Swap Quotes

I baked bread, hand-ground peanuts into butter, grew and froze vegetables, and, every morning, packed lunches so healthful that they had no takers in the grand swap-fest of the lunchroom. ~ Sally Mann

I'll swap you my dad," I said.
"Oh-oh," said my little sister. ~ Neil Gaiman

When the Goldman Sachs saleswoman called Mike Burry and told him that her firm would be happy to sell him credit default swaps in $100 million chunks, Burry guessed, rightly, that Goldman wasn't ultimately on the other side of his bets. Goldman would never be so stupid as to make huge naked bets that millions of insolvent Americans would repay their home loans. He didn't know who, or why, or how much, but he knew that some giant corporate entity with a triple-A rating was out there selling credit default swaps on subprime mortgage bonds. Only a triple-A-rated corporation could assume such risk, no money down, and no questions asked. Burry was right about this, too, but it would be three years before he knew it. The party on the other side of his bet against subprime mortgage bonds was the triple-A-rated insurance company AIG - American International Group, Inc. ~ Michael Lewis

I am a 5'1 petite female. My pistol is my equalizer. ~ Gina Loudon

In a perfect world, we would all swap our carb loaded breakfasts for veggie smoothies, exercise 7 days a week, and meditate for an hour a day. No one would be overweight, we would never lose our tempers and we would sing Kumbaya all day. This is the real world, so this is never going to happen. As ~ Carmella J Bell

Imagine you're watching '30 Rock' and an ad comes on, but you don't like it. With Hulu Ad Swap, you can actually click the button and trade out the ad. So for the first time ever, a consumer is in control of their ad experience. For us, it's a big win because users are able to take control of what they see. ~ Jason Kilar

I get all the truth I need in the newspaper every morning, and every chance I get I go fishing, or swap stories with fishermen to get the taste of it out of my mouth. ~ Ed Zern

The National is about however long it takes to run that race - eight minutes of fame - but champion jockey is about racing 365 days a year. I actually wouldn't swap any of my winners for the National. ~ Tony McCoy

Cinder grinned at him. He was usually so self-assured that in the rare moments when he was flustered, it made all of her insides swap wrong side up. ~ Marissa Meyer

I trade musical favours like cattle. I can't remember the last time I did a remix for actual money. For me, I try and get a good swap. ~ Calvin Harris

After all, this is America, and you can swap out the parts of yourself that don't work. You can rebuild yourself piece by piece. ~ Gary Shteyngart

Credit default swap is basically just an agreement that I have with you, where I sell you insurance on some bond you own. If the bond goes belly up, I promise to pay you. And as long as the bond doesn't go belly up, you pay me for selling you insurance. ~ Charles Duhigg

I'll always be Chinese first. It probably isn't politically correct to say or something that the majority understands; I can change my shoes, I can swap my passport, but, I'll always have this face. ~ Eddie Huang

The advantage of age is that you swap youth for wisdom. You're so full of insecurities when you're young. 'Who am I? What do I have to do for people to like me?' You get caught up in things. You get very emotional about things. ~ Cherie Lunghi

I put my alligator tooth down the rubbish pipe. I heard it fall down to the bottom and disappear. It was an offering for the volcano god. It was a present for God himself. If I gave him my best good luck then he'd save us from all the bad things, the sickness and chooking and dead babies, he'd bring us all back together again. He'd have to or it wouldn't be fair. It was a good swap, nobody could say it wasn't. I knew it would work. Thank you pigeon for showing me the right star. ~ Stephen Kelman

By swap news do you mean drink?" "I do, and that excessively. ~ Joe Abercrombie

There's an honesty to Clark, Kal-El - Kal-El's the better way of saying it because he is both Superman and Clark - there's an honesty to him which crosses over on both - I don't like to use the word 'identities,' but I will because I can't think of a better one. So, it is not that tough to make that swap and change. ~ Henry Cavill

Just because you choose to leave a place did not mean that you could escape taking it with you. A man and a woman who lived together long enough might swap traits, until they found parts of themselves in each other. Jettison a personality and you just might find it taking up residence in the heart of the person you loved most. ~ Jodi Picoult

