Not As Easy As You Would Think Quotes

It's not as easy as you'd think, burning a dead creature. Flesh and skin want to cook and crisp and char rather than ignite. ~ Christina Henry

When I first began my career I had one dictum that I set myself: to be paid for my work, but not to work for pay. Fame makes it that much easier to follow that maxim." He gave her a sharp look. "At least it does so long as I recognize when I am beginning to paint the obvious, rather than painting what I must express. People would rather you did the same thing over and over again and it becomes very easy to fall into their trap - particularly when you're young and hungry. But the more you do so, the nearer you are drawn to something you should not be a part of that homogeneity that is the death of any form of creative expression. ~ Charles De Lint

Miss Kay

Alan had a run-in with the police one Sunday morning while he was in New Orleans and as best he can recall, one of the officers said to him, "Let me talk to you. What are your mom and dad doing right now?"
"They're in church, where they always go," Alan answered.
"I knew," said the officer, "that you were raised different." In other words, the policeman could tell Alan was not what some people might call a "common criminal." The officer went on to speak some very strong words: "You have just done something really bad. Whatever you're doing here, pack it up. Go home and live like your mom and dad; go live like you were raised. I don't know your parents, but I have a feeling they will welcome you back like the Prodigal Son."
Phil and I had not been able to get through to Alan or influence him to change his ways while he was living with us, but that policeman in New Orleans sure got through to him. Sometimes we wonder if that policeman was an angel. Whether he was or was not, God definitely used him to get Alan back where he needed to be.
Alan left "the Big Easy" right away and came back to us. He started walking with God again; he reconnected with Lisa. He and Phil began studying the Bible together; Phil baptized him in the river by our house, and he has been a totally different person ever since. ~ Korie Robertson

Growing up is not easy for anyone but for anyone to deliberately block the path of the child from their family, it is nothing short of a sin." Lowering her voice a little she quietly said, "I believe she has done us all an injustice." The smile that she gave Melanie lit up her entire face as she patted the scrapbook. "Please look over the book and call me anytime. I don't sleep much and I will be here for you. ~ Sojourner McConnell

All right, Schwartz, tackle my mind now. Go as deep as you want. I was born on Baronn in the Sirius Sector. I lived my life in an atmosphere of anti-Terrestrialism in the formative years, so I can't help what flaws and follies lie at the roots of my subconscious. But look on the surface and tell me if, in my adult years, I have not fought bigotry in myself. Not in others; that would be easy. But in myself, and as hard as I could. ~ Isaac Asimov

It's not easy when you come in as the highest-paid player and you're 14. ~ Freddy Adu

Operating theaters are not nearly as popular as dramatic theaters, musical theaters, and movie theaters, and it is easy to see why. A dramatic theater is a large, dark room in which actors perform a play, and if you are in the audience, you can enjoy yourself by listening to the dialog and looking at the costumes. A musical theater is a large, dark room in which musicians preform a symphony, and if you are in the audience you can enjoy yourself by listening to the melodies and watching the conductor wave his little stick around. And a movie theater is a large, dark room in which a projectionist shows a film, and if you are in the audience, you can enjoy yourself by eating popcorn and gossiping about movie stars. But an operating theater is a large, dark room in which doctors preform medical procedures, and if you are in the audience, the best thing to do is to leave at once because there is never anything on display in an operating theater but pain, suffering and discomfort, and for this reason most operating theaters have been closed down or have been turned into restaurants. ~ Lemony Snicket

A Roman came to Rabbi Gimzo the Water Carrier, and asked, "What is this study of the law that you Jews engage in?" and Gimzo replied, "I shall explain. There were two men on a roof, and they climbed down the chimney. One's face became sooty. The other's not. Which one washed his face?" The Roman said, "That's easy, the sooty one, of course." Gimzo said, "No. The man without the soot looked at his friend, saw that the man's face was dirty, assumed that his was too, and washed it." Cried the Roman, "Ah ha! So that's the study of law. Sound reasoning." But Gimzo said, "You foolish man, you don't understand. Let me explain again. Two men on a roof. They climb down a chimney. One's face is sooty, the other's not. Which one washes?" The Roman said, "As you just explained, the man without the soot." Gimzo cried,"No, you foolish one! There was a mirror on the wall and the man with the dirty face saw how sooty it was and washed it." The Roman said, "Ah ha! So that's the study of law! Conforming to the logical." But Rabbi Gimzo said, "No, you foolish one. Two men climbed down the chimney. One's face became sooty? The other's not? That's impossible. You're wasting my time with such a proposition." And the Roman said, "So that's the law! Common sense." And Gimzo said, "You foolish man! Of course it was possible. When the first man climbed down the chimney he brushed the soot away. So the man who followed found none to mar him." And the Roman cried, "That's brilliant, Rabbi Gimzo. Law is ~ James A. Michener

