Set In Stone Quotes

I couldn't say I ever dreamt of becoming a composer, a pianist, or anything else for that matter. I have the kind of brain where nothing is set in stone. ~ Anthony Hopkins

You know your sexuality isn't set in stone. There are more things than just gay or straight. ~ Calista Lynne

We take five, one-week vacations a year, and those dates are set in stone. ~ Tom Joyner

That's the past for you. Not only does it come back at the most unexpected, and inconvenient, times but it's set in stone. ~ Jeffery Deaver

Life lesson number 12: As your life changes, change you rules accordingly. Nothing is set in stone when it comes to living.
-Park ~ Cheryl McIntyre

But I should caution that if you seek to plot out all your moves before you make them - if you put your faith in slow, deliberative planning in the hopes it will spare you failure down the line - well, you're deluding yourself. For one thing, it's easier to plan derivative work - things that copy or repeat something already out there. So if your primary goal is to have a fully worked out, set-in-stone plan, you are only upping your chances of being unoriginal. ~ Ed Catmull

When you start a show, the plans are not set in stone. They're really mutable, cocktail napkin sketches. ~ Eric Kripke

Before you leave, the fortune teller reminds you that the future is never set in stone. ~ Erin Morgenstern

Who told you that everything you think is right? When did you realise that everything you believe is set in stone? Can you choose the correct answer from below? Pick the right feeling – the right answer!
| 4 + 4 = 8 | 2 x 4 = 8 | 6 + 2 = 8 | 3 + 5 = 8 |
They are all correct, aren't they? So how can you feel that everything you know is the correct answer to life and, thus, you are validated to play God? ~ Sijdah Hussain

In fact the flexibility of our memories makes it relatively easy because we can meld all these different memories together seamlessly to invent a new imaginary scene, one which we have never even contemplated before, let alone witnessed. The flexibility of memory seems to be the key to imagining a future. Our millions of fragments of memories from different times of our lives are not set in stone; they can change, giving us endless, instant imaginative possibilities. ~ Claudia Hammond

We just want to be remembered before something is set in stone. ~ Bill Dana

Nothing is set in stone. A bird can be refolded into a boat, a fish, a kimono, or any other extravagant vision. At other times it aches to return to its original folds. The paper begins to fray. It tires, rebels. ~ Tor Udall

But do you think our futures are already determined for us?"
"Why are you asking all of this? What's going on?"
I let out a small laugh. "Remember when we were in the hallway?" He nodded. "Well, Thirteen tried telling me that I couldn't escape my fate and that there was no point in fighting the inevitable."
"Do you think it is inevitable?" he asked.
"Me?" I scoffed. "No. Nothing is ever guaranteed. One minor adjustment can alter everything. Nothing is ever set in stone. As of right now, we're all on one path: we're all stuck inside of this hell that we're trying to escape, and it may seem like the outcome has already been determined for us, but it hasn't. The smallest of things could change everything. A death. Deception. Anything could force us to follow another path, and you know what? We determine that path, not fate."
"What path do you see yourself on?" Colton hopped up onto the computer desk, tucking his hands underneath his thighs.
"I see us starting new lives outside of this place, far from McVeigh and his men," I answered honestly. "But I know not all of us will make it out of here. There is still more pain to come our way, but there is also happiness if we allow for it. ~ Nicole Sobon

A commandment," the man says, spreading his arms, "is set in stone." Imagine that his face aches from smiling. He's been smiling for hours: teeth clenched, lips drawn back, eyes crinkled so the crow's feet show. There is an art to smiling in a way that others will believe. It is always important to include the eyes; otherwise, people will know you hate ~ N.K. Jemisin

Our pasts shape us,Sam.None of us the person he or she used to be,it's true, but what we are still contains a great proportion of what we once were.Nothing,not even suffering the worst kind of tragedy,alters us completely.At core,we are set in stone. ~ James Lovegrove

Personally, I think life is way too complicated for anyone's fate to be set in stone," Brystal said. ~ Chris Colfer

Fate isn't set in stone. Free will can change everything ~ A.J. Messenger

The future is never set in stone. ~ Erin Morgenstern

Lark frowned. "I thought she was associated with fate. Her Arcana name's Our Lady of Fate."

"As she desired it to be," he said. "But it's a very liberal translation."

I'd thought these Arcana things were set in stone. Now the goalposts were moving.

