Had It Right Quotes

That old queer Nietzsche had it right: Christianity was, at the end of the day, a feminine religion. ~ Michel Houellebecq

All one wants to do is make a small, finished, polished, burnished, beautiful object ... I mean, that's all one wants to do. One has nothing to say about the world, or society, or morals or politics or anything else. One just wants to get the damn thing done, you know? Kafka had it right when he said that the artist is the man who has nothing to say. It's true. You get the thing done, but you don't actually have anything to communicate, apart from the object itself. ~ John Banville

And this must be Avery?"
"Oh, God, no," Cam said. "This is Candy, Mom."
His mother's eyes widened and a bit of color infused her cheeks. "Uh, I'm ... "
"I'm Avery," I said, shooting Cam a look. "You had it right."
She spun around, smacking Cam across the arm. Hard, too. "Cameron! Oh my God. I thought ... " She smacked him again and he laughed. "You're terrible. ~ J. Lynn

Adrienne Rich had it right. No one gives a crap about motherhood unless they can profit off it. Women are expendable and the work of childbearing, done fully, done consciously, is all-consuming. So who's gonna write about it if everyone doing it is lost forever within it? You want adventures, you want poetry and art, you want to salon it up over at Gertrude and Alice's, you'd best leave the messy all-consuming baby stuff to someone else. Birthing and nursing and rocking and distracting and socializing and cooking and washing and gardening and mending: what's that compared with bullets whizzing overhead, dazzling destructive heroics, headlines, parties, ~ Elisa Albert

The Buddhists had it right all along. The world is an illusion. ~ Dr. Leon Patterson

If it please you, the lady's name again? says Reginald. His quill is poised. If God had come to Reginald and not to Moses in the burning bush, he would have asked him how to spell the great I AM so he'd be sure he had it right. ~ Frederick Buechner

Daffy bent down suddenly, and picked a small startled white flower. "Anemone," he said, handing it over; he made her repeat the word until she had it right. "Find me a silk to match that. ~ Emma Donoghue

I think Samuel Johnson had it right when he observed that hope is itself a species of happiness. So if we want to be happy it only makes sense to discipline ourselves to choose our attitudes, to think positively and to be hopeful. ~ Michael Josephson

I think maybe Gladstone had it right. I think my father did. They understood that the meaning of life is connected, inextricably, to the meaning of death; that mourning is a romance in reverse, and if you love, you grieve and there are no exceptions---only those who do it well and those who don't. ~ Thomas Lynch

Ronnie had it right calling it Torture. That is a much more accurate description the way I see it. ~ Ronald Coase

Mae West had it right - try anything once, do it again if you like it. ~ Sindra Van Yssel

I think that Ronald Reagan had it right, being against abortion except in certain limited, defined circumstances. ~ John Bolton

When I then turned toward the scriptures, they appeared to me to be quite unworthy to be compared with the dignity of Tully. For my inflated pride was repelled by their style, nor could the sharpness of my wit penetrate their inner meaning. Truly they were of a sort to aid the growth of little ones, but I scorned to be a little one and, swollen with pride, I looked upon myself as fully grown. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

I relived those memories repeatedly until I could breathe in his presence all around. The thought that I had lost him forever was a constant dull pain. May be poets had it right. Love was pain in disguise. I revered it, as there was pleasure in that pain. ~ Preethi Venugopala

People think I'm crazy to put myself through such torture, though I would argue otherwise. Somewhere along the line we seem to have confused comfort with happiness. Dostoyevsky had it right: 'Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.' Never are my senses more engaged than when the pain sets in. There is a magic in misery. Just ask any runner. ~ Dean Karnazes

Shakespeare had it right all along: Love will kill you in the end. ~ Raquel Cepeda

Lampedusa had it right - things had to seem to change so that things could remain the same. ~ Donna Leon

I was reminded just why God wants us to forgive. Not simply because it's the key to a better world, but because of what it does for ourselves. Forgiveness is God's gift to us. Christ forgave us. He forgave our sins. That was his gift. But by allowing us to forgive each other, he opened us up to that divine love. The article had it right. Forgiveness: It's a miracle drug. It's God's miracle drug. ~ Gayle Forman

With the Truman book, I wrote the entire account of his experiences in World War I before going over to Europe to follow his tracks in the war. When I got there, there was a certain satisfaction in finding I had it right - it does look like that. ~ David McCullough

