Or No Quotes

Moral issues rarely have yes or no answers.
-Myles to Alanna when she asks about the Gift ~ Tamora Pierce

Students and scholars of all kinds and of every age aim, as a rule, only at information, not insight. They make it a point of honour to have information about everything, every stone, plant, battle, or experiment and about all books, collectively and individually. It never occurs to them that information is merely a means to insight, but in itself is of little or no value. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

A Tragic Honesty, like the Ian Hamilton biography of Lowell that I read recently, is a sad and occasionally terrifying account of how creativity can be simultaneously fragile and self-destructive; it also made me grateful that I am writing now, when the antidepressants are better, and we all drink less. Stories about contemporary writers being taken away in straitjackets are thin on the ground - or no one tells them to me, anyway - but it seemed to happen to Lowell and Yates all the time; there are ten separate page references under 'breakdowns' in the index of A Tragic Honesty. ~ Nick Hornby

Don't imagine you are in a worse place than you actually are. Things could have been far worse. So, seize the day, count your blessings and move on. You can survive a crisis only by dealing it with one day at a time. Don't add up all your problems in your mind and think you are finished. Compartmentalize your problems; put them in different buckets and project-manage them separately. This is how you live through uncertain times – making decisions when there are few or no options to choose from. You never see it this way when you are going through a crisis. But, unfailingly, every crisis leaves you stronger, wiser – and happy! ~ AVIS Viswanathan

Peacock bass like to hide at ambush points, away from the strong canal currents. If you fish early and know those peacock hangouts, you will have little or no trouble catching peacocks on lures and live bait. ~ Mark Hall

I wouldn't mind if the consumer culture went poof! overnight because then we'd all be in the same boat and life wouldn't be so bad, mucking about with the chickens and feudalism and the like. But you know what would be absolutely horrible. The worst? ... If, as we were all down on earth wearing rags and husbanding pigs inside abandoned Baskin-Robbins franchises, I were to look up in the sky and see a jet
with just one person inside even
I'd go berserk. I'd go crazy. Either everyone slides back into the Dark Ages or no one does. ~ Douglas Coupland

Can you see that meetings and centers that don't address the real causes of dependency are almost certain to be little or no help? They actually can be very damaging. ~ Chris Prentiss

As an actress, I was trained to show emotion I did not feel, or no emotion at all. ~ Gene Tierney

balanced diet of low-sugar, low-salt whole foods, little or no red meat, possibly fish, and lots of fruits and vegetables, as well as exercise, stimulates the production of neurotransmitters, hormones, and neurotrophic proteins.15 All of the above contribute to good brain chemistry. Exercise especially leads to healthy and even new brain cells that rid themselves of toxins and communicate well with each other. As a result of exercise and good nutrition, we become inoculated against stress, feel energized, and stay younger, healthier, and more focused. While in this context I can only hint at mind-body fitness, it is surely part of the foundation of our well-being. ~ Andrea Polard

The foolishness of the politicians of that era brought on the "First World War" But it was the people that had to fight it. The trenches that the soldiers dug and the craters from the artillery are still visible to visitors. The cemeteries where the fallen are buried, show that the majority were just young men, whereas the politicians, who were to blame, had mostly white hair and did little or no fighting! To secure our future we must read and learn from history! ~ Hank Bracker

Through meditation and gentle cooperation, the body will heal itself with little or no effort. ~ Bryant H. McGill

Man is a creature of light and air, and I should therefore recommend little or no clothing when training. ~ George Hackenschmidt

All that interconnectedness that facilitated much of the explosion of megawealth over the last decade also facilitated the interpenetration of everything, so no one or no building is truly isolated and 'safe' anymore. Safety is in getting along. (p.261) ~ David Byrne

It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence, whether a man be behind it or no. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The car housed a hysterical bumper sticker: Save the Planet, and I permitted a moment of contemplation to truly bask in this thought. Save the planet? What a joke. Save the planet from what? From ourselves? And save it for what? For ourselves? It was a kind of perpetual stupidity in a tug-of-war battle over trivial matters. Only imbeciles see things in black and white: liberal or conservative, yes or no, this or that. Those in power laugh at those people in their morally inverted shades of grey, basking in the labels they've created so the people are easier to control. ~ Bruce Crown

