Everything Aint What It Seems Quotes

The thing is, what I'm tryin' to say is -
they do get on a lot better without me, I can't help them any. They ain't mean. They buy me everything I want, but it's now - you've-got-it-go-play-with-it. You've got a roomful of things. I-got-you-that-book-so-go-read-it. ~ Harper Lee

Some of you young folks been saying to me, 'Hey Pops, what you mean what a wonderful world? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? They ain't so wonderful either.' But how about listening to old Pops for a minute. It seems to me it ain't the world that's so bad, but what we're doing to it, and all I'm saying is see what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love, baby, love. That's the secret. Yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And man, this world would be a gasser. ~ Louis Armstrong

PRIOR: Why does everyone here play cards?
...
RABBI CHEMELWITZ: Cards is strategy but mostly a game of chance. In Heaven, everything is known. To the Great Questions are lying about here like yesterday's newspaper all the answers. So from what comes the pleasures of Paradise? Indeterminacy! Because mister, with the Angels, may their names be always worshipped and adored, it's all gloom and doom and give up already. But still is there Accident, in this pack of playing cards, still is there the Unknown, the Future. You understand me? It ain't all so much mechanical as they think. ~ Tony Kushner

Ben's dead," he says not moving or breaking his stare.

"And?"

"Just thought you should know," he says, looking at me in the eyes like he's waiting for me to confess.

"Thanks for waking me up to share the information," I tell him. "Where's Venessa?"

"At home," he says. "Needed to see you first, alone."

"Quit looking at me like that, partner," I tell him. "I ain't left this floor all night." Which isn't a lie. Ben's room is on this floor, but he doesn't know I know that.

"Even if you did, you know I wouldn't - "

"Partner," I tell him straight, letting him figure it out. "I didn't shut off his life support."

After he blinks several times he gives me that smirk. He looks around me to my sleeping wife and then back at me and tells me straight, too. "Go back to sleep partner. You look like shit."

With that he gets up and walks out.

Staring at the door he walks out of, I smile. He gets it. Turns out the staff at that front desk got it, too. They didn't stop my wife from doing what she needed to do; seems like they had other shit going at that time. Heard through the grapevine one of the women taken and held by Ben happened to work on this very floor. It also turns out the coffee pot wasn't working and it was an all hands on deck kinda thing to get it fixed. I get it, the women need their coffee. They also didn't run to his aid until I had my wife safe back in her bed. Those ~ K.S. Adkins

Yeah, they told us that time flies, didn't know what it means
Now I feel like we just running around tryna
Catch it and hoping to cut up its wings
But that ain't gon' happen
Joy, when was the last time we had it?
I don't remember 'cause all that we do
Is go backwards but that's what you get
When you live in the past
And I know we breathing but we not alive
Really, is this the way we wanna die?
'Til you got everything bottled inside
If only they knew what goes on in our minds
I know what you thinking so don't try to hide
Why do you look at me like you surprised?
If you really mean what you write in these lines
Why don't you fix it? 'Cause I'm getting tired
Yeah, I can no longer do this
Ever since you fell in love with the music
See, you find a way to express what you feel
But the moment that you get away from the mic
You don't know what you doing
Is it clear to you yet?
I don't know what's going on in your head
But eventually, you'll have to deal with the things
That you talk about yeah, but I guess until then, we're lost ~ Nathan Feuerstein (NF)

I was twenty now, and had given up all hope of being a singer or ever getting out of Aston. PA system or no PA system, it wasn't going to happen. I'd convinced myself that there was no point in even trying, because I was just going to fail, like I had at school, at work, and at everything else I'd ever tried. 'You ain't no good as a singer,' I told myself. 'You can't even play an instrument, so what hope d'you have?' ~ Ozzy Osbourne

Seems to me it ain't the world that's so bad but what we're doing to it, and all I'm saying is: see what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love, baby - love. That's the secret. ~ Louis Armstrong

