Practicing Quotes

Her father had been forced to cancel her clarinet lessons after the neighbors complained about the practicing. ~ Jeanne Birdsall

One of the lessons I learned in all those years practicing karate is that progress only comes in small incremental portions. ~ Georges St-Pierre

We are accustomed to repeating the cliché, and to believing, that 'our most precious resource is our children.' But we have plenty of children to go around, God knows, and as with Doritos, we can always make more. The true scarcity we face is practicing adults, of people who know how marginal, how fragile, how finite their lives and their stories and their ambitions really are but who find value in this knowledge, even a sense of strange comfort, because they know their condition is universal, is shared. ~ Michael Chabon

You don't have to call me that, you know," she said, brushing her hair back from her shoulders. "There was a time when you called me Winter."

He leaned his elbows on the enclosure wall. "There was also a time when I could come visit you without feeling like I was supposed to toss bread crumbs to earn your favor."

"Bread crumbs? Do I look like a goose?"

He tilted his head to the side. "You don't look like an arctic wolf, either, but that's what the plaque tells me I'm looking at."

Winter leaned back on her hands. "I will not play fetch," she said, "but I might howl if you ask nicely."

He grinned. "I've heard your howl. It's not very wolf-like, either."

"I've been practicing."

"You won't bite me if I come in there, will you?"

"I make no guarantees."

Jacin hopped over the rail and came to sit beside her. She raised an eyebrow. "You don't look like an arctic wolf, either."

"I also don't howl." He considered. "Though I might play fetch, depending on the prize."

"The prize is another game of fetch."

"You drive a hard bargain. ~ Marissa Meyer

Our ingenuity in feeding ourselves is prodigious, but at various points our technologies come into conflict with nature's ways of doing things, as when we seek to maximize efficiency by planting crops or raising animals in vast mono-cultures. This is something nature never does, always and for good reasons practicing diversity instead. A great many of the health and environmental problems created by our food system owe to our attempts to oversimplify nature's complexities, at both the growing and the eating ends of our food chain. ~ Michael Pollan

It's unfashionable these days to talk about sin, and it's even less fashionable to talk about idolatry. The world likes to tell us that we're beyond that now. When we honestly discuss the sinful attitudes behind our actions, we are often shushed: "You're not that bad! Everyone does those things! You need to have better self esteem!" But the human heart is the same now as it was in biblical times. We don't have to bow down to a golden statue to worship idols. When we trust in anything other than God for peace and happiness we are essentially practicing idolatry. Only when we see the idols yet in our hearts can we truly "put off the old self" and "put on the new self" (Colossians 3:5-10). ~ Staci Eastin

I want to thank my parents for not practicing birth control. ~ Dustin Hoffman

People who have already been out in the real world, practicing for years whatever their particular specialty might be, have some basis for determining which things are relevant enough to go into a curriculum to teach those who follow. The idea that students can determine relevance in advance is one of the many counterproductive notions to come out of the 1960s. ~ Thomas Sowell

Learn to write by doing it. Read widely and wisely. Increase your word power. Find your own individual voice though practicing constantly. Go through the world with your eyes and ears open and learn to express that experience in words. ~ P.D. James

I do not play this instrument so well as I should wish to, but I have always supposed that to be my own fault because I would not take the trouble of practicing. ~ Jane Austen

When you are practicing zazen, do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything ... if you are not bothered by the waves, gradually they will become calmer and calmer. ~ Shunryu Suzuki

But as a property owner of Orlando, I wouldn't rent to someone who is gay any more than I would rent to a person who is a practicing witch. ~ Alan Chambers

I urge pupils when studying a work and in order to master its most important aspic, the rhythmic structure, or the ordering of the time process, to do just what a conductor does with the score: to place music on the desk and to conduct the work from beginning to end as if it were played by someone else, an imaginary pianist with the conductor trying to impress him with his will, his tempo first of all, plus all the details of his performance. ~ Heinrich Neuhaus

In 2002 Hamilton crashed early in the three-week Tour of Italy, fracturing his shoulder. He kept riding, enduring such pain that he ground eleven teeth down to the roots, requiring surgery after the Tour. He finished second. "In 48 years of practicing I have never seen a man who could handle as much pain as he can," said Hamilton's physical therapist, Ole Kare Foli. ~ Tyler Hamilton

