Matters Quotes

He surveyed me, his eyes half closed, as if wondering if I were a delicious snack. I had an image of a massive dragon circling me slowly, eyes full of magic fixed on me as he moved, considering if he should bite me in half.
"Dragons." Rogan snapped his fingers.
Oh crap.
"I wondered why I kept getting dragons around you." He leaned forward. His eyes lit up, turning back to their clear sky blue. "You think I'm a dragon."
"Don't be ridiculous." My face felt hot. I was probably blushing. Damn it.
His smile went from amused to sexual, so charged with promise that carnal was the only way to describe it. I almost bolted out of my chair.
"Big powerful scary dragon."
"You have delusions of grandeur."
"Do I have a lair? Did I kidnap you to it from your castle?"
I stared straight at him, trying to frost my voice. "You have some strange fantasies, Rogan. You may need professional help."
"Would you like to volunteer?"
"No. Besides, dragons kidnap virgins, so I'm out." And why had I just told him I was not a virgin? Why did I even go there?
"It doesn't matter if I'm the first. It only matters that I'll be the last."
"You won't be the first, the last, or anything in between. Not in a million years."
He laughed.
"Rogan," I ground out through my teeth. "I'm on the clock. My client is in the next room mourning his wife. Stop flirting with me."
"Stop? I haven't even started. ~ Ilona Andrews

Just when I despaired -- she was there, filling me as a melody fills a cottage. I was with her, running beside the Acis when we were a child. I knew the ancient villa moated by a dark lake, the view through the dusty windows of the belvedere, and the secret space in the odd angle between two rooms where we sat at noon to read by candlelight. I knew the life of the Autarch's court, where poison waited in a diamond cup. I learned what it was for one who had never seen a cell or felt a whip to be a prisoner of the torturers, what dying meant, and death.

I learned that I had been more to her than I had ever guessed, and at last fell into a sleep in which my dreams were all of her. Not memories merely -- memories I had possessed in plenty before. I held her poor, cold hands in mine, and I no longer wore the rags of an apprentice, nor the fuligin of a journeyman. We were one, naked and happy and clean, and we knew that she was no more and that I still lived, and we struggled against neither of those things, but with woven hair read from a single book and talked and sang of other matters. ~ Gene Wolfe

There's no such thing as median income; there's a curve, and it really matters what side of the curve you're on. There's no such thing as the middle class. It's absolutely vanishing. ~ Marc Andreessen

This is an accessible work of philosophy in the best sense, sharply focused on matters of vital human concern and free of the domain tics that mar even allegedly popular works by Anglo-American philosophers. ~ Mark Lilla

It doesn't matter who you used to be; what matters is who you decide to be today. You are not your mistakes. You are not your mishaps. You are not your past. You are not your wounds. You can decide differently today and at every moment. Remember that. You are offered a new opportunity with each breath to think, decide, choose and act differently – in a way that supports you in being all that you are capable of being. You are not less than. You are enough. ~ Brittany Josephina

Life with a man is more businesslike after it, and money matters work better. And then, you see, if you have rows, and he turns you out of doors, you can get the law to protect you, which you can't otherwise, unless he half-runs you through with a knife, or cracks your noddle with a poker. And if he bolts away from you
I say it friendly, as woman to woman, for there's never any knowing what a man med do
you'll have the sticks o' furniture, and won't be looked upon as a thief. ~ Thomas Hardy

I do not want to give my power, my self-esteem, or my autonomy, to any person, place, or thing outside myself. [ ... ] The only thing that matters is how I feel about myself, my personal integrity, and my relationship with my Creator. ~ Ashley Judd

These matters having been arranged, I had a temporary awning erected near the river, and was for three or four days busily employed writing an account of our journey for the Governor's information. ~ Charles Sturt

Know now what matters, and it is not what I have lost. It is my memories. Wounds heal. Love lasts. ~ Kristin Hannah