How do you explain to an innocent citizen of the free world the importance of a credit default swap on a double-A tranche of a subprime-backed collateralized debt obligation? He tried, but his English in-laws just looked at him strangely. They understood that someone else had just lost a great deal of money and Ben had just made a great deal of money, but never got much past that. "I can't really talk to them about it," he says. "They're English. ~ Michael Lewis

Swap out one of these men with the mute, and I'll be right as rain," Randy said from his spot near the kitchen entrance.
"Thought we were besties," Bride mumbled into the shot of rum she'd pilfered from Randy's cabinet. ~ Shay Rucker

It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I wouldn't swap the era I competed in for anything, not a day of it. I started out as an amateur, and people like myself, Seb Coe, Steve Ovett, Steve Cram, Tessa Sanderson and the rest did it for the glory of winning medals for our country. ~ Daley Thompson

I am not in the habit', said Don Quixote, 'of despoiling those whom I vanquish, nor is it a custom of chivalry to take their horses and leave them on foot, unless the victor has lost his own horse in the fray, in which case it is legitimate to take the defeated knight's horse, as a prize won in lawful war. And so, Sancho, leave that horse, or donkey, or whatever you want to call it, for as soon as its master sees that we have gone he will return for it.'
God knows I'd love to take it', replied Sancho, 'or at least swap it for mine, because I don't think mine's such a good one. These laws of chivalry are really strict, if they won't even stretch to letting you swap one donkey for another - could you please tell me if I can at least swap the tackle?'
I am not very clear about that', replied Don Quixote, 'and as it is a doubtful case, I should say that until I am better informed you can swap it, if your need is very great.'
It's so great', said Sancho, 'that if I'd wanted the tackle to wear it myself I couldn't have needed it more.'
And, now that he'd been granted official permission, he performed his mutatio capparum and refurbished his donkey. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

If an aristocrat became bankrupt he looked to the sunshine of royal providence [ ... ] but when the nobility sank too low to qualify for royal notice, they became fraudsters, trading on the display of rank: the man would become a card-sharper or gigolo, while the woman sold herself. Actual work would have been unthinkable. It would have offended against the ancient order of things, which assigned that role to the middle classes and the peasantry. This concept is difficult to connect with our modern view of the world, but its very absurdity follows directly from the fact that everything in its old order was so firm and wonderful - with everything in its eternally appointed place and moving in fixed circles like the stars. There was no changing your lot in life at will: it was assigned to you forever, by birth. If you fell below your appointed station, you couldn't just swap it for another - you simply plummeted into the void. ~ Antal Szerb

There are five billion people living on this planet. But you fall in love with one particular person, and you won't swap her for any other. ~ Jostein Gaarder

It wasn't that I was tired of life, really - just my own. Other people's lives seemed perfectly worthwhile, and only the logistical difficultly of assuming them and the likelihood of being caught kept me from concocting some sort of swap. ~ James Lileks

I did not want to dwell on my past. These people typically wished to swap stories. I had no desire for commiseration. ~ Penny Reid

One of my favorites has always been 'Swap Meet.' One of the reasons why I like that is it's a song that's in a drop-D tuning, and of course, also being a guitar player, it's one of the songs that I really like the riff on it. ~ Chad Channing

Swinging is when couples swap partners. A lot of people confuse swinging with an all-out fuck fest. ~ Katt

When we sat down in the plane, Clare took something out of her pocket and handed it to me. It looked like a tube of lipstick.
I frowned at her. 'Is this really the time to swap make-up?' I asked.
She grinned. 'It's a hand taser. My parents make me carry one.' She took the cap off and pointed to the metal edge. 'If someone attacks you, you press the tip against their skin and it shoots out a charge.'
I looked down at it. 'Does it last long?'
She shook her head. 'It's pretty harmless. Noah and Pat used to play taser tag around the house when I was growing up. ~ Katie Kacvinsky

If it were possible to swap lives... the whole world would already have become an electric storm of flitting souls. ~ Sam Meekings

