Dark Things Quotes

So Sarai gave in to the scream that night, and the dark things within her took wing. They came boiling out between her lips, and they weren't demons after all, but moths. ~ Laini Taylor

I like to think we're all born to do good, but dark things sometimes get in the way. ~ Anonymous

Because you're unique . You shine like a beacon, attracting the attention of all dark things." It chuckled. "Why do you think I'm chatting with you? ~ Jonathan Stroud

Sonnet XVII
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this:
where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. ~ Pablo Neruda

Love forms bonds between us, but not to hold us back. They're meant to save us if we fall, or help us all climb higher. Yes, things break beyond repair sometimes, but we can always build anew. If our fire ever fades, it just takes a single spark to set it off again. No matter how dark things get, we can all help light the way. We can make this life beautiful for ourselves and for each other. And we all deserve to be here, whatever shape or color we come in. ~ Coldwood

There was too much noise. Sirens from police cars and ambulances. Shouts from the crowd on the street eighteen floors below. Traffic from other streets and all of the noises of San Francisco. Mostly, though, there were the voices. Whispering to him. Reminding him of the dark things he had done - all of the little things he had forgotten, all of the big things he had tried to forget. Mostly they reminded him of his biggest secret, a betrayal of trust and friendship long ago. He squeezed his eyes shut as if that could somehow keep the voices away. ~ Don Bassingthwaite

'The Walking Dead' was my favorite show before I even auditioned for it. That's every actor's dream, to be on a show that they're a fan of. It's just dark, and as a comedian, I'm drawn to dark things. ~ Josh McDermitt

People always say humour helps to avoid the dark things in life. I think it's the opposite. Humour helps us understand and partner with the sadness and beauty of life. And sometimes, because we're bathed in laughter, we are protected. Or at least, humour can help us see the world differently. ~ Bruce McCulloch

No matter how dark things may get in a story, I feel it's the responsibility of the storyteller to leave the audience with at least a shred of hope. ~ Josh Radnor

I bought you love poetry! 'I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul.'" I blink at him. "Neruda. I starred the passage. God," he moans. "Why didn't you open it? ~ Stephanie Perkins

Part 2
Etienne: I cheated on her every day. In my mind, I thought of you in ways I shouldn't have, again and again. She was nothing compared to you. I've never felt this way about anybody before…

Anna: But…

Etienne: The first day of school. We weren't physics partners by accident. I saw Professeur Wakefield assigning lab parnters based on where people were sitting, so I leaned forward to borrow a pencil form you at just the right moment so he'dt think we were next to each other. Anna, I wanted to be your partner the first day.

Anna: But …

Etienne: I bought you love poetry! „I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul." Neruda. I starred the pasasge. God. Why didn't you open it?

Anna: Because you said it was for school

Etienne: I said you were beautiful. I slept in your bed!

Anna: You never made a move! You had a girlfriend!

Etienne: No matter what a terrible boyfriend I was, I wouldn't actually cheat on her.
But I thought you'd know. With me being there, I thought you'd know.

Anna: How could I know if you never said anything?

Etienne: How could I know if you never said anything?

Anna: You had Ellie!

Etienne: You had Toph! And Dave! Anna. I'm sorry for what happened in Luxembourg Gardens. Not because of the kiss – I've never had a kiss like that in my life – but because I didn't tell you why I ~ Stephanie Perkins

A dark shadow leaped from the stairs, his long coat flowing behind him like demon wings, landing in between her and Warrington.
Dorian.
He looked like the devil, come to take his minion. His hair black as obsidian. His scarred eye glittering with so many dark things, Farah couldn't identify a single one through her shock. ~ Kerrigan Byrne

Daughters of the attitude that produced them, certain women will not appeal to us without the double bed in which we find peace by their side, while others, to be caressed with a more secret intention, require leaves blown by the wind, water rippling in the dark, things as light and fleeting as they are. ~ Marcel Proust

