Down Person Quotes

I hear that old song I've heard all my life: You're not good enough. You're not good enough. But that voice is a lie. And it's a terrible guide. When I listen to it, I burn the candle at both ends and try to light the middle while I'm at it. The voice of God invites us to full, whole living - to rest, to abundance, to enough. To say no. To say no more. To say I'm going to choose to live wholly and completely in the present, even though this ragged, run-down person I am right now is so far from perfect. ~ Shauna Niequist

1. Close Friend, someone who got yo back, yo "main nigga."
2. Rooted in blackness and the Black experience. From a middle-aged social worker: "That Brotha ain like dem ol e-lights, he real, he a shonuff nigga"
3. Generic, neutral refrence to African Americans. From a 30 something college educated Sista: "The party was live, it was wall to wall niggaz there"
4. A sista's man/lover/partner. from the beauty shop. "Guess we ain gon be seein too much of girlfriend no mo since she got herself a new nigga" From Hip Hop artist Foxy brown, "Ain no nigga like the on I got."
5. Rebellious, fearless unconventional, in-yo-face Black man. From former NBA superstar Charles Barkley, "Nineties niggas... The DailyNews, The Inquirer has been on my back... They want their Black Athletes to be Uncle Tom. I told you white boys you've never heard of a 90s nigga. We do what we want to do" quoted in The Source, December 1992).
6. Vulgar, disrespectful Black Person, antisocial, conforming to negative sterotype of African Americans. From former Hip Hop group Arrested Development, in their best-selling song, "People Everyday" 1992: A black man actin like a nigga... got stomped by an African"
7. A cool, down person, rooted in Hip Hop and black culture, regardless of race, used today by non-blacks to refer to other non-Blacks.
8. Anyone engaged in inappropriate, negative behavior; in this sense, Blacks may even apply the term to White folk. According to African Ame ~ H. Samy Alim

Jiko: "Surfer, wave, same thing."
"That's just stupid, " I said. " A surfer's a person. A wave is a wave. How can they be the same?"
Jiko looked out across the ocean to where the water met the sky. "A wave is born from deep conditions of the ocean. A person is born from deep conditions of the world. A person pokes up from the world and rolls along like a wave, until it is time to sink down again. Up, down. Person, wave. ~ Ruth Ozeki

We have now well established the fact in our own nation that one can do more work in six days, even in five, than in seven. A run-down person is an unproductive person. ~ Charles L. Allen

I start to run, and my nose fills with the smell of rain and wet earth. I run along the shoulder of the highway in an easy rhythm, and the rain gathers up on my forehead and eyebrows; it flows down my face, it drips from the tip of my nose. There is wet dirt, a puddle in the gravel, new grass pushing through old in the ditch. Violets grow along the edge of the road. To my right, the Little Jib River flows brown and swollen to the lake. The water moves ceaselessly, and I move along with it. To my left, across the road, the rain strips wilted cherry blossoms from the rows and rows of trees, and drops them to the ground. ~ Jon Harrison

Whew, is it cold in here, or is it just me? Trouble in paradise, princess?" I felt my face heat, and Puck shook his head. "Well, don't drag me into it. I learned long ago that you don't get in the middle of a lover's spat. Nothing ever goes as planned - people fall in love with the wrong person, someone ends up with a donkey head, and then it's a whole big mess. ~ Julie Kagawa

There were no mad flashings of the eye, no lunatic grimace passed over his face. He was not out of his mind, which was so clear and buoyant that he asked himself why he wanted to do it at all. And he said to himself that he wanted to do it because he was evil, thoroughly evil. And he smiled as he said it and was content. He looked quite innocent, like any happy person. ~ Patrick Suskind

Obviously there are exceptions, but I suspect that for many people the main reason they cling to religion is not that it is consoling, but that they have been let down by our educational system and don't realize that non-belief is even an option. ~ Anonymous

I like the idea that a song can be something that you can lean on, both for the songwriter and for the person who hears the song. ~ Rostam Batmanglij

My mother, who taught me how to read and write and home-schooled me for the first 12 years of my life, whose presence shaped me as much as her absence did, who imbibed in me the values of empathy and fearlessness and hard work, looks down on me today with great pride. ~ Sharad Vivek Sagar