But there's quality behind Dustin's eyes when he talks, a dimness, like the slow fade of a dying flashlight. Like someone forgot to replace the batteries in Dustin's face. This kind of emptiness can only be filled with heartache and struggle and I-don't-know-what...the enormity of things. The shit-stink of life. And neither the enormity nor the shit-stink can be found in a pancake breakfast. Pain is what matters. ~ David Arnold

Conscious discipline creates control and clarity to act intentionally. ~ Tony Dovale

Everything that informs us of something useful that we didn't already know is a potential signal. If it matters and deserves a response, its potential is actualized. ~ Stephen Few

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson ~ Catherine E. McLean

From a multidimensional perspective our relationships with other people are simulations of our relationship with ourselves, yet also our relationship with ourselves is a simulation of our relationship with other people, and our relationship with ourselves and other people are also simulations of our relationship with our doubles existing in parallel universes, and all these relationships are simulations of our relationship with God, and ...
yes, it is all rather complicated, yet what matters in the end is that Love prevails. ~ Franco Santoro

I think, we can only write very personal matters through our experience. When I named my first novel about my son A Personal Matter, I believe I knew the most important thing: there is not any personal matter; we must find the link between ourselves, our personal matter, and society. ~ Kenzaburo Oe

We are shocked by thieves taking pride in their clever touch, prostitutes in their depravity and murderers in their callousness. But it is shocking only because the atmosphere of the circles they move in is restricted, and - what matters most - we are on the outside. But isn't the same thing happening when rich men take pride in their wealth (which is theft), military commanders in their victories (which are murder) and rulers in their power (which is violence)? We do not see them as people who corrupt the concept of life, or good and evil, in order to justify their own situation, but only because the circles of people who share these corrupt concepts are wider, and we belong to them. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Woman's Anthem
Women are fierce. They are powerful. No matter what language they speak, how they dress, or the work they choose to do. What matters is they have a choice, and the freedom to carve out a life for themselves.
As long as we know women who are strong and resilient, we must respect them, carry them forward, lift them up.
For they are the product of all our other selves, the women we were, the ones we strive to be, the collective struggle of our mothers, our sisters, our daughters.
Our salvation will only come if we stand together ~ Lang Leav

It is not how much you are paid that matters. But how much you get done that is most important. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

You don't need validation or approval from anyone but yourself. Even if the entire world goes against, disagrees with or attempts to crush you, stand up for what you believe in, and stand up alone if you have to! It's better to die while living your own truth than to live in the truth of another. Lord Krishna in the holy Bhagavad Gita pointed this out when he said;

"It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection."

Integrity is the key to freedom. It's only your own truth that can 'set you free.' It's perfectly fine if your truth doesn't match that of others because the experience of physical reality is a completely subjective one. It doesn't make either of you wrong, as long as you're both being true to yourselves, that's all that matters. ~ Craig Krishna

Sadly, our culture raises man to be strong and silent. Straight or gay, the pressure is on from the time we're very young to become our culture's John Wayne-style of man.
* The more pain I can take, the more of a man I am.
* Showing feelings is for women.
* The more I can drink, the manlier I am.
* Intimacy is sex; sex is intimacy.
* Only women depend on others.
* A man takes care of himself without help from others.
* No one can hurt you if you're strong.
* I am what I earn.
* It is best to keep your problems to yourself.
* Winning is all that really matters.
Where did this stuff come from? It's everywhere in our society from the movies heroes we love to the politicians we vote for. Our culture demands that man fit in a tightly defined role. ~ Alan Downs

I do not know why it matters that I should tell the truth to myself at night, why it should matter that the truth should be spoken at least once in the world. Because the world is a place of silence, the sky at night when the birds have gone is a vast silent place. Words will make the slightest difference to the sky at night. They will not brighten it or make it less strange. And the day too has its own deep indifference to anything that is said. ~ Colm Toibin

secularism should be understood as the view that: government should not involve itself with religious matters; religious doctrine should play no role in shaping public policy or in the discourse about public policy; and religious institutions and beliefs should not enjoy a privileged position within society. ~ Ronald A. Lindsay

