Keeping Score Quotes

Relationships are about give and take; not tit-for-tat. If you're keeping score, you'll lose at your own game. ~ Faydra D. Fields

Quit keeping score altogether and surrender yourself with all your sinfulness to God who sees neither the score nor the scorekeeper but only his child redeemed by Christ. ~ Brennan Manning

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was so pissed off at what happened, at myself, I didn't think."
He stroked a hand down her hair first, then gave the choppy ends a quick tug. "I'm not angry with you."
"I know. You could be, but you're not. So I have to be even sorrier."
"Your logic is fascinating, and elusive."
"I can't pay you back with sex or salt-crusted sea bass or whatever because you're too busy taking care of me. So now I've got this black mark in my column against the bright shiny star in yours, and - "
He tipped her head up. "Are we keeping score?"
"No. Maybe. Shit."
"How am I doing?"
"Undisputed champ."
"Good. I like to win." He brushed her bangs back to study the injury himself. "You'll do. Let's eat. ~ J.D. Robb

With a book called 'Keeping Score,' I really did want to write a book about the Korean War, because I felt that it is the least understood war in the American cultural imagination. So I set out with the idea that Americans didn't know much about the Korean War and that I was going to try to fix a tiny bit of that. ~ Linda Sue Park

Gone, at least for the moment, was his view of the Holy One as a man swatting flies or trapping rats in the stable or flying into a temper as savage as any Assyrian king's. Gone too was the notion of the Holy One keeping score so exactingly that not even the angels could escape the severest penalties. In place of all this, at least for as long as it took him to go back into the house, he thought about how the Holy One, blessed be he, wishes the world and its creatures nothing but well. He thought also how, though never condoning the shadows that dwell in the human heart, he is forever dispatching angels of light to deal with them mercifully. ~ Frederick Buechner

I always apologized for my home to protect myself so people wouldn't think I was a slob, or at least so they would know that I acknowledge I can be a slob and that I'm not okay with it and that really I have much higher standards. . . . When I apologize for my home, I'm declaring to all within earshot that I'm not content. That I'm silently keeping score. ~ Myquillyn Smith

Keeping score is for games, not friendships. ~ John C. Maxwell

Even when you're keeping score, golf is all about focusing on the shot at hand, the total score being a sum of those shots. On magic mushrooms, each shot was an act of self-expression - a karate kick, a pirouette, a paintbrush stroke. The course was an aren, a stage, and a canvas.

That's the way it felt playing in the backcountry, too. Going beyond the simple visual appreciation of a landscape and interacting with it beyond the reach of the physical body. Launching shots across canyons and rivers and down mountainsides and beaches. The motion of the body determining the motion of the ball - its flight an extension of the body like a spider riding the wind on a silken thread or a perfectly cast fly arcing down onto the surface of the water.

This is the part of the game that is hard for nongolfers to see. You have to play to feel it. It isn't visible through the TV screen or from outside the picket fences and privet hedges. The forest gets lost in tress of tartan and argyle, visors and V-necks. Golf seems to be one thing but is very much another, and backcountry golf and mushroom night golf are as true to the nature of the game as any stuffy country club championship or Saturday Nassau or fourball. ~ John Dunn

And when they finally demanded that I had to stop keeping score and that I needed to play every future contest as an exhibition, I casually made the kind of statement sixteen-year-olds should not make to forty-six-year-old Midwestern housewives: "Why are you telling me how to do my job?" I asked. "It's not like I show up in your kitchen and tell you when to bake cookies. ~ Chuck Klosterman

I have concluded through careful empirical analysis and much thought that somebody is looking out for me, keeping track of what I think about things, forgiving me when I do less than I ought. Giving me strength to shoot for more than I think I'm capable of. I believe they know everything that I do and think, and they still love me, and I've concluded, after careful consideration, that this person keeping score is me ~ Adam Savage