But when fascism comes it will not be in the form of an anti-American movement or pro-Hitler bund, practicing disloyalty. Nor will it come in the form of a crusade against war. It will appear rather in the luminous robes of flaming patriotism; it will take some genuinely indigenous shape and color, and it will spread only because its leaders, who are not yet visible, will know how to locate the great springs of public opinion and desire and the streams of thought that flow from them and will know how to attract to their banners leaders who can command the support of the controlling minorities in American public life. The danger lies not so much in the would-be Fuhrers who may arise, but in the presence in our midst of certainly deeply running currents of hope and appetite and opinion. The war upon fascism must be begun there. ~ John T. Flynn

I suspect that every teacher hears the same complaints, but that, being seldom a practicing author, he tends to dismiss them as out of his field, or to see in them evidence that the troubled student has not the true vocation. Yet it is these very pupils who are most obviously gifted who suffer from these disabilities, and the more sensitively organized they are the higher the hazard seems to them. Your embryo journalist or hack writer seldom asks for help of any sort; he is off after agents and editors while his more serious brother-in-arms is suffering the torments of the damned because of his insufficiencies. Yet instruction in writing is oftenest aimed at the oblivious tradesman of fiction, and the troubles of the artist are dismissed or overlooked. ~ Dorothea Brande

There is much room for humility when it comes to evangelism. We need to acknowledge that God is sovereign and can do as he wills to bring people to himself. There is no formula that dictates how God must work in evangelism. And though we may disagree with the evangelistic practices of individuals, ministries, or churches, we must also recognize that when people develop good-hearted commitments to evangelism, God can produce true fruit. I, for one, will take people practicing evangelism as best they can over those who forgo evangelism until they have the perfect practice. ~ J. Mack Stiles

Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, "I know what Zen is," or "I have attained enlightenment." This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner."
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"When you are sitting in the middle of your own problem, which is more real to you: your problem or you yourself? The awareness that you are here, right now, is the ultimate fact. "
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"Knowing that your life is short, to enjoy it day after day, moment after moment, is the life of "form is form and emptiness is emptiness."
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"You may feel as if you are doing something special, but actually it is only the expression of your true nature; it is the activity which appeases your inmost desire. But as long as you think you are practicing zazen for the sake of something, that is not true practice."
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"The most important thing is to forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture. ~ Shunryu Suzuki

I make make music in my own time, messing around with beats and riffs I write. Always practicing performing in my room most times I probably look like an idiot dancing around haha. ~ Christina Grimmie

That's our cue to depart."
"They know something " I pointed out.
"I know something too. I know we're going to attract a lot of unwanted attention if they keep screaming. And then we have to make up some ridiculous explanation about how we heard screaming through the vents in our rooms and we followed the sound back to the basement and we found these girls lying on the ground and pretending to be tied up by invisible rope because they're practicing for the regional mime championships."
I blinked at her. "Is that explanation more or less believable than we woke up because two girls who are actually evil magicians tripped a magical alarm wired to a door in the basement we aren't supposed to know about "
Scout paused for a minute then nodded. "Point made. ~ Chloe Neill

Good will is a power that can be used every day of the year and every hour of the day. It is instantly available. By continuously practicing good will we cultivate a deep subconscious habit of good will. It becomes a pattern of our response in all situations. Good will works as silently as the sun and with as much power. It thaws the ice and snow of resistance and indifference. It warms and wins human hearts. It draws forth the best in others as flowers are drawn from the soil. It stimulates growth. ~ Wilferd Peterson

Let's not kid ourselves, we find mutual love only when we know how to love. And the best place to start practicing the art of love is with the self--that body, mind, heart, and soul that we can most know and change.
The one person who will never leave us, whom we will never lose, is ourselves. Learning to love our female selves is where our search for love must begin....rather than embracing faulty thinking that encourages us to believe that females are inherently loving, we make the choice to become loving. Choosing love, we affirm our agency, our commitment to personal growth, our emotional openness. ~ Bell Hooks

I live in a war zone. I would never have imagined 37 years ago when I started practicing law that there would still be so much discrimination against women, so much denial of women's rights. ~ Gloria Allred