He downed that shot, then poured another. "She appears to control fate, but she doesn't have any influence over what happens to her. Her power is passive. She doesn't read the future and consciously affect it - not like the Fool does." Aric's gaze grew distant. "Ages ago, Fortune was known more accurately as Lady Luck. The Fool was known as the Hand of Fate. She despised him for that and envied his power. ~ Kresley Cole

I believe that we have free will. I believe we get the chance to make choices in our lives. Not everything is set in stone from the moment we're born. We choose our destiny, our ultimate fate. But I also think that we don't realize the choices we've made until after we make them. We're racing down a freeway, only to realize we've missed all the exits, and the only direction we can go is dead ahead. ~ Neal Shusterman

My father used to say that life is what you make it. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. You can't change the past, but the future isn't set in stone. You can effect a change there. Move forward not with hatred or love. Move forward with purpose. (Simone) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

But nothing in life was set in stone and nothing in life is promised us. Not happiness, not joy, not love. Everything was variable and mutable and inconstant. ~ Faith Hunter

Cause they say home is where your heart is set in stone, it's where you go when're you're alone, its were you go to rest your bones. It's not just where you lay your head, it's not just where you make your bead. As long as we're together does it matter where we go? ~ Gabrielle Aplin

The future is not set in stone, and even if it was, stone can be broken. ~ Melanie Rawn

Buddhist say that thoughts are like drops of water on the brain; when you reinforce the same thought, it will etch a new stream into your consciousness, like water eroding the side of a mountain. Scientist confirm this bit of folk wisdom: our neurons break connections and form new pathways all the time. Even if you've been programmed to fear death, that particular pathway isn't set in stone. Each of us is responsible for seeking out new knowledge and creating mental circuits. ~ Caitlin Doughty

Now, anyone with two thoughts in their mind can see that no future is set in stone. An infinite number of futures bud at the end of every moment, and each one of them can be changed by a falling rose petal. ~ Robin Hobb

What about free will? . . . There's that too. I never understood why people think they're mutually exclusive. Ask me, our entire lives aren't planned out for us- just some things. Specific events along the way, crossroads we're meant to come to. Tests, maybe, to measure our progress. But we always have choices, and those choices can send us along an unplanned path . . . there are some things that are meant to happen at a certain moment and in a certain way. No matter which path you choose, which decisions you make along your own particular journey, those pivotal moments appear to be set in stone. Maybe they represent the specific lessons we're meant to learn . . . Things we have to face. Things we have to learn. Responsibilities we have to fulfill. And mistakes we have to correct. ~ Kay Hooper

Suddenly, I can't move. I can't speak. I am set in stone, but it's a glorious chiseled sort of stone. ~ Travis Thrasher

No, you will never been tamed, you are a monster, the eternal wild one. I often wonder where you came from, only someone with something to hide has such a cloudy beginnings. Who are you? Or more importantly who were you? There is only the odd bits that are known about you and nothing is set in stone. Do you even know the real you behind the charade? The fact that you are aroused by virginity, is a worrying fascination. I would not be surprised if the person who turned you realised what a monster he'd created. They were not called Frankenstein by any chance? Maybe you are a creature of many parts? Did you destroy your creator as well in a fit of rage? Is that why your are always looking for your virgin bride? Only you take beautiful swans and turn them into ugly ducklings. You will never return to that life that you give up. Stop trying to recreate them. ~ Beverley Price

Success isn't supposed to happen, no matter how hard you work. There's no guarantee you're going to succeed. There's nothing set in stone. ~ Kevin Hart

The difference in the past and history is that the past is set in stone history is just an account from the guy with the strongest axe ~ Andy Andrews

People say we can't do anything about the way the world is; they say it's set in stone. I say it looks like stone, but it's mostly paint and cardboard. ~ Katherine Rundell

My path may have been set in stone, but stone crumbles, and sometimes we have to forge our own way through. ~ T.J. Klune

Things are set in stone. Things are well ordered. Reds at the bottom, everyone else standing on our backs. Now you're looking at me and you're realizing that we don't bloodydamn like it down there. Red is rising, Mickey. ~ Pierce Brown

