Only Being Able To Handle So Much Quotes

I've had to ban my mum from coming to see me play. She gets so nervous before any show. I've always got a few nerves but she's so much worse than me. You'd think she'd be able to handle that kind of situation. After all, she is a concert pianist. ~ Birdy

I knew there was a point in my life where I couldn't go to Baba for much; I had to hide a lot from him, and it wasn't because he wouldn't have listened. He lost my trust somewhere along the line because I didn't think he would be able to handle my life, because it was so different from his own. I want you to know both the good and bad; I want you to see me as your fellow human, and not a God. I want you to see me as your friend one day and to not fear approaching me. ~ Hani Selim

What's the matter, Freckles?" he said, pressing a light kiss to the tip of my nose.
"What changed?" I blurted out.
He drew back. "Changed?"
"You seemed like you were trying to keep distance between us before, but after last night…"
"I should get a medal for managing to keep my hands off you that long."
"It was only a few days," I reminded him dryly.
"Felt like a lifetime."
"So those first kisses… you liked them?"
His eyes widened. "You thought that I didn't?"
"Well, after that you didn't touch me."
"Shit," he swore beneath his breath and ran a hand over his head. "I liked it too much. The sparks between us are so hot, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to stop. I was afraid I would scare you off. Thank God I did because you're so innocent."
Innocent? Ugh.
I folded my arms across my chest. "So what changed your mind?"
His smile was sexy and filled with innuendo. "I realized you could handle the heat."
I still wasn't so sure, but I didn't tell him that. "Well, you are definitely hot."
He grinned. He had such a big ego. "How hot?"
I shook my head. "So hot your touch leaves torch marks on my skin."
He whistled between his teeth. "Damn. I'm good. ~ Cambria Hebert

Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet and the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable horrors: it is all as one in me, and I accept it all as one mighty whole and begin to grasp it better if only for myself, without being able to explain to anyone else how it all hangs together. I wish I could live for a long time so that one day I may know how to explain it, and if I am not granted that wish, well, then somebody else will perhaps do it, carry on from where my life has been cut short. And that is why I must try to live a good and faithful life to my last breath: so that those who come after me do not have to start all over again, need not face the same difficulties. Isn't that doing something for future generations? ~ Etty Hillesum

I tried to remember what Rita had said about being a bigger person. I could either calmly tell him that he was mistaken or let him have it. I could be the bigger person or I could be like any normal sixteen-year-old.
Like there really was a choice.
"First off, you ever call me a babe again and no medical team on earth will be able to tell that you were once a guy."
I was only sixteen after all. ~ Elizabeth Eulberg

The scientist knows very well that he is approaching ultimate truth only in an asymptotic curve and is barred from ever reaching it; but at the same time he is proudly aware of being indeed able to determine whether a statement is a nearer or a less near approach to the truth. ~ Konrad Lorenz

It was strange, he said, but standing there on the sidewalk with the great grey chasms of Toronto's streets extending away to every side of him and the leash dangling from his hand, he had felt for the first time that he was at home: the feeling of having unwittingly caused an irreversible change, of his failure being the force that broke new ground, was, he realized standing there, the deepest and most familiar thing he knew. By failing he created loss, and loss was the threshold to freedom: an awkward and uncomfortable threshold, but the only one he had ever been able to cross; usually, he said, because he was shoved across it as a consequence of the events that had brought him there. ~ Rachel Cusk

If only you were the one I loved first,
maybe I'd only suffer from not being able
to love you more. ~ Tatjana Ostojic

Most men can't handle a woman forged in fire. They think they can, and as soon as the flames gets too close they keep stepping backwards.But they forget. We are like this for a reason. Throw a few leaves in a fire and it doesn't do much. Throw fuel, and it explodes. Most of us are already ablaze. So, when tending to a fire, be careful. ~ Lori Goodwin

He wept when his father died and sobbed when he lost his mother, but way before that he told us only stupid men hide emotion. There's strength in being who you are and feeling what you feel and not giving a shit what people think. He said one of the worst things a man could be is inauthentic. He told us never to willfully break a woman's heart because there'd come a time when a woman would break ours and we'd feel what we'd made her feel and we wouldn't be able to live with the guilt. He loved us and he showed it. He was proud of us and he showed it." Johnny Gamble talking about his father ~ Kristen Ashley