Lie or no lie, best friends were for life. Lie or no lie, best friends were irreplaceable. ~ Jacqueline Francis - Wanting To Remember, Trying To Forget

I was as happy doing theater in New York for little or no money as I am now doing television for more money. The happiness, I guess, comes out of it being a good job. The success has to do with the fact that it's a good job that will continue. ~ David Hyde Pierce

The dichotomy is delicious. Inside the fantasy genre, I try to present women who need to solve real problems like having no voice in community, or no right to work; no access to capital to start a business. No reinforcement for talent. ~ Stella Atrium

Over the past thirty-five years, untold numbers of gay Christians have turned from God in their "failure" and "inability to please God," who, they were told, could not accept them as a gay person. Some felt so rejected and depressed that they turned to self-destructive behaviors, including suicide; some went deep in the closet to try to fit in at church; some became vehemently opposed to all things religious; some decided to seek God in other religions, or no religion; and very few individuals were able to find a church community in which they could worship and serve God without being rejected. ~ Kathy Baldock

Whole food that typically has only one ingredient, like "brown rice," or no ingredient label at all, as with fruits and vegetables! ~ Lisa Leake

A woman with a voice like that should have the face of an angel, the body of a Greek sculpture, and the skills of a courtesan. Chances were, she was a haggard old crone.
The hulking workman began to gather his tools. "I hope ye and yer pa know what ye're doin'. Fop or no, no man takes well to losin' his belongings."
"Psht," the woman said airily. "It's not as if we plan on knocking him in the head and peeling his pockets."
That was something,at least, Dougal thought grimly. ~ Karen Hawkins

Isn't there something in Genesis about not looking back? A stupid glance over my shoulder showed her expression relaxing, glad I wasn't taking anything that couldn't be replaced and glad I didn't destroy anything that couldn't be repaired. "Do you care for me, Georgia?" I asked her. "Tell me you don't and I'm out of your life forever." She stood in the driveway with her arms wrapped around herself like she was freezing. "Andre is on his way."
"I didn't ask you about no Andre."
"He'll be here in a minute."
My head hurt, but I pressed her. "It's a yes-or-no question."
"Can we talk when Andre gets back? We can-"
"Stop talking about him. I want to know if you love me."
"Andre…"
She said his name one time too many. For what happened next, she would have to take some of the blame. I asked her a simple question and she refused to give me a simple answer. I turned from her and made a sharp left turn, pounding across the yard, feeling the dry grass crunch under my shoes. Six long strides put me at the base of the massive tree. I touched the rough bark, an instant of reflection, to give Old Hickey the benefit of the doubt. But in reality, a hickory tree was a useless hunk of wood. Tall, and that's all. To break the shell of a hickory nut, you needed a hammer and an act of Congress, and even then you needed a screwdriver to get at the meat, which was about as tasty as a clod of limestone. Nobody would ever mourn a hickory tree except Celestial, and m ~ Tayari Jones

Auld John may dee a beggar in a hay barn, or at the back of a dike, but he sall aye be master o' his ain thoughts an' gie them vent or no, as he likes ~ James Hogg

God is love. Yes or no? No. ~ Samuel Beckett

Research by James Poterba at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology finds that the wealth of the U.S.'s elderly is highly skewed. About half of retirees have little or no financial wealth when they retire and depend almost entirely on Social Security for their income. ~ Greg Ip

CO2 is a minor player in the total system, and human CO2 emissions are insignificant compared to total natural greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, lowering human CO2 emissions will have no measurable effect on climate, and continued CO2 emissions will have little or no effect on future temperature ... While controlling CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels may have some beneficial effects on air quality, it will have no measurable effect on climate, but great detrimental effects on the economy and our standard of living. ~ Jonathan Duhamel

Mindfulness develops attention, concentration and the ability to simply be present with little or no future orientation, past orientation or goal orientation - choosing to be a human being rather than a human doing. ~ Ian Gawler

Football is such a team sport, so no one individual does it. No one coach or no one assistant coach or no one player, it's a great team sport, so I don't get carried away with a bunch of accolades. ~ Jimmy Johnson

Business or no, today I would've taken 'im on if you hadn't," Nick replied soberly.
"Was that you who yelled at me to tromp 'im?" Rider grinned.
"Nope,that was me," Gavn confessed, unabashed. ~ Charlotte McPherren