When you are doing what I've asked you to do, you don't have to worry about getting to the farm. I'll bring you the farmer instead. And when you think you have lost sight of all your sketches, just know that it's okay. I know where the sketches are, what they need to be, and I will never leave you.
Let go of the grief and the sorrow. Release the anger and the plans set in stone. Because I hold your sketch in My hand the way Mr. Gentry did in his. I watch and I draw - even when you don't know. I am concerned with all things that concern you. ~ Angie Smith

I don't like things set in stone. ~ Vanessa Paradis

With that knowledge came the realization that I was absolutely, without any shred of doubt, profoundly in love with her.
If only I had been anyone else in the world, maybe I could have told her. But my future was set in stone. ~ Audrey Coulthurst

You told me once that history matters, but it's frozen, set in stone. This is part of our history. I can't change it or undo it. But it doesn't have to dictate our future. ~ Cora Carmack

Punctuation is important, but the rules are changing. Spelling is important today in a way that it wasn't when Shakespeare was a boy. Grammar isn't set in stone. ~ Gyles Brandreth

They [Marvel] don't tell you. You never know with them. They have their world, but they don't like to spoil anything, so nobody knows until it's set in stone. You don't know. I actually don't know what they have in store for Wilson Fisk, or my Wilson Fisk, I should say. ~ Vincent D'Onofrio

I'm in a state of learning, and I don't have any set-in-stone ideas about what shows or even what eras I want to pursue. ~ Dick Latvala

History makes my mouth water - and that is as much because of the voids in what documentation remains as what is set in stone. ~ Sara Sheridan

Life is what you make it. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. You can't change the past, but the future isn't set in stone. You can effect a change there. Move forward not with hatred or love. Move forward with purpose. ========== Dream Chaser (Kenyon, Sherrilyn) ~ Anonymous

I don't think anything has been set in stone yet. ~ Hayden Panettiere

That is the great luxury of long-existing and accepted segregation in New York and almost every other major city of our nation nowadays. Nothing needs to be imposed on anyone. The evil is already set in stone. We just move in. ~ Jonathan Kozol

You don't know anyone at the party, so you don't want to go. You don't like cottage cheese, so you haven't eaten it in years. This is your choice, of course, but don't kid yourself: it's also the flinch.

Your personality is not set in stone. You may think a morning coffee is the most enjoyable thing in the world, but it's really just a habit. Thirty days without it, and you would be fine. You think you have a soul mate, but in fact you could have had any number of spouses. You would have evolved differently, but been just as happy.

You can change what you want about yourself at any time. You see yourself as someone who can't write or play an instrument, who gives in to temptation or makes bad decisions, but that's really not you. It's not ingrained. It's not your personality. You personality is something else, something deeper than just preferences, and these details on the surface, you can change anytime you like.

If it is useful to do so, you must abandon your identity and start again. Sometimes, it's the only way.

Set fire to your old self. It's not needed here. It's too busy shopping, gossiping about others, and watching days go by and asking why you haven't gotten as far as you'd like. This old self will die and be forgotten by all but family, and replaced by someone who makes a difference.

Your new self is not like that. Your new self is the Great Chicago Fire - overwhelming, overpowering, and destroying everything ~ Julien Smith

Your perception of reality is not set in stone. It is flexible. If you are willing to work towards changing your perception, you can bend your reality. You can see a more positive life around you. You can see the beauty in the world. If you actively look for the good in the world, eventually your world will change. Look for the little things until the big things come into the picture. ~ Avina Celeste

I keep telling you the future isn't set in stone. It's not all decided yet. The future is just what's down the road we decided to walk on today. You can change roads anytime. And that changes where you end up. ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde

Nothing is ever set in stone, and the beasts we create with our harmful choices will certainly come back to bite us. ~ R.W.K. Clark

I'm not going to tell you that in ten years you'll look back and wonder what the hell you were thinking, because I remember being twenty-one and thinking that my personality was a solid thing, that me was set in stone, that I would always feel what I felt and believe what I believed. But not I know that me is fluid and shape-changing. ~ Lisa Jewell

It wasn't until I began to see my own trauma as a creation myth that I could truthfully begin to heal. A myth is only a myth after all. It is not set in stone. It was truth, but shouldn't be truth forever...The myth can change. ~ Javier Zamora

So what do you want?" asked Myrtle.
"I want to help evolution."
Evolution did not fill Faith with the same horror her father had felt. Why should she weep to hear that nothing was set in stone? Everything could change. Everything could get better. Everything was getting better, inch by inch, so slowly that she could not see it, but knowing it gave her strength. ~ Frances Hardinge