We were a religious, practicing, Catholic family - Mass together on Sunday, Catholic schools, and parents who practiced everything they preached. A great gift was their total absence of any derogatory talk about people of any race or culture and we were on a street of many faiths, though no other races at that early time. ~ Trina Paulus

The glory is being happy. The glory is not winning here or winning there. The glory is enjoying practicing, enjoy every day, enjoying to work hard, trying to be a better player than before. ~ Rafael Nadal

When people are coming to Krakow and we show them how and where we practice, they are like, 'Seriously? Are you kidding me?' But we're always saying that what matters about the courts - the lines, the nets - are the same. I'm practicing in Poland even when I don't have good facilities. ~ Agnieszka Radwanska

A Catholic culture does not mean or imply universality. A nation or a whole civilization is of the Catholic culture not when it is entirely composed of strong believers minutely practicing their religion, nor even whit it boasts a majority of such, but when it presents a determining number of units-family institutions, individuals, inspired by and tenacious of the Catholic spirit. ~ Hilaire Belloc

Give up all forms of parrotry. Start practicing whatever you truly feel to be true and justly to be just. Do not make a show of your faith and beliefs. You have not to give up your religion, but to give up clinging to the husk of mere ritual and ceremony. To get to the fundamental core of Truth underlying all religions, reach beyond religion. ~ Meher Baba

How to Perform Paced Breathing

Paced breathing is a slow, regular rate of deep breathing. There are three main points to keep in mind when practicing:

1.Breathe slowly. Concentrate on slowing the rate of your breathing to eight or ten breaths per minute.

2.Inhale and exhale through your nose. It is more difficult to take shallow breaths from the upper chest when you breathe through your nose. This keeps you from hyperventilating.

3.Choose a neutral word to focus on while practicing paced breathing. The words "one," "calm," and "relax" work well. Each time you exhale, say the word in your mind. This will assist in keeping your breathing evenly paced, and will help to reduce the chances of interfering thoughts.

During the day, when you are not practicing paced breathing, alternate paced and normal breathing. Every single breath you take does not have to come from the diaphragm. There should be a natural rhythm between chest breathing and diaphragm breathing. Find a comfortable balance but do more diaphragmatic breathing than you usually do.

Tony is at a local law office to interview for an internship. He wants to become a trial lawyer. He is very excited by the thought of working professionally, but is so anxious about the interview that he feels lightheaded and numb. He is afraid he won't be able to say what he wants to, and that his answers will be incorrect.
As he waits for the interviewer, Tony starts to ~ Heather Moehn

I'd sort of dabbled in Black Magic, not practicing it, but I was interested in it. All these horrible things kept happening to me - a lot of my aunts and uncles started dying and I was seeing all these bloody things visiting me during the night. ~ Geezer Butler

There is a way to practice hard and be physical without pads. You can still be a physical football team and be efficient in practice without pads. The 49ers practiced like that for a long period of time in the 1980s under Bill Walsh and were extremely successful when all the other teams were practicing in pads. ~ Jimmy Johnson

I'm not talking what you preach
there is no practicing here.
I am talking living what you preach.
And to do that, you gotta preach what you live.
I know what I'm here for
And I know what the Lord is here for.
The gospel. I will live and die by the Gospel. ~ David Levithan

A concrete embodiment of the jubilee commandment was evidenced in a rural church in Iowa during the "farm crisis." The banker in the town held mortgages on many farms. The banker and the farmers belonged to the same church. The banker could have foreclosed. He did not because, he said, "These are my neighbors and I want to live here a long time." He extended the loans and did not collect the interest that was rightly his. The pastor concluded, "He was practicing the law of the Jubilee year, and he did not even know it." The pastor might also have noted that the reason the banker could take such action is that his bank was a rare exception. It was locally and independently owned, not controlled by a larger Chicago banking system. ~ Walter Brueggemann

I'm a practicing psychiatrist and I think that I really believe in the advances of psychiatry. Our diagnoses are more precise. ~ Jonathan Michel Metzl

I try very hard to maintain the confidence of my sources by speaking candidly with them, honoring agreements about the use of our conversation, and practicing journalism in an honest and straightforward way. ~ John Harwood

I found myself doing extraordinary things that arent in the textbooks. Then the IMF asked the U.S. to please print money. The whole world is now practicing what they have been saying I should not. I decided that God had been on my side and had come to vindicate me. ~ Gideon Gono