The Chinese public is deeply nationalist, which matters to China's unelected political leadership as much as U.S. nationalism does to American politicians. As China becomes the world's largest economy, there is meaningful public pressure for its power status to advance in parallel. Any alternative would be humiliating. ~ Noah Feldman

I don't know. I love the idea of democracy, the hope, yes, I love that. I couldn't live without that. But the country? You mean the thing on the map, lines, everything inside the lines is good and nothing outside them matters? How can an adult love such a childish idea? ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

It is not what we do but how we feel doing what we do that matters. ~ Abdulazeez Henry Musa

It seems like we can't experience reality no matter how hard we try. Because illusion is always waiting at the end of the tunnel. ~ Mwanandeke Kindembo

What, then, of the priest's iconic representation of Christ at the altar? If there is no specifically masculine or feminine charism or ontology, the significance of the priest's maleness fades away. What matters - as patristic Christology recognized centuries ago with its dictum, 'That which is not assumed [by the Son of God in the incarnation] is not healed' - is that Christ became human, assuming and thereby healing the nature common to men and women. Although biologically a man, Christ assumed human nature in such a way as to include both men and women in his salvific work. And that means, in turn, that to refuse to allow a woman to preside at the Eucharist may be to say much more than opponents of women's ordination realize - namely, 'that women are not adequate icons of Christ.' The result, notes [Sarah] Hinlicky Wilson near the end of her book, is nothing less than 'to leave both their humanity and their salvation in doubt.' If women can't reflect the human nature of Christ at the altar, how then can they trust Christ's human nature to save them at all? ~ Wesley Hill

For humans, honesty is a matter of degree. Engineers are always honest in
matters of technology and human relationships. That's why it's a good idea
to keep engineers away from customers, romantic interests, and other people
who can't handle the truth. ~ Scott Adams

Well, it's an anomaly! He must have received the wrong dosage. That's what happens when you put these matters in the hands of morons. ~ Wodke Hawkinson

My own answer to the contrarian question is that most people think the future of the world will be defined by globalization, but the truth is that technology matters more. ~ Peter Thiel

Be happy, nothing else truly matters. ~ Nityananda Das

Don't bother too much about your feelings. When they are humble, loving, brave, give thanks for them; when they are conceited, selfish, cowardly, ask to have them altered. In neither case are they you, but only a thing that happens to you. What matters is your intentions and your behavior ~ C.S. Lewis

You see, the outcome of the battle is unimportant. What matters is the chaos, and the slaughter. ~ Neil Gaiman

What makes me feel alive and connected to God's voice and spirit in this world is creating opportunities for the people I love to rest and connect and be fed at my table. I believe it's the way I was made, and I believe it matters. For many years, I didn't let it matter, for a whole constellation of reasons, but part of becoming yourself, in a deeply spiritual way, is finding the words to tell the truth about what it is you really love. ~ Shauna Niequist

For I've realized more and more with each year I've lived: There is no worthier work for the person who has been geared with the ability to see even a small part of God's mercy than to serve Him and to keep vigil and to pray for those people whose sight is still clouded by the shadow of worldly matters. ~ Sigrid Undset

Though experience be our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact; it must be acknowledged, that this guide is not altogether infallible, but in some cases is apt to lead us into errors. ~ David Hume

A powerful portfolio of physiological and behavioural evidence now exists to support the case that fish feel pain and that this feeling matters. In the face of such evidence, any argument to the contrary based on the claim that fish 'do not have the right sort of brain' can no longer be called scientific. It is just obstinate. ~ John Webster

Losing you is most difficult for me, but the nature of my love for you is what matters. If it distorts into half-truth, then perhaps it is better not to love you. I must keep my mind but loose you. ~ Haruki Murakami

Too many people have refused to begin running or have quickly dropped out of running programs because they 'have no talent for it.' Ridiculous. Talent has nothing to do with it. The only thing that matters is mental discipline. ~ Amby Burfoot