Are you thinking about when I kissed you?"
Her lips part. "No."
I keep walking toward her, waiting for her to stop me. "No? You don't want me to hold you in my arms, press my lips to yours, and remind you how good we fit?" She doesn't move and now we're just a breath apart.
I could kiss her right now.
I could do everything I've wanted to.
But I won't make a fool of myself again.
"No, I don't."
She's lying, but I'll let her have it.
"The next time I kiss you, London Parish, it'll be because you beg me to," I promise her. ~ Melanie Harlow

What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country ... he knows that ... the Democrat party is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a victim ... This guy clearly understands he's getting all the attention and he understands he's got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder
but something lesser. ~ Rush Limbaugh

Paul reached out his hand and introduced himself. And without waiting to be introduced she whipped out her hand and said, "Hi! I'm Jamie Boyd!" And right away she was talking a mile a minute. She was so chipper I couldn't help but smile. I was like that little dog in Looney Toons who is always following the big bulldog around shouting, "What are we going to do today, Spike?" She was adorable. She started firing off questions, one of which really caught my attention.
"So you were in the Army? What was your MOS?" she asked.
Now, MOS is a military term most civilians have never heard. It stands for Military Occupational Specialty. It's basically military code for "job." So instead of just asking me what my job was in the Army, she knew enough to specifically ask me what my MOS was. I was impressed.
"Eleven Bravo. Were you in?" I replied.
"Nope! But I've thought about it. I still think one day I will join the Army. ~ Noah Galloway

The only art I'm interested in is the art I don't understand right away. If you understand it right away it really has no use except as nostalgia. ~ Lawrence Weiner

Teachers dread nothing so much as unusual characteristics in precocious boys during the initial stages of their adolescence. A certain streak of genius makes an ominous impression on them, for there exists a deep gulf between genius and the teaching profession. Anyone with a touch of genius seems to his teachers a freak from the very first. As far as teachers are concerned, they define young geniuses as those who are bad, disrespectful, smoke at fourteen, fall in love at fifteen, can be found at sixteen hanging out in bars, read forbidden books, write scandalous essays, occasionally stare down a teacher in class, are marked in the attendance book as rebels, and are budding candidates for room-arrest. A schoolmaster will prefer to have a couple of dumbheads in his class than a single genius, and if you regard it objectively, he is of course right. His task is not to produce extravagant intellects but good Latinists, arithmeticians and sober decent folk. The question of who suffers more acutely at the other's hands - the teacher at the boy's, or vice versa - who is more of a tyrant, more of a tormentor, and who profanes parts of the other's soul, student or teacher, is something you cannot examine without remembering your own youth in anger and shame. yet that s not what concerns us here. We have the consolation that among true geniuses the wounds almost always heal. As their personalities develop, they create their art in spite of school. Once dead, and enveloped by the comfor ~ Hermann Hesse

We were broken, brittle and fragile. The question was, were we still precious to each other? Or, instead of everything falling into place, had it fallen into pieces? ~ Megan Hart

He considered her ruthless, in his moments of pain, but also in moments of happiness, experienced mere feet from her but bound right wrist to left ankle by her rules: nothing could evolve, nothing could be consummated, nothing repressed could surface, nothing previously accepted could be ignored. One must not speak of it, in case one could no longer sing of it. Instead, she only kept directing his attention to the wondrously charged air they could tame and make dance between them. ~ Arthur Phillips

The left and the right live in parallel universes. The right listens to talk radio, the left's on the Internet and they just reinforce one another. They have no sense of reality. I have now one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet. ~ Barney Frank

This is where you first failed us. You gave us minds and told us not to think. You gave us curiosity and put a booby-trapped tree right in front of us. You gave us sex and told us not to do it. You played three-card monte with our souls from day one, and when we couldn't find the queen, you sent us to Hell to be tortured for eternity. That was your great plan for humanity? All you gave us here was daisies and fairy tales and you acted like that was enough. How were we supposed to resist evil when you didn't even tell us about it? ~ Richard Kadrey

I support, defend, and admire prostitutes, gay or straight. They do important and necessary work, whether moralists of the Left and Right like it or not. Feminists who think they can abolish the sex trade are in a state of massive delusion. Only a ruthless, fascist regime of vast scale could eradicate the rogue sex impulse that is indistinguishable from the life force. Simply in the Western world, pagan sexuality has survived 2000 years of Judaeo-Christian persecution and is hardly going to be defeated by a few feminists whacking at it with their brooms. ~ Camille Paglia

If I knew exactly what I know now and had it to do over, I'd be a switch hitter. No telling what I could have done. ~ Hank Aaron

Parks waits a long while, until he's absolutely certain that Justineau's monologue is finished. The truth is, for most of the time he's been trying to figure out what it is exactly that she's trying to tell him. Maybe he was right the first time about where they were heading, and Justineau airing her ancient laundry is just a sort of palate-cleanser before they have sex. Probably not, but you never know. In any case, the countermove to a confession is an absolution, unless you think the sin is unforgivable. Parks doesn't.

