went on, I felt I was handling my grief and depression better, but the pressures kept piling up. You don't really ever feel "comfortable" being a widow. You endure, maybe get through it, but you don't ever truly own it.
And still, a part of me didn't want to get beyond it. My pain was proof of my love.
One night I went over to a friend's house and just started bawling. I had been going through photos of Chris when he was in his twenties and thirties.
I'm going to be an old woman somewhere, and he's going to be young.
So many other emotions ran through me every day. People suggested that I might find someone else.
"No," I'd tell them. "No one will ever take his place."
School forms would ask about the kids' family situation. Were their parents married, divorced?
I'm not a single mother. I'm raising the kids with my husband! Even if he's not here. I always think about what he would want to do.
One night, alone in my bedroom, I picked up the laundry basket off the treadmill. I suddenly felt as if Chris was there with me, somehow hovering two feet off the ground.
He grinned.
"I'm working on something for you," he said. And I knew he meant he was trying to hook me up with a man.
I jerked back. Had I really heard that? Was he really there?
The room was empty, but I had the strongest feeling that he was there. I could feel his grin.
I became furious.
"How dare you!" I screamed in my head. "I don't want ~ Taya Kyle

Every good day starts off with a cappuccino, and there's no place better to enjoy some frothy caffeine than at the Bulgari Hotel. ~ Brad Goreski

The vast majority of a significant portion of Americans of Hispanic descent will vote - happen to be working class people who are desperate to not only achieve the American dream but leave their kids better off than themselves. ~ Marco Rubio

… you are so much better off as a single woman – unless – unless you are very fond of your husband … ~ Wilkie Collins

I rub my hand down my face, frustrated. This girl in front of me tests my patience like hell.
When she ran to me after her dad kicked her out, I thought she still had feelings for me. She needed a place to stay, and I needed her. I offered her a room, thinking if she was around me every day, she would remember she loves me. I was dead wrong. Somewhere along the way, we switched roles, I became the one who so desperately needed her and she became cold and closed off. She isn't my savior; she's my punishment. ~ Brittany Butler

Besides the fact that you're a scoundrel at the gaming tables," she responded tartly, "I'm beginning to suspect that you're a womanizing rake."
Christopher grinned leisurely as his perusal swept her.
"I've been a long time at sea. However, I doubt that in your case my reaction would vary had I just left the London Court."
Erienne's eyes flared with poorly suppressed ire. The insufferable egotist! Did he dare think he could find a willing wench at the back door of the mayor's cottage?
"I'm sure that Claudia Talbot would welcome your company, sir. Why don't you ride on over to see her? I hear his lordship traveled off to London this morning."
He laughed softly at her sneering tones. "I'd rather be courting you."
"Why?" she scoffed. "Because you want to thwart my father?"
His smiling eyes captured hers and held them prisoner until she felt a warmth suffuse her cheeks. He answered with slow deliberation. "Because you are the prettiest maid I've ever seen, and I'd like to get to know you better. And of course, we should delve into this matter of your accidents more thoroughly, too."
Twin spots of color grew in her cheeks, but the deepening dusk did much to hide her blush. Lifting her nose primly in the air, Erienne turned aside, tossing him a cool glance askance. "How many women have you told that to, Mr. Seton?"
A crooked smile accompanied his reply. "Several, I suppose, but I've never lied. Each had their place in time, and t ~ Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

Writing the first draft is like hitting the beach on D Day. You don't stop to mourn the dead or comfort the wounded. You get off the beach because, if you don't, you'll die there. ~ Matt Hughes

What I told you about saving people isn't true. You might think it is, because you might want someone else to save you, or you might want to save someone so badly. But no one else can save you, not really. Not from yourself. [ ... ] You fall asleep in the foothills, and the wolf comes down from the mountains. And you hope someone will wake you up. Or chase it off. Or shoot it dead. But when you realize that the wolf is inside you, that's when you know. You can't run from it. And no one who loves you can kill the wolf, because it's part of you. They see your face on it. And they won't fire the shot. ~ Ava Dellaira

