Staying Sane Quotes

Madness--that's all they have, after working sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. Going mad is their only way of staying sane. ~ J.G. Ballard

[Solitary confinement] is terrible. That is terrible. You're in a grave. You can't do anything. Everything's brought to you and you're in a room all day, except to come out of the showers. So when I would come out, I would entertain myself by singing, doing little mock concerts. And then when I was in the room, I would develop a routine. Like I have a lot of hair under here, so I would take my hair down and take all day to braid it on purpose. Stretch the hours out. Then I might write. And I would clean the floor. And I would look out the window. And then I'd devote a whole day to just reading. I was Christian then, trying to be. So I would read the whole Bible. I would break it down into sections. You're in a grave and you're trying to live. That's how to best describe it: trying to live in a grave. You're trying to live 'cause you're not dead yet, but nobody hears you when you call out, 'Hey, I'm alive! ~ Megan Sweeney

It's not exactly surprising that staying sane is useful when trying to hit performance markers. ~ John Scalzi

It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage. ~ George Orwell

The days diminished. Light lasted just six hours, and it was a feeble light. Mabel organized her hours into patterns - wash, mend, cook, wash, mend, cook - and tried not to imagine floating beneath the ice like a yellow leaf. ~ Eowyn Ivey

The extreme of flexibility is chaos and the extreme of being structured is rigid and staying sane, or indeed using your creativity, is about being aware of these extremes and steering yourself to areas where you work best which usually tend to be more in the middle than at either extreme edge. ~ Philippa Perry

Pleasant experiences don't make up for painful ones. No child, once painfully burned, would agree to be burned again, however enticing the reward. For all our talk and good intentions, there is much more stick than carrot in school, and while this remains so, children are going to adopt a strategy aimed above all else at staying out of trouble. How can we foster a joyous, alert, wholehearted participation in life if we build all our schooling around the holiness of getting 'right answers'? ~ John Holt

Jesus was the original street healer. He traveled the streets of Israel on foot, staying wherever He found lodging. During His travels He told people the secrets of their hearts, healed all who were sick and demon-possessed, raised the dead and shared the mysteries of the kingdom of God. This was His lifestyle and it could be yours. ~ Praying Medic

The Barnes Foundation is the only sane place to see art in America. ~ Henri Matisse

One life, one death. For all of us. Those are the numbers. I'm going to die and there's no avoiding it. I can go looking for it early by driving smashed out of my skull or swimming with sharks, sure, but staying with you isn't like that. It wouldn't be stupid and reckless and dumb, it wouldn't be me missing out on part of my life and skipping to the middle of the book. It'd just be me finding the guy I love early. It'd me hitting the jackpot. I'm not walking away from a piece of luck like that. I'm not walking away from you. ~ Jane Davitt

Numbers are the only things you can trust in this life, Kerstin; they will keep you sane.'
Summer Lies Bleeding ~ Nuala Casey

The trick is staying found, I think. It's easy to get lost when your life is constantly in a state of disarray. The right path gets obscured as quickly as you make it."
He put a hand on my shoulder and told me solemnly, "That's why you find something or someone that guides you, someone that won't lose you, and someone that you don't mind getting lost with when that inevitably happens. ~ Jay Crownover

I truly believed Facebook was created by Satan as a way to turn completely sane people into obsessed stalkers. ~ Meredith Schorr

Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of 'I do this and you give me cash' unless it's illegal. ~ Newt Gingrich

I have yet to find a genre of music I enjoy; it's basically audible physics, waves and energized particles, and, like most sane people, I have no interest in physics. ~ Gail Honeyman

Teaching our children to live a quiet, sane, and balanced life is one of the most important parental tasks of our day. ~ Brent L. Top

I'm a simple Jesus girl on a journey to finding deeper motivation than just a number on my scale for getting and staying healthy. ~ Lysa TerKeurst

You don't need to wait for God to show up, in order to be rescued from your bad situation. God has been trying to get your attention for a really long time. ~ Shannon L. Alder

Shutting out the world is not about turning your back on your surroundings, but rather the opposite: it is seeing the world a bit more clearly, staying a course and trying to love your life. Silence in itself is rich. It is exclusive and luxurious. A key to unlock new ways of thinking. I don't regard it as a renunciation or something spiritual, but rather as a practical resource for living a richer life. ~ Erling Kagge