A lady named Maude let me in the back,' he said. 'She's a firecracker, that one. Told me she's knitting trivets as a wild change of pace from scarves. If you're keeping score, that means changing from a rectangle all the way to a square. ~ Heather Cocks

The important thing is not to be masochistic. Women are so hard on themselves. Don't do that. No one is keeping score. ~ Simon Doonan

For a second, I stop fighting and think about what he's asking me. Did I live? I made a best friend. Lost another. Cried. Laughed. Lost my virginity. Gained a piece of magic, gave it away. Possibly changed a man's destiny. Drank beer. Slept in cheap motels. Got pissed off. Laughed some more. Escaped from the police and bounty hunters. Watched the sun set over the ocean. Had a soda with my sister. Saw my mom and dad as they are. Understood music. Had sex again, and it was pretty mind-blowing. Not that I'm keeping score. Okay, I'm keeping score. Played the bass. Went to a concert. Wandered around New Orleans. Freed the snow globes. Saved the universe. ~ Libba Bray

True friendship has no checks or balances. Once someone starts Keeping Score, the game is over. ~ Kate McGahan

And you can feel it in the air, they way the air has somehow been keeping score. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

Everybody is waiting for the end to come, but what if it already passed us by? What if the final joke of Judgment Day was that it had already come and gone and we were none the wiser? Apocalypse arrives quietly; the chosen are herded off to heaven, and the rest of us, the ones who failed the test, just keep on going, oblivious. Dead already, wandering around long after the gods have stopped keeping score, still optimistic about the future. ~ Jonathan Nolan

Keeping score of old scores and scars, getting even and one-upping, always makes you less than you are. ~ Malcolm Forbes

WHENEVER SOMEBODY STARTS KEEPING SCORE IN a relationship the relationship begins to die. ~ Donald Miller

I suppose if the relationship is between two people who are keeping score, then you are right - there will be a winner and a loser. However, if no one is keeping score, then no one loses. ~ Penny Reid

If it's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game, why keep score? ~ Ron Brackin

Being first is more important to me [than earning money]. I have so much money. Whatever money is, it's just a method of keeping score now. I mean, I certainly don't need more money. ~ Larry Ellison

Gumption is the most important thing for a thru-hiker to maintain. Compare rounds of golf, one played while keeping score and one in which you hit a mulligan every time you are unhappy with a shot. In the latter case, being on the golf course loses significance. Rounds that are memorable are the ones that you make count. In a broader context, all rounds of golf are of no consequence, whether score is kept or not. But you are the center of your own universe. You are free to create meaning for yourself. When you attempt to capture the highlights without burdening yourself with the tedium, the highlights lose the foundation that elevates them to the status of "highlight." Analogies abound because a focused attitude defines the quality of all that we do. In playing a game, dieting, or hiking the AT, you benefit ~ David Miller

If you're keeping score, win. ~ Red Auerbach

So you scream from behind your door, say what's mine is mine, and not yours
I may have too much, but I'll take my chances
Cause God's stopped keeping score
And you cling to the things they sold you
Didn't you cover your eyes when they told you that he can't come back
Cause he has no children to come back for
It so hard to learn, there's so much to hate
Hanging on to hope when there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it's much too late
So maybe we should all be praying for time ~ George Michael

Money. The ultimate motivation. The ultimate way of keeping score. ~ Michael Connelly

But if you believe in heaven then you have to believe someone's keeping score. And if someone's keeping score, if what we do really matters, then life ought to be fair. And I'm sorry it isn't. Shitty things happen to good people, and bad people never get what's coming to them. Don't tell me that there is a heaven as some sort of perverse reward for being good. That is bullshit of the highest caliber ~ Cassie Alexander

Being generous without keeping score strengthens your spirit, keeps you focused on the people who make your business what it is, and helps breed success. ~ Brandon Steiner

I Will Not Tease Rebecca Grimes

I have to write one hundred times:
"I will not tease Rebecca Grimes."
Okay, that's one. I'm far from done.
(This isn't gonna be much fun.)
"I will not tease Rebecca Grimes."
That's two. I'm paying for my crimes.
It's all because I pulled her hair
And put spaghetti on her chair.