There's no point in making predictions. It's not worth speculating because nothing is set in stone and things change all the time in football. Today there are opportunities that no one knows if they will come round again in the future. ~ Cristiano Ronaldo

Once a script is released that doesn't mean it's the final product. It's not set in stone. ~ Nathalie Emmanuel

Listen, there are some movies that are set in stone and the writer or the director does not want to change, but I've never worked on a movie, including my own, that didn't take advantage of a rehearsal process. ~ Albert Brooks

The past wasn't something that could be changed or repaired, and so it was a place Ian refused to dwell. That wasn't the case with Eena. She often wandered on pathways long since set in stone. That was her way. She had some need to rearrange those stones from her past every now and then, as if changing how she perceived them altered anything. He felt guilty for wishing she would turn her back on it all. To him, no matter how the past was viewed, it was still the same pile of unchangeable, regrettable stones. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Life takes us to unexpected places sometimes. The future is never set in stone, remember that. ~ Erin Morgenstern

You can't let the debate of the day mask the fact that Canadians care deeply in their country. Including Quebecers - from all origins and language. Quebecers care deeply about their country. The idea of Canada and its unity is not something that is set in stone forever, or that is solved. We need to always work towards building this country. ~ Jean Charest

Memory is not set in stone. Any neuroscientist will tell you that. The more you remember something, especially if it's emotionally charged, the more you will reinforce the pathways connecting the neurons. Simply put, the more you think about it, the more you feel it, the stronger the memory. ~ Kamal Ravikant

If you are expecting Paul to read the Bible like it was set in stone, you will find yourself getting pretty nervous. For Paul, now that Jesus has come, the Bible was more like clay to be molded. ~ Peter Enns

At every moment, each person has the freedom to choose a different path, thereby changing the trajectory of his life. Nothing is set in stone. ~ Lauren Miller

I mean, if everything is already set in stone, why try? I prefer to think that we're choosing in every moment what happens next. ~ Rainbow Rowell

I've learned after so many years in this business that nothing is set in stone until you're on set. I've been told I was the choice for years and never got hired. So I never go there in my mind. ~ Kaley Cuoco

For statesmanship is a science and an art; one must have lived for it and been long prepared. Only a philosopher-king is fit to guide a nation. "Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and wisdom and political leadership meet in the same man, ... cities will never cease from ill, nor the human race" (473). This is the key-stone of the arch of Plato's thought. ~ Will Durant

I walk to think and not to think. When walking I remember things that are important to me.
I walk to forget. I have yet to set out on a walk in low spirits and return feeling worse than I did when I left the door. A change occurs between the fate and the porch, walking lifts the weight off the heart. Or as the writer Jim Harrison says, When you're out of sorts, walk a hundred miles. ~ Susan Minot

There are allowable limits for radiation going - I mean there's radiation all around us. There's radiation from your television set. There's radiation from your computer. There's radiation actually occurring in the ground. ~ William Scranton

Snow Patrol blaring in my ears, I set off into the opal and aquamarine dusk. ~ E.L. James

The books brought brilliance to my life, and they brought an understanding: Life is a story. Everything that has happened and will happen to me is all part of the story of this enchanted place - all the dreams and visions and understandings that come to me in my dungeon cell. The books helped me see the truth is not in the touch of the stone but in what the stone tells you. ~ Rene Denfeld

Broadmoor creeps into your blood, the walls touch the sky and the grounds suck you in, they've even got their own burial ground. We called it the 'madman's hole', it smelt of fear; a stillness and even the birds seemed to have a stone face like their eyes were made of marble. So many monsters, men of hell, I don't know how a sane man can keep sane in there. ~ Stephen Richards

Oxford, where the real and the unreal jostle in the streets; where North Parade is in the south and South Parade is in the north, where Paradise is lost under a pumping station; where the river mists have a solvent and vivifying effect on the stone of the ancient buildings, so that the gargoyles of Magdalen College climb down at night and fight with those from Wykeham, or fish under the bridges, or simply change their expressions overnight; Oxford, where windows open into other worlds ...
Oscar Baedecker, The Coasts of Bohemia ~ Philip Pullman

A lot of actors on film sets ... very often they're not paying attention to the physical world around them. I think through studying art, I've always had that awareness and that's something that I've wanted to bring in to go beyond acting ... As a form of expression, they are intrinsically linked. ~ Andy Serkis

Indifference

This hate has blossomed like a living love,
grieving, watching its own exhaustion.
It seeks a face, it seeks flesh, as though it were love.