There is something sad about people going to bed. You can see they don't give a damn whether they're getting what they want out of life or not, you can see they don't ever try to understand what we're here for. They just don't care. Americans or not, they sleep no matter what, they're bloated mollusks, no sensibility, no trouble with their conscience.
I'd seen too many troubling things to be easy in my mind. I knew too much and not enough. I'd better go out, I said to myself, I'd better go out again. Maybe I'll meet Robinson. Naturally that was an idiotic idea, but I dreamed it up as an excuse for going out again, because no matter how I tossed and turned on my narrow bed, I couldn't snatch the tiniest scrap of sleep. Even masturbation, at times like that, provides neither comfort nor entertainment. Then you're really in despair. ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine

Though I obviously have no proof of this, the one aspect of life that seems clear to me is that good people do whatever they believe is the right thing to do. Being virtuous is hard, not easy. The idea of doing good things simply because you're good seems like a zero-sum game; I'm not even sure those actions would still qualify as 'good,' since they'd merely be a function of normal behavior. Regardless of what kind of god you believe in--a loving god, a vengeful god, a capricious god, a snooty beret-wearing French god, or whatever--one has to assume that you can't be penalized for doing the things you believe to be truly righteous and just. Certainly, this creates some pretty glaring problems: Hitler may have thought he was serving God. Stalin may have thought he was serving God (or something vaguely similar). I'm certain Osama bin Laden was positive he was serving God. It's not hard to fathom that all of those maniacs were certain that what they were doing was right. Meanwhile, I constantly do things that I know are wrong; they're not on the same scale as incinerating Jews or blowing up skyscrapers, but my motivations might be worse. I have looked directly into the eyes of a woman I loved and told her lies for no reason, except that those lies would allow me to continue having sex with another woman I cared about less. This act did not kill 20 million Russian peasants, but it might be more 'diabolical' in a literal sense. If I died and found out I was going to hell and Stali ~ Chuck Klosterman

Any critique of Islam is denounced as an expression of Western Islamophobia, Salman Rushdie is denounced for unnecessarily provoking Muslims and being (partially, at least) responsible for the fatwa condemning him to death, and so on. The result of such stances is what one should expect in such cases: the more the Western liberal Leftists probe into their guilt, the more they are accused by Muslim fundamentalists of being hypocrites who try to conceal their hatred of Islam. [T]his constellation perfectly reproduces the paradox of the superego: the more you obey what the Other demands of you, the guiltier you are. It is as if the more you tolerate Islam, the stronger its pressure on you will be. What this implies is that terrorist fundamentalists, be they Christian or Muslim, are not really fundamentalists in the authentic sense of the term--what they lack is a feature that is easy to discern in all authentic fundamentalists, from Tibetan Buddhists to the Amish in the US: the absence of resentment and envy, the deep indifference towards the non-believers' way of life. If today's so-called fundamentalists really believe they have found their way to Truth, why should they feel threatened by non-believers, why should they envy them? When a Buddhist encounters a Western hedonist, he hardly condemns. He just benevolently notes that the hedonist's search for happiness is self-defeating. In contrast to true fundamentalists, the terrorist pseudo-fundamentalists are deeply bothered, in ~ Slavoj Zizek

I felt like I was faking all of this, like I was playing the part of a student. I had the costume and the props, but I didn't really belong here. I'd pinned notes on the stupid corkboard backing of my desk, and I'd highlighted things...But it was all so meaningless.

For about an hour, I had an overwheling urge to grab my bag, stuff in a few things, and take the next train to Bristol. I could be back on my parents' couch that night if I got moving. I could admit that I wasn't ready for this, that the semester was a wash. My parents would be thrilled, I was sure. Not about the semester being a wash--but certainly about having me back where they could keep me safe and sound. It would be so easy to do it. The very idea made me warm inside. It was okay to give up. I'd been brave. Everyone would say so.

And yet...even as I opened a dresser drawer and figured out which things I would take with me in this hypothetical scenario, i remembered the problem.

There would still be ghosts

i would still have a future.