Where am I going to grow a garden in a penthouse?"
"Next time I visit I'll fix you up a spot in one of the corners. You won't even know it's there until its time to harvest."
"Wonderful." But then it occurred to her. "Jenny, next time you visit?"
"What? What is it?" Jennifer asked.
Christine half stuttered. "You have never been to my penthouse."
"Really?" Jennifer thought back when something came to mind. "Well, what was that great big building we went to the last time we visited? You know, we went all the way to the top."
"That was the Empire State building."
"No fooling? Huh, what do you know? Well you should move in there, it was beautiful as I recall."
"You can't move into the Empire State building."
"Oh, that's right," Jennifer soon realized, "those mean terrorists tore it down. My, that was just awful. ~ Carroll Bryant

My father's
absence was an unspoken void that lived within our
walls, and although I longed for the day I, too, would fall
in love, I was fearful. What if the person who would
someday hold my heart disappeared too? ~ Jennifer Murgia

I have been writing my whole life: stories and plays and sketches and scripts and poems and jokes. Most feel alive. And fluid. Breathing organisms made better by the people who come into contact with them. But this book has nearly killed me. Because, you see, a book? A book has a cover. They call it a jacket and that jacket keeps the inside warm so that the words stay permanent and everyone can read your genius thoughts over and over again for years to come. Once a book is published it can't be changed, which is a stressful proposition for this improviser who relies on her charm. I've been told that I am "better in the room" and "prettier in person." Both these things are not helpful when writing a book. I am looking forward to a lively book-on-tape session with the hope that Kathleen Turner agrees to play me when I talk about some of my darker periods. One can dream. ~ Amy Poehler

One could be forgiven for supposing that rationality (or, more softly, 'reasonableness') is irrelevant – and even possibly opposed – to being a good lover. This is perhaps because we tend to think of love as a feeling, rather than as an achievement of intelligence. A reasonable or rational person is not one who is only interested in logic, or someone who tries in a cold, robotic fashion to substitute calculation and analysis for kindness or yearning. We are reasonable when we are moved by accurate explanation. Thus a reasonable person is slow to anger; they do not jump to conclusions ~ Alain De Botton

Not every gay person recites poetry or has read Keats. You can get readers through anything if the characters are complicated. You can't dismiss Josey Wales' quite liberal worldview. ~ Marlon James

Society has put before you the ideal of a 'perfect man'. No matter in which culture you were born, you have scriptural doctrines and traditions handed down to you to tell you how to behave. You are told that through due practice you can even eventually come into the state attained by the sages, saints and saviors of mankind. And so you try to control your behavior, to control your thoughts, to be something unnatural. ~ U.G. Krishnamurti

With every person we engage, in everything we do, we must be kinder than expected, more generous than anticipated, more positive than we thought possible. Every moment in front of another human being is an opportunity to express our highest values and to influence someone with our humanity. We can make the world better, one person at a time. There ~ Robin S. Sharma

I stared down the wall, which did not stare back at me. I wouldn't let her rattle me. The cart barely had any books on it, and the ones there were just tossed on, upside down, disorganized. It hurt to look. ~ Nova Ren Suma

Embrace what success means to you. Not to the person next to you. ~ Monika Kristofferson

Beware of those who speak negatively about everything and everybody. A negative person will never say a positive thing about you. ~ Suzy Kassem

We live, in North America in general, if I'm given the indulgence of selling us down the river, in a culture of fear of this connective sense of spirit. ~ Alanis Morissette

Nick looked for his coat on the rack.I snagged mine and shrugged it on without stopping.I swung open the front door of the restaurant.The frigid night wind blew snow into my eyes.
"Hayden," Nick called me.
"Close the door," hollered the couples in the booths nearest us.
I let go of the door handle, then turned to Nick in the warm room. When he just stood there,staring down at me,I walked back to him.
"On second thought,"he said, "I don't know about this."
I was not going to get dissed again.I said brightly, "Oh,don't be scared.It's easy!" I jerked his puffy parka down from the rack and held it open for him. "Try one arm at a time."
Glaring at me,he took the coat and shrugged it on. "Close the door!" shouted the couples around us as we walked outside. ~ Jennifer Echols