The worldly flesh and the voices that spoke
are dead, all has shuddered away,
all life hangs on a voice.
Days pass in bitter ecstasy to the sad
caress of the voice that returns
and drains the blood from our faces. Not without sweetness
that voice returns to the mind exhausted
and trembling: once it trembled for me.

But the flesh does not tremble. Only love
could set it alight, this hate seeks it out.
All the possessions, all the flesh and all the voices
in the world cannot equal the burning caress
of that body and those eyes. In the bitter ecstasy
that kills itself, this hate still finds
each day a glance, a broken word,
and grasps them, hungrily, like love. ~ Cesare Pavese

Who're you writing the novel to anyway?" Ron asked Hermione, trying to read the bit of parchment now trailing on the floor. Hermione hitched it up out of sight.
"Viktor."
"Krum?"
"How many other Viktors do we know?"
Ron said nothing, but looked disgruntled. They sat in silence for another twenty minutes, Ron finishing his Transfiguration essay with many snorts of impatience, rolling in up carefully and sealing it, and Harry staring into the fire, wishing more than anything that Sirius's head would appear there and give him some advice about girls. But the fire merely crackled lower and lower, until the red-hot embers crumbled into ash and, looking around, Harry saw that they were, yet again, the last in the common room.
"Well, 'night," said Hermione, yawning widely, and she set off up the girls' staircase.
"What does she see in Krum?" Ron demanded as he and Harry climbed the boys' stairs.
"Well," said Harry, considering the matter, "I s'pose he's older, isn't he...and he's an international Quidditch player...."
"Yeah, but apart from that," said Ron, sounding aggravated. "I mean he's a grouchy git, isn't he? ~ J.K. Rowling

Much has happened since last we met, Bartimaeus," he went on. "Do you remember how we parted?"
"No." I did.
"You set light to me, old friend. Struck a match and left me burning in a copse."
The crow shifted uneasily beneath the cleaver."That's a gesture of endearment in some cultures. Some hug, some kiss, some set each other on fire in small patches of woodland ... ~ Jonathan Stroud

Jeez! I thought you said you were just gonna set up the tree? It looks like Santa shit Christmas in here! ~ Toni Aleo

When my head is in the typewriter the last thing on my mind is some imaginary reader. I don't have an audience; I have a set of standards. But when I think of my work out in the world, written and published, I like to imagine it's being read by some stranger somewhere who doesn't have anyone around him to talk to about books and writing - maybe a would-be writer, maybe a little lonely, who depends on a certain kind of writing to make him feel more comfortable in the world. ~ Don DeLillo

And after that they had gone through many streets they came to a little door that was set in a wall that was covered with a pomegranate tree. And the old man touched the door with a ring of graved jaspar and it opened, and they went down five steps of brass into a garden filled with black poppies and green jars of burnt clay. ~ Oscar Wilde

In computers, every 'new explosion' was set off by a software product that allowed users to program differently. ~ Alan Kay

You did not leave Crazytown for Boo-hooville. Boo-hooville is a layover. It is a temporary stop. It is the dismal Greyhound bus station in the first leg of your trip to Kauai. It is a place you must visit on your way to peace and calm. It is a rough stone that you will use to scrape away the old skin so that you can be made new again. And yes, that scraping hurts. And yes, you look terrible while it's happening. Everything is dropping off, wrinkling, sagging, and flaking; it's dull-colored. But underneath? On the other side of that? It's beautiful. ~ Stephanee Killen

I try to leave my work at the door when I leave the set. It's almost like summer camp. You go in hard, then you leave, and it's done. ~ Paul Dano

We must set limits to our wishes, curb our desires, moderate our anger, always remembering that an individual can attain only an infinitesimal share in anything that is worth having; and that on the other hand, everyone must incur many of the ills of life ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Let no one bewail his poverty,
For the universal Kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one weep for his iniquities,
For pardon has shown forth from the grave.
Let no one fear death,
For the Saviour's death has set us free.
He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.

By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.
He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh.
And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry:
Hell, said he, was embittered
When it encountered Thee in the lower regions.