I think O.J. protests too much. Not only did he say he didn't carve the holiday turkey, but he was in the back yard practicing his golf swing the whole time. ~ David Letterman

Jack was pleased to help. "Combat time? Cool!" He floated in a circle around me. "Who are we fighting?"
"Sam," I said.
Jack froze. "But I like Sam."
"We're just practicing," I said. "Try to kill her without really killing her."
"Oh, phew! Okay. I can do that. ~ Rick Riordan

Practicing discipline involves continually working to find space in our patterns, to find the gaps in the images we hold about ourselves. It also means finding the gaps in our ideas about others, releasing images that we hold about a manager, a coworker, a friend, or a partner. ~ Tsoknyi Rinpoche

One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls. ~ Jack Kerouac

The painful thing is that when we buy into disapproval,we are practicing disapproval. When we buy into harshness,we are practicing harshness. ~ Pema Chodron

That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,

as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel,
(brave even among lions),
"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it -
books, bricks, grief -
it's all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,
put it down."
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?

Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?

How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe

also troubled -
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply? ~ Mary Oliver

To be truly successful you have to break away from the crowds, popularity and your ego for a while. Somewhere you can work towards achieving your goals, say no to distractions and concentrate on studying and practicing. ~ Francis Shenstone

Never give up! Keep practicing - it's the only way to get better. But don't lose sight of the outside world. As an artist, you have to connect with the world around you, or you've got nothing to inspire you. Learn from everything and everyone, good or bad. It's just as important to learn what not to do, as well as what to do, in art, in life. ~ Steve Landes

I like to see Quentin (Roosevelt) practicing baseball. It gives me hope that one of my boys will not take after his father in this respect, and will prove able to play the national game. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

As a practicing neurologist, I can tell you first hand that working with Parkinson's patients offers clinical challenges. But from an emotional perspective, this disease can border on overwhelming. ~ David Perlmutter

I do realise that talk of natural kinds dates back to Aristotle, but I'd better not say too much about ancient philosophers lest I be convicted of practicing history of philosophy without a license. ~ Hilary Kornblith

Though she teased at explanations of sorcery in both her life and in her art (an early dust-flap biography called her "a practicing amateur witch," and ~ Shirley Jackson

I think overall the majority of people who are practicing it as a subject are following the right line. For the aberration, don't blame yoga or the whole community of yogis ~ B.K.S. Iyengar

Through Jimi Hendrix's music you can almost see the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and of Martin Luther King Junior, the beginnings of the Berlin Wall, Yuri Gagarin in space, Fidel Castro and Cuba, the debut of Spiderman, Martin Luther King Junior's 'I Have a Dream' speech, Ford Mustang cars, anti-Vietnam protests, Mary Quant designing the mini-skirt, Indira Gandhi becoming the Prime Minister of India, four black students sitting down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina, President Johnson pushing the Civil Rights Act, flower children growing their hair long and practicing free love, USA-funded IRA blowing up innocent civilians on the streets and in the pubs of Great Britain, Napalm bombs being dropped on the lush and carpeted fields of Vietnam, a youth-driven cultural revolution in Swinging London, police using tear gas and billy-clubs to break up protests in Chicago, Mods and Rockers battling on Brighton Beach, Native Americans given the right to vote in their own country, the United Kingdom abolishing the death penalty, and the charismatic Argentinean Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. It's all in Jimi's absurd and delirious guitar riffs. ~ Karl Wiggins

If you're not hearing the music of the gospel in your home, please remember these two words: keep practicing. ~ Wilford W. Andersen

What are you supposed to do - stop practicing law whenever one of your friends becomes president? ~ Edward Bennett Williams

Too often, we see people who are prevented from practicing their religion because of a government mandate. ~ Carly Fiorina

I could hear my friends outside playing soccer while I was expected to stay inside practicing the piano. It was like torture! ~ Ildar Abdrazakov

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The Cleveland Clinic Foundation funded a study in which one group of healthy volunteers spent fifteen minutes a day practicing "finger abductions," which are basically like a biceps curl but with one finger. ~ Shawn Achor