Would I swap what I have achieved as a cook if I could have been as successful as a footballer? Definitely. ~ Gordon Ramsay

As you know, in the latter part of 2008 and early 2009, the Federal Reserve took extraordinary steps to provide liquidity and support credit market functioning, including the establishment of a number of emergency lending facilities and the creation or extension of currency swap agreements with 14 central banks around the world. ~ Ben Bernanke

But it has perks -- personal pride, financial security, and the feeling of accomplishment and control that comes when you just swap in a new toilet paper roll rather than resorting to fast-food napkins. ~ Kelly Williams Brown

Ah ... Dectective, this is a very private and personal moment for them both. I'm sure you can understand their need for-"
A man stumbled out clutching a sheet round his waist and Valkyrie's eyes widened. "Whoa," she said as he hummed into a table. He was tall and sandy-haired and his physique was jaw-dropping lay amazing. "No way," she said. "Scapegrace?"
The man looked at her, and shook his head. The a woman came charging out of the back room, slammed into the man and they both went rolling across the floor.
"Give it to me!" The woman screamed. "Give it to me!"
Nye scuttled over. "Mr Scapegrace, you know the procedure cannot be repeated, your brains are in far too deteriorated a condition."
"You! Gave! Me! The! Wrong! Body! ~ Derek Landy

I thought you could build a story that would function as a machine or else a complex of machines, each one moving separately, yet part of a process that ultimately would produce an emotion or a sequence of emotions. You could swap out parts, replace them if they got too old. And this time you would build in some redundancy, if only just to handle the stress.
One question was: Would the engine still work if you were aware of it, or if you were told how it actually functioned? Maybe this was one of the crucial differences between a story and a machine. ~ Paul Park

Liar,' he said in disgust. 'You're still playing doctors and nurses with the guy you screwed Charlie over with.' Her mouth fell open. 'Don't worry, I won't tell my brother. He's got enough to deal with.'
'I would never have an affair.'
'See here's where you and I part ways on our definition of fidelity,' he said. 'I think tonsil hockey with another man is off the agenda for a married woman. Call me old-fashioned.'
Her fury was unexpected. 'Who started that rumor...who!'
'What are you talking about? You admitted it. ~ Karina Bliss

I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded, in this connection, of a story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that "it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams." ~ Abraham Lincoln

In a basic agricultural society, it's easy enough to swap five chickens for a new dress or to pay a schoolteacher with a goat and three sacks of rice. Barter works less well in a more advanced economy. The logistical challenges of using chickens to buy books on Amazon.com would be formidable. ~ Charles Wheelan

Feathers!" spluttered Sargatanas. "Feathers are for the birds, my boy. Flaking, peeling, scale-ridden wings, now that's what real beings wear. I'll tell you a secret." He said, and drew me closer. "The eternal pain at having known Paradise and lost it is priceless. I wouldn't swap it for anything. ~ George Pendle

At Camp David in 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat 94 percent of the West Bank; ten years later, Ehud Olmert offered Abbas 93.6 percent with a one-to-one land swap. ~ Elliott Abrams

Pakistan is the first South Asian country to sign a free trade agreement and currency swap agreement with China. ~ Li Keqiang

The best players are always in the thick of the action. (Michael) Jordan did it with the Bulls, (Kobe) Bryant does it with the Lakers and Leo does it here. We want him to stay with us because he's the best and we wouldn't swap him for anyone. ~ Ronaldinho

Racing may be a minority sport, but I wouldn't swap it for all the money in the world. ~ Tony McCoy

I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world. ~ Thomas A. Edison

Jackson," he mused. "Not a name either one of you was born to."
Lizzie answered, "No. But beyond a certain point, names become accessories. We swap them out as needed, for the sake of peace. You understand?"
"I understand. Though I disagree. Names aren't hats to change a look, or a suit to be swapped at a whim. Words mean things."
"Then we must agree to disagree. ~ Cherie Priest

About two months after this photo was taken I was born and my mum died - clean swap. Caring about someone I never knew doesn't make sense, but that's how it is. This photo means a lot. There must be some invisible mother-daughter wiring that runs from her image in a straight line to my heart. ~ Bill Condon