It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory? ~ John Chrysostom

He moved to the faded red chair she'd indicated. As he lowered himself into it, there was a loud crack. One of the wooden legs snapped and broke, just as Sophia and Angus had planned when they'd sawed it half-through.
A normal man would have been tossed to the floor, but with a little twist, MacLean shifted his weight forward and managed to remain upright, turning to regard the chair as it collapsed.
Sophia swept to her feet. "Goodness! How horrid!" She narrowed her gaze accusingly at the chair. There was nothing like a little humiliation to set a man against a location, and it was a pity MacLean hadn't been thrown to the floor as she'd planned.
MacLean bent and picked up a piece of the broken chair, his expression unfathomable. "Horrid, indead."
Her desire to smile fled. Did he suspect something? Could he see where Angus had cut the chair let partway through?
MacLean hefted the leg in his hand, his mouth thinned.
Sophia cleared her throat. "I'll call the butler to remove that."
His gaze locked with hers.The chair leg still in his hand,he walked toward her.
Sophia licked her suddenly dry lips. She didn't know this man, not really. What was he going to do?
She gripped the arms of her chair. Should she run for help? Surely not. Nothing she'd heard had indicated MacLean was a man of violence. Of course, everything she knew of him was mere heresay-
He stopped before her and stook looking down into her face with the faintest of smi ~ Karen Hawkins

Cyrus walked straight to the tallest crack of light, a seam between two doors. They were locked, but they were also thin and old, and they bent a little with pressure from his shoulder.

He backed up.

"Try one of Skelton's keys," said Antigone. "Is there a keyhole?"

"Nope." Cyrus threw himself against the doors. Wood popped, but he bounced back. "I can break it."

"You mean a rib? Maybe your shoulder?" Antigone adjusted her grip, propping Horace in front of her.

"There's just one little bolt," said Cyrus. "And it's set in old wood." He paused. What was he hearing? Voices. Shouting. "You hear that?" he asked.

Antigone nodded. "They don't sound happy."

This time, Cyrus used his foot. The wood splintered, and the two doors wobbled open onto a world of emerald and sunlight. ~ N.D. Wilson

Events. Events in response to other events. Think about it. Nothing since the big bang has happened without a reason. And even the big bang might have come from something, because of something. One thing makes another thing, and then that thing makes the next thing. Look at these kids. These two brothers, still kids. They don't know themselves yet. They are acting in response, in reaction, passionate reaction to something that set them off, made them commit to violence. They would not be here if the United States had not invaded Iraq in 2003. The United States would not have had fertile ground for the lie it told about Irag, weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein, etc., etc., if not for Osama bin Laden and 9/11. Osama bin Laden would not have been able to recruit those men to learn how to fly planes and then crash them into buildings if not for propaganda about the persecution of the global Muslims, Afghanistan after the Russian invasion, Chechnya in the nineties, Bosnian genocides, or any instance of Islam under attack by the West, one culture trying to extinguish another. History is always a story of cause and effect. ~ Laleh Khadivi

But if all maximizing models are really arguing is that "people will always seek to maximize something," then they obviously can't predict anything, which means employing them can hardly be said to make anthropology more scientific. All they really add to analysis is a set of assumptions about human nature. The assumption, most of all, that no one ever does anything primarily out of concern for others; that whatever one does, one is only trying to get something out of it for oneself. In common English, there is a word for this attitude. It's called "cynicism." Most of us try to avoid people who take it too much to heart. In economics, apparently, they call it "science. ~ David Graeber

One begins to realize that art ... in setting out to express nature with ever growing accuracy, teaches us to look, to perceive, to feel. The stone itself becomes an organic substance, and one can feel it being transformed as one moment in its life succeeds another. ~ Georges Clemenceau

Then why did they need you?" Lily's face is hard and set again. "Why not just send Sirius?"
James gapes at her. "Alone?"
Lily doesn't say anything.
"No," says James. "I mean no, Lil. Don't be ridiculous. Anyway, he can't work a defensive spell if his life depended on it, which it would. You know how he gets when his blood's up, all laughing and insane and hopping about talking nonsense and all of a sudden someone would hit him in the chest with a hex before the possibility even occurred to him. ~ Jaida Jones