The real Zen of the old Chinese masters was wu-shih, or "no fuss." ~ Alan Watts

In his fitful eastward progress through Belgium and Germany that winter, my grandfather had shared all manner of billets: with dogfaces and officers, in misery and in comfort, in attack and in retreat, and pinned down by snow or German ordnance. He had bedded down under a bearskin in a schloss and in foxholes flecked pink with the tissue of previous occupants. If an hour's sleep were to be had, he seized it, in the bedrooms or basements of elegant townhouses, in ravaged hotels, on clean straw and straw that crawled with vermin, on featherbeds and canvas webbing slung across the bed of a half-truck, on mud, sandbags, and raw pine planks. However wretched, accommodations were always better or no worse than those on the enemy side. ~ Michael Chabon

Blair worshipped Thatcherism, could see little or no wrong in it, believed that that was what the country needed, thought that there was no alternative, regarded it as a legacy that had to be built on rather than rejected. ~ Martin Jacques

My mother gave me a piece of bread, which was love and encouragement. The correction was the meat, the substance. And then she would sandwich that with another piece of bread, which was love and encouragement. That was very important in shaping and molding our morality, our understanding of ourselves, making sure that we didn't think we were better than or less than anyone, feeling no more worthy or no less worthy than anyone else. ~ Lauryn Hill

Vague and mysterious forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long passed for mysteries of science; and hard or misapplied words with little or no meaning have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance and hindrance of true knowledge. ~ John Locke

A final caution to students: in making judgments on literature, always be honest. Do not pretend to like what you really do not like. Do not be afraid to admit a liking for what you do like. A genuine enthusiasm for the second-rate is much better than false enthusiasm or no enthusiasm at all. Be neither hasty nor timorous in making your judgments. When you have attentively read a poem and thoroughly considered it, decide what you think. Do not hedge, equivocate, or try to find out others' opinions before forming your own. But having formed an opinion and expressed it, do not allow it to petrify. Compare your opinion then with the opinions of others; allow yourself to change it when convinced of its error: in this way you learn. Honestly, courage, and humility are the necessary moral foundations for all genuine literary judgment. ~ Laurence Perrine

A good man would tell you to stop writing. A good man would say to you, "No, love, don't wait for me. Live your life." A good man would be happy that you were off somewhere in the world doing all the things you deserve. But, Miss Ada, I am no good man. I am, in fact, selfish, very bleeding selfish when it comes to you. Good man or no, I will tell you I believe a life lived without love is one not worthy of living a'tall. ~ Eden Butler

Then you're aping him. Valentine was one of the most arrogant and disrespectful men I've ever met. I suppose he brought you up to be just like him."
"Yes," Jace said, unable to help himself, "I was trained to be an evil mastermind from a young age. Pulling the wings off flies, poisoning the earth's water supply - I was covering that stuff in kindergarten. I guess we're all just lucky my father faked his own death before he got to the raping and pillaging part of my education, or no one would be safe. ~ Cassandra Clare

If you have no past or no future, which, after all, is all that the present is made of, why then you may as well dispose of the empty shell of present and commit suicide. But the cold reasoning mass of gray entrail in my cranium which parrots, 'I think, therefore I am,' whispers that there is always the turning, the upgrade, the new slant. And so I wait. ~ Sylvia Plath

In intimate family life, there comes a moment when children, willingly or no, become the judges of their parents. ~ Honore De Balzac

Next time you pray any kind of prayer, whether it be for the resolution of healing, or for a house, or for a car, or for a husband, or for a family conflict, or for a solution to a problem, tell Him he can say yes or no. Because in the end, you're a winner. Every time. ~ Bo Sanchez

I don't really remember making a decision. I don't remember thinking to myself, "Yes, I will do this," or, "No, I will not do that." They tell you what to do, and you do it. You don't reflect on it. You don't ponder its meaning. You don't explore its ambiguities or consider its consequences. These burdens are removed from you. In theory.
But you are still human. Eventually, you do reflect on it. The consequences make themselves known. The results of your actions persist. Eventually, you are struck by their meaning. At some point, an accounting is made. Eventually, if you are human, and sane, you examine what you have done. ~ Stephen Dau

Remember, if you don't promote yourself, then no one else will! Likewise, believe in yourself
or no one else will either. ~ Donald Trump