If God is your co-pilot, swap seats! ~ James W. Moore

I love engaging in conversation with other moms because we can relate to one another, and we swap valuable insight and information. ~ Laila Ali

For a moment, Sophie thought resentfully of what he had said in the letter about giving her an 'ordinary childhood'. 'I'd swap that for a lesson on firearms right now,' she murmured. ~ Katherine Woodfine

He pokes his katana through the
side of the cube and follows it through the wall and out the other side.
This is a hack. It is really based on a very old hack, a loophole that he found
years ago when he was trying to graft the sword-fighting rules onto the existing
Metaverse software. His blade doesn't have the power to cut a hole in the wall
-- this would mean permanently changing the shape of someone else's building --
but it does have the power to penetrate things. Avatars do not have that power.
That is the whole purpose of a wall in the Metaverse; it is a structure that
does not allow avatars to penetrate it. But like anything else in the
Metaverse, this rule is nothing but a protocol, a convention that different
computers agree to follow. In theory, it cannot be ignored. But in practice,
it depends upon the ability of different computers to swap information very
precisely, at high speed, and at just the right times. And when you are
connected to the system over a satellite uplink, as Hiro is, out here on the
Raft, there is a delay as the signals bounce up to the satellite and back down.
That delay can be taken advantage of, if you move quickly and don't look back.
Hiro passes right through the wall on the tail end of his all-penetrating
katana. ~ Neal Stephenson

So you don't fancy meeting up again?' Max persisted, though Neve didn't know why, because she thought she'd made her position perfectly clear. 'Swap war stories?'
'I don't have any war stories,' Neve said, and in that moment she felt that she never would. That every night would be spent creeping round her flat in her socks with the telly turned down so low that she could barely hear it, so in the end she'd have no other option but to escape into the pages of books where there were other girls falling in and out of love but not her. Never her. She stared down at the scuffed toes of her faux Ugg boots in sudden and tired defeat.
'If you don't have any war stories, then at least you don't have any war wounds,' Max said, so quietly that Neve had to strain her ears to catch his words. 'Take my number. ~ Sarra Manning

This is bigger than math! You can't just swap one of us out for another! ~ Claudia Gray

In the interest rate area, traders have for a long time used a version of what is known as Black's model for European bond options; another version of the same model for caps and floors; and yet another version of the same model for European swap options. ~ John Hull

Scuse me," said a small and hairy voice in his ear, "but would you mind dreamin' a bit quieter? Your dreams is spillin' over into my dreams, and if there's one thing I've never been doin' with, it's dates. William the Conker, ten sixty-six, that's as far as I go, and I'd swap that for a dancing mouse. ~ Neil Gaiman

Seth's quote from his book:
"And if I only could
I'd make a deal with God and I'd get Him to swap our places"
-"Running up that Hill" by Kate Bush ~ Richelle Mead

Sometimes parties of men went spud-gathering in no-man's-land. About a mile to the right of us, where the lines were closer together, there was a patch of potatoes that was frequented both by the Fascists and ourselves. We went there in the daytime, they only at night, as it was commanded by our machine-guns. One night to our annoyance they turned out en masse and cleared up the whole patch. We discovered another patch further on, where there was practically no cover and you had to lift the potatoes lying on your belly - a fatiguing job. If their machine-gunners spotted you, you had to flatten yourself out like a rat when it squirms under a door, with the bullets cutting up the clods a few yards behind you. It seemed worth it at the time. Potatoes were getting very scarce. If you got a sackful you could take them down to the cook-house and swap them for a water-bottleful of coffee. And ~ George Orwell

America ships tons of sugar cookies to Denmark and Denmark ships tons of sugar cookies to America. Wouldn't it be more efficient just to swap recipes? ~ Michael Pollan

I'd swap with Amelia if I was you. So she doesn't have to sit beside him."
"What about you?"
"Who would you rather he sat next to, me or your sister? Move."
"I've a better idea," he whispered back. "How about I swap with you and make out like I have to tel Aaron something, and then you could cal Amelia over to you like you have something important to tel her. The lights wil go out, and Amelia won't bother switching back."
"Evans, that is a fabulous idea."
"Rivers, I know. ~ Claire Farrell