I would still go back to school eventually. You can't curl up on the sofa and deny life forever. Life is always going to be a series of ouch-making moments, and the question was, was i going to go all fetal position, or was I going to woman up? ~ Maureen Johnson

It's not always that easy to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. Sinners can surprise you. And the same is true for saints.Why do we try to define people as simply good or simply evil? Because no one wants to admit that compassion and cruelty can live side by side in one heart. And that anyone is capable of anything. ~ Mary Alice

Now ordinary people are born forwards in Time, if you understand what I mean, and nearly everything in the world goes forward too. This makes it quite easy for the ordinary people to live, just as it would be easy to join those five dots into a W if you were allowed to look at them forwards, instead of backwards and inside out. But I unfortunately was born at the wrong end of Time, and I have to live backwards from in front, while surrounded by a lot of people living forwards from behind. Some people call it having second sight.
~Merlin ~ T.H. White

Look, this isn't magic realism. This is not another story about superstitious island people and their primitive beliefs. No. You don't get off that easy. This is a story about people as real as you are, and as real as I once was before I became a bodiless thing floating up here in the sky. You might as well consider a more urgent question; not whether you believe this story or not, but whether this story is about the kinds of people you have never taken the time to believe in. ~ Kei Miller

When he broke that long kiss, he smiled at her before kissing her hard. "So, my love, I hope that your punishment will stop you from trying another payback for a while at least?"
Laura laughed and sighed, dramatically. "Of course, it will. I never want to be punished like that again. Well, not until tonight anyway. You will be back tonight, won't you? I'm often very bad at night so you may have to do this all over again to me until I learn how to be good. Hmm, and during the day, I'm not always very good either so you'd better watch out for that too."
"You don't make punishing you an easy task, do you? It almost seems like you enjoy being punished."
"No, it's not that, baby. Though, your punishment was very well given. It's just that I have a very aggressive, bad gene and it makes me backslide, umm, and often frontslide too. I have learnt with you that I'm always wanting to backslide and frontslide but, as it's obviously a genetic defect, I can't really be blamed for that, now can I" (Tales from Terrigal, Book 2, WIP) ~ Khul Waters

You are already choosing, in every moment of every day, what to give a fuck about, so change is as simple as choosing to give a fuck about something else,
It really is that simple. It's just not easy. ~ Mark Manson

Incessant adj.
The doubts. You had to save me from my constant doubts. That deep-seeded feeling that I wasn't good enough for anything I was a fake at my job I wasn't your equal my friends would forget me if I moved away for a month. It wasn't as easy as hearing voices nobody was telling me this. It was just something I knew. Everyone else was playing along but I was sure that one day they would all stop. ~ David Levithan

Again? Dom meant to leave her without a word again? Not if she had anything to say about it.
Jane forced a smile. "Unfortunately, since the matter the men are pursuing involves me and my cousin, I really must consult with his lordship and Mr. Bonnaud before they head for London. And I do not mean to let them leave without giving me a report."
That seemed to startle the woman. "Forgive me, but I was given to understand by my husband that you and Lord Rathmoor haven't been friendly since the two of you were engaged and you…well…"
"Jilted him?" One day Jane was going to subject Dom to a long list of all the ways in which his subterfuge had created problems for her. But at the moment, she needed Lady Ravenswood on her side. "That is only partly true. Tell me, madam, have you ever been the victim of unfair or misinformed gossip?"
Pain glimmered in the viscountess's dark eyes. "I'm the American half-Senecan wife of a viscount with high-placed friends. So yes, you might say I have."
Jane gentled her tone. "Then you'll understand how easy it is for society to misconstrue matters. Lord Rathmoor and I…have a rather complicated association, which he seems determined not to complicate further. I believe that is why he refuses to give me my report. And that's why I could use your help."
"In what?" the woman said warily.
"Nothing too awful, I assure you. As you will understand when I explain."
She would tell her ladyship however much was necessary to ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Perhaps I won't tire of her," Gray protested, just to be contrary. Because, apparently, that was how brothers behaved.
"Perhaps a dolphin will fly out of your arse. And here's an argument even you can't refuse. Grayson Shipping doesn't need a reputation for delivering damaged goods. You want me to hand George Waltham an impregnated governess?"
"I wouldn't get her with child. Give me that much credit, at least."
"I give you credit for nothing. Let's try this one last time, shall we? You made me this ship's captain. If I'm the captain, what I say goes. And I say you don't touch her. If you can't abide by my orders, take command of the ship yourself and let me go home."
"Go home and do what? Squander your fortune and talent on dirt farming?"
"Go home and take care of my own family. Go home and do what I damn well please, for once."
Cursing, Gray leaned against the wall. He knew Joss would make good on that threat, too. It hadn't been easy, coaxing his brother out of mourning. Gray had resorted to outright bullying just to convince him to take command of the Aphrodite, threatening to cut off his income unless he reported to London as agreed. But he needed Joss, if this shipping concern was to stay afloat. He'd worked too hard, sacrificed too much to see it fail.
And if Joss didn't become a willing partner, it all would have been in vain.
"Stay away from the girl, Gray."
Gray sighed. "We're on the same ship. I can't help but be near her ~ Tessa Dare