Shukhov had been told that this old man'd been in camps and prisons more years than you could count and had never come under any amnesty. When one ten-year stretch was over they slapped on another. Shukhov took a good look at him close up. In the camp you could pick him out among all the men with their bent backs because he was straight as a ramrod. When he sat at the table it looked like he was sitting on something to raise himself up higher. There hadn't been anything to shave off his head for a long time-he'd lost all his hair because of the good life. His eyes didn't shift around the mess hall all the time to see what was going on, and he was staring over Shukhov's head and looking at something nobody else could see. He ate his thin gruel with a worn old wooden spoon, and he took his time. He didn't bend down low over the bowl like all the others did, but brought the spoon up to his mouth. He didn't have a single tooth either top or bottom-he chewed the bread with his hard gums like they were teeth. His face was all worn-out but not like a goner's-it was dark and looked like it had been hewed out of stone. And you could tell from his big rough hands with the dirt worked in them he hadn't spent many of his long years doing any of the soft jobs. You could see his mind was set on one thing-never to give in. He didn't put his eight ounces of bread in all the filth on the table like everybody else but laid it on a clean little piece of rag that'd been washed over and over agai ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Acquittal. The kourtroom broke into a loud cheer. The judge just gave up calling for order. He had to wait for the shouting to die down. It was a long time coming. All the spectators were jumping around hugging each other. The marshals led me out of the courtroom and handcuffed me. They brought me back to Rikers Island where i was put into solitary confinement. ~ Assata Shakur

We're sisters. Sisters are supposed to tell." "Yes, but I'm the oldest." She went into some complicated upside-down yoga pose. "Oldest sisters are supposed to be perfect." "Says who?" "Older sisters. ~ Jill Shalvis

When a person becomes happy, the world becomes lighter! If all becomes happy, the world will be weightless! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

IS THERE ANYTHING MORE TOXIC THAN THE FEAR of being judged? Judgment shuts us down and makes us hide. It keeps us from being ourselves, which keeps us from connecting with other people. ~ Donald Miller

I've never seen any life transformation that didn't begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

If I came to your town and asked any person on the street, "Which church should I go to if I want to get involved in helping the poor or homeless in this community?" would your church be the first one mentioned? Make this identity your goal. ~ Dillon Burroughs

As time passed, I learned more and more about the culture that comes with beign an injured veteran. There are a lot of really wonderful people and organizations to help veterans returning from war. Right about the time I started to really move forward in my recovery, two women came by and introduced themselves. They explained that they raise money to help injured veterans with various needs. They asked if there was anything I or my family needed. I said, "No thank you, I'm all good." But my sisters piped up and said, "He needs clothes. He doesn't have anything." The women smiled and said they'd be back. They came back with some sweatpants and a shirt and then announced that they were taking us to the mall. This would be my first time leaving the campus of Walter Reed, my first real trip out of the hospital. We were all excited. Leaving the hospital was a big step for me but my poor sisters had been cooped up much of the time with me in there as well. I was a little nervous, but I owed it to them to push aside my anxiety.
We decided that the electric wheelchair would be too heavy and too much trouble to get in and out of the car, so Jennifer wheeled me down to the front door where the ladies were waiting in their car. With very little assistance, Jennifer was able to get me for that chair into the car and we were off to the mall. When we arrived, my sisters pulled the wheelchair out of the trunk and placed it next to the car door. They opened the door and Jennifer leaned ~ Noah Galloway

Did you know you just put the peel in the pan and the potatoes down the waste disposal?' he enquired with interest.
'It's a new recipe.'
His lips twitched but his expression remained solemn. 'The results should be...interesting. ~ Kim Lawrence

Mr. Severin smiled, tiny constellations of reflected chandelier lights glinting in his eyes. "Since I've told you about my tastes... what are yours?"
Cassandra looked down at her folded hands in her lap. "I like trivial things, mostly," she said with a self-deprecating laugh. "Handiwork, such as embroidery, knitting, and needlepoint. I sketch and paint a little. I like naps and teatime, and taking a lazy stroll on a sunny day, and reading books on a rainy afternoon. But I would like two have my own family someday, and... I want to help other people far more than I'm able to now. I take baskets of food and medicine to tenants and acquaintances in the village, but that's not enough. I want to provide real help to people who need it." She sighed shortly. "I suppose that's not very interesting. Pandora's the exciting, amusing twin, the one people remember. I've always been... well, the one who's not Pandora. ~ Lisa Kleypas

What think you? Can beauty be taken from a man? If he could not touch, taste, smell, hear, see ... what if all he knew was pain? Has that man had beauty taken from him?"
"I ... " What did this have to do with anything? "Does the pain change day by day?"
"Let us say it does," the messenger said.
"Then beauty, to that person, would be the times when the pain lessens. Why are you telling me this story?"
The messenger smiled. "To be human is to seek beauty, Shallan. Do not despair, do not end the hunt because thorns grow in your way. Tell me, what is the most beautiful thing you can imagine?"
...
"I see," the messenger said softly. "You do not yet understand the nature of lies. I had that trouble myself, long ago. The Shards here are very strict. You will have to see the truth, child, before you can expand upon it. Just as a man should know the law before he breaks it. ~ Brandon Sanderson

