Deciding Quotes

I teach a non-fiction writing class at New York University, and one of my great pleasures is deciding on the syllabus. ~ Susan Orlean

Darcy looked at her sister for a beat, deciding whether or not to tell her about her strange dream. Grace knew more than anyone about the dark secrets of Darcy's life, but not even her sister knew it all. And Darcy wanted to keep it that way. "I ~ K.J. Emrick

There are things that are happening way earlier than [the Oscars] when it comes to someone deciding whether they're going to spend x amount of millions of dollars on a movie.I want $100 million success. The moviegoer is the person I'm more interested in than the Academy. ~ Don Cheadle

Most Americans - professing Christians - for a fairly long time thought that slavery was simply "where people are these days." Is it really loving to set aside the truth about sin and judgment and even to downplay the person and work of Christ as its answer simply because these are not the questions that are being asked by unbelievers? Imagine our elementary school teachers deciding that they will no longer teach the alphabet because the children aren't interested in learning it. ~ Michael S. Horton

I was standing amid floor-to-ceiling shelves of books in wonder and awe when my view of stories suddenly and forever changed. There were enormous piles of books lying in corners. Books covered the walls. Books even lined the staircases as you went up from one floor to the next. It was as if this used bookstore was not just a place for selling used books; it was like the infrastructure itself was made up of books. There were books to hold more books, stories built out of stories.

I was standing in Daedalus Books in Charlottesville, Virginia, and I had recently read Mortimer J. Adler's How to Read a Book. I was alive with the desire to read. But at that particular moment, my glee turned to horror. For whatever reason, the truth of the numbers suddenly hit me. The year before, I had read about thirty books. For me, that was a new record. But then I started counting. I was in my early twenties, and with any luck I'd live at least fifty more years. At that rate, I'd have about 1,500 books in me, give or take.

There were more books than that on the single wall I was staring at.

That's when I had a realization of my mortality. My desire outpaced reality. I simply didn't have the life to read what I wanted to read.

Suddenly my choices in that bookstore became a profound act of deciding. The Latin root of the word decide - cise or cide - is to "cut off' or "kill." The idea is that to choose anything means to kill off other options you m ~ Justin Whitmel Earley

When I say history is a matter of life and death, I mean this: If you really don't know history, you are a victim of whatever the authorities tell you. You have no way of checking up on them. You have no way of deciding whether there is any truth in what they are saying. ~ Howard Zinn

La cuestion esta en decidirse en algo, alguna vez.

The gist is in deciding on something, at some time. ~ Marta Traba

Great cataclysmic things can go by and neither the orchestra nor the conductor are under the delusion that whether they make this or that gesture is going to be the deciding factor in how it comes out. ~ James Levine

School went exactly as Violet thought it would: weird. It wasn't her best, and it wasn't her worst, day ever. It was just weird.
Jay was true to his word, deciding not to hold anything back. And it started the second they got out of the car, when he claimed her hand and refused to let go, even when Violet tugged and pulled to try to get it away from him. He ignored her mute protests and held on tight, smiling more to himself than to her, and paraded her right into the school like that.
Not that they'd never held hands before, because they had. But this was entirely different, and Jay was hell-bent on making sure that everyone knew it. And just in case anyone wondered what the hand-holding actually meant, he made sure to clear things up for them by planting a big, albeit very satisfying, kiss on her lips, right in the middle of the hallway. Violet didn't try to pull away from that; in fact, she was dismayed to find herself leaning into him, craving more, and not caring - at least at that moment - who might see them together.
Unfortunately that person turned out to be Chelsea. Chelsea, of all people, along with Claire, who happened to walk up at very inopportune instant.
"Well, well, well," Chelsea said in an oh-so-innocent voice. "Look what we have here, Claire-bear. It's old Jay and Violet." The unconcealed smile was embedded deep in her voice. "Only, and correct me if I'm wrong, this looks a little more than friendly, don't you think?"
"I never kiss ~ Kimberly Derting

Liberty and equality," said the vicomte contemptuously, as if at last deciding seriously to prove to this youth how foolish his words were, "high-sounding words which have long been discredited. Who does not love liberty and equality? Even our Saviour preached liberty and equality. Have people since the Revolution become happier? On the contrary. We wanted liberty, but Buonaparte has destroyed it. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Deconstruction is not meant to be a soft sighing for the future, but a way of deciding now and being impassioned in a moment. ~ John D. Caputo