She wished she could swap her days for her nights, her reality for her dreams. ~ Ann Brashares

Credit default swap gives you something to do. You can buy some credit default swaps from them to protect yourself against the bankruptcy of people who owe you money. ~ Robert F. Engle

Because Harvard is such a fine sound forty acres is no high price for a fine sound. A fine dead sound we will swap Benjy's pasture for a fine dead sound. It will last him a long time because he cannot hear it unless he can smell it ~ William Faulkner

Buyerarchy of Needs (with apologies to Maslow):

use what you have
borrow
swap
thrift
make
buy ~ Sarah Lazarovic

Buy laughter with tears, and you'll be rich forever. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

In Louisiana, one of the first stages of grief is eating your weight in Popeyes fried chicken. The second stage is doing the same with boudin. People have been known to swap the order. Or to do both at the same time. ~ Ken Wheaton

It might be a good idea if the various countries of the world would occasionally swap history books, just to see what other people are doing with the same set of facts. ~ Bill Vaughan

Connor, Ryke, and Lo - they protect me all the time. They care about me when they don't have to. These are three brothers that I'd never trade in, never swap out, and even though we're not blood related, I know they're mine. ~ Krista Ritchie

You probably heard about the big prisoner swap with Cuba. A man who has been incarcerated in Havana for five years is back home in the United States. And we sent them some prisoners. The deal still has to be approved by President Obama and Bud Selig. ~ David Letterman

The Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

People say to me, 'Would you like to swap your life with me for 24 hours? Your life must be very strange.' ~ Prince Andrew

What exactly is a Rubik's Cube party?" Becca asked.

"It's simple: everyone wears different colors - red shirt, blue shorts, green socks, whatever - and once you get to the party, you have to swap clothes with people until you're wearing all of the same color."

Kinsley tsked. "Sounds like an excuse to see people in their skivvies."

I tossed my luggage onto my bed. "Yes, well, isn't that basically the meaning of life in the first place? ~ R.S. Grey

Listen, you don't know any better so I'll just tell you. You can't try to save money by not having the right beer. You know, you can skip having medical insurance, you can buy everything you own at a swap meet but the right beer is what makes living like this possible. ~ Drew Carey

The main thing you can change is how you perceive yourself. Stop looking in the mirror and realize that you're living for yourself, not other people ... I have belly fat like everybody else, and I don't want to be airbrushed on the cover of a magazine. I don't want someone to swap out my stomach with a supermodel. I don't want dirty old men looking at me in my underwear. ~ Amanda Seyfried

I'm fairly tired of hipsters. They have terrible taste in music. These kids come in and say, 'You don't have anything that was released this year?' That makes me crazy. We don't need anything from this year! (Bob Diener, owner of Record Swap in Champaign, IL) ~ Eric Spitznagel

The bible teaches that a father may sell his daughter for a slave, that he may sacrifice her purity to a mob, and that he may murder her, and still be a good father and a holy man. It teaches that a man may have any number of wives; that he may sell them, give them away, or swap them around, and still be a perfect gentleman, a good husband, a righteous man, and one of God's most intimate friends; and that is a pretty good position for a beginning. ~ Helen H. Gardener

I've always felt we're supposed to be sad as often as we're happy. Without being forlorn, happiness has no value. I believe out there, whatever or whoever is responsible for the universe has simply made us start at the beginning before more is revealed to us. I don't believe in a perfect existence. If it were around, we would know about it already. Erase pain and suffering and erase life. We're being prepared for the next chapter. Being subjected to what's considered the ultimate state of mind in the universe comes with a price-tag. What steps were at now I have no idea. But I'm excited to get to the end someday. Maybe I'll come find you and we can swap stories sometime? Until then I value my sadness as much as my happiness. A sadness we all share. ~ Evan Guerra

Sometimes I'd go to his house. If I had some cool cards in my pack of Iceberg Updates, we'd compare collections, maybe swap a few. ~ China Mieville