E said, he didn't know what to do. He couldn't move forward. He thought, they should move on. He started crying. Not for himdelf, for her. He'd rescued her from her lousy life, and now he was throwing her back. He felt like a shit for doing it, for things having to be that way, for not being able to gove her what she wanted. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her. The only part that wasn't in the manual, was her response: She started to laugh. "Oh, give me a break," she said. ~ Candace Bushnell

Scuffing her bare feet into slippers, she shrugged into a silk robe, then hesitated, looking down at Perrin. He would be able to see her clearly, if he woke, but to her, he was just a shadowed mound. She wished her mother were there, now, to advise her. She loved Perrin with every fiber of her being, and he confused every fiber. Actually understanding men was impossible, of course, but he was so unlike anyone she had grown up with. He never swaggered, and instead of laughing at himself, he was... modest. She had not believed a man could be modest! He insisted that only chance had made him a leader, claimed he did not know how to lead, when men who met him were ready to follow after an hour. He dismissed his own thinking as slow, when those slow, considering thoughts saw so deeply that she had to dance a merry jig to keep any secrets at all. He was a wonderful man, her curly-haired wolf. So strong. And so gentle. ~ Robert Jordan

It's important to see things in perspective. Automobile traffic is responsible for only 12 percent of total CO2 emissions. One should be able to point this out without being accused of changing the subject. ~ Martin Winterkorn

That's right, I'm crazy. But, I don't ever want to go back to being of sound mind again. I don't think I'll ever be able to. Because as crazy as I may get, I only have eyes for Ju Yoo Rin. ~ Gongchan

If Art does not enlarge men's sympathies, it does nothing morally," Eliot once wrote. "The only effect I ardently long to produce by my writings, is that those who read them should be better able to imagine and to feel the pains and the joys of those who differ from themselves in everything but the broad fact of being struggling erring human creatures. ~ Rebecca Mead

It made him sad, realising that their smell was going to be gone for good one day. Even if they kept all their clothes, the scent would vanish eventually and become only a memory, just like everything else about them. Sometimes he thought he couldn't even remember their voices anymore. There were photos of course, but it wasn't the same. Although he had not hugged either of his parents in years, the thought of not being able to do so was too painful to bear, especially when he felt like he needed it. Eventually he would forget what it had felt like to be near his mum or what kind of a presence his father had. They were just going to be names, mere mentions in conversation that were glazed over and didn't mean much to anybody. ~ Pamela Harju

They sat with it in silence for a while. Bosch ran it all through once more and couldn't knock it down. It was only case theory but it held together. It worked, but it didn't mean that it was the way it had happened. Every case had unanswered questions and loose ends when it came to motives and actions. Bosch always though that if you started with the assumption that murder is an unreasonable action, then how could there ever be a fully reasonable explanation for it? It was that understanding that kept him from watching and being able to enjoy films and television shows about detectives. He found them unrealistic in their delivery of what the general audience wanted: all of the answers. ~ Michael Connelly

The other cops were almost evenly divided between being scared by what they'd seen and being so impressed that it was almost worse, because I wasn't sure what they'd expect me to be able to do next time. Aimes hadn't been the only one who saw the white-shadowed outline of wings. I told them it was an answer to prayer, not me personally. I finally told one overly solicitous uniform, 'Trust me, I'm no angel.'
Nicky started laughing and couldn't seem to stop.
'Yuk it up, lion boy.'
That made him laugh harder, until he had to lean against the wall with tears trailing down from his eye. At least his laughing stopped any more weird theological questions; they just couldn't seem to talk about angels with this big, muscled bad-ass guy laughing his ass off beside me. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

Thou sayest, Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits.- Be it so: but there are many other things of which thou canst not say, I am not formed for them by nature. Show those qualities then which are altogether in thy power, sincerity, gravity, endurance of labour, aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling magnanimity. Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art immediately able to exhibit, in which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or art thou compelled through being defectively furnished by nature to murmur, and to be stingy, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poor body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be so restless in thy mind? No, by the gods: but thou mightest have been delivered from these things long ago. Only if in truth thou canst be charged with being rather slow and dull of comprehension, thou must exert thyself about this also, not neglecting it nor yet taking pleasure in thy dulness. ~ Marcus Aurelius

Our brains are the result of the experience of centuries. The brain is the storehouse of memory. Without that memory, without the accumulated experience and knowledge, we should not be able to function at all as human beings. Experience - memory - is obviously necessary at a certain level, but I think it is also fairly obvious that all experience based on the conditioning of knowledge, of memory, is bound to be limited. And, therefore, experience is not a factor in liberation.