Mari managed to fall asleep now and then, only to awaken with a start of fear that she had been making noise. "Do I snore when I'm sleeping?"she finally whispered to Alain.
He didn't answer.
"Alain? Are you awake?"
"Yes," he's reply finally came. "I just do not know which answer would be right."
"Just tell me!"
"Sometimes."
"Sometimes?" Mari moved her eyes enough to glance at Alain. "Loud or soft?"
"Sometimes."
"Does it ever bother you?"
Alain hesitated again. "Sometimes."
"Are you going to give me any plain yes or no answers to this?"
"Not if I can avoid doing so," he replied. ~ Jack Campbell

There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

My father, good or bad, mistakes or no, had a direct line from his heart to the music to the people, to the audience. He played with logic and his own inner truth. ~ Arthur Rubinstein

I've never been wild."
"You want to be, don't you? That's why you're calling me.?"
"Yeah, I guess…maybe…"
"Yes or no. There's no one else here to hear you and I ain't judging."
"Yes. Yes, I'd like to be wild. ~ Molly O'Keefe

Poor Martin. Geek or no, committing his soul to eternal damnation was a helluva price to pay for six minutes. ~ Richelle Mead

Because what if the three billion dollars were paid? What was to stop them from blowing up the cliff anyway? Or charging another three billion next week? Though it wasn't announced, the mayor had also decided that, deadline or no deadline, she wasn't going to give them a single penny of her or the city's money. Which, again, was exactly right, in my humble opinion. Terrorists needed to be dealt with head-on. Whoever was doing this to us needed to be found and stopped, not negotiated with. ~ James Patterson

I haven't," I said shortly. "But I've the sense I was born with, and two ears in good working order. And whatever 'King George's health' may be in Gaelic, I doubt very much that it sounds like 'Bragh Stuart.' " He tossed back his head and laughed. "That it doesna," he agreed. "I'd tell ye the proper Gaelic for your liege lord and ruler, but it isna a word suitable for the lips of a lady, Sassenach or no. ~ Diana Gabaldon

I haven't had time to have a real freak-out."
He shakes his head, determined. "I'm not going to give you time. Don't think. Oreos or M&Ms?"
"Oreos!"
"Summer or fall?!"
"Fall!"
"Tator tots or French fries?!"
"Both!"
"Do you want to marry me, yes or no?"
"YES!"
Then I jump across the car and kiss him so hard he falls back and crashes against the window. The kids in the rap car holler at us to get a room. ~ R.S. Grey

Why don't you be together with me? If you can't say it out now, then you just answer by selecting ...
1st, if you say YES, we will get married right away
2nd, if you say NO, I will use every possible way to make you say YES and get married right away
3rd, if you say you need time to consider, I will give you one day to think over it and then get married
So you just choose, is it YES or NO? No, it's either 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Marry or not marry? ~ Park Shin-yang

I can't go back to being who I used to be!'
Hadley looked down at him sympathetically.
'None of us can, kid.' he said. 'That's the point. You get what you get. Life changes you. Time travel or no, you always have to build on what you live through. ~ Margaret Peterson Haddix

Silly women believe love is sighing I am dying still if he wrote it I suppose thered be some truth in it true or no it fills up your whole day and life always something to think about every moment and see it all around you like a new world ~ James Joyce

You've got to believe in yourself, or no one will believe in you. Imagination is like a bird on the wing, flying free for you to use. ~ Ozzy Osbourne

Naturally, the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country. ~ Hermann Goring

Restrain an inordinate desire for knowledge, in which is found much anxiety and deception. Learned men always wish to appear so, and desire recognition of their wisdom. But there are many matters, knowledge of which brings little or no advantage to the soul. ~ Thomas A Kempis

An ignorant man is always able to say yes or no immediately to any proposition. To a wise man, comparatively few things can be propounded which do not require a response with qualifications, with discriminations, with proportion. ~ Horace Mann

We got out. I glanced at Daniel.
He sighed. "Go on."
"You sound like you're giving a five-year old permission to play with an unsuitable friend."
"If the shoe fits ... "
I flipped off.
"Watch it or I won't marry you," he said. "Truck or no truck."
I laughed and jogged over to Rafe.
"Did he just say ... " Rafe began.
"Yes. And don't ask ~ Kelley Armstrong

We have finally started to notice that there is real curative value in local herbs and remedies. In fact, we are also becoming aware that there are little or no side effects to most natural remedies, and that they are often more effective than Western medicine. ~ Anne Wilson Schaef