You're okay," I said happily.
She gave me a teasing punch. "You knew I was."
"A phone call is different from seeing," I said. I pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I mean, I knew you were competent and brave and awesome, but, well ... it's still not easy having your wife off risking her life with a bunch of vampire-hating freaks." I reached into my pocket. "Oh, and don't forget this." I got down on my knees and slipped on her diamond and ruby rings, which I'd been holding on to while she was away. "As promised. I mean, except for the naked part. But we can worry about that later. ~ Richelle Mead

I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads on the island, for the Neverland is always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with sex elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose. It would be an easy map if that were all, but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needle-work, murders, hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate-pudding day, getting into braces, say ninety-nine threepence for pulling out your tooth yourself, and so on, and either these are part of the island or they are another map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still.
Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a lagoon with flamingos flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it. John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, ~ J.M. Barrie

Looking back on my life, I'd say I am grateful to my two sons for having brought me up. It could not have been easy - for them or for their father. For me it was a "Poetry Workshop," a way of doing poetry by another means (in no sense a continuation of Iowa) - as well as the sort of upbringing I never got from my mother.

As luck would have it, I had a poet, a classical poet, for a mother. She didn't write free verse; she wrote poetry until the last years of her life in the classical Chinese style. So a lot of work was done for me - when you imbibe Tang and Sung poets with a mother who chanted verses on the balcony in the moonlight. ~ Wong May

I've got a feeling that, if it's so easy for you, the struggle and the initiative are not as strong as they are for a person who has to struggle and therefore has more to say. ~ Charles Mingus

Love died in the shadows, and it shouldn't cost so much to keep it in the sun. But as Trent would say, anything gotten cheap wouldn't last, so do what you need to do to be happy and deal with the consequences. That if love was easy, everyone would find it. ~ Kim Harrison

The door opened. We all froze.
"Mom, this isn't what it looks like." Mom put her hand on her hip.
"It looks like a group of boys wrestling on the floor of your bedroom while you watch. Wearing a towel."
"Okay," I admitted, "it is what it looks like, but it's not - "
"Sexual?" She raised her eyebrows.
"Mom!" Luna stuck her head under Mom's arm and sucked in a breath. "She's gone from a love triangle to a kinky sex pentagon."
Blake lifted his head. "Vote for Team Blake!"
Mom rolled her eyes. "Boys, vacate. Now. Aurora get dressed. And everybody head downstairs. Breakfast is on. I made quiche. There's plenty for all."
"First edible breakfast in weeks," Luna said.
Blake smacked his lips. "Yum!" Mom checked behind the door.
"Ayden's not here, is he?" I shook my head. "Then there's no lust factor. Although, your father may not be as easy going as I am. So, gentlemen, get out."
As she left, Mom dragged Luna away with her. Blake shook off the other boys and stood. "That's offensive. I'm a very lustful guy."
"And a big blabbermouth." Logan whacked the back of Blake's head.
"But remember you can't tell - "
"Ayden!" Blake shouted.
"Right," Tristan said, "or - "
"No, it's…" Wide-eyed, Blake jerked his chin toward my door.