I once saw " radical" as selling everything I owned or starting a ministry or adopting children from across the ocean. These days I am redefining radical. I'm realizing that radical is sustained worship of God, against the grain of the world's distractions. It's staying in the game, looking at Him when no one is looking or applauding, or promoting us for it. Keeping my heart hungry for God in the middle minutes is radical. ~ Sara Hagerty

Don't count on me to take you in because I'm angry. I'm angry at you for leading us on such a song and dance all these years, not just these few years but all the years, skipping all those holidays and staying away from beach trips and missing Mom and Dad's thirtieth anniversary and their thirty-fifth and Jeannie's baby and not attending my wedding that time or even sending a card or calling to wish me well. But most of all Denny, most of all: I will never forgive you for consuming every last little drop of our parents' attention and leaving nothing for the rest of us. ~ Anne Tyler

The only difference between the sane and the insane is that the sane have the power to lock up the insane. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

There's nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team. ~ Jason Fried

How often do you have to drink?"
"Every night, to feel good. Every few nights, to stay sane."
"Have you ever bitten anyone?"
"No. I'm not a murderer."
"Does it have to be fatal every time? The biting? Couldn't you just drink some of a person's blood, then walk away?"
"I can't believe you're asking me this, Snow. You, who can't walk away from half a sandwich. ~ Rainbow Rowell

As a fiction writer I am not always sure where reality ends and non reality begins, when sane thoughts become less than sane, or what is imagination versus undiscovered truth, but ultimately, it is my job to make you as unsure as I am. ~ Kathryn Mattingly

What is it with Florida? In Pensacola, Jack Crawford answered his door only to get cracked on the head with a bat. "About 8:45 p.m., three teenage males knocked on the door." As soon as Crawford opened the door, "Wham! Split my head open," Crawford said. "So I shot him and another guy." Of the three intruders, one was white. "Crawford said he wasn't too rattled by the attack, and he still felt comfortable staying in the home." Crawford is not in danger of prosecution because of Florida's "Stand your Ground" law.9 ~ Colin Flaherty

Within the hierarchy of fabrications that compose our lives - families, countries, gods - the self incontestably ranks highest. Just below the self is the family, which has proven itself more durable than national or ethnic affiliations, with these in turn outranking god-figures for their staying power. So any progress toward the salvation of humankind will probably begin from the bottom - when our gods have been devalued to the status of refrigerator magnets or lawn ornaments. Following the death rattle of deities, it would appear that nations or ethnic communities are next in line for the boneyard. Only after fealty to countries, gods, and families has been shucked off can we even think about coming to grips with the least endangered of fabrications - the self. ~ Thomas Ligotti

Fortunately, there is a sane equilibrium in the character of nations, as there is in that of men. ~ Jose Marti

It's not like we need to compete, you know. He's a nice guy, but he's not staying."

"Yeah. I know." Unless he fell in love and changed his mind. Even then it would probably be Sierra he went for.

Maybe Jo should encourage her. It wasn't likely she'd ever find a guy who loved her until Sierra was happily married and out-like-a-watermelon pregnant. Even then, she'd probably be one of those that glowed. No doubt Jo would throw up for nine months and look like a bloated shrew. ~ Valerie Comer

I never was good at staying away from boys who look really good in ties. ~ Kara Taylor

Reinvention is the key to surviving this fashion industry. Madonna is the perfect example of reinvention. She has taken something that is so little and turned herself into a legend by simply never staying the same. ~ Janice Dickinson

Indeed, whoever imagines he has explained Zen has in fact only explained it away; it can no more be bound by a definition than the wind can be shut in a box without ceasing to be wind. Thus any attempt to write on Zen may seem an absurdity from the beginning, but that is only so if either reader or writer imagines that Zen can be contained in a set of ideas. A book about London is in no sense London itself, and no sane person would dream of thinking that it is. Yet apparently intelligent people often make the equally ridiculous mistake of identifying a philosophical system, a dogma, a creed, with Ultimate Truth, imagining that they have found that Truth embraced in a set of propositions which appeals to their reason. There ~ Alan W. Watts

Your scent says that you don't want to be approached. The males smell it more than the females, and have been staying the hell away. They don't want their faces clawed off. ~ Sarah J. Maas