Octopus can fish for prey while deciding what color and pattern to turn, what shape to make their bodies, be on alert for predators and aware how far away their dens are. ~ Sy Montgomery

There's always the option of deciding for yourself who you are and what you'll become. ~ Jodi Meadows

Here at Hajj, I was experiencing a taste of the same poison. While the women in my tent weren't nearly as wealthy or polished as the bewitching woman at al-Multaqa, they subscribed to the same view, deciding (based on skin color and ethnicity) that I surely must be a handmaid or at best nanny to a poor Saudi family who couldn't afford the much better Filipina maids, having instead to resort to Pakistani or worse, Bengali help. In fact I did remember one Saudi woman in the tent asking me if I was Bengali. ~ Qanta A. Ahmed

The first step in accomplishing any goal was deciding that it was possible. ~ Tom Clancy

A week after my drugs ran out, I left my bed to perform at the college, deciding at the last minute to skip both the doughnut toss and the march of the headless plush toys. Instead, I just heated up a skillet of plastic soldiers, poured a milkshake over my head and called it a night. ~ David Sedaris

By that time I was hooked on a career in academic research instead of one in the pharmaceutical industry that I had originally considered in deciding to get a PhD. ~ Paul Berg

I am not against marriage, but I like the idea of waking up each morning together and deciding to be that way for another day. I find that more powerful, liberating, and purer than a set of rules binding us. I want to be together not because the society permits us to, but because we want to, and because we are crazy about each-other… ~ Arka Datta

You think that somehow they didn't come after me to get rid of me because my vote is the deciding vote in the health care bill? Then, ladies and gentlemen, you live today in a world that is so innocent as to not understand what's going on in Washington, D.C. ~ Eric Massa

We're seeing a new 'Gilded Age,' where inheritance is a deciding factor in who becomes the wealthiest. ~ Annalee Newitz

...I'm not crazy about the implication that pregnant women are incapable of deciding for themselves- that you have to manipulate our belief so we do the right thing. That feels, again, like pregnant women are not given any more credit than children would be in making important decisions. ~ Emily Oster

When I begin a book, I inevitably discover many things along the way, about the characters, their past histories and the political intrigues that surround them. This discovery process is vital, and I would not prejudice it by deciding too much in advance. ~ David Brin

We shape our life by deciding to pay attention to it. It is the direction of our attention and its intensity that will determines what we accomplish and how well. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

A 'Globe' examination found that Boston police officers exercise broad discretion when deciding whether to issue a ticket. ~ Bill Dedman

All anarchists believe in worker's control, in the sense of individuals deciding what work whey do, how they work, and who they work with. This follows logically from the anarchist belief that nobody should be subject to a boss. ~ Donald Rooum

Either in or out of time, the decision of a personal agency to commit an action happens antecedent to the action itself. Even if the deciding and the acting happened simultaneously, it would still not be true that the acting was antecedent to the deciding. Imagine God saying, Oh, look! I just created a universe. Now I'd better decide to do it. ~ Dan Barker

Every time your customers purchase from you, they're deciding that they value what you have to offer more than they value anything else their money could buy at that moment. ~ Josh Kaufman

When we're creating sites, we act as though people are going to pore over each page, reading all of our carefully crafted text, figuring out how we've organized things, and weighing their options before deciding which link to click. What ~ Steve Krug

He took a moment, as if he were deciding which tack to go with. I think he chose honesty, but it's so hard to tell. And if you chose honesty as a strategy, is it still honesty? ~ Kate Morgenroth

Believing, desiring, deciding, and choosing correctly are the simple actions that define an increase in happiness and an increase in the inner assurance that transcends this life. ~ Benjamin De Hoyos

Before deciding what to do about national space policy, Obama set up an outside review panel of space experts, headed up by my friend Norm Augustine, former head of Lockheed Martin and a former government official. ~ Buzz Aldrin