Ancient fame carries a whiff of notoriety. People forget,or no longer care. One grows into another version of loneliness. ~ Carrie Snyder

People are hard to predict. The same music which moves one person to tears has little or no effect on the other. ~ Abhaidev

There have to be a few perks to being king of Faerie or no one would want the job. ~ Sarah Delena White

Death is an asshole. Regardless of illness or circumstance or gut feelings, you are never ready to accept never seeing someone again, to have nothing left but last conversations and memories. You are never ready to be left with how sick somebody looked, or the way they stood up and hugged you despite how dizzy and feverish they were. You are never ready to exist without a person you loved and still need. Death is a constant, but you are never ready…

But while it's scary and awful and exhausting and terrible, it's also comforting to have accepted that death will always be there and will always rip out your heart. It doesn't get easy, and it will find surprising new ways of debilitating you. But what does get simpler is your awareness of it – the reminder that you have gotten through it before, and you will get through it again, and it will never, ever be as bad as it is in the moment you are battling through. It will never hurt the way it did when you found out, and the ache will never be as painful as when you realize those were your last words to them. It won't be as painful forever…

So, no, we can't control death. But we can control how we breathe, how we act, the type of work we do. We can control what we say yes or no to, control who we choose to surround ourselves with, control the way we make the people we love feel. We can decide to be kind, to try our best, and to be honest. Those are the things that outlive us. When we're faced with the harshnes ~ Anne T. Donahue

What determines what we remember and what we forget? The key to memory consolidation is attentiveness. Storing explicit memories and, equally important, forming connections between them requires strong mental concentration, amplified by repetition or by intense intellectual or emotional engagement. The sharper the attention, the sharper the memory. "For a memory to persist," writes Kandel, "the incoming information must be thoroughly and deeply processed. This is accomplished by attending to the information and associating it meaningfully and systematically with knowledge already well established in memory."35 If we're unable to attend to the information in our working memory, the information lasts only as long as the neurons that hold it maintain their electric charge - a few seconds at best. Then it's gone, leaving little or no trace in the mind. ~ Nicholas Carr

The perfect target market for a startup is a small group of particular people concentrated together and served by few or no competitors. Any big market is a bad choice, and a big market already served by competing companies is even worse. This is why it's always a red flag when entrepreneurs talk about getting 1% of a $100 billion market. In practice, a large market will either lack a good starting point or it will be open to competition, so it's hard to ever reach that 1%. And even if you do succeed in gaining a small foothold, you'll have to be satisfied with keeping the lights on: cutthroat competition means your profits will be zero. ~ Peter Thiel

For an instant she felt them, their identities, almost their substance, pass over her head like a wave. At some time she would be - or no, already she was like that too; she was one of them, her body the same, identical, merged with that other flesh that choked the air in the flowered room with its sweet organic scent; she felt suffocated by this thick sargasso-sea of femininity. ~ Margaret Atwood

In all of human history no country or no people have suffered such terrible slavery, conquest and foreign oppression and no country and no people have struggled so strenuously for their emancipation than Sicily and the Sicilians. ~ Karl Marx

Your abusive partner's cycles of moving in and out of periods of cruelty can cause you to feel very close to him during those times when he is finally kind and loving. You can end up feeling that the nightmare of his abusiveness is an experience the two of you have shared and are escaping from together, a dangerous illusion that trauma can cause. I commonly hear an abused woman say about her partner, "He really knows me," or "No one understands me the way he does." This may be true, but the reason he seems to understand you well is that he has studied ways to manipulate your emotions and control your reactions. At times he may seem to grasp how badly he has hurt you, which can make you feel close to him, but it's another illusion; if he could really be empathic about the pain he has caused, he would stop abusing you for good. ~ Lundy Bancroft

But that's how it felt, pathetic or no. In a life entirely lacking in romance, that one moment of beauty smote me. I almost brayed a laugh. I'd finally fallen in love, and it was with the entire world. ~ B.P. Gregory

Windmill or no windmill, he said, life would go on as it had always gone on
that is, badly. ~ George Orwell

There has been little or no mention of the vast body of law which contradicts your position. I think you owe it to the people whom you address to explain its existence. ~ Frankie Sue Del Papa