A brick could be used as a PRA, or Person Replacement Apparatus. Just give the brick a name, start talking to it, and before you know it you've got a friend for life. Say, do you want to brick swap? ~ Jarod Kintz

It's not whiteness itself that sets Them against Us, but the worship of whiteness. Same goes if you swap whiteness out for other things
fancy possessions for sure, pedigree, maybe youth too ... we beat Them (and spare ourselves a lot of tedium and terror) by declining to worship. ~ Helen Oyeyemi

There's probably no subject with quite so many conflictin' opinions about it as there are about food, and 'tis better to swap bubble gum with a rabid bulldog than challenge a single one o' the varyin' beliefs your average human holds about nutrition. ~ Tom Robbins

Harry sometimes wished that Lucille and Trinket could swap personalities; he thought Lucille was prettier, but Trinket rarely gave him any shit, which was nice. ~ Brian Alan Ellis

Keep getting asked by letter and on the street by Jane and John Does dressed in spandex how they can prepare simple "gourmet" dinners in ten minutes so as to prolong, presumably, their cross-training and spritzer-drinking binges, massage and colonic appointments, drumming and marriage-counseling sessions, and tarot-card swap clubs. An easy answer here. Scoop ample quantities of Skippy on two paper plates. Handcuff each other and then slam your faces down into the plates with gusto. Good for the gluteus maximus. And it will bring you together at the sink, plus you won't have to violate your space by answering the phone. Back to the ~ Jim Harrison

I will never ever support a people swap where you can send a 13-year-old child unaccompanied to a country without supervision. Never. It will be over my dead body. How dare people. ~ Joe Hockey

Monorails have their own fan club, which claims more than 2,500 members who swap monorail toys and trinkets. Modern light rail can claim no such devoted fan base. ~ Brendan I. Koerner

Our solar system is fantastically bizarre. There are worlds with features we never imagined. Storms larger than planets, moons with under-surface oceans, lakes of methane, worldlets that swap places ... and that's just at Saturn. ~ Phil Plait

As for those deserters, malcontents, radicals, incendiaries, the civil and uncivil disobedients among the young, SDS, PLP, Weathermen I and Weathermen II, the revolutionary action movement, the Black United Front, Yippies, Hippies, Yahoos, Black Panthers, Lions and Tigers alike - I would swap the whole damn zoo for a single platoon of the kind of young Americans I saw in Vietnam. ~ Spiro T. Agnew

A lot of people like wife swapping. I've got such a great wife I would only swap with a Mormon. It'd have to be a two-for-one deal. ~ Jarod Kintz

I watched the Olympics as a kid. It would be fun to try to win a medal. If I could swap Olympic gold for a US PGA Championship? I'd take the Major every time. ~ Luke Donald

Julia had once been picked out to work in Pornosec, the sub-section of the Fiction Department which turned out cheap pornography for distribution among the proles. It was nicknamed Muck House by the people who worked in it, she remarked. There she had remained for a year, helping to produce booklets in sealed packets with titles like Spanking Stories or One Night in a Girls' School, to be bought furtively by proletarian youths who were under the impression that they were buying something illegal.

"What are these books like?" said Winston curiously.

"Oh, ghastly rubbish. They're boring, really. They only have six plots, but they swap them round a bit. ~ George Orwell

If Agnes dies I'll just swap places with her. She can have my life. I'll give it to her and I'll die instead. I wouldn't mind because I've already lived for a long time. Agnes has only lived for one year and some. I hope God lets me. I don't mind going to Heaven early. If he wants me to swap places, I will. ~ Stephen Kelman

To be in the Burren is to be reminded that physical matter is simultaneously indestructible and entirely transmutable: that it can swap states drastically, from vegetable to mineral or from liquid to solid. To attempt to hold these to contradictory ideas, of permanence and mutability, in the brain at the same time is usefully difficult, for it makes the individual feel at once valuable and superfluous. You become aware of yourself as constituted of nothing more than endlessly convertible matter - but also of always being perpetuated in some form. Such knowledge grants us comfortless immortality: an understanding that our bodies belong to a limitless cycle of dispersal and reconstruction. ~ Robert Macfarlane