Our heads swiveled. Ayden filled the doorway, leaning against the frame, arms folded. "What can't you tell me?" He arched one eyebrow awaiting a reply. The sile ~ A. Kirk

Such situations are often referred to as incidents of 'peer pressure', as 'peer' is a word or someone with whom you are associating and 'pressure' is a word for the influence such people often have. If you are a braeman or a braewoman – a term for someone who lives all alone on a hill – then peer pressure is fairly easy to avoid, as you have no peers except for the occasional wild sheep who may wander near your cave and try to pressure you into growing woolly coat. But if you live among people, whether they are people in your family, in your school, or in your secret organization, then every moment of your life is an incident of peer pressure, and you cannot avoid it any more than a boat at sea can avoid a surrounding storm. If you wake up in the morning at a particular time, when you would rather hide your head under your pillow until you are too hungry to stand it any longer, then you are succumbing to the peer pressure of your warden or morning butler. (…) and if you try to avoid every instance of peer pressure you will end up without any peers whatsoever, (…) ~ Lemony Snicket

[Robert] Newell's recommendation of walking is also interesting:

'The best way undoubtedly of seeing a country is on foot. It is the safest, and most suited to every variety of road; it will often enable you to take a shorter track, and visit scenes (the finest perhaps) not otherwise accessible; it is healthy, and, with a little practice, easy; it is economical: a pedestrian is content with almost any accommodations; he, of all travellers, wants but little, 'Nor wants that little long'. And last, though not least, it is perfectly independent.'

Newell cites independence, as do a number of the 'first generation' of Romantic walkers I have already surveyed; more striking are his commendation of walking as the safest option, which reflects a very altered perception of the security of travel from that which prevailed in the eighteenth century, and his advocacy of the practical and health benefits of pedestrianism, which against suggests its institutionalisation as a form of tourism and its extension to lower reaches of the middle classes. ~ Robin Jarvis

When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead"

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto,
"Yet many a better one has died before."
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore. ~ Charles Hamilton Sorley

Imagine you can see the whole Number Line and every one of the infinite individual points it comprises. Imagine you want a quick and easy way to distinguish those points corresponding to rational numbers from the ones corresponding to irrationals. What you're going to do is ID the rational points by draping a bright-red hankie over each one; that way they'll stand out. Since geometric points are technically dimensionless, we don't know what they look like, but what we do know is that it's not going to take a very big red hankie to cover one. The red hankie here can in truth be arbitrarily small, like say .00000001 units, or half that size, or half that half,...,etc. Actually, even the smallest hankie is going to be unnecessarily large, but for our purposes we can say that the hankie is basically infinitesimally small-call such a size (infinitesimally small symbol). So a hankie of size (infinitesimally small symbol) covers the N.L.'s first rational point. Then, because of course the hankie can be as small as we want, let's say you use only a (Infinitesimally small symbol)/2-size hankie to drape over the next rational point. And say you go on like that, with the size of each red hankie used being exactly (1/2) that of the previous one, for all the rational numbers, until they're all draped and covered. Now, to figure out the total percentage of space all the rational points take up on the Number Line, all you have to do is add up the sizes of all the red hankies. Of course, the ~ David Foster Wallace

Now I see in that laughter a good deal of desperation and sadness. About to leave the haven of our separate universities and be thrown out onto the brutal free-spinning of the world, as we walked arm in arm through the snow, we carried with us, if only unconsciously, the knowledge that it would be our last holiday together; and we drank and laughed and sneered with the resolute sadness of men who knew that tomorrow we'd be trying to free our own mortgaged Buicks from our own snowlocked drives. That is what most of us ended up doing. I didn't; but I don't question that my friends were right and I wrong, that they were happy and I not, that theirs was the hard and mine the easy way. What always saddened me on confronting them was the surety that had I been foolish enough to bring up "old times," none would have allowed himself a memory of sticking his finger into the vaporous and flaky air and shouting, "Shovel, you f*cking dummies!" A self-destructively romantic man, I accepted our jeering defiance as a pact; forever. ~ Frederick Exley

My child, when a mountain appears on the journey, we try to go to the left, then to the right. We try to find the easy way to navigate our way back to the easier path. ... . But the mountain is there to be crossed. It is on that pilgrimage, as we climb higher, that we are forced to shed the layers upon layers we have carried for so long. Then we find that our load is lighter, and we have come to know something of ourselves in the perilous climb ... ..Do not seek to avoid the mountain, my child. For it has been placed there at a perfect time. It will only become larger if you seek to delay or draw back from the ascent. ~ Jacqueline Winspear

Men love to trust God (as they profess) for what they have in their hands, in possession, or what lies in an easy view; place their desires afar off, carry their accomplishment behind the clouds out of their sight, interpose difficulties and perplexities
their hearts are instantly sick. They cannot wait for God; they do not trust Him, nor ever did. Would you have the presence of God with you? Learn to wait quietly for the salvation you expect from Him. ~ Owen Wilson