Every time I catch myself trying to figure out other people's motives, I'll stop and ask myself: "What did I say or do that prompted the action? Why did I react to it as I did? Does what happened make a major difference to me, or am I making something big out of a trifle?"
Leave off that excessive desire of knowing; therein is found much distraction There are many things the knowledge of which is of little or no profit to the soul. ~ Thomas A Kempis

Fanaticism, or, to call it by its milder name, enthusiasm, is only powerful and active so long as it is aggressive. Establish it firmly in power, and it becomes conservatism, whether it will or no. ~ James Russell Lowell

Is life a game of yes or no? I wonder about the absolutes that we try to create for ourselves, our relationship, our life choices. We try to make things black and white when sometimes it is much more grey. ~ Savi Sharma

And it is a very great fault amongst a very great part of Christians, that in their enquiries of religion, even the best of them ordinarily ask but these two questions, "Is it lawful? Is it necessary?" If they find it lawful, they will do it without scruple or restraint; and then they suffer imperfection, or receive the reward of folly: for it may be lawful, and yet not fit to be done; it may be it is not expedient; and he that will do all that he can do lawfully, would, if he durst, do something that is not lawful. And as great an error is on the other hand in the other question. He that too strictly enquires of an action whether it be necessary or no, would do well to ask also whether it be good? whether it be of advantage to the interest of his soul? For if a christian man or woman; that is, a redeemed, blessed, obliged person, a great beneficiary, endeared to God beyond all the comprehensions of a man's imagination, one that is less than the least of all God's mercies, and yet hath received many great ones and hopes for more, if he should do nothing but what is necessary, that is, nothing but what he is compelled to; then he hath the obligations of a son, and the affections of a slave, which is the greatest undecency of the world in the accounts of christianity. If a Christian will do no more than what is necessary, he will quickly be tempted to omit something of that also. . . .

He that will do every thing that is lawful, and nothing but what is necessary, wil ~ Jeremy Taylor

There is thus little or no ability for an internet user to know when they are being covertly propagandized by their government, which is precisely what makes it so appealing to intelligence agencies, so powerful, and so dangerous. ~ Glenn Greenwald

Every generation builds on the work of the last, and pill or no pill, my generation could not have made the strides they have without all the work done by others. The same is true for future generations, although luckily for them the advancement of women is now snowballing. The legacy of the current crop of women over fifty - the accidental feminists - has given a leg up like no other to their daughter and granddaughters, not least through the #MeToo movement. ~ Jane Caro

Lived religion is a very different thing from strict textual analysis. Very few people of any faith live their lives as literalist interpretations of scripture. Many people have little or no knowledge of scripture at all. Many others who have more knowledge choose to interpret what they know in ways that are convenient, or that fit their own moral sense of what is good. Still others view their religion as a kind of self-accepted ethnicity, but live lives utterly divorced from any sense of faith. ~ Mohsin Hamid

The missing missing were people who dropped off the face of the earth and kept on going, with no one in their lives who noticed, or no one in their lives who cared. When they were found dead, with no means of identification, it was almost as though they'd been born that way. ~ Joseph Knox

Some version of 'Deal or No Deal' airs in 120 countries. And they play it exactly the same way, with models and briefcases. It crosses language and culture and gender, because it's the simplest game in the world, and everyone wants to press their luck. ~ Howie Mandel

When everyone is seated, Galen uses a pot holder to remove the lid from the huge speckled pan in the center of the table. And I almost upchuck. Fish. Crabs. And...is that squid hair? Before I can think of a polite version of the truth-I'd rather eat my own pinky finger than seafood-Galen plops the biggest piece of fish on my plate, then scoops a mixture of crabmeat and scallops on top of it. As the steam wafts its way to my nose, my chances of staying polite dwindle. The only think I can think of is to make it look like I'm hiccupping instead of gagging. What did I smell earlier that almost had me salivating? It couldn't have been this.
I fork the fillet and twist, but it feels like twisting my own gut. Mush it, dice it, mix it all up. No matter what I do, how it looks, I can't bring it near my mouth. A promise is a promise, dream or no dream. Even if real fish didn't save me in Granny's pond, the fake ones my imagination conjured up sure comforted me until help arrived. And now I'm expected to eat their cousins? No can do.
I set the fork down and sip some water. I sense Galen is watching. Out of my peripheral, I see the others shoveling the chum into their faces. But not Galen. He sits still, head tilted, waiting for me to take a bite first.
Of all the times to be a gentleman! What happened to the guy who sprawled me over his lap like a three-year-old just a few minutes ago? Still, I can't do it. And they don't even have a dog for me to feed under the table, w ~ Anna Banks