What really happened doesn't matter. What matters is how we agree to remember it. ~ Leila Sales

I have seen so much obstructed potential among people who lack personal discipline, who just slough it off, whatever it is, and who think that nothing matters very much. I want my daughter to have what I think of as a capacity for self-discipline. Not the sort of self-discipline that diminishes her own wild passions, but that makes it safer for her to own those wild passions. ~ Marianne Williamson

'Thank you' is often an admission that you needed something that wasn't being fulfilled or you couldn't do on your own, so you needed someone else. There is also guilt. We think, 'Well, too much time has gone by, and it doesn't matter,' but it does. It always matters. ~ Elizabeth Banks

Nothing matters so much that we should throw ourselves into a state of panic about it.
No happening is so important that we should let ourselves be exiled
from from inner peace and mental calm for its sake. ~ Paul Brunton

People are lot like peanuts...
It's not what's on the outside that matters, and that damn shell just gets shucked into the trash anyhow. ~ Alan VanMeter

Its not what the universe gives us that matters, but what we give the universe ~ Lauren Myracle

Do not discuss the religious matters with people; do not waste your valuable time to discuss the untruth! Your time is short; spend it for the science and the art! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

There is no darkness in this place that we're bound
Love is the only thing that matters ~ Dan Fogelberg

With voice acting it just matters what your voice can do. There are some things that I won't get over other people because my register isn't as deep as other people. So if someone wants a deep, dark, brooding villain voice then they are probably not going to pick me. ~ Ashly Burch

Wild keeps a man on his toes … causes him to always pay attention, not take a single thing for granted. When a man gets complacent, he can lose sight of what matters most. ~ K. Bromberg

You'll be alive', he pointed out. 'That's what matters. Enjoy what you have, every little detail of wherever you are. Don't focus on where you aren't. ~ Richelle Mead

One of the common themes you will read in interview after interview is the call to keep fighting for your vision. This is a message to women directors, producers, writers - anyone who wants to work in the business. Your voice counts. Your vision matters. ~ Melissa Silverstein

What matters is not the enclosure of the work within a harmonious figure, but the centrifugal force produced by it
a plurality of language as a guarantee of a truth that is not merely partial. ~ Italo Calvino

For those of us with introverted tendencies, many think that hard work and good results is what matters most. It would be great if that were the case, but it's wrong to believe that to be true. Superb performance on the job is important, but if you don't have a supportive network, you're in for some big disappointments. We speak to people continuously who suffer from the missing component of good networking in their career path. Those people find that their missed opportunities or promotions are demoralizing and certainly frustrating. ~ Dorothy Tannahill-Moran

Is that it?" he demanded, in sudden rage. "Is that all that matters? Not that I am in love and tumbled like a fool into sin. Not that I can never be happy, married to a snake and in love with a heartbreaker, but only, only, that Mistress Anne Boleyn's reputation must be without blemish." At once she flew at him, her hands spread like claws, and he caught her wrists before she could rake his face. "Look at me!" she hissed. "Didn't I give up my only love, didn't I break my heart? Didn't you tell me then that it was worth the price?" He held her away but she was unstoppable. "Look at Mary! Didn't we take her from her husband and me from mine? And now you have to give up someone too. You have to lose the great love of your life, as I have lost mine, as Mary lost hers. Don't whimper to me about heartbreak, you murdered my love and we buried it together and now it is gone." George ~ Philippa Gregory

If in the place of God we write "Reality", "Nature", "Unknowable", or "Zero", it matters not one whit; the equation is just as obscure; for all we have done is to replace a by b, c, d, or e, not knowing what these letters mean. The symbol has changed, but what it symbolizes remains as inscrutable. ~ J. F. C. Fuller

There's a mess inside you:
You clean the outside. ~ Anonymous

I wanted to tell you about it because science is really important. Without it, we don't understand anything, so how can we get anything right or make any good decisions? Some people think science is boring, some people think it's dangerous - and if we don't get interested in science and learn about it and use it properly, then maybe it is those things. But if you try and understand it, it's fascinating, and it matters to us and to the future of our planet. ~ Lucy Hawking

Channel Firing
BY THOMAS HARDY
That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgment-day

And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, "No;
It's gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:

"All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.