You're all Helen talks about. She's been reading Welsh history books and plaguing the family with accounts of Owain Glynd and something called the Eistedfodd." His eyes sparkled with friendly mockery. "Helen was hacking and spitting so much the other day that we thought she was coming down with a cold, until we realized she was practicing the Welsh alphabet."
Ordinarily Rhys would have made some sarcastic retort, but he'd barely noticed the gibe. His chest had gone tight with pleasure.
"She doesn't have to do that," he muttered.
"Helen wants to please you," Devon said. "It's her nature. Which leads to something I want to make clear: Helen is like a younger sister to me. And although I'm obviously the last man alive who should lecture anyone about propriety, I expect you to behave like an altar boy with her for the next few days."
Rhys gave him a surly glance. "I *was* an altar boy, and I can tell you that reports of their virtue are highly exaggerated. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I've been practicing for years, trying to figure out how to record an entire band live. ~ Beck

By keeping my hand in that, it's the way I keep learning. The main way you learn in medicine is by practicing and working with patients. ~ Andrew Weil

It's a difficult path that we tread, us Indie self-publishers, but we're not alone. How many bands practicing in their dad's garage have heard of a group from the neighbourhood who got signed by a recording company? Or how many artists who love to paint, but are not really getting anywhere with it hear of someone they went to art school with being offered an exhibition in a gallery? How many chefs who love to get creative around food hear of someone else who's just landed a job with Marco Pierre White?
There's no difference between us and them. There is, however, a huge difference in how everyone else perceives the writer. And there's a huge difference between all of us – the writers, the musicians, the composers, the chefs, the dance choreographers and to a certain extent the tradesmen - and the rest of society in that no one understands us. It's a wretched dream to hope that our creativity gets recognised while our family thinks we're wasting our time when the lawn needs mowing, the deck needs painting and the bedroom needs decorating.
It's acceptable to go into the garage to tinker about with a motorbike, but it's a waste of a good Sunday afternoon if you go into the garage and practice your guitar, or sit in your study attempting to capture words that have been floating around your brain forever. ~ Karl Wiggins

Whether you plan or whether you flow in order to be creative probably isn't the point. The point is to keep practicing to maintain neural pathways and to establish new ones by learning new skills. ~ Philippa Perry

Bullish or bearish are terms used by people who do not engage in practicing uncertainty, like the television commentators, or those who have no experience in handling risk. Alas, investors and businesses are not paid in probabilities; they are paid in dollars. Accordingly, it is not how likely an event is to happen that matters, it is how much is made when it happens that should be the consideration. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

She's here, Diana. Our little Tabby is here. Safe and sound."
Diana lifted her lashes and looked up at Colby. He was on his knees between her legs, holding his daughter in
Brandon's denim jacket. In the glare of the flashlight Brandon held, she could see the brilliant expression of triumph
and happiness in her husband's eyes.
"I love you, Diana."
"I love you, Colby." Diana relaxed. This time, she thought, Colby wasn't just practicing.
This time he meant it. ~ Jayne Ann Krentz

When I was growing up under Tom's (Tom Brown, the Tracker) watchful gaze, I often wondered why he seemed so distant and quiet so much of the time. This was why. He was stilling the chatter, quieting his mind, connecting and listening: practicing the routine of invisibility. ~ Jon Young

SIMPLICITY is practicing a lifestyle that is increasingly free of excess, greed, covetousness, and other forms of dependence on the things of this world. The Holy Spirit works through simplicity to release spiritual gifts such as hospitality, mercy, and giving ... to live free of anxiety, and to better take care of this Earth. ~ Siang-Yang Tan

I started out a human being. But pretty much had all the humanity wrung out of me after passing the Bar and practicing law for ten years. Not sure what I am now. ~ Jeffrey Rasley

There really is something raw about sexuality that's real and good and we must continue to learn to not be ashamed of it. But - we have to honor the reality of practicing safer sex. ~ Kyan Douglas

Daily repetition matters when a kid is learning to swim. It can be 20 minutes in a lesson or an hour practicing for a couple of weeks. ~ Summer Sanders

The idea of practicing love is deeply appealing to me, because built right in is an acceptance of imperfection. There is an acknowledgment to myself that I am going to mess this up, an understanding that there is room to grow. Each of my failures just affirms the truth that we are all starting over and rising again. ~ Anna White