Light doesn't always keep the dark things away, Nyx said. ~ Kameron Hurley

I'm not a dark person at all, so those roles are the most challenging. I don't think I'm necessarily drawn to dark things. It just seems to work out that way. ~ Camilla Belle

It still beat with a trip and a hammer, for that is the way a heart must go. But, whereas before it had woven only dark things when it dwelled upon my cousin, now within the fabric of my heart there ran, for him and him alone, one single strand of pure, untarnishable gold. ~ Cameron Dokey

It's not the type of work you can put on a business card.
I sometimes play the game with myself, though. What would I put on a business card?
Jill Kismet, Exorcist. Maybe on a nice heavy cream-colored card stock, with a good font. Not pretentious, just something tasteful. Garamond, maybe, or Book Antiqua. In bold. Or one of those old-fashioned fonts, but no frilly Edwardian script.
Of course, there's slogans to be taken into account. Jill Kismet, Dealer in Dark Things. Spiritual Exterminator. Slayer of Hell's Minions. ~ Lilith Saintcrow

Her evil cannot reach us here. Let us burn the ancient tree-mace trees and close off the ancient ways. Tear down the tower, the crown of our barrow, and let us hide ourselves from evil. Let no one leave the mound, and if evil grows, we shall flee farther.
No! Let evil hear the pounding of our feet! Let evil hear our drumming and our chanting songs of war. Let evil fear us! Let evil flee! In any world, may dark things know our names and fear. May their vile skins creep and shiver at every mention of the faeren. Let the night flee before the dawn and darkness crowd into the shadows. We march to war!
- Nudd, the Chestnut King ~ N.D. Wilson

Give me Pablo Neruda, picnic beneath a full moon & iridescent stars, black olives, cherries, dark things, canoe on a river ... that's romance. ~ Brandi L. Bates

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close. ~ Pablo Neruda

Dressed for Success"

Yeah, yeah, yeah

Tried to make it little by little
Tried to make it bit by bit on my own
Quit the job the gray believers
Another town where I get close to the bone

Whatcha gonna tell your brother?
Oh, oh, oh
Whatcha gonna tell your father?
I don't know
Whatcha gonna tell your mother?
Let me go

I'm gonna get dressed for success
Shaping me up for the big time, baby
Get dressed for success
Shaping it up for your love
For your love, yeah, yeah, yeah

I'm not afraid, a trembling flower
I'll feed your heart and blow the dust from your eyes, oh, oh, oh
And in the dark things happen faster
I love the way you sway your hips next to mine

Whatcha gonna tell your brother?
Oh, oh, oh
Whatcha gonna tell your father?
I don't know
Whatcha gonna tell your mother?
Let me go

I'm gonna get dressed for success
Shaping me up for the big time baby
Get dressed for success
Shaping it up for your love, yeah
(Look sharp)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, oh

Whatcha gonna tell your brother?
Oh, oh, oh
Whatcha gonna tell your father?
I don't know
Whatcha gonna tell your mother?
Let me go

(Dressed for success)
I'm gonna get
(Dressed for success)

I'm gonna get dressed for success
Hitting a s ~ Roxette

I don't see the point of doing an interview unless you're going to share the things you learn in life and the mistakes you make. So to admit that I'm extremely human and have done some dark things I don't think makes me unusual or unusually dark. I think it actually is the right thing to do, and I'd like to think it's the nice thing to do. ~ Angelina Jolie

If you are protected from dark things then you have no protection of, knowledge of, or understanding of dark things when they show up. ~ Neil Gaiman

No matter how dark things become, someone is always with you - and that someone is God. He helps by giving you peace and a positive mental attitude. ~ Norman Vincent Peale

The years have taught me not to wonder too much at the dark things men do. Strange how it is that men never act crueller than when they're fighting for the sake of an idea. We've been killing since Cain over who stands closer to god. It seems to me that cruelty is just in the way of things. You drive yourself mad if you take it all personal. Those who hurt you don't have the power over you they would like. That's why they do what they do. And I'm not going to give them the power now. But it was a cruel thing that they did, and when they had finished hurting me, a splinter of loneliness seemed to break off and stay inside me forever. ~ Marcel Theroux