"That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them's a blessed thing,
For if it were they'd have to scour
Hell's floor for so much threatening....

"Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need)."

So down we lay again. "I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,"
Said one, "than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!"

And many a skeleton shook his head.
"Instead of preaching forty year,"
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
"I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer."

Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, ~ Thomas Hardy

When self control is lacking in small things, the ability to apply it to matters of importance withers away. Every day in which one does not at least deny himself some trifle is badly spent and a threat to the day following. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

As one old gentleman put it, Son, I don't care if you're stark nekkid and wear a bone in your nose. If you kin fiddle, you're all right with me. It's the music we make that counts. ~ Robert Fulghum

Work on your goals, one step at a time. Remain focused and do not stop. You will be amazed how much you can accomplish over the years. In most things in life, it is not the speed but the consistency that matters. ~ Roopleen

I was arguing not that everyone should read books by ladies - though shifting the balance matters - but that maybe the whole point of reading is to be able to explore and also transcend your gender (and race and class and orientation and nationality and moment in history and age and ability) and experience being others. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Sadly, if President Obama is willing to ignore the pain of race-based discrimination and injustice so as to make whites comfortable - and this, after he has already been elected and the campaign is long over - then the likelihood he will ever speak the truth about these matters, let alone address them, shrinks to nearly zero. ~ Tim Wise

Kathel, you have the face of a scoundrel." Her eyes drifted slowly over his face and landed for a moment on his full lips. "With lips created for sin."
"Keirah," he whispered, gently squeezing her hands. "Talk like that is not helping matters. ~ Madison Thorne Grey

World power means nothing. Only the unsayable, jeweled inner life matters. ~ Rumi

If my children think I'm genuine, no one else's opinion matters to me. ~ Beth Moore

What matters Death, if Freedom be not dead?
No flags are fair, if Freedom's flag be furled.
Who fights for Freedom, goes with joyful tread
To meet the fires of Hell against him hurled. ~ Joyce Kilmer

As smart as I am, it took a boy stuck in his house to teach me that sometimes it doesn't matter where you are at all. It only matters whos with you. ~ John Corey Whaley

Nevertheless, there are many respects, in tiny and contemptible matters, where our curiosity is provoked every day. How often do we slip, who can count? How many times we initially act as if we put up with people telling idle tales in order not to offend the weak, but then gradually we find pleasure in listening. I now do not watch a dog chase a rabbit when this is happening at the circus. But if by chance I am passing when coursing occurs in the countryside, it distracts me perhaps indeed from thinking out some weighty matter. The hunt turns me to an interest in the sport, not enough to lead me to alter the direction of the beast I am riding, but shifting the inclination of my heart. Unless you had proved to me my infirmity and quickly admonished me either to take the sight as the start for some reflection enabling me to rise up to you or wholly to scorn and pass the matter by, I would be watching like an empty-headed fool. When I am sitting at home, a lizard catching flies or a spider entrapping them as they rush into its web often fascinates me. The problem is not made any different by the fact that the animals are small. The sight leads me on to praise you, the marvellous Creator and orderer of all things; but that was not how my attention first began. It is one thing to rise rapidly, another thing not to fall. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

Style means the right word. The rest matters little. ~ Jules Renard

Art is the act of doing work that matters while dancing with the voice in your head that screams for you to stop. ~ Seth Godin

The West has never been all of the world that matters. The West has not been the only actor on the stage of modern history even at the peak of the West's power (and this peak has perhaps now already been passed) ... It has not been the West that has been hit by the world; it has been the world that has been hit - and hit hard - by the West. ~ Arnold J. Toynbee