We're on our own. An I feel calm. It seems crazy ... but I'm calm. Because now I see what I gotta do. An what I ain't gotta do, which is waste time thinkin that anybody's gonna help us. That somebody's gonna come along an rescue us. I cain't count on nobody but me. ~ Moira Young

Crooks stood up from his bunk and faced her. "I had enough," he said coldly. "You got no rights comin' in a colored man's room. You got no rights messing around in here at all. Now you jus' get out, an' get out quick. If you don't, I'm gonna ast the boss not to ever let you come in the barn no more."
She turned on him in scorn. "Listen, Nigger," she said. "You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?"
Crooks stared helplessly at her, and then he sat down on his bunk and drew into himself.
She closed on him. "You know what I could do?"
Crooks seemed to grow smaller, and he pressed himself against the wall. "Yes, ma'am."
"Well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny."
Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego--nothing to arouse either like or dislike. He said, "Yes, ma'am," and his voice was toneless.
For a moment she stood over him as though waiting for him to move so that she could whip at him again; but Crooks sat perfectly still, his eyes averted, everything that might be hurt drawn in. She turned at last to the other two. ~ John Steinbeck

Well, I've been to London and I've been to gay Paris

I've followed the river and I got to the sea

I've been down on the bottom of a world full of lies

I ain't looking for nothing in anyone's eyes

Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear

It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

I was born here and I'll die here against my will

I know it looks like I'm moving, but I'm standing still

Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb

I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from

Don't even hear a murmur of a prayer

It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

-Bob Dylan, "Not Dark Yet" (1997) ~ Bob Dylan

I tried to warn you,

But girls never listen.

Got your innocence insured?

'Cause it's 'bout to be stolen

Right out from under your nose.

Prepare to curl your toes.

I've got a one-track mind.

You've got a nice behind.

Chorus:

I had a good thing goin'

All numb in my shell,

Then you took me by surprise

And now I'm scared as hell.

I don't wanna feel for you,

I don't wanna feel.

If feeling means hurting,

Then I don't wanna be real.

You crank up my lust, girl,

You tame down my rage.

You let your inner vixen

Roam out of her cage.

The moment our lips met

I saw it in your eyes,

But you were seeing me,

too, I now realize.

Chorus

What do I want from you?

I want everything.

And I'm not gonna share -

This ain't a casual fling.

You can be my bad girl,

I'll even be your good boy.

How'd the tables get turned?

F*** it, I'll be your love toy. ~ Wendy Higgins

I ain't never been in no college with famous people. I was a drifter for a while. I just was desperate to fit in with a group. Really, I was swimming. I was lost, treading water, trying to find my way. I wanted to play football. It didn't work out. I didn't really know what I wanted until I found acting in a theater department, and then everything just fell into place, and I had a passion about something. Then, I started living my life. ~ John Goodman

Homer looked back at me. 'Pete, can I tell ya somethin' real important?'

'Sure, what is it?' I couldn't imagine what Homer was about to say.

He sat down on a rounded rock. I sat down too.

'One thing I've learned is that ya never know what's gonna happen to ya in this old life. Everything can change, just like that.' He snapped his fingers, loud and fast. 'You never know what might happen to ya and that dawg ah yers. Ya know what you should do? You ought to settle down here ... On my mountain.' His words were coming quickly and eagerly. 'I'll teach ya all the ways of livin' up here, and someday when ya get a place built, you can have yerself a family.'

Homer wasn't kidding me.

'And, besides, ya know I ain't gonna be here forever. When I leave, then you can take care of this place for me. You understand more than anyone why I love this place so much. I know ya wouldn't let them lumbermen and hunters come up here and hurt my place.'

There was a shell around Homer and reaching his heart was like breaking a granite boulder with your bare hands. But now, Homer's heart was breaking. After he finished he turned away from me. When he turned back, his questioning eyes were teary.