Oh, popular applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?
The wisest and the best feel urgent need
Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales;
But swell'd into a gust
who then, alas!
With all his canvas set, and inexpert,
And therefore, heedless, can withstand thy power? ~ William Cowper

But I'll never see any of those fish," said Maxie."Or those whales. Or any lions or tigers. I'm never going to set foot in a rain forest now, am I? I won't even be able to watch old DVD's about them without electricity. What does the future hold? It's like going back to the middle ages. Nobody knowing what was going on beyond their front doorstep. All I'll ever know is this. This little bit of London. ~ Charlie Higson

All over this land women have no political existence. Laws pass over our heads that we can not unmake. Our property is taken fromus without our consent. The babes we bear in anguish and carry in our arms are not ours. ~ Lucy Stone

It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and ignorant. ~ Jane Austen

Alp Arslan: "What would you do if I was brought before you as a prisoner?"
Romanos: "Perhaps I'd kill you, or exhibit you in the streets of Constantinople."
Alp Arslan: "My punishment is far heavier. I forgive you, and set you free. ~ Alp Arslan, After Battle Of Manzikert

She tilted her head back, breathing deeply. It was a stone gray day, the sea a bleak slate broken up by whitecaps, the sky pleated with thick ripples of cloud. A hard wind filled the sails, carrying the little boat over the waves.
'It feels good to be this kind of cold,' she murmured.
'This kind?'
'Wind in your hair, sea spray on your skin. The cold of the living. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I had to be on the set for 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' because my character was interacting with Bob Hoskins. It's a lot of 'hurry up and wait.' So there I was, at 2 a.m., sitting in a trailer at Griffith Park trying to stay awake. And I said to myself, 'This stinks.' The way I do it is better. I go into the studio about 10 a.m. There's no makeup to worry about. I can wear whatever I want. As soon I get there, I'm good to go. I record my stuff and go home. ~ Jim Cummings

This garden was peaceful and calm. Pink cherry blossoms and violet plum blossoms graced the sweeping trees. The petals fell like snowflakes, dancing and swirling until they touched the soft, verdant grass.
There was something familiar about this place.
Her eyes traveled down the flat stone steps. She knew this path, knew those stones. The third one from the bottom had a crack in the middle- from when she was five and the neighbor's boy convinced her there were worms on the other side of the stones. She'd hammered the stone in half, eager to catch a few worms to play with.
There weren't any, of course, but her mother had helped her find some dragonflies by the pond instead, and they'd spent an afternoon counting them in the garden.
Mulan smiled wistfully at the memory. This can't be the same garden. I'm in Diyu.
Yet no painter could have re-created what she saw more convincingly. Every detail was as she remembered. At the bottom of the stone-cobbled path was a pond with rose-flushed lilies, and a marble bench under the cherry tree. She used to play by the pond when she was a little girl, catching frogs and fireflies in wine jugs and feeding the fish leftover rice husks and sesame seeds until her mother scolded her.
And beyond the moon gate was-
Mulan's hand jumped to her mouth.
Home.
That smell of home- of Baba's incense from the family temple, sharp with amber and cedar; of noodles in Grandmother Fa's special pork broth; of jasmine ~ Elizabeth Lim

If I should say that he is a victim of injustice, then I would be asking by implication for sympathy; and if one insists upon looking at this boy as a victim of injustice, he will be swamped by a feeling of guilt so strong as to be indistinguishable from hate. Of all things, men do not like to feel that they are guilty of wrong, and if you make them feel guilt, they will try desperately to justify it on any grounds; but, failing that, and seeing no immediate solution that will set things right without too much cost to their lives and property, they will kill that which evoked in them, the condemning sense of guilt. And this is true of all men- whether they be white or black -it is a peculiar and powerful, but common need. ~ Richard Wright

And so I believe that God plays this enormous role in my life. And I believe that it's my obligation to give back and to follow the rules that were set. And it also gives me an enormous sense of my own place and an enormous sense of stability. ~ Ronald Perelman

The future isn't carved in stone, only your epitaph. ~ Paula Wall

The winter in Johannesburg only come out to play at the weekend, in the evenings during the week, especially in a Friday night. They go out for drinks but during the day they work their fingers to the bone like gulls never-ending swooping through the air. Their heads are like radios filled with links to music, drama and news. When men wounded them, break their hearts, leave them still smitten or stone cold it feels like a jab with a knife to their spirit. ~ Abigail George