The life of the Addict is always the same. There is no excitement, no glamour, no fun. There are no good times, there is no joy, there is no happiness. There is no future and no escape. There is only an obsession. An all-encompassing, fully enveloping, completely overwhelming obsession. To make light of it, brag about it, or revel in the mock glory of it is not in any way, shape or form related to its truth, and that is all that matters, the truth. ~ James Frey

Dream Song 55
Peter's not friendly. He gives me sideways looks.
The architecture is far from reassuring.
I feel uneasy.
A pity, - the interview began so well:
I mentioned fiendish things, he waved them away
and sloshed out a martini
strangely needed. We spoke of indifferent matters
God's health, the vague hell of the Congo,
John's energy,
anti-matter matter. I felt fine.
Then a change came backward. A chill fell.
Talk slackened,
died, and began to give me sideways looks.
'Chirst,' I thought 'what now?' and would have askt for another
but didn't dare.
I feel my application failing. It's growing dark,
some other sound is overcoming. His last words are:
'We betrayed me. ~ John Berryman

Once you become aware of what means the most to you, you're less likely to put off something that's really valuable for something that matters much less ... it's knowing the difference between what's important and what isn't that allows us to solve problems effectively. ~ Joy Browne

Geoffrey: Why, you chivalric fool - as if the way one fell down mattered.
Richard: When the fall is all there is, it matters. ~ James Goldman

A jest often decides matters of importance more effectively and happily than seriousness. ~ Horace

The idea that 20% of the features will get you 80% of the value may well be correct, but it also means that on important tasks, you're giving the customers B-grade experieence where it matters most. ~ Des Traynor

If being crazy means living life as if it matters, then I don't mind being completely insane. ~ Kate Winslet

Much of what happens to us in life is due to chance and circumstances beyond our control. Being in the right place at the right time. Discovering that others have impacted us more than we know and for reasons that are not entirely clear. But hard work matters, too. There is an old saying: The harder I work, the luckier I get. ~ Terry Brooks

At one point in your life you start to understand that all what really matters is the love you give and the love you receive. ~ Jennifer White - Strong Heart Awakening

Our self-respect tracks our choices. Every time we act in harmony with our authentic self and our heart, we earn our respect. It is that simple. Every choice matters. ~ Don Coppersmith

Numa turned his attention to domestic matters. The removal of all danger from without would induce his subjects to luxuriate in idleness, as they would be no longer restrained by the fear of an enemy or by military discipline. To prevent this, he strove to inculcate in their minds the fear of the gods, regarding this as the most powerful influence which could act upon an uncivilised and, in those ages, a barbarous people. ~ Livy

The only battle that matters is the one within. ~ Alexia Purdy

The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it's a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk. Use your natural powers
of persistence, concentration, and insight
to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems. make art, think deeply. ~ Susan Cain

You are the husband of my heart, and the love of my life. Wherever I am, whatever I do, you are joined with me and I with you. The part of me that matters will live with you forever. I accept the chain that binds us with joy, because in this unity I have known the purest freedom. ~ Madeline Hunter

We're together, Delilah, nothin' else matters. ~ Kristen Ashley

How glorious, then, is the prospect, the reverse of all the past, which is now opening upon us, and upon the world. Government, we may now expect to see, not only in theory and in books but in actual practice, calculated for the general good, and taking no more upon it than the general good requires, leaving all men the enjoyment of as many of their natural rights as possible, and no more interfering with matters of religion, with men's notions concerning God, and a future state, than with philosophy, or medicine. ~ Joseph Priestley

If we look to the future, when we talk about outsourcing jobs, when we talk about global competitiveness and our efficiency, none of that matters very much unless we have appropriate training and education for our young people today who are the workforce of tomorrow. It is an economic reality, and we are failing. ~ Bill Frist

What matters creative endless toil, When, at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil? ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It's lost time that matters - the time between time - the moments when you forget time and life just happens. ~ Chloe Thurlow