Every experience is conditioned by the past experience. So there is no new experience, it is always colored by the past. In the very process of experiencing, there is the distortion which comes into being from the past, the past being knowledge, memory, the various accumulated experiences, not only of the individual, but also of the race, the community. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average
but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world ~ Charles Bukowski

We spend so much time defending our choice to do this that it becomes hard to show any vulnerability at all. There's only so many times you can handle someone asking about your fall back for when things don't work before you start thinking that maybe the fall back should just be your plan. ~ Cora Carmack

I'd known since I was a child that I was going to live in New York eventually, and that everything in between would be just an intermission. I'd spent all those years imagining what New York was going to be like. I thought it was going to be the most exciting, magical, fraught-with-possibility place that you could ever live; a place where if you really wanted something you might be able to get it; a place where I'd be surrounded by people I was dying to know; a place where I might be able to become the only thing worth being, a journalist. And I'd turned out to be right. ~ Nora Ephron

Dear Jessa, I've started this letter so many times and I've never been able to finish it. So here goes again . . . I'm sorry. I'm sorry that Riley is dead. I'm sorry for ignoring your emails and for not being there for you. I'm sorry I've hurt you. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't wish it had been me that died and not Riley. If I could go back in time and change everything I would. I'm sorry I left without a word. There's no excuse for my behaviour but please know that it had nothing to do with you. I was a mess. I haven't been able to talk to anyone for months. And I felt too guilty and didn't know how to tell you the truth about what happened. I couldn't bear the thought of you knowing. I got all your emails but I didn't read them until last week. I couldn't face it and I guess that makes me the biggest coward you'll ever meet. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I never replied. You needed me and I wasn't there for you. I don't even know how to ask your forgiveness because I don't deserve it. I'm just glad you're doing better. I'm better too. I've started seeing a therapist – twice a week – you'd like her. She reminds me of Didi. I never thought I'd be the kind of guy who needed therapy, but they made it a condition of me keeping my job. She's helped me a lot with getting the panic attacks under control. Working in a room the size of a janitor's closet helps too – there aren't too many surprises, only the occasional rogue paperclip. I asked for the posting. I have to thank you ~ Mila Gray

A sigh escaped her as her brother's truthful words battled her stubborn nature.
Much as she hated giving in to their no driving order - well-intentioned or not - she wouldn't operate a motor vehicle if she could prove a danger to others.
"Fine, so if I can't drive myself, then who is taking me home?"
Six pairs of eyes found the ceiling suddenly intensely interesting.
Irritation made her lips draw tight. "Oh, come on. Surely one of you idiots can handle my car?"
Kendrick cleared his throat before speaking. "Um, the last time Mitchell drove your car, you almost castrated him because he didn't shift it to your satisfaction. You told us never to touch your car again, or else."
Naomi blew out a breath. Pussies.
How could they blame her for taking offence at the brutish manner with which they drove her baby?
They'd deserved each, and every, smack. And then, they had the nerve to wonder why she wanted to get away from the shifters and their violence. They bloody well drove her to it.
"I am not staying here."
Not with her mother due home within the hour from work. Once her mom walked through that door, Naomi would be lucky if she got to leave a bed within the next three days.
The men in her family might fear their baby sister even as they coddled her, but everyone obeyed their mother.
Nobody owned the balls not to. ~ Eve Langlais

I think I understand the problem - she doesn't want to be parted from her sister, Sophia. Did you know they were twins?" Baird looked at him apprehensively. "Are human twins like the Twin Kindred? Do they have to share a mate? Because I have to tell you, Sylvan, I don't think I can handle more than one like Olivia. And she's the only one I want, anyway." "No, no. Don't worry about that." Sylvan shook his head. "But the bond between them is extraordinarily strong. I spent some time talking to Sophia and she told me they had never been parted even for a single day." Baird frowned. "That is like the Twin Kindred. Do you suppose they feel actual physical pain while they're separated?" Sylvan looked thoughtful. "I don't think it's physical so much but certainly the pain is a very real thing. Sophia was very concerned about Olivia. She was, ah, worried that you might hurt her." "Hurt ~ Evangeline Anderson

An individual is a complex, indefinable object. And so only the individual possesses something that can without lying be called existence. As the Cynic philosophers already knew, nothing real, nothing concrete is definable.