Something had to be done, for if there was ever a man who deserved killing - this was he.
Georgiana surveyed the room in the silence, finally deciding to take control, returning to the tabletop, taking her spot on the roulette field. "I shouldn't have to remind any of you that every one of you has a secret kept in our confidence."
Temple understood immediately what she was saying, pulling himself back up to stand on a table. "If a breath of what happened here tonight--"
Bourne rose, too. "Not that anything has happened here tonight--"
"Nothing besides obvious self defense," Georgiana said.
"And, of course, saving two perfectly innocent people from their own demise," Duncan pointed out, joining her.
Cross spoke from his place on the floor. "But if something had happened, and information left this room, every one of your secrets--"
"To a man," Georgiana said.
Duncan climbed up beside her. "Will be printed in my papers."
There was a beat as the words sank in around the room, silence fell as the membership of the Fallen Angel remembered why they came to this place, where their dues were paid in secrets.
For the tables.
The gaming began almost immediately. ~ Sarah MacLean

The part that the public sees is the arguments up at the podium and the briefs that we file. But a significant part of the job - in fact, I'd say I spend more of my time on this part of the job, which is deciding what the position of the United States will be in the cases that we're going to be participating in before the court. ~ Donald Verrilli Jr.

Deciding what to be is more important than deciding what to do. ~ John C. Maxwell

Eternal values, not temporal ones, should become the deciding factors for your decisions. ~ Rick Warren

Well, marriage doesn't function in the way it used to in terms of deciding our fate, but it's in our heads, and it determines a lot of our actions. Like, right now, if you think about gay marriage - and they just started having the first gay marriages in New York - it shows what a potent idea marriage remains for people. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

Time & Money. They're always the deciding factors. ~ Joanne Fluke

When it comes to naming things, vanity and flattery are dull motivations best suited for deciding on a child's middle name. Much more interesting are the descriptive names that suggest a story or happening of interest. ~ J. Maarten Troost

I am awaiting the day when people remember the fact that discovery does not work by deciding what you want and then discovering it. ~ David Mermin

It's been all over the press, and schools are deciding to shut it down. We released a public announcement saying that we had some potential solutions that we were working with, and once we had something concrete we would start implementing it and approach schools. ~ Shawn Fanning

The bus had a lavatory in the wayback rear, which no one ever made any attempt to use, and I remember consciously deciding to trust that the passengers had good reason for not using it instead of venturing in and discovering that reason for myself. ~ David Foster Wallace

Every time you decide to do one thing, you decide not to do another. Keep this in mind when deciding what to do next. What is the consequence of what you are about to do? Will this action, or inaction help or harm you? Stay mindfully present! Empower yourself in the now. ~ Akiroq Brost

The pull, the attraction of history, is in our human nature. What makes us tick? Why do we do what we do? How much is luck the deciding factor? ~ David McCullough

Whether it's choosing a career or deciding what charity to get involved with, the choice should come from your heart. Ultimately you are the one who has to get up every morning and enjoy what you are doing, so make sure it matters to you. ~ Dave Thomas

We're deciding the fate of the multiverse with a flip of a coin. Heads or tails, doc. If that isn't a game, I don't know what is. ~ E.C. Myers

He decided then that he would love her forever no matter what came to pass. It was not so much a matter of deciding as accepting the inevitability of it. It made him feel better, though he felt perturbed, too, worried that this kiss was wrong. But from his point of view, at fourteen years old, their love was entirely unavoidable. It had started on the day they'd clung to his glass box and kissed in the sea, and now it must go on forever. He felt certain of this. ~ David Guterson

I'm feeling more and more thoughts that aren't songs, just reflections. I'm always been very shy and in some ways a prisoner in one language and I feel that the liberation of creativity has to be in all senses. So I've been deciding to publishing something very simple but very small at the same time, nothing egocentric. ~ Ana Tijoux

One of the greatest glories of growing older is the willingness to ask why and, getting no good answer, deciding to follow my own inclinations and desires. Asking why is the way to wisdom. Why are we supposed to want possessions we don't need and work that seems beside the point and tight shoes and a fake tan? Why are we supposed to think new is better than old, youth and vigor better than long life and experience? Why are we supposed to turn our backs on those who have preceded us and to snipe at those who come after? When we were small children we asked 'Why?' constantly. Asking the question now is more a matter of testing the limits of what sometimes seems a narrow world. One of the useful things about age is realizing conventional wisdom is often simply inertia with a candy coating conformity. ~ Anna Quindlen