In a manner of speaking, the fact that humankind itself is unpredictable is the quintessential stumbling-block for archaeologists. We have to assume that the people whose dwelling-places, artefacts, lives even, we are dealing with were rational, integrated, sane and sensible human beings. Then we look around at our own contemporaries and wonder how this belief can possibly be sustained. ~ Laurence Flanagan

Grace is waiting for you. It's always there. It's always waiting. It doesn't pokes holes into our lives. We are the ones who poke the holes and let the light in, let the magic in. But there's no rush. There are no deadlines. There's comfort in staying in our cocoons. Only when we lose that comfort and feel overwhelmed do we feel forced to reach up for something greater. Or, we simply feel the calling for more. Either way, we start living on God's timetable and awaken to the beautiful mystery, and the things we had clinged to the most fade into pale substitutes. ~ Elizabeth Fox Brewer

Was this what it was going to be like? Was I turning into someone who had panic attacks about walking home from the tube or staying the night alone in the house without their boyfriend?
No, fuck that. I would not be that person. ~ Ruth Ware

I have been consistent by staying true to who I am and will continue to sing the type of songs that those who have continued to support my career expect from me. ~ Dionne Warwick

It's about having an active lifestyle, staying healthy, and making the right decisions. Life is about balance. Not everybody wants to run a marathon, but we could all start working out and being active, whether you walk to work or take an extra flight of stairs. ~ Apolo Ohno

The magic isn't in getting married, it's in staying married ~ Derek Luke

Most people who know me are convinced that I'm not quite sane. It has been my greatest endeavor to convince them that their opinion of me is correct. ~ Ken Doggett

Sane is the insanity most people call normality, put forth by society. ~ Erik Till

Love is thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail
it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea
love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive
it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky ~ E. E. Cummings

I only eat so that I can smoke and stay alive. ~ Harry Dean Stanton

Don't fall in love with me. Not unless you're ready for a God damn fight. I don't do fragility, or friction and fairy tales. I want you to be irrational because I'm irrational. Be bold. Speak your mind. I want your wildfires and obscenities. I want your passion and priorities. Protect what's yours. I'll defend what's ours. Let us fight against routines and bad habits, and anything typical. And don't you dare quit. Not on us, not on yourself. God help the person who threatens us. Forgive me when I let you down, but don't overlook it, or allow it. We're all insecure about something. Show me yours. We're all terrified sometimes. Turn to me. People come in and out of my life so often and easily that I just look for a love that stays. I don't mind your blemishes or scars, I have a few of my own. Don't be another flash in the pan. Falling for me will be easy. Staying with me will be impossible. But you deserve a love that most people don't believe in anymore. ~ J. Raymond

Sane love, is not love ~ Jose Marti

All I can do is focus on staying true to the style of music I write and sing because that is the only way it's going to come off as honest. ~ Kip Moore

When I was arrested,' I said, 'I had to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. So, I've actually been certified sane enough to stand trial, which is more than I can say for most of the people I know, including the psychiatrist who certified me. In fact, to get convicted in a court of law, you've gotta be declared sane. Which means that every convict in the world, in a jail cell, is sane, A-Grade and Certified. And with so many people on the outside seeing therapists and counsellors and all, pretty soon the only people who'll be able to prove they're sane will be the people behind bars. ~ Gregory David Roberts

I've always loved films, always. I studied literature and I went to Columbia in New York and I went to Paris for part of one year and ended up staying there. ~ Jim Jarmusch

Life has meaning because death exists. We love the good times in life because they're fleeting, because we know they will soon be replaced by something else. But death itself is nothing to be afraid of. It's a natural part of life, the natural closure that everything builds to. Working in a nursing home has taught me that: We're all lunatics on a big space rock, pretending to be sane, pretending we can fix everything, pretending we won't die. ~ Nicholas Conley

When my last relationship broke up, I bought a house one door along from my ex so that our daughter could continue to see as much of both of us as possible. This seems to me eminently sane and civilised. ~ John Niven

I much prefer being in the studio or on stage and staying out of the mainstream really. ~ Ian Astbury

Yeah, well, right now? Right now, I think being crazy may be the only thing that's keeping me sane. ~ Mira Grant

Under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. we have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. we have never seen a totally sane human being. ~ Robert Anton Wilson