Furthermore, Professor Uzzi-Tuzii had begun his oral translation as if he were not quite sure he could make the words hang together, going back over every sentence to iron out the syntactical creases, manipulating the phrases until they were not completely rumpled, smoothing them, clipping them, stopping at every word to illustrate its idiomatic uses and its commutations, accompanying himself with inclusive gestures as if inviting you to be content with approximate equivalents, breaking off to state grammatical rules, etymological derivations, quoting the classics. but just when you are convinced that for the professor philology and erudition mean more than what the story is telling, you realize the opposite is true: that academic envelope serves only to protect everything the story says and does not say, an inner afflatus always on the verge of being dispersed at contact with the air, the echo of a vanished knowledge revealed in the penumbra and in tacit allusions.
Torn between the necessity to interject glosses on multiple meanings of the text and the awareness that all interpretation is a use of violence and caprice against a text, the professor, when faced by the most complicated passages, could find no better way of aiding comprehension than to read them in the original, The pronunciation of that unknown language, deduced from theoretical rules, not transmitted by the hearing of voices with their individual accents, not marked by the traces of use that shapes and t ~ Italo Calvino

Of the Poet's Youth"

When the man behind the counter said, "You pay
by the orifice," what could we do but purchase them all?

Ah, Sandy, vou were clearly the deluxe doll, modish and pert
in your plastic nurse whites, official hostess to our halcyon days,

where you bobbed in the doorway of our dishabille apartment,
a block downwind from the stockyards. Holding court on

the corroded balcony, K. and I passed hash brownies, collecting
change for the building's monthly pool to predict which balcony

would fall off next. That's when K. was fucking M. and M. was
fucking J., and even B. and I threw down once on the glass-speckled

lawn, adrift in the headlights of his El Camino. Those were immortal
times, Sandy! Coke wasn't addictive yet, condoms prevented herpes

and men were only a form of practice for the Russian novel
we foolishly hoped our lives would become. Now it's a Friday night,

sixteen years from there. Don't the best characters know better
than to live too long? My estranged husband house-sits for a spoiled
cockatoo while saving to buy his own place. My lover's gone back
to his gin and the farm-team fiancée he keeps in New York.

What else to do but read Frank O'Hara to my tired three-year-old?
When I put him to bed, he mutters "more sorry" as he turns into sleep.

Tonight, I find you in a box I once marked ~ Erin Belieu

It's so funny, because right now I'm very tired and my brains a little dead, I tend to get very focused and serious. So, I'm probably coming off a lot more like Scully right now. ~ Gillian Anderson

Evidently, selling off America's public lands is not only good for democracy, but good for the economy. It will pay the bills for building more roads and make up for the losses in the decline of timber sales. It will also help pay for the war in Iraq, a war predicted on lies. The outcry is faint. The streets are empty. We are comfortable here in the United States of America. We the people seem to be asleep, numb, and dead to the liberties being lost. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

She wasn't the same girl she'd been the year before, who though failing out of Foxfire would be the end of the world. Now she'd been kidnapped, presumed dead, banished from the Lost Cities, and helped stop a plague from killing off the entire gnomish species. She'd even snuck into the ogres' capital and helped destroy half the city--which happened to be why the Council was struggling to negotiated a new elvin-ogre treaty. ~ Shannon Messenger

Take it easy, friend," siad Peter, regaining his balance, quickly understanding the condition Henry was in.
"Friend? You left us. In the caves." Henry's muscles tensed.
Peter stepped back cautiously. Henry didn't look like himself.
"Seems someone can't hold his drink," Peter said. He didn't go further, sensing then that Valerie might be thinking of her father.
"And now," Henry continued on his own track, stepping closer to meet him, the smell of alcohol on his breath, "my father, too is dead."
Valerie moved to Henry. "Please, don't do this," she said, stepping in. "It's not worth it."
Henry pushed past her, not realizing his own weight. The force knocked her back. Peter grabbed Henry's arm and twisted it. Overreacting, Henry reared back his fist and landed a punch in the hollow of Peter's eye. The crowd laughed as Peter fell hard to the ground.
Henry scrambled on top him, held him by the collar, forced Peter to face him as he'd never done. He looked into the eyes of the man he wanted to blame for his parents' deaths, because it was a shelter from the terrible thought that everything could be lost to a simple slip of fate. "You filth," he spat out.
This really got the villagers going. But Peter didn't laugh. He pulled a knife from his boot and leapt up, thrusting it viciously in Henry's face.
"Keep your hands off her or I'll cut them off! ~ Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

We ain't dead
we are only off being pirates. ~ Mark Twain

I found a few springs of rosemary and returned. Ignoring the collective sigh when I appeared, I stripped off the leaves and handed them to Loren.
He sniffed them in suspicion. "What's this?"
I guess it would take more than my word for them to trust me, "Rosemary." No glimmer of recognition. "It's to make your stew taste better. Don't you know the basic herbs and spices?"
"No. I took this job in self-defence. Quain burns everything. Belen thinks jerky is all we need to survive. Flea's idea of good meal is something that hasn't been in garbage can first. And Kerrick poisoned us
"
"Not on purpose." Kerrick said. "The meat looked done. ~ Maria V. Snyder