Because I gave her goofy looks
And squirted mustard on her books,
I have to write one hundred times:
"I will not tease Rebecca Grimes."

That's three. Whoopee. It's going slow.
Just ninety-seven more to go.
"I will not tease" (I'm keeping score.)
"Rebecca Grimes." (Now that makes four.)

I'm soaked with sweat. My shirt is damp.
I think I'm getting writer's cramp.
"I will not, will not, will not tease
Rebecca Grimes!" Can I stop, please?

The teacher frowns, and that means no.
I still have sixty-six to go.
"I will-will-will not-not-not-not
Tease-tease-tease-tease..." It's getting hot.

"I will not tease Rebecca Grimes."
That's ninety-nine. The school bell chimes.
Just one more line and I'll be through.
Rebecca Grimes, this one's for you!
My final line will rhyme with "Grimes":
"I will not tease Rebecca...Slimes!"
Rebecca Slimes! Ha ha! That's great!
I'd better hide it. Oops! Too late!

The teacher sees what I wrote down.
She takes my paper with a frown.
I now mus ~ Dave Crawley

Life. It gives you vision. But you can't acquire it if you're afraid of keeping score. ~ Pat Summitt

To me, it's always what's next and I think that's what drives most very successful people. It's never about the money. I mean that's a way of keeping score. It's about achievement and it's about winning a game and it's about upping the ante. ~ Donny Deutsch

Love doesn't keep score," he challenged.
I shrugged my shoulders. "But people do ... ~ Donna Lynn Hope

One of the greatest joys of tennis is having a nice volley and not really keeping score, not really looking at the lines, but just catching up with each other. ~ Jane Kaczmarek

The sad truth is that most Christians spend their entire lives trying to score points with Someone who is not keeping score. ~ Wayne Jacobsen

No matter how old you get, if you can keep the desire to be creative, you're keeping the man-child alive. ~ John Cassavetes

With every beat of my heart, I believe she thought keeping her secret was in everyone's best interest. She thought the secret would be buried with her, never to be revealed. She thought wrong. ~ Misa Rush

Atticus adjusted his glasses as he peered down at the blanket. "Hey, is that the book Nellie told us about?"
Jake's eyes flicked to Olivia's book. "You've got it outside in the sun? Are you out of your minds?"
Amy crossed her arms. "We're being careful."
"It's not about careful, this is a five-hundred-year-old manuscript! You should be wearing gloves - Atticus brought some - and keeping it out of the sunlight."
"It didn't take you long to start barking orders!" Any exclaimed, her face flushing. "But then you always know best, don't you?"
"Somebody has to be mature in this situation," Jake said, his gaze flashing at Ian, who was now intently trying to brush cookie crumbs off his pants.
"True. In that case, we'd rather consult your little brother," Ian said with a smirk. "Medieval manuscripts are his field, am I right?"
"Technically, it's early Renaissance," Jake said.
"Thanks for the correction, my good man. Amy is right - you do know best." Ian slipped his arm around Amy. "She's so perceptive. One of the many things I adore about her."
"It's getting chilly. Why don't we go inside?" Amy suggested brightly as she tried to step out of the circle of Ian's arm.
Ian took the opportunity to rub her shoulder. "You do feel rather cold," he said. "Let's sit by the fire. Jake, since you're so interested in proper handling, why don't you take the book?"
Jake snatched up the book and furiously stomped off toward the house.
"You f ~ Jude Watson

Keeping pigeons without a licence is illegal as well, but we can't have people going round shooting pigeon-keepers, can we? It is the job of the RUC to enforce the law in Northern Ireland, not paramilitary groups, not vigilantes, not 'concerned citizens', it's our responsibility and ours alone," McCallister said which made me proud of him. Not quite tears-in-eyes but maybe warm-glow-in-tummy. ~ Adrian McKinty