Memory was that woman on the train. Insane in the way she sifted through dark things in a closet and emerged with the most unlikely ones - a fleeting look, a feeling. The smell of smoke. A windscreen wiper. A mother's marble eyes. Quite sane in the way she left huge tracts of darkness veiled. Unremembered. ~ Arundhati Roy

So shut the window tight and make sure the latch is fastened. Dark things have a way of slipping in through narrow spaces. ~ Leigh Bardugo

But a man doesn't have to have dark magic to do dark things. ~ Charlie N. Holmberg

Dark things have always existed but they used to be in a proper balance with good when life was slower. ~ David Lynch

Take thy self-denials gaily and cheerfully, and let the sunshine of thy gladness fall on dark things and bright alike, like the sunshine of the Almighty. ~ James Freeman Clarke

Daydream, which is to thought as the nebula is to the star, borders on sleep, and is concerned with it as its frontier. An atmosphere inhabited by living transparencies: there's a beginning of the unknown. But beyond it the Possible opens out, immense.
Other beings, other facts, are there. No supernaturalism, only the occult continuation of infinite nature. . . . Sleep is in contact with the Possible, which we also call the improbable. The world of the night is a world. Night, as night, is a universe. . . . The dark things of the unknown world become neighbors of man, whether by true communication or by a visionary enlargement of the distances of the abyss . . . and the sleeper, not quite seeing, not quite unconscious, glimpses the strange animalities, weird vegetations, terrible or radiant pallors, ghosts, masks, figures, hydras, confusions, moonless moonlights, obscure unmakings of miracle, growths and vanishings within a murky depth, shapes floating in shadow, the whole mystery which we call Dreaming, and which is nothing other than the approach of an invisible reality. The dream is the aquarium of Night. ~ Victor Hugo

They say when you look in dark places you find dark things.
And trust me; I have been in some very dark places. ~ Sean Catt

But this laughter is the reason why the Tuscans invented science and the clear Tuscan drawing in their cool paintings; laughter means distance. Conversely: where laughter is absent, madness begins. Every time I've had a chance to observe an outbreak of psychosis or a first-rate clinical anxiety neurosis the signal has been given in the absence of humor - the moment one takes the world with complete seriousness one is potentially insane. The whole art of learning to live means holding fast to laughter; without laughter the world is a torture chamber, a dark place where dark things will happen to us, a horror show filled with bloody deeds of violence. ~ Jens Bjorneboe

Fire," she whispered. "Wind. I see dark things and a dark war. I see my death coming for me, out of the spirit world. And I see you at the middle of it all. You're the beginning, the end of it. You're the one who can make the path go different ways."
"That's your vision? Iowa has less corn. ~ Jim Butcher

She enjoyed dark things, it was how she felt. People had pushed her there. She now enjoyed the quiet. She craves the night, the darkness where she is safe. ~ Tina J. Richardson

You know how Americans deal with it? They pretend they are eternally innocent no matter how many times they lose their innocence. The problem is that those who insist on their innocence believe anything they do is just. At least we who believe in our own guilt know what dark things we can do. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

If something is visceral and unsettling for me, my job is to not look away, not to punk out. Sometimes the dark things come from places inside me, experiences I've had, that need to be transformed. ~ Lilith Saintcrow

He remembered suddenly, at this moment, as he looked at the squares of moonlight lying on the floor, the time when he had first realized that pain is a thing that we must face and come to terms with if life is to be lived with dignity an not merely muddled through like an evil dream ... In some vague way he had understood that dark things are necessary; without them the silver moonlight would just stream away into nothingness, but with them it can be held and arranged into beautiful squares. (David Eliot, Chapter 4) ~ Elizabeth Goudge

You see, Frank found out the hard way that the dark things lurking in the night don't haunt old houses or abandoned ships. They haunt minds. ~ David Wong