I think America has dealt with - I mean, this is simplistic, and of course I don't live in America - but the impression I get is that there is not a kind of obligation to dislike those who are better off or be frightened of those who are worse off. ~ Julian Fellowes

Lucas seemed to have realized our prediciment at the same moment I had. "I haven't got my credit card with me. Kinda left in a hurry. We just spent the only cash I had in my pocket." Too-bright signs from the few open stores made mee squint. "We'd have been better off with a slingshot and Oreos. ~ Claudia Gray

Mr. Sturgess ran the classes with iron, ex-military discipline. We each had spots on the floor, denoting where we should stand rigidly to attention, awaiting our next task. And he pushed us hard. It felt like Mr. Sturgess had forgotten that we were only age six--but as kids, we loved it.
It made us feel special.
We would line up in rows beneath a metal bar, some seven feet off the ground, then one by one we would say: "Up, please, Mr. Sturgess," and he would lift us up and leave us hanging, as he continued down the line.
The rules were simple: you were not allowed to ask permission to drop off until the whole row was up and hanging, like dead pheasants in a game larder. And even then you had to request: "Down, please, Mr. Sturgess." If you buckled and dropped off prematurely, you were sent back in shame to your spot.
I found I loved these sessions and took great pride in determining to be the last man hanging. Mum would say that she couldn't bear to watch as my little skinny body hung there, my face purple and contorted in blind determination to stick it out until the bitter end.
One by one the other boys would drop off the bar, and I would be left hanging there, battling to endure until the point where even Mr. Sturgess would decide it was time to call it.
I would then scuttle back to my mark, grinning from ear to ear.
"Down, please, Mr. Sturgess," became a family phrase for us, as an example of hard physical exercise, strict discipline, an ~ Bear Grylls

I hated Sundays as a kid. From the moment I woke up, I could feel Monday looming, could feel another school week all piled up and ready to smother me. How was I supposed to enjoy a day of freedom while drowning in dread like that? It was impossible. A pit would form in my chest and gut - this indescribably emptiness that I knew should be filled with fun, but instead left me casting about for something to do.
Knowing I should be having fun was a huge part of the problem. knowing that this was a rare day off, a welcome reprieve, and here I was miserable and fighting against it. Maybe this was why Fridays at school were better than Sundays not in school. I was happier doing what I hated, knowing a Saturday was coming, than I was on a perfectly free Sunday with a Monday right around the corner. ~ Hugh Howey

To help me be a better listener and observer, she shared a little proverb that I carry with me whenever I travel. She says, "With two eyes and two ears and one mouth, try to observe and listen four times as much as you speak."
Her advice has paid off. I learn much more by staying quiet. I pick up more cultural signals when I am observing than when I am talking. As another sage observed, "When I's talking, I ain't learning nothin' new." Or again: "Even fools are thought wise when they keep silent" (Prov 17:28). ~ Paul Borthwick

He settled for writing a letter, in a quiet corner, while Temeraire dictated his own:

"Gentlemen, I am very happy to accept your commission, and we should like to be the eighty-first regiment, if that number is not presently taken. We do not need any rifles, and we have got plenty of powder and shot for our cannons," Laurence wrote with a vivid awareness of the reactions this should produce, "but we are always in need of more cows and picks and sheep, and goats would also do, if a good deal easier to come by. Lloyd and our herdsmen have done very well, and I should to commend them to your attention, but there are a lot of us, and some more herdsmen would be very useful."

"Pepper, put in pepper," another dragon said, craning her head over; she was a middle-weight, yellowish striped with gray, some kind of cross-breed. "And canvas, we must have a lot of canvas - "

"Oh, very well, pepper," Temeraire said, and continuing his list of requests added, "I should very much like Keynes to come here, and also Gong Su, and Emily Roland, who has my talon-sheaths, and the rest of my crew; and also we need some surgeons for the wounded me. Dorset had better come, too, and some of the other dragon-surgeons. You had all better not stay where you are at present - "

"Temeraire, you cannot write so to your superior officers," Laurence said, breaking off. ~ Naomi Novik