Remember first that everything you think, say, and do is a reflection of what you've decided about yourself; a statement of Who You Are; an act of creation in your deciding who you want to be. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

I find my greatest strengths in wanting ti be strong. I find my greatest bravery in deciding to be brave. ~ David Levithan

Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it. You teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will and won't accept. ~ Anna Taylor

Do the bishops seriously imagine that legalising gay marriage will result in thousands of parties to heterosexual marriages suddenly deciding to get divorced so they can marry a person of the same sex? ~ Malcolm Turnbull

Nothing would more quickly and definitively reduce U.S. income inequality than allowing every worker in all businesses to participate in deciding the range of incomes from one worker to another. They would never do what is nowadays a matter of normality: give one person millions, in some cases billions, while others have barely enough to make a living. ~ Richard D. Wolff

Our criteria for deciding what's good and what's bad is very fickle, especially in this country. ~ Roberta Flack

Before you conclude that your options are limited, you need evidence that you cannot do something, rather than just deciding that you cannot do it. ~ Sherwin B. Nuland

If you think that leadership is deciding what you want and telling people to do it, I feel sorry for you. Reality is going kick your ass so far that not even Google will find you. The goal of this chapter is to help you become such a great leader that you'll appear on the first page of a Google search for leader. ~ Guy Kawasaki

Where would the Rockefellers be today if old John D. had gone on selling short-weight kerosene ... to widows and orphans instead of wisely deciding to mulct the whole country. ~ S.J Perelman

I am far too often the author of terribly poor decisions. Yet I must rest in the unalterable fact that God says I am far better than what the sum total of those decisions would ever suggest. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

All the novices looked as if they could be blown off their mounts by a stiff wind. He didn't usually allow for second-guessing, but he was about to make an exception. Deciding to go forward with the cattle drive had been about the stupidest idea he'd ever had.
"Ready to go, boss?" Frank asked as he rode up.
Zane let his gaze settle on the two kids, then he shook his head. "No, but we're leaving anyway."
Frank grinned. "Me and the boys are taking bets on who falls off their horse first. You're gonna have to let us know who it is and when it happens for the pool."
Zane pulled his hat down low. For the first time in years, he wanted to be somewhere other than the ranch. Greenhorns. The whole lot of them. Frank and the boys were right. Someone would be tumbling from a horse, and if Zane was lucky, that would be the least of his troubles.
"Have fun," Frank said with an expression that announced "better you than me."
Zane nodded. "I know you're not much for praying, but you might want to put in a good word with the Almighty."
"Sure thing, boss. You're going to need all the help you can get."
Zane nodded. "You'll be able to reach me on my cell phone. We'll be staying within range of the towers."
"I'll be here."
Zane wished he would be, as well.
A sharp whistle warned him that his life was about to stampede out of control. ~ Susan Mallery

The term 'triage' normally means deciding who gets attention first. ~ Bill Dedman

Anger had its place, it was a weapon not to be neglected, but so did patience, and Nona decided that control lay in deciding which to use and when. She ~ Mark Lawrence

If marriage is about deciding to love on a daily basis, I have woken up to a no-brainer every day since. ~ David Carr

Preachers in the pulpit peddling their wares, while beggars in the street wonder if anyone cares.

Teachers in our schools talking bout math, while students are deciding which will be their path.

Faithful in their pews listening to the Word, while losers on the corner hope they'll practice what they've heard.

Leaders in their meetings trying to save our nation, while voters ponder their true motivation.