Do you think I'm a child?" she asked. "Not any more," said Adam, "I'm beginning to think you're a twisted human--or no human at all. ~ John Steinbeck

Therefore, as always, make of this voice what you choose to make of it. Make of me what you choose to make of me, but recognize within yourselves the vitality of your being. And look to no man or no idea or no woman or no dogma, but the vitality of your own being, and trust it. And that which offends your soul, turn away from, but trust yourself. ~ Jane Roberts

These people are no better or no worse than people anywhere, anything that you can do to help them, help them and you will be surprised to know how they will help you. ~ Lorna Goodison

The ultimate triumph of Christianity was aided by the internal drive within Roman paganism toward some kind of monotheism. By 150 A.D., whatever vitality had once existed in ancient polytheism had mostly declined, and the gods played little or no role in individual lives. The state temples to the old gods became civic centers rather than religious entities.
"But paganism went about reforming itself. It drew upon the Alexandrian mystical form of Platonism, taught by Plotinus -- what we call Neoplatonism -- to conjure an image of the deity as a single spiritual fountain of life that fructifies the world.
"This Neoplatonic monotheism became popular in aristocratic circles in fourth-century Rome and gave such renewed vitality to paganism that the triumph of Christianity had to be bolstered by state proscription of this latter-day monotheistic paganism. By 390, Roman paganism was almost as close to monotheism as was Christianity. ~ Norman F. Cantor

The source of wealth is from individuals with little or no history of interest in the game, who have happened upon football as a means of serving some hidden agenda. ~ Sepp Blatter

Sure it will. But you have to believe it yourself, or no one else will. True beauty and style starts within, darling, ~ Jasinda Wilder

I'm not being evasive but I am saying I'm not a scientist and I'm not directly involved in the consultation however the science must be sound, it must be agreed and the consultation must be of a high quality or no one will have any confidence in the process. ~ John Anderson

What I have said, and still believe with ever-increasing conviction, is that human society is always,
whether it will or no, aristocratic by its very essence, to the extreme
that it is a society in the measure that it is aristocratic, and ceases to
be such when it ceases to be aristocratic ~ Jose Ortega Y Gasset

It's very hard to write about that which is always beautiful and pleasant and good. You don't get anywhere with it. There's no friction in it. There's no trouble. You have to have trouble. Somebody's got to get in trouble, or no one wants to read it. ~ Paul Bowles

I believe the main purpose of life is to accept with gratitude what you've been blessed with so that you may use those gifts to mold yourself into the best person you can possibly be. Learning to discern things of true value from those of little or no worth is part of the process. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

What friends or kindred can be so close and intimate as the powers of our soul, which, whether we will or no, must ever bear us company? ~ Saint Teresa Of Avila

The English mode of existence in which everybody acts as if everybody else ( with few, or no exceptions ) was either an enemy or a bore. ~ John Stuart Mill

It is about time that, atheist or no, we call a spade a spade, and outed lies, and suspicious statements are placed against the backdrop of a linguistic litmus test. ~ Leviak B. Kelly

Or it may be that the honey in the cells
has foamed to froth, has risen above
walls that could no longer contain
that sweet - So the hand that tried
to stay the overflow withdrew, gold-
sheathed. May such abundance visit
your heart today: not rue, not pity. ~ Luisa A. Igloria

But the truth is that I don't feel like I can carry anyone but myself right now. The streets are empty. I am empty. Or, no
I am full of pain. It's my life that's empty. ~ David Levithan

Do you enjoy being cruel?"
"Jesus. That's a really loaded question."
"It's a yes or no question."
"And one I'd rather not answer if nothing's going to happen between us. ~ Annabel Joseph

We'll wire ahead and have your trunks sent back - because I'm not letting you go after them. Trunks or no trunks, you're staying here - where you belong." I had no objections. ~ Janette Oke

Outbreak or no outbreak, we're being overrun by crazies. ~ Jason Medina

'Habibi' is a complex and unapologetic work of fantasy - no idle undertaking for readers of any faith or no faith at all, but one well worth the trouble. ~ G. Willow Wilson