You can only arrive at mastery by practicing the techniques you have learned, facing challenges and apprehending them, using to the fullest the tools you have been taught, until they shatter in your hands and you are left in the midst of wreckage absolute ... I cannot create masters. I have never known how to create masters. Go, then, and fail ... You have been shaped into something that may emerge from the wreckage, determined to remake your Art. I cannot create masters, but if you had not been taught, your chances would be less. The higher road begins after the Art seems to fail you; though the reality will be that it was you who failed your Art. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

(an early dust-flap biography called her "a practicing amateur witch, ~ Shirley Jackson

I raise my hand; I take a book from the other side of this desk; I hear the boys playing ball outside my window; I see the clouds blown away beyond the neighboring woods:-in all these I am practicing Zen, I am living Zen. No worldly discussion is necessary, or any explanation. ~ D.T. Suzuki

Injuries are part of the game, but sometimes we can avoid them by just practicing our techniques. ~ Troy Vincent

Gymnasts, lazy people, complainers and successful people have all practiced to be what they are good at. So if you keep practicing being lazy, you will be lazy. If you keep practicing complaining, you will constantly complain. If you practice compassion, generosity, patience, working hard and having a bigger vision, you will become better at it with time because you will create the causes to become better. You are practicing to become better. ~ Tsem Tulku

The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one
or both. Usually both. ~ Susan Sontag

The great benefit of practicing mindfulness ... is presence of mind within a storm of emotions. ~ Phillip Moffitt

Just reason it out. What are the pros and cons with her?"
"Reason! Always with your bloody reason. Do you know what I'm going to enjoy? When you meet your demoness and she shakes to tell your unflappable demeanor. I'm going to laugh when you turn enraged, horns flaring ramrod straight every time she saunters by."
"Noted. Now, begin with the pros."
"Verra well. She's clever, she's brave, and, by all the gods, she's graced in form. And I'm no' going to apologize for being a typical male - I do want the sexiest female I've ever laid eyes on to be mine. I'll admit that I want her on my arm and in my bed. And I want to be smug over having her desire me, too."
"The cons . . ."
"Right back to the witchery. Would you no' be a tad unnerved if your female could unleash the force of an atomic bomb whenever she got nettled with you?"
Rydstrom nodded in commiseration, then said, "Take away the fact that she's a witch - "
"I will be taking away that fact," Bowe interrupted. "Practicing witchcraft is voluntary. I could see to it that she never - "
Out of the blue, a bee stung him. "Damn it," he muttered, slapping it away, then continued, "If I snatched her away from her coven and immersed her with the Lykae - "
Another sting. "Son of a bitch!"
When the odd breeze blew once more, Bowe narrowed his eyes. "The witch." He gazed up at the sky and all around him. "Playing with me again! I'll turn her over my knee for this. ~ Kresley Cole

It is only by starting at an unusually young age and by practicing with such ferocious devotion that it is possible to accumulate ten thousand hours while still in adolescence. Far from being an exception to the ten-thousand-hour rule, Mozart is a shining testament to it. ~ Matthew Syed

whenever you have trouble bringing yourself to meditate, you can recall all the benefits that will come if you keep practicing. ~ Culadasa John Yates

How to Perform Visualization

To practice visualization, sit in a comfortable position and relax any muscle tension. Once you feel relaxed, begin to visualize a pleasant scene. Imagine every aspect of the scene, using all of your senses. For instance, if you visualize sitting on a beach watching the ocean waves lapping against the shore, imagine first what the scene looks like, then imagine how the sand feels on your bare feet. Take a deep breath and imagine how the clean ocean air smells and tastes. Next, listen for the sounds of the waves and seagulls.
As you become more involved with your mental picture, your body will relax and you will be able to let go of your worrisome thoughts. It often helps to make positive, affirmative statements, such as "I feel calm and relaxed," while practicing to block negative thoughts more effectively. You could picture also an image that represents the tension you feel when you begin, such as a kite that is stuck in a tree getting more and more tangled. As you become relaxed, imagine the string loosening and the kite becoming free and soaring in the sky.
With practice, you will be able to use this technique to help yourself relax whenever you feel distressed.