Oh, we can populate the dark with horrors, even we who think ourselves informed and sure, believing nothing we cannot measure or weigh. I knew beyond all doubt that the dark things crowding in on me either did not exist or were not dangerous to me, and still I was afraid. I thought how terrible the nights must have been in a time when men knew the things were there and were deadly. But no, that's wrong. If I knew they were there, I would have weapons against them, charms, prayers, some kind of alliance with forces equally strong but on my side. Knowing they were not there made me defenseless against them and perhaps more afraid. ~ John Steinbeck

Rayna was home for me. No matter what happened or how dark things became, she would be all I'd need. It didn't matter where we went or what we fought, we'd be together. I didn't say it just then, but I felt it. That was the moment I knew I loved her. ~ M.R. Merrick

The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world all to themselves. ~ Roald Dahl

The past is a tricky thing. Sometimes it's etched in stone. And other times, it's rendered in soft memories. But if you meddle too long in deep, dark things... Who knows what monsters you'll awaken? ~ Emily Thorne

The difference between a murderer and myself is only that I choose not to do it. But I'm capable. ~ Nick Nolte

The love you have for your kids is so overwhelmingly powerful that it alters your perspective. The dark things going on in the world become very poignant and vivid. ~ James Mercer

Your momma wanted to save you
save you from your fate. If she hadn't, you'd be nothing but a memory and a fear long forgotten. Just like all you who mix the breeds. What they want you two for, what they have planned." She shook her head again and when she looking at me, sorrow etched across her face. "They fear you, fear what comes from you. I told you child. I told you that your path was filled with dark things tat must be done. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

His face set in grim determination, Richard slogged ahead, his fingers reaching up to touch the tooth under his shirt. Loneliness, deeper than he had never known, sagged his shoulders. All his friends were lost to him. He knew now that his life was not his own. It belonged to his duty, to his task. He was the Seeker. Nothing more. Nothing less. Not his own man, but a pawn to be used by others. A tool, same as his sword, to help others, that they might have the life he had only glimpsed for a twinkling.
He was no different from the dark things in the boundary. A bringer of death. ~ Terry Goodkind

Don't go looking in dark places, because dark things live there. ~ Robin Wasserman

And in the kisses, what deep sweetness! There are women's mouths that seem to ignite with love the breath that opens them. Whether they are reddened by blood richer than purple, or frozen by the pallor of agony, whether they are illuminated by the goodness of consent or darkened by the shadow of disdain, they always carry within them an enigma that disturbs men of intellect, and attracts them and captivates them. A constant discord between the expression of the lips and that of the eyes generates the mystery; it seems as if a duplicitous soul reveals itself there with a different beauty, happy and sad, cold and passionate, cruel and merciful, humble and proud, laughing and mocking; and the abiguity arouses discomfort in the spirit that takes pleasure in dark things. ~ Gabriele D'Annunzio

XVII (I do not love you ... )
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way ~ Pablo Neruda

___"What if all things in our imagination exist somewhere?" he said. "What if dreams are real?"
___"It would be nice to have black wings," Emily admitted.
___"But it would be our fears, too. Our worst nightmares. Perhaps the dark things are balanced by the sexual imagination, the nightmares tempered. The place of dreams, of suppressed consciousness, ceases to be merely the repository of the bad things we can't face, as we build, instead, a paradise, because we fuck."
___"There are Buddhist sects that say so. There are temples in Asia with very shocking carvings. ~ Jessica Amanda Salmonson

Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities
always see them, for they're always there. ~ Norman Vincent Peale

You don't always have to sing dark things to be thoughtful. ~ Robert Smith

[T]he very existence of such powers argues a counterforce. We call powers of the first kind dark, though they may use a species of deadly light... and we call those of the second kind bright, though I think that they may at times employ darkness, as a good man nevertheless draws the curtains of his bed to sleep. Yet there is truth to the talk of darkness and light, because it shows plainly that one implies the other. The tale I read to little Severian said that the universe was but a long word of the Increate's. We, then, are syllables of that word. But the speaking of any word is futile unless there are other words, words that are not spoken. If a beast has but one cry, the cry tells nothing; and even the wind has a multitude of voices, so that those who sit indoors may hear it and know if the weather is tumultuous or mild. The powers we call dark seem to me to be the words the Increate did not speak... and these words must be maintained in a quasi-existence, if the other word, the word spoken is to be distinguished. What is not said can be important - but what is said is more important... And if the seekers after dark things find them, may not the seekers after bright find them as well? And are they not more apt to hand their wisdom on? ~ Gene Wolfe