He picked up the letter Q and hurled it into a distant privet bush where it hit a young rabbit. The rabbit hurtled off in terror and didn't stop till it was set upon and eaten by a fox which choked on one of its bones and died on the bank of a stream which subsequently washed it away.
During the following weeks Ford Perfect swallowed his pride and struck up a relationship with a girl who had been a personnel officer on Golgafrincham, and he was terribly upset when she suddenly passed away as a result of drinking water from a pool that had been polluted by the body of a dead fox. ~ Douglas Adams

She is quiet for a moment. "have you ever been swimming in the summer", she asks, "when a cloud comes in front of the sun? You know how, for a few seconds, you're absolutely freezing in th water and you think you'd better get out and dry off? But then all of a sudden the sun's back out and you're warm again and when you tell people how much fun you had swimming you wouldn't even think to mention those clouds." Cara shrugs. "That's what it's like, with my father." -Cara ~ Jodi Picoult

It's foolish to fight the bond between you. You'd be better off going with it and letting the panties drop where they may. ~ Stacey O'Neale

You know, Piggly Wiggly never could hang on to a night stock manager. Your math skills would be a plus, maybe even your Spanish, and you don't mind staying up late."

"Piggly Wiggly, wow. I hadn't thought about that. I'll swing by, pick up an application tomorrow. But if it doesn't pan out maybe ... Never mind, it's a crazy idea."

"No, tell me. I want to hear it."

"Well, just as a backup plan, I did hear that Sony has an opening. They're, um, they're looking for a rock star. The hours suck, but it's no worse than night stock manager at Pigs. I bet it pays better too."

Isabel stopped in her tracks, playfully slapping his arm. "Aidan, that's genius! That's what you should do! I've heard you sing, you can carry a decent tune." She looked him up and down. "With a little work, you can probably pull off the image."

He tugged on her arms until she was in his. "Only if you're sure. Only if it's what we want."

"Aidan, it's who you are. I've known it since the day we brought that first guitar here. I'd never want to take that away. ~ Laura Spinella

I remember the first time I saw you," Allie said.
"I thought you smelled me first."
"Right," said Allie. "The chocolate. But then I saw you as I sat up in the dead forest, thinking I knew you. At the time, I thought I must have seen you through the windshield when our cars crashed…. But that wasn't it. I think, way back then, I was seeing you as you are now. Isn't that funny?"
"Not as funny as the way I always complained, and the way you always bossed me around!"
They embraced and held each other for a long time.
"Don't forget me," Nick said. "No matter where your life goes, no matter how old you get. And if you ever get the feeling that someone is looking over your shoulder, but there's nobody there, maybe it'll be me."
"I'll write to you," said Allie, and Nick laughed. "No really. I'll write the letter then burn it, and if I care just enough it will cross into Everlost."
"And," added Nick, "it will show up as a dead letter at that the post office Milos made cross into San Antonio!"
Allie could have stood there saying good-bye forever, because it was more than Nick she was saying good-bye to. She was leaving behind four years of half-life in a world that was both stunningly beautiful, and hauntingly dark. And she was saying good-bye to Mikey. I'll be waiting for you, he had said…. Well, if he was, maybe she wasn't saying good-bye at all.
Nick hefted the backpack on his shoulder. "Shouldn't you be heading off to Memphis?" he said. ~ Neal Shusterman

I think we're already dead, dude. Not everyone, just Deckers. The whole Death-Cast thing seems too fantasy to be true. Knowing when our last day is going down so we can live it right? Straight-up fantasy. The first afterlife kicks off when Death-Cast tells us to live out our day knowing it's our last; that way we'll take full advantage of it, thinking we're still alive. Then we enter the next and final afterlife without any regrets ~ Adam Silvera

Our failures make us who we are; they build our character, we are defined by what we do with them, and how we respond to adversity. Without failure there is no growth, no striving for better, no adjusting, or dusting yourself off to try again. ~ J.W. Lord

It's like life, isn't it? You think you'll outrun it, that you're better than it, but it makes a fool of you every time. It runs you into the ground and steams off whistling away, happy as buggery with itself. ~ Richard Flanagan

That's because, in a way different from what you meant by it, you can't trust anybody." Major Kimura lit a new cigar and, smiling, continued in tones that were almost exultantly cheerful. "It is important - even necessary - for us to become acutely aware of the fact that we can't trust ourselves. The only ones you can trust to some extent are people who really know that. We had better get this straight. Otherwise, our own characters' heads could fall off like Xiao-er's at any time. ~ Ryunosuke Akutagawa