With people filled with hate and doubt, God is in our boxes waiting to be let out! ~ Eric D. Grizzle

We are the result of our decisions, everyday we deal with its consequences. Actions without thinking creates a world of deceptions and humiliations. When you make a wrong move, your experiences becomes your punishment. With prudence you must consider both sides when deciding, your fear or your foolish overconfidence will tell you to go left or to go right, but to decide see what's in the middle and considere it, do not rush, it will demonstrates your capability. Remeber always, there is balance in everything. ~ Natasha Helvin

"Watching my back? Like you watched Chloe's with those gangbangers?"
"That was a mistake. I was running and I thought she was right behind me."
"Did you check?"
"What?"
"Did you check?" he repeated. "One glance over your shoulder to make sure she was still there?"
I didn't answer.
He shook his head. "I'm not accusing you of letting that girl grab Chloe so you could get away. I'm not accusing you of seeing her in trouble and deciding to do nothing about it. I know you didn't look back. You never thought of it."
"I was scared, okay? You want me to admit that? Fine."
"Chloe would have looked back for you."
I rolled my eyes. "Of course she would. Because Chloe is good and perfect."
"No, because she thinks of others. I would have looked back, too, if you were behind me. Even Derek would have. Why? Because we're a team now. We need to have each other's backs. No matter what. ~ Kelley Armstrong

The anti-precog has to be present when the precog is in the process of deciding, not after. The anti-precog makes all futures seem equally real to the precog; he aborts his talent to choose at all. A precog is instantly aware when an anti-precog is nearby because his entire relation to the future is altered. In the case of telepaths a similar impairment - " "She goes back in time," G. G. Ashwood said. Joe stared at him. "Back in time," G.G. repeated, savoring this; his eyes shot shafts of significance to every part of Joe Chip's kitchen. "The precog affected by her still sees one predominant future; like you said, the one luminous possibility. And he chooses it, and he's right. But why is it right? Why is it luminous? Because this girl - " He shrugged in her direction. "Pat controls the future; that one luminous possibility is luminous because she's gone into the past and changed it. By changing it she changes the present, which includes the precog; he's affected without knowing it and his talent seems to work, whereas it really doesn't. So that's one advantage of her anti-talent over other anti-precog talents. The other - and greater - is that she can cancel out the precog's decision after he's made it. ~ Philip K. Dick

I found the right man, got married, and just had to keep not reinventing myself, just deciding that it doesn't matter what you are if you are a good person. ~ Lisa Kudrow

Decisions are the privilege we've been granted to have a hand in penning the script of our lives. And in the writing, the question is not the availability of the paper or the pen. The question is the wisdom to use them rightly. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Smoking calms me down. It's enjoyable. I don't want politicians deciding what is exciting in my life. ~ David Hockney

Sometimes believing is a matter of deciding. Deciding who you're going to trust and what you know about who you trust. ~ Melissa Tagg

In a 2007 study published in the Journal of Family Psychology,3 researchers asked eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds which criteria they felt were most indicative of adulthood. Their criteria were, in order of importance: (1) accepting responsibility for the consequences of your actions; (2) establishing a relationship with parents as an equal adult; (3) being financially independent from parents; and (4) deciding on beliefs/values independently of parents/other influences. ~ Julie Lythcott-Haims

But in a radically atheist universe, you are not only responsible for doing your duty, You are also responsible for deciding what is your duty. ~ Slavoj Zizek

This "sir, yes sir" business, which would probably sound like horseshit to any civilian in his right mind, makes sense to Shaftoe and to the officers in a deep and important way. Like a lot of others, Shaftoe had trouble with military etiquette at first. He soaked up quite a bit of it growing up in a military family, but living the life was a different matter. Having now experienced all the phases of military existence except for the terminal ones (violent death, court-martial, retirement), he has come to understand the culture for what it is: a system of etiquette within which it becomes possible for groups of men to live together for years, travel to the ends of the earth, and do all kinds of incredibly weird shit without killing each other or completely losing their minds in the process. The extreme formality with which he addresses these officers carries an important subtext: your problem, sir, is deciding what you want me to do, and my problem, sir, is doing it. My gung-ho posture says that once you give the order I'm not going to bother you with any of the details--and your half of the bargain is you had better stay on your side of the line, sir, and not bother me with any of the chickenshit politics that you have to deal with for a living. The implied responsibility placed upon the officer's shoulders by the subordinate's unhesitating willingness to follow orders is a withering burden to any officer with half a brain, and Shaftoe has more than once seen seasoned noncom ~ Neal Stephenson

Speaking for myself, I spend a good ten minutes a day deciding whether or not to read the results of new surveys, and, once I have read them, a further five minutes deciding whether or not to take them seriously. ~ Craig Brown