A brick could be used as a bowling ball. With how bad I bowl, a rectangle ball couldn't possibly hurt my score, because in bowling you can't get a lower score than zero ~ Jarod Kintz

You had to stay awake married to him [Humphrey Bogart]. Every time I thought I could relax and do everything I wanted, he'd buck. There was no way to predict his reactions, no matter how well I knew him. As he'd said before our wedding, he expected to be happily married and stay that way, but he never expected to settle down. He liked keeping people off balance. He was good for me
I could never be quite sure what he would do. ~ Lauren Bacall

She paused as she realized he was looking at her. 'Am I doing something wrong?' 'No. I was just thinking how incredibly beautiful you are.' That didn't seem to please her as her gaze danced around in obvious discomfort. 'You're still drunk, aren't you?' He laughed. 'No. The hangover is starting to kick in. Head hammering like a mother.' 'Ah, that explains it.' 'What does?' 'Your eyesight's screwed up. I could probably take you into a retirement home and you'd be trying to score with Grandma right now.'
- Shahara & Syn ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Of course that is not the whole story, but that is the way with stories; we make them what we will. It's a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it's a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing it into time. Everyone who tells a story tells it differently, just to remind us that everybody sees it differently. Some people say there are true things to be found, some people say all kinds of things can be proved. I don't believe them. The only thing for certain is how complicated it all is, like string full of knots. It's all there but hard to find the beginning and impossible to fathom the end. The best you can do is admire the cat's cradle, and maybe knot it up a bit more. History should be a hammock for swinging and a game for playing, the way cats play. Claw it, chew it, rearrange it and at bedtime it's still a ball of string full of knots. Nobody should mind. Some people make a lot of money out of it. Publishers do well, children, when bright, can come top. It's an all-purpose rainy day pursuit, this reducing of stories called history. ~ Jeanette Winterson

Exercise plays a huge role in keeping me sane, and that's my primary motivation to 'find time.' ~ Jessica Scorpio

No one's better than me. I'm not better than anyone. Whether it's Eric Clapton or BB King we look straight at each other. And that keeps it real. ~ Carlos Santana

Let's just say I haven't been keeping up the Gary Barlow persona; I've let loose. ~ Liam Payne

People who are drawn to meditation have had lots of incarnation in the world of experience, and we know the score. We know that experience is great, but it's not enough. ~ Frederick Lenz

He tries to force the anger down, but it's like an anvil on his chest. He closes his eyes, like Sammy taught him, and forces the anvil up; he softens. ~ Chris Crutcher

Strifes will arise through the period. Watch for them near the Davis Strait in the attempts there for the keeping of the life line to land open. Watch for them in Libya and in Egypt, in Ankara and in Syria, through the straits about those areas above Australia, in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. ~ Edgar Cayce

It is worth noting that the standard American tests of success that they have flunked are almost exclusively economic. If one applied social indices instead - such as rates of crime, child abuse, illegitimacy, and divorce - the Hmong would probably score better than most refugee groups (and also better than most Americans), but those are not the forms of success to which our culture assigns its highest priority. ~ Anne Fadiman

My late Uncle Henry, you see, was by way of being the blot on the Wooster escutcheon. An extremely decent chappie personally, and one who had always endeared himself to me by tipping me with considerable lavishness when I was at school; but there's no doubt he did at times do rather rummy things, notably keeping eleven pet rabbits in his bedroom; and I suppose a purist might have considered him more or less off his onion. In fact, to be perfectly frank, he wound up his career, happy to the last and completely surrounded by rabbits, in some sort of a home. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Long life for a man is impossible without keeping the laws of the flesh. ~ Sunday Adelaja