'Homer, what you just said was beautiful.' I looked down at my boots and rolled a rock back and forth under my heel. 'But, I don't know. I'll have to give it some serious thought, okay?'

As quickly as Homer had broken his s ~ Peter Jenkins

They'll get it all from you sooner or later 'cause they own this f**kin' place. It's a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club. By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good, honest, hard-working people: white collar, blue collar, it doesn't matter what color shirt you have on. ~ George Carlin

Everyone always knows what they're doing," he says abruptly, still not looking up from his hands, the little plastic pot and the old tattoo and the new white dressing on his left wrist. "You know what you're doing, you got your work and your friends and everything and miserable headfucky little teenage girly boys think you're amazing and, I don't know, you might've saved my life, who knows? I might be dead if it weren't for you and Olly but people can't keep looking after me all the time cos that ain't healthy neither, that's just as bad as people not giving a fuck at all. And, like... I'm trying to sort my head out and be a proper grown-up and get my degree and go to work and look after them kids and make sure my dad ain't kicking my sister round the house like a football but it's just so hard all the time, and I know I ain't got no right to complain cos that's just life, ain't it? Everyone's the same, least I ain't got money worries or nothing. I just don't know what I'm doing, everything's too hard. I can try and try forever but I can't be good enough for no one so what the fuck's the point? ~ Richard Rider

If I Ain't Got You"

Some people live for the fortune
Some people live just for the fame
Some people live for the power
Some people live just to play the game

Some people think that the physical things
Define what's within
And I've been there before
But that life's a bore
So full of the superficial

[Chorus:]
Some people want it all
But I don't want nothing at all
If it ain't you, baby
If I ain't got you, baby
Some people want diamond rings
Some just want everything
But everything means nothing
If I ain't got you

Some people search for a fountain
That promises "forever young"
Some people need three dozen roses
And that's the only way to prove you love them

Hand me the world on a silver platter
And what good would it be?
With no one to share
With no one who truly cares for me

[Chorus:]

If I ain't got you with me, baby
So nothing in this whole wide world don't mean a thing
If I ain't got you with me, baby ~ Alicia Keys

Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit. It? I ask. Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but a It. But what do it look like? I ask. Don't look like nothing, she say. It ain't a picture show. It ain't something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you cam feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found it. ~ Alice Walker

I been thinkin'," he said. "I been in the hills, thinkin', almost you might say like Jesus went into the wilderness to think His way out of a mess of troubles.
Seems like Jesus got all messed up with troubles, and He couldn't figure nothin' out, an' He got to feelin' what the hell good is it all, an' what's the use fightin' an' figurin'. Got tired, got good an' tired, an' His sperit all wore out. Jus' about come to the conclusion, the hell with it. An' so He went off into the wilderness."

"I ain't sayin' I'm like Jesus," the preacher went on. "But I got tired like Him, an' I got mixed up like Him, an' I went into the wilderness like Him, without no campin' stuff. Nighttime I'd lay on my back an' look up at the stars; morning I'd set an' watch the sun come up; midday I'd look out from a hill at the rollin' dry country; evenin' I'd foller the sun down. Sometimes I'd pray like I always done. On'y I couldn' figure what I was prayin' to or for. There was the hills, an' there was me, an' we wasn't separate no more. We was one thing. An' that one thing was holy."

"An' I got thinkin', on'y it wasn't thinkin, it was deeper down than thinkin'. I got thinkin' how we was holy when we was one thing, an' mankin' was holy when it was one thing. An' it on'y got unholy when one mis'able little fella got the bit in his teeth an' run off his own way, kickin' an' draggin' an' fightin'. Fella like that bust the holiness. But when they're all workin' together, not one ~ John Steinbeck

Ain't all that simple," he said. "It's everything I been brought up to be. Can't all be bullshit, can it?" Rydell, glancing over at him, took pity. "Naw," he said, "I guess it wouldn't have to be, necessarily, all of it, but it's just - " "What they bring you all up to be, Berry?" Rydell had to think about it. "Republican," he said, finally. ~ William Gibson