Van tortured himself with thoughts of insufficient filial affection - a long story of unconcern, amused scorn, physical repulsion, and habitual dismissal. He looked around, making wild amends, willing her spirit to give him an unequivocal, and indeed all-deciding sign, of continued being behind the veil of time, beyond the flesh of space. But no response came, not a petal fell on his bench, not a gnat touched his hand. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Many years ago I developed a theory of mutual exclusivity. I had observed in my own life that either God solved a problem or I solved the problem but both God and I did not work on the same problem at the same time. If I decided to solve it then God had better things to do than to help me. If I decided to turn the problem over to God then God would resolve the issue. When I refer to my solving the problem, I am referring to taking wilful action and deciding what the correct resolution is. If my family needs food, go out and work to earn money and feed them. There is a great difference between detachment and doing nothing. ~ Heather Cardin

And I wondered if he knew how well, how naturally he led. Was it, in the end, so different leading men? Was it not much the same - picking out the trail, deciding the safest way, strengthening the unsure step with words of encouragement, guiding, going ahead, but not too far ahead - was not trailcraft much the same as kingcraft? ~ Stephen R. Lawhead

Happiness is really about deciding to look beyond the imperfections and find beauty and joy in what is, right now. ~ Jeffrey A. White

There was a rustle near his ear, and he turned his head to see the crow. It stood on the grass a foot away, a blotch of wind-ruffled black feathers, regarding him with a bead-bright eye. Deciding that he posed no threat, it swiveled its neck with casual ease and jabbed its thick sharp bill into Jack Randall's eye. ~ Diana Gabaldon

...he lifted the fat and frightened hawk onto his fist reciting it passages from Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard II, Othello-- 'but tragedy had to be kept out of the voice'-- and all the sonnets he could remember, whistling hymns to it, playing it Gilbert and Sullivan and Italian opera, and deciding, on reflection, that hawks liked Shakespeare best. ~ Helen Macdonald

It's bad enough for me to make choices that hurt my own relationship with God. How much more serious is it to be the cause of someone else deciding to sin? Not only must I choose the pathway of holiness for God's sake and for my own sake; I must also do it for the sake of others. ~ Nancy Leigh DeMoss

That the will of the people can be established by voting for democrats is, of course, a delusion. Yet when considering a non-threatening system for deciding between diverse interests, then voting, of course, can be regarded as a humane and civilized process. ~ Robert Musil

When I say that deciding to not kill myself was the worst part, I should clarify that I don't mean it in a retrospective sense. From where I am now, it seems like a solid enough decision. But at the time, it felt like I had been dragging myself through the most miserable, endless wasteland, and - far in the distance - I had seen the promising glimmer of a slightly less miserable wasteland. ~ Allie Brosh

Because he did not have time to read every new book in his field, the great Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski used a simple and efficient method of deciding which ones were worth his attention: Upon receiving a new book, he immediately checked the index to see if his name was cited, and how often. The more Malinowski the more compelling the book. No Malinowski, and he doubted the subject of the book was anthropology at all. ~ Neil Postman

Deciding what to read is also a matter of filtering. ~ Jean-Claude Carriere

Authentic love is deciding to live on a one-way street where all the arrows point down the street and not a single one of them point back up to where I'm standing. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Stuffwise we are not a lean operation. We're the kind of people who, if we were deciding what absolute minimum essential items we'd need to carry in our backpacks for the final, treacherous ascent to the summit of Mount Everest, would take along aquarium filters, just in case. ~ Dave Barry

Long before I was old enough for "the talk," Mom told me about sex. She said she'd had lots of it in her life, but married sex was probably her favorite. Still Mom also warned me not to expect fireworks like in the ones in Mister Heist's romance novels every time. Some nights, even two old friends deciding to get as close as humanly possible could still be worlds apart. ~ Brain Vaughan

Supposing there was justice for all, after all? For every unheeded beggar, every harsh word, every neglected duty, every slight ... every choice ... Because that was the point, wasn't it? You had to choose. You might be right, you might be wrong, but you had to choose, knowing that the rightness or wrongness might never be clear or even that you were deciding between two sorts of wrong, that there was no right anywhere. And always, always, you did it by yourself. You were the one there, on the edge, watching and listening. Never any tears, never any apology, never any regrets ... You saved all that up in a way that could be used when needed. ~ Terry Pratchett