The necessities of thought, speech, of science and action force us to act as if the definable exists. Let us consent to this, while all the while smiling at the inevitable.

But we should never forget that no word can give us the essence of a being, not even my own essence, and that no thought, whatever good will and sympathy might animate it, will ever penetrate the essence of another. Our most beautiful, strongest, most penetrating truths glory - modestly - in being but lesser lies.

The more I strive to seize the concrete, the more my formulas become complex and hesitant, then the more I become irritated at not being able to make them flexible and mobile. Whenever I pronounce absolute words I know I am speaking in the abstract and that I am speaking of the void. ~ Han Ryner

Good," she replied. "That's why you show promise. Not only are you able to recognize your shortcomings, you have an undeniable hunger to change for the better and evolve. What's truly amazing is what you've become in so short a time. Most humans would have imploded after a fraction of what you've lived through." "Guess it comes from being stuck in a moment for so long, treading water and losing ground no matter how hard I swam. It's almost as if the current has shifted and now I'm swimming at blazing speeds like some human version of the Nautilus that has slipped into the Gulf Stream. ~ J.D. Estrada

There's a hardness I'm seeing in modern people. Those little moments of goofiness that used to make the day pass seem to have gone. Life's so serious now. Maybe it's just because I'm with an older gang now.[...]I mean nobody even has hobbies these days. Not that I can see. Husbands and wives both work. Kids are farmed out to schools and video games. Nobody seems able to endure simply being themselves, either - but at the same time they're isolated. People work much more, only go home and surf the Internet and send e-mail rather than calling or writing a note or visiting each other. They work, watch TV, and sleep. I see these things. The world is only about work: work work work get get get...racing ahead...getting sacked from work...going online...knowing computer languages...winning contracts. I mean, it's just not what I would have imagined the world might be if you'd asked me seventeen years ago. People are frazzled and angry, desperate about money, and, at best, indifferent to the future. ~ Douglas Coupland

In other words, if you're always more concerned about how someone will react to you, and if you're worried someone will react negatively, then you're less likely to say anything at all. And in such a situation, you're the one who ends up hurting the most. I better understand, it's not about being careless in the words you say, but it's about being clear, and then just letting it be. I should be able to ask for whatever I need; conversely, she should be able to ask for whatever she needs. Recognizing, speaking to, and honoring our truths is the correct path to fostering love and intimacy; that such communication is difficult only underscores the impact of this positive and open connection. ~ Common

No no no, sweetie, that wasn't dancing, that was being a whore. Good God, what do they teach in church nowadays? Aren't you supposed to be able to pick whores out of a lineup?"
"That's only on Sundays," she says. "It's Thursday, my secret Christian Whore-Spotting Powers aren't activated. ~ Hannah Moskowitz

So I got lucky. But then again, it took me many hundreds of rejections to manage to find that luck.
I am sure there is a lesson n that somewhere.
Someone had taken a punt and had faith in me. I wouldn't let them down, and I would be eternally grateful to them for giving me that chance to shine.
Once DLE were on board, a few other companies joined them. It's funny how, once one person backs you, somehow other people feel more comfortable doing the same.
I guess most people don't like to trailblaze.
So before I knew it, suddenly, from nothing, I had the required funds for a place on the team. (In fact I was about £600 short, but Dad helped me out on that one, and refused to hear anything about ever being paid back. Great man.)
The dream of an attempt on Everest was now about to become a reality.
So many people over the years have asked me how to get sponsorship, but there is only one magic ingredient. Action. You just have to keep going.
Then keep going some more.
Our dreams are just wishes, if we never follow them through with action. And in life, you have got to be able to light your own fire.
The reality of planning big expeditions is often tedious and frustrating. There is no glamour in yet another potential sponsor's rejection letter, and I have often felt my own internal fire flickering close to snuff point.
Action is what keeps it alight. ~ Bear Grylls

My dream is to be able to make something in Baltimore that's just there. Make a movie or make a show there. I only left because there wasn't any opportunity except being an extra in Barry Levinson or John Waters movies. ~ Derek Waters

As a matter of fact, it is not a question of God's intentions towards us; but it is a question of whether we see Him through the crowds, whether or not we see Him and say, "If I may but only touch the hem of His garment ... " And so it is not about our capacity for goodness; but it is about our being able to simply see His intentions of goodness for us. ~ C. JoyBell C.