Whenever you can, swap "Let's think about it" for "Let's decide on it." Commit to making decisions. Don't wait for the perfect solution. Decide and move forward. ~ Jason Fried

As the financial experts all over the world use machines to unwind Gordian knots of financial arrangements so complex that only machines can make - 'derive' - and trade them, we have to wonder: Are we living in a bad sci-fi movie? Is the Matrix made of credit default swaps? ~ Richard Dooling

I wish I could swap closets with Diana Vreeland, but I think only my left thigh would fit into her clothing. ~ Catherine Martin

The mature response, however, is not to leave; it's to change -- ourselves.

Whenever marital dissatisfaction rears its head in my marriage -- as it does in virtually every marriage -- I simply check my focus. The times that I am happiest and most fulfilled in my marriage are the times when I am intent on drawing meaning and fulfillment from becoming a better husband rather than from demanding a "better" wife.

If you're a Christian, the reality is that, biblically speaking, you can't swap your spouse for someone else. But you can change yourself. And that change can bring the fulfillment that you mistakenly believe is found only by changing partners. In one sense, it's comical: Yes, we need a changed partner, but the partner that needs to change is not our spouse, it's us!

I don't know why this works. I don't know how you can be unsatisfied maritally, and then offer yourself to God to bring about change in your life and suddenly find yourself more satisfied with the same spouse. I don't why this works, only that it does work. It takes time, and by time I mean maybe years. But if your heart is driven by the desire to draw near to Jesus, you find joy by becoming like Jesus. You'll never find joy by doing something that offends Jesus -- such as instigating a divorce or an affair. ~ Gary L. Thomas

Inman guessed Swimmer's spells were right in saying a man's spirit could be torn apart and cease and yet his body keep on living. They could take deathblows independently. He was himself a case in point, and perhaps not a rare one, for his spirit, it seemed, had been about burned out of him to fear that the mere existence of the Henry repeating rifle or the éprouvette mortar made all talk of spirit immediately antique. His spirit, he feared, had been blasted away so that he had become lonesome and estranged from all around him as a sad old heron standing pointless watch in the mudflats of a pond lacking frogs. It seemed a poor swap to find that the only way one might keep from fearing death was to act numb and set apart as if dead already, with nothing left of you but a hut of bones. ~ Charles Frazier

So we left the spear in the wagon and I dressed and still was not sick and together we walked to the head of the century. Tears had been ready to lead them. Macer was there, holding his horn. I saw them both shrug and get ready to swap Tears' shield for the horn.
'No, stay as you are,' I said. 'It doesn't hurt to have someone else learning the signals. Tears can stay as Macer's shield-man. Taurus, stay with Horgias.'
'And you?' someone asked.
'Don't worry about me.' I grinned, careless of the listening gods. 'I'm indestructible. I'll outlive you all. ~ M.C. Scott

The queen-size bed has a wooden frame and a dark-orange duvet cover and pillows. The bedside tables on both sides are identically stocked: three books, a lamp and a glasses case. I wonder if this allows my parents to swap sides during the night. I turn on one of the lamps, lighting the room like a sexy library. ~ Joe Dunthorne

We were at a swap meet in Cochituate last year, and there was this Boy Scout troop with a sign that read, 'Help Boy Scouts, Blind Kids.' Toby saw it, and he grabbed my shirt collar and pulled me away. I asked what was wrong, and with this scared expression on his face, he said, That's not right. They need to be stopped.'
I cracked up. 'Oh, no,' I said.
'When I asked him why helping blind kids and Boy Scouts was bad, Toby's whole face went white. He said, 'Forget it. Let's go.' But I had to know what the hell he was talking about, so I made him walk back over with me. We looked at the sign together, and finally he mumbled, 'I didn't see the comma. ~ Bill Konigsberg

If you look back at my marathons and ask whether I would swap one of them for my one balls-up, of course I would. But you can't choose. You have to make the best of it on the day. ~ Paula Radcliffe