"It was an accident," he tells her, pointing out the obvious. "And probably you would have ended up doing the right thing. You don't strike me as the sort of person who just lets shit slide." He means that, as far as it goes. One of the things he likes about Justineau is her seriousness. He frigging flat-out hates frivolous, thoughtless people who dance across the surface of the world without looking down.

"Yeah, but you don't get it," Justineau says. "Why do you think I'm telling you all this?"

"I don't know," Parks admits. "Why are you telling me?"

Justineau steps away from the parapet wall and squares off against him – range, zero metres. It could be erotic, but somehow it's not.

"I killed that boy, Parks. If you turn my life into an equation, the number that comes out is minus one. That's my lifetime score, you understand me? And you … you and Caldwell, and Private Ginger f**king Rogers … my God, whe ~ M.R. Carey

I may not always be right, but when I am, I admit it ~ Ken Murray

Right now fear, doubt, anxiety, tension and disharmony are reigning supreme.
But there shall come a time when this world of ours will be flooded with peace.
Who is going to bring about this radical change?
It will be you: you and your sisters and brothers.
You and your oneness-heart will spread peace throughout the length and breadth of the world. ~ Sri Chinmoy

I used to know a carnival man turned preacher who said the key to his success was understanding the people of what he called Snake's Navel, Arkansas. He said in Snake's Navel, the biggest thing going on Saturday night was the Dairy Queen. He said you could get the people there to do damn near anything
pollute their own water, work at five-dollar-an-hour jobs, drive fifty miles to a health clinic
as long as you packaged it right. That meant you gave them a light show and faith healings and blow-down-the-walls gospel music with a whole row of American flags across the stage. He said what they liked best, though
what really got them to pissing all over themselves
was to be told it was other people going to hell and not them. He said people in Snake's Navel wasn't real fond of homosexuals and Arabs and Hollywood Jews, although he didn't use them kinds of terms in his sermons. ~ James Lee Burke

When you start to fall, don't try to talk yourself out of it. The right man will be there at the bottom, to catch you. ~ Julie Johnson

It must be admitted frankly that Aunt Becky was not particularly beloved by her clan. She was too fond of telling them what she called the plain truth. And, as Uncle Pippin said, while the truth was all right, in its place, there was no sense in pouring out great gobs of it around where it wasn't wanted. To Aunt Becky, however, tact and diplomacy and discretion, never to mention any consideration for any one's feelings, were things unknown. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Call it fate, inevitability, whatever; right now, I knew that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and my soul felt like it took in a deep breath to remember the moment. ~ Jeaniene Frost

The Quiet Girls"

Were we never wolves? No, we never were.
We never let ourselves be lured into a lair.
We never licked honey off an eyetooth

just for the sweet. We never swallowed
our own blood with the honey. We were
neither animal nor stone. We were ephemeral,

motes in light, breath in winter. Drifting
was safe travel; we knew it then, and we were right.
The earth slowed its spinning and we stayed on.

Trenches yawned, and we skirted them. We survived
the meteor shower - no fragments fell on us.
Still we float like spores, always aloft and away. ~ Catherine Pierce

The discovery of each other brings a kind of peace, because it brings the certitude that we are right. We are stronger together ... we will have less doubts. This seemed deeply true, yet I wonder if it is good to ally similarities, one agreeing with the other, as twins might, so that this might give an illusion of balance, reassure us about our orientation, or whether we should seek this by contrast with others, ~ Anais Nin

A lot of the lessons that are taught in football will promote success in anything you get into after football; for me, it just happens to be music. Being disciplined. Good character. Trying to do the right thing, and working hard. ~ Sam Hunt