Living - comes with a price, as does freedom. The sons and daughters, friends and soul mates surrounding us today, offer their lives as a shield against dark things, giving peace a fighting chance. There is no greater irony, and only those who protect a nation can understand the paradox. Whether by some crinkle of fate or man's eternal flaws, struggle is a part of life, but so is hope.

There are things crushingly certain in this world. The warmth of blood and tears will always chill as it blankets soil and gravestones. In the silent but healing breath seized between war and peace, there will always be memorable moments. The ones that keep life worth living. You just need to recognize them, and hold onto them as long as you can. Today - belongs to all of us. ~ Natasza Waters

All art is a memory of age-old things, dark things, whose fragments live on in the artist. ~ Paul Klee

I started to do stop-motion when I was a kid. You take a Super 8 and make some models, and move, click, move, click. All that. I love all forms of animation, but there is something unique and special to stop-motion: it's more real and the set is lit like a set. But I think it's also a kind of lonely and dark thing to want to do. ~ Tim Burton

People just like the thrill of anything. Dangerous things and dark things are exciting. Like as a kid, I knew I wasn't going to get killed if I went into the Haunted House but you kind of feel like you are. And when it comes out the track the other side, it's like, "we're still alive"! And I find it really funny when adults get really scared because I've not been really scared since I saw Jaws when I was a little kid. I just think people like the thrill of it, they like to feel like they accomplished something, that they survived the movie. ~ Rob Zombie

She looked around for a place to be. A small place. The closet? ... It was both small and bright, and she wanted to be in a very small, very bright place. Small enough to contain her grief.Bright enough to throw into relief the dark things that cluttered her.Once inside, she sank to the tile floor next to the toilet. On her knees, her hand on the cold rim of the bathtub, she waited for something to happen ... inside. ~ Toni Morrison

I don't want to talk about negative, dark things. The only thing I've got against stuff like Marilyn Manson is, they make unbelievable videos and unbelievable images. ~ Sammy Hagar

What you do with it and things like that, but I basically chose this after I read it because I thought it was different and funny and unique and dark - things that I like to do. ~ Danny DeVito

This is another dream, isn't it?"
"Perceive it as you like. I've been trying to tell you things, but you're allowing the dark things-him-to invade your thoughts and feelings. ~ Sandy DeLuca

I have neither permitted, nor shall I permit, the things which have been settled by the holy fathers to be violated by any innovation. ~ Pope Leo I

That's how I do this life sometimes by making the ordinary just like magic and just like a card trick and just like a mirror and just like disappearing. Every Indian learns how to be a magician and learns how to misdirect attention and the dark hand is always quicker than the white eye and no matter how close you get to my heart you will never find out my secrets and I'll never tell you and I'll never show you the same trick twice.
I'm traveling heavy with illusions. ~ Sherman Alexie

I read the last paragraph of my favorite book. I remind myself that some things I love end. And that's okay.

Ari Eastman ~ Ari Eastman

College is just a place where they let you pay them to tell you things you should be getting paid to learn on the job. TRUE.
Don't take that teat, baby. That is a raw tittie. College is a red raw areola, and instead of milk it releases highly acidic French dressing.
"Ray's Place" 1/6/04 ~ Chris Onstad

Now everyday ain't gonna be no picnic
Love ain't no walk in the park
All you can do is make the best of it now
Can't be afraid of the dark
Just know that you're not in this thing alone
There's always a place in me that you can call home. ~ Cheryl Cole