Free, I think. They're free.
(is this why she joined them?)
I feel so-
So relieved.
I pick up the pace as I near the opening, my hands gripping my rifle but I have a feeling I ain't gonna need it.
(ah, Viola, I knew I could count-)
Then I reach the opening and stop.
Everything stops.
My stomach falls right thru my feet.
"They're all gone?" Davy says, coming up beside me.
Then he see what I see.
"What the-?" Davy says.
The Spackle ain't all gone.
They're still here.
Every single one.
All 1150 of them.
Dead. ~ Patrick Ness

Marry me." A statement. Not a question. It came again. "Marry. Me." His eyes burned into
mine. I breathed in, my ears ringing. My pulse sped up, my heart raced, I was trying to remember exactly what breathing meant. I was wet, and I was gasping.
"I want you. I want that, what they had today. I want it all, and I want it with you. I want you, want you to be my wife. I've got a ring, I'll give it to you right now if you'll say yes." With every
word, his hands tightened on my hips, desperate, crazy, longing. "I had this all planned out, so much smoother and romantic and everything you deserve. But my head's been spinning since
yesterday, when I saw my best friend steal a van to go meet his new family. And all I want, all I've ever wanted, is exactly that. Exactly you. And when I walked up those stairs, and heard the
shower go on, and knew you were in here all naked and wet and waiting for me, I knew I couldn't wait another day, another hour, another minute, without asking you to be my wife. So. Marry. Me."
He knelt. Christ on a crutch, he knelt on the shower floor, where he had knelt countless times before . . . ahem . . . took my hand, and repeated those words
again. Finally, with a question mark at the end. "Marry me?"
And in that moment, I realized all the worrying, all the hand wringing and wonder ponder, all the thoughts about who says what's right for a couple, and when is it too soon, and when is it the right time, and if it ain't b ~ Alice Clayton

People are always thinking they can use the Lord to get their own way-- all they have to do is pray and God's gonna take away all their suffering and give them what they whatever they ask for. But it don't work that way. God's doing His business, and it's up to us to be serving Him, not the other way around."

Then why do people pray at all? My papa asked Jesus to help him escape with me when I was just a little girl. But Jesus didn't help us."

Praying ain't about asking for your own way. It's all about talking things over with God, just like you and me are talking things over. In the end, you have to be trusting the Lord to do what's best."

So the Lord thought it was best that my papa died and my mama was sold?"

Delia slowly shook her head. "I don't know, honey, I just don't know. The hardest thing of all to understand is why a loving God keeps letting us suffer... I don't know all the answers myself. I seen my share of suffering, believe me. But there two things I do know for sure. One is that God loves us... And the second thing is that God's always in control of everything that happens. When bad things come our way and it starts looking like He don't love us, all I can say is that maybe we ain't knowing everything He knows."

Kitty's tears started falling again. "I still don't understand."

Remember what you told me about the fighting up in Charleston? How you was standing on that porch, not able to see what's ~ Lynn Austin

Did Franny tell you about her and Gavin's problem?"
"Yes,I'm afraid I pried if out of her. You know that was a good idea you gave her. Too bad it didn't work."
"It didn't? Criminey, he must be made of stone!"
"She wasn't entirely without success. She got a rise out of him, that's for sure."
Willow grinned at Miriam's unintended pun.
The older woman pursed her lips by way of reprimand and continued. "Seems Franny jumped in bed with him in her natural state and he flew out the other side of the bed."
"Then what happened?"
"He threw his clothes on and left the room for safer territory, I guess."
"Damn! Sorry," Willow apologized for her lapse. "But I did mean damn. Darn just isn't strong enough to describe this here situation. Did you ever hear the like?"
"No,but perhaps we can think on it during your visit. Right now, we better get rolling before your father-"
"Woman,ain't you ready to leave yet?" Owen yelled through the door.
"Oh,hush up, you ole bad of wind," Miriam called back. ~ Charlotte McPherren