We all have a bit of Adam and Eve in us. Sooner or later we come to a point in our youth when we lose our innocence and it feels like we've been kicked out of the Garden. Whether we admit it or not, all of us want to make our way back home to that time again. But innocence lost is difficult to find. Nevertheless, we look for it. We long for it, dream of it, and are haunted by it. Occasionally we glimpse it again, perhaps in the laughter of a child, the first snowfall of the holiday season, or when we hold a little puppy in our arms. And then in a flash it vanishes and we miss it all the more. But I'd like to think that if we can get our lives just right and become who we were always supposed to be -- if we become the people we dreamed of being when we were young and pure and innocent, then and only then do we find our way home again. I don't think many make it. There are just too many distractions and obstacles. Yet I've come to believe that the worst we can do is to give up looking for it. ~ Tom Ryan

I hope I get to watch porn with you, Abs?" he said, eyebrows up. "Am I hearing this right? I just want to make sure I understand what it is you imagine I'm thinking." She ~ John Darnielle

I don't feel it is right that I'm playing knowing that I'm not 100% and I cannot currently operate at the level I have done in the past. My priority now is to take a break from cricket so that I can focus on my recovery ~ Jonathan Trott

To my complete and utter surprise, the writing on his door is gone.
Vanished.
"What happened?" I ask.
It takes him a second before he realizes what I'm asking. "I washed it off," he explains.
"You what?"
"I wasn't going to, but I didn't want the super to give me a hard time. Plus, I thought it might freak out some of my neighbors. You have to admit, death threats on doors can be pretty offensive, generally speaking. Not to mention the sheer fact that it made me look like a total asshole - like some old girlfriend was trying to get even."
"Did you take pictures at least?"
"Actually, no." He cringes. "That probably would've been a good idea."
"But Tray saw the writing, right?"
"Um . . ." He nibbles his lip, clearly reading my angst.
"You told me he was with you last night. You said you called him."
"I tried, but he didn't pick up, and I didn't want you to worry."
"So, you lied?" I snap.
"I didn't want you to worry," he repeats. "Please, don't be upset."
"How can I not be? We're talking about your life here. You can't go erasing evidence off your door. And you can't be lying to me, either. How am I supposed to help you if you don't tell me the truth?"
"Why are you helping me?" he asks, taking a step closer. "I mean, I'm grateful and all, and you know I love spending time with you, be it death-threat missions or pizza and a movie. It's just . . . what do you get out of it? What's this sudden interest in my ~ Laurie Faria Stolarz

They are our brothers, these freedom fighters ... They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance. We cannot turn away from them, for the struggle here is not right versus left; it is right versus wrong. ~ Ronald Reagan

This world was not designed to die; sin did that. But Jesus has beaten sin, and it gave Him the right to put on the imperishable as those verses describe. I believe the Resurrection is true. Jesus is alive. ~ Dee Henderson

The Supreme Court has said that: Marriage is the most important relation in life. Now that's being withheld from the plaintiffs. It is the foundation of society. It is essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness. It's a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights and older than our political parties. One of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause. A right of intimacy to the degree of being sacred. And a liberty right equally available to a person in a homosexual relationship as to heterosexual persons. ~ Ted Olson

Everybody says love is about finding the person who is right for me and then everything will be fine. But it's not like that. It involves work. An old man tells you this! ~ Alain Badiou

So, they have the same vibe of like that fun kind of spirit, but this one's a lot more serious. It's like, get it done, get it done right, you know? It's got to be perfect. We definitely do lots of takes on this. ~ Mary Elizabeth Winstead

We haven't got to the Sunflowers yet, said Michael.
No, we haven't, she said. You're right. OK, so Vincent hoped to set up an artists' studio down there in the South because he was keen to have friends and like-minded people around him.
I think he was probably lonely, said Michael. What with the ear thing and the darkness.
I think he was, too, said Dora. 1888 was the year, and he was waiting for another artist to join him, a man called Paul Gauguin. People say that, in all probability, he painted the Sunflowers as decoration for Gaugain'S room. Did lots of versions of them too, not just this. It's a lovely thought, though, isn't it? Some people say it's not true but I like to think it is. Painting flowers as a sign of friendship and welcome. Men and boys should be capable of beautiful things.
Never forget that, you two, she said, and she disappeared into the kitchen. ~ Sarah Winman

Part of the practice of modest faith, in times of suffering, is relinquishing our right to answers. God has never promised to explain himself, but he has promised to stay near. I will never leave, he says; I will never forsake. I am the friend that sticks closer than your brother. Do not think me unmoved by your grief. These are the faithful assurances of God as we have them in Scripture, and here is even more hope available to those willing to search it out. But let's not be fooled to think that God has promised things like: it will get better, you'll soon see the purpose behind this pain, there's never more than you can handle. Often it does get better; often we do see purpose; always there is sufficient grace. But lament must practice the modest faith of finding sufficient that which God provides, even if, in seasons of great sorrow, it may not seem like enough." … ~ Jen Pollock Michel