My parents watch too many soap operas, that's their trouble. In fact, they were probably hoping I was pregnant. By my wicked married lover whom they could then murder and bury under the patio. ~ Sophie Kinsella

Werner wonders in the dead of night, isn't life a kind of corruption? A child is born, and the world sets in upon it. Taking things from it, stuffing things into it. Each bite of food, each particle of light entering the eye - the body can never be pure. ~ Anthony Doerr

When we fill our thoughts with right things, the wrong ones have no room to enter ~ Joyce Meyer

I think that I am the luckiest cat on the planet and I'm living out my own dreams and fantasies and have been for a number of years and to remain at this stage of my life, you know, so alive and things have never been better. ~ Hugh Hefner

Ome things were better, some were worse, and the only way one can ever learn to understand one's own youth is by accepting both halves of the proposition. ~ Nick Hornby

It looked exhausting and pointless, two things that should be avoided at all costs ~ Lemony Snicket

I'd rather be a face for happiness and doing things that you have a passion for, rather than faking it and pretending like I'm this face of women's basketball, when I can't stand the sport at all. ~ Elena Delle Donne

The Giants were supposed to have a new motto, 'Shut up and deal.' ~ Alvin Dark

Bob slid his chair back and moved the coal-oil lamp from the kitchen to the sitting room. He said, "Oftentimes things seem impossible up until they're attempted." Then he lidded the chimney glass with his palm and suffocated the light. ~ Ron Hansen

A certain rough-around-the-edges improvisational looseness - a sense of something coming together before your eyes, or not quite - may be one of the things that distinguishes performance art from theater. ~ Roberta Smith

At the end of all things, the blessed will say, 'We never lived anywhere but in heaven.' ~ C.S. Lewis

I don't make things with my hands, although I studied woodworking and made furniture. ~ Frank Gehry

I doubt there's ever been a true thing said on Fox. Maybe the weather report, maybe not. ~ Fran Lebowitz

I know that isn't always easy and that there is self-harm in the world. Sometimes it's hard for people to rise above things. ~ Andy Biersack

In war everything is simple, but it's the simple things that are difficult. ~ Carl Von Clausewitz

He's standing in a cluster of black T-shirts - together, they look like the wilted petals on a single dead flower. ~ Holly Schindler

..., there are two things most important in preparing yourself for success. One is going the extra miles. Never settle for average. If other people study for one hour, study for five. If other run two kilometers, run three. If people give up in 10 seconds, don't give up until 20. Always try to be more than ordinary..." ... "Another recipe is to never let yourself be influenced by elements outside of yourself. By anyone, anything, or any atmosphere. Meaning, don't be sad, angry, or disappointed because of external factors. You are the ones with power over yourselves, do don't give that power to others. Someone may hold a gun, but you have a choice, to feel fear or stand tall. You have choice, most deeply inside, and it has nothing to do with outside influence." -101 ~ Ahmad Fuadi

Keep in mind the rewards ahead.

Workouts provide awesome internal rewards; after a long dance practice or gym workout I always have more energy and a clearer mind, and I'm able to focus on things I need to get done. But we all know it's hard to remember that great feeling when you're headed off to the gym, dreading the work ahead. Conjuring that ecstatic state of mind you know you'll find later can be a tremendous motivator. If you prefer external rewards, motivate yourself with baby steps every day to hit a bigger long-term goal--one with a luxurious reward as your prize. Once you've reached it, allow yourself to follow through with whatever reward it was that motivated you, whether it's a great glass of wine or a Sunday movie marathon. ~ Derek Hough

That's one of the ideas that we must always strive to understand if we are ever to understand the world around us. All things on our planet are related to one another. Even the smallest of actions, to one degree or another, affect this complex web. Irrespective of magnitude, events ripple around our world in ways great and small. ~ Jeffrey P. Bonner

You are better than you think you are; you can play at a higher level than you think you can; and you have the potential to beat so-called better players. If you're a competitor and not just playing for exercise (and "cardio" tennis is great), don't accept where you are; don't settle for less. Shake yourself up in whatever manner it takes and you'll get results. Like Murray and the Djoker you can turn things around and beat players who are beating you. ~ Anonymous