Thinking it Ranulf, she tugged the garment down and beamed the incomer a smile. The smile changed to one of shock at seeing her sisters-both up and already dressed.
Seeing her initial jubilant welcome, Edythe snorted and rubbed her arms vigorously in an attempt to get warmer. Lily, on the other hand, laughed. "Sorry. You obviously hoped we were someone else," she mumbled, not meaning it at all.
Tyr poked his head in and, looking at Edythe, said, "We are to be leaving soon.Be ready."
Edythe issued him a scowl and rubbed her very red nose. "I heard you the first five times," she moaned. "The man does not believe in sleep and cannot seem to get it through his head that some do," she added, speaking to Bronwyn but keeping her gaze on him.
Tyr arched a single brow and stepped inside. "I sleep,just not all day."
Edythe sniffed.She wasn't feeling her best, but she was not about to let Tyr chide her without consequences. "You may have been the one standing beside me at the alter, but that doesn't give you permission to act like my husband."
"I know your husband well, and Garik's going to feel the same way," Tyr responded, crossing his arms.
Edythe lifted her chin and several locks of her red hair fell around her shoulders. "Not after I'm done with him. He'll be glad to have a wife. And the fact that I like to sleep in bed, he's going to consider a bonus." Then with a manufactured flair, she stepped around him and plopped down on the fur blankets wit ~ Michele Sinclair

There is scarcely a person on Earth who has not heard of UFOs; many believe in them. Few, however, can say much about them. Fewer still-even believers-can find much time to think about them. Life finds a way of keeping us occupied with other matters. ~ Richard M. Dolan

Angel ... I don't think you understand the lengths I would go to if it means keeping you here with me.'
-Patch (PG 262) ~ Becca Fitzpatrick

Promises are empty words if you're not keeping them. ~ Mike Ditka

Your credit score takes into account years of information in most cases. It's not going to improve in a day. But it may improve more quickly than you think. Generally, the last 24 months carry the most weight, so if you can keep clean for that long, you'll see a boost. ~ Jean Chatzky

How much of our lives is consumed with meeting people, attracting people, keeping people and missing people? Usually, when everything is resolved romantically in one of my books, the characters stop talking in my head, and I stop telling the story. ~ Susanna Kearsley

A lot of artists give up because it's just too damn hard to go on making art in a culture that by and large does not support its artists. But the people who don't give up are the people who find a way to believe in abundance rather than scarcity.
They've taken into their hearts the idea that there is enough for all of us, that success will manifest itself in different ways for different sorts of artists, that keeping the faith is more important than cashing the check, that being genuinely happy for someone else who got something you hope to get makes you genuinely happier too. ~ Cheryl Strayed

Life is not fair, but one day God's going to settle the score. He's going to right the wrongs. So, who can get better justice - you or God? ~ Rick Warren

Anyone whose mission is keeping people apart is swimming against a very strong tide. ~ Russell Simmons

Oh I love gadgets and I pride myself on keeping at the cutting edge of technology. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

John Kerry keeping a low profile this week. He said he wanted to get away and go someplace where no one would expect to see him. So I guess he showed up at his old seat in the Senate. Nobody's going to look for him there. ~ Jay Leno

The only time I can't sleep is on a plane, when I am literally keeping it in the air with my brain. ~ Natalie Massenet

I know my mother would be overwhelmed by the continued outpouring of kindness and I want to thank everyone for keeping us in their prayers. ~ Melissa Rivers

My generation is the first in my species to have put fitness next to godliness on the scale of things. Keeping in shape has become the imperative of our middle age. The heaviest burden of guilt we carry into our forties is flab. Our sense of failure is measured by the grade on a stress test. ~ Ellen Goodman

An aphorism that does not score is just one more sentence. ~ Mason Cooley

Nightingales are put in cages because their songs give pleasure. Whoever heard of keeping a crow? ~ Rumi

Three or four plays cause the momentum to shift. We turned it over and gave Baylor a cheap score. ~ Bill Vaughan

If people in power are artfully pulling a red herring to cover up the cataclysm of their commitments, keeping people on a short leash and driving them playfully into an alley of false promises, we would do well to rely on attentive and considerate observers who send out alarm signals in time to prevent social corrosion. (" High noon. ") ~ Erik Pevernagie