When everyone in the world spoke the same language, God came down in judgment, breaking the world apart. But at just the right time, he came down again, this time to reconcile that sinful world to himself. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

After washing each other, tenderly, they made love again, him pressing her into the wall as water rained down on them, caressing their skin with warmth. ~ Josie Leigh

A man in chains need not be a slave. If he has pride and self-respect he is a free man though a prisoner, and a constant danger to his jailers. Conversely, a slave who escapes is not a free man, but a runaway slave who may be caught and returned to servitude. A slave is one who accepts the identity ascribed to him by a master: You are an inferior and unworthy person and so will remain, and therefore must serve me with obedience and humility. ~ Allen Wheelis

If you withdraw the incredible focus on polio, it will spread back, and in poor countries you'll get something like 100,000 cases a year. So by being very intense and getting the cases down to zero, what you do is you avoid all the future cases. ~ Bill Gates

What a mess. Truths are messy and lies are messy, and I don't care what Da said, it's impossible to cut a person into pielike pieces, neat and tidy. ~ Victoria Schwab

If my feet ever left the ground, my mother would soon put them back down. ~ Douglas Booth

Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. ~ Thucydides

Let's let everybody believe what they want to believe. And that means, P.C. police, don't you be coming down on people who believe in God and who believe in Jesus. ~ Ben Carson

People get dumped all the time, and it sucks, but you know what you do? You cry; you smash a few plates; you go to a karaoke bar and make a fool of yourself. However you choose to deal with it, it's your shit to handle. It's your burden to carry. You don't drag other people down with you. You don't turn up on the doorstep in the middle of the night acting like a raving lunatic. ~ Lang Leav

Human beings have a right to change their consciousness, and it is unconscionable and absolutely wrong for any government or any person to stand in the way of someone choosing to change their consciousness. ~ Timothy Leary

One of the things I wanted to do with 'The Turn' was write a production of songs that could be stripped down to one or two instruments if you chose to do it. ~ Alison Moyet

Surely you know the feeling of infatuation. Everyone does. It's not merely physical admiration. Your mind fixes on a person, and it's as though you float through the days, singing a song that only has one word, thinking of nothing but the next time you'll see them again ~ Tessa Dare

If you love a person, you love him in his stark reality, and refuse to shut your eyes to his defects and errors. ~ John Macmurray

The marketing geniuses on the corporate side of the country music labels had decided to start using focus groups to test their products before they were developed or released. An example of this would be to ask the focus group whether they liked sad songs or happy songs. "We like happy songs!" the focus group would chirp, and the word would go back to the writers and producers to come up with "happy" songs to record. This made it especially hard on the songwriters, who rarely feel a need to write when they are happy, as then they are busy luxuriating in the pleasure of happiness. When something bad happens, they want to find a way to transcend it, so they write a song about it. When Hank Williams, one of the greatest and most successful country artists of all time, wrote a song like "Your Cheatin' Heart" or "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," he wasn't writing "happy" songs, yet they made the listener feel better. The listener could feel that someone else had gone through an experience similar to the listener's own, and then went to the trouble and effort to write it down accurately and share the experience like a compassionate friend might do. In this way, hearing a song like "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" could make the listener feel better, or "happy. ~ Linda Ronstadt

We all came from houses with doors, doors that were supposed to be closed when there were things going on that we weren't supposed to see, and when our pants were down. ~ Lynette Fromme

Rather, I think one should write, as nearly as possible, as if he were the first person on earth and was humbly and sincerly putting on paper that which he saw and experienced and loved and lost; what his passing thoughts were and his sorrows and desires. ~ Jack Kerouac

The trouble with her is that either she thinks that at last she's got to that spot or place or that moment in her life where everything's like a fairy tale come true, that nothing can go wrong, that she'll never be unhappy again; or else she's down in the dumps, a woman whose life is ruined, who's never known love and happiness and who never will again. ~ Agatha Christie

But it's true, kingdoms and crowns, a God who came down to find you. It's true, angels on high sing through the night, Alleluia. ~ Sara Groves

The non-disclosure of emotional pain can be deeply traumatic. It leads to depression. In such situations of vulnerability, one must choose to speak to a person you trust. Someone who could care for you and heal you. ~ Avijeet Das

I let people down easy with inspiration. ~ David Hasselhoff