Right." A soft, choked laugh. "Kind of ruins the dramatic effect if I'm storming off in the wrong direction, doesn't it? ~ Kelley Armstrong

Not quite understanding how, he knew what he needed to do. He didn't get it. The feeling - the epiphany - was a strange one, foreign and familiar at the same time. But it felt ... right. ~ James Dashner

You know, the way I feel, if I read a science fiction book by a new writer which is a lot better than what I do, instead of going on a bummer right away and saying, "Oh Christ, I'm obsolete, I'm outdated, I've lost it." I have this tremendous sense of joy. I don't have to write all the great goddamn science fiction in the world. Somebody else is going to carry this torch. It's such a relief to sit with my feet up on the wall and to know that if I never wrote another book science fiction is going ahead. ~ Philip K. Dick

She looked up. "Oh, right," she said, nodding. I think she hadn't expected the conversation about Daisy to be over so quickly. But I didn't want to talk about it anymore. ~ R.J. Palacio

I get it. You have the right to have guns. But look, let's forget that right. Let's forget the pleasure you get safely on your range, because it's in the wrong hands in other places. ~ Matthew McConaughey

Hullo!" said Merry. "So that's what is bothering you? Now, Pippin my lad, don't forget Gildor's saying - the one Sam used to quote: Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."
"But our whole life for months has been one long meddling in the affairs of Wizards," said Pippin. "I should like a bit of information as well as danger. I should like a look at that ball."
"Go to sleep!" said Merry. "You'll get information enough, sooner or later. My dear Pippin, no Took ever beat a Brandybuck for inquisitiveness; but is it this time, I ask you?"
"All right! What's the harm in my telling you what I should like: a look at that stone? I know I can't have it, with old Gandalf sitting on it, like a hen on an egg. But it doesn't help much to get no more from you than a you-can't-have-it-so-go-to-sleep!"
"Well, what else could I say?" said Merry. "I'm sorry, Pippin, but you really must wait till the morning. I'll be as curious as you like after breakfast, and I'll help you in any way I can at wizard-wheedling. But I can't keep awake any longer. If I yawn any more, I shall split at the ears. Good night! ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

It is the absolute right of India to misgovern herself. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Will you tell them about that far off and mythical land And how a child to the virgin came? Will you tell them that the reason why we murdered Everything upon the surface of the world Is so we can stand right up and say we did it in his name? ~ Andy Partridge

But how?" my students ask. "How do you actually do it?"
You sit down, I say. You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively. So you sit down at, say, nine every morning, or ten every night. You put a piece of paper in the typewriter, or you turn on the computer and bring up the right file, and then you stare at it for an hour or so. You begin rocking, just a little at first, and then like a huge autistic child. You look at the ceiling, and over at the clock, yawn, and stare at the paper again. Then, with your fingers poised on the keyboard, you squint at an image that is forming in your mind
a scene, a locale, a character, whatever
and you try to quiet your mind so you can hear what that landscape or character has to say above the other voices in your mind. ~ Anne Lamott

It is unsettling to find how little it takes to defeat success in medicine. You come as a professional equipped with expertise and technology. You do not imagine that a mere matter of etiquette could foil you. But the social dimension turns out to be as essential as the scientific
matters of how casual you should be, how formal, how reticent, how forthright. Also: how apologetic, how self-confident, how money-minded. In this work against sickness, we begin not with genetic or cellular interactions, but with human ones. They are what make medicine so complex and fascinating. How each interaction is negotiated can determine whether a doctor is trusted, whether a patient is heard, whether the right diagnosis is made, the right treatment given. But in this realm there are no perfect formulas. ~ Atul Gawande

If it is difficult to know yourself as an individual, it seems to be more complex as a couple. So if you say, "Oh I like a person who is like this and that," you might take away the possibility of seeing the only one that might be right for you. ~ Jack Nicholson

I was standing above Chuck with his right eyebrow on my T-shirt when his eyes shot open. Lightning fast, Margo grabbed his comforter and threw it over him, and when I looked up, the little ninja was already out the window. I followed as quickly as I could, as Chuck screamed, "MAMA! DAD! ROBBERY ROBBERY!" I wanted to say, The only thing we stole was your eyebrow, but I kept mum as I swung myself feetfirst out the window. ~ John Green