Of all the things I wondered about on this land, I wondered the hardest about the seduction of certain geographies that feel like home - not by story or blood but merely by their forms and colors. How our perceptions are our only internal map of the world, how there are places that claim you and places that warn you away. How you can fall in love with the light. ~ Ellen Meloy

My music is very edgy and the energy is very raw, but I am also getting out this positive message without being a teacher. I don't want to hear anybody preach or teach things to me, especially when I was a kid. But there are messages that people are grabbing onto without me even realizing that they are messages. ~ Shane Bunting

Forgeries are an ever-changing portrait of human desires. Each society, each generation, fakes the things it covets most ~ Frank Wynne

So Christian went on his way, saying: Here have I seen things rare and profitable; Things pleasant, dreadful; things to make me stable In what I have begun to take in hand: Then let me think on them, and understand Wherefore they showed me where; and let me be Thankful, O good Interpreter, to thee. ~ John Bunyan

Do you see that patch of blue in the sky, fighting to be seen through the clouds?"

"Yes." She nodded, but her brows were scrunched in obvious confusion as to what his point would be.

"That was my life when I met you. After Mellie died, my life was a constant rainy day. I couldn't imagine the sun ever shining again. Then I met you, and the dark clouds started to drift away. I could see blue skies again and they were pushing out the clouds. As I got to know you, there were more blue skies and sunshine in my life. ~ Leah Atwood

Trying every day to tell the truth is hard. There are harder things, of course - arguably, living with lies and meaninglessness, living in despair is harder, but it's hardship disguised as luxury and easier perhaps to grow accustomed to, since truth is usually the enemy of custom. There are harder things than writing, being President Obama, for instance, and having to deal with House Republicans, or trying to fix the leak at the Fukushima reactor, these are harder, but writing is hard. ~ Tony Kushner

For as long as she can remember, telling stories has been her momma's gift to those around her, fables filled with rich, detailed accounts of gods and monsters, of love and curses. She can weave a tale from Spanish moss and moonlight that will make a young girl's heart resonate with yearning or weep with anguish. Her coastal Georgia roots add a dark sweetness to all her narratives, one that stains her stories with sorrow like a drop of molasses dissolving in warm butter. ~ Sara Stark

As director Brad Bird sees it, every creative organization-be it an animation studio or a record label-is an ecosystem. 'You need all the seasons,' he says. 'You need storms. It's like an ecology. To view lack of conflict as optimum is like saying a sunny day is optimum. A sunny day is when the sun wins out over the rain. There's no conflict. You have a clear winner. But if every day is sunny and it doesn't rain, things don't grow. And if it's sunny all the time-if, in fact, we don't even have night-all kinds of things don't happen and the planet dries up. The key is to view conflict as essential, because that's how we know the best ideas will be tested and survive. You know, it can't only be sunlight.'
It is management's job to figure out how to help other see conflict as healthy-as a route to balance, which benefits us all in the long run. ~ Ed Catmull

You never know what life has in store for you, but I believe there are certain things one is meant to go through ~ Gloria Estefan

I'm always trying to find 'connections' between things. That art is the juxtaposition of a lot of things that seem unrelated but add up to something recognizable. ~ Pat Metheny

Sometimes we fall into the negative so deeply that we do not realize our first instinctive reaction to everything is to think negatively or to "look" for the bad in every situation. The phrase "too good to be true" directly comes from this aspect of ourselves. To be cautious can be good in certain situations, but to dismiss every interaction or idea to the possibility of "bad things happening" puts us in a place where the beautiful or the divine never gets a chance to fully blossom. Mind your thoughts carefully, as you are the only one who can allow happiness to thrive in your life ~ Gary Hopkins

I always assumed that the doubt would destroy me. But know I wonder if it's the opposite of doubt that's the dangerous thing - if instead, it's the things we're so sure of that have the power to undo us. ~ Kara Thomas