Lori spent last Thanksgiving at her best friend Haley's house. Most of the members of Haley's large, extended family were there. Everyone was talking at once, the children were running around, and Lori felt completely overwhelmed. It was so different fro ~ Heather Moehn

Gnostics should practice meditation for at least 4 to 6 hours per day; practicing in the morning, the afternoon and almost the whole night until dawn ... ~ Samael Aun Weor

Students need to be reminded that revision isn't merely making a few cosmetic changes. Revision is seeing and then reseeing our words and practicing strategies that make a difference in our writing. ~ Georgia Heard

At dorm, I prefer practicing than resting. Maybe my practice time could be more than 2,000 hours ~ Kim Jongin Kai EXO

The [Apache] tribe was under siege by government agents, who had jailed some of the medicine men for practicing their rituals. Freedom of religion was cherished as a sacrosanct American right -- everywhere, that is, but on the archipelago of Indian life. ~ Timothy Egan

There are some concrete ways to create a winning attitude. But nothing beats practicing it. When you prepare to win, belief comes easily. ~ Pat Summitt

I think it's very instructive to look at a man like Ramsey Ahmad Yousef, who almost brought down the World Trade Center in 1993. He's short some fingers, his body is scarred, he's missing an eye - because he was practicing and not getting it right. But eventually they get it right. ~ Michael Scheuer

Keep practicing, even when you seem to be getting nowhere. ~ George Leonard

I was that kid who was always practicing crying or falling asleep or being angry or being excited. I was that weirdo in my room making faces. ~ Rosa Salazar

Learn to control your emotions. Be able to glide through them. By practicing concentration exercises and meditation, you will find that when strong emotions strike, you will gain the ability to not be swayed by them. ~ Frederick Lenz

It is easy to learn from listening,
easier to learn from observing,
and easiest to learn from practicing. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

I've recently started practicing japa meditation. Meditating has always been a bit difficult for me, but japa asks you to focus on the space between things, and psychologically knowing I have anchor points frees me to do so. ~ Allison McAtee

I think there's a really selfish part of me that wishes I had the tools that I had today in the context of a designer practicing in the middle part of the 20th century when creating a single expression of an idea was the norm. ~ Khoi Vinh

Practicing the presence of God is not on trial. Countless saints have already proved it. Indeed, the spiritual giants of all ages have known it. The results of this effort begin to show clearly in a month. They grow rich after six months, and glorious after ten years. This is the secret of the great saints of all ages. 'Pray without ceasing,' said Paul, 'in everything make your wants known unto God.' 'As many as are led by the spirit of God, these are the sons of God. ~ Frank C. Laubach

Taj [ Johnson] is the singer in my family. So whenever I would be practicing my warmups in the house, she would let me have it. I could be on the other side of the house doing my voice lessons and she would scream, "Drop your jaw for those long notes." ~ Eddie George

If your're not practicing, somebody else is, somewhere, and he'll be ready to take your job. ~ Brooks Robinson

It is just called Continuing Legal Education. You can go to lectures, you can even listen to tapes on airplanes - they want you to stay current. So you do have to stay current to maintain your license even if you are not practicing. ~ Frank Shorter

And then, without any warning at all, he presses his lips against mine.
As his mouth covers my own, I find myself reeling, as if I have been tipped backward and am falling, falling, so that even the stars in the sky are spinning. His lips are warm and soft, the unrelenting pull of his desire for me as strong as the pull of the waves against the sand.
It is not like practicing with Ismae, or even Sybella. It is not like any of the first kisses I have imagined over the years. It is far, far better and more wondrous, and yet terrifying as well, like one of the raging storms that pound against the convent walls in the winter, threatening to breach its defenses. So too does this kiss threaten something deep within me that I cannot even name. ~ Robin LaFevers

There is no need to put anything in front of us and run after it. We already have everything we are looking for, everything we want to become.

Be yourself. Life is precious as it is. All the elements for your happiness are already here. There is no need to run, strive, search, or struggle. Just be. Just being in the moment in this place is the deepest practice of meditation. Most people cannot believe that just walking as though you have nowhere to go is enough. They think that striving and competing are normal and necessary. Try practicing aimlessness for just five minutes,and you will see how happy you are during those five minutes. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

both practicing restraint. ~ Robert B. Parker

I was inspired to spend an entire year - my 65th year - reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu's messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them. ~ Wayne Dyer