My boss seems to think that my hair is gonna fall off & go into the ice cream. This hair ain't movin' my dude. 150mph on the highway on a street bike it doesn't move! What makes you think it's gonna move in a gelato shop? ~ Pauly D

You know what they say about curiosity and cats. May not kill ya, but it'll get ya inta a heap a trouble around here, too. Though trouble seems ta find you even when you ain't lookin' for it. ~ Kami Garcia

When I'm making the music, I feel like everything I throw out has to work. It counts. Because if you don't have people turning they neck all the way around to see what it is, it ain't stick on the wall. ~ Raekwon

My basic political philosophy is, I ain't mad at that. Which basically means I don't have to have a strong opinion about everything. I'm too tired most of the time. Why do I have to take a stand on everything? Sometimes I'm just not mad at it. Like, What do you think about gay marriage? I ain't mad at you, you're gay and you're married: I ain't mad at you, go do it. ~ Larry Wilmore

I walk outside and the green on the trees seems greener, so potent I can almost taste it. Maybe I can taste it, and it is like the grass I decided to chew when I was a child just to see what it was like. I almost fall down the stairs because of the swaying and burst into laughter when the grass tickles my bare feet. I wander toward the orchard.
"Four!" I call out. Why am I calling out a number? Oh yes. Because that's his name. I call out again. "Four! Where are you?"
"Tris?" says a voice from the trees on my right. It almost sounds like the tree is talking to me. I giggle, but of course it's just Tobias, ducking under a branch.
I run toward him, and the ground lurches to the side, so I almost fall. His hand touches my waist, steadies me. The touch sends a shock through my body, and all my insides burn like his fingers ignited them. I pull closer to him, pressing my body against his, and lift my head to kiss him.
"What did they--" he starts, but I stop him with my lips. He kisses me back, but too quickly, so I sigh heavily.
"That was lame," I say. "Okay, no it wasn't, but…"
I stand on my tiptoes to kiss him again, and he presses his finger to my lips to stop me.
"Tris," he says. "What did they do to you? You're acting like a lunatic."
"That's not very nice of you to say," I say. "They put me in a good mood, that's all. And now I really want to kiss you, so if you could just relax--"
"I'm not going to kiss you. I'm going to figure ou ~ Veronica Roth

Some are perfectly satisfied with what they have; they eat, drink, impregnate their wives, and take life as it comes. Others can never forget that they are being cheated; that life tempts them to struggle by offering them the essence of sex, of beauty, of success; and that she always seems to pay in counterfeit money. ~ Colin Wilson

We've spoken of the Knights of the Holy Grail, Percival. Do you know what I was? The Knight of the Unholy Grail.
In times like these when everyone is wonderful, what is needed is a quest for evil.
You should be interested! Such a quest serves God's cause! How? Because the Good proves nothing. When everyone is wonderful, nobody bothers with God. If you had ten thousand Albert Schweitzers giving their lives for their fellow men, do you think anyone would have a second thought about God?
Or suppose the Lowell Professor of Religion at Harvard should actually find the Holy Grail, dig it up in an Israeli wadi, properly authenticate it, carbon date it, and present it to the Metropolitan Museum. Millions of visitors! I would be as curious as the next person and would stand in line for hours to see it. But what different would it make in the end? People would be interested for a while, yes. This is an age of interest.
But suppose you could show me one "sin," one pure act of malevolence. A different cup of tea! That would bring matters to a screeching halt. But we have plenty of evil around you say. What about Hitler, the gas ovens and so forth? What about them? As everyone knows and says, Hitler was a madman. And it seems nobody else was responsible. Everyone was following orders. It is even possible that there was no such order, that it was all a bureaucratic mistake.
Show me a single "sin."
One hundred and twenty thousand dead at Hiroshima? Where was ~ Walker Percy