For most things in life, you need time: to learn a new skill, build a house, become an expert, make a cup of tea ... Time is useless, however, for the most essential thing in life, the one thing that really matters: self-realization, which means knowing who you are beyond the surface self - beyond your name, your physical form, your history, your story.
You cannot find yourself in the past or future. The only place where you can find yourself is in the Now.
Spiritual seekers look for self-realization or enlightenment in the future. To be a seeker implies that you need the future. If this is what you believe, it becomes true for you: you will need time until you realize that you don't need time to be who you are. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap? Ophelia: No, my lord. Hamlet: DId you think I meant country matters? Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord. Hamlet: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs. Ophelia: What is, my lord? Hamlet: Nothing. ~ William Shakespeare

Love comes from the head and not the heart. Of the entire body, only the head matters. ~ Kim Thuy

I woke up dead.
Not only dead...but in hell.
I had always been somewhat sketchy on what the afterlife - were there actually such a thing - would be like for a person such as I. From all accounts and all my imaginings, I figured it would be one of two things. Either I would be surrounded by great, burning masses that were endlessly immolating souls in torment... or else I would find myself trapped within my own mind as a helpless bystander, condemned to watching me live out my life over and over again and powerless to do anything to change any of it. When idle speculation prompted me to dwell on these two options, I would find myself drawn invariably to the former, since the later was just too hideous to contemplate.
...
I was almost afraid to open my eyes, because once I did, I would know one way or the other. Perhaps I could have just lain there forever. Perhaps I was supposed to. Perhaps that was my true condemnation: to simply reside in hell with my eyes closed afraid of opening them lest matters deteriorate even further than they already had. This, in turn, made me dwell on the fact that every time I had believed things couldn't get worse, they promptly had done so with almost gleeful enthusiasm . ~ Peter David

Collins, echoing Ed Catmull, "What separates people is the return on luck, what you do with it when you get it. What matters is how you play the hand you're dealt." He continues, "You don't leave the game, until it's not your choice. Steve Jobs had great luck at arriving at the birth of an industry. Then he had bad luck in getting booted out. But Steve played whatever hand he was dealt to the best of his ability. Sometimes you create the hand, by giving yourself challenges that will make you stronger, where you don't even know what's next. That's the beauty of the story. Steve's almost like the Tom Hanks character in Castaway - just keep breathing because you don't know what the tide will bring in tomorrow. ~ Brent Schlender

I think I get it now. It doesn't matter how nice home is
it just matters that it feels like home. ~ Jamie Ford

Muhammad once was talking to a crowd
of chieftains, princes with great influence,
when a poor blind man interrupted him.

Muhammad frowned and said to the man,
"Let me attend to these visitors.
This is a rare chance,
whereas you are already my friend.
We'll have ample time."

Then somebody nearby said, "That blind man
may be worth a hundred kings. Remember the proverb, Human beings are mines."

World-power means nothing. Only the unsayable, jeweled inner life matters.

Muhammad replied, "Do not think that I'm concerned with being acknowledged by these authorities.

If a beetle moves toward rosewater, it proves
that the solution is diluted. Beetles
love dung, not rose essence.

If a coin is eager to be tested
by the touchstone, that coin
itself may be a touchstone.

A thief loves the night.
I am day. I reveal essences.

A calf thinks God is a cow.
A donkey's theology changes
when someone new pets it
and gives it what it wants.

I am not a cow, or thistles for camels
to browse on. People who insult me
are only polishing the mirror ~ Rumi

At the end of the day it's not 'what looks good' that matters, it's 'what feels' good. ~ Maddy Malhotra

One man who could understand it very well was the architect of these stop-gap measures: General the Viscount Gort, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force. A big burly man of 53, Lord Gort was no strategist - he was happy to follow the French lead on such matters - but he had certain soldierly virtues that came in handy at a time like this. He was a great fighter - had won the Victoria Cross storming the Hindenburg Line in 1918 - and he was completely unflappable. ~ Walter Lord