I realized much later in life that the reason this decision between MIT and IBM was so agonizing was because it wasn't really about choosing a career; it was about deciding who I was, which part of myself I wanted to be, and that's the hardest decision any of us has to make. ~ Mike Massimino

The situation - having to choose between imposing higher retail prices and reducing investments and military spending - created a dilemma for the government: deciding between conflict with the public or with the Party economic elite. But not making a decision heightened the risk that, as the crisis developed, there would be conflict with both the public and the elite.18 The new generation of leaders clearly did not understand this. The traditional management of the economy was oriented on natural, rather than abstract, parameters. The development of cattle breeding was discussed at the highest level more frequently than the country's budget. Industry and business leaders regarded finances as necessary but dreary bookkeeping.19 In addition, information on the real state of the budget, hard currency reserves, foreign debt, and balance of payments was available only to an extremely narrow circle of people, many of whom understood nothing about it anyway. ~ Yegor Gaidar

A man sits in an office deciding what stocks to buy. He imagines, no doubt, that he is planning his purchases according to his own judgment. In actual fact his judgment is a melange of impressions stamped on his mind by outside influences which unconsciously control his thought. He buys a certain railroad stock because it was in the headlines yesterday and hence is the one which comes most prominently to his mind; because he has a pleasant recollection of a good dinner on one of its fast trains; because it has a liberal labor policy, a reputation for honesty; because he has been told that J. P. Morgan owns some of its shares. ~ Edward L. Bernays

Is life worth living? Like everybody else, I have many times asked that question, usually deciding negatively, because I am most likely to ask myself whether life is worth living, at times when I am convinced it isn't. One day, in one of my frequent, and probably incurable, scientific moments, it occurred to me to find out. For a month, at the end of each day, I set down a plus sign, or a minus sign, indicating that, in my opinion, life had, or had not, been worth living, that day. At the end of the month, I totted up, and I can't say that I was altogether pleased to learn that the pluses had won the game. It is not dignified to be optimistic. ~ Charles Fort

But I just needed her so much and it never felt like enough and she wasn't consistent and her inconsistency and my insecurity were this horrible match for each other, but I still loved her, because all of me was wrapped up in her, because I'd put all my eggs in someone else's basket, and in the end, after 343 days, I was left with an empty basket and this gnawing endless hole in my gut, but then now I find myself deciding to remember her as a good person with whom I had some good times until we, both of us, got ourselves into an ineradicably bad situation. ~ John Green

Sarah's right. We punish ourselves so much in our own imaginations. We convince ourselves everything we do, everything we think, is wrong.

For eighteen years I've believed what other people told me about what was right and what was wrong. From now. I'm deciding. ~ Robin Talley

The widest cause of secularization may be the steady change of thinking so that there is the expectation that reason and a consideration of cause and effect will help with explanations. Supernatural power began to be removed from explanations of the process of life or society in the seventeenth century, and although there may be a nod towards astrology or the crossed finger today, superstition is not seriously used in decision making ...
Scientific thinking, which similarly developed in the seventeenth century, has been influential in bringing this change. We now see that tornadoes and earthquakes have rational explanations in terms of climatology and seismology rather than as divine punishments. Most people when deciding whether to take a new job, embark on a divorce, or simply plan a holiday will not seek divine guidance, but rather discuss with themselves or others the issues of cause and effect. ~ Jim Herrick

I decide I'm not dead because I can hear the sound of the rain hitting the roof of the car. I'm alive because I'm listening to the rain, and the rain becomes the hand of God strumming his fingers on the roof, deciding what to do. ~ Lisa Genova

She stood, a little unsteadily, true, but on her own two feet. "It's not my blindness that cripples me, it's everyone else deciding I can't live because of my blindness. If I stumble, if I run into things and fall and hurt myself it's because I can and I'm free to do so, Maximus. Because without that freedom I'm just a dull, chained thing and I won't be that woman anymore. I simply won't, Maximus. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

Not deciding to act would be identical with deciding not to act. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Deciding to spit in the eye of every homely matron who ever warned her children not to stare into the sun directly, you crank the titanic telescope around to look directly towards the sun, the center of our solar system. ~ Daniel Keidl